Lee Heidhues 5.16.2023

Are the trains still running on time? Not all the time these days.

Liz and I have spent time riding the trains in Germany going back to the early 1970’s.

The once vaunted German rail system Deutsche Bahn is in the crisis mode. Aging infrastructure has severely impacted the efficiency of the German transportation network.

Now the German government appears to be pouring resources into the transit system. It remains to be seen whether the investment will pay off in the near future.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.16.2023

It remains one of the most enduring cliches about Germany for those who don’t live there: the trains run on time.

Except they don’t, and haven’t for quite some time. Last year, one-third of trains from Deutsche Bahn (DB) — Germany’s state-owned rail company — were late. That figure has been steadily rising for years.

It’s not just passengers who are affected. Some of Europe’s biggest logistics companies have repeatedly called out DB’s freight and cargo business in recent years for its persistent delays.

Tardiness is not the only problem. The company has been consistently posting losses in recent years and is currently more than €30 billion ($32.6 billion) in debt. Passengers routinely complain of overcrowded trains and expensive tickets. 

The company has also been beset by industrial disputes. A 50-hour strike by railway workers, due to begin on May 14, was called off at the last minute the day before. EVG, the union behind the strike, says negotiations on wage increases are ongoing. Strikes in March and April already caused significant disruption.

The company itself has no illusions about the scale of the problem. “The current operational situation is not acceptable for us, travelers or railway companies,” a DB spokesperson told DW.

Jon Worth, a railway transport analyst resident in Berlin, says Germany’s railways are in a “delicate situation.” He says the main problem is widely acknowledged: a lack of investment in infrastructure.

“Railways in Germany are at the limit,” he told DW. “Germany runs a lot of trains on very old and decrepit infrastructure and has simply not been investing in the tracks, the bridges and the signals as much as would be necessary in order to manage to run things with a stable and reliable service.”

Karl-Peter Naumann, the honorary chairman of the public transport advocacy group PRO Bahn, agrees that outdated infrastructure is the main problem. “For customers, that means punctuality and, as a direct result, missed connecting trains,” he told DW.

Responsibility for the lack of investment goes back a few decades, according to Worth. “Ultimately the problems stem from decisions made a good 20 years ago,” he said. Naumann agrees: “Too little has been invested in the expansion and maintenance of the rail infrastructure in the last 30 years.”

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-deutsche-bahn-battles-crisis-amid-49-ticket-launch/a-65628256

Photos – Lee Heidhues

Top photo – Liz at the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof – October 2018

Lee Heidhues 5.15.2023

The Walgreens security guard was just following orders.

Now that D.A. Brooke Jenkins has decided not to prosecute the Walgreens Rent a cop who murdered Banko Brown the local media is flooding readers and viewers with the grisly video of the crime.

I cannot bear to watch the Video. It smacks of voyeurism to watch Banko Brown shot down In Cold Blood by the Walgreens Rent a Cop.

The Cop Shop DA Brooke Jenkins is, predictably and negligently, going to do nothing.

Watching the video will only infuriate and depress me further. The stills are dispositive enough that this was Murder. The Feds need to step up and prosecute this civil rights violation. Walgreens engages in inter-state commerce. The Feds have “standing”. Just do It.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 5.15.2023

A security guard who shot and killed a suspected shoplifter at a Walgreens store last month had been directed by his employer to engage in “hands-on” recovery of stolen items, which the guard said compelled him to confront the man, according to documents released Monday that added new layers to the debate over how to handle retail theft in San Francisco.

According to the D.A.’s report released Monday, on the date of the Walgreens confrontation, the company that employed Anthony — Kingdom Group Protective Services — “had recently changed the policy concerning what their guard-employees were to do in the way of active recovery of property from persons seen stealing merchandise from the Walgreens.”

Guards were instructed “to engage in ‘hands-on’ recovery of merchandise,” according to the report. “The guards … were to actively work to retrieve or recover any stolen items once it was clear that the individual who concealed the items intended to leave the store without paying.”

Banko Brown, 24, died April 27 outside the store after a confrontation captured on surveillance video also released Monday. The video showed guard Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony shoot Brown as he stepped backward onto the sidewalk, moments after he turned and made a slight movement toward Anthony. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said Monday she would not charge Anthony. 

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/walgrreens-shooting-banko-brown-security-18100148.php

Top photo – A dying Banko Brown on the mean streets of San Francisco

Lee Heidhues 5.14.2023

The Wall Street Journal is not reluctant to practice tabloid style journalism.

