Ah the beauty of jet lag, up at 3AM, asleep at 5pm in the chair, hoping to make it at least until 9PM to get on track again. We are very fortunate to be able to travel, and seeing other countries, far from making us experts on anything, merely reinforces the reality that everyone on this planet is concerned first with family, friends, making a living, and only secondly with more ethereal matters like impressions of other countries they have never visited.
Continue reading “Thursday morning at 3AM … jet lag” →

Note to subscribers: I’m fresh back from a long vacation, jet lagged and so forgot how to write on this blog. This post got out of hand, was mis-posted and disappeared, and then reappeared in very, very long form, which is probably the one that turned up in your email. What follows is shorter (though never short enough) and severely edited.
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Years ago before I met my wife I had a brief encounter with a lady of the feminist persuasion. Having been brought up very conservative and then only recently having made the jump to more leftist ideologies, I assumed that my attitudes regarding women had been sanitized and that I was safe dating material. I was so wrong.

Feminism (as opposed to suffrage and other kin movements) was a late arrival on the domestic scene, and a kid sister of civil rights. We take so many things for granted now due to the success of the feminist movement. Female athletes are well-trained now, and programs are in place in every school for girls and boys alike to develop their abilities. There are no legal barriers to access to all professions. Sexual freedoms now taken for granted were once condemned as acts of trollops and whores when done by women, though winked at by men.
Continue reading “Thoughts on abortion” →

We head to Bangkok today, and then to Colorado via Tokyo. It’s been a wonderful experience. People are the same where you go, but they are affected by culture. Indians have a reputation for being greedy, Chinese for bullying and rude. We haven’t seen enough of either to understand those stereotypes.

But those people we met, Nepali and Thai, are remarkable. They are courteous. The Thai smile is everywhere, not just in those in the tourist economy, but also in every face we see. They are a gracious people. There is a vibrant economy here, and we have not seen beggars as we did in India and Nepal. Cars are mostly new, streets bustling.

Politics is lively, public opinion influences public policy to a degree, unlike the USA where such a high-falutin’ idea is just an illusion. Class structure is everywhere, and wealthier people always have more influence, but in the US, that rule is virtually absolute.

It’s very hot. That makes trekking, even walking across town, a sweaty experience for me. Our next otrip is Switzerland or New Zealand – somewhere where we need heat rather than fight it.

I did think I could score a fortune betting on American football, as Thailand is 14 hours ahead of the US so we would know the outcome of games ahead of people in the States. It does not work that way, I’ve learned.

Note to self … when in Thailand, eat Thai food. They are pretty good at making it. I had a craving for something different at lunch today, and so had lasagna at a place that offers European food in addition to Thai. It had the meat, noodles, cheese, but Thai cooks were not aware of spices. Imagine Italian food without spice. It’s been repeating on me for the last hour.

Anyway, a few more days here and then home to Colorado. I’m ready. The heat is hard on me, one of the reasons we live at 7,800 feet. I grew up in Billings, pre-air conditioning. I used to hang my head out the window at night gasping for air until finally it cooled off at like 2AM. My mother had the same internal thermostat, so I sweated and she perspired all summer long.

Here’s what’s interesting going on now: Candidates. Ryan Zinke, John Bohlinger got the usual suspects all up in a lather.

That is all these party people can think about – winning elections. Are any of them aware of what their Tester, Baucus, Obama are up to these days? No. They follow Steve Daines like hawks, but let their own people escape accountability.

That’s why we’re better off with Republicans in office – Democrats are then paying attention instead of asleep at the wheel.

The US is corrupt and defective, and the Democrats the worst of the two parties because they are fear-based voters. They let their own people get away with murder, literally (I’m looking at you, Barack Nobel Obama) because they are so damned afraid of the Tea Party.

Those are the spooks that Obama uses to keep them in line. He knew he could do anything he wanted his first term because Democrats would support him out of fear. Millions of us who supported him in ’08 begged out in 12 because he was Bush III.

He needed the Tea Party, and they came through for him.

When a Republican takes over the presidency in 2016, the TP will cease to matter and will die on the vine, its purpose (making Obama look moderate) having been served.

Democrats don’t get that. They don’t see that the system is dysfunctional, and dammit, here we go again.

Is Bohlinger pro-choice (wedge politics at its best)?

Did Zinke speak out of turn about Seal Team Six?

They take the most inconsequential of issues and hammer us with them. It’s all election talk, and all goes away quietly after the voting.

Meanwhile, money works quietly behind the scenes, writing bills, crafting policy, bribing and pressuring to get its way, the party faithful blissfully unaware. Behind closed doors in DC, there are no parties. Only interests.

Man I hate American politics.

Here in Thailand, there is real grassroots politics going on. There’s an amnesty bill before their congress – there was turmoil in preceding years and some crimes are punishable, but it is largely a bill to grant immunity to Thaksin Shinawatra, a corrupt billionaire forced to leave the country or face jail. He was the older brother of the former PM, and took advantage.

Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister elected in a landslide in 2011, promised to clean house if elected. She then turned around, Obama style, and pushed through an amnesty bill in the dead of night.

She’s paying now, as the streets of Bangkok were full of protesters and the amnesty bills are poison.

That’s how politics work in real democracies – people are held accountable.

Nepal is a different story, dysfunctional, but not as much so as the US. There are 120 political parties there, but the most prominent are Democrats and Maoists, if our guide on our trek is correct.

The latter have been the source of violence and were responsible for overthrowing the monarchy after a ten-year conflict. All the country is trying to do now so write a governing document, and it hasn’t gotten done. So there’s another election on November 19 to elect a new body to write a constitution.

