Our daughter Atlanta Kane (nee Heidhues) has been innovative and outspoken since her youth. Her artistic talent has alway been evident.
A single mother Atlanta was born and raised in San Francisco. She has lived in Marin County, California an area close by the Pacific Coast going on 20 years. The natural landscape gives her a wide swath of subject matter.
Atlanta is consistently in the artist’s studio producing her creations. There is only one word to aptly decribe her work. Avant Garde.
Atlanta Kane (nee Heidhues) self portraitAtlanta’s daughter Justina Kane
a·vant-garde
/ˌaväntˈɡärd/
noun
noun: avant-garde
new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, or the people introducing them.
“works by artists of the Russian avant-garde”
adjective
adjective: avant-garde
favoring or introducing experimental or unusual ideas.
Nothing much has changed. Cops and entitled white people continue to gun down black people with impunity. It’s true there is the occasional exception to the rule when the evidence is clear and public outrage is so strident that the killers face the consequences for their horrific acts.
It was all very trendy for white people to march and flount their Black Lives Matter bling and regalia. That was two years ago. The wanton abuse of Black people in America continues unabated.
June 2020 – Marching on JFK Drive in San Francisco after George Floyd murder by a cop.
It’s the exception in America where cops and racism rule.
George Floyd murdered by a cop in May 2020. The cop was charged and convicted
Excerpted from New York Magazine The Cut – Brittney Cooper 1.31.2022
In 1892, at the height of the lynching crisis, Ida B. Wells proclaimed that “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.
When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life.”
The critical point for me in Wells’s manifesto for Black self-defense is not her overarching respect for the power of guns.
It is her observation about where the aggression begins. Losing that thread of the argument, about who actually starts the fights, is the reason so much white aggression is seamlessly restyled as the right to “stand one’s ground,” to protect and defend one’s kith and kin. Conversely,
Black self-defense is transposed into an act of unjustified aggression and met with fire and fury by both the state and self-deputized white citizens.
There is an earnestness to Black Lives Matter. A kind of barefaced removing of the gloves and the pugilism.
Ahmaud Arbery murdered in cold blood by three white vigilantes February 2020. They were charged and convicted
Perhaps this is an homage toTrayvon Martin, who in his last moments was meandering through his father’s girlfriend’s neighborhood, chatting on the phone with his friend Rachel, unconcerned, as all young people should have the freedom to be, with the monster lurking in the bushes.
To this earnestness, the aggressors, who still are almost always white, have responded with cynicism, obfuscation, and gun sales. George Zimmerman added to the chorus by successfully auctioning for $250,000 the gun he had used to kill Martin.
Top photo – Activist Ieshia Evans in July 2016, in Louisiana. Photo: Jonathan Bachman/REUTERS
School district in Tennessee doesn’t burn books. It bans them. Political book bannning in 21st century America catches fire as an increasingly intolerant neo-Nazi sentiment spreads its toxicity over the country.
A Tennessee school board’s decision to remove Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Maus” from its curriculum has drawn international attention, including coverage from CNN, BBC and Times of Israel.
The McMinn County School Board voted 10-0 to ban the book in a Jan. 10 meeting, citing concerns over “rough” language and a nude drawing of a woman, according to meeting minutes posted to the district website. The book was part of its eighth-grade English language arts curriculum.
The book, written by comic artist Art Spiegelman, is a graphic novel that tells the story of his Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland. It follows them through their internment in Auschwitz. Nazis are portrayed as cats, while Jewish people are shown as mice. The novel also includes conversations between Spiegelman and his elderly father as he convinces him to tell his story.
The book was published in 1986, and Spiegelman was awarded a Pulitzer for it in 1992.
“The values of the county are understood,” McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison said during the meeting. “There is some rough, objectionable language in this book.”
School board debates ‘Maus’ removal, defends decision
Eight “curse words” and the nude drawing were at the forefront of the concerns over the book, according to the board minutes.
Board member Tony Allman said he was also concerned about scenes in the book where mice were hung from trees and children were killed. The book also depicts suicide.
“Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff?” he said. “It is not wise or healthy.”
