WOMEN IN COMBAT

Right! Integrated with combat infantry units! Where will it all stop?

I’ll tell you what would have to happen to make that work. We’d have to change our culture. Burn all our books. Destroy all copies of movies. Rewrite all the text books.

Chivalry is so ingrained in the American male psyche that even all that wouldn’t work.

It is simply not in our nature to ever treat a woman equally in a combat unit. And if she can’t be treated equally, she shouldn’t be there.

You add to that the distractions that females will cause in an integrated unit, let alone an integrated combat unit… well, the arguments against are so obvious and immense that I’m surprised there can be any argument at all.

I will go farther. I don’t like to see women in a zone where there is a possibility of evacuation.

I arrived in Saigon in early June, 1962. At that time there were perhaps 2,000 Americans in the country. Even then, I strongly resented seeing American women in offices and on the street. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that should an evacuation come, they would get first priority. If it came to a choice between me and a woman getting out, my ass was mud.

In a situation like that (possibility of evacuation), there should be no women. It’s just not fair to have them there. Get a hold on reality. In life or death situations, let’s make the playing field level. In our culture, that means no women.

What happened to the old objective of women releasing men for fighting duty? There are tens of thousands of men in non-combat, non-risk jobs in the states and overseas who could be easily replaced by women. That would add divisions to our fighting forces and, at the same time, give the guys in combat a fairer chance of living.

AND YET ANOTHER NOBEL PRIZE... NOT

This one will never happen. Honest research into the causes of homosexuality? Oh boy! Get out the swoon sofas. The last thing the homosexual community wants and the liberal community will permit, is honest research in that area.

First, let me establish my credentials. I sang for three years in light opera in San Francisco. I studied voice for more than four years at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. For a brief time I taught dancing at the Dale Dance Studio. All of which is to say I moved in “creative” circles.

I avoid the cliché of saying whom some of my best friends were. I attended many “gay” parties. They were the best. And my girlfriend, who sang soprano, was always welcome there. She was “one of us” although she was usually the only girl there.

I had the opportunity to observe the ‘subjects’ in their natural habitat, behaving naturally. Perhaps I had a more open access than any researcher could have had. If you give me credit for some observational skills and some judgment, then perhaps this essay is of some value.

The gene scene:

‘Inherited in the genes’ should be easily proved or debunked. Limiting this to males, check out the siblings of gays. I never knew a gay who had a gay brother. If research should prove that to be true, wouldn’t that eliminate the possibility of inheriting a gay gene? If research shows an unusual occurrence of gay siblings then case over. It’s inherited in the genes. Let’s get the research started. Right. What are the odds?

That would only cover inherited genes not accidental such as cause other birth abnormalities. That research is ongoing.

But while the gene research is going on, how about looking into social and environmental causes?

Here is where the resistance will come up. Why? Because so many fear the results of such research. They will fight with all their power to prevent the research in the first place and to
discredit the results if the research continues. So many have invested everything into the theory, without proof, that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon, acquired at birth.

So what would happen if research should prove otherwise?

Wouldn’t that be a great boon to humanity?

It would mean, if the causes were social and environmental, that homosexuality could be cured! Hurrah! Rockets going off--- Starbursts--- People cheering--- Bands playing--- A sure Nobel Prize--- A tremendous sociological breakthrough!

Not so fast white man.

You’ve forgotten about the swoon sofas. Just the mention of honest social research will send liberals to their swoon sofas all across America. In newsrooms, in Hollywood studios, in universities, the people on the swoon sofas will be piled ten deep.

Liberals have become so welded to political correctness that they will do almost anything to prevent research that might upset their view of the way things ought to be. And liberals have almost all the megaphones. Their public relations power is enormous. Their power is such that anyone even thinking of undertaking such research would be ostracized and defiled.

The reason for this reaction is known by all who are acquainted with the gay community and lifestyle. It is the elephant in the living room. The mothers of my gay friends were the most horrible, needy, smothering creatures I have ever known. If I had to live around them for very long, I would probably puke too at the thought of contact with another woman.

