BREAKING NEWS

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.4.2019

WikiLeaks said its founder will be expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy within “hours to days.” The non-profit said the INA papers scandal, which has implicated Ecuador’s president, was the pretext for the expulsion.

WikiLeaks tweeted late Thursday that its founder, Julian Assange, will be expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London within “hours to days,” citing a “high level source.”

Assange, who faces charges in the United States over leaked government documents, could be arrested by authorities upon leaving the embassy.

ttps://www.dw.com/en/julian-assange-to-be-kicked-out-of-ecuadorian-embassy-wikileaks/a-48212020

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Henry II speaking of Archbishop Thomas Becket. 1170. Becket was assassinated a short time later.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 4.4.2019

Star of the Sea school, which has served generations of San Franciscans in the Richmond District, abruptly announced Wednesday that it is closing its doors in June amid declining enrollment, just weeks after parents asked the Archdiocese of San Francisco to investigate the pastor of the Catholic grammar school.

Most recently, parents sent a three-page, unsigned complaint to the diocese, alleging that Rev. Joseph Illo “attempted to instigate a fight” at a March 7 “State of the School” meeting after a mother accused him of being “responsible for the decimation of the school.”

The letter says Rev. Illo stood up from his seat, walked toward the woman’s husband and “aggressively stared at him in a manner that can only be described as attempting to challenge the husband to a fight.” He allegedly went on to demand the woman’s husband to “order” his wife to apologize for any disparaging remarks she made about him

The Archdiocese said in a statement Wednesday that the grammar school is being “suspended” so that it could further develop a new teaching program that was supposed to start in the fall. The school’s fully enrolled preschool classes will continue as normal, the archdiocese said. Its statement did not acknowledge the parents’ complaint about school pastor Illo.

The Archdiocese appointed Rev. Illo to the parish in August 2014. In 2015, he was criticized for banning girls from serving at the altar at Mass. That same year,he also denied non-Catholic students from receiving blessings during Communion, and apologized for providing pamphlets to children before confession that included questions about masturbation, sodomy, abortion and vasectomies.

Photo atop. I have owned this RCA Victor album since 1964. It features dialogue from the motion picture Becket starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole.

Photo in middle. Star of the Sea Church.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Amid-turmoil-Star-of-the-Sea-grammar-school-in-13740275.php

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Amazing. Ponderous studies are issued to state the obvious.  Poor dietary habits are dangerous to your health.  Then there is Trump. The Fatman wants to eliminate standards encouraging healthy diet in America’s schools. Figures. Trump, obese reality show host masquerading as President, is The Junk Food Afficiando.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 4.4.2019

One in five people across the world dies of causes linked to poor diet, a new study shows. Overconsumption of meat, salt and sugar are the main culprits, the experts behind the study say.

People across the world are eating too much of the wrong food and much too little of the healthy types, a study in the journal “The Lancet” says.

The study, released on Thursday, indicates that poor diet is responsible for more deaths than any other risk factor, including smoking. The biggest killer in the 11 million global deaths attributed to poor diet every year is cardiovascular disease, which is often caused or made worse by obesity.

What did the study find?

• More than 10 times the recommended amount of sugary drinks were consumed across the world
• People consume 86 percent more salt on average than the levels generally considered safe.
• The global intake of red meat was 18 percent greater than that considered optimal.
• Healthier foods such as whole grains, fruit, nuts and seeds do not feature enough in most people’s diets.
• Economic inequality is a big factor, with poor people often struggling to meet the “five a day” fruit and vegetable recommendation.

https://www.dw.com/en/poor-eating-habits-killing-millions-globally-study-says/a-48194150

San Francisco is an American fashion trendsetter for the World. It all started with Levi Strauss & Co. in 1850 right here in the City by the Bay.

Deutsche Welle 4.3.2019

First shown in San Francisco, an exhibition taking a look at Islamic fashion has provoked strong reactions ahead of its opening in Frankfurt. “Contemporary Muslim Fashions” confronts stereotypes on both Islam and style.

Muslim head coverings have always been a controversial topic, as they embody so many issues, whether women’s rights worldwide or Western prejudice and discrimination against Muslims.

Now that the first exhibition dedicated to fashion consciousness of women in Islam is opening at Frankfurt’s Museum Angwandte Kunst, the debate surrounding headscarves has been rekindled in Germany.

Titled “Contemporary Muslim Fashions” and first shown at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, the exhibition, however, does not aim to answer the numerous political and social questions related to hijabs or burkinis.

“The focus of the exhibition is really fashionable modest dress and what we’re trying to show in the exhibition is that there is a lot of choice for the mass of Muslim women,” said Jill D’Alessandro, curator of the “Contemporary Muslim Fashions” exhibition in San Francisco.

