Looks Like Pete Kelly was Right

Situations like this are why I try to qualify everything I say. The world is complex. I think we like sports because at the end of the game, things are resolved. There's a winner and a loser. Decided. But the rest of life isn't that simple. And with the various drug and other scandals in sports, sports isn't that simple either. Thus making categorical statements can easily lead to foot-in-mouth disease.

Unbeknownst to me, when I posted about the BP-ARCO charter on February 2, Dermot Cole had the previous day published an article in the Fairbanks Newsminer on the same topic. But he'd done a lot more checking of the facts. (Thanks to the person who emailed me that article.)

The charter does not spell out an expiration date for the contribution plan and the other commitments.

The document does have language, however, which says that as of this month, no one can go to court and allege that charter is being violated.

It amounts to a backhanded expiration date.

After Jan. 15, 2009, there can be “no action alleging a failure of performance,” the charter says.

BP and ConocoPhillips will continue to make contributions to the university and other causes in the years ahead, as they value the good will this engenders.

But it’s worth pointing out that their recent change in policy is linked to the 10-year expiration of the charter agreement. . .

I have asked Attorney General Talis Colberg for clarification on the issue and for his view of the significance of the expiration date on the various elements in the charter.

The agreement says that while the state could have brought legal action to enforce the environmental stipulations, the provisions on Alaska Hire and charitable giving are “corporate citizenship commitments to the Alaskan community at large.”

“The parties do not intend for these other commitments of Section II to be enforced by lawsuits and no right of action is created with respect to them,” the charter says.

In a second post on this topic, I was way too emphatic on this. But I'm glad to see that I did put this qualifier in there:

Maybe I'm wrong, but what was the point of the State signing an agreement with the oil companies outlining conditions for BP's purchase of ARCO if the conditions are not mandatory?

I still find it strange that the then Governor, Tony Knowles, would agree to something that isn't enforceable. But I have no idea of what all was going on in the negotiations over this. Perhaps the oil companies flat out refused to sign the agreement without that clause.

I, of course, should have read the whole charter carefully. But at least I wrote at the time:

But we were in high gear preparing to go to Thailand and what with the traveling and getting into things here, I didn't get around to posting that agreement. (It's down below) I haven't had a chance to study the whole charter, but I expect there is plenty to chew on. [emphasis added]

For the time being, let's just look at the part that discusses community charitable contributions:

Lesson for next time: Even if you can't read the whole document, you can at least use the search feature to see if your key terms (in this case "charitable") show up again somewhere else in the document.

So, Conoco-Philips folks, when your blog bot got you to the previous posts, why didn't you just make a comment to clarify things?

So, sorry Pete, I was wrong and you were right on this.

Sommersturm at CMU Film Space

We already heard about Film Space last year - free Saturday night films at the art building at Chiang Mai University - but somehow we never made it there. It's not far - a ten minute bike ride - so we decided to go tonight. So I googled to see what was on tonight and found Thomatfilms a blog that covers what's playing in Chiang Mai. Thai doesn't have a final 's' sound, so they substitute a 't' sound if there is an 's' at the end of a word. So I'm guessing Thom is punning that with at films. Bi-lingual jokes are fun.

This yellow car was parked in front of the Design Center. I'm guessing it's a piece of student art. From Thomatfilms we learned:

During February, Film Space presents “The Month of Iron Hoofter.” March is “The Month of Bad Luck Money.”

Film Space is to the right and in the back of the CMU Art Museum, in the Media Arts and Design building across from the ballet school. Now that the weather is cool, they are resuming their rooftop showings, weather permitting. You might want to bring something to sit on or lie on. A contribution is requested in the donation box at the entrance – you should leave 20 baht. Well worth supporting.

At Film Space Saturday, February 28: Sommersturm / Summer Storm (2004) by Marco Kreuzpaintner – 98 mins – Germany, Comedy/ Drama/ Romance.

Fourth and last in the “Hoofter” series: gay love in Germany. Tobi and Achim have been best friends for years. As cox and oarsman, they have helped their team win several rowing cups in the past and are now looking forward to the big regatta in the countryside. But this trip is no summer camp anymore and the first problems soon arise. As Achim’s relationship with his girlfriend grows more serious, Tobi starts to realize that his feelings for Achim run deeper than he’s willing to admit to himself.

There's a little restaurant - Din Dee - run by a Japanese woman right there too, with a great space. It's a round, earth building. There's something about being in a round room that feels right to me.






After dinner, it was almost dark, and a sliver of a moon hung over the mountains and you could see Wat Doi Suthep lit up on the mountain.





We were looking forward to watching the film up on the roof, but something was wrong with the sound, so it was going to be in a room. Which turned out to be air conditioned, something we haven't experienced much. Evenings have generally been cool and we like using the electric fan rather than air conditioning anyway. But they did turn it off near the end of the movie and it slowly warmed up, so that when we went out if felt nice and cool outside.

My first reaction watching the film was, "Was this still a problem in Germany in 2004?" Well, probably the story was written ten years before it came out and there was a gay rowing team called the Queerstrokes, so some folks were a little more out than others. But anti-gay stuff is just part of all attacks on people who are different from the norm, by people who need to pick on someone else to cover their own insecurities. And coming to terms with sexuality - straight or gay - is scary for most people.

The movie was nicely done, nearly all the characters were likable, even the ones who weren't at first, showed some decent views of themselves. And the only thing I could see that would have gotten it its R rating were bare female breasts. Unless gay automatically rates an R.

Birding with Tony Ball

Warning - no really good bird shots. But we did see lots of interesting birds.

G & W had told us about going out birding with Tony Ball (the blog's not current, but there is a lot in the archives and the contact info is current) and after looking him up on the internet, I knew this was the right person to go out with. He's been in Chiang Mai studying birds for 17 [20] years. And G had sent my Crested Serpent Eagle picture to Tony for verification.

Birding guides change everything. They know the spots where the birds are most likely to be, they know the names of the birds. Otherwise, we're wandering hit and miss, thumbing through the bird book trying to figure out whether it really was a kind of bulbul, and if so, which one. That's not to say all our unguided birding in Chiang Mai has been a waste. Not at all. Today we already knew a far number of birds, but Tony confirmed some things and expanded our knowledge and sightings enormously. And he was identifying so many by their calls as well.



We got picked up at 6:30 - after getting a call through on skype to wish my mother a happy birthday - by Tony and his driver for today, Tik (I think - correct me Tony if I got it really wrong.) And about 15 minutes later we were on the side of the road looking at birds. We walked down the path above a ways. We saw lots of birds, few that were close enough to even try to get photos off. Besides, I was so busy with my binoculars.

One of the highlights of the morning was the hoopoe. When we spent the year in Hong Kong 20 years ago, the Hong Kong bird book had a hoopoe on the cover, but I didn't really believe that they really existed. They are so bizarre looking. But we did eventually get to see some live hoopoes in the grass at the Taj Mahal. So it was a suprise pleasure to see another hoopoe today. There's a dot a little more than halfway between the sun and the bottom of the picture above. It's a speck really. That's the hoopoe flying off.

This is why I didn't take too many pictures. You really can't tell that this is a green bee eater, with a long extra feather sticking out way past his tail. But it is.


Then after a while, we ended at Tony's breakfast tree where the table was set and we had breakfast watching - Tony don't ready this, they're all jumbling together - the tailorbird, the yellow vented flower pecker, and I think this is also where I got a second look at the . . . uh oh. I can't find the name of that green bird with the orange above the bill. (Found it copying from the bird list - Golden-fronted Leafbird.) Among others.

Here's another spot we watched for a while.

Then we headed back to Tony's clubhouse where we had some water by the pool while Tony went through the bird list and ticked off the birds we saw and also marked which ones we only heard. You can double click on the pictures of Tony to enlarge them. The barn swallow and its reflection is from today. The drongo in the lower left, well we saw some, but this picture is from India.

OK, for Catherine, Dianne, and the other birders:

1. Little Heron
2. Shikra
3. Rufous-winged buzzard
4. Chinese Francolin (heard only)
5. White-breasted Waterhen
6. Common Moorhen
7. Red-wattled Lapwing
8. Spotted Dove
9. Zebra Dove
10. Plaintive Cuckoo
11. Common Koel
12. Greater Coucal
13. Asian Barred Owlet (heard)
14. White-throated Kingfisher
15. Green Bee-eater
16. Hoopoe
17. Lineated Barbet
18. Coppersmith Barbet
19. Rufous Woodpecker (heard)
20. Asian Palm-Swift
21. Barn Swallow
22. Wire-tailed Swallow - very cool
23. Rufous-winged Bushlark
24. Richard's Pipit (Paddyfield Pipit)
25. White Wagtail
26. Common Iora - also neat little bird
27. Golden-fronted Leafbird (ah, this is the one I was looking for above)
28. Black-crested Bulbul - always a favorite with its black crested head and bright yellow body
29. Red-whiskered Bulbul - these are really very common, but still strking birds
30. Sooty-headed Bulbul
31. Stripe-throated Bulbul (heard)
32. Streak-eared Bulbul - I'm pretty sure these are the ones we've been seeing from our balcony but couldn't identify for sure
33. Black Drongo
34. Rufous Treepie (heard)
35. Striped Tit-Babbler
36. Chestnut-capped Babbler (heard)
37. White-crested Laughing Thrush (heard)
38. Inornate Warbler (Yellow-browed Warbler)
39. Plain Prinia (heard)
40. Common Tailorbird
41. Oriental Magpie-Robin
42. Stonechat - another neat little bird
43. Pied Bushchat
44. Red-throated flycatcher
45. Ashy Wood-Swallow
46. Burmese Shrike - striking little bird Tony knew just where this one was hanging out
47. Black-collared Starling
48. White-vented Mynah
49. Common Mynah
50. Olive-backed Sunbird
51. Purple Sunbird - another of my favorites today
52. Yellow-vented Flowerpecker
53. Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker
54. Plain-backed Sparrow
55. Scaly-breasted Munia

So that's 47 seen and 8 more heard. We couldn't resist buying Tony's two CD's of Birds of Thailand Songs and Calls. All in all, a very satisfying day. Makes us eager to get out there again and see what we can see on our own.

LOL in Thai

Instead of LOL on their emails, Thais write 55555.

In Thai, 5 is pronounced "Ha" with a falling tone, as if you were emphatically saying "No!"

Earthal Eclipse?

[Friday, February 27, 2009, 11 am Thai time]

My son sent me a link to slashdot, which linked to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency site with this picture of what they call a Lunar Eclipse. (There's lots of other good stuff there including diagrams.) This was taken from the moon with the earth blocking the sun. There's also this link to a video of the event. Be patient, it is all black at the beginning.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) successfully took moving images of the precise Earth rise moment when the Earth looked like a diamond ring using the onboard high definition camera (HDTV) of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE) on February 10, 2009 (Japan Standard Time, all the following dates and times are Japan Standard Time.) The moment came when a penumbral lunar eclipse occurred and sunlight was covered by the Earth. During that time, since the view of the Sun from the KAGUYA was mostly covered by the Earth, the KAGUYA observed that the Earth looked like a diamond ring. This is the first time that this phenomenon was shot from the Moon.

Moonconnection compares a lunar eclipse to a solar eclipse and says that:

A "lunar eclipse" and a "solar eclipse" refer to events involving three celestial bodies: the Sun ("solar"), the moon ("lunar"), and the Earth. A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth passes between the Moon and the Sun, and the Earth's shadow obscures the moon or a portion of it. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun, blocking all or a portion of the Sun. [emphasis added]

But this is a new event, at least for humans. OK, it fits their lunar eclipse definition because the earth is between the sun and the moon. But it fits a solar eclipse because the sun, not the moon, is blocked.

It goes on to say that:

A lunar eclipse occurs at night and a solar eclipse occurs during the day.

From the perspective of the moon, it was day, except for when the earth blocked the sun.

I say we find a unique name for this sort of eclipse. I first thought earthal (though I think that sounds clunky, I couldn't find a synonym for 'earth' that sounded better, except maybe "Gaian"). Since the sun is blocked by the earth, maybe this should be a "Gaian Solar Eclipse."

But there would also be a time when, watching from the moon, the moon's shadow blocks out the earth (is it big enough to make a total eclipse?) Since the earth would blocked in this case, this could be a Gaian Eclipse.

Chiang Mai 'Snow'

The other day there were little sprinklings of snow as I rode home on my bike as the Payom tree blossoms drifted down to the ground. This was a tree that I really hadn't paid any attention to, but with it snowing for a couple of days, they suddenly all called attention to themselves.
'We're here, even right in front of your building and you've never even looked at us. Well, we're going to get your attention now. You'll see us all over town and see how many of us there are. Now start paying attention." And the blossoms drifted down as I stood there.

In Alaska we have relatively few different types of native trees. A few more that have been introduced by gardeners. But here there are so many, many different kinds of plants and trees. As well as birds, butterflies, other insects, fish, and animals.

So, Alaskans, you should all be able to distinguish birch, spruce, poplar, aspen, willow, and cottonwood, wild mountain ash. At least. We can hold off on the varieties of these and other trees, but these are the basics around Anchorage, I think.

Anyway, my snow tree is called ต้นพยอม or Payom Tree. I wasn't completely sure if I had this right, so I googled it. Here's what google translation gave me:

[Note 2: I see on my screen, the translated table doesn't quite fit so a lot is cut off. If you have the same problem, that just means you have to go to the original link - the translated one or the original Thai links below]

Note: I've written it in English a little differently than they do. Payom vs. Paiam.
This picture is from the translated website.
You can also check the original Thai website.

Certainly not reach the exalted woman cherish. Most often sad hand chest fever. But certainly not difficult to watch นา Paiam guards. Wood is a high สอย be presumptuous to take. (Versify rule the world: Her Majesty's Department of Discovery Edcha prince bow).

ชื่อพฤกษาศาสตร์ Botanical names. ชื่อไทยพื้นเมือง Thai native title. วงศ์ Family. วรรณคดีที่กล่าวถึง Literature mentioned. ประโยชน์ ้ ้ benefits. ลักษณะ Characteristics. Shorea roxburghii G. Don. Shorea roxburghii G. Don. พยอมทองขะยอม ยอม เซียง I accept accept accept ขะ gold เซี fight. DIPTEROCAPACEAE. DIPTEROCAPACEAE. มหาเวสสันดรชาดกลิลิตพระลอ โคลงโลกนิติ อิเหนา Lilit Phra Maha Vessantara fable versify Allan Law Aiehna world. เป็นไม้เศรษฐกิจและเปลือกนำไปใส่ในเครื่องหมักดองเพื่อกันบูดใช้ฟอกหนังได้ Economy and a wooden shell to put in pickled กัน to use tanning has spoiled. เป็นไม้ต้นขนาดใหญ่ลำต้นตรง A large tree trunk straight. เปลือกเป็นสีน้ำตาล Shell is brown. ใบเป็นใบเลี้ยงเดี่ยวมนรีขอบขนาน ที่ปลายใบมน หรือแหลมเป็นติ่งเล็ก ๆ คล้ายใบรังดอกมีสีขาวนวล Form a single cotyledon and parallel to the edge of re-form the end of a promontory or projection small leafy nest flower color is ivory. ออกเป็นช่อตามปลายกิ่ง Panicle late into the limb. แตกช่อเป็นระย้ามีกลิ่น หอม ผลมีลักษณะเป็นรูปกระสวย Panicle is Raiga a different aroma characteristics of a spindle image.

This is one of the posts I've had sitting here for a couple of days and it is much easier to post than the second part of the Rural Issues post or others I'd like to post. So this is a little filler while I work on the others.

Rural Alaska Issues - Part 1

[Wednesday, February 25, 2009 4pm]

I know, what am I doing writing this when I should be working. Well, these issues are related to work and I'm writing this after talking to my boss over a late lunch about rural Alaska and rural Thailand and how problems are being approached in both places.

The other day the Governor of Alaska flew out to rural Alaska with Franklin Graham to deliver food to Alaska villagers who are doing poorly this winter as they were stuck with the high summer oil prices to keep them warm this winter and the economic depression is also affecting them. Furthermore, for many villages, the salmon harvest this year has been significantly lower, hitting them hard in the pocketbook (for those who commercial fish) and in the pantry (for those who subsistence fish.) See Phil's story about the Kenai and Yukon rivers. (My sense is that Phil has a good handle on these issues, though I'd like to see a bit more backup material.)


Some Alaskan bloggers seem to be reacting to what I'd call 'fighting words' on this topic, rather than trying to push the discussion further. We need to get more people into the same room and talk past the (often legitimate) anger and posturing until they see they have more to gain by understanding each other, that we are all Alaskans whether we live in villages or cities. While in the short run, one group's gain may be at the expense of the other group, ultimately, what happens to one group affects the other group. (I have to think about that. Is that just a nice phrase or is it true? Perhaps it isn't true. Perhaps some groups can do fine while other groups are screwed. I guess that's the same as affecting the others. That would make an interesting topic for Talk of Alaska, Steve. Can the cities be healthy if the villages are not?) Moving right along . . .

Alaska Dispatch praised the Governor for speaking from the heart and taking on issues that other politicians have ignored - the lack of jobs, the alcoholism and other social problems in rural Alaska.

Then AD was soundly thrashed by Celtic Diva (Is Alaska Dispatch Kidding?) who liberally quotes Writing Raven's complaints

You can only be thoughtful if you've met with the people from the communities and listened to them. Palin is calling for a change in leadership - with who? What are these leaders doing wrong? Who are they? When has she talked to them? And she gave NO solutions except to say these youth should think about leaving. So the solution is "leave the village"? She can't be a spark to "real dialogue" when she's never taken part in a dialogue! The dialogue has been going on, but Palin doesn't care to be part of it.

Phil, at Progressive Alaska, took a more measured approach to this. (Has anyone else noticed that Phil is toning down the hyperbole that's often blemished his past posts, and using his vast knowledge of Alaska to give more context and thought to issues?) He at least recognized that Tony Hopfinger of Alaska Dispatch has spent time in Alaska villages - most notably Wales - and has written some very thoughtful and probing pieces on the dilemmas of village life and how things got to be this way. Tony has given a lot of thought to this topic, serious, soul-searching thought, even if you disagree with his saying something positive about the Governor. (I hesitated to link to Phil's post because it might look like a mutual admiration society, so ignore the link back here, and just look at what he says about Tony and about the Alaska economy.)

