Constable Jones

Nut to well known restaurant owner, with hundreds of contacts and supposedly confused gender issues, and more than a few contacts:

"Pai nai, krub?"

Owner: "To pee kaa"

20 minutes later after returning to the office..

"What's that bird, na krub?"

Owner: "Just a starlin' kaa"

Amnesty International Thailand has condemned the plan, arguing that it would violate a prisoner's rights.

LOL fool...rights..Thailand..isn't that an oxymoron?

I just come to this place in the forum to relax now. It's a nice quiet place where I can reflect.

Yes I agree Toopeeka. Whilst many are charged few are actually guilty. If I were to load a weapon with a magazine of choice we could discuss it one good morning over a glass of neat malt with the smell of the heather redolent of Skye's sunny clime.

Try Dr Narong, after 6.00 PM on the Chiang Mai gate side of the moat, outside, next to the Dental Hospital and close to the 7-11.

"Probably the reason Ron closed the old Filmore quietly was so he could sneak away leaving several creditors in the lurch for several 100.000B."

Mali, I find the "sneaking away" to be a bit of a oxymoron as his new upscale location has two illuminated signs reading Filmore East, one shining across the Ping River and the other on Charoenrat Road for all to see.  Chiang Mai isn't that big (yet).  Anyone who wants to can easily find him.

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I suspect Mali may be a competitor actually.

Accepting as I am, of the challenge in this piece, lets ask ourselves what cost has been paid, in terms of our humanity.

The number of fishing boats from Sumatra, Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu at sea when the Boxing Day tsunami hit will never be known. There is scarcely any population tally of the crowded coasts of these areas. Nameless people are consigned to unmarked graves; in mosques, temples and other makeshift mortuaries, people pull aside a cloth, a piece of sacking, to see if those they loved lie beneath. As in all natural disasters, the victims are overwhelmingly the poorest.

This time there is something different. The tsunami struck resorts where Westerners were on holiday. For the Western media, it is clear that Western lives have a different order of importance from those who have died in thousands but have no known biography and, apparently, no intelligible tongue in which feelings can be expressed. This is not to diminish the trauma of loss of life, whether of tourist or fisherman. But when we distinguish between "locals" who have died and Westerners, "locals" all too easily becomes a euphemism for those who were once referred to as natives. Whatever tourism's merits, it risks reinforcing the imperial sensibility.

This sensibility has already been reawakened by all the human-made, preventable catastrophes. The ruins of Galle and Banda Aceh called forth images of Falluja, Mosul and Gaza. Imperial powers, it seems, anticipate the destructive capacity of nature. A report on British ITN (Independent Television) news made this explicit, by referring to "nature's shock and awe". But while the tsunami death toll rises in anonymous thousands, in Iraq disdainful American authorities don't do body counts.

One of the most poignant sights of the past few days was that of Westerners overcome with gratitude that they had been helped by the grace and mercy of those who had lost everything, but still regarded them as guests. When these same people appear in the West, they become the interloper, the unwanted migrant, the asylum seeker, who should go back to where they belong. A globalisation that permits the wealthy to pass effortlessly through borders confines the poor to eroded subsistence, overfished waters and an impoverishment that seems to have no end. People rarely say that poor countries are swamped by visitors, even though the power of their money pre-empts the best produce, the clean water and amenities unknown to the indigenous population.

In death, there should be no hierarchy. But even as Sri Lankans wandered in numb disbelief through the corpses, British TV viewers, for example, were being warned that scenes they were about to witness might distress them. Poor people have no consoling elsewhere to which they can be repatriated. The annals of the poor remain short and simple, and can be effaced without inquiry as to how they contrive an existence on these fragile coasts. What are the daily visitations of grief and loss in places where people earn less in a year than the price the privileged pay for a night's stay in a five-star hotel?

Western governments, which can disburse so lavishly in the art of war, offer a few million dollars as if it were exceptional largesse. Fortunately the people are wiser; the spontaneous outpourings of humanity have been as unstoppable as the waves that broke on southern Asia's coasts; donations rapidly exceeded the amount offered by government. Selflessness and sacrifice, people working away at rubble with bare hands, suggest immediate human solidarities.

