Lee Heidhues 10.3.2021

The current over wrought political drama to designate less than three miles of roadway in San Francisco, The Great Walkway along the Pacific and JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park, is causing a virtual civil war.  

San Francisco has 1200 miles of roadway for automobile usage.

The fact that the long entitled, selfish and “we want it all” motorists are able to harass and browbeat City officials is a complete disgrace.  All the “progressive” talk about San Francisco being a leader in fighting climate change and global warming is just a lot of hot air.

No elected official from Mayor London Breed on down to  faux progressive Supervisor Connie Chan has enough political will and courage to tell the long self entitled motorists, it’s time for change. Instead these politicians make excuses and equivocate.

San Francisco elected officials and bureaucrats, even those who think of themselves as “progressive” are engaged in self delusion. 

Once the car owners start to yell and scream Official San Francisco caves in.

The attached article, The Copenhagen Index breaks down the top 20 cities globally for their bicycle friendly policies.

There is not one American city in the Copenhagen Index.  Pathetic.

Excerpted from The Copenhagen Index

THE 2019 COPENHAGENIZE INDEX OF BICYCLE-FRIENDLY CITIES

Welcome to the Copenhagenize Index – the most comprehensive and holistic ranking of bicycle-friendly cities on planet earth. As the fifth edition of the biennial Index since 2011, this year’s effort was made possible through months of intensive teamwork, research and outreach. Creating an inventory of urban cycling in all corners of the world is no small feat – and this year we are as excited as ever to share the most fascinating cycling stories from across the globe.

How to read the 2019 Copenhagenize Index

With each iteration, the Copenhagenize Index evolves. This year, we have again expanded the total number of cities to examine well beyond the 80 we ranked in 2011. The data set continues to grow year-by-year and accounts for hundreds of cities representing every region of the world.

2019 offers up a number of surprises yet again. The three-horse race at the top is as close as ever, with Utrecht being nudged back down to #3 by Amsterdam taking the 2nd position with its bold steps taken in the past years. Meanwhile, Copenhagen continues impressive investments and innovations for cycling to hold onto the #1 spot, but for how long, no one knows. All three of these cities remain role-models for all of the friendly competition below.

The second pack sees a tightening gap between Antwerp, Strasbourg and Bordeaux, as these three cities all strive for greater and greater bicycle friendliness. And at the lead of the third pack is Oslo – the bicycle urbanism darling that shot up in ranking over the last 4 years to an impressive degree.

This year also sees a number of new faces from all over the world on the Top 20 like Bogotà, Bremen, Taipei and Vancouver – newcomers that are showing other cities how possible it is to make our urban centres better for the bicycle. The margins between cities in the third pack of the Top 20 are tight, and those that are innovating, investing and pushing forward with political and citizen action every year, see results in the Copenhagenize Index. Just outside of the Top 20 sit a number of cities all on the cusp of breaking through, each one requiring that sustained investment and implementation of bicycle innovations to see better rankings in 2021.

This year, we have also added a new section called “Success Stories” – sharing a number of inspirational bicycle stories from around the world, outside of the Top 20. These stories show us how bicycle friendliness can come in many shapes and forms, with each new step offering critical utility to the urban citizens that need it.

The 2019 Copenhagenize Index shows the world that it is no longer only the Danish and Dutch cities that are really taking the bicycle seriously. Through a combination of ambition, culture and better streetscapes, cities all around the world are starting to push the envelope for what it means to be bicycle-friendly.

Enjoy this year’s edition of the Copenhagenize Index.

https://copenhagenizeindex.eu/

The San Francisco Giants, who the experts predicted would finish at the back of the National League pack, have stunned the baseball world.

The Giants 107 wins is a team record and one of the best win totals in the history of major league baseball.

The Giants put the frosting on the 107 win cake crushing the San Diego Padres 11-4.

Next come the playoffs on Friday with the winner of the St. Louis Cardinals – LA Dodgers Wild card game coming to Oracle Park to begin a best of five game series.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 10.3.3021

There is no overstating how extraordinary the Giants’ season has been. Entering the year, many questioned if San Francisco would even break even. “We knew what the projections were and what the industry thought of us as a club,” manager Gabe Kapler said in a postgame address to the crowd, noting that the team’s intangibles weren’t taken into consideration “and the first intangible is toughness.”

There would be no messing around and relying on the Dodgers to lose as far as Logan Webb was concerned. The 24-year-old from Rocklin did it all Sunday, lifting the Giants to the NL West title on the strength of his arm and his bat.

