The bicycle is now the motorists favorite political punching bag.
There was a time when the bicycle in America was a curiosity piece and the favorite delivery vehicle for another American icon, the morning newspaper.
Back in 1963 Frank Zappa, soon thereafter to become famous with his group The Mothers of Invention, appeared on The Steve Allen Show. His instruments of choice were a pair of bicycles.
FrankZappa earned enough money to allow him in 1963 to stage a concert of his orchestral music and to broadcast and record it.[11]: 74 In March of that same year Zappa appeared on Steve Allen‘s syndicated late night show playing a bicycle as a musical instrument[26][27]: 35–36 — using drum sticks and a bow borrowed from the band’s bass player he proceeded to pluck, bang, and bow the spokes of the bike, producing strange, comical sounds from his newfound instrument. – Excerpted from WIkipedia
A couple of years later Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention became musical icons. Their perhaps most famous album was the 1966 Freak Out! Which included the overtly political song “Trouble Everyday.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak_Out! Composed after the 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles.
It comes as a shock when I read the news that The Nutcracker may go a-glimmering this winter. Management and the unions are seemingly unable to reconcile their differences.
I am well familiar with The Nutcracker. It’s been an integral part of my family and cultural life.
Growing up in Pacific Heights, attending Town School.
The Town School annual Fall 2024 – About Town
Later living in Sausalito where I graduated from Tamalpais High in Mill Valley, my entire family was fully immersed in this holiday extravaganza. My mother worked at the San Francisco Ballet School. It seems every child with even a modest interest in dance was given a bit part in the cast. My sisters included.
Every holiday season The Nutcracker Suite by Peter Tchaikovsky blared forth in our home for weeks. It was a tradition that our family would go to the San Francisco Opera House on Christmas Eve morning to watch The Nutcracker Ballet.
Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 11.27.2024
San Francisco Ballet’s contract for dancers and stage managers expires on Dec. 6 — the same day the company’s highly anticipated “Nutcracker” production is set to open — raising questions about whether the beloved holiday tradition will go ahead as planned.
S.F. Ballet’s “Nutcracker”
After five months of tense negotiations, the American Guild of Musical Artists says it has made limited progress in securing a new collective bargaining agreement for its members that addresses important issues like wages, safety and working conditions.
In an open letter posted on Tuesday, Nov. 26, union members said they were repeatedly told that the company’s budget does not allow for the requested changes.
“Management’s refusal to meaningfully engage with us risks the very foundation of what makes San Francisco Ballet one of the most respected ballet companies in the world,” the letter read.
San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, left, talks with Yurie Pascarella and Dede Wilseyafter arriving at City Hall to attend the San Francisco Ballet 2024 Opening Night Gala on Jan. 24. Laura Morton/Special to the Chronicle
The union argues that current compensation classifies many dancers as low-income, as defined by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, in one of the country’s most expensive cities, and that the company’s refusal to meet their demands could threaten the future of the world-renowned institution.
The main points of contention include higher wages, guaranteed dancer positions to match the heavy workload, and protections for stage managers, who are often unpaid for overtime and work under strenuous conditions. The union also criticized the company’s use of unpaid student dancers from the San Francisco Ballet School to fill half the cast, though Ballet management says it has been long-standing practice to enlist students for minor corps roles.
Members of the San Francisco Ballet dance the role of snowflakes in Act I during a matinee performance of San Francisco Ballet’s “Nutcracker” at War Memorial Opera House on Dec.11, 2022. The company’s contract for dancers and stage managers expires on Dec. 6 — the same day the company’s “Nutcracker” production is set to open — raising questions about whether the holiday tradition will go on as planned.Laura Morton/Special to the Chronicle 2022
“We deserve a workplace that values professional standards — not one that relies on unpaid labor to cut costs,” the union said.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted by the international war crimes tribunal. What will Germany do if The Israeli Prime Minister sets foot in Germany?
The German government is one of 124 countries who are members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands.
Germany was perpetrator of the Holocaust which saw the extermination of six million, mostly Jews, during the Nazi reign of terror (1933-1945), Germany is in a tough position.
Since the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, which resulted in the deaths 1200 people, Netanyahu has led the ferocious reprisal against the people of Gaza. Nearly 50,000 people have been killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Supplied with American weapons.
There is no doubt unrepentant and compromising Netanyahu must be held accountable.
What will Germany do to hold the accused leader of the Jewish state liable for his war crimes?
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.22.2024
The German minority government made up of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Greens would definitely have preferred to avoid the issue, even if officials should have seen it coming a long time ago: The International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The court said it had found sufficient evidence that both were complicit in crimes against humanity and war crimes as part of Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza. The military campaign began after Gaza-based group Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. An arrest warrant was also issued for Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif with the same charges, even though Israel says it killed Deif in July.
