Carl Parkes -- FriskoDude

Tilt Shift Video on Bangkok

2011-01-27T03:04:00.000-08:00

This blog is on an extended fresh breath of air, but how could I resist this wonderful little tilt-shift look at Bangkok? With perfect music. You'll need to copy and paste since I seem to have temporarily lost my mind and can't remember how to embed links properly. Clear out the cobwebs Carl!

http://vimeo.com/17942063

Still on Vacation

2010-08-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still on vacation with this blog, and will probably not resume it. Thanks for your comments and best of luck to everyone out there.

Free Blu Ray Player for Prayers

2010-06-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

Original ad:
Help me! I’m in desperate need of a Blu-ray player. I don’t have a lot of money so if you want to give me one for free, that would be great. In return I will say many prayers for you! Please e-mail me @ ***********@verizon.net

From Me to ***********@verizon.net:
Hey there,

I have an old Blu-Ray player I don’t use anymore. Are you interested?

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

Yes I am very much interested! What brand is the player and is it free?

From Me to Cathy ********:

Cathy,

It is a Samsung player, and whether it is free or not depends on you…how many prayers are we talking about here?

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

I will say many prayers for you!

From Me to Cathy ********:

Yeah, I got that. Specifically, how many prayers? This Blu-Ray player wasn’t cheap. I’m thinking, 50 Our Fathers and 50 Hail Marys every day for a year. Does that sound good?

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

Mike, the quantity of prayers is not important – it is the sincerity and power of the prayer that matters. I will be genuinely thankful and show this through my prayers!

From Me to Cathy ********:

Sorry, but I’m not settling for anything less than 50 Our Fathers and 50 Hail Marys per day. The last guy I gave my plasma TV to gave me that “sincere prayer” crap but I don’t it worked at all. My wife’s breasts still aren’t bigger and my lottery tickets still aren’t winning. The only thing that matters is the amount of prayers that you say. It is your choice; 100 prayers a day or no blu-ray player.

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of prayer. Surely you can’t expect me to say that many prayers – it would take all day!

From Me to Cathy ********:

I’m willing to cut you a deal, Cathy. I’ll only ask for 50 prayers a day, but in return, you have to come say grace whenever I eat dinner. I’ll accept you saying grace for me over the phone if I happen to be eating at a drive-thru fast food place.

I’ll also throw in my copy of “Drag Me to Hell” on Blu-Ray.

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

Please stop. You are being preposterous.

From Me to Cathy ********:

Cathy,

My apologies. I guess you are right, I am asking for a bit too much. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll go by what my priest made me do the last time I confessed to stealing a Blu-Ray player. He made me say 20 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers, but I think the Our Fathers were because I pistol-whipped a guy while I was stealing it. Since I didn’t have to pistol-whip anyone this time, I’ll give it to you for only 20 Hail Marys. How does this sound? This is practically face value in prayer.

Mike

From Cathy ******** to Me:

Oh my lord, you have lost your mind! I will get a bluray player elsewhere.

Lightning Strikes in Chicago

2010-06-30T00:11:00.000-07:00

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

The first part is random strikes I happened to capture on the same night as the triple strike on Willis Tower, Trump International Hotel and Tower and the John Hancock Building (http://vimeo.com/12816548). In the second clip you can kinda hear my neighbors on their balcony yelling after Willis Tower is struck with a giant rainbow in the background.

1:19 - Is a sped up scene of a giant rainbow forming over the Chicago skyline.

1:46 - Is the original triple lightning strike video in a 30 second block for those that were questioning it's authenticity. I could have shown more but watching paint dry would be more interesting. If you listen closely, you can hear me lightly say "yes!" after the triple strike happens. You can also notice a slight movement in the camera. This was me putting my hand on the camera to stop recording as nothing was happening. That would've sucked to miss out on this by a second.

HD Video was filmed on a Canon EOS 7D. Edited in Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

Music: The xx (http://www.myspace.com/thexx) - Intro

Craig Shimala shot an amazing slow motion video of lightning striking three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time, the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), the Trump International Hotel and Tower and the John Hancock Center.

Marina Bay Sands Singapore

2010-06-29T16:33:00.001-07:00

World Architecture News reports on the first of several casinos to soon be opening in Singapore.

Marina Bay Sands opens long-awaited SkyPark in flamboyant two-day ceremony

This Thursday saw part of Singapore’s newest mixed use development opened to the public in an extravagant ceremony across one of the world’s largest observation decks. Whilst the world must wait until later in the year for the completed building, the SkyPark, Event Plaza, shops, dining options and many nightlife offerings on the complex are now fully functional. Marina Bay Sands is a magnificent construction – a S$8bn development including a 2,560-room hotel, 120,000 sq m convention centre, The Shoppes mall, six restaurants, an Art and Science museum, two Sands Theatres, two floating pavilions and an 'atrium style' casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines. The complex will be opened in 3-4 stages, with full completion on course for late 2010. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the project’s developer Las Vegas Sands Corp, Mr. Sheldon G. Adelson, said: “The opening of the Sands SkyPark signifies an important milestone for Marina Bay Sands. This has been the single, most challenging engineering component of our unique integrated resort and to see it materialise is an incredibly proud moment for us. Marina Bay Sands along with its signature Sands SkyPark will be a truly impressive icon and we are excited to present this bold architecture to not only Singapore but to the rest of the world.”

Situated on Bayfront Avenue, across the water from Singapore's Central Business District, no expense has been spared in this luxurious design, where world-class dining will be supplied by Singaporean celebrity chef Justin Quek’s newest restaurant, Sky 57, and customers can gamble to their heart's content in the world's most expensive stand-alone casino, featuring four levels of gaming and entertainment under the light of a 7 tonne Swarovski chandelier.

The real gem of this exotic construction however is located in its crown. The three vertical 200m towers are topped with an extensive 9,941 sq m SkyPark, which totes a public observatory, jogging paths, gardens, restaurants and lounges. Basking in the limelight is a stunning 1,396 sq m infinity pool, from which guests at the hotel can enjoy the breathtaking views over the Singapore skyline. One of the world’s largest cantilevers (at 65m), the park can hold an impressive 3,900 people and is longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall. The park will be open to the public daily from 10am to 10pm.

Things haven’t always been so rosy onsite however, as the project failed to avoid the global economic crisis of recent months. Las Vegas Sands reportedly faced delays caused by labour shortages and escalating material costs, and had to delay projects elsewhere in the world in order to keep to strict deadlines. The issues didn’t stop once the first stages of the project were completed, as the first use of the conference centre – by The Inter-Pacific Bar Association – was marred by complaints of uncompleted facilities and a power cut during a speech. These mishaps found Marina Bay Sands suing the IPBA, after the firm refused to pay the S$300,000 previously agreed for use of facilities. In June, the IPBA counter-sued, complaining that its earlier payments had been imposed by ‘duress, fear and force’. Not off to a good start.

Regardless, things seem to be on the up for the delectable mixed-use development, as the June opening was deemed a full success. In line with its extreme architecture, the two-day event was topped off with a ‘World Championship Climb’, where 7 teams of 21 rock climbers scaled the shimmering glass façade of the building and 4,000 invited guests and customers were entertained with an evening concert. The SkyPark was officially opened at 2pm the following day.

Whilst one may consider this superb construction to have taken years of meticulous design, architect Moshe Safdie came on board the project with only four months left to the official Government-set deadline. Astonishingly, the Israeli architect managed to complete the 1,000,000 sq m design on time and to specification, commenting: “Singapore has invested a lot in this project, which is based in the most prominent site in Singapore. It’s right across downtown, and they set this up as a national project, they wrote very exacting terms of reference for the project. The idea was for it to have gardens on the ground, in the mid-level and in the sky, each serving another purpose and another function. All this together forms a project that is very integrated with nature and with green open spaces.”

5 Short Video Clips about Cambodia

2010-06-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Cambodia from Memorias de Oriente on Vimeo.

Cambodiaaaa from Diego Lorenzo F. Jose on Vimeo.

CAMBODIA TRIP from Piotr Pacewicz on Vimeo.

Cambodia from BUDDY on Vimeo.

Global X Cambodia from Whisper Productions on Vimeo.

Voyagner posted these 5 inspirational video clips about Cambodia. Check out their website and add them to your Twitter list.

Shanghai Expo in under 3 Minutes

2010-06-27T16:10:00.000-07:00

expo shanghai 世博会（tr. 5.6.7.8's-Jane In The Jungle) from fil on Vimeo.

Fast paced look at many of the building exteriors, plus super fast tour of a few exhibits at the Shanghai Expo.

Oliver Fricker Graffiti Artist Gets the Cane

2010-06-25T22:46:00.000-07:00

It's happened again, but this time it's an experienced graffiti artist and IT professional who committed the crime in Singapore. He was just sentenced to five months in jail and three strokes of the rattan.

Singapore Metblogs starts off the discussion with the pro graffiti argument.

In what might be the first case ever, a Singapore MRT train was graffiti’d while parked in the depot. Train painting has a long history tied to the origins of modern day writers and is fairly common in some parts of the world, but until now unheard of in Singapore. It’s easy to pass something like this off as simple vandalism but in a country which such well known policies against it this is kind of an exciting occurrence, as many people believe that graffiti is an example of the culture of a society being so active it literally bursts onto the walls. Active culture is a good thing in my book, and something that takes a little looking for in S’pore. Here’s a brief documentary about the Singapore Graffiti scene called The Art Behind The Vandalism.

/The Straits Times announces the sentence.

CONVICTED vandal Oliver Fricker was sentenced to five months' jail and three strokes of the cane on Friday evening for entering a protected place and spraying paint on two carriages of an SMRT train. The 32-year-old IT consultant is appealing against his sentence, according to his lawyer, Mr Derek Kang.

Fricker, who went to jail on Friday, had admitted to a vandalism charge and an offence under the Protected Areas and Protected Places Act. He did them with his friend, Briton Dane Alexander Lloyd, 29, at the SMRT Changi depot between May 16 and 17.

A third charge of cutting the perimeter fence of the depot was considered during his sentencing. The graffiti on the train with the large words McKoy Banos was seen by many commuters and members of the public before it was reported by a SMRT staff two days later.

Seeking an appropriate jail term on each of the two charges, Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharon Lim argued that such serious breach of the law could not be taken lightly or viewed as a mere prank. The duo, she said, were experienced graffiti writers who had targeted the SMRT train which is the backbone of Singapore's public transport system. Fricker could have been jailed for up to three years for the vandalism charge; and up to two years for entering a protected place.

Singapore Dissident points out the sad and disturbing fact that Oliver was unable to find a local attorney to represent him, and then presents a few arguments in his defence.

Other than the dubious honor that Singapore has the fewest lawyers in relation to population for any country in the world, a mere 3000 for a population of nearly 5 million, it has also earned the disgraceful notoriety, that, no Singaporean lawyer would dare question the legality of it's laws when defending his client, for fear of attracting the wrath of Singaporean strongman Lee Kuan Yew.

Strangely enough in that island, unlike every other country in the world, if there was one profession in Singapore who fear Lee Kuan Yew the most, it is the lawyers.

Oliver Fricker, the Swiss man who had tagged a Singapore subway train would not find a single lawyer in Singapore who would dare to raise the defenses that he would be raising had he been in any other country. Here is what he, or his lawyer should say.

Kent Ridge Common, the NUS student newspaper, points out the the security breach is an important lesson for Singapore, and reminds everyone that corporal punishment for such a minor act is overkill.

Swiss Oliver Fricker entered Singapore through the most original way possible — two days ago, he made the headlines by being arrested for allegedly spray painting graffiti on one of Singapore’s MRT trains. Another Briton, Lloyd Alexander, is wanted in connection with the case. He reportedly left Singapore for Hongkong before the incident was reported.

The Fricker graffiti reminded many Singaporeans of what was most probably the most infamous case of vandalism due to the international furore surrounding the corporal punishment of caning lashed out on American Michael Fay, in 1994. Fay had then spray painted several cars before being arrested and punished with 6 strokes of the cane. Following pleads for clemency by the then President Clinton, the late President Ong Teng Cheong commuted Fay’s sentence from 6 to 4 strokes of the cane.

What was Fricker’s role in this alleged case of vandalism? If reports were to be believed, he and his accomplice cut through a fence at an derelict MRT depot, before having the luxury to spray paint graffiti on an MRT carriage. He faces up to 3 years in jail, a fine, and most certainly a few strokes of the cane — given the authorities hard-nosed approach in dealing with vandals.

Most of the reports so far focused on punishing Fricker for his role in the vandalism. Sure enough, he trespassed into an out-of-bounds territory in the MRT depot and spray-painted a train. But if Fricker should be punished for vandalism, dare I say that SMRT should be equally if not more culpable.

Without question, they must answer for the startling lack of security around the premises of the train depot — an obvious easy target for terrorists. While intelligence months earlier resulting from a raid of terrorists in nearby Indonesia had pointed at the possibility of an MRT train station being targeted for terrorism (a map with a red circle around Orchard MRT was found), it is clear that from this breach of security that security strategists were still stuck within a box — that is, the box of merely deploying additional personnels for a presence around train stations, believing that a terrorist needs to board a train, deposit a bomb and leave in order to carry out acts of terrorism on our transport system. This is not to say that such a method of having security personnels on board train is ineffective, but there could be thousand more ways a terrorist may plant a bomb on a train that does not involve him boarding the train even. Cutting through the fence in a poorly guarded MRT train depot to plant a bomb is but one of the many possibilities.

Cat Parade for Rainfall

2010-06-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

PHICHIT: After suffering from the worst drought in a decade, some 200 villagers in tambon Don Seua Leuang resurrected an old local tradition in which female cats are paraded around the village and doused with water in the hopes that their screams will induce the rain gods to release their bounty.

The ritual took place at 2pm on June 5 in the small rice-farming area of this tambon, located in Pho Prathap Chang District.

Nang Boontham, 53, said there wasn’t enough water to plant her 50-rai paddy and that she feared the annual flooding of the low-lying area would be worse this year if villagers didn’t get their paddy production underway soon.

Don Seua Leuang Tambon Administration Organization President Wisan Junthong said this year’s drought was especially bad because the village was not receiving extra water from the Ping River in neighboring Kamphaeng Phet Province, as usual. The canal usually used to channel water to the area was currently being worked on, he said.

Normally villagers in the area would begin planting as soon as rains arrived after Royal Ploughing Day in early May. When June arrived without rainfall, the villagers decided to hold the cat parade.

The ritual is one of many folk beliefs used by villagers in the North and Northeast to induce rainfall. The most popular involve firing homemade rockets into the sky.

The Psychedelic Shinkansen Ride

2010-06-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Shinkansen ver.2 from daihei shibata on Vimeo.

A really amazing video as described by Jeremy Kressmann at Gadling as:

I don't know who's behind the recent glut of Japan-centric videos that's been floating around web. Then again, it doesn't matter, does it? All that matters is the creators behind these short movies are some seriously creative individuals. The video above comes to us courtesy of daihei shibata, a Tokyo resident who decided to film his recent train ride on Japan's Shinkansen (bullet train) between Shinosaka and Tokyo.

Not only did Daihei film his entire warp-speed ride on the fast-moving trains using his digital camera, he's also applied a unique editing treatment to the end product. You'll notice there doesn't seem to be a bottom half to the video - it's simply a reflection of the image at the top. The end product is half home movie, half kaleidoscope - a trippy visual treat that both delights and amazes the viewer. Combined with the energetic song "So High" by rockers Van She and you've got the makings of some seriously great eye candy. Whether you've been to Japan or not, here's your chance to take a wild journey through the unique eyes of one Japanese local. Enjoy.

It's Raining Oil in Louisiana

2010-06-23T22:23:00.001-07:00

When you pour more than a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesn’t just disappear. In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain.

BP’s oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe for good reason. Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally enduring, toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill. Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.

The European Union Times reports "A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.

The reports adds, "Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day."

Oil in the environment is toxic at 11 PPM (parts per million). Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 PPM. But Corexit 9500 has another precarious characteristic; it’s reaction to warm water.

As the water in the Gulf of Mexico heats up, Corexit 9500 goes through a molecular transition. It changes from a liquid to a gas, which is readily absorbed by clouds and released as toxic rain. The chemical-laden rain then falls on crops, reservoirs, animals and of course, people.

It is futile to believe that we can keep ‘Corexit rain’ from occurring since it has already been released and the molecular transformation has begun. We have set off an unprecedented chain of events in nature that we cannot control.

By releasing Pandora’s well from the depths and allowing it bleed into the sea the unimaginable becomes material.

Yet unlike a bad dream, we will not wake up from this nightmare and find it gone. The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill will be touching millions of earth’s life forms for uncountable years.

The Strange Striker

2010-06-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Motorcycle Blues

2010-06-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Doesn't Get Any Fresher Than This

2010-06-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

1,033 Kg of Heroin Bust

2010-06-23T20:03:00.000-07:00

Junkies all over the world are crying in their needles, as Shanghaiist reports on this amazing bust.

In the biggest drug bust in China's history, police arrested 20 suspects and seized 1,033 kg (2,277 pounds) of heroin. That's enough to reenact the adrenaline needle scene from Pulp Fiction about a million times, give or take.

Huangpu Customs in Guangdong Province disclosed the information as they were getting ready to destroy drugs from a raid last year (a meager 545 kilos of heroin). The drugs from this bust are scheduled to be destroyed on the 25th.

When we first heard about this latest bust, we'll confess, we were hoping for pictures of police officers standing next to mountains of loose heroin (that's how drug dealers store it, right?). Instead we get what looks like all the smack packages in the world spread out in a neat grid spanning a football field, which is really the only way to keep track of your China White: meticulously. (Also, is that a velvet sheet in picture two?)

Video Postcard from Hong Kong and Shanghai

2010-06-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

China Reel from Kalum Ko on Vimeo.

Visually arresting short video clip of Hong Kong and Shanghai, although it's mostly an omage to HK. The background music is too sweet for my tastes, and I'd rather have some techno to get the blood flowing. Still, a fine look at these 2 great cities.

The Chinese Yuan Travel Guide

2010-06-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

CNNGo today has a very clever post about the new set of Chinese Yuan which depict various tourist places in China. Great idea! They then describe the attraction and tell you why you should visit these places.

That isn't a Chinese note, I know. Do you know the country?

China is finally making some moves with the yuan. Heck, even United States President Barack Obama is happy. But the yuan isn't just good for purchasing things; the current fifth series Renminbi notes are also an awesome ready-made travel itinerary.

Depicted on the notes are six destinations Chinese authorities have deemed worthy of mass circulation, ranging from UNESCO-inscribed iconic architecture to the most stunning natural landscapes. Visit them all on a quirky, once-in-a-lifetime quest, literally following the money through the Middle Kingdom.

1 yuan
“Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon,” West Lake, Hangzhou..

