PeterRS

Clarence Thomas must surely be one of the most disastrous appointments to the US Supreme Court. I wonder if any other posters watched his confirmation hearings before the Senate. I did and was appalled. The accusation by Anita Hill was clearly disturbing for him, but the defence he was given time to prepare was a farce. My friends and I sat in Tokyo and we all expressed the view, "Methinks he doth protest too much." When someone goes to that length (he called it akin to a lynching) without actually refuting the allegations, in my view he is guilty, the more so when you actually looked closely at his facial movements. He was a sexual predator and should never have been confirmed. That Joe Biden as the President of the Senate barred two other women from testifying and then pushed through the nomination by the slimmest of margins remains a major blot on Biden's record. As a non-American, I find it near ridiculous that Justices are nominated only by the President. The fact is that most of the ultra right-wing conservatives on the Court were nominated by Presidents who had lost the popular vote. So they owe their position to a minority of the voting public. The toxic split that has been evident in Washington for years resulted in the the awful Mitch McConnell holding up the nomination of Merrick Garland for (was it) 10 months because he was determined to get a conservative Justice on the Court rather than a liberal. Then in their Senate hearings, I seem to recall that all three Trump nominees stated something like Roe v. Wade was established law - the impression being they would probably not seek to overturn it. Now even Trump has stated he objects to their action! I don't think there are any cases near the Supreme Court involving gay marriage. But I'll bet that someone will start an action very soon. And if the Court membership remains with a 6-3 conservative majority (although John Roberts seems to have become slightly more of a moderate), who's to say gay marriage won't go the way of Roe v. Wade sooner rather than later.

Has anyone stayed recently at the Banyan Tree? I only stayed there once ages ago and well before the Banyan Tree took it over. Am I correct in thinking it was a Westin? It's selling point was it was an all suite hotel. But I found both the living rooms and bedrooms very small in area. I did not stay a second time. I wonder if Banyan Tree knocked down walls to increase the areas. I know of many who want to go to the Vertigo Bar on the roof. I've been a few times and find it quite boring. usually it has been crowded and with Bangkok being so flat there really is not much to see. We have started going to the Speakeasy Bar at the top of the Muse Hotel on Langsuan. It has become popular again but there a lots of tables. When it rains, it has two levels of interior seating. The snack menu is also very good at reasonable prices.

Like @caeron I do not know enough about the intricacies of Burmese politics, although I do have sympathy for Aung San Suu Kyi. I realise she stood by and said nothing when the army launched its purge against the Rohingya people and that is an absolute disgrace. But she had all but rescued the country from army control almost as her father had achieved independence for the country from the British prior to his assassination only six months later. She elected to stay in the country for decades hardly seeing her husband and children to be a beacon around whom the anti-militarists could unite. She too was the subject of an assassination attempt in 2003 when at least 70 of her followers were killed. But her silence over the Rohingya massacres mystified most of the world who then changed their views about her. But I wonder what would have happened had she spoken out against the army. Would it have resulted in changing anything? It seems to me with my limited understanding that it would not. The Rohingya problem goes way back in history and is surely one of the disastrous legacies of British colonialism. This was further exacerbated when the Rohingya muslims allied with the British during World War 2 whereas the Rakhine State Buddhists were allied with the Japanese. After independence, the Rohingya were treated almost as black South Africans were treated in that country under apartheid. It seems someone made promises to the Rohingya either that they would have a separate state or could secede and become part of what was first East Pakistan and now Bangladesh. What eventually unfolded was a humanitarian disaster. The army was clearly responsible. Pinning the blame on Aung San Suu Kyi as many seem to do is at the least unfortunate.

For info, Dusit Thani is now a construction site. It closed well over a year ago. Le Meridien has been mentioned and I agree it's a great hotel. There were some really good rate packages during the pandemic, but I can't find any now. It has gone back to being a 5* pretty expensive hotel, sadly.

Surely if a post is deleted, the moderator who takes the action should at least post a note in the thread to the effect that a post has been deleted. I don't think it is necessary to state why it has been deleted, merely that action has been taken.

