The past several weeks our block in the Outer Richmond District has been the focus of attention. Crews from the Department of Public Works and PG&E surveyed and marked a corroded lateral sewer line on our street.
When the preparatory work was complete a crew from DPW came out to do the heavy lifting of digging up the street and replacing the corroded pipe. Having a close vantage point I kept a photo journal of the project.
Following is a photo essay. of the City at work.
The DPW workers were very conscientious and tidied up the job site each day.
Department of Public Works marking the work site 1.28.2022
DPW putting down the steel plates 2.2.2022DPW heavy equipment 2.2.2022PG&E marking the gas lines 2.25.2022DPW marking the property boundaries 3.4.2022DPW videoing property boundaries 3.4.2022Heavy equipment on site 3.16.2022DPW crew member gives the neighbors a wave 3.16.2022 – Photo Liz HeidhuesHeavy lifting 3.16.2022Deep drill into the street 3.16.2022DPW heavy trucks at excavation site 3.16.2022DPW crew on the job on St. Patrick’s Day 3.17.2022Crew member having a parley with the Supervisor 3.17.2022 – Photo Liz HeidhuesDPW crew filling up the open trench 3.18.2022DPW crew filling up the dig site as job is complete 3.18.2022
Attached are excerpts of an interview with San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan who explains why she is not a supporter of Car Free JFK Drive.
I could barely restrain myself and had to force myself to listen to Connie’s attempt at appearing open minded. She is not.
She is really awful and disingenuous in the extreme.
Connie Chan pitches “Compromise”. She does not want compromise. She wants cars on JFK Drive now. Make no mistake.
Listen carefully.
She agrees that 70 percent of Recreation and Park Department poll respondents want permanently car free JFK Drive . Then she proceeds to question the validity of the Survey by questioning which ethnic groups responded.
Most alarming Connie Chan thinks the park should be open to cars until the issue is resolved.
Connie conveniently ignores the Poll results, the fact the Recreation and Park Commission, the Metropolitan Transit Authority have approved the Car Free designation.
Connie knows that Mayor London Breed wants a Car Free JFK Drive and has introduced legislation to make it San Francisco law.
Connie knows that disgruntled residents sued the City. Their Motion for an Injunction was rejected in San Francisco Superior Court.
For the life of me I don’t understand why the leading advocates continue to treat Connie with such deference and kid gloves.
This is a Supervisor who gained her Supervisorial seat by 123 votes. She snookered environmental groups such as Sunrise Bay Area pretending to be a Progressive.
From Day One Connie Chan has been the biggest elected FOE of car free areas in San Francisco.
I am going to continue calling out Connie again and again.
All those who have been advocating the past two years for Car Free JFK Drive and The Great Walkway need to take a similar tactic.
The City has gone to extremes to accommodate Connie Chan. It’s time to call a halt to her stonewalling obstructionist tactics.
San Francisco Standard 3.17.2022
Supervisor Connie Chan will advocate for a “compromise” on JFK Drive to balance access concerns with safety in Golden Gate Park and expects she has enough colleagues on her side to reach a compromise with Mayor London Breed.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that we will come to a compromise,” Chan said in an exclusive interview with The Standard. “When? I don’t know.”
Since Mayor London Breed introduced legislation to keep JFK Drive car-free, it’s now on the Board of Supervisors to decide the fate of the road. At the center of the debate is Chan, who represents San Francisco’s District 1, which encompasses the park. With several supervisors looking to Chan for guidance on how to vote, she is hopeful that she has the support to pass significant amendments to the current proposal.
Breed’s proposal would keep JFK Drive closed to cars permanently while committing to key improvements to the park, like added bike and bus transit options within the park and more Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant parking spaces.
The Standard sat down with Chan to learn the specifics of her alternative plan.
Putin’s Russian state apparatus is exercising the most draconian measures against its own citizens who have the courage to speak out against the War Crimes being committed in Ukraine. Fines and jail await those Russians of any age who speak out.