Instructional supervisor Julie Goodin, a former history teacher, said that she believes the book represents the brutality of the Holocaust.
“There is nothing pretty about the Holocaust and for me this was a great way to depict a horrific time in history,” she said.
The school board released a statement Thursday afternoon defending its decision, citing the “unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide” in the book.
“Taken as a whole, the Board felt this work was simply too adult-oriented for use in our schools,” part of the statement read.
As news spread about the school board’s decision, the US Holocaust Museum posted about “Maus” on Twitter Wednesday.
“Maus has played a vital role in educating about the Holocaust through sharing detailed and personal experiences of victims and survivors,” the post read. “On the eve of International #HolocaustRemembranceDay, it is more important than ever for students to learn this history. Teaching about the Holocaust using books like Maus can inspire students to think critically about the past and their own roles and responsibilities today.”
Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) released a statement Thursday condemning the board’s decision, calling it reminiscent of the Scopes Monkey Trial. The 1925 trial centered on young high school teacher John Thomas Scopes, who was accused of violating state law by teaching evolution.
Cohen, who is Jewish, helped create the Tennessee Holocaust Commission and has been an advocate for Holocaust education in schools and other institutions.
“Art Spiegelman’s novel opens minds to the history of the Nazi genocide we’re remembering on today’s anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in 1945,” Cohen said. “I look forward to seeing the school board decision reversed.”
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022. I am Re blogging the Post we put up on this Day in 2021.
The World can never be allowed to forget that six million Jews, gypsies, minorities, opponents of the Nazis and people of color were slaughtered by the Nazi Regime during Hitler’s Germany 12 year Reign of Terror from 1933-1945.
Following are several photos taken by Liz Heidhues during our trips to Berlin in 2017 and 2018.
Excerpted from Jerusalem Post 4.7.2021
Israel will once again commemorate the greatest calamity to befall the Jewish people in 2,000 years on Wednesday night and Thursday as the country marks Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The official state opening ceremony for Holocaust Remembrance Day will take place at 8:00 p.m. in Yad Vashem’s Warsaw Ghetto Square on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, and will be attended by President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, chief rabbis Yitzhak Yosef and David Lau and other dignitaries.
This year’s theme has been entitled “Until the Very Last Jew: Eighty Years Since the Onset of Mass Annihilation,” by Yad Vashem, marking the eightieth anniversary of Operation Barbarossa in which Nazi Germany staged a surprise…
President Biden will be soon be able to nominate a Justice for the US Supreme Court with the imminent retirement of San Francisco native and Lowell High School graduate Stephen Breyer.
Expect another ferocious brawl as the Republicans, who already have cemented their majority on the nation’s highest Court, will trot out every incendiary argument to stop Biden’s eventual nominee from being confirmed.
WASHINGTON — Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire, two people familiar with the decision said, providing President Biden a chance to make good on his campaign pledge to name a Black woman to the court.
“This is a huge step in preserving his legacy in a way that Justice Ginsburg failed to do,” said Leah Litman, a law professor at the University of Michigan. “He saw what happened to his friend, to her jurisprudence and all the things that mattered to her when she didn’t step down while she was able to. It is a credit to him that he made this decision even though he’s doing a job that he obviously very much loves.”
Mr. Biden is expected to formally announce the retirement at the White House on Thursday, according to one person familiar with the planning for the event.
Justice Breyer, 83, the oldest member of the court, was appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020 and the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett by President Donald J. Trump, he became the subject of an energetic campaign by liberals who wanted him to step down to ensure that Mr. Biden could name his successor while Democrats control the Senate.
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer
With conservatives now in full control of the court, replacing Justice Breyer with another liberal would not change its ideological balance or affect its rightward trajectory in cases on abortion, gun rights, religion and affirmative action.
But Democrats, who control the Senate now by the narrowest of margins, may have to act quickly if they want to ensure that the court does not become even more conservative. If they lose even a single seat in the midterm elections, the balance of power in the chamber would flip, making it much more difficult for Mr. Biden to win confirmation for his nominee.