What’s depicted on the yuan: One of the famous “Ten Scenes of West Lake” (西湖十景) in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. Referred to as the “Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon” (三潭印月), these two-meter high stone pagodas are located in the water on the south side of Xiaoying Island.

Why go: Summer is always a great time to go boating on the lake, but autumn is magical. A candle is lit inside each pagoda on the night of the mid-Autumn festival, allowing shafts of light to shine through five round holes on the bottom levels of each one. They cast reflections on the water’s surface that resemble little moons. It’s an absolutely stunning effect, especially with the moon glowing overhead.

Getting there: On a West Lake boat trip. Cruise boats shuttle frequently around the main spots on the lake, including Xiaoying Island. A more expensive option is to get onboard a six-person boat rowed by boatmen; look for them along the causeways.

What Happens When You Set Your Capital on Fire

2010-06-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

TravelFish founder Stuart has posted a fascinating graph which shows the declining business of hotel reservations in Bangkok during the 2 months of protests by the red shirts. The text provides further insight into this depressing situation. Cheer up Stu, at least you're living in lovely Bali.

They say that a picture says a thousand words so I won’t waffle on about the about chart (bigger version here), other than to say it represents the rather precipitous fall in daily hotel reservations through Travelfish via one of our affiliate partners.

This is all reservation enquiries, so doesn’t take into account cancellations — meaning the fall is actually considerably worse than what the above illustrates. I should also note the airport shutdowns instigated by the yellow shirts had an equally destructive effect on reservations — I just don’t have time right now to make two charts!

Given that matters are sizing up for another meltdown around October/November this year (ie just in time for the peak tourist season) it is difficult to understate just how damaging all this is to the Thai economy. While it is clear Thailand has very serious societal issues that do need to be addressed, crucifying the travel and tourism industries seems hardly to be the way forward.

Who would have thought six years ago (when we started Travelfish.org) that today Indonesia would be seeing relatively progressive economic development accompanied by encouraging signs on the tourism side of things, while Thailand would be actively working to reinvent itself into the region’s new basketcase.

5 Jobs for Westerners in Thailand

2010-06-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing much earth shaking here, but for the novices seeking work in Thailand, it's a gentle reminder of a few job opportunities. Steve runs a website which primarily promotes luxury hotels in Thailand, and he does a good job although it's obviously a promotional effort. And I assume he is charging for a listing.

So you’ve been to Thailand and fell in love with the culture, the people and the easy lifestyle. You absolutely have to get back and you think you even want to live there. Sounds good to me, I have the same aspirations. The problem is, unless you have a trust fund or some very generous relatives (I have neither) you’ll need a way to make money while you’re in Thailand. Are there ways for a foreigner to make money while living in Thailand? You bet there are! Don’t expect to get rich, but you will have the pleasure of living in the land of smiles and all of the cultural benefits of living in a foreign land. Here are some ways you can go about putting some cash in the bank while you live and enjoy Thailand.

1. Teach English – This is probably the most popular method for native English speakers to make money while living in Thailand (or any other foreign country for that matter). You don’t really need anything to get started except a good command of English and to get your butt to Thailand. While it’s possible to find teaching jobs online it’s not very likely unless you are a licensed teacher already and you are applying to the top tier international schools in Bangkok. For the rest of us it’s best to just get to Thai and start knocking about looking for work. English teachers generally make around 35,000 baht a month and upward, depending on how hard you want to work. One very good resource for prospective English teachers in Bangkok and Thailand is Ajarn.com. They have been around since 1999 and have the best information about teaching in Thailand that I’ve seen. Plus they have links to many of the English schools and a fantastic job board. I could go more in depth about teaching English in Thailand as a job, but they have it all covered already. If you have a university degree you may want to try for a job at one of Thailand’s International Schools. The competition is fierce, but the pay scale is typically much better than the language schools.

2. Translator – Not many people know it, but it is quite possible to find work as a translator for Thai businesses in Bangkok. English is the international language of business and if you don’t mind presenting products then this could be right up your alley. Pay can range anywhere from 2000-6000 baht a day which isn’t too bad if you can find steady work. To get this kind of job does require some networking, but it’s not hard.The best way to get started is by getting yourself out there and networking. Dress sharp, image is very important to Thai’s. White shirt, dark pants and blazer and a tie are necessary for this work. Check the Bangkok Post for business conventions which are typically held at the Queen Sirikrit Convention Center which is on Ratchadaphisek Rd. near the Thailand Stock Market off Rama IV Rd. Once there simply mingle and talk with some of the businesses there. You’ll find that many of them will be happy to hire you on to help promote their products in English.

3. Actor/Model – Another little known job for falangs (foreigners) in Thailand is as actors or models. The pay isn’t great, but if you build a name for yourself you can get fairly consistent work. And I understand it’s a great way to meet the ladies. Again, you can find leads in the Bangkok Post or try putting together a small portfolio of photographs and mailing it to the modeling/acting agencies listed in the yellow pages. If you’re really serious you may want to get an agent as they can be invaluable in securing work and negotiating. Pay can range from 2000 baht a day and up. Not great, but the work is easy and wouldn’t it be glamorous to say you’re a model/actor?

4. Dive Instructor – If you’ve got PADI dive certification and can get or already have dive instructor certification this could be perfect for you. It’s not really up my alley so I’m not sure how easy it would be to get this job, but the Andaman sea has some of the best diving in the world and there are a whole host of dive shops and live aboards that work from the islands of Thailand. I would guess the pay isn’t great, but this isn’t really something you do for the pay, you do it for the passion and the experience.

5. Accountant, engineer, salesman, lawyer or any professional position. You won’t get a job at a Thai company for most professional positions, but if you’ve got experience you may be able to land a position with a multi-national company that has offices in Bangkok. Since you’ll be getting paid in your home countries currency and will very likely have all the benefits of an ex-pat package (retirement, housing, travel, tuition for children, medical insurance, etc) these are the sweetest jobs around. I don’t qualify, but if you do and you want to get yourself to Thailand start looking. Price Waterhouse has a lot of ex-pats in Asia as do large multi-nationals like Siemens, IBM, HP, and any petrol related business. If you really want to be here then that should be enough motivation to conduct a comprehensive search.

Thailand Musings

Top 100 Celebrated Travel Books of all Time

2010-06-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldhum.com/features/lists/the-100-most-celebrated-travel-books-list-20100427/

Lists: The definitive list of travel books that travel writers, editors, bloggers and readers love best.

http://www.worldhum.com/features/lists/the-100-most-celebrated-travel-books-list-20100427/ has a wonderful list of the best 100 travel books of all time. Something has happened to my old, familiar way to make hot links, but each book on the list appears to have it's own individual link. If you would like to click around at some books, you'll need to do a copy and paste with all the garbage that starts his message. I hate it when this happens...

How did we come up with our list? We scoured the web and dug up every “best travel books” list we could find, from writers, bloggers and publications like Salon, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler and Transitions Abroad. (Naturally, we consulted our own top 30 list, too). Then we pulled out the books that were cited most often and added a few bestsellers.

You’ll find that a few books don’t fit the most rigid definition of travel memoir; we didn’t want our list to be too narrow or fussy. Rather, we wanted it to be broad and inclusive. Also, although we numbered the books from 1 to 100, we didn’t rank them; they appear here in alphabetical order. (You can find the 10 most celebrated books here.) The lists we drew from are noted below the book titles. The numbers in brackets after each book title on the list correspond to the source lists on which that title appears; a dollar sign in brackets indicates that a book was included based on extremely high sales. (Read the fine print for more detail on how we determined the 100 most celebrated travel books of all time.)

1) A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis (5, 7)
2) A House in Bali, by Colin McPhee (4, 11)
3) A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (4, 6)
4) A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby (1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15)
5) A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1, 2, 7, 8, 12)
6) A Turn in the South, by V.S. Naipaul (1)
7) A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson ($)
8) A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark (5)
9) Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron (3, 7)
10) An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul (2, 7, 8)
11) Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (1, 2, 3, 4)
12) Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez (4, 11)
13) The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton (5, 12)
14) As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee (3, 5)
15) Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz (1)
16) Balkan Ghosts, by Robert D. Kaplan (4, 6)
17) Beyond Euphrates, by Freya Stark (7)
18) The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, by Eric Hansen (2)
19) Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, by Lawrence Durrell (2, 7)
20) Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West (2)
21) Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin (13)
22) Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon (2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13)
23) Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming (4, 5, 8)
24) Chasing the Sea, by Tom Bissell (2)
25) City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple (1, 4)
26) Coasting, by Jonathan Raban (3)
27) Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee (4, 9, 10, 11)
28) Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux (2, 11)
29) Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey (4, 11, 12)
30) Down the Nile, by Rosemary Mahoney (2)
31) Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert ($)
32) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe (13)
33) Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing (2, 11)
34) Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler (1)
35) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson (2, 3, 6, 13)
36) Four Corners, by Kira Salak (6)
37) Full Circle, by Michael Palin (4, 11)
38) Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, by Dervla Murphy (5)
39) Golden Earth, by Norman Lewis (1)
40) Great Plains, by Ian Frazier (2, 11)
41) The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
42) Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke (12)
43) Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (3, 4)
44) Hunting Mister Heartbreak, by Jonathan Raban (1, 7)
45) In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (1, 2, 4, 11, 14)
46) In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
47) In Siberia, by Colin Thubron (4, 12)
48) In Trouble Again, by Redmond O’Hanlon (2, 4)
49) The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain (1, 2, 6)
50) Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer (6, 11)
51) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer ($)
52) Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman (2, 4)
53) Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl (15)
54) The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer (12)
55) Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain (2, 13)
56) The Log From the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck (11)
57) The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz (2, 11)
58) The Lost Continent, by Bill Bryson (4, 8, 12, 13)
59) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta (2, 6)
60) The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto “Che” Guevara (14)
61) The Muses Are Heard, by Truman Capote (2)
62) No Mercy, by Redmond O’Hanlon (1, 2, 10, 12)
63) Notes From a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (3, 5)
64) Nothing to Declare, by Mary Morris (4, 8)
65) Old Glory, by Jonathan Raban (2, 4, 7)
66) The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux (4, 12)
67) Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen (4, 7, 11)
68) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard (9, 12)
69) The Pillars of Hercules, by Paul Theroux (2, 11)
70) The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart (2, 11, 15)
71) Riding to the Tigris, by Freya Stark (1)
72) The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald (2, 15)
73) The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester (4)
74) River Town, by Peter Hessler (1)
75) Road Fever, by Tim Cahill (1, 4, 12)
76) The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7)
77) Roughing It, by Mark Twain (2, 4, 11, 13)
78) Sea and Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence (2, 4)
79) Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer (4, 6, 11, 14)
80) The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost (6, 12)
81) The Size of the World, by Jeff Greenwald (1, 6, 12)
82) Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby (2, 4)
83) The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (1, 4, 9, 10, 11)
84) The Soccer War, by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1)
85) The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin (1, 2, 4, 12)
86) Terra Incognita, by Sara Wheeler (4, 11)
87) Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue, by Paul Bowles (2)
88) Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson (11)
89) Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck (1, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 13)
90) Travels With Myself and Another, by Martha Gellhorn (2, 15)
91) Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris (1, 5)
92) Two Towns in Provence, by M.F.K. Fisher (2, 4, 7, 10)
93) Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes (6)
94) Video Night in Kathmandu, by Pico Iyer (1, 4, 6, 10, 12)
95) West With the Night, by Beryl Markham (2, 4)
96) When the Going was Good, by Evelyn Waugh (1, 7)
97) The World of Venice, by Jan Morris (3)
98) The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (2, 5, 11)
99) Wrong About Japan, by Peter Carey (2)
100) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig (10, 13)

MORE: The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time: By the Numbers | The Fine Print | Mapped | Five Great Covers

Source Lists
1) World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books
2) Conde Nast Traveler’s 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time
3) The Telegraph’s 20 Best Travel Books of All Time
4) National Geographic Traveler’s Ultimate Travel Library
5) The Times Online’s 20 Best Travel Books of the Past Century
6) Brave New Traveler’s 50 Greatest Travel Books of All Time
7) From Salon, Tom Swick’s Top 20 Travel Books of the 20th Century
8) The International Society of Travel Writers’ Top 10 Best Travel Books of the 20th Century
9) From Salon, Don George’s Favorite Travel Books
10) Salon’s Top 10 Travel Books of the 20th Century
11) NileGuide’s Top 50 Adventure Books of All Time
12) From Transitions Abroad, Top 10 Travel Books lists from a variety of travel writers: Jim Benning, Michael Shapiro, Rolf Potts, Ron Mader, Rory MacLean, Tim Leffel and Ayun Halliday.
13) Smithsonian’s Great Road Trips in American Literature
14) Nomadic Matt’s Best Travel Books
15) The Travel Bookshop’s Top 10 Travel Books

Amazing High Tech Toy Helicopter

2010-06-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Aerial video with a Canon 5D , 7D helivideo.com from Eric AUSTIN on Vimeo.

Eric Austin has been shooting some amazing HD video using Canon 5D and 7D DSLR cameras mounted on electric remote controlled helicopters.

The Desire to Crush All Opposition

2010-06-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

Gotta love Political Prisoners in Thailand. As with most of us, Thaksin was considered the devil incarnate when he was in office, and a major abuser of human rights, not to mention using his position and power to add to his substantial wealth. He was legitimately elected PM three times, but when he threated the traditional power structure of royalty, the military, and to a less extent the beaurcracy, it was time for the military to go for the traditional way to keep the richies in power: yet another embarrasing coup. Here's PPT latest examination on why Thailand fails in almost every respect to be a democracy.

The desire to crush all opposition

For the Military-backed Abhisit Vejjajiva regime the crushing of the red shirts was always more than ending the demonstration at Rajaprasong. For the royalist ruling class, the desire is to crush opposition that is seen as challenging to their social, political and economic power. The crackdown is continuing to deepen.

PPT has already mentioned the deep commitment that the royalists in government have to weeding out those they believe are anti-monarchists and republicans.

The New York Times reports that the “government has moved into the next phase of a campaign against the dissident movement known as the red shirts, freezing the assets of scores of people it says helped finance recent protests, and planning to summon them for questioning.” (See Bangkok Pundit on this.)

The NYT notes that Abhisit has emphasized so-called national reconciliation while, at the very same time, “hundreds of members of the opposition have been arrested and held without trial.” It observes that the premier’s “plan” has now “added to the atmosphere of acrimony, becoming a new focus for attack from government opponents.” The BBC also has some video on this “reconciliation” process.

Bangkok Pundit has another excellent post on reconciliation and the chosen committee, recalling PPT’s earlier point that reconciliation for Abhisit means rejected opposition, speaking only to his buddies and yellow-shirted supporters, and appointing the same to his various reconciliation committess.

The overall result, according to the NYT is that Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has said that emergency rule will be maintained, essentially allowing the government to do almost whatever it wants, effectively placing it above the law, especially as the courts are almost always on the government’s side.

The government continues to hunt down people it thinks might have funded the red shirts. The highly-politicized Department of Special Investigation has identified a shortened list of “83 individuals and companies that were thought to support the protesters had made suspiciously large and frequent financial transactions over the past nine months. It said questioning [of suspects] would begin next Monday.”

Some of the amounts claimed are ludicrous. For example, Thaksin Shinawatra’s cousin, Chaiyasit, is accused of using almost $1.14 billion.

In response to allegations of political harassment and persecution, Abhisit makes the following absurd statement: “I insist that the government has never intended to persecute anyone.” He insists that “suspicious financial transactions” need to be controlled. He seems to have forgotten all those in jail, killed and being hunted.

Abhisit is hardly mentally inhibited, so PPT assumes that he realizes that he is demanding controls on private funding that are unlikely to “prevent further unrest and that people whose accounts had been frozen would still be able to do things like pay utility bills and staff salaries and service debts” but that will prevent these people from making political contributions to legal political parties when election time comes about, if it ever does.

Abhisit, like many of his supporters, believe that funding keeps red shirts going and gets pro-Thaksin parties elected. They are wrong, but can’t see it. That said, if Puea Thai Party’s main financial backers are blocked, then the Democrat Party and its pro-military coalition partners can have an open road in funding.

This is beginning to look increasingly like a co-ordinated plan to ensure royalist-military-”Democrat” rule for some time to come. So-called reconciliation is nothing but a political Orwellianism that hunts, harasses, inhibits, and destroys opponents.

Doug Lansky Video:-- Dubious Achievements in Travel

2010-06-22T14:06:00.000-07:00

The always hilarious Doug lansky put together the above video just to show how truley awful travel can be at times. The video also provides links to where you can purchase his book. Nice work, Doug.

2010-06-08T10:24:00.000-07:00

Seth Stevenson is the guy at Slate who reviews TV commercials, so if he claims this is the best ever, who am I to argue?

The Spot: Soccer stars imagine the alternate universes they might create with their play—good or bad—in the upcoming World Cup. Will they be winners or losers? Heroes or goats? Adored celebrities or shunned trailer park shut-ins? It can all hang on a single kick of the ball. As the spot closes, the words "Write the Future" appear above the familiar Nike swoosh.

Yahoo! Buzz FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSEIn 1994, when the World Cup first arrived on American soil, Nike's soccer division brought in $40 million in annual revenue. This year, the figure is $1.7 billion. Together with subsidiary label Umbro, Nike is now the No. 1 soccer brand on the planet. Which is astonishing, given that 1) it's an American company, and Americans still aren't fully on board with this frou-frou soccer stuff; 2) Adidas, its major rival in the category, had been synonymous with big-time futbol for decades—long before swoosh-emblazoned soccer cleats were even a gleam in Phil Knight's eye.

How did Nike eat Adidas' home-cooked lunch? It wasn't by manufacturing better cleats. It was by manufacturing a better image. The fact that a jogging-shoe company from Oregon could establish itself as the world's dominant soccer brand is the ultimate testament to the power of shrewd, relentless marketing.

Nike clawed its way to the top by employing its gushing cash flow (which stems, in part, from the brand's 85 percent share of the U.S. market for basketball footwear) to sign expensive endorsement contracts with a slew of major soccer stars. In 2007, Nike bought Umbro—official maker of the England national squad's uniforms—for roughly $580 million. And now comes this monumental three-minute ad, which is without doubt the most expensive soccer commercial ever made.

The UK Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo

2010-06-07T17:37:00.000-07:00

The UK Pavilion from Shanghai Expo Timelapse Machine on Vimeo.

The Mentawi -- A Video Documentary

2010-06-06T18:06:00.000-07:00

The Mentawai, Behind the Scenes Documentary from Joey L on Vimeo.

More from Laughing Squid

2010-06-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

A budding rockstar for the bricolage generation, 21-year old electronic musician Pogo (aka Nick Bertke) creates original musical compositions using small sounds taken from famous films. His most recent track, the his elaborately layered “Skynet Symphonic“, was composed entirely with sounds from director James Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgement Day”.

