THE SECOND in a revelatory two-part investigation of former Congressman Doug Bosco’s grasping career appears this week in the Pacific Sun and the North Bay Bohemian. If you’ve ever wondered how Bosco managed to become the private owner of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, this fine investigative work by Will Carruthers explains, in detail, how Bosco did it as the Press Democrat, which he also owns, not only looked on but editorialized on his behalf.
THE FIRST FEW paragraphs of “Train Lines” nicely summarize Carruthers’ findings:
“Last week, we reported that two owners of the Press Democrat, Darius Anderson and Doug Bosco, helped craft a state-funded bailout deal benefiting Bosco’s privately owned Northwestern Pacific Railroad Company while Anderson’s Platinum Advisors was a contract lobbyist for SMART from 2015 to 2020.
“This week, we report the details of a real estate transaction in downtown Petaluma in which the A.G. Spanos Corporation paid $1.4 million to SMART and $1 million to another public rail agency which is financially intertwined with Bosco’s railroad company for their ‘right of ways’ on less than 600 feet of railroad track traversing the triangular lot upon which Spanos is currently building the North River Apartments…
“Without securing these easements, Spanos’ project was dead in the water and could not move through Petaluma’s planning process.
“…Public records show that SMART’s executive director, Farhad Mansourian, allowed Anderson to guide SMART’s easement sale to Spanos. Simultaneously, Bosco negotiated Spanos’ purchase of an overlapping right of way on the short spur owned by the North Coast Railroad Authority. NCRA is a state-chartered rail agency which critics say was largely operated to benefit Bosco’s company, commonly known as the NWP Co.
“…Last week, we reported on how Anderson’s firm, as part of its work for SMART, lobbied on state legislation which helped the interests of his business partner, Bosco, and the NCRA and the NWP Co. foundered. This week we report another instance of Anderson leveraging his position as SMART lobbyist to benefit his media business partner and political mentor, Bosco.”
UKIAH, and its Democrats, always eager to function as Useful Idiots where hustling co-Democrats are enriching themselves, helped shovel a few public bucks to Bosco via the proposed new County Courthouse on railroad property on West Perkins. As reported at the time in 2016 by Justine Frederickson, “The City of Ukiah worked closely with the NCRA and the Judicial Council of California in an effort that city staff described as a way to ensure that all 11 acres owned by the NCRA, as well as city-owned parcels along Leslie Street, could be used to their fullest potential. The city also paid for extensive clean-up of the site, after signing an agreement with NCRA to be reimbursed once the sale of the property is completed. The improvements to the site are expected to take 16 months, and the 90,000-square-foot courthouse, which will have eight courtrooms, is expected to be completed in 2020.”
THE PROPOSED COURTHOUSE was another inside deal engineered by local Democrats John McCowen and Dave Nelson. It hasn’t happened (yet) but Bosco got paid while the unwanted project remains on hold.
CARRUTHERS WRITES: “In subsequent NCRA-related bills authored by [State Senator Mike] McGuire, the state set aside more millions of dollars to cover NCRA debts. On top of paying $4 million to NWP Co for freight rights and equipment, the state paid NWP Co $3.47 million to cover NCRA’s interest-bearing debts to the company, according to Garin Casaleggio, a CalSTA representative. That amounts to a $7.47 million cash payout to the NWP Co enterprise”. … “A few years later, NWP Co would pocket $7.47 million in state funding as part of the NCRA shut-down process.”
AND THAT “SHUT-DOWN PROCESS” is the Great Redwood Trail — Bosco’s Great Scam Version 2.0.
UC’S HASTINGS COLLEGE OF THE LAW will soon change its name from Hastings to something more benign than its murderous present namesake, Serranus Clinton Hastings. Hastings came west during the Gold Rush and was soon named to the new state of California’s Supreme Court. Upon his death in 1900, Hastings left a million dollars to the fledgling University of California. In gratitude, the university named its law school after him.
HASTINGS appropriated for himself Mendocino County’s Eden Valley southeast of Willits where he intended to breed horses while he made his permanent home in Benicia, then California’s capitol. Hastings hired a 6’7" psychopath named Texan Boy Hall as his Eden Valley foreman.
YUKI INDIANS had inhabited Eden Valley for eons prior to Hastings and Hall descending upon them. Early on, Hall promised a crew of Indians the canvas shirts they coveted if they would carry Hastings’ furniture to his new Eden Valley ranch from the Mendocino area where Hastings’ cargo had arrived by sea. The Indians duly humped all Hastings’ furnishings from the Mendocino Coast over ancient Indian trails some old timers have said are now roughly today’s Branscomb Road to the Laytonville vicinity then on to Eden Valley.
