GammaGlobulin

Actually, they DO NOT pronounce it falang. In fact, this is a TRILLED R sound which is neither an R sound in English nor an L sound in English. Anyway, all guys who have studied linguistics know about these sounds, which are different from any sound in the English language. As any fool might know, and I am DEFINITELY one of those fools, too, learning trills is not easy. Also, there are many sounds in Chinese which are not common in the English language. Speaking of fools, I love the Doobie Brothers, too. What A Fool Believes....

After so many years, I have DEFINITELY never heard these terms applied to me, or to anyone. We here in Thailand are just too polite for such.

BEAUTIFUL. Your story is an example of one of the many stories that, although they surely exist, we rarely hear enough about.

CORRECT! Absolutely, ZERO mockery in this term, as you say. One's best friends refer to one as farang, as I do, also, to myself. I wish that we could take out the misperceived false meaning in this very neutral term. Doing so, would be good. (the word farang has ZERO negative connotations attached to it. Zero!)

"the homeland evolved beyond all recognition" NAILED IT! Just 6 words. Anyone who has been here, or there, for awhile, understands these six words, in a way that others cannot. Nailed it. ((One can NEVER return to a place, or a home country, that no longer exists. Just ask Christopher Reeve. Somewhere in Time.) Reeve struggled valiantly. And, even Superman met his kryptonite, in the end.)) We are somewhere in time, or somewhere in Thailand......stuck between.... And.... Loving it....!

Thank you for your example of LOW ART in your posted link. I only meant that there are few examples of fine art, using the color pink. Fine art, also referred to as “high art,” has long been held up as the highest standard of artistic expression. Fine artists make work that is purely created to be aesthetically pleasing. The aesthetic purpose distinguishes the fine arts from the “low arts” which are traditionally designed for more practical purposes. Of course, there are other colors in fine films, such as the film, The Color Purple.

When you say tiny and poisonous.... Do you mean that you were not able to tolerate the tiny hot chili pepper that we love so much in Asia? So many women, all throughout Asia, are as hot as these chili peppers. Maybe, too hot for you?

Obviously, your are in the pink, in both mind and spirit. Are you too young to recall the term, pinko? As in referring to communism? Also, thankfully, the term PINKO has taken on more liberal connotations, recently, and has been resurrected in a far more positive way. As is always true, my friend, to poke fun at oneself, and even to poke fun at one's own pinkness, or pinkishness, takes the gas out of any barb others might cast one's way. Also, since you say you are here for the art, .... then.... what art, per se? Is there any fine art in all of history which is pink? Besides this.......?

Just a few questions: aa. Why are you here, as a farang? Did you come for fun, only? Did you hope to improve your life after a breakup? Did you come to learn the Thai language? Did you come to save the fauna here, including tigers and elephants? Why are you here, really? There must be an overriding reason. So, what is it? bb. So many farang can't spell farang, nor can they pronounce farang. Some write farang as falang. They add an L in place of the R. The reason they do this is because their falang ears are unable to discriminate the L and R sound in Thai, one might think. cc. In fact, the term farang is rather interesting in its derivation, and I like it, much. From Wikipedia, we can see that farang is a Persian word that originally referred to the Franks and later came to refer to White Europeans in general. dd. Some guys don't seem to care, too much, for being called a farang, but I enjoy it. ee. In Southeast Asia, a farang is a "person of white race". Well then, I cannot say that I am not, since I am clearly white, meaning a person with less melanin. ff. Of course, there is also some slang related to the word farang which I will not discuss here. gg. You know, if we are students of language, then we should never become outraged by language, but only be thankful for the differences, and maintain our curiosity concerning the evolution of language. For example, I am always happy to know that I might be called either a farang or a guava, which always used to make me smile, until I tired of this interesting sort of pun. hh. My advice is for you to investigate and research the multiplicity of meanings associated with the word farang. Because, if you do, then you will be as proud as I, and also you will enjoy your research. ii. Finally, attacking the question, as posed above, then.... What is your main reason for coming here, in the first place? Each of us might have several reasons for being here. And, after a while, these first reasons become dull and boring. And, after that, then we must find new and better reasons for being here. However, one reason I am here, which will never die, is to keep learning the Thai language, even though, periodically, there have been setbacks in pursuing my goal. I like to listen to the birds here in Thailand, which is another important pastime of mine. I like to smell the air, here, too, which is low humidity in certain months. Coming from a country with extremely high humidity, being here, now, and smelling the air, is often invigorating, and I very much appreciate this effect. Maybe I do not have the best set of reasons why I came to Thailand, from others' perspectives, but these reasons are good enough for me. No doubt you have far better reasons for devoting the remaining years of your life to living here. Here is a farang I found on Wikipedia, which, I think is quite nice, also quite a beautiful artwork, as well. Really quite amazing. Hopefully, this files size will be OK.... By the way....I want to say something.... (In case I have not said enough, so far) For some reason, we have known of farang who, through misunderstanding, may not realize that being called a farang in Thailand is ===COMPLETELY ...... OK.=== Please do not worry about this. Being called a farang is quite a neutral term. Therefore, just enjoy this, and never mistakenly take umbrage, because, .....then, ......one would be taking umbrage mistakenly, as everybody knows. If you get clued in to the culture here, as soon as you can, then you will be doing yourself, and everybody else, a service.