His most notable track, Alice, a composition of sounds from the Disney film ‘Alice In Wonderland’, was received with much success gaining 4 million views on YouTube as of December 2010. Pogo has since produced tracks using films like ‘Up’, ‘Mary Poppins’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Sword In The Stone’, ‘Hook’, and ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’.

Pogo also creates all the videos for his songs, wonderfully mesmerizing staccato tone poems that not only evoke the spirit of the movies from which they were made, but often illuminate some new aspect about them.

Like many collage artists before him, such as Plunderphonics creator John Oswald, Pogo was drawn to the form by an innate desire to hear specific sounds repeatedly, and in a different fashion.

“For as long as I can remember, I have always detected small sounds in musical arrangements that appeal to me. I find myself with a natural desire to hear those sounds over and over. During my teenage years, it seemed logical for me to record these sounds and sequence them to form new pieces of music. …The essence of my work is to capture the elements of a scene or film that captivate me, and use them to make music that I can love.” [Interview on Youth Drip]

Given his chosen idiom, Pogo is understandably dedicated to changing the way we view copyright infringement in today’s remix culture.

“The purpose of copyright today is very questionable if I do say so myself. It may have originally been conceived to serve the creative mind in its expressive endeavours, but nowadays its used by business trolls as a mousetrap for profiting from equations and technicalities. It’s inevitable that if something is beautiful and inspiring to people, it will be used and promoted by thousands if not more. The human spirit is relentless. I don’t think Disney can copyright Alice’s voice any more than the inventor of the violin could have copyrighted its sound. The very idea is ridiculous.” [Interview with Melanie McBride]

To hear more of Pogo’s work, visit his website or YouTube channel.

Laughing Squid Link with all the Hot Links

2010-06-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

I was trying to connect with a post from Political Prisoners in Thailand, about PM Abhisit and his twisted approach to reconciliation, but the connection didn't fly. Instead, I went back to my Bloglines RSS Reader and clicked on the Fun Stuff folder, just to get a few laughs after all the dismal news coming from Bangkok.

One of my main feeds in Fun Stuff is Laughing Squid, which is a web provider here in San Francisco, and also an excellent source of great daily links to new videos and photographs from not only SF but from around the world. I highly recommend their blog for your pleasure.

The latest from Laughing Squid is a mash from a recent motion picture.

A wonderful remix of the Disney Pixar film “Up” by Pogo, whose previous work includes the fantastic Terminator 2 “Skynet Symphonic” and Alice In Wonderland remix

New Immigration Building in Bangkok

2010-06-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

Big Baby Kenny has a superb series of photos of the new immigration office in Bangkok. He concludes that the building is spacious and beautiful, but the same hassles remain as with the old immigration office off Sathorn Road. I could also use a map to locate the new immigration office and perhaps some transport tips. Otherwise, a great post and very useful for farangs living in Bangkok and Pattaya.

Shanghai in Time Lapse 2

2010-06-02T12:34:00.000-07:00

In order to commemorate the unblocking of Vimeo, here's a video from the site about Shanghai - see how you can see it now even if you don't have a VPN? Yay! Anyhow, it's a time lapse by Joe Nafis called Shanghai-ed | Shanghai In a Minute. Enjoy!

Dust Storm in China

2010-05-31T18:38:00.000-07:00

Yikes! Daily Mail has the details.

Like a scene from a Hollywood disaster movie, a towering cloud of sand dwarfs the rows of uniform houses as it descends on a small village in central China.
Residents hid inside their homes with their windows and doors locked shut as the dust storm swept through the region advancing 70ft a minute.

The region is near the edge of the Gobi desert. Day turned to night as tons of dust temporarily blocked out the sun and reduced visibility to around 600ft. But suddenly the storm calmed and the mile-high cloud settled back to Earth again, leaving villagers with a major clean-up operation.

Golmud is home to 200,000 people with 140,000 living in the city centre. The new industrial city is built on a flat expanse close to the borders of the Gobi desert, which is the largest desert in Asia. Although not an ideal place to live, tens of thousands of people have relocated there to work at the salt lakes in the region.

But the prospect of a good job and lots of living space comes at a price. Every spring strong winds blow across the Gobi creating huge columns of dust and sand, which are then dumped nearby. The dust can cause frequent power blackouts, transport delays and respiratory illness.

These buildings didn't need their camouflage paint as the sand quickly hid the village from view in mid May. The massive sand storm swept along at 70ft a minute
The Gobi sand even travels as far as Beijing, with nearly a million tons of desert blown into the city each year. In March this year China's capital turned orange during a particularly ferocious dust storm.

More than a quarter of China - around one million square miles - is covered in sand with the Gobi covering northern parts of the country. The bad news for the government is that the desert is growing despite their best efforts to contain it. The process of desertification has been worsened by over-grazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and an increasingly erratic climate.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the number of sandstorms has jumped six-fold in the past 50 years to two dozen a year. Around 80 per cent of them occur between March and May.

Spectacular Truck Crash

2010-05-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

Some idiot car driver changes lanes without bothering to look at the huge truck in the adjacent lane. All hell breaks loose.

Dennis Hopper The Later Years

2010-05-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Dennis Hopper The Early Years

2010-05-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

Dennis Hopper RIP

2010-05-29T16:54:00.000-07:00

I don't usually do remembrances here on this blog, but for such an icon as Dennis Hopper I will jump over the fence.

Dennis Hopper, seen here in 1982 at the time of a screening of his 1971 film The Last Movie at the ICA in London. He told the Observer's critic, Philip French, that this was his favourite image of himself. Photograph: Jane Bown for the Observer

Dennis Hopper, who has died aged 74, was one of Hollywood's great modern outlaws. His persona, on and off the screen, signified the lost idealism of the 1960s. There were stages in Hopper's career when he was deemed unemployable because of his reputation as a hell-raiser and his substance abuse. However, he made spectacular comebacks and managed to kick his dependence on alcohol and cocaine.

Born in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper, whose father was a post-office manager and mother a lifeguard instructor, expressed an interest in painting and acting at a young age. While still in his teens, he appeared in repertory at Pasadena Playhouse, California, and studied acting with Dorothy McGuire and John Swope at the Old Globe theatre, San Diego.

The year of his 19th birthday, 1955, was extraordinary. Not only did Hopper have substantial parts in three television dramas, but he was cast in supporting roles in James Dean's last two films: Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant (released in 1956). The two actors became friends over the few months before Dean, whom Hopper idolised, was killed in a car accident aged 24.

In Rebel Without a Cause, Hopper is the youngest and slightest member of the juvenile delinquent gang that provokes Dean. In Giant, he gave a sensitive performance as the son of Texan oil millionaire Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, who marries a Mexican girl and wants to "go north" to become a doctor – decisions against his father's wishes. Although Hopper appeared only briefly with Dean in both movies, the latter had a huge influence on him.

Hopper brought some moody Method mannerisms to bear on his following roles, mostly as callow, trigger-happy villains in westerns, such as Billy Clanton in Gunfight at the OK Corral (1956) – "I don't know why I get into gunfights. I guess sometimes I just get lonely" – and From Hell to Texas (1958), on which he got into a confrontation with director Henry Hathaway, refusing to take direction for several days. He was also a grumpy, childish Napoleon in the infamous, star-studded The Story of Mankind (1957) and the leader of a street gang, dubbed "Cowboy", in Key Witness (1960).

In the 1960s, Hopper, who alienated several veteran directors and producers, was pronounced difficult, argumentative and violently temperamental. However, he continued to get work, mostly in minor baddie roles, in major movies including Cool Hand Luke (1963), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969). He also turned up in the weird space vampire film Queen of Blood (1966), in which he played a clean-cut astronaut who has the blood sucked out of him. The executive producer on the film was Roger Corman, who had just begun his cycle of dope and biker movies, and cast Hopper with Peter Fonda in the seminal acid flick The Trip (1967). The duo together conceived, wrote, with Terry Southern, raised the finance for, and starred in the alienated youth road movie Easy Rider (1969), with Hopper directing.

Made for $400,000, the film's combination of drugs, rock music, violence, a counter-culture stance and motorcycles as ultimate freedom machines caught the imagination of the young, made pop icons of Hopper and Fonda on their bikes and took over $16m at the box office. This rose to more than $60m worldwide in the next three years. It also brought Hopper, Fonda and Southern a best screenplay Oscar nomination. Easy Rider, which led to a stream of tacky, imitative pictures with equally loud rock soundtracks, retains legendary status in Hollywood lore, although these self-pitying "flower children" of the 60s now seem as dated as the "bright young things" of the 1920s.

Hopper, meanwhile, was out of control. His eight-year marriage to Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actor Margaret Sullavan, had ended in divorce. In 1970, he married Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas & the Papas, but it lasted eight days. ("The first seven days were pretty good," Hopper once commented.) In the same year, a raving, naked, drug-fuelled Hopper was arrested while running around Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In 1971, following the success of Easy Rider, Hopper was bankrolled by Universal with $850,000 and given total creative control to make whatever kind of movie he wished. He decamped to Peru with a cast and crew for a self-penned, directed and edited meta-monstrosity, The Last Movie (1971). Starring Hopper as a stuntman with a Christ complex on the set of a western being directed by Samuel Fuller, the film, made for the stoned by the stoned, was stoned by the critics.

Before the film's limited release, Hopper wrote and appeared in an autobiographical documentary, The American Dreamer (1971), which showed him editing The Last Movie at his home in Taos, New Mexico, spouting hippy philosophy, taking baths with women and shooting guns. This sealed his reputation as the most flipped-out man in the movies, and he spent the next 15 years in foreign films, personal projects, and low-budget arthouse or exploitation movies.

The quality of these veered wildly, but Hopper turned in one of his most memorable performances as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley character, who has the enigmatic, homicidal title role in Wim Wenders's The American Friend (1977). High on drugs, he improvised much of his part of the photojournalist buzzing around Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979).

In 1980, Hopper directed his third feature, Out of the Blue, an effective piece of post-hippy American gothic, about a family well outside the mainstream. It focuses on a 15-year-old punk girl (Linda Manz) trying to survive in a world of drunks (Hopper plays an alcoholic father), drug addicts and rapists. Made in Canada, the picture was well received when it was released three years later, assisting Hopper's reintegration into Hollywood.

In 1983, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation programme. By then, according to Peter Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, his cocaine intake had reached three grams a day, complemented by an additional 30 beers, marijuana and Cuba Libres. After emerging relatively clean from the programme, he played another alcoholic father – this time to Matt Dillon – in Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983), now a commanding elder statesman amid the brat-pack cast.

Hopper's comeback was consecrated in 1986, with his astonishing portrayal of a psychopathic kidnapper in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. His performance, in which he inhales an unspecified gas and screams "Mommy" at Isabella Rossellini during bizarre sex scenes, became as much a conversation piece as the film itself. This role as a crazed, drug-dealing sadist was followed with an antithetically subdued and touching performance as an ashamed dad seeking redemption in Hoosiers in the same year. Hopper, who seemed to draw on his down-and-out years, was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar.

Hopper appeared in three further films in 1986 – ranging from a leftwing media terrorist in Riders of the Storm to a mad ex-biker with his own strangely moral code in River's Edge, and the former Texas Ranger who wants revenge for the chainsaw death of his brother in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. He continued to be extremely busy in the following year, playing a Texan tycoon bumped off by his wife in Black Widow and Molly Ringwald's father in The Pick-up Artist.

In 1988, Hopper directed Robert Duvall and Sean Penn in a violently realistic cops-versus-street gangs drama, Colors, released to a debate as to whether the film reflected or exacerbated intense gang conflicts in Los Angeles. A worse fate met his next directorial effort, Catchfire (1989), in which he starred with Jodie Foster as, respectively, kidnapper and responsive victim. Released in an edited version of which he did not approve, the film, at Hopper's insistence, was attributed to Alan Smithee (the pseudonym for directors preferring to remain anonymous).

In Flashback (1990), as an erstwhile 60s radical activist gone underground, Hopper seems to be playing his own legend, drawing inspiration from his earlier characters. At one stage, he remarks, "It takes more than going down to your local video store and renting Easy Rider to become a rebel."

This led to similarly offbeat performances, many of them variations on the smiling, charming, cold-blooded killer with a screw loose. He stood out in supporting roles in True Romance (1993) and the box-office smash Speed (1994), and his blackly humorous edge almost redeemed some of the mediocre thrillers he appeared in throughout the 90s, though little saved Chasers (1994), a leaden naval comedy, the seventh and last of the features he directed.

In 2008, Hopper appeared in the TV series Crash, the spin-off from the Paul Haggis 2004 movie, as a verbose, eccentric, down-on-his-luck music producer. Hopper proudly stated that it was the craziest character he had ever played.

Despite his radical persona, Hopper was a paid-up Republican, though he voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. In that year, he appeared in An American Carol, a flabby liberal-bashing comedy with Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and James Woods as fellow rightwingers.

Hopper, who played an art dealer in the 1996 film Basquiat, was also an accomplished painter and sculptor, and a well-connected player on the American art scene. He was a skilled photographer whose subjects included Martin Luther King; fellow artists Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg; and co-stars including Paul Newman and John Wayne. In 2007, he presented the Turner prize at Tate Liverpool.

He was married five times and is survived by four children: a daughter by Brooke Hayward; a daughter by Daria Halprin (the female lead in Antonioni's Zabriskie Point); a son by Katherine LaNasa; and a daughter by Victoria Duffy, his widow.

• Dennis Lee Hopper, actor, photographer and painter, born 17 May 1936; died 29 May 2010

The Last Moments of Fabio Polenghi

2010-05-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

Prachathai posts a sad article that recalls the last moments of Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi.

SPIEGEL correspondent Thilo Thielke was in Bangkok the day the Thai Army cleared the Red Shirt camps. It was the last day he would work with his friend and colleague, Italian photojournalist Fabio Polenghi, who died from a gunshot wound.

When the helicopters started circling over the center of Bangkok last Wednesday at 6 a.m., I knew that the army would soon launch its attack. This was the moment that everyone had been fearfully expecting for weeks. I had always doubted that the government would actually allow things to go this far. There were many women and children in the district occupied by the protesters. Did the soldiers really want to risk a bloodbath?

A state of emergency had prevailed for the past six weeks in the Thai capital, with the royalist government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the army on one side, and a broad coalition of anti-government protesters -- many originating from the poor provinces of northern Thailand -- on the other side. Approximately 70 people had died in street fighting and over 1,700 had been wounded. The pro-government Bangkok Post had called it "anarchy" and the opposition spoke of "civil war."

At 8 a.m. I arrived in the Red Zone, a three-square-kilometer (one-square-mile) area surrounding the Ratchaprasong business district, which the army had sealed off on all sides. On that day, as on previous occasions, it was relatively easy to slip into the encampment, which I had visited a number of times over the past few months. Behind barricades made of bamboo and car tires, the protesting Red Shirts had pitched their tents and built a stage. But the revolutionary party atmosphere that had always reigned here before had evaporated that morning.

People were stoically awaiting the soldiers. They knew that the military would attack from the south, via Silom Road, and the braver ones among them had ventured to as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the front line. They stood there, but they weren't fighting. Some of them had slingshots, but nobody was firing.

A wall of fire made of burning tires separated the protesters from the army. Thick smoke choked the street, and as the soldiers slowly pressed forward, shots whipped through the streets. Snipers fired from high-rises and the advancing troops shot through the smoke. And we, a group of journalists, ducked for cover, pressing ourselves against a wall to avoid getting hit. Pick-ups with paramedics sped by to take away the wounded.

A Devastated Urban Landscape

It was 9:30 a.m. when Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi joined us. Fabio had spent a lot of time in Bangkok over the last two years, and we had become friends during this time. Fabio, a good-natured dreamer, 48, from Milan had been a fashion photographer in London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro before coming to Bangkok to work as a photojournalist. We had traveled together to do a feature on Burma, and since then he had often worked for SPIEGEL. Over the past few weeks, the two of us had almost always been on the go together.

Just the previous evening, we had walked through the city together until darkness fell. We met on Din Daeng Street near the Victory Monument, which symbolizes Thailand's pride in expanding its territory 69 years ago. Now we stood in the midst of a devastated urban landscape, which revealed the country's slide into chaos. Dark smoke hung in the air; only the outlines of the obelisk were visible. The streets had been transformed into a war zone. A few days earlier I had crouched here behind a small wall for half an hour, seeking protection from the army's hail of bullets -- they had suddenly opened fire because some show-off had strutted around with a slingshot.

Not far from the Red Shirts' encampment stands Pathum Wanaram Temple, which was intended to serve as a safe zone for women and children during an attack. That evening we met Adun Chantawan, 42, an insurgent from the village of Pasana in the northeastern region of Isaan -- the rice-growing area where the rebellion against the government began.

Adun told us that he harvests sugarcane and rice there as a day laborer -- for €4 ($5) a day. He had been here in Bangkok since the beginning of the occupation two months ago. Abhisit's government must resign, he said, because it has not been elected by the people and is only supported by the military, which staged a coup to oust the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra -- the hero of the poor. He wants Thaksin to return, said Adun, but more than anything else he wants a Thailand where the elite no longer have all the power and others also share in the wealth. Adun never thought that the government would so brutally crack down on its own people. He told us that he was prepared to fight to the death for his ideals.

Dreams of Living in a More Democratic Society

Adun Chantawan was a typical Red Shirt supporter, but far from all of them came from the poor northern provinces. There were also bankers from Bangkok among them, who joined the insurgents in the evenings after work, and young rowdies, too. For most of them, it was not primarily about Thaksin. They were mostly concerned with the social injustice in the country. Many of them dreamt of living in a more democratic society. I could never understand the government's claims that the Red Shirts had been bought by Thaksin. Nobody allows themselves to be shot for a handful of baht.

When we looked for Adun the next day, he was nowhere to be found. Chaos was everywhere. Fabio and I saw the smoke, and the soldiers behind it, advancing towards us -- and we heard an increasing number of shots. Snipers from a side street were targeting us.

The onslaught had begun. I didn't dare go any farther, but Fabio ran forward, across the street, where shots were regularly fired -- a distance of roughly 50 meters (160 ft.) -- and sought shelter in a deserted Red Cross tent. This marked the beginning of the no man's land between us and the advancing troops. I saw his light blue helmet marked "press" bob into view. He waved for me to come join him, but it was too dangerous for me up there.

Since the beginning of the conflict, I have experienced the Thai army as an amateurish force. If they had cleared the street protests at the outset, the conflict would have never escalated to this extent. Once the soldiers attempted to clear the demonstrators, they left a trail of casualties. They fired live ammunition at Red Shirts who were barely armed.

I observed absurd, unequal battles during those days. Young people crouched behind sand bags and fired on the soldiers with homemade fireworks and slingshots. The soldiers returned fire with pump guns, sniper rifles and M-16 assault rifles.

At their camp, the Red Shirts had displayed photos on a wall of corpses with shots to the head -- they wanted to prove that snipers in high-rises had purposely liquidated demonstrators. These included Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, a renegade officer and one of the most radical leaders of the anti-government protesters, who had been shot in the head six days earlier, and died shortly thereafter.

