What better way than to write about some good old rock and roll. Taking a walk this evening I stopped at a Little Lit Library near my house and found the book ‘Parachute Women’ by Elizabeth Winder. The 2023 tell all about the Rolling Stones wives and companions is a play on their song from the 1968 Beggars Banquet album.
The well received book goes into documentary style tabloid detail about the Stones well chronicled personal lives.
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is the fifth release of the Rolling Stones music by former manager Allen Klein‘s ABKCO Records (who gained control of the band’s Decca/London material in 1970) after the band’s departure from Decca and Klein. Released in 1996, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is a live album that captures the taping of their ill-fated 1968 TV special, which was not broadcast until almost three decades later.
“Mean,” “so-called bishop,” “radical left hardline Trump hater.” Such vehemence is not unusual in President Donald Trump’s rhetoric, but he usually reserves his attacks for the political world. However, his attacks were for Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., whom the new U.S. president harshly criticized January 22, the day after the National Prayer Service held as part of his inauguration.
Bishop Mariann Budd – Episcopal Bishop Washington, DC
Trump’s outrage
Mariann Budde, 65, drew the president’s anger after a sermon in which she encouraged Donald Trump, “in the name of our God,” to show “mercy” toward “the millions of people who are afraid.” “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” she pleaded before the president and his wife Melania, seated in the front row alongside Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife.
And just as Trump had declared a state of emergency along the Mexican border, Budde also urged the president to be compassionate toward immigrants, of whom, she said, “the vast majority (…) are not criminals.”
Bishop Budde speaks at White House protest for Peace in Gaza – December 2023
Visibly annoyed by these remarks, Trump harshly criticized her on his Truth Social platform. “The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard-line Trump hater (…),” he wrote, accusing the bishop of dragging “her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone and not compelling or smart… She and her church owe the public an apology!”
Mariann Edgar Budde, born in 1959 and ordained a priest before being elected bishop of Washington in 2011, is the ninth bishop of the Episcopal diocese of the U.S. capital and the first woman to hold the position in this church, a member of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Church belongs to the “historical” Protestant tradition, in contrast to evangelical Protestantism.
Established after the American Revolution during the separation from the Church of England, the Episcopal Church stands out for its inclusivity. It was among the first to bless same-sex unions and strongly advocates for LGBT equality.
Previous statements
This is not the first time the Episcopal bishop of Washington has addressed Trump, directly or indirectly. In 2020, after Black Lives Matter protesters were forcefully dispersed by police on the steps of St. John’s Episcopal Church—known as the “Church of the Presidents” in the federal capital—the billionaire posed hours later in front of the building, Bible in hand, drawing the ire of most American religious leaders. Budde said she was “outraged” and “horrified” by this publicity stunt.
Felon US President Donald Trump holds up a Bible outside of St John’s Episcopal church across Lafayette Park in Washington, DC on June 1, 2020. – Felon Trump was due to make a televised address to the nation on Monday after days of anti-racism protests against police brutality that have erupted into violence. (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
As a regular feature of http://www.leesperspective.com I will hi-light Felon President Trump’s dismantling of the American system as we have come to know it.
The Civil Rights Division is the first bite of the Department of Justice apple.
“I’ll cut the apple in two. I’ll pray it isn’t True.” Apple of Sodom, Marilyn Manson
What it feels like in Nazi Trump America – ‘Apple of Sodom’ Marilyn Manson
CORONATION OF THE AMERICAN NAZI REGIME – JANUARY 20, 2025
TRUMP CONVICTED – 5.31.2024
Excerpted from The Washington Post 1.22.2025
“It’s beyond unusual — it’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen this before at this scale with any transfer of power, regardless of the ideology of any incoming president or administration,” said Damon Hewitt,president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “This should make Americans both angry and deeply worried. This is more than just a changing course of philosophy — this is exactly what most people [in the civil rights community] feared: a Justice Department that was created to protect civil rights literally abdicating its duty and responsibility to protect Americans from all forms of discrimination.”