But these are undermined by the structures of inequality. Promises solemnly made at times of immediate sorrow are overtaken by other urgencies; money donated for the Orissa cyclone, for Hurricane Mitch in Central America, the floods in Bangladesh, the Bam earthquake - as for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq - turns out to be a fraction of what is pledged.

Such events remind us of the sameness of our human destiny, the fragility of our existence. They place in perspective the meaning of security. Life is always at the mercy of nature - whether from such overwhelming events as this, or the natural processes that exempt no one from paying back to earth the life it gave us. Yet we inhabit systems of social and economic injustice that exacerbate the insecurity of the poor, while the West is prepared to lay waste to distant towns and cities in the name of a security that, in the end, eludes us all.

Assertions of our common humanity occur only at times of great loss. To retrieve and hold on to it at all other times - that would be something of worth to salvage from these scenes of desolation.

The Guardian

The problem appears to be they aren't as smart as you think.

Correction. Smart as THEY think. I sure as heck never thought or intimated that they were smart...

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Sorry. Quite right, though some of their citizens appear convinced of the cleverity of the consular staff.

In case you are not being intentionally difficult, a carrier group is an extremely capable mobile resource!

The hospital facilities, power generation capability, supplies, and disciplined staff could be very helpful in an aid role. Just a single large aircraft carrier is a floating city in addition to having a large armory.

Hospital facilities-supply personnel over the side.

Generation-Power over the side.

Armoury would be useful for what, again?

There are also of course more specialized equipment and staff ranging from helicopters/crews, small boats/crews, diving teams, to air traffic radar/controllers who I imagine could help in the relief effort.

I saw an article also saying that a submarine was being dispatched to the area. It is not impossible for a submarine to be moored in a harbor and used to generate electrical power for the local town or city (from its nuclear reactor), although the examples I remember were Soviet subs.

True again

The comment about the armoury still concerns me.

Totally agree with you Mr.Vietnam, I have been totally disgusted and ashamed at the americans attitude in response to this horrific disaster, unfortunately I am more conservative with my comments, but my feelings are the same.

It seems to me that their latest input of $350 million is a face saving measure and puts them in a position whearas they now have control of all aid efforts.

But as history tells us the americans are always late arriving WWI & WWII .....It makes everyone else feel more grateful in the end......LOL

Sad part is that they do have the best resources in the world and if they used them effectively and timely..... many more lives would be saved.

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That's right those american idiots should have not only only foreseen this disaster that happens once in a 100 years they should have also anticipated the scope and magnitude of it as well.

Isn't that right?

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A kasi is a toilet isn't it?

New donation request... send any and all Polaroid cameras, inkjet printers, etc to the US Embassy aid station, Don Muang Airport. 

Seriously, what expat-global said is very true.  They definitely are not as well organized as they think.

Regarding the airport - maybe I was in the wrong place or something, but I will say that there was absolutely ZERO clue about how to get to ANY of the aid stations, and I sure as ###### didn't see anyone standing around - so perhaps there are fewer people now, or else I'm just blind as a bat.  No signes either.

The LOGICAL place for coordination is the central connecting area in Departures right between Terminals 1 and 2.  A huge Thai Airways counter, plus Bangkok Bank and a couple other foreign exchange booths - and this area is otherwise almost always devoid of people.

What the ###### were they thinking?

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The problem appears to be they aren't as smart as you think. Australian AID on the ground in under 6 hours. American on the ground in 6 days.

Hmmm

  This is precisely why I love this country. A friend of mine (18 year old college student) has just spent the last 3 days @ her university in BKK helping.  Thanks for this post Jonesy!

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Thanks Michael. I'm pleased so many people are seeing what I mean about taking a few moments before ripping into Thais' for their idiosyncracries and thinking about the better bits of living in Thailand.

Someones' point about the best and the worst was good, because really the worst is seen by very few, who make a big deal of it, while the rest of us, who see its inherent beauty both naturally and from the perspective of the people and their extraordinary generosity of spirit, say nothing so some people are surprised when this sort of situation occurs, and we see this natural capacity to give, displayed.

