Happy Birthday Mom

Just in case the card doesn't make it on time, I'll wish you a happy birthday from here. This is two years in a row I'm in Thailand on your birthday. The one thing that wouldn't have worked out well if you'd have come with J is that we live on the fourth floor and there's no elevator.

Well, at least J and J2 are together today. The rest of us are scattered, as you celebrate - I know you don't like me putting your age down so I'll just say, a birthday with two even numbers that add up to 14 and the larger number comes first.

Lineated Barbet and Mystery Bird

Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008 12:20am

At lunch at the same place as yesterday, the white crested laughing thrushes were gone, but this bird was there instead. But I can't figure out what it is.



I thought maybe a minivet, but the colors are definitely not right and I'm not sure of the shape. But it certainly modeled nicely for us, showing all sides for anyone who really knows their Thai birds.


When I got home, I heard a bird calling from not too far and there was this largish bird sitting on the bare tree top a 100 yards away or so. With the binoculars it was very clearly visible - yellow orange beak, yellow rings around black eyes, and the wings and back green like a parrot.
It was fairly easy to narrow this one down in the book. And when I then googled lineated barbet images, it was clear that was what it was. It was there quite a while, but just out of range for a good picture. Here's a picture showing the overall setting, and then one greatly enlarged.

Getting the Thai and English Together

As I try to read through the Thai in my organization's work plan, the words that I've put on my list are now recognizable. But as I work toward Monday's seminar with the people in the office, I realize that I have to use more of the Thai in my presentation and things I hand out. As I move to asking questions about how exactly they are determining whether they have reached their goals or not (and thus how they will write their next set of goals) I need to use the Thai. They do have a basic structure of goals and expected outcomes, which they needed for their Oxfam grant. So I've been reading the English and Thai and meshing the two. Without the English, I would be hard pressed to get the exact meaning of the Thai, but with the English, and Thai2English.com I can work it out. So that's what I've been been working on today.

Working Barefoot

One of the many things I like about where I'm working is that I can work barefoot.

Prosecution Responds to Kohring's Requests

Brendan Joel Kelley reports in the Anchorage Press website about the prosecution's response to Vic Kohring's motion for a retrial and the recusal of Judge Sedwick. Here's an excerpt:

The government refers to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that—barring newly discovered evidence—any motion for a new trial would have had to been filed no later than November 12, 2007, within seven days of the guilty verdict.

The government also aggressively argues that Kohring’s supposed discovery that the Sedwicks were related—7 to 10 days after his conviction—doesn’t constitute new evidence.

“Assuming for a moment that a ‘deep animosity’ truly existed between Kohring and Mrs. Sedwick in or around 1998, it is illogical and unreasonable for Kohring to suggest that he did not realize the familial relationship between Mrs. Sedwick and the assigned trial judge during the several months prior to his trial or, at the latest, when Mrs. Sedwick was reportedly in the courtroom near the end of the trial,” a portion of the government’s argument reads. “Kohring’s ‘new evidence’ argument might have some air of plausibility had Mrs. Sedwick’s last name been Jones or Smith, but Sedwick is a surname that is not commonplace within Alaska.”

I had pretty much the same reaction when I heard about this in early February:

And it never occurred that Judge Sedwick might be related to this Sedwick who he says was "worst political rival and enemy" until the end of the trial? How many Sedwicks do you know? I certainly would be asking questions if the judge hearing my case had the same name as my worst political rival and enemy. I wouldn't wait until a few days before my sentencing to bring it up.

[A few minutes later: Phil Munger's report on on Kohring's response to the prosecutors' filing is worth reading. A real scoop.]

Work, birds, running, French movie, laundry, NY symphony in Pyongyang

Spent most of the day working on my seminar. Preparing a presentation in Thai and English with pictures to help get the points across. My Thai is frustrating. On a basic level - market Thai - I’m fine. But when I wander off to try to explain things of a more complex level (and some things not so complex) I stumble, my tones are terrible, and I feel kind of stupid. I really need a good teacher who can diagnose my Thai and design a lingual and cognitive therapy that will get the most improvement in the shortest time.

At lunch, Bun and I walked over to Wat Ramphoeng and ate in the lovely garden. A pair of striking white crested birds with a black band through the eye hopped around in the trees around us taunting my Canon.
My shots are great, but you can see them. It appears that one was much more black and white, the other had a lot more brown. After going through the Thai bird book, I’ve decided that they must have been White Crested Laughing Thrushes. (And in the lobby with internet connection, I've confirmed it.)


The temple dragon was much a more cooperative photo model.

After work, I rode my bike over to the track at Chiengmai University - maybe a kilometer a way at most - and finally ran. Time, traffic, heat, and particularly dogs have been my excuses for not running. But I pushed myself over there and did eight slow laps around the track. I’m guessing I did a little over two miles. That’s ok for the first time in weeks. And I hate going around the track - it’s so easy to stop. When you go off on a run, once you get out there, you have to come back. But going around the track you can stop at any time. But it was very pretty. Here’s a shakey picture of Doi Suthep from the track.