Justice Breyer’s opinions have been those of a moderate liberal, marked by deference to experts, the ad hoc balancing of competing interests and alertness to fundamental fairness. His goal, he said, was to reinforce democracy and to supply workable legal principles for a sprawling and diverse nation.
He has been more likely to vote against criminal defendants than other liberal justices. On the other hand, as the years progressed, he has grown increasingly hostile to the death penalty.
It’s the Wild West 21st century version in Los Angeles.
Thieves are finding it an easy Mark to break into railcars loaded with consumer goods. Predictably the Union Pacific Corporation which has a slim police force, 200 officers in 23 States, is blaming the “progressive” LA District Attorney for its failure to keep its property safe.
LA District Attorney George Gascon, a former Chief of Police in San Francisco, is spot on when he responded to the Union Pacific,“My Office is not tasked with keeping your sites secure.”
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 1.24.2022
Michelle Wilde bought a piece of sand art during a visit to Jerome, Ariz., earlier this month. Rather than carry it home, she had the shopkeeper ship the $145 frame to her.
Instead of arriving at her home in Everett, Wash., the package ended up next to a railroad track in East Los Angeles. The frame was gone. The box remained.
It was among thousands of boxes recently found littered along Union Pacific Corp.UNP -0.40% tracks in the middle of Los Angeles. Thieves had broken into the train cars and made off with items shipped by Dr. Martens, Harbor Freight Tools and small businesses alike. The scene has set off finger-pointing between the railroad, local officials and police about who is to blame and how to stop a modern twist on one of the country’s oldest crimes.
“Why are people breaking into [railcars] and why is no one doing anything?” Ms. Wilde said, when she was contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter to inform her of the fate of her package. “We’re like in year 13 of a pandemic so nothing surprises me about human behavior.”
Union Pacific said it has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020, including sharper increases in the months leading up to Christmas, when trailers are loaded with inventory bound for stores or gifts shipped to homes. The total losses to Union Pacific, with a market capitalization of $155 billion, have come to $5 million over the past year. That doesn’t include losses tallied by customers shipping on its rails
Train robberies date to the dawn of railroads, and Union Pacific has had its share of famous heists. In 1899, Butch Cassidy’s gang robbed the Union Pacific Overland Flyer No. 1 as it passed through Wyoming. The group stopped the train and blew up its safe. A posse was sent out in pursuit of the bandits.
Butch Cassidy, early scourge of the Union Pacific Railroad
Railroads combat the problem with their own police forces. Union Pacific has more than 200 police officers, but they must patrol thousands of miles of track across 23 states.
Lance Fritz, Union Pacific’s chief executive officer, said rail theft has been a mostly small-scale problem. What is happening in Los Angeles is different. A couple of years ago, opportunistic individuals might see a mile-plus-long train inching through the city and pry open a car to see what was inside, maybe grab a few items, he said, but “today, that’s more organized.”
Adrian Guerrero, a general director of public affairs at Union Pacific, said lenient prosecution means many of those arrested for rifling through railcars have their charges reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense—and are often quickly released. “We just don’t see the criminal justice system holding these people accountable,” Mr. Guerrero said.
In a letter responding to Mr. Guerrero sent on Friday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said the number of cases submitted to his office in which Union Pacific was listed as the victim had fallen each of the past two years, from 78 cases in 2019 to 47 in 2021. The DA brought charges in 55% of those cases, Mr. Gascón said, with the others dismissed for lack of evidence or because they didn’t involve allegations of burglary, theft or tampering.
“It is very telling that other major railroad operations in the area are not facing the same level of theft at their facilities as UP,” Mr. Gascón wrote. “My Office is not tasked with keeping your sites secure.”
Today there was a school shooting in Germany. Prime Minister Olaf Scholz said he “was shocked by the shooting.”
The reason for the prime minister’s response is the fact that Germany, unlike the United States, has very strict gun possession laws. In gun loving America obtaining a firearm is easy as going into the neighborhood grocery store and buying a candy bar.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 1.24.2022
One woman was killed and three people injured in a shooting at Heidelberg University on Monday.
Police said at a press conference Monday evening that a man entered a university lecture hall with a double-barreled shotgun and another firearm as a class was running and opened fire.
