The Heart Of The Day

This took place at the Democracy Monument near Phan Fa Bridge which is very close to Khaosan Road, the backpacker street.  It scared the bejesus out of the kids and many of them moved out.  Since the street is closed down for Songkran, they are heading up to Chiang Mai for the water. It is looking more and more like an outside group upset with the Abhisit government infiltrated the Reds demonstration.  More will be known when autopsies are finished and reports released today.Update: Khaosan opened up again and the kids came back on the 13th for Sangkran

Coalition parties and the military are all calling for a quick change to the constitution and dissolution of the house.  It is increasingly looking like a another coup is possible.

Meanwhile, the Reds are now continuing with  their procession of dead bodies:

RedShirts coffin procession starts at Democracy Monument, to pass Lanluang, Bantadthong, Rama4, Phetchaburi, Nanglerng

The government run TV channels are mostly re-running propaganda about Thai culture and how wonderful Thailand is.  One military controlled channel continually shows the wounded soldiers being taken from the demonstration site.  They keep saying too many soldiers died!  No mention that only 7 of the 21 dead were soldiers. This station carries no film of the wounded and dead Red Shirts.  The Red Channel is still off.

Running updates, newspaper compilations and twitters from thaivisa.com here:

Taken from an article in Time

In Thailand, people literally wear their politics on their sleeves. The nation has been locked for years in a paralyzing political showdown between two camps. There are the red shirts, who support former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and later convicted in absentia of abuse of power. And there are the establishment yellow shirts, who back current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. On March 12, around 100,000 red shirts, whose numbers are drawn largely from Thailand’s poor rural regions, began descending on Bangkok by bus, truck, boat and tractor for what they deemed their final stand: a massive march to force the yellow-backed government to hold elections, which the reds believe will favor them. “Relinquish power and return it to the people,” went the rally cry from protest leader Veera Musikapong. (See pictures from Thailand’s April 2009 protests.)

The protests are the latest in a years-running to-and-fro between the groups. In 2008, the yellows occupied Government House, the nation’s seat of power, for three months. Later they hijacked Bangkok’s two airports for a week, a disaster for a tourism-dependent economy. Last year, after a yellow-supported government took office, the reds swarmed an international summit at a seaside resort, forcing the emergency airlift of foreign leaders. That was followed by a scarlet siege of Government House, a takeover that culminated in Thailand’s worst political violence in nearly two decades.

Thailand’s color obsession extends beyond politics. Every day of the week has a shade. Born on a Wednesday? Your lucky color is green. Saturday is ruled by the color purple. Thailand’s beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej entered the world on mellow-yellow Monday, which is why for years millions of his loyal subjects have voluntarily worn that hue to begin their week. But since the yellow shirts, who made support for the monarch a cornerstone of their activism, have chosen that color for political purposes, the number of Thais donning it on Mondays has declined dramatically.

So what’s safe to wear in Thailand these days? Pink — and the hue gets to the heart of a color conundrum. The Thai King may have been born on a Monday, but he was born in Massachusetts, which is half a day behind Thailand’s time zone. Technically, he was born on Tuesday, Bangkok time, which means he should be honored by the color pink. In late 2007, King Bhumibol wore a carnation-pink blazer and shirt following a hospital stay, apparently because an astrologer had judged the shade as auspicious for his health. The monarch’s fashion statement galvanized a run on all things pink, with tens of thousands of shirts selling in a matter of days. Last September, the 82-year old King, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, was readmitted to hospital. In late February, during a rare public appearance, he was again pictured wearing a pink shirt, prompting millions of Thais to pull similarly hued clothes out of their closets.

Now, with the current popular uprising in Bangkok, Thai soldiers sympathetic toward the anti-government “red shirts” are called Watermelon Soldiers.

Commenting on the continuing protests of Thailand’s red shirts, Wassana Nanuam wrote in The Bangkok Post:

Among the rapidly expanding glossary born of this prolonged political conflict, the term “watermelon army” or “watermelon soldier” is one of the most catchy. It means soldiers who may be wearing a green uniform but are actually rooting for the red shirts: green outside and red inside, just like a watermelon.

According to Nanuam, the red shirts have been keen to publicize the “watermelon factor,”  claiming it shows that only the army’s top commanders support the government.

[Thailand’s Army chief] Gen Anupong has admitted that there are indeed “watermelon soldiers” but he could not estimate their numbers. “No matter what colour your heart is or what doctrine you subscribe to, you do your duty as a soldier when you are deployed. Do not bring the colour in your heart into your duty. Bear in mind that a soldier must have no colour. We serve the country and the King,” Gen Anupong said.

Nanuam noted that some watermelon soldiers are suspected of having leaked information to the red shirts, something the top brass is keen to halt:

Even though the military has tried to emphasise the need for soldiers to be professional and colourless in their line of duty by coining a new term – “mango soldier,” which is green both within and without (the popular unripe variety, of course) – they have been unable to curtail the popularity of the watermelon trend. …

For now, the hunt for the watermelon is on at the army. Those who are found to have “red flesh” will be moved out of important positions. This includes those who happen to have a watermelon wife – whose spouse is supportive of the red shirts – as well.

The hunt for the red watermelon, however, is causing discomfort among professional soldiers who may truly be colourless but are being watched with suspicion anyway.

I came to Thailand this year with three tops…red, yellow…and grey.  No one has mentioned grey yet…somehow I doubt if grey will get me into trouble but I’m tired of wearing it.

I think the folks that argue that the the government can’t do anything right  should voluntarily give up all their tax supported services. I found this on a personal blog on the web:

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.
I then took a shower in the clean water provided by The Municipal Water Utility.
After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, State, and Federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the Public School.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, I enjoy another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, and I am not electrocuted by my toaster thanks to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I drive my NHTSA car back home on the Dept of Transportation roads, through stop lights federally, state or municipally funded to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local Building Codes and Fire Marshal’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all it’s valuables thanks to the local Police Department.

I then log on to the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and look up some information for my next summer vacation I am planning for my family in one of our National Parks. 

And I’d like to add that every time I nearly kill myself on sidewalks when I travel in foreign countries…or hang myself on straggling electrical wires…I think of the Accident and Preventive Division of federally mandated state government regulations in the U.S.

While connected to the internet, I read the latest grants by the U.S. National Laboratories, where any scientist in the world can have his experiment done on U.S. government equipment, some of the most advanced and unique in the world, by U.S. government employed scientists, FOR FREE, for only the promise that whatever he/she publishes out of that work be published openly for the sake of international science.

Then I read on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how SOCIALISM is BAD because the government can’t do anything right.  So I look up SOCIALISM in Wikipedia to find out what it really means.   Hmmmm. 

The “Reds” are trying to force the fall of the government in Bangkok by bringing in a promised half a million or a million of rural folks in pickups to paralyze the city.  The government is threatening to impose a state of emergency.

Ordinarily a groundswell of rural people would illicit some kind of sympathy but in Thailand nothing is ordinary.  They are supporting the return of a very corrupt  former Prime Minister who bilked the country out of a couple billion dollars, was convicted by a court of corruption and who lives abroad to avoid a three year jail term. The premier has rejected the crowd’s demands to dissolve parliament and call elections which are scheduled for next year anyway.  It is generally thought that Thaksin, who issued $25 loans plus interest to the farmers before he was deposed, is using them to gain reentry to the country so he can appeal the court’s decision and reclaim his money.  Go figure.

At a press conference held by the Reds at the Thai Foreign Correspondent’s Club that I attended last week, they wouldn’t admit to the Christian Science Monitor to paying people. “Most of them are volunteers” was all they would say.  But a YouTube video shows them handing out two 1000 baht bills (about $60) and their pickups are nice and new.  Their strategy, they say, is to peacefully paralyze the city…forcing the government to either fall or [get baited] into a fierce bloody repression.Well, today is March 14, the day of the big Bangkok rally and the Bangkok Post claims 80,000 people…others estimate 100,000…but the week is not over. 

Ex Prime Minister Thaksin has been in Dubai and rumored earlier to have flown to Siem Reap Cambodia where he has struck up an odd alliance with President Han Sen…no friend of the people there.  Today the Bangkok Post reports that Thaksin claims to be joining his family in Berlin.  Who knows where he is. But one thing is sure…he wants back into Thailand where he can appeal the Supreme Court’s decision to freeze much of his assets. I watch the news on Thai TV but of course cannot understand any of it. I just watch the video and photo parts.In the meantime, many people in Thailand are just shrugging their shoulders.  They’ve seen 16 military coups in the last 30 years…the most recent when the elected Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 military coup. 

Oxford educated Prime Minister Abhisit came to power in December 2008 after a controversial court decision removed Thaksin’s allies from government following an airport blockade by the Royalist Yellow Shirts. Yeah, I’m confused too.

So I decided it was a good time to explore a fishing village about an hour and a half NE of Bangkok. I am here in a separate room in a family compound. They are spoiling me rotten…bringing me breakfast, lunch and dinner…all of which I cannot hope to eat… and all manner of other things like water, coffee, beer and daily copies of the Bangkok Post. Music and announcements wafts over the village from the nearby Wat.  Thai hospitality at it’s finest!A brother has retired here after 30 years living in Texas so his English comes in handy.  A niece works as a Health Prevention manager. The sister wants me to stay here in April while her husband spends the month as a monk in a monastery.  I have no idea what he does…or did. But this is an educated and accomplished family.

The room I am in is a big dorm room…usually used for students at the university near here. But when my friend Jiraporn, who is a professor of fisheries at Kasetsart University in Bangkok, and has some of her students working on a fishingcrab study here, brought me here the family happily consented to rent the room to me.My room has aircon but the family set up a table outside…with a fan…where I can fiddle with my WiFi-linked computer set up by a nephew who is a computer programmer…after taking early morning walks to the sea…actually the Gulf of Thailand…where I can watch the fishing and crabbing boats come in with their catch.  The families boil the tiny fishingcrab, used in soups, in big pots fired by propane.  Little children run around unattended…happy and at home on the entire beach.How long will you be here, the family asks.  Maybe I stay forever, I say. We all laugh. Sigh.

Nice to be back and settled again in Bangkok. After two months in my serviced apartment before going to Samui, the doorman welcomed me back like an old friend….clicking his heels together and saluting (an odd custom here) and the receptionist greeted me with a big Thai smile. The doorman is trying to teach me Thai…just if I could only remember any of it!

Exhausted, I fell asleep early and of course woke up at 4am…hungry and wanting coffee so I ventured out in the warm dark morning in search of water and something to eat.  As I walked down my little soi, squeezing past the endless stream of taxis even at that early hour,  to Sukhumvit 22, the bored doorman at a nearby hotel waved furiously and offered a big “good morning.”  Twice!

A sweating vendor had stopped her charcoal grill cart in front of the ubiquitous 7-11 so I couldn’t resist the sweetly marinated hot pork and chicken satay on a stick. In the dark,  I handed her what I thought was two 20 baht bills.  “Oh, no,” she says as she handed me back one 1000 baht bill (about $30).

Later, I joined the male regulars sitting in front of the Parrot Cafe…a few Dutch guys, an Aussie businessman currently working via his computer on development projects in Saudi Arabia and Mozambique, a Norwegian who had walked all the way from the Ekamai skytrain station…waiting to meet a friend.  We read the Bangkok Post for entertainment and comment on the bizarre political goings-on in Thailand.  The Red Shirts, supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin convicted for corruption and now in exile, are planning a million man march in front of the government house…claiming they want a return to democracy!! :)) Ask the Yellow Shirts, one of whom is among us and who was arrested with 83 others when they took over the airport a few months ago, whether they think Thaksin wants democracy in Thailand.  Thailand is no democracy…just infighting among the ministers, parliament members, the military and the protestors of whatever side. Anyway, we trade comments and hope there is no violence and that Thailand can avoid yet another in a long line of military coups.

They all drift away and I am left with U2 on my iPod on my iPhone where also I catch up on my email with the free cafe WiFi… over another cup of coffee.  A couple approach me.  “Are you the laughingnomad,” they ask? I am furiously trying to remember where I met them before when they said they had found my blog on the web and had been following it.  They reminded me that my picture is on the home page of the blog and that I probably mentioned the Parrot Cafe in a post.  I was dumb-founded!  Americans from New Hampshire, they travel often and, like me, are in Bangkok for medical care.  He is an engineer and they have lived for years in places like Bangladesh and Manila. We trade stories. She shares a lovely children’s book she has written and illustrated. The last of four, the book nearly wrote itself, she says, as she composed it in her head on a serendipitous long bus trip in the company of an origami artist.  I love it! We exchanged cards and I invited them to Oaxaca. I do hope they take me up on my offer.  I really liked these two friendly people.

It was getting hot by this time so I retreated to my air-conditioned room…buying some fruit on the street on my way. I tip the waitresses well at this cafe.  There is no service charge and I appreciate the fact that these girls are not “working” in the bars or on the street.

Back in my room, I get an email from a “friend” I met on Couchsurfing, from Turkey, who says she will be arriving in Bangkok soon and wants to meet for coffee. I call Bumrungrad and make an appointment for another pap with my lovely Thai gynecologist and the dental clinic for an appointment to get the two crowns placed on my implants.

