Bravo Linh. Thanks for the mention. I'm happy the article about Canadians doesn't touch on Canada, except for the reference to the weather. Happy Lunar New Year and we'll catch up soon.
P.S. And Ottawa, too. Arriving there, I immediately thought, "These people are healthy looking, and beautiful!" Of course, I was coming from lovely Philadelphia.
P.P.S. America's first real poet, and still her best, by far, made only one trip outside the country. His exuberance about life, and the world in general, could only have been boosted by that visit to Toronto.
Despite it being one of the world's most liveable cities, Vancouver has a really nasty area where the drug use and homelessness can rival anywhere. Perhaps most liveable for a certain class of citizen and my family does well there, but as some Japanese man said once: the bigger the front, the bigger the back.
Matthew I am contemplating a final trip to Canada - was it that bad? This would make it my third final trip and am being held up by a beautiful summer in southern Australia and by the fact that Canada now insists that as a dual citizen of Australia and Canada I must obtain a Canadian passport to travel there, despite having travelled as an Australian for 25 years. I would renounce my citizenship but that is more trouble than getting a passport. I am a bit hesitant of some further turn of the screw wherein I am unable to leave Canada to return to the land of Oz due to further unfolding nightmares down the track targeting the unvaccinated.
It seems wise not to do anything that would further acknowledge another country's authority over your actions and movements, if that country has a track record of going to the extremes that Canada has since Covid started. Of course, if you are living in Australia, you are obviously no stranger to that.
Well Bill, living where i do (beautiful country area) and with a terribly sick man who had to be protected from any sort of infection i might bring home, i was not very inconvenienced by all the rules although it hit others in different situations hard. I merely want to visit an elderly aunt in Vancouver but sincerely do not wish to spend much time in Trudeau country. Especially not talking politics or medical matters as family are generally diametrically opposed.
Speaking of survivors, I have found that I fit quite neatly into your own category (i.e., I have not been presented with many of what can be life’s most difficult challenges). Many things in my life did seem so at the time, but having had time to take a better look around at humanity, I have slowly come to realize just how very much worse it could have been. Rather than feeling any schadenfreude, I find it humbling, because I can no longer indulge in the belief that my own relatively good fortune can be simply explained as the result of making better life choices than those whose outcomes fell short of my own.
Early this morning I read in “Taipei Times” about two Taiwanese YouTubers who just got sentenced to two years in jail for making and live-streaming a fake video in Cambodia that the government felt reflected badly on the country. This morning when I had my weekly phone call with my wife’s Taiwanese nephew (living in Japan), I mentioned it, and he had already heard about it. Then later in the day I talked to my wife, currently in Taipei, and she said it is all over the news there. One of my thoughts was to wonder what you thought about it, since the picture you paint of Cambodia is a pretty mellow one. These two guys are idiots looking for views, sure, but two years in a Cambodian jail won’t be easy to take.
As an aside, I certainly don't consider that "the people" of a country necessarily share all the sentiments, features, and behaviors of their government. Governments too often do things that many or even most of their individual citizens aren't down for at all.
I hope those guys who went to jail for two years for posting a Youtube video that allegedly reflected badly on the country got a half-way good lawyer and appealed their case . In the U.S. such an infraction would be considered unconstitutionally "void for vagueness" on the one hand and a violation of free speech on the other. "Slippery slope" laws that lock up people for two long years for simply speaking their mind without harming anyone are the beginning of throwing people in confinement based on the flimsiest pretext. Highly dangerous and the beginning of fascistic authoritarianism.
I basically agree, but we're not talking about posting a wayward political opinion in this case. These guys created and live-streamed some fake video. It was pretty dumb of them to do it, but the sentence still struck me as pretty harsh. I think that at worst, a big fine and deportation would have been a typical response.
In my current living arrangement, to save myself the trouble of schleping to the bathroom late at night, I keep an empty whiskey bottle at one end of the room to empty my bladder in late at night; and at the other end of the room is an actual whiskey bottle filled with the intended product. Late one night, unable to sleep, beset by my usual insomnia, I confused the two bottles and had a drink of rather odd tasting whiskey before realizing the mistake I had made.
Perhaps I am wrong but I can't imagine urine is in any way good for you. After all it is a waste product of the body. Unless one is Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove"and you are interested in preserving "our precious bodily fluids..." which I am not.
I made the same mistake more than once in my drinking days. Piss and cigarette ashes one morning in what I thought was a full beer. Not the most elegant of memories.
I'd finish convoys with the spot behind the turret filled with water bottles full of urine. I'm a generally fastidious person, so they'd get carted to the dumpster on arrival. Truckers worldwide know that score. I'm chuckling Tom.
