Enzian

Yep, hang 'em on the balcony in the Thai sun--the Thai sun probably being the reason we're not all dead yet anyway.

This factor of the spread of infectious diseases from one population to another is fascinating because it is also on the list of factors that came together to effect the extinction of the neanderthal species around 40,000 years ago, not accidentally the same period that homo sapiens started moving into western Europe in large numbers. 

It is also interesting that Wikipedia accepts the general consensus that the "second" black plague, which hit Europe starting in the middle of the 14th century and kept on sporadically for over 300 years, started in China and spread to Europe along the Silk Road. 

I will repeat that had the situation got physical, a riot if you will, and people got hurt, it would be first line news around the world, it would affect subsequent tourism here, and could even endanger the present quasi-military regime. This is a portent of things to come around the world, so it is more significant than this one incident. Governments do not want social order to break down. India for example is notorious for these sorts of things, and I've seen reports to indicate it is already starting there.

I'm from Berkeley and I've seen a lot of standoffs between police and large groups. Often a point comes when the group makes it clear that they are willing to have their own blood shed, that they will step it up a notch where real harm will occur, they are that angry, and they mean it. I can see the "general" not willing to take that step, since they have everyone's IDs from the manifests, and can track them down later one by one. To manhandle all of them so no one got hurt he would need hundreds of soldiers, and hope to hell no one made a mistake, so impossible.

11 minutes ago, ravip said:

Who cares a Bat where it is made, as long as the price is right and the quality is OK?

Some people will care, and some won't. For a long time most (myself included) have taken the attitude implied in your question, but it is possible that might change. It makes a statement, like spending more for an electric car. But I tend to agree that there is realistically in sight no form of direct retaliation that will satisfy those of us who are enraged by this whole mess. But it is a process, and I will watch for something to emerge. 

Giant Made In China sticker on everything that comes from there? No little hidden labels. Then we all have a choice.

The state of India with the most cases at present is Maharashtra, where Mumbai is the large city. Present temp 31 C. India has a lot of northern regions where it even snows in the winter; this will be something to follow, but I'm sure we will be hearing of developments.  

They are shutting much earlier than 9:30. Last night, Saturday April 4, I was able to take the sky train from Thong Lor to Sukhumvit at about 8:45, but when I walked down to take the escalator down to the metro station they were telling people that the last train had left. My phone said exactly 8:50. After a few minutes I was able to get an ok taxi to take out to my Din Dang Rd location. So anyway, it will probably be better to think in terms of 8:30 rather than 9:30 for the last trains.

I can't go back to northern CA because it is much worse there and will be for a while, and at the moment my son there, who has not been tested but who has a degree in Public Health, is pretty sure he has it. I don't want two years of this but then I think of John McCain who spent 6 1/2 years in the Hanoi Hilton and other prisons and think what a wimp I am. I have a friend who did 8 years in San Quentin and is a good member of the community now. I think with occasional female contact, which might not be impossible to arrange and still be safe, I'd be reasonably comfortable. I worry more about the poor of Thailand and what they may be facing, and what they may be forced into. One more thing: there are things in my life I didn't like and was putting up with out of inertia; those will change.

Isn't the most important line in the speech for us in the second paragraph, which states in English: "as all patients with this virus are considered as emergency cases, there are 3 government funds that will be used to pay for their medical expenses, namely..." etc., etc. This seems to say every patient, not just every Thai patient, and as hard to believe as it is, it seems to say all hospital expenses will be covered. So is the government insuring us all? Does anyone have more details? This by the way is not impossible, because at this very time the Thai government has been paying for the medicine used for my eye injections, and it's expensive stuff, and they know I have a US passport. The doctor told me, the government subsidizes it, period.

10 minutes ago, steven100 said:

free medical to foreigners  .....  are you sure  ???    i find that hard to believe but give me 25 seconds to consider further.   oh,  and what country is that    ??  

