"The Rounds" May 9, 2008

You can stopping rubbing your eyes and gaping now: you didn't read wrong, and I didn't type wrong. That's "360" followed by nine zeros, a.k.a. "360 billion smackeroos."

A news story coming out of Fort Worth, Texas in the U.S. has it that some guy, clearly not the brightest spark in the fire, strolled into a bank in the city that bills itself as "Where the West Begins" (and where, as a coincidental aside, I happened to be born) on a seemingly routine errand: to cash a check, allegedly written by this idiot's girlfriend's Mother.

You can darned sure bet the teller perked right up as she took note of the amount, written both numerals and words. That's the 360 billion part. Pretty hefty payout, heh?

That's what the teller thought, too, so she quite understandably just what he planned to do with the money. He told her it was intended to finance his planned venture into the world of entertainment, in the form of a recording company he wanted to establish. Seems like a lot to me for any recording company, even with all the best equipment, luxurious quarters, grand staff cars, and signing major international starts.

Guess the teller (no doubt bemused) thought so, too. She ducked into the back and called the account holder, who confirmed she is, indeed, Mr. Spark's girlfriend's Mum. However, she said she most assuredly had not given the guy a check for any amount, and certainly hadn't signed it.

Predictably, the story took an unpleasant turn, at least from Mr. Spark's perspective; the teller called the police. (I would have loved not only to witness their questioning and arrest of this dodo but to have been in the reception committee they surely had when they hauled the guy in to the hoosegow! A cop's life is often boring as thunderation, and little episodes can brighten is day, with the revelry rubbing off on his fellow officers.)

Said Constables on Patrol duly arrived. You can be sure they didn't need to consult with a detective from the Larceny Division before concluding the fool needed to be escorted to government quarters.

Everyone knows the police search anyone they arrest, primarily for their own safety. Which turned out to be a wise move in this instance, as Mr. Spark had a .25 caliber pistol in his pocket. As the story made no mention of his having a concealed-weapons permit (which is available in the Lone Star State), and since if you don't have one or are not a law enforcement or military type you violate the law pocketing a pistol, you get nailed. While I don't know the law, I wouldn't be surprised if that little offense carries a heavier penalty than the forgery and attempted scam draws.

Almost forgot. The fuzz also found a small quantity of . . . ganja, the inspiration of the cult classic "Reefer Madness." Mary Jane. The smoke of choice of the Hippie generation -- marijuana. So now the guy has a drug charge as well.

Like everyone, I've heard and read my fair share of stories involving the World's Stupidest Criminals, but this guy may well take the cake. He should get whatever the highest level of the famed Darwin Awards exists.

Now, it occurs to me there's a lot of truth in a statement made by a Taiwanese professor in Taipei to a friend of mine who was studying Mandarin with him, an American guy: "we never know what Western flotsam and debris will wash up on the shores of Asia."

Unfortunately, Thailand in particular sure does seem to draw way many more such than any country deserves, so I'm wondering if this guy will either do a runner now -- assuming he gets bail -- or maybe after he gets out of the Crossbars Hotel (is there any doubt that's where he's headed???), heading straight for these Oriental climes.

Guess bar owners around the Square would warmly -- if warily -- welcome such a high roller! ;-)

Another inspiration strikes: don't lock him up in prison. The world deserves to see this guy with their very own eyes, which they can't do if he's closeted away in the pokey. Rent him out to some outfit like the Ringling Bros. circus, requiring them to provide him housing (a gorilla cage with a roof), food, and medical care. Bingo! Not only no expense to the government to house the guy after his virtually certain conviction, but some income to offset the costs of apprehending him and other expenses right through his trial, conviction, and any knock-on appeals.

Probably most of you have already seen the stories about an outbreak of the virus EV71 in China that's causing concern there, so the immediate purpose of this story is to remind you to check with health authorities if your traveling in to an area with the problem should you feel (or your doctor feels) you might be at risk.

The longer-term purpose is an extension of the first, but on a larger geographic scale. Remember that bird flu was first detected in Hongkong then fairly quickly spread through this part of the world, especially, before moving to isolated locations in other parts of the world.

I just read online that Chinese health authorities are warning that they don't expect the incidence of this virus to peak until its normal time, which there is June and July. So, I'm supposing there's some possibility it might find its way to Thailand and other countries outside China during the interval, giving the possibility you might want to check before traveling here or elsewhere regionally anytime very soon.

The initial surge in cases was in Anhui Province in southeast China, especially in and around one provincial city. However, just today a suspicious death of an 18-month-old toddler in Guangdong Province, which borders Hongkong and Macau, is being investigated as the possible result of the child's being infected with EV71, as it's also known.

First isolated in 1969, the virus has occurred in other places, with one of the most severe previous outbreaks taking place in Taiwan back in the 1980's. It also has occurred elsewhere in the world.

The virus' most serious effects tend to develop in children, though adults aren't immune from them, especially adults living in the same household as the infected child.

The stuff I read when I googled the term (for which I got nearly 58,000 returns, so there's a lot of info out there) does say that most people recover in 4-6 days and undergo only fairly mild illness. But the virus can be deadly.

Another point I saw in the search results jumped right out at me. I had just read a news story dated today saying the number of cases reported in China in the current outbreak has topped 3,300, with some two dozen deaths, all children's. But I spotted a return for a story (which I didn't read) dated today that says as of April 29th the number was a little shy of 1,800. That's one heckuva increase for such a short period of time.

I recently mentioned this and described it based on an early television news report I had heard which I believe said the virus can cause hoof-and-mouth disease. Apparently I was incorrect, as a later report on the same channel said "hand, foot, and mouth disease," and I suspect that's not the same thing as hoof-and-mouth disease is.

But it's definitely a real baddie. It can cause severe neurological disorders and sudden cardiopulmonary collapse, to name just two of the most extreme -- and often fatal -- outcomes.

EV71 comes on top of an increase in cases of bird flu in some places. In South Korea, for instance, the government went on high alert after discovering the disease in some poultry and culled . . . I forget. A whole bunch of chickens. And one South Korean soldier was infected, and, I think, died (though I'm not sure he died -- that may have been someone else).

I did tried to find a professional but comprehensible definition of the virus, but the 20-25 items I checked were all case studies (which is where I got the effects I mention here). And I did read an abstract of an article that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January, 2004, despite it being a case study in Taiwan, but even that short abstract was somewhat over my head in some places where symptoms were mentioned. (Any doctors or nurses out there who can shed any light us mere mortals can follow???)

Of course, when we're traveling abroad, we should be mindful of potential health hazards in new environments, and that's especially true in the tropics and particularly impoverished regions.

Update: Tuesday, May 6, 2008: It's clear I'm not going to be able to stay on top of updating this, not in a weekly column. It's a little past 9:00 o'clock Tuesday night, and I've just heard the report that the number of infected people has passed the 12,000 mark, the virus having spread to a number of southern Chinese provinces and, now, to the capital, Beijing.

This is a topic countless writers, including me, have approached in one way or another. Now I've read a couple fairly long articles that started a train of thought somewhat different from my previous approaches so feel this topic is worth mentioning again.