Then up popped my Thai protestor friend on Skype chat.  We talk politics. He tells me he has to fly to Australia to visit a “sick” mother.  This is the 4th year in a row that she has gotten “sick” on her birthday. I tell him my kids would never let me get away with this.  “This is the culture,” he says.  “I have to go.”  After four hours of this chat I notice the time. OMG!

Then I get a call from one of my husband’s friends in Pattaya who is temporarily in Bangkok for medical care.  He wants to see a movie.  I tell him I want to see George Clooney!  So tuesday we will. Goodie!

I call a Thai friend who is a professor of fisheries in a local university to let her know I am back in Bangkok.  She wants to take me to the fishing village again where she has some of her students  conducting a small-crab fishing study.  She is concerned about sustainable fishing practices in Thailand where the fish are fast disappearing.

Well, a few other things happened this day but this is pretty much what my days are like in Bangkok.  I have been here 3 months now and my psyche has adjusted to this culture. Now if I can just remember what little Spanish I have when I get back to Oaxaca…where my internal cultural clock will change back again!

Sunday (probably your Saturday) I spent 12 hours ferrying onto the mainland and going in a van 400km to Malaysia and back for new visa stamp. I have a multi-entry year long visa that cost me $120 ($54US) but they still make me leave every three months! Three caravaned vans with 10-12 people in each…and there are companies all over Samui that offer the same runs.  I thought I would get 3 more months but they gave me only 2 because it is all up to the particular border office what they will give you!  Now if I wanted to stay a third month I would have to go to the local Samui immigration office and pay 1800 baht ($54US) for 1 more month! Imagine how many expats all over Thailand or people on long-term stays who are doing the same thing!  Way to bring money into Thailand!  I think if I had flown out and back in I would have gotten 3 months.  But I’m leaving before the third month anyway.

The run was quite an experience as my son Doug who lives here warned me.  I think the Austrian trip leader belonged to the gestapo in another life! Maybe even a cousin of Hitler’s! :)) Driving 150km an hour (90mph) with only a half dozen near misses, we got only two 5-minute potty stops on the way and on the way back.  And at the border there was a HUGE local week-end market where we were told by the gestapo NO TIME FOR SHOPPING!  But some of the guys (and they were ALL guys) sneaked some food. And on the way back at the last stop we only got 2 minutes because the gestapo wanted to make the 3pm ferry to Samui instead of waiting until 4pm.  At the border office we got yelled at because we were standing as a group, as we had been told NOT to do, and not lined up one after the other like the SS. Wonder what would happen if he tried to do this in China! :)) Oh well…it was all quite organized.  He knew all the border guards and did a good job greasing the whole thing for us.  And wonder of wonders he pronounced my last name (Goetz) right!  I told him it was the first time ever!  Usually people who don’t know me say Go-etz or Goats instead of Gets! Ha!  But had never been on the Thai side of the Thai/Malaysia border so it was nice to see how tropical it was.  Southern Thailand has been racked in recent years by a Muslim separatist movement but like with all the negative media attention in Oaxaca…no bombers were seen! Ha!

The pony-tailed gestapo trip leader had visited most of the States and worked for two years in Florida as a tour guide. “Did you know Central Florida is the second largest beef cattle producer in the States?”  No! I exclaimed.  This is an interesting phenomenon.  Often foreign tourists know more about the sights than the local people.

I was tucked into the very back seat (seats were assigned by the gestapo) with a young guy from The Netherlands who at one time had a band in NYC…writing the lyrics and producing the music and who now was writing a book about Thai culture and the law to be entitled “RESPECT” targeted to all the young Western guys who are here for “Happy.”  Since he was married to a Thai,  I asked how long he had been living here. “16 months,” he says.  Oh, good, I thought!  And you are writing about Thai culture!  Guys don’t realize how dangerous it can be here, he says. Give a Thai the middle finger, he said, and you will be killed.  And of course everyone should know what happens if you are caught with drugs of any kind.  And 8 people are killed every week on the sandy ring road around Samui. Well, it will be better for young guys than reading “Bangkok 8” so it may do some good.  I hope.

Wow.  A lot of work setting up a restaurant!  My son leased one on the beach and since he is temporarily in the States it is up to Luk (his wife) her mother and I to run all the errands and get this thing going.  Now to get internet service and WiFi set up and figure out why the water is stopping up under the sink! Stinks!  But Luk got the curtains up by herself this morning! It will be lovely when we finish. Am so glad I have Doug’s pickup to do all this running around.  But now all we need are customers!Name Western and Thai FoodAmerican and British BreakfastCocktail BarBeach Water SportsAnyone with an idea of what to name the restaurant please comment!! :))My idea was

“My Thai Luk”

(play on luck and and my daughter-in-law’s name Luk (pronounced like luck);  luk means blessed in Thai for the Thai) But when I told Luk about this name she says “What mean?”  I tried to explain to no avail.  Guess that name is out.

Names Found on the internet:

Thai LotusThai DyeZoomFan Thai SticJust Thai Me!Thai Me Up!The Thai BreakerHeavenly Thai RestaurantCozy Thai HideawayAroi DeeOk, I’ll keep trying…Doug is not sure when he will be returning to Thailand.  His rental house in Oregon had extensive fire damage. Of all the luck! At least he had insurance.I do my visa run on the 7th…all the way to Malaysia in a van and back in one day!  :((  Then I fly back to Bangkok the evening of the 8th for more medical and dental care.  And have to start searching for a return airline ticket to the States the end of April.  I’ll probably fly to Hong Kong to see my son Josh one more time and then fly over the pole  to Vancouver and then Oregon.  Then Las Vegas to pick up my son Greg’s car.  Then drive down to Oaxaca. I’m thinking I’m getting too old for this!I will miss the clear blue ocean and cool breezes.

Took the ferry from Koh Samui, with the pickup, to Suratthani and then 400km on down south to Trang Town, in the Province of Trang, where Luk (my son’s Thai wife) grew up and where her grandmother still lives.  Great roads and good speed but thank goodness Luk and her mother, Simone, were with me or I would probably still be out there somewhere trying to find my way!  Ting Tong, Doug and Luk’s dog, was no help at all…got sick…and then slept most of the way.

In the two days we were there we visited “Gamma,” we picked up Luk’s mom’s motorcycle, had our hair done and had a few good Thai meals along the way.

Trang is real Thailand. Tourists who come to Thailand are missing out…there are very few tourists here. Prices are very low.  Unabashed praise comes from Trang itself on www.trangonline.com. I’ll give the people in Trang a little promotion by using their own words:

Island Life

Scattered along the 119 km coast are houses on both banks. The people here are generous and kind. The sand is delicated and the clear water of the sea reflect the white clouds in the beautiful sky. On the beaches, the forests are fertile and there is a good source of fish.

The 47 islands in the north are under the responsibility of the Chao Mai National Park office and the islands in the south belong to the Petra Island National Park. The delicate, white sandy beaches, blue clear water, attractive caves and the range of corals both in the shallow and deep water, are heaven for all tourists. Above all, it is a very good educational sea resource.

Mountain Life

Mountain Life has also created various culture and traditions. Para Rubber, fruits. vegetables are grown well because of good weather and moisture from forest and waterfalls. These products play a large part in the economy of Trang. The charms in Trang Kao (Mountain) tempt visitors because of its forests streams and waterfalls even though the noise from the water becomes less (because of natural destructions). Teenagers in Trang Kao still wade through the streams catching fish in the falls and are proud of themselves, instead of walking around town in jeans and listening to music. Old kind men and women still carry typical tools to hunt in the forests. “Sakai”, a tribe in Trang Kao still finds products from the forests to exchange for rice with villagers.

 Trekking

Laying across Trang is Banthad, the big mountain in the south. Plentiful forest, wildlife, and more than twenty waterfalls make Banthad a challanging but charming destination for trekker. Trang Trekking Club, founded by Khun Pratheep Jongthong, have compiled five selected routes for trekkers around the world to enjoy Trang wildlife. Guiding by villagers, tourists will learned the right trekking practice for preventing and not disturbing the forest.

• Tontok Waterfall-Sakai Village-Klongtok Waterfall (moderately)
• Sairung Waterfall-Nanmuang-Khao Rutu (difficult)
• Tontok Waterfall-Bantra Ranger Center (moderately)
• Huaysom-Sahaipakao Camp-Chedchan Waterfall  (difficult)
• Tonte Waterfall to Khao Chedyod (very difficult)
  

Diving

From Choamai National Park to Pakmeng Beach, around 20 kms in length, locating one of the best diving venue in the world. Among 40 islands in Trang, Koh Kradan is the most beatiful one. Its charms are delicate, white sandy beaches and clear water – so clear that the coral under the sea can be seen. Koh Chueak, Koh Ma, and Koh Ngai are other choices for diving also. If you plan for diving in Trang sea, check our tour packages pages for agencies who provide diving package services.

Trang Town Life

Majority of Trang people in town are chinese. These chinese are group of merchants from mainland China settled down in Trang. After two or three generations, these Chinese have converted themselves completely into local Thai people. Although they still practice traditional Chinese cultures, they also adopted local Trang’s agricultural cultures and mixed them together into a new culture, Trang Town Culture. 

Walking Through The Clean Markets
The two markets, Ta Klang Market and Municipal Market, selling fresh products are not far away from each other. People do not have to worry about dirty water which may be found in the markets in the other provinces here. Trang has been awarded as the cleanest town in Thailand for many years in a row. And its markets are considered to be the cleanest fresh market in Thailand. If you stay in town, it must be a good experience to walk through one of them to see how local people’s daily life is.

All in one day on my street in Bangkok I saw a very good-looking farang (foreigner), who was old enough to know better, in a big wide straw hat…wearing no shirt…showing off his severely “cut” abs…attracting the stares of the Thai women and the rest of us who are not use to seeing shirtless farangs who forget they are not on the beach anymore! :))  But much better viewing, however, than the overweight European women in shorts and bra in the City of Angels where those things should never be seen!

The same day I saw a father and his 2 year old boy walking by one of those paid women beggars who sit at the foot of the stairs to the skytrain holding a borrowed infant. The little boy had been eating chips out of a small bag and he held out his bag to the infant as he passed by with no prompting from the father…so heart-warming to see his natural generosity!  I saw a young Thai guy wearing a T-shirt that said in English “Merry Clitormas” instead of Merry Christmas!  And I visited for hours with some newly-made friends at the sidewalk tables at the Parrot Cafe run by a Dutch guy and where you can get good brewed coffee.

Now I am on the island of  breezy Samui where I am helping my daughter-in-law and her mother set up a small tasteful Thai-style “restaurant” on the beach in Lamai that Doug leased before he temporarily returned to the States last month.  There is a water trench that winds through the restaurant that Luk wants to fill with fish. Yesterday we bought a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer and a wicker table and chairs.  This is great fun! Luk’s mother is gregarious and an excellent cook so we hope for success! I am suggesting to Doug that he offer good American and British breakfasts that are difficult to come by on this part of the beach. They will have a juice bar and Luk will go to Bangkok to learn how to operate and make coffee with one of those nice Bon Cafe machines.  She is all excited to make artsy fartsy designs in the foam. :))

Luk and I stopped by the Thai immigration office on Samui to check on my visa regulations.  You have to leave Thailand the young good-looking officer says.  Aren’t there any other options for me…I don’t want to leave Thailand!  You can marry, he says.  Can I marry you, I ask?  Yes, he says.  But I already marry!  Me too, I say. And we laughed!  Anything I can do for you, you come see me, he says!  So much for those mean immigration guys!  As we were leaving, I wanted to tell the young waiting backpackers in dreadlocks to SMILE! :))  It might help them a bit!

The A/C doesn’t work in Doug’s bungalow where I was originally going to stay, so I am in a lovely artsy beach hotel with an ocean view and so close to the water you can hear the waves through the sliding glass doors!  I’m walking distance half way between the bungalow and the restaurant. Luk’s mom has been bringing morning rice and pork soup to my room in the hotel and cooking the late afternoon meals for us in the restaurant-to-be. The other evening a farang from Hungary and his Thai girlfriend were walking the beach so Luk’s mom invited them to finish off our generous meal.  Talk talk, talk!

I’m driving Doug’s pickup on these narrow ring roads around the island which is much better than renting one of those little jeeps that are hard to shift.  I just have to remember to stay on the left side of the road and watch for cars and motorcycles who want to pass on both the right and left of me…sometimes on both sides at the same time!

Today we are taking time off to rest.  Luk is sore from working on the restaurant and will not be grilling pork sticks out in front of the restaurant by the road. Wednesday, Luk and her mom and I will take the ferry with Doug’s pickup to Suratani and on to Trang Province south of here where we will see grandma and pick up Luk’s mom’s motorcycle and a few household items.  Doug and Luk will be giving up their beach bungalow in February and moving into a walled off section of the restaurant to save money. Hmmm.  We’ll see how that works out! :))

I would love to take the ferry to the diving island of Koh Tao where there are no cars and where I haven’t been yet.  Or Koh Pha Nang famous for the full-moon parties…only pure white sandy beaches with restaurants jutting out into the water.  But no full-moon party for me!

