connda

Sawasdee Khrup, ElGordo38,

On the Chiang Mai TV forum there have been several threads discussing eye doctors, cataract surgery. I suggest you go to the CM forum, and do a search on "cataracts," selecting the "this forum" search-filter from the drop-down menu.

Here's a thread I started:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/702264-cataract-surgery-in-the-last-year-in-chiang-mai/#entry7397425

I'm fairly certain I'll have my right-eye cataract surgery done next year here (in Chiang Mai) at the main Publc Hospital, Maharaj on Suthep Road near Wat Suan Dok, going through their administrative service for expats 'Sriphat. The surgeon will be Dr. Paradee who also works at the expensive "four star" hospital Chiang Mai Ram.

cheers, ~o:37;

I need to clarify this. Sriphat is a private hospital that caters to anyone who wants less of a wait and can afford to pay the extra premium for this service either out-of-pocket or via insurance. On any given day the patient percentages are probably 98% Thai/asian and 2% expats, give or take a percent. It's housed in the same block of buildings as Maharaj. If you are covered by insurance, then this would be one the the places to go. If you're paying out-of-pocket and are on a budget, Maharaj is where you'll want to land.

I was scheduled for cataract surgery at Maharaj Government Hospital here in CM, but cancelled at the last minute. With that said, expect long waits to see a doctor. You'll need to get there by 8am (preferably before). They only accept a set amount of patients per day. Expect to spend the entire morning there (3 to 4 hours). Cost of surgery would have been approximately 30k baht/eye. Charges include a simple IOL implant, surgery, meds, and private room for three days. No, it's not out-patient like the West. They will expect you to have a physical prior to surgery (chest-xray, blood and urine tests, EKG). Another 3 to 4 hours. If you want a compound lens to correct near-sightedness/astigmatism, the price goes up a lot. You check in the day before surgery, and will stay at the hospital the day of surgery, and discharge the following day if everything is OK. Personally I recommend it. If you have it done at a private hospital and they have complications, guess where they send you? Best of luck. And this should be in the Chiang Mai forum. Mod?

Human Rights - Like institutionalizing discrimination? Foreign women married to Thai men are granted a clear avenue toward citizenship, whereas foreign men married to Thai women aren't due to 'national security'. Those types of Human Rights are being celebrated mai?

That really doesn't look like an unusual amount of snow for Donner Pass.

Before the winter is over there will be snow banks on each side of the road taller than a person, cut by snowplows. I've seen the banks 12 feet/4 meters high.

Actually, I'd like to see 12 to 20 feet banks.

-snip-

Unlike the US, where only the lower echelon soldiers were convicted of crimes at prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan (no officers or government officials were indicted)

Saddam Hussein was tried and hanged.

Try again.

I speak pidgin with my wife as that's the way that we've always communicated...I speak in limited thai with the rest of the family, mostly with the MiL and the kids...most of the men pretend to not understand what I'm saying...

and I'm quite sure that my 21 y.o. step daughter understands english but she does't reveal this to anyone...she is a smart cookie and a sneaky little wench and I can't help but love her...

May I ask how long you've been married?

My advice is NEVER speak pidgin English unless you are happy speaking it for ever and don't mind your wife not progressing in life.

One of my pet hates is hearing farang fathers speaking to their kids in pidgin Thai - one guy last week at the bar had his 5 year old kid coming up to the pool table and touching the balls and he say "mai ow, mai ow". Patheti seeing the kid looked more farang than Thai. Some peope just totally lose the plot.

I've known English teachers who speak pidgin on and off campus. I've never been able to fathom why. I simply don't get it. I understand why Thais speak English they way they do. It has everything to do with their grammar and the pronunciation of their written language and alphabet system. But for an English speaker to 'regress' to that level. Whack jobs one and all.

A I understand it there were 3 major waves of aboriginal migration into Australia across a land-bridge in the north-west of the continent, spanning a period of 60 - 20,000 years ago. Each new wave was more technologically advanced and aggressive than the last and pushed the existing tribes south and east. The last descendant of the original tribes, Truganini, died in 1876. The current "ab-original" (first man) tribes are descendant from the second and third waves of invasion. The other 97.5% of the Australian population are a result of the fourth wave of invasion of more technologically advanced and aggressive people, which has been ongoing since 1788.

As with any invasion, there have been terrible things done by both the invaders and the resistance - of which neither side should be proud. Some of the policies of governments (of politicians now long-dead), though enacted with good intentions, still cause major divisions on both sides of the story.

