Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series
The Guardian – May 17, 2019
Kineo Kuwabara captured these rich images of everyday life the city during the buildup to the second world war. The series is on display 18-19 May at the Special Edition of The London Photograph Fair
Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series
Photos by Lee Heidhues
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.15.2019
The Bahlsen biscuit empire heiress sparked outrage after claiming forced workers were “well-treated” during World War II. Despite her apologies, the case has reignited debate over Germany’s remembrance culture.
According to Verena Bahlsen, forced laborers were treated “well,” since they were paid the same wages as their German counterparts. The heiress made clear she refused to assume responsibility for something she had not actively taken part in and that happened before her time.
This caused an uproar worldwide, and especially in Germany, where commemorative culture is a highly sensitive issue. General Secretary of the social democrats (SPD) Lars Klingbeil declared:
“Those who inherit such a large fortune also inherit the responsibility that goes with it and shouldn’t appear so detached. It is no wonder that people lose faith in justice, when millionaires talk about yachts and not about responsibility.”
It all started at a business conference earlier this week: Verena Bahlsen, the 25-year-old heiress to the eponymous cookie manufacturer, attended a marketing conference at which she boasted about her riches. All she wanted was “to make money and buy yachts with [her] dividends,” she told the audience.
Little did she know that her unabashed claims to millionaire’s privileges would make her Germany’s most controversial character this week. Her comments came as a slight for dozens of families awaiting compensation after their ancestors were forced to work for the Bahlsen corporation during World War II.
WWII forced labor widespread
Forced labor in Germany, and within the Bahlsen family’s factory in particular, didn’t come as a surprise: During the Nazi era, an estimated 13 million people were coerced to work for the Third Reich. Forced laborers included displaced civilians — men, women and children — from occupied Europe, prisoners of war and concentration camp prisoners.
Verena Bahlsen, heiress to the Bahlsen factory empire
In 2000, some 60 Eastern European individuals who had performed forced labor for the company filed a lawsuit against Bahlsen. Between 1941 and 1945, it is believed that up to 200 people, mostly Ukrainian women, were forced to work in Bahlsen’s Hannover factory.
Their compensation claims were rejected as the Court dismissed the case, but the cookie manufacturer partly redeemed itself on the public scene by joining a charity aimed at giving reparations to the victims of Nazi-era forced labor. Bahlsen paid more than 1.5 million Deutschmarks (about €767,000, $859,500) to the plaintiffs and the case seemed shelved until Monday, when the heiress sought to justify her stance by downplaying the company’s wartime activities.
https://www.dw.com/en/heiress-downplays-factorys-forced-labor-use-during-holocaust/a-48749795
The Examiner has done very solid reporting on this threat to all journalists. It is,no doubt about it, an assault on the free press. For this to happen in Progressive San Francisco makes it all the more disturbing.
Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 5.14.2019
As San Francisco police face backlash from across the nation for raiding the home and office of a freelance journalist, Mayor London Breed on Tuesday declined to condemn the action.
Referring to the search warrants police obtained against freelancer Bryan Carmody last week, the mayor said in a statement that the department “went through the appropriate legal process to request a search warrant, which was approved by two judges.”
“I believe that someone from within the department needs to be held accountable for the release of this information,” Breed said. “The police need to continue that internal investigation using legal and appropriate means.”
Questions remain about the reasons judges Victor Hwang and Gail Dekreon had for issuing the warrants. A court spokesperson has declined to comment, and neither judge has publicly explained their reasoning.
Police executed the search warrants Friday as part of an investigation into the leak of a police report on the death of the late Public Defender Jeff Adachi. The department is facing political pressure to find the source of the leak as the report included scandalous details about his death.
Breed made her comments despite an outcry from journalists and civil liberties attorneys who say the warrants may have violated federal and state laws that protect journalists from having warrants issued against them.
Her statement comes on the same day that an attorney for Carmody decided to move forward with legal action after the department missed a noon deadline for agreeing to return the items investigators seized from Carmody.
Tom Burke, an attorney for Carmody, said he would file a motion before each judge seeking to invalidate the warrants and have the seized items returned to Carmody without being reviewed by police. The items included reporting notebooks, video cameras and computers that Carmody used for newsgathering.
New York Times 5.13.2019
SAN FRANCISCO — When two San Francisco police officers knocked on Bryan Carmody’s door in April they politely requested that Mr. Carmody, a freelance videographer, reveal who had leaked a police report to him about the mysterious death of the city’s public defender.
“They were nice about it,” Mr. Carmody said. “Of course I said, ‘No, I’m not going to tell you guys.’”