So, anyway.... Can we change things around, at the drop of a hat, as we obviously need to do, right now? Obviously, the answer is NO. There is HUGE Momentum acting against us, right now. aa. Huge Momentum in the atmosphere, after having uploaded 2500 gigatons of CO2, over so many decades, and still going up, month by month. bb. Huge Momentum behind the social forces which make it almost impossible to change as soon as we must, in order to avoid the catastrophe heading our way. It's just a matter of momentum, after all, in the long run. And, it will be this inability to radically reverse our direction, due to this momentum, which will surely be our undoing. In the end, for sure, we will become..... UNDONE. Still, As we all realize, the very best place to become UNDONE, when this happens, is, for sure, Thailand. Among all the countries in the world, about 197, Thailand is the best for this. We should count ourselves lucky, and feel grateful, for the everlasting positive thinking here, as well as smiles and great kindness, too. Everything will be hunkydory for awhile, maybe until we reach 2 Degrees C.

How do we know that Dylan Thomas was a fool? Same as how Everybody else, now alive, are fools. All of us are engaging in self-destructive behavior. And, in the end, like cancer or cirrhosis, we will pay the price. But, it might not be just one who dies. It might be almost all of us.

Should we continue to go blindly into that good night? Or, should our old age burn and rave at this avoidable close of day? RAGE, RAGE against the dying of humanity. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night, still possibly avoidable. RAGE, RAGE against the dying of the so-called supreme intelligence, which will surely be soon snuffed out. OR, just let ourselves snuff us out. And let us burn bright like fools, While we may. ======= Ah, Dylan Thomas, Such a fool was he.

One thing I cannot understand is why we continue on paths which are guaranteed to lead to our ultimate collective demise. I mean, I understand why we do this. But yet, I still cannot understand it. We believe that we are logical creatures. Yet, deep down, we are illogical, obviously. Do we, in fact, ultimately, just have a wish to destroy ourselves? Why are we not able to overcome these Thanatos-type yearnings to End it All. IF we see clearly through our mirrors DIMLY, then we, for sure, know what the End Game must surely be... Right? You know. I know. Everybody knows. So why? From the perspective of some Alien Being, of higher intelligence, maybe from Mars, looking down at our lesser world, perhaps we, as humans, might be defective in our willingness to survive, at the expense of controlling our baser needs for greed. Maybe we just want to go out in a blaze of glory, singing hymns, or singing in bars in drunken stupor. Your guess is as good as mine why we humans are unable to act sensibly and logically. Perhaps, we are defective? BUT, NO, this is not it, because, in fact, we humans have been a very successful species of animal. One thing to consider, however, is the amount of time any given species endures.... Humans have been successful, very successful. And now, like all other species, our days are numbered. Long Live AI!

2long, and everybody else, who has a Thai wife, is extremely lucky. Otherwise, who might care about you? Honestly speaking: Truly fortunate. And, this is so true in the majority of cases. Therefore, LUCKY.