So now I need to figure out how I am going to get out of Thailand before February 9th and where/when to come back in.  A van to Panang Malaysia? Or a flight to Singapore? Maybe a week on the beaches of Krabi before hitting Bangkok again?  I get the crowns on my implants in March in Bangkok before flying back to the states.  Whew!  I’m tired already!

And that, so far, with the exception of watching the heart-wrenching devastation in Haiti on my hotel TV, is my time on Koh Samui.

I had been walking past this nice (nice is when there are table cloths and the waiter puts the napkin in your lap) Italian restaurant on Sukhumvit 20 for two months now…with Osso Bucco (lamb shank) advertised on an outdoor sign.  I remembered how good it tasted when I had it in New york in 2005, so tonight I decided to treat myself.  It didn’t taste as I remembered it, however, as the sauce was much stronger and more dense than the one I had eaten before. So that hankering is satisfied and done with anyway!

In Mexico, when patrons get up from their table to leave a restaurant, it is considered polite to say “provecho,” (much like bon apetit) to the people at the nearest table. So this time as I was leaving my table I nodded and automatically said “provecho” to this German family who looked at me like I was nuts.  Got to remember where I am!

And now that my dental work is almost finished I’ve got to figure out where and when I am going next…

I set out for the bus station at the Bangkok Ekamai skytrain exit at 9am to spend Christmas Day with Bob at his home in Pattaya.  The trip should have taken about an hour and a half, however the bus I was put on proceeded down Sukhumvit at about 40mph stopping every hundred yards to pick up passengers.  So I bailed and picked up a taxi for the rest of the trip.  Oh, sorry, Bob says, I didn’t tell you which window to buy your tickets…!

So anyway, Bob met my taxi at a Tesco Lotus market in Pattaya and drove me to his home for crockpot beef stew and gift exchange…although his gift quite outmeasured mine!

The next evening he “treated” me to a night out on the “walking street”  which partly gives Pattaya it’s reputation and which turned out to be quite a zoo with Thai bar girls dressed in short red skirts for Christmas and farangs (foreigners) looking for each other among various and sundry other colorful figures.  Two up-country Isaan grandmothers escorted two small children down the street. What in the world are they doing here, I asked Bob.  Oh, they are probably just as curious as you, he said. Whoever said I was curious, I thought.  It’s a daily scene in Bangkok on Patong.  The most interesting thing I saw was crowds of  broadly smiling Thais looking up at a second story window…with a young blond woman…probably Russian since there are a lot of them in Pattaya.. gyrating quite sensuously around a pole to thumping music.  Much better than any of the Thai girls, I thought, and quite entertaining for the Thais that were watching this unusual scene in Thailand.

It was really hot so the next day I was glad to get on the right air-conditioned bus for the return trip to Bangkok.  And that was Christmas 2009.

My friend Jiraporn invited me to go with her and one of her friends to visit a childhood friend who is a public prosecutor in Ayuttaya-a couple hours north of Bangkok.  The city is the site of the old capitol of Thailand and was burned down by the Burmese about 400 years ago so there are a lot of temple ruins. But plenty of intact newer ones too! Little did I know I would be trudging from one temple to another for most of the day in the heat.  I am really well-blessed for the coming New Year!  As we were walking up to one unique temple there stood about 6 huge brightly colored roosters.  No Buddah.  What’s with the roosters, I asked Jiraporn.  This is a temple in honor of the First King Rama who loved cockfighting, she said. OMG.  Ancient values. I came home exhausted.

Tonight, Christmas eve for me, I met met two Thai women for dinner and conversation…so they can practice English they say. 😉 So after a bit of confusion we finally found each other at one of the Thaksin Saphin skytrain exits. I followed them to where we were have dinner…McDonalds!  One of them lives upcountry and works for herself as a business consultant and the other works in a bank…Luk is her name…the same name as my daughter-in-law!

Tomorrow morning I will catch a bus for Pattaya to spend Christmas Day with Bob.  Wonder if he will cook dinner for me. 🙂

When I am not out on the streets…or reading…I spend time on the internet on some of the www.couchsurfing.com forums discussing historical, political and cultural issues with members from all over the world…and in the process I am learning something about myself.

I have discovered recently that the word “nomad” is a bad word in China and Central Asia.  It means you have no “roots.” That you are “empty.”  In other words you don’t have an identity…maybe you are not even a person!  I remember that when I was in China I wanted to have a T-shirt made with LaughingNomad printed in Mandarin on the back.  The vendor screwed up his face and said he didn’t like it in Mandarin.

Then a woman on couchsurfing from Uzbekistan, in Central Asia, described the word “nomad” in her language.  I asked what was wrong with having “no roots” but never got an answer.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with an attitude of looking down at the “shepherd”…the “peasant” in relationship to more “civilized” people.  But what do I know.

In my language “nomad” does not have a pejorative connotation…in fact I think it is quite a romantic notion.  Even Bilbao Baggins claims that “All Who Wonder Are Not Lost.”

Then a Swiss woman on couchsurfing describes life in her country:

I and my descendant will be forever citizens of one village, despite the fact that no one has lived there for three generations and my family jumped language barriers. I could ask to become a citizen of Geneva, but I see no reason to do so, since we are in the same country and only 300 km apart.

This sense of belonging – because this is what it is, has a reason: If you should ever become destitute in the world, in another continent or in the next village, your place of origin is requested to repatriate you and care for you until the end of your days. You may never have seen your place of origins, but if Bob Lutz (former CEO of General Motors) would become destitute [he he ;-)] his village of Rheineck, would have to pay for his upkeep until the end of his life.

So it is not about no moving and discovering the world. It is about having roots. And what mobility – economically a good thing – does to it.

So I thought about this some more and this is more or less what I explained to her:

The United States was settled by fiercely independent people. My mother’s parents and grandmother immigrated from Poland in the late 1890’s to escape the Germans and work in the mines in Illinois. They sent the two oldest of 10 children on ahead by themselves by ship at the age of 17 and 18 to scout out living arrangements for the family who followed. But they were really farmers so when they saved up enough money from the mines they leased farms in Iowa and after the Homestead Act of 1903 they migrated to Montana.

My father’s ancestors started out in NYC>NJ>Ohio>Kansas>Oregon all in the space of two generations. So “roots” however defined were left behind. Most people then were farmers and looking to homestead land as it opened up westward. What took my grandparents from Kansas to Oregon was the availability of water. Most people migrated across the country in groups and whole communities resettled together.

Studying genealogy has become popular in the States with a certain segment of an older generation interested in migration routes…looking to find out “where they came from.” I have boxes and boxes of pictures, census data, copies of birth certificates etc etc. My kids,36-42 now living in Las Vegas, Hong Kong and Thailand, have not one iota of interest in all this and when I die it will probably all get thrown out in big black garbage bags.

My mother hated the isolated ranch in Montana (so isolated that they only got telephone land line service less than 10 years ago) so at the age of 12 her parents let her go to Miles City Montana and be a nanny. She was a telegrapher for the railroad in isolated stations in Idaho for 10 years. After her marriage she ended up in Oregon. Distances were great and money scarce and I remember visiting my maternal grandparents only once before they died. My father’s parents died before I was born. Aunts, uncles and cousins are scattered to the wind. The distance from one state to another is often farther than one country from another in Europe. You can put all of Europe in the state of Texas and still have room left over.

After a house fire that took my mother’s first 4 children, I was born later and was raised as an only child on a sheep ranch in SE Oregon. Education was my parent’s priority and as there was slight chance of my qualifying for college after attending country schools, at the age of 12 I was sent to a prep school in another city where I lived with an extended Mexican family. Many of the girls went to boarding schools in Portland Oregon and the boys, mostly Irish sheep ranch kids, went to boarding schools in San Francisco.

Roots? What roots!

Why do I travel so much and am now an expat in Oaxaca Mexico? Because it is BORING where I came from. There is no family in Oregon where I lived most of my life and I often “threaten” my son in Las Vegas that I am going to go live with him lol. I have more in common with travelers and expats in spirit as well as in practice. So that is why, for me, home is where the heart is.  And it is true for my kids too. Even my husband who I am separated from is retired in Thailand now.

What to do when I am “old.” My son’s Thai wife says “Mom, I take care of you!” Well, I would never saddle her with that but she could arrange a nice apartment with a live-in Thai caretaker for me near Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok Thailand where they have great respect for elders. My hope is that my kids never put me in a nursing home in the States!

Besides, “family” members are often only related by virtue of blood. No guarantee that they are close at all! Statistics show that most domestic violence in the states occurs at Christmas time!

I really think there may be something true about “wandering” being in our DNA. I read an article recently that researchers have discovered a place in the brain that is related to novelty.

However, finally, at the age of 65 I think I REALLY know now what it means to be American and I am American all the way down to my “roots.”

In my last post I mentioned Nick’s crazy flight from LA to Bangkok for a one day visit.  Well, today he tells me about the return:

 my flights back looked so good . . .  on paper.  from bkk – nrt (tokyo) i got a coach seat.  not too bad.  when i got to nrt, the nrt – d.c. flight cancelled and caused a serious domino effect.  everybody on that flight scattered to get on any other flight stateside.  i couldn’t get on my nrt – lax flight, not even a jumpseat.  i scrambled and got on an nrt – sea [Seattle] flight.  took the last coach seat. in sea, i couldn’t get on a sea – lax flight, so i went sea – sfo.  at sfo, [San Francisco] i couldn’t get on an sfo – lax flight.   so i went sfo – fresno – lax.  just got home.  what a ride.  CAN’T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN!  HA! 

Glad I’m not the only nut out there, Nick! :))

Yesterday I was invited by a couchsurfing friend, who has lived in Bangkok for several years, to visit her neighborhood . It required taking the skytrain to the river…then a ferry up the river 30 stops…taking about an hour.  While on the ferry I visited with an Egyptian woman next to me who is married to a German who had a terrible accident falling off a waterfall in Chiang Mai. After two months in a hospital he was finally airlifted back to Germany with extensive after affects of his brain injury.

After this conversation I felt weird enjoying lunch of green curry and stir-fry vegetables and a visit to a lovely park next to a Wat.  But then my friend showed me her ankle that has been swollen double for a year after getting hit by debris in the tsunami.  She has been to 7 hospitals in Bangkok and no one can tell her what the problem is. I feel so grateful that my son Doug and his Thai wife, Luk, escaped injury the morning they woke to discover their bungalow under water!

The only other sight in my friend’s very Thai neighborhood was a prison which of course we didn’t visit.  Then after 30 stops back and skytrain to my neighborhood, I stopped by the Parrot Cafe  sidewalk table area on my Sukhumvit 22 neighborhood for spaghetti bolanaise and an hour’s late evening conversation with an Aussie businessman at the next table who divides his time between Thailand, Mozambique and Europe as a contract manager for a large Australian corporation. .  I visit with him often here at the cafe…mostly for morning coffee and our daily entertainment…the Bangkok Post.

Today I am contemplating an invitation from the 30- something Thai businesswoman who has invited me, it turns out, to go to Khao San Rd. (backpacker street) with them on Christmas Eve.  Does she realize I am 65, I wonder?

I got “home” late last night from a day trip to a “village” just off highway 304 in Chachoengsao Province about two hours east of Bangkok.  This visit had several advantages.

I got to see my friends Dave and Syy again and meet Syy’s mother, brother and two year old niece who slept the peaceful afternoon away in a cloth swing while we visited in an outdoor covered area attached to Syy’s mother’s house.

I got to see my Vietnamese friend Nick again.  Nick is a flight attendant for United Airlines. I last saw him a couple years ago when he visited me, Doug and Luk on Koh Samui on a quick side-trip on his way to visit family in Viet Nam.  He gave me a freshly minted copy of his memoirs on that visitthat included the story of his escape with his family from Saigon in 1975 when he was 7 years old and subsequently resettled in the middle of Kansas!

Dave, Syy and I were imagining Nick lounging in first class on his flight from LA to Bangkok this time too.  But alas we gave him our appropriate condolences when he revealed that the flight was full, he got the flight attendant jump seat all the way from LA to Tokyo and a middle seat in coach seat from there to Bangkok!  We truly hope that he got a better seat on his return flight this morning….having spent only one night in Bangkok!

And I got to find out how to catch a van to outlying areas.  Skytrain to the Victory Monument. From the skytrain platform, look for one of the figures on top of the monument of a sailor holding a torpedo.  Walk in the direction that the torpedo is pointing.  Take an exit off the platform to the right…to a small street named Ratchatewi 11 that runs parallel to the raised BTS walkway above.  About half way down that street look for a restaurant called Pong Lee.  Next to the restaurant is a sidewalk desk to buy a ticket for the desired van.  Show them a piece of paper that says in Thai (presumably you have found someone to do this for you) Pratchinburi/Klong Rang/Tawa Ravadee Hotel so they can direct you to the right van in a very long line of white vans lined up on the street.  The fee for us was 130 baht one-way…or $4.00.  (But Dave said it should have been 120 baht so we don’t know whether to blame Nick or me!)

