55 years ago (July 2, 1961) an American literary icon, Ernest Hemingway, committed suicide at his beloved vacation retreat in Ketchum, Idaho. He had just flown to Ketchum after being discharged from a psychiatric ward at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where he had received a series of electroconvulsive “treatments” (ECT) for a life-long depression that had started after he had experienced the horrors of World War I. In the “War To End All Wars” he had been a non-combatant ambulance driver and stretcher-bearer.

One of Hemingway’s wartime duties was to retrieve the mutilated bodies of living and dead humans and the body parts of the dead ones from the Italian sector of the WWI battle zone. In more modern times his MOS (military occupational specialty)might have been called Grave’s Registration, a job that - in the Vietnam War - had one of the highest incidences of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that arose in that war’s aftermath.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thailand's health minister has provoked outrage
by demanding a warning to embassies and the deportation of all "those
damn Caucasian tourists" if they do not wear medical face masks, even
if they do not suffer from the coronavirus.

Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who is not a doctor, shocked the
public when he broke medical protocol and pulled down his own mask, so
it dangled under his chin before angrily cursing Caucasian tourists on
February 7 at a busy public rail station in Bangkok.

He had offered -- with his bare, ungloved hands -- some unwrapped,
unsterilized medical face masks to wary random foreigners who walked
away.

Mr. Anutin then unleashed a stream of verbal abuse during a photo
opportunity showcasing to the media how he dealt with the coronavirus.

"Those damn Caucasian tourists, that is something the embassies should
be notified of, and the public as well, that they are not wearing
medical face masks.

"We are handing them [medical face masks] out and they still refuse.

As a center of elite power, the Democratic National Committee is now floundering. Every reform it has implemented since 2016 was the result of progressive grassroots pressure. But there are limits to what DNC Chair Tom Perez is willing to accept without a knock-down, drag-out fight. And in recent weeks, he has begun to do heavy lifting for corporate Democrats -- throwing roadblocks in the way of the Bernie 2020 campaign as it continues to gain momentum.

February means Valentine's Day and Valentines mean love therefore this column is just brimming with the stuff.

My first shout-out: Johnny Cash.

I've been reading Robert Hilburn's excellent bio on the Man In Black, Johnny Cash – The Life, and I must say I am struck by two things.

One, how hard 1930s Great Depression life was in rural Arkansas. Cash's family was completely the Tom Joad experience but without the Okie western exodus. Cash's farmer father was past desperation, his family virtually destitute when FDR's administration came to the rescue with 20-acre plots for farmers willing to pay them back.

Cash wasn't expected to pick cotton ‘til he was six. But by four he was hauling water out to his family as they did. There they joined together in singing gospel songs. Indeed, by the age of three he already had mastered his first, I Am Bound for the Promised Land.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When Thailand's popular, anti-government graffiti
artist Headache Stencil wrote racist rants about Chinese infected with
the coronavirus, many of his Thai and foreign fans were shocked,
outraged, and disgusted.

"Hey Chink! Please go back to ur shit-eating country. Our government
need ur money to keep their power but you all not welcome for us now.
#notwelcometothailand #backtourchinklandpls," wrote @headachestencil
on his Twitter site on January 26, which had more than 6,000
followers.

The English-language slur against Chinese is not common in Thailand,
so the artist apparently wanted foreigners to also see his post.

Headache Stencil often tweets several times a day but mostly in Thai language.

Starting in 2018, he gained wide support and pride of place in some of
Bangkok's edgy art galleries when he illustrated Bangkok's dilapidated
streets with wall graffiti showing a large clock, politicians' faces,
and other satirical imagery.

During that year, one of his graffiti targets was coup-installed