It was four years ago today in the depth of the Pandemic that San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared the vehicle thoroughfare JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park a car free area. Renaming it JFK Promenade.
JFK Promenade. The beginning 4.29.2020
In November 2022 the voters by a 63 percent majority concurred with the Mayor’s decision passing Proposition J and making the 1.5 mile thoroughfare permanently car free.
Mayor Breed’s advocacy for JFK Promenade. Signing the legislation which made it permanent on May 7, 2022. Then fighting for the passage of Proposition J will be one of her most momentous achievements.
JFK Promenade is a car free oasis. Devoid of climate killing cars and a sanctuary where people of all ages from San Francisco and around the world can enjoy peace and tranquility.
The creation of JFK Promenade was only gained after a hard fought battle. Motorists and their enablers, mainly the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), waged a pitched battle spending nearly a million dollars to destroy JFK Promenade.
I spoke with a well placed City Hall official. He told me the doyenne of the FAMSF Dede Wilsey, who opened her bank account in a futile effort to kill JFK Promenade, is still upset. Dede has now turned her sights on car free Market Street and wants cars back on that thoroughfare. Speakers at today’s event reminded people that JFK Promenade is just one victory. The struggle continues.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon a large group of people and City officials enjoyed the day and commemorated JFK Promenade.
LOVE spelled out in large letters is what JFK Promenade is all about.
David Miles the Godfather of Skate and original advocate for a car free JFK Promenade waged a 45 year battle
JFK Promenade is 4 years old TODAY! – ALL are Welcome!
The folks enjoying an afternoon in the sun on JFK Promenade
Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg give a shout out to Mayor Breed. Assisted by SFMTA Transportation boss Jeffrey Tumlin presenting Mayor Breed with a specially brewed 4 pack of beer for the occasion.
A kid goes topsy turvy celebrating JFK Promenade while Mayor London Breed shows off her special brew.
Assemblyman Phil Ting, Supervisor Dean Preston, SFMTA Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin and the family dog
A converted VW Beetle converted to Pedal Power on JFK Promenade.
The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition tent
WALK SF. Whose advocacy and constant support made JFK Promenade a reality.
A bicycle riding Park Ranger watches over the celebration.
The crowd of all ages on JFK Promenade
Cycling on JFK PromenadeLiz checks out the art scene on JFK Promenadewith her home made sign for the occasion – CAR FREE JFK CROWNED SF’S HEALTHIEST ST.The food truck serves the visitors on JFK Promenade
Skaters galore on JFK Promenade
Jugglers on JFK PromenadePing pong players compete on JFK Promenade
JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park
Top photo: Liz Heidhues, a lifelong cyclist and advocate for JFK Promenade engages Mayor London Breed in conversation.
The events at the University of Texas, Austin are symptomatic of the events sweeping America’s campus in April 2024. In the late 1960’s it was America’s war against the people of Southeast Asia. Today it is Israel’s war against the Palestinian people of Gaza with America as the chief supplier of the weapons of destruction.Yesterday and today the future leaders have risen up to fight the insanity of their leaders.
The Troopers of the American Police State are descending on American college campuses to smash legitimate protest in support of the people of Palestine and against Israel’s continuing decimation of children, women and men of Gaza.
The campuses from New York through Texas and onto Berkeley are withstanding the onslaught of the well armed guardians of law and order. Ready to smash any dissent which becomes too burdensome for the power structure.
Excerpted from Austin American Statesman 4.24.2024
University of Texas, Austin – April 24, 2024
More than 20 people were arrested at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine, which held the rally to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.
PSC planned the protest in solidarity with students across the U.S. who have been demanding their universities to divest from Israeli businesses and for the federal government to stop backing Israel’s military as more than 30,000 people have died in Gaza amid the ongoing Middle East conflict.