And they were omnipresent. Many of my gay friends lived with their mothers. Others lived in the same buildings or very near. Fathers were universally absent.

There is the area of research that will solve the ‘mystery.’ A psychological profile of thousands of mothers of gay men. And compare the results to profiles of mothers of straight men.

Right there, I guarantee you, the case will be closed.

JARVIS COMMENT

Jeff Jarvis got me interested when he posted about The Dukes of Hazzard. He doesn’t block comments so the following actually got in:

I don’t think I watched a single episode of Dukes.

But, years ago when I was in a play, I got into a serious dispute with the director when I opined that writers should study The Beverly Hillbillies to learn how to write a sitcom.

That show had a lot going for it.

Instantly recognizable characters. We knew them all from Li’l Abner.

A ‘fish out of water’ theme. Always good.

A poor, simple man comes into vast wealth. An audience favorite.

A great bonus was Max Bear’s portrayal of Jethroe Bodine. One of the best comic acting jobs of all time.

The director never forgave me for disagreeing with him. As revenge, he took away one of my lines and gave it to a lesser character! What an evil, evil man.

I swear I had nothing to do with any accidents that may have befallen him in later life. I was elsewhere.

SIMON COMMENT

Roger Simon has an interesting thread started on political conversions and the loneliness of the center. I tried to comment on his blog but as usual was blocked by a registration procedure.
Those things are self-defeating.

Anyway this is the comment I tried to post there:

I was raised as a wide eyed liberal in San Francisco. I registered as a Republican so I could vote twice (primary and main election) against the three ‘N’s, being Nixon Knowland and Knight.
I describe in ‘Confessions…’ on my blog how I saw that, for liberals, being politically correct was more important than truth or logic or common sense. That began my gradual conversion.

Then Rush Limbaugh ‘expelled’ me from the Republican party years ago for saying (chuckle) drug use shouldn’t be a felony. (Ah… Let me bathe in the irony. Ahh) The right wing despises moderates more than they despise liberals.

The Libertarian party is no place to go. They have been taken over by anarchists. Monte Python would call them ‘The Silly Party.’

Most third parties do more harm than good. They usually help to elect the wrong side.

I predict, the right will become more and more arrogant. They will try to foist their “morals” on us. The repressions have already begun. The public will tire of that and vote them out.

Before that can happen the left needs to find some adults to lead them. I see none on the horizon.

MUSING AT WIT'S END

Wit is the name of a pier here and I’m sitting at the end of it in a bar called Musing.

We just tripled the size of our aquarium. An aquarium is the same as a fish tank except you don’t intend to eat the fish. That is my problem. I want to eat one of the remaining two fish in one section. If I do, I will no longer be able to brag that we have an aquarium. we will only have a fish tank.

Here’s what happened. A few days ago we had 5 fish and scores of crawdads in that section. 3 of the fish and dozens of crawdads disappeared. There are 2 suspects. One is a bottom feeding, tank cleaning, suction equipped, black fish that stays in hiding most of the time. It behaves very much like a criminal but seems mild mannered. The other suspect is a large white fish with ruthless eyes. That fish lunges at me, teeth bared, whenever I get close. That is my favorite suspect.

As soon as I saw the shattered population, my first instinct was to eat the white fish. I know it’s edible. I see the same species in a fish tank at our favorite restaurant. But if I ate it, because he had eaten the smaller fish, wouldn’t I be behaving very much like a fish? Wouldn’t I become just the next step in a fish eating chain? Mightn’t that give me bad dreams about the next step above me?

These are things I’m thinking about while sitting in Musing at Wit’s end.

And then I thought about a whale they caught one and found thousands of lobsters in its belly. One whale! I saw pictures of whales hunting in a group and trapping huge schools of these little fish and swallowing thousands in a single pass. A single whale, in a lifetime, must kill millions of smaller creatures.

When I saw film of a pod of killer whales attacking, killing and eating a large whale off the Golden Gate, all I could think of was, ‘That will save millions of smaller creatures.’ So the tearful commentary of the narrator fell on my deaf ears.