One article focused primarily on the what's and how's regarding our digital security, though it did give some concrete examples. The other told of the writer's attempts to live completely anonymously for one week and how difficult it proved to be. Each was sobering in its own right; the pair, sobering by several orders of magnitude more than either one alone.

Digital technology is increasingly ubiquitous in many places, and Thailand is no exception, at least in urban areas. However, it's scarcely visible in most cases, so it's easy to forget it's even there.

Everyone knows about surveillance cameras and their leapfrogging sophistication as they connect to digital photo databases so security folks can identify someone. We increasingly expect to see them at retail outlets, and mass transit stations and airports, as well as on trains and planes. However, they're increasingly found in taxis and public buses. And don't forget video-equipped police cars, whose cameras serve the twin primary purposes of proving the officer didn't do anything wrong and capturing anything you do wrong within range of the camera. Still, it's yet one more digital record of you.

And most people must surely know by now the increasing adoption of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips in passports.

Then there are the RFID tags attached to items we buy, tags with the open purposes of speeding and simplifying stock levels, speeding and making more accurate the checkout and payment process, and nipping shoplifters in the bud. These "retail RFID's" original purposes are both mundane and benign -- if they're not abused (a point to which I'll return).

Some of you likely have already bought or considered buying passport holders that block RFID readers from unauthorized scanning the chip embedded in your passport. Government assurances the range at which these chips can be scanned is so tiny no security threat exists, but these assurances fall on deaf ears for the simple reason many people have written about scanners that can read these things is distances measured in meters, not millimeters.

But what about other items that are also increasingly having these chips embedded -- such as driver's licenses, credit/debit/ATM cards, ID cards such as those commonly worn by employees, even in mundane library cards.

Fat lot of good it does us to have our passport safely shielded even at close ranges from the nogoodniks if we have a pocketful of those other items in our pockets, purses, or wallets. Did you know even using a store discount card adds to the company's database, in this case of your shopping patterns?

"So what?" you ask. Well, I'll tell you so what just in case you don't know already (which many of you do): in many jurisdictions, company's have considerable legal liberty to sell such information to others. There are even specialty middlemen firms who buy up millions upon millions of such records -- which include a whole bunch of personally-identifying data, little tidbits such as your name, address, telephone number, age and date of birth, and those shopping patterns.

That means firms that buy your data can target you, based upon shopping patterns -- if you typically buy high-end jewelry, you're a likely candidate to bombard with advertising for, say luxury leather goods or furs.

And oh, by the way, did you know that governments are sometimes among the very largest buyers of these lists? well, they are. Why? I'll mention my home country, the U.S., as one example. Under U.S. law the government is strictly prohibited from gathering certain kinds of information on its own -- but can perfectly legally buy that very same information from private sources, giving the government legal cover.

It's not only private entities that (legally) share this information; so do governments. How do you think entities such as Interpol could function in the Digital Era? (Remember the case not so long ago of the notorious "Swirly Face" right here in Bangkok whom German police were able to identify for Interpol, which ten was able to trace the guy here?)

And there's the highly-controversial "No-Fly" List that's been screwed up so badly so many times one's left wondering how in the world any government can expect its citizens and foreign visitors to blandly accept they may be detained, even formally arrested, if your name or a variant of it shows up on this list -- even if it's blindingly obvious you can't possibly be the person with whom the authorities want to have a little chat?

Think surely you could sort out such a scenario with absolutely no problem in short order? Well, maybe, but reflect upon this case. The venerable Senator Edward Kennedy's name (his nickname is "Ted") showed up on a U.S. No-Fly List -- because some terrorist had once used the pseudonym "T. Kennedy"? And if a Senator gets hassled, even if the matter is quickly resolved, he's a Senator, not Ordinary Joes and Janes like most of us.

Consider your day-to-day living in other contexts. You rent or buy a home -- and a digital record is created. You arrange electricity and water services -- bingo, another digital record. Your academic records are digitized. Ditto your medical records. You're involved in a traffic accident; more digital information, of several varieties.

In a great many countries in the world, huge numbers of people have cell phones. Just take a look around you in Bangkok. Using the U.S. again as an example, there's a U.S. law requiring cell phones be equipped with GPS chips (though the required accuracy isn't all that great) so in an emergency rescue personnel can locate you more easily than they might otherwise be able to do.

Phone companies have to keep records -- and the authorities can determine whom you called, from where, when, and for how long you talked. And there are scanners even ordinary people can use to pick up (and record) phone calls.

And now along comes the Internet. I'm a huge fan (obviously) of the Internet, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to potential security dangers. That's why I refuse to send a photocopy of my passport via e-mail these days (which I've been asked to do repeatedly by schools to which I'm applying for teaching posts in various countries in this part of the world and the Gulf). It's simply too easy for the bad guys to intercept that information; even using encrypted e-mail is far from 100% foolproof. Interestingly, a couple of institutions, e-mailed me back after I said I would send a photocopy of my passport -- via mail or courier service -- to refuse accepting it in any way other than via e-mail. well, you can darn sure bet I went right straight to DEFCON 4 Red Alert, and ceased all further communications with those folks. Even when they seemed legit when I did background research on them.

Combing cell phones and the Internet, think about the possibilities inherent in the fact that agencies such as the controversial National Security Agency in the U.S. have super-computers scanning the wavelengths 24/7. While even super-computers can't record every bit of information traveling along a cable of through the ether, is subject to what might be called "passive monitoring." But the computers can be programmed to send up a red flag if the computers detect a certain phrase, website visit, phone number calling or being called, and the like, then isolated for more, um, "loving" attention.

I don't know the extent of all this stuff here in Thailand, though everyone knows the government does conduct surveillance, and within many contexts, that's a perfectly legitimate function. But the bad guys sometimes insinuate themselves into positions of having access to supposedly restricted or classified information. Even the good guys lose laptops, data disks, external hard drives, and flash drives -- with information meant not to be available to every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanting to take a peek. (How many cases of such lost items belonging to some governmental agency all over the world in the last few years?)

Also, it hard to credit the idea that private companies here either can't or don't exchange this sort of data. At a guess, I would suppose it's easier to do here than in some other places.

So, if you get a cover for your passport, try to be sure you get one that can accommodate your credit cards, etc., if they have RFID's (and if they don't yet, they will).

As for using a mobile phone, you can buy cheap, basically disposable ones and prepaid calling cards -- anonymously. If the phone can be tracked, then so be it, but at least there's not a record of who's using it. (A phone I bought a few weeks ago cost a measly THB1,100/US$35 without giving a name, showing an ID, zilch -- though I voluntarily fill out the warranty card. But I've never been asked to provide any information at all when buying this sort of phone in the past when I ignored the warranty.)

You can set the phone not to send your number, though that doesn't work when calling toll-free numbers or 900 numbers, the scam ones. And, no doubt, governmental agencies can trump your setting.

As for the Internet, well, there's no way to entirely escape if you online, especially to check your e-mail, for instance -- personal data is stored on the remote server and can be traced.

