Far East Cynic

Evidently not……

Repeat after me: There is not going to be any victory, no matter how long we stay or how soon we leave. Iraq is probably going to be violent for many years to come, and likely will be a closer ally of Iran than of the United States-nice job, W! For President Obama, the question from day one has been how can the U.S. government best mitigate the damage done in Iraq over the last eight years by the Bush-Cheney administration? The original mistake was invading a country pre-emptively on false premises. Everything we do is tainted by that sin.

Guess its time to take a look at the books on China in 1949………………….

Oh the outrage!

 Watching the Sarah Palin whining tour go on…and on……..and on.

It has been interesting the last couple of days watching the repeat of faux outrage. Two events in the last couple of days have-regretablly-brought her sneering voice back once again to the fore.

Lets deal with the easiest issue first shall we?   Find another baby to hold if you don’t like having yours photoshopped:

So Lisa, when a photo shop of Palin holding an infant was required for use in that graphic you’re saying that instead of using an existing picture of Palin holding an infant that her head should have been transplanted onto the body of another woman? Because what, the infant she was holding was her Down Syndrome child?

The more interesting broo-haha though has been The point of the photoshop did not have anything to do with her holding a special needs baby, it was just that she was holding a baby. That’s the problem with so many people like yourself. You don’t look at that picture and see her holding a baby, you see her holding a poor "retard". Then you moan and wail and gnash your teeth and feign outrage that anyone could have used poor little Trig this way, as if using a non Down’s child would have been completely different and entirely acceptable.

She most likely "willfully" used the picture of Trig because it was so famous and iconic, and it was so because Palin callously chose to bring her infant child up on stage as a campaign prop in the last election. She injected her own son into the political arena, but now that someone has used just a partial image of that action they’ve somehow crossed some imaginary line of decency with you people. Personally, I don’t think most of you have any clue where that line is located at all.

The more interesting issue is the complete outrage, that a news outlet-one with a known history of attempting to give sensastional stories-provide an interesting look at the inside of a train wreck.  Based on the information from insiders from the campaign, it provides an interesting insight into the "thrilla from Wasilla".

In the article we learn ten interesting things about the governor. Even if you are a supporter-and discount the story because of both its sources and its author, shouldn’t it be at least a little disturbing in light of the other questionable facts surrounding the Governor of Alaska?

Sexist perhaps? Maybe, but lets not forget who put the MILF factor out there on the table. Her supporters.

However, the Milfy thing cuts both ways, so don’t be surprised when those who have not drunk her moose blood kool-aid-find more than a couple of shreds of truth in the stories of her wackiness.

I’m going to overlook the backbiting from the McCain campaign for two reasons. First, it’s almost indisputably true, since no GOP heavyweight is going to risk his or her professional reputation trying to make Sarah Palin look ridiculous when Sarah Palin is doing a fantastic job of it all on her own. Second, that aspect of the story is being done to fucking death by every other blog in the universe and there’s very little that I even want to add to it. And frankly, all the really good stuff doesn’t involve the McCain people at all. What shocks me so much about the Purdum articles isn’t that so few of McCain’s staff wouldn’t go on the record with their shit-talk, but how many of Palin’s former associates in Alaska actually would.

Can’t say that I disagree with a word of it.  The supporters however are outraged. They continue to throw words like despicable,  "how its not outrage but fear",  liberal media,  and other terms.

However the problem is-it is simply one point of view.  And if Palin wants to challenge it-she can. She can dial 1-800-Libel Lawyer.

But my Canadian counterpart probably has her sized up right.

She should spend a year and a half learning how to do things like answer a question in a comprehensible way. She should turn off her television after the 11 o’clock news. And if she took an economics class, that would be nice, too.

Because that advice is actually smart, she won’t follow it. She never does. Instead, she’s trying to solidify a base of superstitious white people that is vanishing as an electoral force. On the other hand, she has brought the Republican Party around to the joys of identity politics, which is pretty funny in and of itself. Few things amuse me as much as watching people like Rush Limbaugh scream about sexism.

Trig getting photoshopped is the least of Sarah Palin’s worries. Better still to worry about the edited photo she has put forth as her poor political life.

When I came home from work today-later than normal-I switched on the TV in the bedroom to watch the news. To my chagrin it was full of nothing but Michael Jackson.

In disgust, I threw the remote control at the TV. Fortunately-I missed. However it did little to assuage my ill humor-or at my disgust with the unfairness of the world.

Perhaps I should back up a bit. This morning at about 6:15 my cell phone went off. It had the Washington DC number of a high placed muckety muck within my company.

