I learned today that cops behavior is the same worldwide.
Whether in Berlin, where we are in the midst of our German excursion, or in San Francisco.
A woman police officer monitors St. Martin’s Day as the celebrants walk from one parish to another.
A Berlin native told us her 85 year old mother had her flat broken into during the weekend.
Apparently the intruders motivation was not robbery. They were just looking for a place to sleep in chilly rainy Berlin.
A woman officer in Berlin on duty enjoys a walk in the park along the Spree River.
When our acquaintance called the Berlin police on behalf of her mother, she was told the cops were not available. Turkish president Erdogan was in town. That was the priority.
A Berlin police car on the job.
The victim, 85, was told she could file a report on line.
Instead our acquaintance traveled to the neighborhood police station to file a report. She was given a report number on behalf of her mother.
A Berlin police boat travels the Spree River
At their convenience a couple of officers made a visit to the site of the break-in.
The cops decided it was not a major issue worth pursuing further.
Sounds like the police in our home town. San Francisco.
Except for several important differences.
In Berlin, the starting salary is approximately $50,000 yearly. In San Francisco the starting salary is $103,000 yearly plus benefits.
In Berlin 🇩🇪 prospective police officers undergo three years of training before being admitted to the department.
In San Francisco training is only 34 weeks before recruits become crime stoppers.👮♂️👮♀️
Freddy Lecks WaschsalonFreddy Lecks. Welcome to Berlin-Moabit
Hanging out in Berlin during the rainy season tests one’s stamina and ingenuity.
A big load at Freddy Lecks
Elbowing your way through the muddy cobble-stoned streets of Berlin, jostling with the crowds in this historic city of 4 million, soon becomes an endurance contest.
At the end of the day, your clothes will have had it and so will you. You’re ready for a hot shower but you have no more clean clothes to don.
Freddy Leck. For 25 years always on the job ready to serve his diverse clientele
This could be an existential crisis.
It’s time to hoist the laundry bag and hustle off through Turkish Moabit to Gotzkowsky Street and do your dirty wash at Freddy Lecks Waschsalon.
A customer takes a break while his wash cycle spins
Freddy Leck himself is right at the door, hyper as always, to greet the diverse clientele and sing the praises of his Miele washing machines.
A happy customer with her clean wash. Oh la la.Marco is the main man at Freddy Lecks. He has assisted us in doing the wash during our excursions to Berlin.
Miele, Freddy tells you, makes the best washing machines in the world.
A Freddy Lecks customer checks out the blogger
Want a bigger washing machine? Freddy tells you the size of washing machine he picked for you is just fine. Want to dry your clothes longer? Freddy tells you the time he picked for your dryer is just perfect.
All washed-out
Don’t get in a dispute with Freddy about his machines. He knows his business. Freddy will prevail.
Clothing piled high in Freddy Lecks Waschsalon
We have been doing the wash at Freddy’s since our first trip to Berlin in 2017.
The famous Freddy Lecks cuckoo clock.
The health-conscious Berliners expect people to be neat and clean.
Freddy Lecks Waschsalon in Moabit is the place that meets the expectation.
Freddy Lecks can be found at GotzkowskyStrasse 11 down the street past the yellow building.
Top photo: A vast array of soaps and softeners awaits the customer at Freddy Lecks
A big surprise on our latest journey to Berlin is the state of Public transportation.
The clock in the SBahn station
In the past two days we have slogged our way through a Thursday 20 hour work stoppage.
The Girl on the Train
Followed on Friday by a several hours service disruption when the Turkish president Erdogan arrived in the city.
On the way to the Bellevue SBahn station.
In Berlin there is the SBahn which is maintained by the federal government. This is the service against which the rail workers called for a work stoppage.
Public transit is an integral part of life for young people in Berlin.
In Berlin there is also the locally run UBahn along with an extensive network of trams and busses. The local public transport ran during the stoppage.
