The more laws and restrictions there are,
The poorer people become.
The sharper men’s weapons,
The more trouble in the land.
The more ingenious and clever men are,
The more strange things happen.
The more rules and regulations,
The more thieves and robbers.
-Lao Tsu
Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth we cannot bear rather than rest content with the fictions that we manufacture out of each other.
-Lawrence Durrell
Friday, May 06, 2005
Onward!
"A momentous hour has struck for our country. Envious rivals everywhere force us to legitimate defense. The sword has been forced into our hands. I hope that in the event that my efforts to the very last moment do not succeed in bringing our opponents to reason and in preserving peace, we may use the sword, with the help of God, so that we may sheathe it again with honor. War will demand enormous sacrifices by our people, but we shall show the enemy what it means to attack us. And so I commend you to God. Go forth into the churches, kneel down before God, and implore his help for our brave army.
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the expression of your loyalty and your esteem. When it comes to war, all parties cease and we are all brothers. One or another party has attacked me in peacetime, but now I forgive them wholeheartedly. If our neighbors do not give us peace, then we hope and wish that our good sword will come victorious out of this war !
The sword is drawn, and I cannot sheathe it again without victory and honor. All of you shall and will see to it that only in honor is it returned to the scabbard. You are my guaranty that I can dictate peace to my enemies. Up and at the enemy! Down with the enemies of our way of life! Three cheers for our army!"
-Kaiser Wilhelm II 1914
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the expression of your loyalty and your esteem. When it comes to war, all parties cease and we are all brothers. One or another party has attacked me in peacetime, but now I forgive them wholeheartedly. If our neighbors do not give us peace, then we hope and wish that our good sword will come victorious out of this war !
The sword is drawn, and I cannot sheathe it again without victory and honor. All of you shall and will see to it that only in honor is it returned to the scabbard. You are my guaranty that I can dictate peace to my enemies. Up and at the enemy! Down with the enemies of our way of life! Three cheers for our army!"
-Kaiser Wilhelm II 1914
Friday, April 15, 2005
Kraut Hammer
"The 15 months following the pope's elevation marked the high tide of Soviet communism and the nadir of the free world's post-Vietnam collapse. It was a time of one defeat after another. Vietnam invaded Cambodia, consolidating Soviet hegemony over all of Indochina. The Khomeni revolution swept away America's strategic anchor in the Middle East. Nicaragua fell to the Sandinistas, the first Soviet-allied regime on the mainland of the Western Hemisphere. (As an unnoticed but ironic coda, Marxists came to power in Grenada too.)" C. Krauthammer, April 3rd editorial
This right wing cripple seems to suggest that the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia was in some way a bad thing when in fact they were overthrowing Pol Pot's murderous regime. Khomeni overthrew the despotic Shah, whom we installed after killing the democratically elected leader of Iran. The vile dictator Somosa fell to the Sandinistas. And Grenada was a pathetic joke. It would seem that Krauthammer is saying that the deposing of some of the worst dictators in recent memory was somehow a defeat for the USA.
This right wing cripple seems to suggest that the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia was in some way a bad thing when in fact they were overthrowing Pol Pot's murderous regime. Khomeni overthrew the despotic Shah, whom we installed after killing the democratically elected leader of Iran. The vile dictator Somosa fell to the Sandinistas. And Grenada was a pathetic joke. It would seem that Krauthammer is saying that the deposing of some of the worst dictators in recent memory was somehow a defeat for the USA.
Khmer New Year
Excerpted from www.khmer440.com (I didn't write this)
So there I was (in the words of Martin Luther ‘I could do no other’), sitting in one of my favourite male orientated drinking establishments a couple of nights ago. The clock had chimed twelve and the bar was being run by a skeleton staff of one, and that one person really wished that she was in whooping it up in Svay Rieng rather than filling my glass with Bier Laos in Phnom Penh. ‘’It’s a special day now,’’ I offered up in the way of conversation. ‘’Yes it is,’’ replied the dusky waitress, with just the hint of a smile forming around her full Khmer lips. This part time university student paying for her studies through drink pouring was a full blooded Khmer from the boonies with the delightful lack of guile, large faun like eyes and the deep brown complexion that differentiates her provincial compatriots from their fairer skinned pointier nosed, mixed race Sino-Khmer brethren to be found so abundantly in Phnom Penh.