Three weeks into Putin’s assault on Ukraine and after thousands of arrests, Russian citizens are still taking to the streets in opposition to Putin’s inhumanity.
The only way Putin’s carnage against an independent nation will end is when the citizen’s of Russia bring this madness to a halt.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.16.2022
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine about three weeks ago, the police forces in Moscow and other cities have been cracking down on anti-war protests.
The Kremlin has restricted Russian citizens’ access to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to prevent the reports and images of war from reaching them. Media are banned from using the terms “Invasion” or “war” to describe what Putin is doing in Ukraine. Instead, they have been ordered to refer to it as a “special military operation.”
Regardless of these measures, thousands of anti-war protesters have rallied across Russia since the war started, risking consequences such as fines, detention, and imprisonment.
On March 4, the government implemented a set of rules that criminalizes anti-war protests, and independent reporting on the war. According to Human Rights Watch, the laws make it illegal to spread “fake news” about the Russian armed forces, to call for an end to their deployment. Those who disobey can face up to 15 years in prison.
But as the authorities’ tolerance for demonstrations and rallies shrinks, activists continue to protests against the war in Ukraine, in various forms.
“No to war” on TV screens
Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee of a Russian state TV station, interrupted a live news program on Monday, chanting “Stop the war!” She held up a cardboard sign that featured the Russian and Ukrainian flags, shouted “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you.” Seconds later, the program was cut off.
In a video, recorded before her protest, Ovsyannikova urged Russians to join protests against the war and expressed regret for her part in spreading “Kremlin propaganda.”
Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee of a Russian state TV station, interrupted a live news program on Monday, chanting “Stop the war!”
“Russia is the aggressor country and one person, Vladimir Putin, solely bears responsibility for that aggression,” she said in the prerecorded video.
Ovsyannikova was arrested minutes after she stormed into the studio. She was released from custody on Tuesday and fined about 30,000 rubles (around $270). But she still awaits her trial, where she could receive a prison sentence.
A video went viral on social media last week, showing a woman being arrested by the Russian police for holding up a small piece of paper that reads “two words.”
The phrase “two words” (“два слова” in Russian) seems to hint at the forbidden slogan “no to war” (or “нет войне” in Russian).
Yelena Osipova a 77-year-old artist was seen among those arrested at an anti-war protest in St. Petersburg. People on social media began referring to her as the “grandmother for peace.”
It took a lot of guts for Russian state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova to parade in front of a live TV camera on Russia’s biggest broadcast network and hold up her anti-Ukraine war sign. This is the kind of dissent which Thug Putin is trying to eliminate in his increasingly totalitarian State. This is the 21st century and people’s voices will be heard.
Moscow Times 3.15.2022
A Russian editor who protested against Moscow’s military action in Ukraine during a prime-time news broadcast on state TV was released with a fine on Tuesday after a court hearing.
A judge at Moscow’s Ostankino district court ordered state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova to pay a fine of 30,000 rubles ($280) after she barged onto the set of Russia’s most-watched evening news broadcast holding a poster reading “No War”.
She also expressed regret over her work for state television, saying: “I’m ashamed that I allowed lies to be spoken from the TV screen. I’m ashamed I allowed Russian people to be zombified.”
Marina Ovsyannikova leaves Court after being ordered to pay a fine of 30,000 rubles ($280)
The mother of two could have faced a maximum punishment of 10 days in detention for calling for illegal protests.
The charge was based not specifically on her interruption of the news broadcast, but on a video statement she released explaining the reasons for her protest and urging Russians to take part in anti-war demonstrations.
Ovsyannikova pleaded not guilty in court, saying: “I am still convinced that Russia is committing a crime”.
“These are very difficult days in my life,” she told reporters after the court ruling.
Marina Ovsyannikova. Enemy of the State?
