I just heard some thing that I find so disturbing that I am compelled to blog about it and do what I can to lend my voice of dissent.  The following commentary sounds eerily familiar to comments and movements made that once ushered in an era of hysteria that enveloped the nation for the greater part of a decade. During the early years of the Cold War senator Joseph McCarthy created a nationwide paranoia by ranting on about a greatly inflated threat of communist infiltration into our society and government.  The nation does not need another time like that.  With potentially invasive mechanisms in place like the Patriot Act, and with representatives like Michelle Bachmann exhuming McCarthyism, we cannot let this kind of mentality to foster. 

Please, please watch the following video and make your own choice of whether or not you believe Michelle Bachmann should be censured for her comments.

http://www.censurebachmann.com/

If you want to go the next step you can donate to Bachmann's opponent in her closely contested re-election bid here.  

I just heard that her opponent Elwyn Tinklenberg was given 30K in less than 24hrs after Bachmann's statements, so that is encouraging! 

When you are done with that, you'll need a laugh.  Check out these political ads:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/lists/five-insane-local-political-ads-video

In her comment to my last post Sarah was kind enough to share her debating strategy.  I'll pass it on to ya!

Well, some neat things have happened over the past while. 

Chainat early morning market

Matayom students looking at some pics on my computer

We had an educational camp and in my return to this school in prep for a second camp, some graduates wanted to see some pics. 

The gift of knowledge

Mother of pearl - Toes 2

Mother of pearl - Toes 3

A gaggle of volunteers going to temple

Wat Pra Gaew recently

My printer in Bangkok

Dinner with ABAC

Teachers, students and deans of nursing at a big name university after a Friday night meeting about best practice and how to improve the training and HIV/AIDS awareness camps we are running...

View from a Thai home on central Chao Praya river

Really

And through all the whirlwind of life, and just when Thailand feels kinda normal in its business, I come home for the evening and get slapped in the face with culture...

Are these yours...

Yep, there is Pi Paan, Pi Apawn, their daughter nong Gwang, and the funny sly guy who speaks a bit of English, sitting at the table outside of the apartment complex.  That is normal.  What is abnormal about this night was when I returned my laundry basket was on the table.  You see, Pi Pawn is caretaker of the complex, her husband is a security guard there... I pay her about 15 bucks a month to do my laundry.  But anyway, what is my basket doing there?  Oh, they were wondering which of the cleaned pieces of underware was not mine.  She knew I had submitted 4, but now there were five.  So everyone had a good look at the items and discussed it and came up with the right answer.  This likely would not occur back home, but here these kinds of things are fair game.  Like many experinces I have here, they come across very odd and slightly uncofortable at first, then endearing.  

Awhile back I had a spoof post about our friend Paul and Brian.  While Brian is still reportedly a crabber in the Potomac river basin, Paul is actually NOT an insect harvester.  What he is supporting and doing is much more inspirational.  Read below, in this article from US News and World Report.  Found at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FARM_SCENE_AFGHAN_POTATOES?SITE=DCUSN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Spud farmer returns to roots to help Afghans

To help poor Afghani villagers make money on potatoes instead of opium poppies, Idaho farmer Pat Rowe used a little old technology: root cellars.

The 68-year-old Rowe, whose family raises tubers and wheat on 2,000 acres near American Falls, went to the Central Asian country with a root cellar design common across his home state's famous potato country in the 1930s and 1940s.

As part of his work in Bamiyan, located about 100 miles west of Kabul, Rowe said it was important that his potato sheds not be too sophisticated. They had to be built with materials readily available in the impoverished valley between the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba mountains with only dirt roads, a gravel runway, scant trees and almost no electricity.

Before leaving, he took notes from neighbors on Idaho's Snake River plain who had an old root cellar on their property.

"You look at what people are using and see what they are doing," Rowe said Monday, of his trip. "You don't want to be a crazy foreigner with all these ideas. You've got to be practical with the application."

Rowe went to Afghanistan as part of a $6.4 million U.S. Department of Agriculture program meant to fill gaps in Afghanistan's food supply chain and develop agriculture to compete with the forbidden poppies that fuel the country's heroin trade.

Rowe's work in January 2006 won mention earlier this month by first lady Laura Bush. She brought up Rowe's root cellars in a speech in France on June 12.