As students walked out of class at 11:40 a.m. Wednesday to begin protesting, state and university police descended on horse back, bikes, motorcycles, cars and on foot to meet the rally goers. Around 5:20 p.m., the university issued a dispersal order asking everyone to leave the campus South Mall area “immediately.”
State troopers on campus at the University of Texas – Austin
The big stick of the Police State at The University of Texas, Austin
Handcuffed, under arrest for protesting on behalf of Palestine at The University of Texas, Austin
Campuses are ablaze in protest over the continued Israeli assault on the children, women and men of Gaza. Which has resulted in the deaths of over 34,000 since last October 7.
The Israeli catastrophic payback for the horrific Hamas assault on Israel which took the lives of over 1200 Israelis. The Israeli military, in retaliation has waged a total war of devastation on the people of Gaza.
Americans who support the rights of the people of Gaza have been targeted by politicians. Who march in lock step with Israel. From the White House on down. The attack on freedom of speech has now reached college campuses. Students who stand up for Palestine and protest the Israeli slaughter of the citizens of Gaza are the subject of mass arrests.
Some politicians stand up for human rights and are rewarded for their couragedespite being targeted by billionaire Trump money men.
Rep. Summer Lee has won the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, according to Decision Desk HQ, fending off a primary challenge amid frustrations over her views on the Israel-Hamas war.
During Lee’s first race, which she barely won by only a handful of votes, Democratic Majority for Israel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its related super PAC United Democracy Project were all deeply interested in making sure Lee wasn’t elected to Congress. This cycle, however, they were not directly involved, with Jeffrey Yass instead taking a leading role in funding her opponent.
A first-term member of the Squad and a rising star within the progressive coalition, Lee will go on to compete in the blue district in the general election, having withstood Edgewood Councilmember Bhavini Patel’s primary challenge.
Lee was a top target this cycle of Democrats and Republicans alike looking to oust the congresswoman from her western Pennsylvania seat. Her positions on the Israel-Hamas war, including calling for a cease-fire throughout the conflict and expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments, made her more vulnerable than other House progressives.
This cycle, her top source of attack was Jeffrey Yass, a billionaire GOP donor who spent heavily to knock down Lee through a super PAC supporting Patel.
Yass’s involvement against Lee and link to former President Trump has defined much of the race. Some of her highest-profile surrogates including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sought to draw a contrast between Lee’s rebuke of corporate money in politics and Patel’s funding from Yass.
“Time and time again, @SummerForPA has stood up to the billionaire class,” Sanders wrote in a post on the social platform X just before Election Day. “Now billionaire Trump donors like Jeffrey Yass are spending millions to defeat her.
Today was a celebration for one of the genuine humanitarians in San Francisco.
Sister Noreen O’ Connor was feted before an adoring crowd at St. Monica’s Church. To celebrate and commemorate 70 years serving the Catholic church in San Francisco. This day has a special meaning for Liz and me. The home we have owned and lived in for the past 40 years was at one time the home of Sister Noreen’s Uncle Jack.
The large crowd dined on food provided by Original Joes in Westlake and Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant located directly across the street from St. Monica’s.
A young Sister Noreen – second from right.
A chipper Sister Noreen O’Connor with Liz
Sister Noreen was honored by Father David Schunk and presented a framed certificate from Pope Francis
The clergy and the crowd at Sister Noreen’s Jubilee celebration.
The St. Monica School Choir belted out a few tunes for the guests.
The parish hall at St. Monica’s in the outer Richmond district of San Francisco
Irish Pipers Band of San Francisco were part of the Sister Noreen Jubilee celebration
A pair of dancers from the Boyle Irish Dance Academy clothed in green performed an Irish jig
Entertainment was provided by the Youth Group of San Francisco Music Studio
Liz, Lee and longtime parishioner Marjan Phihour most definitely enjoyed Sister Noreen’s Jubilee celebration.
