Cory1848

What on earth have you got against backpackers? They definitely add to certain segments of the economy, and if they have a good experience, they’re likely to return later in life when they have more money to spend, so it’s an investment. Plus, they are better behaved and more respectful than your average drunken sex tourist in Pattaya or Phuket. Sure, I’m in my sixties have my grumpy moments, but I remember how great it was to be young and free-spirited and have the whole world in front of me -- everyone should have that experience. Lighten up!

Plus, at parks on the signboards they use Thai numbers for the local prices (rather than Western numbers, which are commonly used elsewhere), so foreigners who can't read Thai can't see how big the price discrepancy is.

I've done exactly that, and it usually works! The humor part is key -- if you get them to chuckle, you're in.

Both “ladyboys” and “trans women” are perfectly good words, each in their own context.

Exactly. Trump read the word "transgenic" and thought "transgender," without realizing they are two entirely different words with different meanings. (Or somebody patiently explained it to him, and he lied about it anyway, as you say.) What's depressing, though, is the number of people who will readily fall for this garbage.

Right -- it’s a perfectly good word, although I suppose it can be intended as an insult if the speaker is otherwise angry or hateful. I work as an editor so am tuned into offensive language: the word “ladyboy” *sounds* like it’s offensive but actually isn’t, whereas other words are offensive in all contexts and make the speaker sound like a boorish jerk. Plus, languages evolve; everyday words can become slurs over time, or slurs (like “queer”) can be “reclaimed” by their targets and brought back into common use. In any event, I’ve never seen any problems with the word “farang.”

That is very weird. I speak half-decent Thai, and I use the word farang all the time, whether speaking Thai or speaking English. My Thai friends, many of whom are educated professionals, all use the word as well; I’ve never had any indication that it’s in any way disrespectful. My neighbors call my house *baan farang*; some people in my girlfriend’s family call me *lung farang* (“Uncle White Guy”), entirely respectfully. The word apparently derives from the Persian, originally referring to the (European) Franks. (???)

You should definitely see a gastro doctor, as others here are advising. A hiatal hernia is when part of your stomach pushes up through the diaphragm; they’re often detectable by simple radiology, but to get the full picture you’d need an endoscopy. I had one (and felt no pain or discomfort at all from it), and had the preliminary work done at Chiang Mai Ram. Then I had the hernia repaired at Bumrungrad (Dr. Voranaddha Vacharathit, really great). Bumrungrad is relatively pricey, but I have insurance; failing that, I’m sure other hospitals can do the same procedure at lower cost; it’s pretty routine. But start with a general gastrointestinal doctor.

Exactly. Like the Kyle Reese character said in the first Terminator movie, "[the machines] decided our fate in a microsecond."

Dude, you’ve got it exactly backward. “Wokeism” -- which, boiled down to its essence, is simply the ability to see beyond one’s own nose -- places no requirements or obligations whatsoever on you; you can simply ignore it and move on with your life, which is not impeded in any way. If you want to believe that the world should function as if through the gauze of a spaghetti Western, as per your profile photo, nobody’s going to bother you about that! However, you’re the one who’s sobbing about “Wokeism,” or rather your own gross misinterpretation of what it’s about. Just let it go, man; if other people choose to move beyond Clint Eastwood, it’s not going to hurt you!

Really? So I guess the New Yorker cartoon is true after all: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog!”

There is conclusive evidence that around 6 million Jewish people were murdered during the Holocaust; apart from Jewish records, the Nazis themselves (being Germans!) were precise about their record keeping. If you’re “not sure [you] believe the numbers,” that’s either your personal bias, or your reliance on bogus information, or your refusal to accept historical fact. As for your list of other “holocausts” through history in another post, these are all of course horrific in their own way and just as worthy of remembrance and historical accuracy; and as you point out, they happen with some frequency. However, in plain English, the word “Holocaust,” usually capped, refers to the German effort to exterminate European Jews during World War II. Just the same as the word “antisemitism,” in plain English, means hatred of Jewish people, not hatred of people who speak Semitic languages. Webster’s may provide various definitions of the word “holocaust,” but, as the English language has developed over the past several decades, it is commonly understood to refer to the Jewish Holocaust. One cannot place a value judgment on this use of the word, nor is it meant to diminish the horrific tragedy of other genocides; it’s purely a matter of semantics, of how English is spoken and understood.