WHEN THE INDIANS arrived with the goods, Hall said, “Thanks boys but you’re not getting the shirts.” In retaliation, the Indians killed Hastings’ brood stallion, an animal Hastings valued at $10,000. Hastings went to the state legislature where by legislative fiat the State of California agreed to pay cash money for every NorCal Indian scalp white mercenaries could provide.
A MENDO MAN named Walter Jarboe formed a posse of Indian killers called Jarboe’s Rangers who, for a year following the state’s bounty law, killed as many Indians as they could find in the Eel River basin, duly collecting payment from the state. Jarboe was challenged by his paymasters for inflating his reimbursement chits, but went on to become Ukiah’s first sanctioned lawman.
THE TRUE history of early Mendocino County has always been known but not widely disseminated. A book containing unhappy facts about the first white-native interface, the aptly named “Genocide and Vendetta,”" was litigated out of print when it first appeared under the imprimatur of the University of Oklahoma. Since then, confirmation of Hastings and other early Mendocino murderers has been doubly verified by pioneer diaries and modern scholarship.
RITTENHOUSE. The New Yorker published an interesting piece on the young gunslinger that explains a lot about how he came to shoot three men during a BLM riot in Wisconsin. Raised by a single mother, EMT’s and cops were the boy’s role models as an otherwise unsupervised high school kid. There are worse role models, certainly, lots of them. The boy seemed to think he was doing good that night — helping maintain order and, if called upon, providing some basic EMT services. From all accounts, he wasn’t a junior fascist, just not clear on what he saw as his mission. I doubt anybody, including his lawyers, will try to argue that Rittenhouse should have been armed, but the film of the event, assuming what we see is all of what occurred, makes it clear that the three men he shot were intent upon hurting him, and two of them were also armed. Now, anticipating riots when Rittenhouse is acquitted as seems likely, the country lurches into a winter season of mob mayhem.
NEAR as we can tell, the county’s annual budget is somewhere between $300 and $400 million, a big hunk of it going to salaries and employee benefits, which include a generous retirement guarantee. A recurring prob with the county budget, and all public budgets for that matter, is that no one seems able to put a precise number on it. Up through the early 1960s, elected people would promise to spend public money as carefully as they spent their own money, and until the recent past upper end county and other public bureaucrats didn’t make nearly the money they make now. A package of better than $300,000 a year for Ukiah’s phantom city manager to "manage" a town of 16,000 people? How did this happen? Well, as anybody knows who regularly attends public meetings the elected people are so chummy with the people they allegedly supervise that the elected people now consider themselves part of the "management team," and what teammate would deny team members $300 grand a year when the money isn’t coming out of their own pockets?
I REMEMBER writing that at high tide the water in San Francisco Bay was washing up and over the Embarcadero’s retaining walls, that the water level in the Bay seemed to be higher every year. Several times, as I shuffled back and forth to the ballpark from the Ferry Building, I’d jump back from the outside of the promenade to the dry side of the walk. And just last week, it was announced by the Port of San Francisco, that SF will need to elevate portions of the Embarcadero as much as 7 feet as “a shoreline defense strategy.” So, class, it’s not only the poor places of the world likely to suffer even more from the warmed globe, but some of Frisco’s most valuable real estate — on filled land all the way to Kearney Street, by the way — can become uninhabitable, and will anyway, experts say, in the next big earthquake.
A NEW CNN poll shows that over three-quarters of Americans surveyed said they believe Facebook has harmed U.S. society—and half of respondents said they personally know someone who believes in a conspiracy theory because of something they saw on the social network. The poll showed that an astonishing 76% of Americans believe that Facebook has made society worse, with just 11% saying that Facebook had improved society. The results also showed that 49% of people know someone who they think has fallen for a conspiracy theory because of content they saw on Facebook.
AS A PERSON long accustomed to rejection, I don’t mind being “unfriended” on Facebook, which I use, ahem, in my professional news gathering function. O yeah, there’s a lot of crazy talk drifting daily down out of cyberspace, but the crazy stuff isn’t restricted to Facebook, that’s for sure. But who seriously wants Zuckerburg and his dweeb teams deciding what we can read or, worse, having government decide content? Call me Pollyanna, but I think most people can sort out what’s true and what isn’t, a fact of American life proved daily by most jury decisions.
