Virginia Tech Shooting

The first response is shock. Then, as a blogger, I feel myself with nothing to say that adds anything to what has been said. What topics are there to discuss?

There are the facts of what happened. I have nothing to add there.
There's opinion of what it means. Not enough facts to assess that yet, if ever.
There's condolences for those killed, those injured, and their families and friends. Meaningful words that bring any comfort to the grieving are hard to put together and deliver. Nevertheless, my thoughts are with those who have lost family and friends. Others share your grief knowing there is little we can do to make your burden any lighter.

But then I start thinking other thoughts and feel myself self-censoring. Part of this is respect for those in mourning. There's a time of emotional response where rational discussion is irrelevant. People must work through the emotions first. How long did it take after 9/11 for people to be able accept any response but a reverent awe of the enormity and terror of the events? To start raising questions about why in a city of skyscrapers, the fire department's best response plan was to walk up the stairwells with heavy packs at about one floor per minute was attacked as demeaning the heroes. Criticisms of the President's response were condemned as disloyal at best, as treason at worst.

Can we use events like these to get perspective on other events? One feels the pressure to hold off because one might be accused of using this tragedy for partisan political gains. Certainly that was used to discredit criticisms of the response to Katrina. I'm not working with any political party at the moment. I'm not pushing any candidates. I'm just trying to think some of this through. Besides only a few people are ever likely to read this.

What can we learn from the campus shootings? I'm sure yesterday's events will not be quickly forgotten by most Americans, just as Columbine is not forgotten. But how many Americans remember this event?

BAGHDAD (AP) — An explosion outside a Baghdad universityas students were heading home for the day killed at least 65 people on Tuesday in the deadliest of several attacks on predominantly Shiite areas.

This is from USA Today, January 16, 2007, exactly three months ago to the day. I didn't hear a single commentator on the radio yesterday mention this. I don't begrudge the coverage of yesterday's events. This is a big story. But the horror we feel should help us get a better sense of what it is probably like in Bagdad. Here, in the US, at least, most of us know this was a relatively isolated event that will not directly affect our lives. Yes, University security departments and local law enforcement agencies will be forced to devise new procedures for campus security. But unlike in Bagdad, we don't see this sort of attack as something that could happen in our neighborhood any day. At least if we don't live in areas where gang violence regularly brings gunshots onto our streets. We don't plan our lives, our shopping for food, going to work or school, with strategies to avoid being shot or blown up. The terror the students felt yesterday and which affected all of us at least vicariousy is a daily fact of life in Iraq.

The current level of violence in Iraq, whether we like it or not, is our responsibility. While Saddam Hussein's police and army were responsible for horrible crimes against the Iraqi people, the killing was never as widespread, frequent, or random as it is today. It was the American people's willingness to support President Bush in the emotional, fearful aftermath of 9/11 that has put our military in the impossible position it is today, and has given the Iraqi people daily events as horrific as the attack at Virginia Tech. And the ongoing and pervasive nature of the violence in Iraq makes it far more horrific. The only Americans who can truly understand this are the troops and others who are over and see it and feel it.

So my reaction to Virginia Tech is the hope that it helps us understand the horrors we have caused in Iraq. And that it may motivate a few more to move the US to take action to find a better way to end the violence and give the Iraqis their lives back.

Will things automatically calm down if the US pulls out of Iraq? That's unlikely. The pullout must be accompanied by committed the multilateral forces that the President did not bring together before he took the US into Iraq. Ideally it will include Europeans, Arabs and other Muslims, and as well as the Chinese. It isn't going to be easy. I'm sure many people around the world who opposed our invasion of Iraq take some pleasure in being proven right and watching us struggle with the results of our folly. And humility and contrition are not Bush strong points. This isn't going to be easy.

Yom HaShoa Time Capsule in a Milkcan

Six of us raised our hands when the rabbi asked who had parents, siblings, grandparents, or great grandparents who died in the Holocaust. He invited us to come forward and we each lit a candle in remembrance.