“I’ve spent two days literally without sleep.”
She said she had been questioned for more than 14 hours.
One of Ovsyannikova’s lawyers, Daniil Berman, told AFP earlier Tuesday that she also risked criminal charges with a penalty of up to 15 years in jail under new laws against “fake news” on the Russian military, introduced after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.
In her video statement, Ovsyannikova said her father is Ukrainian and her mother is Russian and she does not see the countries as enemies.
The Oped in Sunday’s Examiner says it all. “His (Boudin) narrow victory upset a local political establishment with cliquish manners and a long memory.” THAT SENTENCE nails it. London Breed will not forget that Chesa beat her pick for DA.
Hope San Francisco Mayor London Breed enjoys her 10 days in Europe. Typical American tourist itinerary.
Moving right along.
Looking at the local morning paper’s piece about the Mayor’s 10 day junket to London, Paris, Frankfurt and Rome to drum up tourism for San Francisco I was struck by the fact that some folks are bringing up the upcoming DA Recall vote into the conversation.
The pitchfork crowd which has been calling for the DA’s head since the day he assumed office on January 8, 2020 can’t resist taking a shot even when the Mayor’s foreign trip is the topic.
However there were some surprising comments amongst the ususal anti-DA blather.
I appreciate the fact that FINALLY some folks in The San Francisco Chronicle ‘Conversation’ are waking up to the harsh reality of what the DA Recall is all about.
It’s obvious to many people that SFPD has made a conscious decision to step back and not pursue perps.. Why? The cops want Chesa out by any means necessary. This is a craven insidious dangerous political strategy which the MSM has blithely ignored as it climbed in bed with the POA. This treachery will not go unanswered.
DA Boudin addresses Union supporters – Fall 2021
Excerpted from San Francisco Examiner – Gil Duran – 3.13.2022
With the school board recall out of the way, San Francisco voters face yet another consequential decision: Whether to boot District Attorney Chesa Boudin from office in June. If I had to bet, I’d put my money on Boudin getting recalled.
It will have little to do with his policy decisions. After all, Boudin’s doing what he said he would do when voters elected the former public defender as their chief prosecutor, making him one of those rare politicians who follows through on promises. No, Boudin will likely pay because he’s an inexperienced outsider politician — and because he makes a perfect scapegoat for our collective dissatisfaction with life in the 21st century.
Scapegoating is an ancient practice that’s even mentioned in the Old Testament. The word comes from the crude ritual of projecting all blame or sin onto a goat, then banishing the creature into the wilderness. I see a similar thing happening with Boudin.
“Chesa Boudin is the scapegoat in The City for anything that happens that isn’t positive,” Supervisor Hillary Ronen told the San Francisco Chronicle last month.
I support holding politicians accountable, and I believe that people who depend on public approval for their jobs tend to get what’s coming to them. But the local outbreak of what some call “Chesa Boudin Derangement Syndrome” is on another level.
It’s absurd because one relatively green politician who’s only held office for two years cannot logically bear responsibility for decades of societal failure. Addiction, crime and poverty existed here 150 years before Boudin’s ascension and will persist after he fades into history.
In today’s San Francisco, however, everything seems to be the fault of Boudin. That’s because Boudin is more than a public official. He’s a symbol. Born to parents with infamous Weather Underground roots, educated at elite universities, he’s a bit like radical royalty. This pedigree might normally help him in a progressive city, but he’s an outsider here. His narrow victory upset a local political establishment with cliquish manners and a long memory. He benefited from The City’s convoluted ranked-choice voting process, beating the mayor’s hand-picked favorite, Suzy Loftus, by just over one point.
DA Chesa Boudin in the courtroom
His close win signaled a key victory for the national movement to elect more progressive DAs, but timing is everything. The COVID pandemic, a national spike in violent crime and surging drug overdose deaths all provide his opponents with plentiful fodder to use against him. He also earned the ruthless scorn of the police union when he righteously decided to uphold his pledge to prosecute police brutality.