Dave wrote a little description of the “village” for his email list that I think I will lift for this post because his description is much better than mine would be. He says:

<em>the village is composed of two adjoining houses, Na Tit’s abode and Syy’s mom’s old house. Syy’s moms house is now an empty shell housing a few relics of the past including a clock stuck at 5:30 and memory filled photos on the wall reminding one of an earlier time. The house has been gutted of all inner conveniences and last night I was forced to sleep on the hard wood floor, waking up with an ache in the back or maybe an ache in the heart for the old home.

The days are warm and mild, the chickens wake us up every morning at 5. Now we have to make the long walk through the overgrown remnants of what used to be a garden but is now planted with thorny eggplants to Somsak’s home for our tri daily meals. Since we were here last, Somsak has built 2 small adjoining rooms on the estate, one for mother and one for Far. Somsak and Duen’s small room was slammed with lightening not long ago which tore out their AC unit.

Ants and papayas seem to be the big cash crops this year. The backyard is filled with recently planted papaya’s already loaded with young green fruit. The homes that were removed this year from the village have been completely replaced by the tropical vegetation and now you can never tell they were ever there. As a result, there is a new natural feel to the village, having lost its human component, and has been replaced by a veritable green paradise.

We started our meal last night with a bang, eating big green and white ants with enormous abdomens that literally pop in your mouth, making a sound akin to popcorn bursting into action for the first time on the bottom of a hot grease filled frying pan.</em>

As I sit here writing this, I hear fireworks. It seems very familiar.  Then I realize I am in Thailand not Oaxaca Mexico!  I step out onto my small 8th floor veranda and see the sky between the buildings alive with light and sound. I feel right at home because I have no idea what the occasion is…just like most of the times there are fireworks displays in Oaxaca! 🙂  This is the 3rd fireworks in a month here.  Last couple fireworks I figured was in honor of the King’s birthday.

This time…Christmas?!!

I like being in this familiar city again. And this is the winter…the best time of the year to be here…75 and 80 degrees during the day and even down to 60 degrees at night.  But it’s nearly the end of December now and the temperature is slowly creeping up.  But not enough to keep the locals out of their jackets and neck wraps!  But it’s winter they say!

For the last 5 weeks I have spent a couple days a week in a dental chair in Bangkok…at the Bangkok International Dental Clinic. All very competent English speaking dentists working part-time…waiting for you to walk in. A multi-story new spiffy-clean facility with in-house labs.  One tooth extraction, one root canal, four crowns and two implants and prep on a third.  My young implant dentist completed 4 years of dental school in N. Carolina and spent another 3 years as implant instructor…and now back in Thailand with his family. $1200 each implant here…and $4000 and up in the States, he says.  A no-brainer…and a holiday to boot.

I’ve enjoyed an International Street Fair in Lumpini Park with a Thai friend…seeing Chinese Opera Face-changing for the first time.  Amazing!  A thanksgiving dinner with my husband who came up from Pattaya where he lives…festing on a huge hotel restaurant buffet with a friend of his who is here having physical therapy on his shoulder. A trip to Khao San Road, a colorful backpacker walking street where you can get your hair dreadlocked, with my son Doug just before his temporary return trip to Oregon.

I really enjoyed seeing the comedy…Julia And Julia…and recommend this movie (screenplay by Nora Ephron)…especially to anyone who cut their teeth on Julia Child’s French Cook book and/or watched her TV cooking show.  Meryl Streep did a great job…you almost forgot that it wasn’t Julia up there on the screen.  And I love those lay-back lounger chairs in the new theaters here.  Wasn’t so impressed with the new Scrooge in 3-D.

I like my familiar neighborhood on Sukhumvit 22.  I like to sit in front of the Parrot Cafe and have my morning coffee…checking for email with free wifi on my iPhone.  I like the meaty German breakfast at the Bei Otto German restaurant with wonderful home-made German rolls.  All the foods that Oaxaca Mexico doesn’t have.  I like having side-walk noodle soup while sitting on one of two small plastic stools…for 30 baht…less than a dollar.  I like the Thai massage I can have as often as I want because they only cost 250 baht ($7.50) for an hour.

But I could really do without all those incessant insufferable Christmas carols in all the malls.  Paragon Mall and other nearby malls are covered with outside megalights and the area just off the skytrain is expected to draw thousands at an extravagant New Years Celebration.  It’s a Buddhist country…but anything for a party! Everyone lines up in front of Christmas displays to have their pictures taken by friends or anyone nearby who is willing to serve as picture-taker…many of them Japanese tourists.

An American friend and his Thai wife flew into Bangkok yesterday from the States.  I called Dave to give directions to my serviced apartment.  After a long explanation he said, you know, we must be very close to you.  These are two well-traveled people (him and me) who have found their way in countries all over the world!  So he sort of followed my directions…walking a very long way up Sukhumvit 20 to Sukhumvit St…down Sukhumvit St…over to Suk 22 and down to the corner of my little street where I was waiting for them in front of a cafe.  After a little catch-up visit we rose to walk on to my hotel.  This is where you are staying, Dave and Syy exclaimed!  Yes, right there on the left, I said.  We are staying there too!!! We just shook our heads…bewildered…and laughing at how we could have misunderstood each other so badly.

But tomorrow I’ll have a chance to get out of the city into the country-side to visit Syy’s family in a tiny village.  A Vietnamese friend who works as a flight attendant for United Air is flying all the way from California to Bangkok so that we can join Dave and Syy in the village for lunch…then Nick will fly back to LA the next day!  Well, I guess if you get a free flight in first class you don’t mind the trip so much on your day off!  So to get ready I have been reading the directions to my new Sony video camcorder.:((

Last month I had the best company and dinner partner ever…my son who is a chef at The American Club…a family club for American expats living and working in Hong Kong.  Because employees and their families are not allowed to fraternize with the members, made do with some of the best restaurants in Hong Kong.  As we made our way through courses of a meal, Josh would explain what to eat when and how.  He would explain how a dish was made and why.  The best cooking lessons ever.  We treated ourselves to a Japanese fusion sushi restaurant with a young very creative chef…a friend of my son’s…who presented us with dishes I had never seen before.  A close follow-up was a Korean restaurant that featured Waygu beef that melted in your mouth.  A dining experience almost as good as the three months we spent with Josh when he was a chef in Manhattan.

The American Club has two sites…one a Country Club in an outlying area of the island, which we visited by bus, and the Town Club located at the top of a Hong Kong high-rise…which I did not get to visit on this trip…but maybe on the next one.

But all good things usually come to an end and after 12 days I left Josh to his job and his high-rise and took a short flight to my next destination…Bangkok Thailand…and to visit another son, Doug, who lives with his Thai wife on Koh Samui.  Having already visited my oldest son, Greg, in Las Vegas, I have such a terrible job…making the rounds to visit my kids! 🙂

Well, as expected,  here I am at 2am wide awake on the island of Hong Kong. After a somewhat frenetic 3 weeks with Bob and I taking up Doug’s kitchen and entire dining room table in Salem Oregon, Bob has returned to his home in Thailand and I am now ensconced in Josh’s 800 square foot flat in a 70 floor high rise…one of hundreds and hundreds that line the horizon.  I have only admiration for Amy who arrived here by herself after almost 2 years living in Beijing to find a flat prior to Josh’s arrival!

There was visible health monitoring upon arrival at the airport…a system left over from the SARS and Bird Flu days.  Had to fill out a form reporting any symptoms of illness and coming out of immigration the arrival crowds are “scanned” by some sort of technology for temperature readings and any person showing a high reading is pulled to the side. I don’t know what they do with you from there and I didn’t wait around to find out! :))

Hong Kong is often mistakenly thought of as a city or a country. Actually it comprises a small peninsula bordering mainland China called the New Territories, Kowloon, on the southern tip of the peninsula, plus a group of islands, including Hong Kong Island across Victoria Bay from Kowloon, and covers about 1,100 square kilometers. Although Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories came under the rule of the British as a result of the Opium Wars between Britain and China (1939-1942), the area is now a part of China since the hand-over of the lease by the British in 1997 and has maintained it’s status as a Special Administrative Region. Each stage of Hong Kong’s economic development can be linked to events in China and the two economies continue to become interconnected as Hong Kong “looks over it’s shoulder.”  But as far as I am concerned, culturally it is another country distinct from mainland China thanks to the British.   Also, along with southern China that used to be called Canton, the everyday language is Cantonese although English is widely understood and spoken especially by the business community. On the other hand, the various dialects of mainland China, based on the Beijing dialect, have melded and have become known in the west as Mandarin. Cantonese and Mandarin speakers do not much understand each other.

Only 20% of the land mass is urban. Typically, Asians don’t mind high-density living so “city” planners left the bulk of the island to itself and built “up.”  Josh says Hong Kong Island has the highest population density of any urban area in the world.  And I might add…the most expensive. It has surpassed Tokyo! It’s clean and efficient. A high-speed train (runs on time almost to the second every 10 minutes) brought me 30 minutes from the airport right onto Hong Kong Island for $10. Contrast this with the $60 taxi ride from the airport in Las Vegas Nevada to Greg’s house!

When I was here twice before, I stayed in Kowloon. It was just a short ferry ride across the bay to Hong Kong and I only explored the terminal area…not imagining where/how people actually live here…although Kowloon, which used to have a small town look, now looks much like Hong Kong Island with it’s own wall of high-rises.  For a couple thousand dollars a month, you can imagine how small an 800 square foot flat is compared to my apartment in Oaxaca which is 3 times the size for $300!  Tidy by necessity. Josh’s one bedroom has a double mattress on the floor…the corner of which has to be lifted up to get the door closed! It took a bit of juggling to find a place for my 2 small pieces of luggage and computer bag. Josh gave me his bed and he took the big comfy leather couch in the small living room…but I think tomorrow we will switch so I can roam around in the middle of the night without waking him…if  “roaming around” is what you would call it given the amount of space. :))  But I can also go out on the veranda with a straight-ahead view of the bay and Kowloon beyond in between 2 walls of high-rises.  But lest I give you the wrong impression, behind his tower is about a 3-block by 1 block area of free space with swimming pool, gym, a children’s play area and a restaurant you would never know was there looking from the street.

So Josh has already given me an access lesson to his flat.  The tower has about 6 doormen, (actually I think more for security,) but you have to know which tower entrance to use…a magnetic card letting you in the door.  Then an elevator takes you up to level 6 (car park) where you get another elevator that takes you up one more floor to his flat. So no just stepping out into the city like it is for me in Oaxaca.  I hope I can remember all this when Josh goes to work tomorrow!  He says he will take me for a tour of The American Club where he is a chef. But first things first.  I MUST NOT lose the card or the key at this stage of the game because my iPhone still has “no service” for some reason (I haven’t mastered it’s secrets yet) and I don’t yet know were I can find an internet cafe!  Hence no contact with Josh if I get locked out.

Incidently, I’ve never seen this before but in all those apartments very few have their curtains drawn on their windows at night so you can see clearly what everyone is doing in their living rooms.  Josh says they just don’t think about it…they just see what is in front of them.

Amid jet-lag my psyche is swirling…on the road since retirement in 2002. Since 2005, after 4 months in a sublet in Brooklyn, there were several more months in China and SE Asia.  Then after a couple months in Salem and Las Vegas, a year and a half in Oaxaca Mexico 2006-7.  Then several more months in China and SE Asia again.  Then back to Oaxaca November 2008.  Now Hong Kong and Thailand and wherever else. So I guess you could say, like many famous people do, that I “divide my time” between Mexico and Asia with “vacation time” in the U.S in-between. And I do mean vacation time. It sounds romantic.  It is…only in retrospect! :))  But I’m not complaining.  I am very lucky.  I feel like a 35 year-old. I could be sitting in a plaid barco-lounger in front of the TV…feeling my third-age…65 years.

 This mainly for fam and friends…

Flew into Las Vegas from Oaxaca the end of September to spend a few days with my oldest son, Greg.  Always a big treat.  My old U.S. Samsung flip phone was on it’s last legs and Greg couldn’t get ahold of me when I landed so he decided I needed an iPhone so he bought me one.  I can even text on it like all the kids all over the world. I have a Mexican phone and a Thai phone for local calls but I keep the U.S. number/phone just in case I get a court order to appear for something…or my kids can reach me in an emergency! :))  Otherwise I use video-skype on my computer that I travel with.  Come to think of it I also have a WiFi skype phone when I don’t have my computer with me!  With my cameras and phones and computer, it’s now called “Flashpacking” Instead of backpacking!

Bob flew in to Las Vegas from Thailand while I was in Vegas…was fun listening to all the banter between the two of them.  Then we both flew to Portland where we are ensconsed in our middle son’s (Doug) rental house in Salem where he has been for the last few months trying to earn some money so he can go back to Thailand.  His Thai wife, Luk, was here with him for a couple months but her tourist visa ran out so she is back in Thailand waiting for him to return in November.