It doesn’t surprise me that the San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins who likened legitimate protestors to Hamas terrorists last October wants to throw the proverbial book at those who blocked traffic and inconvenienced motorists on the Golden Gate Bridge last Monday.
This DA has already exhibited her bias and should recuse herself from any involvement in potential prosecutions.
This is the same Brooke Jenkins who has yet to bring charges against the 78 year old driver who plowed her Mercedes SUV into a bus stop last month and slaughtered a family of four from Brazil on their way to the San Francisco Zoo.
Aftermath of horrific death scene in San Francisco caused by a criminally negligent motorist – March 16, 2024
I’ll say it right here and loudly, too. Brooke Jenkins priorities are misguided and screwed up.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 4.17.2024
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins urged anyone delayed by protests that shut down the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday to file a report to authorities because they may be victims of false imprisonment and entitled to restitution.
Brooke Jenkins priorities – Prosecute protestors not criminal motorists.
The bridge was closed for several hours after demonstrators chained themselves to parked cars to prevent vehicles from passing, part of coordinated regional protests to oppose U.S. support for Israel that also temporarily blocked Interstate 880 in both directions. Jenkins, who is considering filing charges against the Golden Gate Bridge protesters, urged anyone detained on the bridge to contact the California Highway Patrol’s Marin Division at 415-924-1105 or chpmarin@chp.ca.gov. Commuters were asked to provide their contact information and a detailed statement about how they were impacted by the blockade, she said.
“You may be entitled to restitution and have other victims’ rights,” Jenkins said Tuesday afternoon at a news conference.
Jenkins joined Gov. Gavin Newsom and others in denouncing the protesters’ actions. The governor said he had received calls from Bay Area residents caught in traffic during the protest as they drove children to school, rushed to medical appointments or frantically tried to get to work on time.
Top photo: Family of four from Brazil run down and killed by a criminally negligent motorist. The family was waiting for a bus at the West Portal Muni station in San Francisco on Mar. 16, when an SUV smashed into them. Diego de Oliveira, a Brazilian national who worked at Apple, his wife Matilde Pinto, and their 1-year-old and 3-month-old sons all died.
“Timothy McVeigh was a tragic guy who thought our differences were more important than what we had in common.” President Bill Clinton.
Watching the film Civil War last weekend gave me a look at what might be the future of America.
I need a real life reminder about the birth of the domestic terrorism movement in America. The harsh reality of the birth of contemporary America will soon be available for all the world to view.
The bombed out Federal Building in Oklahoma City – April 1995
It’s been ongoing for nearly three decades. The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 was akin to the insurrectionist attack on Ft. Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. That assault began the first American Civil War (1861-1865).
The second Civil War has been upon us since 1995 with Donald Trump as leader. Commanding violent bands of dangerous well armed insurrectionistshell bent on bringing down the American government.
Excerpted from The Guardian 4.16.2024
Civil War, director Alex Garland’s imagining of a divided states of America, appears to have touched a nerve, topping the weekend box office. For some cinemagoers, it may offer escapism. But for those who remember a spectacular act of domestic terrorism that struck the heartland a generation ago, it may feel more like destiny.
An American Bombing tells the story of the single deadliest act of homegrown terrorism against the government in American history. On 19 April 1995 Timothy McVeigh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh ignited a truck bomb outside the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children.
“Our documentary will help people understand, how could we even get to a place where a commercial movie like Civil War can be released and it’s not sci-fi?” says Marc Levin, director of An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th, an HBO documentary about the growth of anti-government sentiment through the lens of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Victims of the terrorist bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City – April 19, 1995
“We’ve always kind of believed in American exceptionalism. ‘That can’t happen here. Oh, no, it could happen in Yugoslavia. It can happen in other places but not in the United States of America.’ Making this film has sobered even us up.”
Executive producer Katie Couric helped secure an interview with Bill Clinton. His previous experience as governor of Arkansas, which saw a rise in extremism, meant that unlike others who initially assumed the Oklahoma City bombing must be the work of Islamic militants, he immediately suspected domestic terrorism.
