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This is the archive for 05 June 2011

Sunday, June 05, 2011

It's a School Life by Satpreet Kaur, Courier Staff Artist
©2011 Satpreet Kaur/Courier Comics

By Melissa Healy And Thomas H. Maugh II
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — Thirty years ago Sunday, a brief report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report described five cases of a rare form of pneumonia called Pneumocystis carinii in five young Los Angeles men, "all active homosexuals." The cases were noteworthy because the men had previously been healthy, though their particular pneumonia had only been seen in people with severely depressed immune systems.

Within a month, a second report had identified 54 young gay men with a rare cancer known as Kaposi's sarcoma, another disease that had been almost unknown in young men. And by the following summer, the mysterious disease underlying these reports had a name: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.

AIDS was a murderous, mysterious delinquent that emerged seemingly out of nowhere. Transmitted primarily through sexual activity and blood, it mowed down whole communities of young gay men, tore through a generation of intravenous drug users and made orphans of millions of the world's children.

From wikipedia:
José Doroteo Arango Arámbula (5 June 1878 – 20 July 1923) – better known by his pseudonym Francisco Villa or its hypocorism Pancho Villa – was one of the most prominent Mexican Revolutionary generals.

As commander of the División del Norte (Division of the North), he was the veritable caudillo of the Northern Mexican state of Chihuahua which, given its size, mineral wealth, and proximity to the United States of America, provided him with extensive resources. Villa was also provisional Governor of Chihuahua in 1913 and 1914. Although he was prevented from being accepted into the "panteón" of national heroes until some 20 years after his death, today his memory is honored by Mexicans, U.S. citizens, and many people around the world. In addition, numerous streets and neighborhoods in Mexico are named in his honor.

Villa's last living son, Ernesto Nava, died in Castro Valley, California, at the age of 94, on 31 December 2009. Nava appeared yearly in festival events in his hometown of Durango, Mexico, enjoying celebrity status until he became too weak to attend.

Read The life and history of Francisco Villa, the Mexican Bandit, by Capt' Kennedy, free from the Internet Archive.