Where is David?

Not important really, but you’d think CNN Asia would be able to catch this typo, considering their offices are in Honk Kong.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the $3000.

Find out what I’m talking about here

As most people have already heard, Bangkok was the victim of a number of bomb attacks spread across the city this New Year’s Eve holiday.

There are a number of theories about who is to blame, but it seems it’s a bit too early to even try to ponder who’s to blame, and it’s quite possible that no culprits will ever be found.

(for a good round-up of the current situation, check Bangkok Pundit’s blog)

There are precedents for Bombs in Bangkok over the past year, however.

In March, a bomb exploded outside Privy Council President Prem Tinsulanonda’s house, and in August, a bomb was discovered supposedly aimed at (then) Prime Minister Thaksin’s motorcade. I haven’t heard any mention of connections between the incidents, so it’ll be interesting to see if the media starts asking questions and connecting the dots.

In case any of you were considering visiting Thailand and wondering about local customs and behaviours, here is an example of what not to do here:

Drunk Swiss faces Thai wrath for King grafitti

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A drunk Swiss has been arrested for defacing portraits of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the revered monarch’s birthday and faces up to 15 years in jail, a newspaper and police said on Friday.

Police in Chiang Mai identified the man as Oliver Rudolf Jufer, a long-term resident of the northern province, but declined to give details, citing the sensitivity that surrounds any alleged disrespect to the king, whom many Thais regard as semi-divine.

(photo from Thai Photo Blogs)

“I can’t tell you anything because it is a lese majeste case,” Chiang Mai city police chief Colonel Yutachai Puaprasert told Reuters.

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej reviews a parade to mark his 79th birthday in Bangkok December 2, 2006. A drunk Swiss has been arrested for defacing portraits of Adulyadej on the revered monarch’s birthday and faces up to 15 years in jail, a newspaper and police said on Friday. (REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom)
The southeast Asian nation’s lese majeste laws carry a penalty of between three and 15 years in jail for anybody found guilty of slandering or defaming a member of the royal family.

The Matichon newspaper said Jufer, 57, had told police he sprayed black paint on portraits of the world’s longest-reigning monarch in six villages in the province on Tuesday, the king’s 79th birthday.

He had admitted to being drunk at the time, the paper said. Dried paint was found on his fingers and he was caught on security cameras going into a shop which sold a spray can found discarded near one of the defaced images, it added.

As is customary in Thai detective work, he had to return to the scene of the crime for a police re-enactment — but early in the morning to avoid the risk of being lynched by passers-by.

The Swiss embassy in Bangkok said it had been informed about the arrest of a Swiss national in Chiang Mai and that police were seeking a court order to extend his detention for further interrogation.

Matichon was the only newspaper to report the episode after Chiang Mai police asked local journalists to kill their coverage to minimise the disrespect.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters

I’ll be the first to admit, my filtered-down level of news that I receive here in Thailand is not the greatest. Instead of commenting on a New York Times article that I’ve read firsthand, I have to comment on a piece commenting on said article. Still, I persist.
Basically, my main beef is with this article at abc7.com http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=nation_world&id=4675085 .
It is basically saying that President Bush agrees that the latest Iraq violence is similar to the Tet Offensive.

Oh my F’in gosh….the Tet Offensive? That means that we’re entering into a quagmire that no amount of righteousness can overcome, right?

Well, wrong…for 2 reasons.

#1: President Bush is a moron
#2: The Tet Offensive was not a ‘bad’ thing

I think number one pretty much speaks for itself. If you need to look up ‘bushisims’ or some other quote to see how many stupid things the guy has said in the past, then by all means, please do so. He pretty much gives Br’er Rabbit’s Tar Baby a run for the money in stupidity.

Number two probably says more about ABC, the New York Times, and Thomas Friedman than it does about President Bush. Read your history people, the Tet Offensive was a military failure for the North Vietnamese (and Viet Cong). They got their asses handed to them on a platter, 10 of their soldiers killed for every 1 South Vietnamese, pretty much a whopping military defeat however you’re counting.

Somehow, this notion of the Tet Offensive as a military success for the North Vietnamese somehow crept into popular culture, possibly as a result of our fascination with Pearl Harbor, which was a success, but not as much as it could have been.

