Gloaming of the Mind

DWF

2011-10-04T23:26:00.000-07:00

Now WTF is DWF supposed to mean? Is it callous or maybe frantic? Is it from here or justly kosher? Is it serrriously dapper or mostly knackered? If it's internet speak I give you the right to quit reading this crappy post right now.
Oh, yet I assure you, my dears, it is entirely innocent. And merely merrily refers to the concept of Driving While Foreign. Yes, there you have it! Innocent, funny, entertaining even. But always rife with strife.
"If you can drive in this one street in Hyderabad, you can drive anywhere" said, yes blazing, mouth set a-laughing in that sparkling way that makes you think you would enjoy being chewed up and swallowed whole by that magnificent force of life. Of course no man can take such a sentence in blind faith, unless having been to said street in Hyderabad, whence it wouldn't really be blind faith anymore. But then I do, because I take it all like disciples would.
Be that Hyderabadian street of death what it may, I do have one DWF question for all you good folks out there: Why is it that Americans, with their inborn sense of individuality, with their instilled by their mother's formula need for competition and placement, with their inconsequential understanding of community and sharing can not accept that some people drive faster than others? And why is it that all those lilly-livered, bleeding-heart democrats on the verge to socialism pinkos in the EU are perfectly happy with getting out of the way of every crazed AMG (god help me, its another Acronym Barf) driver about to break the sound barrier?
Why do Americans with their hatred of public, shared transportation enforce exactly its rigidity on the drivers of their freeways? While in the EU, where supposedly nobody is even free to take a piss without the government sayso, everyone is happy to just let everyone else go as fast as they please. The Americans could all sit in buses for all the difference their driving makes while the Europeans really need to get rid of their trams. They obviously need to be overtaking each other constantly.
Often, when overtaking, I see looks of complete disgust in my rear view mirror onto the roads of the US of A. And often I can see blank anger in the faces of Europeans that are not being allowed to pass. Shouldn't this be the other way around??? Shouldn't aforementioned commies stand in line, ride in unison and get there exactly at the same time, all of them, always? And shouldn't the revolver totin', chutzpa owning and freedom distributing Gringos just run rampant on their streets? Because fuck regulation? Why is it that Americans would rather all go 60 in the left lane, instead of actually following the law in the right? And why are brow-beaten, yoke-heaving, soma-ingesting Eurotrashies so happy to let the dirty capitalist in his 150k car burn down the top layer of your tax payer financed Autobahn?
Well, I don't know the answer, but maybe you can tell me. Maybe its got to do with social freedom vs. economic freedom. Or maybe its political freedom vs freedom from strife? Or maybe drivers are crazy no matter where you go, and nowhere more so then in Hyderabad.

Steal this Greenhouse

2011-04-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here are two books that you should never read at the same time, unless you have your pitchfork parked next to your nightstand and you know your Congress WoMan's address. Of course most of us rather reach for their Smart Phone before even getting out of bed rather than an instrument of revolution and shitshoveling. So that you may not have to waste your precious status update time slot, I hope it pleases you for me to share why you should just keep on doing just that.

Your outrage at the end of the world is better spent when the world is actually ending and no more smarty panz phones are around to inform the hundred's of our closest friends of the impending doom. Of course that means that all those amazing FB driven revolutions in the middle east will sizzle in an electronic wasteland. Shame that, great while it lasted. But democrazy only gets dropped on your head like cluster bombs if you got oil. And so I urge you to keep on telling me how your breakfast bagel tasted.

Griftopia, aptly named, the only thing missing in the title is "Fucking (Griftopia)", just to prepare the reader for liberal cuss word sprinkling. If someone would write a tome to counter-match Atlas Shrugged, they should start by reading this. I have imbibed a couple of reads about the recent financial implosion but this one takes the cake, which we will all soon be told to eat.
As a summary: Rich bastards get richer, implode the financial system, get money from poor people to save their crazy schemes for world domination, funnel those monies to offshore tax free profit centers, and leave poor people to pay back the resulting debt amidst a plethora of tough choices supported by the biggest presidential Uncle Tom in the history of class warfare.

The Flooded Earth, also aptly named, does not need a fucking title improvement. If people still read books in 100 years, they will take this one and beat themselves over the head with it. Or burn it on your gravestone (if burning of fossil fuels isn't so completely outlawed to prevent even this small symbolic gesture).
As a summary: Humanity keeps up its insatiable desire for stuff and fucking and dies under a mountain of itself and stuff. Direct cause of death: rising seas that swallow up not only our fairest cities but also inundate our best agricultural lands with salt. You think this is farfetched sci-fi opera stuff? Over 50 % of humanity lives in cities, and how many of these are on the ocean? How much does water have to rise for Florida and Holland and Bangladesh to be under water? How would you move a city? How long before the greatest fruit and vegetable garden in the history of the world is under salt water? Did you like looking at New Orleans after Katrina?

What do these two sweet dream inducing bed time reads have to do with each other: Rich people blow one financial bubble after the other, create a system of resource distribution that is in their favor and in that of acquiring ever more stuff. Poor people pay for this over and over again, until all the land is used up, all the rivers are swollen, the fish are gone, the ocean is dead, and once fertile land is under salt water. At which point rich people evacuate in their Hummers to their Mountain Retreats that they paid for with the tax money that rescued their behinds during the last financial meltdown, and debate how foolish all these poor people were not to prepare properly for this very obvious end of the world scenario, which could have been averted were it not for poor people's basic stupidity.

Open Letter to NY Times - Waterboarding

2010-07-04T20:52:00.000-07:00

Sirs and Madams,
Recently I became aware of a Harvard Study in regards to the way Waterboarding is covered in the NY Times. As usual this sort of story is covered only by news outlets that are o0utside of the US mainstream. In this case an Austrian Newspaper. Today I read your justification for why you changed the tone of your coverage in regards to Waterboarding. It is facile and insulting for you to justify yourself in this manner. Politically speaking you would have to categorize me with the greens of Europe, or Ralph Nader here in the USA. Nevertheless I am disgusted by how you, and your colleagues have rolled over and played Pravda for the tow last administrations, including the Obama Administration. If Democracy in the USA can be said to be disappearing, if it can be said that citizens of this country are not informed of the truth you are to blame for this.
Sincerely,
Peter Illetschko

npr war porn

2010-04-20T21:59:00.000-07:00

This little story has been on a slow burn for a while now. I used to live in LA up until nearly three years ago. There are not many nice things about traffic in the city of Lost Angels. I can only think of one. You know what I am talking about, the good old companion of the road more traveled: NPR. Untold are the days that Larry Mantle made more interesting and thoughtful.
When I left LA my next stop was Phoenix, as of today state with the honor of enforcing the most restrictive illegal immigrant laws in the land, and where my (lefty) radio is like the East Goths to the West Goths - further right.
So I was looking forward with some gusto to arriving in Seattle after returning to work last year in January. I thought, well, this is an independently streaked lefty state. Exactly what I need, because San Francisco was like Alabama.
You can imagine my chagrin when I was confronted with repeated versions of what can only be called War Porn. Something I thought was confined to the long waves. Far be it from me to judge the merits of such programs (I hate them), but what is more important, is that NPR never used to broadcast sob stories of the good soldier before. Until Barak Obama was elected.
So not only do I have to eat my words in regards to the left bias of the media, I also have to assume that NPR was equally manipulative in its actions before this. Did you ever hear a story of a soldier who died in the wars, and what an excellent person he was, and how people will miss him, and how he always helped the underdogs, and was a natural leader, and helped pick up the books of a kid that was being picked on in school? Right, never. In fact, the opposite was the truth, there seemed a much higher willingness to dehumanize the soldiers of the USA. Considering that my traffic radio time here is roughly 10 % of what it was in LA, I can only hope that this sort of thing is just done more often here in the PNW. Except that I really only listen to a national program just before Marketplace (way to many adds these days, what do I donate for?) at 6.30, so there isn't really much time to get a healthy dose of the we love our soldiers fair. Yet, this drivel is fed to me, and I admit it plays with my emotions too which may be why I dislike it so, on a quite frequent basis. I remember the kid that used to go wild ginger hunting in some godforsaken beautiful eastcoast redneck/Indian hero setting. Then he came back in a bag.
I wonder what the statistics of a survey of NPR stories would result in. Can we get some eager communications graduate to count npr war porn please? I would love to be wrong this time. But like my friend Z. says "I am always right, once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken".

Disclaimer 1: No, I am not talking about getting off on war when I talk about War Porn.
Disclaimer 2: Stop playing bugles to make me feel bad for a kid whose only mission in life was to kill or be killed. Brave, gallant even, but I would prefer some real porn any day of the week.

Footnote 1: Here is the only other guy writing about War Porn. A somewhat different outlook on matters should be assumed.

hateiness

2010-02-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

I don't hate many things. If I would start listing all the things that I do not hate, we would be here all day. I presume that you read blogs because Atlantic Monthly articles are too long for you. It would then seem to behoove me to write short (impossible) and sweet (maybe) about what I hate, as that list is much the shorter. I do want to say before my hate list starts that I really like hating whatever I like.

I hate this guy:

You might think this is pretty obvious. And I agree. Patty the punk tv entertainer probably likes this as well. Which obviously makes us like him even less. My problem is that over the years I have acquired friends of various persuasions. My circumstances force me to have a broad spectrum of friends. I like Muslims, Christians, Jews, I like Gays & Breeders, Nationals of all kinds, I dont hate on the occasional polyamourus person that comes along, and if you like to eat female (because of the tasty eggy sack still attached) roasted cockroaches for breakfast I don't hold it against you either.

For this reason I have become less confrontational and more accepting of people's bullshit. In fact, one could say, that more people have deigned to accept me, because I am more willing to not make a big deal out of whether they like to eat male or female cockroaches.

At this point I must apologize to all of you who I have been misleading in this fashion. I hate being a liar more than not having any friends. I still can't stand assholes like the Patty the pounk above, and it still taints everyone else who prays to the same god. Which ergo makes me not such a big fan of you either. Now, if you would go out and tell Patty to shut his silly trap, that would be something else. But somehow I don't hear the Christian outcry happening in this case. Even though usually it is pretty hard not to hear the bullhorns of some coalition against gay happiness, or against any other subject that touches their moral little hearts even though it never touches their lives.

And if you think, fine, go ahead and hate me. I'll just do the same. Then you are mistaken. You do not have the right to do so. And I will not turn the other cheek. The reason why you don't have the right while I do, is simple. So simple that even your blinded bible-studying behind can understand it: When is the last time you had an atheist go on TV and say "All the Christians of the world should starve to death and deserve every natural disaster that happens to them, because those people went out and made a deal with Jesus". Oh, you want another one? When is the last time that an atheist went out and bombed and/or shot up a "Mothers Coalition contra pro choice"? OK, one more. When is the last time that an atheist went out, strapped some of Herr Nobel's fine invention to his cojones and blew up a bunch of people at a coffee shop because that would make him a martyr and deliver a a bunch of sexual rookies to his heavenly abode?

I am not holding the Crusades against you. Neither am I bringing up the Spanish Inquisition. To hold up either of these things is so Dawkins. No, I am only looking for the here and now. If you find just one instance I will change my hate allegiance over to your side and start hating everybody that Patty the punk likes to hate. I'll even donate to his Haitian children kidnapping/molestation/proselyting (hand)relief fund. Otherwise please start using your church donation purse to buy stamps for letters to the 700 club to let them know that not all of you are nuts like he is, and that you would like to keep your unbeliever friends around, which he makes very hard, and so please could he just STFU?

The Golden Years

2010-01-27T22:36:00.001-08:00

Remember the time when all we had to do on a sunny day late in January was listen to good old Georgie Boy blow smoke up our asses? Daring us to tell it to his silly grin that no, we would not knowingly like to be told that it's raining when he is pissing on our shoes. But somehow, from telling African women that they could not have any condoms anymore - even the Pope is considered medieval for this; to declaring Kyoto dead on arrival; to a refusal to sign a small arms treaty together with IRAN and VENEZUELA - and that's just funny. Through all that we told ourselves:"He may not know how to talk, but that man sure knows how to lead." Right?

Remember when we thought nothing of declaring the market free for all times, when we thought less about blowing another trillion in Iraq than you do about buying a cup of overpriced Joe? And when it all tumbled down and our own personal free market knight in shining armor proceeded to force Banks into near nationalization, all I said was "A good thing we had the Hammer to work out the kinks in the nearly rusted through knightly haberdashery." And the student of the Great Depression? Bush just pulled him out of the hat by accident? First the old master of no interest rates at all, and then the guy who has been studying for 40 years what happened the last time we insisted on paddling further up shit-creek than any known human being ever before?

But the Hammer is who we could rely on in those days. And that man surely set things right for, uhm, his former colleagues. Oh no, its not his fault at all. Those highly complicated CLFs that his board approved as investment vehicles had nothing at all to do with today's deficit. Whats a CLF? A CLusterFuck, thats what it is. In fact the current malaise (JFGI) can be sweetly and squarely laid at the next guy's feet. With all his highfalutin ideas, with his fancy wife and his golden voice. "What, just 'cause he can talk doesn't mean he actually knows what he is doing."

Are you listening to yourself at all? Anyone at home? Are you kidding me? It took eight years to create this mess, and you blame the guy for it who is trying to fix it? How about gas prizes during Bush years? How about teen pregnancies? How about deficit spending? You like it better to buy cluster bombs than to give someone a job fixing a road or, for that matter, digging a hole in the ground?

OK, lets instead bring the princeling back who cant talk or lead. Oh wait, no lets bring his father back, the guy who faints into Chinese soup - I would consider it a promotion for excellent service performed during Iran-Contra state affairs. Oh hold on, even better, lets get the good old gipper, he should have been called gibber(ish) for all the BS that he always had to be reminded of by his wife to exhale together with his asinine grin while booting tens of thousand of Vietnam Vets out of mental clinics - because the god Damn government was too big.

What does this lilly-livered pussyfooting president do? How about throwing money at the vets returning from Reagan's Vize's Sunnyboy's war? He wants to freeze the budget, to which the Republicans say no because they think its a trick to increase taxes. And the Democrats join them from the other side, not wanting to agree to budget cuts.

Dear Mr. President, If you feel so moved to go on TV tomorrow. And instead of saying "I will not quit" you tell us "FUCK IT". I promise I wont be mad. Instead I'll hope that all the white trash republicans of this fine best-health-cared-in-the-world (do yourself a favor and search for "health care" on this page) country keep saying no to universal health care, because that way at least I don't have to pay more taxes for their overweight asses to be nursed through diabetes, heart disease and all the various ailments of an overfed yet undernourished body. Reminds me of the body politic of this country. If vox populi were any denser it would fall like a lump of coal from our lips and suffocate our strongest spirits with its dusty tendrils.

yeah yeah, treegugger, yeah... No really!!

2009-04-05T23:03:00.000-07:00

yeah yeah, treegugger, yeah yeah, whatever

2009-04-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

open letter to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-Mon

2009-04-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Dear UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Mon,
I write in regards to developments in Burma. An international push is under way to put pressure on the dictators of this country whose population has been languishing outside our conscience and in China’s shadow for too long. The 2007 uprising of the monks and the dictators’ coldhearted response to both the uprising and cyclone Nargis highlight the urgent need for international action at the same time as our continued appeasement in the face of atrocities committed on a daily basis is a lowlight of global morality.

This lowlight will not be healed by inaction.

I recently spent a month in this country, whose people are, despite the awful conditions that they are forced to endure as a result of our unethical inaction and our thirst for cheap teak and rubies, the most hospitable I have ever encountered. They would have ample reason for hatred of individual visitors and the world at large. Yet their strength of conviction in a better day to come is unshaken and a welcoming smile greets the visitor as long as he does not carry the dictators' stick in his hand. Let us support them in this most noble of endeavors. Let us not ignore their plight in order to uphold an amoral status quo.

I urge you do add your voice to that of millions of people around the world as well as 112 former Presidents and Prime Ministers. My happiness at their unified message is only colored by the knowledge that it is certainly easy to call for change once they are out of office. Please do not follow their lead and add a useless, if morally compelling voice, to the chorus once you are out of office.

I am sending this letter to my friends to add themselves to the growing list of malcontent, as well as publishing it on my blog where you may read it at:

http://mindgloaming.blogspot.com/2009/04/open-letter-to-un-sec-gen-ban-ki-mon.html

Kind Regards,
Peter Illetschko

Sign here to to add your voice

if you ever wondered what CRAZY really means...

2009-03-28T11:19:00.000-07:00

60 minutes of darkness

2009-03-27T11:28:00.001-07:00

It is that time of the year again. As last year I am asking you all to turn it off! Maybe you want to have a romantic candle light dinner. Or try that new windup flashlight you got from auntie at christmas. Or maybe you just want to make a statement about how much less energy we could all be using. Let us all put out money were our mouths are!

zaisu!

2009-03-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

Usually it is my rule not to post any pictures and stories of my home or physical/psychological underwear etc. Some of you might ask, what is the point? And rightfully so. I am already posting pictures of my naked behind in front of certain Austrian castles. It's a prostitute that doesn't kiss sort of rule. Rather pointless, although who am I to judge the oldest job in the world. So forget it, here is the newest addition to my home.

Yukio San can attest to how difficult it is to get a Zaisu in the States. They are really common in Japan. I have been looking for one for a while now and found an online store that sold them completely overpriced. But since it is the only one, they set the price. And your desire decides if you pay it or not.

So they sent me the wrong size. And the wrong pattern, and I told them I would like a different one, and they said that they don't do returns (who does that?!?!?!), and I should check their policy (who does that?!?!?!), so I called my bank to reverse the card payment (oh, I SO do that!!!), Bank said that I need to send the item back first and have a receipt, which is of course ridiculous because what if they don't take it, or throw it away and say they never received, but I send it back, because the little one is truly to silly little, and of course the hard core superfriendly JP girl there rejects the Zaisu, but does call me because she realizes that I will go all the way, and offers me the larger one without any cover, which is why it looks nice like this, because their covers are just tacky, but in the meantime the little Zaisu comes back to me, because once you reject UPS they never go back, so I send it again, and now she takes it, and she sends the big one back, and now you know why it is worth my time to write this excrement of a post, and your duty to suffer through it with me - Sumimasen.

Soso, I give you the Zaisu (hontoni):

And this is when you look really comfortable siting on the floor in your Zaisu that you are really happy with because it was such a female dog to get it in the first place:

But did someone really do this thing on the bottom left? No wonder they don't do returns. "Young Master on Zaisu not practice balancing if Young Master the force wants to bend to his will."

Now the only thing left to do, is get rid of half of my stuff because I realize that I look like a crazy Japanophile. My excuse is that all of these things accumulated incrementally. My place looks like a version of Michael Dell's pad on negative steroids. Luckily enough I have increased my skill at reduction of meaningless material attachments over the course of my travels. Unluckily enough I really like the things (very few) that I have now.

But here comes Gröni with "Enough is too little - Genug ist zuwenig" (which is not the title of this song but a line in it. The title is "Everything remains different - Bleibt alles anders") - leave it to ze Germans to find a philosophical none-conclusion to my dilemma.

Deutschland Deutschland über alles

2009-03-25T14:03:00.000-07:00

München, Hochsommer, 38°C.

Auf gut bayrisch: es is sauhoaß! Mitten in der Isar steht ein Mann in Badehose und füllt einen Maßkrug mit Flußwasser. Als er daraus trinken will, brüllt ihn ein Münchner an:
"Hä, du, wos machst'n du do? Spinnst du vielleicht?
Du konnst doch ned des dreckerte Isarwasser saufa!
Da werst doch krank, kriagst an sakrischen Durchfoi und speib'n muaßt g'wiß aa drauf.
D'Hund und Katz'n scheiß'n eini, des is durch und durch mit Bakterien verseicht.
Konnst froh sei, wennst net draufgehst dabei!"

Der Mann in der Isar hält inne und ruft dem Bayern am Ufer zu:
"Wat ham se jesacht, Mann? Sprechen Se keen Deutsch, wa?"

Drauf plärrt der Bayer in perfektem Hochdeutsch noch lauter zurück:
"Gaaanz laaaangsam triiiiinken, daaaas Waaaaasser iiiiist seeeeehr kaaaalt!"

euro ma(i)le man vacation

2009-03-25T10:12:00.000-07:00

My Brother has for ages and a day been that reliable soul that delivers all the little important and not so important posted items to the people of the Landstraße District of Vienna. You can all imagine that being a male man is not hugely lucrative. But its steady and satisfying work. All those happy faces when that summons from court knocks you in the back of the head, or that long sought lover finally tells you to bugger off. And let us not forget all that junky mail from people that are so friendly that they send it to you without even knowing you. But if it is riches that you are after choose a different route.

Now riddle me this. I know a bunch of people like my brother in Austria. Not making a ton of money but paying a ton of taxes. In exchange they get crappy weather and long vacations on balconia. Hold on, did I say long vacations on balconia? Well, shiver me timbers, but my brother and his dear wife are embarking on another Mediteranean Cruise soon. Here is the map of the tour:

So maybe not all of them go on these cruises. But then again this special ed teacher (no they are not any better paid than the ones in the States) I know goes on four week trips to India and Machu Pichu. All these low-paid, socialist, health-insurance-enjoying, life-expectancy-increasing, boorish, constantly topless running around Europeans can afford what none of the citizens of the home of the brave and the free get to do. Enjoy life.

Or when is the last time you heard of anyone going on a four week vacation to anywhere? We get four weeks in two years. And most of us, if our firm would let us go on vacation for more than two weeks at a time, would not be able to afford anything but, you guessed it, going to balconia.

Lolita and The Reader

2009-03-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I watched The Reader. Even though I was told by my chick friends that this is a chick flick (I never cease to be amazed at women's propensity to call themselves chicks. I guess it is the same as with the N-Word. They can say it, but I can't. Somehow my first amendment vocabulary access right is slowly but surely tending to zero. Some of you may think that a good think(g) -cough, you didn't see that- considering the quality of my writing. Maybe I should call them the C-Word, but that could be entirely and obscenely misunderstood).

I had read the book a few years back, and thought it to be one of the more powerful pieces of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. And without pride I will call myself an expert on that, which is, as most/some/little of me, to be credited to my familial environment. I was raised on a steady diet of books, exhibitions and thought patterns of anti fascist/burning babies/holocaust/war/Hiroshima/vietnam/global warming (in the 80s, when it was still called Greenhouse Effect). So naturally I was interested in the movie, and thought that since this does not require any special effects or grand mythological spectacles the movie might actually do the book justice. As a side note: The German title: Der Vorleser much better signifies the main story line of the book than the English The Reader. Jungchen (Kid) does not merely read, he reads to her. Impossible to translate, I know, poor nuance-less language.

It also didn't require that stupid coming and going German accent that Frau Oscar Winner displays. Do Americans really think that this is what Germans sound like when they speak German? But in the end it is much more a movie about illiteracy and it's possible consequences. If your (K)id doesn't want to learn how to read after this you have thoroughly unmotivated offspring. But let us forget about the Oscars going to another Holocaust movie, let us forget the accent, let us forget even all the truths contained in this work. Instead, let us focus on one thing:

A 30-something having sex with a 15 year old. And they don't just have sex. Even in this hollywood movie, where sex is a sort of disembodied, none-physical, guilty experience, they get it on wherever it is possible to get it on in post war Germany without getting arrested. Yes, I know its a turn-on.