You can muck things up using a public Internet shop, and there are a jillion of them here. You also can use hot spots the same way. (But don't forget the security cameras quite a few shops sport.)

You also can use a disposable e-mail address, encrypting services such as Hushmail (where such is legal), anonymizer proxy services where those are legal -- which I'm pretty sure are not in Thailand, and the like. However, doing so may well draw scrutiny you may otherwise have avoided, I suspect, in the case of the Kingdom.

One particularly popular academic assignment for university students here is to conduct surveys, including of foreign tourists and long-term residents; I've agreed to answer questions for quite a few such surveys. If the interviewers ask my name, etc. -- they don't always do so -- I just whip up something out of thin air. And I draw the line at a name and nationality, even then. No phone numbers, addresses, or stuff like that.

I haven't even talked about using cards at ATM's and to make purchases and pay other bills. Caution is the word of the day. When I use my card to make a cash withdrawal at an ATM, I stand as close to the machine as possible, spread my arms out a little, and physically block the view of the keypad as I touch-type my security code in. (I've gotten downright adept at doing this!) It's a rare occasion I'll let, for instance, a waiter or department shop sale person take my card out of my constant, uninterrupted view. Paying cash can prevent a fair number of threads in the electronic trail.

What about hotels? Well, you're gonna be trumped there unless you stay in a shady one that ignores the law (and they do exist, in fairly large numbers, in the form of so-called "love motels"). Check-in staff are legally required to check a foreigner's passport and record the information (and the ID card or passport of Thai nationals).

You won't be asked to show your ID on a city bus or in a taxi; you will be on a train. I'm not sure about long-distance buses, as it's been years since the one and only time I rode one, but it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to learn you have to show ID. On my recent train trip to Laos, the officers didn't write anything down, but they did already have a list of passengers together with a seat number, and crossed that off before moving on.

Hm. I guess I should say I'm not encouraging people to try to evade legitimate screening and the like. But I am saying we need to give as little information as possible and to protect that information as much as possible from the bad guys.

And no matter what you do, if you come from even a developing country, it's quite possible there are so many digital records of you that you can never simply vanish into thin air (though I've often wondered why anyone would want to do so except the Black Hat Guys and folks needing witness protection). Take me, for example. Besides the usual utility, rental, academic, and other normal records, I've worked in security and law enforcement, and I was a cadet in both Army and Air Force ROTC in university. More records. Finally, I'm quite certain the U.S. State Department made a note -- and likely passed it along to other nifty agencies like the FBI and maybe even some intelligence folks, as a matter of routine -- when I moved to mainland China in 1985. That note undoubtedly lengthened when I married a Chinese national in Beijing in 1987, especially since she had been a member of the Communist Youth League -- all university students were required to join the League, at least back then.

As a footnote, search your own name in all its possible forms in your favorite search engine, just for grins. You might just be surprised -- or dismayed.

Just read the story "Why gas in the U.S. is so cheap" at CNN Money that caught my eye. Naturally. No one anywhere is think about how cheap the liquid gold is these days.

It's no surprise the story is clearly aimed at U.S. readers, where drivers have been going through the shell-shock experience of steeply climbing prices at the pump. But there's an instructive table beside the story that contains some info that sure came as a surprise to me, as it probably will to many of you.

Petrol is most expensive in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a U.S. gallon (about 3.7 liters) sets a driver back, on average, THB344.26US$10.86 For readers here, that's a tad over 92.54 baht per liter -- almost 2½ times what drivers pay here in Thailand. (No, I don't know the average incomes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, so can't compare the relative impact. Still, folks there must be less than enthused their country holds the top spot on the Hit Parade of High Gas Prices!)

The top ten spots are all held by countries in Europe, which is less surprising, as I already knew the prices are relatively high in Norway and the U.K. in particular (from friends there). And where does the average U.S. price place America on the list? 111th from the top.

So, maybe even here the hit is relatively less bad than it is in some other places.

Now comes the part of my headline in the parentheses: "Cold Comfort Though That Is." This sort of "See? See??? -- It could be much worse!!!" scolding of often well-meaning people when we're bemoaning some misfortune can be at best, the aforesaid cold comfort, at worst, downright irksome.

Ever hear the old Western mini-story, "I cried because I had no shoes -- until I saw a man with no feet"?

Meanwhile, if I've got an hours-long walk ahead of me, fat lot of good my compassion is going to do shoeless me, especially if that little jaunt involves walking through, say, snow. Or the middle of a burning desert. Whatever.

An even worse variant -- and I've heard this sort of this with my own ears -- is when some poor devil's in hospital, facing the possibility of having to have a lung removed with no organ donor in sight, a rather grim situation. Sure, with a bit of luck, he'll pull through and carry on with one lung, but the prospect isn't scarcely appealing. Then some dear soul soothes him, "There, there -- you'll be okay; just think of Joe a few years ago who had inoperable lung cancer in both lungs and died."

Yeah, right. Thanks a lot for reminding me of dying. My lung feels better already.

And coming full circle to petrol prices, well, yes, I feel for people in all those places, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, who are paying such high prices -- even if their incomes are relatively high. But that scarce lessens my sympathy for drivers here reeling in shock from the rapid price rises the past year or two.

Meanwhile, back at the oil patch, folks are talking about oil hitting US$200 per barrel -- by the end of this year, conceivably. Well up towards double the Friday closing price (in New York) of about US$116. Let's just hope those people forecasting that have been smoking funny cigarettes or some such. . . .

Saw in local media a week or two ago bus fares within the Bangkok area may rise, if a proposal to do so wins approval -- though I don't know if that's gotten the green light or not.

I don't recall all the details, which are complicated because there are, for instance, non-aircon and aircon buses, and there are both government-run and privately-operated buses plying the streets of the capital. It's enough to say the reported proposals for the various categories are substantial, in percentage terms.

Many travelers, especially for better-off countries, won't care one way or the other, as they won't be boarding buses in any case. But even better-off countries have people who like to come here but operate on pretty tight budgets, and those travelers do ride buses. But even for them the impact should be inconsequential unless they're planning on staying here a really long time and to travel very frequently on the Black-Smoke Machines. (Guess you can tell I'm not exactly a big fan of the buses here, though of course I recognize their importance in mass transit, especially for workaday locals.)

There appears to be another, unreported, price rise taking place, in the form of climbing motorcycle-taxi fares. A Thai friend told me a few days ago she was surprised when she took a nearby motocy, as it's called here, to a nearby market. When she handed the guy the 7 baht she has been paying a good long while, he abashedly asked her for 8 baht, abashedly because she rides his two-wheel taxi regularly. She can easily afford it, so immediately handed over the extra baht. He apologized to her, and added he would have asked anyone else (Thai, that is) for 10 baht -- but appreciates her business so was asking for as little as possible to help offset his climbing petrol expenses. Though I've given up riding motorcycle taxis, I expect I, as a foreigner, previously would have paid about 15 baht and been asked for maybe 20 the day my friend paid a bit more.

