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.

We are back in Pokhara after a grueling five-day trek in the Annapurna’s in Nepal. Even as the trip was rated “easy to moderate” we found it extremely taxing. We climbed perhaps 12,000 feet throughout, up and down and up and then down again. On the second day, we trekked up 4,600 feet from Hille to Ghorepani, a very long day and the most we have ever climbed in one day. That day included 3,300 stone steps at the beginning. I imagine younger kids might take them two at a time. We were at low altitudes, never going higher than 10,500 and also at Miami-like latitude, so it was not like climbing a North American mountain where oxygen is sparse. But each evening found us exhausted, knees sore and body drained.

And worth it. The mountains are spectacular, of course. The one pictured above is called Machapuchre, translated to mean “Fish Tail.” It is 22,943 feet and is regarded as a sacred place in the Gurung culture, the place where Lord Shiva resides. It has never been climbed. What I think is that the east face rivals the north face of Eiger (“Ogre”) and is a challenge for those crazy fools who do that sort of thing.

The people are amazing, every bit as smart as people anywhere of course, but it is a third-world country. They walk the trails and steps, porters carry upwards of forty kilos routinely. They wear sneakers, sometimes mere sandals of the type that do not strap behind the heels. Their legs are muscular and sleek, possessing amazing strength. They are friendly and warm – we are tourists, of course, so we will see that face, but there is genuine warmth and spirit among them.

The food is quite a change for us, and I limited myself to those that were hot enough to kill bacteria that the locals are immune to. We also ate very little, not by choice, but because we were not very hungry. My daily diet was porridge and lemon tea for breakfast, noodle soup (think “Ramen”) for lunch, and the same with Gurung bread for dinner. I never felt hungry or low on energy. Water is a problem, and we had to drink either treated or bottled. A young Siberian couple we met refilled their water bottles from a big blue jug like we have in our offices that said “safe water” and were very sick for two days.

We met delightful people throughout, including the Siberian couple, Natalia and Dmitri, who emigrated to Sydney, Australia. I asked them about the difficulties in doing so, and she said there were none. You just fill out papers and get on a plane. They were not escaping repression or anything like that, she said. Siberia is a cold dark place with long, long nights. They had enough, and had enough education to take their skills elsewhere.

There’s poverty, not so bad in the mountains as in Katmandu. Young men aspire to become guides and porters for tourists. They also join the army, for there they receive good pay, medical care and three squares. Americans join the military for the very same reasons.

Education is universal, but they are missing a spark, some civil engineering and a hydroelectric project to get them moving. One or two of our cruise missiles would buy maybe a hundred thousand flush toilets and some sewage treatment? These are tough resilient people in need of development, and like so many others in Asia, once it takes hold they will take off.

But right now the poverty is brutal even as the people are delightful. It is a wonderful place.