But so is Jeremy Irons, who is a pretty good actor. Has done some pretty good and riské work. Should be getting an Oscar as soon as he sees himself through to making a Holocaust movie. But when he gets it on with a young girl in Lolita: huge outcry. Tagline: A forbidden love. An unthinkable attraction. The ultimate price.

Compare this to plot line for The Reader: Nearly a decade after his affair with an older woman came to a mysterious end, law student Michael Berg re-encounters his former lover as...

So as a purely sociological question, without any ideological undertone about the double standards in our societies we should ask ourselves why we react a certain way. Why are you outraged at Lolita and comfortable with The Reader. Why do I think it's nice to be taught the ins and outs, as it were, by an experienced woman (and this is emphasized in the movie when Jungchen seems so much more adult compared to his peers after being with Frau Schmitz)? Why do women the world over, the ones who know about sex, think dirtily to themselves "Hm, I betcha Kid knows what he is doing, now that he's all growed up"? But when I think of an experienced man teaching a young girl certain things the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I want to rush out with a large tree trunk to obliterate the dirty bastard and rescue the sweet damsel (to return to her raving mad father of course. Out of the gutter with your mind).

Also, Fiennes absolutely kills Winslet in about a tenth of the screen time.

open letter to The Economist

2009-03-21T08:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Sirs,

I always enjoy reading your magazine. Since I fall into a rather "green" or Naderish political category I like having my paradigms shifted by your unabashed promotion of capitalism. However, in your recent article "Machines that can see", dated march 7th, 2009 your lack of analysis goes to far.

My disagreement with your biased view on this could easily be measured by the frown on my face. And you wouldn't need Omron Corporation's device to proof my disgust. Do you really only see monetary value in controlling us (the toiling masses, if you need it to be spelled out) better with the help of around-the-clock surveillance? How about the pursuit of liberty? Are we all just automata to be controlled for the benefit of greater rationalization?

The only good thing about this article and indeed about this topic is the unanimous voice in the comments in your online edition. Not a single person there shares your enthusiasm for these developments. And I urge all of them to send letters to their democratic representatives. Do it before Google sells your disagreement, expressed in an email such as this, to the highest bidder. This needs to be regulated more so than the financial world. It is no coincidence that the same people who are the cause of the current economic malaise would most likely jump at the chance to implement some of these Dr Evil technologies that you seem to love so much.

When the governments of the world increased surveillance and red-herringed us with library subscription surveillance I was worried about my privacy. Now that business is jumping on this bandwagon, it is time to really be scared. I must start thinking of going off the grid - and I am a rather stable, none-conspiracy-theory kind of person. I do not look forward to having an eye replacement surgery á la Minority Report in order to escape the all seeing eye of Big Brother.

Illetschko Peter

travel report 28: dead airports and fat ducklings

2009-03-16T15:43:00.000-07:00

I wish I had had more room on my memory cards. I would have loved to show you the Mandalay Airport. It is a rather foolish looking contraption. It was built in the 90s when the Burmese Junta thought it would do them good to invest in modern large scale tourist infrastructure. This was foolish because the large scale tourists (I am referring to numbers here, not girth. Americans do not travel in Burma.) never showed up. And since Cyclone Nagris, the Junta's ridicolous response to it, which was marginally worse than Bush's response to Katrina, and the subsequent demonstrations that Buddhist Monks started nobody visits the country at all. In fact one only meets foreigners that either are on some sort of humanitarian business in the country, or that don't feel bound by international sanctions (read: Chinese).

So this airport is built pretty large, and rather badly, and like most things Junta in Burma it is in shoddy condition. Volker and I sat in this huge lobby with nobody but us in it. Couple of local functionary's kids hanging around a "Cafe" which did not deserve that title. They are supposed to work there, but if no customers are buying none of the none-existing wares that are not on display it is best described as hanging around instead of working. Imagine your run of the mill Communist Russia store, with one piece of bread in the window. You get the picture, if not any sustenance. I Should not have been surprised at the spider in the window of the airplane I was about to board.

It is such a strange thing, to be in a country in which normal every day occurances are, well, normal everyday occurances. Markets are loud, streets are packed, chaotic typical representations of South East Asian cities, men drink green tea in copious amounts, women are gracious and girls ride three deep on scooters. Then you enter anything government, an airport, the palace in Mandalay, the embassy in Phnom Phen and it seems as if you are stepping into a Mausoleum. It is dead. The buildings seem dead. The eyes of the people seem dead. There is no life. Yet the Junta, and by extension its tentacles reaching into this society, maintains that status. It is as if an invisible fist is directing the country. One does not see who it benefits. The Generals do not bask in false adoration as Gaddafi used to. They hide in their bunkers and, I don't know, take baths in rubies and gold. It is the ultimate Scrooge McDuck existence. Apart from the occasional silly leather jacket and sillier government proclamation of serving the country one does not easily witness the perversities of the country.

One time I was on Shwedagon and saw a few burmese women walk around the pagoda. They were fat, waddling, ungainly things that also wanted to partake in the blessings of their religion. Only after seeing their fattness did I notice the human walky-talkied security cordon around them. I guess they were worried that the average - in this context meaning malnutrioned - Burmese person would try to ask them where they could also get calory rich diets. That fat needs to be protected from the unruly skinny masses. They might want to carve out a piece for themselves.

The eternal smile of the Burmese can apparently not even be wiped of their faces by the Junta's repression. But instead, I will suppose freely here, the Junta themselves are perhaps the unhappiest people in the country. At least those fat ducklings at Shwedagon seemed unduly stressed out. Whether the cause is the weight on their hips or on their soul I will never know.

Damian Marley on Burma

2009-03-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

travel report 27: Shan Plateau

2009-03-05T17:51:00.000-08:00

On the way back from the train ride we stop at a local food joint. Food is such a pleasure in Myanmar. It comes in many small shared portions in these little dishes. A little bit of lamb, a little bit of chicken curry, some pork in a dark bean sauce. Vegetables in every shape you can imagine. Properly this is eaten with your fingers. Although serving out of the community dish is done with a spoon, which you use with your none-eating hand, as that will be sticky with food and mouth juices.

This particular local food joint is a Burma/Indian combination, which is known for excellent Chapatis, which they are. A Burmese family sits at a table with an incongruous white boy next to the young woman. Quietly they munch, while my mind races to figure out their story. The woman wears last season's Nike sneackers. They are well used, they are not a present that has just been hand delivered to the Shan Plateau. Seems as if she lives in the west somewhere and came back to visit with her man. Maybe to introduce him to her family. These meetings hold special fascination for me. My friend Zeljko to this day doesn't halt happily harassing me about the time when I timidly knocked on Mr Leong's (Hong Kong Australian father of my then girlfriend Donna) door in Rockhampton, Queensland one evening a long time ago. Only to have said Mr Leong open the door, somewhat disgustedly call out "Ahhh Peta" and proceed to slam the door right in my face. He knew I was visiting, is all I am going to say. I guess it was a Freudian Slip of the hand. So, compared to the meeting of the parents situation, the more romantic notion, to me at least, would be that the white boy came back to Burma to elope (with) her. For eloping one needs sturdy shoes, everybody knows that. And no permission from Daddy, everybody knows that too. Maybe instead of boarding the plane to Bangkok they will walk the border to Laos in the North. Or to China. They would have to make their way through the Golden Triangle. They would have to cross Wa territory. For as long as people can remember are the Wa wanton warriors. That route is fraught with hazards. The couple will probably never return from it. So futile their quest, so romantic.

It begs the question what these lives are, that our nation states create for us? Where one's family is subjected to contradictions of existence dictated by location. Your daughter enjoying every freedom modern society affords. Her sisters and brothers looking at a bleak future of no options or freedom at all. One Burman I met seemed insulted at my offer, on behalf of others, of contributing to his Pagoda. His daughters now lived in the west and send him hard currency frequently. No requirement for alms any longer. One daughter in New Zealand, one in Holland, only the son left to take care of the elders. I did not want to ask if he misses his daughters. People here are glad when other's make it. Out of the country. Is where you can make it in Burma. Or go to a Government Elite School, where you will be brainwashed and loose your sense of consequence in a system of none-responsibility.

In my last post I mentioned staying in luxury hotels on the way up to Pyin Oo Lwin. How I thought it rather despicable to do such a thing when there is always the choice to stay in a perfectly decent hotel that is not owned by the government and doesn't line the Junta's pocket. Well, just this once it seemed as if we did not have a choice. The whole excursion to Pyin Oo Lwin was sort of spur of the moment (I can not say enough about how U Volker is rather the flexible seasoned traveler), and so we called our travel guy in Yangon to book us into a hotel up here. Turns out that the hotel was in a former British country home named Candacraig.

This is government owned. We realized that as soon as we walked in and the girl at the reception was a sullen man in a leather jacket. All the secret police guys wear these dumb leather jackets. It's like the CIA running around with CIA t-shirts. We spent one appropriately miserable night in the place, cursing our travel guy, although resolving not ever to breath a word to him about our displeasure at being tricked into being the pawns for his schemes with the Junta. Except for me doing it here of course, but if he reads this far, he deserves to know. The next morning we moved to lovely Park View Hotel, without crummy receptionists or crumbling walls that surely host one or the other ghost.

We then proceeded to enjoy a leisurely day in the environs of the city.

Look at his Pants!

This must be the funniest bird in the world. His beak is so large and long, he can not see the food in front of him. So every time wants to take another bite, he has to turn his head completely sideways in order to see where he is going to stick his beak next.

Now where did that juicy morsel go?
I thought I just saw it? Darn you Darwin?

This one is a weird one too. Can you imagine seeing this in the Stadtpark?

And look at these lovely Orchids! I was even offered a job there. They were looking for workers.

If you can figure out why ones on the left are
half pink and half purple I'll give you a cookie.

I was tempted, but I told them I had to move on. They were sad. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And being an Orchid Farmer in Upper Burma is just not manly enough for this man. At this point. Should have asked me 5 years ago.

So we moved on and saw the witch's tower. Or maybe its the general's son's plaything.

Orchid's, witch tower, lake with golden ducks
brought to you by Kandawgyi Gardens.
U Volker and Mr M brought to you by kind karma.

This same day we made our way down to Mandalay, said a sad good bye to dear Mr M abd boarded a plane to Pagan.

Note to traveler of any stripe, not just the seasoned kind. When seeing live spider stuck between airplane window panes ask for a refund. Of your life insurance. Because as you by now know the best skill on the narrow road of life more traveled is ignorance in the face of obvious life threatening danger.

But when this calls, how can one not go?

Travel Report: Pictures

2009-02-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

I am finally getting around to organizing some of these crazy pictures that I have been taking. Unfortunately, I don't really know where to put them so that you all can see them, since everybody is using different ways of communicating. Large amounts of you are on facebook. So go there for now, to see sum. Copy them, send them around, show them to your Mama, its all good!

I will try to organize some more in regards to all of you who are not interested in facebook.

This first photo thingy is all about the trippy temples from this trip.

Click on the Temples Schmemples album on the page

new fav website

2009-02-27T15:56:00.001-08:00

The scary thing about this site is that there are actually pictures of real women with these Freudian wet dream phallic symbols out there.

Travel Report 26: On the road from Mandalay

2009-02-25T15:51:00.000-08:00

Even though I can not seem to let go of Mandalay I really should show you Pyin Oo Lwin. Another escape-the-heat-and-sun-because-our-greedy-wallets-bit-of-more-then-our-rosy-cheeks-could-swallow British hill station. They built these all over their empire for their poor martyred henchmen souls to escape from scorching and/or humid summers – pussies those red coats, I tell you. First they take all your crap, then they complain that its too steaming hot. Your climate, get your mind out of the gutter. One could never satisfy those old imperials. If they didn’t like the heat, they shoulda stayed up on that frigid unfriendly island of theirs. There is a crazy pre-great-flood (no, I don’t believe the flood actually happened, neither did Noah, its a freakin’ figure of speech) train heading up into the mountain, which U Volker and I did not want to take. Leaving at 4AM is a little too early, and you know, it seems as if it will be any day now, that this train will not make it up the rather steep grade to the hill station, and instead start rolling backwards at post-hyper-drive age speeds for a short distance and then fly off into empty real space. We didn’t want to have anything to do with that so we decided to instead take Mr M’s trooper of a car.

trooper

Any imported car, and they are mostly 30 year old hand-me-downs, cost an average of 50k. Yes, US Dollars. Those are import fees. So when you look at the car and see a 30 year old POS think of it as being the equivalent of a medium size BMW. Can you imagine owning a BMW if you live in any other third world country? And then it doesn't even do all those cool Beemer things. Also the car did not have much more of a chance to make it up that bloody mountain, but how am I going to push a train if it doesn’t want to move anymore?

The ride is fascinating. Very steep, with a very immediate change of climate and fauna. Everywhere there are tea and coffee plantations and many government installations. After the Brits left, Burma fell apart and the Junta took over, the Junta subsequently claimed these prime spots. One can not say they did not learn from the Brits. Myanmar's Westpoint is up here, as are all the finest school of the various Junta Government Branches. One area is the new Burmese-Shan-Mountain Silicon Valley. A huge, carved into the mountainside, complex which apparently will start an internet revolution in Burma. All those none-principled Indian software geniuses, being busy little bees, setting up the Information Highway of Burma's dark future. This highway will not be light up brightly, it will not contain multitudes, and many roadblocks will make movement arduous. Yet even in Burma the spirit of gratis open internet channels thrives in any and all internet shops around the littlest town. Everything is blocked except google. You can google chat, google foto, google email. I still don't understand the deal that the Junta made with google. Or should we believe that google code is too smart for those none-principled Indian Software geniuses to block? Hardly. In any case if you do not use google, or want to access some blocked sites, I suggest going through a proxy server setup. The fastest internet connection I had in-country was in Bamo, the pipe came in from China. Go figure. I guess the China teak/rubber business man wants his Skype to work flawlessly.

We finally arrive in Pyin Oo Lwin. Three beautiful Shan Princesses are from here, and apparently nearly singlehandedly chased an old friend of U Volker out of the country back in the stone age (1960s). I guess the man could not deal with his own effect on the ladies anymore. That, or these weird miniature Wells-Fargo horse drawn carriages were too much for him.

Wells Fargo, Phil should get a kick out of this

Inhabitants of the town are much more ethnically diverse than in towns of the burmese lowlands. Up here on the south-eastern outskirts of the Shan States the cultures mix. Shan, Karen, Kachin and Burmese and many of the smaller tribes are present and known by their garb. There is also a large contingent of Indian and Muslim merchants here.

Minarets?

Remnants of the British empire under whose rule this town was booming. Most of those had been forced out after Ne Win's Coup d'etat, but some still remain. The town is strange, less friendly, more on guard.

this dude is not so much on guard, but en fashion guard

We ourselves are already on edge after seeing the military and government installations right next to the newly built luxury hotels and spas - for western tourists with their heads very far up the dark recesses of their backsides. If your head is stuck there, so that you do not realize who died building your surprisingly cheap luxury diggs, and into whose pocket your money goes, then my dear, you are a cretin not fit to travel outside your own country. You should stay at home and try to be as inconspicuous as you possible can.

We head straight to the train station, where we hope to meet the train coming from Mandalay and going further up the Shan Plateau. We want to take the train because it goes over the biggest steel bridge in the world at the time of its building shortly after 1900. The Gokteik Viaduct is another remnant of French/British colonial ambitions clashing. It is like Africa today, where China and the rest of the world trip over each others feet while building infrastructure projects in order to win the locals over to their sides in order to be allowed to scrape the last resource out of that dark earth for your hungry consumerist gullets. From the condition of the train and the wobbling of its under carriage whilst moving we determine not to consider risk in the face of danger. I think I said it before: The Seasoned Traveler sometimes throws caution to the wind and lets the chips fall where they may (my daily dose of ennui inducing clichés is hereby fulfilled).

We share the wagon with a French lemming herd and our food with some local commuters. We wanted the cheap seats in the back but white people must sit in first class. Slowly the train chugs up and up into wide valleys. Asian cliché picture moments are a constant on either side. I recommend sitting on the right as it tends to afford a view of valleys passing by. Here the paddies are already past harvest time, as opposed to the low-lying plains where rice will not be harvested until weeks from now. Various stops along the road afford opportunities to buy local amoebic delicacies from local anorexic looking folk. There is most definitely a difference in the wealth and diet of the mountain tribe peoples of Burma compared to the Burmese. We stick to pealable fruit and roasted nuts of one kind or another. As we approach the gorge spanned by Gokteik Viaduct the french lemmings go foto nuts. It is mildly infectious. Kind locals point to especially appealing vistas, which are as usual too wide and fancy for my puny digicam. Sometimes the Seasoned Traveler must rely on the souvenirs of his mind in the face of insurmountable obstacles (more cliché, I know, sorry).

We stop at the last station before the viaduct, and are reminded again, not to take any pictures when crossing over - Big Junta Brother's paranoia about the strategic importance of this bridge in case of the always impending US attack is amusing. So the lemmings go even nuttier because here is their last chance at a shot of the bridge.

nuttie lemmings

Shortly after we move on and cross the thing on which it is forbidden to take a picture. So I take two. Although the CIA hasn't asked me for them yet. Maybe I overexposed them too much.

Hell, I might have even taken more than 2

Its nothing special, we stop at the next station, U VOlker and I get out, are met by ever reliable Mr M. and drive back across the Plateau to Pyin Oo Lwin. The viaduct was definitely a case of the journey being the goal of the trip. But the journey on this train, accross this plateau, I recommend to anyone.

And if anyone is looking for a reasonably priced guide in the Mandalay region I can only to highly recommend Mr. M, whose details I will gladly provide.

Travel Report 25: Mandalay, let me go

2009-02-25T15:04:00.000-08:00

I know you all thought I would keep writing about Mandalay forever, and I should. It was an impressive town. It left an indelible impression on my mind. But that puny thing can’t pony up anymore fascinating details about that town. Except that when I will go back I want to meet some Pongyis. It seemed as if the situation was a little too precarious to just roll into a monastery and start chatting to folks. As a foreigner this will cast suspicion on the monastery, since the recent uprising had been started by monks and foreigners are always accused of fanning the flames of liberty. Although these flames were all home cooked:

How many monks does it take for us to think it is not an individual incident anymore? And how many of those do you want to see burned?

The dictators of Burma do not want to be surprised by the next uprising, so the monasteries are now infiltrated. And for that reason I thought I better not enter those just right now.

Not all monks participated in the protests. Not to repeat myself, but every one of the monasteries has different interpretations of buddhism and how to exist in 21st century Burma. Some want to practice a somewhat more robust, involved in current affairs buddhism, while others prefer a rather abstract search for enlightenment. I need to understand these differences better as I would like to unlearn my so hard to fight vicariously lived religious conservatism. You ask what that is: I seem incapable of letting people of faith re-interpret their relationship to their religion. I am quick to criticize Pongyis that do not live according to age old precepts (eyes no further than six feet in front of you on the ground walking barefoot when begging, no separating of food in alms bowl, don’t handle money). Even though it should not concern me I feel somewhat cheated by their, what I think of as, loose interpretation of their faith. In fact, the more conservative they are the happier I should be, as it will lead the masses the quicker to agnosticism. Let’s take it slow with atheism, the world wasn’t made in a day either (I hear it took six). Maybe it is just that I do not want another religion to learn the secrets of modern internet based marketing that other faiths seem to adopt which makes me a vicarious religious conservative. So as I said, next time I go back I will have some fireside chats. If they’ll have me, and my local doesn’t ask me if I lost my mind because he sees me carried off in chains to build a new Burma Road.

Actually there is one thing I should tell you about. I am reading this book right now “Piano Tuner”, even if you do not care for Burma you will like this. As of current reading main character is in Mandalay, and visits a few Pwes. There is a special season for Pwes, and Mandalay is known for its Pwe, uhm, proclivity. A Pwe is an all night affair of games and food. Sometimes they even take more than one night. The difference to an Austrian Mayfest, or a village fair in Nebraska, is that the main attraction of a Pwe is a theater troupe and sometimes a puppet show, performing various ancient stories.

Nothing against the climbing of a de-branched, de-barked, waxy-slippery 60 foot pine tree, that fastest-up-the-tree peasant of them all surely deserves the little Maria Maiden.

And whoever bakes the tastiest pie also has my tastebud’s admiration, as long as its Mustika Piirakka (Suomi JFGI - I must complain here, you, dear readers, have not been giving the thumbsup to my JFGI definition on Urban Dictionary, according to Google Analytics I have had at least 3 page views in the last 6 month, but still only 32 thumbsup on the, alas, least voted for option. Put your money where your mouth is. While you are at it, are you a fan or not?!?!?!).

But the sheer otherworldliness of a Pwe beats all of that. If only because my Uncle watches in horrid disbelief as I shovel one after the other local delicacy down my hungry for exotics throat. He declines politely my offer of some or other roasted root, sticky rice in bamboo shoot, Husband and Wife (no I don’t eat humans, yet, it is one half each of an egg fried in an egg-shaped hole), “Peter, Du hast nen Knall, I have had my share of tropical Amoebas and I suggest you do not try to emulate that particular experience”. What can I say, I love my Buckle und a Eitrige, am besten mit an Sechzener Blech, but Burmese are known to be great snackers. And not just because they eat deep fried cockroaches. In case you want to know the girl roaches are more expensive because they usually carry little roachy eggies (think of caviar, if that helps you) in a little belly chitin pouch, and nothing is more delicious than that - obviously. I was not going to be denied that snackaction just because of some ameba that might eat my insides. Although that cold noodle was probably pretty stupid, I have been feeling funny eating acidic foods since then. Maybe my little houseguest is more in favor of ph-neutral foods. Good for immune system, I tell myself.

Ok, I promise I am done with Mandalay now. I think. The next post should reach you from the Shan Mountains. Mmm, the sound of that. Like the Sierra Madre, just so, I don't know, less Clint and much more Indochine.

see, its all your fault

2009-02-22T00:18:00.000-08:00

The eyeballing masses have apparently been streaming to read my drivel and for that reason I seem to have received the below. So now that you have spent your valuable time on my blog I shall waste it some more by making you look and click on shoulderhairremovalproductads, ads that tell you that someone is rich while you are broke (facebook) and headhairregrowithproductads. Generally I will make myself a complete nuisance in your life. You better not become a fan (5th link down next to pic, yes this is a shameless plug for myself) of this blog on facebook because otherwise I will rule the world soon. Right.

Well, it would mean a lot to me if you did fan (just in case you missed it the first time) me, and in exchange I will not make you click on stupid ads on my stupid blog (notice the clever plausible deniability I employed here?). Actually, if you don't become a fan I will take your first born, eat your lunch and make you test shoulderhairremovalproducts - daily. This does not mean that I know which porn site you visited yesterday or where you bought your shoulderhairremovalproducts (I am sorry, I will stop using that now), instead whenever I post something to the facebook thing, it will appear in your feeds (am I kissing my own privacy good bye here?) and hopefully your gazillion friends will infect all their amazingly popular fans virally, and I end up ruling the world anyway, and taking it away from Herr Zuckerberg.

