Lee and Liz display a locally grown healthy brussel sprouts bunch. Courtesy of the SF Marin Food Bank
Liz and Lee Heidhues 6.27.2025
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – APRIL 20: Volunteers assemble some of 1600 food bags that SF-Marin Food Bank distributes at a pop-up pantry at Bayview Opera House in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, April 20, 2020. Work furloughs and layoffs created by coronavirus shelter-in-place orders are driving thousands to seek food assistance. (Scott Strazzante/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Message to San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan – Budget Committee Chairperson
Connie
We just learned today, June 27, 2025. the Mayor and BOS have cut funding for the SF Marin Food Bank.
The Health and Human Services AgencyHSA is now administrator of the program.
The weekly distribution days yearly have been cut by 13 percent (seven times)
This will have a serious nutritional impact on the voters in your district
As budget Chair you could have stopped this take away from people of an essential human need. Food.
Lee Heidhues
Notice distributed to Food Pantry Participants – 6.27.2025
Doing further research I learned, reading an article in the Marin Independent Journal, that the curtailment of SF Marin Food Bank activities was public knowledge in 2023. See attached article published in November 2023.
A sampling of the healthy vegetables from the SF Marin Food Bank
While the article talks only about food distribution in Marin, the area the IJ serves, it should have been obvious to San Francisco that it would not be immune from the cutbacks.
San Francisco officials should have taken action to ensure that there would be no cutbacks. Instead, the consumers who rely on this essential service were only provided with this disturbing news at literally the last minute.
Harvey Lim grabs the bell pepper supplied by the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank in the Richmond District on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023, in San Francisco.
It’s a muggy summer early evening at the Stade Charlety in Paris and the world of track and field was tuned in to the starting blocks in anticipation of Faith Kipyegon and her attempt to crash the four minute mile barrier for women.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_Kipyegon
Track and field isn’t sexy enough for most Americans. It’s the brute force of football which titillates the carnivorous American.
These hulky overweight muscle bound jocks and fans need to take a look at what athleticism is all about.
Faith Kipyegon ran a 4:06:42 mile. The world’s record for a woman runner
Excerpted from Runners World 6.26.2025
Faith Kipyegon didn’t owe us anything.
At Paris’ Stade Sébastien Charléty on Thursday evening, Kipyegon raced to a 4:06.42 mile effort as part of the “Breaking4” endeavor supported by her sponsor, Nike. Decked out in an aerodynamic kit with a tailor-made speed suit, 3D-printed sports bra, and custom Victory Elite FK spikes, Kipyegon kept on sub-4 pace for the first two laps before falling off the mark in the closing half-mile.
Faith Kipyegon crosses the finish line in Paris.
The 31-year-old Kenyan has spoiled running fans around the world time and again for over a decade. She’s set two world records, won three-straight Olympic 1,500-meter gold medals, and earned six World Championship medals. One could rightfully look at her career and say that she didn’t need to accomplish anything else to cement her legacy.
But who other than Kipyegon would be confident enough to take on the pressure? To carry the load of trying to eclipse the “impossible barrier” that people once thought no human could surpass? Of course she would be the one to dare to try. Kipyegon would become the first woman to chase after a sub-4-minute mile.
Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon (R) reacts at the end of her race after taking part in the “Breaking4” event, in an attempt to become the first woman to run a mile in under four minutes, at Stade Charlety on June 26, 2025 in Paris. Triple Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon of Kenya fell well short in her bid to become the first woman to run a sub-four minute mile on June 26. Aided by wavelength technology and 13 pacers, 11 male and two women, Kipyegon clocked 4min 06.42sec over 1.6km in perfect conditions. (Photo by EMMA DA SILVA / AFP) (Photo by EMMA DA SILVA/AFP via Getty Images)
Over 2,000 men have run a mile under 4 minutes in the years since Roger Bannister first achieved it in 1954. No woman has ever come closer than Kipyegon, who set the mile world record at 4:07.64 in Monaco two years ago and ran a 1,500-meter world record of 3:49.04 last year. And just by committing to the sub-4-minute attempt and seeing it through on Thursday, Kipyegon continued down a historic path that she’s been paving throughout her whole career–even though she came up well short of the goal time.