They’re not going to feed me that crap about the whales weed out the sick and the old and the slow. Those suckers eat them all! But for me this is a comment, not a judgment. I merely witness, not root. I have no dog in that fight.

These are the things I think about while sitting in Musing at Wit's end

And how about them sharks?

Before I get into sharks, I had better explain numbers. Numbers are important whenever you discuss sharks and a lot of people really don’t understand numbers.

Way back in another life my best friend was of the “hippy” persuasion. Once I gave him an “awareness” test by asking him how many fingers I was holding up.

He stared at them awhile and finally said, “Green.”

“No, no,” I told him. “Green is a color. I’m asking you a numbers question. You can’t answer a numbers question with a color.”

“Oh yeah.” He nodded as if he understood. He stared at my fingers a little more. Then he asked, “What are numbers again?”

Primitive people can never get the concept of amounts larger than what is in their environment. “As many as trees in the forest,” is about their limit.

When I went to surveying school we were deluged in a rainspout of numbers. Surveying is all numbers and instruments that measure things expressed in numbers. Some students were swept away. Get the concept or get out. We were all a bit overwhelmed.

A friend in the school told me a story.

A kid was learning to be a machinist but was having a hard time trying to figure things out to a thousandth of an inch.

His boss, losing patience, asked him, “How many thousandth do you think there are in an inch?”

The kid replied, “Hell, I don’t know. There must be a million of them.”

For a lot of people a million means ‘too many to comprehend.’

Back to sharks.

There is much dismay over the reported wholesale slaughter of sharks. It is difficult for me to choose sides in that. Sharks are not like the buffalo, the elimination of which benefited no one and harmed many. It is indisputable that the elimination of sharks would benefit some species. It (killing sharks) isn’t causing over-population in other species because there are reports of diminishing population of many other types of fish. There are reports of fishing areas being fished out and, from that, people conclude that a species is vanishing.

I wonder if it’s more like:

“Hey Bob. Every time we go over there, a bunch of us get caught. Why not go over here for a change?”

“Good idea, George. Hey you guys, we’re going over here!”

The fish in one area are severely depleted or are no more. But the oceans are big places. Maybe they caught all the dumbest fish.

I wondered how many sharks were caught yearly. As much as I hate research or anything else vaguely resembling work, I looked it up. One source said there were 5 to 7 million killed each year. Another source said 200 million.

How could anyone not love those environmentalists? They are so wide eyed and innocent. It brought back memories of raising my three sons. One would come in showing me what he found. A clear glass marble he was holding in his grubby little hand as if he had discovered the universe.

Don’t you just want to hug those people and protect them from the real world?

What one is saying is, “As many sharks are being killed as there are trees in the forest.”

The other comes along, also not really understanding numbers, and says, “More sharks are being killed than there are trees in the forest.”

He picked out a number that sounded bigger than the previous number. He was right.

These are things I’m thinking about while sitting in Musing at Wit’s end.

CURBING FREE SPEECH?

Here’s a hypothetical: Someone doesn’t like the opinions you express in the comments section of a blog. That someone complains to one or all of the blocking or filtering gizmos (excuse the technical jargon), causing all of your future comments to be blocked on the entire internet (or wherever they have blocking gizmos).

I pose this because I have been blocked and I can’t think why.

It’s of no great importance to me. I post comments at most 6 times a month and average 4 or 5. I’ve posted perhaps 30 comments in total, all within the last 6 months. Every time I do I think I should have made that posting on my blog. So now I will.

But I cannot think why I should be blocked. I have never used profanity. Once or twice, when I began, I put my URL address in the body of the comment. I didn’t know then and don’t know now if that is an offence.

In my comments I’m sure I have offended almost everyone. That was my intent when I began this crap.

I have called Kerry a traitor.

I have trashed Limbaugh for bashing McCain.

I have trashed McCain for bashing Rumsfeld.