In an Ohtani-like day, Webb crushed his first major-league homer and he turned in magnificent work through his first seven innings of work to propel San Francusco to an 11-4 win and the team’s first division crown since 2012, sending players pouring out of the dugout to celebrate on their home field. Buster Posey drove in three runs, and his two hits on the final day of the season gave him 1,500 for his career.

Lee Heidhues 10.2.2021

Leave it to the Germans to be a leader in changing people’s attitudes.

Psychedelics have long been part of the culture.  Sadly, psychedelics became part of the reactionary war on drugs which has seen thousands of people imprisoned for selling and consuming these drugs.

Now, decades later, the medical profession is taking a dispassionate and clinical look at psychedelics and their benefits to society.

Maybe the phrase from the Beatles song, “I get high with a little help from my friends” will become widely accepted in the world culture.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 10.2.2021

Psychedelic substances have returned to where they once stood in the 1950s and ’60s — to the center of psychiatric, medical and psychological research.

Experts are already enthusiastic. “How ecstasy and psilocybin are shaking up psychiatry” a headline of the science magazine Nature gushed at the beginning of the year.

Millions of people in Germany have been diagnosed with depression. Researchers believe that drugs such as LSD and psilocybin can offer an effective treatment. They could also bring big profits.

On July 13, there was a rainy sky above the southern German city of Mannheim. But, despite the uninspiring weather, it was a day of hope for millions of people with depression — because the first patients of a research project run by the Central Institute of Mental Health were scheduled to have a psychedelic experience.

They wore a blindfolds and headphones that played music and were accompanied by two therapists. The hallucinogen used for the inner journey is called psilocybin.

This active ingredient was isolated about 60 years ago. It gives the magic mushrooms their “magic” — i.e., their mind-altering effect. And it has been banned almost worldwide, including in Germany, for over half a century.

Even for the Mannheim researchers, “obtaining the substance has proven to be the highest hurdle.” That’s according to researcher and psychiatry professor Gerhard Gründer.

“There are not that many manufacturers in the world from whom you can obtain such a substance in the required quality. It was a long and laborious process,” he said.

But that laborious process is becoming more common. Hallucinogenic trips have long ceased to be solely the recreational pastime of hippies. A growing number of scientific studies point to the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy for treating depressed patients — even those for whom other therapies have been exhausted. The Mannheim study, with a total of 144 patients, is now large enough that Gründer “expects statistically robust conclusions.”

Depression is a widespread condition

According to estimates by the World Health Organization, about 300 million people worldwide live with depression. In Germany, that number is an estimated 5 million, and the Health Ministry has referred to it as a “widespread disease.”

A conservative estimate is that around one in five patients cannot be helped with conventional treatment methods. “There is a huge need,” Gründer said, adding that his institute is almost overrun with inquiries from patients.

In conventional therapies, patients are treated with daily doses of antidepressants. The new approach is fundamentally different.

This could be seen in mid-September in Berlin, when the Insight 2021 conference took place, organized by the Mind Foundation. According to its website, the foundation advocates the “evidence-based, safe and legal use of psychedelic experience in medicine and society.” The venue for the meeting of the center of international psychedelics research is the Berlin Charite, one of Germany’s most prestigious medical institutions.

For four days, attendees discussed neurological processes, compared the effects of LSD, psilocybin and other drugs with diagrams, and presented the state of research in a wide variety of fields. Even an employee of the German drug approval authority, the federal authority for drugs and medical devices, was there.

“We managed to destigmatize the topic; a discourse has emerged,” Mind Foundation co-founder Andrea Jungaberle said in summary. “How this discourse will affect day-to-day medical business remains to be seen.”

https://www.dw.com/en/how-psychedelics-are-returning-to-the-world-of-medicine/a-59380189

Lee Heidhues 10.1.2021

The environmental movement  scored a major victory with the long overdue confirmation of Tracy Stone-Manning as director of the federal Bureau  of Land Management (BLM).

Republican senators waged a vicious and incendiary campaign to bring down the nominee for her alleged involvement in still disputed events which took place over 30  years ago.

To the credit of the Democrats in the Senate, they stood firm and were not intimidated by the slash and burn tactics of their Republican colleagues.

Excerpted from Washington Post 10.1.2021

She was confirmed by a 50-to-45 vote.