I first came to Thailand around 1970. Some of you might have been here when I first arrived, but not most of you, just because that was over 50 years ago. Things were different then. If I could only return to those days, in 1970, then I would. So much less to fret my mind, back then. Back then, we were at only about 325 PPM of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Nothing to worry about, so we thought. Those were the Good Old Days in Thailand...because.... So Care Free, and nothing to do besides concentrating on things like the Old In and Out, as you will recall. In fact, one of the greatest of pleasures in life was The Old In and Out, back in the day. But, these days, one cannot concentrate on doing the In and Out without being distracted by Global Warming, which is a real existential issue, plus one's phone, which, for some, leads to sudden member dysfunction. And, in fact, with all this valid worry about the loss of the north polar ice cover, making love, these days, .... is just something that becomes often halfhearted. What is the pleasure in it, anyway, when the ice sheets are melting? There is just too much, these days, to worry about, while making love, which causes this act of lovemaking to become almost not worth the effort. And, sometimes, making love is just too much effort, unless one pays for it in Pattaya, for example, a place which is more exciting and hot. So, you might wonder why our fertility rates are going down, all around the world. Maybe the reason is that we see no future in it. Why procreate when procreation is something that has become so risky? These thoughts, and other similar thoughts, I have no doubt, are shared by many, both here and elsewhere. Most of us do not like to talk about what we find most intolerable to think about. Still, just wishing things away, without taking action, we will still need to face the results of our unwillingness to face facts, sooner or later. And now, it seems, we will need to face facts far sooner than we had thought. Even Musk, the Alpha Male of all Alpha Males, must, sooner or later, realize that BLASTING OFF to the Moon or Mars is utter idiocy, knowing what we know about the ever increasing progression of Global Warming. Still, there is always a silver lining to every distasteful truth.... And so it is, in this case, too. The hotter it gets, the more the globe warms, then the easier it will become to fry an egg on the pavement.... Years ago, frying an egg on the pavement was not so easy.

WOW, Man! You are almost completely ON TARGET. You KNOW me, full well. So, do you really want me to post my REAL photo here, for you to see??? OK. IF you insist.... Here I am, almost the same as you envisioned me.... Chomsky: Love him or leave him.

My Dear Friends, Just after reading the most recent IPCC report and following the events at COP26, I began to follow Musk’s Space Adventures more closely. Musk is the new Tom Swift, but a real-life figure who can accomplish almost anything. Musk is a man who provides us with some hope for our future, even though this hope might be science fiction, perhaps. Musk believes that our future lies in the stars, as a safeguard to protect our intelligence from being completely wiped out by our foolishness on planet Earth. During the next decade, just the same period of time I have lived on TV, we WILL be able to ride rocket ships into space, for a reasonable price. AND, for sure, someone from TV will be shot into space, and then live to post us all what it was like, after returning to Earth. You know, my friends, that, even if Musk popularizes Space Travel for guys such as we on TV, still, when we return to Earth, there might be some issues to contend with, unfortunately. For example, post-COP26, I did watch this very interesting discussion among some science thinkers, which I highly recommend in order to achieve a better perspective of what might be facing us here among our forum members, not to mention the rest of humanity. You realize, My Friends, that many of you are just about the same age as I. The longer we enjoy TV, then the older we become. Am I right? And the older we become, then the older Earth becomes, and Earth is aging very fast, these days. Doubtless, not only is it we who might be aging, but it is our favorite forum which is both aging, as it continues gaining increased stature, maybe clout, too, as we speak. Our forum is always getting better. What I mean is, as both the forum ages, and as we age along with it, we become fuller of wisdom, as well as becoming more valuable to society, in general, as a result of our collective knowledge gained during so many years. We truly have so much to contribute. And now, I just want to post an important link here which will set us up for the next decade on TV, something which is somewhat evidence based, “evidence based” being a “new” term for the old term, which was truth. So, anyway, those of us who love life as we know it, should take a look at this video, and not discount it, since we can probably guess that this video is not sensational, in any way. What I hope for is that I will be able to live the rest of my life without witnessing too much more devastation to the lives of others. But maybe I will need to purchase a new set of blinders, being the horse that I am. One more thing, since both you and I love rice: One thing I did not realize when I was very young is that the rice plant will not bear fruit if exposed to just a slightly higher temperature than what exists today. And so, what implications might this have for us, here, living in Asia, such a wonderful land, populated by rice lovers….? Jasmine Rice is my favorite variety of rice. What about you? Best regards,…. Another Note: Speaking one more thing about rice, I love sticky rice and mango.... Everybody does.

ECM: WTC, Book 1 & Book 2? And, then.....?

Feeling Good Louis!

What about noodles... Does she do noodles, too?

I have been baking bread, and doing so gives me a big rise in the mornings. I would suggest that everybody buy a breadmaking machine, as it will improve one's sex life. Are you using a machine? Or, do you actually knead your dough, by hand? Unless you have an oven, then you will need to rely on a bread machine, obvioiusly.

Hair...Too Long...here....

Sorry, but, you know what I am talking about... Have Mercy!

Cutting hair is not required here.....

Or, do you know about Daryl's House, and his guitar? Have Mercy! Enjoy. No need to cut hair, here, maybe.