Felon President Trump dismantles the Justice Department.
The Justice Department has ordered the civil rights division to halt much of its investigative activity dating from the Biden administration and not pursue new indictments, cases or settlements, according to a memo sent to the temporary head of the division that was obtained by The Washington Post.
Trump said on the campaign trail that police at times must be “extraordinarily rough” to stamp out urban mayhem and endorsed more aggressive tactics from police, including the use of stop-and-frisk to search suspects.
The letter instructs Kathleen Wolfe — designated by the Trump administration as supervisor of the division — to ensure that civil rights attorneys do not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.”
Capitalism devours it own. Never mind that ThePeople need to eat.
Empty and abandoned. Where will the Safeway Western Addition shoppers go now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlbertsonsWith 2,253 stores as of the third quarter of fiscal year 2020 and 270,000 employees as of fiscal year 2019, the company is the second-largest supermarket chain in North America after Kroger. Albertsons ranked 53rd in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Prior to its January 2015 merger with Safeway Inc. for $9.2 billion, it had 1,075 supermarkets located in 29 U.S. states under 12 different regional banners
Whether it be Safeway corporate greed, an epidemic of non-stop shop lifting or the failure of San Francisco leadership to guarantee a place for citizens to shop the reality is a 40 year neighborhood dining room table necessity is gone.
I took a walk by the site in the Western Addition today and it is a depressing view, indeed.
A large Safeway which would be packed with shoppers at midday now stands forlornly empty.
Empty deli shelves in the shuttered Western Addition Safeway
Safeway planned to shutter the store a year ago. Then Mayor London Breed, born and raised nearby in the Western Addition facing a tough reelection campaign prevailed upon Safeway to keep the store open another year. It was a short lived victory for all concerned. Mayor Breed was defeated last November. The supermarket is now shuttered.
The biggest losers are the customers, many of whom no longer have a readily accessible supermarket to buy their groceries.
Then Mayor London Breed in happier days at the Western Addition SafewayThe sign may read ‘STORE CLOSING – FEBRUARY 7TH (2025). It’s already gone.
ABC 7 SAN FRANCISCO REPORT WHEN SAFEWAY CLOSURE ANNOUNCED – 1.8.2024
SAN FRANCISCO – CORONATION OF THE AMERICAN NAZI REGIME
The felon Trump completes his Coup d’etat
Lee Heidhues 1.20.2025
“The Flag is Bleeding” Faith Ringgold (1967).There’s nothing else to say on this horrific day.
A San Francisco Chronicle article from December 2016 presciently predicted the future. J.D Vance “The Hillbilly Elegy” and Philip Roth “The Plot Against America.”
86 years later it’s really happening in America and not just for one night.
Elon Musk. Trump’s literal right hand man gives his Nazi salute.
January 30, 1933 in Germany – January 20, 2025 in America
SAN FRANCISCO – BALBOA STREET LUNAR NEW YEAR FESTIVAL
Lee Heidhues 1.18.2025
On a cool, crisp January afternoon in the Outer Richmond District of San Francisco a huge crowd turned out for the Lunar New Year Good Luck Parade.The Year of the Snake is fast approaching and this hip multicultural neighborhood wants to be in on the action.
There was plenty of action for a dedicated blogger to document.
Nearby the corner of 37th and Balboa where the speakers platform was erected for local dignitaries to address the throng
There were vendors, music and the to be expected contingent of local politicians.
San Francisco’s new Mayor Daniel Lurie, District One Supervisor Connie Chan, Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman and Chief of Police Bill Scottjoined the festivities for a little hand shaking and politics.
A group of women beautifully dressed for the occasion.
A neighborhood resident greets Supervisor ChanA diverse crowd of all ages checked out the Lunar Fest.
The historic 99 year old Balboa Theater. A fixture in the outer Richmond District.
Chris Canning, Captain of the Richmond District Police Station chats with a young resident.
As night descended the Lion Dancers entertained.