I thought so too, but reading the rationale for it years ago when friends recommended it, it does not seem quite so loopy. However, whether recycling your urine is advised when it contains a hefty dose of either whiskey or spike proteins is another matter.
Although I'm no expert, now that I think about it, a small dose of urine might have some beneficial effect kind of like homeopathic medicine in which a small dose of an otherwise harmful substance supposedly stimulates the body in some positive way.
In fact one can argue that ethyl alcohol is such a substance. It is indisputably a poison, but used in moderation it has some healthful, beneficial affects as a relaxant and a soporific.
What a great story about the legless Vietnamese Army soldier who was given $300 to start a small business. And it sounds like the legless guy wasn't even expected to repay the money. Stories like that truly restore my faith in human nature when I am too inclined to cynicism.
Having said that -- that I'm cynical often -- I've never been one to take pleasure in other people's misfortune; I've known enough of my own to want to wish such on other people. Having said that I too, like Mr. Dinh, have never suffered the worst of the worst. Just the bad. Which is about all I can take.
In any event, another great, engaging essay by Mr. Dinh. One of Mr. Dinh's gifts is to help people (his readers) see what they otherwise would not have seen or would have overlooked.
Glad you are home and hopefully healing. I just received my orders of Postcards from the End of America and Blue Threads to the Soul and am thoroughly enjoying both books. Good value for money too! Lots of stories, lots of poems. Reminds me of why I am supporting you while dodging comments I do not agree with. Please continue carrying on regardless.
Yes, I watched Superbowl 2021 at Betty Boop's in VT, then a popular Canuk joint playing ice hocky and Canadian pro ball (around the corner from Belly's). They specially aired the entire spectacle and there was a gaggle of Americans and a few Canadians to watch the kickoff at 6:30 am VN time. We waited until halftime to crack open the beers, then it was a free for all watching Brady doing his last magic over Mahomes. Lunch was a bit of a blur to be honest, but somehow made it back to the nest in one piece. Yeah, I miss VT, although I was stuck there for 1 year during the lockdowns in 2020. My best to all to know her and live there still.
Bravo Linh. Thanks for the mention. I'm happy the article about Canadians doesn't touch on Canada, except for the reference to the weather. Happy Lunar New Year and we'll catch up soon.
Hi Matthew,
Your prime minister rivals Biden... Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were magnificent.
Linh
P.S. And Ottawa, too. Arriving there, I immediately thought, "These people are healthy looking, and beautiful!" Of course, I was coming from lovely Philadelphia.
P.P.S. America's first real poet, and still her best, by far, made only one trip outside the country. His exuberance about life, and the world in general, could only have been boosted by that visit to Toronto.
Hi Linh,
Would that be Walt Whitman? Just a guess.
Hi Tom,
Yes, he's not just America's pyramid, but defined and challenged it.
Linh
Despite it being one of the world's most liveable cities, Vancouver has a really nasty area where the drug use and homelessness can rival anywhere. Perhaps most liveable for a certain class of citizen and my family does well there, but as some Japanese man said once: the bigger the front, the bigger the back.
Matthew I am contemplating a final trip to Canada - was it that bad? This would make it my third final trip and am being held up by a beautiful summer in southern Australia and by the fact that Canada now insists that as a dual citizen of Australia and Canada I must obtain a Canadian passport to travel there, despite having travelled as an Australian for 25 years. I would renounce my citizenship but that is more trouble than getting a passport. I am a bit hesitant of some further turn of the screw wherein I am unable to leave Canada to return to the land of Oz due to further unfolding nightmares down the track targeting the unvaccinated.
I do see a waiver for the home country passport on the canada govt website. Never done it. But the passport is so expensive I feel like you do too.
I will look into that, thanks Andrew.
It seems wise not to do anything that would further acknowledge another country's authority over your actions and movements, if that country has a track record of going to the extremes that Canada has since Covid started. Of course, if you are living in Australia, you are obviously no stranger to that.
Well Bill, living where i do (beautiful country area) and with a terribly sick man who had to be protected from any sort of infection i might bring home, i was not very inconvenienced by all the rules although it hit others in different situations hard. I merely want to visit an elderly aunt in Vancouver but sincerely do not wish to spend much time in Trudeau country. Especially not talking politics or medical matters as family are generally diametrically opposed.
Speaking of survivors, I have found that I fit quite neatly into your own category (i.e., I have not been presented with many of what can be life’s most difficult challenges). Many things in my life did seem so at the time, but having had time to take a better look around at humanity, I have slowly come to realize just how very much worse it could have been. Rather than feeling any schadenfreude, I find it humbling, because I can no longer indulge in the belief that my own relatively good fortune can be simply explained as the result of making better life choices than those whose outcomes fell short of my own.