I think that Tony and Amanda's piece is a little thin, but I also know that he's not writing from ignorance. That said, Writing Raven also makes important points - we need more Alaska Native bloggers who can write from a perspective that both understands the villages and the cities. But I'd like to see us rethinking the issues and finding new ways to talk about where people in Alaska live. We have to look at more than two options 1) Keep the Villages 2) Leave the Villages. Many people in the villages - as Tony and Amanda at Alaska Dispatch point out - are hurting. But that doesn't mean that moving them into the cities is going to improve their lives either. There are other ways to look at and think about this situation. As the President said this morning (sorry, it was on about 9:30 am here)

The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.

(I'll take 'entrepreneurs' to mean social and artistic entrepreneurs and not just people looking to make a buck.)

What I like about Phil's piece is that he puts the immediate crisis into the context of how Outsiders have disturbed the ecosystem that blessed the Yukon and Kuskokwim Delta with abundant salmon for millenia. He doesn't blast Tony and Amanda (and the Governor et al) with sarcasm here, but looks to the economic infrastructure and argues that:

Alaska survives by taking life, power and value from outside of the towns and cities, and bringing those things to market.

In ways that enrich those in the cities and Outside of Alaska and often leave the villagers impoverished.

I'm going to grind to a pause here because I realized that I was now ready to start writing what I wanted to write about, and that all this so far was intro. I'll try to get up another post soon - my perspective will be as one watching this from Northern Thailand, from an office in an organization that helps poor, rural Thai farmers. I see a very vigorous and heartening effort here to reach into small villages - both ethnic Thai and ethnic minority - to help farmers deal with the impacts of multinational corporations and free trade agreements that are radically altering Thai life. That's what I want to talk about with the rural Alaska situation in mind.

Part 2.

Red Shirts Yellow Shirts

[Wed. Feb. 25, 2009, 9am Thai Time]
Monday, E suggested we go eat at the Buddhist Vegetarian place. She'd passed it on the way to work and it was open. It had been closed for three or four months. We got there and the buffet didn't have much selection and there were only a few people there. But some friends of E came over to talk. I got the gist of what they were talking about but when they left I checked with E to make sure I got it right.

Saturday night there had been a gay pride parade scheduled for Chiang Mai. But a group of red shirts had showed up and told them that this was not part of Thai tradition and that they should pack up. They decided to listen to that and canceled the parade.

The reason the restaurant had been closed so long is that they had gone down to Bangkok to feed the protesters who had shut down the airport. So we were in a Yellow shirt place. The red shirt group supports former Prime Minister Thaksin who is trying to come back to Thailand and become prime minister again. The yellow shirts support the current government. Things were falling into place. When we had our anniversary dinner, some of the people were late because the street had been closed and there were people marching. Well, it turns out that was a red shirt demonstration. So far we haven't seen anything ourselves. But E only partially joking suggested that it might not be safe to eat at this restaurant because the red shirts knew it was a yellow shirt place.

In my experience, while there has always been a certain level of interpersonal violence in Thailand, this seems like a different sort of turn of events. I'm not sure. I've been more focused on other things.

There was also news of two different Westerners killed in the South recently, and just the other day a foreigner's head was found in a plastic bag hung from a bridge in Bangkok. I suspect that was grisly enough it made the US papers. But none of this, as I said, has been visible to us in our daily lives.
After lunch at this place, which is free if you only get rice and one other item, you wash your own dishes. E laughed as we were leaving and I noted that the foreigner in the top picture was wearing a red shirt in a yellow restaurant.

Start of a Busy, Productive Day

This is the morning view from our bed. Today was relatively clear compared to last week and the temperature seemed cooler than it's been. You can see the outline of Doi (Mt.) Suthep in the background.

I'd been asked early last week if J would be able to come teach English at work. (She done that some last year.) This year they had a Karen villager who'd gotten a scholarship to to to the Asian Rural Institute in Japan for nine months training. Only about 30 people are selected for this from all of Asia and (I think) Africa each year. Although the program is in Japan, the work is in English. We didn't know how good his English was, but he did have, we were told, a Bachelors Degree which means he's studied English.

So, today, J set up class in our building for her one student, who turned out to be smart as could be and whose English, while not fluent, is already fairly good, by Thai standards. She began with some vocabulary from the Asian Rural Institute website on the assumption he needs to know some of their most frequently used words.

Here's S just before class started. He was already excited to be getting some serious help with his English. He leaves for Japan at the end of March.

Meanwhile our 30 days comes up again in two weeks, so the weekend after next, we're headed to Hanoi so we can pick up another 30 days in our passports for Thailand. By the end of that 30 days, it will be time to go back home to Anchorage. Air Asia, while inconvenient in some ways, has really inexpensive fares. Ours wasn't the best deal we heard about, but the two us fly from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then to Hanoi (these are booked and treated as totally separate trips) for under $400.

There are lots of other interesting stories from the last few days, but they'll have to wait.

Bike Ride to Hang Dong 2 - Furniture World

[Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 10pm Thai time]

Lots happening, way behind blogging. Let me finish the bike trip from last Saturday. We arrived in Hang Dong about 12:30pm and there was a huge furniture store so we stopped to look around. When I say "store" it certainly wasn't like a furniture store in Anchorage or elsewhere in the US. It was mostly very open buildings and a lot of stuff was actually outside. It was really more like a museum.We parked our bikes next to the Chinese room and as we walked around a delightful woman discretely began talking to us, explaining what we were looking at.
And inviting us to see other parts. Soon she was back with a tray and a couple of cold sealed cups of water.


At this point, seeing the whole front - India now - I was overwhelmed at the kinds of stuff they had.

There was door after door after door. These two are Chinese, and these are the insides. There were Indian doors and Pakistani doors as well. Not to mention windows. Part of me is wondering whether these are from places that were demolished for high rises or whether they just bought them off of people's houses.

If I were a US interior decorator, I'd spend a lot of time in Hang Dong and simply convince my clients that the wait was well worth what you got. Things weren't not terribly expensive at all. Some of the elaborate Indian doors - not those above - she said were 27,000 Baht - about $755. You could pay that much for a door at Home Depot and not get anything nearly as exciting as these. Of course, the catch is the shipping costs. We didn't get into that since I wasn't buying a door.

Here was a small display under a corrugated steel roof of how you might furnish your room. If we had a room that big.

These men are guarding the Burmese room.

And then there was the room of mostly Indian lamps. Here's is where we broke down. Two small hanging lamp shades for over our dining room table. They assured us they'd pack them so they wouldn't break and we could carry them on to the plane But even if we didn't carry them on they wouldn't break. We'll figure this all out when we get home. Will the work over the dining room table? We'll see.

These are Pakistani beds. There were lots and lots of them.

Here's our host. She apologized that she couldn't speak English - her parents were very poor and couldn't afford school for her beyond a couple of years. But she was so charming and such a great host - very Thai in that regard. As you can guess, this place covered a lot of land.

Bathroom sink anyone? The water worked.

And there were little things too, like drawer pulls, door handles, hat and clothes hooks, and things I wasn't sure about. We bought some drawer pulls too. I have no idea what we're going to do with them, but we'll figures something out.


Here is part of the front of the store that faces the street. As you can see, this place is called the Golden Triangle and you can visit their website yourself. And order an Indian door or a Chinese door, or maybe have a Thai door made. My guess is that most of the website is the Chiang Mai store, not the Hang Dong. As you can see it is a little slicker presentation than here. And while she didn't teach me the pricing code on the stickers until we were in the last room we looked at, the prices she did quote me seemed to be much less than what is on the website. If you were really going to buy a few large items, you could pay for your trip to Thailand and more in the savings you'd get. And the selection is sooooooo much greater.

After the Golden Triangle, we were overloaded. We rode our bikes a little way, but stopped for lunch where we saw the Elvis and the King picture. This was on a street that turned off from the main road and was furniture store after beautiful furniture store. I'm not sure how far it went. Our host had suggested we ride out to a place called Baan Tawai that was 3 km away. We'd had our quota of furniture for the day, but I can imagine there were stores the whole way. Not sure though. There was a whole complex of buildings - most still empty - that looked like it was going to be a furniture store city. Above I peeked into a lamp store that wasn't open.

Here you can see just a small glimpse of this newly built set of shops - as far as the eye could see in the picture - most still empty.

And I couldn't help but take this picture of the exquisity wood doors on this brand new - well I'm guessing it's a house - in the middle of this area with all the storefronts. Well, on second thought, maybe those doors open up into a store, with the house on top. As I say, this would be an interior decorators dream trip.

Now, let's talk about beauty and consumption. We are in a phase of our lives when we are trying to get rid of things, not take in new things. We aren't the sort of people who economists say make the economy work. And I think we have to have a new level of equilibrium in our economy so that we don't keep wasting so many resources just to package the things we buy, let alone the resources for the things themselves. We try to limit our purchases to things that have practical use, that we need, and that bring aesthetic pleasure. I think beautiful things are probably calming. But we want things that are seriously beautiful and will continue to bring that satisfaction for years and years. So, our temporary fix of a dining room lamp, a Japanese paper globe that has some tears in it now, is in need of replacement. So the two lampshades, theoretically, are a purchase that has a practical use and one that we have a need for. Whether we will be able to get enough light inside these lampshades and then out into the room is another questions. But for us this was like walking through a museum of of beautiful pieces of art, pieces that also happened to have price tags.

We biked back to the Golden Triangle, picked up our purchases, crossed the street and hailed a yellow song thaew. The driver got out, climbed up to the roof, untied the giant bungee cord, and I passed up the two bikes and he put them in place and tied them down. In 20 minutes we were in downtown Chiang Mai, and biked the rest of the way home.

Checkered Swan at the Stevens Trial?

[Monday, Feb. 23, 2oo9, 12:12 am Thai time]

Suppose you were at Potter Marsh last summer and you saw the bird above. You might say, "Hey, look, there's a swan." We don't see swans every day, but they do pass through Potter Marsh regularly and it makes sense when we see them there. But suppose you saw the next scene.


"Whoa!" you might say, "A black swan, here in Alaska? What's going on?" We know there are black swans - even if we didn't take philosophy - but in Alaska? You start scratching your head - this is unusual, but it's possible. But suppose you see the next bird.




"Hey, I know that black swans exist, but this just can't be."

When watching the Ted Stevens trial from afar, there are two situations that cause me to react as though I'm seeing a black, or even a checkered, swan - that is, things that cause me to take special notice and say, "Something isn't right."

1. Prosecution Bungling
   
   Four prosecution attorneys have been found in contempt of court by Judge Sullivan. (One was later excused since he'd just begun to work on the case.) As Cliff Groh, an Alaskan attorney who attended the trial wrote on his blog

   . . . today’s action is both a very big deal and another sign of [Judge Sullivan's] fury at the prosecutor’s conduct. As the Associated Press and the Washington Times reported, it is unusual for a judge to hold a prosecutor in contempt and very unusual to hold a federal prosecutor in contempt.

   
   This follows a series of screwups by the Prosecution regarding information withheld and for which they were scolded by the judge.
   
   OK, so attorneys can make mistakes. But hold on. In the three previous trials of Alaskan politicians held in Anchorage that have come from the same FBI investigation, the four Prosecuting attorneys were on top of every detail. They knew every fact and only occasionally had to look up the number of an exhibit even.
   
   But when the venue for the Stevens trial was set for Washington, DC, not Alaska, it came with a new lead Prosecutor, Brenda Morris, and apparently closer oversight from the Public Integrity Section (PIN) of the Justice Department, where the cases have been based. (Two of the attorneys at the Alaska trials - Nicholas Marsh and Andrew Sullivan - were from PIN and the other two were Alaska Federal Prosecutors Joseph Bottini and James Goeke.) The attorneys ruled in contempt include the new lead prosecutor Brenda Morris who is also the Deputy Director of PIN and PIN Director William Welch, but NOT the four attorneys who got the three convictions in Alaska.
   
   And then we get the announcement last week that the whole Prosecution team has been replaced - even the four attorneys who have been working these cases for several years and know all the details and were NOT ruled in contempt of court - by

   Paul O'Brien, chief of the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, David Jaffe, deputy chief of the Domestic Security Section, and William Stuckwisch, senior trial attorney in the Fraud Section.

   The defendant has been convicted after years of work in developing the case. And now we have three new attorneys brought in to finish the trial in the 11th inning? Relief pitchers with a fresh arm work in baseball, but relief attorneys? Maybe they don't need to know all the details of the case, they just have to clean up the questions of why the Prosecution's mishandling shouldn't lead to a mistrial. But getting rid of all the attorneys who know about the trial?
   
   
2. FBI Agent files complaint against lead FBI agent in Alaska investigation
   
   FBI Special Agent Chad Joy filed a complaint against the lead agent in this investigation Mary Beth Kepner. I've put up several extensive posts analyzing the claims in Joy's complaints - Let's Get Real and What Does the Internal FBI Complaint Tell Us? You can see the second, less redacted version of Joy's complaint here. The Anchorage Daily News just recently published Richard Mauer and Lisa Demer's "Key Players Contest FBI Whistle-blower Allegations" confirming the suspicions I raised about Joy's complaint.
   
   The black swan here, maybe even the checkered swan, is that Joy even filed the complaint in the first place. As I've discussed in a previous post, law enforcement officers tend not to squeal on their colleagues. While I questioned the use of the term Code of Silence because it suggests some level of honor, I found plenty of evidence that law enforcement officers often cover for their colleagues even when they are committing serious crimes that compromise their mission.
   
   It's odd enough that Joy would file a complaint. What pushes this from black swan to checkered swan territory for me is the fact that none of Joy's complaints about Kepner are about clear, serious transgressions that are routinely covered up - like abusing suspects, taking bribes, or using drugs on the job. These were mostly administrative discretion judgment calls - did Kepner share too much information with undercover sources, and things like that.
   
   Why would he file a complaint about things like that? I hazarded a guess that perhaps he was excessively rule oriented and the Mauer/Demer piece does say he was brought in to the case because he was good with numbers. But it is still very bizarre for a rookie agent to file against a 17 year veteran over discretionary calls.
   

So how do we explain these black swans at Potter Marsh and possibly even a checkered swan sighting? Behavioral psychologists explain behavior by looking at what reinforces that behavior. Economists use their own term - incentives. So what are the incentives here? Who benefits from the clouds over the FBI investigation and the Prosecution team meltdown?

1. The most obvious incentive for the Defense here is to get Stevens' conviction dismissed and have a new trial, or better yet, no new trial.
   
   
2. Another incentive for Stevens is to prevent the indictment and trial of his son, Ben Stevens, who has been one of the targets of the investigation and whom many think is the next in line to be tried.
   

By creating the appearance that the FBI investigation was corrupted and that the Prosecutors have illegally and intentionally mishandled evidence and witnesses in order to get their conviction of Stevens, the Stevens Defense team could possibly pull off both those goals.

We know that Stevens is a fierce competitor. He's famous for his Incredible Hulk tie and his corresponding temper. He's been known as Senator for Life long enough now that he clearly sees any question about his actions as an unwarranted personal attack. He feels he's innocent, and presumably wants to also protect his 'innocent' son. The Huffington Post reported after the conviction

Unbowed, even defiant, Stevens accused prosecutors of blatant misconduct and said, "I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have."

We also know that the Bush Administration Justice Department Republicans were not a single unified group.

[T[he firing of eight Republican U.S. attorneys last Dec. 7 [2006], in an episode that some of its victims have already taken to calling the "Pearl Harbor Day Massacre

by the Republican Bush Administration was one sign.

More related to the Stevens case was the appointment of Alaska Federal Prosecutor Nelson Cohen in 2006. Normally, when an Alaska Prosecutor is appointed by the Justice Department, the Alaska delegation is consulted. But not in 2006. The FBI investigation into Alaska political corruption was about two years old already and Ben Stevens, if not Ted Stevens too, were known to be targets. Clearly, there were Republicans who were not averse to taking on the senior Republican US Senator and they had enough clout to get this appointment made behind Senator Stevens' (and Senator Murkowski's) back.

"I am just furious at the way the attorney general handled this," the aide quoted Stevens as saying.

But a former Alaska U.S. attorney, Mike Spaan, now in private practice here, said he believes Cohen has a strong background in Alaska and is a "top-notch guy."

"I am confident Nelson knows Alaska. I'm not remotely upset about it," Spaan said. From Richard Mauer's ADN article.

But battles are won and lost in a war. Is the Stevens trial one more of those battles? Is it possible that some pro-Stevens folks got into the Prosecution team and helped disrupt the previously well oiled machine that got the Alaska convictions? Did the Defense get hints of Joy's discontent and find ways to push him into the extraordinary move of filing a formal complaint over such ambiguous issues?

There are, of course, other explanations for the black swan we see. Brenda Morris, perhaps, just wasn't capable of handling the case. Perhaps she was called to head the prosecution because they thought an African-American female leading the prosecution before a mostly female and African-American jury would be a good move. Perhaps the high-powered, well paid Stevens Defense team was a more formidable foe for the Prosecution than what the Prosecutors faced in Alaska.

Perhaps Chad Joy was just compulsive about the rules and in his eyes, Kepner had crossed the line once too often, and/or working for a highly successful, female boss was just too much for him.

One of the issues here - the Prosecution bungling and Joy's complaint - might have been like seeing a black swan at Potter Marsh. Highly unusual, but possible. But both the extreme Prosecution mishandling together with the rookie FBI agent squealing on his senior partner happening on a case of this level pushes this into the checkered swan category for me. Something is fishy. Both of these together didn't just happen. This didn't just fall into the Defense's lap.

My guess is that there's more to this. Joy's complaint alone, by a rookie FBI agent against a 17 year veteran over issues of administrative discretion - is like seeing a checkered swan. I don't see this happening without people intentionally working to pull this case apart from the inside.

David Whitney, in an August 8, 1994 ADN article, quotes Stevens on how Stevens lobbied (you may need UAA id for this link) for Alaskan statehood:

"I had made a study on each member of the Senate and this goes on now into '57, '58 whether they were Rotarians or Kiwanians or Catholics or Baptists and veterans or loggers, the whole thing," Stevens said in the 1977 interview.