Four people were wounded. A 23-year-old woman died several hours later in the hospital; the other victims suffered injures in the face, back and legs, police said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was shocked by the shooting.
“That one student has died of her injuries … It tears my heart apart to learn of such news,” Scholz said.
According to the Weapons Act, you need a weapons possession card (Waffenbesitzkarte) to own or buy a firearm and a weapons license (Waffenschein) to use or carry a loaded firearm. This means collectors, for instance, only need the first, whereas hunters must have both.
A weapons possession card allows gun owners only to “transport” a firearm, rather than carry it. That means it must be unloaded and inside a locked case when taken out in public. But for those with a gun license, German law has no provision stipulating whether a gun must be concealed or loaded in public or not.
There is also a minor firearms certificate,(Kleiner Waffenschein) which is easier to obtain, and which is needed to carry lower-powered weapons, such as air guns, starting pistols, flare guns, or anything that can only shoot blanks or irritants.
Altogether, the costs for an application, including the required insurance, can run to around €500 ($540).
What kinds of guns are legal in Germany?
German law makes a distinction between weapons and war weapons, with the latter listed in the War Weapons Control Act.
In Germany, it is illegal to possess or use any war weapons. These include all fully automatic or semi-automatic rifles, machine guns (unless antiques from World War II or earlier), or barrels or breeches for such weapons. Pump-action shotguns are also banned under the Weapons Act.
Who is allowed to own guns in Germany?
Applicants for a German gun license must
1) be at least 18 years old,
2) have the necessary “reliability” and “personal aptitude,”
3) demonstrate the necessary “specialized knowledge,”
4) demonstrate a “need,” and
5) have liability insurance for personal injury and property damage of at least €1 million ($1.1 million).
When the 49ers beat Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium on January 9, 2022 the Rams House was packed with 49er fans in Red and Gold attire.
49er fans were such a presence at the Niners victory which propelled them into the playoffs that LA Rams management is now retaliating.
If the Rams can’t beat the Niners on the field (San Francisco has won six straight) LA ownership wants to ensure their team doesn’t lose in the stands, too.
San Francisco Chronicle 1.23.2022
You’ve heard about not counting your chickens before they hatch?
The Los Angeles Rams were banning ticket sales to 49ers fans before the Rams even knew if there’d be an NFC Championship Game next Sunday between the two teams.
An influx of 49er Faithful swarmed SoFi Stadium when the two teams faced off on Jan. 9, a game in which San Francisco scored a 27-24 upset and squeezed into the playoffs. Rams coach Sean McVay later told reporters that the team was surprised by just how many Niners fans had filled the stands.
Sunday morning, as the Rams prepared to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in what turned out to be a 30-27 victory for Los Angeles, fans looking to snag tickets to a possible 49ers-Rams title game at SoFi Stadium on Jan. 30 were hit with a notification that warned ticket sales “will be restricted to residents of the Greater Los Angeles region.”
The notification stated that ticket buyers’ residency will be based on the billing address for the credit card used to make the purchase, and “orders by residents outside of the Greater Los Angeles region will be canceled without notice and refunds given.
The unusual prohibition seemed to indicate that the club was trying to avoid a repeat of its regular-season finale against San Francisco when a large contingent of 49ers fans made the Rams feel like the visiting team — on their home turf.
49er Faithful at Rams House SoFi Stadium – January 9, 2022
Now, the two teams will meet for a third time this season. This time, the victor will get to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.
Every Picture Tells a Story – 49ers win in the Snow in frigid Green Bay Wisconsin.
San Francisco 49ers’ Robbie Gould celebrates after making the 45 yard game-winning field goal as time runs out.
Like an 11th-hour stay-of-execution phone call from the governor, Jimmy Garoppolo marched the 49ers to a game-winning 45-yard field goal as time expired for a shocking 13-10 victory over the mighty Packers. – Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Robbie Gould’s kick sailed through the uprights and as his San Francisco teammates, bundled in red parkas, scampered onto the grass Saturday night, the Green Bay Packers just stood on their sideline. They had not lost all season at Lambeau Field, not in warm weather or temperate conditions or the winter chill, but a certain finality had now descended amid the snowfall.