In a lengthy piece more suited for The New York Post the WSJ lays out in granular detail the facts and players involved in the murder of tech entrepreneur Bob Lee last month.

The murder, initially attributed to one of San Francisco’s myriad unhoused, fed into the current law and order paranoia sweeping San Francisco. And fed into the current faddish narrative the City is in a “doom loop” of rampant crime and economic collapse.

The true source of the crime, in all its sordid details, quickly became known. And since has gone global.

It’s somewhat fitting that the Wall Street Journal, rather than the super tabloid New York Post, is running this story.

Rupert Murdoch owns both publications.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 5.14.2023

This account is based on interviews with friends, co-workers and acquaintances of Bob Lee and the Momeni family, and records released by city agencies, including the District Attorney’s office.

SAN FRANCISCO—In certain wealthy tech circles it is known as “The Lifestyle,” an underground party scene featuring recreational drug use and casual sex.

A successful tech executive named Bob Lee liked to hang out with that crowd, according to people who also participated. So, too, did Khazar Momeni, the wife of a prominent plastic surgeon, these people said.

On the afternoon of April 3, a Monday, the partying took a dark turn. According to San Francisco prosecutors, Ms. Momeni’s older brother confronted Mr. Lee about her. Was she taking drugs or doing anything inappropriate, he wanted to know. Hours later the brother, Nima Momeni, stabbed Mr. Lee with a kitchen knife and left him to bleed out in the street, prosecutors alleged. Mr. Momeni, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, is being held without bail. He plans to plead not guilty, his attorney said. 

Surveillance footage from the Millennium Tower shows Mr. Momeni pull up in a white BMW, and then later, around 2 a.m., Messrs. Lee and Momeni leave the building and climb into Mr. Momeni’s car together.

Prosecutors allege that Mr. Momeni drove Mr. Lee to a dark and secluded area several streets over, in San Francisco’s Rincon Hill neighborhood. The area is punctuated with upscale condo buildings. The lights of the Bay Bridge that connects the city to Oakland and Berkeley sparkle behind office towers.

They allege that Mr. Momeni used a silver kitchen knife with a four-inch black blade to repeatedly stab Mr. Lee. Mr. Momeni drove quickly away from the scene, according to court documents that cite surveillance video.

Mr. Lee, bleeding profusely, called 911 for help before collapsing on the sidewalk. He was rushed to a hospital, where he later died.

Mr. Lee’s death has transfixed San Francisco. At first viewed by critics including Elon Musk as a symbol of the city’s increasing street violence, the episode instead laid bare risk-taking behavior in the upper reaches of Bay Area society, fueled by cocaine and designer drugs. 

Mr. Momeni is expected to appear at an arraignment and detention hearing later this month. Prosecutors haven’t offered a motive for his alleged crime. His attorney, Paula Canny, said, “My team and I continue to work hard to investigate all the many aspects of this case and the goings-on of the weeks preceding the incident.”

During the pandemic, with the San Francisco party scene largely shut down, Mr. Lee spent months traveling around Los Angeles and Mexico, said Gift Kerati, a friend of his from Thailand who said she spent much of that time with him. 

Ms. Kerati, who met Mr. Lee at a private party in Acapulco, said that Mr. Lee had several girlfriends during that time and other women he was sleeping with, but that he was always respectful toward them.

“He is literally one of the best human beings I’ve ever met,” said Ms. Kerati. She said Mr. Lee attended parties and used drugs because he liked to share experiences with a lot of different people, from all walks of life. 

Ms. Momeni and her older brother Nima were born in Iran to a family that is Zoroastrian, an ancient religion whose members were persecuted in that country, according to people familiar with the family. They moved to the U.S. with their mother, a dental assistant, and settled in the Bay Area. The siblings were very close, with Mr. Momeni frequently following his sister, who goes by “Tina,” around clubs or parties.

At another point, following a breakup with a longer-term girlfriend, Mr. Lee told friends that he was casually sleeping with Ms. Momeni, according to people familiar with their relationship.  

Ms. Momeni “was married, but the relationship had possibly been in jeopardy,” prosecutors have alleged in court documents.