Germany is regarded as one of the biggest supporters of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which began its activities in July 2002 and is supported by 124 states. However, it does not include globally important states such as the US or Russia.
What is important in the current case is that the court has no means of enforcing the arrest warrants itself. Member states — including Germany — are formally obliged to take wanted persons into custody should they cross their borders.
The Atmospheric River hit San Francisco, again. With a vengeance. After a three year absence.
A stormy fitting deluge on the 61st anniversary of the President John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas. Perhaps the higher spirits are sending us a reminder on this sad date. One of America’s darkest and most traumatic events in its violent history.
How do we remember the day? Trudging through the storm soaked streets near the Pacific Ocean to pick up our weekly cornucopia of fresh food from the San Francisco Marin Food Bank.
Liz maneuvered our well traveled shopping cart through the avenues and the flooded intersections to the distribution center at George Washington High School, several blocks from our home.
Liz with her heavy load of fruits, vegetables and a roasting chicken for Thanksgiving
Liz, the intrepid photographer, takes video of a flooded intersection
The #AtmosphericRiver has arrived. Prompting memories of torrential deluge 🌊 that occurred in late Oct 2021. Many crosswalks are now impassable🚶🏼♀️in my @sfgov ‘hood. This neglected @MySFPUC drain at Anza & 35th Ave intersection couldn’t take any more rain 🌧 It simply expired 👻 pic.twitter.com/zdU2gYi4cZ
After 22 percent of my neighbors (179allegedly intelligent people) in our precinct voted for Trump I have been thinking hard about what the future will bring on January 20, 2025.
Trump was President in 2019 when I posted a story about “The Third Reich of Dreams: How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism.” Well, terrifyingly here we are again. In America and in my very own neighborhood in a City which likes to think itself “Progressive” and “Tolerant.” I have learned it’s not true.
Street camera for surveillance. Omnipresent in San Francisco 2024
I need not look far. I am surrounded by neighbors with surveillance cameras and high intensity security lights. These insidious tools monitor the comings and goings of everyone and at night pollute the sky. What are these people fearful of in our quiet neighborhood? The families of raccoons who forage in their trash cans?
Perhaps this is why the classic book “The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation” published in 1966 and long out of print is being republished next April.
A warning shot about the dangers of rampant paranoia. Only this time it’s not Nazi Germany. It’s right here on my block.
Excerpted from The New York Review of Books 12.5.2024
Born in 1907 in Forst, Germany, a town near the Polish border, Charlotte Beradt was a young journalist who reported on women’s issues and other aspects of German social and political life for the weekly journal Die Weltbühne.In 1933 Beradt, a committed communist and a Jew, found herself suddenly unemployed. As the Nazi movement grew, she began having nightmares every night.
She wondered whether other people were having similar dreams. She started to ask people about their dreams, discreetly: “I asked the dressmaker, the neighbor, an aunt, a milkman, a friend, almost always without revealing my purpose.” She did this because “dreams like this should be preserved for posterity,” and she wrote down hundreds before fleeing to New York in 1939. There she worked as a hairdresser for fellow émigrés, sometimes spending time with her friend Hannah Arendt.
In 1966 she finally brought her collection together, arranging the dreams by theme, offering her own light commentary, and bolstering each short chapter with epigraphs from the likes of Kafka and Brecht and Arendt herself. She gave the resulting slim volume a memorable title: The Third Reich of Dreams. The book had some modest success but never penetrated the American consciousness like the work of Arendt, perhaps because Beradt offers us not a complex hermeneutics of totalitarianism but rather a quite straightforward picture of the psychological effects of propaganda and manipulation upon a populace.
Chan acknowledged that her vocal opposition to Proposition K, a controversial ballot measure to close the Great Highway, may have helped her win by demonstrating to the district that she’s not an ideologue and will fight for the community. – SF Standard 11.18.2024
There’s no need for Connie “The Car” Chan to be shy. She drove her car to victory on election day.
During the past four years Connie has been the best friend of the entitled motorists in San Francisco.
Her car centric advocacy nearly destroyed JFK Promenade in 2022. Her strident opposition to Proposition K may have played well with her D1 constituents. Fortunately, 54.73 percent of the electorate citywide were having none of Connie’s car love and voted through Great Highway Park by 36,595 votes.
Advocates for the just enacted Great Highway Park need to be vigilant. It’s safe to assume that Connie “The Car” Chan will do everything she can to ignore the will of San Francisco voters. Supervisor Chan will throw up every administrative roadblock at her disposal to impede the banishment of cars and slowdown implementation of Great Highway Park.
A year ago we were in Berlin.Who would have thought that 12 months later Donald Trump would be preparing to move into the White House?
Liz and Lee inPotsdam, Germany November 2023
Who would have thought that the coalition government in Germany, which included the Green Party, would collapse?