One of Berlin’s unhoused population takes a nap in the Zoologischer UBahn station
But a diminution of one service severely impacts a city of 4 million which relies heavily on its transportation network.
Station agent on Potsdam SBahn checks the seven day 🎟
When Erdogan came to town service on the SBahn was miserable. The wait times were terrible. Trains were completely packed.
Waiting to board a train in Berlin
We met a Swiss woman heading for the airport. Service was so bad she was fearful she would miss her flight ✈️ to Zurich.
When we boarded an SBahn train later in the evening it stopped midway to the next station for 10 minutes. On the train with us was a school teacher from New York. She laughed and told us it was like being home. At least the Germans give service updates she added.
A tram in the Moabit Berlin neighborhood.
At the next station we got off the train and took a bus to our destination. Along the way as we neared the central train station we passed by countless police vehicles providing security for President Erdogan.
All this, as riders of San Francisco Muni and BART let us realize public transportation is the same worldwide 🌐.
Liz and I have been in the Moabit Berlin neighborhood over a week.
Our first trip out of America 🇺🇸 to Berlin in over five years.
A preferred mode of transit is the bicycle.
We are just hanging out as if we are locals leading a regular life. Taking public transit. Shopping. Going to cafés and restaurants. Chatting up the merchants and citizens of Berlin.
A Police boat on the Spree River which winds its way through Berlin
Moabit is a heavily Turkish neighborhood and we have eaten several meals at the Turm Bistro.
Twice we have dined at a nearby Italian restaurant Osteria dell’ Arte where the staff offered us expensive drinks on the house.
Earlier Liz and I spent an afternoon at the ✡️ Jewish history museum. The current special exhibition is a deep look into the lives of Jewish people in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Formerly East Germany.
There is so much history in Berlin.
Germany. Land of bicycles 🚲 At the Jewish ✡️ Museum..Kristallnacht November 9, 1938..when the Nazis rampaged and destroyed Jewish businesses and houses of worship
Top photo: the Bellevue train station in Berlin..a train for Potsdam approaching
Liz Heidhues next to DA candidate Chesa Boudin campaigning in 2019
Sometimes I feel like despairing.
I still feel emotional pain and anger at the political lynching of Chesa Boudin on June 7, 2022, when the scheming ultra-wealthy Machiavellian toadstools, funding the recall campaign, when the POA, in retaliation for being held accountable for abuses of power, fomented lies about Chesa, when the pitchfork mob seeking a scapegoat raised public strife against Chesa, succeeded in taking Chesa away from me. I had campaigned for Chesa for DA and for the “No On H” anti-recall campaign.
Chesa on the campaign trail in San Francisco’s Castro district in 2019
I became friends with Chesa Boudin after I was falsely arrested and falsely imprisoned by two Citizen’s Arrests in my old age. The brutality I experienced at the hands of SFPD and the degradation and indignities I suffered in jail will live within me until my grave, due to my having endured these injustices towards the end of my life.
Chesa visits Mommy and Daddy in Jail
Chesa was the only person before whom I would break down and weep when he came to talk with me in a visitor’s room behind a thickly walled, soundproof partition. As the warden took me from my jail cell, she said to me “Your attorney is here to see you”. In astonishment, I asked myself “What attorney? I don’t have an attorney”.
I didn’t know what rights I had, since I had never experienced an arrest nor had ever been confined to a human cage, which is exactly what a jail cell is. Because I was desperate to find out whether my husband was ok, I decided to talk to this stranger with eyes that gripped mine with intensity. But as soon as I began speaking, Chesa stopped me, shook his head, and then pointed to the wall over on my side of the room where a phone receiver dangled without moorings.
A young and studious Chesa Boudin. “I would call him weekly for twenty minutes.” Chesa referring to his father David GIlbert with whom he had a weekly phone call
When the sheer horror that I was now imprisoned in a soundproof room where I could not be heard by another human being, that I was now wearing lurid, fluorescent orange prison attire from head to foot instead of my own clothing, that my freedom and my identity had been stripped from me for having done nothing wrong, tore into my brain, I broke down and wept in front of Chesa. Chesa’s eyes had been the first compassionate eyes I had seen during the nightmarish ordeal of my first False Citizen’s Arrest.