Ms. Momeni’s husband, Dino Elyassnia, is a prominent San Francisco plastic surgeon. His Instagram page, with more than 30,000 followers, shows the results of nose jobs and face-lifts. “Happy International Women’s Day to my wife and all the amazing women I work with every day in our office,” wrote Mr. Elyassnia in a March post, showcasing a photo of Ms. Momeni in a tank top.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bob-lee-stabbing-sex-drugs-lifestyle-san-francisco-5a7da970?mod=hp_lead_pos7

Lee Heidhues 5.12.2023

The continued despoliation of historic Golden Gate Park has no end in sight.

The latest turn of the screw in turning this urban sanctuary into a promoter’s fever dream has selected the Polo Fields at the west end of the Park as its chosen bed.

Citing a yawning budget deficit as the excuse to further destroy the Park, Mayor London Breed and Recreation and Parks Director Phil Ginsburg want to piggyback on top of the yearly Outside Lands concert. A yearly environmentally destructive event which has wreaked havoc in the Park since 2007.

The dim bulbs at City Hall are playing a false tune. They now want to follow Outside Lands with another mammoth musical disaster in the week after Outside Lands concludes.

The promoter for this proposed act of greed and environmental degradation is Another Planet Entertainment. http://www.apeconcerts.com The same avaricious promoter which sponsors Outside Lands and many large scale profit generating events.

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission, https://sfrecpark.org, followed by the Board of Supervisors, https://sfbos.org/, must approve the proposal. Rest assured it’s a done deal and the public hearings will be no more than perfunctory nonsense. Money talks.

Mayor Breed claims these “events … show off the beauty of our parks.” What the Mayor fails to ad is that these events also destroy and despoil the parks.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 5.12.2023

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has unveiled a new plan to bring more summer concerts to Golden Gate Park starting next year. 

“Music has been a vital part of the park’s history, from the Summer of Love to the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and Outside Lands festivals of today,” she said in a statement. “These kinds of events bring excitement to our city, show off the beauty of our parks, and help support our local economy.”

The proposal, announced first to The Chronicle on Friday, May 12, calls for two or three days of headliner-driven events on the weekend following the annual Outside Lands music festival.

The San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission is scheduled to vote on Thursday, May 18, on whether to recommend granting a permit to Another Planet Entertainment to organize ticketed concerts at the Golden Gate Park Polo Field for three years beginning in 2024. APE produces Outside Lands, but these concerts would be separate, smaller events that would utilize a portion of the festival’s existing infrastructure, which would remain in place to minimize the impact on the park.

The permit fees for the city, amounting to $1.4 million for a two-day event and $2.1 million for a three-day event, would help the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department continue offering programming to residents and maintaining park facilities, according to city officials. 

Currently, the city faces a budget deficit of $780 million over the next two years.

“We’ve all been asked to cut back,” Tamara Barak Aparton, deputy director of communications and public affairs for the Recreation and Park Department, told The Chronicle. “We don’t want to cut our recreation programs or park maintenance, so we are looking at ways to supplement them.” 

Top photo – The eerie view of the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park as sun sets on the environmentally destructive Outside Lands concert

Lee Heidhues 5.11.2023

Once again we have the mainstream media carrying the water for the entitled motorists under the guise of giving a sympathetic hearing to small business owners.

To the point of giving credence to the absurd comment the diminution of parking spaces “will put them out of business.” If business owners have a good product to offer, the customers will come.

The latest incarnation of supporting the whiny motorists is giving voice to their displeasure over the fact San Francisco is facilitating public transit. These motorists need to exit their climate killing cars. Walk. Cycle. Take public transit.

The motorists continue to fight the battle to drive and, yes, park anywhere anytime.

Last year the entitled motorists received a long over due smackdown when the voters overwhelmingly approved ballot measures to create a 1.5 mile car free space, now called JFK Promenade, in Golden Gate Park. In the same election the voters turned back an effort to permit cars full time on The Great Walkway at the city’s western edge along the Pacific Ocean.

The entitled motorists obviously haven’t, yet, gotten the message. Sadly, they probably never will.

The mainstream media needs to stop being the handkerchief holder for these whiners and report the story that autos no longer rule the roads in San Francisco.

Excerpted from The Standard 5.4.2023

“Parking loss is a trade-off for better bus service and safer streets for people walking,” SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun said.

A plan to remove parking spaces and add bus-only lanes to a major commercial corridor in San Francisco has enraged multiple mom-and-pop shop owners who worry it will put them out of business.

A total of 70 parking spaces would be removed from Geary Boulevard, while 22 new spaces would be created on nearby streets, resulting in a net loss of 48 spaces, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which is behind the plan.

