FLASHBACKS
IN THE DELUGE of unhappy news this week was another airliner crash in Indonesia. The plane was flying from Jakarta to the Borneo city of Pontianak. Pontianak! In the year of living dangerously, 1965, I set out by bus for Pontianak from Kuching, Sarawak, a town in '65 about the size of Ukiah. I knew enough Malay to get around and, being young, stepped into a number of dangerous situations without understanding how dangerous they were. I'd trained myself to sleep on floors because floors were often the available accommodations, especially in the most interesting up-country areas. I spent a lot of time with the Dayaks, infamous as headhunters up through the Japanese occupation of the Borneo states during World War Two. When they initially occupied the Borneo states, the Japanese had sent large patrols by motorboat up the Rajang River to ferret out the British and Australian commandos who were organizing the Dayaks to fight them. Those patrols were wiped out to a man by Dayaks hidden in the impenetrable riverside jungle, armed only with blow guns and poison darts. No known antidote, dead in ten minutes, eternal rest in bunches of death grimaces hanging from Dayak ceilings. I stayed in longhouses where bunches of Japanese heads hung in the common hall, some still with their eyeglasses, but shrunken after years of smoke from carefully tended little shrines beneath them. I stayed in places where 12-year-olds had never seen a white person, and the adults thought I was somehow associated with the British royal family. In '65, and unknown to me and most of the world, the Indonesian generals had begun slaughtering alleged communists, some of whom were involved in trying to beat back the newly formed country of Malaysia, which they accurately regarded as a neo-imperial scheme of the British.
SO I'M ON THE BUS for Pontianak, a backcountry bus with masses of chickens and old ladies spitting betel nut juice on the floor as we jounced along, children remarking on the length of my nose and the hair on my arms. At a place called Bau the bus was stopped, a young Englishman backed by a pair of Gurkhas, all of them armed, told me the border was closed, and that no one was going to Pontianak because it was unsafe, a state of anarchy. I remember him asking me, “Why do you want to go there?” I told him I was curious, that I'd read about the old sultanate and wanted to see what was left of it. He said, “Well, I'm sorry. Not for now and probably not for a long time. It's very bad over there.” I was the only person ordered off the bus, but I suppose my fellow passengers lived in the border area and traveled on. Or they were viewed as anonymously expendable by the authorities. I spent that night on the floor of a Chinese shop house. I could sleep anywhere in those days.
MOST TRAVEL was by boat in Sarawak at the time. There were only a few miles of paved road. Living there, as the first wave of Americans were unleashed on the unsuspecting neo-Malaysians, I was agog much of the time at what was still an unvisited part of the world, an area of virtually untouched Asia as it had been before the modern world rushed in. Two sights among all the sights I've never forgotten: I was having a plate of fried rice one late afternoon in a flooded bazaar of about thirty shop houses on the banks of the Mukah River. The flooding had come into the premises to about three feet, but the kitchen remained open for business and all the customers, me included, just went on eating with our flip-flops caressed by the tides. I'd watched a gang of Chinese longshoremen (still called “coolies” in that place at that time) unload a small boat, walking on and off with large, heavy sacks of whatever it was — try that all day in equatorial heat! When they knocked off they sat down around me, pointing at me and laughing, a reaction I still seem to inspire, while they knocked back glasses of brandy after — the faint of heart better not continue reading here — after swallowing live baby mice wrapped in bean sprouts, the mice furnished by the kitchen. Chinese macho!
ANOTHER MEMORABLE OCCASION occurred when I visited the home of what I recall was described as a bomoh, or person with special powers. To demonstrate her gifts she first spun an egg which, being uncooked, flopped over as uncooked eggs do. She then picked up the egg, closed her tiny, bony hand around it, muttered something and voila! — it spun like a top. Mysticism was much in the air. The government was trying to bridge a smallish river near Kuching whose pilings kept slipping away. A rumor began that the authorities had hired a Dayak to take a human head to plant with the foundation, thus ensuring that the structure would stay standing. That rumor was so pervasive that the government had to go on the country-wide radio to deny it, but for a week the night time streets of the town were deserted.
