Johpa

The irony, at least in my own opinion, is that Netanyahu is correct about an independent Palestinian State, but for all the wrong reasons.

The Zionist lobby in Washington - represented by AIPAC, and moderate American Jews - represented by J Street, are the same same but different.

In dealing with American presidents and politicians they operate with the good cop/bad cop psych ops technique that has worked very well for them so far.

Oh my! We have the rather vague Elderly Zionist lobby who, to some, secretly rule the world aligned with the Evangelical Christian Street (C Street) lobby, AKA "The Family" who are hoping for the end of the world (as prophesied) both working in cahoots with the Jew Street lobby (J Street) who feel guilty about the world. A clear sign from the heavens that too many otherwise intelligent people are watching too many HBO series.

This smacks of the dogma that all races are equal, that all cultures are morally equivalent.

You are conflating nature with nurture, biology with culture. All humans share the same DNA and the same brain with statistically insignificant differences that impact such things as hair color. Any newborn child born anywhere on the globe can be taken and raised anywhere else on the planet and will learn the language of that locale without any formal instruction, beginning at a very early age indeed. The judging of such things as morality, intelligence and such are subjective and culturally based and culturally biased. (And I respect your right to be subjective on such issues as I certainly do not shy away from being subjective.) And I suspect that the interaction between culture and nature can select, in Darwinian terms, for some small specific mutations that prefer one learning style over another. But those are small statistical variations: you can test one cultures intelligence with a test created by another culture and note small statistical differences but you also see that there still remain statistically significant numbers that score in the top-most percentile.

You're a laugh, Netanyahu. A spineless fascist. A flip-flopper. A liar.

I wonder how long this government will last before it's dissolved. Surely the citizens will not stand for this liar's deceits any more.

Your simply calling Netanyahu a politician. There is nothing remarkable above and your criticisms could be levied against any politician in the west.

But yes, this newest government may not stand long. Talking to many an Israeli, their concerns are not Palestinians but rather corruption, economic inequality, and the long term impact of global warming and rising seas over their limited and low lying coastal domains.

Does anyone know if the farmers are contracted to

grow produce for the big agribusinesses such as CP? Do the farmers sell to middle men or privately at local markets etc.?

The locals often are on contract to local middlemen who have contracts with CP. But given the amount of talk on current prices during harvest season, many are not on contract. My in-laws often sell their relatively small quantities of corn to other neighboring villagers, usually Mong, to be used as pig feed at prices slightly higher than what is being offered by wholesalers. But again, their fields are much smaller than the vast steep acreage seen in areas around Mae Chaem, Mar Sariang, Phrae, etc.

And it is the steepness of those slopes that prevents any thoughts of mechanical plowing. I find it difficult enough to walk along the slopes. But it is the CP group more than any interest in mushroom cultivation that has encouraged the replacement of forest with corn to feed their corporate pig raising operations.

I get asked questions about English I could never possibly answer. Not just emphasis that could be missed "Who doesn't like Pizza?". How about,

"The Chicken smells good"

Same syntax, way different meaning. It is a very illogical and irregular language.

There is little illogical or irregular about the use of stress in English to change the meaning of a sentence. If you suffer from insomnia then may I suggest perusing any number of linguistic treatises on the subject. But I did warn you that the reading is rather tedious going.

As for not being able to answer grammatical questions regarding your native language, well join the rest of humanity as nobody needs to learn the rules, it comes with the human brain. Don't ask a Thai about tone rules and don't ask a native English speaker about plural formation in English as 99% of the time you only get an orthographic rule and not a morphophonemic rule. See, I told you this stuff is mind numbing.

Languages absolutely have an effect on how you think, act, and view the world.

Why is it so heretical to suggest that one is more or less 'sophisticated' than another ?

It's like trying to argue that all cultures generate equal outcomes for their participants, it's simply not the case.

Whether languages effect and impact how you think is a long debated topic in linguistics. Google Benjamin Whorf as a starting point, but again, warning, very dry reading. But that is quite different than the language, the grammar itself, being more "sophisticated" rather than making the subjective judgment that a specific culture is more "sophisticated" or technologically superior. It would seem that any language can adopt to increasing "sophistication", technology, or other substantive change in culture. The most common method of change is to simply borrow from another language. The Anglo-Saxons residents of Great Britain borrowed heavily from Latin as their culture became more "sophisticated" from the encounter with Rome, and English, one of the most bastard languages on the planet, has no problems to borrow from anywhere, it is our weltanschauung. Thais are proud to borrow from Pali. Pity the poor Germans, French, or Chinese whose cultures, although sophisticated by most measures, are too proud to borrow new words.