Singapore's OnlyFans, TikTok, Twitter and other internet sites celebrity porn star Titus Low has been in the news again. Having been arrested for uploading allegedly obscene content on the OnlyFans last December, he's been at it again. He was re-arrested in February on charges of having uploaded 20 obscene photos and 14 videos on to another OnlyFans site. Always claiming to be bisexual, Low's paid content has always attracted girls as well as boys. One viewer claimed his attraction is having the face of a K-Pop star with a tattooed body of a body builder - although it seems he is not very well endowed!! Now he has surprised everyone by allegedly getting married. He met his Malaysian girlfriend and married her two weeks later. Understandably this has led to a lot of speculation about the reasons for the soon-to-be 23-year old going into such a shot-gun marriage. A way to help with his court case? Photos : Mothership

I was only once in Rio for a long week-end and stayed in one of the hotels by Copacabana Beach. On Sunday morning I took an expensive cab in to the centre just to walk around and see the city. It was a beautiful sunny day. I had taken off anything of value and just wore a T-shirt, shorts and sandals. I was walking past a church which was quite literally packed to overflowing when I heard running footsteps behind me, quickly followed by a hand over my mouth and another on my neck. It was only then I realised I had totally forgotten to take off the gold neck chain I had been wearing for a couple of decades. I rarely took it off as I had bought it in Singapore and the strong clasp was very difficult to undo. The thief had clearly seen it glint in the sunlight under my T-shirt. As my mugger pulled hard to try and dislodge it, I shouted for help. Three men standing in the lobby of the nearby church came rushing towards me. Within moments the thief had run off. Just a second later my neck chain fell to the ground! What really surprised me was that a police car was on the scene within less than a minute. But it was really my fault for not having taken the chain off, so I thanked everyone in my very basic Portuguese, especially the guys from the church. As @z909 has said, I cannot recall ever thinking about being robbed in Thailand over the decades i have been visiting and living in the country. And I never have been robbed.

Perhaps these are the new mega-rich tourists that the government has been targeting and who will spend more than all the lost 11 million or so Chinese put together. 🤣 🤣

What always amazes me is the strength of family ties throughout most of Asia. I have a good friend in Bangkok whose partner has a Burmese father and mother was Thai. At the age of 8 the boy went off to school in the morning. He knew his mother had not been well for a couple of months but nothing more. When he returned from school, she was dead of cancer. The father had not told him or his siblings how serious her illness was and so he was not able to say goodbye to her. He was totally devastated. After his sister married a Thai and came to live in Bangkok, he moved here and was able to finish his studies. He felt desperately lonely. Young Thais don't hold anyone who is even half Burmese in much affection. Some of the money he earned from part time jobs when studying would be sent back to his father. After he'd been together with my friend for two years, he told his father he is gay. My friend did everything possible to stop him from doing that, but he had made up his mind. The father then cut him off entirely. Even so, he still sends a small amount of money each month. Again my friend has tried everything to persuade him to stop sending anything until his father accepts him as his son again. He promised to think seriously about it, but still sends the money.

With a few exceptions I've never been a Pattaya person. In my freewheeling days, Bangkok had everything that I ever wanted - more or less! I admit, though, that sitting at the gay part of Dongtan beach used to be great in the days when the bar boys would come out to play in the late afternoon. But swimming in that water? It always seemed filthy and I understand there is sewage flowing into the sea not far away (or has that now changed?). On the other hand I'm definitely a beach person. For years friends and I would rent an apartment for a couple of weeks in Phuket. Then Phuket became overbuilt, overrun with tourists and a lot more expensive. Before I became involved in a long term relationship I used to take a boy off and spend a few days in places like Krabi and more recently in Khao Lak. Khao Lak always seems to me one of the gems of Thailand. There's virtually nothing to do there apart from staying in one of the beach hotels and chilling out. But the long wide beach is fabulous and the hotels very spread out. You can be staying in one and never see another. We've often had the beach more or less to ourselves. Then after a day relaxing, sunset cocktails at the pool bar, the little Thai restaurants just off the beach serve great inexpensive food.

Just an interesting aside based on a new book that has been published in the USA. The Man Who Broke Capitalism by David Gelles makes the case that Jack Welch, a hugely admired businessman who was CEO of General Electric for 20 years from 1981, changed the face of American capitalism and ushered in an era of distrust which has resulted in the brutality of corporate America. He makes the case that in every company there would be 20% who were the cream, 70% who were good average workers and 10% who were not worth their pay packet. So managers were told that 10% of their workforce had to be fired every year. He also turned GE into much more of a financial company than a manufacturing one. Many disciples of Welsh moved on to head other companies and instituted the same policies. Rather than any further summary, here is the very interesting interview Gelles gave on CNN yesterday.