"And we'd assigned these Alaskans to go talk to individual members of the Senate and split them down on the basis of people that had something in common with them," he said.

"We were violating the law . . . we were lobbying from the executive branch, and there's been a statute against that for a long time," Stevens said. "We more or less, I would say, masterminded the House and Senate attack from the executive branch."

What was to stop Stevens or his supporters now from studying each member of the FBI and Prosecution team and trying to find a crack the way he did in the statehood lobbying campaign? He certainly had a bigger personal stake now than in the statehood battle. And he didn't seem very contrite over breaking the law in the interview. Perhaps Joy was one of those cracks. And perhaps there were people willing to help in the Justice Department. I have no evidence to prove any of this, except the appearance of a couple of black swans, maybe even a checkered swan, that call for some sort of explanation.

We've been reluctant to question the motives of people like Stevens for years. But we've had a couple years of events that suggest that caution was misplaced. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but it wouldn't hurt, at this point, to check it out. And I'm sure that the people on the inside, people whose case has been fouled, have a lot of ideas about what might have happened.

Bike Ride to Hang Dong 1

Yesterday, we took a leisurely bike ride to Hang Dong south of Chiang Mai about 15 km if you go directly on the main road. I've driven by there a few times on trips with work to villages, but never had a chance to stop. The weather's gotten warmer in the last week and so we decided to go before it gets too hot at all. I don't think we achieved the second goal. The weather was in the mid 90s yesterday. My inernal thermostat seems to have adjusted well. We weren't totally sure how to get there - the maps are a little vague unless you take the main highway. We wanted to start along the canal road which is near us and has much less traffic. So, it was a time of discovery.




We helped an Israeli, who stopped us near my office, to get to the main road where he could catch a song thaew, then rode on past Wat Ramphoeng which is as far down that way I've been.







We passed through a little village, where we stopped for some bottles of cold water, then past a huge sports field then found ourselves out on the canal road.











I've passed this strange building several times in a car. We were on the other side of he canal so we didn't have a chance to figure out what it was.




We made it down to the local neighborhood market where we took the opportunity to get in the shade. J got an iced tea at this stand and I chose a strawberry smoothie.








While waiting for my smoothie I snapped this shot of brown rice. The top price is per liter, the bottom price per kilo. One dollar equals almost 36 baht these days.







We'd been vaguely hoping to find the University of Chiang Mai's Agricultural Campus which I'd been told was a nice place to bike, but we ended up on the main road too soon. But we did find a part of it and went in to check out some of the animals. When I approached the ostriches, they all came over - thinking, I guess, I had food. The deer already had food so didn't pay attention to me. But the whole flock of sheep came over to see me from out in the field. You can see that the hazy season is back. You can barely make out the mountains in the background.




Biking limits how far you can go, but it also means you see a lot more in the places you do go by. This place was growing lots of different types of trees, presumably they are for sale.









And, of course, on a bike, it is much easier to stop at the ice cream stand - well this one was a side car on a motorcycle - and have some home made ice cream. The ice cream man told us we could cut over on the road over the bridge and get into Hang Dong on more rural roads, which we did. I'll post our adventure in Furniture World later.

[Sunday, Feb. 22 (Happy Birthday George), 2009, 11 am Thai time] When I saw Slumdog Millionaire, I posted that I liked the movie, but it was basically Hollywood formula and glitz in a new setting. I was also concerned that the movie didn't really convey the complexity and richness of the Mumbai slums. I wrote:

Gregory David Roberts, for example in his book Shantaram seems to capture some of the spirit of the Bombay slums. He makes us feel its oppression, but also to see that despite what looks totally unlivable from a Western perspective, the inhabitants, like everyone else, live rich lives with joys as well as suffering.

A NY Times article today on protests in Mumbai against using the word slum in the movie, does a much more thorough job describing that these 'slums' are really very vibrant communities. Here's an excerpt - go to the link for the rest:

Its depiction as a slum does little justice to the reality of Dharavi. Well over a million “eyes on the street,” to use Jane Jacobs’s phrase, keep Dharavi perhaps safer than most American cities. Yet Dharavi’s extreme population density doesn’t translate into oppressiveness. The crowd is efficiently absorbed by the thousands of tiny streets branching off bustling commercial arteries. Also, you won’t be chased by beggars or see hopeless people loitering — Dharavi is probably the most active and lively part of an incredibly industrious city. People have learned to respond in creative ways to the indifference of the state — including having set up a highly functional recycling industry that serves the whole city.

Dharavi is all about such resourcefulness. Over 60 years ago, it started off as a small village in the marshlands and grew, with no government support, to become a million-dollar economic miracle providing food to Mumbai and exporting crafts and manufactured goods to places as far away as Sweden.

Certainly the movie brings much more attention to the situation and perhaps more people will actually be moved to find out more about this huge city within a city.

I see that I used both Bombay and Mumbai. The later is the new name for the city, but many, still use the older name.

Updating My Alaska Blog List

When I first starting blogging and only three or four people a day (counting my mother) were looking at my blog, I checked out posts on how to increase readership. One way that everyone recommended was to trade links with other bloggers.

But I really didn't want to have long lists of bloggers I didn't read or really care about just to get them to put my link up on their blogs.

Some time ago, I posted about Alaska blogs I liked. But didn't get around to putting them all up. Then Blogger offered a widget that put the blog list in order of the most recent post and allowed the reader to see the title of the newest post. I could see the benefit of that approach by the traffic it brought to my blog from other bloggers who used that widget - thanks especially to Immoral Minority for the links from there.

But there are way too many Alaska blogs to list them all. So my approach was to keep the list relatively short by doing the ones I really like a lot, and to leave off the blogs that are already on everyone else's lists (except those I had up before they were 'famous'.)

Then I saw that the blogger widget also let's me limit how many blogs with titles of their latest posts are on the list. So today I added about half a dozen links, but limited the total number to ten. So, only the ten blogs with the most recent posts will be showing. That means the blogs whose last post was three weeks ago probably won't be on the list.

It also means that the links I had to Alaskarants,Alaska Blogs, and Globe of Blogs, which are not blogs, but lists of blogs, won't show up at all because they don't have any latest posts.

When the King of Rock and Roll met the King of Thailand

The King of Thailand was 7 years old when Elvis Presley was born on January 8, 1935. Today in a restaurant in Hang Dong, a district of Chiang Mai, there was a picture on the wall of the King and Queen of Thailand meeting Elvis Presley in the Buddhist year 2503 during the filming of GI Blues. (It's currently 2552 so that was 49 years ago, or 1960.) Elvis was 25 and the King was 32.



That also means that today, when the King is 81, Elvis would be 74



This is the coffee shop/restaurant where the picture was hanging on the wall.

Google provided a bit more background. Eric, on Ajarnforum (teacherforum) wrote a couple of years ago:

HM King of Thailand meets the King of Rock & Roll
I had read that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit had met Elvis Presley at Paramount Studios, on the set of one of his movies, in June 1960. Apparently Duke Ellington was also present. HMK was 32 years old at the time and had just begun the 10th year of his reign.
After much scouring of the internet and eventually sending a guy $3 USD via PayPal I came up with this pic: [I couldn't open the link to the picture, but presumably it is the same one.)

Poking further I found this Youtube Thai television newscast of the event posted by Trevormeech. The newscast puts the date at May 21, 1960.

How Things Get Misconstrued - Setting the Record Straight

[Sat. Feb. 21, 2009, 8:15pm Thai time]
For the record, Steve Aufrecht is NOT investigating the terms of the BP-ARCO charter agreement with the university. At best, he's been poking around the subject. (For those of you wondering about the use of the 3rd person, while I'm not hiding my identity here, I'm also not trying to advertise it either.)

I got an email today telling me about this opinion piece in the ADN by history professor Steve Haycox. He's discussing Rep. Anna Fairclough's questions to University President Mark Hamilton regarding UA student lobbying and their opposition to development in Alaska. In it he writes:

His [Hamilton's] response is most welcome, for there have been questions raised recently about sanctions against respected university researchers who have produced reports critical of sacred cows. Biologist Rick Steiner criticized a Sea Grant initiative on offshore oil development; emeritus professor Steve Aufrecht is investigating the terms of the BP-ARCO charter agreement with the university.

I just want to set the record straight here. There's an implication: "questions have been raised recently about sanctions against respected university researchers." Then two university faculty are mentioned. First, as I said above, Steve Aufrecht has blogged about and raised some questions, but really has done nothing that he would claim to be 'investigating.' Second, to my knowledge, sanctions have not been discussed about him. I could be wrong on that score, but what sort of sanctions does one impose on faculty emerita? (From the University [of Alaska] Regulations 04.04.070: "the position of professor emeritus is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a retiring faculty member. ")

So, how did Dr. Haycox come to these conclusions? My guess is that "there have been questions raised" refers to Philip Munger's post on his blog Progressive Alaska where he first discusses how Dr. Rick Steiner's signing of an open letter critical of the "North Aleutian Basin Energy-Fisheries Initiative, being implemented by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) and Alaska Sea Grant" resulted in his Dean chastising him in a three year post-tenure review for abusing his academic freedom.

Then, Munger raises another issue of interest to the university. He writes:

2. Dr. Steve Aufrecht's Investigation into the BP-ARCO Merger Charter Agreement and the University of Alaska

University of Alaska Professor Emeritus Steve Aufrecht has been trying to determine whether or not the so-called "Merger Charter Agreement" that enabled the formation of the entity now known as Conoco-Phillips is legally enforceable, or is a mere scrap of paper. If the agreement is enforceable, it appears quite likely that Conoco-Phillips owes the University of Alaska money. A lot of money.

I had considered commenting on this post to say that 'investigation' was probably a bit strong. Two blog posts and some inquiries, the way I see things, do not an investigation make. But since the rest of the post described what little had been actually done in this 'investigation' I decided to let it pass. (As I look at it again now, I'd say that I was reasonably sure it is enforceable and what I'd been asking was who was monitoring it to be sure the conditions were met.)

But now Haycox picks up the word investigation and lumps the two profs together to suggest that both face sanctions for their activities, when really only Steiner did according to Munger.

Many of us played a game as kids, where one person is given a short phrase to pass on to the next person and that person passes it on to the next, then the next, and the next for five or six more people. At the end, the phrase that the last person tells the group is often totally unrecognizable from the one that was given to the first person.

Here, a couple of blog posts and inquiries become an 'investigation.' And by not reading quite carefully enough, two people get lumped into the same category, though they really aren't. And people reading the opinion piece will come away with something else altogether.

And that's why I try to be really, really careful when I write, when I choose my words. And even if I were 100% successful in writing clearly - don't worry, not even close - everyone comes to a story with their own preconceptions and so they see what they want or expect to see. But I don't want to help them by using vague or misleading language.

Two Different Nights, Two very Different Dinners

Thursday night J's Thai class had it's final dinner. I've been hearing about her class mates - a collection of mostly (13) Western men mostly of a certain age with either Thai girlfriends or wives. And five women. Some of whom had Thai boyfriends. And one of the best foreign language teachers Joan has ever had. And she learned a number of sentence patterns and vocabulary words and it's obvious she's got a lot more Thai now. I did talk to her teacher and asked about program for people like me who can basically get along, but with lots of gaps in terms of grammar and vocabulary.

The dinner was at a Thai buffet'barbecue' place. That means there are tables full of food which you cook over charcoal in little - I have no idea what they are called and I didn't take a picture, but they're aluminum 'pots' with a broth, but also in the middle an area you can cook fish or other things outside the broth.

You can see the vegies (to be cooked in the broth, but you can't see all the fish and shrimps and other things I don't even know waiting to be dropped into the broth.



And here are the pseudo Western sweets on the left and Thai sweets on the right. Those bright yellow ones, if I recall right are made with egg yokes and lots of sugar.



And here are some more Thai desserts. I'm not sure what these are, but I know them and love them. You get these noodley, dumpling like things, with a little coconut milk and some crushed ice on a hot night. MMMMMMMMMMMMM. So goood. We paid much, much more than we do for a normal dinner which can range from100-150 Baht ($3-5) for the two of us. I'm not sure what the buffet was, but we all got asked to put in 200 Baht apiece (which covered the drinks) or about $6 each.


These two guys are Australians. The one in the white whose face was blurred to protect him (actually there just wasn't that much light and he moved during the slow shutter click) was an undercover detective for 30 or more years. So I filled him in on some of the things going on in the Ted Stevens case. His reaction that some sort of fix was in. He also said he spent five, I think, months in Iraq to pay off his house. He had nothing good to say about what is going on. Well, he did say while there may be some issues with the Americans, their behavior is far more exemplary than that of most of the other players. But he was obviously upset when he talked about some guys he met early on who said they wanted the war to last forever. "Don't you care about all the people who are getting killed?" "Hell, we're getting $40,000 a month and we want that to go on forever." What would have taken him ten years to pay off working in Australia took five or six months in Iraq he said. Thanks to the American tax payer.

Let's see, the guy on the right in the orange is a Brit who lives in Hungary and is here teaching cricket to kids and a couple of orphanages. The lady on the right is a 20 year old Brit who has a Thai boyfriend. The woman at the end of the table - almost in the middle of the picture - is the teacher.

It was a loud and raucous dinner - Thai music coming from one side, televisions going as well. The group went to karaoke afterward, but we went on home.


Tonight was a totally different experience. We'd run into Mike on the street the other night and he emailed the invitation:

We are very happy to invite you to a Shabbat celebration to be held at the Blue Pearl Yoga Studio.

We hope this will be the start of a more regular format instead of the smaller gatherings

It would be great if you could come. The more the merrier and we encourage members of all faiths and paths to join us.

Friday, 20/2/09 at 18:45

As usual, the food will be Pot Luck - Please bring whatever you like to eat but strictly vegetarian

The handouts with the words for the songs called it a Kabbalah Shabbat. So, from outdoor (but under cover) the size almost of a football field on Thursday, Friday was in a Yoga studio.
And we had four Cambodian monks from Wat Suandoe there to join us. Unfortunately, Thai Buddhist monks don't eat after 12 noon.

Azreal led the short shabbat service - he's originally a Canadian but, if I recall right, he's lived in the US and Israel and now has been in Chiang Mai six months. In addition to Canadians and Americans, there were two Thais, some Brits, and Italian, a couple of Austrians, and a German of Philipino/Chinese origin. It was really a special night. I'm glad did't succumb to my thoughts of just staying home tonight and taking it easy.

Buffalo Plane Crash and Our Small World

When the plane crashed in Buffalo, I thought about Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld who had been rabbi in Anchorage for many years before moving to a new congregation in Buffalo. I checked his blog but there was nothing there. (Now he has his comments from last Friday's Shabbat service about his cantor Susan Wehle who died in the crash.) Today someone emailed me this New York Times article about people gathering at Rabbi Rosenfeld's synagogue and home and [another nearby synagogue] to grieve.

. . . Close-knit is an understatement. In the suburbs of Buffalo, with their succession of two-story colonials and rambling ranches, residents spent the first half of the weekend piecing together how they were linked to the 50 people killed in the crash, including one man inside the home hit by the plane.

The ties to the victims were complex and overlapping. They sold them mulch, dined at their restaurants, planned funerals together and listened to their mothers chat proudly about them while getting pedicures.

They didn’t just know their names: they knew their histories and quirks. They knew who was allergic to flowers, what they liked to read and who had attended their daughters’ soccer games. . .

Better Barbet

[Friday, Feb.20, 2009 8am Thai Time]
The lineated barbet pictures the other day, well, you pretty much had to take my word for it. But today the barbets got into a tree much nearer our balcony - close enough for even my little powershot to get a recognizable shot. I know, it's still not one of those great telephoto shots, but for three times optical zoom it's not bad.

There were also koels calling, some red whiskered bulbuls, and a glimpse of what I think is a malkoha. We've only seen these far off or in today's case fairly close by well hidden in the tree and gone before we could really see it in the binoculars. We had some olive backed sunbirds the other day.

Greater Racket Tailed Drongo

J was sitting on the balcony watching this guy way out there in the tree. With the binoculars you could see his crest and the long dangly tail crisply. He even shimmered dark green. When I looked at the photo I was pretty sure that the black spot below the branch below the bird was the end of his tail. He flew away before I could check They have long strings with these little feather puffs way at the end. You can see it clearly on my favorite drongo picture which I extracted from a video I managed to catch of it flying near our balcony last year.

Overnight Changes

Literally overnight (and a little of yesterday) there were two changes in my environment.Until yesterday, the parking lot at our building for motorcycles and bikes was pretty much a free for all. Here's a picture from last year. There are a lot more motorcycles and bikes this year.
I did see them working on this when I left for work yesterday and by last night it had been transformed.




And then, near my office, was this newly erected billboard - there was literally nothing there the morning before - urging the people of Chiangmai to stop fires and help reduce global warming. As an Alaskan, where billboards are banned statewide to protect the spectacular view, it was a little jarring to have my view of Doi Suthep at this point so suddenly blocked. But the poles holding the sign up are made of bamboo, so there is a possibility that this is a temporary sign.

Alaska in the News

I learned from a Monday Bangkok Post article which has a National Geographic.com byline, that

Hunting the biggest 'trophy' individuals, including caribou in Alaska, influences plant and animal populations faster than natural selection and even other human impacts, a study found. Such preferences leave a disproportionate number of smaller animals and plants to reproduce.

The rest is at the link.

Chiang Mai T Shirts

We had dinner tonight with Rachel, one of the other AJWS volunteers who's working with a Burmese related organization. We ate at the vegetarian restaurant across the street from the North Gate of Chiang Mai University. After dinner, we wandered around the little night market there, which like the one near us on the south side of the University, is geared toward students. Rachel has been getting pictures each day of the number of days she's been here. Today she was looking for the number 41. She has them on the photo section of her blog.

While we were looking I discovered a really neat T shirt shop. The guy said he did them all himself. I liked their originality but none of them had my name on it. He said some were sold in Germany.



Then we found another spot selling T shirts. These were also neat, but again, there was something not quite right - in one case the word nigga - in the middle of the T shirt, so I ended up with some pictures of T shirts. The second batch were from Bangkok they told me.

