GammaGlobulin

Please note: With Shatner's dry and rather esoteric sense of humor, does anybody really believe he hailed from Canada? Nobody knows what Kirk is thinking when he says anything.

Thank you!!! You read my past post about Luftbalons. Thanks!

This ipenchant is an avoidable tragedy. I have never been to a bar in Thailand, period. I am too afraid of meeting deadbeats and tattooed lowlifes. I love juice bars with Papaya milkshakes that turn one's skin yellow. Pattaya bars with bar girls are a total waste of money and time. If tomorrow were your last day on planet Earth, would you ever wish to spend it in a Pattaya bar with a pole dancer?

Planning for the future has never provided me with anything but a headache. Better to just hope for, rather than plan for anything. We are now living in times of unprecedented uncertainty. These days, we are more like Mice, rather than like Men.

All debts should be paid in pounds of flesh, maybe.

I just drank a bottle of soy sauce after reading the great book, Black Like Me. I hope to become just another raisin in the sun.

My Dearest Friends, Most of you guys have fond memories of growing up with Captain Kirk. Boy, those were the days, for sure! One thing I never knew while watching Star Trek was just how fine Shatner’s sense of humor actually might have been, and seemingly still is. In other words, Shatner was probably always playing Kaptain Kirk tongue in cheek, and yet few understood. These days, now that Shatner is over 90 years of age, Shatner has become my Kaptain of humor, for sure. The Kirkian sense of humor is among those most closely aligned with mine; it now seems to me. I also find Vanity Fair humor much to my liking, and here is a clip of Shatner on Vanity Fair. There are many, many examples of Shatner’s amazing, mostly otherworldly, sense of humor on the net. Maybe you can find a few more examples for yourself. Is Shatner’s form of humor one which resonates with you? If so, then you are probably like me, in many ways. Humor is a godsend from God for humanity to make life less of an intolerable Sisyphean struggle, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Shatner has become my Kaptain of humor, providing me with a keen sense of the unimportance of taking oneself too seriously in life. My Dear Friends, Shatner has maintained his good humor despite daunting odds. Can we not but attempt to do the same? Heading out into the Universe as we all do is NOT for the feint of heart. Spinning around on Planet Earth, while simultaneously orbiting the Sun, as the Sun itself travels at 200 kilometers per second to nowhere, is not for the faint of heart, anyway. Heaven Help me. I'm your Kaptain, Though I'm feeling mighty sick. I'm getting closer to my home.... I'm getting closer to my home.......... I'm getting closer to my...... Regards, GammaG

You mean to say that you would prefer to have been born on Koh Samui in 1965? Why?

All of Asia, but not all of Eurasia. Think of Asia as being a subset of Eurasia.

I think he meant that he would have preferred to have been born into the group of 16,000 Sherpas that have settled in New York City.

Yes. Correct. (But still, this confusion is reminiscent of what McNamara mentioned in the documentary, Fog of War.)

This is the result of the Fog of War. Nobody knows what's happening. Civilians get injured, and nobody claims responsibility for misguided guided missiles. This is why all soldiers should do like the Good Soldier Schweik.

Yes, they did not. And, yes, they have no bananas, anymore.

How can you read Xi Jinping Thought without first becoming fluent in Mandarin? Better to study Mandarin rather than to learn Cantonese. Cantonese became a dead language in 1997.

Second only to idioms, the proper use of prepositions is the most difficult thing to master in the English language. Also, very few Americans know or care about properly choosing her pronouns.

Nim Chimpsky was ignorant. Noam Chomsky was anything but ignorant, in his prime, like Miss Jean Brody. I guess you have been reading Noam, rather than Nim. Don't worry. I agree with you and McNamara. Sometimes, terrorism is not so easy to see, unless it happens to you. And then, it's plain as day.

Football is an exceedingly boring game, be it called soccer, or by any other name. If I would wish to waste my time watching a sport, then my first choice would be Buzkashi. Absolutely, riveting to watch.

Twitter cares.

Speaking of Yachts which should be impounded, just for their own good, yada yada: This is the Russian Typhoon class of Yacht.... Plenty of luxury life onboard this yacht: Sometimes, they invite girls aboard, too. Girls like these: I just wonder, sometimes,... How did Russian babushkas ever create a Fyodor Dostoevsky, or... a Dmitri Shostakovich? A Putin is easy to create. But, a Dostoevsky?

Yachting should be considered as equivalent to Sailing. If no sails, then not a yacht. If made mostly of wood, then all the better. Wooden ships on the water are better.

The problem with super-yachting is that most owners know nothing about sailing. I have nothing against super yachts, if only they were really super. Here is an example of a super yacht which does no harm, and only does good, in almost every way. Give us more of these, and then, yachting might recoup its good name in the eyes of the public. This is the schooner, Atlantic, bless her soul! Super Yacht, if there ever was one, built in 1903.

Yes! I agree, wholeheartedly. But what if you were compelled to be born, against your will, then what? Which Asian culture would you find least objectionable to be born into? I love Chinese culture, so it's a no-brainer for me to decide. I would choose a city, hundreds of years ago, in China, with high walls, flags, and palenquins, and tea houses. I would just lie around all day reading Hong Lou Meng, counting my concubines.