I originally called this topic something like "read this before you bag the Thai People" but mods decided it was something it wasn't. Never mind. That many of you read and understand the point I was making is justification aplenty for putting it here.

having been cruising the edges of this forum for the last year or so, I finally decided to join so I could say how sad it is now.

No depth. No feeling at all.

Just like a str8 forum for alternative lifestylers, as Steven once put it.

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What would be something with depth and feeling?

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I guess just interesting things and topics which are a bit deeper than the normal cr@p at a bar, which has a way of becoming the "norm" as opposed to what it really is. Trite twaddle.

There was a time when there was a lot of interesting stuff, but it seems to have fallen by the way side in recent weeks.

A Swedish woman and her daughter, survivors of the tsunami, were walking barefoot along a street in Phuket on Monday when a Thai woman stopped them.

"She took off her shoes and insisted I take them," the tourist said. "I tried to tell her I was all right, I was fortunate, I had not lost my family, but she insisted I take them. And then she bought a pair of shoes for my daughter. I tried to pay her but she would not take the money, even though I am sure she had much less than me."

There has been much talk of looting in the immediate aftermath of this disaster.

But the many anonymous acts of kindness, large and small, should also be recorded.

The Thai people, dealing with the worst natural disaster in their history, have overwhelmingly reached out, volunteered their services as translators, emergency workers, information officers, giving their time and often scant resources.

One Australian survivor spoke of a small Thai man on a water tower who saved several people by snatching them as they swept by him out to sea. With impossible strength, and at great personal risk, he dragged them from the torrent and certain death.

In the early hours of Monday, as survivors struggled into packed corridors at Wachira Hospital in Phuket Town, young Thais with language skills were immediately at hand, to explain the long lists in the hospital forecourt, shepherding dazed tourists and ensuring they had food and drink, which ordinary Thais were carrying in through the gate on foot.

Around midnight, a truck carrying a satellite dish with banks of free phones arrived so people could phone home.

On Tuesday in Khao Lak, Phang Nga Province, one of the worst hit areas, the roads swarmed with emergency service workers. And volunteers.

Phuket Town City Hall, a beautiful two-storey mansion with wide verandas, was the first makeshift camp for survivors with no clothes or place to stay.

As 1000 survivors from the Phi Phi Islands arrived, a line of 40 Thais stretched across the lawn, each holding up a country sign. "The tourists come to us and if they have a passport we can get them straight out of here," said Boonchai Sompolpong who was holding the Australia/New Zealand sign.

He runs tours for first-time tourists to Phuket and here he was, helping them leave as quickly as possible.

A Western diplomat said: "The Thais have been brilliant and we are in their debt."

I thought I responded Steven. It appears to be gone...

having been cruising the edges of this forum for the last year or so, I finally decided to join so I could say how sad it is now.

No depth. No feeling at all.

Just like a str8 forum for alternative lifestylers, as Steven once put it.

brits , aussies , japs , pakis are all abbreviated terms and not automatically racist.

it all depends on the context in which they are used as to whether they are racist or not.

some people have been so conditioned to racial awareness that they (want to) see racism in every nook and cranny.

your avatar could be seen to be grossly offensive to people suffering from certain well documented cranial birth defects that lead to facial deformities

Ok then point taken, so if someone wishes to say wop, gook, geek, coon, nigger, spade, chink, spic, its allright in the right context. Sorry, I disagree.

Anyway, Patpong said what he said as a joke, I dont find it funny, but I guess some people do so each to their own, I am not one to start preaching and this being an open forum everyone has the right to say what they like.

About the avatar, your dead right, I dont want to cause offense to anyone with cranial birth defects so I will change it, maybe to a golly &lt;deleted&gt; or something.

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bet Pablo H is working for a NGO saving girls from men.. Twirp.

seems you were lucky George

I always thought of the Amari as a tired old lady. Plenty of class but definitely on her last wobbly legs. That new one down by the moat is about the same price but much nicer and they have a lot of neat little extras. Amora I think it's called now but it was a Rydges originally.