The Lion Dancers on Balboa Street approach 37th Avenue.
The band with vocalists, keyboards and drums seriously got down for the crowd.A vocalist from the San Francisco Global Healthcare Lions Club rocked the fest goers.Michael Durand, publisher of the Richmond Review eyes the blogger
A car free space on Balboa Street between 35th and 39th Avenue
The evil anti-immigrant bullying Orwellian convicted felon Donald Trump presidency, act II, is soon to be a reality. The dispossessed and vulnerable are his targets.
Trump plans large immigration raid in Chicago on Tuesday – Reuters 1.17.2025
The People must refuse and fight the incipient Fascism of convicted felon Donald Trump and his thoroughly bought and cowed into subservience shameless MAGA Republican party.
Trump fascism will be in full force on Day One, January 20th in a day of total perversion of democracy. This racist thug will become President on Civil Rights icon Martin Luther King’s Federal holiday.
Now that Thug Trump is Triumphant he can unabashedly show his true colors with sycophant Steve Bannon, his Josef Goebbels, giving the salute
Can America’s version of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany, after which Adolf Hitler consolidated his power and began his 12 year reign of terror be on the near horizon?
Trump Officials Plan Immigration Raids in Chicago Next Week
The size of the planned operation is unclear, but it would be the opening step in the president-elect’s goal of overseeing the largest deportation program in history.
Even David Lynch couldn’t fathom and did not want to witness this fascist bully’s return to power.
While I only saw a couple of his films, ‘Lost Highway’ and ‘Mulholland Drive’ one song from ‘Lost Highway’ best encapsulates Lynch is wild, crazy, mind bending style.
‘You are the Perfect Drug’ written and performed by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails specifically for ‘Lost Highway’.
Lost Highway is a 1997 surrealistneo-noirfilm directed by David Lynch, and co-written by Lynch and Barry Gifford. It stars Bill Pullman, Patricia Arquette, Balthazar Getty, and Robert Blake in his final film role. The film follows a musician (Pullman) who begins receiving mysterious VHS tapes of him and his wife (Arquette) in their home. He is suddenly convicted of murder, after which he inexplicably disappears and is replaced by a young mechanic (Getty) leading a different life.
The mainstream media and the political world is blazing with scorn.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who happened to be in Ghana when the fiery conflagration broke out, is being politically burned at the stake for the deadly disaster engulfing Southern California.
A typical headline.
“Stone-faced LA Mayor Karen Bass refuses to answer questions about absence as wildfires rage across her city“-New York Post headline – 1.8.2025
Of course the mainstream media, corporate world and their bought politicians are picking on the softest target. Why?
The mainstream goes hard after LA Mayor Karen Bass
The real culprits are the corporations. They have ruled California for decades and are responsible for the area’s water supply and fire prevention infrastructure.
More properly stated, criminal lack of it.
Don’t expect the billionaire class to be pilloired in the media or raked over the coals in any legislative investigation.
The luckless Mayor will be driven from office and the ruling class will breathe easier. If that’s possible in the toxic air of Los Angeles.
Excerpted from The People’s World 1.14.2025
LOS ANGELES—Remember the movie Chinatown?
That 1974 epic starring Jack Nicholson told how politics and greed, mixed with more than a little violence, led to a fortunate few early in the last century seizing control of the Los Angeles water supply at the time when the city was starting the sudden and phenomenal growth that has made it the nation’s second largest.
“People are gonna be mad when they find out they’re paying for water they’re not gonna get,” an undercover source tells the Nicholson character in one of the movie’s key scenes.
Which pretty much sums up the situation Angelenos—and, indirectly, the rest of us—now face: Despite spending millions of taxpayer dollars over decades to construct one of the world’s most-extensive infrastructure projects to transfer water from naturally rainy Northern California to naturally parched Southern California, there’s not enough available water to fight the monster fires now ravaging L.A.