Chesa was the friend I turned to for inspiration when struggling with the cruel attacks on my character during our lawsuit against the people who carried out my two False Citizen’s Arrests. Their defense attorneys, wanting to win the case at any cost, waged a war against my husband and I, who are elderly and could never match their fat War Chest funded by 30-billion-dollar insurance companies. Chesa reminded me “You survived jail, you can survive this”. And so I continued our costly and draining fight for justice until we finally prevailed.
“I I could only replay that day I wouldn’t be there.” Kathy Boudin speaking of the October 22, 1981 Nyack, New York bank robbery which led to the death of two Nyack police officers and a security guard which resulted in her over 20 years incarceration. Kathy Boudin and Chesa’s dad, David Gilbert were unarmed and driving the getaway car. David Gilbert spent over 40 years in prison. His sentenced was commuted by Governor Andrew Cuomo in August 2021
‘Beyond Bars’ is Chesa’s story of the children of incarcerated parents yet it is also a story about the inhumane world waiting for those who are incarcerated and stripped of their dignity and basic human rights.
Chesa’s documentary shows the importance of family bonds and how families are broken and destroyed by the incarceration of parents. My own family did not escape the fallout from my two False Citizen’s Arrests. ‘Beyond Bars’ is a strong statement that justice must be defined, not by punishment, but by alternatives to incarceration.
Note: Liz Heidhues, 73, is a native of San Francisco. Mother. Grandparent. Educator. Athlete. Prior to April 12, 2018 Liz had never encountered law enforcement or the judicial system. On that day she was the subject of the first of two false citizen’s arrests. The second took place less than two years later. Both false citizens arrests were discharged by the Superior Court. Liz filed a lawsuit against the perpetrators and prevailed. But, the emotional and financial price to fight for her rights was devastating. Chesa Boudin was one person who felt Liz’ pain and was there for her in her moments of need.
Beyond Bars trailer
Lee Heidhues contributed to this blog post.
Top photo: Liz Heidhues at left wearing sunglasses with Chesa in front of the San Francisco Hall of Justice – April 30, 2019
Germany is well aware of the dangers of antisemitism. A country whose name will forever be stained by the Nazi reign and the resultant Holocaust from 1933-1945.
This is the reason the current Socialist government, which includes the Green Party in its ranks, has been so strident and sensitive in protecting the rights of its Jewish population.
It’s a real dilemma. Protecting the rights of its refugee population, which includes many people from the Middle East diaspora, while simultaneously cracking down on antisemitism.
The strong feelings bordering on virulent antisemitism are not limited to its refugee population. This abhorrent behavior is also exhibited by German citizens across the political spectrum.
NeoNazis on the march in Germany
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.3.2023
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has spoken out emphatically about antisemitism in Germany — and, in particular, an uptick in hate crimes since the Israel-Hamas war began.
“Jewish communities warn their members to avoid certain places for their own safety. And this is the reality here today, in Germany, almost 80 years after the Holocaust,” said Habeck.
In a video posted online, the Green Party politician also warned that there would be consequences for those who exhibit antisemitic hatred.
Habeck defended Israel’s security as an integral part of Germany’s existence as a nation and sharply criticized antisemitic tendencies among some Muslims, right-wing extremists and left-wing activists.
Local media reported that protest march in Essen Germany was separated by gender, with women marching together behind men
He said Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust meant it was essential that Jews should be able to live “freely and safely in Germany, that they never again have to be afraid to openly show their religion and their culture. But it is precisely this fear that is back.”
He spoke of “painful” conversations with Frankfurt’s Jewish community, in which he learned that children were now afraid to go to school and sports clubs or to display their religious affiliation by, for example, wearing the Star of David necklace.