Like with the buses, many tourists won't care about this, other than backpackers and other budget travelers. But there is a substantial portion of the long-term resident foreign community here who do depend on motorcycles, especially those who live in areas where they have two choices to reach once they reach the nearest bus stop: they can either hike the last leg, even if it's several kilometers long -- or they can take one of the ubiquitous motorcycle taxis, which are available everywhere; hardly a street corner doesn't sport one on it, or very nearby.

As everyone who flies knows, fuel surcharges for air travel are going up, up, up as well. But so far, even now, Bangkok taxi operators and drivers are holding the line at a flag-fall of 35 baht, a real bargain these days. (Not that it was a bad one before, mind you, even going back to when I first got here in mid-1994.) Nor have train ticket prices gone up, as I mentioned in a recent column. I really don't see how much longer taxis and trains can hold the line unless oil prices at least stop rising, and even then, only maybe.

None of this is really news, I know, but it may help anyone unaware of particulars have some notion of what's happening on the ground here and help you plan your traveling expenses in The Big Mango.

Minogue Bar on the back side of Washington Square, very near Bourbon Street Restaurant, is up for sale.

Saw an ad online advertising the offer, and though the bar was not identified by name and the picture so dark I was unsure just which bar it was, I quickly learned it's Minogue, as confirmed by the sign out front so stating, which I hadn't previously noticed.

I'm not looking at the ad as I write, but the ad said words to the effect of "the first offer over 250,000 baht secures the bar," something like that. I do specifically recall the word "secure" and the amount, because I was left wondering just what "secure" means in this context: ownership of the bar and its contents, or just the bar, or maybe just first right to haggle over a final price?

The ad also did not indicate if 250,000 baht includes monthly rental costs, which I would doubt, though in fact I don't know what the current owner is paying. that said, you can bet it's not the 2,000 baht per month people paid when they first moved into the Square back in the 1980's. The rents I do know run in the five-digit range. (I won't be more specific than that, as I know these figures confidentially, the owners trusting me to keep my mouth shut.)

The offer was very specific on one important point: the current lease, the owner says, runs through January 8, 2009. However, there's an additional statement that I don't know about, the one saying the lease will almost certainly be renewed. There sure is a lot of evidence to the contrary, based on what other people in position to speak have told me, people whose honesty I haven't the slightest reason to doubt. Sure, if a major economic crisis occurs sometime before then, then I guess everyone will be left guessing. Or maybe some other factor entirely unforeseen could come into play. (I'm really glad I'm not a "financial futures fortuneteller"!)

Over the years, a good number of foreigners have come to Thailand and made money, sometimes buckets of it, in many business, including in bars, restaurants, guesthouses, and combinations of the three. Just look at places such as Pattaya and Jomtien, where such places abound. And some right here in Bangkok, including in Washington Square.

On the other hand, there has also been a good number of foreigners who've come here and lost their entire investment, sometimes their entire life's savings. And not always because they were poor at running their chosen business, nor because of some severe economic downturn that found them right square in the crosshairs of disaster. Nor for any of the myriad of reasons businesses anywhere might fail (illness, cheating partners, etc.).

But Thailand does present its own special potential pitfalls that don't necessarily exist in your home country. One of the chief is the nature of land ownership combined with layers of leases on a given piece of land and any buildings on it.

As I understand it, there are four kinds of deeds here, one absolutely dependable, the other three each successively weaker, the fourth being the weakest of all. (I've never investigated this, but that's what a foreign business owner who has been here decades and also owns several pieces of land with buildings, in the name of his Thai wife, recently explained to me.) When he told me that, I asked him, somewhat bemused by this enlightening information, "So, if my deed is one of the weakest, the corner motorcycle taxi driver can get me evicted?" He chuckled and replied, "Something like that."

Of course, that sort of thing needs to be asked of a good attorney, not a webmaster repeating what is, in the end, hearsay -- and not hearsay from an appropriate lawyer, at that.

I am a bit more confident of having a little more understanding of the Pandora's boxes leases represent, having had any number of friends caught up in the tangled web multiple leases can weave.

Some Thai company owns a piece of land with a shophouse suitable for, say a restaurant-bar with rooms upstairs. A Thai comes along and leases it, but has no intention of doing anything other than to sub-lease the lot to someone else.

Then his buddy, also Thai, sub-leases it from him, for whatever reason. On down the road, he decides he, too, wants to find a renter.

And so it goes, until there end up, say, six successive leases -- with you, Mr. Foreigner, being the last in line.

In Thai law -- and, yes, a lawyer did tell me this after he had a fellow attorney who specializes in the appropriate areas of law research it (his own area being elsewhere) -- not only can a renter decide not to renew a lease, but the person from whom he rents also can decide not to renew. If I understand it right, that could be the case even if there's a first-right-of-refusal clause. But even if I'm wrong about that, it is clear it's considerably easier for a landlord here to decline a renewal than it might be in another jurisdiction.

"Well," maybe you think, "That's not so bad; I'll just be sure to keep my landlord happy, willing to renew my lease, and life will be wonderful."

That's entirely possible. But here's where the real wrinkles can come into play.

Your landlord may be a model of honesty, reason, sweetness, and light, and want nothing other than to happily continue your arrangement on as long as you're both content. However, maybe his landlord gets an offer he decides to accept.

That's not necessarily a problem, if your landlord's landlord is also a straight shooter. If his buyer is content to allow you and your landlord to carry on as before, all well and good. But he could decide he wants more rent, so demands, as I think he can, to up the rent. Or he could decide he wants to boot everyone out and use the property for some other purpose.

One point I've never managed to find out is what relief, if any, you and your landlord might be able to get under Thai law in such a scenario. Anecdotal evidence -- though not from any court case of which I have knowledge, since I don't know of one -- suggests you and your landlord well could be left haplessly holding the bag.

In any case, it's important to learn who the ultimate owner of the physical property you're eyeing is -- not just who your possible landlord is. Plus, you need to determine how many, if any, other layers are between your own landlord and the real, actual, live landowner, not just one more leaseholder.

In short, even if this is the greatest bargain of the decade in terms of upfront cash outlay, do your research. As you should with any such investment anywhere, for that matter.

Always keeping in mind you still could end up on the wrong end of the screw, in spite of everything -- anywhere, not just in Thailand.

There's other news even this early in the week besides the bar for sale I mentioned in the last story.

As I often do, I got Deano's return date wrong; he got in just before midnight Sunday night and is off to Oz this afternoon on the last leg of his fortnightly or so regular route as a Qantas pilot, a route you might call the "Equatorial Circle Route": Sydney-Singapore-London-Bangkok-Sydney. Got to spend some time with him twice yesterday, and, as always, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

He did get me right good and proper, coming at me entirely out of left field on one little point. I mentioned something I had written in last weeks edition, and he said he already read it so was aware of whatever it was. Then, with a smile and sardonic tone, he added, "The most amazing part was that you actually got the column up on Friday!" Well, I've been late enough times, not to mention having missed some weeks, that I deserved that one!

Anyway, he'll be back in two weeks, barring change, arriving very late the Sunday after next.