My girlfriend got free medical care in Italy last year; I stayed in a German hospital for a week once for no fee when discharged, though that was some time ago.

There are a great many good history books on the cultural struggles and learning curve (or lack thereof) Thailand has had with the practice and legacy of both western and what we may call asian colonialism (as with Japan in WW2, and including the general Chinese influence).  A recent one I recommend is by Wasana Wongsurawat; in the past few months I've heard her speak at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand and at the Siam Society. To be on the safe side I will not cite the title of her 2019 book but you can look it up in a second. The struggle has always been a matter of adapting to the "other" while at the same time maintaining one's own identity, thus the resulting love/hate relationship. 

Someone mentioned that China has a writer who received the Nobel prize in literature, while Thailand has not. But how many know that the following writers were considered but passed up for the Nobel prize in literature: Leo Tolstoy, Henry James, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon. That prize is meaningless.

Around 8 pm I walked through the big Din Dang market on Thanon Pracha Songkhro. A lot of the stalls usually in the middle of that large space are gone, but a whole lot are still there, and that interior market path going away from the main street at a 90 degree angle is as full of food vendors and people walking close together as ever. I looked at a couple of still live fish lying in a dry pan gasping with their gills and hoped that won't be how I'll end up.

I've had to research a number of private and public hospitals for a condition I have, and I found they differ greatly. And doctors and individual departments/specialties differ. I know everyone generalizes that private are better, but it is not that simple and you have to do the legwork and even trial and error.

My son lives in Oakland CA and is pretty sure he has a moderate case and where he got it. Strangely, his 4 1/2 month old infant shows no signs, yet. But within a very roughly 50 mile radius from him very roughly 50 people have died from it. So yes, with all the probable misreporting I'm still glad I'm here in Bangkok and not in the Bay Area-even if I don't know what's going on really.

Krungsri Bank where I'm parked is 70% owned by Japanese, a situation which on the whole I like.

I'm isolating in this condo in Bangkok, and going through the breakup of a long term relationship at the same time. She's up north for now, though this condo has always been hers from before we met. This may be a good thing because if she were here we'd be getting crazy, and moreover she has young and also middle aged relatives in Bangkok she would surely be seeing, and bringing that home. I take the metro to Sukhumvit and walk around alone, and long for the day I'll be able to go back to the soapys. I have one disabled friend I visit. I was a humanities academic till age 40, and could easily remain sane reading for the rest of my days. But I have the money to travel, and I have been doing so a lot, and look forward to that also-but who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Seems simple but I think it helps to contemplate those who have had it so much harder than ourselves that it makes our present condition seem like nothing. Like when I'm walking and see someone confined to a wheelchair. But even better is people who were prisoners. A few weeks ago I was in the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam which got me to read about what John McCain and others went through there. And once when I was down I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; that will make you know how lucky you are!

5 hours ago, uncleP said:

Free books here

www.gutenberg. org

gutenberg.org is incredible, I can't say enough about it. Thousands of titles literally, in the public domain. Last year I read Boccaccio's Decameron, which is about people holed up in a country estate during a plague! I've used it to read Petrarch, Georgio Vasari, Cicero, Greek and Roman philosophers, recently Kipling, next planning to use it for Darwin's Origin of Species. 

9 hours ago, ColeBOzbourne said:

Dasa Book Café on Sukhumvit has a big selection of used books very cheap. Of course closed now, but offering 20% discount on mail order books. They have an inventory of books online. www.dasabookscafe.com

i'm pretty sure I stopped there yesterday, or at least looked in, Friday, and it was open. 

All I know is the pool in this condo complex is one of the few outlets I have from the stir craziness of total isolation, and now the association has closed it in spite of the fact that almost 100% of the time I'm the only one using it.

If I wanted to get out of Bangkok about now I would not take any public conveyance. I would hire an out of work taxi driver and his car. For around US$100/day a person could get such a private car to go about anywhere in the country now. If it took two days, double that and pay for the driver's hotel room.