REALLY? How about the OJ jury? I followed that one very closely, read a ton about it, and I still think OJ’s jury made the logical not guilty verdict based on what they saw and heard during the trial. They were sequestered throughout, remember? They didn’t see and hear what we were seeing and hearing.
TRUMP? Well, uh, gee, got me there, kind of, but I think the Magas aren’t deceived or deluded so much as they’re totally rejecting that repellant crew of National Libs and Big Lib’s seeming endorsement of everything gone wrong in America, managing not to see that The Great Slide has been a joint project the whole way.
MEDICAL PERIL, Fort Bragg Division, a reader writes: "I was ill for several weeks and had convinced myself I had Covid but the test was negative. So I had another test and it was negative but I was getting more ill every day. I called my doctor and told him they didn’t do the test correctly so he had another test done. Negative. By then I had lost 30 pounds, couldn’t eat, running a fever, chills and then all of a sudden I couldn’t walk. My husband called the ambulance to come and get me. After a clear chest x-ray and a good EKG they did a scan of my abdomen. I was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in 1982 and have had sections of my intestine removed twice but I’ve been on an infusion treatment for the past eight years and have had no problems so never even thought it could be that. The scan they did showed that I had an abscess (caused by the Crohn’s) inside of me that was resting against my kidney and pushing on the muscle in my leg so my leg wouldn’t work. The infection is what was making me so ill. They ended up putting a drain into my back and keeping me in the hospital for 8 days on antibiotics through an IV. After I came home they left the IV in and I had to go back every day for antibiotics. I’m feeling much better now but I actually thought I was going to die. I didn’t realize an infection could make a person so ill. I’ll certainly be paying more attention to my body from now on. I don’t have time to be ill, I have things to do. I was here in the Fort Bragg Hospital, but if things didn’t go well I had given instructions to family to get me out of here. After all the horror stories I had been hearing about our hospital I was a bit worried. After this experience and with what happened to my husband several months ago I have come to the conclusion that once a person gets admitted into the hospital the care is good. The problem is getting there and all the red tape and different departments you have to deal with in order to get to the point that you can get help. I got lucky because when I got to the ER (via ambulance) they weren’t busy and got right on my case. The Dr. assured me he wouldn’t give up until he found out what was going on. All the staff was on hand in the imaging department so it worked out great. One nurse told me I was lucky because all the staff was there. The Radiologist had to put the drain in because they had to put me in the scan machine to watch where it was going and I guess he isn’t there every day but just happened to be there on this day. My gosh, to get lab work done here is such an ordeal. You have to stop at the desk where the sour puss gal takes your paperwork and tells you to sit down. Then you sit and wait for one of their little rooms to be empty and your name is called to go in and give them all the info they already have. Then you go to the lab where you sit again until it’s your turn. It’s funny because when Adventist Health had their lab on Chestnut St. (before they took over the hospital) you could take your paperwork in and they would ask if your info was the same then take you right in for your labs to be done. All within about 15 minutes-in and out. At the hospital it takes sometimes an hour or more. I had Dr. Miller, Dr. Wong and Dr. Sussman taking care of me and all were great. No visitors were allowed because of the "surge in covid cases" so I didn’t see anyone for 8 days from the outside world. My husband said the Dr.’s were calling him daily, sometimes more than once and updating him on what was going on. On the other hand I have friends who have taken their elderly parents in and waited hours in the ER to be seen. One person posted yesterday they took their elderly family member in and the hospital made her wait outside while the family member sat and waited to see the Dr. She said it was because she wasn’t vaccinated and added that the family member wasn’t vaccinated either. My advice to anyone needing to use the ER is call the ambulance so they take you right in and then hope all the staff needed is on hand. Like the nurse said to me ‘you got lucky’.”
THE FORT BRAGG name changers say on vague evidence I’m unable to find a citation for, that “Kah-la-deh-mun” was the Pomo language name for the village closest to what is now known as Fort Bragg. The name changers claim that “Kah-la-deh-mun” means “Surrounded by Trees,” a second claim I am unable to find a citation for. And the name changers claim that translation “is an apt name, if not a bit unwieldy for Western tongues.” (Speak for yourselves kemo sabes.) But the name changers conclude that “Fort Bragg” is no longer appropriate, if it ever was.