LONG BEFORE this garrulous old coot was a garrulous old coot, he functioned, in exchange for free rent, as building manager at 925 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, a building long ago demolished, and a building then teeming with deadbeats and, ah, unconventional persons, among them a showbiz star of sorts, The Nude Girl On A Swing. An undemanding gig, I should think, and one she performed at a nightclub in nearby North Beach. It was an act as advertised, and an act that packed the place with voyeurs, all male of course. As advertised. Cynthia, nude, swung out of the ceiling as the male audience below twisted themselves in scrambling piles for better views. When she got me and a friend free passes to see the show one night, I remember wondering to myself as I sat with the rest of my pathetic gender gazing upwards, “Only a stone degenerate would be here.” I rationalized the visit, as we all tend to rationalize our more embarrassing moments, by telling people, “Hey, she lives next door to me. I didn't want to insult her by refusing to go.” Cynthia was also a junkie, my first direct experience with a drug addict. (I thought she was just sleepy all the time). About 3am one night, I heard this terrific back and forth yelling, accompanied by thuds and breaking glass coming from Cynthia's apartment, and soon I was pounding on her door with the vague intent to stop some terrible mayhem. I was the manager after all, the in-charge guy. It was time to do my job! The door was suddenly thrown open by a frenzied-looking young man who told me to “Bleep you and mind your own bleeping business.” Cynthia stood behind him crying. I said I was calling the cops, and both of them told me to mind my own bleeping business, with him adding, “You do and I'm coming back to kill you.” The next day I hustled down to the Gun Exchange which, as I dimly recall, was only a block south of Market on either Second or Third Street, where I bought a shotgun and some ammo. Later that same day, after I'd armed up, I looked out my window and there they were, the two lovebirds arm in arm strolling along Stockton Street. They waved up at me, big sarcastic smiles on their stoned faces.
THE DEPENDABLY AMUSING Marco McClean is soliciting dreams to read on his even more amusing late night show on KNYO, Fort Bragg. Ordinarily, I take a mental nap when acquaintances recite dreams, medical problems, "great" restaurant meals, the antics of their pets, and so on. But I recently experienced some nocturnal excitement myself, odd as it was, that Marco might find worth repeating. Wrapped securely in the arms of Morpheus three nights ago, I found myself standing, nonplussed, on the sidewalk in front of Schat's Bakery, West Perkins, Ukiah. 2nd District supervisor, Maureen ‘The Mo You Know’ Mulheren, togged out in desert combat camo, was right smack in my face, so close she was standing on my toes. “Please take at least one step back, Supervisor,” I asked as politely as I could in the circumstances. Across the street, poised to descend the steps to the Courthouse's south entrance, District Attorney C. David Eyster, was shouting abuse at me that I couldn't quite hear until… “You aren't dead yet, Anderson? Maybe this will help get you to The Other Side,” and darned if Mendocino County's lead law enforcement officer didn't flip me off with both hands! “One for you and one for your buddy, Geniella. If I had another hand I'd send one to that meddlesome wop, Scaramella.” With that, Eyster disappeared down the stairs where two fat guys in matching propeller beanies were manning the fake x-ray security machine. Supervisor Mulheren, so amused at Eyster's dual flip-off that she was bent in half laughing, finally straightened up to scream, “All power to the Soviets!” I was stunned. “Wha…wha…what did you say?” Mulheren, with a demented cackle, replied, “Queers are hard of hearing!” and with that she vanished in a sudden downpour of severed human fingers.
I'M PRETTY SURE my odd dream was inspired by this fascinating autobiography Fred Gardner was kind to send me. Rarely do book blurbs of the “You won't be able to put it down” variety live up to their promise, but this one did. “Memoirs of a British Agent” by R.H. Bruce Lockhart. Uniquely placed in Russia during the ten days that shook the world, the Brits' young man in Moscow personally dealt with Lenin and Trotsky and other top revolutionaries. As a dozen capitalist countries sent armies to crush the Bolsheviks, and leading global opinion makers predicted the Russian revolution would collapse of its own contradictions, Lockhart steadily informed London that Lenin had the support of the broad mass of Russian people, that the Bolsheviks were here to stay.
I'VE RECOMMENDED hundreds of books over the years to the AVA's brilliant, sophisticated readers, but this one? I command you to read it! Even if you have no interest in the Russian Rev, Lockhart's story is riveting apart from his unique political experience.
COME PROTEST PEACEFULLY TODAY!!!