Rode through the campus afterward to the main gate and had dinner at the vegetarian restuarant we ate at yesterday for lunch. Very good. When I got back to the southern gate, it was locked. There was enough room to walk through between the posts, but the handle bars wouldn’t fit. I was seeing if I could lift the bike high enough for the handle bars over the poles - I could but I couldn’t get through the narrow opening holding the bike - when a guard showed up and unlocked the gate to let me out.

Did some laundry and watched a French movie with English subtitles. I’ll post about television here soon. We have a wide choice of national televisions. Watched Hong Kong television with Japanese news programing in English covering the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing in Pyongyang. This was a very political event, with the announcer speculating on the timing a day after the new, hard-line toward North Korea, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak's inauguration. With China, the first event was ping-pong, here it’s the symphony. Who says orchestras are apolitical?

The internet isn’t working again, so I’ll go downstairs and use the wifi and then go to bed. It’s Tuesday and J won’t be back until Friday morning. The manager offered me his car to go pick her up, but I don’t think it’s worth it for that one short trip. The soi is very narrow and you drive on the left side. But it was a very nice offer. He has a sticker to go through the Air Force compound so it’s just a quick shot.

Democracy v. Capitalism - Discovery Channel Takes Taxi to Dark Side

Anchorage folks had the opportunity to see this year's Academy Award winning feature documentary , Taxi to the Dark Side, before it was released to theaters. The Anchorage International Film Festival showed it here in December.

It was my choice for best documentary, but an arctic themed movie won that title here.

But while Taxi beat out Sicko for the Oscar Sunday night, it turns out director Alex Gibney has sold the broadcast rights to the Discovery Channel because they told him, “Look, we love this film. We’re going to give it a broad and very prominent airing.”

Now they are putting it on the shelf because it is "too controversial." Below is an excerpt from a Democracy Now interview (where you can get the whole interview) earlier this month:

ALEX GIBNEY: Well, it turns out that the Discovery Channel isn’t so interested in discovery. I mean, I heard that—I was told a little bit before my Academy Award nomination that they had no intention of airing the film, that new management had come in and they were about to go through a public offering, so it was probably too controversial for that. They didn’t want to cause any waves. It turns out, Discovery turns out to be the see-no-evil/hear-no-evil channel.

AMY GOODMAN: They bought the rights, though.

ALEX GIBNEY: They did.

AMY GOODMAN: So they own it.

ALEX GIBNEY: They own the rights for the next three years. They own the broadcast rights. It’s currently playing in theaters, where people can see it, but we had hoped that it would have a broad airing on television. And indeed, you know, one of the reasons I went with Discovery was because they had told me, “Look, we love this film. We’re going to give it a broad and very prominent airing.”

AMY GOODMAN: But if they still own the rights, can they just not air it for three years and keep you from airing it anywhere else?

ALEX GIBNEY: Yes, they can. That’s their right, because they paid for it. Now, we’re hoping that they’ll agree to sell it to somebody else, you know, maybe for a profit, if they need to do that. But I’m hoping at the very least that they’ll allow somebody else to take it on so it can be shown to the American people.

While this appears to be a strictly business decision -

"that new management had come in and they were about to go through a public offering, so it was probably too controversial for that. They didn’t want to cause any waves"

- there's a real possibility that Taxi never had a chance to get on the Discovery Channel, because Discovery also owns the Military Channel which joined with the Department of Defense program "America Supports You." From a news release dated October 10, 2007:

America Supports You recognizes and facilitates citizens’ support for our military men, women and families, and communicates that support to members of our Armed Forces at home and abroad. The Military Channel and America Supports You first worked together in support of the 2006 Freedom Walk in Washington, D.C. to mark the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 and honor veterans, past and present.

“We are so pleased that the Military Channel has joined the America Supports You team,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber, architect of the America Supports You program. “With their capacity to reach large audiences on an ongoing basis, the Military Channel will help broaden national awareness about America Supports You and connect many more people to the ways they can support and serve the troops and their families.”

The Military Channel brings viewers compelling, real-world stories of heroism, military strategy, technological breakthroughs and turning points in history. The network takes viewers “behind the lines” to hear the personal stories of servicemen and women and offers in-depth explorations of military technology, battlefield strategy, aviation and history. As the only cable network devoted to military subjects, it also provides unique access to this world, allowing viewers to experience and understand a world full of human drama, courage, innovation and long-held traditions of the military. Visit the Military Channel online at www.military.discovery.com.

While I thought that Taxi did a good job of taking "viewers “behind the lines” to hear the personal stories of servicemen and women," somehow, I don't think Taxi to the Dark Side tells the story that the Defense Department wants large audiences to see.


The idea of wealthy people and organizations buying silence for ideas they don't like, or buying accolades as Exxon did with the Anchorage Concert Association last Saturday, is contrary to the free and open debate of ideas that our Constitution was intended to promote. In Confessions of an Economic Hitman we also heard about how the author was paid very well NOT to write a book about what he knew.