Beyond adding bus-only lanes on Geary Boulevard from Stanyan Street to 34th Avenue, the Geary Bus Rapid Transit plan would also convert angled parking on Geary Boulevard between 15th and 26th avenues to parallel parking. New parallel parking areas would include commercial loading zones where parking is restricted for part of the day.

The plan would also add pedestrian safety improvements such as extending the curb out to the street for easier bus boarding, adding no-parking zones near intersections to improve visibility, and lengthening bus stops for the longer buses that are often used along the boulevard.

https://sfstandard.com/business/business-owners-furious-at-san-francisco-plan-to-rip-out-parking-spaces/

Lee Heidhues 5.9.2023

Liz Heidhues today received her Blue Belt in martial arts. The seventh on her road to Black Belt.

Following the first of her two false Citizen’s Arrests and jailing in April 2018 (the second took place less than two years later in February 2020) Liz Heidhues enrolled in the Tat Wong Kung Fu Academy http://www.tatwong.com on Clement Street in San Francisco.

Engagement in this centuries old art has been the vehicle for Liz to maintain her self esteem and self respect.

Having been abused by the San Francisco Police Department and the Superior Court who actively collaborated in the settling of a dispute between neighbors Liz needed a vehicle to move beyond the inexplicable and horrific treatment.

Though Liz has been traumatized and still lives on a daily basis with the knowledge the abuse has never ended, she has achieved the latest accolade as she moves towards the penultimate in martial arts. A Black belt.

Top photo – Liz Heidhues with Blue Belt – May 9, 2023

Lee Heidhues 5.8.2023

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors are weak and worthless in the extreme limiting themselves to a polite unctuous callow call for a Resolution requesting release of the video showing the murder of Banko Brown by a Walgreens rent a cop.

The District Attorney a complete political creature who owes her job to Mayor London Breed, currently off on a junket to Israel, has already decided not to prosecute the perpetrator.

Ethically compromised DA Brooke Jenkins must be loving every minute of it as the Supervisors, who can’t even get a majority to sign on, are set to pass this mindless Resolution. Not even worth the paper it is printed on.

It’s emblematic of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors gutless political dialogue coming from elected officials that Senator Scott Wiener, who at best remained silent during the recall of DA Chesa Boudin and at worst supported it, is at least obliquely criticizing the DA. Even this politician is calling for release of the incriminating video.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Standard 5.8.2023

The Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a resolution urging the public release of all information gathered by police in the Banko Brown killing on Tuesday—but won’t be pursuing an earlier call by Board President Aaron Peskin that would have urged District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to file new charges in the case.

Banko Brown Case

Last week, Peskin said that he would formally ask the board to urge District Attorney Brooke Jenkins to reconsider her decision to not charge Walgreens security guard Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony in the shooting death of activist Banko Brown in an alleged shoplifting incident. 

In a statement last Monday, Jenkins said that “releasing video, or any other evidence at this time could compromise the investigation.”

That ask has now evolved into a resolution urging Jenkins “to release police reports, witness accounts and video” of the incident, “that form the factual basis in the case presented by the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) for filing charges by the District Attorney.” 

Once passed, the board will join state Sen. Scott Wiener in calling for the public release of information around the Brown case. But those calls are putting lawmakers at odds with Jenkins, who said on Monday that releasing evidence in the case would compromise the investigation.  

Supervisors Connie Chan, Joel Engardio, Myrna Melgar and Shamann Walton are co-sponsoring the resolution, which is nonbinding. 

“We need to see the video first,” Peskin texted The Standard Monday, explaining the change. 

Co-sponsor Engardio worked with Peskin to amend the resolution. 

“It was premature to call for a different decision when we had not seen all of the evidence,” Engardio told The Standard in a text. “There is also the question of administrative interference, which supervisors are not allowed to do under the city charter. 

“This is an extraordinary case and I believe it is in the public interest for supervisors to call for the release of the video and evidence,” Engardio added. 

https://sfstandard.com/politics/supervisors-wont-urge-new-charges-in-banko-brown-case-but-call-for-release-of-video/

Lee Heidhues 5.7.2023

Sutter Street in San Francisco straddles two diverse neighborhoods in changing San Francisco.

To the south side of Sutter Street is the Western Addition which formerly was a historically Black neighborhood until Redevelopment and gentrification moved out a sizable number of its earlier homeowners and residents.