‘’It’s a very special day,’’ she emphasised. ‘’Of course,’’ I responded. ‘’It’s Thai New Year.’’ Sarcasm doesn’t go down so well in Cambodia and those full eyes narrowed. Nevertheless, she cheered up sufficiently to allow me to take her out for a late supper after work (small shellfish cooked with basil in case you’re interested) and now she really is in Svay Rieng back in the bosom of her family as all Khmers hanker to be at this most important time of the year. Yet, even as we hunted for a 2am noodle stall the water throwing idiocy made famous and typified by Thailand’s Songran had kicked off on a smaller scale in Phnom Penh. And guess what? The Khmer’s were innocent. It was the drunken deathpats, pantsniffers and other assorted white loudmouths who were tossing buckets of water onto passers by around the strip adjacent to the Heart of Darkness. For a second I considered cracking a hammer into the skull of the nearest deathpat, staying around just long enough to watch the blood pour from his head and blend in with the spilled water while his limbs malfunctioned and shuddered in a grotesque dance of death. Instead I did a 180 turn and found a quiet little noodle stall near Monivong and around the corner from the Billabong Hotel.
continue at www.khmer440.com
Gladhands/Brickbats etx to peter@khmer440.com
So there I was (in the words of Martin Luther ‘I could do no other’), sitting in one of my favourite male orientated drinking establishments a couple of nights ago. The clock had chimed twelve and the bar was being run by a skeleton staff of one, and that one person really wished that she was in whooping it up in Svay Rieng rather than filling my glass with Bier Laos in Phnom Penh. ‘’It’s a special day now,’’ I offered up in the way of conversation. ‘’Yes it is,’’ replied the dusky waitress, with just the hint of a smile forming around her full Khmer lips. This part time university student paying for her studies through drink pouring was a full blooded Khmer from the boonies with the delightful lack of guile, large faun like eyes and the deep brown complexion that differentiates her provincial compatriots from their fairer skinned pointier nosed, mixed race Sino-Khmer brethren to be found so abundantly in Phnom Penh.
‘’It’s a very special day,’’ she emphasised. ‘’Of course,’’ I responded. ‘’It’s Thai New Year.’’ Sarcasm doesn’t go down so well in Cambodia and those full eyes narrowed. Nevertheless, she cheered up sufficiently to allow me to take her out for a late supper after work (small shellfish cooked with basil in case you’re interested) and now she really is in Svay Rieng back in the bosom of her family as all Khmers hanker to be at this most important time of the year. Yet, even as we hunted for a 2am noodle stall the water throwing idiocy made famous and typified by Thailand’s Songran had kicked off on a smaller scale in Phnom Penh. And guess what? The Khmer’s were innocent. It was the drunken deathpats, pantsniffers and other assorted white loudmouths who were tossing buckets of water onto passers by around the strip adjacent to the Heart of Darkness. For a second I considered cracking a hammer into the skull of the nearest deathpat, staying around just long enough to watch the blood pour from his head and blend in with the spilled water while his limbs malfunctioned and shuddered in a grotesque dance of death. Instead I did a 180 turn and found a quiet little noodle stall near Monivong and around the corner from the Billabong Hotel.
continue at www.khmer440.com
Gladhands/Brickbats etx to peter@khmer440.com
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Youth in Asia
George W Bush has just said that the judiciary should always err on the side of life. This is meant only to apply to one vegitative woman in Florida - not to the hundreds of people on death row or to the suspected enemies of America all around the globe. They have removed the feeding tube from a woman who lost all quality of life many years ago while children in Asia are actually starving to death, completely cognizant of their situation. It seems Bush wants to keep the American people in an irreversable state of vegitation, fed only lies and hyperboly. Halliburton's subsidiary bilks the american people out of one hundred million dollars, (a tenth of a billion) but we must worry about steroid abuse in an illegal monopoly and some poor family's legal battles with natural death. Bush and his cronies have stated clearly that they do not support youth in Asia; well I do support them and I think that they need to be hooked up to a hundred million dollar feeding tube. (All youth deserve this but I am making fun of the idiots who keep talking about euthanasia as if they understood the fucking word.)
In Nazi Germany the term "euthanasia" (Euthanasie) referred to the systematic killing of disabled children and adults under the T-4 Euthanasia Program. This has tainted the word in German-speaking countries; the alternate term is "Sterbehilfe", which means "help to die." Any time that medical personnel determine on behalf of a sentient and responsible individual that his or her life is not worth living, the medical killing of such a person as it is considered to be done for the prevention of suffering is involuntary euthanasia. This is not to be confused with medical killing in cases of capital punishment or as part of genocide. - wikipedia
Not to be confused because capital punishment and genocide* as practiced by the Bush administration is good while letting someone die of natural causes is evil. Up is down and two plus two equals five. Double plus good.
I've been back a few days and I'm cured of my optimism.
* When I say genocide I realize that Bush has not technically begun his program of extermination (that we know of) but it took Hitler eight years to get his under full steam.
In Nazi Germany the term "euthanasia" (Euthanasie) referred to the systematic killing of disabled children and adults under the T-4 Euthanasia Program. This has tainted the word in German-speaking countries; the alternate term is "Sterbehilfe", which means "help to die." Any time that medical personnel determine on behalf of a sentient and responsible individual that his or her life is not worth living, the medical killing of such a person as it is considered to be done for the prevention of suffering is involuntary euthanasia. This is not to be confused with medical killing in cases of capital punishment or as part of genocide. - wikipedia
Not to be confused because capital punishment and genocide* as practiced by the Bush administration is good while letting someone die of natural causes is evil. Up is down and two plus two equals five. Double plus good.
I've been back a few days and I'm cured of my optimism.
* When I say genocide I realize that Bush has not technically begun his program of extermination (that we know of) but it took Hitler eight years to get his under full steam.
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