But when a dozen officers returned to his home on Friday, this time their guns were drawn and they came equipped with a search warrant, a sledgehammer and a battering ram.
In an interview Monday, as concern spread among journalists and civil rights activists about his treatment, Mr. Carmody said his wrists were still sore from being handcuffed for six hours while the police raided his house and seized laptops, phones and hard drives — including all the images and documents he had archived from his 29-year career as a reporter and cameraman.
“I said, ‘Why didn’t you guys just knock?’” Mr. Carmody, 49, said. “My biggest concern is to get my equipment back.”
Mr. Carmody’s lawyer, Thomas Burke, said Monday that he would pursue legal action against the San Francisco Police Department, requesting that all the equipment be returned to his client.
“Part of the reason there has been such a reaction to this,” Mr. Burke said, “is that you don’t want it to become the norm that when law enforcement wants information they send 10 guys with a sledgehammer and guns to get it.”
The raid has raised alarm among free press advocates who question why two trial court judges allowed a search for communication about the leaked document, which was described in the search warrant as “stolen or embezzled” property. Free speech advocates have also questioned why two F.B.I. agents were present during the raid.
The Police Department did not return calls about the investigation. A spokeswoman in the F.B.I.’s San Francisco office confirmed the agents’ presence but declined to say how they were involved.
“The seizure and search of the guy’s home and office were totally inappropriate and out of bounds,” said Matt Drange, the co-chair of the freedom of information committee of the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. “Publishing a leaked document is not breaking the law.”
The case stems from the death in February of Jeff Adachi, the city’s public defender, who was beloved by San Francisco’s liberal elites but who had a contentious relationship with the Police Department.
Mr. Carmody obtained a police report soon after Mr. Adachi’s death that said the public defender collapsed in an apartment with a woman who was not his wife. Supporters of Mr. Adachi said they suspected that the Police Department had leaked the report to tarnish the reputation of its longtime adversary: Mr. Adachi had campaigned against police abuses, including a scandal involving racist text messages among officers. Confronted with the subsequent outrage, the police started an investigation into the leak.
An autopsy released a month after his death revealed that Mr. Adachi, 59, died from a mixture of cocaine, alcohol and a weakened heart. The female friend had called 911 after Mr. Adachi collapsed in a loaned apartment.
The public defender’s office initially offered strong support for the police raid on Mr. Carmody’s house. Manohar Raju, who took over from Mr. Adachi, issued a statement to a San Francisco Chronicle reporter that repeated criticism of the leak and praised the police for “working to get to the bottom of it.”
On Monday, Mr. Raju seemed to walk back some of his support.
“Nothing about my statements should be interpreted as condoning specific police actions or tactics,” Mr. Raju said in a new statement.
Mr. Adachi’s supporters say they have been dismayed by the release of the personal information surrounding his death, kindling a debate about the line between public and private details of a prominent person.
Outrage over the leaked report was channeled into a hearing last month by the San Francisco board of supervisors, at which senior police officials were asked to explain how it happened. One supervisor, Hillary Ronen, called it a politically motivated attack. Mr. Adachi’s widow, Mutsuko Adachi, who attended the hearing, described it as “despicable.”
Mr. Carmody said the police report was crucial to understanding an unexpected death of an important city official. Initially reporters had been told that Mr. Adachi had died while “on the road” for work.
The public defender’s office, without offering evidence, has suggested that the police report was sold to the news media. Mr. Carmody denied paying anyone for the report; so did The Chronicle, which obtained the report separately.
Mr. Carmody’s job as a freelancer is to gather information and footage and then sell the produced stories to his clients, mainly national and Bay Area television stations. In the case of Mr. Adachi’s death, he said, the story he sold included footage, interviews and the police report.
Police departments in California have wide discretion over when to release police reports but in the case of Mr. Adachi it was leaked anonymously.
Mr. Raju of the public defender’s office said he believed that police reports should remain confidential unless they expose government abuse or illegal conduct.
“Certainly they should not be released to satisfy curiosity, embarrass any parties or as revenge against those who have questioned conduct by particular police officers,” Mr. Raju said.
California offers strong protections for journalists who choose not to reveal confidential sources. A central question in Mr. Carmody’s case is whether the authorities violated those laws and whether the judges who signed the warrants were aware that Mr. Carmody was a journalist.
Mr. Carmody said he did not want to get involved in the politics of the issue, and a friend has started an online campaign to help finance the replacement of his equipment.
“My goal right now is to get my business up and running,” he said. “Believe me, no one is getting rich being a freelance videographer in San Francisco.”
