[Vung Tau, 3/18/24] For several days, I couldn’t get out before six, but today, I was refreshed enough to have my first cup of coffee just after 5AM, at the cafe on General Uprising. Claiming my usual table, front, center and looking out, I was promptly served without ordering. Most of the other patrons were outside on the sidewalk. I recognized nearly all. Past 50, they were going on about high blood pressure and, with much amusement, cosmetic surgery.
Speaking of safe NYC, National Guard troops are now deployed in its subways. After complaints about their M4 assault weapons, the governor has ordered these big boys to retract their big sticks. Perhaps the presence of soldiers will prevent citizens from being pushed onto the path of trains, beaten, stabbed or shot. Only alarmists think there's anything unusual in NYC.
A guy named Metal Leo does regular videos on You Tube of all the closed stores in San Francisco. That was a wonderful city when I was young, but it had strong ethnic elements and vibrant neighborhoods. The stores were places that sold things that people needed. In the last 20 plus years, the city filled up with boomtown like silicon valley interests. Now Mark Zuckerberg, the primary thief of the 2020 election, is preparing to flee San Francisco for a hole in the ground that he is excavating in Hawaii. A perfect metaphor , I suppose, for the boomtown thuggery that has decimated the U.S.
After my father "kicked the bucket" (that's slang lingo for an ignominious death; another term is "to die like a dog") my mother became a desperate lottery ticket player. I tried to tell her that the odds of winning the lottery big were somewhat worse than being struck by lightning. Nevertheless, for every 20 or 30 dollars she spent she would win a couple of dollars which kept her hopeful which is exactly how the state sanctioned con is supposed to work.
Some call the lottery a "tax on stupidity and the stupid poor." I didn't say that, that's just what I heard...
"Putin will attack in two years!"-some German headline today.Waiting for Green party rallies with"Welcome,thermo-nuclear warheads!""Please kill me,I`m white!",placards.
The Lewis Mumford quote reminded me of all of the rotten woodwork, crumbling brick and rusty chain link fencing that I encounter on my walks. It was sturdy stuff and could have/would have/should have lasted generations with proper maintenance. Brownfields and ruins now. One was repurposed and planned as "Ignition Park" some years back and now houses the Catalyst 1 and Catalyst 2 modern Notre Dame supercomputer, so at least some big numbers are getting crunched as things grind down.
The rest of Ignition Park has failed to ignite and I'm able to catch some beautiful sunsets across it's expanse.
Thanks so much for taking me away for a few moments. Crazy as fuck here in the good ol usa. But, beautiful spring weather. Clear blue sky. Time to plant the garden. So good to hear from you!
"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars." Macron now says he's sending French troops to the Ukraine war. It makes no sense, except if the plan is to depopulate from young men, not just the Ukraine, but all of Europe. Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.
Thanks for alerting me to Petrarch - who I'd never heard of, despite him evidently forming an important part of European culture. One of this well travelled man's quotes was apparently "We look about us for what is to be found only within". How true. Happiness (and every other emotion of course) will only ever be found within.
Thank you for the excellent photographs, and for your details about Vietnam's language, and the nation's long history of warfare. It puts into perspective the ignominious American defeat there, after a decade of waging warfare so far away.
It hurts to think about the brutality and waste. Waste: American soldiers 'got wasted' on drugs in Vietnam, 'wasted' soldiers and civilians, sometimes in wanton massacres, and were wasted themselves, tens of thousands of them. That idiom has fallen out of common usage, but stays in the minds of those who heard such phrases so often in years gone by.
Reading about centuries of Vietnam's fighting against other nations makes me wonder how sanity in everyday life seems so normal where you are. Surely many Vietnamese are still traumatized. Many Americans from that era struggle with psychological trauma even though the violence was, for them, geographically speaking, so far away.
Some American war-related suffering is, of course, delusional and dishonest. Perhaps the worst manifestation is in the atrociously dishonest description of the WTC 2001 crime scene as 'ground zero,' a term formerly used exclusively to describe the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear war crimes.
Americans and others need more of the kind of writing you do. Stay safe and well, and please consider dropping 'jewjabbed.' In my opinion, that slur is wrongheaded, and unworthy of your talent.
Your writing works very well in the longer pieces in that book. It would be great if you wrote a longer piece really delving into Vung Tau since you feel so at home there
Any backstory to Biden's visit to Hanoi where he kissed the statue of >McCain in a parachute? After trampling into the bushes? How did that go down in Chinatown?