Just a short note about my Final Note, above: Truly, it is becoming more and more difficult to search and separate the wheat from the chaff on Google Image search. If you want to find anything of historical value on Google Image search, then....Good Luck. But, one surmises that Google no longer cares, because, presumably, Google's purpose now is not what it once was. Google's search is to sell stuff, and not to find stuff of import. It might have been nice to upload, on this thread, some beautiful images of China's walled cities, images in black and white. But, how to find one on Google, these days? Here is just part of a handscroll, for example. But, there are many, many handscrolls which were easy to find on Google years ago, but just too difficult to find, these days. Here is one example, for example: Obviously, our history cannot be entrusted to Google. And, this should have been obvious from the very beginning, of course, if one had not been wearing rose-tinted glasses. So, anyway: I would have loved to have been born Chinese, in this day and age, in the exact place painted here in this handscroll. If only one could be born twice, and could live twice, then I would have chosen to be born twice at different times and different places in China. Maybe thrice, would have been even better.

My Dear Friends, (Just one more Sunday-morning Topic; Free food for thought during your Brunch with Friends, this fine November 20th) This is not an idle question which, like you, I have not often asked myself. We often compare our Farang Lives to Asian Lives, and consider the pluses and minuses, sometimes feeling thankful, but, in my case, often feeling regret. Of course, the term Farang does not denote or define any specific culture. However, I am just using the term farang, loosely, to refer to what I call members of Farang Land, meaning lands of the West, such as those where white dudes are predominant, or have been, until the recent browning of places like North America and the UK. But I do not mean to become sidetracked by demographics here, because this is not the topic. The TOPIC is: If, for some reason, you were compelled to return to the womb, and if said womb were, for the purposes of this thought experiment, someplace in Asia, then what culture in Asia might your preference be? And, for purposes of this thought experiment, let’s assume that, no matter which culture you choose, then you would be born into an upper-middle class socioeconomic group, in any given culture you chose. The upper-middle class is defined by higher status members of the middle class, and so you would have easy access to tertiary education, and so please do not worry about this point. Let’s further suppose that you could choose your point in history, and that you would not need to be born into a time in history of great upheaval, such as the Cultural Revolution; because we are only considering culture, rather than eventful times of great political and cultural change. Not to Confuse Things here: Let us just assume that you were choosing a time of stability in any given culture, then which culture would you opt for? Also, for our purposes, let Asia mean all of Asia, from East Asia to Southeastern Asia, and including Central Asia, not to mention South Asia and Western Asia. Where would you choose to be born, and why??? ==== I am not sure about you, but I would choose to have been born in East Asia, in China, and in Beijing, if I had to choose a different culture for myself. There are so many reasons why. I do not wish to further muddle up the main question of this topic. And therefore I will not yet provide you the many reasons I would prefer to have been born in Beijing or Hong Kong, if I had not been blessed to be born where I was born, so many years ago. I apologize for the mind-bendingly complex grammar here, but this is just due to the very nature of the English language. I just mean that this Post might have been clearer than would have been the case if this Topic were not more focused on what might have been. Who does not love double negatives, anyway? So, anyway, if you had to choose another culture, an Asian culture, to be born in, then what might it have been? Best regards, GammaRays G Wishing everybody here happy brunching, this Sunday morning. Note: If you are not now a Farang, then feel free to participate in this thought experiment by choosing a different cultural group in Asia for your former self in which to be born, as if you were compelled to do so by the vagaries of Nature and at the whim of Zeus. Why do you choose this alternative culture? Do you long to be, culturally speaking, somebody else? Note Two: Come to think of it, I probably would not choose to become Madame Butterfly in Kyoto. Rather, I would choose to be born in a major Walled City in China, perhaps Xian City, probably Beijing, when the walls were newly built. I would love that. What about you? Or, maybe I would choose to be born a Terracotta Man, but before Reagan's rule... Final Note: Just a few years ago, it seemed so easy to find almost any photo you wanted, especially great historical images, many in black and white, which made history come alive, on Google Images search. Why has this changed so radically, so recently, during the past few years. These days, the photos of China, the wonderful historic black and white photos of China, taken a hundred years ago, are no longer easily available on Google. What has happened? Why are these important photos no longer easily searchable on Google? It's almost as if history is being lost, on Google, as we speak. Of course, if you have access to library privileges at a decent university library such as Cornell, Yale, Princeton, or Oxford, then you can still easily search an amazing amount of images from a century ago. Cornell is big on China, for example. However, if you are only using Google Search, then much seems to be behind some sort of wall. So much is not unavailable. Is it morally correct to keep these images hidden from the masses? How much longer must we wait to have these images freely available in the Commons? What IS the commons? Do young people, today, even know? The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of society! Nobody should be able to control our history and cultural heritage, including important photographic images of our collective past. Really, things are just getting too crazy on the internet, in recent years. Have a nice brunch!