Maoists are split over whether to incite violence or merely boycott, as other parties are doing.

If they boycott with others, and the resultant election has a light turnout, they can then claim that the election result is illegitimate. Then follows violence.

While we were there police were in training, loudspeakers mounted on cars went up and down streets, large assemblies of people listened intently to speakers.

We’re in part of the world where politics is more than just for show. That’s refreshing.

Back home it’s a circus with no influence on public policy (except at times at a very local level). Nothing could matter less than Zinke or Bohlinger getting elected.

But that will consume all of the band width for the coming months.

(Oh yeah, and I guess you could say that the Nepali Maoists are anti-choice, in a place where choice really matters.)

We are in Ko Tao, somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand. The sun and sand are like a narcotic. Tomorrow we will snorkel the coral reefs, part of a three hour cruise. For reasons unknown our daughter will be taking with her a large collection of very fashionable clothing. There is a scientist here who will be making the trip, along with a very wealthy couple. The captain of the vessel, just a small sampan, is very overweight. We became friends right away. He refers to me as his little buddy.

This article on RT.com is about a couple of Americans who are building an email system free of NSA snooping. It sounds plausible – even if FBI marches in and demands access, it will be blocked by private encryption. Their only option will be to shut the operation down in total. They might inquire with the Chinese on the technical aspects of that. I think you just bust in the front door with some thugs in helmets and carrying automatic weapons and close it down.

It is worth noting here that there is no terrorism of any note going on in the US except that done by CIA and other domestic agencies. This is for the purpose of keeping us in a state of fear. The TV is the prime method of spreading that fear. It controls us just like telescreens in Orwell’s 1984. There is no evidence of terrorism. If you follow any story to its source, you find either nothing or domestic agents at work. But it only need be mentioned on TV, and it is effective. If it is on TV, it is real.

Think about it: Airport security. They check your person, your bags, your identity. There is no purpose to that, as anyone wanting to blow us up only has to go to the queue where people are waiting to be scanned to set off a bomb. It does not happen. (Don’t give CIA or FBI ideas, however.) There are no terrorists about.

However, by means of airport security government monitors our movements and can stop us from flying anytime. That is the objective – control of the domestic population.

Likewise, domestic spying on our computers and social networks has nothing to do with the nonexistent terrorists, but rather with internal dissent. That is the prime concern of any oppressive government – its own people, the “domestic enemy” as Chomsky calls it.

I don’t know what Occupy Wall Street was in its real purpose. The urgency with which Obama clamped down in it indicates some concern high up. But I do know that even if it was a real groundswell, government can mine such operations to identify domestic activists. So it would make sense that OWS was a PSYOP for that purpose, to expose them. But I do not know that.

The remedy, of course, is to stop being afraid, stop believing news, stop watching the TV for anything more than weather and sports. But our population is so deeply thought-controlled that this is nothing more than a pipe dream.

We are in Bangkok, Thailand, somewhere. It’s a very hot, muggy city. It’s very busy, the freeways jammed with newer vehicles. Most people that we see are well-dressed, though it’s a very young sample. There are street vendors, cabs and tuk-tuks, dogs and cats, but no cows wandering about.

It is still called the Kingdom of Thailand, and at various times (as recently as 1949) the Kingdom of Siam. We took a long taxicab ride today to King’s Royal Park, a very large open area with exhibits and tributes to royalty. Either royalty admires itself very much or is very much admired.

We also went to the corner shopping mall – maybe nine stories of shops, most selling clothing for young people. There are two floors of restaurants dedicated to San Francisco, and one large area for electronics. I was hoping to perhaps score a cheap IPad, but Apple is way too smart to allow its customers to play arbitrage. It’s $600 here, $529 in the US.

It seems a blended western/Asian culture, prosperous and busy. There are few who speak English, so we are in difficulties at times, but hand gestures get us through. We could not get across to our cab driver where we wanted to go after king’s Royal Park (Key Bangkok Hotel) but I handed him our room key, and he found the address on the back.

But we are only here to meet out daughter, after which we head south to Ko Tao, an island off the southern part of the country in the Gulf of Thailand. There we plan to do nothing, or at least have a week of nothing planned.

It’s very hot, I’m very white.

We are leaving Nepal today, off to Bangkok. Can’t get out soon enough. These past four days have been spent in luxury as poverty surrounds us. It’s a veritable wellspring of liberal guilt.

My wife is reading a book by Isabella Bird, who toured this region on horseback in the late 19th century. Even then she spoke of the obsequious nature of the (Tibetan) people. She ascribed it to past abuses and conquests. Our guide and porter on our trip were manly men, but the others we meet in our compounds are hunched, walk with short steps, and hover.

Last night we went out to dinner. When we returned someone had entered the room, spruced up and turned the bed down. During dinner I dropped a fork – I bent down to pick it up (5 second rule) but there was pitter-patter of shiny black shoes and a new fork before I could put the old one down.

Every door is opened for us, every bag carried. When we left the compound in Pokhara, we were toting our own bags. A maid stopped us in our tracks, made us stand there while she summoned porters.

Every one we meet folds hands in a prayer gesture and slightly bows to us, which we return. The usual greeting is “Namaste.” We joke between ourselves as we get on elevators and such, turning to each other, bowing and saying “Eat shit.” I hope that is what they are thinking as they bow to us.

There is an international convention for domestic workers making the rounds. It sets minimum standards for hours and age, and wages I assume though do not know. It has been adopted in most of Latin America, but in this part of the world, only the Philippines.