So it has occurred to me that perhaps there is a political reason that I have been blocked. I’m not paranoid at all and I don’t give a healthy you know what. But if that is true, there is a serious, serious problem on the internet. Either the blocking system has become fatally flawed or someone has found a way to corrupt it.

I challenge anyone to find a blockable offence in any of my comment postings. When I first started I used the pseudonym ‘Vietnam Vic.’ Since than I have used my own name: Walter Guest.

This is probably much ado about nothing. All easily explained.

But if it’s not, it’s explosive!

FOOD STORY

Alternate titles:

FOOD AND ME

ABOUT FOOD

FOOD AROUND THE WORLD

FOOD I HAVE KNOWN

First of all, to get it out of the way, where are the best restaurants? Hong Kong and San Francisco. The competition and comparisons are such that poor restaurants fold. Besides eating frequently at high profile restaurants, in both places I have been to waterfront establishments, patronized by dock workers, and found the food to be very good. That is the best test.

Of the foreign places I have lived in for an extended period Viet Nam had by far the best food. But that was no contest when you consider the HHs in which I lived. (I use HH instead of saying hell hole so I don’t offend. I‘m a sensitive guy.)

Here’s the list:

Okinawa: So soon after WWII that it hadn’t been rebuilt. (The place had been destroyed.)

Guam: A beautiful place but 99.9% military in the northern part of the island, where I was.

Peru: On the Southern Peruvian Desert. That was a place where insects couldn’t live, let alone people. When we had a day off we could drive 50 or 100 miles to a cantina for a warm beer, with a large chunk of ice plopped in, and a meal. I liked their food but it was hardly representative.

Iran: It was somewhat similar to Peru but for different reasons. My job required me to drive around the country quite a bit. There were lots of people but few facilities for travelers. Luckily I had discovered a dish in Tehran that was served everywhere. It was chicken kabob. No matter how remote the village, if they had a restaurant (some places had none), they served chicken kabob.

I have very fond memories of that dish. It was a mound of rice with a large butter patty melting on top. That was topped by a generous slice of sweet onion and a barbecued chicken leg and thigh. I tried to get it at an upscale Iranian restaurant in Orange County. They pretended to not have heard of it. It was probably too pedestrian (read inexpensive) for their purposes.

Knowing how to order that one dish in Farsi gave me some comfort as I drove alone throughout Iran even though my vehicle was well stocked with emergency food.

With that history is it any wonder that Viet Nam was like a gastronomical paradise to me? The French had been there 100 years more or less. They had trained chefs throughout the country. Good to excellent restaurants were everywhere. There was a restaurant in the central coastal town of Nha Trang that had a star in the Michelin Guide. There are restaurateurs in France who would kill (and probably have killed) for a single star in the Michelin Guide.

Which brings me to Thailand.

First a little story. When eating out The Jungle Princess is inclined to order a multiplicity of dishes, all of them meant to share, I suppose. So I search the menu for something that looks good. I saw ‘baked catfish’ for $3 American. I expected little catfish fillets ot catfish cubes with tooth picks in them. Something in the order of an hors oeuvres . For $3 how much can you get? Would you believe a whole 10 pound catfish? Head, eyeballs and all.

She laughed at me when she saw the expression on my face. She had ordered enough food for three and so had I. I was learning that food was inexpensive here.

In general, Thai food is an acquired taste. It is predominantly seafood and, as prepared, the hottest I have ever tasted. It is too hot for me and I am accustomed to hot.

Just ordering seafood might bring some surprises. I have seen, amongst The Jungle Princess’ food, little black things with eight or more arms, reminding me very much of a spider. I wish I could write that when she put one in her mouth, a single black arm was squirming from between her lips. That didn’t happen, but wouldn’t it have made a better story?

There are many ethnic restaurants here and there are American items on every menu, so the traveler has that to fall back on. I must report though, the quality is widely varied.

TRICKING A JUNGLE PRINCESS

(Readers beware: this might not work on an American woman.)