On the north side of Sutter Street is the edge of wealthy Pacific Heights from which San Francisco’s power elite have ruled the City since its inception over 150 years ago.

Top photo – Church of God in Christ on Sutter Street, San Francisco

Lee Heidhues 5.6.2023

Buried in the rubble of the News is this disturbing report from The Moscow Times.

There are some in Russia who want to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

Interestingly the story doesn’t refer directly to Vladimir Putin Attribution is given to others in the Kremlin hierarchy.

It is logical to presume the itchy fingerprints on the Button are those of Putin.

Excerpted from The Moscow Times 5.6.2023

At least two high-profile Russian officials have called on the Kremlin to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine in retaliation for an alleged drone strike on Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin residence and as the prospect of an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive looms.

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin on Wednesday called the attempted strike a “terrorist attack” while claiming it had been orchestrated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally. 

“There can be no negotiations … We will be demanding the use of weapons that can stop and destroy the terrorist regime in Kyiv,” Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on Telegram, hinting at the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia. 

Those calls were soon echoed by Russia’s former space chief Dmitry Rogozin, who published a video update on Thursday from the frontlines in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhya region, where he is currently working as a military advisor.

“An imminent deadly air fight is anticipated,” Dmitry Rogozin said, noting that Russian forces were actively preparing for the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russia could, however, avoid a significant number of casualties by using tactical nuclear weapons against Kyiv preemptively, he added. 

“According to our [nuclear] doctrine we have the right to use tactical nuclear weapons because that’s what they exist for,” he said, calling them a “great equalizer for the moments when there is a clear discrepancy in the enemy’s favor.” 

However, the leader of the controversial Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, sounded an unexpected note of caution and warned against making casual threats to use nuclear weapons.

“As a radically-minded person I can say that of course there should be no talk of using nuclear weapons in retaliation for a drone,” Prigozhin said on Thursday. 

Advising those responsible to instead find and punish whoever was in charge of preventing aerial drone attacks and to improve Russia’s military capabilities to allow it to retaliate, Prigozhin said that making such disproportionate threats to the West made them “look like clowns.”

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/05/04/putin-allies-split-on-using-tactical-nuclear-weapons-in-ukraine-a81038

Lee Heidhues 5.5.2023

One of the most despicable acts of the American government was its instigation and promotion of the September 11, 1973 Coup d’etat which ousted Salvador Allende from power and ushered in the violent, despotic, dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet.

An earlier film by Costa Gavras, “Missing,” adapted from the book by Thomas Hauser “Missing. The Execution of Charles Horman-A Scorching Classic of Political Intrigue” 1978 looks at the Coup and its aftermath from an American perspective.

Now we have this horrific event seen up close and personal from the Chilean view in the film “Chile ’76.”

Excerpted from The New York Times 5.4.2023

In 1973, the socialist government of Chile was overthrown by a military junta led by Gen‌‌. Augusto Pinochet, with the backing of the United States. Thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the country under Pinochet’s dictatorship, which lasted for 17 years and was maintained through violence. ‌

With the new film “Chile ’76,” the director Manuela Martelli joins the company of Chilean filmmakers like Pablo Larraín and Sebastián Leilo, who have made thought-provoking movies reflecting on the Pinochet regime and its impact on the lives of everyday people. Martelli’s initial inspiration for the story came from a source close to home. She imagined the loss felt by her grandmother, who died by suicide in 1976, one of the most violent years of the dictatorship, before Martelli was born.

The protagonist of “Chile ’76” is Carmen (Aline Küppenheim), a regal woman of middle age. She’s a grandmother and a career flight attendant who now lives a comfortably bourgeois lifestyle with her husband in Santiago. When the story begins, she’s in the process of overseeing renovations to her family’s beachside vacation home. Carmen occupies her time alone with charitable work, guided by the sanguine priest of the town, Father Sánchez (Hugo Medina).

Carmen is discomforted by the sanctioned brutality around her — early on, she witnesses distraught neighbors being dragged away in the streets.

But Carmen’s comfortable existence is not directly disrupted until Father Sánchez asks her to care for a fugitive hidden in the church. She acquiesces, nursing Elías (Nicolás Sepúlveda), a wounded revolutionary, back to health. She transports antibiotics for his injuries, and lies to the suspicious authorities to cover her tracks. Anxiety becomes Carmen’s constant companion as telephones buzz on lines that might be tapped, and neighbors pry, posing inconvenient questions.