Jeffrey Toobin’s book “Homegrown. Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism” dissects the life of Timothy McVeigh
Clinton offers a chilling conclusion about McVeigh and his relevance to a bitterly divided America in 2024. “It doesn’t matter whether he was right about anything or not,” he says in the film. “What matters is he decided he should kill people he didn’t know including little kids. But the words he used, the arguments he made, literally sound like the mainstream today. Like he won.”
The law and order reactionary racist rabble, funded by the deep pocket MAGA billionaire crowd, has set its sites on a black woman Pamela Price, District Attorney in Alameda County.
Make no mistake this Recall directed at a progressive black woman is racist at its core.
These reactionaries have succeeded in placing a Recall measure on the ballot to oust the progressive DA. The Recall effort began just months after DA Price took office in January 2023.
This is the same despicable crowd which politically lynched Chesa Boudin, the progressive San Francisco DA two years ago.
The San Francisco Chronicle very directly points out who is behind this insidious effort.
Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 4.15.2024
The recall campaign, with more than $2 million raised for their effort, hired the same consultant who worked on the 2022 campaign that led to the successful recall of former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Price, a former civil rights attorney, won her seat with 53% of the vote in 2022 after she promised to reduce mass incarceration, lighten sentences for defendants under age 25 and hold police accountable for misconduct. When she took office, she drew opposition from prosecutors and community members who view her policies as too lenient.
In July, less than seven months into her term, her critics formed a recall committee.
Alameda DA Pamela Price must beat back a deep pocket MAGA funded Recall.
Critics of Price who organized a campaign to remove her from office collected 74,757 valid signatures, the Registrar of Voters said in a statement. The campaign needed at least 73,195 valid signatures to trigger a recall election.
The Board of Supervisors will consider the results at a meeting April 30, the registrar’s office said. The recall campaign called on supervisors to schedule a special election within 125 days as outlined in state law.
“There are so many ways it could have ended for him. He didn’t want to quit.”
The moving tribute to an old-timer who loved the thrill of covering combat for the New York Times.
The tension of the war photographer in Civil War
We sat mesmerized as the whirr of helicopters and staccato rat-a-tat-tats of machine guns exploded across the giant screen of “Civil War (2024)”, a genius of a war film which opened Friday at the AMC Kabuki in San Francisco.
America immersed itself in Vietnam’s Civil War with the result. 55,000 dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.
The modern-day scenes in the film evoked the chaos of the 1960s at the height of the Vietnam War.
A journalist screams in pain over the death of his colleague in Civil War
There are some scenes that made us writhe in pain. When an insurrectionist demands of the journalists whom he has taken hostage to prove they are American by speaking unaccented English to his questions, and two of them fail his test, we felt the agony of the guy who was Asian, as his tongue froze in fear and he barely managed to blurt out the words that he was from Hong Kong. Those were his last words.
April 12th also marked the 163rd Anniversary of the start of the original Civil War, when Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor on a Friday on April 12,1861,capturing Union territory.
Ft. Sumter, Charleston South Carolina under siege – April 12, 1861. Beginning of the Civil War (1861-1865)
April 12th is also the 6th Anniversary of Liz’ first False Citizen’s Arrests in 2018. An act totally beyond the pale of any human conduct. Our next-door neighbors falsely arrested and imprisoned Liz for asserting her rights as a property owner. Liz was brutally handcuffed because of their false arrest. Taken away by SFPD and placed in a filthy cage in county jail for hours. Until Lee Heidhues raced to her rescue on his bicycle with $20,000 cash to buy back her freedom. A False Citizen’s Arrest in the hope of inflicting such mental distress on Liz, we would sell our house we have owned for decades and move away.
The forces of insurrection in Civil War.