Called Tobin "The Robot" up in Chiang Mai yesterday, the first time we've spoken since his return a bit over a week ago from his sad trek to Texas in the wake of his Father's recent death. I offered the usual condolences, and when he answered, he sounded surprisingly upbeat, saying that he understands his Dad and a good run -- he was 83 -- and until recently had enjoyed pretty good health. He did add he now also understands how hard it is to lose a parent; his Mom is still alive, so this is his first experience with such a loss.

Anyway, after that we had a normal chat, catching up on each other's news and the like. It was almost as if it was just another chat -- and that's nice. [Monday, May 5, 2008]

As food and drink prices in the markets continue to rise, Square establishment prices are inevitably affected. The latest to be hit is the Silver Dollar, which posted price rises yesterday. I didn't check to see if all prices rose, but noticed that the Mekhong-Coke I ordered had risen from 50 to 60 baht, and the Monday Night Pork Barbeque Rib Special had gone up from 200 to 250 baht. (The price of pork has been one of the fastest-rising ones for months on end now. A good while back a Thai friend announced to me she was going to cut her meat consumption -- and her main red meat is pork, as it is with most Thais -- because she felt she was "too fat," which is complete nonsense. But as the conversation moved on, she told me she just couldn't justify the expense of eating even as much as she did, which wasn't that much in the first place, in light of the skyrocketing price.)

I'm not singling out nor criticizing the Silver Dollar; it's just the latest place where prices have risen. There have been some hikes at every single regular place of mine (and of most locally-based Squaronians) as well since sometime around the beginning of the year.

Given that my income is in U.S. dollars, I try to keep these rises in perspective. Using the Mekhong-Coke as an example, the normal price when I touched down in mid-1994 was 50 baht around the Square and Soi Cowboy. At the exchange rate of the day, that was exactly US$2.00. At today's exchange rate, 60 baht is a tad under US$2.00. Also, one reason I rarely go to Soi Cowboy anymore is some of my formerly favorite places have gone nuts with drink prices -- a few months ago I paid an astonishing 100 baht at one place there for a Mekhong-Coke, despite the fact that the retail price for a large bottle of the local brew -- emphasis on the "local" -- has hovered around 200 baht for years. Yes, Coke has gone up. But some of my friends drink Mekhong-Water, which involves nothing imported. And to demand roughly US$3.30 for a low-end local whiskey is just crazy.

Imported spirits are another category that have gone up somewhat. For instance, when I first got here, a 3/4-liter bottle of Jack Daniels cost around 600 baht, or US$24.00. Last time I looked -- a year at least back -- it was north of 900 baht. or about US$30.00-31.00 (at today's rates, not the ones back then). Fourteen years ago, a Jack-Water ran me, on average, about US$2.40; today, about US$3.00-3.30 (90-100 baht). But other expenses have gone up as well, don't forget.

I mentioned the company in the back, southeast corner of the Square that has packed up and moved on. Activity is afoot there now, apparently:

Corrugated metal (?) fence blocking off the parking area, tiny park, and
office building on the left beyond the wall. Noticed this over the weekend, and
took this picture Sunday, May 3, 2008. The skyscraper in the background is The Emporium.

I haven't the faintest what's going on, or will be going on later, if there's nothing going on now, but obviously, something's in the cards. I have asked [very few] people, but they knew no more than I do.

By the way, been meaning for weeks to mention the business at the corner on the left as you come into the Square from Soi 22 then head around the corner has long gone. Heard the move had nothing to do with business per se, but with some sort of serious crack in the floor that was proving difficult, maybe impossible, to repair short of tearing the place down and rebuilding. Anyway, another empty spot.

Nothing new about the future of the Square has come my way, so no updates on that front.

There does remain some uncertainty in some people's minds regarding the intentions of the police when it comes to the smoking ban, in particular. It muddies the waters that the newspapers are reporting information from what some of the few people with whom I've spoken and who attended the meeting at the Thonglor Police station last week understood the police to say. One newspaper has reported enforcement will begin either on May 31st or June 1st -- the wording itself is somewhat unclear. But I heard from some people the Top Cop (or whoever held the meeting) said enforcement was commencing as of then, with stiff fines for bar owners (20,000 baht) and offending patrons (2,000 baht each). Per instance.

The common feeling is that what enforcement occurs won't be in the interests of non-smoking patrons, but those of The Men in Brown needing a little extra mullah to tide them over to payday. Ethical law enforcement is virtually unknown here, and not likely to spring into being anytime soon. What a surprise, huh?

The folks at Texas Lone Staar, where an outside deck was built recently to accommodate smokers, told me a day or two ago George has okayed laying out the money to install an overhead fan or two above the deck, which will make it far more comfortable to sit there. I sat there yesterday afternoon, a hot, overcast, humid day, but gave it up pretty soon and retreated inside; it was just too muggy, nary a breath of air stirring.

Even Bourbon Street, which long has allowed smoking in the front bar -- the room you enter going into the restaurant -- while banning it a couple years in the back dining room and later in the second dining room when it was opened a few months back, has now banned it in the front bar as well. I met friends there Saturday morning, the first time I had been there since before the meeting with the police, so I asked the waitress about it, and she smiled apologetically and said, "Khun Kurt, outside, please."

Does anyone know what the multi-storey building going up beside the Regency Park Hotel will be? I haven't been able to find out. If you can shed some light on it, please let me know.

Plumb forgot to check out the Friday-Saturday night music at Bourbon Street last weekend, by the way. Will try to remember to get by there this coming weekend.

Regulars know this all too well, but for your irregular visitors to the Square, do use caution walking around, especially on weekdays when school's in session, particularly the hour or so before school starts (about 8:00 A.M.) and ends (about 3:00 P.M.). There's an upscale fancy private girls' school about halfway down [towards Rama IV Road] Soi 22 from the Square, and a great many of the girls ride the bus to the stop on Sukhumvit just outside the Square in the morning and from it in the afternoon. They shuttle to and from the school in tuk-tuk's, the drivers of which aren't noted for their attention to driving courtesy and safety. While they're a serious threat anytime, particularly in close quarters, such as in the Square, they are REALLY unsafe at those times, as they race as fast as they can to drop of one load of lasses and speed back to fetch another. On a number of occasions I've genuinely feared a tuk-tuk was going to turn over with girls -- wouldn't bother me in the slightest to see one of the jerks turn over if he had no passengers; would serve him darned well right.

A few days ago I was walking along the backside of the Square, directly in front of Bourbon Street, when a tuk-tuk came roaring around the corner from the direction of the Lone Staar. Unusually, the cars on my left, the side on which I was walking, were all too closely spaced for me to quickly slip in between them, so I sped up to the next open space, three or four spaces away. Did the tuk-tuk driver slow down or move over to his right, where he had room to go? Hell, no. He sped up, sat down on his horn, and headed straight towards me -- yes, I looked over my shoulder in my mad scramble to get out of harm's way. Barely made it -- and he missed me by precious little, laughing maniacally as I shrieked unprintable deprecations at him, furious.