Hi everybody,
Speaking of safe NYC, National Guard troops are now deployed in its subways. After complaints about their M4 assault weapons, the governor has ordered these big boys to retract their big sticks. Perhaps the presence of soldiers will prevent citizens from being pushed onto the path of trains, beaten, stabbed or shot. Only alarmists think there's anything unusual in NYC.
Linh
A guy named Metal Leo does regular videos on You Tube of all the closed stores in San Francisco. That was a wonderful city when I was young, but it had strong ethnic elements and vibrant neighborhoods. The stores were places that sold things that people needed. In the last 20 plus years, the city filled up with boomtown like silicon valley interests. Now Mark Zuckerberg, the primary thief of the 2020 election, is preparing to flee San Francisco for a hole in the ground that he is excavating in Hawaii. A perfect metaphor , I suppose, for the boomtown thuggery that has decimated the U.S.
After my father "kicked the bucket" (that's slang lingo for an ignominious death; another term is "to die like a dog") my mother became a desperate lottery ticket player. I tried to tell her that the odds of winning the lottery big were somewhat worse than being struck by lightning. Nevertheless, for every 20 or 30 dollars she spent she would win a couple of dollars which kept her hopeful which is exactly how the state sanctioned con is supposed to work.
Some call the lottery a "tax on stupidity and the stupid poor." I didn't say that, that's just what I heard...
"Putin will attack in two years!"-some German headline today.Waiting for Green party rallies with"Welcome,thermo-nuclear warheads!""Please kill me,I`m white!",placards.
The Lewis Mumford quote reminded me of all of the rotten woodwork, crumbling brick and rusty chain link fencing that I encounter on my walks. It was sturdy stuff and could have/would have/should have lasted generations with proper maintenance. Brownfields and ruins now. One was repurposed and planned as "Ignition Park" some years back and now houses the Catalyst 1 and Catalyst 2 modern Notre Dame supercomputer, so at least some big numbers are getting crunched as things grind down.
The rest of Ignition Park has failed to ignite and I'm able to catch some beautiful sunsets across it's expanse.
Thanks so much for taking me away for a few moments. Crazy as fuck here in the good ol usa. But, beautiful spring weather. Clear blue sky. Time to plant the garden. So good to hear from you!
"And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars." Macron now says he's sending French troops to the Ukraine war. It makes no sense, except if the plan is to depopulate from young men, not just the Ukraine, but all of Europe. Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.
wonderful story about real people
Thanks for alerting me to Petrarch - who I'd never heard of, despite him evidently forming an important part of European culture. One of this well travelled man's quotes was apparently "We look about us for what is to be found only within". How true. Happiness (and every other emotion of course) will only ever be found within.
Thank you for the excellent photographs, and for your details about Vietnam's language, and the nation's long history of warfare. It puts into perspective the ignominious American defeat there, after a decade of waging warfare so far away.
It hurts to think about the brutality and waste. Waste: American soldiers 'got wasted' on drugs in Vietnam, 'wasted' soldiers and civilians, sometimes in wanton massacres, and were wasted themselves, tens of thousands of them. That idiom has fallen out of common usage, but stays in the minds of those who heard such phrases so often in years gone by.
Reading about centuries of Vietnam's fighting against other nations makes me wonder how sanity in everyday life seems so normal where you are. Surely many Vietnamese are still traumatized. Many Americans from that era struggle with psychological trauma even though the violence was, for them, geographically speaking, so far away.
Some American war-related suffering is, of course, delusional and dishonest. Perhaps the worst manifestation is in the atrociously dishonest description of the WTC 2001 crime scene as 'ground zero,' a term formerly used exclusively to describe the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear war crimes.
Americans and others need more of the kind of writing you do. Stay safe and well, and please consider dropping 'jewjabbed.' In my opinion, that slur is wrongheaded, and unworthy of your talent.
Just reading Shrinking Oases for Useless Eaters.
Your writing works very well in the longer pieces in that book. It would be great if you wrote a longer piece really delving into Vung Tau since you feel so at home there
I saw that hunched over lottery ticket vendor in VT quite a few times last month. Certainly puts things in perspective.
By way Linh, Tom has moved from Preixan and now lives in Spain.
,
Any backstory to Biden's visit to Hanoi where he kissed the statue of >McCain in a parachute? After trampling into the bushes? How did that go down in Chinatown?