The government maintains that it has nothing to do with liquidations, and that the demonstrators are shooting each other dead. That isn't true. Over the past two years, during which I reported on the Red Shirts, I have almost never seen a firearm -- with the exception of the occasional revolver in the hand of a bodyguard.

On that morning, the first soldiers broke through the wall of smoke. From where I was standing, it was barely possible to make them out, but you could hear bullets whistling through the air. They were fired by the snipers, who were working their way forward, from building to building. Some of them appeared to be directly above us. Fabrio was nowhere to be seen.

They Had Shot an Italian

I headed towards Pathum Wanaram Temple, a few hundred meters to the west, in the Red Zone. The occupying protesters had lost, that much was clear -- they hadn't even fought back. It was 11:46 a.m., and they were playing the national anthem. Women and children were fleeing to the temple courtyard to escape the approaching troops. One of the protesters' leaders, Sean Boonpracong, was still sitting in the main tent of the Red Shirts. He said that he intended to carry on with the resistance, even after the army's attack. Instead of allowing himself to be arrested, he planned to go into hiding.

At 11:53 a.m. I tried to reach Fabio by phone. His voicemail clicked in, which wasn't unusual. You could only occasionally get a signal. Across from the temple, in front of the police hospital, a number of journalists were waiting for the paramedics to arrive with the wounded. A nurse noted the admissions on a board. It was 12:07 p.m., and she had already written down 14 names. A foreign reporter stood next to me. He said that they had shot an Italian. Right in the heart. Over one and a half hours ago. He said that he had taken his picture. He even knew his name: Fabio Polenghi.

Columns of smoke billowed up over the city that afternoon. The retreating Red Shirts set fire to everything: the huge Central World shopping center, the stock exchange and an Imax movie theater. People looted supermarkets and ATMs. When I finally returned home, piles of tires were burning on the street.

On the evening of the day that the government set out to restore order, Bangkok was an apocalyptic place. And Fabio, my friend, was dead.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn on the Military Dictatorship in Thailand

2010-05-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

Thai Political Prisoners posts the latest opinion from the political exile now living in England.

We have a full-blown military dictatorship in Thailand
Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Make no mistake. We have a full military junta in Thailand with Abhisit acting as a “democratic” mask. The repression and censorship is worse than even after the 6th October 1976. More people have been killed by the army than in any previous repression. It is worse than during the Sarit dictatorship era in the 1960s and the reason is that the regime is trying desperately to suppress the biggest mass movement for Democracy in Thai history. Hundreds are being rounded up. There is wide spread censorship. The regime is increasingly looking like China, Burma or North Korea.

The Thai military junta, headed by Abhisit Vejjajiva is now responsible for at least 88 deaths since 10th April. They have heavily censored all media and internet sites. They are afraid of the truth and free debate. All this is to avoid elections and to cling to power. Abhisit, the Military and his conservative royalist cronies are dragging Thailand back to the dark ages and the middle-class NGOs and most academics are supporting this cause. The National Human Rights Commission is helping to prosecute the UDD. NGO senator Rosana and her band of right wing friends were calling for the army to slaughter the Red Shirts.

Today the Thai junta blocked the independent internet newspaper Prachatai once again and banned all Red Shirt publications. Many people who are in jail are being threatened with the death sentence. While hundreds of Red Shirts are in custody for demanding Democracy, the fascist Yellow-shirted PAD who shut down the international airports in late 2008, have had any proceedings against them delayed … yet again.

And what about the King? Many people may remember the Buddhist monks who chanted for peace at the Victory Monument just before the army moved in to kill civilians at Rajprasong…. Compare that with the total silence of the King and the support for the junta shown by the Queen and the Crown Prince. What a useless and parasitic life these aristocrats live!!

The junta’s success in clinging to power by murdering the people is merely a success built on sand. They can kill hundreds and imprison thousands, but they will never win the hearts and minds on the people. Thailand will never be the same again.

See this photo album: http://redphanfa2day.wordpress.com/red-shirt-rally-at-phan-fa-bridge-photo-gallery/2/

WSJ on the Current Situation in Thailand

2010-05-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

An important article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal, MAY 24, 2010

The Spring of Thailand’s Ethnic Discontent

By DAVID STRECKFUSS

Khon Kaen, Thailand

As the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (the “red shirts”) in central Bangkok ended their 79-day protest and surrendered themselves to authorities on May 19, Thailand literally went up in flames. For the rest of that day, roving bands of angry red-shirt protesters torched dozens of buildings in Bangkok. The governor of Bangkok proclaimed that May 19 would forever be remembered by its inhabitants.

Yet while much of the international focus has been on the situation in Bangkok—where indeed the protests have been largest and the violence most severe—it is now clear the disaffection has spread. In provinces through the North and Northeast, furious red-shirt mobs put to flame provincial halls and other offices and businesses perceived as sympathetic to the government. In this city of 200,000 situated 450 kilometers from Bangkok, red shirts pushed back police to set fire to the provincial hall and the government television station that they say distorted the news about their struggle, and broke windows of the bank they say funded the forces that have left more than 70 of them dead since April 10.

The pressing question for Thailand’s future now is whether the Bangkok elites who support the current government and oppose the red shirts will take the trouble to understand why disaffection is spreading.

The truth is that these protests have tapped into a long-simmering brew of ethnic and economic tensions bubbling below the surface of Thai society. It is often said there are two Thailands: Bangkok and the rest.

After a century of the capital’s political and military incursions into the hinterland, the red-shirt demonstration represented the most serious and sustained foray of the hinterland into Bangkok.

Bangkok truly isn’t like the rest of the country. A century ago saw the rather haphazard initial construction of a nationalist model based on smothering local languages, cultures and ethnic identity under a Western colonial-inspired centralized Thai state. In both the North and Northeast, rebellions against Thai state incursions were promptly suppressed. Ethnically, the people of the North and Northeast are Lao and originally spoke dialects of Lao. Yet under the new nationalism they were suddenly “Thai” and spoke a local “Thai dialect.” Even after a century of mixing with central Thai, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that a majority of people now living in Thailand speak a Lao dialect in their homes.

An emerging regionalism was crushed by military governments in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, the military dictatorship of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat perfected the model of Thai-ness, defined by praise of hierarchy and the unified Thai race, the centrality of the monarchy and “Thai-style democracy.” A threat of greater democratization and political liberalization was cut short by a bloody coup in 1976.

It was only with the “People’s Constitution” of 1997 that sovereignty decisively shifted into the hands of the Thai people through a fully elected House of Representatives and Senate. The constitution recognized local community and cultural rights and promised greater decentralization. Now there was a mechanism for addressing regional inequalities. Poor people were suddenly enfranchised more than ever before in Thai history. A majority in the North and Northeast regions, supplemented by poorer classes in urban areas, could, if unfettered, play the deciding role in representative democracy.

This has set the stage for this year’s protests. Bangkok elites have laid the blame with the populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire whose government promoted essentially free health care, debt aid to farmers and rural economic development. But Mr. Thaksin didn’t create the forces that are now roiling Thailand. He was simply more adept than earlier politicians at understanding how to appeal to voters outside Bangkok. His political genius was to tap into the demand this enfranchisement created in rural areas for a greater voice in Thai government.

Rather than adjusting to the new political realities, Mr. Thaksin’s detractors fell back on complaints (some justified, some not) that he bought votes, undermined democratic institutions, committed massive human rights violations and used his office for personal gain. The forces of conservatism, as represented by the pro-monarchy, old-establishment People’s Alliance for Democracy, or “yellow shirts,” regrouped and supported the 2006 military coup that threw Mr. Thaksin out of power after months of demonstrations.

The ensuing 2007 military-inspired constitution limited popular sovereignty through a half-appointed Senate, new electoral rules and a greatly expanded role of the judiciary. From 2006 to 2008, Thai courts nullified one election that Mr. Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party won; dissolved Thaksin-backed parties twice and banned 220 0f their executive members from political office for five years; and removed one prime minister—Samak Sundaravej—for taking a small remuneration for hosting a television cooking show.

At the same time, a court order seemed to condone the yellow shirts’ months-long occupation of the Government House, and the justice system has yet to bring yellow-shirt leaders to trial on “terrorism” charges for seizing Bangkok’s international airport in late 2008. The suspects—including Thailand’s present Minister of Foreign Affairs—were given bail. In contrast, following the recent protests in Bangkok the red shirts as a whole are being portrayed as terrorists and enemies of the nation, and the red-shirt leaders have been denied bail.

To many people in the North and Northeast, it appears that the courts are frustrating the popular will and there is no equality before the law. This in part explains the growing rage of red-shirt protesters. Prior to the end of their protest Wednesday, red-shirt leaders in Bangkok warned that if security forces attacked them, Thailand would become divided. Malay Muslims in the South of Thailand already have been in revolt for years. Such, the red shirts said, may happen with the North and Northeast. On the national stage during the protest, speakers from the North and Northeast often spoke, sang and celebrated in their preferred tongue—not as some performance of rustic, minority Thai people, but as a purposeful expression of a frustrated political disenfranchisement.

As the protests heated up in April, some angry Bangkokians took to the streets, screaming, “Rural people, get out!” These people of Bangkok only saw what the red shirts had done to them. They did not see that much of the red rage is about what Bangkok has done to the “second class” rural people.

Whether Bangkok’s elites will recognize that fact ultimately will make the difference between a democratic Thailand with equality under the law, or the possibility of a forever-fractured Thailand.

Mr. Streckfuss is a writer based in Thailand.

Red Shirt Rebellion -- Video of the Year

2010-05-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

An amazing video summary of the Red Shirt rebellion of May 2010. TURN UP THE VOLUME. Many thanks to Magnoy Samsara for finding this gem.

New Mandala has a commentary.

Criteria for terrorism charges are loose, restrictions on civil liberties tight. The violent immediacy of the Red Shirt protests has dulled in the aftermath of eighty-eight dead, but the country’s mood still hangs dark. Thailand’s democratic façade is chipping away to reveal an ugly autarchic underside.

To top off the recent weeks’ extrajudicial killings in Bangkok’s streets, the government heightened charges against an already-exiled former premier and dubiously detained a Chulalongkorn University lecturer this Tuesday. Two Red Shirt-affiliated foreigners were arrested Wednesday. These developments follow ongoing intimidating interrogations of “potential dissidents” (mostly students) by the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations (CRES), and accusations against nine Red Shirt leaders of terrorism, not to mention an alleged 500 others among the rank-and-file.

The word of the hour is unsubstantiated: ill-founded investigations, unjustified detentions, unsound accusations of terrorism. But while the government still lacks public proof for terrorism charges leveled against its political opponents, it has certainly demonstrated its own reign of terror in the latest phase of the country’s unrest.

The use of the word “terrorist” is an effort to tap into a public fear that already exists. This has been done before. In the 1970s, the specter of communism afforded the military bureaucracy extra legroom from its citizens to dictate policy. Strategic allegations of “communism” and “anti-monarchism” at this time dehumanized leftist student protesters enough in the eyes of those pulling the triggers to allow the massacres of 1973 and 1976. These words have a single enabling purpose: to cast a political “other” worthy of violent repression.

Substituting “corruption” for “communism”, the military took the liberty to intercede again in 1992, this time faced with greater resistance. 2006 saw more of the same with Thaksin’s expulsion on corruption charges, which sparked the most recent cycle of protests as patience for political meddling ran out.
The civil and military elites’ most recent tactics to keep a stranglehold on Thailand’s nominal democracy are desperate. The attempted indictment of Red Shirts in an anti-monarchist plot in late April largely failed to get off the ground. Accordingly, “terrorist” is merely the latest trigger word: a catch-all for any elusive, influential enemy entity.

Decha Premrudeelert, a leading NGO advisor in the Northeast, reaffirmed the context for the government’s current tactic. “In the struggle for power, you have to create an identity for the opposition. In the Cold War, it was communists. Now it is terrorists.”

Calling the Red Shirt leaders “terrorists” and claiming there were 500 more within Ratchaprasong gave the military a blank check for violent intervention. The highly charged word was used to convince the public that the military wasn’t taking the lives of human beings when it shot indiscriminately into the crowd—it was simply fighting terrorism.

The government’s accusations are identical to charges against the Yellow Shirts for their 2008 occupation of the Government House and Suvarnabhumi Airport. But stagnated court cases over those allegations are still pending a year and a half later, whereas calling Red Shirts “terrorists” warranted immediate, brutal killings. Inadvertently, the aftermath of these charges has reaffirmed one of the Red Shirts’ core grievances: political double standards.

The Emergency Decree and the guise of fighting “terrorism” have allowed for grievous breaches of human rights. Impromptu detentions and interrogations without formal charges are stacking up, accompanied by the government’s promise to shoot “terrorists” on sight, as banks and government buildings burned earlier this week. As the situation has progressed, CRES’ recondite operations seem more and more fanatically illogical. Its undertakings have definitively failed to foster stability or reach a resolution – the sole initial goal of the organization.

Instead of spotlighting external actors guilty of inciting terror for political ends, recent accusations of terrorism have become part of the government’s own policy of fear.

Exiled Thaksin Shinawatra is a populist former premier and a businessman with highly suspect financial practices. He is not a terrorist. The added charge is an afterthought aimed at convincing the international community to aid in his fiercely sought extradition. The Yellow Shirts were charged with terrorism after the 2008 protests as an overstatement; an acquittal on those charges would absolve them altogether. The accusation against the Red Shirts was the most egregious: the charge was intended to dehumanize protesters, allowing soldiers to gun them down with impunity.

The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship is not a terrorist organization. It is a fractured people’s movement for democracy, representing the disenfranchisement of the rural and urban poor. Its leaders are not terrorists; they espoused nonviolence even as the military swept them from the Ratchaprasong stage on 16 May 2010.

Cycles of corruption and intervention have pushed Thailand’s system of governance ever further from representative electoral democracy. Decades of coups, countercoups, protests, and reelections have stagnated democratic process, and terrorism charges against the two major political pressure groups only exacerbate this. This stagnation must end somewhere if Thailand is to move forward.

The question of the moment – whether this is a turning point in Thai politics – still lingers. But regardless of the pliability of Thailand’s political system, this is a new era: one that will not stand for age-old machinations. The Yellow Shirt and Red Shirt movements demonstrate hitherto unprecedented political awareness and agency of the people at large. Media and information availability prevent the continued concealment of military and bureaucratic interference in politics, even with ever-tightening censorship. The status quo is no longer an option.

Albeit disorganized and factionalized, the Red Shirts’ occupation of the capital embodies a new face of Thai politics that cannot be erased or rewritten: the socially and politically disenfranchised are seeking political voice and representation, now, and this ideal cannot be staunched with force. Deaths and dispersal will only intensify their cause.

Demands for democracy have been raw and vehement. Their physical manifestation in Bangkok has been dispelled for the time being, but the determination is no less powerful post-relocation. The use of political fear tactics – killing protesters, interrogations and detentions, charges of terrorism – will only further define the line beyond which the people will take no more. The current administration must reconcile with this truth.

2010-05-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

Joe Luis Puppet Theater A wonderful look at the last pupppet theater in Thailand.

Bangkok's Joe Louis Puppet Theater, also known as “Nattayasala Hun Lakorn Lek,” is one of Bangkok's top but highly underrated attractions. It was founded by the late master of puppets Sakorn Yangkhieosod in 2002, whose English name was Joe Louis, and showcases the remarkable Thai traditional art of puppetry.

We headed to the venue, at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, for a close look backstage at one of the skilled puppeteers' recent performances. Check out some of the highlights in the gallery below:

The Joe Louis Puppet Theater is located in the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, at the corner of Wireless and Rama IV Roads, across from the white water tower. Dinner is served outside the restaurant before the show. Tickets are available for 900 baht and are sold from 6pm onwards. The show lasts from 8pm to 9.15 pm. In July 2009, a Joe Louis Puppet Theater was opened in Pattaya. It's in the form of an open air restaurant with a stage.

Bangkok Post: Snipers at the Temple

2010-05-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Bangkok Post finally reports on the most controversial incident during the Red Shirt protests of May 2010.

The fatal shooting of six people at Wat Pathumwanaram during the dispersal of the red shirt rally last week looks set to dominate the agenda of next week's censure debate.

The charged issue is expected to be raised by the opposition in the censure debate on Monday and Tuesday.

The opposition says the government's decision to resort to the use of force to break up the red shirt protest at Ratchaprasong intersection was responsible for the six deaths, including that of a Red Cross volunteer nurse.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters yesterday to wait until the censure debate for him to explain all the facts.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said during yesterday's budget bill debate in parliament that the government would describe the military's operations in handling the anti-government protest in detail.

Autopsy results on the six bodies by the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Police General Hospital would unravel the facts and that should answer the question of who killed them, he said.

The opposition Puea Thai Party said one red shirt protester, who himself was shot in the leg, had seen soldiers fire at a nurse working in the temple.

Mr Abhisit said the witness most probably had made a mistake in thinking he had seen a soldier shooting at people.

The premier said the protesters had been fed one-sided information and the soldiers had been vilified for weeks.

Many protesters were visibly afraid the soldiers might harm them and were reluctant at first to get aboard the vehicles provided by the government to take them home, Mr Abhisit said.

The protesters had the impression they would be taken to be killed by the soldiers, he said.

Mr Suthep also dismissed media reports that the government coalition partners were pressing for a cabinet reshuffle, saying no party had proposed a reshuffle so far.

Mr Abhisit said he had not talked to Korbsak Sabhavasu, his secretary-general, after he reportedly posted a message on Twitter about the possibility of there being a cabinet reshuffle.

The prime minister said he would wait until after the censure debate to discuss a reshuffle.

Deputy Interior Minister Boonjong Wongtrairat, who is also a deputy leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, dismissed the speculation about a cabinet shake-up.

Another heart breaking first person account in the Bangkok Post:

Slain nurse's mum heard gunshots minutes before her death
Kamonked Akkhahad only wanted to help others before she was fatally shot
Published: 28/05/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The heartbroken mother of slain nurse Kamonked Akkhahad spoke to her daughter on the phone just minutes before she was fatally shot.

Payao Akkhahad, 45, said she heard gunshots in the distance during the conversation sometime between 6pm and 7pm of May19.

Then, in a devastating phone call at 9pm, Ms Payao was told Kamonked had been shot to death.

Now she is looking for answers - and receiving none.

"She was a nice, kind-hearted girl who had always wanted to help others," Ms Payao said of her daughter, a 25-year-old Red Cross volunteer nurse.

Kamonked was killed at Wat Pathumwanaram during the military dispersal of red shirt protesters. Ms Payao said she urged her daughter to take cover and retreat to safety.

"But then around 9pm I was told by her friends she was dead," she said. The slain nurse's funeral was held on Wednesday at Wat Pak Bueng, a temple in the heart of a low-income community on Rom Klao Road in Bangkok's outer district of Lat Krabang.