JANUARY 31ST, 11-12 NOON
Like Coastlib is suddenly going to get outta hand? Given the all-caps and number of exclamation points in the message, I'd say the poster has her own violence barely under control, not that I'm not fully in support with only this caveat: Given that the average age of the demonstrators is about 96, ultra-vi is highly unlikely, but it's wayyyyy cool with the Boonville daily that the demonstrating Coasties (Ukiah, too) go wild in the streets! Do it! Pepper suspected maga passersby with your dentures! Throw your walkers into the street! Do a mass die-in! (Er, check the last. Die-ins are contraindicated for this demographic.)
WE HAVE REVIEWED the extensive contract language in the County’s agreement with Restpadd Inc., a Redding-based Psychiatric Health Facility, to staff and operate the soon to open Psychiatric Health Facility on Whitmore Lane south of Ukiah. The original agreement with Restpadd was signed last May and has been expanded via the consent calendar several times since then. Despite its considerable length (much of which is contractual boilerplate) there are no reporting requirements in the contract, at all. No reports required on staffing levels, patient counts and categories, release records, etc. We are not the only locals with experience with these kinds of contrctual arrangements who see ominous parallels with Ortner Management Group (OMG!) who was contracted back in 2016 under highly suspicious circumstances and without any qualifications or experience back in 2016 to provide adult mental health services for Mendocino County only to have their non-performing, non-compliant services contract not-renewed three years later and the contract rewarded to Redwood Community Services without competitive bidding which has had a lucrative monopoly on the services ever since. The Restpadd contract for this fiscal year is now up to $1 million, which sounds very low for what was previously estimated to be a 16 bed, round the clock operation with over 40 estimated staff positions. Perhaps they’re starting slow. — Mark Scaramella
MAZIE MALONE:
Re; Rest Padd Contract, PHF.
A $1 million contract for a 16 bed Psychiatric Health Facility equates to minimal, essentially bare minimum staffing. That matters, because the role of a PHF is immediate crisis stabilization through containment and medication, not long term care.
What needs to be understood is what happens after that stabilization period ends.
When people are released, there is no built in setup for success. Discharge often means the crisis is considered “resolved,” even though nothing in the person’s actual life has changed.
I have seen this repeatedly through my own son’s hospitalizations, including multiple stays at Restpadd, as well as through jail releases, which function much the same way. In each situation, the focus was on short term stabilization or containment, followed by release, without meaningful transition support.
I pushed for involvement and continuity every time. I asked for family counseling prior to discharge because my son did not understand what had happened to him, and I believed there needed to be shared understanding before he was sent back home with me. That request was refused. I was told that was not something they did.
I also demanded a psychiatric evaluation within the first few days after release. I was told the wait would be a month. A month is too long. In that gap, people decompensate, relapse, or end up right back in crisis.
There is also a financial reality that shapes how these facilities operate. Psychiatric hospital care is typically billed on a per day basis, with reimbursement highest at the beginning of a stay and decreasing over time. As a result, once someone is deemed more stabilized, not necessarily well, there is pressure to discharge them in order to free up a bed for a new admission at a higher reimbursement rate.
This creates a system where turnover is built in. People are moved through quickly, not because their situation has meaningfully changed, but because beds are limited and new crises are always waiting.
These experiences made something very clear to me. Families hold critical information and context, yet are routinely excluded, and when they are excluded, the transition out of crisis care is unstable by design.
And for people who are unhoused, the failure is even more obvious. If someone enters a PHF or jail while homeless, they are typically released still homeless. Stabilization does not come with housing, continuity of care, or a realistic plan for what comes next.
A PHF may be a necessary intervention in moments of acute crisis, but without accountable follow through, it remains a short term containment tool, not a pathway to stability.
JULIE BEARDSLEY:
In the past, Mendocino County Councils contracts often lacked things like a clear objective, a time-frame to get it done, and consequences for non-performance. (I read the OMG contract, as an example). Lacking these makes them pretty hard to enforce if a party defaults. Contracts are not rocket science, but pretty basic stuff, so I assume it was incompetence on the part of the County’s well paid legal beagles? (Charlotte Scott was an exception to this, and her talents were recognized by the Governor in appointing her judge). I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve noticed deficiencies in contracting several times over my years with the county. I would urge the Board of Supervisors to create a policy to review each contract over a chosen monetary threshold.
THE FAMILY OF THE MAN who died while being arrested near Willits in June has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the Willits Police Department.