For those of you ignorant to history, the reason why the U.S. ‘lost’ Vietnam were as follows:

#1: we weren’t there
#2: we knew we weren’t going to be there

Well, the reason I put ‘lost’ in quotes is because it’s hard to lose an argument when you’re not present. It’s pretty much like not showing up for a court appearance, you’re assumed to be in the wrong, but it’s not always so.

#1 is absolutely true and a pretty boring fact that people don’t seem to understand. They get caught up in pictures of helicopters evacuating people from the U.S. embassy and assume that it was the result of a military defeat. The truth is, the U.S. left South Vietnam in 1973, and the North took over in 1975. (Tet Offensive, 1968 by the way).

#2 is a bit more interesting, considering it is a perfect example of America selling its soul to the devil and then completely denying we ever did so. Basically, we completely double-crossed our South Vietnamese allies. The South Vietnamese we were supporting were a brutal, oppressive regime, but they were our friends. A year before we pulled out, Kissinger met secretly with the ‘communist’ Chinese (ahem, if only Mao could see Shanghai now) to basically tell them “It’s ok if you take over Vietnam”. Check this link if you need more info about this.

What’s my point? Well….just….don’t believe everything you read in that darn liberal media. The writer of the NYT article was playing off Americans belief that the Tet Offensive was a bad thing, which is totally inaccurate. While it did indicate a shift in opinion about the Vietnam War, it was not a military defeat like many mistakenly believe it to be.

By the way, the columnist responsible for the article is quite an interesting fellow, and deserves some extra research if you get a chance…….. Thomas Friedman

Speaking of the Tet Offensive, I think everyone’s seen this photo before…….

I’ll let you do your own research to see what the story behind it is……I can’t spoonfeed all this stuff to you people!

a little entry for my friends in China

US singer Ho recovering after stem cell treatment

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Hawaiian crooner Don Ho is recovering in a Thai hospital after undergoing an experimental stem-cell treatment yet to be approved in the United States.

Ho, the 75-year-old singer of standards such as “Tiny Bubbles” and “I’ll Remember You,” suffered from an ailing heart that made it difficult for him to do normal things such as climbing stairs, his doctor, Kitipan Visudharom, said on Friday.

“He told me sometimes it was hard for him to finish a song,” said Kitipan, chief cardio-thoracic surgeon at the Bangkok Heart Hospital, who injected stem cells into Ho’s heart on Tuesday.

“It will take time. At least a couple of months before we see a good result,” he said. “Usually we send them home in four days. But in his case we may have to wait just to be safe.”

The use of stem cells — master cells in the body which can develop into any cell type — can pose an ethical dilemma because those derived from very early human embryos are considered the most promising for treating human diseases.

South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose team made global headlines by developing tailored embryonic stem cells and producing the world’s first cloned dog, sparked a storm of controversy after admitting two junior women researchers had donated their eggs for his work.

But stem cells harvested from a patient’s own blood may not only sidestep thorny ethical issues but could also prove safer than cells from embryos, said Robert Clark, chairman of Theravitae, which developed the technology used in Ho’s surgery.

The harvested stem cells are allowed to multiply before being injected into a patient’s heart or arteries to regenerate diseased tissue, considered the first such procedure of its kind.

“We tried very, very hard to make a product which was first morally and ethically correct. To do that, we only work with a person’s own blood,” said Clark, in Bangkok for the procedure.

“The reality is your body has everything it needs to build and repair your body,” he said. Embryonic tissue “will never be safe. Because it’s not from you.”

The treatment, which costs around $30,000, has been performed on 70 people since a clinical trial in August 2004, mostly in Thailand, Clark estimates.

More than 30 percent of the patients have come from the United States and “virtually all” had shown signs of improvement, he said.

Clark said the procedure was likely to become available in the United States in 5 to 10 years, but that he expected a steady growth in the number of heart patients seeking the treatment in Thailand.

“By June of next year, 100 people a month could be coming to Thailand for this procedure,” he said.

Ho, for his part, was in good spirits and was scheduled to leave on Sunday, said Haumea Hebenstreit, his assistant.