German Green Party members in happier times
Well, it’s all happened. It’s fair to say arch conservative reactionaries are on the rise. It’s not a comforting thought for anyone who believes in personal freedom and the expectation to be free from the oppressors.
The reactionaries are rising in Germany, America and, perhaps, on my block in San Francisco. Where it pains me to write Trump got nearly 22 percent (179 votes) in my precinct.
Nobody is exempt from the rising tide of oppression.
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.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 11.7.2024
What now?
That was the question of the day after the collapse of the so-called traffic-light coalition — named for the colors of the three parties forming it: the center-left Social Democrats (red), the neoliberal Free Democrats (yellow) and the environmentalist Greens.
One day after the dramatic break-up, Chancellor Olaf Scholz‘s view was very different from that of the leaders of the center-right opposition, whose cooperation Scholz is seeking.
Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) – far right on the ascendency in Germany
The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) are not only the largest opposition bloc in the current parliament, they are also, according to current polls, most likely to emerge from new elections as the strongest force.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz who is tipped to become Germany’s next chancellor urged swift action. “The government no longer has a majority in the German Bundestag and so we have to call on the Federal Chancellor — with a unanimous decision by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group — to call a vote of confidence immediately, at the beginning of next week at the latest,” he said.
Tonight I feel vindicated with the passage of Proposition K and the approval of Great Highway Park.
My advocacy has been steadfast and unrelenting for a more pedestrian and cyclist friendly San Francisco. The creation of JFK Promenade and now Great Highway Park are two of the political achievements I will forever treasure and cherish.
It’s been a nearly five year battle with the smug, spoiled, petulant and virulent motorists who feel they have a birthright to drive their cars anywhere, anytime.
In March 2021, after responding to the personal and political social media attacks, I was labeled by Nextdoor as someone who “Rants” and was flagged by this organization. On which almost any behavior is tolerated.
Nextdoor admitted “your posts were not attacking your neighbors or using language deemed inappropriate, they still fall under our Guideline regarding ranting.”
My account was, in a nice Orwellian turn of phrase, “disabled.”
A short time later I exited Nextdoor and have not posted since July 2021.
Now, that my years long advocacy has been rewarded, I am reblogging the exchange I had with Nextdoor’s minders nearly four years ago.
Looking into the haze of vilification for speaking out for an environmentally friendly San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO – GREAT HIGHWAY PARK Lee Heidhues 11.8.2024
I am beyond joyous that Proposition K which will see the creation of The Great Highway Park by the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco has been approved by a healthy majority of ALL the voters.
Liz and Lee at the kickoff for Proposition K – Great Highway Park – July 27, 2024
I will never stand down, will continue to fight and am relishing this moment of victory for a pedestrian, cyclist friendly San Francisco.
Victory of Proposition K is another affirmation that San Francisco voters can overcome the juvenile mentality of the spoiled rotten entitled motorists. Motorists who have fought viciously to protect their false sense of entitlement.
Two years ago these same dead enders with their false sense of car centric privilege waged a despicable campaign to stop JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park. Their effort to bring cars back to JFK Promenade, aided by over 800K in funding from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, was crushed. The voters said “We want this car free oasis” by a 63 percent YES margin.
Two years later these vitriolic motorists waged a war of threats and personal insult against Supervisor Joel Engardio who put Proposition K on the ballot. These motorists have no shame. Even now they pledge to continue their onslaught against all who oppose their selfishness.
Mayor London Breed, voted out of office this week, may have sacrificed her political career by advocating for JFK Promenade and The Great Highway Park. When the history of her tenure is written this environmental advocacy will be long remembered.
Liz and Mayor London Breed parley at the 4th Anniversary celebration of JFK Promenade. Were it not for Mayor Breed JFK Promenade would not be a reality today.
Personally, I have been ridiculed and vilified on social media for vigorously promoting the car free movement in San Francisco. The most egregious example being my banishment by Michael Durand, publisher of the Richmond Review for pushing back against the entitled motorists.
To celebrate this joyous moment I am including La Mer by Claude Debussy. Music Liz and I listened to 55 years ago when we lived on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Close by what is now The Great Highway Park.
The crows are happily oblivious to the democratic disaster unfurling around them
“Every night I dream The Crow black dream.” ‘Burn’ – The Cure
The Trump cadres infiltrate San Francisco
Only in a country like Amerika could a convicted felon and insurrectionist grift his way into the White House. It hurts too much to cry. Stunned and mortified are the only words that come to mind.
There’s no way to gloss over this train wreck assault on democracy. So, what can I do but enjoy some home made French toast and marvelous Italian food down washed down with a little Red wine.
French patriot Joan of Arc rides over the French toast
I can find solace listening to The Cure perform their classic song “Burn” which can be found in the soundtrack to the classic noir film “The Crow.”
Top photo: Barbed wire Peace symbol purchased at the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center in Missoula, Montana.
Lee's Perspective 