All of the above. I’ve generally encountered this as a combination of antisemitism (irrational hatred of Jewish people) and a penchant for conspiracy theories (Jewish people systematically invented or exaggerated the Holocaust to gain political advantage). One of my favorites was a fellow who resorted to semantic trickery, saying that those Jews who died (not as many as history claims of course) were “killed” and not “murdered” during the war, turning it into a fog-of-war scenario. He was quite proud of himself at this neat solution that absolved the Nazis of any major wrongdoing. The Turks used (and often still use) a similar strategy in responding to the fact of their wholesale massacre of Armenians toward the end of the First World War.

Absolutely. People should be able to marry who they want. To think otherwise is heartless and medieval.

I imagine, an actual “deep state” might form on an ad hoc basis involving not only the military but elements of the courts, the intelligence community, some in the business community and media, some local and national politicians. The power exists to pull this off, but some pretty serious red lines would need to be crossed before such a thing would be considered (e.g., withdrawing from or undermining NATO). However, if such were to simply replace Trump’s oligarchy with another monied class (even one that was not insane) rather than leading to genuine social democracy, setting such a precedent would be fraught.

You’re probably right -- a recent NYT article quotes him admiring how “massive” Greenland is, and how that reason alone means it should be part of the US. I seem to remember when he first raised this issue during his first administration, he was looking at a map and saw Alaska on the left-hand side of the continent, then wondered what that big thing was on the right-hand side, and how owning it would balance things out somehow. I guess it’s just this sort of schoolboy idiocy that will direct US foreign policy for the next few years.

Reminds me of a joke. A child asks his parents, Why is there a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day, but no Children’s Day? The parent answers, “EVERY day is Children’s Day!” To answer your question, maybe it’s because Black people started out in the US as pieces of personal property, didn’t get the vote (in the US South) until the 1960s, and still face systemic racism (which is what the legal field of critical race theory is all about). Have you ever gone out in public in Black skin? Didn’t think so. Short answer: For White folks in the US, EVERY space is safe space!

And tell me, just why is that. It’s important that a child is raised in a loving environment, and that can be provided by a same-sex couple just as effectively as by a couple that’s a man and woman.

That’s a scream: those who criticize so-called “wokism” and language policing are now the biggest language police of all. So sorry to offend your sense of propriety, but if I prefer to use the term “transwoman” in some contexts, it’s my right to do so.

The amount of misinformation in this thread is truly astonishing. In medieval Europe, Jewish people were permitted to be moneylenders largely because Christians at the time still abided by the biblical injunction against charging interest. However, to say that Jews currently “are basically running the US banking system” is ludicrous and an all-too-common antisemitic trope. Some Palestinian Arabs are descended from ancient Hebrews who converted to Islam (either by force or willingly) during the Arab invasions of the 7th century AD; other Palestinian Arabs were immigrants. To try to sort out the bloodlines at this point seems pointless. There were no universities in the Levant in the 7th century, so to say that Palestinian Arabs were simply not “smart enough” to continue being Jewish is another ludicrous statement. It is not surprising that the Israeli military and intelligence services are among the best in the world; Israel was born out of the trauma of the Holocaust, so self-defense would have been among the new state’s top priorities. (And given that Jewish people have been persecuted in Europe for going on two millennia, it’s no wonder that they have emphasized education and thrift, with the next pogrom always just around the corner.) One poster seems to refer to the theory of Khazar origin of the Ashkenazi Jews; this has been debunked. As another person points out, Ashkenazi Jews have origins in ancient Israel. And, more broadly, the entire notion of “IQ” and the ability to measure comparative intelligence through a standardized test is itself coming under increasing criticism by the scientific community; it seems likely that IQ testing will ultimately be regarded as another scientific dead end, along with phrenology and biological racism, medical humorism, etc. In the end, the Jewish people and the governments they create are no more, and no less, responsible for the maintenance of global civic order than any other groups of people who populate the planet.

