I have been riding a bicycle for transportation in San Francisco since 1972. The City is becoming increasingly dangerous even as the number of cyclists proliferate. These horrific incidents are only going to increase. It is part of the Dystopian Urban Madness.

San Francisco Examiner – Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez – March 8, 2019

SF Examiner photo above – Death site at 6th and Howard Streets

A woman was struck and killed in a traffic collision while bicycling at Sixth and Howard streets Friday morning at about 8:15 a.m.

The San Francisco Police department said the woman, who was not immediately identified, was riding a rented Ford GoBike ebike when she was struck by a white commercial truck.

Binod Singh, who was walking nearby when the incident occurred, told the San Francisco Examiner he saw the woman bicycling down Howard when the driver-side door of a parked car opened near her. She swerved to dodge the door, placing her directly in the path of a large white truck, which ran over the woman and crushed her.

“Everyone screamed,” he said.

Singh was shaking as he showed the Examiner cell phone photos he took immediately after the crash.

Maximo Figueroa works in the neighborhood and was sitting in his parked car when he saw the collision. He ran over to help, but when he saw her, he realized it was too late.

“It happened within a second, then boom, then over,” Figueroa said.

The woman was wearing a helmet, which was destroyed in the crash.

The white truck remained at the scene this morning on Howard Street, in an area where there are no “protected” bike lanes with barriers.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/cyclist-struck-killed-south-market-neighborhood/

Chelsea Manning is an American heroine. Absloute abuse being heaped upon Whistleblower Heroine who exposed the activities of various American government agencies. Chelsea has already served over seven years in prison for upholding the rights of free speech and the right of access to government documents. See Lee’s Perspective Post 3.2.2019

March 8, 2019

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning has been sent to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating Wikileaks.

Wikileaks  has emerged as an important part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election, as investigators focus on whether President Donald Trump’s campaign knew Russian hackers were going to provide emails to Wikileaks stolen from Democratic organizations, including presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail for contempt of court on Friday after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she has no intention of testifying. She told the judge she “will accept whatever you bring upon me.”

The judge said she will remain jailed until she testifies or until the grand jury concludes its work.

Manning’s lawyers had asked that she be sent to home confinement instead of the jail, because of medical complications she faces.

The judge said U.S. marshals can handle her medical care. Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said the jail and the marshals have assured the government that her medical needs can be met.

Manning anticipated being jailed. In a statement before Friday’s hearing, she said she invoked her First, Fourth and Sixth amendment protections when she appeared before the grand jury in Alexandria on Wednesday. She said she already answered every substantive question during her 2013 court-martial, and is prepared to face the consequences of refusing to answer again.

“In solidarity with many activists facing the odds, I will stand by my principles. I will exhaust every legal remedy available,” she said.

Manning served seven years of a 35-year military sentence for leaking a trove of military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy website before then-President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

McCormick said Manning can easily end this incarceration on the civil charge simply by following the law and testifying.

“We hope she changes her mind now,” McCormick said.

Manning’s lawyer, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, said she believes jailing Manning is an act of cruelty given her medical issues, and said Manning’s one-bedroom apartment would be a sufficient manner of confinement.

The Wikileaks investigation has been ongoing for a long time. Last year, prosecutors in Alexandria inadvertently disclosed that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is facing unspecified, sealed criminal charges in the district.

Currently I am reading the 1944 novel by Anna Seghers. It is a difficult and fascinating read.  The novel was discussed in greater detail in a Lee’s Perspectives Post 2.17.2019

Wall Street Journal review by Joel Morgenstern 3.7.2019

The hero of Christian Petzold’s film flees the forces of fascism, takes on another man’s identity, then falls in love with his wife.

Instead of summoning up the haunting strangeness of Christian Petzold’s “Transit” by summarizing the action, which is sporadic, or specifying the time and place, which are ambiguous, let me recount a sequence that begins with a little blob of something being heated in a teaspoon over a candle. Is it heroin? No, it’s solder. The hero, Georg (Franz Rogowski), a German refugee in France, is trying to repair a loose connection on a radio while a young boy looks on, transfixed. When the radio comes to life, it plays a song that moves Georg deeply—his mother sang it to him when he was a child. As Georg sings along, the boy’s mother, Melissa (Maryam Zaree), comes home from work and watches. She doesn’t listen, since she’s profoundly deaf, but soon, signing briskly, she tells her son to tell Georg that she’d like to watch him sing the song again. Which he does, with redoubled feeling that’s reflected on her face.

The thought of Muslims in power is unnerving for governments in Europe and, yes, the United States.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.7.2019

Shock and horror among CDU colleagues

The party of Chancellor Angela Merkel has been roiled by a debate about whether a Muslim could lead the CDU and one day become chancellor. One lawmaker couldn’t believe anyone would even suggest such a thing.

The parliamentary group leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has sparked a divisive debate after he said a Muslim could be a future CDU leader and chancellor of Germany.

Asked by media outlet Idea if a Muslim could lead the party and become chancellor in 2030, Ralph Brinkhaus said: “Why not, if they’re a good politician, and they represent our values and our political views?”

The interview took place in late February, but it stirred a backlash only after Bild, Germany’s biggest tabloid newspaper, reported on it on Wednesday.