There are surely arguments both for and against term limits, especially short term limits. One of the problems the USA will have to face, in my very narrow view, is that the entire election cycle is far too short termist. Why 2 years for Congressmen and women against 6 years for senators? And why just 4 years for a President, yet lifetime tenure for the Supreme Court? And why a Supreme Court that is so overtly political? In the short term when there are only two political parties and power switches between the two, it's much more difficult to have longer term policies since all politicians want to be re-elected, all have to raise vast amounts of cash and parties want their own policies enacted. One reason (of several) why China was able to make such massive progress between around 1980 and 2010 when well over 400 million were dragged out of poverty was the lack of short-termism. Without elections the leadership could take Deng Xiao-ping's goals and had the time to put them into effect. Isn't that rather similar to Roosevelt being able to lead America through the Great Depression and then take a very isolationist Congress into two major wars and put the USA on the path to world leadership? Being neither American or Chinese, I make these merely as observations. The same is more or less true with other democratic countries. Against that, of course, you have the problem of dictatorships and quasi dictatorships. Hugely admired Singapore is in fact a quasi dictatorship. Few will argue that Lee Kwan Yew was not a dictator, but he had a vision. Without him and that vision, I suggest it is unlikely that Singapore would be where it is today. As I think I have written before here, Japan is also at best a quasi dictatorship. It is certainly not a functioning democracy in the western sense. Then again, neither of those countries is anything like China or Russia. Getting back to the topic, I cannot see China imploding. There will be changes, but few will know what they are. The Party leadership may be split between hardliners, moderates and progressives, but it will ensure that it remains in power by giving its population more of what it wants. I think those who are fervently against communism forget that within China itself there is still an immense pride in the country and its achievements since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The vast majority of Chinese are very proud to be Chinese and live in China. Yes, I know. Tell that to the peoples in Tibet and Xinjiang and I agree what has been happening there is a disgrace. Same with Hong Kong where Beijing has broken agreements enshrined in international law. But the vast majority of the Chinese know from their own experience and from what their parents and grandparents tell them of what China was like during the Cultural Revolution, in Mao's other disastrous campaigns and in the period of the warlords after the collapse of the Emperor system. They want stability. So I cannot see swings towards democracy or movements to change the way the country is run for many decades.

Whatever Xi's motives, there seems little doubt that he is facing considerable difficulties behind the scenes at the very top of the country's leadership over his actions and his policies. There is definitely drama going on although no one outside the leadership is aware of exactly what it involves. There was a fascinating interview on a recent episode of the BBC World television programme Unspun World hosted by veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson. It claimed that Xi now has to worry about a three pronged attack. The most dangerous is the public backlash against his zero-covid policy. It is not just Premier Li's comments. It's a massive volume of social media posts, mostly couched in indirect language, from all around the country. The Politburo can only govern with the Chinese people on its side. For the first time in a very long time, there is an extremely large groundswell of anti-government feeling. Second is the economy. Premier Li has been talking about dangers to the country's economy for months. Recently he organised a huge and unprecedented teleconference with 100,000 leaders around the country. It is believed this went right down to village level. Unusually he was incredibly frank by telling people that the government had very few reserves left to bail out industries. Most of these reserves had to be kept for emergencies. Once the little that remained was gone, industries were on their own. He could never have made such comments without approval from the very top of the Politburo. Third is Xi's crackdown over the last few years on the private sector added to his cosying up to Putin on the eve of the Ukraine invasion. Many at the top level of government are not at all happy about all this. The Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Russian Affairs was quietly removed from his post at the end of May. We don't know if that was an indication of the thinking higher up, but the level of rhetoric against the west re Ukraine in the state media has gradually been diminished.

Ha! No, I just worked in Japan for a few years and love the country. Those interested in Japanese host bars might like to see the website illustrations I included in a recent post I made in the Gay Asia forum.