MOST adult-like people understand that bad things happen in the world, that history is a catalog of unspeakable horrors. Interesting as hell, though, but by changing a town’s name because a handful of ahistorical prigs say it’s “inappropriate,” a judgment inadequate as shorthand for General Bragg’s lamentable life, well, logically, we’d also have to re-name America. Vespucci, after all, was a pal of Columbus’s and… Well, no need to say the whole catechism. I say leave Fort Bragg as Fort Bragg. It’s not as if General Bragg is celebrated. Most Fort Bragg people had no idea of Bragg before the Appropriate Police brought him up.
CRITICAL RACE THEORY has the Inappropriate People in a national uproar, although it’s not taught anywhere in the K-12 system, and although it’s only an awkward and misleading term for teaching history whole, not teaching the sanitized version most of us have dozed through during high school.
PUT IT THIS WAY: The history teacher walks into the classroom and says, “Today, we can either discuss the Missouri Compromise or How The Dirty Murdering White Bastards Tried To Kill All The Indians In Mendocino County.”
WHICH instruction is a high school kid going to opt for? Of course the teacher has to have some idea of balance so the young don’t cry themselves to sleep thinking great, great grandpa was a killer and a land thief, but if history were an unbroken chain of atrocities how could we have Seth Curry and the Golden State Warriors? Huh? Answer me!
WILLITS CITY COUNCILWOMAN Greta Kanne responds to Zack Cinek’s article in last week’s paper about arsenic having been detected in the Willits water supply:
“A couple of weeks ago Bear Kamaroff sent a letter to the Editor of Willits Weekly raising the alarm about arsenic in the city’s Long 20 Well. Yesterday Zack Cinek, a former reporter for Willits Weekly and Ukiah Daily Journal posted an online article (above) about the same topic to the Willits Community Bulletin Board. Though I’ve not yet heard from any residents about this issue, I thought I’d take a moment to address the concerns raised as the City Council will be looking at adoption of the Groundwater Management Plan this coming Wednesday.
First of all, while it’s true that arsenic has been detected in the Long 20 well, that well has never been connected to the city’s drinking water supply. Currently, all of our community water needs have been met by the two reservoirs on the watershed property south of town.
The Long 20 well and the Elias well were dug as part of the city’s exploration of a back-up water supply in the aftermath of the severe drought of 2014. The intent was to access the groundwater prevalent in Little Lake Valley and run it through a Groundwater Treatment Plant (GWTP) before the water would be introduced to our municipal water system and delivered into our homes.
When drought conditions improved, residents and City staff alike felt less pressure to finalize the GWTP and further development of the Long 20 well halted. As water scarcity became an increasing concern this summer, city staff picked up the pace on exploration and operation of the wells and GWTP.
So, back to the arsenic. Arsenic is a naturally occurring element found in the Earth’s core. It can be found in groundwater supplies, particularly in areas with dense bedrock and is odorless and tasteless. It is also harmful when ingested and the EPA suggests that drinking water have less than 10 parts per billion present, or as close to zero as possible.
The city’s Long 20 well was tested at 3 drilling levels, with the highest concentration of arsenic found at the level closest to the ground. The middle level had the lowest concentration and the third level was slightly higher. All levels exceeded the EPA’s maximum level allowance.
City staff have indicated that the first level of the well would be capped, effectively eliminating the water with the highest concentrations of arsenic from the Groundwater Treatment Plant. The water from the two lower levels would be combined with the arsenic-free water from the Elias well, thus diluting the concentration before being pumped into the GWTP for treatment. City staff and hired consultants felt confident that once these steps were taken, the resulting water would meet the maximum allowable concentrations of 10ppb or less.
Willits residents and businesses use close to 1 million gallons of water per day during the height of summer. A few weeks ago our reservoirs were at 56% capacity and concerns about winter recharge had everyone talking. We’re fortunate that October rains have brought our capacity back over 80% and we all hope for a long, wet season. But water scarcity will continue to be a serious community concern and the City of Willits needs to explore all options for providing safe drinking water for its residents.
Like many people I have concerns about groundwater and I’ve been asking many questions. Do you have questions or information you’d like to share? I would love to hear from you.”