Bangkok Protest 5 - Sufficiency Economy

[Monday, February 16, 2009, 5pm Thai Time - well that's when I started. I let this set yesterday while I did other things and now it's Wednesday about noon.]

Note: This is going to be somewhat rambling as I'm ruminating on this topic. In some ways it is new to me, in other ways it's old, but with new names. So consider this an exploratory look.

As I'm reading the English version of the Recommendations for the New Government, the policy recommendations made by the Thai Land Reform Network (or Network for Thai Land Reform, depending on who's translating), a coalition of organizations representing farmers and other poor Thai communities, I'm being pulled in different directions. I support the basic sentiments, but I think that the arguments could be better organized and documented.

As an US citizen reading this, one who lives in a red state (bizarre isn't that a 'red state' means a conservative state?), I've been sensitized to expect strong criticism of anything that isn't strongly pro-capitalist. The six months we lived in Portland, I was constantly surprised at how the liberals were as free and loose in their philosophy as the conservatives are in Alaska. But when you are always about to be criticized, you're forced to think about what you believe much more carefully and how to justify it.

And my academic training always wants an argument to so logically lead to the conclusions that the attentive readers already knows the conclusions before they reads them.

Anyway, this document basically assumes that the government has strong responsibilities to redistribute land to poor farmers, and I think it is this part that makes me feel, as a member of one of the organizations, vulnerable to challenge. I say that knowing that a document like this in Alaska would be blasted as 'socialist' (by people who probably couldn't tell you exactly what socialist means) and un-American. Of course, I'm not in the United States now, so that really is irrelevant. Also, I don't think you can really call it un-American after first the Bush Administration gave out $700 billion or so followed now by the Obama Administration doing the same. And, of course, both the US and Alaska have given away land to homesteaders in the past as well. But I would like to see this document's arguments better organized. There were a number of declaratory statements like this one:

Land is a social resource and an important productive resource. Thai society needs for there to be a just and fair distribution of land holdings so that the poor and small-scale farmers can have their own land for use in building up food security and security of settlement. . .

The phenomenon of land that is being held for purely speculative purposes, with an owner but not being put to productive use, indicates the injustice in land holding patterns in Thailand. This land should be used for production and distributed efficiently and appropriately for the benefit of landless farmers and the poor who lack land for settlement.

OK, I thought, you can say this, but many would argue that owners have the right to leave their property 'unproductive.' You have to link this to something that shows this is basic Thai policy or at least congruent with Thai values.

So, finally I got to the part of the document that mentioned Section 85 of the 2007 Thai Constitution (oh my, the Thai Constitution is 97 pages long, while the US Constitution is only 17 pages). But before I get to that, let's go back to another reason for concern about grounding these arguments.

I'm also thinking of my former student (forty years ago) who I visited Thursday on the way back from Bangkok. His grandparents immigrated to Thailand from China maybe 70 or 80 years ago with almost nothing. They took what little they had and bought a plot of land and planted bananas. They lived in a very basic house - I was in it a number of times in 1967 and 1968 - that had no electricity and water came from a well outside. It had a dirt floor. Every baht they had, they reinvested into land and production of bananas. They are no longer alive, but their son and grandsons have a great deal of land planted mostly, now, in sugar cane. Mook lives in a comfortable house and has, by anyone's standards, a good life - both in terms of material needs and spiritual needs. As I was reading the document, I could hear him saying, "My grandparents came here with nothing and worked extremely hard for their land. Why should the government be giving away land to farmers?" In fact on Thursday he bemoaned how hard his mom worked, going out early (before 7 am) every morning with the cane workers and getting back about 5pm when she would prepare food for all the workers. So, I want to be able to respond to Mook.

Additionally, I know there are lots of examples where rich investors were able to corruptly gain title to land. The document briefly cites some examples:

. . .there are many cases of land use/ownership documents that have been issued illegitimately and illegally. This applies to private land and land used by communities, such as land for production, community forests, public land, and land distributed by the Agriclutrual Land Reform Office. This land, for which use/ownership documents have been issued fraudulently, was often later deposited as collateral for loans, on which debtors defaulted. In these cases, classified as non-performing loans, the banks sue in court, seized the land, and sold it on the market. However, the land then sat vacat, as if abandoned. When the people adopted measures to solve the problem of land in a just manner by carrying out land reform themselves by occupying and putting this land to use, the state used its legal power to arrest and prosecute the landless poor.

As you can see, things can get messy.

But let's hold off on that line of reasoning for now.

I want to raise the issue of "Sufficiency Economy" which I found in Sections 83 and 84 of the Constitution.

Part 7
Policy Directive on Economics

Section 83. The State shall promote and support the implementation of philosophy of sufficiency economy.

Section 84. The State shall follow the Policy Directive on Economics as follows:

(1) Encourage a free and fair economic system through market force, and encourage the sustainable economic development by abolishing and refraining the enactment of laws and regulations supervising the businesses that are inconsistent to the business necessity; shall not engage in an enterprise in competition with the private sector, except it is necessary and beneficial for maintaining the security of the State, preserving the common interests, or providing public utilities.

This unofficial translation has been provided by IFES Thailand and the
Political Section and Public Diplomacy Office of the US Embassy-Bangkok.


20

(2) Promote the practice of virtues, ethics, and good governance in business affairs. . .

(8) Protect and maintain the interests of farmers in production and marketing; promote the highest price possible for agricultural products; encourage the grouping of farmers in the form of the farmer council in order to work out on the agricultural plan and protect their common interests. [emphasis added]

That sounded vaguely familiar, or maybe it was just that I'd heard both those words before - Sufficiency and Economy - but I looked it up and found it was a philosophy put forth by the King of Thailand. The King of Thailand, by the way, is the longest reigning Monarch in the world. He was born in the US while his father Prince Mahidol was getting his MD at Harvard. He was educated in Switzerland and he has a long history of taking a strong interest in the spiritual and economic well being of his people - all people of Thailand including members of ethnic minority groups. He's well educated, plays jazz saxophone, is (at least was, don't know about now) an avid photographer, and traveled extensively around Thailand to meet with ordinary people to understand how to make their lives better. No, I'm not working for the palace, this is my sense of him having paid some attention over the years. He has been King for over 60 years now. He's truly a remarkable man.

So, this is not some backwater monarch coming up with some nationalistic plan with no practical basis.

As I googled and read more, this appears to me more general principles, not a micro-economics plan. But it attempts to balance the needs of people and communities against the realities of international capitalism. From Reflected Knowledge:

Sufficiency Economy advocates taking the middle path in life as the optimal route for personal conduct at all levels: individuals, families and communities. It counsels moderation, self-reliance, honesty and integrity, while exercising knowledge with prudence.

Sufficiency Economy posits that an individual should be able to lead a reasonably comfortable life without excess or overindulgence in luxury. That is, if extravagance brings happiness it is permissible only as long as it is within the means of the individual. As His Majesty stated in a Royal Speech on December 4, 1998, “If one is moderate in one’s desires, one will have less craving. If one has less craving, one will take less advantage of others. If all nations hold this concept of moderation, without being extreme or insatiable in one’s desire, the world will be a happier place.”

Economics professor Mehdi Krongkaew writes in a Kyoto Review article:

The philosophy can be summed up in one paragraph, as translated from the Thai:

“Sufficiency Economy is a philosophy that guides the livelihood and behavior of people at all levels, from the family to the community to the country, on matters concerning national development and administration. It calls for a ‘middle way’ to be observed, especially in pursuing economic development in keeping with the world of globalization. Sufficiency means moderation and reasonableness, including the need to build a reasonable immune system against shocks from the outside or from the inside. Intelligence, attentiveness, and extreme care should be used to ensure that all plans and every step of their implementation are based on knowledge. At the same time we must build up the spiritual foundation of all people in the nation, especially state officials, scholars, and business people at all levels, so they are conscious of moral integrity and honesty and they strive for the appropriate wisdom to live life with forbearance, diligence, self-awareness, intelligence, and attentiveness. In this way we can hope to maintain balance and be ready to cope with rapid physical, social, environmental, and cultural changes from the outside world.”

There's a Wikipedia article on localism in Thailand which discusses Sufficiency Economics which also includes some criticism, but this particular feature caught my eye:

Loan.

Another example in the philosophy: one must save money enough before investment, and do not overinvest such that you become deep in debt. Some believe this idea is in conflict with the concepts of economy of scale and economy of scope in economics and exploitation of the future demand.

It seems to me in the aftermath of the crash of the US housing market, this sort of philosophy should have a much better reception in the West than it might have had a year ago.

Overall, I think that black and white, good versus evil, picture that many in the US have of the world is not an accurate reflection. Rather, the social world is a complex set of forces constantly in tension. I think the King's sufficiency economics reflects that better than much of what we get in the West. There's a sense of moderation that we can also see in Greek tradition in Western heritage. There is a recognition of the need to be prepared for unforeseen catastrophes. As I visit different villages, I see farmers, with which my organization works, who are able to feed themselves through their farming and would be much more self sufficient should this economic crisis get worse. Certainly they are much better prepared than most people living in Alaska who are totally dependent on the outside world for nearly everything we consume.

So now I'm left to try] to recraft the document, taking the points they have, and reorganizing how they are presented, and getting more information in some areas. At the very least, I'll understand this all better afterward.

Lineated Barbets Alarm Clock

[Wed. Feb. 18, 9am Thai Time]
This morning we awoke to Barbets calling. Bu Bok, Bu Bok, Bu Bok. Oh to have more than 3X optical zoom. But you can see them. (Double click to enlarge the pictures) They're there, in the middle of the picture, two one a little above the other.

Does this help? With the binoculars, they were crystal clear, green birds with greyish mottled heads.


Yesterday, on the way home from the Consulate, I passed the DK Book Center, along the outside of the moat of the city center on the East side. It's basically a Thai bookstore and there I met a tourguide, Sun, who has worked for an NGO giving micro-loans to hill-tribe villages and was interested in my idea of training villagers to be bird guides. I told him I was looking for a Thai bird book and they had one at the counter. I bought the Thai version - I want a copy for the office and it does have the names in English and an English index. The two on the left are the same book - one in Thai, one in English, which was published first.

I'm hoping Sun can meet with people at the office to talk more about the bird guiding idea. He seems to know the birds and the different books well.

Rachmaninov Comes Out of the Gramophone Archive

From an April 1931 article in Gramophone by Sergei Rachmaninov:

Not long ago I was asked to express my opinion as to the musical value of broadcasting. I replied that, to my mind, radio has a bad influence on art: that it destroys all the soul and true significance of music. Since then many people have appeared and surprised that, disliking wireless so intensely, I should lend myself to recording for the gramophone, as though the two were, in some mysterious way, intimately connected.

To me it seems that the modern gramophone and modern methods of recording are musically superior to wireless transmission in every way, particularly where reproduction of the piano is concerned. I agree that piano recording was not always so successful as it is to-day. Twelve years ago, when I was making my first records with Edison in America, the piano came out with a thin, tinkling tone. It sounded exactly like the Russian balalaika, which, as you may know, is a stringed instrument resembling the guitar. And results produced by the acoustical process in use when I began to record for His Master’s Voice in 1920 were far from satisfactory. It is only the perfecting of electrical recording during the last three years combined with recent astonishing improvements in the gramophones themselves that has given us piano reproduction of a fidelity, a variety and depth of tone that could hardly be bettered . . .

Thanks to Perverse Egalitarian for posting that Gramophone's 85 years of publication are now available online.

Visit to US Consulate Chiang Mai

Three weeks ago I got onto the US Consulate in Chiang Mai website. I wanted to get some information, maybe some help if possible, about the project to export mangoes our farmers grow here to Anchorage. Well, I couldn't find any email addresses or any phone numbers. The only thing you could do is make an appointment, using their form.

Note: there is a phone number up now, but that is only if you have technical difficulties with the online appointment.


I looked for information on trade or commercial assistance but couldn't find any phone numbers or emails. As you can see from the screenshot, there weren't very many choices.


None fit my needs except 'other.' Would they even have someone there who could talk to my needs? I didn't really want this kind of help, but there was no way to contact them to find out how to get to someone who had the information I needed. (I could have gotten an appointment last week, but with the Bangkok trip, I wasn't sure if I'd be back in time. Also, there still are walk appointments for Americans until the end of March when that will end.)

OK, I decided this was an experiment in US State Department services. My last overseas experience, going to the US Embassy in Beijing had been a nightmare. (Let me modify that a bit. I'd made an appointment from Anchorage through someone who had a contact in the US trade office in Beijing. That was great. It was going to the Embassy that was awful. I did get treated reasonably when I got to the window, but I could see how bad it was for Chinese folks and that was the real nightmare. I was embarrassed that my country was treating them like that.] They did have phone numbers in 2004, but they only got you to recordings and no one ever called back. But the Embassy itself is in no-man's land. they shut off the streets around it, the buildings all around it seemed abandoned, and we had to walk about 100 yards through barricades down this deserted street to the Embassy. It reminded me of walking from West Berlin into East Berlin in the 1960s. Creepy. And we didn't have to stand in the long line like the Chinese and other non-Americans did before getting to walk through this empty corridor.

Once inside, there were a couple of small room with few chairs. Americans got to sit in a special area and got called to the window when it was their turn. Others stood waiting in the depressing little room. It was very demeaning in every way and I had Chinese colleagues who would rather pass up US grants or activities than be treated the way they got treated there. It thought of the retired college professors I had visited in Beijing who had to go through this to get to visit their daughter studying in the US. And you had to go in person, even if you lived several hundred miles away. And there was no guarantee you'd get a visa even though you had paid for one.

So, would this be different? My boss knew I was going and yesterday gave me the name and phone number of a Thai friend who worked at the Consulate. "Today is a holdiay. Call him tomorrow. What holiday?" I had to think - oh yes, Presidents Day.

This morning I wasn't sure how long it would take - it's on the opposite side of town. Not all that far - maybe 4 or 5 kilometers of traffic. So I left an hour before on the bike just to be sure. It was a breeze. The morning was still cool and cars and motorcycles are very patient with bikes. I got there in about 20 minutes.

I didn't take any pictures. It does look a bit like a prison, with a huge wall all along the street. I realized I hadn't taken my passport or even my appointment number. I'd made the appointment before I'd worked out the wireless connection to the printer. But, no problem. My driver's license was fine. Empty your pockets for security. They went through my shoulder bag and put my camera, phone, extra sound card for the camera, and a usb drive into a plastic bag. "But wait, I need to make a call." No problem, they gave me my phone and sent me out the front door. I called Pet's friend and he said he'd come join me when he finished his meeting. Gave them back the phone.

Back in, and into another room that was open to the outside with green even hanging in, lots of seats, even a flat screen tv playing Battlestar Gallactica, but no sound. A sign said that people with appointments should go in the door on the right and report at Window 1.

The young Thai at the window, wearing a leather jacket (it's air conditioned) was extremely nice. I spoke in Thai. He had me listed for an appointment, what did I want to discuss? Exporting mangoes.

He said he'd give me a phone number to call. At that point I mentioned Pet's friend and he said, OK, then just go wait in the previous room. Pet's friend came in a few minutes later and looked around trying to figure out which farang was Steve. He sat with me and we talked, again in Thai mostly, but I had figured if he worked at the Consulate his English was much better than my Thai. I told him I wasn't sure there'd be someone who could help and he assured me there was and I should wait for my appointment.

I hadn't been given a ticket and maybe the first man thought that my appointment was with Pet's friend. So he left and I went back to the window to check. The man said that someone would come out into the waiting room to talk to me. Pet's friend had let him know.

Eventually she came out and sat down there with me. I had a list of questions, but she made it clear that the US government was interested in helping people who wanted to import American goods to Thailand, but much less interested in exporting Thai goods to the US. But she could give me information. We did this all in English. She went out and got several pages of contacts with trade related organizations that she thought would be helpful. In the conversation it came out that I had been a Peace Corps volunteer and we switched to Thai and she suddenly became much more helpful. She went out again and brought back two huge books - one was the Thai Association of Small and Medium Enterprises - which she told me to take and bring back when I got what I needed and gave me her email address.

I left thinking - if I hadn't had Pet's friend as a contact, would I have gotten to talk to anyone at all? It would be so much easier from a user's perspective to be able to email "Here's what I need, can you help me or give me some better places to get help?" than to have to go down to the Consulate.

My sense is that 9/11 made everyone paranoid and all the US diplomatic outposts became fortresses and entry has become much more difficult. They used to be open and friendly US PR offices where people living in other countries could get a glimpse of the American democracy. Now they are hostile and demeaning (not at all unlike airport security - if you are not white expect extra scrutiny) for Americans and non-Americans alike.

The second problem, I suspect, is that the State Department budget has been cut badly over the years and so they've switched from human contact to all electronic contact. The Thai security guard appeared to be a contract security person, not a Consulate employee. That may make it easier for the State Department, but it defeats a great deal of the purpose of being there. People just don't go there to get help anymore. It's too much of a hassle. My boss laughed when I told him where I was going. He said security wouldn't let him in when he tried to go. Unless they HAVE to go - to get a visa etc. - many people just skip it. It really adds to the negative image of the US abroad.

In the Chiang Mai case, I have to say the US is lucky that all the staff I dealt with were Thai and they were all extremely polite, hospitable, and helpful, even doing the security check. It isn't like that in Beijing.

Perhaps our new Secretary of State along with our new President can make some changes here, to make our embassies and consulates sources of information and glimpses of democracy once again instead of the grim, intimidating places they've become.

Bangkok Protest Post 4 - What's it all About?

[Sunday, Feb. 15, 2009 6pm Thai Time]
OK, I've been avoiding this post - probably the most important one about the Bangkok protest - by putting up pictures and saying very little. But it's time to bite the bullet. As I said in the first protest post, figuring out what it is all about isn't easy. They did finally give me a six page report on what the alliance of organizations wants out of the new land reform policy. But I'm not happy with what they wrote.