Habeck, who in addition to being vice chancellor is also minister for economic affairs and climate action, said there should be severe consequences for antisemitic acts, particularly for supporters of the radical Islamist militant group Hamas in Germany.
Later on Thursday, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced a ban on activities by or supporting Hamas and another pro-Palestinian organization accused of antisemitism.
Habeck said the burning of Israeli flags during demonstrations and “praising Hamas terror” were criminal offenses.
Memorial in Germany for Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass) when Nazi mobs destroyed Jewish businesses throughout the country – November 9, 1938
“Any German citizen who does this will have to answer for such offenses in court. Those who are not German cititzens will also risk their residency status,” said Habeck. “Anyone who does not yet have a residence permit will have provided a reason to be deported.”
In my wildest Pacifist dreams I never imagined a Republican, from Alabama no less, would single handedly apply the brakes to the humongous American military machine. I can still be surprised.
Former football coach now Senator Tommy Tuberville has succeeded in pissing off the Pentagon, his fellow Republican senators and millions of women who want the right to control their bodies.
Military families heap scorn on Senator Tuberville
What’s his problem? He doesn’t believe the Pentagon should pay for women to travel to states where abortion is legal to terminate their pregnancy. The past nine months he has placed a “Hold” on Senate confirmation for approximately 350 nominees who require a Senate vote.
Just imagine the uproar if Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren were engaging in a similar stunt.
Excerpted from The New York Times 11.2.2023
In a clear sign that pressure is building, a handful of Republicans took to the Senate floor on Wednesday night to excoriate Senator Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) for his tactics, which have held up more than 350 senior military positions. They attempted to call up scores of pending promotions for military officers one by one, insisting he quit blocking them — which he refused repeatedly to do.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Tuberville shot down 61 separate requests to let nominees be confirmed.
Tommy Tuberville at confirmation hearing for Chairperson Joint Chiefs of Staff
“No matter whether you believe it or not, Senator Tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, in one such floor speech on Wednesday night. “If this gets to be normal, God help the military, because every one of us could find some reason to object to policy.”
The policy Mr. Tuberville is targeting, announced in February, allows service members to take leave and be reimbursed for transportation expenses if they must travel to obtain an abortion or certain fertility treatments because such procedures are not available where they are based.
It came in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year overturning Roe v. Wade, which prompted many states to move to ban or severely restrict abortion. Some doctors and legal experts fear the ruling could also eventually lead to new curbs on in vitro fertilization.
The spectacle on the floor marked the breakdown of months of behind-the-scenes negotiations in which Republicans publicly defending Mr. Tuberville’s actions and blaming Democrats and the Pentagon for failing to accommodate him have privately pleaded with the Alabama senator to relent.
“I will keep my hold in place until the Pentagon follows the law or the Democrats change the law,” he declared.
Tommy Tuberville on the gridiron as Auburn football coach
Despite their palpable frustration, none of the five Republicans challenging Mr. Tuberville on Wednesday night pledged to sign onto the Democrats’ proposal.
“I’m hoping we can find an alternative to that, but something needs to give here,” Mr. Graham said.
Still, Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indiana, said he had not ruled it out, and other Republicans refrained from doing so as well.
“I don’t like Mr. Tuberville’s technique of making his point, and I think it’s getting to a breaking point, quite frankly,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia. “So we’ll see if the resolution comes up.”
Bernie Sanders is in a tough spot. Yes. Bernie is Jewish. Bernie has also been one of the most fervent supporters, at least rhetorically, speaking up on behalf of the Palestinian people.
Now Bernie is stuck between the hard rocks of his Judaism and his support for the Palestinians.
His is the dilemma ripping apart for the Progressive movement in the United States.
Palestinian children fear Israeli death from the sky
Excerpted from Aljazeera 10.30.2030
Senator Bernie Sanders is now drawing ire from many of his supporters who feel let down by his current stance towards the Israel-Hamas war.