It was a low-key ceremony attended by about 200 people made up of her family members, friends and supporters of the red shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) including some executives of the Puea Thai Party.

Kamonked, the eldest child from a low-income family, was among six people killed at the temple which had been designated a safe haven for protesters. The temple is next to the UDD rally site at Bangkok's Ratchaprasong intersection.

Until the fatal incident, she had been the sole breadwinner of the family which is now struggling to survive financially and emotionally.

But what is more important for them now is the search for truth over the killing of Kamonked. The family has demanded a clear explanation from the government.

Similar to the cases of the other 87 people, including five others at the temple, killed in the clashes between protesters and government forces from March12 to May20, details over who is responsible for the killings have not been established in a concrete manner acceptable to all sides, especially the red shirts.

Of the total death toll, 77 were civilians and 11 were security officers.

The Democrat Party-led government has mostly pointed the finger at "the work of terrorists" who it says mingled among the protesters. The military has displayed weapons belonging to "terrorists" which it says it found at the temple. But this has failed to convince the relatives of the dead and the injured.

"I want the government to search for the truth - I mean the real truth behind the killing," said Natthapach Akkhahad, 21, Kamonked's brother who has adopted the role as the family's breadwinner.

"If the state says the death is the work of terrorists, then tell us who those terrorists are. Name them for us."

Details and debate over the killing of the nurse were openly shared among people attending the funeral. Like other cases, many believe she was shot by security forces.

Pictures taken on the day show there were gunmen in military uniform positioned above the temple on the skytrain's tracks. The government has denied soldiers were there at the time of the incident.

"She [Kamonked] told me on the phone she was in front of the temple trying to help a man who was shot," Ms Payao recalled of the phone conversation.

"I told her to go back inside the temple, but she insisted the man needed help."

Witnesses say the nurse was killed about 7pm while helping this man. Two of her colleagues were also shot dead.

Krongthong Phuengsang, 66, said she had worked with Kamonked since April12, providing medical assistance to protesters."On May 19, our supervisors told us to leave the rally site before dawn but Kamonked decided to stay," she said. "What I remember is she wore a Red Cross gown that day."

Like others attending the funeral, the nurse's family finds it hard to accept the government's claim of terrorism elements as the cause of the death.

"My daughter should be the last person to be killed as she was wearing her Red Cross gown and doing her job," Ms Payao said.

Time Magazine Video on the Red Shirt Riots

2010-05-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Time magazine video about the Red Shirt riots in Bangkok.

Driving in Dubai

2010-05-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Look Ma, it's an SUV driving on its 2 right tires, and some idiot in a smog belching truck.

Arak Kills on Bali

2010-05-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Arak is some pretty nasty stuff, but no matter your budget, avoid the stuff unless you want to take your life into your own hands.

Eight people are now dead and five are in hospital after drinking home-brewed arak believed to have been laced with methanol, Sanglah General Hospital spokesman Putra Wibawa said on Wednesday.

He said the first victim, who had been drinking arak in Kuta, died on May 16.

“Eight have died and five are still under treatment,” Wibawa said.

The victims came from all over Bali, including Ubud and Denpasar.

“The symptoms lead us to believe it is methanol poisoning,” Wibawa said.

Last year 25 people, including four foreign tourists, died in Bali and Lombok after drinking arak heavily laced with methanol to increase production.

Two men who produced arak at a small distillery near Denpasar were jailed for failing to apply health and safety regulations.

Dozens have also died in Java in the past two years.

Arak has become increasingly popular since the government raised taxes on imported alcohol, putting it out of reach for most Indonesians.

How to Ride a Jeepney in Manila

2010-05-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

I hate riding jeepneys in Manila, but this comedy sketch is both funny and very informative.

Army Snipers at the Temple

2010-05-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

Looks like we've finally got some photographic evidence that it was indeed army snipers who fired into the temple, declared a safe zone, and killed 6 innocent civilians. Will Abhisit investigate this outrage?

Jotman has some details. Visit the link for link connections.

UPDATES (2)
A paramedic's account of the night of May 19 points toward activity by armed personnel as depraved as anything that happened in Burma in September 2007.

Keng, a paramedic, had been working to save lives in a medical tent located on the grounds of Wat Pathumwanaram (Pathum Wanaram or วัดปทุมวนาราม). The website Pratachai interviewed Keng about what happened:

All paramedics wore red cross signs, but that did not save them from being shot. Bullets were fired right at the medical tent, Keng said.

The bullets came from a high angle. Despite a large sign put up that read ‘Sanctuary’ and everyone’s belief that inside the temple was the safest place, bullets came from the darkness.

Keng said it was likely that the gunshots were fired from the BTS skytrain track up above. On the morning of 20 May, at about 7-8 am, before police and the press came, when some of those inside the temple came out to look for food to share with the others, gunshots were fired from above. Soldiers were seen on the BTS track, carrying rifles.

Among the six dead inside the temple, three wore red cross signs.
The above photo shows two snipers on skytrain tracks overlooking a temple. If you click on the photo you will be able to see the snipers. They come to us via mediawar, who tweeted, "apparently these photos confirm Keng's words (about snipers on BTS)." The other photo is here. I don't know who took the photos [see update].

A UDD witness interviewed by the Bangkok Post/Spectrum echoes the medic's claim, "He said the gunmen were behind the concrete slabs on the second level of the elevated skytrain tracks. Everyone ran further inside the temple after the first man and the nurse were shot. 'From that position, the gunmen had a clear view of the temple,' he said." Another witness, an official at a foundation office located on the temple compound, was interviewed by the newspaper:

"We don't know who shot at us," said a foundation official. "But in my opinion, the shots must have been fired from a high position.

"Our temple is ringed by a high wall and the police headquarters are located just opposite us," he added. "So they must have been where they could not be seen by the police or passers-by."

Among the eyewitness accounts from May 19 compiled at Therelive.com are a number of reports from journalists who had been present at Wat Pathum temple.

Keng, A paramedic’s account of the 19 May slaughter - "Bullets were fired right at the medical tent, Keng said." (includes interview transcript, videos)
Andrew Buncombe, Eyewitness: Under fire in Thailand - "I cannot believe they are shooting in a temple."

Steve Tickner (via reporter), Australian reporter hides out in Buddhist temple

Mark MacKinnon, In a Bangkok Temple, the groans of the wounded shot seeking sanctuary - "... a place of death and terror as perhaps 1,500 civilians huddled inside."

Regarding the incident, at least two reports have appeared in the Thai media.

Nation Multimedia (Pongphon Sarnsamak) Gunfire made temple a scary place, reporter says

Bangkok Post, Unholly night in the temple compound

Andrew Buncombe, upon reading the Nation's account of his reporting, tweeted, "Interview with me in Nation is headlined: "Gunefire made temple a scary place, reporter says" is true, but that is not the story."

Wat Pathum Wanaram is located between two shopping malls Siam Paragon and CentralWorld, and across the street from Siam Square. Many red shirts had sought refuge on the temple grounds after the surrender of their leaders to Thai authorities.

Update 1:
Claudio, blogger and eyewitness to various recent events in Bangkok, points us to a video entitled "Sniper Fire and Dead in Wat Pathuwanaram, Bangkok, May 19th, 2010":

Update 2:
MediaWar has just written me to say, "looks like I've found source." The caption to a Getty photo at Daily Life reads: "Soldiers take position after gunshots were heard near a Buddhist temple in the heart of an anti-government protest zone, in downtown Bangkok on May 20, 2010.... soldiers were advancing on foot along an elevated train track, an AFP photographer saw." The caption to another photo reads, "A Thai soldier keeps guard in front of a temple which had been turned into a shelter within an anti-government protest site in downtown Bangkok on May 20, 2010. Thai police escorted thousands of protesters out of a Buddhist temple where they had cowered overnight after nine people were killed there in gunbattles." More Getty images of the temple here.

Sniper Fire and the Dead at Wat Pathuwanaram, Bangkok, May 19 2010

2010-05-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Rare footage taken inside the temple where snipers killed 6 innocent Thais. Who did this? The military is suspected, but no proof yet of the responsibility.

The Most Unusual Hotel Promotions Video You will ever See

2010-05-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

This clever video from the Penthouse Hotel in Pattaya has pole dancers, wedding girls, spa hookers, the kitchen chef who considers herself Lady Gaga, and even a brief look at a room. It's really brilliant, far superior to any hotel promotional video I've seen in the past.

American Boy, 13, Breaks Everest Record

2010-05-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Jordan. An amazing achievement.

CNN -- A 13-year-old American became the youngest climber to ever summit Mount Everest on Saturday.

Jordan Romero's journey was tracked through GPS coordinates on his blog, logging his team's ascent up Everest, which is 29,028 feet (8,847 meters) above sea level.

"Their dreams have now come true," a statement on Jordan's blog said. "Everyone sounded unbelievably happy."

Before Saturday, the youngest climber to scale Everest was 16-year-old Temba Tsheri of Nepal.

"I know you would like to hear from the boy himself, but he is currently flat on his belly knocked out," a member of Jordan's climbing team said in a message posted Saturday on his blog. "The effort he put out this last more like 48 hours is -- you're not going to believe the story when you see it and read about it."

Romero left for the peak from the Chinese side of the mountain after Nepal denied him permission on age grounds, according to nepalnews.com.

Before starting out, Romero, of Big Bear, California, said he wanted to climb Everest to inspire more young people to get outdoors.

"Obese children are the future of America, the way things are going," he said on April 9 in Kathmandu. "I am hoping to change that by doing what I do: climbing and motivational speaking."

With a smile, he added: "I am doing this a little for myself, too, to do something big."

Jordan now has climbed six of the seven highest peaks on seven continents, known as the Seven Summits.

"This is not an isolated vacation," said Paul Romero, Jordan's father, before the two embarked up Everest in Nepal. "This is a lifestyle."

Romero's family started tackling the Seven Summits in summer 2005. He was just 9 when they climbed 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

There is a debate about whether the tallest mountain in Oceania is Kosciuszko in mainland Australia or Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, so Romero and his family climbed both.

The only peak left for him to climb after Everest is the Vinson Massif in Antarctica, which is 16,067 feet (4,897 meters). A trip there is planned for December.

Were the Journalists Targeted?

2010-05-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't realize the large number of journalists and photographers who were injured during the Red Shirt riots of May 2010. But it's a shocking number and begs the question: were members of the media deliberately targeted by the army?

Media organizations mourned the deaths and injuries of their colleagues and called for immediate efforts to establish facts and bring to justice those responsibility for the losses of people’s lives.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) said in its statement today that it is deeply saddened by the death of Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi on 19 May from gunshot wounds, and extends its condolences to his family and friends.

Mr Polenghi, who worked as freelance for NASA news agency at the time of his death, was the second media fatality during the current political unrest in Bangkok following the fatal shooting on April 10 of Reuter’s Japanese cameraman Hiroyaki Muramoto near Ratchadamnoen Avenue.

As many more civilians have also been killed, every effort should be made to correctly identify those responsible for each individual death so that similar tragedies would not be repeated, the FCCT said.

Two other foreign journalists, both Canadian, have been seriously wounded but are in stable condition.

Nelson Rand, for France 24 television network, sustained three bullet wounds in his arm, leg and abdomen, whilst Chandler Vandergrift suffered shrapnel wounds to the head.

Three Thai photographers and one reporter have also wounded, including a veteran Nation senior photographer Chaiwat Phumpuang.

Dutch journalist Michel Maas, working for Dutch television and newspapers, as well as Radio Netherlands Worldwide, was hospitalized after being shot in his shoulder British correspondent Andrew Buncombe for The Independent have also been injured.

A number of other journalists have been less seriously hurt, but there has been concern over intimidation that has led to assaults on reporters and the loss of reporting materials and images. Some Thai newspapers have closed their offices early due to such intimidation, and local TV station Channel 3 was the target of an arson attack which took it off air for two days.

The FCCT reiterated President Marwaan Macan-Markar's earlier statement that all parties concerned should respect the rights of the domestic and foreign media to report these complex and volatile events with impartiality and accuracy.

“These are important and difficult times for all the people of Thailand and the free flow of correct information is more important than ever," Mr Macan-Markar said.

Earlier on, three media organizations, one each from the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, issued separate statements calling on the Thai government to ensure protection and safety of journalists covering the aftermath of the dispersal of the Red Shirt protesters and the subsequent rioting that broke out in Bangkok.

Questions after the Riots

2010-05-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

The Bangkok Post today has an interesting opinion article which brings up some disturbing and challening questions.

The street riots which culminated with the arson of Bangkok's central business district have been put down as inevitable. Both the ragtag red shirts' perpetrators of violence and the more organised armed "men in black" were no match for a uniformed army supported by armoured columns in the end.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks at a news conference held at the 11th Infantry Regiment in Bangkok on Friday. Mr Abhisit said he was committed to national reconciliation but made no offer of fresh elections, two days after troops quelled the worst political violence in modern Thai history.

The 70-odd death toll so far from the Ratchaprasong-centred protests over the last two months exceeds each of the previous crises - the entwined Octobers of 1973 and 1976 and the straightforward pro-democracy uprising in May 1992.

On the other hand, the arson attacks have set back the Bangkok-concentrated capitalist boom by at least a decade. The symbolic damage could be more costly as the knock-on effects on tourism and investment come to the fore.

While all stakeholders assess the mounting costs, several troubling questions warrant clarity in the days during the immediate aftermath of the Ratchaprasong rage and rampage.

First, had the various peace overtures run their course? On the eve of the crackdown, a senate-sponsored peace deal appeared in the works. Leading senators were shown on state-run and army-owned television stations in discussion with the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

Perhaps the UDD hardliners hijacked and vetoed the negotiations. Perhaps convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra told the UDD hardliners loyal to him to pull the plug. Perhaps the rank-and-file protesters at Ratchaprasong were intransigent to any deal, having been indoctrinated day in and day out on the stage rhetoric of social injustice and al leged murders of their fellow demonstrators from the April 10 clash.

But it was clear that the UDD moderates were intent on standing down. Might more time allotted to them for persuasion of their crowds and bargaining with their opposing hardliners have helped bring a peaceful way out?

And the failures of earlier olive branches need to be explained.

What happened to the promising negotiations brokered by Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra? Was it scuttled by the Thaksin hardliners, rejected by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, or both? Mr Abhisit came up with a five-point peace proposal with a concrete election timetable for November polls just two weeks before street riots spiralled out of control. This proposal was accepted by the UDD with the additional condition that Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban turn himself in to police to own up to the civilian deaths on April 10.

Why did Mr Suthep surrender to the Department of Special Investigations instead of to the police when he was certain to be freed because no charges had been filed against him? Such gamesmanship and leveraging between the two sides have incurred sombre costs in the streets of Bangkok. And why did PM Abhisit withdraw his peace offer and election timetable if he was intent on finding a peaceful exit out of the brinkmanship? This reversal may have strengthened the hand of UDD hardliners and tipped the balance among the UDD leadership towards a more violent outcome.

Second, should the Abhisit government preside over what its finance minister calls a "healing process" when it has been party to the conflict and is culpable for the dead and injured?

Early government noises suggest more pacification policies and campaigns to placate the reds in the countryside. But we have been here before. After the Songkran riots in April 2009, Mr Abhisit pledged reconciliation and reform. The consequent recommendations for con stitutional amendments came to naught. Further antagonism and alienation of the reds have partly brought on the Ratchaprasong protests. He and his government had the entire year in 2009 to bridge the divide and bring the red shirts on side, but the result has been the opposite. What can the Abhisit government do this time that they did not do after the reds' rioted in April 2009?

Third, what now happens to the reds? Having been forcefully dispersed and roundly condemned for the burning of Bangkok, will the rank-and-file reds simp ly go home and sit quietly? For the reds, nothing has changed. They rioted then and now in April 2009 and May 2010. Their grievances remain unaddressed. What they see as injustice, including their systematic disenfranchisement through the judicial dissolutions of their poll-winning parties not once but twice, the banning of their politicians, and the street-based ouster of their elected governments in 2008, persists. Will these claims of injustice be accommodated by the pro-Abhisit coalition? If not, will the reds come to Bangkok in rage again? Or will they resort to underground activities, including an overtly armed insurgency, and establish their own Thailand away from Bangkok in enclaves of the North and Northeast?

Finally, will the arson and looting of the capital be condemned as vehemently in the North and Northeast as in Bangkok? Will the net effect from the protest and crackdown further divide or begin to reconcile Thai society? More questions will emerge while answers will be hard to come by. Picking up the pieces from the last two months will be arduous, and this is all just a beginning.

In the eyes of Bangkokians, the reds are disgraced yet again. But the reds may not care because they no longer accept the Thai state such as it is and the political system it upholds, because the system is seen as rigged and stacked against them.

The onus rests squarely now on the Abhisit government to bring the reds back into the fold beyond Thaksin. Lumping all the reds under Thaksin's long and manipulative tentacles has been a mistake all along. Accommodating the rank-and-file reds and working with their more moderate leaders, including some of the banned politicians from 2007, may offer a way to bypass Thaksin.

If Mr Abhisit is too compromised and tainted for this task, he should consider his position and make a personal sacrifice to enable others to be put in place for the healing to take place.

Is Abhisit Legitimate?

2010-05-22T02:53:00.000-07:00

Amazing. A conversation and debate between spokesmen from the Red Shirts and the government. The UDD guy is cool, calm and very rational, while the government spokesman comes across as the Thai equivalent of Glen Beck...a raving lunatic.

Who Killed the 6 at the Bangkok Temple?

2010-05-22T02:01:00.000-07:00

If you believe the explanation provided by the government spokesman in this video, then I've got a few bridges to sell you.

France 24 on Thai Political Crisis

2010-05-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

France 24 has a excellent interview with a Thailand expert who quickly discusses the future challenges and why the King is no longer able to intervene in political crisis.

CNN Video on the King

2010-05-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

Thai Political Prisoners comments on the controversial video from CNN. I see nothing insulting about the video.

There has been a ton of rubbish sprouted in Thailand against CNN International and mainly Dan Rivers, claiming he’s essentially sprouting red shirt propaganda. PPT has watched a lot of CNN over the past few days and we’d say these complaints are simply motivated by yellow-shirted hatred of any media that says anything critical of the royalist-military regime in Thailand. We say this because the reporting was, compared with, say, the BBC, more pro-government and certainly produced less controversial clips. However, Rivers has the “biased background” of having reported other “difficulties” for the Abhisit Vejjajiva clique (e.g. the Rohinga issue).

Now, however, the CNN’s US-based network included this report, which is bound to send the royalists ballistic. It isn’t fantastic journalism, but it will be seen as horrendous for the monarchy.

The Independent reports:

As the rattle of gunfire dies away, the blood is hosed from the city streets and Thailand sits down to ponder the cost of its ferocious uprising, many are quietly wondering if the monarchy of King Bhumibol Adulyadej will be one of the casualties.