If his ancestors would have gone the same direction as all those Greenbaums (sorry Josh) did, his name would be Sugarberg. Come to think of it, no wonder he wants to rule the world. OVER MY DEAD BODY SUGAR! You may be a mountain and dropped out of Harvard, but I will... I don't know, use your very geeky site to promote mine, I guess.

Anyway, here is that silly email I received which kicked all of this into lowgrade-fusion-gear:

Peter,

We want to know if you'll partner with us to accept advertising on your blog Gloaming of the Mind? We have received a lot of page views this week for your blog Gloaming of the Mind.

Our website, www.wikimetro.org, is the largest online BlogAd marketplace with more than 50,000 blogs in more than 2,300 US cities and towns. Ads on blogs that partner with wikimetro have replaced newspapers to become the best choice for advertising by local businesses, and many bloggers listed on wikimetro now make their full income by writing blogs that carry ads for local businesses.

Please consider partnering with us--blogging is fun and are replacing newspapers (ARE YOU KIDDING ME, YOU CANT EVEN GET YOUR GRAMMAR RIGHT? "BLOGGING ARE REPLACING NEWSPAPERS?" WHAT'S NEXT, EATING ARE REPLACING YOUR BRAINS?) for advertising. If you want to talk by phone, we are here 24/7, just follow this link to your blog on our site

http://list.wikimetro.org/market/info.aspx?blog=5893

When you open this link, click "Is this your blog?" then sign in (or register) and set the price that you will accept for an ad on your blog, and also tell us how to pay you.

Aritza Lamperez
BlogAd Account Asst Director
Email: aritza.lamperez@wikimetro.org
Website: www.wikimetro.org
Motto: "Everything Local"
Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.wikimetro.org/wikimetro_guide

Travel Report 24: Temples of Mandalay

2009-02-19T19:15:00.000-08:00

Lest we forget what the real reason for my uncle's visit to the Golden Land is:

Another project brought to you by
the kind folks at the Wellenburg

This was a fascinating little Kindergarten. Finished only the very year of our visit. They even had solar panels, financed by a kind french soul. I saw them myself. Two millimeter of dust on them, no way the 10 % of the energy from the sun these panels would convert were actually converted. I asked the sisters about them, they told me that the panels are not working. The inverter was turned off. I wish my boy Stamati was there, to mess with inverters and marine batteries. They would have had half the neighborhood powered by the time he was done. Alas, it would have been pointless, as three month later two millimeter of dust would have accumulated on the panels again.

I have no comparison to other kindergartens or schools in Burma. Other than the ones that I saw from the outside at Inle Lake later and the ones that are my uncle's projects. At Inle Lake I bycicled past a few schools and thought 'Maybe if kids in Austria would be encouraged to holler and sing and dance all day long, my dear countrymen would not be so mieselsüchtig (lit: depressionaddicted) all life long'. Here I thought that if I could somehow guarantee myself sweet little anklebiters/dreikäsehochs such as these I would have had kids yesterday.

Mandalay is also where the money kindly donated to my Uncle's charity is used to support students at higher institutions. We are talking about Med and Chemistry students. For this Volker relies on Dr H's judgement. He makes the call in regards to who is eligible for contributions. The good Dr. is another fascinating Burmese character. Went to USSR in 1966 to study Animal Husbandry, it is what his country told him he must do. Never mind that he wanted to be an engineer. When this country tells you frog, you mostly jump and study the donkey's ass as if it was your own. He speaks Russian, English, Burmese and a couple of tribal languages. Fascinating as it was to chat to him, to compare situations around the world, to gain insights into struggles of every day Burma, it was outstanding to hear his thoughts on the recent attempted uprising by the Pongyis of Burma. He was relieved that the monks did not succeed in their endevour because otherwise Christians such as himself, and other minorities, would have had to worry about Theocratic Buddhism (my words for his sentiment). Noam Chomsky would think this very American, as in most secure nation that is most scared of evil knievel. I tell you, these religious folk provide endless hours of entertainment. I don't know what made me keep them at arms length for so long. Imagine all the laughs I lost out on.

I however refuse to miss out on all the great architectural leavings of their representations of god's wealth on this fine earth. his natural works are obviously not good enough for us, which is why we build mosques, churches, temples, synagogues. Each one of the faiths even has their own perfect miracle. You all have heard about the maria face in the toast on ebay. But there are also creepy claims to reality with beards growing on Jesus figures (Austrian St. Stephen's cathedral), bleeding wrists/ankles and crying eyes.

In Mandalay there is a Statue of a Buddha onto which the faithful have been sticking goldleaf for going on some hundred years now. They stick it everywhere, except the face.

You may ask, rightfully, why my atheist family
member is sticking goldleaf on this buddha.
What blessing can we hope to get?
My mother's. What can I say, nobody is perfect :)

The Miracle is that the body of the Buddha is about twice the size than what it was when it was originally erected. All that goldleaf seriously put some weight on the old man.

Holy smokes, look at all that gold

Yet, the face is still perfectly proportional to the body, even though the size of the body has increased so much with gold while the face was never touched.

They even have proof pictures of miracle. amazing!

Now, how did the face grow proportionally along with to the body? I don't know. Why don't you go ask the guy with the bleeding ankles, or the girl with the crying eyes, or the facial hair issue guy. You, with your western slant towards reality may think 'Well, of course the busy little monks come out at night, and switch the head'.

Where is the blood, the tears and the beard coming from then?

But let's let size not matter and neither the miracles or the tears and blood. Instead here is an anachronism of buddhism that should give all you wanabehippiesunderthebodhitree pause.

Peace-loving, veggie-eating, rebirth-giving, equitability-with-gaia-seeking
buddhism doesn't like the honeys to enter into its holiness

Its none of my business what you believe and I never have accused religion of logic but can we get some Reformation please? Anyone? While you are at it, extend that open hand to that closed muslim fist as well. Let's all move our ancient orthodox believes into the 21st century, or at least into the 18th. That way we can all post on facebook how gloriously we have been fighting the lord's war on evil knievel. Or dare I say, maybe even just straight up forget about his (h)ornery behind.

Travel Report 23: Mandalay, Imperial City of Burma

2009-02-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

Rangoon/Yangon is not the capital of Burma/Myanmar. It was that since the end of British rule, not before that, and only until the current paranoid regime finished building a capital in the center of the land, where there was nothing before. Like Washington DC and Canberra. Tactically for the same reason, which can mean that the strategies of nations remain the same, be they friends or foes.

Now Mandalay, let it roll of your tongue, as you savor the view from the Pagoda above the city. Mandalay is the location of the last palace of a King of Burma.

If this looks too freshly painted to be 150 years old,
that's because it is. This palace was rebuilt with forced labor
in recent years, to attract foreign dollars into govt pockets.

Remember how the Khmer Rouge used Angkor Wat as munitions depot? I think you saw bullet holes in one of my previous posts. Well, the Brits did the same during WWII with this one. The result was that it burned to the ground.

Surrounded by the true ancient capitals of Burma. Amarapura, Sin Wa and that ancient Abode of buddhism Sagain, Mandalay is the seat of the last rightful ruler of all Burmese. Which is not to say the rightful ruler of all that is inside Myanmar's borders today. The wall around the thing is 2.2 km by 1.4 miles. I didn't say they built small back then.

Just thought I would throw this little buddha in,
for all you letter challenged people.

While mentally preparing myself for an onslaught of history of Angkor Wat proportions the day starts early to catch good light, a lost monk or two and no tourists. On our way through Amarapura I experience my first surprise of the day. None of the thing actually survived except a low wall. The question begs how Angkor survived through the eons while this did not. Right, Angkor buried in jungle (no native knew about those colossal ruins for 700 years, mhm), while Amarapura is out in the open, hence destroyed or at least recycled several times.

This bridge, made of teak, reaches across this lake to an island.

People have been crossing it by foot for generations. Amazing sights reward the walker.

As we walk across the bridge, dissonant sounds reach us from the island. We speculate if this is another recorded sermon delivered by tape to the local monastery (I kid you not). We walk on, I am involved in one or another deep theological discussion with Mr Myoswe, who kindly humors my interest and thoughts, while setting of various cascades of analyses and paradigm shifts.

The bridge is long and so is the discussion.

The sounds of religious officialdom increase as we walk through the misty morning glow. Edible ducks sprint away from us. We know they are edible because they dont fly. The ones that fly aren't eaten.

As we get to the end of the bridge we see the reason for the auditory hoopla.

The hoopla is not completely her fault,

but you can forgive me for thinking so.

It seems we have stumbled our way into an initiation ceremony. To which, in true Burmese fashion, we are immediately invited. We take of the shoes, we ogle without ogling, we wonder at the manifestation of bonne chance we seem to keep attracting. Maybe telling ourselves that the proper Reisende deserves this, means that he actually does.

Not Mozart, but then again
Austrians don't invite strangers to
their Bar Mitzvah either

And while they feed me with local delicacies I can ignore most every sound wave, except maybe Schönberg and Silbelius and those two depressed soundmurderers are thankfully stuck in the collective memory of a weird anti classical protest movement somewhere in central/northern Europe. Personally, I believe Schönberg wrote that stuff because his wife was rather sonant - opposite of dissonant, of course - with his best friend, if you catch her drift. Sibelius, on the other hand, has Finish winters as his excuse for what they brazenly call music. They didn't even dare to use it in Guantanamo Bay, for fear of Geneva Convention consequences. By the way, I am going to see a Schönberg Opera in a week or so. If you don't hear from me, I went to Forks looking for a bunch of fine Vampires in the Twilight to take my life in an orgy of blood and diamond skin. And hopefully no more sound.

Cooking for large amounts of skinny people

Volker in his well earned status as gut gewürzter Reisender insisted that we not partake in this meal. And most likely saved me from Amoebas that might have felt like a centipede, only inside my stomach. I was ready to sit and eat, but deferred to his judgement, as I was sure I could test my wimp of a belly on some other occasion as well. Which came at the ready made pwe later that night:

Unless you eat crushed glass with your
morning müsli you probably should not eat any of this

You can enjoy this view of Sagain though

Travel Report 22: Mandalay

2009-02-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

Volker and I arrive in Mandalay very early in the morning. We are not really sure when, as we are sleeping. The ship actually braves the ghosts and sand banks of the river to dock at the freight harbor (a couple of planks over which 10s of Kulis sprint with bales from inside the ship on their heads).

Our trusted transport, at a different location though,
I didn't get a photo of the local stevedores

We descend from the ship to rather curios stares for the rather curios strangers disambarking into the general hubhub of a ship being unloaded as it would have been 100 years ago. Up the dirt bank of the Irrawaddy, hire a couple of trycicles, and in we go to Mandalay and the pre-booked hotel. Later Mr. M picks us up. A professional guide whose knowledge of Mandalay and surrounding areas is only surpassed by his willingness to teach silly foreigners how to properly eat with their hands, burmese style. I am sure nobody actually does this in Burma anymore.

Mandalay is the current center of buddhism, which is of the theravada kind in Burma. If you have been to Rome and strolled around the areas that the catholic church frequents. Think of that, only 300 hundred years ago, except that they had really dirty internal combustion engines. And the monks don't wear dark Kuten but burgundy robes. And... Ok, this is getting too hard to transcribe from dirty pre-hi-tech vatican to modern center of theravadan Buddhism. So here goes:

Mr. M and Volker at 1st monastery we visited in Mandalay

There are many monasteries in Mandalay. There are as many different schools of buddhism as there are different ways of interpreting other religions.

The monasteries are quite ingeniously built.
During the scorching summers of Central Burma
the monks and accolades would shelter
under the monastery at noon

I was often surprised by how well used the monastery seemed. There was always someone praying, offering, meditating or doing something or other pious. To my jaded european eye it seemed strange to actually witness people at their services. Our churches are merily tourist attractions.

The craft used in the building of these is equally impressive to catholicism's need to impress

The many different schools of buddhism are literally that. Every male will enter a Monastery at least twice in his life. Once as a youth, an indeterminate age and once as an adult. But frequently in between when the mood is right, the woman mean or the season slow.

Ohm, peace and quiet. You see the paintings
on the walls. Modern events are explained via
buddhist wisdom, and vice versa.
Yes, that's burmese.

There are other monasteries who frown upon their members doing such things as handling money, spending idle hours not meditating, eating not-strictly-donated food or gambling. These can be interpreted as conservative. The different interpretations of day-to-day operations of a theravadan monastery are wide ranging. The conservatism of a monastery is entirely dependent on its Abbot.

Yet, as the churches in Europe do, these
abodes of peace provide serenity.

And calm oases in these hectic towns. My Uncle is not normally a none-energetic person.

teak

These are all from the 1st monastery we visited with Mr M in Mandalay. There are many more to come.

I will probably show you all of them. I know, its a threat. But I promise not too many words and more pictures instead. Like comics, Rupert Murdoch papers and magazines at the checkout.

best Strauß ever!

2009-02-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

No really, I was investigating Richard, because he wrote the most famous piece of movie music ever made, and you absolutely must read the whack comments under the video. I thought he would be a good opposite to Herr Schönberg whose music is most certainly not schön, who I will subject myself to listening to soon. If I come back down of the big mountain. Alas, Richard was German, but he doth have a few Austrian name sakes. Which are described as follows by Wikipedia:

The origin of the name Strauß lies possibly in the Middle High German word strûz, meaning "fight". Alternatively, it may have been adopted for individuals with a long neck, in allusion to "straussenvogel", i.e. an "ostrich". Commonly misinterpreted as Straße or Strasse, the German word for street, many emigrants to America or England were renamed Street.

Seriously...

Open Letter, in regards to King County Metro (none) Service

2009-02-09T22:04:00.001-08:00

This email I wrote to Candace Ferguson, staff for King County District 6 Council Woman Jane Hague.

Dear Candace,

I write to express my displeasure at the level of service provided by King Country Metro. Specifically, I speak of the infrequent scheduled rides available on bus lines. Once every 30 Minutes is not enough. Especially if the timing is unreliable at best. I was at a bus station today, on line 245 at 5.40pm. My bus should be there at .43. I waited for 40 minutes for the next bus which arrived at 18.18. I guess the first one was too early, while the second was nearly on time. In the end I spend nearly 40 minutes in the freezing cold. Experiences such as this make me want to go back to driving my car to work every day.

If local governments are urging citizens to contribute to reducing the carbon footprint, as well as all the other side effects of too much traffic, these citizens should be provided with adequate substitutes. Especially, if it is our taxes supporting this. While I understand the importance of cutting edge technology for transportation, just because it is hugely sexy for PR, doesn't mean that there are not better options readily available with a lot more bang for our buck.

As few times as the buses are scheduled to go, most people do not want to take them because if they need to change only once it will likely mean a wait of up to 30 minutes. Nobody wants to do that. I don't even want to wait that long, and I purposely live close to a Park and Ride. The 245 bus time table at the metro website plainly spoken is a lie. Buses do not go that often. Believe me, I have tried. If this happens a few more times, I will go back to driving my car out of a sense of self preservation, as I don't want to freeze to death, trying to save myself from global warming.

At peak hour the buses should go at least every 15 minutes, and 10 minutes would be preferable. During the day and late at night that is obviously not necessary.

I hope I am addressing this in a somewhat correct direction. If you think my interest would be better served at a different govt representative's office please let me know. You may also find this letter at the following address and I invite you to respond:

Thanks for your time and regards,

Peter Illetschko

Along the Banks of the Irrawaddy

2009-02-08T08:58:00.000-08:00

She knew that around the next bend of the river the tree would come into view. She knew this as the knew home. It had been many years, since she last saw the tree rise out of the mist, arching over the ancient stupa, spreading its canopy over half her village. it would still be some time before the chinese made wreck of a freight ship, which gave her passage from Mandalay, would reach her long left behind home, for the waters of the Irrawadddy ran strong and its banks were deceptive.

The flash of the sun, mirrored of the stupa's gilden roof and jewel encrusted parasol, caught her eye from afar. This crystal of light brought her home, and brought it home that life as she knew it was no more. The short few years of her absence stretched to an eternity in her mind. An eternity away from the self that left this village on the banks. How fitting it was: the river in the dry season bore her back across muddy flats, when it was swollen like a soon-to-be-mother when she had embarked and left for good, she had thought. Back in that ancient time, she felt as full as the river, and now she was dry and searched a hole the size of a shadow in her midst. She should have known how this would play, when the captain played Country Roads - in Burmese - on his one pride and Joy, his Flashlight/Radio combination device. That stupid song would stay with her until that long an dark river finally took her home. To the place she never wanted to be.

But the tree drew her in. As it used to before. Its ancient roots, growths from the depths of the earth, tangling her feet, holding her soul on a wisp of a wind. Climb it, she would, one more time with Sao Kya. To proof that she could, like going away, like returning a changeling. This golden land, with its golden stupas. Never mind the steeples she had seen in every village, the temples from times unknown to gods well loved. These had use, they made those who built them belong. The stupas of her land belonged to the tax man from heaven, and that was all. The rules where wrong from day one, or should have been updated a long time ago. When you bought yourself your own personal heaven with your own personal stupa, something went missing in the human process in between life and death.

Banks full of sand, like the heads of her people, floating past. Reflected on the ceilings of silvery waters they shone as dull beacons of no hope at all. In Burma the giver of life deigned not to return her heirs to paradise. What paradise you ask, and find no answer as eyes full of cold and bleak and rancid empty stare through you, while they ask for your permit. What permit you ask. Theirs to give and yours to crawl for. To her the only bright spot that reveals itself on this bright sunny day is the inch long insect that electrocutes itself in a flash upon the never before working outlet of power. Flags in the wind, race paddies verdant, palm trees in bloom, bamboo on huts. Rain in the past of the last season reminds us of futures full of that. That never was. She sings Country Roads in English to the captain. He shows her his rotten teeth, appreciating the tone of her voice, if not the thought of her words.

The tree now spreads further, his roots forge deep down the banks of heart when she steps to the railing - a white knuckle grip on herself. Nobody at the shoreline. Empty as it was when her father, with is crooked gait, forbade all who wanted to come see her off. Not that it was that many.

A lone figure on the lowest branch, still higher than most steeples, silently greets her in a film running backwards. Was her life backwards as well? Was he that point in time and space, on that tree that her life focaled around? Saying goodbye and hello in the same manner. Her white knuckles loosing their grip on reality. Has he been sitting there, on that steeple high branch, this whole time? All these lives? All these branches of memories? Like the Buddha under the tree, waiting for divinity, only that made more sense.

"Nobody left" Sao Kya says, "They all went your way, followed you like the lemmings that they are, even though saying you wronged them by showing them the a-way."
"No, everybody is still here" she hugs in his ear, she whispers to his arms, she un-knuckles her grip, he fills in her shadow. And takes her hand up that tree of shade over the whole village.

Open Letter to Tavis Smiley

2009-01-23T23:40:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Smiley,

I just watched your program with David Johnson and his book Free Lunch. Needless to say that I was rather surprised to hear that Walmart Family gets go to keep my sales tax, instead of it going into govt coffers. I do believe that campaign finance reform is at the basis of this, and I take Mr Johnson's advice to write letters to editors, congress men, etc.

To you then, Sir, is the first letter I decided to write. Why are you doing a program like that, only to turn around, and have an advertising from Walmart at the end of your show, touting their "good citizen spirit" for donating money to some charitable org? When in reality the richest family in the USA gets tax subsidies in this form, and tries to PR its way out of this fact via donations, which in the end area also tax deductible.

I wish I could keep my income tax, donate a couple of thousand bucks a year to goodwill orgs, write that off, and get 40% back on my tax return. Alas, I do not have the lobbying power that the Walmarts have. But I gladly take your advice and write letters in order to rectify the situation.

I find this rather disingenuous of you. Please put your money where your mouth is.

Kind Regards,
Peter Illetschko

Travel Report 21: On the River to Mandalay

2009-01-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

“When traveling downriver from Bamo to Mandalay, on the Irrawaddy, one must make sure to reserve a cabin in advance”, is what the, I thought, friendly travel agent in Yangon told me and Volker on the 14th of November, two days before our departure to fly to Myitkyina. Friendly, as usual, being a relative term. My Uncle seemed to agree with this assessment. Although there were no papers handled or tickets given it was understood that we would be secured a safe and covered birth on the ship from Bamo to Mandalay. I imagined the below in case we would not reserve our spot. Rustic, romantic even, but 500 km of it? I don't think so. Plus, have you ever actually tried balancing on one of those?

You can imagine our consternation a few days later when, after visiting my Uncle’s projects in Bamo and environs, on return to the Friendship Hotel and its friendly Chinese staff, we were informed by same staff that, alas, we would not have such luxury, as it were. In fact, there was no room left on that boat at all, which seemed rather unfortunate, because how the hell were we going to go back south, if not via ship? At this point you should JFGI Bamo, if you have not done so yet, in order to know where it is located, and also a couple of pictures of road to Mandalay. An overnight bus ride seemed out of the question, especially since floating down the Irrawaddy on a pre 1940 Made in China lemon of a passenger ship had always been a fantasy of mine. I just didn’t know that until I arrived in Burma.

The Bangkok airport snafu was only starting at that time, so we did not have the proper blasé, quasi-fatalistic attitude “Well, we ain’t getting a flight, so we might as well stay”. Being the well-seasoned traveler that my Uncle is, he took it in stride and asked, “Well, what the fuck are we supposed to do now? SWIM down the bloody thing?!?’ No, just kidding, of course he didn’t say that. In South East Asia (SEA) one does not get far with angry outbursts. It becomes a sort of quicksand situation. The more you yell and holler the deeper you sink into a hole of no help at all and only mute empty eyes staring back at you. Like a Gila Monster would look at you, should you, unfortunately, fall into a La Brea tar pit. So instead we shook our heads sadly, wrung our hands forcefully, and beseeched the friendly Chinese staff at the Friendship Hotel how on earth we were going to make our next appointment in Mandalay.

“There is another ship tomorrow morning instead of the day after”. We smell the second oldest rip-off in the book, the one after the shell game. And casinos. And taxes. OK, it’s the fourth oldest. So we shake our heads, and wring our hands, and beseech some more. And it turns out that the ship tomorrow is not 3 times as expensive as the original ticket, but instead cheaper then the passenger ship a day later. Now we consider how much we appreciate the continued presence of kidneys in our own bodies, instead of in the midsection of some mid level Chinese Gov official on dialysis in Yunan Province.No more shaking of heads, wringing of hands and beseeching. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more kowtowing to inscrutable eyes and blank faces. No more trying to fit into the local culture, being anthropologically and/or politically correct. Now these lazy, good-for-nothing, unorganized, ungerman, vegetable-eating inheritors of the Golden Land (yep, JFGI this too) shall feel the wrath that is Austria.

We go ahead and buy the tickets. What can I say; the only time Austria does anything wrathy, is when our skiers do not win 95 % of all downhill races in any given year. Or if our Kaiserschmarrn isn’t good enough for the Kaiser.

