Blue Shirts?

Before I left Chiang Mai on Monday, I joked about blue shirts and green shirts (in addition to the reds and the yellows) and now the blues have shown up. Basically, red shirts support the former prime minister Thaksin (the wikipedia summary leaves out the important point that he jumped bail and has since been convicted to two years in prison. Thus he's not in Thailand. It's in the entry way down near the end) who appeals to the poor. The yellow shirts support the current prime minister - Oxford educated Abhisit, called by some 'Obamark' because his nickname is Mark - and these, according to common belief (not necessarily truth) are mostly Bangkok middle and upper classes. I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of Thai politics and suggest readers read this and everything else with skepticism.

Mr. Kwai (kwai means water buffalo) has links to many Thai sources both in English and Thai. New Mandala and Bangkok Pundit (both linked on the right) are also decent (not necessarily neutral) sources as well.

Here's a comment from Mr. Kwai's post on red shirt demonstration and cancellation of the ASEAN summit. Note: honoring your parents is still very important in Thailand. Dissing them is a BIG DEAL.

chinesethai 11 April 2009 at 9:56 am

...FACT?
You obviously haven’t heard of the Blue Shirt before. The Blue Shirt belongs to Nevin’s faction. Actually, the Blue Shirt defected from the Red Shirt. Obviously, you are not aware that both colours have once clashed in Buriram when the Red Shirt threw rocks and fired bullets in front of his house in Buriram. That happened only a day after he announced giving his support to Abhisit.

Thailand’s English language media has disadvantages because news has to be translated into English while the situation keeps changing. CNN and BBC are also useless. Most of these journalists thought they were the experts but obviously they are telling you craps or half-truth such as the clip of Yellow Shirt shooting. They got shot first. The Yellow Shirt has to protect themselves when the police has taken the Red site. If you were them, would you be a sweet target? Common sense.

The country is unstable, yes. But if you are a well-wishing outsider and have that morality and neutrality, you are supposed to denounce anybody that will destroy this country, right?

And……may I re-post this?

90 Year-Old Mother of Jatuporn Prompan, Red Shirt Leader, calls her son to stop instigate chaos. “My son has not come home to visit me for 6 years.”

http://www.manager.co.th/Local/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9520000040302

So what did Jatuporn reply? “She is just an illiterate villager.” (From Pro-Thaksin Matichon Online)

http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?newsid=1239250104&grpid=03&catid=01

Is the Red Shirt were the force for good when its leader has such background, deserting even his own mother?

Common Cause Checking Out Alaska

Seems like our best known export after oil - political corruption stories - has made some people believe that a chapter of Common Cause might be welcomed here.

Paul Brown, one of the driving forces behind the Alaska Repertory Theater back in the late 70s and 80s has been in town for a couple of weeks scoping out the viability of establishing a state chapter of the public interest non-profit in Alaska. A friend asked if I'd be interested in meeting with him and I said, "Sure." So, uncertain about how messy the streets might be on a bike, I drove a car for the first time in three months to our meeting.

Common Cause was founded in 1970 by John Gardner. A PBS webpage on Gardner says:

Common Cause became one of the staunchest advocates of campaign finance reform. In 1971, they sued both the Democratic and Republican parties for violating campaign fundraising and spending limits, and began to push federal and state governments to open up legislative hearings and governmental decision-making. Common Cause's crusade did not go unnoticed. After the group sued President Nixon's re-election campaign, John Gardner was put on his infamous "enemies list." After the Watergate scandal and various abuses of power by the Nixon Administration came to light, Common Cause was instrumental in getting the landmark campaign finance reform legislation of 1974 passed which put in place limits on contributions and disclosure requirements for campaigns.

According to the Common Cause website, today they are working to:

• Advance campaign reforms that make people and ideas more important than money
• Make certain that government is open, ethical and accountable
• Remove barriers to voting and ensure that our voting systems are accurate and accessible
• Increase the diversity of voices and ownership in media, to make media more responsive to the needs of citizens in a democracy and to protect the editorial independence of public broadcasting
• Uphold the rule of law by opposing any attempts to undermine the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights,
• Increase participation in the political process.