Otherwise lots of errands like the accountant, bank, doc, pharmacy, going through stuff at the Azalea St. house to give to Doug and other stuff to set aside to take down to Oaxaca. Took my little computer to the Apple store for some more memory and re-install of the OS which I hope clears up some of the goofy stuff it has been doing. Toyota is dead so guess we will just store it at the farm until Doug can arrange to have a new motor put in it. Took the little ’94 Lexus in for a rehab so it ought to serve us well while each of us is in Oregon in the future for visits.

Got my Thai visa at the Thai consolate…very easy and quick…1 year multi-entry…good thing Bob was with me cause we used his retirement visa as a back-up to prove that I was going to Thailand as a tourist to visit family. Cost me $175 but is better than going across the border every 15 days or flying in and out every 30 days. You’d think they would make it easier for tourists to go spend money but they are trying to keep out the backpackers who they don’t like very much and who don’t spend much money.

Bob saw his mom for her 90th Bday…we will go up to Portland again next Sunday for a family get together again with her and the rest of the family.

Josh, after a visit from his wife, Amy, this last week, has informed us that they have agreed to go their separate ways. He seemed quite relieved and was actually pretty chipper. Think the worst of the bad feeling was the shock a couple months ago when she left Hong Kong and told him she didn’t think it would work.  We are relieved a decision has been made.

When I get back to the States from Asia next spring I’m going to drive some more stuff down to Oaxaca.  Have looked at so many cars I am now thoroughly confused and can’t even remember the first ones I looked at. :((  As of now it looks like the Toyota Rav4.  Nice highway driving but hardy enough for Oaxaca potholed mountain roads.

Bob and I both leave on Nov 1…he back to his house south of Pattya in Thailand and me for Hong Kong to see son Josh. Doug will leave for Thailand first or second week of November so he will be there by the time I leave Hong Kong for Thailand. So I will see him and Luk on the island of Koh Samui.

There is a huge couchsurfing get-together in Istanbul in May but I just realized I might not be able to make it. My MEX visa is up June 16 and I think they said I needed to come in 30 days before to renew…or whatever it is they make you do. So if I am going to fly back to Oregon, pick up the car, and get down to Oaxaca by the beginning of May, I’ll have to leave Asia about 2-3 weeks before that….in April sometime. I’m thinking out loud here. March and April is hot in Thailand so maybe I’ll roam around Turkey and Syria before flying back to the States. Unless I’m sick of being on the road by that time.

So we have a few friends to visit still and some phone calling to do and should be good to go by Nov 1.

We have been waking up way too early. Maybe just good prep for the impending time change/jet lag. 🙁

In the Indian tradition of Anekantavada, the doctrine of non-absolutism, there are three ways to have a dialogue : ‘vaad’ or a discussion, which seeks to understand the opponent’s point of view and explain one’s own in order to reach the truth; ‘vivaad’ or an argument, which seeks to impose one’s own point of view over that of the other; and the third, ‘vitandavaad’, which merely seeks to bulldoze the other person’s views, without really offering any alternative thought.

Truth is universal if not absolute.  Aikido is a martial art founded in the early 1900’s by a Japanese man, Morihei Ueshiba, who wanted to teach a way for people to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. To control the aggression of an attacker with caring and without inflicting harm.

I am reminded that about 30 years ago, at a mind/body conference, I took part in an Aikido workshop led by George Leonard (for further study read “Education and Ecstasy, The Ultimate Athlete (which deals at length with aikido) and The Silent Pulse.) A 3rd dan Aikikai practitioner, Leonard was a particularly charismatic practitioner and my experience with him would have a profound effect on me for the rest of my life.

Wikipedia:  <em>The word “aikido” is formed of three kanji:

* 合 – ai – joining, unifying, harmonizing
* 気 – ki – spirit, life energy
* 道 – dō – way, path

Aikido is often translated as “the Way of unifying (with) life energy”[1] or as “the Way of harmonious spirit.”[2]

Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on. This requires very little physical energy, as the aikidōka (aikido practitioner) “leads” the attacker’s momentum using entering and turning movements.</em>

and

<em>One applies aiki by understanding the rhythm and intent of the attacker to find the optimal position and timing to apply a counter-technique. Historically, aiki was mastered for the purpose of killing; however in aikido one seeks to control an aggressor without causing harm.[2] The founder of aikido declared: “To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.”[6] A number of aikido practitioners interpret aikido metaphorically, seeing parallels between aikido techniques and other methods for conflict resolution.</em>

Now I don’t propose we all become control freaks and walk around in a defensive posture (which sometimes invites attack) but there was something particularly powerful in being taught this “attitude” using both a mind and body analogy.

 

 A friend posted this on a couchsurfing forum today.

Anekantavada, the doctrine of non-absolutism, a multi-dimensional approach is of paramount importance in today’s troubled times.  Anekant is a basic principle of Jainism dealing with the multiple nature of reality. It deals with particular aspects, but does not deny the existence of other attributes or qualities.

Anekant means non-insistence on one’s view-point only. In the world of philosophy this doctrine adopts the policy of ‘coexistence,’The fundamental principle of Anekantvada is to tolerate others’ views or beliefs; one should not only try to discover the truth in one’s own views or beliefs, but also in other’s views and beliefs.  Anekantvada establishes the truth not by rejecting the partial views about reality but by taking all of them into consideration.

Anekāntavāda also does not mean compromising or diluting ones own values and principles. On the contrary, it allows us to understand and be tolerant of conflicting and opposing views,while respectfully maintaining the validity of ones own view-point.

Lord Mahavir stressed  freedom of expression through his unique doctrine of Anekantvad i.e. the “Principle of multiple views. It discards absolutism of thought. It propounds mutual understanding. Anekantvad teaches the lesson of religious tolerance, which is essential to remove the present air of hatred and conflict prevalent on the national and international arenas. Views are bound to differ, because we are guided by different conditions. Hence, it is wrong to think oneself absolutely right and all others absolutely wrong.  Such an outlook is imperialism in thought.

The world is sharply divided into multiple opposite camps.There is an ‘either . . . or’ in world politics. Peace, therefore, demands a new logic, a new outlook. Had the world leaders adopted the philosophy of Anekantof Lord Mahavir to understand others’ points of view, the mental reservations, misunderstanding and clashes would have been banished and an era of global peace would have prevailed.

Non-absolutism is the ideology of a new civilization of peace and non-violence. The ‘all or none’ approach has brought us to the brink of total annihilation, hence the non-absolutist approach in thought, word and deed is the only way before us.

For more :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekantavada

Anekanta is a Sanskrit word anekānta (manifoldness) and vāda (school of thought)

Peace for all

Disclaimer: The intent of post is not to propagate the Jain religion.

A friend who saw the parade into the Oaxaca City zocalo this A.M. said it was similar to all  military parades he has seen in the US and elsewhere, and by that standard, quite good. I didn’t go, so have no photos. I did however, watch the fireworks through my open sliding glass living room doors.  Noticias will not publish on Thursday because national law “compels” vacation days” for newspapers, so since Noticias came out today it will honor its no-print day tomorrow.

No one shot, wounded or jailed! That makes headlines, although I heard that some APPO people who wanted to protest were knocked around by the police, and so were the photographers taking their pictures.

URO, the Governor, had on hand 1500 cops, some in uniform and some plain clothes. He delivered the Grito dressed in a  New York-Miami suit, standing on the balcony of the former government palace now a museum, waving the Mexican flag.

A friend reports that in Zaachila, a nearby pueblo, one of the strongest movement towns, there were two Gritos delivered, one official by the municipal president Noe Perez, and the second alternative-popular. Azael Santiago Chepi, Sec General of Section 22 gave the alternative Grito speech. He is quoted as calling on the people to prepare themselves for the coming revolution  “which does not necessarily  have to be armed, but is a transformative consciousness raising force of the people to achieve a better level of life in all areas”.

Chepi was backed by the Zaachila Education Front which consists of 19 education institutions in the municipality , which chose girl students  to perform the national anthem  and one of them shouted the Vivas, which after the historic figures ended ¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva Zaachila! ¡Viva el Frente Educativo Zaachilense!

In his speech Chepi added that people have to prepare themselves for the great revolution awaiting us. “it is the struggle that we teachers have to wage in every community: awaken the consciousness of our students, find solidarity with the parents, contact the true governors of the peoples such as the great grandfathers or councilors of elders, because the movement is in the phase of gathering force…. diversity makes us stronger, ideological concurrence makes us stronger too, to find points of agreement in this battle against the repressive governor; we have to prepare ourselves  because more complex situations are approaching where surely we will know how to reply to whatever aggression.”

He commented on the police presence in the Oaxaca capital zocalo which was “to gurad an attempt at a festivity which is not of the Oaxaqueños, but to the contrary, is put in play by all the repressive forces that reside in the state; likewise public plazas in the entire country because of the Mexican government´s fear of social dissent which day by day becomes generalized in the face of evident failure of neoliberal policy.”

Salon.com had an article this morning on the NY Times best seller list that puts the far right-wing into a broader perspective.http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2009/09/12/rightwing_bestsellers/?source=newsletterIt begins:

“For the past nine months, ever since a certain somebody seized the White House, conservative pundits have dominated the ranks of nonfiction. There have been plenty of golden oldies, such as Bill O’Reilly (“A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity”), Ann Coulter (“Guilty”), Bernard Goldberg (“A Slobbering Love Affair”) and Joe Scarborough (“The Last Best Hope”). But it’s the relative newcomers — Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Dick Morris and Michelle Malkin — who’ve put a stranglehold on the top 10.

It would be easy enough, and rather predictable, to lament this state of affairs and to find in it evidence of an anemic literary culture, a dangerously aggrieved minority, or at the very least the diabolical efficacy of bulk sales.

But such liberal cant totally misses the point. Having spent the past two weeks in what I might call a spiritual communion with these authors, I can assure you that these texts are not the psychotic, fact-challenged rants of the mad, but carefully crafted metafictions in which the mundane terrors of cultural dislocation are recast as riveting epics of paranoia.

As such, they fit into a long literary tradition, one that extends from the rhapsodic delusions of “Don Quixote” to the airborne toxic events of Don DeLillo, from the surreal prophecy of Revelations to the post-apocalyptic visions of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Though written in different eras and wildly divergent styles, these works are all about the incursion of sinister forces on an unsuspecting populace.

Which brings us back to Beck and Co. Rather than accepting the standard narrative — that a disillusioned electorate rejected eight years of conservative mismanagement in favor of a pragmatic (and frankly wonky) Democrat with an inspirational pedigree — they have created a vivid “counternarrative” in which the events of November 2008 represent a coup d’état. Actually, Malkin regards the arrangement as an oligarchy, while Levin goes all in with nascent totalitarianism. Either way, you get the point. The point is danger, urgency, what we in the fiction biz call “stakes.'” It goes on.

I might be out in left field (so to speak) but reading this article, I was imagining how similar the paranoia on the far right is to the paranoia on the far left. Hmmm. Newt Gingrich’s goal was to foment the “cultural equivalent of civil war” (as stated by Robert Reich in On Reason.

I am wondering if what we have in Obama is another Czar Nicholas II…(who introduced the original glastnost and freed the serfs and we know what happened to both Nicholas and President Lincoln.)

In those days in Russia gradual reform was seen by the revolutionaries on the left as leaving people satisfied with the status quo…wanting society to coil like an overtightened spring so that when it popped, it would break. The Bolsheviks got what they wished for after they assassinated Nicholas II and the rest is history.

In the 1960’s, 100 years after Nicholas II, the revolutionaries in the U.S. thought they had their chance but failed. Now we have revolution coming from the right that is spawning violence that makes the the radical leftist Weathermen look like babes. I am reminded what the Russian anarchist Bakunin said about revolutionary change…that revolutionary change must not come from authoritarian methods but libertarian ones.

It feels like now in the U.S. the liberals are caught in no man’s land and change is being co-opted by the far right, most often by voice and pen but increasingly by violence precipitated by a feeling of cultural displacement by a liberal black president and could result in a disastrous 2012 election. Alaska has had a separatist movement going for years which Palin and her husband has been implicated in supporting. Palin anyone?

But don’t make the mistake of thinking this is something only recent. It has been fomenting since the Continental Congress and the Civil War which we are essentially still fighting. Rep Joe Wilson from South Carolina who called Obama a liar (he was wrong) during his speech to Congress is a secessionist and one of only seven Republicans to go against their own party and vote to keep the Dixie Rebel flag flying over the South Carolina capitol. So much for reconstruction.

A farmer, my own father who I loved dearly, used to read really scary far right wing literature to the eternal embarrassment of my mother who wouldn’t let him read the stuff in the house so he had to sit outside. As a small girl I would ride with him in his pick-up truck as he made the rounds…whispering in low tones with his farmer friends who were all members of a national far right-wing farmer group that I can’t remember the name of. I used to hear him say that if the “govment” ever came to his house he would shoot the hell out of them. And then I worked for state government for 10 years.

No one talks about the Ku Klux Klan anymore, but their off-shoots like the White Aryan supremacist survivalists and their militias have been digging shelters and stockpiling arms for years. Kirk Lyons attended Pete Peters’ 1992 gathering at Estes Park, Colorado that is widely credited with giving birth to the militia movement. At the session, he led discussions on how to establish common-law courts throughout the country.