And truly blessed we were to go with the flow. To bend in the wind as the willow will. To forge on ahead in the thought that surely, on a pre 1940 Made in China freight ship, instead of the passenger version there will be no silly tourists asking for their warm water when it is clear that north of Yangon nobody has any.

We were correct in our estimate. No foreigners, no intrepid co-travelers, no organized travel group from France. Only Betel-chewing, Cheroot-smoking, gum-rotting, Longi-wearing, hugely smiling, tripping-over-the-foreigners-on-their-boat crew, and a couple of Kachin and Burmese passengers. Only crazies, who don't know any better would get on this baby. Except that the ship has been plowing the river's waters for 60 years, and is apparently still going strong, if rather slow. The morning mists rise over the river. The sun breaks over the paddies.

And Volker and I once again counted our blessings for sending us such an adventure. Admittedly, we also briefly wondered who would tell my mother and my Uncle’s sister that we are not coming home should the boat, as expected, not make it around the first bend. But as all you seasoned travelers know, the most important requisite, when traveling is: ignorance in the face of danger. We Schmidts/Illetschkos seem to be blessed with that particular attribute.

Again we need to get signed into various lists of dubious importance and less durability, and finally settled into our rather spartan cabin. You all know that my appreciation of a bed rises inversely to the thickness of its mattress, but I have to tell you, that bunk was bloody rock hard. As usual, if my geriatric (love you man, sorry, it’s really a compliment) Uncle can do this, I will certainly, or at least follow his lead. The only people that I know who go further and harder are Reinhold Messner. And my parents.

In we are and down we go; down this wonder of a river; this blesser of myriads of beings; this giver of life and eternal fertilizer of a land that has only ever known the richness of Loess-rich waters brought down from the Chinese borderlands; this romance-inducing mirage. Let it roll of your tongue “I floated down the Irrawaddy”. Nearly as good, if not as stony as “I swam amongst the candles of the sea”. I don’t know what it is about this thing that always runs, but never walks, but for some reason it grabs you and holds you in its thrall for as long as you are near it. Or at least until you pass out; lulled to sleep by the constant drone of a couple of overworked and underserviced diesel engines, which pretend to speed the ship along faster than the current of the river; which is pretty slow. We settle. There is a young Pongi - Buddhist monk - on board. He and I spend time teaching each other the other's language. Burmese is a lot harder than English, or I am a lot dumber than the Pongi.

Once we come to the second defile (a narrows), a few hours down river from Bamo, one of the ever friendly Burmese passengers on the ship interrupts my hand and feet sign language conversation with the young Pongi to tell us with hands and feet that we should make our way up on the bridge because that is were the best view is. And there we enjoy a view, a vibe of the jungle, with its screaming monkeys and chattering parrots, and moments of quiet, green depths that I shall remember to the end of my days.

This Pongi tells me that he is a great fan of a bunch of Footballers in Europe. He does tell me names but I must concede ignorance in the face of his knowledge. I have no idea who he is talking about. Appropriately languid is what I would call the time spent on the ship. The lull only interrupted by stops in various small villages along the river. One of them being Kathar.

As I mentioned before, Orwell's longest post in Burma, where I catch this young gent deep in thought. Another is a nameless village. We stop, the two wood planks come down, and all the girls and women of this village proceed to sprint up it with bales of charcoal balanced on their heads. We think its charcoal because it can’t be too heavy. There are only two men out of 30 people who are doing this work. The rest of the men chill, watching the race, and a couple of toddlers. It’s a constant coming and going and lasts for 20 minutes, and we wonder where the bloody hell they put this stuff, because there certainly wasn’t any more room on the ship when we embarked two days ago. The grace with which these ladies carried their bales down a sandy bank and up a wobbly plank is only matched by their constant laughter laced banter.

Finally the captain puts his foot down and convinces the apparent boss woman on shore that enough is enough. I assume he threatened her with feeding her coal into his diesel engine. I am sure they can do it somehow. They build their own CNG engines, so this should be easy. We push off, and float on.

It gets dark. These boats do not travel on the river at night. This is because of the sand banks that constantly shift, which to this day I do not know we avoided – there are no discernable signposts. Or because of the ghosts that do their ungodly thing at night. We randomly stop in one spot along the river just after darkness. The crew ties the ship to a couple of trees. The stars are appropriate, I lie on the roof and smoke a last cheroot with my red label and realize that I do not have to imagine anything to make this a perfect moment. Writing this two month later I am afraid that there were so many perfect moments that I shall forget the most of them. How must it have been when the King had his Buddha shipped up the Irrawaddy? Was it any different than today? Farmers with their bulloks, little villages on stilts, a completely rural life that seems to be entirely unchanged for eons. It remains a constant struggle to balance my desire to experience this ancient life as it has been for generations, with my wish to give every Irrawaddy dweller a water filter and a fridge.

Burma: Suggested Reading

2009-01-20T07:08:00.000-08:00

One would not want to be accused of not having your literary welfare at heart. So even though the title of this post might scare you. Take heart, over the course of these silly little drivel travel blog posts (say it five times fast) of mine you have worked yourself at least through a supermarket checkout magazine. At least in size, if hopefully not in style or content. At which point I find it appropriate to once again do a kowtow as I feel quite flattered that you all would bother to come back to reading about my travels again and again.

... kowtowing...

In this spirit I would like to draw your attention to two rather well known greats of English Literature, who both started their careers in Burma. I figure if you are going to be reading about this place might as well be some of the truly great stuff ever written, anywhere.

On the Road to Mandalay
Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud --
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd --
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "~Kulla-lo-lo!~"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the ~hathis~ pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

Now, I ain't saying that my emotional state in regards to, or understanding of Burma is anywhere close to Kipling's. After all he spent a couple years more there than I did (Rereading this I realize it implies that the difference between me and old Rudyard is a couple of years in Burma - oops). But, that second to last verse sort of hits my current state of mind on the head. Except that I am going to Seattle instead of England, which will probably be worse in terms of precipitation.

Guess who started his literary career in Burma. George Orwell lived in quite a few places in Burma but Kathar provides the setting for his first novel Burmese Days.

My Uncle at Kathar

This one is required reading before you go to the Golden Land. As obvious as that is, it is way more surprising to actually be offered that book everywhere in Burma, because the Burmese, as much as the British overlords, could probably complain that Orwell must have been in a bad mood when he wrote that thing. Seldom have I come across a more sarcastic, cutting description of British Empire, or native populations for that matter.

Soccer playing monks in Kathar, I played with these cats,
thinking "How cool, playing random soccer with Monks in Burmese Days Location".
Until I read later in Lonely Planet that this is quite normal in that Monastery.
Trust LP to screw it up. Yup, they wiped the floor with me.

In SEA one is constantly offered books to read about the Killing Fields, and What they did with one girl's Father, and whatever else you like to depress yourself with. Of course it has nothing to do with generating pity for those poor downtrodden peoples; that they sell you only books of rape and pillage about their countries. Burmese Days is one that is offered everywhere, and particularly in Burma. These books are all copies, as in pirated. I am not sure if I am more amused that they think white people actually like to read, or that I can buy pirated books for a dollar the same way I steal movies and TV shows online.

Yeah, I said it!

I read Burmese days on my father's shelf in Vienna, and did not realize that it was a pirated copy until I saw it in Burma on the road to Mandalay. I just thought that it was a bad print job back home, and wondered at the Quality Assurance process of that particular publisher. But as it turns out one can get it on most street corners where there is the slightest chance of a tourist walking by, which is where Pa got it from.

None-soccer-playing monks in Kathar

Of course, closer examination of reading materials that I see in Burmese hands on Buses, ships, and planes reveals that their tastes run more to the mundane Zwei Groschen Roman - we would call it in German - romance novels and crap like that. I was waiting for one of them to say to me "I cant believe it's not butter". So really the Generals do not have to worry about the Word, as it were, to be the cause of their downfall. But was there ever a revolution without it before?

Travel Report 20: Bamo

2009-01-19T14:02:00.000-08:00

Imagine any third world market, this one raised up on stilts over the same area since time out of mind, with any number of vendors selling every possible variety of goods. Longis of course, but also avocados the size of pigskins (the USA ones), and of course the all time favorite: rotten fishpaste. I know I ate that all the time without knowing it, and that doesn’t help one bit.

I manage to slow enough to purchase my first, and so far, favorite Longi. Of Kachin make, you can tell by the colors, and oh, so proud I am, to wear it in the confines of my hotel room. Below I am wearing a Burmese Longi. The colors make all the difference and should you be in Burma you can tell the Kachins, Karens, Shans, Burmese etc apart by what kind of Longi they wear. You certainly won't be able to tell them apart by their accents. I have always been partial to men-skirts such as Sarongs (it is my Pa's fault, you should see what that guy wears at home!), but these are a lot more comfortable because they are tied in such a manner that it affords one a proper step. You can see the fold at the front of it. Before you ask, no I do not wear anything under it. Young Burmese do, old Burmese don't. I won't explain to you why. But personally, I figure, if I am wearing a skirt, I might as well enjoy the good airy parts of it. Did you cringe?

I had heard about the raucous lady vendors (Marktweiber are the same wherever you may go) in these country town markets. They all seem to delight at cackling something raunchy at the backs of the foreigners, at which they crack up like mad. But the best laughs are the ones that burst forth when I pretend I understood every word. Which isn’t hard, I just react as if someone said something supremely naughty to a tall white boy. Of course my reaction is confined to meaningful looks and other nonverbal cues.

Early morning sees us on rooftop terrace of Friendship Hotel. Breakfast a strange welcome mix of Chinese, Kachin, and Fried Eggs cuisine. Mohinga remains our dish of choice. By horsedrawn buggy we go to Sister’s Order’s Location, by traveler memory (asking passersby) we manage to seek it out.On the way I encounter a strange Maria figure, with holy blinking light thingy mounted behind her holiness’s head. No, they would never copy this from the way Buddhas are sometimes adorned only to make Christianity more palatable to the locals.The grounds of the Sister’s compound is neatly tucked into a side street. Volker’s Nursery is the last thing that fit in here, and it is lovingly simple. Blockhouse style, beams crossed, in between bricks. Kiddies in it are a lot cuter than the building, and are, distressingly, encouraged to sing lovely Christmas Songs for us. We urge, after polite if happy listening to cutest Jingle Bells rendition ever, to sing some Burmese or rather Kachin songs, as it were. Since we are in Kachin state and one of the goals of Volker’s work is to retain local customs. This wish also is gladly fulfilled by sweet Maria, who nearly makes me break my vow, and whose little English is at least as adorable as the kids she kindergardens.

They already learn about their amazing brains at such a young age. This makes me feel ok about the Jinglebells.

We are then thrown into a little car to drive out to Mansi, where another Nursery/Kindergarden has just been completed. It is a romantic ride on brutal dirt road. I think in this climate any construction will always be temporary, so why waste more money on more expensive if better materials. At least that’s what I tell myself as an excuse. We fill up on gas, where I meet a Kachin fellow who lived in Tokyo when I was there. Except he was in Shinjuku instead of Roppongi. My Mauiwaui friends would say its manifest (btw it is not, it is rather selective recognition). On the way we stop at a small convent for refreshments, we have the feeling of being led on a specific tour as there is no reason for this visit. Even later I would not understand. The kind Sister here presents me with 4 neatly in a plastic bag packed eggs – Thank you. We head on to the Nursery, not without first stopping to see the priest of the parish, who is not in because he is at a Retreat Thingy. At this, Volker's latest project we are as enthusiastically greeted as in the last one. Happy little kiddies falling over themselves to get a glimpse of the strange roundeyes, or maybe even to say a shy “hello?” to which a reply of “Hello” is enough to set of gales of laughter. If you ever go to one of these countries, take lots of pictures of kids on your digital camera, and then show them the pictures. They love seeing themselves, adore this game, and can not wait to take pictures of all of their friends.

These two youg ladies are the Kindergarden Teachers. And if you dont think the kiddies are cute, you should go lie down on Siggi's couch. The one on my left wants to go to Australia to study there. All the Kindergarden Teachers study something or other, but I do not know what they will be able to do with a Chemistry Degree 30 Km from the Chinese Border, where I certainly do not see a chemistry lab in operation.

Many proof-of-work pictures and blown up airballons later Volker and I are allowed to leave, which occasion I use to crack open one of them juicy hardboiled eggs I was presented with before. CRACK … hmm… Now why would she give me raw eggs? Did she think I was going to pull out my traveling pan? Or fry it up on the side walk? Suck it raw? I told you not to ask me. On the return journey we are driven, again, through picturesque South East Asian post card landscapes. Military Compounds abound and “take all the best land”. Water Buffalo do their muddy thing, pleasurably it would seem.

Back at the main mission we are served delicious chicken and the usual variety of Burmese dishes. We are apparently to be fattened up before we go to see another area, which strangely has nothing to do with Volker’s projects. We are not sure why we are going, but find ou soon enough. Entering a large compound that seems to be preparing for some sort of festivity. Not made to wait long we found out that this is where the retreat is to take place, and priests from the surrounding area are already present. I know you want to see a picture of me hanging out with a bunch of catholic priests, so I will do you the favor.

Seriously the man in the middle, who does not look like Michael Jackson, studied at the Vatican for two years. These are all serious about their business. And they are all drinking Bud, of all things. Could they not have picked Myanmar or Lao Beer? I am of course the only one who does not stoop to low beerlevels (right, I am such the beer connoisseur). I drink the fabled Kachin Sapee, home made and served up enthusiastically by our host, not to be mistaken with Shan Sapee, which will incapacitate you within minutes or sips, whichever one comes first. Kachin Sapee is made of fermented rice, then sqeezed out liquid and mixed with water. I tell honestly, it is delicious. Has this sort of pinkish color, and if not made right, will lead to major headaches later on. The man next to my uncle urges the host (the priest we missed in Mansi because this retreat is his show. He is not on this picture) in Burmese not to give me too much to drink. At which point I am tipsy enough to understand his Burmese and to vehemently insist that this cute little concoction can not harm a large Austrian man.

The lubricated conversation quickly turns on to the subject of Barbarians, which my Uncle and I find out are the Bavarians. Much hilarity ensues (largely my fault, sorry Uncle:) as Volker painstakingly explains that his chosen place of residence is not Barbarian at all, as in fact it is the oldest united dominion in Germany. I think he is not drunk enough to understand that the priests don't care about his historically correct explanations and would rather continue to call his people Barbarians, especially since Bavarian is just too hard to pronounce correctly if you are anything Asian. By the way; Kachins are great snackers. That indefinable (I am letting sleeping dogs lie here) dish on the table was delicious.

As it is sometimes the case in international relation this sort of lubrciated hilarity actually leads to useful insights. Here we learn that the man next to my uncle, signed the 1994 KIO - SLORC peace treaty as representative of the church. God's Witness to an uneasy truce if you will. We also meet a man who is a current member of the KIO who explains quite a few interesting details to us. This border region with China is incredibly porous, Kachin live on both sides, constantly travel back and forth, and the Chinese are only too interested in a somewhat pacified region in order to do their trades along the famed Burma Road. Later we are released to meet some of the retired sisters who spend their time in this compound.

They are about four feet tall, no kidding, and display the same warmth and vivacity as all the other sisters. Must be something in the water. We are actually sitting in the corridor next to their quarters here, which are only seperated by a curtain. None of their rooms contain anything else but a bed. What do they do all day?

Volker and I are still not sure why we were shown this place except that the man-catholics (priests) would like to get a piece of Volker's pie. I assume that the sisters were forced to make at least a good faith effort to share the wealth. Man-catholics do no understand my families aversion to organized religion. Not because of any philosophical/dogmatic reasons in this case. Simply because the moneys would be a lot harder to track and my Uncle would not know what they are being used for. Be that as it may, this unplanned excursion has offered a rather deep insight into Burmese life, which I am, as I will not get tired of saying, incredibly privileged to enjoy, attached as I am to my Uncle's coat tails.

We head back towards Bamo, happy in the knowledge to have met fascinating people, and glad that my Uncle's collected money does what it is supposed to do. These thoughts are of course easier when travelling through landscapes such as above. We look forward to our evenings tropics medicines and wonder what we should do all day tomorrow as the boat down river does not go until the day after.

Travel Report 19: Leaving Yangon

2009-01-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

The flight is comfortably at 10.10AM. The domestic terminal reminiscent of airports in Greece in the 70s. It used to be the international terminal. We are on a flight to Myitkina, via Mandalay, the old capital of Burma. A propeller machine, 48 seats, we stay on plane in Mandalay to go on to Myitkina. There is never a time at which one does not see a pagoda while landing or taking off from Mandalay. Of course they are not all as amazingly huge and impressive as Shwedagon, but nevertheless the commitment to build stupas in every spot available is amazing.

It’s the country on which the Buddha never sets, like Austria the empire the sun never sets on. Oh, they said that about England as well. And some others. And we all think we are the only ones.

Myitkina is far up country. Close to the Border with China, 1500 km north of Yangon. Our driver awaits. Our bags are stashed. We need to get signed into various lists of dubious importance and less durability. Take off; stop to make five copies of passport for various control posts and more lists of dubious importance and less durability.

Green, seasonal rainforest outside of town. Yes, Birds. Yes, exotic costumes on locals. Yes, trees of teak, of massive proportions. And plantations thereof of same dimension. We learn later that it takes seven years before a teak tree becomes monetizable. We learn now that all plantations here are owned by Chinese businesses that operate cross border. Trucks bearing Chinese tags bear down on us with monstrous thunder from smoking stacks of diesel. Well, they are big, and low, and mean looking. Like the drivers, who seem to have been up three days straight. We hope in our driver’s survival instinct. The road is well maintained until the last checkpoint. To the left we see an incongruously large gate contraption thingy. Guards, guns at the ready, you know, do their thing. They guard. Burmese hieroglyphs (might as well be) on big wavy sign above. “No photo” driver points out helpfully. Goes to sign us into lists of dubious importance and less durability. At return, on inquiry, we learn that behind incongruously large gate contraption thingy is the area under control of the KIO, not to be mistaken for the KIA. Ok, I’ll tell you those acronyms, even though you all at Intel love this sort of CLF. Kachin Liberation Organisation and Kachin Liberation Army. The former growing out of the latter after peace accord with govt. was signed in 1994. How the area from this road to the about 30 km distant Chinese border mountains fits into this peace accord I do not understand. Effectively it means a separate entity within Burma. Tacitly, if not officially acknowledged, and probably China brokered. There are Kachins across the border in the Yunan province as well, and to locals it seems to be rather porous. This is in China’s interest, and thereby tolerated by the Burmese. I am speculating here. At none of these places I risk taking any photos, as driver faithfully intones "No take Photo" each time he stops at a checkpoint to drop our passport copies down a govt. black hole.

After this checkpoint the road turns bad. It consists of two-fist size rocks stuck in some concrete derivate. The rocks stick out halfway. The car acts like an unwilling mustang. Volker passes out. Reminds me of my Mother who passed out holding on to a handhold, standing in a packed, sweaty Mexican bus out of Meridan. These Schmidts sleep anywherealways. Why do I need earplugs then?

Sun sets mysteriously over these undulating overgrown hills. Kisses the horizon in the misty distance. Am I in an African safari movie? Treeshapes of figurine qualities, suddenly replaced by the orderly terraced artifice of another rubber plantation.

If you think this is anything else but a Chinese Satellite state, you should travel back in time to Warsaw Pact days. We drive into the gathering dusk of a quick night. A dark night of different quality than a dark night in the wastelands of Southern California, or in the paddies of Cambodia. Couldn’t tell you how different though. Maybe its all in the traveler's mind. This mysterious pull that Burma seems to have on me.

After interminable turns of the clock a sound barely above sound barrier turns into ugly squealing from back of vehicle. Seems to be connected to braking. Stop, ineffectively throw water with small cup on break disk and wheel. Drive on. Squeal uglier. Stop in village. Volker casually inquires as to my willingness to find scorpion infested quarters in this Asian manifestation of a medieval European village on stilts. What the old man can do, I feel obliged to at least be up to. Driver and locals proceed to take apart back wheel, I try to track their doings. Which is easier than you think. These cars are so old and so basic that even my limited technical understanding gets the important parts. The important parts are currently being pulled out. “What, no not that line. That fluid that is pumping out of there is the brake fluid! How will you break now?" Gestures and hand and feet talk let me come to an awful conclusion. "Oh, one brake only.”

Local kindly offers me Beetel nuts, obviously to calm the white boy’s fraid (seriously MS, you must know this word and its proper spelling) nerves, to chew on. I accept. He hands me a very green leaf, rolled up like Greek Dolmades. I stick it in mouth, as I am being pantomimed to do by kind local. Little does he know that he is dealing with an experienced Gaijin/White Ghost/Long Nose who has on occasion of stressful busrides been known to casually chew the occasional Beetel before. The Beetel nut is broken apart a little bit, white flesh with red stripes, or red flesh with white stripes, lathered in some white alkaline paste, and rolled up in some sort of leaf. Highly saliva inducing. Slightly numbing of the tongue. Not calming of the nerves at all. I smile, keep spitting, and digging into the recently created recesses of my jaw for nuts unchewed.

The wheel comes back on. Driver seems to agree with my analysis of the situation. “Man, you can’t be serious to keep driving on this road, with this car, with one break”! We drive anyway. I have to work on my noneverbals. Driver seems awfully mad at the road. It is of course Chinese built, like everything here. Everything that is either necessary or big. Volker takes it in stride Driver, its ok if we get there a little later! What? No, drive slowly, OK! …. ?" No Reply.
"#$%&*" (is German, I can’t translate, sorry).
"…. Ach, whatever!”

One hour later we arrive in Bamo, and the bunkersize Friendship Hotel has grown even larger, according to Volker. We enjoy being out in the country enormously. As wonderful as the hospitality of Natalie in Yangon was, we are travelers and this remoteness had been calling our civilized selves for some time. We walk around town, get some Chinese dinner, watch some Premier League Football (Valley Girl: No Way!?), buy some Cheroots and head back to Friendship to enjoy some Red Label and Deutsche Welle, which we seem to prefer over BBC. Some racial memory thing, I am sure, involving the orderliness of things TV German. I again am in anticipation of the morrow and its surprises and miracles.

Travel Report 18: Sister L of FM

2009-01-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

On the 13th of October my uncle Volker arrived in Yangon. This is three days after I arrived, which was accidental (if you can call a rotten upper left jaw that) bad timing, which as usual turned into good rhythm.

The next day we went to see Sister L. She is the brains behind a Catholic Order's Social Projects and seems to run their finances like Al Capone's accountant. Yes, my rather to the heathen heavens sprinting, not to say paganistic tendencies displaying, family does business with the devil - from our perspective of course, you understand. My dear uncle collects humblest amounts of monies (please ask here if you desire to throw down - as in I WANT YOUR MONEY) to support various good causes in Myanmar. Most of which fall into the category of training young minority generations to become self sufficient, employeable or just educated. Schools are hard to come by in these remote mountain locations right next to China (San Fernando Valley Girl: How cool is THAT?!). Especially the very young and female of our species suffer disadvantages from this situation.