Thanks to Battlefield of a Peaceful Warrior for the link to this story. Peaceful Warrior also provides a link to the Discovery Channel to urge them to air the movie. (Beware, you have to fill out a lot of information first and it is really designed to get questions about their current shows. Trying to find other ways to contact Discovery proved difficult. The corporate website is impenetrable - its a very slick, but real-information-free site. You can read about the various corporate officers (26 listed, five women, none in program related positions). But there is no contact information at all. No business information.)

However, the America Supports You news release does give us phone numbers and email addresses for two Discovery Channel employees.

Contact:
Jill Bondurant
Discovery Communications, Inc.
(240) 662-2927
Jill_Bondurant@discovery.com or
Kate Hawken
(240) 662-2947
Kate_Hawken@discovery.com

The idea of buying a film or book of current political relevance and then locking it away so no one can see it (not quite the situation here since it is in theaters now) is clearly in conflict with the idea of free speech. One could say that Gibney didn't have to sell, or should have had a clause in the sale that gave him back the film if it didn't get airplay. But Gibney is a film maker, not a business man or an attorney. People who have great skill in one field, usually don't have the time or aptitude to develop skills in other areas. But given his film topics, he is politically savvy, but still got taken in here.

What would you do if you were offered $1 million for rights to your important political work? (I have no idea what Discover paid, the million is purely hypothetical.) Would you just take the money? Or would you stick by your principles?

I recall when a friend got hired by Alyeska Pipeline. They paid him way more money than he'd ever made before. But there was an expectation that they were buying his loyalty and silence too. How many people get that kind of job, then get subtly pressured into moving to a better neighborhood and living a spendier lifestyle? To the point where they are now just getting by, even at that much higher income?

That's when you become ethically susceptible - where the loss of your job jeopardizes your mortgage, your health insurance, your kids' college education, or even just the glitzier life style and the new 'friends' that come with it. If you buy into that, then they can get you to do things that compromise your basic values, compromise what you deep down know is right, to protect your new life style. If you've been coopted cleverly enough, you might actually believe it all.

Blogging Notes - What I learn from Sitemeter Data

A few observations about visitors to the site from Sitemeter.

• All hits from Thailand list Bangkok as the location. I know that people from Chiang Mai have been here, so I suspect everything gets routed through Bangkok.
• "Victor Lebow" and "famous people born 1908" (and variations thereof) continue to be Google search words that bring in a fair percentage of hits.
• Someone at Naussau Insurance Company got here googling "how often do pirates take over cruise ships" Hmmm, was that just idle curiousity or is something happening?
• "Taxi to the Dark Side" got a bump from winning the Oscar for best documentary
• "Maytag A207" gets a couple of hits a week, suggesting there are others trying to keep their old washing machines alive

[Later, and this one hurts: From Istanbul, Turkey "writing rejection letter to a person in need of charity"]

๋ีMonday - random shots

I got a good look at a Koel this morning. It had been kuuuuwow- ing in the tree, but I couldn't see it. Then it flew out and over the building. Unmistakable. But gone to fast to even think about the camera. I pass this temple on the way to work. It's Wat Pa Daeng, where we went to Macha Bucha. Then you saw the stais from the top.



As we got into the pickup to go for lunch, I was told that the vegetarian restaurant we'd been to before was closed because of Macha Bucha. So we went to another vegetarian restaurant north of the Chiang Mai University campus. By the main entrance.






It was really good - B160 - a little over a dollar a piece.
I took this picture to help me remember where this place was. That's the entrance to Chiang Mai University in the background,



And this T shirt was for sale in a shop next to the restaurant.


At the office I'm working on a seminar to kick off my actual management coaching - I'm working on a Keynote (Mac's powerpoint) presentation. This allows me pictures, the words written to help people understand them better, as well as Thai words for key terms that I can't remember, because I never knew them. While I'm not a Powerpoint fan in general, if you do it right, especially when there are language barriers, the written word helps considerably, as will the Thai words and the visuals.


On my way to work and back, I pass this huge property with two houses that you can see from the road. We stopped at my apartment on the way home after lunch so they could see it. They thought it was overpriced. But we went back by the large property, so I pointed it out. It belongs, they gold me, to former prime minister Thaksin's younger brother. Thaksin was ousted by a military coups and exiled. Rumors say he's coming back soon, now that his party won the last election.



Here's a glimpse at the main house

And this is the front gate.

Organic Strawberry Party

Monday, February 25, 1:30am
I went to an organic strawberry party last night (Sunday). All the food had some sort of strawberry connection.

M. on the left is a volunteer in the compound where I work and one of the hosts for the evening. The man on the left was the main cook.

Even the miang kam, a northern Thai specialty, had a strawberry accent in the sauce. And along with all the traditional foods you wrap in the miang leaf (ginger, lime, coconut, hot pepper, peanut, onion, and dried shrimp) there were pieces of strawberry too. This is a favorite treat of mine from the old days which is getting harder and harder to find these days.

Recently married, she's not a Thai, but an American of Philippine heritage working for an NGO here, and he's meditating.

We had a strawberries on a string game.

And mostly a lot of people, Thai, American, French, Dutch, Irish (that I was aware of) working in various NonGovernmental Organizations - mostly related somehow to organic farming and/or sustainable farming got a chance to talk and eat great food. All in support of organic strawberry growers in nothern Thailand.