The lack of the water needed to provide fire hydrants that provide water rather than fail has nothing to do with Mayor Karen Bass, as the new York Times and much of the corporate media claims but has much to do with corporate greed instead.
And climate change only makes things worse, scientists report. It’s fueling the out-of-control winds that have made The City of Angels a flaming hell on earth.
The fires have left federal, state and local Fire Fighters dazed, frustrated, short-staffed and exhausted, at least 23 people dead so far and sent billions of dollars’ worth of homes and businesses literally up in smoke.
The only things missing now that were in the movie are its violence, the ultimate identity of some of the biggest beneficiaries–Corporate farmers and, Greenpeace says, fossil fuel firms—and the downwind impact as dangerous smoke from the monster fires drifts eastward over the continental U.S.
SAN FRANCISCO – BACK TO THE FUTURE EDITION- JANUARY 11, 1968
Lee Heidhues – 1.11.2025
Peace demonstrators fill Fulton Street in San Francisco April 15, 1967 during their five-mile march through the city. The march winds up at Kezar Stadium where a peace rally will be held. San Francisco City Hall is in the background. (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein) Blogger Lee was there.
Liz reminded me this morning that it was 57 years ago today that while I inexplicably was dining with Vietnam war apologist Secretary of State Dean Rusk people rioted outside the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
Going Back – That’s how I feel composing this edition of Lee’s Perspective
I was a student journalist at San Francisco State University and went to the protest expecting to be amongst the protesters. Things worked out in a completely different way as my journal entry for the day memorialized.
JANUARY 11, 1968 – Journal entry – Fairmont Hotel SAN FRANCISCO
Well, of all the things to happen this is the day that it all occurred. For this evening well documented in nine pages of notes is my encounter with Secretary of State Dean Rusk at the Fairmont Hotel. A crowd of 1200 ate a fancy dinner and heard the Secretary defend our foreign policies. Sitting approximately 50 feet away and with a good view. An excellent one. I had one of the best experiences, ever. It all came about as Sam and I went to see a protest against Rusk at the Fairmont. The folks shouted and waved placards and the police stood about later engaging in some harassment. I went into the lobby which I thought would be closed to spectators. I said hello to the Time Magazine SF bureau chief who seemed in a hurry at the end of the hall. I saw a person scurrying about with tickets to the function. I inquired where he was going and he said to the banquet and invited me to come along. The folks were certainly well dressed and security types couldn’t really believe it but there we were with tickets. One policeman wanted to know where we got the tickets but had to let us go on. Once inside it was a grand room and the people we sat with at the tables were really nice. And even when the hostesses badgered us the folks at our table defended us. It seems we were the celebrities of the evening and I felt like some little kid meeting baseball stars. As we left the police outside did a real double take. I had on my boots, green corduroys, white sweater, suede coat and neck scarf. And that makes it one of the classic things of the evening. My companion Scott Johnson was dressed in tennis shoes though he had a sports coat on. After I met Governor Brown who looked harmless. More details are given in the nine pages of notes (since lost)..which are a historic memento.
Kezar Stadium in San Francisco where the peace rally was held. Groups came from Los Angeles and the Northwest to join in the march and rally. April 15th, 1967 (AP Photo/Robert W. Klein)
Luckily for me I was able to find an accurate accounting of what transpired outside on the streets of San Francisco.
“DEAN RUSK COME S TO SAN FRANCISCO” – Bruce Hartford
New York Times article – January 11, 1968
Pete Seeger covered the Country Joe and the Fish Vietnam War protest song ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag’ in 1970. There were initially plans to release his version as a single. Some copies were sent out to DJs. But according to Seeger, distributors refused to handle it, and it was never officially released. It eventually found its way onto the Internet. It was also included as a bonus track on a reissue of his 1969 album Young vs. Old.
Top photo caption. Policeman uses his club to subdue a girl demonstrator at the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, Jan. 11, 1968. Demonstrators were protesting the Vietnam War while U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was inside the hotel giving a speech. (AP Photo)
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