I could tell you where excactly these projects are and how the money gets there, but then I'd have to kill you. No, really. No, I won't tell you...

Ok, there is this Portoguese sailor, he knows this whore in Laohre, she can reliably transfer, I think she calls it, your moneys via Punani in Trinidad to a Burmese Pirate of the coast of Somalia... You get the picture.

What is however amazing, is the Sisters' vivacity, energy and management skill. No, I will not make up any more balderash just so that you may satisfy your cloak and dagger desires. Of course this was new to me, and makes me revise (paradigm shift) my previous estimate of women's available, more or less desirable, roles in early and late christian societies: To Mother and Whore we must add Nun. Is this where all the pre-enlightenment female management consultants, accountants and government pukes went? Talents such as the ones suited to the modern mundane business world dealings were, for women, rather limited in those days. And it seems only here in this order they could apply those talents in the name of a good name. May I add that this Order has as its Motto - I guess one can't say this about a church - to surf (that is such a Freudian Slip) those that are the remotest. Those so far from all and sunder, from any benefit of society and thereby in direst need of social work. Yes, you need horses and mules to get to these jungle valleys next to the Chinese Border (Valley Girl: NO WAY!). Yes way. The sisters appear not only to be talented, smart and hard working women but also tough and hardnosed to boot. And for some reason they all seem frozen at age 35 or younger, I know its a miracle! and they laugh all the time at whatever us big lumbering white ghosts did most recently to insult all and sundry local sensibilities. They feed us lovely lunches and present us with raw eggs (if you ask why, I will not answer). They are nothing if not welcoming, and completely obstinate in their desire to achieve their goals.

Our route up country is subsequently cleared up. Most of the sisters are currently in Yangon, attending a conference of some sort. As a layman I reject demands of clearer definition of above, and we have the pleasure to visit with most of the ones responsible for one or another of Volker's projects. I am constantly reminded how amazingly lucky I am to be able to witness and I look forward to seeing these projects and sisters in action.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T13:24:00.000-08:00

This dutiful post reaches you from the center of Lahaina. I am sitting in Stamatis Van, taking advantage of the largess of this Internet connection here under the largest Banyan Tree in the whole world, I am sure!

Here is a little something from the beach where we camp out with a pot of gold at the end of it - I don't know which end it would be though. I guess there are two pots.

Oh, I nearly forgot the duty part: Happy new year to you all my scrumptious pot of gold seeking leprechauns. Might as well be the best year you ever had. Why the heck not? That's what I wish for you.

Aloha Maui

2008-12-29T19:36:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let everyone know that if you never hear from me again, if you will never be bored to tears by my drivel again, if you will forever pine for the craziness that you all have come to expect from me... it is because tomorrow I am doing this.

Thats right, my first Kiting lesson will be on tomorrow at 11Am Maui Standard time (also known as PST - Paradise Standard Time) I am strapping on the harness, I am laying out the lines, and I am goint to wrestle that bitch of a kite into submission... or perish on the corrally rocks that are Hawaii. Its been nice knowing you all, and please, the Stamp Collection goes to my dear Cousin Marx Marxisimuss.

happy BD to me

2008-12-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

Happy BEEEDAAAAI to me
Happy BEDAI dear me
Happy BD to me

Lang soll er leben,
lang soll er leben,
drei mal lang

kinder soll er ham
naja....

Kann man mit 35 noch sagen, dass man am ersten Drittel seines Lebens angelangt ist?

Sorry no other amazing nuggets of wisdom. Need a couple more years for that.

travel report 17: welcome to myanmar continued

2008-12-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

...
That mysterious, uneradicable smile. We should be glad for it. In all of the places of hard and unforgiving societies one can see the tracks that a surveilled life leaves in people's faces. But here in Myanmar - which the Brits called Burma because as usual they were too thick-tongued to pronounce the thing right; you have the choice of calling this country by its Brit-Overlord name, or by the name the current Junta has picked: Burma and Myanmar, and isn't it typical that we are not afforded a choice that does not reflect one or another dictator - people just smile, go about their skinny lives, listen to Radio America, and talk to every white face they can find. To practice their English, to improve their knowledge of the world, to check if what they hear on foreign radio news channels about atrocities committed in their own backyards is truly true. To find out if the monks are coming back, and if 2010 is really the day of change. To see if you like Longis and have tried Mohinga. To give you some Betel Nuts to chew and gag on, and to share a Cheroot.

One of the things I noticed with my intercultural eagle eye when walking around Yangon on my first day was how organized the traffic seemed. And how open couples were with their affections. The traffic I soon realized was a product of no mopeds. That single missing link leads to sedate driving by all, apparently. Could also be that most of the cars only have one gear, usually 4th. makes getting going slow going. And when I walked along Inya Lake I saw these funny little park benches, with an umbrella on top for noon shade. And every one of them was, every time I walked past, occupied by a couple of lovebirds more or less knotted into those dear little shapes we all fondly (oops, sorry, my adjectives tend to abjectly slave themselves to whatever I am currently reading. This time it is Moorcock. No. Really. I know it must be a nome de plume. But then again, why? For a Sci-Fi, throwback kinda guy, that he is, a name like that?) know from springs past time. As I said those fondly remembered positions, I mean shapes, really are in contrast to other south east asian cultures which frown upon public displays of affections. So while in Thailand this sort of openness is just not done, here it seems quite alright. How did Thailand then come to selling its young and nubile to hordes of Asian Sextourists (majority) who seem to not get any at home? Are economics overriding cultural norms?

I promised no more than one incultural boredom inducing nerddom per post. So let me tell you how my car was pulled over right after we, the driver and I, get out of the airport. So here is little old silly Peter, learning the customs of the land by way of Driver, when suddenly this uniformed man is standing at the side of the road, waving at us with a notebook. My driver dutyfully pulls over. Right after I wonder which western driver would stop for a waving cop, I am amazed at the alacrity with which the Burmese authorities have identified their newest persona none grata – me. Why else would they pull this car over, other than that they think that some anarchic or at least asocial element is trying to enter their paradise. Driver gets out, mumbles something of tags expired, kowtows to waving cop, I sneak to side to pretend I am having a smoke, and to check escape routes, take the following picture.

As pictures of unsuspecting locals go, this is not so remarkable. Here is a nicer one.

Monks in Angkor Wat. And yes, they are tourists.

In any case, it wasn’t about me. The car thing. Although if they would only know. The tags really were expired, but I still kinda think they were just playing mess-with-the-white-boy. This is why I told them I am staying with a Portuguese Lady and her entourage of time traveling specimen. Sigh; more Moorcock. Honestly, I picked those books up at a store on Maui for 1 dollar for three books. I had no idea the guys name was that. What? He thinks he is sneaky about the Morlock thing? Pshh.

travel report 16: welcome to Myanmar

2008-12-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

Before traveling to a place like Myanmar I, and most every other visitor probably does this, had to answer the question if I am comfortable being in a country that is being run like a bad version of a middle age fiefdom. Some people think that it is bad; some people think its good; only very few people travel to Myanmar these days who do not think about this question at all. In fact not many people travel there at the moment. I wonder what pissed the traveling masses off more, the response to Nagris or to the protesting monks. Obviously, I think that it is fine to travel the Golden Land. I’s here, ain’t I? These days it is easy to spread the wealth to those who need it (most all of them) and keep it away from those that should not get it. Of course, I and my uncle Volker were only too happy that the tourist hordes where kept away by their 15 minutes of disgust. Although this by all means does not mean that my 15 minutes were perceptibly any longer. This rather complicated unthought process strangely puts one in an unbiased situation on arrival, as opposed to a state of complete readiness to hand out fliers and start revolutions on behalf of the sodden downtrodden.

To drive into Yangon and be welcomed by the below sign, does put one in mind of certain Eastern European Shenanigans designed to keep the foreigners unsuspecting and the locals in awe. Remind me to show you that other one, that I saw at another time.

In any case, I felt welcome, not so much by the sign, but much more so by dear Natalie and her Nephew Jimmy, two friends of the family who live in Yangon to do business.

This is Jimmy. His business in Yangon is school. I can not emphasize enough how important it is to have friends in this lovely country. I mean who else would exchange my crappy, torn and smelly dollar bills? Certainly not the Burmese Govt Exchange. They only take the crispest and newest 50/100 USD bills. And not those with a C at the start of the serial number. In exchange for your amazingly clean 100 dollar bills, you get the Kyat equivalent of one hundred crappy, torn and smelly 1 dollar bills in return. Do this with 500 dollar and soon you feel rich , and not just because you are in a land where you can kill people by throwing supersized Avocados at them - everything grows here, the country is a benign fungus - but also because you are carrying a wad of money that Al Capone would have given to his muscle for lugging around. To mention any more about the incredible hospitality offered to Volker and I by Natalie and Jimmy would be to state the obvious, so I leave it at saying that it felt like home.

In Yangon I was as usual the only one, me and all the other white people, who was walking around the place. Asians do not walk. They ride their bicycles, they stack 4 on a moped and how graceful it is to see two girls perching on their seats, one with legs to right, one with legs to left, with no worries in the world that they might fall. Even though the rascal driving them around town thinks he is Schumacher on a Duccati these girls are a sight to behold. Maybe it is actually because of. But they never walk. They stack on backs of pickups, on Buses like sardines, on roofs of whatever is moving down the road. But walk, they do not. When they all get as developed as they seem to desire to be I fear for their little colesterolique hearts. Also, two little fatassed asian chicas won't fit on a moped anymore.

The Locals are completely, overwhelmingly interested in talking to you. For no other reason than that you are foreign. George Bush would do great here, really low expectations. Makes you wonder why everyone talks about that Obama has it so hard because everyone has high expectations. Hell yeah, we do, I have low expectations of my pet cockroach, figure the Prez deserves a little better. Yes, being foreign is plenty, and supposedly we are all rich as well, but that only applies to other people, not me. Some of the people that want to chat to you are very quickly and obviously interested in selling you some kind of service. But most of the people that will strike up a conversation do so out of pure interest. Some of them are probably spies and you will notice this when they ask you rather curious detail oriented questions, "So the Korean that you stay with, she is a woman right?" But even those guys are rather easy to spot, and to make some sport of.

Once you have surmounted all of these rather small hurdles, you will find a genuinely friendly, tourism uncorrupted - yes, yes, I am one of them, but I have far too little money and even fewer needs to be corrupting -, constantly laughing and smiling folk which makes it hard to believe the torture horror stories that are told on dark nights. You must either start to question the effectiveness of the burmese government's methods or you must wonder at the sanity of these people. How can they keep smiling like this? There are enough examples of ugly dictators with their ugly dogs of war. In all of these places one can see the sad fruit of their labors. If you ever visited any part of eastern europe behind their curtain, you would know what a sad supressed looking person looks like. But in the Golden Land, one is by default looked upon with a smile.

However our thoughts of Buddhism; However our conceptions of the Burmese work ethic; However wasted we, with our 2000 year old churches, think it is to goldplate another Stupa; However any of our opinions fall on any of these issues we must appreciate the smile that remains like Max Plank.

travel report 15: collage melange

2008-12-12T16:33:00.000-08:00

A little photo thingy of me making my way from South of Cambodia to Bangkok and on to Yangon. Not so many amazing border pix, as I was thinking the Burmese are probably not happy if I take pictures of their borders. A lot of waiting around for shared taxis and buses and planes. And the usual tourist attractions. Here goes...

Waiting for ride and chilling in Sihanoukville.

Waiting for ride and chilling in little border town across from Thailand. Even my color blind eyes notice the color coordination here.

Waiting for plane and chilling with my lovely Bangkok Couchsurfing host Rose, and her balcony. This backyard contains a multitude of songbirds, as Rose contains a multitude of talents and surprises. I wish I would have known about the meditation knowledge. I have been told it would be good for my restless mind. Well, maybe I can learn to do it online, like I am learning how to play a flute online.

No more waiting and chilling. I know I have told you this before, but the rythm on this trip has been amazing. Whenever I needed to chill, I was forced to do so, and whenever I wanted to run around, or meet people, or see something amazing that happened as well. So I am running around Yangon and I run into this walked down church. A bunch of people sitting around, you can imagine a congregation in buddhist Burma is rather small. Meet Vincent, a rather funny member there. We go grab a cup of coffee and some sweets, and chat the afternoon away walking around town, hanging out. This will happen to you a lot here. That you run into locals who just start chatting to you. Do yourself a favor be open and look for it. He teaches English to locals who want to bail this sinker of a ship and go to Malaysia to work. I dont know why I look so crazy in this picture. Must be an Arnold thing, reminds me of Kindergarten Cop, when the kids drive him mad.

After hanging with Vincent all afternoon I went to his English class to chat with his students. Honestly, this guy is ridicolously irreverent. I mean, why would he write that on the white board? The way they teach English is rather useless unfortunately, and derived from the way they teach buddhist scripture in Monasteries. They have a little book, out of which he reads, and then the class repeats what he said in unison. Thats it. I guess its enough for laborer english in Malaysia. Next time I go back I will possibly, if I can find a polite way of doing it, suggest to the owner of the school - a rather slick business guy - a different curriculum.

A couple of hairs of the Buddha. A few thousand years of devotion. A few tons of gold. Voila, I give you Shwedagon.

On the craziest busride of my life. These buses are pre WWII. They hold about 40 People. In a country where such regulations as to bus occupancy will be followed. Scratch that, in a country where such regulations exist. I counted, there were at least, approximately way to many people on it. Just because they are short and dont get to eat much, doesnt mean its a good idea to put 250 of them in there. It was amazing anyway, especially because the ticket guy took pity on my poor lanky behind hitting my head on the ceiling all the time, and gave me some Betel to chew. Only problem with Betel is, chu gotta spit a lot, and how do you do that on a full bus unless you are a local and have been training for just that occasion all your life?

Seriously, why would you build this thing in the middle of a river? Just to prove that you can? So that the faithful have to swim across instead of being properly humbled by walking up a thousand stairs to pagoda as usual? So that tourists have to pay 8 times as much as locals to get there on a "special boat"(boat is same same different)? Its pretty cool though to go there on full moon festival, its like being at the vatican on christmas.

This is my own personal guide I had for the day. She was practicing her German for work, and I got the full tour. Good exchange. Yeah, they always look serious in pictures.

As soon as I am annoyed enough I will bitch to google about the photo upload function of this thing. It is a complete pain in the neck, and dont even ask about the formating. Sorry if some of these dont open up, but after the third upload I gave up. Hope you like them anyway.

travel report 14: Der Paradiesvernichter

2008-12-09T02:01:00.000-08:00

Er war ein schwerer Mann. Dem das übermässige Schwitzen nicht zu halten schien, von der frühzeitigen Glatze, und von der Sucht nach neuen, noch nicht erschlossenen Resortlocations. Er war ein schleimiger Mann. Der den Sound eines nassen Sandsackes machte, als er im nicht weiß-genugen Sand des Paradieses niederkam - OOOMPH. Nur ein Mann wie er konnte so ein Geräusch verursachen, und von Beruf Paradiesvernichter sein.

Er haßte Natürlichkeit. Sie erinnerte ihn an seine Unzulässigkeit. Wenn er eine Gottheit sein nannte, dann sicherlich keine Göttin der Fruchtbarkeit, der Erde. Diese sanfte Feuchtigkeit, Dieses gezeitigte modrige Gefühl des Jetzt. Des Allumfassenden. Dieses finstere Unbekannte haßte er. Mit Inbrunst, unbewußt. Nein. Sein Gott war mehr Eroberer. Vielleicht Mars. Wie mit einem göttlichen Phallus wäre das, über die unbekannte und immer unbevölkerte Erde zu fahren. Furchtbar fruchtbare Furchen in den Boden drücken. In die dunkle sanfte saftige Erde. Und dabei die älteste Form der Fruchbarkeitshuldigung vollführen. Nur leider interessiert das den fetten Paradiesvernichter nicht. Er huldet nicht. Er duldet. Er betet nicht. Er setzt fundamentale Pfeiler in die Untiefen. Er vernichtet das Ritual und es bleibt kein Furchen, sondern nur ein gewaltsames Eindringen.

Der Trägheit gehört unser Malcontent. Der dekadenten Fettheit, die einen Pier benötigt. Ein Luxushotel auf jeder Insel, auf jedem Strand, in der letzten Ecke. Den weichen Krokodilledersohlen, die ohne Teppich nur schwer existieren. Nur wenn das letzte Stück Strand, die letzte Palme, der letzte NGO-trainiert, freundliche, kulturtreue, einheimische Artisane in einen glitzernden Plan des Betons und Profits integriert ist. Erst dann wird sich der schwitzende Paradiesvernichter in seinem glücklichen Wissen zurücklehnen, sein häßliches Gleichstellungswerk vollbracht zu haben.

travel report 13: Koh Tonsay

2008-12-08T19:54:00.000-08:00

You all know that to call me an Agnostic would be to insult all Atheists. Because Richard Dawkins has become rather annoying in his insistence on regurgitated lists instead of analysis, and in the face of my disregard for organized religions I do reserve the right to feel blessed, and, to use the languages of god to express feelings of happiness where appropriate. Let me only state that through my current journey I have come to better understand the forcible feebles and their need to explain all and everything; every coincidence, every hatred, every joy and every seemingly immeasurable amount of mana from the sky. In no way do I mean to confuse you in regards to the affiliations of my soul, which, just to clarify, does not exist, as I am not a duality and instead a single entity (happy, sort of like a pig in the mud). Please take the following in the spirit of the preceding, as an expression of joy to be alive and to be allowed to experience. I am sorry for the rather sappy tone. It seemed appropriate.

======== ========= ========

The gods surely must be beautiful. For I dined as ye kings of old. Good things come in three and the third night on Koh Tonsay will remain edged in the souvenirs of my mind. I was not supposed to stay this long, but realize now how foolish that thought was. The fresh pepper crab, pulled out of the ocean minutes ago, melts on tongues too taste-stunned to express the usual. You must at one point in your life partake of Kampot Pepper. Have it in Paris, as they used to during the Roaring, but prefer it freshly whence it grows from.

This starry night I spend with souls well met. This idea in all our minds, floating. In and on the waves of this soon to be moonless night. Soon we are in the becalming waters of the bay, of the soft sand, of the moon setting distantly, of the spirals overhead. Of the luminescent waves underneath.

The gods surely must be merciful. For tonight I swam with the candles of the sea. Imagine thus, every movement, every moment a trail of glittering light. Enlightening us. Tiny, too small to see during the harsh light of day, but glowing grandly, hundreds of times their real size in the light of the night of the falling moon. Mother nature's ephemeral blessings bestowed upon us all. A ballet of the sea on fire. A symphony of joy; and sing I must, softly, while floating in these milky waters of creation. Shine in the music, cleanse me. Melody in the lights, set me free.

The gods surely must be bountiful. For I dove among the floating stars of a million miles underneath the sea. My open eyes drink an orgy of riotous light streaming past as snowy flurries will do on dark European winter nights. I wish to remain, to stay in this place, to be something else. A dolphin; fins of light and trails of joy.

Travel Report 12: Siem Reap – Angkor Wat II

2008-12-05T20:57:00.000-08:00

A rusty pen is what I feel at this point. Or should I say rusty blogging thoughts. So let me just begin where I left off, and last wrote to you all and to my diary in disguise (Whatever will happen to that anyway when the servers of the world unite to form the machine overlord? Form a new consciousness? Disappear into human battery fed 0s and 1s?). I told you – RUSTY, forgive. Rustiness = rambling even more than usual.

Second try at beginning where I left off. At Siem Reap on the last day – planned – of my stay there. I decided on this day to take a TukTuk out to the River of the Thousand Lingas, on my way there I would see this, for Angkor Wat standards, smallish temple, which made up for its size disadvantage with incredibly detailed stone carvings and empty morning feelings. Again the stupid anthropologic-comparison thought moves; how this ancient culture produced this, and proceeded to disappear, while my silly St. Stephens Cathedral keeps hanging around. My Tuktuk is only 14 Dollar for the whole day on the night before, at the end of the day it was 40 - remember to spell better next time.

We arrive out at this outpost of no tourists at all, surrounded by the usual stalls of crap sellers, who seem desperate to the point of attacking me, the lone visitor, with “you buy Mr, cheap cheap, when come back, you promise.” The river of the Thousand Lingas is exactly that. A river, in a rocky bed, thousands of Lingas carved handsomely and obsessively.

It is about a mile up this jungle mountain. I feel like Rambo, except I am not chasing the bad guys, only bad penises. You laugh? That only shows you got no clue what a Linga is. JFGI (nubes to this, my most humble vehicle of informing my friends and family of wellbeing, mine that is, you must follow the link, to find out what JFGI is, and kindly leave a thumbs up to third in list – no, I will never give up this obsession with putting this Stamos-Illo word creation to its rightful place at top of silly list. See, we thought of it first, but didn't think to urbandictionary it).

The hike is lovely, if uneventful, no green mambas, scorpions, Khmer Rouge remnants lurking in the foliage. I do however see two locals sweeping (sweeping?!?!?) the dirt path that leads me into this jungle with their palmfronds brooms. I had noticed the exceptionally clean condition of this jungle path, and was puzzled by the neat patterns of lines across it as I hiked up. They resembled those that would be left by – a broom made of palmfronds, apparently. I must admit, first I was a little scared of the strange jungle monster that would leave tracks like that. But you don't know Peter, if you think THAT Kinkerlizchen - not Rumpelstilzchen - would divert him from rapture by a thousand penises carved into a river bed by fertility obsessed hindoo-rockcarve-wallahs. Nevertheless relieved that no centipede of enormous girth and even larger appetite was doing a jig across the path in recent history, I refocus my thoughts on the proper phallic objects, the carved ones instead of the creepy-crawly ones.

I reach my destination after about 30 minutes, the usual contingent of one guard against thieves of ancient penises, tourist guide + 1 couple of Euro Tourists and local woman hovering are present at the river bed. A bench invites me to sit and rest my weary soul; slightly rotten, holes in it, but good enough for me and this jungle. Sit down for a few minutes, drink water, wonder where the thousands of promised Lingas are hiding. An incredible stabbing pain in my left ass cheek. I jump up, hollering in pain and surprise, turn to stare at the rotten bench – Nothing. Under it – Nothing. My upper quad starts hurting burning, pain moves shoots all through it. Check around the bench on the ground – Nothing. Big artery leading on inside of leg up to belly starts pulsing something fierce. Try to gesticulate to bored guard, who did hear me yell, that something bit me. Reaction is a blank stare. Rather panicked at this point, I decide to go and ask the tour guide a couple of rocky defiles further down the river for local advice. Ignoring the two Euro Tourists I head over to him.
'Hey man, I was sitting on this bench up there’, he can tell I am freaked, ‘and something bit me’.
'Did you see what it was?'
'No, tried to look, but was gone.’
'Show it to me.’
I think: I can not possibly show this guy my ass.