The lawsuit alleges excessive force and failure to provide medical care during the arrest and names multiple deputies and officers. County and city officials declined to comment Monday.
Background:
Pathologist Cites Restraint and Health Issues in Willits Man’s Death During Arrest
Gofundme Launched For Family Of Willits Man Who Died During Arrest
DOUG HOLLAND:
All my life, I’ve stupidly swallowed claims that America must limit immigration, that people desperate to escape their hellhole countries should fill out the right forms and wait in line for five or ten or twenty years while the US immigration and naturalization process moves at its quarter-of-a-snail’s pace.
From that unquestioned assumption springs everything we’re seeing now — immigrants snatched from their workplace, children abducted as they’re walking home from school, decent, ordinary people hauled away for their skin tone or accent, taken to concentration camps to await forced deportations, often to countries they’ve never been to.
What’s being done is reprehensible, and entirely based on lies. The immigrants are not eating the dogs, eating the cats, and there is no “crisis at the border” that couldn’t be solved by simply saying “Welcome to America.”
Borders are silly and imaginary, the reasons for restricting immigration and deporting law-abiding immigrants are bullshit, and the people saying it’s necessary are invariably monsters, so fuck it. Dismantle ICE, blow up the Department of Homeland Security, and replace all their rotten rules and racism and cruelty with the world’s largest welcome mat, stretched from sea to shining sea.
Open the borders. Anyone who wants to come to America will almost certainly be a better American than the Americans born here.
ISHI
He stepped from the shadows of history on a warm August day in 1911—thin, frightened, and utterly alone. Near a slaughterhouse corral outside Oroville, California, a man appeared who seemed to belong to another age. He was soon called “Ishi,” the last known survivor of the Yahi people, whose lives had once been woven into the hills and river valleys of Northern California. His true name was never spoken. In his culture, one did not say their own name aloud, and so he accepted “Ishi,” simply meaning “man,” becoming the final living voice of a language no one else could understand.
Born around 1860, Ishi entered a world already collapsing around him. The California Gold Rush had unleashed violence, disease, and environmental ruin. Mining poisoned streams with mercury, livestock stripped the land bare, and hunger drove the Yahi to raid cattle herds—acts that brought swift and merciless retaliation. In 1865, a massacre at Three Knolls left only about thirty Yahi alive. Branded as vermin, they disappeared into the wilderness, surviving in secrecy by gathering acorns, hunting small game, crafting tools, and speaking a language that would soon have no listeners left.
For nearly fifty years, Ishi lived hidden from the society that had destroyed his people. When his mother died, he became the last. After his capture, he was taken from the Oroville jail by University of California anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and T. T. Waterman, who treated him not as a curiosity, but as a human being carrying an irreplaceable history. At the university museum in San Francisco, Ishi taught what he could—how to flake obsidian into arrowheads, how to build fire, how to sing the old songs. He never revealed his real name, but through quiet patience and dignity, he became a bridge between worlds. When he died of tuberculosis in 1916, he was cremated according to his wishes, with his bow, his beads, and the fragile remnants of a people who vanished with him.
DOES THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS appear to have fraud and corruption or is the board just badly mismanaging Medocino County? The Potter Valley Project appears to be highjacked by corrupt politicians and inside players with harm to those who don’t follow their (wrong) lead. The repair funds for our roads were disappeared and all PV residents get are excuses. The PV roads are literally worse than most third world countries. I travel widely internationally and they are really the worst I’ve seen even traveling remotely in India, Mexico and Indonesia. Audits show little fiscal understanding along with inappropriate use of public funds. The residents of PV and Mendocino County deserve better.
— Marilyn Brooks, Potter Valley
CHICKEN SEAGULL, on the Round Valley Reservation
Mendocino County, California - Pomo (Khabeako Band) - 1907
LEW CHICHESTER (Covelo)
“A federal judge in the Northern District of California on Thursday affirmed the authority of sheriff’s deputies to enforce criminal laws prohibiting large-scale cannabis cultivation on tribal land.
The ruling marked a victory for Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall, who has repeatedly warned about cartel activity in the northeastern part of the county.”
This is kind of a big deal out here. For a decade now there have been large commercial grows of marijuana on various allotments within the boundaries of the Round Valley Indian Reservation. These are grows which have been operating under the assumption that because both the State and the Tribe allow for cultivation for personal use, with the Tribe having a Compassionate Use Ordinance as well as a degree of sovereignty and exemption from enforcement of State regulations, that these grows are somehow “legal.”