I knew the name - Paul Brown - sounded familiar but it wasn't til he started giving me some of his Alaska background that I realized who he was. I'm guessing that the Rep's high artistic standard back then is partly responsible for the high quality of theater we have in this small town far from the center of the arts universe.

We had an interesting discussion about lots of things including his mission here. There are a lot of non-profits here already, many doing overlapping work. The trick will be to work with them and not duplicate efforts. But it seems Paul has talked to most of the related organizations I could think of.

[I'd note that some of my friends have joked about not talking to me after they've seen my blog. I want to assure them and readers that when I meet with someone like I did yesterday, I get their permission before doing a post.]

Reviewing Comments

I've long taken the position that my preference was to leave comments unreviewed. They get up faster and take less of my time. That policy fits my general sense of free and open debate. However, I reserved the right to turn on 'review comments' if people violated my trust that they would post civil and respectful comments.

Well, yesterday I turned on the review comment feature. Anonymous (there appear to be at least two and maybe more - but one in particular I think that has led to this) has been posting long, rambling comments. OK, some people are better speaking than writing. I give people slack on that. I was more concerned about the tone when the comments first started appearing about a week ago, but they seemed to have some substance that was of relevance, though it was hard to be sure. They also made blatant, but unsubstantiated, allegations and characterizations about people that had a tone of self-righteousnous that bothered me. And they were repetitive. But I was hoping that they would evolve into more civil and informative comments.

One goal of this blog is to have a civil discussion. By this I mean that people are respectful of each other and the people they write about. That people present evidence for their allegations. They don't call each other names. They read what others write and respond directly to the parts they disagree with and explain why.

Yesterday there was another blizzard of comments that didn't meet any of those criteria. There are much worse comments on other blogs and this commenter does have something in mind. I was hoping he would reveal that with enough time. But I've had enough. Any single comment hasn't been that far over the line and I've left them up - about fifteen posted comments so far. But cumulatively they change the tone of this blog. I've criticized the ADN for not moderating their blogs and so I just decided the time I hoped wouldn't arrive, had arrived.

There are about ten comments awaiting approval now. I've discovered that Blogger gives me the choice of accepting or rejecting each comment. I can't even use the select and copy and paste feature.

Here's a part of a comment that is waiting for me to accept or reject. There are five or six more separate comments that appear to be from the same anonymous commenter awaiting approval:

Why should any ANON trust you, some have seen how the truth can be twisted when Ted is involved, and the raw power, for all most know you are just another in the TANK FINK for Ted, you showed your true colors, you think people are so gullible to trust you, & you think any are going to come to some sucker like you, as you delete this and other posts to slant things…
Like why would any even come to your and spill the whole thing. . .who in the hell are you, you proved you can’t be trusted, have some agenda. (LIKE CLUB TED, CLUB WEV)

Some bon Vo play boy with rich travel Money, you don’t mean shit to most hard working Americans, they see you as the reason why Alaska is seen as a big sucking machine to leave the US taxpayers the tab. SEF tax slaves.

One could argue that the commenter has some legitimate points and I shouldn't be picky about style. But the style here is a not-listening style. This person has lots to say, but doesn't seem ready to listen. The comments jump to conclusions without telling us how he got there. In the passage above he suggests he's talking for people other than himself ("most hard working Americans.") I've chosen this part because I'm the subject of the commenter's attack. So I'm posting those comments for all to see what he said. (There's more like that in other comments in the queue.) I'm not rejecting these because he is critizing me, but because of how he is talking about me and others. Being the subject of his ire also gives me more perspective on what he's saying about others.

So, I'm going to invite all posters to do a few things if they want me to push the accept button:

1. Be respectful of others. If you think they've done something wrong, identify the specific act that was wrong and point to specific evidence. If there is no specific evidence, point out the circumstantial evidence that leads you to your conclusion. For example in the second part of the snippet above, I think that you are saying something like, "Steve, your traveling suggests to me that you're rich. That reinforces people's image of Alaskans as sucking up all their tax dollars." Then I could ask in response:

• How do you define rich? How much money does one have to have to be rich? $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000? A billion?
  