'Uhm, it's in a rather sensitive location.’
He doesn’t get it. Really pulsing up my artery/leg now. So I, down pants and up shorts, point to where I think it happened, I can’t see the exact spot. He now gets the sensitivity of it. Bends over, examines the tender area, makes sounds of worry and faces of What should I tell this already freaked out white boy that won’t immediately put him in the ground with a heart attack?
'I don't think it's a snake', relief, 'there are only two puncture marks', faint. Well, not really, but only thing keeping me from fainting is remembering that calmness is primary now, so poison doesn't travel even faster to heart and immediate seizure. He bends over again, to look at my ass closely, gently probing with his fingers - never thought I would say these words.
'Maybe spider or what do you call that…?’ makes snaking movement with his index finger '...with many legs.’ You have got to be shitting me! You have centipedes the size of fingers that bite people in the ass? I look for my Rambo knife.
‘Yes’, but he can tell my weak little white heart is doing flips and wants to bounce out of my throat, so he refrains from further gory details.
‘Slowly go down mountain, home and rest, it will go away in two hours or so. Whatever you do, do not put menthol on it’ Why would I put menthol on it?
‘If you put menthol on it, you die’. Ohhhh-kayyyy!

So I dismiss his menthol phobia in my mind, thank him, and slowly, painfully, in a fear/emotion controlling manner I limp down the jungle mountain. Cursing Rambo, green mambas, dirt-path-with-broom-sweeping locals, lingas and my own stupid curiosity, which apparently did kill the cat and maybe also me.

Later, after an interminable hike down jungle of worst euro-tourist-nightmare, my pale face works wonders and none of the hawkers bother me, which is a good thing, because at this point I feel like puking my guts out, and what would they think of us round-eyed barbarians if we all start vomiting on their flipflops just because they are trying to make a meager living?

Go over to guide, tell him story, he looks freaked out at the possibility of a dying tourista – I guess it would be bad for business – runs over to stalls, jibberjabbers with sales girl, comes back with little jar.
‘Put this on.’
‘What is it?’ He already has it open, I smell it. It’s Menthol. How the heck did the guide know? I decline politely, he nearly insists, I refrain to repeat what the guide told me. He asks me to show the thing to some people who are sitting there. And I kid you not, Peter Illo exposes his not inconsiderable, rather hairy backside to a bunch of locals sitting around a table playing cards.
‘OOOOH!'
'JIBBERJABBER!'
'HMMM!'
Lots of head shaking. Some laughing. They all seem to think I better head to a clinic pronto. So I walk back over to Tuktuk, really looking forward to the ride back on my broke-ass ass, riding out all those potholes in the 30 miles of dirt roads, which I now remember in advance detail. Suddenly my body wants to completely vacate. I can barely control this attack of a need to explode from two main and one minor orifice simultainously, in the middle of all the stalls selling crap. I do not want to add my load to the wares on display. So I supremely effort my bodily fluids under control. Would be somewhat undignified.

Long story short, we head back, and into the first clinic that we see in a small village. The nurse only looks on in consternation as my driver explains the situation. I don’t bother exposing the guilty party as she is completely clueless, which surprises me. Shouldn’t animal bite treatment be priority # 1 in these remote jungles? What does she do there, if not treat various bites? Cure Cancer? We get back in Tuktuk and decide to head all the way back to Siem Reap, good clinics there.

Suddenly huge rainstorm, Tuktuk guy comes to sit in back with me, waiting storm out, passing the time with a smoke and – detailed stories of what will happen to your body when poison-bitten, and the different ways of dying of snakebite.
‘Don’t worry, if it would be really bad snake, you would not have come down from mountain. You'd be dead already’ (thank you for sharing), and ‘There is this one snake, if it bites you, you must not go to sleep for 12 hours. If you do go to sleep, you will never wake up again. Thats how the poison works. ' I don’t know if I should smack him or thank him for this excursion into Cambodian poison lore.

Insidious, I tell you. After about 30 minutes of rainsoaked horror stories we go on. My ass doesn’t hurt so much anymore, but I can’t stay awake for the love of god. I keep passing out. Of course this is easy for you to read, knowing that if I am writing this, I obviously wasn’t bitten by that particular anti-insomniac-snake. But imagine my horror at comfortably slumbering away. A waking nightmare. He probably told me on purpose.

I wake up, back in Siem Reap at the red cross clinic, some quack Chinese doctor, examines me, comes to the conclusion that it was probably a centipede of gigantic proportions and that I should lie down and sleep it off. Gives me activated charcoal to eat (30 pills, try and swallow that in one go) makes a paste out of activated charcoal and smears it on my ass cheek. I go home and sleep it off, and actually feel well enough to board the bus to Phnom Pen on the next day.

I don’t have a moral from this story, only a picture of proof that it would seem better for little Peter to stay away from obsessive compulsive Linga-search-behavior.

Travel Report 11: where is peter?

2008-10-22T04:44:00.000-07:00

Austria, I love ya, but I had to leave. I am sure you can forgive.

These are my excellent Courchsurfig Hosts in Bangkok, Penylene and Margot. Hugs to both you of, and thank you for having me. Margot I hope the soil erosion rain simulation experiment was everything you hoped for :) Penylene, don't let those mean kids in French international school get you under. You are bigger and badder than them!

Me and Margot up on Golden Mount. Bangkok has changed hugely since I was here when I was younger (forget it, I am not dating myself). In ten years (oops) skyscrapers everywhere, a crazy skytrain, that snakes through it so high that if it would be in Finland it would be the new preferred method of suicide. Honestly, its like a hot and humid Bladerunner. And there were way too many white people. But Golden Mount was really nice. The last time I was there, it was closed off and under indefinite renovation. They did such a nice job, and Thai people actually were doing there religious thing there. It would be like seeing a bunch of Austrians praying at St Stephens cathedral.

For all their protectiveness of animals, vegetarianism and peace and love mentality they really hate on the Buddhist nuns. These 40 are apparently doing a proper job of devotion.

Cambodia. I just can not express how amazing it is to be walking across the friendshrip bridge from Thailand to Cambodia. I know I am a lucky chap (been hanging out with Brits), and I wish all you special people could share this.

Steve and Marion, this awesome British couple, I hear they are married, but I was never sure. We met on the bus from Bangkok to border with Cambodia, and then shared the crossing and the ride to Siem Reap. They will haaaaate me for all these pictures from the second day, because they did not have time, because they had to fly back to to India, because after 7 month of traveling they still have to go to Nepal trecking. I know, poor things. Such a pleasure to meet you guys, and if you read this before you leave Cambodia, do come back here on your way back, because it really is mindbogglingly worth it.
I think they were laughing at some tourists. Could be I misinterpreted it. I hear... nevermind, you will read that later.

Show me a national monument, world heritage site, seriously overloaded with 1000 year temples, and I will show you... well never mind, if you tell me, I will just go there. Because when you ride through the jungles of Cambodia, loosing the tourist masses because they are all on the same preset tour, and you get to the Death Gate, because 1000 years ago, they brought their dead out through this gate, to be eaten by carrion birds, you know you are god damn well travelling.

This is a moat. Whatever little ditches European Knights built around their little toy castles are well, silly when you look at a man-made moat the size of the Mississippi.

250-something faces. To say that this guy was in love with himself would be an understatement. You cant turn around without looking at him. Or him looking at you, which I am told by the lonely planet was the real reason. Projecting force and such, like Sarah Palin when she is looking across the Behring Strait to do her foreign policy thang with Pootin.

I thought Tenochtitlan, Chitzen Itza or even Schönbrunn was large. I was wrong.

If you would only know how I took this picture.

Even photo op dancing girls need a break every once in a while.

For some reason these guys really wanted to hang out with me, and tell me that my stick figure drawing of the 4th library at Angkor (yes, on the 2nd day we are on 1st name basis) and then looked all serious when I took a picture. They laughed at the picture though. But I did hear that people around these parts have as many smiles as Inuit have names for snow.

Aint gonna lie. Second day is a lot better than first.

Because suddenly one has time and energy to find things out of the way.

And cute little people who seem to like Bananas a lot, and smile more and say thank you and good buy a million times for the Bananas you just gave them. While you pretend to crash your rented bicycle into a tree to amuse them even more.

Gotta run guys, dinner is waiting.

its a plague

2008-10-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

its a virus

its infectious

its taking over the world

be afraid

be very afraid

galgenhumor quote of the day

2008-10-10T02:32:00.000-07:00

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
Richard Feynman

Petitionswut - Petitionmania

2008-10-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

I am happy that my French is attrocious; otherwise this would have to be trilingual.

Das ganze artet jetzt wirklich schon aus. In den letzten drei Wochen habe ich 27 Petitionen geschrieben. Und auch abgeschickt. Nie war es leichter seine Meinung im öffentlichen Raum einzubringen und dafür sage ich ‚god bless america and the internet’. Unter anderem schrieb ich an die österreichische Außenministerin, wirklich der neue Titel ist zu lang (note to self: write a petition about this), um die Tibeter, wenn nicht zu retten wenigstens zu beachten. An Den Standard um für selbigen Zustand Presseaufmerksamkeit einzufordern. An meine US Congress Representaten um meinem Unmut über die diversen staatlichen Goldenen Fallschirme Ausdruck zu verleihen. An ABC (US Fernsehsender) um ihnen zu sagen, dass ich es zum kotzen, und baldigen schwitzen finde, dass sie nach der zweiten Präsidentendebatte Kohle- und Ölindustriewerbungen zeigen aber einen Spot verweigern der klarmacht, dass es auch mit grüner Energie geht.
Alle diese Dinge sind wertvoll, aber fragen tu ich mich trotzdem: Gibt’s eigentlich eine Antipetitionspetition?

============localized version==============

The whole thing is out of control. In the last three weeks, I have written and sent 27 petitions. Never was it easier to state ones opinion and have it heard in the public realm, and for that I say ‘gott schütze die USA und das Internet'. Amongst others I wrote to the Austrian Foreign Minister, seriously the new titel is too long (note to self: write a petition about this), to at least pay attention to the plight of the Tibetans, if not making an actual effort to help them. To "Der Standard" (Austrian NY Times like daily) to demand coverage of the same issue. To my US Representative in Congress to tell them how pissed I am about various government financed golden parachutes. To ABC, to tell them that I will vomit on my next cable bill if they continue to happily spout Oil and Coal lobby BS in Oil and Coal lobby ads after the presidential debates while refusing to show green ads that may show us that there could be better options to securing a positive energy future.
All of these things are valuable in and of themselves. But I still wonder: Is there an Antipetitionpetition?

who pays the bribes, I mean bills, sorry

2008-10-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

Did you notice the ads after last night's presidential debate?

ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run our Repower America ad -- the ad that takes on this same oil and coal lobby.

I sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still we haven't heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20.

You can view the ad on the ABC petition page, here.

As Al Gore has said, "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. And every bit of that has to change.

Note on side: Guess who said exactly this during the campaign? It wasn't the other one, I can tell you that.

Travel report 10: Impressions from Vienna

2008-10-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the nice moments I got to enjoy while running around Vienna the last month or so. I think I said before that I have not enjoyed this city this much in a long time, possibly not ever. Either I am getting old, or Vienna is getting young. Mayhaps, as is usually the case in such cases, both applies.

...I just figured out how to upload more than one image at a time to google blogger. Amazing, you'd think this semi-nerd would know this already, but I didn't. Now I have to kill the time till all this is uploaded. So I might as well tell you about the horrifying experience I had at the dentist these last few days. It seems my little (made up) story about the cleaning session I had the other day has backfired in a nasty karmatic way that makes all talk of waiting for rebirth in order to reap the next-life storm that you sowed with your this-life wind superflous... Ok, the images are uploaded now, so you will have to await a worse day to hear this story. I can imagine most of you are happy not to have to hear about my dental experiences, except for maybe that republican that keeps polluting my sweet marxist blog. In any case. Here are the pix:

Me at Hundertwasserhaus. Yes, this is Hundredwaterhouse. No, thats the name of the architect, we dont have hundreds of waters in vienna.

Phil and I at the Pestsäule. Commemorating the last great Pubonic Plage Outbreak in Vienna. Paid for by the Emperor, I mean the commoners' taxes via the Emperor.

Some new and old friends at a Picnic in the Prater, which is this huge woodland area right in the center of Vienna. Naturally, it used to be the hunting grounds of the Emperor back in the day, paid for by his highness, of course, I mean the commoners' taxes via the Emperor. We, the folk, are now allowed into it. Thank you! I grew up 5 minutes from it.

Some old friends enjoying a nice evening reminiscing about the olden days and the need for a revival of marxist principles, or at least reinvigorated redistribution principles (using guillotines preferably) of capital.

This is the view of the top of the Northtower of the St Stephens Cathedral in the center of Vienna. Its quite a lovely view, and I had to take all the pics because Phil made like a Geko and clung to the walls (afraid of heights). He really wanted to make like a tree and leave (lol, did I just use this?) but I didn't let him, since we already paid 4 Euronen each to get up to the biggest, fattest, most impressive Bell in the history of humankind. The Pummerin (JFGI and give a thumbs up to the 3rd definition).
EVERYTHING in that impressive church had to be paid for:
Getting into the main ship: 4 Euros.
Looking at the Katakomben: 4.50 Euros.
Going up to really tall Southtower: 3.50 Euros.
Going up to see Pummerin and Phil do a geko immitation: 4.50 Euros (well spent).
Seeing the catholic church reduced to a tourist trap in order to make ends meet: Bloody Goddamn Priceless.

Phil in the Catacombs under the St Stephens Cathedral. This stuff is really old. Like, Oh My God, nearly older than Palin's Dinosaurs & Humans living together peacefully way back in the day. Presumably that was before evil Eve made able Adam eat that stupid melon, or whatevertf it was supposed to be. Or was it the snake that made him eat that melon? Or was it he that made her eat the snake? You figure it out.

Me and two of my parents' kitties, cooking a nice meal for same (my parents, not the kitties, they have it good, but not that good).

Me and my Mum about to go to the Musikverein (only the top concert hall accoustics in the world) to listen to some cheesy, old guys play some cheesy, old music, by some cheesy superold looser named Beethoven (7th and 8th Symphony if you must know).

Lovely autumn day walk along the Donaukanal to my friend Elmar's place. I only now realized that the thing you can see in the back is a powerstation which was Hundertwassert as well.

Guess what! Elmar and Andrea recently had a baby. I know, surprising. Presenting to my small world: Sophie.

In this picture, Andrea, the awesome mum, is in blue, and on the other side are Wolfgang and Romana, we go way back. Wolfgang, Romana and I are the only sane people left in this world that get to have all their sleep and keep all their DNA.

I used to school Wolfgang on the mean basketball courts of Vienna. Well, not really, he would turn around and shove his fat ass in my face and then hookshoot over me when he was right under the hoop. Over and over again, I know, boring, I told him as well, unfortunately effective. Its what you should have done, Assar in order to avoid the thrashing you suffered. Oh no, now its right there for the whole world to read. Sorry bro!

I imagine this to be my last post from Vienna. Unless of course, and this is rather likely, Saracuda Palin forces me to make fun of her again. On Thursday this week, which is the 9th of October I will be boarding a plane to Bangkok, from whence I will travel to Cambodia and Burma. In the likely case that you should never hear from me again, it is not that I don't love you, it is just that I love Don Det more.

faux palin 4

2008-10-05T03:34:00.000-07:00

I guess we should have seen it coming. Sore loosers throwing mud to see what sticks. I think she just got sick of providing voluntary donations to John Stewart, and decided to make them involuntary. I am nevertheless surprised at the gall the woman and her campaign's strategists have. Sadly the boss of her campaign was subjected to exactly the same kind of smear tactics in the primaries of 2000, and rightfully if bitterly complained about it. Are our and John McCain's memories really this short? Does the end truly justify all means? Are there really 10k Californians that will cheer these comments forgetting that their Hero's patriotism, exemplified by his horrifying incarceration at the Hannoi Hilton, was dragged through the mud by his own party only 8 years ago? This is not a Faux Palin, its a Faux John McCain, and while I respected him before, this respect is going down the utubes rather quickly.

problem solved

2008-10-04T02:31:00.000-07:00

Dr ÜB just gave me a brilliant IDEA to solve all the problems we currently face in this world. Every human will donate 1 dollar. That will put together about 6-7 Billion. The way the value of my house has been dropping because Palin's Joe Sixpack signed an ARM and Paulson made 600 Million of his dumb behind it should be easy to find a cheap piece of land. We buy this land with the donation and park all the ignorant , foreign-hating, greed-promoting, money-stealing, lie-telling, religion-loving, teenpregnancy-having, dinosaur-with-human-living, environment-polluting people there. Where they can then continue their merry dance of subprime intelligence without bothering us the hardworking, honest, tolerant, progressive, green paragons of humanity. We can then live in peace and enjoy the fruits of our labor, without having to subsidize and bail the dumbasses out every 10 years.

Here is my bankaccount # *&%@^$^$ (ok, you didnt really think I was going to post it here). We just gave Henry "the money shredding machine" Paulson 700 Billion. Whats another 7 Billion for a truly good cause? You trust me, dont you?!?

et tu, henry?

2008-10-04T02:17:00.000-07:00

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury this world’s financial system, not to praise it.
The evil that men do lives on for years.
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Let us do different.
Let us bury their evil alongside their stones.

Henry Paulson is an honorable man.
Let no man stand before me and question his rightousness.
He has brought you the spoils of golden wars,
The bounties of his conquests were yours to devide.
Yet he asked no reward, but to share some of his righful gains,
To be primus conservationist inter pares.
Is he a bad man that he wants the same golden wings for his friends?
As he wanted for your endangered birds of prey?

Let no man stand here before me and proclaim,
That Henry Paulson’s ambition was not,
The envy of your heart.
That his reward in gold was not,
Gladly paid to him.
Him, the pride of this nation and her system.

‘The Hammer’ you called him
When you admired his strength of conviction.
When you loved the shining brilliance of his leadership.
When you would have been extatic with joy at,
Walking in his borrowed shoes for one moment only.

What is a little treasure, used to reward those that lead us?
Where is your charitable spirit that your praise so well?
Are you so petty that you hold against those,
What your own greed lusted for most?
Are you so short of memory that you forget those,
Who you followed to this exhalted place?

This place
That rewards the lie
And punishes truth

Shall no man wonder how we wrought,
A consequence of action well deserved for all.

faux palin 3

2008-10-03T16:10:00.001-07:00

You know how I asked you to beat the first funi faux palin video I sent out? And how many opportunities have there been since then? I know, you can't count them either. But none of them get remotely close to this one. This is the funniest thing I have seen since Georgieboy said he wanted to help Americans put food on their families. If you just cant stand her, go start at minute 1:18.

Just a reminder:
American population: 3% of world population
American energy consumption: 25% of world consumption

Chinese car mileage: 43 mpg
USA car mileage: As of 2004 27.5 mpg, new rules enacted in 2007 say that by 2025!!! cars need to be at 35 mpg.

Again: China 43 mpg : USA 27.5 mpg.

Funniest thing is Palin's Joe Sixpack (debate) sits at home goes "Yeah man, screw them polluuutin Chinks, and them Arabs too, driving them nice cars while I pay 4 bucks at the pump."

schöne zahnhygiene

2008-10-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

Ein Zahnarztbesuch ist immer etwas Nettes. Es kommt natürlich darauf an zu welchem Klempner man geht, aber prinzipiell macht es doch Spaß. Vor allem weil die Schnuckis in der Rezeption einen wirklich davon überzeugen wollen, dass ein Zahnklempnerbesuch das Beste seit sliced bread ist. Ich schreibe dies anscheinend von einer vollkommen männlichen Perspektive. Wie die andere Art damit umgeht weiß ich natürlich nicht. Also, jedes Mal wenn ich da reinlatsche denke ich mir, die Kleine ist so süß die kann doch sicher nicht mal ihren eigenen Namen buchstabieren. Geschweige denn meinen leicht slawisch angehauchten. Wie wenn sie diesen Gedankengang mit ihren weiblichen Waffen erahnen könnte, blitzt sie mich dann aber mit ihren zahnklempnergebleichten Beißerchen nieder. Ich vergesse daraufhin mein Vorurteil und wundere mich angesichts des Engelsstrahlen nur noch was denn der Grund für meinen angfressenen Restemotionalzustand gewesen sein könnte.

Neulich ist mir wieder mal so eine Emotionalzustandsmanipulation passiert worden. Ich bereite mich also gerade auf die unendliche Warterei vor, da taucht überraschend sofort eine blendende blonde Bombshell vor mir auf und lädt mich ein ihr doch bitte zum vorgesehenen Kammerl zu folgen. Mach ich doch gerne, stehe aber letztendlich vor der Wahl zwischen zwei Prachtexemplaren der Zahntechnik, wenn man das so sagen darf. Unfreundliche ZAHNYGIENE Schilder A und B an den Rückwänden der einstmals heftig in pubertären Schulungsträumen integrierten Rückklappfoltersessel begrüßen mich und verjagen vergnügliche Erinnerungen an eben diese. Wie bei einer dümmlichen aus den USA eingeführten Gameshow steht da jeweils eine Dame neben ihrem Ungetüm. Eine blendet und blitzt einladend, die andere schaut verdrossen aus der Wäsch. Die eine flirtet mich an und die andere erinnert mich an eine DDR Schwimmerin aus den 80ern. Verzagt drehe ich mich zum Rezeptionschnucki, denn das kann doch nicht ihr Ernst sein, aber das Schnucki zuckt - mit den Schultern und schwingt davon. Normalerweise würde so eine Wahl gar keine Qual sein, aber in diesem Falle fühle ich mich vom Schicksal verarscht. Was, wenn das Schicksal weiß, dass ich weiß, dass es weiß, dass ich weiß…?

Ich übergebe mich Fortunas Armen und wähle die Schöne, weil wenn es schon schmerzen soll, dann mit Stil. Es dauert nicht lange, und ich weiß, dass das Schicksal wusste, was ich jetzt weiß. Genau genommen weiß ich es schon beim Hinsetzen, als sich die Schwimmerin leicht hämisch abwendet, als ob das Schnucki und sie schon Viele, von alten, netten Schulungsträumen träumende, in eine Schicksalsfalle gelockt haben.

Lieber Leser, du verstehst, dass nicht alle Zahnhygienedamen gleich gemacht sind. Die einen liebkosen deine dentalen Taschen, diese Ansammlungen von Bakterien, diese Kloaken deiner Speisegewohnheiten. Sie haben es geradezu darauf abgesehen die kleinen Tierchen mit Zuckerbrot aus den Untiefen deiner verschmutzten Fresse herauszulocken, denn Peitsche kennen sie nicht. Die Peitsche ist einfach nicht Teil ihres Makeups. Nun, so eine habe ich noch nie getroffen. Der andere Typ Zahnhygienedame ist dir sicher so vertraut wie mir. Zuerst schaut sie missbilligend da du es gewagt hast, deine dentalen Angelegenheiten in so einen Zustand verkommen zu lassen. Dann greift sie sich das längste, spitzeste und furchtgenerierendste Klempnerwerkzeug welches sie diesseits von Peters Perlentor finden kann, und schiebt es dir unter den Kiefer bis sie bei den Halsnasenhöhlen wieder rauskommt. Manchmal schon auch direkt unterm Augapfel. Meist wird diese Attacke von einem leicht enervierten tsts begleitet, so als ob sie es wirklich leidig wäre einem ungezogenen Jungen immer wieder dasselbe sagen zu müssen. So weh es auch tut, du kannst deinen Schmerz natürlich nicht wegbrüllen, weil du damit beschäftigt bist, nicht im immer präsenten Spülwasserstrahl zu ertrinken. Was nicht so leicht ist denn sie hat deine Zunge mit ihrem praktischen Spiegelchen festgeklemmt.