The Sheriff thought otherwise, and raided three of these grows in 2024. The Tribe then sued the Sheriff. A Federal Judge just the other day made, which seemed to make sense to me, a determination that these grows were in actuality commercial operations, not for personal use, and a violation of various State criminal statues. Therefore no immunity.
Plus the Compassionate Use Ordinance has been a flagrant fiction for allowing large commercial grows to be established on dozens, if not hundreds, of Trust Allotments on the reservation. These grows are staffed by Spanish speaking individuals, and the product then sold through a maze of criminal connections.
Perhaps the Sheriff just got tired of the BS and posturing, the homicides and kidnappings, and the general criminalization of a once somewhat family friendly place.
I am sure there are lots of individuals, including those growing on Indian land, and the Tribal Council who has facilitated all this descent into a criminal cartel hell, who are bent out of shape. This isn’t over, not by a long shot.
ROBIN SUNBEAM:
My friend Aryae Troupin died yesterday, z'al. He had no children. He was estranged from his cruel crazy siblings. There is no one to claim his corpse. Considering that death is inevitable, especially after a lifetime of sickness and old age, I am less sad about losing my friend than I am that there is no one to claim his corpse and bury him. His death is a relief from his physical suffering.
My ex-husband‘s aunt Felicia died in the hospital and nobody came to claim her body. Not her son, not her grandchild, not her nieces and nephews. And not me, the X-wife of a nephew.
The hospital called me about her death because I was the only name on the hospital rosters to have visited her. I called her son, nephews and nieces; none took responsibility for her corpse. She was buried in a pauper‘s grave.
It breaks my heart that they have no one. At least Aryae will be mourned by many. The Aquarian Minyan is planning a memorial service in May.
I hope someone will mourn me when I am dead. I hope there will be enough people who love me to claim my dead body and bury me. If all goes well, my descendants will certainly have enough money to pay for my funeral.
AT THE BOARD’S JANUARY 21 WORKSHOP Supervisor Ted Williams asked outgoing CEO Darcie Antle whether the DA’s controversial and “prohibited” (per the State Auditor) Broiler Dinners should be “paused” until further notice. Antle replied, “Yes, they should be paused.” Williams continued, “I am asking out of paranoia that someone will show up at one of these meetings and say, Hey this just happened and we are responsible. Until we figure it out I think that such transactions should be paused.”
Antle replied: “Yes. Those meetings typically happen towards the end of February. So hopefully we can have a discussion on February 3.”
The February 3 Board agenda did not mention the DA’s broiler dinners.
(Mark Scaramella)
A READER WRITES:
I spent about 30 minutes going over a few of the parcels on Airport Blvd., Ukiah. I honestly had no idea how much of a mess property taxes are in Mendocino County, but judging from the small sampling I took, it’s worse than I could have imagined.
First things first. The AGIS (mapping) website has an interactive map that can be used to look up parcel numbers (APN) here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=95fc4d1c8ede4b21b3dd8fa89a75d39b
With the APN in hand, the tax records for any parcel can be accessed here: https://ca-mendocino.publicaccessnow.com/TaxCollector/TaxSearch.aspx
Several of the parcels on Airport Blvd. that were developed years ago are listed as vacant, with insanely low rates to match. In one case, a major hotel chain did get “escaped” to the tune of $551.979.10. That amount remains in arrears.
Just one assessor taking one day on Airport Blvd. could probably find more than a million dollars in uncollected taxes. 30 minutes got me more than half way there.
I’m posting this anonymously for reasons that should be obvious.
ERNIE BRANSCOMB:
The illegal drug industry has to be the most filthy, disgusting industry in the country. People that use illegal drugs must have a death wish.
Back in the heyday of drug use, there was a bar above the Jacob Garber building in Garberville. One night a couple of very pretty girls came out of the bar and over to our loading dock across the street. They put something on the metal edge of the dock. They chopped it up and sniffed it with straws. If that was not filthy enough, one of them licked the dregs off the dock. (security cameras)
Can you imagine the poor dude that kissed that girl goodnight?