With its police barricades and tents in the streets, its low gravely voices and endless cigarettes, its F- bomb laced shouts and protestors being beaten by baton-wielding police, “Civil War (2024)” seemed a re-enactment of the long-ago Vietnam war until a huge explosion shatters the screen. Our attention then becomes riveted on a small group of journalists rushing into the carnage to document the bodies lying crumpled in the mayhem.
Kirsten Dunst. The war photographer in Civil War – The New Yorker artwork
This corps of journalists wearing “Press” flak jackets now commands the screen. The lurid circus of civil insurrection has begun. Journalists must photograph and record it from every angle, even to the point of insanity and the sacrifice of their own lives. “Civil War (2024)” transfuses our veins with the adrenaline that is the grueling, shocking, and unforgettable drug of war.
Americans in Vietnam. circa late 1960’s – LIFE Magazine
The glossy pages of 1960’s Life magazine jumped into mind, with its enduring photos of grime-streaked bloodied faces of GI’s sitting around a campfire, or an Army truck stacked high with body bags, an eerie “déjà vu” one gets watching a graphic war film similar to “Full Metal Jacket” or “Apocalypse Now” reminding us that war is inhuman. “Civil War (2024)” is in this same category of mesmerizing images. War is impossible to describe with words. The horror and moral terror can only be felt in watching graphic scenes and hearing its inhumane cacophony.
“What a fucking rush,” says one lifer watching the militias fight one another.
Civil War in the streets of Washington, DC
The weariness of the war journalist: Every time I shot a war zone and got the photos right and sent them home that said, “Don’t do this” . . . is embellished by the grim irony the camera is not as useful a tool as a machine gun in war: “It’s not a story if it never gets filed.”
Eyes on the target in Civil War.
The voyeurism of seeing bodies blown to bits and the reality that the next fusillade might bear the names of the journalists aiming their cameras at the carnage is part of the overall suspense.
Americans up against the wall in Vietnam
There are sardonic exposures of the apathy of family and neighbors who pretend that war in the nation is not raging, and atrocities are not being committed: “Your parents? Where are they?” “He’s sitting in his farm in Missouri pretending none of this is happening.”
Liz’ biggest gripe about this film is – its targeted audience is American and it is rife with that which appeals to American tastes – endless car crashes, a stunt where two cars recklessly speed side-by-side down a winding road and the occupants in them trade vehicles squeezing through rolled-down windows, loads of shoot-em-ups, a hairy gas station stand-off, cigarettes smoked down to their butts and tossed into the environment, and a splendid scene of a freeway jammed with scorched and twisted bodies of cars in a true apocalyptic vision of where America is going to end up with its car crazed culture.
The scene of the journalists driving through a forest set on fire by the rockets and bombs of war predicts the doom of climate change when it shows a vast cool stream over which a lone helicopter darts, much like a dragonfly, while behind, drifting burning orbs light up the horizon.
Journalists under siege in Civil War. There are no innocent bystanders.
When a bullet hits the out-of-shape, lifer, old reporter driving the vehicle of the journalists away from a confrontation, we know that he is not going to make it through this war when he says “I can’t drive” as he bleeds to death in the vehicle. The admission that he cannot drive anymore are his last words. What is meant to be a moving scene of bereavement when his friend and lifelong colleague washes his blood off the leather upholstery of the driver’s seat left Liz musing why so much of this film was centered around cars. What if all the stunts had taken place on bicycles?
Vietnam. How the war was won against hi-tech occupiers.
The civil war in Vietnam was won by Indigenous people who fought the invading force, the Americans with their arsenal of napalm, Huey choppers, and fighter jets, on bicycles and with far less sophisticated firepower, and won.
“God Bless You All and God Bless America” are the words of the fictional president as The End closes in.
“Civil War.” Thinly veiled Trump. “God Bless You All and God Bless America.”