Ultimately, the Aboriginal population needs to decide what they want to be:

• perpetual "special needs" children with government supplied housing, perpetual pensions based on ethnicity, special government funded health programs, special government funded education programs and no responsibility or accountability etc.
• fully integrated, productive members of the wider community - accepted as just another element in Australia's diverse population
• a separate, independent nation-within-a-nation, with restrictions on "foreign" entry, its own tribal laws and control over the mineral resources of the land on which they sit

Currently there are people pushing for each of these agendas and demonizing the broader population via a guilt trip over things their grandparents (or preceding generations) did.

Currently there are people pushing for each of these agendas and demonizing the broader population via a guilt trip over things their grandparents (or preceding generations) did.

Sounds like my country where everything is my great-great-great-great...grandparents fault (and mine by association) even though my grandparents didn't hit Ellis Island until the early 1900s, and had to fight their way out of their own ghettos to establish themselves as productive members of society . Go figure. BTW, I like 'bullet' number 2 personally.

.....like, not being able to communicate in English?

Get dear leader to order them to do 2 jobs and keep that farang money flowing in

Then they'd have to take methamphetamines to work the 20 hour days.

I wonder if all 10,000 hospitals will be allowed to administer morphine for terminal patients. From my understanding, currently morphine is only allotted for use in the larger provincial hospitals with smaller amounts allotted to larger public hospitals.

Here is a brilliant idea, arm every man woman and child in the land with guns and let the

law of the jungle take it's course and will see who's left standing, that way, no law

informant's agency will be held responsible to any killings...

It's already like that, which is fine by me. I'd rather have that than the nanny-state mentality where the 'State' takes your gun and (soon) anything sharp, heavy, or solid. By the year 2020 in British commonwealths, you'll be lucky if you can wield a rubber spoon and fork to eat (even rubber knives will be outlawed by then imho). lol

/sarcasm off

Ha ha ha! That is hilarious. 'Bean-counting' that will accomplish little or nothing.

Ahhh, the joys of wearing hijabs all day long.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends.

Connda, thanks for your thoughts. We are atheous, but we respect all religions, mostly if it is based in a real person and not a God, like Buddhism.

The tree is ours. If anyone needs one, they should use theirs or one on the street, not ours, and definitely not without our consent. That's impolite and highly disrespectful.

Thank you thongsuknork. We definitely will ;-) We don't believe in witchcraft anyway but it was worthed knowing, or trying to, the intention behind the act...

Thanks again everyone. We can close this chapter!! Happy eating!!

Yeah. There is no 'god' in Buddhism. Siddhārtha Gautama was as much a real person as you and I. It is totally a (without) - theism (belief in the existence of a god) as it's basis for practice. Siddhārtha Gautama himself, if alive today, would shake his head at the deitization of his likeness in statuses. He didn't teach worship, he taught a technique. Why is Buddhism a religion? Beats me. To practice Buddhism is to practice the technique. Those who follow the 'Buddhist religion' simply believes in the dogma of devotion and faith, ritual, and superstition; the technique becomes secondary, if practiced at all. People praying to Buddha, but Buddha's not here (and yet Buddha is everywhere). It's a paradox.

Being sensitive to someone who may be offended v.s. using historical themes in pursuance of art and expression.

I'll side with the latter every time.

Ahhh, the nanny-state following it's people overseas to write this moralistic piece on 'youth-gone-bad'. 20,000 young tourists voting with their feet to leave the 'nest' in order to play. And of course, "Under-cover". The new paradigm for surveilling citizens. Come on, really? Look at Woodstock. Look at Spring Break in Cancun. Same same. No news media needed to creep around 'under-cover' there to produce a 'youth-gone-bad' piece. Pathetic reporting. Even more pathetic practices. Film in the open: nobody would give a rip.

Luck of the draw dude. I've spent as much as three hours there for a 90 day, yet my last visit I was in and out in under 15 minutes. Trust me. I've vented and complained too. It's fruitless. Better to let it go and better luck next time. Hell will freeze over before this changes.

Most Thais are Buddhist upfront, but Animists under-the-covers. And Hill Tribe folk are just Animists. Yeah, some will 'cast' bad luck to you. I don't know the Thai phrase for "Bad Ju Ju", but consider it "Bad Ju Ju". Don't believe in it? That's fine: they do! Want to counter. Ask a monk to come in to your shop to bless it after explaining the situation. Equally bad karma for a Buddhist attempting to harm you with Animistic magic. Like Karma. If the lady did it to harm you, Buddha would have equated that to picking up a burning coal with bare hands with the intention of throwing at someone else. Best of luck.

I agree with the majority of Americans that do not think that race was a major factor in either of the grand jury rulings, but I do think that some sort of charges should have been prosecuted in the Eric Garner case. However, I think that their is a good chance that the police would have been acquitted.