Of course, the police union also despised his predecessors.
There are no innocent bystanders in Thug War Criminal Putin’s brutal assault on the independent nation Ukraine. In Vladimir Putin’s warped mind journalists are a lethal target whether at home or on the battlefield in Ukraine.
The latest casualty of war in Thug Putin’s unbridled aggression is American documentary film maker Brent Renaud. He was 50 years old.
Reporters take incredible risks traveling into war zones. Journalists are armed only with their writing tools and cameras. In the eyes of combatants journalists are not seen as truth seekers. Journalists are seen as troublemakers who will expose the horrors and inhumanity of ware.
Brent Renaud paid the ultimate price for his truth seeking. May he Rest in Peace.
A US journalist working in Ukraine has been shot dead in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv, police say. Brent Renaud, 50, was a journalist and filmmaker who was working in the region for Time.
Brent Renaud (1971-2022)
Kyiv’s police chief Andriy Nebytov said he had been targeted by Russian soldiers. Two other journalists were injured and taken to hospital. It is the first reported death of a foreign journalist covering the war in Ukraine. One of the injured journalists, Juan Arredondo, told an Italian reporter he had been with Renaud when they came under fire.
Photographs are circulating online showing a press ID for Renaud issued by the New York Times. In a statement, the newspaper said it was “deeply saddened” to hear of Renaud’s death but that he had not been working for the newspaper in Ukraine. Renaud last worked for the publication in 2015, the Times said, and the press ID he was wearing in Ukraine had been issued years ago.
Renaud had reported from Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. He won a Peabody Award for his work on a 2014 series on Chicago schools, Last Chance High. He often worked alongside his brother, Craig, also a filmmaker. It is not known whether Craig also travelled to Ukraine.
From TIME Editor in Chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal and President and COO of TIME and TIME Studios Ian Orefice:
We are devastated by the loss of Brent Renaud. As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Brent tackled the toughest stories around the world often alongside his brother Craig Renaud. In recent weeks, Brent was in the region working on a TIME Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis. Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
It was surreal and dystopian. I attended the event in the Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park as Putin’s criminal war wages on against Ukraine.
Music, poetry, speeches, costumes, Ukraine flags flying. Folks are chowing down at the nearby food trucks, visiting the Japanese Tea Garden, the DeYoung Museum, Steinhart Aquarium. Enjoying themselves while thousands of miles away Thug War Criminal Putin continues to destroy Ukraine.
Perhaps this is why I feel so stressed and exhausted. It seems like the whole World is just going to let this happen. If the World stands by and allows this monster to destroy Ukraine the monster won’t be satisfied. Thug Putin will keep pushing and pushing.
If countries supporting Ukraine participate militarily the entire Planet may be at risk. If these countries do nothing Thug Putin will destroy an independent nation.
That is why I am perplexed that in San Francisco there is a Summer of Love type event with people literally wearing blue and yellow flowers in their hair.
Where’s the fear and outrage?
The photo montage shows the surreal and dystopian disconnect between the face of war and the peaceful event in San Francisco.
Vicious reactionaries whose campaign was funded by hard core right wingers who paid mercenaries nearly 1.5MM to gather signatures trying to oust District Attorney Chesa Boudin have sunk to a new low.
Never mind that some Recall people are trying to distance themselves from this blatant red-baiting anti-Asian hate literature. They are all of the same foul reactionary anti-democracy ilk.
The people who are trying to distance themselves from this awful racist literature are the same people who disrupted Chesa Boudin’s rally a week ago in Alamo Square Park.
The millionaire reactionaries who funded this anti-democratic attempt to oust the District Attorney will stoop to any depth to push their warped and perverse agenda in the run up to the June 7 election.
“Sadly, this comes as no surprise from a campaign that has made bullying and harassment key components of their strategy,” Julie Edwards. anti-DA recall spokeswoman said.