After the confirmation vote, Collin O’Mara, the president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement that “at a time when our public lands are suffering from prolonged drought, devastating wildfires, and other climate-fueled disasters, Tracy will bring visionary leadership and a collaborative management style that will restore and revitalize our public lands and waters.”

 Stone-Manning is a prominent Montana-based environmentalist who works on conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation. Earlier in her career she led Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, and worked as an aide for Sen. Jon Tester (D) and former governor Steve Bullock (D).

Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he was “unable to find any credible evidence in the exhaustive trial record of the tree-spiking case that supports the allegations levied against Miss Stone-Manning.”

Instead, he said, he found “compelling evidence that Miss Stone-Manning has built a solid reputation over the past three decades as a dedicated public servant.”

Stone-Manning’s former boss, Tester, described her as someone who “understands that the way you get things done is be collaborative, bring people together, talk issues out.”

But it was her time as a graduate student at the University of Montana that has attracted the most attention during the nomination process.

Republicans seized on her involvement in a 1989 tree-spiking incident intended to block logging of a patch of the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho. At the time, Stone-Manning retyped and mailed an anonymous letter on behalf of an acquaintance warning the U.S. Forest Service that metal spikes had been hammered into the trees, a tactic dangerous to loggers if struck by chain saws.

Stone-Manning’s testimony during the subsequent trial helped send two people to prison, and she was granted immunity. She testified she sent the letter to warn authorities so people wouldn’t get hurt.

Republicans called her a radical who collaborated with eco-terrorists.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees about one-tenth of the nation’s land, predominantly in the West, and is central to President Biden’s climate goal of curbing fossil fuel extraction on public lands and transitioning to renewable energy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/30/tracy-stone-manning-confirmed/

Liz and Lee Heidhues – 9.30.2021

The de Young Museum, overreaching its sense of entitlement and connections, has hired lobbyists to convince San Francisco politicians and bureaucrats to erase the will of The People and bring back cars to JFK Drive.

Conceding  public sentiment is moving away from decades of entitlement, the Swells and their enablers will take any action to achieve their goal.

Money is not a problem with the ruling class. The patricians will spend whatever it takes to crush all who oppose them.

The priviliged class has pliant elected Supervisors who do their bidding.  Even those politicians who ran on a platform of supporting the environment.  

Supervisor Connie Chan, who represents an area adjacent to Golden Gate Park, has put her chips on the table with the wealthy, entitled and most “reactionary elements” of San Francisco. 

Following the message from Parker Day is our blog post from last May 15. An open letter to Thomas Campbell, CEO de Young Museum.

Message to Thomas Campbell, Director and CEO – Fine Arts Museums SF

San Francisco Chronicle 5.12.2021

“Thomas Campbell, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, said JFK Drive should be reopened to cars ‘as soon as possible’ while the city studies the issue, saying its closure has limited visitors’ and staff’s access to the de Young Museum and hampered its logistical operations.

‘Advocates for closure of JFK have taken advantage of COVID and the temporary Safe Streets closure of JFK to push their agenda for permanent closure in part by creating a false sense of crisis that is based on distorted statistics and unsubstantiated emotional rhetoric,’ Campbell said.”

Attn:  Thomas Campbell – Director and CEO FAMSF

Mr. Campbell,

My wife has been a long time member of the FAMSF. She teaches English to international students.  She introduces a private student to the DeYoung collections when she brings them on public transit to the DeYoung as her guest.  Her student often returns to do a more thorough visit to the DeYoung paying the steep admission price of a non San Francisco resident.

I carefully read your comments re Car Free JFK Drive and am all the more shocked after reading the attached article published in Hyperallergic, particularly the following,

As New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art Director, “Campbell faced accusations of poor money management. Toward the end of his tenure, the Met faced a steep $40 million deficit that caused retirement buyouts, hiring freezes, and a postponement of the heralded $600 million expansion of its modern and contemporary wing. News of the deficit came on the heels of the Met’s high attendance numbers and its decision to sign an expensive eight-year lease on the Breuer building. (Now, years later, the Frick Collection is said to be taking over the last three years of the lease in 2020, and the Met has begun charging a mandatory ticket fee to non-New Yorker visitors in order to manage its deficit threat.)”

https://hyperallergic.com/468793/thomas-campbell-new-director-of-san-francisco-museums/

Are you serious?  How can you, having a dubious history of museum management, speak seriously about a car free JFK Drive and the DeYoung having its logistical operations “hampered?”