Not once -- not even once -- have I seen the police nail one of these genuine menaces. Which is perplexing; nailing those guys would bring in a veritable fortune, much to the delight of the officers, their families, girlfriends, etc. Sigh . . .

Nigel showed up the other day, and it was good to see him. He's been rather scarce in recent weeks, busy rushing hither, thither, and yon around the Kingdom taking care of various projects he has going through his business. He was just fine, though he did admit he felt as knackered as he sounded.

Cal from Australia made it in Sunday -- hours late. He was due in late Sunday morning, and I thought it odd I hadn't seen him go into his girlfriend's place, directly opposite my home, as I was sitting here at my desk working on the computer trying to keep an eye out for him, and expected him to pop over even if I didn't notice his arrival in the compound. Finally saw him yesterday, and he told me he had been stuck for hours and hours in the Sydney airport due to a cancelled flight or some such, then ended up not arriving here to the compound until maybe 8:00 o'clock Sunday evening. He's here on his usual one-week stint.

The following heart-warming story is one I actually wrote for a paper newsletter I do on an irregular basis, one limited in circulation to Squaronians. The tone of that newsletter is rather different from this column, but once in awhile, I have a story there suitable for even the kiddies there, so run it here, and vice versa. (Remember the story here late last year "Annie Gets a Car!" ! Well, a fair number of my fellow Squaronians don't even have a computer and wouldn't know how to turn the doggone thing on if they did anyway -- and never mind the Internet, so I put it in the next edition of the newsletter as well.) Here's the story:

Death, Be Not Proud

Now this is a story bound to warm the hearts of all beer-guzzling Squaronians!

Some guy in the States has come up with a novel plan for his own demise and ordered a coffin well in advance of any actual need for it (or so he hopes, anyway). Nothing odd there, except –

He didn’t order just any old plain, boring, usual coffin. No Sirree! He ordered a custom coffin, and is it ever just so-o-o-o-o-o-o cool!
A devout drinker of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, he had his coffin painted to look like one of the brewer’s cans of beer. Now, how neat is that??? (Wait, it gets better.)

Once the master artwork was done, he didn’t have the thing whisked off to a funeral home to gather dust. He had it delivered to his home for a very special occasion. That is, he threw a party to celebrate his getting his very own Beer Can Coffin.

“Huh??? He threw a party?” you ask? Sure, why not! It was a BIG party requiring lots and lots of ice-cold beer – Pabst Blue Ribbon, of course! – which means he needed one helluva huge cooler.

The light go on yet? Yep – he didn’t waste money on your ordinary cooler – not with the perfect cooler-coffin!

If this guy ever makes it to the Square, we’ll all give him a big “Hurray,” no doubt! Gotta love it.

Now, that's a welcome break from unhappy news, isn't it?

Here's a fascinating little tidbit I just pulled from The Nation all Squaronians will agree, I'm sure, makes a perfect motto for us:

Before I forget, yesterday I learned through a mutual friend that a reader would like to see more coverage of the Square, especially regarding its future. I was little puzzled by the general remark, as last week in just the Washington Square News story alone I wrote some 1,659 words; I also had several other independent stories relating to the Square in whole or in part. True, I didn't say anything about the Square's future, but the reason is simple: I didn't know anything new, nor do I as I write this moment. I'll pass stuff along as soon as I know.

An article in TIME really caught my eye, a story with the title "How Google Earth Ate Our Town" that certainly made me wonder "What the -- ???"

Curious, I clicked through to the story and was further intrigued when I learned the town in question: Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada.

For those three or four people who are left on the planet but don't know what Google Earth is, it's a computer program you download and install, then you can zero in from "outer space" onto any place on the planet via a jillion satellite and aerial photographs Google has acquired. I've written about the program in past columns, and it's neat. You can even "bookmark" particular locations (and a whole lot more), putting your own label on it. For instance, I have my condo map-pinned -- the geographic equivalent of a bookmark. In my user-specific list on the left side of the viewing pane, the label I gave in there, which I can click and the virtual spaceship zooms down to my user-set default level (about 1000 feet).

Turns out that the folks at Google have gone far beyond all the stuff Google Earth already offers in the case of Nanaimo, the municipal government of which forked over every database they have, such as water, sewer, and power line locations, plats, business locations, on and on and on -- plus added in the 3D feature of the city Google already offers for a limited number of cities.

You can even find restaurants specifically, for instance. And you can find out, real time, about traffic jams, where emergency response vehicles and personnel are headed (so you can avoid the area), and so forth.

Warning: The darned program is downright addictive. Though the photos are not real-time (that's the reserve of spy satellites and the like), they're typically anywhere from a few months to maybe two years old. Still . . .

Looking at your Mom's backyard from 8,000 miles away last winter is pretty entertaining.

Or exploring, say, the Kremlin, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramid, Big Ben, the Forbidden City, Machu Picchu --well, scads of places. Even the poles.

Quality varies, the best coverage being in the more important places. (Governments fret about this stuff; the U.S. government now mandates the maximum resolution Google and others can even buy, never mind publicly display.)

Another advisory is if you don't have a pretty darned high-speed Internet connection, forget it. Even with my connection here, the wait can be interminable. But if things go well and I don't have to wait from lunch to dinner to take a peek at something, it sure is fun.

I wish the folks at Google could get continuous real-time coverage of the Canadian city -- that way, we could hunt for Art sneaking into the corner pub for "Just one more!"

Guess everyone knows about Cyclone Nargis hitting Burma over the weekend. the aftermath is turning out to be enormous, with fears the human toll and property losses will continue to skyrocket.

Early reports Sunday morning the number of dead at 351, with expectations that number would climb.

It's now about 10:00 A.M. Tuesday, and I just heard on television that in one area alone the death toll has gone past the 10,000 mark, with many more expected given the lack of communications. Hundreds of thousands have been left homeless, and it's anybody's guess how many people were hurt.

Communication and power lines are down across much of the benighted country, and roads are cut, hampering not only communications but also relief efforts. The U.N. Secretary General was just on TV, and he said the organization is ready and standing by to start relief and aid efforts -- once someone can tell them what's needed where, and in what amounts. various individual countries are ready to step up to the plate as well, but are equally helpless for now.

The Thai government is flying in some relief materials sometime today, so that's a start (and good on Thailand for stepping in).

Update, Tuesday, May 6, 2008: Just finished adding to the story above about the virus in China that I can't possibly keep up with developments there in a column that appears only weekly. The same holds true for the situation in Burma.

Since I wrote the above earlier today, the reported number of deaths has swelled past the 22,000 mark, with more expected. Experts are saying up to a million -- and maybe more -- people have been displaced.

Those numbers are far short, in raw form, of the figures that came out in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami a few years ago -- but they're still terrible.

The Burmese government has called for foreign help even as they've insisted that Western relief agencies will have to negotiate for access to the needy. Can you believe it??? Negotiate??? To give people desperately needed aid?

Update, Wednesday, May 7, 2008: While I'm not sure now is the time for various governments or international agencies to be criticizing the Burmese government, it's happening; the U.S. has been particularly vocal and political in its criticisms. And now word is coming out that India warned Burma two days before the cyclone struck of the potential disaster, and the Thailand-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC) says it warned Burma after the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre alerted them on April 27th. Even so, one is left wondering how much of the lack of preparedness comes from callousness, incompetence, lack of infrastructure and emergency supplies, and plain poverty.