Thanks for that video -- really interesting! And well conducted by both sides, as you say. I don’t totally agree with Chomsky on everything (he seems to blame the US more than Russia for the Ukraine war), but I certainly agree with his take on “wokism.” And his presence and lucidity at age 94 is truly inspiring; makes me think I may have 30 good years left ...

Sending Sri Lankan refugees to Saint Helena seems a problematic move. However, there are no “inhabitants” of the Chagos Islands (other than US and British military personnel, who rotate in and out); the original inhabitants were forcibly evacuated (mostly to Mauritius and the Seychelles) in the 1960s because the US wanted to build a military base there (Diego Garcia). As someone else commented, returning the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is the right thing to do, and I think the Mauritian government has promised the Chagossians (or their descendants) a right to return, but I’m sure the US will want to keep its base; not sure if that’s been resolved yet ...

What is it with you guys and “wokism,” which has to be the biggest bogeyman of the past decade? Lots of great movies have been made the past ten years, and if you raised the (non)issue of “wokism” with the people who made them, they’d laugh you off as irrelevant and silly. “Dunkirk,” “All Quiet on the Western Front” (remake), and “1917” are three of the greatest war movies ever made; for horror movies, there’s “Hereditary,” “Under the Skin,” and “Vacancy” among many others. Just about anything by Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Lobster,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”), or starring Rebecca Hall (“Christine,” “The Gift,” “The Night House”) or Florence Pugh (“Midsommer,” “Don’t Worry Darling”). Lots of great small-budget films (“Emily the Criminal,” “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”). “Get Out” is like a punch in the face, as is the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” but in a different way. Oscar winners “Oppenheimer” and “Parasite” were amazing films. I’m just rattling off the top of my head. Movies are a matter of taste, for sure; I’m not big on blockbuster-type movies for instance. And lots of great movies were made prior to 2000 as well, going back to “The Birth of a Nation,” a racist screed but brilliantly made for its time. Get out of your rabbit hole and look around, and ween yourself off this “wokism” shtick, it’s really boring.

You guys crack me up. You don't have a clue what women want. And on those occasions when you crawl out of your caves, it must be unsettling to discover that your doctor, your airline pilot, the person interviewing you for a job is a woman. Grow up already.

We apparently have very different ideas about what “feminism” means, and I feel that many of your statements are misguided. (That “feminism promotes the idea that children and husbands are obstacles to happiness”? Where on earth do you dredge this garbage up?) You seem to have some notion that ambitious women are a drag on the men they’re with. Maybe you’ve just had some bad personal experiences; I have no idea. You also have some notion that male-female relationships are sacrosanct. You don’t really know, then, what’s most important about an intimate, (hopefully) life-long relationship: namely, that two people are able to provide a surplus of emotional support to each other on a day-to-day basis, regardless of their gender. As it turns out, the vast majority of such relationships are between men and women, and these usually result in children; I don’t think the minority of same-sex relationships pose any threat to the “fabric of society,” much less the survival of our species. And another thing: a child is much better off being raised in a loving household with two parents of the same sex than they would be if they were raised by a married man and woman who fought and thus created a toxic environment. There is no doubt whatsoever about this. This “mother-child relationship” that you harp on about is of much less importance than the overall environment the child is raised in. Maybe it’s a father (or two fathers) who play the most fundamental role in nurturing a child. What’s wrong with that? A child needs love and encouragement, which are not the exclusive domain of mothers. I simply believe that people -- human beings -- should be equally judged, and encouraged to succeed, and given status, based on their own talents and desires. If you find fault with that, and more if you accuse me of “virtue signaling,” then I have nothing more to say to you. You can take your misogyny -- indeed, your misanthropy, as you seem filled with hatred -- elsewhere.