My father got his visa to the US in 1934 through his aunt and uncle in Chicago. His parents were never able to get visas out of Germany.


I only know my grandparents through pictures like these, (the one of my grandfather Georg and the other of my grandmother Martha), through stories my father told me, and through the letters they sent him until 1942. My mother only got her visa in 1939 and just barely got out of Germany before the war, also leaving her parents behind.



After the candles were lit and some poems read, pictures from a show produced by the Holocaust Museum were projected onto the wall. Fortunately, I hand't read anything about this and had no idea what was going to happen. I wasn't even sure if this was a movie or a powerpoint or what. There was music and then images of the Warsaw ghetto. Then there was the accented voice of man coming from a speaker from the other side of the room. He was clearly speaking to us from the pictures, but from a different speaker. I'm not sure what those first lines were. Something about needing to write, to document what has happening. His amplified voice was louder than the speaker on the projector. And as I'm processing all this, out walks a man in a black suit and grey hair and the voice and the man become merge.

He introduced himself as Emanual Ringelblum. We were back in the early 1940s in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was telling us what had been happening in the last few years and about his project to get all the Ghetto dwellers to document what was happening in writing. I was totally transfixed and I'd really have to see it again to figure out exactly how he did this, what he said, whether he addressed us as Ghetto residents or outsiders. I know he wandered amongst us and gave some people sheets of paper which they read aloud, the words of Warsaw Jews written at the time and saved in metal boxes and milkcans so that the Nazis' deeds would be known. I think he said there were 10 boxes and six milkcans. After the war two survivors, only one who knew where the writings had been buried, helped to dig them up, though a few are still missing. I have no idea how long he talked to us. He left the room and the powerpoint voice, I think, said that he and his family had been found in the Polish home where he was being hidden and killed.

Then Emanual returned as Marc Spiegel and answered questions about this production of Time Capsule in a Milkcan that he performed for two years at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Emanual/Marc urged us all to to write and document what is happening around us. Good encouragement for a blogger, encouragement I interpreted as increasing the more serious content here. Marc is in Anchorage as Albert Einstein Alive which he is performing around the state and for kids in the Anchorage School District. His lucky son Ben got to come along on this trip.

Another fascinating Jewish WWII chronicler is Victor Klemperer [you may have to log in to the NYTimes online to read this review, but do it, it's free and worth every penny] whose two volune I Will Bear Witness Italics chronicles his daily life in and around Dresden during WWII. He talks about the mundane - planting his garden, getting his car repaired - and he talks about how the Nazis are manipulating language to effectively get the German people to support the Nazi Party, a particularly appropriate topic for those living under the Bush regime. It is a fascinating account of day-to-day life of a Jewish professor in Nazi Germany. He had converted to Christianity and was married to an 'Aryan' and had been on the front lines for Germany in WWI, all of which helped delay his being taken to the concentration camps. The first volume covers 1933-1941. The second volume covers 1942-1945.

Yard Moose

We had a transient in our yard when we got home this evening from the Yom HaShoah-Holocaust Memorial today.

Ben's 60th

Last night eating at the Thai Kitchen we were invited to a surprise 60th birthday party today for Ben, the co-owner of the Thai Kitchen with his wife Sommai. 60 is an important year in Thailand. It's the fifth cycle (of 12 years) when a person is in his or her prime. We were gathered at the Sheraton, a private room near Josephine's restaurant on the 15th floor.







Getting ready for the guest of honor to arrive








Ben is in the yellow shirt. I mentioned these shirts on a Thai post. They first were sold to honor the King of Thailand's 60th Anniversary on the throne. Thais are wearing these shirts all the time. Mondays in particular. But many people wear them other days. Walking through Thailand you see many, many people in these yellow shirts. They are also now getting ones that also are to celebrate the King's 80th birthday in December. These are really a special phenomenon that became far more popular than I think anyone imagined and now come in various designs, different color stripes, but all basically yellow.



Sommai, Ben, and one of their granddaughers.









