faranglaw

“And the friendliest red.” LOL

My new favorite! Yuto is so Cuto! 😁

Yes a very sweet and funny Karenyi massage young man I went to a few times, in the On Nut area, has disappeared from LINE. No more sweet emoticons from him. He is the youngest of five in his family, and I worry for his safety.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/myanmar-could-become-covid-super-spreader-state-says-un-expert

I love the main character, so cute and weepy!

A Thai friend of mine’s dismissive comment on sauna mania: “Office girls!”

This is a good story and thank you for sharing it. One factor to consider is that one or both of these men may have been suffering from dementia, undiagnosed as they seem to have been rather socially isolated. Or perhaps one of them had undiagnosed mental illness such as bipolar disease, one of the symptoms of which is recklessness with money. Perhaps the other man didn’t know how, or didn’t have the strength, to handle his friend’s increasingly poor decisions. I wonder about this especially because of the sudden loss of income, which suggests they may have fallen for scammers who prey on vulnerable older people. Likely we will never know, but before judging too harshly, we might want to consider these or other possibilities. All of which suggests that the best investment we can make in old age is not financial; it is social. I think of my miracle 98 year old mother still living independently in Massachusetts, USA. Her sons are loving and supportive but not nearby. She couldn’t manage without the support of neighbors and friends she cultivated over the years. Not to mention her cat and her garden. So everyone make sure you have people around who care about you and keep an active mind. You will need them both when the inevitable decline comes.

The First World needs to do much more as the virus does not recognize boundaries. But it’s good to see the Biden administration stepping up. Part of the reason is that there is a glut of vaccines in the US now; they can’t give them away, and some states are actually offering lottery prizes to get people to vaccinate. About one third of US citizens are “vaccine hesitant,” which is a rather nice way of putting it.

I think my 98 year old mother in Massachusetts has still not received the Mother’s Day card I sent four weeks ago (from Canada). As she put it so well, “The mail here used to be pretty good until somebody decided to fix it.”

I have so many fond memories of Babylon. I have gone there almost every year since 1990, when it was in the old place down the street with all the tropical plants on the roof. Too many fond memories to count. It wasn’t until I was over 65 that my luck with the younger Asian men started to run out. And that was less because of my age and more because the clientele changed—more farang, more Asian men from other countries—Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea- looking for other Asian men. Oh well, as George Harrison sang, “All things must pass.” (including George Harrison)

Yes, but what if they live in a Red State?

Iceland??

Why would anyone pay for the Extra? I’m genuinely curious.

We are so far behind here in Canada. A previous government outsourced all our vaccine production so we have had to make deals outside the country. So I’m here in Vancouver, born in 1950 and currently the province is only making appointments for people born 1949 and before. Oh well. Mostly staying home and hoping to get the first shot by the end of the month.

As to the “any luck if you are older” question, Dear Husband and I went to visit an old friend in Tainan, on the southwest coast of Taiwan. At age 70, I dropped a note into Grindr and Hornet to the effect that Daddy is in town. With no effort on my part, I got a total of 27 responses from young and middle aged men, not one of which asked for money. Since I was with DH and friends for only four days, I couldn’t escape much, but I did manage to get together with a perfect twinkiest of twinks, the usual—small, slim, smooth, smiling. So I would strongly recommend Tainan or one of the smaller cities in Taiwan. There are very few foreign tourists and loads of Taiwanese guys looking for fun. DH gave me permission to go on my own when there’s a chance. Of course, Taiwan is completely closed to tourism at the moment, so all of this will have to wait. And damn, my biological clock is ticking!

Dear Husband and I are hoping to be in Thailand for three months starting at the end of November. I was disappointed to read that the Thai government will still require quarantine at that time, as an earlier report had suggested they would end the requirement on July 1st. I’m interested in reading about others’ experience with quarantine in Bangkok. Although I share everyone’s frustration with the restrictions in both Thailand our home countries, I note that the countries that have done the best in managing COVID were the ones that locked down early and locked down hard. New Zealand, Taiwan, and, yes, Thailand come to mind. There is also a bubble in Canada; the Atlantic provinces have kept their citizens inside a four province bubble and kept others out. They have very few cases, near zero. In early February, Canada instituted a three day $2,000+ hotel quarantine, when the Prime Minister got mad at Canadian snowbirds for traveling, so a bunch of us rushed back from wherever (DH and I were in Puerto Vallarta) before the hotel foolishness started. Other than a pelican hitting our plane and taking out one of the engines, we got back OK despite some anxiety. DH thought the row of Canadian Customs agents at YVR was hot. I just wanted to get the fuck home, which we did, and quarantined happily there for the required two weeks. If that hotel quarantine is still in place, we won’t be going to Thailand this year either. But I think enough of us will have been vaccinated by then that restriction will be lifted.

This might be of interest. The US used to have a good process that mandated alternative points of view on controversial issues. It died during the Reagan administration. A serious error in my view. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fairness-Doctrine

The US used to have

For those who want to dive deeper into this rabbit hole, I have two recommendations: 1. Google Heather Cox Richardson. She is an American History professor who offers two one hour lectures weekly. One on current politics and how it has evolved from the America past, and a second lecture that explores a particular theme in US history, usually focused on the 19th Century, her specialty. Who knew, for example, that, in 1892, having lost his reelection bid, Republican President Benjamin Harrison proceeded to do everything he could to wreck the economy so his successor, Grover Cleveland, would be blamed. And it worked! The Democrats didn’t win another election for twenty years. (I warned you: rabbit hole) 2. Podcast: The New Abnormal, with Rick Wilson and Molly Jong-Fast. Fun profane banter about current politics by a Lincoln Project formerly highest level Republican operative now working for the Democrats, and a New York City left wing pundit. Lots of fun gossip about the Trump family crime syndicate, and interviews with interesting guests.

The purpose of this false accusation, that The Democrats have stolen the election, is not to overturn the results of this election. The idea is to establish a “stab in the back” theory, so that the next Fascist oriented politician, who will be smarter than DJT (Cotton, Cruz, Tucker Carlson), can use the conspiracy theory to win next time, or the time after that. They can then further unravel the democratic fabric and (re-)establish the (mostly White and very rich) oligarchy they think should run everything. Biden will have to be very strong to avoid leading an American Weimar Republic. I think he has been wildly underestimated and I have some hope he can pull it off. But there are, as we have seen, an enormous number of people who will believe this particular conspiracy theory, and, thanks to the NRA and the cowardly Republican Party, many of them have firearms. And of course they also have their very own sources of alternative reality news. Fox not crazy enough for ya? Welcome to Qanon, Newsmax, Parler. Not a great recipe for the future of my country of birth. Lucky me, having moved to Canada. But for the majority of my friends back home, American and world history does not provide much comfort just now.

The audience is young Thai girls. They like clean, gentle, rich boys. But I’m with you; I’d like to see a little more Isan poor boy action.

Schadenfreude: So unseeemly, so immature, so lacking in compassion. And so irresistible.