Meanwhile, the virus hitting China last week (and that I reported in last Friday's column and mentioned above) is virtually exploding across the country. While the number of deaths remains in the lower two-digit range, the number of infected people has soared from a few score to at least over 5,000, and spreading further into other provinces and even Beijing, where well over 1,000 people have been confirmed infected with the potentially deadly virus. [Note: see related story above for a mid-evening Tuesday update; the number has shot past 12,000 people infected.]

Update, Friday, May 7, 2008: It's almost 2:00 P.M. and reports are that Burma has allowed several planes with relief supplies to land in Rangoon -- but is still stubbornly refusing to allow foreign disaster relief workers come in, the government insisting it wants the supplies but not the foreign aid personnel. Sure. That way the government can keep the supplies, or sell them. No doubt that's why they turned down an offer by the U.S. Navy to send 3 ships currently in Thailand with emergency supplies and are refusing to allow U.S. military planes loaded and ready to go from entering Burmese air space. The generals actually deported some aid workers from that dangerous, powerful neighbor, Bangladesh, who were on a plane carrying supplies, claiming they thought the plane had only supplies, not any foreign workers.

Thai PM Samak is set to fly to Burma Sunday to try to convince those . . . um, "gentlemen" to allow foreign workers in. Good luck, PM; similar calls from various governments, the UN, some foreign NGO's, etc. have fallen on deaf ears.

Fears of the ultimate total number of dead and people affected by the cyclone is growing almost by the hour.

Across the Sea of Japan, health authorities there have confirmed a second outbreak of bird flu in less than a week, this time in the northern area of Haikkado. South Korea remains on a nationwide health alert, the highest it has, a few weeks after bird flu was confirmed there.

It was just a couple weeks ago a fairly major typhoon hit China's island province, Hainan Island, and the south coast in Guangdong Province. While not as disastrous as Cyclone Nargis, it did kill a few people and cause wide property damage and destruction.

We've been relatively lucky here in Thailand. There has been considerable severe flooding in places, mostly in the north. When I spoke with Tobin Sunday morning (he lives in Chiang Mai) he was surprised when I asked about the weather, as it hasn't been any problem where he lives nor where he works, and the roads in between have been okay, though he did say it had been raining some. He was utterly unaware that weather forecast said Cyclone Nargis was headed practically dead towards Chiang Mai, though it of course was also forecast to weaken rapidly as it cross Burma then into the Kingdom.

Then there was the wave that hit the southwest coast of South Korea Sunday, killing at least 14 people. A number of people remain missing (last I knew yesterday, anyway). Witness estimated the wave to be at least 5 meters high, which looks about right, based on the dramatic amateur video an onlooker captured I saw on television.

There were many people fishing and just lounging about along a sea wall when the wave struck. There was no earthquake activity anywhere in the region, so the wave wasn't a tsunami. While South Korean authorities continue to try to figure out what caused the apparently freak wave, they're speculating a deep current near the shore strengthened and hit the bottom of the sea wall, the wall forcing it to erupt upwards, catching people utterly off-guard.

Of course, that's isolated, affecting few people, with no long-term aftermath to contend with, unlike after cyclones, hurricanes, and disease.

Breaking news: It's 10:30 A.M., and television news is reporting Burmese authorities have upped the estimated number of dead to over 15,000. And China has just revised the number of infected people to over 9,000.

With the exception of the isolated freak wave in South Korea, all these events have implications for anyone planning to travel to any of the affected areas, of course.

There really isn't a lot of news about the ongoing torch relay, the torch now safely back on Chinese soil after being carried through Hongkong and Macau, making it's first landfall on Hainan Island. Of course, those events have passed with virtually no disruption.

What's rather remarkable about coverage of the Olympics is that provided by CCTV, China's official television broadcasting arm. The English division, CCTV International, broadcast via satellite and which I get here at home, is providing considerable coverage of events directly related to the Olympics. But the amount of happy, ga-ga coverage of any and everything to do with Tibet is extraordinary -- even for an arm of the Chinese government, for which you can read "the Chinese Communist Party," or, more specifically, the Politburo.

For example, yesterday's 11:00 A.M. News Hour started off with stories about Tibet, with one story about the Olympics (also in Tibet, since that's where the torch is headed). Those stories took about ten minutes in all, without ads. But the story about the Olympics was only two minutes or so, and much of that was devoted to showing how happy Tibetans on the team at the base camp of Mount Everest are, including side comments about how hunky-dory everything is at their homes around the autonomous region.

The other eight minutes made no pretense of having anything to do with the Olympics at all, instead offering up scenes of Tibetans condemning the March violence in Llasa and elsewhere, and thanking the Chinese for bringing them peace, riches, and freedom.

Out of each half hour, about 24 minutes is devoted to the actual news, the rest taken up by self-promotional adds. So, the not-Olympic-related but focused on Tibet stories ate up a full third of that half-hour's news.

Even those stories were liberally peppered with explicit attacks on the "Dalai Lama clique" and their "splittist" activities -- never mind that there isn't a single known instance of the Dalai Lama calling for independence in over two decades and his countless records calls only for autonomy after negotiations.

Just now I saw a video of the Panchan Lama, the second-ranking lama in Tibetan Buddhism, happily walking around at a Tibetan cultural exhibition put on by the central government at a hall in Beijing. He was praising the Chinese government high and low. Naturally. He was hand-picked by the atheist Chinese government -- not the toothless Tibetan "religious authorities."

I wasn't particularly impressed with the demonstrations against China in various places around the world in earlier stops during the ongoing torch relay. But China itself is just adding to the politicization of the issue, which it desperately wanted to avoid. Many Chinese are deeply incensed by those events, and by reports regarding the Dalai Lama -- but, then, domestic news is heavily censored and access to international news via the Internet is very difficult to get due to The Great Firewall of China.

And now, adding to the clouds gathering over the coming Summer Olympics, Interpol and U.S. intelligence have advised the Chinese government they have credible if vague information of a potential terrorist threat. That's not China's fault, of course. I hope every single intelligence and security agency worldwide is working feverishly to stop any threat in its tracks.

Update: Tuesday, May 6, 2008: New since I wrote the above, but first, a reminder of the blatherings before -- "We Are the World." "Free access for journalists." "The hand of friendship held out to all."

Better plan accordingly, if you expect to visit China over the interval from now until after the Olympics end.

I normally don't follow sports news very closely, but day-before yesterday's The Nation ha a sport story that just now caught even my only vaguely interested eye. The paper's spin-off Daily Xpress ran essentially the same story yesterday, but with a blunter headline.

Though I imagine most people know what a wai is, but let me briefly explain for anyone who may not. A wai is a mark of respect here, and involves one placing his hands together as if in prayer, fingers pointing straight up with his hands held directly in front of his face. Then he bows to the person to whom he means to show respect; the deeper the bow, the greater the respect conveyed.