He is the world's longest-reigning monarch and in many ways one of the most extraordinary. He began life as a thoroughly modern royal: born in the United States in 1927, educated at a francophone school in Switzerland and the University of Lausanne, where his science studies were cut short by the family's decision to return home at the end of the Second World War.

And like another science-loving Asian monarch, Emperor Hirohito of Japan, he found himself thrust into a fantastically archaic role – or rather a dual role, with an apparently modern face directed to the outside world and an ancient, sacred identity fashioned to give him spiritual authority over his people.

For the heads of state and diplomats who crossed his threshold, he was a king in a suit, a Thai version of British or Scandinavian monarchs: a constitutional figure, a symbol of the state without personal power. For his people, by contrast, the great majority of them pious Theravada Buddhists in a country which also has an ancient residue of Hinduism, he was very much more than that: he was the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, and in Buddhist terms the "Dharmaraja", the King of Righteousness. He was "a sacral leader", in the words of his biographer, Paul Handley, "with blood-born magical powers and transcendent vision".

For the outside world he did service as an urbane figurehead. And at home his gentle, studious nature persuaded his people that he had the virtuous character that is a necessary complement of the gifts of blood. He entered the monkhood for a token 15 days in 1956 on the death of his grandmother; he consulted numerologists and patronised magic-practising monks and performed all the ceremonies required of a Dharmaraja.

He did everything to convey that he was indeed "the Strength of the Land" (the meaning of his name) and possessed the numinous power to hold his nation together. This was not in fact continuity, but a studied revival of practices that lapsed with the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932. "The God-like status of Bhumibol," wrote political scientist Michael Connors, "was not part of the family treasure, but something he and hundreds of officials in the palace and other agencies have contrived to create." An important aspect of this myth-making was to insist that Bhumibol was serenely removed from the squalor of everyday politics. Speaking of his accession to the throne, he said in 1974, "I was 18, and very suddenly I learned that politics is a filthy business." It was crucial to the success of his image that, in Handley's words, he was "never seen to play politics... An uncrossable chasm was created between the virtuous throne and virtueless politicians".

But like the Japanese attempts to portray Emperor Hirohito as a man above the politics that led to war, the idea that Bhumibol was above the fray was a carefully manufactured lie. He was already wealthy when he came to the throne; according to Forbes magazine in 2008 he was the richest royal in the world, with an estimated wealth of $35bn. In addition to huge land holdings, including nearly 4,000 acres in Bangkok, his Crown Property Bureau is the majority shareholder of Siam Cement, the biggest conglomerate in the country, and has ruthlessly redeveloped historic parts of the capital for profit. His closest allies are in the business world and the military. Over the years, behind the carefully maintained façade of piety and political neutrality, a monarchical elite of great power and wealth dug itself in.

The lie was exposed by the emergence of Thaksin Shinawatra, the policeman turned telecoms billionaire who set up a political party, Thai Rak Thai (Thai loves Thai) in 1997, in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. Since the mid-1950s, King Bhumibol has claimed to be the friend of Thailand's poor by sponsoring rural development projects including a bridge, a dam and irrigation projects and by carrying out a token land reform project on royal land.

But as Bangkok boomed through the 1970s and 80s, much of the countryside was left behind. In his bid for power, Thaksin vowed to help poor farmers by paying off their debts and raising the minimum wage. He came to power in 2001 and was as good as his word; though accused of numerous serious abuses, no one disputes he did a great deal to help the rural poor in the north-east, in the process exposing the royal development efforts as token.

As the friend of the rural poor, he created the fund of intense popular support which led to the creation of the Red Shirts who have been fighting and dying these past days in the streets of the Thai capital. And as the fighting has grown more bitter and desperate, the issue has become far more than the fate of an individual politician. Thailand has become disastrously polarised.

It is precisely in desperate situations like this that the King of Righteousness is expected to make his rare, quasi-magical interventions. Bringing unity to the nation was supposed to be King Bhumibol's duty and his gift: at the moments of greatest turmoil the king would speak or act, the Dharmaraja would emerge from the clouds with his pained, unsmiling face, and calm the waves and quieten the storm.

It happened like that in 1992, after one of Thailand's many coups, when tens of thousands of protesters confronted troops on a Bangkok university campus. Suddenly there he was on television, sitting on a sofa wearing a pale suit; kneeling on the carpet before him were General Suchinda Kraprayoon, the prime ministerial candidate of the coup group, and retired Major-General Chamlong Srimuang, leader of the pro-democracy movement, urging them to bury their differences. The fighting stopped the next day. A general election brought in a civilian government, and an apparent end to the interference of the military in the nation's political life. It was a dramatic demonstration of his Majesty's unifying powers.

Yet this time around, as Thailand faced an equally destructive crisis, the king has been unable to perform any such function. One reason is that he is clearly unwell: in October 2007 he suffered what appeared to be a minor stroke, and was unable to make his traditional birthday speech. He has been poorly ever since, and the latest rumours indicate that he is again in hospital, suffering from exhaustion and a lung infection. But it is not only because he is unwell that the king can no longer act as the great unifier: it is because he has a dog in this fight. The 2006 coup and the emergence of the monarchist yellow shirts blew his "neutral" cover. If he has been as silent as the sphinx through this crisis, it is also because there is nothing that he can say that would be any help.

Whatever happens to the ailing king and his widely disliked successor, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, Thailand faces a long crisis – one which the monarchy cannot solve. "There might still be people in Thai society that want to see the king play a role in resolving the crisis," said Jon Ungpakom, a former senator and democracy advocate, "but a large section of society realises that we should not depend on the monarchy for resolving crises. If we are to be a democratic system, we must learn to deal with our problems for ourselves." And 63 years under the comfortingly archaic cover of a holy king, during which average incomes have increased 4,000 per cent, have allowed Thailand to neglect this fundamental task.

A life in brief

Born: 5 December 1927, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.

Family: The younger son of HRH Prince Mahidol Adulyadej and Mom Sangwal. He is married to Mom Rajawongse Sirikit Kitiyakara; they have four children.

Education: Briefly went to Mater Dei school in Bangkok before moving to Switzerland in 1933 and studying at the Ecole Nouvelle de la Suisse Romande in Lausanne. Degree in law and political science at the University of Lausanne.

Career: Ascended the throne following the death of his brother, King Ananda Mahidol, on 9 June 1946. He has made several interventions in politics and is credited with facilitating Thailand's transition to democracy in the 1990s.

He says: "In Thailand's history there have been dissensions from time to time, but in general, unity has prevailed."

They say: "Whenever there is a political crisis people expect the King to solve the problem." Suchit Bunbongkarn, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University

The Big Picture on Bangkok Protests

2010-04-09T14:02:00.000-07:00

Boston Globe The Big Picture rounds up the best photos of the ongoing red shirt protests in Bangkok.

World Airline Traffic

2010-04-09T09:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks Chris!

Komodo Dragons in the Philippines?

2010-04-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

National Geographic reports on the unexpected discovery of a giant monitor lizard living in the trees on the island of Luzon.

It has a double penis, is as long as a tall human, and lives in a heavily populated area of the Philippines. Yet somehow the giant lizard Varanus bitatawa has gone undetected by science until now.

Long known to Filipino tribal hunters, the monitor lizard was identified as a new species in 2009 via its DNA, scale pattern, size, and peculiar penis, a new study says.

At about six and a half feet (two meters) long, the new lizard species is closely related to the world's largest living reptile, the Komodo dragon. Unlike the Komodo, though, Varanus bitatawa has evolved to be a vegetarian.

The lizard discovery "comes as an unprecedented surprise," not least because V. bitatawa's home island of Luzon is "heavily populated and highly deforested," the study authors write in Wednesday's issue of the journal Biology Letters.

The researchers suspect the 22-pound (10-kilogram) lizard species escaped scientific detection until now because there've been few reptile surveys of the mountain forests where V. bitatawa lives.

These fruit-eating lizards are also "incredibly secretive," said study team member and biologist Daniel Bennett of Mampam Conservation.

"You could stay in that forest for years and have absolutely no idea that they are there," Bennett said. "They spend all their time high up in trees, more than 20 meters [66 feet] above the ground." Similar lizard species spend less than 20 minutes on the ground per week, he added.

But while scientists weren't aware of the lizard, its existence comes as no surprise to resident tribespeople who hunt the creature for its meat. Photographs of hunters with the lizard delicacy taken in 2001 spurred the team's two-month expedition in search of the elusive species last summer.

The team captured specimens of both V. bitatawa and the extremely rare but closely related Gray's monitor lizard (Varanus olivaceus), another Philippines native.

Capturing both types of lizards was crucial, Bennett said, because it allowed the team to inspect the two monitor lizards side-by-side and detect subtle differences that can help determine whether the animals represent different species.

One particularly revealing trait was the double-ended penis common to monitor lizards. The shape of this reptilian feature is unique to each species. The giant-lizard find "adds to the recognition of the Philippines as a global conservation hot spot and a regional superpower of biodiversity," the study team says.

And Bennett thinks it's "very likely" scientists could discover more unknown monitor lizard species in the Philippines—if they can be found before their fast-dwindling rain forest habitat disappears.

Imelda Plans a Political Comeback

2010-04-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

This video includes a shot of Imelda visiting her dead, embalmed husband. Very strange stuff. The article below is from The Guardian.

Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, has begun a campaign for a congressional seat that she hopes will allow her to bury her husband in a heroes' cemetery and clear his sullied name.

Marcos, 80, and nearly 18,000 other politicians are traversing the impoverished south-east Asian nation on the first official day of campaigning for the 10 May elections.

Presidential and senatorial candidates have been campaigning for more than a month. Police say political violence, which often goes hand-in-hand with campaigning, has already claimed close to 80 lives, including 57 people massacred on the 23 November in an election caravan in southern Philippines.

Also among the celebrity candidates is the boxer Manny Pacquiao, who is seeking a congressional seat in his southern province. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has been threatened with criminal charges by critics when her turbulent term ends in June, is another candidate for the 287-seat lower chamber.

Emerging from more than a decade of political obscurity, Marcos strode back with a vengeance. She led journalists at daybreak to the mausoleum of her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, in Ilocos Norte province, his northern stronghold.

Kissing his glass coffin (above), she said: "This is one of our major injustices." She then went to church and rode on a lorry festooned with balloons and posters as thousands cheered her along the way. She was flanked by her daughter Imee, who is running for governor in Ilocos Norte, a tobacco-growing region about 250 miles (400km) north of Manila. Imelda's son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, is seeking a senate seat.

Marcos said she will continue her campaign to have her husband buried in the national heroes' cemetery in Manila if she wins. His burial there has been opposed by officials amid public outrage after Marcos – accused of corruption, political repression and widespread human rights abuses – was ousted in a 1986 revolt and died in exile in Hawaii three years later.

Imelda Marcos and their three children were allowed to return to the Philippines in 1991. She said: "My ambition is to serve without end and to love without end."

Easter Fun in the Philippines

2010-04-02T23:28:00.000-07:00

At least 23 people were crucified - one for the 24th time - in three villages north of Manila as the media recorded every moment from gantries erected around the crosses.

The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines disapproves of the bloody spectacle that is a mark of the worshippers' faith, but is powerless to stop the annual ritual.

Foreigners were banned from taking part in the proceedings in Pampanga province's San Fernando city authorities after some did so last year merely so they could make a film of the event and poke fun at the rites.

"We don't want them to just make a mockery out of the tradition of the people here," said Ching Pangilinan, San Fernando tourism officer.

But in Cutud, a village about 50 miles north of Manila, the local McDonalds set up a stall selling ice-cream and drinks, while vendors went among the crowds.

There, the part Christ was played by Ruben Inaje, who was nailed to the cross for the 24th time in a ritual that has lasted for 55 years.

"When they put the nails in my palm, that's very painful", said the 49-year- old before his crucifixion. Nails are also driven through his feet. "Of course I'm nervous. But I pray deep in my heart. I feel much better when I get of the cross." Other devotees, watched by thousands of spectators, whipped themselves with bamboos on a rope. Some added broken glass and razor blades to the whips to ensure the blood flowed.

Tiger Woods in Condoms

2010-04-02T19:49:00.001-07:00

Bangkok restaurant uses Tiger Woods statue dressed in condoms to promote safe sex. A BANGKOK restaurant promoting safe sex has created a replica statue of golfing star Tiger Woods - dressed in clothing made entirely from condoms. Created by US food and wine author Barbara Hansen, the life-size mannequin is dressed in Nike brand attire all made of condoms.

The mannequin - standing next to a Christmas tree decorated with condoms - wears a pink shirt, orange slacks, yellow cap and shoes, and holds a rubber golf club.

A note is also attached to the statue’s belt buckle which reads: "Let’s do it Tiger".

The restaurant, called 'Cabbages & Condoms', was founded by Thailand's Population and Community Development Association in Bangkok in 1986. It's signature dish is yam tung yang or condom salad, and proceeds from the restaurant's recipe book go to family planning, rural projects, environmental protection, water resource development, scholarship and HIV/AIDS education.

Meanwhile, fallen superstar Woods is set to return to professional golf after taking a break from the sport amid revelations he had a string of affairs.

Godzilla Attacks Bangkok!

2010-04-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Who is the Modern John Birch Society?

2010-03-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Modern Republicans, of course:

Pilipinas Got Talent

2010-03-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

This is beyond strange.

Bonus:
The Infamous "End of Publishing" Video

And the girl from "Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill"

The Economist -- Banned in Thailand

2010-03-18T21:45:00.000-07:00

Some straight talk from The Economist about the Royal Family. Not formally banned, but no magazine distributor will touch this one.

As father fades, his children fight

Behind the present unrest in Thailand lie far deeper fears about the royal succession. And those may not be spoken publicly

Mar 18th 2010

From The Economist print edition

IN TRUCKS, boats and buses, protesters streamed into Bangkok for a non-stop rally that was billed as a “people’s war against the elite”. By March 14th the crowd, all wearing bright red and brimming with elation, had passed 100,000. On the stage, speakers railed against the government and its royal and military enablers. Banners read “No Justice, No Peace”. Another bruising round in Thailand’s protracted power-struggle was under way, with no clear end in sight.

By mid-week the red shirts seemed no closer to their goal of forcing out the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, and forcing new elections. The army stands squarely behind Mr Abhisit, who took power 15 months ago by a parliamentary fix and remains the hero of Bangkok’s myopic monied classes, as well as the yellow-shirted protesters who support the status quo. But in a one-man, one-vote democracy, the have-nots hold the key to success.

Thailand’s twice-elected and now fugitive former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, understood this well. He has refused to keep quiet since the army ousted him in 2006. A court ruling on February 26th to seize $1.4 billion of his fortune has only made him angrier. Many red shirts consider Mr Thaksin to be the country’s true leader and, despite his enormous wealth and privileged life, make common cause with him.

Ruling-party politicians complain that the lowly red shirts are paid proxies and do not represent mainstream opinion. They bat away the idea that an election may be the only way to prove their point, arguing that an orderly vote is impossible amid the tumult. Most of all, they blame Mr Thaksin for the uproar.

But there is another figure in the political landscape to consider: King Bhumibol Adulyadej, at 82 the world’s longest-reigning monarch. At the rally site, a giant spotlit portrait of him gazed down impassively on the red-shirted crowds. To Thailand’s royalist movement the monarch is the nation’s father, and the “fighting children” on the streets are a source of distress to him. Some fear that Thailand’s troubles may be thwarting King Bhumibol’s full recovery from the respiratory illness that has kept him in hospital since September.

But it is precisely because “father” is on his way out that his “children” are fighting. The death of a monarch is always a moment of national drama and self-reflection. Thais feel a dread of it. Few have known any king other than Bhumibol, who ascended in 1946 to an institution that had slipped into irrelevance. As military rule gave way to a semi-functional democracy, the palace served as a respected power-broker. But its legitimacy depended on the charisma of King Bhumibol and the stealth of his courtiers.

The palace insists that the king is alert and active. But Thais already fear a destabilising royal succession. Investors are especially worried, and the more so because lèse-majesté laws discourage frank talk about it. When a large Thai brokerage polled fund managers about political risk factors in 2010, 42% of respondents chose what the brokerage describes as “a change that cannot be mentioned”. Rumours of King Bhumibol’s death last October sparked a two-day equities sell-off and a furious government witch-hunt for rumour-spreaders. The real thing is likely to outdo that rout.

Thailand has already endured four years of turmoil. The death toll has been low so far, but the rage unleashed last April, when red shirts fought the army in Bangkok, was a glimpse of how deep passions run. Splits within the army itself are starting to appear. Even if fears of all-out civil war seem overblown, it is reasonable to expect more years of political confrontation and paralysis.

The crown itself should pass smoothly. The designated male heir is Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, aged 57, and there is not much scope for doubt about his claim. A long mourning period, perhaps six months or more, will allow a pause in the political dogfight. Some protagonists may come to their senses and seek a compromise. The death of King Bhumibol would also signal a generational shift in Thailand: younger voices could start to be heard.

But this king will be a most difficult act to follow, and Prince Vajiralongkorn is already widely loathed and feared. Most Thais try not even to think about his accession. “This reign ends. And then, nothing,” says an academic. The next ruler must fill the shoes of a beatified icon whose achievements have been swathed in a personality cult. The role of a crown prince in an era of great longevity and public scrutiny is tough anywhere. In Thailand it verges on the impossible. “How do you follow someone who walks on water?” asks a senior Western diplomat.

Doubts about the prince

This conundrum is a familiar one. King Vajiravudh, Rama VI, who assumed the throne in 1910, had a rough ride in the shadow of his father, King Chulalongkorn, a vigorous moderniser. Even before he ascended to the throne he was tainted by palace gossip of alleged bad behaviour, according to Thongchai Winichakul, a Thai historian at the University of Wisconsin. Vajiravudh was a “fantastic poet and playwright” but an also-ran monarch who was eclipsed by his exalted predecessor. “The royals shot themselves in the foot,” Mr Thongchai told a recent public seminar.

His successor, Prajadhipok, Rama VII, fared worse. A bloodless 1932 coup ended absolute rule and nudged the Thai monarchy towards the margins. Prajadhipok fled to exile in London and abdicated in 1935, deepening the drift. He handed over to Rama VIII, King Bhumibol’s elder brother, who died in 1946 after a mysterious shot to the head. Bhumibol was proclaimed king the same day, and promptly returned to Switzerland to complete his studies.

In 1926 Prajadhipok had written frankly about the shortcomings of dynastic rule. In a letter, he wrestled with the clash between a society in flux and the law of hereditary kingship, a clash that seems to hang over Thailand today. The king’s rule was one “of great difficulty” as public opinion had turned against absolute rule. He fretted over who might be coming next. “Some sort of guarantee must be found against an unwise king,” he wrote.