The Jungle Princess, from our earliest acquaintance, impressed on me how much she loved jeans. That worked for me. Thai women in general seem to be built more attractively in the rear
area than other Asian women. That is a feature they flaunt in tight clothes.

The Jungle Princess has a derriere that would be average on a black woman, which is to say, it’s sensational on a Thai, which is to say, she looks great in jeans.

I did not discourage her jeans addiction. On the contrary, I became her enabler. To twist an old adage, it was like giving candy to a baby. Little did she know she was falling into a diabolical trap.

We shopped often which should be no surprise to other older men who hook younger beauties. I enticed her in the jeans section of large stores, letting her see, touch, smell, and finally try on various styles. But in the end limited her to one selection. It was exquisite torture.

And then (kettle drums beating, woodwinds locked into a persistent high note, and finally a trumpet screeching a pitch only a bit below that which only dogs can hear) I sprang the trap. She went into a Gimmee Frenzy in a large department store. Jeans here, jeans there, jeans everywhere. She had to have ‘em.

I let her pick out a bunch then said, “This is it. I buy you these and that’s all, no more.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. You know how addicts are.

“I mean it,” I said. “No more. Ever.”

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. You know how addicts are.

So I read her her rights. “You understand that by accepting these jeans…” Etc. Etc. Etc.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she said. You know how addicts are. They’ll agree to anything to get that next fix.

Flash ahead 10 months. She has a wardrobe filled with jeans. She comes to me complaining how tight a pair are. It’s hard to button the top button. They leave a red mark around her waist.

“Gee, that’s too bad,” I say. “What’re you going to do about it.”

She stares at me. I stare back.

A month later she shows me how well her jeans fit now. It’s amazing what exercise and dieting can do.

I may not be the smartest man in the world but I have to be in contention.

ABOUT THE DON IMUS "CHARITY"

I’ve been mean-spirited once or twice (or more). But it’s not a regular part of my makeup. I get upset when I see that trait in others. I especially get upset when people I admire get trashed by mean-spirited people.

In other places in this blog I’ve expressed my distaste for Rush Limbaugh having allowed a caller to allege that John McCain collaborated with his captors while he was a POW. That was and is unforgivable, especially from a spectacularly non-combatant lard ass.

In the same vein, I came to admire Annie Potts as an actress. I didn’t pay much attention to her when she was a regular on Designing Women. Then I took notice when she played the cute secretary with the Brooklyn accent in both Ghost Buster movies. Then she played a sexy love interest with skimpy, skimpy costumes in Who’s Harry Crumb and my eyes were wide open.
When I saw she was going to be guest on The Dave Letterman Show I set my VCR. I was interested to know what she ‘was really like.’

The interview was a complete disaster. Letterman dissed her as I had never seen a guest on a talk show dissed. She came out in a mini-skirt, displaying a cute body, looking sexy as hell, and Letterman totally disrespected and disparaged her. He didn’t even pretend to carry on a normal interview.

I would guess there was some history there, but there was no excuse for that. He has been on my shit list ever since.

Which brings me to Don Imus. This is a man so mean-spirited it is laughable. A heavy drug user in the past and an alcoholic, his radio show seldom breaks into the top 20 in any market. Why do I listen? His two side-kicks are extremely gifted writers and comics. Imus is a good interviewer. And, as I said, when his mean-spiritness comes out, it is laughable.

For me it is a love-hate relationship. I enjoy the show but it would give me pleasure if he got cancelled.

When I first heard about his “charity,” the numbers involved surprised me.

His “ranch” for children afflicted with cancer would house 10 children.

Construction costs were $20 million. Almost all donated by his listeners.

That would mean start-up costs for the facility were $2 million per child.

That seems excessive but it gets worse. The children stay at the ranch only 90 days a year or about a quarter of the year. That means at average, there would be 2.5 children on the ranch. Put that way, the start-up costs amounted to $8 million per child.

On top of that, during the year, it costs about $3,000 per night per child to house the cancer victims.

That is $3,000 per child per night! Amazing.

Oh, and did I mention, Imus also built plush living quarters for his family at the ranch? And also a radio and TV studio so he could broadcast from the ranch?