There is a potential problem for all people who are highly dedicated to a goal and who believe they are fighting 'an enemy' to achieve that goal. The people in the group 'know' their cause so well that they forget that others do not understand all the details and reasons that are so obvious to them. I'm not talking here about the more rationalized groupthink where challenges to the groups ideas are discouraged, but rather the natural tendency to see things alike and not see the problems an outsider might have with a plan or statement. The report I got is like that. It argues for certain things, but doesn't explain things in ways that work for me. One of my new projects is to critique their policy statement to make it more to the point and understandable to people who aren't on the front line and know the problems from the inside.

So, here is my interpretation of the issues facing poor Thai farmers and some urban poor regarding land reform issues that are of importance to my organization:

1. Forest Land Issues - There are people living in the forests of Thailand. We'd probably call them 'inholders' in the US - people who owned property before an area was made into a park or forest. While the Thai government wants these people out of the forests, it seems to me the inholders have some very strong points. It also appears to be different in different places. Here are two examples I'm aware of (even if I don't have all the facts exactly right)
   
   • In an area in Chiang Mai province, there are hill tribe peoples who have lived in the forested area for 50 years or more. It's their home. Now the government is saying they need to leave the forest. Their way of life, their culture are threatened if they are forced to move out of their natural habitat. There are identified problems with some hill tribes in terms of the effect of their cultivation practices and subsistence hunting practices. But I've been told these tribes have been practicing agricultural practices that are sustainable and do not threaten the forests and last year we went to an event to celebrate the maintaining of long fire breaks to prevent fires. There are precedents for getting indigenous peoples to switch from hunting threatened species to being protectors who prevent poachers, so their living in the forest could help protect the resources that the Thai government wouldn't otherwise have the resources to protect.
   • At the Bangkok march I learned about a man in the South, who is being told he must move out of the 'forest.' His argument is pictures of himself and his family planting 'the forest' of rubber trees years ago.
     
     
2. Land Ownership Issues - One of the villages my organization works with received their land maybe 15 or 20 years ago in a government land distribution program. It is now well planted with mango trees. About eight years ago, a group of wealthy businessmen showed them deeds to the land and told them they had to leave the land. The farmers were never giving proper documents when the land was distributed and they believe that the businessmen used their connections or money to get a land official to come up with the documents they possessed. All the people who worked in the office at the time are dead. I was at a public meeting at the Land Office last year when the spokesman for the businesses acknowledged - after repeated questions about exactly who sold them the land - that it was possible that the person who sold the land, did not own it.
   
   So there are these kinds of issues where farmers have been threatened by people who do not have legitimate ownership of the land.
   
   
3. Method of Land Reform - The last Thai government and the new Thai government both had land reform in their platforms. The organization that I work with is affiliated with a number of other organizations that are working with other farmers and urban poor around the country. A major objective of the march this last week was as bargaining power in their negotiations with the new Thai government over the details of the new land reform policy. They want the new government to understand the issues from the farmers' perspective, not simply from that of influential business owners.
   
   There is going to be land reform. The question is how it will be implemented and these groups have specific ideas about how to do this so that farmers are able to productively work the land to help feed the people of Thailand.
   
   
4. Money[/Fund] - Part of the land reform involves monetary distributions. For instance, the government wants, as I understand it, to dismantle some of the slum areas in Bangkok and make monetary compensation to the people living there. How this is going to happen - whether there are payments to individuals, to communities - is part of the negotiations. [There's also a land bank but I don't understand yet the details of how this works.]
   
   
5. Macro Issues - one of the changes in Thailand over the last 20 years has been a change in how, at least some, Thais conceive of land. I don't have a good grasp of the historic ownership and use of land in Thailand. I know for periods much of the land belonged to the King. But land has not, historically, been seen as a capitalist commodity. When the new economy of the Asian Tigers crashed in 1997, those with money first began to seriously invest in land because other investments seemed risky. This has caused - and one of the things I'm questioning about the six pages I was given is how they discuss land ownership - a disparity in the ownership of land. Farmland was bought at inflated prices - at least in the eyes of the farmers who sold their land - but what many farmers thought was great wealth, proved to not go very far. Soon they found themselves without the land that gave them a level of self-sufficiency and with no way to feed themselves. Apparently, much farmland now sits fallow as the wealthy hold onto it hoping to eventually sell at a profit, while farmers sit idle because they do not have land to farm.
   
   Such problems defy simple ideas of fairness, common sense, and work ethic. They are systemic problems that result from buying into a capitalist mentality in a society that doesn't have all the infrastructure to limit the inequity that wealth can cause. Even in the US, we are seeing similar problems in terms of the housing market and the banking collapse.
   

So, these are the issues as I seem them. There are probably others I've missed and there are certainly more and better examples than the ones I've listed, but this is a start.

Doing What's Possible

Maureen Dowd writes in today's (Feb 15) New York Times,

At his news conference last Monday, Mr. Obama was asked by Fox’s Major Garrett about the vice president’s startling assertion that even if he and the president do “everything right,” “there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

Management and policy are fuzzy topics. Knowing a policy will work, especially one that is untried, is impossible. It's not like changing a lightbulb. It is even hard to prove in hindsight that a policy worked, or that a management practice improved an organization. We can 'know' about basic mechanical things. Adding gas to the tank will enable a car go. But GM thought a policy of selling gas guzzlers would keep them profitable.

Sure, there are some policy decisions that we know work. Historically, we know that supplying clean water and sewage systems did more to improve health of communities (which led to other improvements) than anything else.


But it is difficult to do 'scientific' experiments with policy - to have a control group and an experimental group. Even if you have several states adopting the same new policy, are all the other conditions similar enough that we can attribute a change in (you name the topic) statistics to the policy or to something else. And even if the statistics are better, does that mean that things have gotten better, really?

There are so many factors that affect so much, that it is often unclear whether our policy changed the crime rate, for example, or whether a change in demographics (fewer people in the high crime age) or a change in the economy (more people working for better wages) or a combination of these and other factors caused the change. Does an increase in the number of rape cases mean things are worse, or that more people feel emboldened to report rapes?



The other side of this is when we ask managers or politicians to fix something - like turning the economy around. We often have simply no idea whether it is possible in the given situation.

If your boss told you to jump over a three story building, you'd laugh. If she told you to pick up some bagels in a New York deli for lunch (and you were both in Los Angeles,) you'd laugh.

But I've seen managers tell subordinates to do things that were equally impossible - I want you to improve the reading scores of these students in three months, or I want you to improve the morale and increase production by Y% by August - and their workers run to accomplish it, because they simply didn't know it was impossible. (Of course, some things we think are impossible, are actually possible too.)

So I wonder whether Barrack Obama's goals are even physically possible to achieve. And if they are physically possible, are the political obstacles too overwhelming?

And so if Biden suggests that even if they do all the right things, it's possible they will fail, I think he may well be on to something. And despite Obama's seeming truth telling to the public (anything compared to Bush would seem to be incredible candid) he knows that telling the public we might fail isn't the winner that the 'politics of hope' is.

I don't think it is inevitable that our economy crashes and many of us become destitute. But it may require serious changes in our perceptions about what is a good life. As a Peace Corps volunteer many years ago, here in Thailand, I saw that there were alternatives to the models of what makes people happy that I grew up with. The US model is basically 'thing' based. The more stuff you have, the happier you're supposed to be. But I found myself living in Thailand with a lot less stuff, but being happier. In Thailand then, and still today, I see a model that is relationship based - the more family and friends that you can rely on for everything, the happier you will be. (Of course, relying on others means that they can rely on you as well - it's not all take.)




When we went to Bangkok Tuesday night and passed some relatively large and fancy houses in the little villages, one of the Thai farmers said, "Rich Folks." I had to smile. These people would hardly qualify as rich in other places. It's all relative. And this is rich in terms of money and goods. This T shirt on one of the farmers demonstrating Wednesday summarizes what I'm talking about: Give me soul, take away the rest.

I have to admit, Salesian didn't sound much like a Thai name, though, when I asked, he said something about the Northeast of Thailand. I just looked it up. Wikipedia says:

The Salesians of Don Bosco (or the Salesian Society, originally known as the Society of St. Francis de Sales) is a Roman Catholic religious order founded in the late nineteenth century by Saint John Bosco in an attempt, through works of charity, to care for the young and poor children of the industrial revolution. The Salesians' charter describes the society's mission as "the Christian perfection of its associates obtained by the exercise of spiritual and corporal works of charity towards the young, especially the poor, and the education of boys to the priesthood"[1]. The order is named for St. Francis de Sales, an early-modern bishop of Geneva.

And they do have a presence in Thailand and Cambodia. Their interpretation of soul and mine are probably not quite the same. Mine is more focused on qualities of the heart, a spiritual health. And I don't reject physical comforts in moderation.

I'm always leery about religious groups that proselytize around the world. I can't tell if the Salesians in Thailand are merely doing good works or also trying to convert people. (Radical Catholic Mom might know.) I'm here with the American Jewish World Service, but there is absolutely no religious content to what I do, other than the fact that helping others is a basic tenet of Judaism.

Bangkok Protest Post 3 - The March

[Sunday, February 15, 2009 11am Thai Time]

So, everyone was finally gathered, the signs were ready, the truck with the microphone and speakers set, and around 9:30am the march started. It was a little less than a kilometer; from the National Assembly building to the Parliament.

In the video you'll see people carrying little flags. The red ones are farmers from the north. Green are from Isaan or Northeast. Bright green are from the South. The video gives you the best sense of the march. Below are some more pictures.

Now they are ready to move.

Here's the National Assembly building. If you look up National Assembly on Wikipedia, you can see why I was confused.

The National Assembly of Thailand or Parliament of Thailand (Thai: รัฐสภาไทย, Rathasaphathai) is the legislative branch of the government of Thailand. The National Assembly is a bicameral body, consisting of two chambers: the upper house or the Senate of Thailand and the lower house or the House of Representatives of Thailand. The Assembly was first convened in 1932 after the adoption of Thailand's first Constitution. The Assembly took its current form after the adoption of the 2007 Constitution of Thailand.The National Assembly currently meets at the Parliament House of Thailand, in Dusit, Bangkok, Thailand.

The Assembly meets in the Parliament. But this building, called the National Assembly building is really something different. This is part of

Dusit Palace Bangkok

• Dusit Palace is the name of the compound of Royal residences constructed in European style and built between 1897 and 1901. These were originally called Dusit Garden by King Rama V and later Dusit Palace by King Rama V1.

One of the 16 palaces is the building in the background below - sometimes known as the National Assembly, the Throne Hall, and The Ananda Samakhom (Anantasamakom)







I found it amusing that the entrance to the Parliament is across the street from the entrance to the zoo.

All along the wall of the zoo, each section has a picture of an animal painted by Thai students. It was really kind of neat.

I had to keep myself as separated from the march itself as possible. I had my camera and was documenting it, but told people who offered me flags to carry that I wasn't allowed to do that. And I turned down one reporter's request to interview me. I was the only white face in the crowd and one of the few I saw all day, even there in Bangkok.

This is one of the protesters from the Bangkok slums. I met her at the meeting in Petchabun. She is very articulate with a great sense of humor.

And there were vendors - especially across the street along the wall of the zoo.
This cart is selling somtam (spicy papaya salad) and barbecued chicken, Northeast specialties.

It's about 34 Thai Baht to the dollar these days.

Bangkok Protest Post 2 - Getting Ready

Finally, the signs were coming out. Some had to be put onto poles.

The pickup with the loud speakers - a necessity in Thailand - arrived.

One of the issues my organization is working on is the rights of farmers living 'in the forest.' There are a number of different situations. This man is making the point that while they have designated where he lives a forest area, he and his family planted all the rubber trees that the Government claims is a forest.

This is a student from Ramkamhaeng University here to see what was happening.

U-Mong Creek Nature Walk, Chiang Mai

[Saturday Feb. 14, 2009, 9pm Thai time]
Behind Wat Umong (on the south side) is a Wildlife Reserve. There are some birds and deer in cages/enclosures, some picnic areas, and cabins. You can also take the nature trail that is maybe 3 or 4 kilometers round trip.

You can get there two ways.

First (blue trail thru Wat Umong on the map), if you walk through the Wat grounds to the fish feeding lake, turn right and follow the trail around the lake to the other side and then the road out of the Wat grounds. Turn right and go up the hill just a bit into the reserve.

Second, (White route on the map) if you stand at the main entrance to Wat Umong looking out to the street, turn right and right again at the three way corner. Then go until the houses on the right turn into an open country (well, it is fenced in) and the first road on the right has a sign that even says wildlife reserve in English as well as Thai. Go up this road (the one you'd get following first option above.) This road is no more than five minutes by bike from the entrance of Wat Umong.


Once into the reserve grounds, keep walking up the road. You can get to the trail head a couple of ways. We went up the road and then to the right past a place they put out food for the deer.

There were a couple of deer there feeding as we came up the unpaved road.

The trailhead is pretty clearly marked. There's another little sign - you can probably see it better if you double click on the picture - between the two trees on the right. (Tne one on the far right has two trunks veed).

Here's a view a little ways up the trail. There were lots of birds though not really close enough for my little Canon powershot. We did see a pair of black crested bulbuls - striking with their black heads and bright yellow bodies. We saw a large bird of prey circling high above, what I think are malkohas, with their long, long tails, a racket tailed drongo, and some others we couldn't identify. It's the dry season now and leaves were falling from the trees the whole way, which makes it a little easier to find birds in the trees.


The trail isn't too well defined, especially now when the ground is just covered with leaves.

This is thorny tree was about 8 inches in diameter.

And this little butterfly patiently held its wings open as I worked to get it in focus.

This is a nature trail and there are a few signs identifying trees like the one on the right of the picture. That was one way we were certain we were still on the trail. But this was the last sign we saw. The trail got iffier. Eventually we weren't sure if we were on the trail or not and I decided we needed to veer to the right and get down to the creek.

Somehow, as we went right, we found what was clearly the trail again.
It was luck. But it does appear that there is a fence around the reserve (there was one where the trail crosses the creek at the top) so possibly if we'd gone further up, we'd have hit a fence and there was a path along the fence at the creek. But no guarantees. Can you see that there is a trail there to the left of the tree on the picture above? This is near #3 on the map.

Here's J catching some zzz's where the trail crosses the creek.
There's a rock slope that is probably a nice waterfall in a wetter
season than now. Today it was a pretty shallow and mild creek.
This picture and the next several are at #4 on the map above.

The water in the creek was crystal clear. Can you see the shadow of the water spider? It's below and to the right of the center of the picture. It's a cluster of five little dots.

These are the same damsel fly, the one on the left is the true color,
the one on the right you can see more details. It's about 3 or 4 inches long.

For the most part, the many beautiful butterflies were impossible to capture with my camera. But this one was very cooperative and I was fast.

Each of these flowers is about 2.5 inches long.

And here's J showing how big teak leaves get.

And here we're back at the bottom and off the nature trail. This is at #5 on the map.

This sign says, basically, that wild animals of all kinds love life just like you.

And a few blooming flowers at the end of the hike.

This last flower wasn't really on the hike. I saw it on someone's garden wall on the way home. But if I don't stick it in here, where would I put it?

Bangkok Protest Post 1

I'm slowly making sense of what my organization is doing and what the protest in Bangkok on Wednesday was about. I've been working at this since my three month stint here last year so I have a little head start this year. But doing all this stuff in Thai leaves me feeling like when you just wake up and you try to remember a dream. You feel it, but it's just beyond your grasp.

On the bus ride from Kamphaengphet yesterday I tried to write down my understanding of the key land reform issues. I shared this understanding with my boss today and he suddenly had this great idea - to send me a copy of the affiliated groups' objectives in the land reform policy written in English.

I've read some of it and have some thoughts about it, but want to go over it more carefully over the weekend. I think that basically I agree with what they are trying to do and I have confidence that the people I'm working with and those others they are working with whom I haven't met. But I think like any group, they have blindspots because they hang out with people who agree with them fundamentally. Those who disagree are the opponents. But then there are people like me, who are friendly, but don't have all the details they have and so when I read their documents - in English - there are places where I have serious questions.

I'll get to that in a later post. Let me at least start this chronologically to get this protest story out here. We are getting into the field burning season and so the sky has an LA like quality and the sun is a big red ball as it sets in the haze. And it becomes a natural clock that helps me keep some sort of rhythm to track the passing time.


We got into a pickup truck about 5pm and headed south. We had a couple of farmers with us already and were headed to pick up about ten before we headed for the bus. Mr. Delak is in the back on the right. He's the man who demonstrated how to make a cool head covering from his pakima in a previous post.

Off the main highway, we went down little back roads
to get to the villages where the farmers lived.

And then, in my distorted mind, we arrived at a combination of a parking lot and empty lot, where a large bus was waiting. I could imagine this being like UFO believers meeting out in a remote place to go to their rendezvous with the aliens. But we were just gathering together to drive to Bangkok. It was nice to see different familiar faces from Pethabun and the meeting at Wat Pa Dara Phirom.

Every now and then we stopped at gas stations for pit stops.
They all had large bathrooms, pretty clean. Some even had shower facilities.
And dogs lying around in odd places.

As it was getting light in the morning we got into the urban space that is Bangkok.

And finally we pulled up at the Rama V statue at the National Assembly. There were so many people there already. I was thinking this was pretty amazing. But it turned out that most of the people were graduates from last year who were finally having their ceremony and this was the spot to celebrate.

Here's our bus with people pretty much off and the National Assembly in the background.

And here are some of those graduates hamming it up. The red license plate says "Complete 2551." 2551 is last year on the Thai calendar.

And there were lots of vendors to supply people with everything we needed and lots we didn't.

And people waited for the others to arrive. We were from the North.
People were coming from the North East, the South, and Central Thailand.

There were even mechanical bald eagles whose wings flapped.

There were flowers for the graduates.

Who monitors the Charter Agreement with BP and CP?

[Friday, Feb. 13, 2009, 5pm Thai time] I passed on my post Charter for the Development of the Alaska North Slope, which contains a copy of the Agreement, to my Alaska State Representative Berta Gardner on Feb. 3. Three hours later she sent my questions to the Department of Revenue, but wasn't impressed with the response and sent me this message that afternoon:

Well this afternoon I received a packet of "answers" from DOR but they really don't answer your questions.

What did I ask? Well, I'd found and posted BP's 2007 Report on their compliance with the Charter for 2006, which was three pages and said almost nothing, so I asked a few questions, just focused on the Charitable Contributions section. (Other sections probably have even greater consequences and others should be follow those up.)