Und genauso passiert es hier auch. Die kleine Süße wird im Handum- und Bohreraufdrehen zum Zahnhygienepublicenemy # 1. Ich krümme und wende mich zwar innerlich bleibe aber äußerlich stoisch, um ihr nicht die Genugtuung zu geben, dass sie ihr verhärmtes Wesen an einem weiteren Unschuldigen hat aufbauen können. Plötzlich hört sie auf mir im Zahnfleisch herumzusticheln, steht ruckartig auf und lässt mich einfach auf dem Rückklappfoltersessel hängen. Normalerweise würde mir das beim Zahnarzt auf den Geist gehen, aber dieses Mal bin ich eher froh. Sie hätte aber trotzdem den Sauger abdrehen können.

Da verdunkelt ein riesiger Schatten mein erschlafftes Antlitz. Wie das Ufo über New York in Independence Day. Nicht einmal der Schmerzschweiß durfte mir vollständig abtrocknen. Ich höre bedrohlich dumpfe Musik, und während ich mich noch den Unterbewußtseinszwängen der modernen Unterhaltungstechnik zu entziehen versuche, vernehme ich eine Grabesstimme. „Die Kollegin hatte gerade einen Notfall. Ich übernehme sie jetzt.“ Angstschweiß bricht mir jetzt aus allen Poren während ich der soeben abgerauschten Teufelsengelin noch die schlimmsten Flüche nachsende (Ich erinnere mich nicht genau, irgendetwas mit ihrem Erstgeborenen muss es gewesen sein) während ich sie gleichzeitig innerlich anflehe zurück zu kommen. Ich würde ihr doch auch zeigen wie sehr ich in ihrer Gewalt stehe. Alles nur das was da auf mich zukommt. Aber diese mickrigen Flüche und dieses erbärmliche Flehen verblassen angesichts der schieren Angst die das Erzittern meines Sessels in mir hervorruft welches die Schwimmerin auslöst als sie mit vollem Gewicht in ihren Sessel sackt. Mir wird übel wie einem Hund der auf einer kalifornischen Erdbebenfalte kurz vor dem Big One sitzt. Mir fahren wirre Ausreden durch den Kopf die diese Frankensteinin der Zahnhygiene ablenken und mir so die Flucht ermöglichen könnten. Nichts hilft, ihre quadratisch-praktischen Löffel von Händen drücken mich sanft in den Sessel. Ich nehme an mir kommt das nur sanft vor weil ich kurz vor der Ohnmacht stehe. Die Schwimmerin beugt sich über mich, nimmt mein Kinn in die Hand, raspelt mir ins Ohr „Bitte etwas zu mir drehen“ und „öffnen“. Man kann sich nicht vorstellen wie wichtig es mir in diesem Augenblick wäre nein sagen zu können. Nein, heißt nein, verdammt noch mal. Auch wenn man es nur mit dem Reptilienhirn flüstert. Aber es hilft nichts, diese Rückklappfoltersesselzahnvergewalting geht tatsächlich von statten und ich kann nichts dagegen tun. Rein gar nichts. Ich ergebe mich meinem Schicksal, sehe Überschriften á la „Mann von Ex-DDR Schwimmerin im Rückklappfoltersessel ertränkt“ in den Boulevardblättern der Stadt und dann passiert das Unglaubliche.

Nichts.

Ich spüre nichts. Rein gar nichts. Sanft gleitet das Schalltechnologiezauberzahnhygienegerät über meine Dentale, unter mein Zahnfleisch, durch jedes kleine Hindernis als ob es Butter wäre und nicht monatelang mühsam angesammeltes Zahngestein. Die Feinmotorik dieser Maria Callas der Zahnhygiene ist erstaunlich. Ich glaube fast nicht, dass sie wirklich noch säubert. Wie könnte sie denn auch, mit diesen Pranken von Händen? Ein Grizzlybär wäre stolz auf die. Aber ich spüre doch nichts, wie kann das sein? Vielleicht poliert sie ja schon. Ich wage einen schielenden Blick. Aber nein, sie verwendet dasselbe Gerät wie die jetzt schon fast vergessene letzte Henkerin meines Zahnglückes, und ignoriert freundlich mein Schielen. Wo ich vor kurzem versuchte, dem Schmerz und der Schönen gegenüber stoisch zu sein, rinnen mir jetzt die Tränen des Entzückens, der Erlösung über die Wangen. Ich kann es mir nicht verkneifen. Sofort hält sie inne. Entsetzt fragt sie mich „Geht es noch, Gnä’ Herr?“ Sie, die ihre kleinste Handbewegung aufs Feinste abgestimmt hat, kann derartige Tränen nicht gewohnt sein. Ja, sie muss annehmen, dass sie, die Göttin der Sanftheit, mir Schmerzen verursacht hat. Ich sehe in ihren fassungslos verkniffenen Athletenaugen, dass ihr dies tiefstes Unbehagen, ja, wahrlich Schmerz verursacht. Ich bin so gerührt dass ich ihr nur weinend versichern kann, dass alles, wirklich alles im zahnhygienisch Reinsten ist.

Die Moral dieser Geschichte: Trau dem blendenden Schein nicht und am Besten wäre es du traust die Sanfteste.

iranian women's rights

2008-09-29T01:24:00.000-07:00

Today I came across a piece of news in an Austrian newspaper about a verdict in Iranian courts that recently upheld a woman's right to reject a man's desire to aquire a second wife. As ridicolous as this sounds to our western sensibilities, this was important in order to halt a regression into even stonier stone age times in a muslim country of rather large importance. imho (yes yes, none of you think that I am actually that, but I try) unless women in the middle east get to live in an environment approximating the rights of women in the western world that part of the world will forever more remain stagnat in all matters of importance in competition between human societies and progress in general. You may agree with this or not, but you should at least think that a honey in Iran should have culturally adjusted similar rights to a honey in the West. Including the right to be pissed that I am calling her a honey!

For that reason I wrote a petition at:

http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article19

To which the following is their reply, containing the text of my letter. Please feel free to copy it and send it on.

Hello,
You asked to sign the petition: International Support for Women's Campaign. You provided the following information:
Name: Peter
Site: Mindgloaming - http://www.mindgloaming.blogspot.com

To whom it may concern I hereby express my support for womens rights in Iran and the rest of the muslim world. The recent verdict upholding a first wife's right to say no to a second wife in Iran is an important step in the right direction. However, many other issues still remain to be solved in order to grant women a proper status in Iranian society. I hope that these steps will be taken not only for womens sake but also for the sake of a freer Iranian society. Regards, Peter Illetschko IMPORTANT... To validate your signature, you just need to connect to the address below (otherwise your request will be rejected): http://www.forequality.info/spip.php?article19&var_confirm=na7982EZ〈=en#sp19
Thank you for your participation!

I wouldnt go as far as saying that I am having a great time petitioning people left, right and center. But I do think that it can be important. At least Ms. Feinstein referred to 50k financially pissed off Californians in her floor speech in the Senate. The wonders of which are that I actually received a response, that all those emails and phonecalls where counted, if not read individually, and that bloody 50k superficial, breastaugmented, nosejobbed, "what can you do for my acting career?" Californians cared enought to sit their liposucked behinds down and make the effort to write.

faux palin 2

2008-09-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Never again laugh about beauty queens who state that they want to go out and change the world to make it a better place should they win the contest. By for example shooting moose from helicoptors, smacking Pootin (how else to spell that ugly redneck UUU? Reminds me of nucular) in the head whenever he rears it out of soviet airspace and bringing her five nannies for her five kids to Number One Observatory Circle (sry, JFGI). You never know, it might all come true.

response from senator feinstein

2008-09-28T04:59:00.001-07:00

As promised I wrote to a couple of Senators. Senator Feinstein had her bot write back to me. She does offer for me to call her at her office in DC should I have any further questions. Well, lets have some further questions. Send them to me and I shall ask. But you can't make me ask her to kick John McCain in the shin when she sees him in the hallowed hollow halls of government.

Dear Mr. Illetschko:

Thank you for your letter expressing concern about Congress' consideration of a plan to meet our Nation's credit crisis with financial help from the Federal Government. This is a difficult situation for which there are no perfect solutions, and I would like to share my thoughts and concerns about this issue with you.

On September 19, 2008, Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson, Jr. announced a legislative proposal to use $700 billion to purchase illiquid mortgage-related assets from ailing financial institutions. Secretary Paulson's three-page proposal was a non-starter, and without critical changes it has no chance of approval from Congress.

This proposal would have given a blank check to an economic czar who would have been empowered to spend it without administrative oversight, legal requirements, or legislative review. Decisions made by the Treasury Secretary would be non-reviewable by any court, agency, or Congress. The proposal also lacked a requirement for regular reports to Congress on the status of the program. This was simply untenable.

Since this announcement, my offices have received thousands of comments from Californians like you concerned about how this action will affect them. Yet, I believe prudent action must be taken. The bill should include the following principles: a phase-in of funding; oversight, accountability and transparency; a mechanism allowing the Secretary of the Treasury to modify mortgages to prevent additional foreclosures; and a precise cap on executive compensation.

The current credit crisis affects all Americans. If action is not taken to stem the crisis, Americans risk losing their homes, jobs, personal savings, life insurance and more. Banks will cease to lend to businesses and homeowners, and credit will be increasingly difficult to come by for average Americans. I strongly believe that the consequences of failing to act now would be greater than not acting at all.

Attached please find a statement I recently made on the floor of the Senate expressing my feelings on this issue. Please know that I will keep your thoughts in mind as this situation unfolds.

Once again, thank you for writing. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, D.C. office at (202) 224-3841. Best regards.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
Floor Statement on the Economic
Rescue Proposal
September 26, 2008

"Mr. President, to date I have received from Californians more than 50,000 calls and letters, the great bulk of them in opposition to any form of meeting this crisis with financial help from the Federal Government. I wanted to come to the floor to very simply state how I see this and some of the principles that I hope will be forthcoming in this draft. Before I do so, I wish to pay particular commendation to Senator Dodd, Senator Schumer, Senator Bennett, and others who have been working so hard on this issue. I have tried to keep in touch -- I am not a negotiator; I am not on the committee -- but California is the biggest State, the largest economic engine, and people are really concerned...

This goes on quite a bit, I will spare you that though. If you want it, let me know and I will forward. Did anyone else write? I assume everyone else would have gotten the same response?

faux palin

2008-09-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

Dunno if you all have seen this, since we have been busy running to WaMu trying to get cents on the dollar, but its funny. In a sort of nightmarish foreign policy equivalent to "I dont know much about the economy" McCain.

Travel Report 9: Why I will never leave don det

2008-09-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

You might think there is no more to the question of why never come back than the above. And on the surface I agree. However, right now I can think of a couple more good reasons that are strangely linked to global finance and my bank account at the magically same time.

But let me digress from this annoying topic first as many of you have to my surprise wanted to know about my future whereabouts. I guess my insecurity comes out in such a way that I think nobody really gives a hoot what I do and where I do it. So thank you for prooving me wrong and asking where the bloody hell my next outstandingly funi, interesting, poetic and exceedingly readable, if not gramatically completely correct, travel report will reach you from.

It is to be from Austria. I just realized that I really should be making an effort to promote Austria at least a little bit since it is quite lovely. Yes, I said it, Austria is wonderful. At least when I am on vacation, wherelse can I go to Schiele Museums...

Go play a game of pool with both my Austrian and Austinian friends...

Listen to Abbado and Pollini (my Mum thinks he is too unemotional) do Beethoven Symphonies in one of the top 3 concerthalls in the world for 6 Euros, tickets purchased at the door on the night of the performance...

Put Versailles to shame...

Find out how its done (the putting to shame of Versaille). It takes roughly 60 year-round gardener employees and lots of practice and talent to be able to cut a tree round. This guy was telling me that while Phil snuck in a picture. Sneaky, Dr Jones! I know, we should be spies.

And so much more, which might come out in another posting, but right now I know you are dying to find out what is next, and why I will never come back from Don Det!

On the 10th of October I have a flight to Bangkok. I will stay there a few days and then get on the bus to Cambodia. I will be in Cambodia for about a month and then get back to Bangkok to fly to Yangon on the 10th of November where I will meet my uncle who I will then travel around Burma with for about a month. On the 5th of December I will be back in Bangkok. No idea after that.

Why I should stay in Don Det instead of going to Melbourne and Brisbane and back to USA? Because a couple of dollars a day is all I need there, and thats all I will have after the Treas. Sec is done bailing his old company out. I know I promised you no more capitalist robber baron rants, but this one is just too good to be passed over. Quick and painful:

Treas. Sec. Paulson "The Hammer" says that the overleveraged and underbacked debt instruments that were created by the investment houses over the last few years are largely responsible for the current malaise.
Goldman Sachs is one of these investment houses, as proven by the current bailout of Goldman Sachs by Warren Buffet to the tune of USD 5 billion.
Paulson was the CEO of Goldman Sachs for 8 years before joining the Bush Administration last year.
His payout from Sachs before joining the govt was: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! You can find his stock ownership of $632.4 mil right under the first pie chart. This is a Forbes site, they are in business to tell us who the heroes of capitalism are. They wouldn't lie, they are proud of this stuff. He had to sell these stocks without (!) paying taxes at the time of switching from Sachs CEO to Treas Sec. Cant have a conflict of interest, right? RIGHT?!?
Amongst other actions as CEO he directed that all major strategy changes had to come before the board before being implemented. For example the usage of new overleveraged and underbacked debt instruments.
So now he asks me to give him 700 billion (we all know this is an entré), of which a cold hard 630 million went into his pocket 1 year ago.

Wow, now that I put it like this, I will go ahead and actually write a letter to my congress man - before I go to chill on Don Det, on the Mekong between Laos and Cambodia.

Feedback Links to your Senator:

Cali
Barbara Boxer: http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/feedback.cfm
Dianne Feinstein: http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.EmailMe
Members of Congress: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=ca

Arizona: My favorite "The economy is in good shape" John McCain: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
Members of Congress:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi?site=ctc&state=az

I did write to all of the Senators and to one Representative each. Call me naiv, call me stupid, but this stuff annoys me too much to not at least give them a piece of my mind.

regarding finlandization

2008-09-22T07:29:00.001-07:00

This is what the Finns thought of Finlandization:

Thanks for the add Z.

dino vs piggy

2008-09-20T06:55:00.003-07:00

I realize most of you would not find this funny, but it is indeed more of a fable of the rise of the small over the large, the lucky over the hungry and the stinky over the big-toothed.

Travel report 8 - finlandization

2008-09-20T01:01:00.000-07:00

Recounting my swedish train experience has been so traumatic for me that it took me nearly two weeks before I could take keyboard (pen) and monitor (paper) in hand again. I have had to resort to extreme measures, recommended only in extraordinary cases of physical, psychological and emotional hardship in order to regain my inner balance. Mainly those measures consisted of running around Vienna with Philipp taking in the sites, and eating as much deliciousnes as humanly possible. I am officially becoming a gluton, at least when it comes to eurotrashy foods, the consequences of which (diabities, lovehandles, etc) remaining only somewhat malpronounced as one needs to walk from one bloody museum to the next café, to the next emperor's summer residence, on to the purveyor of heart attacks in the form of Austrian Käsekrainer Hotdogs. You could say I am trading one pain for the other, but I disagree heartily, yes even gluttoninly (spelling?). In this case at least I am dying of and at my own pleasure, whereas the former raison de malaise was Swedish conartistry. I think we can all agree that cultural and cullinary gluttony is the preferable way to take the trip across the great pond and say Howdy to good old Manitou.

Random not so fun fact 1: Global Investors are pulling their assets out of stock markets like there is no tomorrow.

Excuse me, before I continue I need to dunk my butter/nutella/jam/peanut butter croissant into my morning coffee laced with real rich austrian cream. My teeth have been falling out from all the sugary pastries I have been wolfing, so now I need to soften even this poor croissant.

Funnily enough my Finlandization starts in Sweden. I am at the airport, completely out of whack, from the trainride if you haven't realized that yet, so I want to eat a bite before boarding the plane to Helsinki. I roll into this airport food place and grab the first sandwich and drink that I see.

In retrospect I realize this probably wasn't my luckiest choice. Coke and Green Tea must be very healthy (NOT) as it tastes disgusting, and a sandwich with mayonaise and little canned shrimp and veggies just screams "Don't eat me". I actually threw some of it away, and how often have you seen me do that? I mean I always eat all my food. Its a WW2 and guilt over starving african babies thing.

Random not so fun fact 2: This global investment stampede is headed straight for the US bond market and its perceived safety.

Nevertheless I would judge my visit to Sweden a resounding success, mostly because I loved seeing Lisa again after so many years. She really has done well for herself. And as soon as I stepped on the plane I forgot about the sandwich and bad coca cola diversification attempt, however not the train ride, and started to look forward to a similar experience in Finland. Where I was to visit my old, old girlfriend Minna. She is not old at all, actually she is the same as always, but it was a LONG time ago. However, she does have two wonderful little troublemakers and one equally cool husband, all of whom I could not wait to meet. She picked me up at the airport (this was ok, but I would have felt horrible if Lisa would have come out to get me on that Blain the train) with her very happy 5 month old son Pepe Antero. I prepared myself for another family adventure as we rode out to her place, which is right around the corner from the northern most tram station in the whole bloody world!

Are you kidding me? How cool is a vacation if you have friends that randomly live in places like that?

And how asocial is Finland if they make benches in parks such as this one? Finnish city planer (who I still prefer over his Phoenix equivalent) says "What do you mean I need to make space for more than one pensioneer on this park bench? Finnish geriatrics do not talk to each other. Everybody knows that. Voi Satana!"

The Finns are a not an emotionally cold people. Their nation is one marked by loyalty to the poor and the weak. Imagine surviving next to Hudson Bay climate and on the border to a mean old bear like Russia for hundreds of years, and you will understand the level of social cohesion that is required to thrive in a place like this. This is the reason why it is unthinkable for a Finn to cross a red light, even though he might stand at an intersection on the polar circle during the third month of that particular night, with no cars in sight for the last 72 hours. People here have rules that they follow in order to survive 40 degree celcius below freezing. It also explains why Finns asume that Germans think outside the box and are a somewhat unruly, yet funloving people. Apart from the Scandinavian's design prowess this furthermore is the reason why the people of the land of the rising sun share a brotherly bond with the people of the land of no sun for six month. Climate and geography apparently trump physiological and olfactory antipathy.

Random not so fun fact 3: The US government pumps USD 300 Billion into the stock market in order to saveguard money market accounts, prop up a free-falling Dow Jones and buy some time to figure out how to effectively spin the message to the world that it is headed for a replay of the great depression.

How can you not love these intractable people? They offer their home and saunas (Which I am happy to tell you yet again, is a Finnish invention, as are ice swimming, Adidas and Glühwein) to you, yet do not know how to handle a Romany beggar lady because that sort of thing has never been done in Finish society before.

Their modern art is so modern that it questions the way we sit on park benches. And I am not talking about those single white old female park benches.

They like to think up designs that overthrow conventional wisdom with gusto:

And they really do not appreciate the pitfalls of our modern sense of beauty:

All the important body parts and faces in these images at the design museum are grotesquely fake.

However they are lucky to exhibit for the first time outside of Japan this amazing collection of woodcuts from the 18th century by Hokusai and Hiroshige. If this exhibit visits your town at some point over the next couple of years I highly recommend seeing it. Unless you have some sort of Yakuza connection to the Yasusaburo Hara Collection in Tokyo you will not have another chance to see it.

Random not so fun fact 4: 100 of the 300 Billion USD that the US Govt pumps into the market are generated by the sale of new bonds to that same market.

This is the Great Wave of Kanagawa, probably the most famous of these prints. You have seen a reprint of it somewhere. I was really fascinated by this. Not so much by the quality of the woodcuts (what do I know about it?), but by the insights into Japanese life in those days, and by the fact that I lived on top of what used to be one of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road when I was in Tokyo. Crazy, eh? If you care to look it up, it was the third station on the road from Tokyo.

Finland not only invented the Sauna, the Alvar Alto vase and untold other design wonders, they also claim Santa Claus, even though their Santa Claus originated as Joulupukki in the cold wastelands of nothern Finland instead of the Northpole. I think its somewhere close to VW's prooving grounds. Here is a picture to prove that first of all Santa is Finnish, if not finished, and secondly that not only my dear American compatriots fall victim to horrendously gaudy commercializations of the most time-honored customs:

I must at this point finally acknowledge that we humans all seem to have a yen for taking the prettiest customs, the most majestic natural vistas, the nicest little seaside towns, the most exhalted sounds that musical geniuses produced hundreds of years ago and making them available to the most amount of people for the quickest buck possible. This is just another in a long line of qualitities that truly exemplify that we are all created equal. Equally greedy, equally tasteless and equally cheesy.

I know I am annoying you with my ideological bent, so this is my last rant about commercialism, capitalism and there just being too many people around. At least until I am in Angkor Watt.

Random fun fact conclusion: A perfect if not sensemaking circle has been drawn. Joe Smith takes his money out of stocks and puts them into bonds. These bonds are sold to him by the govt in order to finance the propping up of the stock market which fell through the floor because Joe Smith took his money out of it. Brilliant!

In conclusion here are a couple of nice picture of me relaxing from all the Joulupukki and Museum running stress in front of Minna's and Sampsa's home.

This is probably the last nice day of the year in Helsinki

Minna, Otto and me

Pepe Antero and me. I promise I am holding the baby, not crushing it. Look how happy he is! Can't you tell?

PS: In case you were wondering what Finlandization really is:

one last thing

2008-09-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Before the world gets sucked into a blacker-than-night toilet bowl centered roughly around Geneva I wanted to share this lovely little Austrian cultural anomaly. Well its not an anomaly to us, but you all might think it so.

Seriously, you need to click and zoom in. I tried to catch him as he smacks himself in the nuts, but no such luck. They were actually pretty good. Although I gotta say, all I did was take this picture and than try not to look too much. Its impolite. Well, it was kinda hurting my eyes actually.

In all honesty, I took this picture to prove to you that I am one of the normal ones!

travel report 7 - northern exposure

2008-09-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

All I need now for my perfect northern exposure week is a cute brunette, a strange sort of Hippy DJ who used to have sex with my ex-wife, and a former Astronaut Mayor. And a Moose. Of course none of these things will actually make my bodily shell believe that it is in Alaska, so I will just get right to it, and tell you about my Scandinavian Experience instead.

Random Fun Fact: The Swedes think that the Finns are way blonder than they are.

First of all, this time I was not language confused. It was quite clear to me after basking in the Croatian 35 degree sun for a week, that when I hit Stockholm I was now not in Kansas anymore (forgive the plagiarism, I am not a fan of the movie, but that line just works so nicely). I did not say s'cusi or pardon to everybody, and I was not worried about my stuff getting stolen out of my car. I did however notice a few rather pecular scandinathings.