It is not a problem.  You know it, too. Your entire statement is misleading. The loading docks just off JFK have been used continuously during the Pandemic. I cycle by them frequently and see large trucks and vehicles parked in the loading docks and on JFK Drive.  “Visitors and staff’s access” has not been “hampered.”

I agree that the people about whom you speak admittedly have to walk a short distance. It truly isn’t that great a hindrance.

Most importantly you fail to mention the 800 car garage which sits directly underneath the Concourse.  It was before your time in San Francisco that this garage was built at the behest of Dede Wilsey; expressly to accommodate the concerns of those who feel they need easy access to the Museum.

As a newcomer to San Francisco you need to support San Francisco’s Transit First program and an environmentally friendly JFK Drive.  Do not use your specious, untrue and ridiculous comments unbefitting a person who is  leading the Fine Arts Muesums into the 21st century.

Thoughtfully,

Liz and Lee Heidhues

Native San Franciscans

Photos on JFK Drive – Liz and Lee Heidhues

Los Angeles has decided to phase out and ban gas and oil production.

Home of the stars and one of America’s largest urban oil fields, Los Angeles has come down on the side of the environmetalists in the time of climate change.

The energy companies are predictably not happy that their polluting and profit generating spigot is being turned off.  Good riddance.  Los Angeles will be the better for it.

Excerpted from The Gleaner – Jamaica 9.29.2021

Supervisors of California’s Los Angeles County voted unanimously recently to phase out oil and gas drilling and ban new drill sites in the unincorporated areas of the nation’s most populous county.

Over 1,600 active and idle oil and gas wells in the county could be shuttered after the 5-0 vote by the board of supervisors. A timetable for the phaseout will be decided after the county determines the fastest way to legally shut down the wells.

Among the sites is the Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest US urban oil fields. The sprawling, 1,000-acre (405-hectare) site, owned and operated by Sentinel Peak Resources, contains over half the oil and gas wells in the county’s unincorporated areas. The field produced 2.5 million to 3.1 million barrels of oil a year over the past decade, according to the company.

“The goal is to provide direction to county departments to begin addressing the variety of issues, environmental and climate impacts created by these active and inactive oil and gas wells,” said Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, who represents the district where most of the Inglewood Oil Field is located.

Mitchell, along with Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, made the motion to phase out drilling in the county’s unincorporated areas.

The California Independent Petroleum Association, representing nearly 400 oil and gas industry entities, opposed the measure. In a letter to the board, CEO Rock Zierman said a phaseout of oil and gas production would threaten hundreds of jobs, raise gas prices and make California more dependent on oil from foreign countries.

https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20210929/oil-gas-drilling-being-phased-out-la-county

It’s been a long road to fruition for the Green Party in Germany which started off as a fringe political organization in the early 1980’s.

Now, after coming in third in the national election and winning a robust 118 seats in the German Bundestag, the Greens are on the verge of becoming a governing partner.

The presence of the Greens in Berlin will have ramifications within the European Union and beyond as they will be able to promote their environmental and climate change agenda.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.28.2021

The environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) emerged from the federal elections as kingmakers in a possible three-way coalition with either the Social Democrats (SPD) or the CDU/CSU conservative bloc. Both the major parties intend to court the support of the two smaller groups.

The Greens and the Free Democrats have held a first meeting on the long road to forming a new German coalition government. Both the SPD and the CDU/CSU hope to secure the support of the two kingmakers.

The leaders of Germany’s Green Party and the Free Democrats (FDP) met Tuesday for two-way negotiations seeking common ground before future coalition talks.

After the meeting, FDP leader Christian Lindner posted a photo on Instagram of himself and General Secretary Volker Wissing, alongside the Greens’ co-leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck.

The caption read: “In the search for a new government, we are seeking out common ground and bridges over our divisions. And we are even finding some of those things. Exciting times.”

More details on what had been discussed were not provided.

Greens celebrate in 2021

The Greens and FDP have diverging political agendas on addressing issues such as climate change and economic policy, but do come together in areas such as progressive social policy.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-greens-and-fdp-meet-for-preliminary-two-way-talks/a-59346191

Top photo – Greens take to the streets in early days.

Lee Heidhues 9.28.2021

The written record shows there is no doubt Supervisor Connie Chan is personally responsible for killing the San Francisco Pacific Coast oasis Great Walkway.

Connie Chan artfully badgered City Hall officials to walk back the proposed two year study of the Great Walkway. The message is couched in the most anodyne bureaucratic language. Its message was clear.