Rep Joe Wilson is director of a North Carolina legal organization called the CAUSE Foundation, (whose initials ostensibly stand for Canada, Australia, United States and Europe — everywhere that white people are established) describes itself as a defender of unpopular causes and the powerless: “I will always support the rights of radicals,’’ Lyons has said. “The more radical they are, the more they need to be supported for their rights. If you take away their rights, we’re all losers.’’ So then we have a yokel who shows up at a Health Reform town hall presided over by Obama with a side-arm in full view strapped to his leg. And the gun lobby buying off the Congress left and right. Who the hell needs an MK47 to hunt?

Actually, Lyons himself is a white separatist who sneers at the current American system. “Democracy in America is a farce and a failure, ’’he once wrote.” It has led us to the brink of a police state.’’ Words that could easily have come from the radical left.

One of these, Tom Metzger, precipitated a hate crime in 1988 when a 28 year old Ethiopian student and father, Mulugheta Serew, who went to the US to attend college, was killed with a baseball bat in Portland, Oregon by three racist skinheads who were members of a group known as East Side White Pride and White Aryan Resistance (WAR). Seraw’s father and son, represented at no cost by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, successfully filed a civil lawsuit against the killers and Tom Metzger, head of WAR, and his son John, holding them liable for the murder for a total of $12.5 million. Meanwhile Metzger said the skinheads did a “civic duty” by killing Seraw. More in “In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest” Then we have the bombing in Oklahoma, murder of abortion doctors, the stand-off by the Freemen in Montana etc.etc.

On the other hand, Glenn Greenwald,, in Salon.com on the same day as the NY Times booklist article was written, maintains that trying to destroy the presidency of the opposite party is not unprecedented.

“To see that, just look at what that movement’s leading figures said and did during the Clinton years. In 1994, Jesse Helms, then-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, claimed that “just about every military man” believes Clinton is unqualified to be Commander-in-Chief and then warned/threatened him not to venture onto military bases in the South: “Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He better have a bodyguard.” The Wall St. Journal called for a Special Prosecutor to investigate the possible “murder” of Vince Foster. Clinton was relentlessly accused by leading right-wing voices of being a murderer, a serial rapist, and a drug trafficker. Tens of millions of dollars and barrels of media ink were expended investigating “Whitewater,” a “scandal” which, to this day, virtually nobody can even define. When Clinton tried to kill Osama bin Laden, they accused him of “wagging the dog” — trying to distract the country from the truly important matters at hand (his sex scandal). And, of course, the GOP ultimately impeached him over that sex scandal — in the process issuing a lengthy legal brief with footnotes detailing his sex acts (cigars and sex talk), publicly speculating about (and demanding examinations of) the unique “distinguishing” spots on his penis, and using leading right-wing organs to disseminate innuendo that he had an abandoned, out-of-wedlock child. More intense and constant attacks on a President’s “legitimacy” are difficult to imagine.
This is why I have very mixed feelings about the protests of conservatives such as David Frum or Andrew Sullivan that the conservative movement has been supposedly “hijacked” by extremists and crazies. On the one hand, this is true. But when was it different? Rush Limbaugh didn’t just magically appear in the last twelve months. He — along with people like James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Bill Kristol and Jesse Helms — have been leaders of that party for decades. Republicans spent the 1990s wallowing in Ken Starr’s sex report, “Angry White Male” militias, black U.N. helicopters, Vince Foster’s murder, Clinton’s Mena drug runway, Monica’s semen-stained dress, Hillary’s lesbianism, “wag the dog” theories, and all sorts of efforts to personally humiliate Clinton and destroy the legitimacy of his presidency using the most paranoid, reality-detached, and scurrilous attacks. And the crazed conspiracy-mongers in that movement became even more prominent during the Bush years. Frum himself — now parading around as the Serious Adult conservative — wrote, along with uber-extremist Richard Perle, one of the most deranged and reality-detached books of the last two decades, and before that, celebrated George W. Bush, his former boss, as “The Right Man.'”

But those folks (with the exception of Pat Robertson (who I believe got the ball rolling with the populist Christian fundamentalist sector) were inside-the-beltway hacks. How many people read their books? I argue now that the difference is that the radio and TV pundits are reaching far more people (Rush with 7 million listeners) who are personally affected by the economic downturn, are and have been feeling culturally displaced and have a real stake in the outcome of a threatening Black presidency. (Who really cared about Clinton’s sperm on that blue dress.) We really should be ignoring them which I think is the point Greenwald is trying to make. But I blame the mainstream media for hopping on the ratings train and giving air time and even more influence to these people who are essentially media personalities on an ego and money trip.

What upsets me, is that these far right “pundits” are using hate speech that, wittingly or unwittingly, foments hatred and violence. No different than yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. They should be held responsible for the violence that I believe they have precipitated already. Some have salient ideas that without the inflammatory name-calling (Obama is a Hitler and a communist) could result in rational discourse. But we have radio and TV ratings to tend to. We have to entertain and cater to a basically uninformed and civically illiterate populace.

So the revolutionaries and anarchists don’t have to do anything but sit back and watch society coil like an overtightened spring so that when it pops, it will break.

Heaven forbid we should have a cool rational wonky president trying to reform a system with his hands tied behind his back by lobbyists, corporations and financial institutions with their billions. And to make it worse the Supreme Court is about to rule that a corporation is an individual. They are about to grant corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to attack political candidates right up until an election, which would destroy the very fabric of our voting structure…such as it is.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Obama expected this kind of opposition. We are a very resilient society and ultimately I have to trust that we will find our way through this.

But Obama is becoming Blacker by the day. I just hope he makes it to the end of his term. The alternative gives me shivers.

I am thankful that some of us, in a cynical time, can still be touched enough to shed tears for, not only a man, but for an entire very human family, and what it stood for. Years after the death of John and Bobby, I could not find a Black or Hispanic professional or political office anywhere that did not have pictures of them displayed prominently…embodying hope…and reminding us of what we were all working for.

But more than that he worked tirelessly for ALL Americans. I remember his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last summer, even when we knew he was dying of brain cancer.

For me this is a season of hope — new hope for a justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few — new hope.And this is the cause of my life — new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American — north, south, east, west, young, old — will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege.

After the death of John, when I was a little older and more politically aware, I, however, thinking we had a second chance, was personally most shattered and disappointed by the assassination of Bobby of whom Teddy said at his eulogy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York:

“My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it,” Mr. Kennedy said, his voice faltering. “Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will someday come to pass for all the world.

”Teddy, perhaps, although not as mythically loved, was foreshadowing his own legacy.

R.I.P.

This is actually kind of funny…

My husband wrote me and our three sons an email the other day telling us what he wants done with his body if something happens to him in Thailand…where he lives…where he has regular bouts of road rage…while driving…or dodging threatening cars while on his motorbike. I have to admit, drivers are worse in Thailand than they are in Mexico and that is saying something!

My husband:

I just stumbled onto a site re USA embassy procedure for a death of a US citizen in Thailand. The embassy makes an effort to notify the next of kin, coordinates wishes re transfer of the remains, organizes and disperses the personal property and forwards all the official necessary documents.

Not always a palatable subject but I do have some preferences: -no need to transfer any remains — arrange for a cremation in Thailand, ashes left under a tree anywhere.  And prefer no memorial service. – I have little personal property of any value in Thailand (beatup pickup, obsolete computers, generic TV, poorly functional gold clubs and misc shorts, T-shirts and sandals). I will arrange for local dispersal.

I am registered with the embassy and receive their periodic updates, warnings etc. It is a worthwhile feature. Statistically, most likely, I will be around for a while. But an accident –esp with my motorbike riding is always a possibility so when I saw what the embassy does I just wanted to express common sense wishes.

Also in Thailand the medical profession goes to inappropriate heroic measures to prolong life.  Shutting off a ventilator is apparently not an option so step in if I am incapacitated and veging inappropriately…

Not anticipating checking out anytime soon but just wanted to simplify any decision making……..

A friend recommended Effexor for road rage but received no comment…:))

Son number 1 who lives in Las Vegas:

Ok.

As long as we’re on the topic.

My preferences.

I want to be buried in the middle pasture at Black Butte Ranch. I’ve often thought about this. It’s the happiest and most serene and most beautiful place I can ever remember.

I dont care if it’s my whole body, but I think the BB folks would NOT be cool with something like this (full burial in public w/o permission with guests passing by with frowning faces) so it will probably have to be clandestine. So that means cremation and then plunk me under a cow pie somewhere while no one else is aware of whats going on.

Im serious. I dont want a headstone. I dont want to be in some no name cemetery.

As far as my belongings, I dont care about any of it. Disperse it, share it, trash it. It wont matter to me. My estate attorney, he’ll help with all that.

Ok. Got it? Black Butte Ranch. Cremated. Buried in the pasture, maybe a couple meters off the bike path that cuts across it. NO sign or maker. I just want to be where I can see the sisters, Mt Washington and Jeff.

K?

Got it?

Good. Im not kidding.

Afterward, hike up Black Butte, stand at the top breath the clean eastern oregon air and think, “it’s good to be alive and not under a cow pie!”

You dont all have to be there, but at least got to be one of you otherwise it wont happen.

(My day is coming, just like everyone else’s)

Then son number 2 who is married to a Thai wife and lives in Thailand:

creamate me, add the ashes to soil, grow a pot plant and my friends can smoke me.

Not a peep from son number 3 who lives in Hong Kong…yet…:))

I told my husband that in Mexico, where I am, any unclaimed bodies are cremated…no charge! :)) Of course all this is predicated on at least one of us being around to honor various wishes.:))

But all is duly noted..and recorded here…:))  Mainly so as to not drive future genealogists crazy who would uselessly be looking for headstones.

After living here and watching events unfold since 2006, this is one (not small but easy) thing  that would not only protect the life of one unjustly incarcerated man, but the human rights of thousands of others in Mexico.

The case of JUAN MANUEL MARTINEZ MORENO, incarcerated for the murder of Indymedia journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca October 2006, is being railroaded by the Mexican government in Oaxaca.

Moreno’s next court hearing to have the case dismissed for lack of credible evidence will be held in Federal court in Oaxaca IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

Significantly, case of Brad Will’s murder was singled out by the U.S. Congress when they passed the 1.4 billion funding bill for the Merida Initiative in July 2008 (popularly called Plan Mexico to help Mexico fight the “drug war,”) calling in that bill for “progress in conducting a thorough, credible, and transparent investigation to identify the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice” as a condition for 15% of the funds. Read the rest of this entry »

While you are pointing fingers at our health care, consider this:

1/3 of all prescriptions by a doctor ever get filled…which means that

2/3 of all people who get prescriptions never even go to the pharmacy

Of the 1/3 of people who get their prescriptions filled…

Only 1/3 will take it as directed

Which means that

1/9 of all prescriptions are getting filled and taken as directed.

Source:  my anesthesiologist son. Don’t know his source.

My thoughts after nearly 40 years of thinking about this subject and watching this 21 minute speech by Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, who challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if “we don’t always get what we want,” as the Stones sing. Our “psychological immune system” lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned, Gilbert says.  Watch the film first, when you have time, before reading my rambling or it won’t make as much  sense… my rambling I mean. He talks fast so it took a second watching for me to “get” it all.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

Suddenly, I am realizing what the answer is to the fact that so many  people I have seen all over the world, in deepest poverty, in wretched conditions, no  choices, no expectations, with or without a faith in a religion, generally seem so happy and joyful.

I’ve always thought that disappointed expectations (which is really the desire to control our lives) is what makes us unhappy. Buddhism, as my friend Jiraporn says, says just accept…in fact all religions preach surrender.  Maybe it doesn’t matter what makes you surrender, or what you surrender to…God or the 12 steps, or the gods, or nature or the laws of the universe.  Maybe there is an inherent wisdom deep in all societies that we need to surrender to be happy and the concept of God is a “synthetic” construct to encourage this…or demand it as the case may be.

Have always felt, on an intellectual level,  that the whole concept of a God seemed artificial…not in the same sense as Marx thought…but in the sense that we know we need to surrender in the face of mystery, to the need to understand.  It may be that faith in God is just as artificial as a chemical that allows us to transcend an ordinary state of consciousness.  I think that maybe this creates the bliss we feel when we do it…the bliss during a born again experience is the same bliss we feel during meditation. For me anyway. I know. But whatever, opening the “doors of perception” and letting go at times seems to be a universal need.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean that we surrender to abusing spouses, corrupt governments or poverty.  It doesn’t mean that we surrender to ignorance.  We still will explore the universe and the laws of nature and man itself.  It is just the basic attitude in the meantime while we ponder the choices we do have to improve and move life forward. The trick is to realize what improvement means and what moves us forward and what doesn’t…politically or personally.  And the ability to feel happy in the meantime. Our Declaration of Independence guaranteed our freedom to pursue happiness.  It just didn’t tell us how. Maybe they were wise.

We practice surrender when we meditate and then it becomes a habit. Just sitting down and letting go of the stimulants of the outside world  helps us to practice surrender…maybe doesn’t matter what technique we use…a mantra, a prayer…our breath. Maybe we use faith.