It started at Stockholm Airport. Happily I strolled along, not suspecting any tomfoolery or shenanigans. I was after all in rational, safe, utterly selfcontrolled Sweden. Here the babes are supposed to be blond, the cars either look like tanks or are made by weapons firms and never in a million years would you expect to get ripped off at the airport in true south east asia fashion.

(I must add that I only ever had great experiences with tuktuks)

But believe it or not, that is what happened: Little Peter rolls up to the train ticket machine for buy ticket to center of Stockholm. Ticket asks for 220 of hard (honestly) earned coins. I about drop my ambitions to find a blond in a tank or fighter jet as I look for the next plane out of this utterly irrational, unsafe, un-selfcontrolled country to which my plane ticket from Austria was 47 Euros and where the train ticket to town costs 5 times as much!

Oh right, the Swedes use Kronas. They are not asking for Euros. Wtf, I think, who does that anymore? I understand if you dont want to give up your Sterling, that just sounds to good to be traded in for the Teuro, but Kronas from Sweden? I go to exchange money, feeling a bit strange as while travelling through 7 countries in EU I have not had to do that, am therefore not used to gifting the exchange fee to the Cambio joint, Q.E.D feel ripped off like a headless chicken in the puebla on El Día de los Muertos. After the exchange I realize that the return ticket to and from the city costs more than my flight even though it is not in Euros anymore. Of course you know that this is absolutely intolerable to Peter. Rip me off in Bangkok and Chitzen Itza - gringo prices, thats cool. But Stockholm? Surely you kid!

I search for alternatives: Bus, other trains, anything. Swedish ice queen looks me cold in the eye, says "There is another train, but you have to take a bus to it, and than change again. It takes very long". Sounds like a mexican nightmare. I am now afraid of the con artistry of the Swedes. I did not see it coming, so was not prepared for it. What will happen next? Shellgames in dark corners? Girls inviting me home, only to be "surprised" by their husbands who then demand hush money? Pickpockets the likes of which a poor naive Austrian has never seen, even after the east opening of the EU? I buy the bloody ticket, as I think Lisa is already wondering for which scam I fell. Cant make her worry, she is 5 month pregnant.

You ask for the lesson from this: Dont give train monopoly transport to airport. And be happy that the train into Vienna is only 8 Euros.

Lisa, her husband Pål and their sweet son Cesar where so kind to put up this itenarant Austrian at their pad around the corner from Kungsgatan. I had not seen Lisa in about 10 years. We attended QUT in Brison, Queensland together. So amazing to see her all growed up.

This is a foto at Millesgården and the Kårfalks. I dont know if you ever plan on going to Sweden after reading my above rant, but if you do, go check this Swedish Dali of the bronze statue out. Let me show you:

This floats my boat.

I also checked out Stockholms old town, this is me and Lisa in front of the castle of the King. I don't know why the Austrians ever thought not having a King would be cool.

I mean we could stand in front of the Hofburg (pic left) and say "This is where the king hangs, and out at Schönbrunn he chills in the Summer".

Random Fun Fact: The Finns think that the Swedes are all way blonder than they are.

Walking around Stockholm, especially the part that I stayed at, one can not help but notice that the guys really like pretty suits and the girls all shop at the nicest labels. If Assar wears one of these suits to work (and I know he owns them, looks good in them, too) he would very quickly be labeled at least metrosexual, which in Arizona is only one small step from that dreaded label of a fashionable man who likes skin products (I dont know that much about you - do you Assar?). There exists of course an age old urban myth that Swedish girls are exceptionally fine specimen of their species, the female one that is. In the past I have tended to disagree as I visited Stockholm on a cold winter weekend 15 years ago, and politely thought, as is my nature, that they must all be very thickly dressed in many layers. Now, that I was there during a few late summer days, I must reverse my thinking. Yes they are exceptionally pretty, and strange as it may seem to some of you I have not been to a single bar/club/meatmarket outside of Vienna in the last two month. This can only mean one of a few things: I am old/I am cold/I am as always/I am stupid. You figure it out. In any case, the Swedes are the Japanese of Europe when it comes to being label conscious.

After this longwinded analysis of Swedish anatomy and fashion sense, without any pictures to prove my points no less (what do you want me to do, get stalker arrested?) I move on to a much more fun topic. Yes, there are funner topics than calling Swedes beautiful if gay acolytes to modern consumerism. Case in point being the Vasa museum. I know! You didnt believe me.

Random Fun fact: Swedes and Finns are equally blond.

This wonderful ship, the Vasa, not just any ship mind you, but actually named after the Swedish royal family, was built to great fanfare and was made to strike shock and awe into the Poles. We all know how those things go. Although why anyone would bother with the Poles, apart from taking their country apart as buffer between Russia, Prussia and Austria is quite beyond me. In any case this ship took three years to build, carried 64 cannons and was launched in 1628.

It was painted in gaudy colors and had funny figures of submissive Polish nobility carved into its bow. The who is who of Sweden of 1628 attended as the mighty ship fired a salut in celebration of this achievement seconds after being launched. And proceeded to sink into Stockholm harbour 3 minutes later. I am sure Jan Sobieski (see picture to left) was terrified of the Swedish naval might after this couragous display.

In typical confident scandinavian (in any other country in the world this would have been stricken from the historic record) fashion the Vasa has been dug up from the harbour floor in 1961 were it was amazingly well preserved by the frigid baltic sea. For us all to see, stands here this impressive if slightly off-kilter ship, as a lesson in how not to build one.

Did I mention Jan Sobieski? Again I must tax your outstanding historical knowledge base. This is the same Sobieski who in 1683 heroically beat the Turks into submission with his cavalary in front of the gates of Vienna. One man's friend is apparently another man's enemy. Of course we thanked the Poles for saving Christendom by using their country as punching bag between the aforementioned countries. What can I say? There is a reason why the term Real Politik was coined by a Secretary of State with a German accent. And his name wasn't Metternich.

In the end the Poles lost the sea battles against the Swedes, who managed just fine without the Vasa.

And I managed just fine to get back onto that disgrace of a train, to catch my flight to even colder Finland. I just drank myself into oblivion with Finlandia Wodka before paying the ticket. As we all, and any good Russian, know Wine and Cognac are for the heart. While Wodka is for the soul, when it is really hurting. As mine was after submitting to the train krona terror yet again.

The story of Finland, the surely most asocial (I kid, I kid) country in the world, I will tell another day, after I get my China Visa.

travel report 6: sailing out of Trieste along Istrien

2008-08-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

As you know I have been on a sailing trip out of Triest for about a week. I arrived back in Vienna on Saturday, fresh of the boat, and happy to be back at my parent's place. I guess it is about time that I come to some sort of conclusion, mentally, about my impressions of this four week long road trip, but first of all lets make fun of puking, Croats, sail boat captains and myself. I cant make any fun of ze Germans, because they are awesome. Awesome for inviting me, awesome for being easy, awesome for squeezing themselves into a 30x7 space with a black Austrian and a thirsty skipper who honest to your choice of god lives in Schiffmanns Straße.

the crew

black Austrian, Schumi, Philipp, Thomas, Hermi, Anne

Yes, I made it back to Vienna in one piece, and also managed to not throw up all over myself and all over the boat for the last week. I dont know if you all know this about me, but I am the king of motionsickness. I realize this does not gel with my plan to be Austria's representative on Mars, what with space travel being rather nausea inducing. But how unamerican of me would it be to let a little puking get in the way of my dream? "About as unamerican as universal health coverage", says Billy O'Reilly. Therefore, I give you the Austrian Comet of Vomit.

this is what you get when you make fun of flexible pete

I did warn them about letting me drive that baby!

For this reason the crew of Taika managed to scrape together anti-motionsickness medicines from all corners of the world - Mostly thru our underworld connections to the drug industry, Ms Treuheit. Chewing gums, patches, 130 % proof alcohol (honestly, I didnt know it was for cleaning). I was told to only use the patch if my heart can viably beat at 5 beats per minute. I decided to wait to use it until I had taken that Online Fakir course, which should enable me to lie on beds of nails, survive naked in subzero temperatures, have a girlfriend and most importantly survive 5 heart beats per minute. Some might say that all of these things are one and the same, but who am I to judge? Luckily for us, the Mediterranean played nice and was flat as a pancake for the week. As opposed to me, who has been gaining weight steadily since I have been eating and drinking and eating and drinking and sitting on my ass in my Volvo and on the Taika a lot. What can I say, I never thought I would put on weight, but it seems to be mostly a function of who is serving me what kind of food.

Philipp Treuheit left front, responsible for wuzeln, cooking and Mussels - QED for my newfound fatness!

3 kilos of mussels for 4 euros bought of fishing boat, a lot of crunching, very little talking, happiness lies in plans well laid. "Dont eat the ones that dont open!"

Once again, I have to give a shoutout to my incredibly democratic teutonic friends. Nothing on this sailing trip existed that was not agreed upon unanimously. Every packet of noodles, can of beer, packet of Kippen (german for smokes or tschick), dinner, breakfast, cheese, ham and plan was discussed, taken apart, examined from all angles, put together again, and finally agreed to. Which is why the bloody German machines gel so well, I might add. I am not generally a patient person, goes hand in hand with being Austria's Comet of Vomit, but I must say this was lovely to behold. Not only did I enjoy our indepth analysis of each and every point, but it also made complete sense to have everyone's view count. We did ignore the skipper every once in a while, mostly when he said "Do I really have to die of thirst here?" But only because he wasnt talking about a sip of water. But otherwise this lead to a rather harmonious experience on a ship the size of a post stamp.

Most of you know that I lived in Japan for a couple of years a long time ago. I can honestly say that at least 3 out of 6 Japanese would have committed Sepuko on this excuse for a ship after three days. Of course they would have left notes explaining that they did themselves in for the greater g(f)ood for the survivors, but we all know that's BS. Their sissy little polite facades couldn't take what teutonic democrats easily discuss and debate into complete and utter submission. It is similar to the way we cook meats and vegetabls until they are hard as rock and gooey as marshmallows, respectively. If you dont believe me, try sleeping with Treuheit in a cabin for which I lack appropriate size metaphors because its just too short, too croocked, too right above the waterpump. Maybe that 130 % proof alcohol was for not remembering the nights, but in all honesty I can say, even the sleeping arrangement worked like a charm.

You are forgiven, if you read the above and forever more refuse to step on a sailing boat smaller than the Queen Elizabeth II. However, you would be missing out on an amazing experience with friends that will only become closer - much closer - as you learn to work as a team throwing Halsen and Wenden and People over Board (for training purposes, I think at least).

Now if only we could have figured out how to learn a maneuver which would ensure a modicom of politeness from our Croat hosts in the various marinas. But short of a sawed-off pump action gun, I cant think of anything that would have achieved that. The only difference between a Croat and a Frenchman is that the Croat screams "Nema" at you at the top of his lung, while the Frenchman just ignores you. Z, you were absolutely right. Croats do want our money, they just dont like us to come down there to give it to them. They would much rather we just transfer it over in zeros and ones. That little Mario actually tried to run a racket on me that a Phillipino would have been proud of. Alas he did not reckon with the teutonic anger of Captain Werner from Schiffmans Straße who, and this is best said in German, las ihm die Leviten like only a man of the sea is capable of doing. I tell you it is fun to behold a Croat and a German going at each other - them's a couple of funny angry accents.

"NEMA! Je bemti matre, yu wil nema coom he again! I waant mei funf Eeuro"
"HAH, I veel sspeeck wiz urr bosss rrrigt nau, and ve veel ze hoo haz ze lazt worrrd een zes matter!"

Does it get any better than this? I need to move back here, just to be able to make fun of other people's accents instead of my own for a change.

Finally I do need to impress upon you, that if Austria would have run the world instead of Rome, Britain or the USA it probably would not be a more just place, and surely not more efficient. But it would certainly be one hell of a pretty place. History buffs that you all are, of course you know that this part of the world used to part of Austria. And strange as it is to see Austrian Herrenhäuser on the seashore, it is pleasing to even my jaded Austrian eye. Might be my own sensibility but it takes a certain level of arrogance to go and take over place, just so that you can build this:

for your little Sissy - Austrian Empress, embodied by Romy Schneider in useless if sweet Austrian movie "Sissy", who is a sort of old school Jacky Kennedy. Just so you dont think America invented the hot stylish first lady. Austria made a bloody living at that, although I still dont understand how they got around them Habsburg noses. No matter how, "Tu felix Austria nube" remains one of my favorite quotes. I also need to get me one of those Franzl uniforms.

I leave you with my thought of Austrian Imperialism:

And if anyone wants to send the open letter right before this post to my foreign minister, here is her address: ursula.plassnik@bmeia.gv.at

offener brief an österreichs aussenministerin

2008-08-25T00:29:00.000-07:00

Sehr geehrte Repräsentantin Österreichs internationaler Interessen,

Ich schreibe in Bezug auf ein Anliegen welches allen freiheitsliebenden Menschen die an der Bewahrung ihrer Grundrechte interessiert sind wichtig ist. Ich wende mich an Sie, als meine von meinen Mitbürgern gewählte Vertretung Österreichs im Ausland, da es sich um die schwierige Situation in Tibet handelt.

Die heute zu Ende gegangen Olympischen Spiele sind und waren eine Chance eine zukünftige Großmacht wie China in die Staatengemeinschaft rechtsgläubiger Nationen willkommen zu heißen. Dieses Willkommen muss aber, um seriös zu sein, auch beinhalten, dass China bestimmten Menschenrechten folgt und es seinen Bürgern erlaubt in Freiheit zu leben. Diese Freiheit besteht nicht darin einen auf westliche Prinzipien aufgebauten Rechtsstaat einzurichten, aber diese Freiheit besteht auch nicht darin souveräne Staaten zu besetzen und deren Kultur und Menschen auszurotten. Davon gibt es leider schon viel zu viele Beispiele in den letzten sechs Jahren (Irak) und vier Wochen (Georgien), welche gegen schärfsten Protest der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft von statten gingen.

Sie wissen natürlich wesentlich mehr über die politische Geschichte Österreichs als viele unserer Mitbürger. Ich bin mir sicher, dass sie mehr Ereignisse in unserer langen Geschichte vergessen haben, als ich jemals erfahren werde. Trotzdem möchte ich zwei Spezifische erwähnen die in unmittelbarer Vergangenheit stattfanden, welche, so meine ich, persönliche Verantwortung durch persönliche Erfahrung mit sich bringen. Das Erste ist die Annektion Südtirols durch Italien 1918. Diese widersprach Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Punkten der Selbstbestimmung. Das zweite Ereignis ist der Anschluss 1938.

Ich muss nicht erwähnen, dass ein internationaler Protest, zusätzlich zu Mexikos einzelgängerischer Courage 1938, in beiden Instanzen willkommen und möglicherweise wirkungsvoll gewesen wäre, um die Grundrechte Österreichs zu verteidigen. Leider versagte die internationale Staatengemeinschaft beide Male kläglich. Die Konsequenzen sprechen für sich. Als Österreicher einer Generation der die horrenden Ereignisse des letzten Jahrhunderts erspart blieben fühle ich dennoch eine gewisse Verantwortung, dass geschichtlich bewiesene Fehler nicht ad absurdum wiederholt werden. Weder von uns selbst, noch von anderen. Werden wir in fünfzig Jahren zurückblicken und es bereuen, dass wir hier nicht handelten da dann die Konsequenzen unserer Schüchternheit endlich nicht mehr ignorierbar sind?

Sie hatten vor kurzem die Möglichkeit zu einem Meeting mit den führenden Repräsentanten Tibets in Österreich. Zum Anlass der Olympischen Spiele wollten diese darauf hinweisen, dass ihre Landsleute unter wesentlich schlimmeren Umständen leiden als Südtiroler oder Österreicher, mit Ausnahme der Opfer des Holocausts, je mussten. Diese Repräsentanten Tibets fordern von ihnen nicht, dass Sie einen persönlichen oder staatlich gesponserten Kreuzzug für die Menschenrechte und gegen China führen. Sie fordern auch nicht, dass Sie eine Dalai Lama Briefmarke herstellen. Im Gegenteil, sie wollen nur, dass Sie ihnen zuhören. Dass Sie diesen verzweifelten Menschen nur für 30 Minuten Ihre Aufmerksamkeit schenken, um aus erster Hand zu erfahren was mit ihren Brüdern, Müttern und Kindern in Tibet tatsächlich passiert.

Sie waren zu beschäftigt. Wichtige internationale Meetings hielten sie davon ab einen Termin nach Ihrem Belieben festzusetzen. Denn diese Tibeter würden sich nie herausnehmen Ihnen etwas vorzuschreiben. Dafür sind sie viel zu verzweifelt. Sie wissen, dass sie Bettler der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft sind. So wie Österreich 1918 und 1938.

Es ist wahrlich ein schamvoller Augenblick, dies hören zu müssen. Ein Land wie unseres sollte besser sein. Sollte moralischer sein. Sollte sich an sein eigenes Leiden mit Wehmut erinnern und stolz die Fahne der Gerechtigkeit so hoch halten, dass sie nicht ignoriert werden kann. Nicht im Namen der Realpolitik und sicherlich nicht im Namen billiger Rohstoffe oder unseres eigenen Lebensstandards kann dies unterlassen werden.

Aus diesem Grund ersuche ich Sie, Ihre Entscheidung rückgängig zu machen. Schicken Sie nicht Ihren Lakaien zu diesem Meeting mit den Tibetern. Machen Sie Platz in Ihrem sicherlich sehr vollen Terminkalender. Hören Sie sich das Leiden unsere Mitmenschen an. Wenn nicht, um tatsächlich größere Gerechtigkeit von China einzufordern, dann zumindest, um sich Ihre eigene Menschlichkeit zu bewahren, um Österreichs moralisches Ansehen zu erhalten, und last but certainly not least, um diesen armen Staatenlosen das Gefühl zu vermitteln, dass ihnen zumindest ein Ohr und ein Herz geschenkt wird.

Verbleibend, als besorgter Bürger der Weltgemeinschaft,

Peter Illetschko

travel report 5 Carcassonne to Barcelona

2008-08-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Honestly, it was about time that I did some bitching for my last post. I have been so happy with my cruise around EU land, that it was down right un-natural. I was in a veritable wonderland filled with wine and whatnot. Cheese, provence, lavender fields, cassis, and now Carcassonne, Pyrenees, Andorra, Barcelona. It just dont end. Cousin Philipp thought that EU is amazing because there is so much nice stuff bunched together. I am just glad it was a European who told me that, not an Auslaender. I agree with him, I have somewhat of a spinning head from it. I feel like them tourists that sleep in a bus, like chickens in a box, while they are beeing carted to the next european city. 20:20 or something like that. I talk french to catalunians, spanish to french, catalan to italians, and i say s'cusi, pardon, tschuldigung, excuse me, excuse moi a lot. A very large amount! I get asked about my american accent a lot. Which only leads to more s'cusi, pardon, tschuldigung, excuse me, excuse moi on my behalf. Sometimes I wish I would talk MORE like Aahnold - operative word here being of course more. Maybe then I wouldnt have to make sure that I justify my existence. I think I need a canadian flag.

So after my lovely day driving towards the Pyrenees, via Bézier, the Canal du Midi and my favorite viaduct, I ran around this huge bastion of a burg. Without fail I arrived at the appointed time of just pre sunset. Which you must surely be able to tell from my amazing previous pictures of sunsets at prime evening camping locations. Right? If you dont believe me check this one out before I arived in Aix en Provence.

Bettah b'live me nau! Do you know how hard it was to calculate the exact moment, on the exact day that the sun would set in exactly that spot when I drove my car through this tunnel at 120 KM/hr while holding the camera out the window to take a completely random picture? Me neither, it was just luck.

Anyways, I thought we had Burgs in Austria, of good size and imposing nature. Sadly I must report that my sweet little Kreuzenstein fits into the servants toilet of this baby. However not sadly because their Burg is bigger than my Burg. Burg, Schmurg, I always say. But sadly because I do not like my education to be this chauvinistic. We all know that our respective countries transport a certain message of patriotism and why our leetle home is the bestest leetle home in the whole wide world. Mine was that we presented the world with Mozart and Sexdreams of phallic symbols. Yours might be flowers or punctuality. Or eating dogs, whatever. Leave my Burgs out of it. Just let me know that my Burgs in Austria are not the mightiest of the mightiest of bad guy vanquishers. Then I dont suffer shock and awe on sight of the real thing.

I know its from a distance, but only way it all fits in one pic. I notice I am really starting to love perspectives. Its more a rediscovery, I used to draw these geometric views of the transamerica pyramid in SF, when I was 14. I guess school was good for something.

Sinnister Zinnen Perspektiven

I told you its huge

She didnt care though

So I got outa there, too

That night I camped out high in the Pyrenees. Found myself a little nook and put my friend Wolfgang's Tent up - grazie Wolfang and Romana. Yes, it's really German name. Sigh. Fresh and crusty I drove on in the morning to get across the Pyrenees and Andorra into Spain and to Barcelona. On the road up those anthills I saw this guy standing by the side of the road. Of course, being the gentle soul that I am, I gave him a lift. He was a clown from Quebec hitch-hiking his way to Barcelona after a summer of tomfoolery in the south of France. I give you Louis-David, the cowboy:

He is not wearing his custome there. What can I say, a couple of kindred travelling souls, although I must admit his international style of travel is a little too hard core for me. Props to his endeavor though. We spent a cool day driving to Barcelona and checking it out quickly, before retiring to our on personal Penthouse high above the oceans of El Mansou. But european into the wild is not an episode I wanted to be part of. Too much of a chicken in my middle aged days.

Luckily my first couch surfing host provided me with hearth and home on the next day, and since I was a couch surfing virgin I could not be happier at the way my CS cherry was popped. He and his Girlfriend fed me the most amazing ham, served me the nicest local wines and I enjoy me a can of Catalunian beer any day of the week. I know most of you think that this is typical Peter to sleep on random couches, and you are of course right. However, and this is a huge HOWEVER. I promise you that you will never get to see a city the same way as when you couch surf.

And in case you didnt know: Parma Ham is a copy of Catalunian ham, Cheese in France is crap, French soccer is the worst, and if you got any more questions go to the Dali Museum. If too lazy this will also do:

This is Gaudi Park up on the hill. Come early, no touristas and great shadows. I finally bothered to use the Selbstausloeser. You know, the thingamajic that makes you look like a fool when you put your camera on a rickety perch, sprint into a possibly advantageous position and try to seem to be completely relaxed in the ensuing picture perfect moment.

Amazing, isnt it :D

I spare you the rest of my perspective mania.

And leave you with a nice Jack Johnson song line from What You Thought You Need:

'...And talk about the road behind How getting lost is not a waste of time'

ye old tree

2008-08-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

Nic, I know you like trees, this one is older than Austria!

necessary patriotic dose

2008-08-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Good to know that not only Americains supply their consumers with a good dose of patriotism. Really rather pathetically full of pathos, isn't it?