Nearly a century on, no such guarantee exists. Instead, Thais are faced with the prospect of Prince Vajiralongkorn, a career army officer and fighter pilot, who has already assumed many ceremonial duties from his father. Largely absent in recent years on jaunts around Europe, he is now back in Thailand and in the public eye. The signals are loud and clear. Two weeks after King Bhumibol’s birthday speech, the Bangkok Post ran a stiff, respectful profile of him under the headline: “King in Waiting”.

For Thais used to King Bhumibol’s virtues, which include monogamy, Buddhist piety and old-fashioned thrift, the crown prince is a poor substitute. Salacious stories of his private life are daily gossip. A video circulated widely in 2007 showed his third wife, known as the “royal consort”, at a formal dinner with the prince in a titillating state of undress. Diplomats say Prince Vajiralongkorn is unpredictable to the point of eccentricity: lavishing attention on his pet poodle Fu Fu, for example, who has military rank and, on occasion, sits among guests at gala dinners. In the 1980s his rumoured ties to the criminal underworld, which he denied in a newspaper interview, inspired the gangster nickname of “Sia O”.

In contrast, Princess Sirindhorn, his sister, enjoys a saintly image as a patron of charity. Many Thais are praying for an eleventh-hour change that installs her on the throne. Some army and palace factions are said to favour the princess as the next ruler. Other possibilities aired in recent years are a jump to Prince Vajiralongkorn’s children, such as his youngest, Prince Tipangkara, with a regent, perhaps Princess Sirindhorn. The leaked video was presumably a bid to discredit the prince and push other options. So far, however, King Bhumibol seems to have made up his mind that Prince Vajiralongkorn will succeed him.

Vajiralongkorn, meddling already

Paul Handley, the king’s unofficial biographer, whose book is banned in Thailand, thinks there is a tiny possibility that King Bhumibol could decide on his deathbed to disinherit Prince Vajiralongkorn. That would require a written command. Life in exile in Europe might suit the prince, who would not want for money or diversions. Inevitably there are other, bloodier, predictions of how he might be removed from the succession. This might explain why soldiers in his personal guard are not allowed to wear guns in his presence.

One reason why Prince Vajiralongkorn is distrusted in military circles is his past association with Mr Thaksin, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006. Mr Thaksin, a telecoms billionaire turned populist politician, was said to have lavished money on the prince. That may have been the real reason for the coup, which appeared to have the blessing of Prem Tinsulanonda, the chairman of the Privy Council and thus the king’s chief adviser. The fact that Mr Thaksin, who is living in exile in Dubai, is still in contact with the prince is deeply troubling for those same royalists. In a recent interview with a British newspaper, the former prime minister lavishly praised the heir to the throne.

Nobody knows what kind of ruler Prince Vajiralongkorn would be. Sulak Sivaraksa, a veteran royal observer and social activist, says that the prince has matured during his third marriage and is more respectful of others than in the past. Others say that he is still easily bored by royal duties, unlike Princess Sirindhorn, who lives for them. Above all, say royal watchers, he needs able courtiers to steer him through the political pitfalls ahead. Many believe that Prince Vajiralongkorn will replace the Privy Council with his own men. For senior courtiers who have served the king and look askance at his successor, an exit will be welcome. But the new men “will definitely not have the calibre” of the current crop, says a foreign scholar.

Mighty but clumsy

A taste of this came last year when Mr Abhisit, the prime minister, tried to reshuffle the police force. His choice for police chief was blocked by members of his own team, including Nipon Prompan, an aide to Prince Vajiralongkorn, who lobbied for another candidate. A “powerful and mighty” backer was reported to be pushing the second man, a former head of national intelligence under Mr Thaksin. Mr Nipon later resigned from the cabinet. Mr Abhisit was unable to confirm his man, who is currently acting chief. The row exposed Prince Vajiralongkorn’s clumsy meddling. It also provoked apoplexy among King Bhumibol’s courtiers, says a palace source. Prince Vajiralongkorn was told that “we don’t do things like this,” the source says.

In fact, the palace has long patronised loyalists in the army and bureaucracy. This is how power operates in Thailand. What made Mr Thaksin such a threat to the palace was his determination to exert similar control. In turn, Prince Vajiralongkorn is itching to meddle in the annual autumnal shuffle of senior jobs in the armed forces and extend his support base, says a senior Asian diplomat. How far he succeeds may determine how long he lasts. Another possibility is a royal pardon for Mr Thaksin so that he can return to manage state affairs for the new king. This would delight the red shirts. But it would appal Bangkok’s elite and split the army. As for courting public support, this seems far-fetched. The prince knows he is unpopular, says a political acquaintance, but “he doesn’t care.”

One way out of this predicament would be to shrink the Thai monarchy back to its previous size. Top-down reform of the institution is more palatable than a push from below with republican overtones. Under King Bhumibol its stock has fallen already from its zenith in May 1992, when he could order a military dictator to cease and desist. Recent years have exposed the limits of his powers. In 2008 the king was unable to stop the People’s Alliance for Democracy from sowing chaos in his name. “We expect too much of him,” sighs a senior courtier.

Clearly Thailand needs a new equilibrium. Some fear that the power vacuum left by an enfeebled monarchy will be filled by the army, which is already the steel behind the palace’s gilded façade. But the generals who seized power in a coup in 2006 did a dismal job of running the country, and had to return power to the voters 15 months later. Business families do not want a repeat performance, and would prefer to have politicians and professionals in charge. Several banned MPs, some hoping to lead parties, will re-enter the field in 2012. But the rules of the game will need to be reset.

Some might argue that King Bhumibol shares the blame for the failure of democratic institutions to take root in Thailand. Relying on “a few good men” and the army to steer the country has left it in the lurch, says Mr Handley.

It is a sad twilight for the monarch. Thailand was once an outpost of freedom in a fairly repressive region. Scrappy politics did not choke rapid economic growth, as the bureaucrats kept a steady hand on day-to-day management. In the 1990s Western rights activists hoped that the dynamism of Thai civil society might spread to neighbouring countries. Instead, some now see Thailand as a cautionary tale of a botched democracy.

That may be too harsh. Thailand’s rival red and yellow mobs disagree about democracy, but both want a fair political system. To measure tolerance, the California-based Asia Foundation last year surveyed Thais about their views. It found that 79% of respondents would allow unpopular political parties to meet in their area. Only 6% said that they would stop seeing a friend who had joined a rival party. These are healthier figures than in other Asian democracies. Almost everyone agreed that democracy was the best form of government, though 30% would accept authoritarian rule in certain circumstances.

Thailand has not yet given up on democracy. But taking stock of its troubled politics should include talking about the crown. Of course, it is distasteful—and inauspicious, Thais believe—to speak of King Bhumibol’s death. But it is unavoidable. The stakes are too high. Respect and fear have kept a lid on the debate. Anyone who speaks out of turn in Thailand risks arrest under the lèse-majesté laws or a new, equally nasty computer-crimes law. Several people have been prosecuted for defaming the king and his family, including an Australian jailed (until freed by a royal pardon) for writing a novel that contained an unflattering depiction of the crown prince.

Behind closed doors, a spirited debate goes on over the fate of the monarchy when the king dies. An old prophecy holds that the Chakri dynasty will last only nine generations. King Bhumibol is Rama IX. Republican voices are rising to the surface—unreported in Thailand’s pliant media. The Bangkok Post struck a typical tone of pride and menace in its birthday eulogy for the king in December: “The Thai people’s love for his majesty is so ingrained in the national psyche that to declare otherwise is unthinkable.”

Gagged and flagging

Within palace circles, however, there is a dawning realisation that change is coming. Senior royalists know that King Bhumibol’s charisma and influence will not easily transfer to his successor. This is the crux of Thailand’s royal impasse. And King Bhumibol knows it, says Mr Sulak. As he puts it, the king “would like to see that the next reign will not be bloody.”

To this end, King Bhumibol recently asked three trusted emissaries to present ideas for reforming the institution, according to Mr Sulak. One emissary asked for Mr Sulak’s advice, explaining that the findings would be for the king’s eyes only. Mr Sulak replied that the palace must be transparent about its finances, including some $35 billion in assets managed by the Crown Property Bureau, decouple itself from the army and open up to public criticism. Only by becoming a European-style figurehead can a future monarch survive, he argues.

Preserving the tree

Mr Sulak has often been accused of lèse-majesté. He insists that he is a monarchist at heart. “To pull down the tree is easy. But I think it’s better to preserve it,” he says. Such steps just might rescue the Chakri dynasty. But a radical rethink seems unlikely. Allowing opponents to attack an insecure ruler could quickly escalate. Under King Bhumibol the silencing of opponents has been controversial, but many tolerate it out of respect. Prince Vajiralongkorn can expect no such leeway.

What might a diminished monarchy look like? Thailand may not be ready for such a thing. In Spain, the palace’s annual household budget of €9m ($12m) is audited by the government. Norway puts its royal accounts on a website. It is impossible to find out how much Thailand’s jet-setting royals spend. Japan may be a better model, as a respectful national press keeps its distance.

It took defeat in the second world war and an American occupation to curtail the powers of Japan’s emperor. Other royal houses were whittled down to size by assertive parliaments. This happened in Thailand in 1932, but was later reversed under King Bhumibol. Clearly, some constitutional fixes would be needed to shrink the sovereign’s role. But power in Thailand flows along patronage networks that start with the king. That is why elected ministers who care about their careers are continually looking over their shoulders for signals from the palace. Mr Abhisit attends so many royal ribbon-cuttings that it is hard to imagine how he finds time to govern, says a senior Western diplomat.

Royal censorship has kept much of this debate under wraps. That is a pity. King Bhumibol famously said in 2005 that he was not above criticism. But not many are ready to test that. Though the internet is humming with opinions, the taboo still stands. And because the country has never had a chance to talk openly, people cannot prepare themselves for what may be a rough road ahead.

Cheap Air Fares Around Asia

2010-03-18T12:00:00.000-07:00

Attention anyone living and traveling around Asia. Matt Gross of the New York Times has posted an excellent, excellent article about finding the cheapest air fares within Asia. This is a must read and clip article that will save you tons of money.

Matt Gross the Frugal Traveler on Cheap Air Fares Within Asia

Visit the website above for hot links. Here's a small sample:

A trio of Web sites — WhichBudget.com, FlyBudget.com and FlyLowCostAirlines.org — aims to answer exactly these questions. They all do almost exactly the same thing: Enter one location (anywhere in the world, not just Asia), and they’ll tell you which low-cost carriers fly directly from there, and the various destinations. That’s it! It seems like a simple thing, but with low-cost carriers adding and deleting routes throughout the world, it’s not.

Instead, visit SkyScanner.net, Momondo.com or WeGo.com, all of which let you comparison-shop by route and price, and among airlines both low-cost and traditional. Even though the companies are scattered all over the world (SkyScanner in Scotland and Poland; Momondo in Denmark; WeGo in Singapore), they’re all fairly similar with regard to design and functionality. Indeed, they probably look a lot like the travel booking site you already use

Deserted Thonburi Temples

2010-03-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

Visitors who enjoy visiting temples in Bangkok, but have seen all the familiar wats in the modern enclaves, may want to cross the river and explore the forgotten and largely abandoned temples of Thonburi. With the aid of a map from 1910, that's exactly what one enterprising professor has been doing the last few years. This Bangkok Post article didn't include a map, but the descriptions are good enough that you should be able to find most of the following temples. I'd advise hiring a tuk tuk and make a day of it.

Eleven deserted wats in Thon Buri reveal the history of communities from the early Ayutthaya period

Published: 14/03/2010 at 12:00 AM

With an adventurous spirit and love for his community, Prabhassara Chuvichean, a lecturer at Silpakorn University's Faculty of Archaeology, set out in search for deserted temples in Thon Buri. He was looking for artistic and archaeological evidence to confirm that temples in Thon Buri on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River are older than those on the east bank, the site of present-day Bangkok.

"It is clear that Thon Buri is the site of an ancient community that dates back several hundreds years to before Bangkok became the capital," Mr Prabhassara said.

He said the Chao Phraya River originally flowed northwards at this point, curved up towards present-day Taling Chan, then turned south and swirled towards Phra Pradaeng and Pak Nam. These areas are where ancient temples and communities were established.

"During my research, I found deserted temples located within the curves of the river and its satellite streams," said Mr Prabhassara, recounting field surveys he conducted in 2006 based on art historian Nor Na Pak Nam's paper, "Silpakam Nai Bangkok" (Art in Bangkok), which explored more than 100 ancient temples in Thon Buri in 1970. He also conducted a comparative study between earlier and the latest versions of maps. The Survey Department's most recent city map marks some temples as deserted, while maps made between 1905 and 1931 mark them as active temples with monks.

"Some deserted temples exist and bear new names, while there are traces of certain missing temples such as the bases of ubosot [ordination halls] and vihara [chapels]. In the end, I found 11 deserted temples in Thon Buri," he said.

The deserted temples are Wat Phoommarin Ratchapaksi, Wat Noi Thongyoo, Wat Suan Sawan, Wat Pikul Nai, Wat Angkula, Wat Kradang-nga, Wat Suwannakhiri, Wat Mai Wichian, Wat Viharn Luang Phor Khao, Wat See Bart and Wat Nak. Their ordination halls, chapels, Buddha images and ruins date from the late Ayutthaya to the early Bangkok period. The most outstanding evidence is a fragment of a red sandstone sema, a boundary marker, found at Wat Nak, a deserted temple on Rama II Road.

In 2006, Mr Prabhassara first explored Wat Phoommarin Ratchapaksi at the mouth of the Bangkok Noi canal near the foot of the Phra Pin Klao Bridge. This temple was merged into Wat Dusidaram during the reign of King Rama VI when only one monk remained there. Its name is stated on a map made in 1910 but it is omitted from the latest version. However, there is evidence to prove its existence.

The temple's ubosoth and vihara remain in place. Their curvy shape reflects the Ayutthaya style. Decorated with stucco art, their roofs, windows and doors are still in excellent condition. The stucco detailing above the entrances are extraordinary.

One of the ubosoth features a peacock fully spreading its wings. Above the chapel's front entrance is a depiction of the god Vishnu riding his garuda. Murals on the interior walls of both buildings feature rows of angels. Their colours are mostly faded. Between both buildings stands a hor trai (dharma library). Behind one of the buildings is a large standing Buddha statue.

Another temple, Wat Noi Thongyoo, was also merged into Wat Dusidaram in 1945 after being destroyed by a bomb blast during World War Two.

"After some exploration, I found a pagoda with five broken tops, north of Wat Dusidaram School near a bus garage at the foot of the Phra Pin Klao Bridge. I believe this is the former site of Wat Noi Thongyoo as it is quite far from Wat Dusidaram. This pagoda is in the early Bangkok period architecture," the archaeologist said.

Later, Mr Prabhassara honed his search for Wat Suan Sawan by using the 1910 map, which indicated it to be behind Wat Kharuehabodi in Bang Phat, opposite Thewes pier.

"First, I thought there would be nothing left. But after walking through the alleyways under Rama VIII Bridge, I saw an alley named Suan Sawan. In there stood Wat Suan Sawan's deteriorating ubosoth," he recalled.

Despite its rotten wooden components, the tiled roof of this ubosoth sports intact stucco art depicting the story of Phra Malai, a monk who visited heaven and spoke with the god Indra. The backdrop is Chedi Chulamanee.

Inside the ubosoth stands the image of the Lord Buddha and some of his followers. The presiding Buddha statue, named Luang Phor Dam, is covered in black lacquer. Behind it are two small windows. The side walls are in the shape of a lotus petal placed upwards, which is similar to the art of the late Ayutthaya period after the reign of King Narai. The ceiling is painted in red and adorned with gold stars. The rarest elements are the granite sema, which were cut and curved to fit each corner of the ubosoth. Two tall Phra Prang-style pagodas, one of which is now in the compound of a house, reflect Bangkok period art.

Mr Prabhassara then looked for the location of Wat Pikul Nai in Bang Bamru, according to the 1910 map. Near the Bang Bamru railway station and the south-bound railroad, he came across a Thai-style pavilion with a sign, "Luang Phor Yai". Inside it are several Buddha statues from the Ayutthaya period. The chairing Buddha statue named Luang Phor Yai is positioned in the mara vichai (subduing Mara) posture. Despite being covered in gold lacquer, it is very likely to be made of sandstone. Behind its base lies a small sema from the late Ayutthaya to early Bangkok period. There are also broken pieces of red bricks dating to the Ayutthaya period. The location of this pavilion matches that of Wat Pikul Nai, which is believed to have been deserted after the construction of the railroad.

While travelling along the Bang Ramat canal in Taling Chan, Mr Prabhassara spotted a sign, "Wat Angkula Rang" (deserted Angkula temple), near Wat Chang Lek. There, a base of what he believes to be an ubosoth as well as an Ayutthaya-style Buddha image named Luang Phor Dam remains. Scattered roof tiles lying nearby date from the middle to late Ayutthaya period.

The archaeologist also tried to find another deserted temple named Wat Kradang-nga. The map of 1910 refers to Wat Kradang-nga as a deserted temple, west of Wat Champa along the Bang Ramat canal. He found no trace, but met a woman who said her house was built during World War II on a plot of land which used to be part of Wat Kradang-nga.

The next temple on the search list was Wat Wichian, or Wat Mai Wichian. It was supposed to be near Tha Phra intersection in Bangkok Yai. Mr Prabhassara walked into nearby fruit orchards and finally saw this temple behind Wat Ratchasittharam. It is no longer a deserted temple as some monks have moved in. However, there is only one vihara left there. Inside the chapel lies a Buddha image, set in the reclining position. His face looks like that of a puppet, in the art style of the early Bangkok period.

Mr Prabhassara later explored the banks of the Bang Chak canal where many temples, including Wat Sala See Na, Wat Bosth, Wat Kampaeng and Wat Thong once stood, according to the map of 1910. He finally found a deserted temple named Wat Suwannakhiri in the compound of the Sutham Suksa School. Now, it is just a religious pavilion with a seated Buddha image dating back to the Ayutthaya period inside. Above its entrance is a sign saying "Suwannakhiri". One of the school owners said this pavilion was the only thing left when her grandfather built this school there.

On another day, Mr Prabhassara started his exploration at Wat Sing on Rama II Road and strolled along the Dan canal. Eventually, he spotted a deserted temple whose real name is unknown. It is called Viharn Luang Phor Khao. Inside the pavilion is a white image of Buddha.

After that, he searched for Wat See Bart, opposite Wat Kok, according to the 1910 map. From Wat Kok, he crossed the Dan canal and found an old structure beneath a new building. Inside this chapel is a Buddha statue called Luang Phor Phet.