I WAS IN WILLITS last Wednesday on a mission unrelated to the County Museum, but so long as I was there I stopped in and paid my $4 Museum admission, hoping to see how the spiritual Stalinists had arrayed their false memorial to Judi Bari as they eternally agitate for the false narrative they’ve crudely promoted all these years, enriching several of them en route. (Hint: The ex-husband did it.) From the photos on-line, the exhibit looked like Lenin’s Tomb with Bari standing in for Vlad. But I was a week late. I’d assumed, Mendo being Mendo, where history starts all over again every morning and you are whatever you say you are, the Bari exhibit would be part of the Museum’s permanent collection. And maybe it is, stashed somewhere in those cavernous premises for annual re-display. Nope. Gone. Ill-attended, my informants say, but I encourage visits to the Museum anyway. It has expanded its reach with a lot more local displays. I was particularly impressed by the exhibit on the history of the county’s Native Americans.
AND THERE, also on display, Andree Connors and her hippie van, with a photograph of Andree herself proudly displaying her double mastectomy. It occurred to me that I’m one of a dwindling number of people who knew Andree when she co-hosted a morning talk show with the late Ed Kowas and the present Lindy Peters on KMFB. Always smart and lively. And modest. I didn’t know until years later that Andree had written a well-received novel called “Amateur People,” which is still in print. Exchanging her oppressive marriage and all convention, Andree headed for Mendocino (where else?) for rebirth as the free-est of free spirits.
IF YOU’RE YOUNGER THAN SIXTY, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it. If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope. — Jonathan Franzen
ON LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] It costs about $10,000 per day, per ship, to keep those container vessels operating off the coast of California waiting to be unloaded, and that’s just for fuel, not paying the crew and other expenses. The man ultimately responsible for untangling the logistical mess, for getting the ports working, the containers offloaded, and the trucks rolling, is Pete Buttigieg, US Secretary of Transportation. Well, yesterday, Pete released a statement:
“At the Dept. of Transportation we will be working hard to guarantee paid parental leave for all Americans. It’s the right thing to do.”
So there it is, but Mayor Pete is working on the problem.
[2] I’m surprised no one has mentioned what has been going on in the Aaron Rodgers saga. I watched AR being interviewed for 47 mins (this happened on Nov 5th) – he revealed ALL – and is believable and convincing, and today I see that the NFL has fined the Packers team, Rodgers, and one other teammate. True, the amount of the fine imposed on each of the players would fit in their ashtray like pocket change ($14,650 I believe). The team fine was $300K and they were threatened with loss of future draft picks. I have only one beef with Aaron Rodgers. Since doing a stint as host of Jeopardy this past Spring, Aaron has abandoned the clean-cut look and adopted the “scruffy” look and even a man-bun which I think I saw in one of the ads he stars in. Also long hair hanging out the back of his helmet. He had an excellent persona working for him, why did he have to eff that up?
[3] A couple of months ago, I was informed by the cell phone company I used that I MUST upgrade my simple, reliable phone ‘cause it wasn’t compatible with 5G. I thought about that, then decided to get what I used to call a throw-away, prepaid phone with another outfit.
The plan with the phone company to which I subscribed, charged about $53 per month for a monthly allotment of 400 minutes, a bit over $600 per year. I had long ago disabled text messaging and rarely gave out my cell number, and the thing was off unless I was making a long-distance call. In a “busy” month, I used maybe half an hour of my allotment of minutes.
So, I ended up getting the prepaid setup. It cost me about $100 for 400 minutes, which have to be used up within a year. The phone itself cost about $30. I much prefer the old Motorola Star Tac. Its operation was straightforward and simple, and the small, black-and-white screen was visible in any light. The new one, though a flip phone has a huge, colored screen that I cannot read in sunlight, plus its operation is not particularly “intuitive”. It tries to be a “smart” while remaining a “dumb” flip phone.
So far, I have made one call, to my home number, just to see if the POS actually works. It did. And, I figure saving $500 over the year is worth the bother.
One bad thing about the new “plan”. I started getting emails from people wanting to “like” me from F-ck Book. That was weird, since I have never set up a F-uckbook account. Apparently buying the damned plan signed me up. Since I blocked two messages from F-ckbook, I haven’t been bothered by them any longer…at least so far. I may have to get another plan next year, especially if F-ckbook starts sending me stuff again.