“He’s feeling wonderful. From the minute we arrived he’s had a positive mental attitude,” she said. “Before they finished stitching him up, he was joking with everybody, wanting to kiss the doctors, the nurses.”

First of all, I’d like to preface this with saying that I don’t consider myself a good person. I’m not a social justice crusader, a budding Mother Theresa or anything like that. In fact, before I end up meeting the big guy upstairs, I probably will be spending a lot of time in Dante’s middle level before I make it, if at all. Regardless, sometimes a situation hits me when the mothership calls and I come out blowing seven different kinds of smoke (see You Me & Dupree for a more thorough understanding of the reference).
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I just wanted to share with you what I’ve been trying to do the past couple days or so. I’m not doing this so people say, “Wow, what a good-hearted person,” or anything like that, as I’ve already explained. I’m doing this so possibly people out there can change their view of the world, or at least the privileged one they live in. Maybe most of you won’t get it, but perhaps someone out there will, and if so, my mission from the mothership will be at least partially fulfilled.
Again, this story ends similar to a tragedy, where the situation is exposed as hopeless, where no real culprit emerges, misunderstandings on all sides, and no clear solution can be seen. So here it goes:
For those of you who follow international news, there is something a little more important lately than the Jonbenet Ramsey killer guy happening in Bangkok, at least in my opinion. To make a long story short, a number of North Korean refugees (around 175 people, but difficult to get an exact number) were found at a house in Bangkok and arrested by Thai police for being in Thailand without a visa. 16 of them were found to have departure dates already from Thailand, given by the South Korean embassy in Bangkok. The rest were most likely recent arrivals in Bangkok, and had not yet secured approval from the South Korean government to immigrate there. As a result they went before a Thai judge who fined them 6000 baht (about $160) for being in the country illegally. The catch is, because they were not able to pay the fine, they were sentenced to 30 days in jail instead of the fine.
Up to this point, the story seems like a miscarriage of justice, not in the legal sense, because Thailand has a perfect right to uphold the law of the land and people entering here must be prepared to follow the law. To me, this case seemed more like an economic injustice. Here I was, in a nice air-conditioned 3 story townhouse in Bangkok, while 45 men and 130 women (25 of them children under the age of 15) were sentenced to Thai jail because they could not afford a $160 fine (actually, the 16 that had their UNHCR papers were in an immigration detention center until their plane to South Korea was schedule to leave). I wasn’t sure where my journey would lead me, but somehow I got the inspiration to try to help these people sentenced to jail.
Basically, my journey begins with the UNHCR office in Bangkok, speaking with a nice woman named Kitty McKinsey. I explained to her that I was interested in the case about the North Koreans in Bangkok, and wanted more information about their situation. She clarified for me that 136 were in Thai jail for not paying the fine and 16 had already been issued UNHCR papers to leave the country. I then asked her why the UNHCR couldn’t just give all of these people refugee papers (sorry, not sure of the exact term to describe these travel documents) and they could all leave the country with the other 16. Her response to me was that Thailand has a right to enforce their laws, to which I completely agree. The last thing Thailand wants is to be caught in the middle of this situation, so I assume if the UNHCR granted these papers, they would be treated the same as the other 16, and at least not be in a Thai jail.
On a slight tangent, one thing I’ve noticed about people who work in aid agencies, at least those I’ve met in my almost five years living abroad, is they almost become complacent with the status quo of situations. I completely understand, because these people probably enter these aid organizations completely optimistic, but then see the bureaucracy and political stumbling blocks tear this optimism down real quick. I guess, if there’s any theme whatsoever in this post, it’s probably this.
After this phone conversation, I called Thai police, who then told me to call the Thai Special Branch police, who then directed me to Thai immigration officials.
The Thai immigration official basically told me that nothing could be done, because these people had nowhere to go to, and suggested I contact the South Korean embassy.
