SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO – HIGHWAY 101 TO OYSTER POINT
Lee Heidhues 8.22.2025
It was another trip via the mode of transport which is generally foreign to me.
But, here is the blogger On the Road Again. Forced to utilize the American way of life to take care of my continued well being. Speeding down the streets and highways into the future.
SAN FRANCISCO – PACIFIC CAFE
Liz and Lee Heidhues – August 17th, 2025
Hard to believe. We’re celebrating a remarkable fete. 48 years married and a 78th birthday.
Actually the relationship goes back much further.
Raised three blocks from each other. Only meeting at San Francisco State during the tumultuous late ’60s. Surviving the ongoing unrest and making way through the four month student strike we bonded and have experienced life in all its joy and bitterness.
As the old saying goes “The People United Will Never be Defeated.”
We took a walk through the neighborhood we have lived nearly 50 years and enjoyed a good meal and companionship at the nearby Pacific Cafe. A local treasure since 1974.
Top photo: Liz in black and white pose at The Pacific Cafe. A throwback art style to the 1960’s
SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 8.16.2025
The Supreme Court effectively criminalized homelessness.
San Francisco, the City of St. Francis, was shamefully in the lead.
I have lived in San Francisco most of my life. I have never felt intimidated, afraid, concerned or fearful being around and amongst the unhoused.
The problem is not with our marginalized citizens. The problem is with the uptight, paranoid citizenry which has been unleashed to put their obsessions on full display. Shame!!!
A long time subscriber I posted this ‘Comment’ in the Wall Street Journal response section. I was deluged with responses attacking the unhoused in general and my thoughts in particular.
Below you will find these comments. I have deleted the names of the authors to spare them the personal embarrassment of having their intolerance publicly exposed.
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 8.16.2025
San Francisco Has Embraced a New Tool to Clear Homeless Camps
In San Francisco, homelessness became a defining issue in last year’s mayoral race, won by Daniel Lurie. The Levi Strauss heir, allied with the city’s tech sector, won on a platform emphasizing cleaning up streets to boost economic growth.
City officials point to cleaner streets as evidence that a more active approach is working. Some say the tactics are making conditions worse.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court granted cities more power to penalize people for sleeping outside, handing city leaders a new tool with which to clear homeless people from the streets.
Since then, San Francisco has been among the most aggressive in wielding it.
Between July 2024 and July 2025, the city arrested or cited more than 1,080 people on illegal-lodging charges, over 10 times the number of illegal-lodging arrests during the same period a year earlier. In April 2025, illegal-lodging citations and arrests hit 130, the most in a single month since the Supreme Court’s ruling.
In the 12 months following that ruling, around 220 new anticamping ordinances have passed across the country, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Nowhere has the ruling had a bigger impact than in California, which accounts for a third of those ordinances. The state is home to nearly half of the unsheltered homeless people in the country and includes about 70,000 shelter beds to accommodate more than 187,000 homeless people.
Top photo: The rich, famous and powerful of San Francisco who can blithely party on and ignore the plight of the unhoused in their midst.
SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 8.10.2025
The war criminal Netanyahu is out to totally obliterate not only the citizens of Gazas, of whom he is now responsible for the slaughter of over 61,000 children, women and men.
The criminal thug Netanyahu will stamp out any journalist who dares to speak up and tell the real story about the genocide Israel has committed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
This criminal murderer needs to immediately be arrested, shackled and dragged before the International Criminal Court of Justice in the Hague.
The Israelis are engaged in a crime against humanity which will long be remembered and never forgotten throughout history.
There will be a price to pay for the Jewish State.
Excerpted from Al Jazeera 8.10.2025
Al Jazeera staff killed in targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists near al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza City.
Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed alongside four colleagues in a targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists in Gaza City.
Seven people were killed in the attack on the tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital late on Sunday evening. They include Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa.
Shortly before being killed, al-Sharif, a well-known 28-year-old Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent who had reportedly extensively from northern Gaza, wrote on X that Israel had launched intense, concentrated bombardment – also known as “fire belts” – on the eastern and southern parts of Gaza City.
In his last video, the loud booms of Israel’s intensive missile bombing can be heard in the background as the dark sky is lit in a flash of orange light.
SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 8.9.2025
Where are cop friendly Mayor Daniel Lurie and the Board of Supervisors? I have never read a story about any elected officials talking about the overarching need to present a modern facility to the future generations of law enforcement in San Francisco.
Admittedly, I will be the last blogger to ever write that the cops are lacking in resources.
There’s an exception to every rule.
I was shocked to read the latest GrowSF newsletter with its searing critique of the San Francisco Police Department Training Academy. Located in a dilapidated not earthquake proofed elementary school from the 1960’s.
The past several years the media has been deluging the public about all the presumed unmet needs of the SFPD and why San Francisco has trouble recruiting new officers.
I had no idea until this morning that, perhaps, the biggest reason why there is a 500 officer shortage can be found by looking at the current training facility.
Why would today’s tech knowledgeable future cops want to spend their long training period in what only be charitably described as an outdated Dump?
In comparison, the New York City Police Department has a modern up to date state of the art facility. Looking very much like a university campus.