• Is being rich bad? Don't most Americans strive to be, if not rich, at least comfortable? Don't they continue to vote for rich politicians?
• Do you differentiate between people who got their money from corruption and scam and those who worked for it and made good decisions about how to use it? Or whether they spend it for luxuries for themselves or to help others?
  
• And by the way, it costs a lot less to live three months in Thailand than it does to live three months in Anchorage. And if you read the blog carefully, you'd know our lifestyle there was pretty modest - bikes and walking were our main form of transportation and we were in a modest two room apartment which cost less than $10 a day. And those certainly weren't pictures of first class in the plane.
  

I'm not saying you have to write the way I write, but that you present your points rather than making slurs so that people can respond sensibly.


2. If you make allegations about others, present evidence.


3. Try not to repeat yourself too much.

This is not hard. The only comments I've deleted over the last two and a half years were spam and other ads that had nothing to do with the post.

Now let me address a reasonable challenge: Don't you believe in free speech? Why are you for censorship?

First, I'm a private citizen writing a blog. I'm not the government. The First Amendment protections of free speech are about the US government abridging free speech. It doesn't say that every private citizen who writes something has to also publish everything anyone else wants to say. If you need to tell the world your story, start your own blog. You already have access to a computer and setting one up is free on blogspot.

Second, the point of free speech and debate is for people to listen to different points of view, different facts, and to have conversations so that people from different perspectives can gain insight. After reading your posts for almost a week now, it's my sense that you are interested in the giving part of debate but not the listening part.

If you have something to say to me personally, email me. There's a link in my profile. Show me that I'm wrong and that you are reasonable and listen and adjust your perspective when warranted. Show me you can talk to someone without either buttering them up with compliments or slamming them with insults. That you can find a place somewhere in between - like polite normal conversation. Hotmail and others offer free email accounts that are reasonably untraceable. Certainly I couldn't trace them.

Since blogger makes it extremely difficult to edit comments, and since people would probably accuse me of distorting their comments if I did, I'll just make a judgment on all the incoming posts to either allow or delete. That's just the way it is. I'd rather have the comments go up right away. As I say, you can start your own blog if you don't want to conform to the standards I'm setting for my blog. I appreciate your visits here because they have pushed me to think through this more than I have before.

[I would note that I did accept a comment in the previous post on anonymous commenters that speculated that someone had skipped his meds. I thought about it before pushing accept. I think that mental illness is a serious and poorly understood issue everywhere. And medical science doesn't know that much and treatments can sometimes be worse than the original problem. ]

We're Home

Our house sitters left a very neat and clean house for us, plus this basket of fruit. Thanks! Our street is almost clear of snow, and the 1˚C weather didn't feel bad at all.

Figuring Out My Anonymous Blog Commenter

I've gotten a blizzard of posts from an anonymous blogger urging me on to keep digging about for skeletons in the Stevens' case.

With the traveling I haven't had time to go through everything carefully, but there are three key thrusts that stand out so far:

• He (I'm assuming the poster is a he) doesn't think much of Chad Joy
• He is similarly ill-disposed toward Wev Shea
• He points to the identities of the attorneys who interviewed Bill Allen "who (which, where etc) was the basis to tube the conviction(jury nullification)" as the crux to finding the 'real story' of the Stevens case.

Unlike a traditional newspaper reporter's source, this source posts all his tips are as comments on different posts related to the trial, out in the open for all to see. I've suggested he just send me an email, but it's all going up in comments. Maybe 10 or 15 posts in a couple of days. Most would never make it into the letters to the editor column. Most friends have raised their eyebrows and wondered about the writer's sobriety. The posts defy the rules of grammar and leap to conclusions with fragmentary evidence.

His last couple of posts have been much more grammatical and coherent and specific. Maybe he's getting impatient with me not being responsive enough. But I have been on airplanes a lot of the last 48 hours and still have one more (I hope that's all - I'm in Salt Lake City right now and the plane is listed as on-time about 3 hours from now, but I can only find pay wifi, and I'm not THAT addicted that I can't wait, so I can't check on volcanic activity) til we get to Anchorage.

But I have been thinking about him and here are some thoughts about ways to evaluate an anonymous poster. Here are some factors, each of which would have a continuum from a version of bad to a version of good.