The senator’s current unwillingness to call for a ceasefire has left many of his Palestinian, Arab and Muslim supporters with a sense of disappointment if not betrayal.
As the Israeli military offensive in Gaza intensifies, killing thousands of children and levelling entire neighbourhoods, Sanders has not called for a ceasefire. Because of his reputation as an anti-war voice, critics say he is uniquely positioned to amplify demands for ending the hostilities in Gaza.
“At a time when Washington is lining up behind those, including the president, who are beating the drums of war, we need leaders with the courage and the legacy of anti-war activism to break that consensus and say all human life is precious by demanding a ceasefire,” said Eva Borgwardt, political director at IfNotNow, a progressive Jewish group.
“If anyone can do that in the Senate, it is Senator Sanders.”
The victims of Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinian people
Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American analyst who supported Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, said it is “hard to convey the depth of the disappointment” he feels over the senator’s failure to back a ceasefire.
“I know the political climate in the US at the moment is scary, anti-Palestinian and intolerant of dissent, but that’s precisely why Sanders’s voice would be so valuable,” Baddar told Al Jazeera. If Sanders speaks out, Baddar believes his actions will “create the political space” for others to do the same.
In a stunning moment during the 2016 United States presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders called out his then-rival Hillary Clinton for failing to mention Palestinian rights in a speech she delivered to a pro-Israel lobby group.
Standing on stage in a nationally televised 2016 primary debate, Sanders highlighted the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and criticized the unconditional support that the Israeli government — under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — receives from Washington.
“There comes a time when, if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time,” he said.
Israeli destruction of Palestinian land
It was a rare statement to come from a Washington politician. Few, even among left-leaning Democrats, have questioned whether the United States should reconsider its “unwavering” support for Israel.
But flash forward seven years, and Sanders is now drawing ire from many of his supporters who feel let down by his current stance towards the Israel-Hamas war.
Top photo: “Progressive” Bernie Sanders in front of the White House. Now joined at the hip with Israel’s war of destruction against the Palestinian people?
The unbridled passions unleashed by the Hamas terror attack inside Israel and the relentless response by Israel has turned the world upside down.
The ferocious anger being displayed by people in the Arab world has now reached Russia’s Dagestan region. A predominantly Muslim region.
Excerpted from Arab News 10.29.2023
MOSCOW: Hundreds of people stormed into the main airport in Russia’s Dagestan region and onto the landing field Sunday, chanting antisemitic slogans and seeking passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, Russian news agencies and social media reported.
The crowd looking for Israelis at Dagestan airport
Russian news reports said the crowd surrounded the airliner, which belonged to Russian carrier Red Wings. The website Flightradar indicated that a Red Wings flight out of Tel Aviv had landed at Makhachkala at 7:00 p.m. (1600 GMT).
Red Wings Airlines is owned by Ilyushin Finance, itself a subsidiary of the Russian government’s UAC United Aircraft Corporation holdings. It is one of the 10 largest airlines in Russia.
The independent Russian media outlet Sota said it was a transiting flight that had been due to take off again for Moscow two hours later.
People in the crowd walk shouting antisemitic slogans at an airfield of the airport in Makhachkala, Russia, Monday, Oct. 30, 2023. Russian news agencies and social media say hundreds of people have stormed into the main airport in the Dagestan region and onto the landing field to protest the arrival of an airliner coming from Tel Aviv, Israel. (AP Photo)
Authorities closed the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim region, and police converged on the facility. Dagestan’s Ministry of Health said more than 20 people were injured, with two in critical condition. It said the injured included police officers and civilians.
Russia’s civilian aviation agency, Rosaviatsia, later reported that the airfield had been cleared, but that the airport would remain closed to incoming aircraft until Nov. 6.
Video on social media showed some in the crowd waving Palestinian flags and others trying to overturn a police car. Antisemitic slogans can be heard being shouted and some in the crowd examined the passports of arriving passengers, apparently in an attempt to identify those who were Israeli.