It is covered with thick layers of gold leaves. Nor Na Pak Nam called this temple Wat Nak like some people did. He wrote: "There is nothing left but the ruins of Phra Ubosoth on a high mound like those at Wat Kampaeng. The front section of this roofless ubosoth has all collapsed. Remaining there is only a large Buddha image believed to date to the late Ayutthaya period. His face is long and his lap is five-sok [an ancient Thai measurement equivalent to about 50cm] wide. A few headless sandstone Buddha statues were also found scattered on the ground. So was a medium-sized terracotta or red sandstone sema. It is half a sok in height and dates to the late Ayutthaya period, around the reign of King Thai Sra."

As the real Wat Nak is elsewhere, Mr Prabhassara walked further, crossed the Dan canal and entered a community. Behind a house stands a brick building covering the deserted Wat Nak's old ubosoth. In there is a large seated Buddha image named Luang Phor Daeng with a square face and an Ayutthaya-style head. This image is probably made of red sandstone, but it is painted red now.

At Wat Nak, Mr Prabhassara discovered a fragment of a sandstone sema dating to more than 500 years ago. This sema depicts a flora design within a series of triangular and rhombus-shaped frames and an eight-petal flower design on the sides of the base.

"As its art style belongs to the early and middle Ayutthaya period, this sema is considered the oldest artifact discovered in the area," Mr Prabhassara said.

The discovery of the sema also supports the fact that the Dan canal was used by ancient people as a transportation route to the sea during the early and middle Ayutthaya periods, as stated in the Kamsuan Samut, a classical piece of prose written in the Ayutthaya period.

The Dan canal connects the old Chao Phraya River, which is now the Bang Luang canal or the Bangkok Yai canal, and flows southwest to the Tha Cheen River in Samut Sakhon, according to Sujit Wongthes's book, Maenam Lamkhlong Sai Prawattisart.

"The presence of the sema supports the theory that, since the early Ayutthaya period, there must have been communities along this route which linked the Chao Phraya River to other places including Ratchaburi, Phetchaburi, Marid and Tanao Sri. This confirms the Dan canal has long been used since ancient times," Mr Prabhassara said.

The lecturer concluded that many pieces of artistic and archaeological evidence discovered at these deserted temples in Thon Buri delve into the long history of communities on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River. Unfortunately, these temples are now in decay and under natural and human threat, especially the expansion of Bangkok's suburbs.

"The temples, art works and surroundings prove the importance of Thon Buri. However, the rapid changes being made to the area are of serious concern. Condos are mushrooming. Each new road comes at the cost of pagodas. Development is necessary, but we can move slowly and encourage locals to be proud of their communities, heritage and history," Mr Prabhassara said.

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok -- Video

2010-03-15T16:36:00.001-07:00

An amazing display of people attending the UDD red rally in Bangkok. An excellent interactive map by Richard Barrow of Thai-Blogs is here.

Sunday Funnies 3

2010-03-14T18:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday Funnies 2

2010-03-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday Funnies

2010-03-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1797753

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok -- Videos

2010-03-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok 3

2010-03-13T18:38:00.000-08:00

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok 2

2010-03-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

Red Shirt Rally in Bangkok

2010-03-13T18:28:00.000-08:00

Tilt-Shift Video of San Francisco

2010-03-13T14:03:00.000-08:00

Flight over Miniature San Francisco (Tilt-Shift) from Inoue_k3D on Vimeo.

Here's an odd but enduring tilt-shift video of San Francisco with some misplaced labels and Alcatraz, which appears to be covered in snow. My new residence almost made the cut, but apparently the videographers don't appreciate the unique charms of the Tenderloin. They also missed my former residence at the Dalt Hotel, right in the heart of soul of Crack Central.

My Bali Phtos

2010-03-13T09:23:00.000-08:00

I'm stil getting set up in my new apartment in San Francisco, but just to prove I'm still alive and will someday blog again, here's a few of my photos from Bali.

Finally, Back on the Net

2010-03-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

Hello All,

I recently moved from the Dalt Hotel back to Civic Center Residence, and had one hell of a time getting back online. What can I say, except that AT&T has the world's worst service. Complete idiots. So I've changed my internet provider to Comcast.

I should return to posting in the next few days. Thanks for your patience.

Carl

My 2010 NyE Event

2010-01-09T01:43:00.000-08:00

Many people have asked me how I celebrate the New Year here in San Francisco, so here is the answer.

BONUS: Urban Arts Dance Performance:

Burj Dubai Night Photos

2010-01-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for some original photos of the Dubai Tower, and finally found something new. The Burj Dubai photos taken at night. If I find a link to yesterday's parasail jump, I'll add it here.

Weird Music Video from Japan with Ultraman and Giant Lobster

2010-01-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

Yet another totally bizarre music video from Japan, sponsored by Sony. The intro is weak and the last 2 minutes are just useless promo junk, but the middle portion with an "Ultraman" and a giant squid are beyond belief. What the Fuck is going on here? I have no idea, and I have lived in Japan several times for over 3 years (Yokota AFB, Soshi Gaya Okura). Does anybody out there understand Japanese modern pop culture?

BONUS: Another completely incomprehensible video sales pitch from Japan. I think it has Ultraman, but it's definitely got Godzilla. What in the world?

Big Ship Crashes Home Port

2010-01-07T22:15:00.000-08:00

Big ship wants to park. No matter other ships are in the way. Looks like a scene in Asia, perhaps the Philippines? No matter, it's the same all over the world, the Big Guys always get their way.

BONUS: Amazing gymnastics!

Bacon or Beer? answers that eternal question on what to have for dinner in Jamacia. A very friendly and perhaps stoned Rasta answers your question and teaches you about the local lingo and inflection. Snoop Dog would be proud.

What the Chinese Think of Avatar

2010-01-07T21:47:00.000-08:00

China Smack has a few early comments on Avatar, which might add a billion or two to the gross.

James Cameron’s latest film, Avatar, was released in China on 2010 January 2. Many Chinese are familiar with and loved James Cameron’s previous famous film, Titanic, which is still the number one most successful movie in history. Although Avatar or 《阿凡达》 (“ā fán dá”, in Chinese) has premier two weeks later in China than the rest of the world, it has become very popular and successful as many Chinese are waiting in lines every day to buy tickets to watch the movie.

The Chinese people who have watched Avatar have praised the amazing computer special effects, but this is expected. What is more interesting is how many Chinese people feel the story of Avatar is very similar to a controversial social issue in China.

In the movie, humans use violence to take the land of the Na’vi alien residents on the alien world of Pandora. In China, there are news reports and internet postings about local Chinese governments using violence to forcefully evict residents from their homes (to demolish the buildings and redevelop the land). chinaSMACK translated and reported some of these stories in recent months, such as Woman Sets Self On Fire To Protest Demolition Of Home and Kunming Residents Believe In Brother Chun To Save Homes.

Now that you are aware of that background, you can understand the sarcastic reactions that many Chinese netizens have posted on BBS forums after watching Avatar…

"Retro Animated Music Video"

2010-01-07T21:27:00.000-08:00

What the hell is a "retro animated music video" you might ask. I don't know, but this short and fun video clip is a gas. Enjoy!

A Video about Art and Architecture

2010-01-07T20:59:00.000-08:00

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

A phenom video about the intersection of art and architecture. Trust me, you really should watch this video. Wonderful.

Here's how it was made:

Compositing Breakdown (T&S) from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

India Photos by Carl Parkes (aka Friskodude)

2010-01-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

Whale Wars Gets Serious

2010-01-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

From Jotman in Bangkok.

ABC has a report on a rare collision in the Southern Ocean. The Japanese whaling security ship Shonan Maru No. 2 has rammed and damaged the Ady Gil, a $2 million high-speed trimaran belonging to Paul Watson's anti-whaling Sea Shepherd Society. The Andy Gil is believed to be sinking but the crew were rescued by the Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker. The Sea Shepherd Society has asked Australia to send a naval vessel to "restore peace" and protect the 21 Australian citizens on board the Sea Shepherd and the whales from the Japanese. According to ABC, the incident happened "outside Australia's economic zone but within Australia's search and rescue zone."

The Sea Shepherd website gives some background about the unprecedented resources the organization has sent into the cold waters off Antarctica this whaling season.

The objective of Sea Shepherd’s three-ship campaign is to bankrupt the illegal Japanese whaling fleet and to sink them economically.

“This year, I have three ships, four small boats, a jet ski, a helicopter, 77 crew, and a bagful of aggravation for the Japanese whale poachers,” said Captain Paul Watson. “We intend to make life miserable for the whale killers over the next month and a half.”

Included in the crew is the Animal Planet crew filming the third season of the hit television series “Whale Wars.”

The Sea Shepherd crew number 77 from 16 nationalities including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Villa Amanzi in Phuket

2010-01-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

As World Architecture News puts it: not a bad place to crash in Phuket.

Villa Amanzi grows out of the rocks overlooking the Andaman sea in Phuket
Nestled in a cascading, west-facing ravine with a dramatic slab of rock defining the northern edge and a stunning outlook over the azure blue of the Andaman Sea to the south, Original Vision's commission; to do this demanding but ultimately spectacular site justice, was both daunting and exciting.

The defining elements are the rock and the view. They dominate at every juncture. They resonate on first approach, through the migration from public to private space, in the living and in the family areas, in the gardens, in the bedrooms; and they continue to command respect down the tropical jungle steps that arrive at a secluded rock platform, flanked by the same seam that welcomed you 60m above. Constant reference to these elements instills a feeling of solidity that contrasts with the openness of the house, reinforcing the dynamism and vibrancy that pays homage to the magic of the location.

The home grows out from the rock; the bedroom element rests between it and the wing that strikes the perpendicular, rising vertically from the slope. This composition defines the open living and dining space that is simply a transition between two garden areas. It is intimate but open and the uninterrupted clear span creates a bridge under which the conventions defining indoor space disappear.

Cantilevered over a massage sala, the swimming pool completes the composition. It is the focal point that draws the eye to the view and instills a calmness that provides balance with the energy of the architecture.

Seal Crasher Photo

2010-01-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen this yet, here's the latest spinoff from the Crasher Squirrel mania of last year. Obviously a bad Photoshop job, but still quite cute.

PM Abhisit and Muslim Girls in Yala

2010-01-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

This is an interesting photo of Thai PM Abhisit meeting with Muslim girls in Yala. Notice their makeup and sense of style and obvious beauty. I've had the same experience traveling around SE Asia and visiting very fundamentalist Muslim towns. The girls are anxious to meet you and change your mind about Islam. It's a real change of pace and a change of mind.

Building Demolition Gone Bad in China

2010-01-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

Building Demolition Fail. Funny video of a building demolition gone bad.

The Daily Mail has still photos and more background.

China Smack has the most important post and comments of the year, about China.

TreeSpotter on the year 2009 in Indonesia. Great writer. Wonder what he does for a living in real life?

Liquor for the Muslims in Gaza?

The Boston Globe Big Picture looks at everything.

2009 Weird News Roundup

2009-12-31T18:32:00.000-08:00

Less than 30 minutes on the net, and here's the strange and weird stuff I found. The Gawker list of best 2009 videos is worth checking out.

Digg Weirdest Stories of 2009

Boston Globe Big Picture 2009 (Part 1)

Buzz Feed Top Hilarious Headlines of 2009

Buzz Feed Top Screwy Political Protest Signs of 2009

Funniest Sports Photos of 2009

If you only have time to watch 1 video on this post, click the one below about the year in review according to Google Wave.

This is what happens to what's left of your mind when you watch too much Gawker TV. It ain't pretty.

All the Gawker selections, individual, to view before you are taken off to the insane asylum.

Once again, Gawker TV Top 100 for 2009. You have been warned.

RAPID CITY, S.D. — South Dakota authorities say a woman found passed out in a stolen delivery van earlier this month registered a blood alcohol content of .708 — nearly nine times the legal limit and a possible record for the state.

Meade County State’s Attorney Jesse Sondreal said Wednesday that 45-year-old Marguerite Engle was found slumped over the van’s steering wheel along a highway on Dec. 1.

He says the highest blood alcohol content state chemists he spoke with could recall was a .56. The state’s legal limit is .08.

Authorities say Engle missed an initial court hearing Dec. 15, but that they found her Monday in another stolen vehicle, and that she had been drinking.

She was being held on two counts of driving under the influence. It wasn’t immediately clear if she was facing other charges.

Her attorney declined comment.

Why guys don't understand "chicks."

Rick Warren, American Christian Radical Fundamentalist, Needs Your Money to Save His Ass.

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren is begging parishioners at his Southern California megachurch to cough up $900,000 before Jan. 1 to keep the parish out of the red. In an urgent letter posted on the Saddleback Church Web site on Wednesday, Warren says expenses are up because parishioners are out of work and ''the bottom dropped out'' when year-end donations dropped dramatically.

He asks parishioners to donate before the new year to keep the Orange County church out of debt. A spokeswoman for Warren said the church does not release financial details, so it's difficult to put the $900,000 shortfall in context.

Photoshop Blunder: The Ghost Ship with No Reflection. Back to school for this Photoshop wizard!

China's Best Sex Scandals of Years Near

2009-12-31T18:08:00.000-08:00

Shanghaiist posts a list of the top 6 sex scandal stories of 2005-2009, including the usual suspects such as Zhang Ziyi and Edison. Nothing to match what goes on here in the U.S. on a daily basis, but not bad for an emerging country. Just imagine what would happen if they had open internet, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and all the other social networking sites.

3. Zhang Ziyi and her butt-sniffing fiance

This was the first sex scandal to hit China in the year 2009 but there is technically no "sex" in it, just lots of butt-sniffing. In January, 81 pictures were released by a paparazzi photographer from X71online.com of Zhang Ziyi and her Israeli multimillionaire boyfriend Vivi Nevo canoodling on St Barth's island in the French Caribbean.

Since then, Zhang hasn't had that much of a great year. Latest rumours have it that she's involved in a dispute with a businesswoman friend who now claims she's cheated her of 200 million yuan. Her wedding plans with Nevo have also been called off and he's been seen with other women. Despite all this, Zhang can rest in the knowledge that she's been immortalised on t-shirts and remains Taiwan's most googled person in the year 2009.

Best Travel Videos of 2009

2009-12-31T17:31:00.000-08:00

Gadling and myself must have similar tastes in travel videos, since I've posted almost all of these videos on my blog over the last year. So it's a look back at the best travel videos of 2009. Enjoy! And Happy New Year.

Prague's Franz Kafka International Named World's Most Alienating Airport

Timescapes Timelapse: Mountain Light from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Frequent Flyer from Gabriel Leigh on Vimeo.

Artificial from Paul Bryan on Vimeo.

China's 60th Anniversary national day - timelapse and slow motion - 7D and 5DmkII from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Slate: Favorite Scenes of Professional Stuntmen in Hollywood

2009-12-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Slate posted an interesting article last July about the favorite stunt events of professional stuntmen in Hollywood. The Tony Jaa video is blurry, but it proves why he inherits the title from Bruce Lee. A few of the stunts linked on the Slate post aren't very good, so I didn't link them here.

Claude Lelouch's Rendezvous... from Dat on Vimeo.

Why Thai Airways First Class Sucks

2009-12-29T12:30:00.001-08:00

The international reputation of Thai Airways continues to plunge, thanks to the latest scandal which reveals that Thai Airways executives, the Thai military, royals, and important government employees are widely given upgrades and other perks. Thinking about flying Thai Airways first class? Think again. Here's today's letter to the Bangkok Post.

Your article ''Ticket upgrade row spurs suit'' (News. Dec 28) does not surprise me in the least. Up until about 18 months ago I and my wife were regular first-class travellers (three times annually) aboard TG916/TG917 to and from London.

Minutes prior to departure of each flight I would always check the seating arrangements via the ''Check my Trip'' website and generally find there were only three or four bookings in first class for the flight. Yet on virtually every flight the cabin was fully occupied, with the ''empty'' seats being taken always by Thai people.

This led to a situation whereby there were insufficient staff to provide a half-decent service, especially to those who had booked and paid for seats in the first class section. Had there been prior notification of the cabin being full THAI might have provided the correct amount of cabin crew.

I pointed this out to THAI via e-mails on a number of occasions together with various other complaints about old aircraft, lack of comfort and, more importantly, the fact that they did not supply value for money. Not once did I receive an acknowledgement let alone a response. I don't want to be a continual ''moaner'' so I just accepted their ''couldn't give a damn'' attitude and took my business elsewhere.

Living in Phuket, we heeded the advice of other frequent travellers to London and Europe to go via Singapore and as from 18 months or so ago we have never looked back. Flying business class with airlines from Singapore to London is infinitely more comfortable, provides better service than you would ever get from THAI first class and most importantly gives value for money.

On one occasion we received an unexpected upgrade to first class and we were so spoilt that in comparison it made THAI first class look rather like another airline's premium economy. Some one time prominent person once said "THAI First Class sucks" and I couldn't agree more. It is made worse that they allow prominent and influential people to use their premium services for free (or for a 'small backhander') and it is so noticeable to the fare paying passenger that they, like ourselves, no longer fly with them. When and until the corruption and malpractice, which allegedly starts at the very top, is stamped out, THAI will never ever be a viable airline.

I await with interest the outcome of the court hearing, but somehow I doubt that it will ever get that far: more likely we will never hear about the squabble again. If it does defy the norm and ends up in court, perhaps then it might just open a small can of worms which can provide the basics for a start to stamping out the corruption which is rampant throughout the airline.

Movie Stars Without Makeup

2009-12-29T09:54:00.001-08:00

It's amazing what a professional makeup job can do to these rather ordinary looking women.

At The Movies 2009

2009-12-29T09:48:00.001-08:00

A three minute look a the Moviews of 2009, including almost a dozen released in just the last few weeks.

Getting Ready for New Years Eve

2009-12-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

He survived this three bottle trick. I'm amazed he didn't immediately collapse and go into a coma. Remember kids, don't try this at home.

Music Mashup 2009

2009-12-28T21:15:00.000-08:00

SFist has the news and more links to past mashups by the same DJ, plus a link to download all the music for your New Year's Eve Party.

Just like last year, local DJ gent Earworm has crafted a savory reduction featuring a slew of pop songs that jammed themselves into your brain in 2009, refusing to let go. This year's United State of Pop is a follow-up to last year's "United State of Pop 2008 (Viva La Pop)" and "United State of Pop" from 2007.

Sure, by themselves, some of these songs will send more than a few eyes rolling (we know you authentic aural aficionados are too real to enjoy non-ironic pop ditties), but with Earworm's beautifully crazy brain, he somehow manages to make them all come together beautifully.

He samples:

* The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW
* Lady Gaga - POKER FACE
* Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis - JUST DANCE
* The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING
* Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY
* Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND
* Jason Mraz - I’M YOURS
* Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
* Kanye West - HEARTLESS
* The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL
* Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME
* T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE
* The Fray - YOU FOUND ME
* Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY
* Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN
* Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT
* Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
* T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE
* Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE
* Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN
* Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB
* Drake - BEST I EVER HAD
* Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
* Beyonce - HALO
* Katy Perry - HOT N COLD

Download the Music Here!

Bonus: United State of Pop 2008

Bonus: United State of Pop 2007