DOBIE DOLPHIN:
Back in the day when one could go to a BOS meeting in Ukiah and actually have a dialog with the supervisors, many of us from Albion were over there regularly, for one thing or another. Sometimes after a meeting, I would go with Norman to Lake Mendocino where he had a small sailboat. He would kick back with a 6-pack of Green Death (Rainer Ale) and let me sail the boat. There was never much wind, so we mostly luffed in the middle of the lake and I got to hear Norman stories. Those were sweet days.
WHEN NATHANIEL SMITH DIED at Mendocino in 1906 the obituaries gave his age as 75 to 100 years. His age given to a census taker favors the smaller number. It seems very certain that Nathaniel Smith was born a free black in about 1831 in Baltimore Maryland which was a slave state at the time. Being a young , free black man in a slave state might have put him at risk of being impressed, kidnapped into slavery. For whatever reason, on 22 December 1847 he shipped out as a crew member on the ship “Rhone” The Rhone sailed from Baltimore to Rio de la Plata, Cape Horn and five stops along the west coast of South America finally departing Callao for Honolulu, then back to California. Smith left the ship in San Francisco on August 11th 1848. (Gold had been discovered back in January)
Settling in the Bay Area, Smith resided in the home of Benjamin Hill in Sausalito. He is listed in the Marin County census in 1850 as a servant in the Hill household. California became a state in that year, entering the Union as a free state which made his freedom much more secure. A few doors away from the Hill household, lived one Captain Fletcher and it is almost certain that Smith signed on with Fletcher who was planning to build a water-powered sawmill on the Albion River in the region of Sonoma County known as Mendocino. For whatever reason and under whatever circumstances, Smith left the enterprise and made his way down the coast where he settled near a small unnamed creek. He hunted and fished and lived close to a Pomo encampment. Around the same time a middle-aged Portuguese named Francisco Faria settled about a mile to the north. It is clear the two men, the only two English-speakers hunted and worked together.
The general location where they lived became known as Cuffey’s Cove. (Or possibly Cuffy’s Cove – there is no “correct” spelling and the cemetery has it spelled both ways) The origin of the place name is something of a mystery and there are several versions of the story, including a bear cuffing her cubs. The verifiable truth is that “cuffy” is archaic slang for a slave and, by extension, a person of African heritage. The most probable version is that the sailors plying the northern California coast referred to “that cuffy’s cove” But just to muddy the waters further, one John Coffey was an early settler there and it was even proposed to have been [Ivan] Kuskov’s Cove. Smith’s partner there made matters even less clear in later years when he told of a bear he fought, they came to call Old Cuffy because of the peculiar way she had used her forearms in the fight.
The given location of Smith’s home at Cuffey’s Cove would actually fall within the footprint of the present town of Elk. Specifically, it is said he lived at “the Indian Camp” which is the present-day schoolyard on the south bank of what was known later as Double Bridges Creek. Faria sold his land to James Kenney in 1855 and both Smith and Faria left the cove around that time. Faria went to Mendocino where there were already other speakers of Portuguese. Smith drifted inland to the Comptche area, but he also had activities in Mendocino. He married a Pomo woman named Calhasa Cherrepo also called Caroline Knight at Big River on November 9th 1856. They would have four daughters, Frances, Emma, Emeline, and Sarah. Frances died as a teenager under uncertain circumstances. He lived in the area another 51 years. He is reported to be buried at Mendocino but no grave marker exists.
— Chuck Ross
DEB SILVA WRITES:
I saw this one at a current poster auction. Bidding is underway and the bid is at $4,200.00 with four more days to go.
Here's the description-
This original government-issued poster warns American servicemen of the dangers of contracting venereal diseases while on leave. The image shows an attractive woman engaging with two uniformed soldiers in a bar setting, while the bold headline “Booby Trap” underscores the metaphor of sexual temptation as a hidden threat. With painterly mid-century illustration and dramatic lighting, the poster uses suggestive visual cues typical of military health propaganda—aimed not at moral judgment, but at preventing soldiers from engaging in risky encounters that could compromise operational readiness. During World War II and the early postwar period, venereal disease presented a significant medical concern among troops returning from overseas. In the absence of widespread penicillin use early in the war, infections such as syphilis and gonorrhea caused long periods of lost duty time, medical expense, and potential long-term disability. The U.S. government launched an aggressive public-health campaign targeting servicemen through posters, pamphlets, films, and base-level medical briefings. Messaging often linked sexual encounters with anonymous or casual partners to enemy threats, implying that disease could weaken the fighting force just as effectively as battlefield injuries. Even after the war, the campaign continued as troops returned home, where authorities feared that untreated infections could spread into the civilian population. The artist, signed here as E. Paris, contributed to a number of mid-century health-education and government-issued posters. Though biographical documentation is limited, artists working in this genre commonly produced illustrations for public service campaigns, military publications, and commercial print ateliers, developing a pragmatic style designed to communicate quickly and convincingly to enlisted audiences. This is an Original Vintage Poster, it is not a reproduction. This poster is conservation mounted, linen backed and in excellent condition. There is slight unevenness in the side margins. We guarantee the authenticity of all our posters. This poster is exceptionally rare.