Letting go of the expectation that a certain outcome will make us happy (more money, a perfect spouse) makes us feel invulnerable on the inside to life’s whims. Then  “bad” outcomes can not touch  our interior…our ability to feel happy and secure. Fear of a bad outcome makes us feel more pain than the outcome itself.

When we were counseling foreign exchange students and host families when you were in high school we told them not to judge an experience as bad or good.  It is just an experience that we learn from. We don’t allow it to knock us off our feet.  Of course that is easy to say when we are not in the middle of an event. But things always work out, I always say, not just the way we expect.

Couple more things to leave you with:

“When do you know your God is man-made?
When he hates the same people you do.”

The Two Wolves
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a
battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son,
The battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow,
regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment
inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute
and then asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

These are just my thoughts.  You get to choose.

Update:  You might like to check out the comments to this post.

Note from Nancy Davies, expat in Oaxaca:

Ernesto Reyes Martinez, an editor for Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca and radio correspondent for the program Hoy por Hoy” on radio XEW, was grabbed by members of the 9th Infantry Battalion, subjected to violent handling and held for an hour and a half. This occurred at 9:30 AM on Monday July 20. Reyes was not involved in any criminal act. He was riding in his car with his wife, trying to take photos with his cell phone of men of the State Investigative Agency (AIE). The newspaper Noticias says he was taking photos of “an unusual event” when he was stopped. The unusual event seems to have been an extortion attempt (police do this to get bribe money) operating on the highway. The first press release (July 21) indicated that extortion was involved;  the second article, put out by the National Commission for Human Rights and the National Center for Social Communication, (CENCO in its Spanish initials)  focused only on Reyes.

I am assuming that since Reyes is affiliated with Noticias, the account they printed is his.

Combining accounts,  Reyes observed five individuals chasing a man on a bicycle. The chase vehicles made the bicyclist stop. Reyes got out of his car and took photos with his cell phone camera. His car was thirty meters from a military post, a check-point on highway 190 which inspects vehicles for drugs and guns. However, at that moment the barrier was not operating because the soldiers were inside eating breakfast.

After he was stopped, 14-18 armed soldiers appeared and arrested the police participants in the chase. Reyes and Reyes’ wife were as also detained. Everyone was held in the military encampment, where Reyes’ cell phone was confiscated.  Reyes identified himself and told the military he is a reporter. In addition to his personal cell phone they also took his work phone which belongs to Noticias. The illegal detention lasted an hour and a half while he remained incommunicado, although his wife was released after half an hour without her cell phone.  According to the first report, Reyes’ personal identification was also retained.

Weapons of the AIE police were also confiscated. The police were released,  along with another  presumed accomplice in extortion who had been taken earlier, after the State Attorney General’s office came to get them.

After Reyes and his wife were released,  the reporter lodged a formal complaint with CENCO,  which responds to aggression against reporters.

In 2009, up until June 30, the 147 acts of aggression against free communication registered with CENCO  (i.e., national numbers) included five murders, six demands to stop (reporting or broadcasting), 32 intimidations and threats, 10 attempts to harm, 46 physical assaults, and 14 kidnappings. These figures indicate a rise in crimes against the news media and reporters.

In 2008, 223 cases of obstruction of speech and communication occurred through direct and indirect aggressions. Thirty-six radio stations were smashed.  85.1% of the attacks were against journalists; 14.7% were against media. The states which had the highest incidence of crimes against reporters and news media were the Federal District (Mexico DF) with 15.3% , followed by Oaxaca with 11.7% (this data is from Informe Buendia 2008). In third place  was Veracruz with 9.9%, then Chiapas with 7.2%, then Tamaulipas and Hidalgo with 4% each. The northern states’ media also get threatened not only by government agents but also by narcotraffickers.

In addition to Ernesto Reyes, Manuel León López of the News Agency “Reflexión Informativa Oaxaca” was recently attacked, on April 2, 2009.  In fine rhetoric,  state director of the Convergencia political  party, Mario Arturo Mendoza Flores, demanded an immediate halt to actions “orchestrated by the government of Ulises Ruiz against reporters dedicated to freedom of expression and against the media they represent.”  Taking advantage of an opportunity to attack the rival political party of the PRI, Mendoza Flores said ,  “This constitutes a clear demonstration that the only form of governing that Ruiz Ortiz has left to him is the billy-club and deployment of many police wherever he is or will  pass; therefore the  ordinary Oaxaqueño who has a tranquil conscience endures fear and difficulty in moving about.… If recognized journalists suffer this type of aggression, you can imagine what happens to ordinary citizens.”

Some military personnel may not know how to read (or understand the significance of) Reyes’ identification; soldiers are often recruited from the very lowest level of national education, and they are not well trained either as soldiers or as readers. Possibly the military didn’t distinguish Reyes from any other person. They beat up on everyone; that’s normal.

And where have the extortionists gone?

How any reasonable person who reads can believe this stuff is beyond me.

Back from a cool refreshing weekend in the mountains!

Tlaxiaco (IPA: /tla.’xia.ko/) is a Nahuatl name containing the elements tlachtli (ball game), quiahuitl (rain), and -co (place marker). It thus approximates to “Place where it rains on the ball court”. Its name in the Mixtec language is Ndijiinu, which means “good view.” Population about 20,000. 600 taxis…most of them illegal.

The city is formally known as Heroica Ciudad de Tlaxiaco (“heroic city”) in honour of a battle waged there during the 1862–67 French invasion.

Three and half hours in a comfortable van into the Mixteca Alta northeast of Oaxaca City with my friend Paula who has been here this past year teaching English to second graders in a private school. We met friends Max, Sandy and Budd there who came up the next day. Stayed in a beautiful recently remodeled hotel across from the plaza with a huge German clock installed in 1947…one of several in the Mixtec area…and it was working and on time!

Saturday was the weekly rotating market day so the plaza was full of vendors selling just about everything possible that began setting up 4-5am…including outside my hotel window I might add. Side streets full of women vendors selling huge pots of posole, chicken soup, big fat tamales, memelas, atole, cafe de olla (sweet coffee made in a pot…we called it sheep camp coffee when I was growing up). I bought a big pottery casserole with lid for 30 pesos…about $2.50 and a smaller one with lid for 20 pesos.

Toward evening we took a taxi ride up a hill so we could look out over the valley…stopping for blanco mescal for Max (ugh) before heading back to the hotel and something to eat.

Sunday, after a buffet of chilaquilles, beef burria, scrambled eggs and ham etc etc…and some of the best Mexican hot chocolate we’ve ever had, (the coffee tasted like dishwater as my mother used to say) Paula and I walked up to the house where Lila Downs, the famous Oaxacan singer, grew up…Paula knowing them because she had spent several weeks in the village during college.

Paula had wanted to see an old friend who owned a tienda…but about 20 days before we got there he had been drinking and fell and hit his head and died…a sad disappointment. But we had several nice conversations with other locals some of whom had worked in the states before and wanted to practice their English.

Then we took another taxi ride through the valley before scrambling on the van back to Oaxaca City…Sandy and Budd having gone on before us.

Quiet and friendly, none of us wanted to leave.

Yesterday the Oaxaca English Lending Library sponsored a picnic at the home of one of the expats.  Great thick hamburgers…with dill pickles even!  Baked beans, potato salad and homemade pies…blackberry among them even!

On the way there, along a winding dirt road, we passed a raggedy little kid…about 6…on an old bicycle…with a little piggy mask on!  A heart-warming sight not to forget.

The mid-term elections are being held today so no alcohol sold yesterday or today.  Same in Thailand as I remember.

Today I am going with my friend Gerardo to Mica and Bardo’s in Huayapam again today for a party.  It is son Pavel’s graduation from secondary school to high school and Angelita’s graduation from primary school to secondary school.  Gerardo is taking mescal.

Always something happening in Oaxaca.

July 4, 2009
Immigration News
Coup Tests Mexico’s Refugee Policy

The military coup in Honduras is providing an unexpected test of Mexico’s immigration and refugee policies. On Friday, July 3, dozens of Honduran nationals arrived at a church-run migrant shelter in the southern state of Oaxaca seeking refugee status because of the political situation in their
country.

Alejandro Solaline Guerra, spokesman for the Mexican Episcopal Conference, said a group of Hondurans sought assistance at the House of Mercy inCiudad Ixtepec on the Tehuantepec Peninsula. The migrant advocate said the bishops’ organization will contact the National Migration Institute to request refugee status for the Hondurans under international law.

“Migrants from a country in a state of war should not be denied refugee status,” Solaline declared.

The Honduran political crisis could aggravate an already-conflictive situation in Mexico’s southern border region. Despite the international economic crisis, thousands of Central Americans and other Latin migrants continue crossing the country’s southern border en route to the United States. Along the way, migrants remain a favorite target of corrupt Mexican officials and bands of organized criminals.

A report from Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) last month documented the kidnappings in Mexico of nearly 10,000 Latin American migrants, mainly from Central America, from September 2008 to February 2009. At least 157 women were among the victims; two women were murdered and others raped, according to the CNDH.

In the latest case to the hit the national press, the Mexican Army and law enforcement officials from Tabasco and Chiapas states detained 8 alleged kidnappers last week. A Honduran national, Francisco Handall Polanco, was among the group of alleged Zetas gang members arrested. Accused of holding 51 migrants against their will at a ranch in Tabasco, the group reportedly demanded ransoms reaching $5,000 from family members in return for releasing loved ones.

Once in the hands of authorities, migrants from Honduras and other nations are usually quickly deported. Emilio Chavez, director of the pro-migrant Sin Fronteras organization, charged that Mexico maintains a “double standard” when it comes to  migrant issues. While pressuring the United States to improve its treatment of Mexican migrants, Mexico fails to protect Central Americans within its own borders, Chavez contended.

If the Honduran crisis drags on, Mexico could see greater-than-expected numbers of migrants on its southern border. The Mexican Episcopal Conference’s Solaline said more Hondurans are reportedly on their way to Oaxaca. Identified only as “Janet,” an 18-year-old Honduran already in Ciudad Ixtepec described the situation in her country as grim.

“Schools are closed and the hospitals have no medicine,” she said, adding that electricity and propane gas shortages were also a problem.

Sources: La Jornada, July 4, 2009. Articles by Octavio Velez, Emir
Olivares and Angeles Mariscal. El Universal, July 4, 2009. Article by
Oscar Gutierrez. Cimacnoticias.com, July 3, 2009. Article by Alejandra
Gonzalez. CNDH.org.mx

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

And of course many of those Honduran immigrants who manage to get across the Mexican border will end up in the U.S.

 I have never been in a place where there is such continuous dance and music…of all kinds.  This week we were treated to several candelas (in English candle)…”the power coming from a light source.” A candela is a dancing march in the street with hugely oversize  dancing “puppets” and a band with folks following behind. Most of them this week were students celebrating the end of the school year…following along behind a band and a beer truck or grocery cart with a beer keg…dancing and hooping it up.  One that followed the street in front of my apartment stopped for a few moments and turned toward the building to play for my gay apartment manager and his friends while they danced away on the sidewalk.

Then there are the band concerts in the Zócalo in the evenings on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday generally starting at 6pm. Noon concerts on Wednesday and Saturday.

The Oaxacan State Band Concert plays weekly on Sunday in the Zocalo

A wonderful tradition, there is Danzón with the Marimba Band weekly on wednesdays at 6 :30pm in the Zocalo.  A tradition imported from Cuba, the danzón is a stately dance with syncopation. The citizens of Oaxaca gather weekly to dance and watch the dancers.There is a Jazz Concert weekly on Saturday from 5-7 in the Centro Arte Biulu.  Last night I went with my friend Jae to listen to her saxaphonist partner, Miguel,  play with his band after a video movie of the great Coltrane.

There is an Open Mike for Poets and Musicians weekly on Tuesdays at 8pm  at La Nueva Babel

Last Tuesday, June 30 – 8 pm – You had your choice between a free Organ Concert: Claudia Reyes Saldaña Basílica de la Soledad, or the Dance Group from Ciénega, Zimatlan at the Casa de la Cultura Oaxaquena

On Thursday, July 09 – 4 pm – A free Dance Group from the Mixteca (Huajuapan de Leon) in the Jardín el Pañuelito will perform…an event that had been previously delayed by the swine flu.

Friday, July 10 – 8 pm – Free Concert: Colegio de Oaxaca Chorus at Colegio de Oaxaca. The chorus under the direction of Christophe LaFontaine will perform works by Bach, Bruchner, Dowland, Mozart among others.

Saturday, July 11 – 4 pm – Free Dance: Music, Dance and Costumes of the Mixteca at the Jardín el Pañuelito Constitución & 5 de Mayo

Sunday, July 12 – 5 to 7pm – $50 pesos at the door Jazz in a Tropical Garden at the Casa Colonial Miguel Negrete 105 with Miguel Samperio (my friend’s partner), Charles Gray, Pablo Porras and Ornell Martinez and some of the best margueritas in town.