Early this morning I read in “Taipei Times” about two Taiwanese YouTubers who just got sentenced to two years in jail for making and live-streaming a fake video in Cambodia that the government felt reflected badly on the country. This morning when I had my weekly phone call with my wife’s Taiwanese nephew (living in Japan), I mentioned it, and he had already heard about it. Then later in the day I talked to my wife, currently in Taipei, and she said it is all over the news there. One of my thoughts was to wonder what you thought about it, since the picture you paint of Cambodia is a pretty mellow one. These two guys are idiots looking for views, sure, but two years in a Cambodian jail won’t be easy to take.
Hi JustPlainBill,
I'll look up these two guys. As for Cambodia, I love the country and Cambodians.
Linh
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2024/02/17/2003813673
As an aside, I certainly don't consider that "the people" of a country necessarily share all the sentiments, features, and behaviors of their government. Governments too often do things that many or even most of their individual citizens aren't down for at all.
I hope those guys who went to jail for two years for posting a Youtube video that allegedly reflected badly on the country got a half-way good lawyer and appealed their case . In the U.S. such an infraction would be considered unconstitutionally "void for vagueness" on the one hand and a violation of free speech on the other. "Slippery slope" laws that lock up people for two long years for simply speaking their mind without harming anyone are the beginning of throwing people in confinement based on the flimsiest pretext. Highly dangerous and the beginning of fascistic authoritarianism.
I basically agree, but we're not talking about posting a wayward political opinion in this case. These guys created and live-streamed some fake video. It was pretty dumb of them to do it, but the sentence still struck me as pretty harsh. I think that at worst, a big fine and deportation would have been a typical response.
In my current living arrangement, to save myself the trouble of schleping to the bathroom late at night, I keep an empty whiskey bottle at one end of the room to empty my bladder in late at night; and at the other end of the room is an actual whiskey bottle filled with the intended product. Late one night, unable to sleep, beset by my usual insomnia, I confused the two bottles and had a drink of rather odd tasting whiskey before realizing the mistake I had made.
Perhaps I am wrong but I can't imagine urine is in any way good for you. After all it is a waste product of the body. Unless one is Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove"and you are interested in preserving "our precious bodily fluids..." which I am not.
Hail to the ubiquitous piss bottle!
I made the same mistake more than once in my drinking days. Piss and cigarette ashes one morning in what I thought was a full beer. Not the most elegant of memories.
I'd finish convoys with the spot behind the turret filled with water bottles full of urine. I'm a generally fastidious person, so they'd get carted to the dumpster on arrival. Truckers worldwide know that score. I'm chuckling Tom.
I thought so too, but reading the rationale for it years ago when friends recommended it, it does not seem quite so loopy. However, whether recycling your urine is advised when it contains a hefty dose of either whiskey or spike proteins is another matter.
Although I'm no expert, now that I think about it, a small dose of urine might have some beneficial effect kind of like homeopathic medicine in which a small dose of an otherwise harmful substance supposedly stimulates the body in some positive way.
In fact one can argue that ethyl alcohol is such a substance. It is indisputably a poison, but used in moderation it has some healthful, beneficial affects as a relaxant and a soporific.
What a great story about the legless Vietnamese Army soldier who was given $300 to start a small business. And it sounds like the legless guy wasn't even expected to repay the money. Stories like that truly restore my faith in human nature when I am too inclined to cynicism.
Having said that -- that I'm cynical often -- I've never been one to take pleasure in other people's misfortune; I've known enough of my own to want to wish such on other people. Having said that I too, like Mr. Dinh, have never suffered the worst of the worst. Just the bad. Which is about all I can take.
In any event, another great, engaging essay by Mr. Dinh. One of Mr. Dinh's gifts is to help people (his readers) see what they otherwise would not have seen or would have overlooked.
Glad you are home and hopefully healing. I just received my orders of Postcards from the End of America and Blue Threads to the Soul and am thoroughly enjoying both books. Good value for money too! Lots of stories, lots of poems. Reminds me of why I am supporting you while dodging comments I do not agree with. Please continue carrying on regardless.
Yes, I watched Superbowl 2021 at Betty Boop's in VT, then a popular Canuk joint playing ice hocky and Canadian pro ball (around the corner from Belly's). They specially aired the entire spectacle and there was a gaggle of Americans and a few Canadians to watch the kickoff at 6:30 am VN time. We waited until halftime to crack open the beers, then it was a free for all watching Brady doing his last magic over Mahomes. Lunch was a bit of a blur to be honest, but somehow made it back to the nest in one piece. Yeah, I miss VT, although I was stuck there for 1 year during the lockdowns in 2020. My best to all to know her and live there still.