The idea for the exhibition came from Austrian museum director Max Hollein, who formerly headed the San Francisco Museum of Fine Art and, before that, served as the director of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main. Planning began in 2016, shortly before Donald Trump was elected US president. The show was held in the US during a period when anti-Islamic attitudes were becoming increasingly visible and voiced in America.

A similar polarization of attitudes is noticeable in Germany today, and all questions related to the integration of refugees remain a headline-grabbing topic.

But “Contemporary Muslim Fashions” does not want to be seen as a reaction to this. “We don’t want to solve problems, but to offer new perspectives on a very exciting part of the fashion world that has long been ignored by the Western world,” says curator D’Alessandro.

Hate mail leads to tightened security

The coordinators of the German exhibition have already started receiving racist hate mail ahead of the opening of the exhibition on Thursday, which is why the Angwandte Kunst museum is introducing bag checks and body searches for the duration of the show, “for the security of all visitors and employees,” museum director Matthias Wagner K told German press agency DPA.

On the other end of the spectrum, weeks ahead of the show, activists who call themselves “Migrants for secularity and self-determination” have published an open letter in German feminist magazine Emma, in which they state that they are “appalled” by the fact that the exhibition is being shown in Frankfurt.

“This exhibition, which supposedly depicts religious dress requirements as fashion, is a slap in the face of domestic and foreign women’s rights activists,” the letter states. The group, composed of Iranian refugees, also reminds people that “Every year, thousands of women in Iran are punished for violating this dress code.”

https://www.dw.com/en/muslim-fashion-for-women-exhibition-stirs-controversy-in-germany/a-45601007

April 3, 2019

Liz and I are enthusiastically supporting Chesa Boudin in his bid to become San Francisco’s District Attorney in the November 2019 election.  Chesa will bring his experience and intimate knowledge of the criminal justice system into the halls of justice.  We believe Chesa’s goal will be to expend time and resources on pursuing crimes which warrant prosecution. That is why we are amongst the many who support Chesa and his vision. The video herein is a nice introduction to Chesa.

Photo below – Liz at an event for Chesa in March, 2019 fueling up for the campaign.

This story deserves more media attention.

New York Times 4.2.2019

SHAH ALAM, Malaysia — A Vietnamese woman charged in the airport assassination of the half brother of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, was sentenced on Monday after pleading to a lesser charge of causing bodily harm.

The defendant, Doan Thi Huong, 30, was one of two women who smeared VX nerve agent on the face of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s elder brother, in February 2017. She was ordered to serve 40 months in prison.

“The girls should not have been charged in the first place,” Ms. Huong’s lawyer, Hisham Teh, told reporters

Ultimately, though, “we are happy because ultimately she can go home within one month,” he added.  Mr. Teh argued she should have been freed sooner, as her co-defendant was, because she was “naïve and gullible and was exploited.”

The  lawyer said she would be released on May 4, after time served and an additional sentence reduction.

Her co-defendant, Siti Aisyah, 27, was freed three weeks ago after intensive lobbying by the Indonesian government, including a personal appeal from President Joko Widodo to Malaysia’s prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad.

Officials still believe that the assassination was organized by North Korean agents: four North Korean men who were believed to have orchestrated the plot and then flew out of Malaysia within hours of the killing. Three other North Koreans implicated in the attack were later allowed to leave the country.

No one other than the two women ever faced charges.

The Catholic Church has enough controversy, already.  Star of the Sea is a fixture in the San Francisco Richmond District community. This is yet another sad issue to confront.

Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner 4.2.2019

A sharp decline in student enrollment is forcing an Inner Richmond Catholic elementary school to downsize and tap into parish funds after church leadership moved to push the curriculum in a more traditional direction.

Some parents have attributed the exodus of students to decisions by Star of the Sea pastor Joesph Illo, who has a history of polarizing the school community by making clear distinctions between Catholic and non-Catholic students and boys and girls.

Conflict between  Illo and the community began in January of 2015 when he made a controversial decision to stop the parish’s practice of allowing girls to work as ‘altar servers,’ according to local news reports.

Two months later, Illo reportedly created controversy again by distributing pamphlets that contained sexual topics to students as young as eight.

Illo went on to ban non-Catholic students from receiving blessings at communion and reading at school Mass in November of 2015.

While some of these practices were eventually revoked, Illo continued to push for greater distinctions between Catholics and non-Catholics that attended the school, according to parents interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter.

More recently a coalition of anonymous parents sent a formal complaint against Illo, following a combative meeting between school officials, parents on March 7, 2019.