Watch Faith Kipyegon break her own World Record for the woman’s mile. 6.26.2025
The barons of the business world and the Felon Donald Trump are beside themselves angsting out over the prospect that a genuine, intelligent, charismatic newcomer could be the next Mayor of New York City.
In his first comments since Tuesday’s mayoral primary, President Trump called Zohran Mamdani “a 100% Communist Lunatic” while insulting his appearance, voice and intelligence. He added that Mamdani’s ascent was “a big moment in the History of our Country!”
The sense of the corporate freak out is already on full display in the mainstream media.
“It’s officially hot commie summer,” Dan Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, and a major Andrew Cuomo backer, wrote on X.
Red baiting the NYC Mayoral candidate
The Red Scare label is sure to be the framework for the next several months. The corporate world, the Republicans and mainstream media work overtime to obliterate the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohran_Mamdani
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 6.25.2025
On Wednesday morning, the world’s epicenter of capitalism woke up to find it might soon have a socialist mayor.
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic primary for mayor shocked Wall Street. Some of the world’s most influential and powerful financiers were left grasping to understand what Mamdani’s victory would mean for their industry—and whether they would leave the city.
Will Zohran Mamdani have the last laugh next November?
“It’s officially hot commie summer,” Dan Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, and a major Cuomo backer, wrote on X.
Mamdani’s campaign was, up until a few weeks ago, a long shot. On Polymarket, which successfully predicted the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, Cuomo had odds as high as 92.5% on May 27. Negative ads against Mamdani paid for by Wall Street-funded super political-action committees, as well as also-ran candidate Whitney Tilson—himself an investor—blanketed airwaves and filled residents’ mailboxes.
Mamdani’s platform includes increasing taxes on those making more than $1 million a year. He has said he would make the city more affordable by freezing rents on rent-stabilized apartments, investing $70 billion in publicly subsidized housing, providing free bus service and opening government-operated grocery stores.
Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani protesting the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
While the Felon President Trump is waging war in the Middle East back home he is busy destroying decades of environmental protections. Protections backed by presidents of both parties.
Callous Trump doesn’t care. As long as his golf courses remain pristine playgrounds for his wealthy corporate bankrollers.
Excerpted from The New York Times 6.23.2025
The Trump administration said on Monday that it would open up 58 million acres of back country in national forests to road construction and development, removing protections that had been in place for a quarter century.
The unspoiled land in question includes Tongass National Forest in Alaska, North America’s largest temperate rainforest; Reddish Knob in the Shenandoah Mountains, one of the highest points in Virginia; and millions of acres of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho.
“Most Americans value these pristine backcountry areas for their sense of wildness, for the clean water they provide, for the fishing and hunting and wildlife habitat,” said Chris Wood, the chief executive of Trout Unlimited, an environmental group.
When President Bill Clinton used executive authority to protect the forests weeks before leaving office in 2001, it was hailed by conservationists as the most significant step since President Theodore Roosevelt laid the foundation for the national forest system. It blocked logging, road building and mining and drilling on 58 million acres of the remaining undeveloped national forest lands.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced plans to repeal the 2001 “roadless rule” that had preserved the wild nature of nearly a third of the land in national forests in the United States. Ms. Rollins said the regulation was outdated.
“Once again, President Trump is removing absurd obstacles to common-sense management of our natural resources by rescinding the overly restrictive roadless rule,” Ms. Rollins said in a statement. She said the repeal “opens a new era of consistency and sustainability for our nation’s forests.”
Environmental groups said the plan could destroy some of America’s untouched landscapes and promised to challenge it in court.
Edvard Grieg memorialized the beautiful Norwegian landscape with his Peer Gynt suites. Trump wants to destroy America’s environmental legacy.