Hell, all I use the damned cell phone for is long distance, and for a possible emergency while out in the middle of nowhere–but then again, if that happens, I probably won’t be somewhere that has a signal anyway. (Harvey Reading)
[4] JIM BRITT of Fort Bragg, on line comment about Skunk Train’s attempts at eminent domain seizure of Fort Bragg Mill Site. “Cities have long invited hotel projects into their core downtown areas to revitalize them. Initially, the Skunk Train envisioned a few hotels on the mill site north of Redwood Avenue and behind the Company Store and Guest House Museum. A move that could produce greater tourist visitation to our downtown and a major draw for revitalization of our downtown while these hotels would barely encroach on views of our Ocean. In addition, there was a proposal for housing and apartments on this north side. There were also plans for a wide street on west redwood with a picnic area on the south side with unobstructed views of our ocean and access to the Coastal Train. The Skunk Train has now abandoned this concept in favor of controlling the whole site and apparently running rail tracks throughout with little rail cabins for the tourists. Kudos to the City of Fort Bragg for their action. I support private property rights and the development of the mill site but the actions of the Skunk Train and its parent company is reminiscent of the railroad barons of days past.”
[51] ON LINE COMMENT about the propane truck accident that closed down 162 for much of the day near Covelo last week: “The story going around regarding the propane truck wreck on the Covelo road is the driver was faced with a split second decision- run head on into a car over the yellow line and in his lane or avoid the head on and go off the road. The truck went off the road, flipped, the car continued speeding away. Those of us who live out here in Covelo have all witnessed, with increasing regularity lately, speeding and reckless driving on 162 as if it is some kind of personal racetrack for drivers who disregard the basic safe driving practices. I used to commute daily on that road and found that driving as fast as you could you would get there (either out to 101 or back to Round Valley) a minute or so, five minutes at the most, sooner. Go fast if you want but stay in your own lane.” — Lew Chichester
[61] I lived in Alaska. 6 winters. Palmer, Biglake, Wasilla, (home of Sarah Palin) summers in Willow running a sawmill. (2007-2013).
You have to stay at least 3 winters to get to know locals, natives and long-time Alaskans.
A few mottos to learn before you head up, “Stop complaining about the weather, God makes the weather, what you have is Bad clothing options!”
If you don’t like the scenery, you are going to hate the weather.
The state of mind in Alaska is,” you got 3 months to get ready for winter!”
All these statements one hears daily to tell the tourists the “way it is.”
The fishing is called catching, no permits to build a house or cabin whatever you want to accomplish.
A few problems with staying warm and dry but other than those few items, it’s like Siberia.
Lots of Russians, they don’t interact with the lower 48.
Lots of Minnesota folks.
Most folks can’t hang after 2 winters.
It rains every day, is cloudy, gray, moose in the yard eat everything you plant as long as it is green. Got to have studded tires, block heater in your car, look forward to long, long dark days.
Great people live there. I think about it every day. I have been back in
Cali since 2013
[7] Re: “And can anybody explain how influencers get rich from being “monetized” on youtube? How the heck does any of that work?”
A “personality” with a big following – let’s say tens of thousands typically to start having meaning – gets approached by companies to mention their products. The guy who does lots of skateboard tricks with 500,000 YouTube followers eventually may get $15,000 to talk up a brand.
More interesting I think is how this is a “job” at a more local level. There are people who cover food and bars for just one city – and I know restaurants that give out $2,000 a month in free food to a handful of influences who post videos of the food on their TikTok, etc. Think of it: some restaurant doing say $800,000 in sales finds value in handing out $20,000 plus a year in free food. They also have to balance these “stars” who sometimes make silly demands (throw in two bottles Absolut with my order).
This business model is in a lot of cities around the world. Of course, trying to become an influencer is competitive – lots of people want a bunch of free food three times a week from one restaurant, and a cash gift card from a retailer, etc., and they keep their day job.
[8] Hey, to hell with the elites is my motto. But THE reason I never had children was because if I had received a dime every time some adult claimed they cared about kids, but sandbagged, hamstrung or nickeled – and – dimed the kid I was, by age 13 at the latest I would have been rich enough to tell adults to fuck off. And I’m sure I would have been no worse off if I could have done so. It looks to me like a huge percentage of the population fetishizes or pimps a transient stage of life. That looks highly questionable to me, before we go anywhere else. I wonder if you ever saw the South Park episode where Mickey Mouse of Disney Corporation explicitly states what the real policy regarding 12 year old girls is ? I can’t find it on YouTube now. My guess is they censored that shit. (Except I don’t think it is shit. It was simply true.) Children are the ultimate virtue signaling. Hitler loves kids so.... When I was a kid to be called a kid was practically an insult. Today, 25 year olds want to be labelled kids. I don’t know which is worse, that, or all the adults who want a politician – like photo op with a kid. I wish the word ‘Child’ or any reference to such beings was eradicated.
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