I am reminded of a Monty Python sketch in which someone is trying to explain “charity” to a wealthy financier. In the end the rich guy cannot even understand the concept of putting out money and not getting anything back, let alone not making a profit on it.

I’m sure what Imus has done is perfectly legal. I’m sure he had lawyers look it over carefully. Give the guy credit, he found a loophole in the law and used it to benefit himself at the expense of more worthwhile charities.

That’s a loophole that should be closed. For 10 children he had start-up costs of $20 million and expenses of $3,000 per night per child. What’s to stop someone from having start-up costs of $100 million and expenses of $50.000 per night per kid, all under the guise of charity?

We need a law here. There has to be a limit. A higher proportion of “charity” money has to go to benefit the target recipients. No benefits should go to the sponsor.

They can call it “The Imus Law.” That would be fitting.

GAGNE'S INJURY--A BASEBALL MYSTERY

by Fanball Staff - Fanball.comTuesday, March 22, 2005
NewsEric Gagne's spring debut was not as encouraging as fantasy owners hoped it would be. The Dodgers' All-Star closer faced four batters, throwing about 22 pitches, in the sixth inning of Monday's game against the Red Sox, but noticeably favored his left leg. Gagne sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee on February 24 during field drills. "I tried to protect it and not put too much weight on it," Gagne told the Associated Press after Monday's outing. "It feels pretty good right now. I knew it wouldn't feel good (during the game)." Pitching coach Jim Colborn noted that Gagne's mechanics were off because he was favoring the knee so much.

Mar 23
On Monday, Gagne showed obvious discomfort in his left knee, which he sprained on Feb. 24. The 2003 NL Cy Young Award winner did not limp or hop at the end of his delivery in his second outing.
Gagne said he scaled back his effort to about 75 percent and did not push off his back foot as much as he did Monday.
``I treated it like a bullpen (session),'' he said. ``Last time, I tried my regular mechanics and I wasn't ready to do that yet. I don't care about results too much. I'm trying to find my comfort zone where I can land and not have the knee bite.''
Gagne said there is no question he will be ready for the season opener April 5 in San Francisco.


April 2, 2005
ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) - The good news for the Los Angeles Dodgers is that Eric Gagne's knee feels fine. The bad news is that the righthander's elbow does not.
The Dodgers placed Gagne on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained right elbow Friday, one day after the closer experienced a strange feeling during an appearance against the New York Mets.

The mystery is what the hell could they have been thinking of? They let him pitch with bad wheels? Has nobody ever heard of Dizzy Dean?

UPDATE: This on June 21, 2005:

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Dodgers closer Eric Gagne will have season-ending surgery to fix a sprained ligament in his right elbow.
The 2003 NL Cy Young Award winner had a second MRI exam Tuesday and doctors concluded he needs Tommy John surgery. The All-Star reliever has a second-degree sprain of his ulnar collateral ligament and was recently placed on the 15-day disabled list. His operation was scheduled for Friday.
"We're probably looking at about a year, maybe by the All-Star break next year he'll be back," manager Jim Tracy said.

BANNED FROM THE BANGKOK POST

What the hell do I care? They never printed my letters anyway. But it is curious that now they won’t even accept delivery of my e-mails. It’s typical of that type of paper that they don’t want to hear from people who disagree with them. Just as they distort facts to conform with their world view. Disagreement or truth gives them the vapors and sends them to their swoon couches. I understand there’s a big demand for swoon couches nowadays. It may have something to with the Bush policies succeeding when so many had invested so much in their failing.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have referred to a certain part of their anatomy as worthless. If so I humbly withdraw that remark. Their asses couldn’t be completely worthless.

Here is the last e-mail they accepted so this is probably what caused me being banned. This was sent Feb. 3. I had sent no others until the one posted below this, which was rejected. (UBC is the Bangkok cable provider.)

