Ok, it’s really not that hard to grock.

The image above is from a weekly Thai news magazine, what the text says really isn’t all that important, what is important the fact that it made the cover of the magazine. On the day of the election, there was Obama news on the front cover of virtually every Thai-language newspaper. The debates were on Thai TV, and there were multiple election returns parties going on. I was an a party put on my Democrats Abroad at a bar that I shared with about 200+ other expats and interested people. The USA embassy put on a huge party in a hotel ballroom which was attended by the Thai prime minister, the USA Ambassador to Thailand, over 1,000 interested college and high-school students, along with lots of expats and Thais.

I’m throwing this all out there, because I don’t know if the rest of the world knows how much people outside of the USA follow her politics. Part of the reason was the monumental fact that a black man had gone so far, but a bigger reason is probably the fact that USA politics both directly effect and indirectly influence virtually everyone in the world. Leading up to the election, random people would stop me and talk to me about the election, students at my university would ask me if I supported Obama. The blackness was likely an issue here too, darker Thais are often discriminated against and magazines are constantly pushing light-skinned Asians as the beautiful ones. To see a black man make it so far in USA, must in some ways be an inspiration.

About a week ago, I was talking with a boy who “works in a bar” (and yes that’s euphemism) and he started to tell me how he and his friends crowded around the TV on election day and were blown away that Obama mentioned gay people in his speech. He started telling me that how even in open-minded Thailand that gays are sometimes discriminated against and how he thought that Obama’s comments would influence politics here.

It’s going to be interesting to see where this all goes, he seems like he’s doing some really good stuff … He may just be able to reverse the reputation that the USA has around the world, and reduce the risk of terrorist attacks by making people not pissed off at us.

When Ambassador [to Laos from USA] William Sullivan assumed his post in Vientiane near the end of 1964, his assignment was to wage war while maintaining the fiction of the Geneva Accords, which he had personally helped to negotiate. He came to the Lao capital aware of US plans for Operation Rolling Thunder - a sustained carpet-bombing campaign against North Vietnamese designed to go “after the manure pile” rather than simply swatting flies, as the Commander of the US Air Force, General Curtis Le May, eloquently put it. Even before the Vietnam operation began, Sullivan established his own programs for Laos, called Operation Barrel Roll in the north and Operation Steel Tiger in the south.

Sullivan set the tone for the US campaign in Laos - ground troops were kept out (apart from reconnaissance missions and raids on the Ho Chi Minh Trail area) and military planes had to take off in complete secrecy. As British journalist Christopher Robbines wrote in The Ravens, based on interviews with pilots who fought in “the Other Theather”, “There was another war even nastier than the one in Vietnam, and so secret that the location of the country in which it was being fought was classified …. The men who chose to fight in it where handpicked volunteers, and anyone accepted for a tour seemed to disappear as if from the face of the earth.”

From 1964 until the ceasefire of February 1973, United States plans flew 580,944 sorties - or 177 a day - over Laos and dropped 2,093,100 tonnes of bombs - equivalent to one planeload of bombs every eight minutes around the clock for nine years - making Laos the most heavily bombed country per-capita in the history of warfare.

- The Rough Guide To Laos

Part of me thinks it is just plain stupidity, that most people are just dumb and don’t know any better. I mean, most people don’t read much more than USAToday and some gossip magazines, so I guess I can’t expect them to make much of an educated decision about things …

… then again, people could be racist and not fully realize it.

The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. [...] In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. [...] I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. [...] In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. [...] And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost’s hired man, the fate of having ‘nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.’

- President John F. Kennedy, in remarks given at Amherst College, October 26, 1963

(found on Conscientious)

btw: have you registered to vote?

from the 7th until the 20th of May, sherry and i will host an exhibition of
photography taken with lomographics cameras in india in order to raise money for the camillian Social Center (benefiting children living with HIV and AIDS) and the seva foundation, (benefiting programs to prevent blindness and restore site in india.) all proceeds will be donated to charity.

the exhibit will be held at the peninsula plaza in bangkok, with an opening party on may 7 at 6pm. if you’re in town, come! if you’re not in town, there is still time to plan.

http://www.luke.org/colors

i don’t report on news items much, but this one is rather exciting.

from the bbc

In a statement, he accused China of not doing enough to pressure Sudan to end the “continuing human suffering” in the troubled western Darfur region.

At least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in the five-year conflict.

Beijing has not yet responded to the move, which correspondents say is its first big setback in staging the Games.

A source in the Beijing Olympic Committee said a response was being discussed at the highest levels but had not yet been made public.

But the BBC’s James Reynolds in Beijing says the decision will anger and worry the authorities there.

Since Beijing won the right to host the Games it has always tried to keep China’s politics and China’s Olympics separate, he says, and it has attacked anyone who has tried to link the two.

Sudan, with its vast oil reserves, sells some two-thirds of its oil to Beijing.

In turn, Beijing sells weapons to the Sudanese government and has defended Khartoum in the UN Security Council.

As a result, China has been criticised for its links with a government ostracised by many for its role in the ongoing crisis in Darfur.

Read the entire article here.

Read China’s response here.

in thailand, two topics are rarely analyzed or reported on critically: the king and religion. in fact as a foreigner, they often seem even more off limits. it’s normal for people to say thing like “ohh you don’t understand, you’re not thai”. the king just celebrated his 80th birthday and in honor of it there has been a week of celebrations, many of them telling people that to show the love for the king they should live their lives by his principles. one of his main messages is that we should live our lives modestly, only taking what we need, not giving in to excess, things like that. given that the king’s teachings are usually used in a very well-respected way, i was actually pretty surprised to see boot’s (a foreign pharmacy) use it to sell things like fine fairness cream. the image below is a boot’s advertising flyer, and was also used as an ad all over town. the thai text at the top literally translates as “economize for dad”. by saying “economize” they are referring to the king’s teachings of living modestly and also their special low prices on whitening cream. the king is often referred to as “dad” or “father”, something that shows his level of respect in the country but is also a function of the thai language (i am often called older brother by my younger students).

as a foreigner, i find the ad rather surprising and somewhat funny. i guess more surprising to me is that there hasn’t been any uproar over it … then again, there may have been and i just didn’t hear about it. things are often handled in a very private way in this country.