1. Who monitors these contributions to be sure that they are making the contributions required?
2. How do members of the public find this out?
3. Are they contributing what they are required to contribute?
4. Are they contributing more than they are required to contribute?
5. If not, can either company seriously claim to make charitable contributions? This was simply a business deal, a required cost of doing business in Alaska and not really charitable donations. (Well, I wasn't exactly expecting a technical answer to this one.)
   
6. Who is on these boards and are the meetings announced and public?

Two days later, Feb. 5, 2009, I got this email from Rep. Gardner:

We've decided to ask for "legislative research" report on this. I expect it to take awhile but we'll let you know when we have more info.

Today, I got the following message from Rep. Gardner, that Pete Kelly doesn't think the Charter Agreement is binding.

I think you'll be interested to know that in the University budget subcommittee meeting today, Pete Kelly, the legislative liaison, mentioned the loss of Charters funds from the oil industry. When I asked him about that he said he understood that the donations were not mandatory, that the Charter agreement did not have the force of law.

We do have the legislative research request filed but may have to wait awhile for answers. It's a lower priority than requests having to do with pending legislation.

Rep. Gardner also pointed out that

it was Pete Kelly, not his brother Mike, who is a Representative.

My immediate gut reaction was, well, this is not that kind of blog. It's shocking to think someone believes the charter is voluntary. But then I wondered, who is Kelly the legislative liaison for? This is even more shocking. He represents the University!!! Google got me this bit of information from 2008 UAF Faculty Senate meeting minutes says:

Brian Barnes is working on it in Juneau this week, talking to commissioners, as well as our legislative liaison Pete Kelly, too.

Later Rep. Gardner confirmed he is with the University.

OK, the oil companies earned less money last year, so according to the formulas, the Univeristy will get less money from the agreement. But that doesn't make the agreements voluntary. Maybe I'm wrong, but what was the point of the State signing an agreement with the oil companies outlining conditions for BP's purchase of ARCO if the conditions are not mandatory?

Now, there are some parts of the agreement where the language is fuzzy. The Alaska Hire section, for instance, says, "BP and ARCO agree that . . . they will continue and expand their commitment to the people of Alaska to utilize a voluntary program to employ residents of Alaska and to utilize Alaska busineses." The way they are supposed to implement that is to obey all pertinant laws. Well, they have to do that anyway. The other requirements - advertise in Alaska, etc. - are pretty loose.

But other sections, including the charitable contributions, seem to me to be pretty straight forward with objective measures of whether they achieved their commitments.

Things such as conditions of data availability, access to facilities, purchases from qualified producers, and divestiture of TAPS and feeder pipeline.

And environmental commitments such as cleanup of abandoned sites, of empty barrels, of existing BP and ARCO sites, closure of inactive reserve pits, commitments to North Slope spill response, and on and on.

What's the point of negotiating an agreement such as this if it's just voluntary?

The whole agreement is available at the previous post on this topic.


Now maybe this was just a misunderstanding, but I would hope the University liaison to the legislature doesn't usually leave State Reps understanding something that wasn't what he really said.

Where's Emily Post?

[Feb. 13, 2009, 12:30am Thai Time] "This has to be a hoax" was my first reaction. "This is how bloggers and newspapers get caught up in phony stories."

As I was looking up the Giles case, I found this other post on the New Mandala blog about the Burmese Consul General in Hong Kong's response to an opinion piece about the Rohingya. The Burmese Consulate's letter certainly looks legitimate, but it's hard to believe that a diplomat in this day would write something like this. So I googled a phrase from the letter. There were only six hits. But one is the Bangkok Post.

The rest are blogs. I guess this one is called A Bit More Detail. It cites the whole letter as does Normblog.

With this warning to readers to read this with some skepticism until there is more confirmation, here's an excerpt from the alleged letter:

In reality, Rohingya are neither "Myanmar People" nor Myanmar's ethnic group. You will see in the photos that their complexion is "dark brown". The complexion of Myanmar people is fair and soft, good looking as well. (My complexion is a typical genuine one of a Myanmar gentleman and you will accept that how handsome your colleague Mr. Ye is.) It is quite different from what you have seen and read in the papers. (They are as ugly as ogres.)

New Mandela has a link to what, if it is genuine, is a copy of the letter from the Burmese Consul as well as the opinion piece that seems to have triggered the letter.

If this is true, it needs to be spread so people see what is happening. If it isn't, then the attention should expose it as a fraud.

This URL has been blocked"

[Double click to enlarge]

I got this on my screen for the first time today. I was looking for an audio hosting site. So a court order to block it could make sense. Except that this is clearly a Thai block, so blocking it because it might have some pirated music makes less sense. But what could it have on it for it to be against Thai security? (I would also note that it turned out that my "gangsta" - as Dennis calls it - audio hosting site, jamglue, has relaxed their stringent no embedding policy and so I just used that.)

Which all reminded me of the professor at Thailand's most prestigious university who fled the country rather than go to trial for criticizing the King. But that's another story entirely, or is it?

Of Buses and Song Thaews in Thailand

When I have a ton of photos to download, some video, and lots and lots to write about, I find myself going for the simple posts as a way of avoiding the longer ones. So here are some short comments about Thailand's private bus lines and Song Thaews (the red pickups with two benches in the back that operate as jitneys in Chiang Mai and other places in Thailand).

First, the bus. I'd been told the bus to Chiang Mai left Kamphaengphet at 3pm. When we got to the bus station about 2:50pm a lady came right up to me to ask where I was going. "Chiang Mai." She grabbed me and pulled me to her counter.

"Ok, the bus leaves at 4pm."
"What about the 3pm bus"
"Already gone"
"It's not 3pm yet."

But I've played this game before and I'm thinking. Wait. This is a private bus company. She wants to sell tickets to her bus. Surely there's another company leaving before 4pm. And as I was thinking this, a woman who overheard us said that there's a 3pm bus right there that hasn't left yet. I don't even think she was with the company, just a customer. And sure enough, there was a bus waiting to go. I got my ticket, and much faster than I expected - 4 hours later - the bus was pulling into the the Chiang Mai bus station.


Then, I wasn't off the bus more than 30 seconds when a Song Thaew driver wanted to know where I was going.
"Near Maw Chaw (Mahawithayalai (University of) Chiang Mai)."
"150 Baht."

I just laughed and walked away.

The next hawker was a girl anywhere between 8 and 15 years old. A smooth talker, she started out at 50 Baht. I said 40, which is still a bit high, but for a farang (foreigner) it's sometimes not worth the effort to get it down further. We had fun arguing our positions, but neither of us would budge and I walked away again.

Now a decent looking young man asked where I was going and his first price was 40 Baht. I accepted, but he said he needed to pick up some more fares first. He did have on lady headed to Chiang Mai Gate already. I talked to his wife a bit, who was holding the 8 month old baby and then got some rice and stir fried vegetables to bring home for dinner. I already had some great bammi (yellow noodles) from Kamphaengphet for J. When I came back he had three girls who were looking for a place on Suthep Road (where I was going - it's the southern border of the university) to drink milk they'd heard about. I took this to mean milkshakes.

Anyway, shortly after they got off, I knocked the window and went up front to pay.
"You don't want to enter the campus?"
"No, this is good right here."
"Oh, then I owe you ten baht, it should only be 30 Baht to here."

While this is not unheard of, it isn't too common. I bargain for a good price, but only because I want to be treated fairly and it's a form of entertainment between driver and rider. The 10 baht difference between 50 and 40 means a lot less to me than to the people working hard to make a living driving Song Thaews. So if on a longer ride like this one, they give me a fair price from the beginning, I'm likely to add ten baht at the end. And with him giving me back ten baht, of course, I'm certainly going to reward that sort of behavior.

"Here, keep the ten baht for the baby."

One more good Thai story. In Bangkok, I was standing across the street from the farmers' demonstration to take a picture. I was right in front of the entrance to the zoo when I feel the gentlest of taps of my shoulder. It turned out to be the guard getting me to move a bit so a car could get by. It was such a gentle tap. Just barely enough to feel it. That's how most Thais are. I think about the same situation in the US. It would not have been as respectful and non-threatening.

Happy Birthday Abie Baby [And Charles too]

When I prepared the list of people born 100 years ago in 1909, I didn't think about who was born 200 years ago this year. Well I just noticed what has to be the most famous person born in 1809 - Abraham Lincoln. And while it's getting a little late to celebrate his birthday here in Thailand, there's plenty of time in the Western Hemisphere. So click the yellow arrow:

Happy Birthday Abie Baby by AKRaven

Audio from the Theatre Artists United's production of Hair October 2007 at Out North Theater Anchorage.

And yes, I'm back from Bangkok, just barely with lots to post.

[Update: Friday, Feb. 13, 8:30am Thai time] WOW. Ropi points out that Charles Darwin was also born in 1809 and he is clearly one of those rare people who would challenge Abe Lincoln in term so importance to the world. Not only were they both born in 1809, apparently they were both born on the same day!! February 12. Now that was one remarkable day. And on that day, no one knew how important it would be. Thanks for the heads up Ropi.]

็Headed To Bangkok

[Tuesday, February 10, 2009, 3pm Thai time] This evening the bus with about 50 farmers leaves for Bangkok. We'll get there early tomorrow morning. There will be a demonstration - other farmers will come from other regions and all join in Bangkok - and then tomorrow evening we all get on the bus and return.

It's going to cost about 800 baht (@$23) per person roundtrip on the bus. Someone just delivered the signs they will carry. About 1400 Kilometers (870 miles) round trip I don't totally understand. I asked if it was the right message. They want a property tax next year. And something about the land bank. I'm not allowed to protest, of course, but I do have my camera and I can document the protest. But I'm leaving the computer at home for J to use and I'll just have to find internet cafes.

I checked on whether the bus returns through Kamphaengphet where I was a Peace Corps volunteer and they said yes. So, I'm hoping on the way back I can stop for a day or two.

J wants to stay here and go to her Thai classes which are from 9-12 every day. She missed last Friday, but yesterday was a holiday so she should have been ok for that.

Malaysian Political Blog Sampler

Blogging is a somewhat riskier activity in Malaysia than in the US, but it appears that need to get one's view of the truth out there is a very powerful force. ZDNetasia reported in September:

Malaysian blogger Raja Petra detained

By Lee Min Keong, ZDNet Asia
Friday, September 12, 2008 06:57 PM

KUALA LUMPUR--The Malaysian government Thursday lifted its controversial directive to block access to political portal Malaysia Today but on Friday, police detained the Web site's founder and editor Raja Petra Kamaruddin under the country's internal security laws.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor, confirmed Thursday the Cabinet made the decision on Wednesday to rescind the order. He told reporters at his office in Putrajaya that the move was aimed at encouraging the people to "continue using the Internet as a means to disseminate information".

Malaysia's infocomm technology (ICT) regulator Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) last week ordered all 19 of Malaysia's Internet service providers (ISPs) to block the Malaysia Today Web site.

The minister denied Thursday that the government had caved in under pressure from various groups including former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who had slammed the government's move to block access to the highly popular Malaysia Today.

I'm not sure Petra's situation is today, but his blog Malaysia Today seems to be alive and well.

Sabahan.com a Borneo based blogger, came up with a list of the 50 Top Malaysian bloggers, using Technorati. He writes:

One of the topics that came across my mind last weekend was to compile 100 of the most influential blogs in Malaysia .

I'm not sure why he settled for just 50.


I'm leery of such mechanically generated lists, but Gaman, the blogger's approach is similar to mine: a long list of caveats before offering the content. In this case a long critique of Technorati and evaluation of the pluses and minuses of this approach.

His top 50 doesn't include Raja Petra's blog. Maybe Technorati doesn't consider it a blog technically. I'd prefer something that uses some human evaluation of the blogs, but I was only in Malaysia a couple of days and in no way am capable of that. In any case, if you follow the blogs linked in these blogs, you'll find a whole universe that I'm guessing most of my readers never knew existed.

He says only 16% of the top 50 were political blogs, but he labeled nine of the top 50 'political' which adds up to 18% on my calculator. Those nine blogs are listed and linked below with a taste from each. Naturally, they spend a lot of words on the political crisis in Perak that I mentioned briefly in a previous post where the Sultan replaced the menteri besam on his own, creating a flood of articles in the New Straits Times.



#4 Screenshots This blogger, Jeff Ooi, is now running for parliament. From one of today's posts:

Perak... Battle lost, bigger war to be won

I made a half-day visit to Ipoh yesterday to spend time and exchange opinion with the local folks, and to lend moral support to the people-elected MB Mohd Nizar Jamaludin and his colleagues at the exco.

At the coffee shops shaking legs with the local people, they shared with me some political jokes of the day.

"Do you know why Najib had to come to the Istana twice on February 5 before the new MB was announced?" a guy asked me. I shook my head, listening on in anxiety.

"Najib came in at 9.50am, left at 10.35am, and came back again at 11.21am and left in a hush by 11.34am. Why? Forgot to bring the cheque booklah!"

#10 Rockybru
His profile says he's 47 and a

Journalist, somewhere between veteran and retired. Adviser to the National Press Club. Columnist. Media Strategist. Protem President of the National Alliance of Bloggers (All-Blogs). Working on a first book.

From a Saturday post:

KESETIAAN KEPADA RAJA DAN NEGARA
- the second pillar of our Rukunegara

Is this the Ketuanan Rakyat that we've been promised?
The right to give the Sultan your middle finger and pelt his prince's official car when you don't agree with them. Is that your idea of Ketuanan Rakyat? The right to accuse the HRH of "failing in thinking as a Ruler of his subjects"? [Who the duck is K. Kabilan to pass that kind of judgment on a Sultan, anyway? Read here]. Does Ketuanan Rakyat mean that you leave it to the Sultan to decide but defy him if his decision goes against you? And profess "Daulat Tuanku" only if you think you can use the Sultan to fight for your political battles?

#11 Lim Kit Siang - his blog bio says,

First elected Member of Parliament for Kota Melaka in 1969, Lim Kit Siang is one of the most senior members of the august house.

He posts today:

Shocked and hurt by Karpal’s statement - let the party resolve any differences internally

February 9th, 2009 « 62 Comments »

I am shocked and hurt by DAP National Chairman Sdr. Karpal Singh’s statement yesterday.

Malaysians are scandalized that instead of uniting Malaysians to face the worst global economic crisis for eighty years, the Prime Minister-in-waiting Datuk Seri Najib Razak had done the opposite – frittering away further public confidence in engendering greater national discord by engineering the Perak political crisis in the illegal and unconstitutional grab for power, resulting in the constitutional crisis of two Mentris Besar in Perak.

Perakians are outraged. Malaysians are outraged. The world looks on in disbelief at the political insensitivity and indifference of the Prime Minister-in-waiting on the imperative to restore public confidence at this critical stage of the nation by giving top priority to uniting Malaysians, by actively creating not only a Perak but national political crisis.

#23 Kickdefella
A post today:

Election in Perak, After All

9 02 2009

The Rakyat of Perak will have the chance to prove which MB do they actually want. Barisan National has been working hard and utilised all the dirty tricks they known but they can never go against God’s will.

In a change of event, Member of Parliament of Bukit Gantang passed away this morning paving way for a showdown between Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional.

And here's a January post that shows that Malaysian Muslims can take independent stands:

Gaza

10 01 2009

Dangling To The Truth

I still remember when I had a brief fight with UMNOPutras in front of Masjid Wilayah almost three years ago. They laid on the stairs the Israel flag and force every Muslim who went there to perform their Friday prayer to step on it.

When it came to my turn, I refused to step on it and asked them to remove the flag to make way for me to walk pass them. They were very upset and accused me for not having any sympathy towards my Muslim brothers and sisters.

I snapped and point my finger towards one of them and shouted, “My God does not teach me to hate his creations. What you are doing is politically incorrect and not what Muhammad wanted from his ummah!”

For me, the mother of all the problems in West Bank ( and Gaza) is not lies with the Israeli’s people or the American leadership. It lies deep beneath the heart of our Muslim Leaders. The problem in West Bank (and Gaza) is the reflection of how the Muslim Countries had failed to perform their part in this World. With God’s given blessing and flourished with Petrol Dollar, yet what had they achieved?

I am not amused with The United States of America failure to solve the problem in Palestine, neither am I amused with the Government of Israel’s orchestrated attacks on the Palestinian men, women and children. Indeed I understood their actions.

What amused me is how weak the Muslim World is despite controlling the world’s most valuable commodity. What ashamed me is how we go begging to the US to solve our problem.

I wish to see before this episode end, that we the Malaysian people would march to the embassy of Saudi Arabia, the Embassy of Egypt, Jordan and the Headquarters of OIC and slam them with tonnes of protest notes. They are the one who are responsible to protect their Muslim brothers and that duty does not lie on the hand of the Americans.

#30 The Scribe A Kadir Jasin
His bio:

I was born in 1947 in Kedah. I came from a rice farming family. I have been a journalist since 1969. I am the Editor-in-Chief of magazine publishing company, Berita Publishing Sdn Bhd. I was Group Editor NST Sdn Bhd and Group Editor-in-Chief of NSTP Bhd between 1988 and 2000. I write fortnightly column “Other Thots” in the Malaysian Business magazine.

From yesterday:

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Karpal Wants New Leader For Pakatan

A Kadir Jasin

[ANONYMOUS comments with not be entertained. When commenting, your real identity is preferred. But a suitable pseudonym is accepted. If you have to use anonymous, please print your name or pen name at the bottom of your message. Please avoid seditious, defamatory and libelous statements. Unrelated comments will not be given priority.]

[UPDATE, Feb. 9]

1. Malaysiakini reported that the DAP secretary-general, Lim Guan Eng, has backed Anwar Ibrahim as Parliamentary opposition leader as well as the leader of Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

2. The Pas Bukit Gantang Member of Parliament, Roslan Shaharum , died this morning at 50. In last March general elections, Roslan defeated the Barisan Nasional heavyweight, the Umno Treasurer Abdul Azim Zabidi, by a majority of 1,566 votes, polling 20,015 votes against Azim’s 18,449 votes.

3. Kedah Menteri Besar Azizan Abdul Razak today announced that Exco member V Arumugam of PKR has relinquished his Exco post but will continue as Bukit Selambau state assemblyman.