Excerpted from SF Standard – 3.11.2022
One of the two campaigns to recall San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is being accused of using “racist” and “anti-Chinese” campaign materials to criticize the progressive prosecutor with communist-style propaganda.
Nonprofit and civil rights leaders joined multiple retired Chinese American elected officials Thursday in Chinatown to condemn a poster depicting Boudin in a Cold War-era propaganda image, with the DA gesturing in a manner similar to a Mao Zedong poster from the 1970s. The poster also includes images of homeless encampments, a person appearing to consume drugs and a figure slumped over with their pants down.
DA Chesa Boudin with community leaders Norman Yee, Henry Der and Eric Mar – 3.5.2022
“The recall campaign has exploited the use of a Chinese historical jacket to deceive San Francisco voters,” said Henry Der, a former state deputy superintendent of public instruction and longtime head of the Chinatown-based civil rights organization Chinese for Affirmative Action.
Der, who also spoke at Boudin’s anti-recall rally last weekend, accused the recall organizers of “race-baiting” to achieve their goal of removing Boudin from office.
The image, which was posted online, was created by the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign. The group failed to gather enough signatures to put the recall onto the ballot last year, but another recall campaign, Safer SF Without Boudin, successfully submitted more than 83,000 signatures to qualify for a recall election this June.
Recall campaign disrupt DA Boudin rally with bullhorns – March 5, 2022
Richie Greenberg, a local Republican Party activist who is leading the Recall Chesa Boudin campaign, doubled down Thursday in a statement blasting the DA.
A new disgraceful low in San Francisco political history. David Sacks, a bagman in the recent School Board recall, has contributed $75,000 in the effort to oust the DA
“We have to talk about Chesa’s communist, socialist roots,” Greenberg said in a statement, pointing to Boudin’s work for Hugo Chavez, the late President of Venezuela and leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. “The vast majority of the Asian community opposes Maoist ideas and find Chesa offensive, views captured well by this poster.”
Boudin is a registered Democrat and the county’s Democratic Party voted overwhelmingly to oppose the recall.
Greenberg called the officials who attended Thursday’s press conference—including current supervisor Connie Chan, former supervisors Sandra Fewer, Norman Yee, and Mabel Teng, as well as retired judge Julie Tang—a group of “far-left progressive extremists” who are “the reason San Francisco is in such dire shape.”
Supervisor Connie Chan, a Chinese immigrant, was attacked with a similar poster in 2020 that depicted her in a communist-style poster with Fewer.
Julie Edwards, Boudin’s campaign spokesperson, said the district attorney and his supporters were “appalled by these racist, anti-Asian posters.” They also demanded an apology.
As Thug Putin continues his War Crimes campaign and thousands of Ukranians are dying, Russia continues to feel the consequences. Financially, socially, culturally.
The German group Rammstein whose music and videos are politically controversial has cancelled its upcoming Russia tour. It’s a small statement against the horrific Wa Crimes being committed by Thug Putin and his military.
The Russian people need to know that the treachery and criminality of Thug Putin will not go unpunished.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 3.10.2022
Both Rammstein and its front man, Till Lindemann, have quite a fan base in Russia. Lindemann has given several solo concerts in the country and had plans to perform in Novosibirsk and Moscow at the end of this year as part of his “Ich hasse Kinder” (“I Hate Kids”) tour.
He canceled them following the Russian attack on Ukraine, but he pledged to play a concert scheduled in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv if circumstances allow.
On its website, Rammstein took a clear stance against the war and in support of Ukrainians. In a statement in German, Ukrainian and Russian, the band said it’s particularly saddened by the suffering of Ukrainians. “Each member of the band has different experiences with the two countries; all musicians have friends, colleagues, partners and fans in Ukraine and Russia.”
The band said it is aware of the despair that many Russian fans feel in the face of their government’s actions, and they want to “remind people of the humanity that Russian and Ukrainian citizens share.”