Agree re strikes. But have there been any strikes in the UK which is the area I have mostly concentrated my replies? And I agree you cannot take people off the streets for what is skilled work. But you are assuming that due to a sudden surge, people with those skills have to be hired at virtually a moment's notice. And that is the entire point of crisis management. You don't do things at a moment's notice. You work to a plan which is prepared long beforehand and is adaptable according to circumstances. Looking at the low cost carriers, how is it that in May Ryanair was able to fly more flights than during the same period pre-covid, whereas during that same time period Easy Jet cancelled hundreds of flights, many just prior to scheduled departure times? Easy Jet was clearly totally unprepared. As an article in The Guardian points out, the French pilot's union sent a "withering letter" accusing airport managers at Luton where Easy Jet is headquartered of presiding over "unprecedented chaos - cancelling viable flights and waiting too long to scrap others." But Easy Jet maintains that it has no direct recruitment problems and it retains a similar level of standby crews as pre-covid! Eurocontrol, the main air traffic control centre, warned airlines a week ago that it did not have the capacity to handle the number of flights that are planning to operate over European airspace over the next six weeks. Why was this not a matter for discussions by a controlling crisis management committee several weeks ago? Clearly airlines are adding too many flights without a guarantee that they can operate. An industry where each separate company does its own thing in a time of extreme difficulty for a variety of reasons is bound to end up in chaos. Crisis management teams will still be vital as the year progresses, for there are some in the industry predicting yet another contraction as the year progresses. Earlier in the year Unite, the Union responsible for Easy Jet's ground handling, negotiated a 10% pay rise. With inflation hovering near 10% and household incomes suffering as a result, all allied to huge increases in the price of fuel, ticket prices will certainly rise with the result that passenger demand may drop off once again after the summer holiday period. Will a Christmas rush follow? Who knows? But an industry which is not prepared is bound to suffer.

I fully understand the reason for your comment and the facts behind it. But respectfully I am not sure you fully took on board my earlier comments. The reason for the present mess is basically down to one reason - the lack of effective crisis management and future planning. What you write is totally correct. But there were signs many months before airline traffic began to pick up that covid was being controlled through vaccinations. With intense pressure primarily (I expect) from the business community, it should have been as clear as day that curbs on travel would eventually be lifted in certain parts the world. Of course, no one had a crystal ball and the timing of that pick up was uncertain. But an essential part of crisis management is preparing a raft of scenarios for recovery from the crisis. I don't for a moment believe there was a crisis management committee made up of representatives from all involved in the airline industry, the international air controllers and governments working on a series of opening up plans and what would be required in each case to ensure it was all done in as orderly a fashion as possible. The ad hoc way it has all happened is illustrative of that. Airlines were desperate to get planes flying nd people moving. Who told Easy Jet that attempting to operate the schedule it advertised was madness and could not be done, given the problems facing airports, security and immigration? How is it that Ryanair has not faced similar problems on anything like that scale? What did Heathrow management do re contacting laid off workers at least to inform them that it might be rehiring relatively quickly? Of course, many laid off workers will have taken other jobs as they'd had families to support. But one issue the crisis management committee might have considered was re-signing bonuses. These would have had to be paid for. But what is better for the airport? More planes and more passengers resulting in much more revenue. Or the present mess with a lot less revenue? Simplistic? It will seem so to some. But having spoken to a friend I have known for 40 years and who worked his way up in the Cathay Pacific hierarchy to become a Board member for 6 years, he is scathing about how the industry recovery at least in Europe has been handled.

I am as sure as I can be that you are correct. We also need to remember that many diseases - minor as well as major - are jumping the species barrier. HIV is known to have crossed from a species of chimpanzee to humans in The Congo in the 1920s. SARS in 2003 is known to have crossed from the animal population in China's Guangdong Province to humans. Although the first known cases were discovered in Hong Kong, it is known that a visitor from Guangdong had brought the virus from China where there may well have been earlier cases which the local medical community could not diagnose. MERS in 2015 was another. Now we have covid, another crossover. Part of the problem is that in some parts of the world humans live in very close contacts with animals - sometimes with animals at ground level and humans living above. The emergence of SARS amazed the medical community. Previous coronavirus infections were generally mild with a long incubation period. SARS was an illustration of what veterinary scientists had been suggesting for some time: that there was the potential for these viruses to kill animals and even humans in close proximity to them. What is perhaps surprising is that the incubation period for SARS averaged only 6.4 days and death in untreated patients followed relatively quickly, much faster than with most Covid cases. The only certainty is that more similar but still unknown viruses will appear.

Agreed. But you clearly know precious little about the Chinese authorities when its President has decreed a zero covid policy. Anyone who breaks the rules re covid stands to lose more than his/her job!