That being said, there are significant problems for speakers of a language when they experience a quantum change in culture within a single generation, moving from say subsistence farming to modernity. My wife comes from one of the minority cultures up north and most of the younger generation who come into the city to work and live give up on their mother tongue and only teach their children Thai.

A sad event for the entire Karen refugee community in the US, as well as for those of us who work or volunteer within that community.

Good job by the driver! Once he noticed a problem he brought the bus to the side of the road and evacuated the passengers. You can, although not commonly, already have over-heating of the brakes, smoke, and yes, even a fire, from a rear brake malfunction before the driver notices something amiss. The playing of loud volume from the video system can be a safety concern when the driver can not hear potential problems. The primary issue is of course the generic bugaboo in Thailand, maintenance. Something was amiss in the brake system. And the main front passenger load door(s) should have a working latch to disengage the door from the mechanical opening system and allow it to swing open freely, a required step in the driver pre-trip inspection, at least here in the US. But again kudos to the driver for pulling off to the side of the road and safely evacuating all the passengers. I hope none of the passengers had their passports inside their stored luggage.

Compare China's ambitions with the US current aircraft carrier fleet which are all nuclear powered and capable of remaining at sea indefinitely

You are a tad out of date. The PRC has both anti-ship ballistic missiles (DF-21D) as well as anti-ship cruise missiles (YJ-12) that have the ability to penetrate a carrier's task force defense shield. In another decade that type of technology will only be improved upon and become more common around the globe. The era of projecting power with manned carrier based aircraft is over and the US will have to pull a new rabbit out of the hat to maintain that type of military muscle. Given the failure and waste on the F-35 program, I doubt that is going to happen soon. President Eisenhower warned of the corruptive influence of the military-industrial complex, and one result is the loss of technological supremacy as profits and greed supplanted innovation and competence. Don't blame the Chinese. Fortunately for the US, the PRC has its own issues.

I have a home in a rural area that does not have any garbage collection services. Most neighbors have few options other than to burn their trash as they seldom travel out of the village area. I too use to burn my trash. But now I just take it back from whence most of it came and deposit the trash into the trash receptacles outside the nearest 7-11. But I can do that only because I frequently travel to the main road.

Samantha Power is Obamas representative in the UN security council. Thus representing the people of the US with a veto power in the UN security council.

Which all sounds great until you remember that the third arm of the tripartite US government, the Judiciary, gave corporations the status of people and thus at this point in time, by many accounts, she represents the controlling corporate interests. Although in her rather symbolic job at the equally symbolic UN, she seems to represent her own pet academic interests. And why not as the UN has become increasingly irrelevant in the age of corporatism (Rollerball) and non-state actors.

I run an outdoor adventure park in northern Thailand. We get about 80% farang backpackers, 10% other farang, and about 9% Thai and hilltribers and other Asian (most of whom are brought along by their farang friends). Considering Chinese comprise the lion's share of tourist visitors to Thailand, one would expect at least some Chinese would visit the park.

I have an association with one of the zip line parks up north and nearly half of the visitors are now Chinese, so mileage can vary.

Sure I am the owner but look at the food. People complain because they want it cheap. Nothing is cheap in Chiang Mai any more.[/size]

You have good Thai food, but what people are paying for in most places like the River Market is upscale ambiance, and that is nothing to sneeze at. I have taken western visitors to the River Market quite a few times for Thai food.

One can still find great Thai food cheap, but just not so much in the big city anymore, much easier in the smaller towns outside the Amphoe Muang region. I can find really great Thai food at a local restaurant up north of town, not a road side stall mind you, for less than half the cost of any of the riverside restaurants in the city, but the ambiance is decidedly Thai with overly loud piped in Thai music and always at least one table where they have had too much to drink and should have stopped serving any alcohol an hour earlier.

Now for those who want good northern Thai food (great som tam) and truly unique ambiance may I suggest the long running but often forgotten "Beatles" restaurant across from the Mae Raem 7-11 on the 1096, the road to Mae Sa Waterfall. If you are really lucky the owner Jiep, will play you a few songs table side for you. And don't let the aging and somewhat forlorn front gate deter you as the parking and the eating area are not visible from the road. If the gate is open the restaurant is usually open.

And there is a main street in Vientiane named 'sam saen thai' meaning 300,000 people.

Now there is an example of a cognate that would give credence that the word 'Thai' once had a meaning close to 'khon'.