Lindemann recently joined the many volunteers helping out at Berlin’s main train station, where many Ukrainian refugees have arrived in recent days.
‘Russia, we love you’
Since the turn of the millennium, the German band has been hugely popular with Russian fans. To some, their hard metal sound is reminiscent of German war aesthetics while also evoking Soviet heroism, the power of the proletariat and masculinity.
The Kiss in Russia
Authorities, on the other hand, have been wary of the band since a 2019 concert in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium during which Rammstein guitarists Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers kissed on stage — an absolute no-go in Putin’s Russia, which introduced what is known as the gay propaganda law in 2013 and has harassed and persecuted members of the LGBTQ+ community ever since.
Afterwards, a photo of the kiss was posted on social media along with the words: “Russia, we love you.” Many fans were delighted while politicians made it clear the band must refrain from such performances in Russia in the future.
The ongoing detention of Black basketball star Brittney Griner in Thug Putin’s totalitarian Russia is an outrage.
As Dave Zirin in The Nation points out Griner is now a political prisoner who Thug Putin is using as a bargaining chip as he continues his vicious war crimes assault against Ukraine.
Women are still not given the love, respect and attention they deserve in the sports world. If Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry was being detained in Russia the outcry would be off the charts.
Excerpted from The Nation 3.8.2022 – Dave Zirin
The problem is not just what happened to Brittney Griner. The problem is that we don’t know what ishappening to Brittney Griner now.
The WNBA superstar was allegedly caught with hashish oil in her luggage at a Russian airport and has been in custody for several weeks. For those first couple of weeks, it was as if no one noticed she was missing, no small feat for an athlete who is six foot nine and one of the most recognizable players in the history of the game.
Whether it started this way or not, we need to understand Griner as a political prisoner. It may have started with airport racial profiling and the idiotic war on cannabis. But now, by the nature of this perilous moment, she has become a chit, a leverage point, in a larger political war.
Brittney Griner and wife Cherelle Griner
There are online petitions and a predictable uproar given the anti-Putin sentiment in the States. Griner’s wife, Cherelle Griner, posted a picture of them together on Instagram as the news spread over the weekend.
She thanked their fans and then wrote, “I understand that many of you have grown to love BG over the years and have concerns and want details. Please honor our privacy as we continue to work on getting my wife home safely.”
It is absolutely true that Griner resonates with people, and now many of her fans are up in arms. If the goal was to quietly negotiate Griner’s return, those days are done. At this point, there is really no choice but to shine the brightest possible light on this political injustice and demand that she be sent home. Political prisoners are rarely freed easily. It requires—and demands—an international response. Brittney Griner is a basketball titan who deserves more than to be treated like a pawn.
She also is also well-known in Russia, where she plays for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the WNBA off season. In 2021 she helped the Russian team win its fifth EuroLeague Women’s championship. (Many WNBA players hoop in Russia during the off-season, as they need to supplement their income, an injustice in and of itself.)
Almost certainly, instead of creating an immediate public outcry following her arrest, there were efforts behind the scenes to get her out of Russia, which, we know now, was preparing to invade Ukraine. The goal would have been to make this go away without provoking an international incident. Well, it’s too late for that now.
In other words, delicate negotiations to get Griner home are almost certainly ongoing in a situation that is spiraling. Griner is detained in Russia at a moment when US-Russian relations are at their worst since Ronald Reagan joked, “We begin bombing in five minutes.” When and how she gets home and how she is being treated right now are anyone’s guess.
As basketball writer Tom Ziller put it, “We don’t have an idea as the public WNBA fandom where Griner is, or how she is doing, or how long she has been detained, or the circumstances of her custody, or what she knows about a timeline for being released, or what she’s being told. We don’t really know anything, and we don’t know whether she or those close to her know anything.”
Lee's Perspective 