You obviously may do as you wish - as do I. My information is not third hand. It was information directly over the phone from a man I have known and trusted for almost 30 years. I know who I believe. You have also merely repeated what i stated - that there are Chinese students in Bangkok, as indeed there are some Chinese workers.

With all respect to @vinapu I somehow doubt how accurate your off was, unless he already studied or worked here. Chinese is a term that covers those who live in China and the vast majority that make up the huge Chinese diaspora. Did he ask if they were Chinese from China? Did he ask if perhaps they were Chinese living in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco . . . Was his English good enough to know if they did not tell him? China has been very strict re outbound travel since a directive issued on 27 January 2020. That directive was reiterated on 30 March 2022. Further, since 6 August 2021, China has ceased issuing and renewing passports other than for those studying or working overseas. Essential outbound travel is permitted provided the authorities are satisfied on the "essential" elements. All other outbound travel is banned. One of my good friends and his partner live in Shanghai. One is American who has lived in the city with his Chinese partner for almost 30 years. The Chinese is a successful businessman running several companies. Yet even he has been unable to satisfy the authorities that the business trips overseas he used to make fall into the "essential" category. So he cannot travel outside the country.

Yes, i agree my earlier comments are perhaps overly critical. I realise, too, that both airlines and airports depend on quite a variety of independent contractors over which they have little direct control. But I still feel that the industry as a whole, while very quick to downsize as the pandemic started to hit, did not do nearly enough to form a task force to work out a whole series of scenarios dealing with how it would get back on its feet depending on how covid progressed and was eventually going to come to an end. There is an article in today's Observer newspaper in London about the chaos in London's airports and many in Europe. It points out that British Airways was quick to cancel about 10% of its schedule back in April to last until October so that it would avoid the worst of the chaos for its customers who made it to airports. Easy Jet, the continent's largest low cost carrier cut very few and is now left with a huge backlog and a vast number of angry passengers. Under UK and European regulations, many of these passengers are entitled to payments for delays and cancellations, leading to Easy Jet in particular trying to get out of such payments. On the other hand, the second very large UK-operated low cost carrier Ryanair has had to cancel no flights over this last month. Ryanair obviously had its crisis management team much more up to speed than other carriers. As worrying for the industry is the possibility of a major downturn in the autumn, partly as a result of general cost increases to make up for the losses of the last two years and especially oil price increases. The boss of Heathrow, one of the world's largest international airports, is quoted in the article as stating it could take 18 months to be fully staffed once again. 18 months? In my book, this man should be fired. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/11/with-six-weeks-to-save-summer-can-easyjet-climb-out-of-the-chaos

I totally disagree. When it comes to medical issues and an infection can be spread to others as easily as covid, individual rights do not take precedence over the right of a community to protection from those who might be infected. I am all for freedoms, but freedoms with responsibility. Too often the second part is totally forgotten! Earlier @reader wrote - "China claims it has vaccinated about 80% of population but did so with a near useless vaccine. The comparisons soon become meaningless." Am I missing something? Chinese are not permitted to travel outside the country as far as I understand it.

So the Biden administration bows to the demand of the airline industry! With 33% of the US population still not fully vaccinated, this seems nuts! If someone wants to go to the USA, in most countries getting vaccinated is not that difficult.

Every company, especially those in the travel industry, has to have planning in place for disaster scenarios and individuals virtually on stand-by to head up a disaster team at a moment's notice. If ever the need for that was illustrated, the arrival of covid was it. Equally, though, over the last two years every company should have had a team working on various recovery scenarios. This would have been far from easy given the need for co-ordination with many divisions within a company as well as government liaison, but far from impossible. Had that been the case, I am pretty sure the new set of disasters presently experienced in the travel industry could have been in large part all but avoided.

It seems not to have been noticed by posters that earlier this week the Thai Cabinet gave its approval to a Same Sex Civil Partnership Bill. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2322310/same-sex-partnership-bill-gets-nod A Civil Partnership Bill has been discussed in Cabinet over the last 10 years and thing has happened. Clearly there will be lots of hurdles before the Bill can become law. This is especially true given Thai society's conservatism. As Nikkei Asia points out, on the day of the Cabinet decision https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/Thailand-s-historic-LGBT-bill-exposes-rifts-inside-community The Nikkei article adds there is a "strong rift" between certain groups within the LGBT community.