It’s about time.I can say with no small amount of braggadocio that we realized early on that a car is an expensive and wasteful encumbrance.
Even the Wall Street Journal, which gains a substantial part of its advertising income from the behemoth auto industry and its ancillary gatekeepers; i.e. the gas industry felt it time to write about the insidious cost of owning a car. And its impact on the average car owners budget.
It ain’t cheap.
There are a few of us who realized early on how wasteful and expensive is a climate destroying waste of resources. The automobile.
We have never owned a car and successfully fought off the blandishments of the auto industry advertising for nearly six decades.We purchased property. We raised a family, went to work, did our shopping and traveled.
Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 6.20.2025
You love them, you want them, you can’t live without them…and they’re costing you a fortune in repairs, insurance and shockingly expensive replacement parts. Dan Neil on why our national obsession with the automobile has turned dangerously codependent.
Most of the yelling is about money. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total cost to own and operate an automobile averaged a frightening $12,296 in 2024, roughly 30% higher than a decade ago. Driving the numbers are new-vehicle prices, now averaging $48,883, according to Cox Automotive’s latest data. With middle-income buyers priced out of new cars, demand for used cars has strengthened, now averaging around $25,500.
Go ahead, throw a dish. It’ll make you feel better.
Among the major stressors: car insurance. Lexis-Nexis Risk Solutions’ annual report found average insurance costs rose 10% in 2024, after soaring 15% in 2023. Full-coverage policies now average $2,680 annually, up 12% from June 2024, says Bankrate.
And whatever you do, don’t mention depreciation. In 2024, the AAA calculated the average new vehicle loses an eye-watering $4,680 in value every year, over the first five years. Edmunds reported that in the last quarter 2024, one in four consumers were underwater on a car loan—meaning that they owed more than the vehicle’s market value.
It’s surprising how many of the current discontents are the consequences of good intentions. Take, for example, collision repair.
The cost of fixing damaged cars has skyrocketed 28% since 2021, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The collision-repair industry blames the rising cost of replacement parts; a shortage of trained technicians; and the increasing complexity of new cars, with special scorn directed at Advanced Driver-Assist Systems, or ADAS.
The true San Franciscan will never forsake this town.
The temperature was a windy 59 degrees at noon on Montgomery and Sutter Street
On the Summer Solstice, a cold day in San Francisco, we ventured downtown to the place we have spent our time and money boosting the city’s economy and seeing the sites for decades.
Patrick & Co. a historic 150 year old business on Market Street.
Liz stretches out her purchase of hard to find large size rubber bands at Patrick & Co. on Market Street.
Fortunately, despite the economic tumult impacting this international city brought on by the pandemic there are still businesses which have survived and still prosper.
Maxferd J&L which calls itself the “Oldest Pawn Shop in the Country” at the corner of Kearny and Sutter Street.
On this day we shopped at several of them and poured some money into the economy.
The Sherman Clay & Co. building on Sutter Street.
The 150 Patrick & Sons Stationery store; Cinta Aveda Beauty School and historic Macy’s in Union Square
Liz holding her purchase from Aveda as a smoker eyes the blogger.
Sadly there are too many boarded up businesses which gives downtown a somewhat morose feeling. Which proves that the City’s full recovery from the pandemic will always be problematic.
People got accustomed to sitting at home and shopping on-line.
Liz disembarks the 38R Muni bus to begin her Summer Solstice shopping trip.
Market Street which has been car free since 2020 has become a pedestrian, cyclist and public transit thoroughfare making it a much friendlier place to shop and dine.
Brick and mortar shopping has been dealt a serious blow. Not just in San Francisco. But countrywide in America.
A 4th of July display at Patrick & Co., the 150 year old brick and mortar store, awaits the intrepid shopper
The Wilkes Bashford store. The place for the well connected politically and socially in San Francisco to shop for clothes.