Have one of you crack reporters noticed that the TV schedule you publish is largely wrong? Have one of you crack reporters noticed that UBC has quit broadcasting a large number of its channels? Maybe you could do a public service by finding out what is happening and letting your readers know, or is that too much like doing your job?

Now what’s wrong with that? I twice referred to them as ‘crack reporters.’ That is certainly not derogatory. I pointed out things in their paper and in the city that had gone awry that perhaps they hadn’t noticed. I pointed out how they could perform a public service. Now what’s wrong with that?

I hardly read that paper any more. The internet easily replaces it. The Jungle Princess paid for a year’s subscription so it will keep on coming. The TV schedule is useful when it’s right.

I assume those people consider themselves to be liberals. Until recently they had various NY Times columnists in their op-ed pages 3 to 5 times a week with no balancing opinions.

I understand where the people who run the op-ed pages in The Bangkok Post are coming from. They are fed anti-American propaganda daily by CNN International. The NY Times is also anti-American and will remain so until they are back in power. CNNI plays to the international hate America crowd. Also figuring into this is the very peaceful Buddhist culture that predominates in Thailand.

So the poor naïve people at The Bangkok Post take their guidance from tremendously flawed news sources. They don’t realize that the very assassins they support would gladly slit their throats without a second thought.

It's ironic that the first e-mail of mine that the Post blocked complimented them on printing some balanced op-ed columns.

COPING WITH BANGKOK WEATHER

I finally found it. A spa- Jacuzzi for our patio. I had searched the internet and many stores with no luck. And then we found a dealer just up the next alley within easy walking distance from our house. Turns out he was on the internet, I was looking in the wrong place.

The thing is large, seating eight, but fits easily into our patio. By hanging shades from the patio awning we gained complete privacy and added near 600 square feet (23X25) of living space to our residence. There’s still ample room for a vehicle should we need it.

I don’t know why there aren’t more of these in Bangkok. They would fit easily into the layout of most houses and can be used year round.

The Jungle Princess has gone through some changes regarding her attitude towards bathing attire. In our early times together if I merely pointed to a mannequin wearing a swim suit, she would blush and turn away. For our trip to Singapore she finally bought a suit, but she had to have the kind that came with a sash that she could rap around the bottom, and she doubted she would wear it. She wore it in Singapore. She spent hours in the pool. That was the high light of her trip.

Now she has evolved further and we spend many happy hours in our spa.

LETTER TO THE BANGKOK POST

I must congratulate you on the recent tone of some of your op-ed columns. They are giving your readers a balanced look at some of the things that are going on in the world.

In my previous letters I never asked you to start being pro-American. I only pointed out that you were pro-assassin.

UPDATE: I was told this letter was undeliverable. I guess they got tired of hearing from me,

ABOUT KOFI ANNAN

Americans have a strange attitude toward prominent people who fail in some terrible way in their personal lives. What we often do is give them some great authority in public life in exactly the same field in which they failed in private.

Here’s an example:

Some years ago one of Art Linkletter’s offspring died in a drug related incident. That is a terrible thing and I don’t make light of it.

Shortly after he was appointed to President Nixon's national advisory council for drug abuse prevention, education and information.

Excuse me. What exactly were his credentials?

Let’s see. He had failed miserably in detecting and policing drug use in his own family.

Oh yeah. Right. So let’s have him advise the whole country. That makes sense.

(A small digression: After O. J. Simpson got off from his murder trial, he wanted to lecture at meetings of battered women. Surprisingly, he was turned down. That has little to do with this subject, but I thought it amusing.)

Back to the subject.

I think how someone performs in his immediate family should be of primary importance in how you would evaluate him for another job.

I would never go to or recommend a psychiatrist if he had a suicide in his immediate family.

And so on.

Which brings me to Kofi Annan.

Now an ongoing investigation has come up with a preliminary conclusion that there is no evidence that he is corrupt. His son is another matter. His son, according to the report, had used his father’s position to enrich himself at the expense of starving children in Iraq.

So here is the problem: Do we want a man who can’t control corruption in his own immediate family in charge of a world organization?

You can guess my answer.