1. Motive - Is this something he's doing for self gain or does he see this as a public service? Is he out for revenge or for justice? Is he trying to settle a score or right a wrong? These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, revenge to right a wrong could be both for self-gain and public service.
   
   
2. Access to Information - Does he have insider information? Or is he someone who doesn't have special access to this story, but may have an ax to grind with some of the players.
   
   
3. Judgment/Wisdom - Assuming for the moment, that his motive is good and he has inside information, does he have the wisdom and judgment to interpret what he knows accurately? Or is he the type of person who sees a few bits of information which pass through his mental models and spit out nonsense? Having access to the facts is just step one. Then we have to interpret them. Is this guy good at doing that?
   

I don't know enough to determine the answers to these questions. It clearly has a greater interest in the details of this case than most people, and writes about details that the average person knows nothing about. So probably he's more insider than outsider on this case. But the other two factors I can't judge yet.

Then there is the question: Why me? Why this blog? He thinks Chad Joy has done wrong and he thinks that people on the inside have thrown the case leading to the dismissal of the conviction. I've voiced doubts about the substance of the Joy complaint and raised questions whether this case was just badly handled or whether there were people intentionally messing it up. He might see me as someone who is open to the arguments he's making. But maybe I'm not the only one getting this stuff.

At least one reader has told me that I've already been charmed by Kepner into seeing things her way. Others - non-Thais in Thailand who know little about the case - are highly cynical about everything and think this could be someone trying to use me for some unknown agenda.

As I said above, the last couple of posts have gotten more coherent and specific. Maybe I don't have to do anything except let the poster keep posting comments.

Matthew, who's hawking Delta credit cards has offered me access to his wifi so I can even post this before I go.

SFO to SLC

Des arrived after our walk on the beach and we all went for breakfast nearby. Des was a student of mine in Hong Kong 20 years ago and helped me with research in China. He has since gotten his PhD at the University of Michigan and is a new professor in the San Francisco Bay area.

We dropped J back off at home, picked up our luggage, were able to check it in curbside at the airport and have dim sum at a nearby Chinese restaurant. We were lucky, the rain didn't start until after we got back from our walk on the beach.


We flew over Lake Tahoe.

And the Nevada Desert

And the mountains we flew over had snow still. But I'm sure we'll see a lot more if we get home.

There are plenty of shopping opportunities in the airport while we wait. Fortunately window shopping is good enough for us. We already have way too much luggage.

Besides, they have great little desks with plugins for the computer next to a beautiful view. Unfortunately, the wifi is not free in the Salt Lake City Airport.

Morning Beach Walk

Here's the beach we walked on last night.

Full Moon at Half Moon Bay

Our son and his roommate picked us up at the airport and we're now at their place just off the beach at Half Moon Bay. J and J and I walked Kona on the beach in the moonlight.

Here's the sound of the surf while you look at the iPhoto cranked up shots. If you look at the screen from the right angle, not only can you see my wife and son and his dog, but also their shadows and the surf.   [UPDATE:  The site I kept my audio, Jamglue, has shut down, and the audio I had there is, apparently, gone forever.  Sorry.]
Half Moon Bay surf under Full Moon by AKRaven

Looking toward Pillar Point, north of Half Moon Bay.

We left Anchorage a day after the full moon in January and we're due back tomorrow. The sun isn't quite full, but I used my poetic blogger's license with the title.

Taipei to San Francisco

I was impressed that they were able to carry our food preference onto the new flight. Usually when there's a late change of itinerary, we lose our vegie meals. This was Hindu Vegie breakfast. Very tasty.

I've never seen so many people waiting in line to pee on a plane.

The wing.

The seats were definitely too close together.

Almost in San Francisco.

Golden Fronted Leaf birds and Black Drongo Say Goodbye

The birds were out this morning as we did last minute packing. The video is not good enough to see the details of the birds, so I put up this picture of the leaf bird from our Thai bird book. But you can see the drongo chase the leafbird off its perch and hear the leafbird singing. There are two leafbirds. The one on the far right is singing.




I'll set this to go up when the Anchorage folks are just waking up and we should be waiting in the Taiwan airport to fly to San Francisco.