Connie Chan’s goal was to ensure the Great Walkway received a City Hall burial. She was successful.

On August 16, 2021 Connie Chan was the lead recipient of a Memo from Jodie Medeiros, executive director, Walk San Francisco.

Ms. Medeiros wrote, “an incredibly popular 17-acre oceanside park and promenade was taken away from our City.”

Further, Ms. Medeiros wrote, “We are counting on the Board of Supervisors to right this wrong when the vote on the future of the Upper Great Highway is before you this fall. Whether you support a two-year pilot of a 24-7 Great Walkway will shape our city’s future and define your legacy as a city leader.”

Just over an hour later at 10:41PM Connie Chan wrote Jeffrey Tumlin, head of the SFMTA and Phil Ginsburg, head of the Rec and Park Department.

Her message was clear. “Is Jodie confirming that the pilot project that you will propose for SFMTA Board of Directors and Rec Park Commission approval is a Two-Year pilot to close Great Highway 24/7?”

The next day Connie Chan was the main recipient of an email from Sarah Jones, SFMTA Planning Director. It read in part, “Thank you for reaching out about next steps on the Great Highway. With the Mayor’s announcement about the Great Highway in early August RPD and SFMTA are revising our next steps and approach to a recommendation for use of the Great Highway post-pandemic.”

The four page email chain follows.

Your vote on the Great Walkway this fall

Artwork – Liz Heidhues

My Response to San Francisco Supervisor Chan to her article in the Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon 

Lee Heidhues 9.27.2021

“Supervisor Connie Chan has done more than any elected politician in San Francisco to destroy The Great Walkway and a car free JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park.

Her backroom action during the Supervisor’s August recess to totally torch the process in place to study the Great Walkway along the Pacific Ocean was a blatant abuse of power.

Her plans and words about a car free JFK Drive are the worst kind of sophistry. Actions and language that would make George Orwell happy.

Like a spoiled child, The Supervisor has already rejected proposals for JFK Drive put forth by the SFMTA. Connie’s actions which has the entitled motorists jumping for joy on their gas tanks are a total betrayal of the “progressives” who helped Connie eke out a 125 vote victory in 2020.

Her campaign slogan “In solidarity” is a cruel joke. “In solidarity” with whom her duped supporters should be asking.

https://sfrichmondreview.com/2021/09/27/city-hall-connie-chan-10/

Liz Heidhues – Chameleon cartoon and Environmental Shame art

Germany is electing new Chancellor after Angela Merkel steps down after 16 year in power. It appears the Center left parties, including the Greens, will come to power in Berlin.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.26.2021

Angela Merkel’s conservatives have suffered their worst post-war result. The center-left SPD now lead, projected results show. Both have said they are ready to form the next coalition. DW has the latest.

German party leaders are holding a round-table debate, following the close of the elections.

Greens may come with a high price

The large number of votes that went to the Green Party clearly shows that German voters are worried about climate change. Off the back of this result, the Greens will go into the coalition talks to form the next government with plenty of self-confidence. They will be the much-courted star and so can make a greater push for their demands.

However, Germany is perhaps less ready for change than the Greens, along with their chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock, had hoped. Especially — as the results also show — when that change costs money.

“I’ve always said that there is a lot of overlap with my neighbor,” center-left Social Democrat leader Olaf Scholz said, gesturing to Greens chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock.

“Just the two of us won’t be enough. I think it will have to be three parties. But let’s wait until all the votes are counted,” Scholz added.

Armin Laschet, the leader of center-right Christian Democrats called their drop in votes “not good,” laying partial blame on the losing the advantage of incumbency.

Laschet also claimed a mandate for his party, saying: “The voters have given us the job to do. We’ll have to find commonalities probably between three political parties.”

“It’s not getting together a government using mathematics. We want a government that we end with a coalition that we enjoy. What we need is an alliance that unifies Germany,” he said.

Markus Söder, leader of the Christian Democrats’ Bavarian sister CSU party, praised Laschet. He said he thought the CSU leader was treated unfairly, referring to the incident where Laschet was caught laughing amid a somber speech by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Annalena Baerbock said “we are a team in all the exploratory talks. We want to lead the country but we still have a clear mandate for the Green Party to implement what we want to do in the next government.”

She dismissed suggestions that the result from the Greens that showed a drop compared to polls in the summer meant that co-leader Robert Habeck would now take up the reins as leader.

https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-2021-live-updates/a-59312264