“His methods have been unnecessarily destructive, abusive and hostile; and [he] has decimated the student population at the school in the last two years,” the letter states. “Fr. Illo does not possess the leadership ability to control his temperament under pressure.”

These claims mirror the findings of a 2003 Canonical Investigation into allegations of harassment raised against Illo during his time in a Stockton, California diocese.

So far only 40 to 50 students have committed to re-enrolling for the 2019-2020 school year, less than a quarter of the 220 students that were enrolled for the 2017-2018 school year, according to a school representative.

The school, which was founded in 1909 as an extension of the parish of the same name, is now considering combining grades, reducing its staff size and relocating teachers to other Catholic schools in their network, according to Mike Brown, director of communications for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/the-city/sharp-drop-in-enrollment-forces-cutbacks-at-inner-richmond-catholic-school/

April 28, 2019

UPDATE: Spoiler Alert.  This Post reveals details about the Film. A reader requested I provide this information.

 I went to see “Transit” on a quiet Sunday afternoon at The Clay Theater in San Francisco.  Having read the novel and seen the film, following are my thoughts on the cinematic adaptation.

April 1, 2019

“Transit” is like a Twilight Zone episode.  The 104-minute film, out of necessity, leaves out much of the 1942 novel by Anna Seghers.  But, still, the dystopian emphasis is apparent.  The main character, Georg, always appears to be in a mental fog and virtually everyone with whom Georg has contact either dies or disappears.

The main female character in the story, Marie, flows in and out of the story.  It is almost as if she is not there.  Instead, Marie is a ghost like presence with whom Georg strives to physically connect.  But, even in the few times they are together, Marie is slipping away mentally and physically.

Two of the best scenes occur when Georg visits the Mexican and American consulates in Marseilles to obtain “Transit” papers.  At the American Consulate, Georg is pressed by the consular officer about why he does not plan to pursue his professional writing career after he emigrates.  Georg recites stories he has written on different topics and believe it is all superfluous.  Georg has come to believe he is simply impersonating his subjects and is no longer himself.

The film is captivating because I was unsure where Georg is going, why he is going and what he expects to find when he arrives at this destination.

In the end Georg sees the elusive Marie walk by him as he sits looking out of a café in Marseilles. A short time later he learns the vessel that Georg thinks she sailed earlier has been sunk and everyone aboard perished.

Is what Georg saw the real Marie?  Or a mirage?

You could believe that Georg is dead, and he is looking up from, or out of the grave because everyone in world is either dead or gone missing.

I’ve been listening to The Stones since I was 16. I have almost every album.  The first time I saw the group perform was 1970 in Amsterdam.  I was standing on  stage 10 feet from the band.  During  the Stones earlier concert in Paris there was mayhem in the audience.  Mick told the more subdued Dutch crowd, “Shake your asses, Amsterdam!!!!”

Picture above-1963 Publicity Photo.  Mick is in the middle of the group.

Excerpted from The Guardian – 3.31.2019

Sir Mick Jagger’s Rolling Stones bandmates have expressed their support for the 75-year-old frontman after he announced he was pulling out of a tour of the US and Canada because of an undisclosed medical problem.

Jagger, who follows a strict diet and fitness regime, said he was “devastated” to let down the band’s fans after he announced the group were postponing the North American leg of their tour on doctor’s orders.

Jagger’s bandmates were quick to voice their support. Keith Richards, who has been at the singer’s side since the band formed in 1962, tweeted: “A big disappointment for everyone but things need to be taken care of and we will see you soon. Mick, we are always there for you!”

The guitarist Ronnie Wood added: “We’ll miss you over the next few weeks, but we’re looking forward to seeing you all again very soon. Here’s to Mick – thanks for your supportive messages it means to much to us.”

A statement on behalf of the group said: “Unfortunately today the Rolling Stones have had to announce the postponement of their upcoming US/Canada tour dates – we apologise for any inconvenience this causes those who have tickets to shows but wish to reassure fans to hold on to these existing tickets, as they will be valid for rescheduled dates, which will be announced shortly.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/31/rolling-stones-duo-give-backing-mick-jagger-tour-postponed

Israeli Defense Force (IDF) exerts its  military might to quell protests, kill and injure Palestinian citizens.  This is all a part of the corrupt, recently indicted, for corruption, Bibi Netanyahu’s upcoming re election campaign. It’s Bibi’s version of “Make Israel Great, Again (by waging war against the Palestinians).”

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.30.2019

Deadly clashes broke out in Gaza as thousands of Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces at a protest marking a year of unrest in the region. Israeli military fired live rounds, according to eyewitnesses.