[Original Post]

THAT the DAP’s strongman, Karpal Singh, lashed out at the Barisan Nasional and blamed the BN for practising the game of defections is only to be expected. . .

A Friday post is in Malay:

Friday, February 06, 2009

Kurangkan Politik Pesatkan Rangsangan Ekonomi

A Kadir Jasin

BANYAK pembahas berasa gusar kerana kita nampaknya terlalu banyak menumpukan masa, tenaga dan sumber kewangan kepada politik. Mereka meminta saya mengulas mengenai ekonomi.

Sebelum itu, kita terpaksa terima hakikat, iaitu apabila kita menabur angin -- dengan tersilap membuat perkiraan politik, sama ada politik dalam parti atau antara parti --maka kita hendaklah bersedia menuai badai. . .

#34 Susan Loone

This seems to be the only female political blogger on the list. In a post called Why I Blog, Loone, curently Bangkok based, writes:

Why I blog, ah? — the answer is “saje-lah” - the Malay word for “simply”.

But seriously, I started to think of blogging when my editor(s) said something like this” “if you want to write as you like, and not get your stuff edited or censored, start your own website”.

Well, as more and more of my stories get censored even by so-called independent media under the guise of “clarity, brevity, balance and fairness, here i am.

The focus of this blog initially was to be on human rights or the “in-human” part of it, hence the tagline “in-human rights“.

Politicians in Asia often legitimise their disregard for human rights by saying “human rights is a Western concept”. How wrong could they be. Human rights are for all, the only language that transcends all human barriers - whether it is race, religion, ideology or simply social status. Beyond all, human rights? is a birth right. . .

From yesterday:

Kedah is next?

Posted in CORRUPTION, FILES: PERAK, MALAYSIAN MADNESS, OPPOSITION POLITICS on February 8, 2009 by sloone

That’s what I’ve been hearing. Rumours abound, what with BN looking for more ‘victims’ and willing cross overs.

Kedah is vulnerable, too. They say, Kedah is next to come crumbling down, just like Perak. And so is every Pakatan Rakyat state.

The PR lot better look closer at their people. But serve them right, too, for always being so boisterous whenever there is a cross over from BN - whether UMNO, Gerakan, or MCA.

People say ‘padan muka’. Because what do you expect? Once a frog, always a frog. Read more »

#41 RantingsbyMM

From a couple of his posts on Friday:

Friday, February 6, 2009

Let's Read the Quran: More Updates

For a slightly different view of the Quran, read Jordan McVay's post here.

Jordan is a Canadian who is a convert to Islam, married to a Malaysian girl and now lives in KL.

For those who might be wondering what the Quran says about Hudud, do read what Syed Akbar Ali has to say here.

And Nizam Bashir blogs about what the Quran says about modesty here.

Hypocrisy rules the world

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

When I heard this quote yesterday at the Forum for Palestine, it gave me reason to ponder. To me, this quote is also a call to end hypocrisy and selective justice, that is, deciding that only some cases call for justice and others don't. That discrimination can only be called hypocrisy and hypocrisy is in abundance right now.

What else could it be when both Britain and the US calls for an immediate ceasefire to the fighting in northern Sri Lanka in order to allow humanitarian aid for the more than 250,000 civilians trapped between Government forces and the LTTE? They had not done the same for Gaza, and when they finally did, laid down conditions only for one side, that is, the Palestinians. . .

#42 Harapan Maru Untuk Malaysia - This is long time politician Anwar Ibrahim's blog, mostly in Malay. From AnwarIbrahim.com:

Anwar Ibrahim is the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia and is currently the de facto leader of Keadilan, the People’s Justice Party. After a distinguished career in public service he was unjustly removed from office and endured six years in solitary confinement on trumped-up charges. In 2004 those charges were dismissed and he resumed his campaign to build a prosperous, democratic and just Malaysia.

He's now running for Prime Minister according to his Facebook page. From today on the blog:

Selamat Menyambut Hari Thaipusam

By Anwar Ibrahim 56 Comments

Categories: Anwar, Catatan, Demokrasi, Hebahan and Isu Semasa

Thaipusam diraikan oleh penganut agama Hindu bersempena lahirnya Dewa Murugan, juga apabila ibunya Dewi Parvati memberikan lembing buat menghapus kejahatan yang dikenal sebagai Soorapadman.

Kejahatan dan kebejatan Soorapadman semakin hari semakin melampau kerana dia merupakan raksasa yang berkuasa. Ini membuatkan Siva mengarahkan Murugan; yang terkenal cekal, tabah dan bijak mengalahkan rakasasa tersebut. . .

#50 Aisehman.org

Umno Bapa Penderhakaan

9 February 2009 | 155 Views | View blog reactions

UMNO pembela kedaulatan Raja-Raja Melayu?

Please, lah.

Masihkah kau ingat? UMNO protesting the Terengganu Sultan’s decision last year to reject Idris Jusoh as the state’s Menteri Besar. Melayu UMNO memang mudah lupa.

Where was UMNO when the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan kena saman by a bank the other day?

UMNO was nowhere.

Where was UMNO when the Sultan of Terengganu/Yang di-Pertuan Agong refused to accept Idris Jusoh as the Menteri Besar?

[From Wikipedia:

The United Malays National Organisation, or UMNO, (Malay: Pertubuhan Kebangsaan Melayu Bersatu), is a right-wing party and Malaysia's largest political party; a founding member of the Barisan Nasional coalition, which has been Malaysia's ruling political party since independence. It is known for being a major proponent of Malay nationalism, Islamism and capitalism, which holds that the Malay are the "definitive" people of Malaysia and, thus, deserve special privileges as their birthright than any other race in Malaysia.]

More Interesting Google Searches (Nov 2008-Jan2009)

I try to keep track of some of the more interesting google (or other search engine) terms people use to get to this blog. I thought I'd lost a lot. It turned out I was saving them on two different pages with the same name in different places.

• free lebows making out and eating each other - I have no idea what this person was looking for, but I don't think it was to learn about what Victor Lebow thought about consumerism. Though that continues to be one of the most popular pages.

• hawk milk chocolate brown with white spots - this one maybe got what she was looking for. It went to the page of the Northern Hawk Owl flying into the window.
  

• how to tell the age of moose - I didn't have this answer on the page (or any other) that talked about narratives people have about wild animals in town.
  
  
• the neighbors have linksys too how do i know what one is mine - This person should have gotten what she sought on the hijacked linksys router post.
  
• what do army think of peace corps - sorry, didn't have that answer on the page the person got on a returned peace corps volunteer dinner.
  
• sex porno ropi- I saved this for you Ropi. I didn't know you were a porn start too. This person got the post on Eliot Spitzer.
  
• members of congress with obsessive-compulsive - This one got to How Many Black Members of Congress, but it didn't have such specific information. This one also gets a fair number of hits.
  
  
• how get wire across two buildings - if this person read the whole post on the movie Man on Wire he would have gotten the answer - use a bow and arrow.
  
  
• when is peter's sushi opened (from Tennessee) - This person surely was disappointed to learn that since the fire peter's sushi isn't open ever.
  
• famous people born in 2009 may 13 - I'm afraid my page on famous people born in 1909 doesn't include people who haven't been born yet. Here are a couple more ways people got to that page:
  
  
• first born famous people - interesting question, but I didn't have that information in the post
  
  
• known famous people - as opposed to, what, unknown famous people? It's easy to be flip like that, but if I think a little I can usually find an explanation. Maybe he was just being careful hoping to find at least one of the terms.
  
  
• why was the vice president oath longer than the presidential oath when the vice present doesn't do as much? - I didn't notice, but it's a good question. And the post on the duties of the vice president, the most popular in the last month (seems like there most be a lot of school assignments on this topic) won't help.
  
  
• why are the requirements for president and vice president the same - again, no answer on the vice presidential duties post for this person. How about using a little logic?
  
  
• what do wolves do in the morning - got to morning snacks. Definitely didn't get the answer there.
  
• give me an arugment that oil and gas won't effect who - Is this a school assignment? This one got to the AGIA post.
  
  
• conocophillips 2008 donations - this hit came from a Shell Services International ISP and got to a page that has some of that information, the one asking what made Conocophillip Employees Volunteers so Atypical?
  
  
• istj's in fbi - This one got to the post on the first, redacted version of Chad Joy's complaint where I speculated that if Joy was an istj it would explain some of his behavior. Out of curiosity I checked to see what else this person found in her google search and I learned that a high percent of government and law enforcement employees were istj.
  
  
• how long does it usually take for the fbi to come to someones house - Mary Beth, Chad? You want to answer this? I didn't have the answer. Not sure which post that mentioned the FBI this person got.
  
  
  
• yeti skin lere ozel blogspot 2007 anal seven - This one is from Ankara, Turkey. Catherine, is this something that can be published in polite company? They got to a post on the Anchorage restaurant Yak and Yeti ,
  Not what he was looking for I suspect.
  

We're Back in Chiang Mai

We made it back. It seemed fairly cool compared to the humidity of KL. We walked from the airport to the Vegetarian buffet place, but as I feared, it was closed because today is Macha Bucha, a Buddhist holiday. So then we flagged a song thaew home. We got here for this religious ceremony last year, so you can see the video from our closest Thai wat.

From DiscoveryThailand.com

One of the most important Buddhist celebrations - Macha Bucha Day falls on the full moon day of the third lunar month. Not particularly a festival, Macha Bucha is a Buddhist holy day and marks a point in history when 1,250 of the Lord Buddha's followers gathered to hear his sermon. Macha Bucha Day is a day when worshipers to walk three times around temples in a bid to make merit.

Since it's a holiday, they said no one would be in the office. I'm not complaining. But I do have to find out where we are meeting with the farmers to get the bus to Bangkok tomorrow night.

Art Matters - An Xioatong

Which door would you go through? J wanted to go to the hotel across the street from the train station to find a bathroom. Both the Hilton and Meridian hotels are in the same building. We walked up from the parking lot and had this choice.




I don't know about you, but I couldn't resist the one with the art. But maybe I'm just weird.




I did check out the Hilton too. It had some neat fish, but when I took out my camera a guard told me 'no pictures.' Hmmmm. No pictures in a hotel lobby? What if you want pictures of your friends while you have a drink in the lobby? The Meridian wins this round.

Kuala Lumpur 9 - Sunday Trip to Klang

Sunday we went to Klang, a small town along the railroad line to the port on the coast. Why? Well, when I first started blogging and was checking out random blogs on blogspot, I happened to hit on Josh's blog. (It's also linked on the right under blog friends.) (Ropi, one day we'll make it to Budapest, or you to Alaska.) It was a post where he was in class waiting for his boring stats class to be over. I made some comment about the importance of stat and not to let a bad teacher get in the way. Since then I've checked his blog regularly and we became blog friends. So I emailed him when I realized we were headed to KL and he invited us to visit Klang.


Here's the train ride to Klang. There was a big Indian festival this weekend and I think these folks were coming back from celebrating. The paper today says that over one million people went out to the caves for the festivities.

Well, there's Klang and the Port of Klang. In my mind, he lived at the port. Maybe because that was on the map I looked at to find out where Klang was when we first connected. Then we realized on the train there was also a plain Klang. He said it would take over an hour to get there and it was only about 40 minutes. Should we get out in Klang or go to the port? We stayed on, but then decided to get off at the next stop. Now what? I saw a lady coming into the station talking on her cell phone. So I asked if she could call Josh's number. He said no problem, he'd be by to pick us up shortly. So, this is the lady who lent us her phone. Then we didn't know what to do about the tickets. They were the electronic kind you put into the entrance and exit. We were further than Klang. She laughed and said, "No problem" and showed us that the gate next to the ticket exit wasn't locked and we could just walk through. There was no staff at the station.

vHere is where we waited, under the road bridge that crosses the RR lines. That's the end of the station where we went through the open gate to get out.

oAnd this is the Chinese temple across the street from the exit.

They came to pick us up real quick and took us to a restaurant for the local speciality - Bah Kut Teh. This is Josh and his Mom. He had two friends along too - Mervin (sp?) and XinXin. They had been teaching Sunday school, gone home to change and pick us up. It was sort of strange - the idea that we were meeting this person we knew from the internet, but he said "Your personality is exactly what I expected." I felt the same.

We dropped Josh's mom off at home and then Mervin and Josh took us around to see a bit of Klang. It was sort of strange because about a week after I 'met' Josh online, I met a Philosophy professor at UAA who was also from Klang. So there was a greater meaning to this town.

Josh kept apologizing that there was nothing in Klang to do. That they would go to KL to do things. He was only home for the weekend from school. Both Josh and Mervin are looking to go overseas to school. Mervin probably to Australia - though Canada also calls him. His parents met in Alberta while students there. Josh is hoping to go to the US. Both are interested in journalism and mass communications. So they took us where they would go - to Baskin Robbins.

I asked the server what the most popular flavor was. Jamoca Almond Fudge. So I had that in my cone.

And this certificate guaranteed it was halal.
(you can double click the pictures to enlarge them. This one isn't too clear.)

Here's a very nice housing estate in Klang, near the Sultan's palace.

And here's the Sultan's palace. each of the 14 provinces of Malaysia has a Sultan, I think. I don't know enough to say too much here. But the newspaper the last couple of days has been full of news because the Sultan in Perak has fired the head of the government there and appointed someone else. The first guy says he's still the head since he wasn't voted out with a vote of no confidence. The paper must have had 10 different articles on the topic. I asked one person who just shook her head and said she was embarrassed.


Here we are at the gate to the Sultan's palace. If I understood correctly, he doesn't live here, but they do have ceremonies.

We left from the proper Klang station after a delightful afternoon, meeting in person some interesting people. We had no problem communicating - Josh said English is his first language, then there's Cantonese, and Malaysian. I'd like to put in some links to explain more about Sultans and Klang, but I don't know when they're going to tell us to board. The windows are all fogged up. Don't think it is raining quite so hard any more.

Kuala Lumpur 8 - KL Tour Saturday - Miscellaneous

[Monday, Feb. 9, 2009 at KL airport for our way too early flight back to Chiang Mai] They have free wi-fi at the LCC (Low Cost Carrier) airport in Kuala Lumpur. But otherwise, this airport is not quite ready for prime time. But it's fine. And they have free wi-fi.


Back to Saturday's tour. We got out of the bird park and rode past the National Mosque. Someone explained later that there is a boycott against buying US products because of US support for Israel.




I forgot this building was and I'm trying to get these up and out before we walk out to the plane. It's raining fairly hard and we have to walk out onto the tarmac to board the plane. We have some time still, so maybe it will stop.

This is in an area of KL called Chow Kit.

More Chow Kit.

We got off the bus and wandered down to an Arabian/Yemeni restaurant. J wasn't too excited. Probably the meat dishes were tastier. It was pretty bland after all the spicy Thai and Malay food. But they were very nice and I was stuffed.

The Arabian restaurant is on the right. They put us downstairs, but there were all these people coming and going to the upstairs. It turned out there was a balcony there where people could smoke. From there we could see some excitement. the traffic was being rerouted, so we went to see what was happening.

It was a big Chinese New Years celebration. The street was blocked off, there were bigwigs. One guy came by shaking hands with people behind the barricades. We have no idea who he was. Here is some music and singing. Maybe, I'll get some video up, but don't hold your breath.

Kuwaiti Ibrahim and his Dad were also waiting for the parade. They offered us some food but we'd just eaten and I was way too full.

Lots of Lions and dragons.

And we eventually made our way home. I went back across the street to the tourist office to post and this lady was sitting next to me doing her Arabic homework.

Kuala Lumpur 6 - KL Tour Saturday Bird Park

[Stlll Sunday evening Feb. 7, 2009 Malaysia time]

The bird park was a short walk from the butterly park. Most of it was covered in mesh like the butterfly park.

This was a place to get your picture taken with the birds. I never thought of owls as being trainable before. And later in the bird show they had a Brahminy Kite doing tricks.

Emu. (J's here - I'm back at the visitor center across the street
from the hotel using the wifi - and we're going to eat so I'm going finish this quick.

The bird show.

Wasn't exciting enough to keep everyone awake.

There were lots of storks and I think this one thought my camera case was a fish bag.

And there were a number of peacocks showing off.

Kuala Lumpur 6 - KL Tour Saturday Butterfly Park

We got off the bus again at the Butterfly Park. I'd been here before and really love the ambiance. A giant green area covered by a screen of sorts. Inside lots of flowers and butterflies.

Here's what it looks like - just lots of green.


No these aren't butterflies, but they're much easier to catch with a camera and they were in the park. These two were each about 30 inches long.



Here they had pineapple out and the butterflies loved it. They didn't mind photographers coming up real close.






They also had a museum inside with other insects. J wasn't excited and wouldn't even look at the mass of centipedes. I thought it was very cool, including the giant walking sticks. And the displays of beetles and butterflies. But I'll spare you.

Kuala Lumpur 5 - KL Tour Saturday

[Sunday, Feb. 7, 8pm Malaysia Time] Yesterday we spent the day on the Hop On/Hop Off bus. A person we met on the monorail the first day recommended it. It was a good way to get a sense of the whole of KL, but probably a little pricey and we could have taken cabs and trains etc. for considerably cheaper. Since I'd been here before - about 5 years ago for a conference - I had a reasonable sense of things. But all in all it was fine.

I'm going to try to break this down into different parts of the day. After the roti breakfast - see previous post - we walked through a small urban forest to the KL Tower where we were going to catch the Hop-on Hop-off bus. You can start anywhere and pay on the bus. We ran into this guy who is doing a report on how the Bukit Nanas area of KL contributes to tourism. He'd been taking lots of pictures of the park. Including a picture of us tourists. So I took his picture.

On the top of the hill, well, almost the top, is a campground, and these girls had camped there that night in tents. I was pretty impressed that we were in a pretty thick forest right in the middle of KL. But it wasn't quiet. The researcher told us to be careful on the path because the "monkeys like to pass urine" from above. We didn't see any monkeys there, but saw lots at the bird park.