Finally I made a call to the South Korean embassy, where they asked me if I was a reporter. I told them I wasn’t, and explained that I just wanted information about how I could pay the fine for one of the North Korean refugees. The woman asked me in a hostile tone, “Why? Do you want them to go back to North Korea?” No, I assured her, I was just interested in them at least getting out of Thai jail, it seemed unfair to me that they were there simply because they couldn’t afford the fine. She told me that this, “wasn’t my concern,” and that this situation was a delicate situation that needed time to resolve. I told her that I wasn’t interested in politics, and I understood that this was a delicate situation. She put me on hold and transferred me to another official at the embassy. This official was also very nice, and again assured me that it was a delicate political situation that needed time to resolve itself. I again assured her that I understood the politics, and wasn’t interested in them. My concern was merely in the comfort of these people. I asked her what would happen if I paid for one of these people to get out of jail, would they be allowed to go to the immigration center instead of the jail? She told me that this wasn’t an issue of money, and she thought that the jail wasn’t such a bad place. (I imagine officials from the SK embassy have been there, so I trusted her judgement on this one) She then assured me that the immigration detention center was probably the same as the jail. (I assumed the real meaning was ‘just as bad’ as the immigration center). Still my thought of the children also being caught up in the jail were a bit disheartening, but at least they were allowed to be with their parents. I also imagined that this probably wasn’t much different than the conditions they were in during their (assumed) long journey from North Korea to Bangkok. I eventually began to understand this embassy representative’s opinion and decided that there was really nothing that could be done in this situation. Processes were in place to help these people, and me meddling in it wouldn’t be of any help. (or would it have been? I guess we’ll never know)
The woman then asked me where I was from, and when I told her America, she said that Americans don’t usually have such a good heart. I told her that some Americans have good hearts, others don’t, and she repeated that no, Americans don’t usually have good hearts. I didn’t really know how to take this comment, but I thanked her for her time and hung up, a bit more complacent in the situation but a bit more understanding as well.
Now that I’m able to reflect more upon everything, I realize that the whole thing seems to be an exercise in futility. I wasted a good 5 hours out of my day dealing with all this bureaucracy, only to end up with these words that I am writing now. Nothing more, Are they worth it? Is anyone even reading this? No one was saved from jail, no one is living a more comfortable lifestyle as a result of my actions, my willingness to pay a mere $160 to help someone. No one will notice.
The danger is in this complacency, and that’s the theme I was touching on earlier. If we let the world beat us down after one futile effort, then complacency wins and everyone will eventually lose. I remember my last day of a SE Asian history class at UCLA, my Professor Geoffrey Robinson told us to never forget that somewhere out there, there were human rights abuses going on as we speak. It is our obligation to help. Not a choice we make, not something we do to make ourselves feel better, but rather an obligation. Perhaps I’m paraphrasing the ‘obligation’ part a bit here, but I believe his intention was to make us never forget that we live in a comfortable bubble, but others outside this bubble are in need of help, and we are obligated to do so. I don’t consider my desire to help these people to be noble at all; Rather, I consider it something I was obligated to do. In fact, it was the least I could do.
In closing, I’d just like to ask that no one become complacent with the world today. There are always ways you can improve the world you live in, and a big factor we all fight is this complacency. It is our duty to understand the world around us, and to understand how it could be better. The good news is, these refugees will almost certainly make it to South Korea, eventually. So, in a sense, this story isn’t a tragedy after all. Or perhaps the real tragedy is the struggle they had to face merely to go to a place where they imagined they could lead a better life. Makes me wonder what my ancestors experienced when they came to America, stories long lost I imagine.
Perhaps one day, we’ll have a world that is perfect and there will be no need to think thoughts like this. But I’m not sure I even subscribe to this optimistic ideology. I’d rather think in terms of the present and what I’ve observed. And I think that we’ll have plenty of social concerns for a long time to come. Thank you for reading and I wish everyone out there freedom from complacency for many years to come.

-david

p.s. I dedicate this post to my younger brother Michael, who has been an inspiration to me in his quest to make the world a better place. Never give up, Mike.

Looks like Fox News found some people even more right-wing than they are….congratulations.

It’s nice to see president bush has a new spokesperson….someone who tells the truth….

I guess I don’t have much to say, let’s just let the president’s new spokesperson have the floor…..
“Snow called the president “something of an embarrassment,” a leader who has “lost control of the federal budget,” the architect of a “listless domestic policy” and a man who has “a habit of singing from the political correctness hymnal.”

it’s good to have someone in politics who speaks the truth, huh?