Charges? Well, Garner would have been charged with selling untaxed cigarettes and resisting arrest (not unlike his other 30 arrests) but he died from a heart attack in the ambulance (due to his total disregard for his own health and life, not from a chokehold as you mentioned). However there was one charge loosely connected to this case. The videographer was found in possession of an illegal handgun last week and charged accordingly. I would like to charge you with the responsibility of arresting a man intent on not being taken into custody who is 6'3" and 400lbs. Until you do that, you can just start thanking police for doing a job that must be done by someone with guts enough to get it done.

And remove your pinned quote about sleeping under the protection of brave men while your at it because you obviously don't really believe it.

Good one! The 'dead prep' is responsible for his own death. I'll give you a number: 75,000,000. That's what a civil court will award for wrongful death with the cop and the SIPD on the hook for the tab. Unless! The family chooses to accept an 'undisclosed settlement'. I'm not a betting man, but I'll give it 3 to 1 that it's settled out of court. Personally, I'd like to see what a jury in a civil court would hand down as a judgement.

Diggin' to the bottom of the barrel for 'world news' today, 'eh? Well, try not to publish anything that takes more than a 6th grade education to read.

Probably because they realize that ethogenic climate change is a fraud perpetuated by companies and individuals who stand to make huge amounts of money by brokering carbon credits. You really believe Al Gore and his backers put up the venture capital to make An Inconvenient Truth because they are philanthropists? Yeah, I have a bridge to sell ya in Bangkok. Cheap! Trust me!

Btw: The corralation between CO₂ and global warming disconnected in 2007.

Isn't that against the constitution? The same goes for the marriage extension. The CCC states very clear that income of both partners is marital (shared) property. Why foreign men are not allowed to use the income of their Thai wifes? Why Thai men married to foreign women have to show no income at all? Is the Thai Immigration above the constitution and other relevant laws? Maybe time for some crowd funding, hiring a proper lawyer team and going to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.

I haven't read the current constitution, the 2014 interim constitution, but I am not sure it covers these points at all. However, all of this has already been thought of by others. In 2004, I think, the Ombudsman, at the urging of a Thai women's group, asked the Council of State for an opinion of the constitutionality of the Nationality Act permitting a special route to Thai nationality for foreign wives of Thai men but not vice versa. The Ombudsman said this amounted to gender discrimination against Thai women. However, the Council of State opined that the government had a right to do this in the interests of national security. Later, in 2007 a female member of the military appointed legislature proposed amendments to the Nationality Act that would have allowed men married to Thais to apply for nationality on exactly the same basis as vice versa. But the legal committee of the Ministry of the Interior recommended that the bill should be diluted by proposing that men married to Thais should be allowed to apply without obtaining PR first and without knowledge of the Thai language (i.e. no need to sing) but they should otherwise apply on the same basis as others, meaning they need to be working in the Kingdom but get a 50% discount on the min salary to B40,000 a month for having a Thai wife. The same national security concerns were cited and the legal committee's suggestions were accepted. The revised amendments became law in 2008 and since then men married to Thais don't need to have PR first or sing and only need a salary of B40,000 a month. Men married to foreign women do need to show income but it's only B15,000 a month, can be income from any source in Thailand and only a year's tax receipts are required, vs 3 years for others. There are also discounts on minimum salary for men who are members of minority groups like hill tribes and who are married to Thais.

Assuming the next constitution is similar to the 2007 one, you can go ahead and try to file a case in the Constitutional Court, or rather your Thai wife could, since the 2007 constitution only guaranteed equal treatment to all Thais. Your wife might get even lucky but I would think it is a long shot. Ultimately they might also level the playing field by making things harder for foreign wives of Thai men.

Immigration has nothing to do with Thai citizenship. The Ministry of the Interior's Department of Provincial Administration is in charge and Special Branch does the initial processing and issues the final paperwork. Your point about common marital property is irrelevant here because the Nationality Act stipulates that applicants for naturalisation must have a profession in Thailand. So it is just a question of income. A job is required. The minimum salary levels can be adjusted through ministerial regulations but the requirement to have a job can only be changed by act of parliament. Wives of Thais apply under a different section of the Act that doesn't specify they need a profession in Thailand or knowledge of the Thai language.

So, in you opinion, I worked in country while married to my wife for three years 2008 into 2011. Had a WP, paid taxes. The last year I was working I was making 40K/month. Currently hold an extension based on married, but don't work, but make a lot more money then the required threshold via my pensions. So having worked, would that qualify me for citizenship, or does the 'work' and 'Thai-based income' need to be in the same year as the application?

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