Ben's sons were supposedly taking him to brunch for his birthday. After Ben was surprised, in walks first son Steve with his two daughters. They'd already called 'from Seattle' to say happy birthday. There were probably 40 or 50 people there - united through being good customers of the Thai Kitchen and a few other friends. Here they are all together.















And here Ben has just gotten the keys to the last surprise (I think) of the day.

Baan Orapin - Chiengmai Bed and Breakfast

Riding the bus from the Lao border to Chieng Mai, back in Thai cell phone range, I called Grib to tell her we were on our way and in the conversation she recommended we stay at Baan Orapin. Their website calls it a 'boutique' bed and breakfast. "Boutique" is tacked on to all sorts of fancied up for Western tourist magnets in Thailand and Laos. In fact one could call Luang Prabang, the old capital of Laos, a boutique town with its world heritage site designation, but that's another post.

Baan Orapin is an old Thai family compound. A large house with other buildings in a walled in garden with large old trees in a beautiful flowering garden. Here's a ripe jackfruit - yes that's how they grow. It's a little bigger than a football. Yes, it looks something like a durian, but it's not.






On a tiny two laned, sidewalk-less street just east of the Menam (River) Bing, what was obviously once a quiet Soi (side street off a main street), Baan Orapin is an island of old Thailand, quiet, green, relaxed, just off the busy hustle and bustle of modern Chiengmai.


We missed the new swimming pool by a couple of weeks. That's our room just behind the black curtain next to the pool.

The Arizona educated owner, is trying to keep his family compound viable as a bed and breakfast, maintaining the old house, and building a few guest houses on the property. The rooms - you can see them in the link above - were beautiful Thai style with Western style bathrooms. This is not your run of the mill hotel where everything is like any cookie cutter hotel in the world. It's a chance to be back in a touch of the old Thailand that is quickly disappearing. And while it was one of the more expensive places we stayed on our trip at 1700 Baht per night, that still comes out to under $50 per night. He said he's trying to keep the prices reasonable, that the pool won't raise the prices. The local competition is too tight.




And in the early mornings, before breakfast in the old house, I got to look at the various birds also enjoying the garden. Here's a red whiskered bulbul, a fairly common Thai bird, particularly in Chiengmai. I left this picture fairly big so if you want to see the bulbul, click on the picture. He's near the top of the picture to the right slightly, left of the main branch, above the green leaves.

Dinner with Francisco at Yamato Ya

Bright sunny day. Forties. Snow going fast.
Dinner with Francisco at Yamato Ya. A place we've run into each other now and then. Talked til closing, about India and Thailand. About making it through immigration even if you have an American passport, but have a profile look. About the joys of condo living - someone else clears the snow and takes care of the garden. Summer in Mexico working on sorghum and corn. Definitely not organic. Changes with the new ownership at Yamato Ya.

Francisco moved to LA in high school speaking no English and being treated by most teachers as a Mexican unteachable. But one teacher saw something more and helped him get into college. Now he has a PhD from Yale and is a Professor of Spanish.

Karaoke in Korat

This goes with yesterday's post. I had really wonderful students and we all had a good time that night at Arnut's beautiful home, great food, and the Karaoke.

Great House, Great Party

At the end of the Korat class, one of the students invited us to his house. He'd built it out of town in the rice paddies. It combines the best of Thai and Western design and finishing. Thanks Arnut for being such a gracious host.

Mainstream Corporate Scam Artists

In Seattle recently we got a car at Hertz. I had a prepaid package deal and after saying no to the optional insurance, I was offered gas fill up for the car for $2.91 per gallon. (I'd just been in LA where the gas was about $3.45/gallon, but didn't think that Hertz would give me a great deal and figured it would be cheaper outside the airport and said no.) If I didn't take this option, they'd top off the car at $6.99/gallon. When we got out on the road, gas was around $2.99 and I thought, hmmmm, maybe I should have gotten that. Until my daughter said that at $2.99 I needed to bring the car in empty because they'd charge for a full tank. That certainly wasn't clear at the counter. And one would have to work really hard to bring it in totally empty. And why $6.99 to top it off? That's more than 100% surcharge.