ED NOTE: Hah! In the Marines, c. 1957, they showed us a warning movie that begins with a pair of squared away Marines in full dress blues walking down the street on a sunny day. Two boffo babes driving a pristine convertible pull over and ask the Marines if they “want a ride?” The Marines, in chorus, reply, “We sure do, honey,”and hop in. The very next scene is a Third World guy with his testicles so swollen he's pushing them along in a wheelbarrow! “This can happen to you, Marine!” I have a vague memory of a guy saying loud enough for us all to hear, “It'd be worth it for those two.” General laughter.
ON-LINE COMMENTS OF THE WEEK
[1] TDS is just a way to avoid ever having to do something about any problem, because instead the sufferers just throw up their hands and say, “It’s Trump and the MAGA’s! The sky is falling! Take shelter or prepare to martyr!” It’s a lot more challenging, and would be much more effective, to stay grounded, focused, and on task with some good work. Choose a cause you can work on that will make a difference, and do it. Regain some mental health by returning to relevant realities.
[2] Do you seriously think Fox News is the only right wing media outlet? Ever heard of The New York Post, The Daily Wire, Breitbart, Newsmax, One America News Network, Sinclair Broadcast Group, The Tucker Carlson Network, Real America’s Voice, BlazeTV, The Epoch Times, The Washington Examiner, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, Townhall, RedState, Gateway Pundit, American Thinker and PJ Media?
[3] The solution is to get local, get self-dependent, get the common unity back in community by building webs of resilience with your neighbors, get control of your school boards, mayors and sherrif's office, and town councils (the last places we still hold all of the cards), get a garden in your lawn no matter how small, a single tomato plant is better than nothing, get the lost art of bartering back in your mind, get a well (water is your most important resource hands down), get ready, get moving, get doing, and, if so inclined, get God.
[4] What I love most about America that I learned from hanging out on X is Americans have the best sense of humor, and are insanely creative, understand irony so well, and are brutally honest.
[5] The Boomers hollowed out society, and are living large — and long — off of housing equity, social security and Medicare that succeeding generations will not get to enjoy. But they do it without overt racism and antisemitism.
[6] I blame 99% of the problems this country faces today with the fact that the kids don't know how to read. We pay more in taxes per pupil than any country on earth, yet our kids come out of 8th grade not knowing how to sound out letters and words (phonics) or basic math that I can do in my head.
You see those little freaks like Billie Eilish and some of the others? These are young people who grew up in homes with no books, just screens. They will never know the joy of a boring summer day, sitting outside with a good book and nothing to do but read. Or, as we are now in this part of the world, being snowed in and enjoying the time spent reading all sorts of novels.
Just look at that Freak Show last night- how pathetic those young people are - they are lost souls who have a lot of money that they don't even know how to use. What are they going to do- get more tattoos or badly fitting, ugly, expensive clothes that aren't nearly as nice as what the average office workers used to wear at the beginning of this century.
But back to the Teachers Union devils. They have destroyed our public schools to the point that they are dangerous for children and young people. The teachers are there to promote their Satanic agenda of body mutilation, baby killing and hate. Most of them belong in prison instead of making their 6-figure salaries and benefits we tax - slaves can only dream of. I am glad that most of my grand kids were home schooled to some degree.
The ceremony last night should have been dedicated to Moloch right from the get go to clear up any doubts that people might have as to what it was all about.
This whole country needs an exorcism.
[7] The bullshit that qualifies for music today is nothing but mindless synthesized computer beats. The stuff is cheap, lacks all quality and creativity. They can produce it fast, easy and don't have to pay anyone for it and the idiots of the day gobble it up.
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