While San Francisco welcomes its recruits with a dilapidated, rundown shabby old elementary school.
https://growsf.org/research/2025-08-04-SFPD-Academy/
Top photo: Diamond Heights Elementary School, 1968, shortly before it became the SFPD Academy, Photo Credit: Modern Diamond Heights Project
SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 8.8.2025
I have to acknowledge you often don’t appreciate someone until they’ve left the stage. William Webster met that criterion.
William Webster was a government official I never paid much attention to because I considered him to be an honest and equitable public servant. He performed his job and stood up for democracy and the rule of law.
Traits in short supply in MAGA America. And which we may not see again for a long time, if ever.
SAN FRANCISCO – GOING DOWN HIGHWAY 101
Lee Heidhues 8.7.2025
This afternoon I was transported via Uber and Yellow Cab through the streets and freeways of San Francisco and the surrounding areas.
Happily sequestered close by the Pacific Ocean in a quiet neighborhood of northwest San Francisco I rarely must confront the mayhem which is the American car centric life.
My everyday normal mode of transport is via foot and riding the buses.
I could only sit back and appreciate that I do not have to immerse myself in the normal daily routine of speeding down streets and highways in 21st century America.
There was definitely a reason for suddenly being thrown into the everyday maelstrom. A problem needs a solution and the only way of addressing it is to reach my destination via the mode of transportation I avoid. The car.
So, there I was hurtling through space like a visitor from the off world colonies. It was definitely a pleasure to return home to my house in the fog.
Top photo: The blogger waits for his Uber. – photo – Liz Heidhues
SAN FRANCISCO – OUTER RICHMOND DISTRICT
Lee Heidhues 7.30.2025
Another gas station has shut down in my neighborhood. It’s all for the better, I say. The toxic eyesore has polluted our neighborhood for decades.
It gives me joy to know that it’s gone. Particularly when I see the three empty gas containers which have been embedded underground for who knows how long. Who knows what toxins have seeped into the soil.
Our first house was less than half block away from this disaster waiting to happen. I cringe when I think what would have happened had a disaster occurred and the fuel containers exploded. The conflagration would have come down the block and incinerated the homes.
During the fuel crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis of 1979 and 1980 cars were lined up down the street past our home every morning as the gas guzzling motorists fed their fuel driven appetite.
Decades ago there was an abundance of gas stations in the outer Richmond District of San Francisco. Now, fortunately, there are only three remaining west of Park Presidio Boulevard.
Perhaps, one day, the three remaining climate killing relics will be gone, too.
Top Photo: The empty fuel tanks which have polluted the neighborhood for decades.
SAN FRANCISCO
Liz and Lee Heidhues 7.24.2025
Several nights ago we walked down to the neighborhood cinema and watched one of the most chilling and impactful films of the 21st century. “A Most Wanted Man.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Most_Wanted_Man_(film)
The adaptation of John Le Carre’s 2008 novel brought into sharp focus the post 9/11 political internecine warfare between the American and German intelligence agencies.
It was very frustrating that only 21 viewers came to watch this important piece of political film making. It depressed us when we walked by the Balboa Cinema three days earlier when the line was backed up into the street to see the film “Godzilla.” That speaks volumes about the American mindset when it comes to the salient political issues of the day.
The story takes place in Hamburg, Germany. A city we have traveled to. Early in the film Philip Seymour Hoffman who portrays a German anti-terror specialist Gunther Bachmann aptly describes present day Hamburg. Sadly, it was Hoffman’s last film. He died at the age of 46 in February 2014 shortly after the film was completed. It is dedicated to his memory.
“Hamburg is one of the great ports of the world. For centuries it opened its arms to every foreigner who washed up on its shores. Now, since 9.11, the eyes of every dark skinned man – we see someone who wants to kill us. The problem is, some of them do. The question is whether Issa Karpov (a Russian/Chechen asylum seeker portrayed by Grigorly Dobrygin) is one of them.”
A story of treachery, betrayal and double dealing amongst the German and American surveillance States during the so called War on Terror which began in the aftermath of the 9.11 attacks on the the United States.
The most telling dialogue in the film takes place between Gunther Bachmann, a German anti-terror expert (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Martha Sullivan, a CIA operative stationed in Berlin (Robin Wright).
Gunther Bachmann. “And all that damage we leave behind. All those lies. All those empty rooms. What were they in vain for? You have asked yourself that question? Why do what we do?”
Martha Sullivan. “Mmm hmm. Sometimes. But I always come up with the same answer.”
Gunther Bachmann. “And what is it?”
Martha Sullivan. “To make the world a safer place. Isn’t that enough?”
Top photo: Philip Seymour Hoffman lets go with one of the all time screams in cinema.
SAN FRANCISCO via MIESAU, GERMANY
Lee Heidhues 7.22.2025
It was long ago when we were living in the quiet beautiful German countryside. Nearby were the German woods and the American military at the Miesau Army Depot.
The first Black Sabbath album came out in those days and with our old record player we listened to this classic LP frequently. It set the perfect mood for the dark and beautiful German countryside.
It has stayed with me forever.
Ozzy Osbourne undoubtedly went on to great commercial success at many levels.
It was the first album, listened to in the incongruous setting of the German countryside and the American military which has stayed with me for over 50 years.
Liz and I returned to Miesau in 2017. We weren’t listening to Black Sabbath but the memories were definitely on my mind.
Photos: Lee Heidhues – May 2017
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