Teuscher Chocolates of Switzerland on Sutter Street.
A local citizen takes a nap on the Union Square steps.
While downtown Liz chatted up the store clerks in Macy’s. One clerk in “The Cellar, where foods and housewares can be found, is May, a native daughter. We traded stories about the schools both of us and our kids attended in our youth. An integral part of San Francisco lore is to learn which high school you attended.
Everyone shops at Macy’s. Even an SFPD officer on his break.
Upstairs on the the 7th floor we found the same sales associate who helped us during a holiday shopping trip in December 2023. She is stationed right next to the Cheesecake Factory and, as decades long Macy’s shoppers, she made sure we got the best sale prices for our purchase.
The well stocked shopper on the way home after pouring several hundred dollars into the local economy. Proof that people of all ages still appreciate what San Francisco has to offer.
The final stop. Liz and Lee toted our haul into the lobby of the Union Square Building where Liz renewed acquaintances with the concierge Andre. A venue where Liz taught ESL as a Berlitz Language School instructor.
Before catching the Muni 38R bus home in front of the Westin St. Francis Hotel Liz chatted up the longtime Concierge “Andre” at the historic Union Square Building at the corner of Geary and Powell Streets. Liz taught ESL at the Berlitz Language School in this building and explained San Francisco’s vibrant street life just outside their classroom window which enthralled students from all over the world.
Liz and Union Square Building concierge Andre renewed acquaintances.
Who says downtown is a ghost town? There’s people everywhere. It’s vibrant. Customers line up at the Nintendo Store across the street from Union Squareand around the corner from the bus stop which brings us home.
The popcorn stash purchased for a bargain price at The Macy’s Cellar
Downtown is lively and vibrant. It’s nice to come back to our neighborhood just blocks from the Pacific Ocean.
SAN FRANCISCO CITY HALL – BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CHAMBERS
Lee Heidhues 6.16.2025
Everything is politics in San Francisco. Particularly when law enforcement is involved.
Today provided a vivid example of the political brawling involved in the selection of a panelist for the seven member Police Commission. Particularly when the Commission will be a major player in the selection of a new Chief of Police. Replacing eight year incumbent Bill Scott.
The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee heard a couple of hours of testimony.
People lined up to testify at the Rules Committee hearing.
The most graphic and political testimony was provided by Randy Shaw, Director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic a supporter of the eventual nominee Pratibha Tekkey; and Nancy Tung, Chairperson of the San Francisco Democratic Party, a supporter of Marjan Philhour.
Portions of the their respective testimony follow.
Randy Shaw – Director Tenderloin Housing Clinic – Pratihba Tekkey supporter spoke at the two hour: 35 minute: 50 second point in the televised hearing.
Randy Shaw – Director Tenderloin Housing Clinic – Pratihba Tekkey supporter in suit jacket waiting in line to speak. Sitting wearing glasses is Tracy McCray newly named SFPD “Commander” and currently President SF Police Officers Association.
“There has never been anyone from the Tenderloin on the Police Commission… Some people, including the head of the Democratic party Nancy Tung..if you don’t support Marjan you’re politicizing the process. But here we have the head of the Democratic Party in San Francisco doing more lobbying than anybody. That seems to be politicizing that which should be a non-political process. She also said that ‘everyday people’ support Marjan. I saw a lot of ‘everyday people here today. Everyday people who never come to City Hall to testify came out for Pratihba Tekkey.“
Nancy Tung – Career Prosecutor – Marjan Philhour supporterspoke at the two hour: 41 minute: 05 second point in the televised hearing.
Nancy Tung – Career Prosecutor – Marjan Philhour supporter
“I want to pull back the curtain a little bit. People want to think these actions of this committee are apolitical. The actions of this Board and these committees often times show they are not (apolitical). In 2020 I was nominated for Mayoral appointment not in competition with anyone else for this very commission and was voted down by a majority of the Board of Supervisors. Including (current) Board President Mandelman. Do I take offense to this? No. Because this is not a decision, a decision that happens in a vacuum. It is a political decision and I want people to understand that. Was it bonkers? Maybe to some. But more than anything else the vote was political.”