Kicker Robbie Gould gets a lift after his 45-yard field goal as time expired sent the 49ers to the NFC Championship Game.Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The ChronicleYes. There were 49er fans in Green Bay
The 49ers ousted the top-seeded Packers from the playoffs, 13-10, on Gould’s 45-yard field goal as time expired. San Francisco, the sixth seed, advances to play at either the Los Angeles Rams or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in next Sunday’s N.F.C. championship game.
San Francisco’s blocked punt late in the fourth quarter was returned for a touchdown. Dan Powers/The Post-Crescent, via Associated PressSan Francisco 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga (29) recovers a fourth quarter blocked punt for a return touchdown at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo celebrates the 49ers’ victory
No sooner does a “progressive” District Attorney assume office than the political knives are unsheathed. It is becoming such a regular occurence in America that the reactionary forces of law and order and the politicians who support them will never acknowledge the old tough on crime lock ’em up school doesn’t work.
The list of “progressive” DAs under siege is disturbing. Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, Chesa Boudin in San Francisco, George Gascon in Los Angeles and Alvin Bragg in Manhattan are just four DAs who have come under vicious attack since the moment they assumed office.
The voters either fail to see through or choose to believe this toxic fog of law and order rhetoric.
It’s not the District Attorneys who need to be called to account. It is the entire American system which keeps marginalized people in poverty. It is the lack of oppportunity for many Americans. It is the glorification of violence through the media. It is the American system which makes guns available to virtually every citizen.
It’s a systemic American problem which has corroded the entire social fabric of this country.
Excerpted from New York – Intelligencer 1.21.2022
Alvin Bragg, the newly elected Manhattan district attorney, is being attacked on an almost daily basis for doing exactly what he promised voters: moving away from using arrest, prosecution, and jail (or the threat of it) as the primary, default strategy for dealing with low-level crimes and disorder.
The New York Post on The Nightcrawler beat
It’s a painful but necessary dispute. If Bragg doesn’t buckle, and if the current surge in street crime recedes, New York could move closer to the holy grail of becoming safer and more fair at the same time.
For months on the campaign trail, Bragg told voters — at candidate forums, in debates, and in televised interviews — that on day one of his administration, he would issue a memo instructing the hundreds of prosecutors in the DA’s office to avoid seeking jail time for offenses like fare-beating, shoplifting, soliciting prostitution, possession of small quantities of weed, and the always handy catchall of disorderly conduct.
The general idea, championed by Bragg and a number of so-called “progressive prosecutors” around the country, is to clear the docket of court-clogging lower-level offenses, thereby freeing up police and prosecutors to focus on serious problems like gang activity, gun trafficking, and domestic violence.
Bragg also promised to make minor but important changes to how certain crimes were charged. Resisting arrest, he promised, would have to be tied to an actual arrest, not prosecuted as a stand-alone offense. (Think about it: If a person isn’t being arrested, why prosecute them for resisting that non-arrest?)
New Manhattan DA meets the public and above being sworn into office January 2022
More controversially, Bragg believes that not all crimes involving a gun should be treated the same. That stance stems from a case, which Bragg frequently mentioned on the campaign trail, involving his brother-in-law, who as a college student got into a fistfight. “No weapons were drawn. Unlike the policing of white students in these instances, he and all of his friends involved in the fistfight were arrested,” Bragg recounted on his campaign website. “Upon arrest, it was discovered that one of the boys had a gun, and ALL of the boys were charged with possessing the gun.”
Bragg’s arguments and his calm, earnest demeanor — along with the solid turnout of voters in his native Harlem — carried him to victory in the primary and general elections. And shortly after being sworn in, he issued the promised memo.
At which point all hell broke loose.
The New York Post dedicated no fewer than five cover stories to screaming headlines and scathing editorials. “You’ve ordered your prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for nearly all crimes, and to charge many felonies as mere misdemeanors. That’s giving criminals the green light, plain and simple,” the tabloid’s editorial board wrote.
“That one student has died of her injuries … It tears my heart apart to learn of such news,” Scholz said.
Lee's Perspective 