It used to be that there were reputable businesses that treated their customers with some level of respect and then there were scam artists. And while there were gradations, there was something of a gulf between the two. The first basically let you know the terms and conditions of a transaction and if there was a problem they would make a correction. Of course, businesses always were out to make a profit, but many in the past had some level of integrity (shame?) that kept them reasonably fair with customers. There still are some places like that - Nordstrom and Costco come quickly to mind. You can bring products back, no questions asked. The scam artists were like the guys who'd offer to resurface your driveway cheap because they were "in the neighborhood and had some hot asphalt leftover we need to use up." But all they did was paint it black and when it rained the scam would be revealed.

But nowadays we have mainstream, well known companies that act like scam artists making you guess which shell hides the pea. Either the rules are so complicated that few people actually read them or they offer you 'deals' that turn out to cost far more than you expected. Like the gas scheme at Hertz. Or like phone companies with all those free minutes, that suddenly become outrageously expensive when you go over the limit or out of the area. Or they set up arbitrary fees such as the ridiculously expensive late fees many credit card companies charge.

These aren't customer friendly. They are purposely devised to trick people into behaviors that will cost them much more than they were expecting to spend. And banks and phone companies, the sorts of formerly mainstream businesses that used to be reputable, are scamming customers with legal sleight of hand too. Why?

Some thoughts here, and maybe you have some other explanations:

1. Corporate mergers and concentration have had several affects here:
----First, there is much more focus on the bottom line and pressure to find ways to squeeze out more profits

----Formerly locally owned businesses answer to some distant headquarters, that don't have local accountability

----Large trade associations heavily lobby legislatures and government agencies to get rid of any consumer oversight or regulations

----The concentration of ownership means there is less competition and consumers have fewer choices (One might argue that there are lots of choices for credit cards arriving in the mailbox daily. But the hype ("0% Interest") is highly misleading and the small print is impossible without reading glasses not to mention a law degree and an extra hour a day. And once you have a credit card, they can change any of the conditions they want and it's take it or leave it.)

2. Consumers are not taking their responsibilities to be savvy shoppers.
----They are too lazy or too tired to shop around. (The internet usually gives me several choices, of say, decent car rental places that charge a half or a third of the Hertz' and Avis'.)

----They just can't say no. We do have the option to not buy on their conditions. We can shop around or even do without. When we stop accepting these outrageous conditions, the companies will respond with better options. Though it is hard to not have a credit card if you want to buy an airplane ticket or rent a car, so in many ways not having a credit card is like not having a car. You can do it in today's world, but not easily.


Even with the influence business has today on legislative bodies at the state and national levels, we can be more intelligent consumers. The market does work if consumers are discriminating. Though the outrageous bilking of the consumer raises serious questions about the fundamental assumption of market economics - the so called 'rational man.'

Some places that offer more information on these things:

Credit Card Nationis a book by Dr. Robert Manning which examines how credit card companies prey on cardholders and would-be card holders.


Justice Talkinghad a show yesterday on consumer debt that discusses many of these issues, including how the poor are especially hard hit by check cashing stores.


An Unreasonable Man, the movie on Ralph Nader's long consumer advocacy reminds us that large corporations have always gone for profit over consumer safety.

Midnight Soapscum: PORN!

Mad Myrna's website explains






Midnight Soapscum this way:

"This is a live action soap opera with a new episode going up every two weeks. Come find out what straight boy Rex and Gay boy Basil are going to do when the evil Oleg Smirnov and his dreaded mother get the addicted to drugs and force them to work in the Porn Industry!!!!"

Christian, a former student of mine, and the director, writer, and an actor in the play, told me it was going to be a comedic look at the porn industry. We missed the first two episodes, but episode 3 was fun, Though any commentary on the porn industry was pretty light. The actors were great and we had a good time.