It’s been nearly two years since the San Francisco MAGA gang spent 8M in its successful political lynching of District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Chesa has diplomatically and quietly, perhaps too quietly, departed the toxic political scene of San Francisco. Now ensconced at the University of California School of Law as the founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Nonetheless Chesa is still convenient political fodder for reactionary Republicans and credulous Democrats in the US Senate. The subject of this abysmal behavior is the nominee for a position on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. Adeel Mangi would be the first Muslim to serve on a federal appeals court.
Why are the know nothings in the Senate so put out? Adeel Mangi serves on the advisory board of the Alliance of Families for Justice. A New York non profit. So, what?
Here’s the rub. The Alliance sponsored a fellowship in the name of Kathy Boudin. Chesa’s mother. She was imprisoned 20 years for her part in the October 1981 robbery of a Brinks truck. Three police officers were killed. Kathy Boudin never fired a weapon. She was a getaway driver.
After her parole, with the help of then law student Chesa in 2003, Kathy Boudin became a stellar citizen. She earned a doctoral degree. Became a college teacher in social work and law.
Chesa’s mother. The late Kathy Boudin who passed away in May 2022 just weeks before the political lynching of her son.
Chesa was a year old at the time of the 1981 incident in Nyack, New York.
Still, the San Francisco MAGA crowd kept this yoke on Chesa’s back from the time he announced for DA in late 2018 until his political lynching on June 7, 2022. And Chesa continues to have abuse tossed his way.
Now the abuse is moved to a national stage. Adeel Mangi may pay the price. It’s the worst kind of character assassination and guilt by association.Directed toward the nominee, Chesa Boudin, and his late mother Kathy Boudin.
Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle – Bob Egelko – 4.5.2024
Chesa Boudin’s background as the son of radicals imprisoned for taking part in a fatal armed robbery helped to fuel the campaign for his recall as San Francisco’s district attorney in 2022. Now, President Joe Biden’s nomination of an attorney who would become the first Muslim to serve on a federal appeals court appears to be doomed because of the nominee’s distant connection to Boudin’s late mother.
Adeel Mangi has been endorsed for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia by groups that include the National Council of Jewish Women and the Anti-Defamation League as well as the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the NAACP. But three Democratic senators, Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have come out against him, probably enough to block his confirmation in the closely divided Senate.
The reason? For Cortez Masto, it’s Mangi’s membership on the advisory board of the Alliance of Families for Justice, a New York-based nonprofit that provides support and legal representation for the families of prisoners.
Mangi, who practices civil law in New Jersey, said in a letter to Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., that he is not involved in the operations of Alliance of Families for Justice and worked with them only in a legal case for the family of a mentally ill inmate who was killed in prison, winning a settlement that required installation of cameras and microphones at the prison. He said he did not know Kathy Boudin and had nothing to do with the fellowship named for her.
“I condemn any violence against law enforcement officers,” Mangi wrote, noting the endorsement of his nomination by several police groups, though others have opposed him.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said Mangi “is being targeted by a malicious and debunked smear campaign solely because he would make history as the first Muslim to serve as a federal appellate judge.”
It was just over 24 hours ago that Supervisor Aaron Peskin dove into the San Francisco Mayor’s race. It was a tumultuous joy felt celebration in the heart of San Francisco.
Out here in the San Francisco countryside by the Pacific Ocean it is a much quieter scene.
Mayor in waiting Aaron Peskin is an avid swimmer. The photos taken this afternoon will be an oceanside venue where Mayor Peskin will get some relief from the ardors of City Hall.
The Pacific Coast shoreline in San Francisco looking south with windsurfers in the sky.
People enjoy the oceanside below the San Francisco Cliff House.A Tantra Wheel. Beautiful piece of artwork in the sand along Ocean Beach.The view looking north towards Marin County with Mt. Tamalpais in the background.Aaron Peskin’s supporters are ready for the upcoming election.
Top photo: Aaron Peskin takes a swim in the frigid San Francisco Bay near Alcatraz Island.
Lee's Perspective 