Considering that Thaksin virtually blamed culturally uneducated fans in England for unfurling a Thai flag with his picture on it, it seems reasonable to speculate if he'll reverse the argument, whenever he gets around to responding to the furor -- assuming he does -- claiming he was "culturally unaware" that such a request or demand (whichever it actually was) would cause such anger.

That would be hard to swallow. After all, Thaksin is a well-traveled globe trotter, and took refuge in England -- where he owns residential property as well as the football club. Further, he's educated to doctoral level, receiving his doctorate in Texas in the U.S. His experience in Texas alone should have taught him such a practice is utterly alien there, and reasoned that by extension, it would be at least as alien in Britain, maybe more so. (I can just see the looks on faces of ranchers and farmers from my part of the woods if he wanted them to wai him. Even if they were in positions to him comparable to the contract football players, you can bet hell would freeze over before they would bow to any man, except maybe a revered religious figure. And it wouldn't be in an out-and-out bow, but more of a nod of the head. They'd also likely end their relationships with him ASAP.)

Given Thaksin's vast political experience and extensive international travel and business dealings, it's difficult to understand the huge gaffes he's made recently with Manchester City.

Leaving aside the flag controversy -- which generated a veritable firestorm in Thailand -- he's canning the hugely popular coach Sven Goran Eriksson at the end of this season, though Sven, as his fans call him fondly, hasn't even finished his first year of a three-year contract. Reports are that Thaksin is unhappy that the coach has final say over which players to hire, keep, and dismiss, wanting that authority for himself. Not only did the announcement generate a wave of sharply negative react, but it also raised the question of just what qualifications Thaksin has to be making such decisions.

Can the love fest Thaksin apparently wanted survive? Well, the media are saying that some season-ticket holders are demanding refunds for the remainder of the season to show their anger, and some fans in the stands the other day displayed strongly critical banners against the former PM. If those media reports are at least broadly indicative, he sure isn't winning the hearts and minds of fans of the club nor, perhaps, Brits who resent the demand even if they're not fans.

There are precedents for this sort of thing in the West, of course. For instance, monarchs in Europe in centuries past. But I can't think of a single instance in the sports world. (Any sport historian who knows otherwise, please do correct me -- and I'll eat humble pie!)

My (admittedly untutored) impression is this is a gathering storm, not a receding one, one whose full force has yet to hit.

Whatever dimwit south of the Kingdom's border came up with this hare-brained -- and almost certainly doomed from the start -- idea makes Thaksin's wish to have his players wai him sound sweetly reasonable.

Yes, Malaysia is predominantly an Islamic nation, but we're not talking another Saudi Arabia here, where women are indeed very much second-class citizens -- they can't even legally drive, for example. (Never mind Taleban-run Afghanistan; what a horror show that was.) Malaysia and her citizens are noted for being pretty much models of of civility and respectful treatment of all citizens by the government and citizens alike. (Let's not get into affirmative action laws for ethnic Malays and the country's draconian Internal Security Act.)

I was reminded of this story, about which I already knew, as I listened to a story on Channel News Asia that was a news broadcast segment fed it by its Malaysian broadcasting partner. Even the Malaysian channel says none other than the Prime Minister himself has repudiated the idea, pointing out it raises all sorts of thorny issues, not least of those being human rights, and including, for instance, the impracticality of of trying to enforce such a law, pointing out that a large number of grown adult Malaysian women travel abroad on business, and those ladies alone make the idea stupid ("stupid" is my word, not the PM's).

Other stories elsewhere report that a great many people have openly ridiculed the suggestion, and rightly so.

Consider the PM's point regarding traveling businesswomen. A prime example are the numerous airline stewardesses who are Malaysian citizens and fly international routes routinely.

The heart of this latter-day Oriental Aristotle was probably in the right place, but his -- I say "his" because it's a dead certain no Malaysian lady would suggest this -- was firmly encased in that nether region where the sun don't shine.

The reasoning, if it can be called that, reportedly is that Malaysian women traveling abroad are sometimes duped into the sex trade and other degrading activities so need the protection of their families (preferably a male relative, thank you very much, by the way), in the twin forms of their families knowing their itinerary and making the fact of their knowledge formally known in writing, the document to be present, I guess, at passport control on the way out.

Well, let's look at that a minute. Yes, I can vaguely recall such stories involving Malaysian women victims. However, I also have equally vague recollections of Malaysian men who got duped into going to work in a foreign land with promises of all sorts of great riches, only to find themselves virtually enslaved.

Well -- yes. I have vague recollections of such news stories involving Malaysian ladies over the years. I also have similar, and equally vague, recollections of Malaysian men tricked into going abroad to work, only to find themselves also enslaved.

So, since men can be fooled (or plain fools) too, how about requiring Malaysian men to get the identical permission, which amounts effectively to a "privately-issued exit visa"? Just to be fair, you understand. And, preferably, from a female relative -- like Mom or Sis or Wifey.

Even the Malaysian PM himself has come out strongly against the idea. After all, there are a lot of Malaysian women who travel abroad alone, for instance, on business. the most obvious example are the numerous Malaysian airline hostesses. It would be highly impractical for them, and plain dumb even for women rarely leaving the country. Besides, wouldn't the next logical step be to require such a document even for domestic travel???

(I'd love to see someone try to tell an adult Thai women to go get a permission slip from Daddy before allowing her to leave the country. Poor fool would be in deep, deep caca.)

By the way, another recent story coming out of Malaysia said someone asked the courts there to enforce a supposed law forbidding Catholics and any other non-Muslims in the country using the word "God" in this particular case, saying the term is reserved as a reference to Allah. the Catholic Bible. that, of course, posed a real threat of a serious flash point, and the courts swiftly disposed of it, either through refusing to hear the case or via dismissing it, not sure which).

Anyway, I sure hope if the bright spark who dreamed up the "exit visa" proposal has a wife or girlfriend who wants to pop down to Singapore to shop for a weekend he gives her an exit visa -- just in case she's unfortunate enough to meet an immigration officer who shares his idea! Hmmmm. Guess it's unlikely he has a wife or girlfriend, come to think of it. . . . or, if he did, I imagine she fled the coop or is packing as I type! ;-)

That's not my headline, mind you (though, admittedly, I am stealing it). As Dave Barry would say, "I'm not making this up." And no, I haven't been drinking, smoking funny cigarettes or partaking of other such stuff. This arresting headline appears in the upcoming May 12th edition of The Weekly Standard (which I had never previously heard of). Here's the link: The Silent Scream of the Asparagus

It was enlightening to read the Swiss updated their constitution a few years ago to take into account non-human life, i.e., plants and animals, and, presumably, every other thing that lives right down to the amoeba and germ level. But the wording was so vague nobody knew what it meant, according to the article. So a blue-ribbon panel of bio-ethicists, etc. got together at the request of the government to try to figure out just what the constitutional provision means.

What the article calls "a clear majority" chose to follow what they termed a "biocentric" view:

Consider this little bit of information the article includes: the committee gave as an example a farmer cutting his hay. Wit