I daresay that the constabulary in Great Britain, since at least the Elizabethan era, has been protecting the illegal and sometimes just socially disapproved sexual peccadilloes commonly found amongst the high and mighty who are also confined to living an isolated island lifestyle. The Japanese and the Brits have this in common.

Reading the Western diatribes and flames, it is obvious the Chinese scare the hell out of everyone.

Damn straight! But China also scares the hell out of some of us who avoid diatribes and flames.

A famous Thai scholar argued that Thai simply means "people" or "human being" since his investigation shows that in some rural areas the word "Thai" was used instead of the usual Thai word "khon"

In the rather rural area up north where I maintain a home, referring to someone as "Thai" implies a native speaker of Central Thai and not a northerner, not "one of us". I believe some people in Isaan use it for a similar meaning. I suspect this is the usage the hapless Thai academic encountered. I have never heard it used as a generic synonym for "khon". If ever used as such, one would expect to find cognates in other neighboring Tai languages.

The Republicans are just trying to make Obama look bad, as they've been doing since he got elected.

That's just politics. At least it used to be.

The response of a significant number of Republicans to the election of Obama has not been the traditional "politics as usual' but of outright racism. That is why you heard some of the more extremists remark that Obama was the worst president in US history even before he took the oath of office. It is the reason that some within the Republican Party decided to oppose Obama at every step as a matter of party policy which is why you saw Republicans vote against their own legislation when Obama supported that legislation. One would have to have their heads buried deep in the sand not to see the divergence from politics as usual. The real irony is that it weakens those of us who have substantive issues with the administration policies.

I know it is difficult to put yourself in the place of those who struggle to make ends meet but there are dangers everywhere and for many, as evidenced by the number of children passengers on motorbikes, it is the only practical form of transport for them. Since Thais are Buddhist, they believe that if they or their child is injured/killed, it is Karma.

Thais are animists first and Buddhists second, with Buddhism becoming somewhat ascendent in older age. But you are correct, many Thais can only afford a motorcycle or scooter and that becomes the only option for transporting their children. But when transporting their young children, they are almost always seen driving very cautiously, very slowly, and along the side of the road. I live in an area where driving with young children is the norm, and I don't recall many incidents involving a two-wheeler with very young children as cargo. They are not leaving the fate of their children to Karma or chance. They are playing with the cards dealt to them and usually being extra cautious. Now I would not be against a law regarding helmets, but the majority of Thai adults, not to mention tourists, ride around with these little plastic bump caps that don't provide the cranium with much added protection, so such a law would only increase revenue for the police, as the existing helmet laws do, without providing any additional safety.

As long as the primary aggregators of revenue, of capital, are allowed to either keep the money out of the financial system (e.g. certain private gold reserves squirreled away ) or reinvested out of the country (e.g. the CP group) or spent upon frivolity (e.g. any high ranking member of the military or the police) and away from investment in public education then we shall continue to see the degradation on Thai higher education. The same degradation happens elsewhere. Here in the US, outside the few wealthy neighborhoods, the public schools suffer from a lack of public funding and are a sea of mediocrity. Thailand's education system is in far worse shape, far worse than simple mediocrity: the Thai education system is abysmal.

For what it is worth, Thais themselves will often not know the "correct" classifier, correctness becoming a prescribed aspect of the grammar by retentive grammarians. Visit any elephant camp and listen to see how many Thais "incorrectly" group elephants into groups of tua (ตัว ). I think it is only natural that the large number of classifiers begins to shrink over time in ordinary speech and only retained in literary works.

Getting to Phrae is straight forward. Take the main Hwy 11 to Lamphun and through Lampang and then towards Den Chai. After Lampang you will go up some high hills and then descend. Near the bottom of the main descent, well before Den Chai, turn left on the 1023 towards Long. a well marked road. That road will take you through Long and into Phrae. Use Google maps or another map to locate your preferred hotel within Phrae.

And add me to the list of people who enjoy Phrae. For a nice morning drive take the 4016 west of the Yom River and head north towards the 103. Or head east on the 1024.

What are they burning?

They are burning a little bit of everything. Sometimes just grass and weeds in gardens or rice stubble on padi lands. Sometimes it is smaller plots that have been left fallow and they are burning bush and bamboo. But often on the Thai side of the border they are burning the vast acreage that was once forest and small plots that are now vast corn growing enterprises funded by the CP Group. There are areas where the corn fields, and often blue PVC pipes, now extend over the horizon: e.g. east of Phrae, east of Mae Sariang, north of Mae Chaem. The burning is being done by all the groups up north, mostly poor farmers eking out a subsistence. Those profiting, well that is mainly one family in Bangkok.