A link to the entire hearing is attached. Open the link and go to the RULES COMMITTEE 6.16.2025 meeting.
The Open the Great Highway losers will undoubtedly decry this latest act of wanton vandalism. But the pathetic unmistakable reality is there for all to see. They are loving every act of vandalism and destruction.
These motorists and their ilk refuse to accept the will of the 55 percent of San Francisco voters who used the ballot box to create Sunset Dunes Park. The unending public tantrum has given flaccid criminal loonies and wingnuts license to destroy The People’s public property.
These are the entitled motorists who by design or unwittingly are responsible for the bringing out the wingnuts. Their goal is to destroy Sunset Dunes Park and bring down those who are its sponsors.
Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 6.15.2025
A community piano beloved by visitors to San Francisco’s Sunset Dunes has been destroyed amid a spate of vandalism targeting community property at the recently opened park, advocates said.
This is the latest in a series of acts of vandalism targeting Sunset Dunes since the 2-mile, 50-acre park opened in April, months after San Franciscans created it by voting to close a section of the Great Highway to cars. The measure has been highly controversial, and the supervisor who championed it, Joel Engardio, will face a recall election in September driven by groups opposed to the Upper Great Highway’s closure.
An Outer Sunset resident who went to play the instrument, known colloquially as the “wave piano” due to its proximity to the ocean, found that almost none of the keys worked early Saturday, said Lucas Lux, president of the volunteer nonprofit Friends of Sunset Dunes. Lux was also the campaign manager for Proposition K, the measure voters approved in November 2024 that closed the Upper Great Highway to cars and opened the park.
A vandal destroyed the community piano at San Francisco’s Sunset Dunes park by ripping off most of the felted hammers that control the keys. Friends of Sunset Dunes
All the evidence points to someone “very intentionally” damaging the piano, ripping off the felted hammers controlling all but 10 of its keys, political communications consultant Catie Stewart told the Chronicle. Piano maintenance experts have since confirmed the instrument is damaged beyond repair.
The vandalism, Lux said, has largely occurred in two separate waves. The first occurred right after the Upper Great Highway closed on March 14, with murals and asphalt marred by graffiti, and the second began shortly after Engardio’s recall qualified in late May.
Sunset Dunes Park mural. Vandalized by entitled motorist punks and thugs
On Thursday, just two days before the wave piano was found destroyed, park visitors discovered heavy damage to the nearby “Ocean Calling” exhibit — a public art installation consisting of a phone booth that visitors can use to make symbolic phone calls to deceased loved ones. Someone had ripped the phone from its cord, tossed dirt and rocks into the booth and damaged its wooden frame, according to photos and videos taken shortly after the discovery.
Top photo: Opponents of Sunset Dunes Park revved their motorcycles and gunned their engines at Noriega and Lower Great Highway. Disrupting the opening of the Park. The City shut down the street to bring an end to this temper tantrum. April 12, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO – OCEAN BEACH AT THE PACIFIC COAST SHORELINE
Screenshot
Lee Heidhues 6.14.2025
The view from on high along Sutro Heights bluffsOn the march on ‘No King’ Flag Day
It was a breezy mild Saturday morning at Ocean Beach as a massive crowd in the usually quiet outer Richmond district gathered in the sand to voice their opposition to the Felon wannabe American oligarch Trump.
The People show The Flag
To the Ocean marched the protesters.On the way to the No King! rally.
The oceanside rally was just one of several in the Bay Area. It’s estimated approximately 50,000 people marched in downtown San Francisco. Starting in the Mission District, heading towards City Hall and continuing down Market Street.
The massive turnout on Market Street – photo SF Standard
Liz Heidhues proudly attired in Old Glory and her “Childless Cat Lady” T-shirt
Lee's Perspective 