Huh??? Who needs to read fiction? What’s that old saying, “Life imitates Art.”
The Guardian 5.13.2019
Military prosecutors in the case of a US navy Seal charged with killing an Islamic State prisoner in Iraq in 2017 installed tracking software in emails sent to defense lawyers and a reporter in an apparent attempt to discover who was leaking information to the media, according to lawyers who said they received the corrupted messages.
“I’ve seen some crazy stuff but for a case like this it’s complete insanity,” said attorney Timothy Parlatore. “I was absolutely stunned, especially given the fact that it’s so clear the government has been the one doing the leaking.”
Parlatore represents Edward Gallagher (pictured below), the special operations chief who has pleaded not guilty to a murder count in the death of an injured teenage militant he allegedly stabbed to death in Iraq in 2017. Gallagher’s platoon commander, Lt Jacob Portier, is fighting charges of conduct unbecoming an officer for allegedly conducting Gallagher’s re-enlistment ceremony next to the corpse.
“In this case, discovery of the requested items is important to ensuring the prosecution in this case did not take any part in arranging or permitting an intrusion into Lt Portier’s attorney-client relationship.”
The prosecutor, Christopher Czaplak, declined to comment. Navy spokesman Brian O’Rourke did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
The emails were sent last Wednesday to 13 lawyers and paralegals and to Carl Prine, a reporter for the Navy Times newspaper. Prine has reported extensively on the case and has broken several stories based on documents provided by sources.
While documents are subject to a court order not to be shared, none has been classified, Prine said.
The tracking software was discovered almost immediately by defense lawyers who noticed an unusual logo of an American flag with a bald eagle perched on the scales of justice beneath the signature of Czaplak. It was not an official government logo.
Parlatore said suspicious tracking software was embedded in the logo. He contacted Czaplak to make sure his email had not been hacked.
“I can’t imagine you’d be trying to track defense attorneys’ emails,” Parlatore said he told Czaplak. “I want to make sure your system hasn’t been compromised.”
The defense lawyers want to know if the software recorded where and when they opened an email message and who they may have forwarded it to – or if it installed malware on their computers and possibly gave prosecutors access to other files.
Gary Solis, who teaches law at Georgetown and as a US marine corps lawyer prosecuted 400 cases and was a judge on more than 300 others, said he had never heard of hidden cyber tracking software sent to defense lawyers by prosecutors.
“Not only is it ethically questionable, it may be legally questionable,” Solis said. “When it’s apparently so easily discoverable when done in an ineffectively haphazard manner it’s more than ethically questionable, it’s questionable on an intellectual level.”
Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series
Three Pictures
Above. A Spider traps a butterfly on the San Francisco Coastal Trail (Spider has the butterfly in its web).
Below: Bird on the Roof
Below: Jack in a restful pose.
San Francisco Examiner 5.11.2019
A day after police raided a freelance journalist’s home and office in San Francisco, freedom of information advocates Saturday denounced the action as a violation of his First Amendment rights.
Several elected officials who previously condemned the leak declined to comment Saturday on the searches, including Supervisor Sandra Fewer.
San Francisco Superior Court judges issued two warrants to search the home and office of freelance videographer Bryan Carmody as part of a police investigation into who leaked a confidential report about the Feb. 22 death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi.
Police confiscated more than 100 personal items, including his cell phone, computer, hard drives, cameras, tablets, six pay stubs from news organizations and a copy of the leaked police report, according to the search warrants obtained Saturday by the San Francisco Examiner.
The warrants show they were issued based on Penal Code 1524 for stolen property and probable cause a felony was committed. It was unclear who the suspect is and whether Carmody, who sold the information to at least three media organizations, is a suspect.
A Police Department spokesperson on Saturday declined to answer questions about Friday’s raid, including why the FBI participated in the raid. But the department said in a statement that the raid was “a step in the process.”
“We are committed to maintaining the public’s trust, investigating any allegations of misconduct and holding those responsible for such acts accountable,” the statement said.
First Amendment advocates on Saturday said that the seizures were a violation of Carmody’s journalistic protections, such as those afforded under California’s shield law to maintain the confidentiality of sources.
David Snyder, a journalist and First Amendment lawyer who heads the First Amendment Coalition, said that “anybody is protected under the First Amendment to publish a leaked document as long as they did not participate in the unlawful getting of the document.”
“A journalist can’t break into a file cabinet to get confidential records or hack into or participate in hacking into a computer,” said Snyder.
“I don’t know whether the [judges] were not made aware of whether [Carmody is] a journalist,” he added. “San Francisco did this wrong.”