This is an Australian nurse we met waiting for the bus. You can get on and off all day. We'd gotten off to go to Low??? Plaza - a big electronic shopping mall - to see if I could get a back up battery for my camera. I'd forgotten to recharge mine and it was flashing. After rejecting the Canon battery as too expensive, we ended up with a generic version for less than what eBatt wanted with shipping. And, it had enough charge in it to get me through the day. When we got back to the bus stop we talked to this nurse who was headed to Ho Chi Minh City for two weeks to train nurses and doctors in emergency stroke care.



Here we were driving through China town and they had a dragon dance going on. It's the tail end of the Chinese New Years and yesterday was a big day for celebrating it in KL>

Kuala Lumpur 4 - Roti

[This post and the previous two posted Saturday, Feb. 7, 2009 around 10:30pm Malaysia Time - which is one hour ahead of Thai time, so it gets dark about an hour later]

Joan wanted to see what snacks they had at Temptations, one of the hotel restaurants last night.

The Indian chef Yodesh (I think that was his name) was
teaching one of the Chinese chefs how to make a roti.

So they insisted that we taste it.

This morning we passed up the 44 Ringget buffet for another roti in a little Indian shop cooked with egg and served with a delicious sauce. Joan got tea and I got water. 7.50 ringget for the two of us. It was delicious.

[Update Feb. 9] Wikipedia tells us more about this

Roti canai (pronounced "chanai," not "kanai") is a type of flatbread found in Malaysia, often sold in Mamak stalls. It is known as roti prata in Singapore, and is a close descendant of Kerala porotta. . .

Malaysianfood.net has a recipe. But the chef at the hotel said it took three months to master.

After looking at about six roti cannai videos, I think this one gives the best overall picture of how they are made. So, no, this is NOT my video. It was posted by rustyanalog.

Kuala Lumpur 3 - More Petronas Towers Pics

Those little white dashes at 5 o'clock and 8:30 around the moon are bats.

Looking up.

This one is this afternoon when it was still light out.

And this is the giant shopping mall inside.

From Greatbuldings.com:

ArchitectA	Architect: Cesar Pelli
Location	Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia map
Date	1998 timeline
Building Type	skyscraper, commercial office tower
Construction System	glass, steel, and concrete
Climate	tropical
Context	urban
Style	Modern
Notes	Tapering twin towers (connected by a sky bridge) share an Islamic-influenced geometrically polygonal plan. Featured extensively in "Entrapment", a cool action movie starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Kuala Lumpur 2 - Pictures from Yesterday

This is our pretty empty Air Asia flight from Chiang Mai to Kuala Lumpur. I hope they start getting people on the plane or they'll consider cutting this flight.

The Malaysian coast line.

The bus into town from the airport.

Palm plantations along the road from the airport.

We got in at the LCC (Low Cost Carrier) airport.
(As I'm post this I can hear the fireworks from where we were earlier
tonight at the Chinese Festival. Will post a bit on that in the next day or two.)

The bus got us into Sentral (Malaysia spelling is a lot easier to figure out than Thai) Station and then we took the monorail to the hotel. It began raining while we were on the monorail. We waited with the motorcycle drivers for about ten minutes until it was over.

This is the view from our room, pasted together with six photos, not using photoshop. The red roofed low buildings in front are the Malaysian visitors and information center, right across the street from the hotel, where I'm sitting now using their wifi. And where they had great music last night. If I find time I'll post some video.

These are the Petronas Twin towers. At one time it was the highest building in the world. Now I guess they claim it as the highest twin towers. At night it really was spectacular. The white lighting against the dark sky was pretty impressive. My pictures just don't do it justice. This is two pictures badly put together.

Kuala Lumpur

Everything went well today. The plane left a bit late but we made it to KL with no problem. There was a decent bus into town from the airport (about $2 (9 ringit) for 60 minute direct ride)- not the spectacular airport, but the LLC (low cost carrier) airport 20 kilometers further out. We walked down steps out of the plane into the tropical, humid heat. We haven't had that sort of weather in Chiang Mai yet, so it was a bit of a surprise. But nice to be embraced by the atmosphere.

On the bus I sat next to a Dutch student who was finishing up his 6 months management internship here in KL. From the bus we took the monorail to the hotel. An expat was giving us advice on the train and then an Indian told us about the Hindu festival taking place this weekend. We waited a few minutes for the downpour to end, then crossed the street to our giant Renaissance Hotel. Not quite our normal style, but there was a good deal on the internet and it has a big pool. And if you stay at little hotels you get free wifi, but at the big hotels (this one is a Marriot) you have to pay for internet.

It turns out that right across the street is a big tourist info and Malaysian cultural center. And they have free internet and wifi. So, all is well.

I got to read from my book The Man Without Qualities by Richard Musil. I'm warning you now that I'm going to be telling you about this book over the next few months as I read it.

More later.

Tamarind (Macaam) and Rose Apple (Chompoo)

I've had some of the tamarind มะขาม pictures since the Petchabun trip where we bought them at the orchard. After the meeting in Petchabun, we drove to Ping's family's house which is also in Petchabun, about 40 minutes away. Ping took several us down the road to a tamarind orchard - above - where we bought three kilo bags of fresh, ripe tamarind seeds for 100 Baht (about $3) (below.) The link says what Thais have told me - the best tamarind comes from Petchabun.


Tootsie roll chewy
Tamarind dark, tangy taste
Hiding big brown seeds



These seeds look big, but remember, five or six are inside each 'fruit'. I'd say they were adult molar size. Imagine if we had dark brown teeth. Then everyone would think white teeth would look strange.



These are serious seeds, beautiful in their own right, begging to be used again. Necklace? Monopoly pieces? You could display a grain of rice on one. Or miniature toy blocks. Too beautiful to throw away. You could even plant them and grow trees. [Update: Click to see the seedlings we got from a few of these seeds.]

















The Chompoo. A drink you can eat. So full of liquid fruit. Wet like a watermellon with the texture of a solid bell pepper. Cold Chompoo on a hot day. You couldn't ask for more.






The Chompoo , called Rose Apple by some in English. Chompoo (ชมพู่) sounds a lot like the word for 'pink' in Thai, but the tone for 'poo' is different.

Mr. Delak Shows Me How To Make a Hat with a Pakima

Mr. Delak (I'm messing up the spelling, but I'm trying to be consistent) is a farmer our program works with. Last year I met him when I went with Doc to his village and we spent the night at his place. Since then I've met him a number of times.

But yesterday was the first time I saw him on this trip. We chatted about a number of things. He has a tiny shop open now in Chiang Mai, if I understood correctly, where he sells his organic vegetables. He had his pakima on his head in a unique (to me anyway) style, so I asked how he did that. He showed me:

Headed for Malaysia

So, if you are a US citizen (when people ask where I'm from here, I say "Obama Land" and always get a good response) you get 30 days on your passport when you fly in. As I said in an earlier post, that used to be true if you come in overland too. But that changed to only 15 days. So we decided to take a mini-vacation and fly out of the country. Vietnam, our first choice, was out because we need visas and there wasn't time to do that. So we figured we'd go to Luang Prabang in Laos. There's a non-stop flight from Chiang Mai. It's not far. But that turned out to be THB18,000 for the two of us or about $515. And since we've been there once I decided to look for other flights from Chiang Mai out of the country. Air Asia had a flight to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for THB12,560 or $360 for the two of us. It ended up almost $400 because my credit card wouldn't work on line and I had to go to the airport and their price was higher.

I eventually, thanks to Thaivisa.com, figured out how to call the US collect from my Thai cell phone (Dial 00199911111) to check on my credit card. They said they block overseas air and hotel reservations to prevent fraud if you don't warn them in advance now. Fortunately there was an ATM nearby. My credit card is working again.

So that's where we're headed tomorrow (Friday in Thailand) and we'll come back Monday. Then Tuesday night I'll go to Bangkok with my office as the leaders prep for a meeting with the Prime Minister and the farmers prepare to demonstrate if they aren't satisfied with the meeting. AJWS doesn't allow volunteers to take part in political action like that, but I can be around and take pictures. Monday is a holiday in Thailand, so J only misses one day of her Thai class. Which has about 18 men and much smaller number of women. According to her, most, if not all, of the men in class have Thai girlfriends. And some of the women have Thai boyfriends.

And when I got home with the tickets J told me her classmates said you can extend your passport for 30 days near the airport for about THB1000 each. Maybe in March we'll do that.

Learning To Type in Thai on a Mac - aTypeTrainer4Mac

[Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009, 10pm Thai Time] Last year I got Thai letters to stick on my keyboard, but typing was slow and painful. They pretty much wore off during the year and then disappeared completely when I got my keyboard replaced. I got new, clear sticky letters when we got here this year. But today I found a simple typing tutor for the Mac.

aTypeTrainer4Mac 2.1

About aTypeTrainer4Mac
A multilingual typing tutor for Mac OS X. It is an advanced version of TypeTrainer4Mac. All of the system keyboard layouts (but not input methods!) as well as a wide variety of non-system keyboard layouts (i.e. Dvorak, Colemak or custom layouts being built using Ukelele) are completely or partially supported.

It has a bunch of languages and it's free. At first I was confused because it seemed to only have English. But as soon as I switched my keyboard to Thai, the program also switched.It's on the official Apple.com website and it's working already.



The languages listed are:

Level 06 has me typing all the lower case letters on the middle row, plus a couple on the next row up. Since Thai has 44 consonants and about 20 more vowels, the upper case isn't for capital letters (there aren't any), it's the rest of them. I don't understand why they have the Thai numbers one number off from the English numbers. That would have made things a lot easier if they were the same. But that's not this program's problem.




I even had a couple Thais who hunt and peck start playing with it.

[Update, March 13, 2009 Thai time: There was a bit of a problem once I got up to higher levels. You can see the problem in the picture above. Thai has letters and tone marks ่ and ้ that go above other letters. And some parts of letters like ำ are over the previous letter. That caused problems in the typing tutor because parts of the tone marks got cut off and it was hard to see them, and the ˚ from ำ showed up with the previous letter. If it was the first letter in a series, you just saw the า which, by itself, is a different letter.

So I sent Valentin, the creator of this program, an email explaining this. He wrote back that it was an issue of the Thai alphabet. But the other day I got another email from him with a link to download a beta version that solves the problems I had raised. It's nice when people are competent and motivated. I'm not sure he's made the switch yet to the new version, but if you get this program and you have the problem I described, ask him for the new version. Thanks Valentin.]

Border Runs and Printing

Next Wednesday we'll have been in Thailand 30 days. That means we have to make a border run to get another 30 days. But they've changed the law, effective last December, and now if you come into Thailand overland, you only get 15 days. You have to fly in to get 30 days. You can also get a 60 day visa if you are outside Thailand. So we're looking at trips out of Thailand. Our ideal is Vietnam which is close by and we've never been there. But next week the office is headed for Bangkok. Several leaders of organizations such as ours have a meeting with the new Prime Minister to talk about how the new land reform policy will be written. The meetings in Petchabun and at Wat Pa Dara Phirom focused on those issues. (I haven't written about the content of those meetings because I'm still a little iffy about what all was decided.) In any case, they expect not to get all they want and so a demonstration is planned for next Tuesday and Wednesday. Plus J has begun her Thai classes - three hours a day for three weeks, so we don't want her to miss a lot of class. I'm looking to see if we can go this weekend (since Monday is a holiday) and then she won't miss class.

To add to all this, JB, who worked in the MPA program at UAA for years and still works in the College of Business and Public Affairs, is coming to Thailand for her son's wedding on Feb. 14 in Ubon. We'd love to join them, but it's a 15 hour bus ride each way. On top of the trip to Bangkok and getting 30 more days, I just don't think we or I are going to make it.


If we fly to Vietnam, we have to go to Bangkok first. The only place out of Thailand that I've been able to find that we can fly to from here is Luang Prabang, Laos. We've been there and like it, but wanted some place we haven't been. So, we'll see.

And today I finally figured out how to print from my computer thru the wifi. Much easier than using a flashdrive to print. Thank you to the University of Baltimore Law Library which got us most of the way with their instructions on how to hook up in their library from Leopard.

Charter for the Development of the Alaska North Slope

When I wrote a post about the Conoco-Philips ads in the ADN some time ago, the "Charter Agreement" came up and I wrote:

I also know that CP makes other contributions to the community such as $100,000 to the Museum in 2007. And there was a $3.68 million gift to the University of Alaska also in 2007. But we need to put an * on that. The University of Alaska press release on the gift also says,

The annual gifts stem from a charter agreement between the oil companies and the state regarding the BP merger with ARCO in the late 1990s. Part of the charter agreement identifies public higher education as a top priority for charitable donations . . .

So a minimum amount of contribution is required by this Charter Agreement that was a condition for the BP-ARCO merger. I called Scott Goldsmith, the author of the ISER report, to find out how to get access to the Charter Agreement.He wasn't sure if he ever actually saw a copy, but said he'd check for it tomorrow. [Update: I also called UAA Advancement and later the UA Foundation called and said they would find the Agreement and email it to me .] On the internet, nearly all references I find about BP or ConocoPhillips contributions to the University have that standard clause in them.

Well, a few days later, I got an email from the University of Alaska Foundation with a copy of the charter. But we were in high gear preparing to go to Thailand and what with the traveling and getting into things here, I didn't get around to posting that agreement. (It's down below) I haven't had a chance to study the whole charter, but I expect there is plenty to chew on.

For the time being, let's just look at the part that discusses community charitable contributions:

D. Community Charitable Commitment. Within three months after the merger is completed, BP and ARCO [what BP wasn't allowed to buy of ARCO because it would have given BP monopolistic power in Alaska eventually became Conoco-Philips if I got this right] will establish a charitable entity dedicated to funding organizations and causes within Alaska. The entity will provide 30% of its giving to the University of Alaska Foundation and the remainder to general community needs. Funding decisions by the entity will be made by BP and ARCO, with the advice of a board of community advisors. BP and ARCO will provide ongoing funding to this entity in an amount that is equal to 2% of BP's and ARCO's combined aggregate net Alaska liquids production after royalty times the price for WTI. Specific entity funding levels will be calculated annually on the same date each year, referencing the liquids production and the average NYMEX WTI prompt month settlement price for the 12 months immediately proceeding the calculation.

So here are some questions I have:

1. Who monitors these contributions to be sure that they are making the contributions required?
2. How do members of the public find this out?
3. Are they contributing what they are required to contribute?
4. Are they contributing more than they are required to contribute? (If not, can either company seriously claim to make charitable contributions? This was simply a business deal, a required cost of doing business in Alaska and not really charitable donations.)
5. Who is on these boards and are the meetings announced and public?

A quick Google search got me to the BP website. Searching there for charter agreement I got a copy of the 2007 annual report on the Charter Agreement for 2006. It is four lines over four pages - for the whole charter agreement. Plus a cover letter to Governor Sarah Palin. The part on charitable giving says this:

COMMUNITY CHARITABLE GIVING

The BP Board of Community Advisors met in February, 2006, at which time they
reviewed 2005 community spend [sic] and plans for 2006.

BP spent more than $10.2 million in support of community programs in 2006,
consistent with the formula detailed in the Charter.

Approximately $3 million was contributed to the University of Alaska Foundation
(1/3 of community investment).

ConocoPhilips's website gave me this message:

Connection to server www.search.conoco.com failed (The server is not responding.)

Why do I think that is the extent of the oversight? Even BP didn't think it was important enough to proof read it carefully. Am I being too cynical? Did the Governor's office demand back up information so they could see how the 2% times the price of WTI? I don't know. What about all the other issues in the Charter? What sort of scrutiny do they get? Just this brief annual report?

Since I'm pretty busy right now in Thailand, I'm going to have to hold off on pursuing these questions. Though I might send them to my representatives in the State Legislature.

Meanwhile, here is the rest of the Charter. I hope other bloggers and non-bloggers start reading it carefully to see whether the oil companies are living up to the agreement. I guess first we ought to figure out which state agencies are responsible for keeping track.

Charter for Development of the Alaskan North Slope

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Government Business & Legal conocphilips BP

Hiking to Doi Suthep via Wat Phalad

Guidelines, a free tourist monthly in Chiang Mai, had an article in the December issue on the trail to Wat Doi Suthep, the temple on the mountain above Chiang Mai. I can't find the article by Oliver Hargreaves itself on line, but it was the encouragement and support we needed to find the trail and make it to the top yesterday.

The trail begins not far from our place so we walked Suthep Road to the end of the University wall and turned right, then soon, up the hill.
The trail itself starts near the TV station. You can just barely see the tower in the lower right where the arrow points.




We passed the back entrance to the zoo. Although it says entrance to the zoo, he said you couldn't come in this way without a ticket and the tickets were at the other entrance. But we continued up the road to the left.
On the right is the entrance to the tv station. You can just see the brown sign on the left in the greenery.



The trail goes up. The map in the Hargreaves article suggests a climb of about 600 meters and I'm guessing about 3-5 kilometers distance.
While it was cool in the shade, it was warm walking up in the sunny parts.


Ah, the power of concentration. J chose the safe way across. I had no problem where the log was on the ground, but when it went over air, I paused. It was silly, just concentration. I got across fine. We both walked it without any problem on the way back.

















Then I struggled through a sign in Thai that talked about a 100 year old bridge on the trail to Wat Doi Suthep. The log didn't seem that old. But then I looked up and there, right in front of me was the bridge. And we were now on the grounds of Wat Phalad. Clearly this temple has been recently renovated. A delightful spot along the creek in the woods. Almost no people - we did see a monk - and a few cats.

It's hard to figure out which leg is the cat, which is the shadow in the picture on the right.





















It wasn't clear which way to go past the Wat. I think there was a small road to the main road, but we tried the trail on past the Wat. Fortunately we met two guys coming down the steep incline who told us after we cross the road, there was a sign in Thai. The trail was on the right of the sign, not the left where the waterfall was. OK, that seems easy.



After being in the woods, we were suddenly back in the world of cars briefly. I looked for a sign that said which way the trail went.












We found the waterfall, but the trail didn't seem to go anywhere. We went to the right, but I didn't see a trail sign. Then I realized that they meant the big sign warning about forest fires. Just a misinterpretation. I assumed that because they said the sign was in Thai, that they didn't know which way to go. But this had a big picture and was clearly not a trail sign and so I hadn't considered it to be 'the sign' they meant.