Monday, July 20 – 10 am & 5 pm – $400 pesos Guelaguetza 2009 at the Guelaguetza Stadium which you can see from my apartment veranda.

Friday, July 24 – 8 pm – $100 pesos Dance: Hilos de Viento at the Teatro Juárez
Av. Juárez at Llano Park

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, for the month.

Well, today I put some wax on the tile on the veranda tiles hoping to make it easier to sweep up the dust (polvo) from the air and the road work they are doing near the apartment.  Cars and trucks have been detouring by the apartment and the dust flies up on my veranda.  Daily fight to keep it looking nice.  I had some cariso (1.5 inch banboo “sticks” ) put up on that ugly plastic “wall” that separates my veranda from the apartments on either side…at each end of the veranda. Really looks nice now and you can see it through the windows when you are in the living room. I put a rug out there and more plants.  Cozy.

My maid works 4 hours a week…and often cooks so I can learn to cook Oaxacan food…for about $15 a week.  The big thing is picking up the rugs and sweeping and mopping the dust off all these floors which I pick up on my feet and track onto the sheets. Quite a luxury.

I’ve been saving $ for travel.. Living among people who have little to spend kind of rubs off.  I get huffy when the taxi wants to charge 5 pesos more than he should. (about 25 cents.)

I have a friend, Paula, from Minneapolis, who has been here a year teaching English to 2nd graders in a private school.  She has this week to go and then she’s finished so we are planning on a couple overnight visits to mountain villages.  Will be nice to get out of the city.  These mountains are beautiful and besides I miss being in the mountains. But she’s going back on July 15 so will miss her when she’s gone.  Maybe it’s time to sign up for some language classes.:((

I got my visa…unlimited coming and goings…if I want to renew at the end of a year I have to go back to immigration 30 days before the end date…which will be sometime in May of 2010. I saved $200 again this time by doing it myself instead of using somebody.

People were practicing indigenous dancing in the park today along with music from a band to get ready for Gueleguetza in July.  So I got serenaded for free.

Looks like the Iran thing will peter out for the moment…but guess there is a split among the clerics. And looks like  Amadinejad will still be the one Obama will have to deal with.

FROM: JOHN ROSS

johnross@igc.org
Blindman’s Buff #242

MEXICO’S SHOCK DOCTRINE: THE SWINE FLU HYPE – TIPPING POINT FOR A NEW MEXICAN REVOLUTION?

MEXICO CITY (MAY 27TH) – Upon returning to Mexico City after 100 days in Gringolandia dealing with a personal health crisis, I was met at the door of the downtown hotel where I have bedded down for the past quarter century by a uniformed security guard in jackboots and blue surgical mask who insisted upon smearing my palm with a goopy hand sanitizer as a precaution against the much-hyped swine flu.

“I’m sorry,” the guardian lamented, “I know its all a ‘faramalla’ (farce, trick) but the boss gave us orders.” The hotel itself was empty, the guests having fled in the wake of the self-described “pandemic” and the draconian measures the government has taken to counteract it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Well, this is probably going to mortify my three boys, men now, (well, maybe not the one who is a doctor) but when I went to the gynecologist here in Oaxaca last week, I saw, for the first time ever, at the age of 64, my cervix!  Don’t know if all my previous doctors had seen it either, but it only seems fitting that I get to see it. Too see that tiny place inside my body that miraculously allowed three fully-formed human bodies to stubbornly push through to the light of day. Just before Mother’s Day.  In Oaxaca! Read the rest of this entry »

 My two couchsurfers at the moment, bicyclers riding from Vancouver BC to Argentina, went out roaming around yesterday and came upon some street theater making fun of the panic over the flu. Last night they went out with a friend wearing a flu mask with “mieda” (fear in Spanish) written in big black letters on it.

Videos and spoofs are showing up all over the web including Daily Mash and Comedy Central.

From Oaxaca Study Action Group Forum: “In the zocalo about  one in ten are wearing face masks. All the servers in the restauants and cafes are wearing them. Doctora Bertha Muñoz was not wearing a mask. She says that viruses are too tiny to be obstructed by a piece of paper. But when she needed to sneeze, she pulled up the neck of her T shirt over her face to the eyes. The government bulletins recommend sneezing into your bent elbow.

Bertha’s opinion on the flu outbreak was that the gov is holding back info. A thought: does the government have info, or any way to gather it?”

Apparently, the Mexican authorities knew of the existence of this swine flu as early as mid-February but did nothing about it for two entire months. Government officials have been forced to acknowledge as much. Outrage over the Mexican government’s ineptitude has swept the country. On April 29, the Frente Sindical Mexicano (FSM) held a press conference during which it lambasted the Mexican government for its handling of the entire healthcare crisis.

7% of Mexico’s GDP comes from tourism. Tourists are leaving by the hundreds which will devastate the livlihoods of workers who depend on the tourist industry.

My weekly newsletter from Casa de las Amigas, the Quaker guesthouse in Mexico City where I stayed in 2007, has this to say about the current flu going around:

You are invited to turn off the TV, especially those of you who remember Y2K and the Africanized killer bees, and look for news from some lower-gloss sources: The World Health Organization is the most official source for news, as is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.  For news from here, check the main portal of the Government of Mexico City, La Jornada offers constant, critical updates en español from Mexico City.

At the same time that Obama was in Mexico City promising to help Mexico militarize against the drug cartels, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who ran against President Calderon in the last election as a member of the PRD) was in Oaxaca to protest the murder of a Oaxacan PRD woman activist.

Some Mexicans think that Obrador, who during the election was able to draw a million people to the Zocalo in Mexico City, would never be able to command that following now. Once, the popular mayor of Mexico City, it is said by some that he has managed to side-line himself somewhat by leaving the PRD and apparently switching positions on a number of political issues…therefore losing the ear of many in the middle class who once adored him. A Mexican musician (who is the partner of a friend of mine) who used to worship Obrador, now considers him a “clown.”

On the other hand, the party that Obrador ran for president on (PRD) has been coopted by the PRI and is now considered as corrupt as the PRI, suffering from in-fighting and is virtually dead.  So Obrador has dropped the PRD and seems to be running around supporting selected individuals for local elections in whatever party whether it be the PRD, the Workers Party or the Convergencia Party, and speaking out on issues of corruption and whatever is the crisis of the day. So it may be that, come the time for election of another President in four years (Mexico’s presidents may only serve one six-year term) Obrador could ride a tide of popular opinion on some issue.

Coming upon the 100th anniversary  of the 1910 revolution, in Oaxaca, Obrador said that “militarizing the country won’t resolve the problem of 27 years of no economic growth.” The big push is on to get the PRI out in the next election, which is in July of this year for congress. 2010 Oaxaca votes for new governor. Read the rest of this entry »

The government has issued an arrest warrant and revoked the passport of the indicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra which they can do anytime they determine that someone has damaged the country.  With incitement to riot that left two people dead, an annual ASEAN conference in shambles and the loss of a couple billion of tourist dollars they had good reason.  But big deal.  He is already in exile to avoid a two-year prison sentence for corruption. He doesn’t give a damn about saving democracy….or his passport.  He just wants his couple billion back that the country froze and saw a public uprising as his only last best hope. IMHO, of course. He is not done yet.  Sad.

The LA Times has an opinion piece this morning entitled “What Mexico Really Needs From Obama” written by John M. Ackerman who is a professor at the Institute for Legal Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a columnist for Proceso magazine and La Jornada newspaper.

From my observations of Mexico AND the U.S. he is right on on all accounts. In other words Obama should focus on helping Mexico reform it’s institutions and rule of law instead of supplying weapons to fight the drug cartels. “Only 15% of the funds in the $1.4-billion Merida Initiative signed by President Bush last year,” says Ackerman, “is earmarked for “institution building and rule of law.” If Obama hopes to contribute to long-term solutions, he should dramatically increase this percentage in future aid packages.”

“The Obama administration seems to be unaware of these deeper institutional issues. During her recent trip to Mexico, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t push Calderon on corruption control, human rights, freedom of the press, institutional reform or political reconciliation. She also went out of her way to cater to conservative constituencies. Her visit to Mexico’s principal basilica implied a nod to Calderon’s efforts to narrow the traditional separation between church and state. Her choice to travel to the city of Monterrey, home to the most powerful members of Mexico’s corporate oligarchy, also sent a clear signal about the priorities of the U.S. government.”

President Obama should not focus exclusively on short-term military goals during his visit to Mexico this week. The violence there, which has taken the lives of 10,000 Mexicans over the last two years, must be stopped. But the helicopters, weapons scanners and listening devices that have been the cornerstone of promised U.S. support will only go so far. The real solution lies in effective institution-building.

It does no good to capture drug kingpins if they don’t go to jail. During 2008, only one out of every 10 suspects arrested in Mexico for drug offenses was convicted, according to official statistics. In Chihuahua, one of the bloodiest states in the country, only 1,621 out of the 5,674 suspects arrested over the last 12 months have even had to stand trial, because of the weakness of the prosecutors’ cases.

RealTruth.org/Corruption_at_the_Top
Almost a decade ago, the U.N. special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, discovered fundamental problems of inequality and inefficiency with Mexico’s system of criminal justice. Today, the grim picture he painted has changed little. Mexico’s jails remain full of petty thieves while serious criminals with money and connections roam the streets.

Last year, Mexico passed a major constitutional reform that would introduce oral trials — to replace trials conducted only through written documents — and transform the role of government prosecutors. The goals are to reduce case backlogs by speeding up trials, to prevent corruption by increasing transparency and to improve criminal investigations by dropping the requirement that prosecutors issue a preliminary judgment on the culpability of suspects. With this latter change, prosecutors would be able to dedicate themselves exclusively to investigating cases and avoid conflicts of interests. But the authorities have dragged their feet on implementation. Congress has delayed passing all of the necessary follow-up legislation, and the commission created by the reform, with representatives from the executive, judiciary and legislative branches, has not convened.

Corruption at the top all the way to the bottom.  Nothing will change until the institutions and rule of law are reformed. The problem is they are all on the take and no one wants to give that up.

Update April 14, 2009
Shopping malls are open and the train station has resumed service. Protestors have been bused home.  Arrest warrants have been issued for Thaksin and 13 other pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) leaders for violating the state of emergency, which forbids gatherings of more than five people for political reasons.  It is worthy to note that that many of the “yellow shirts” that shut down 3 airports a few weeks ago have yet to be charged.  Unequal treatment under the law may be what is dividing the country to the extent that it has. Read the rest of this entry »

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder visit Mexico Thursday to meet with their counterparts.

The Christian Science Monitor has this story blaming gun shows and subsequent smuggling into Mexico for the proliferation of guns in Mexico…which are illegal and hard  to get for the ordinary citizen. I am sure illegal guns are coming across the border. But Narco News Bulletin has this disturbing story indicating:

“To be sure, some criminal actors in the U.S. are smuggling small arms across the border. But the drug war in Mexico is not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns. The drug trafficking organizations are now in possession of high-powered munitions in vast quantities that can’t be explained by the gun-show loophole.

At least one report in a mainstream media outlet deserves credit for recognizing that trend.

“[Mexican] traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals,” states a recent story in the Los Angeles Times. “The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations. …”

The Narco News report goes on to say:

“The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons —are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.

“As in other criminal enterprises in Mexico, such as drug smuggling or kidnapping, it is not unusual to find police officers and military personnel involved in the illegal arms trade,” states an October 2007 report by the for-profit global intelligence group Stratfor, which Barron’s magazine once dubbed the Shadow CIA. “… Over the past few years, several Mexican government officials have been arrested on both sides of the border for participating in the arms trade.”

The U.S. State Department oversees a program that requires private companies in the United States to obtain an export license in order to sell defense hardware or services to foreign purchasers — which include both government units and private buyers in other countries. These arms deals are known as Direct Commercial Sales [DCS]. Each year, the State Department issues a report tallying the volume and dollar amount of DCS items approved for export.

The reports do not provide details on who the weapons or defense services were exported to specifically, but do provide an accounting of the destination countries. Although it is possible that some of the deals authorized under the DCS program were altered or even canceled after the export licenses were issued, the data compiled by State does provide a broad snapshot of the extensive volume of U.S. private-sector arms shipments to both Mexico and Latin America in general.

According to an analysis of the DCS reports, some $1 billion in defense hardware was approved for export to Mexico via private U.S. companies between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2007 — the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, during the same period, a total of some $3.7 billion in weapons and other military hardware was approved for export under the DCS program to all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

In addition to the military hardware exports approved for Mexico, some $3.8 billion in defense-related “services” [technical assistance and training via private U.S. contractors] also were approved for “export” to Mexico over the same four-year period, according to the DCS reports.

That means the total value of defense-related hardware and service exports by private U.S. companies to Mexico tallied nearly $5 billion over the four-year window. And that figure doesn’t even count the $ 700 million in assistance already authorized under the Merida Initiative [Plan Mexico] or any new DCS exports approved for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 [which ends Sept. 30].”

Maybe that’s why the tear gas canisters used against the demonstrators in 2006-7 in Oaxaca had “Made in the USA.” on them. [sarcasm]