The search warrant for Carmody’s office was issued by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Victor Hwang on May 10 at 12:19 pm. On May 9, at 12:21 pm, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Gail Dekreon had issued the search warrant for Carmody’s home.
Friends and supporters of Adachi, who dedicated his career to uncovering police misconduct, said the leak was political retribution and meant to smear his reputation. The report included salacious details about his death and pictures of the unkempt bed where paramedics found him in a Telegraph Hill apartment.
The Examiner reported the contents of the report at the time but did not pay for the information.
The Examiner previously reported that at a Board of Supervisors committee hearing held in April, Adachi’s widow spoke about the emotional toll that the disclosure has had on her family, calling it “despicable.”
“It is incredibly painful to have the Police Department do this to you,” Mutsuko Adachi said. “It was all over the news, we had no privacy.”
Asked whether Carmody sold information about Adachi’s death in an effort to tarnish his reputation, Carmody said he had “no beef with Jeff Adachi.”
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 5.11.2019
German Catholic women have launched a weeklong boycott by suspending voluntary work in churches. Their protest has crystallized fury over a male-only priesthood and bishops’ foot-dragging on sex scandals.
One of the initiators, Andrea Voss-Frick, said the Maria 2.0 movement – conceived early this year at a women’s parish bible meeting in Münster, a hub of German Catholicism – had received endorsement from Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna. The Virgin Mary is referred to as Maria in German.
The impulse came as the initiators realized that the Vatican’s pronouncement and church teachings of hope “didn’t come across at all” amid abuse and cover-ups, said Voss-Frick.
Unsurprised by such reactions was Münster’s Holy Cross parish priest Stefan Jürgens.
“That’s what I have experienced in the 25 years I’ve been in the ministry: the fiercest opponents of priesthood for women are among women!,” said Jürgens.
“They are just accustomed because of their upbringing that they are the ones serving; that they’re rather subordinate themselves. But the young women can’t stand it anymore,” he said.
A grassroots Catholic women’s movement – using the motto of the Virgin Mary that should be given her voice – launched a week of disobedient non-service on Saturday – with the backing of major lay organizations and even singular bishops.
The women planned to hold rites outside churches, without priests, and withhold services inside parishes until May 18 at at least 50 locations to back their call that the Vatican open the priesthood to women and drop celibacy.
Left undone will be attendances at mass and committees, parish housework and the liturgical readings – tasks left typically to regular churchgoing women. The central protest will be outdoors in the northwestern city of Münster on Sunday.
On Friday, two nationwide groups – the Catholic German Women’s League (KDFB) and the Catholic Women’s Community of Germany (KfD) – described the strike call as an “important signal” and urged bishops not to ignore it.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-catholic-women-begin-boycott-over-lack-of-reforms/a-48699567
CBS News 5.10.2019
Despite all odds being stacked against them, the Golden State Warriors eliminated the Houston Rockets in Game 6 with a 118-113 victory.
With the Warriors missing Kevin Durant due to a calf strain and Golden State playing on the road at the Toyota Center, the defending champions relied on a huge first-half performance from Klay Thompson (21 points in the first half), a clutch fourth quarter from Stephen Curry and a surprising performance from the team’s bench to eliminate their Western Conference rivals.
Curry led the way with 33 points while Thompson finished the night with 27 points.
Golden State will now await the winner of Game 7 between the Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals. Here are some major takeaways from Golden State’s victory:
This is no disrespect to Kevin Durant, who is, at this point, pretty indisputably the best player in the NBA in my opinion. But my goodness are the old Warriors are something to behold. They are not perfect. They turn the ball over. They make stupid plays and get in foul trouble. But have you ever seen a team that fights like this?
“Not going to swear tonight. They’re giants. They’re champions. These guys are a historically good basketball team,” Steve Kerr said of his Warriors. “You do not do what these guys have done without an incredible combination of talent and character.”
Curry has never struggled with his shot like this. For five games against Houston he was shooting 26 percent from three. He went 0 for 5 in the first half and was held scoreless. He looked awful. That is not an overstatement. Full-blown awful.
So what does he do?
He comes out and scores 33 second-half points including some monster shots in crunch time.
Forget the otherworldly shooting ability — this is what pure, unabashed confidence looks like. There might not be another player in the world who can shooting, and playing, that poorly to flat out dominating in the blink of an eye like he never missed a beat. Just remarkable, the willingness and self-belief to keep playing through those struggles at full speed, no hesitation, against relentless double teams and traps, with the stakes that high and a world of criticism awaiting him if he didn’t turn it around. Never doubt Steph Curry. Ever. Unless you want to look like a fool.
Lee's Perspective 