On the one hand, I don’t think watching TV is an inherently non-intellectual thing to do. I think you can admit to having a slavish devotion to NCIS: LA and Elementary and also be a reader. On the other hand, having reached the demographic that is no longer desired by advertisers, I find less and less that interests me on either the TV or Internet. And that’s a good thing because I’m in the middle of rereading Vanity Fair and am once again thoroughly enthralled.
Good can come out of a bad incident
I’m guessing that by now there are few in Alaska who haven’t seen or read about the incident in Sitka where three police officers are shown Tasering a drunken teenager. It’s pretty tough to watch. It’s even tougher for those of us brought up to respect the police as the ones we should run to when we feel we are in danger. While the teenager in question is clearly being less than cooperative, the idea of directly Tasering him to convince him to take his clothes off is just horrifying.
The young man’s name is Franklin Hoogendorn. He was, at
And the final flight out
So started out at 10 AM in Laos. Flight delayed two hours. Connection to Bangkok missed. Very nice Lao staff find us in terminal and say they’ll re-book us. Terminal, BTW, is about Barrow size so not hard to find us. Come back and say we’re re-booked on another flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong but all boarding passes have to be reissued and their machine is broken. They are waiting for IT. We get to Bangkok only to be told by airline that they can’t issue our tickets for America. We have to do that in Hong Kong. And
Sadly, my first day in Luang Prabang was the last day I was outside in Laos
Ok. I guess it was inevitable. I’ve spent the day in bed with Montezuma’s revenge. Since I leave day after tomorrow, I am being very cautious since this is not an illness to have when you are facing over 24 hours of flying. But if you’re going to be sick, this is the place to be. Staff swarmed all over me when I came back from the museum looking white and ready to pass out
The ladies got me undressed, offered a bed bath to cool me and then sat quietly in the room until they were sure I was
Now that’s a good sister
Here’s what sisters do for you. My bungalow here in Luang Prabang was far down a dark path that had twists and turns and steps down. Judy’s was right across from the reception bungalow. She insisted we change so that she didn’t have to medivac me out with a broken leg. When I went back to get my stuff to change rooms, I realized that the air conditioner wasn’t working and the room was still hot and stuffy. There are fans but you can’t open the windows because of the mosquitos. So she gave me her room and she’ll be
the original version
This is the original version of what I wrote after visiting at COPE in Laos. It became the basis for my newspaper column of a week or so ago.
I spent part of this morning at a facility called COPE here in Vientiane, Laos. If you are of a certain age, you’ll remember Laos as the place Nixon told us Americans had no ground troops. He neglected to mention the daily bombings. Here in Laos, the war hasn’t really ended. There are over 100 million unexploded bombs still on the ground… bombs that children dig up for the money they
Before I leave Cambodia
I do feel obliged to admit that despite the fact that many in our little group of Aussies, Brits, Kiwis and Judy and I as the two lone Americans tried some of the street food of Cambodia, I drew the line at roasted roaches and tarantulas. Life is simply too short. I have no need whatsoever to know what they taste like.
More importantly, having visited the Killing Fields here and the prison in which adults and children were kept and tortured, I am once again amazed at the resilience of the human spirit. The man in this picture was
To all politicians… your emails are NOT private!
Many, many years ago, a dentist I had hired to start the North Slope Borough’s Dental Program came to my house to ask me to have a cup of coffee with his wife. He told me she was feeling very alone and down. It was her first winter in Barrow and the darkness was not helping to raise her spirits; so I invited her over for coffee and we’ve been best friends ever since.
If I hadn’t told you that story, no one would ever have known about it except for the three people involved. That’s because the story occurred
Swimming with the fish
It’s official. There is not enough water in this whole country to replace what I sweat out in a day. This picture was taken in the amount of time it takes me to sweat a gallon of water while outside of any air conditioned enclosure.
The day I smashed my iPad but it still worked!
Ok, in a remoter area with limited access. Dropped my iPad and shattered glass making it very interesting to write this. Spent part of last night killing some large moth in my sister’s room while she ran around with a towel over her head. Place we’re at has can of Raid instant bug kill in each room. Guess that’s part of the jungle experience. Beautiful setting, sleeping under mosquito netting and being very careful about walking across floor because of what also might be walking across floor. Woke up to birds and roosters and then thunder and lightning and rain