Other videos showed a crowd inside an airport terminal trying to break down doors as staff members tried to deter them.
Dagestan and Chechnya are both mainly Muslim areas — known in Russia as “republics” — in a region that has witnessed years of violent tension with the central Russian authorities.
People in predominantly Russian Dagestan surround an airplane carrying Israelis enroute to Moscow
Earlier on Sunday, the RIA Novosti news agency reported that a Jewish center in another North Caucasus republic — Kabardino-Balkaria — had been set on fire in the city of Nalchik.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, expressing concern at the “appalling” videos posted on social media, said on X, formerly Twitter, that it was not an isolated incident. It was, he said, “part of Russia’s widespread culture of hatred toward other nations, which is propagated by state television, pundits and authorities.”
In a statement released Sunday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel “expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to protect the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews wherever they may be and to act resolutely against the rioters and against the wild incitement directed against Jews and Israelis.” Netanyahu’s office added that the Israeli ambassador to Russia was working with Russia to keep Israelis and Jews safe.
Dagestan is Russia’s southernmost territory and one of its poorest regions. It has taken an active part in the Ukraine offensive — with independent reports showing it has sent proportionally more men to Ukraine than many more ethnically Russian regions.
I have no faith in the trust worthiness of the American mainstream media as it reports the State of Israel point of view.
Fortunately, neither do tens of thousands of Americans who have taken to the streets to protest the murderous Israel assault on Palestine.
Aljazeera is certainly no dispassionate observer. At least I can read and view a different perspective analyzing the Israeli ongoing assault on Gaza, the West Bank and the people of Palestine in general.
The wellspring of sympathy Israel engendered after the horrific Hamas terrorist attack which killed 1400 mostly Israelis on October 7 has been squandered and lost in The Fog of War.
Israeli soldiers mourn following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack
A brutal assault on the People of Palestine which has cost nearly 10,000 lives, injuries too great to tabulate and the wanton destruction of property.
The condoning and encouragement of this Israeli assault on Palestine by the Biden administration is an abomination.
Excerpted from Aljazeera 10.28.2023
The Israeli military launched two limited-scope ground attacks on Wednesday and Thursday night, releasing videos to exploit them for propaganda. On both occasions, they pulled back to Israel before dawn.
The still-ongoing attack seems not to be the “‘Big One”. But as an obvious extension of the previous two incursions into Gaza, it may be a precursor to an all-out offensive.
The scene of devastation in Gaza by Israel. There are no innocent bystanders, including the dogs
Saturday’s reports from Gaza may be the last made over mobile networks and land-based internet. Israeli forces hit public telecom infrastructure and Gaza is now under an almost total communications blackout. The only means to get information out to the world are the few remaining satellite telephones, but those could be targeted at any time.
Israeli Air Force dedicated electronic warfare aircraft can pinpoint every device exchanging data with low-orbit communication satellites and direct deadly air-to-ground missiles against it.
Israelis have a long record of targeted killings using phones to identify and locate the target. One of the first victims of the technique was Hamas leader Yahya Ayyash in 1996.
However, the destruction of communication nodes and the use of electronic countermeasures to block any remaining public lines that survived will not harm Hamas fighters who, knowing Israeli tactics and capabilities, appear to have prepared for this course of action.
Palestinian sources claim that Hamas installed “Israel-proof” communications infrastructure in its extensive network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip. It allegedly laid tens of kilometres of cables with strong electromagnetic shielding to prevent the detection and interception of signals.
A bombed out bakery in Gaza
Installed in the most modern tunnels, set in much deeper, they are almost fully secure from prying Israelis. The cables emit a minimum amount of electromagnetic radiation, and the great depth practically prevents detection and signal interception. These new, secure, means of communications may explain how Hamas managed to keep its plans for the October 7 attack secret.
Lee's Perspective 