"Afghan potato farmers in Bamiyan have learned storage methods from an Idaho potato farmer that are making their crops more profitable," said Bush, who had made an unannounced trip to Bamiyan four days earlier.

Paul Sippola, a program officer for the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit development outfit CNFA, which ran the Department of Agriculture aid program, said Rowe's retro cellar design was used in about 50 potato storage sheds in Afghanistan.

It's now being replicated with a few modifications to suit local needs in Pakistan's Kashmir region, where seed potato farmers' livelihoods were devastated by the 2005 earthquake, Sippola said.

"It's essentially the same one that Pat developed," he said in a phone interview. "Pat's work, which started in Afghanistan, has really grown. It's fed over into some of our other programs because the success of it has been really pronounced."

Rowe is a veteran of nearly 30 U.S. government-sponsored trips to developing countries including Egypt, China and Zimbabwe to help promote new agricultural techniques.

Farmers in Bamiyan, an ancient village on the Silk Road that spent 1,500 years in the shadow of two huge Buddha statues before they were dynamited by the Taliban in 2001, had no efficient way to store potatoes following their harvest, leading to drastic food-price increases and shortages.

"When the harvest is on, there's a glut," Rowe said. "If you had enough of those sheds built, it would make more food available to people at a reasonable price."

Afghanistan has seen a spiraling heroin trade and resurgent violence, even as the U.S. and NATO have poured more thousands of new troops into the country. Last year, more than 8,000 people were killed in insurgency-related attacks and violence has claimed more than 1,500 lives this year.

Winning a mention from Laura Bush is a sign that his root cellars accomplished what he'd intended.

"Just the fact that somebody in Bamiyan remembered," he said. "Something went on good there. The people are good people. The folks I worked with, I'd swim the Snake River for them."

___

On the Net:

CNFA: http://www.cnfa.org [http://www.cnfa.org]

This November 2006 photo provided by CNFA shows one of about 50 root cellars built in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, according to a design by Idaho potato farmer Pat Rowe. Rowe, a veteran of nearly 30 U.S. government supported agricultural development missions, used root cellars common in Idaho's famous potato country in the 1930s and 1940s as a model to help Afghan farmers develop more storage capacity for their own tubers. Rowe was mentioned in a June 12 speech by Laura Bush in Paris for his work helping farmers in Afghanistan grow legitimate crops, not illicit opium poppies. (AP Photo)

In this February 2005 photo provided by CNFA, Idaho potato farmer Pat Rowe poses with several farmers in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Rowe, a veteran of nearly 30 U.S. government supported agricultural development missions, used designs for root cellars common in Idaho's famous potato country in the 1930s and 1940s to help Afghan farmers develop more storage capacity for their own tubers. (AP Photo/CNFA)

Hello!

Been meaning to post for awhile, but have not really had a chance and when I have I have not had a good enough connection to upload pics.  I am in Bangkok for the next 10 days or so, which is a nice break from rural Singburi. 

A couple of brief notes:

I am very happy Obama is the candidate.  I may be even happier that the whole primary process is over.  Even way over here it is nausiating. 

And I am intrigued by the recent news flash: Bush Whitehouse has been "misleading".  Wow.  Shocker.  In every sense of the word for eight years.

I really miss cheeze.  I have not had any dreams about it yet, but I fsuspect the subject seeping into my subconscious. 

I also could handle a picnic by a lakeside somewhere, prior to the skeeters' arrival.  Then some fishing. 

Very glad the KG-led Celtics won game one of the NBA finals.  Plan on watching game two monday morning. 

Wish I could hang with family and friends back home for a couple weeks.  That sounds really nice. And we could eat some real cheeze, perhaps cheeze placed on a pizza.  That would be ideal, in fact. 

Off to do a training in preparation for another training, Not Jedi training, just training for educational purposes with work.  Jedi training is reserved for the evenings and weekends. 

I will post a real blog sometime next week, and dream of cheeze in the interim. 

Yep.  This guy is 33 today (or maybe tomorrow in the States).  Met him when he was a wee lad of 6.  Now look at im.  From velcro shoes to a hi-tech, mountain climbing goofball.  Keep on keepin on, Matty! 

Walk like a beach bum

Ecaudor-cabin-san fran 809

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