“For the love of God, I can’t believe Ralph Brinkhaus said that,” Vincent Kokert, the CDU’s chief in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, told the paper. “No, I can’t believe it.”

https://www.dw.com/en/a-muslim-as-german-chancellor-cdu-leader-slammed-for-saying-why-not/a-47813302

The Nazi scourge lives on in all its horrificness. It happened in America.  See the Academy Award nominated video “A Night at the Garden” posted on this site 2.23.2019

Deutsche Welle 2.26.2019

German neo-Nazis and members of a far-right group staged a torch-wielding rally at a stage once used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. The participants also marched past a refugee center.

German prosecutors were considering filing criminal charges after a video emerged that showed members of the extreme-right NPD party and Wodans Erben Germanien group marching through the northern Bavarian city of Nuremberg.

The prosecutors were deciding if there was “evidence of incitement of the masses” at the event, which was held without permission, Nuremberg’s left-leaning mayor Ulrich Maly said on Tuesday.

Photo above. American Nazis march in New York City, February 1939

Police representatives reported that 18 right-wing extremists marched past a refugee center last Saturday, with police showing up to identify and record them. The participants declared themselves members of the NPD and Wodans Erben Germanien. Police ordered them to disperse and then left the scene.

After the police withdrew, the demonstrators gathered again and marched with lit torches to the area used by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and his associates for annual rallies from 1923 to 1938. Torches were often used as a prop by the supporters of the original Nazi party and its allies.

The NPD and Wodans Erben Germanien supporters also took pictures of themselves at a stage once used by Hitler.

“This is an event which should alarm all of us across Germany and especially in Nuremberg — the fact that such symbols are used at places like this,” Maly said.

In addition to Nazi rallies, Nuremberg is also known for the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935 at a special parliamentary session in the Bavarian city.

After World War II, the Allies organized the Nuremberg Trials to convict Nazi war criminals, including air force chief Hermann Göring, Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and racial ideologue Alfred Rosenberg.

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-torch-wielding-neo-nazis-march-in-nuremberg/a-47699823

This morning, running in the rain in Sutro Park at the Pacific Ocean, I was thinking that a nut job is lurking in the American swamp waiting to “off” Ilhan Omar.

Shortly thereafter I read the following TPM article. Guess what?? I’m correct and not happy about it, either.

This is the daily toxic menu item of the anti-Muslim perversity of American politics.

Excerpted from TPM 3.5.2019

The FBI is investigating a threat made in graffiti at a Minnesota gas station against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) last month, according to the local Pioneer Press. 

“We are aware of that piece of graffiti at the convenience store and are looking into it with some of our law enforcement partners,” Kevin Smith, the public affairs officer for the FBI Minneapolis Division, told the Pioneer Press Monday. The FBI is involved because Omar is a federal elected official, according to the Pioneer Press.

Last month, “Assassinate Ilhan Omar” was found scrawled in sharpie pen on a bathroom stall at a Holiday gas station in Rogers, Minnesota. The man who discovered the threat took a photo of the graffiti and posted it on social media, after he confronted the gas station attendant about getting rid of it, he told the Pioneer Press.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/fbi-probing-assassination-graffiti-threat-against-omar-found-minnesota-gas-station

Excerpted Sex News of the Day Compliments of that British publication, The Guardian. 3.5.2019

Are you turned on when you look in the mirror, and enjoy nothing more than a steamy night at home alone? You could be an autosexual

Name: Autosexuality.

Age: Exactly as old as I am.

Appearance: Beautiful, fun, charming, attractive, sexy. Like me.

If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem pretty pleased with yourself. Yes, I am, thanks.

It’s like you think you’re all that. I certainly do.

Wow. You’re really quite full of yourself, aren’t you? I wish.

Look, I’m trying to insult you. Will you please just act wounded? No can do. I’m too happy.

With whom? With me.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2019/mar/04/age-of-the-autosexual-the-people-sexually-attracted-to-themselves

March 4, 2019

It is absolutely disgusting to watch the amount of incendiary anti-Muslim rhetoric being tossed at Rep. Ilhan Omar for stating some obvious truths about what’s acceptable in the American relationship with the State of Israel.

I am Jewish.

I take absolutely no offense

at Ms. Omar’s pointed comments about some of her fellow congress people and their affinity for Israel.

It’s true. Admit it and move on.

America is an openly racist country with a pervasive anti-Muslim bias. The presence of so many Neo-Nazi, fascist and anti-immigrant groups is a historical vein weaving through America’s history. It has been directed towards Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Muslims, Gays and the LGBT community

The vicious mainstream media attacks on Ms. Omar are disgusting and depressing.

There needs to be some nuanced, dispassionate and fair minded analysis.

Regrettably, it’s not happening.

Following comments are those of the Congresswoman which get to the core of the issue.

“Our democracy is built on debate……I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee.”

“I have not mischaracterized our relationship with Israel, I have questioned it and that has been clear from my end,” Omar added. “I am told everyday that I am anti-American if I am not pro-Israel. I find that to be problematic and I am not alone. I just happen to be willing to speak up on it and open myself to attacks.”

Animal Cruelty knows no international boundaries.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.3.2019

Farmers should be allowed to shoot wolves that cause “serious agricultural damage,” Germany’s Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said in an interview. She aims to change the laws that are protecting the predators.