"Why is he calling me at this time in the morning?"

He was calling to tell me that he had received sketchy word that a coworker of mine, employed by the same company and hired by this man, had died suddenly of a heart attack. "Could I get a hold of someone and get some more information?"

Down here in Shopping Mall-there are not so many of us from our company. Most of our strings are pulled from up north. So I quickly ran through my list of numbers and hit the "call" button. Yes it was true-he had been taken to the hospital and had not survived. People from his section were already en route to the house-and his church was mobilizing a "food brigade" to make sure his wife was taken care of.  Please hurry into work and let the big bosses up north know what’s going on.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

This particular man had been my "sponsor" when I moved here from Japan. He did not have to do it-in fact many  companies here in shopping mall do not do such things-but the management of my company feels strongly on the issue. Being quite busy in his own right-showing a "newbie" the ropes of this particular corporate entity was the last thing he needed to be doing.

But don’t tell Al that.

He met me at the front desk bright and early. Got me through the maze that is getting set up here-and then over the next few weeks showed me the ropes.

Al had been a Marine in his former life-and like all Marines he was damned proud of it. In fact damn proud is probably an understatement.  An infantry officer back in the day-he had spent some time as an Aerial observer in OV-10 Broncos. Out of that experience he had formed a deep and abiding respect for aviation. Since he knew that I was a former Naval Flight Officer-we used to talk about flying a lot.

Al was also a Ham radio operator-enthusiastic about the hobby. He had his call sign on his car license plate. My father is an Amateur radio operator-and Dad  could never coax his miscreant son beyond a novice license. ( The code kicked my ass). It gave us another bit of common ground to talk about.

Politically we were very different. However, unlike what some in the blogosphere seem to think these days-that did not prevent us from having political discussions in a cordial and respectful tone towards each other. Since I work indirectly for the Navy-he never missed an opportunity to hammer home to me something in the news-whenever the Navy had a bad day in the headlines. ( Something that seems to be happening a lot these days). However underneath the pointed barbs was a respect for the naval service-just I have a deep seated respect for the Marine Corps he so dearly loved.  We knew we had to hang together in an overly Army saturated environment.

Al was, like me, a generalist. In an organization like the one I work in, full of  geeks engineers,  he never had-what he knowingly referred to as:  "the right skill set".

What Al did have, and I watched closely,  being of a like mind myself, was a PHD in the art of getting things done.  The organization we work for prides itself on "process" -so much so that it makes even simple projects a real chore. Al, quite properly held that process in the contempt it richly deserves. All the while however, he knew how to use it, to mold it, to bend it it to his will, in order  to get things done.

All the while shaking his head at how hard the ghost of Col Blimp (the patron saint of this particular organization)-had made of the getting there.

In recent months-he was frustrated. Justifiably so, if you ask me-especially given the changes that have transpired in our little place over the past year. We went to lunch from time to time-or had the occasional beer after work-and together we let vent to our frustrations. He talked a couple of times about chucking it all. Letting his wife take a job where they wanted to live and he would work in an electronics store.

Today makes me wonder if he should have.

However, he continued to give 100%-even if his overlords did not properly appreciate it sometimes.

Al was a guy who made some noise-when he was in the room, you knew it. No meek, mild, Casper Milquetoast practitioner of "buzzword bingo" was he. Some people just exist in a given situation. Not Al-he attacked the daily grind-with no loss of enthusiasm along the way. As a another co-worker put it, "Al was the kind of guy that if someone told him that he was tilting at a windmill, he would press on undeterred."  He wore the role of Don Quixote with pride. He was also true to the real meaning of the entire title of Cervantes book- as ingenioso  means "to be quick with inventiveness".

Al and his wife had been on a holiday back to the place they loved-and I am told they had a big family event where he got to see his kids-and grand kids. He was supposed to have been back to work today-after being on a well earned vacation.

They say that when it happened-it came quite suddenly. Which, as the logic goes, can be a blessing.

And no doubt later in the week I will hear pastors tell me how everything happens for a purpose.

That may be, however for this evening I will soon head to the cupboard for a bottle of Scotch. Through which I will become more than mildly schnockered -the better to curse the unfairness of the world. And give thanks for having been lucky enough to know a great man.

Which, ironically, brings me back to Michael Jackson. There are literally 1000’s of men like Al in this country. They enrich us all in ways we never really understand at the moment.  There’s no one on CNN weeping about them. Guys like Al make the rest of us rich-over and over again.

No disrespect-but the only guy Michael Jackson made rich was some record promoter.

Time for the Scotch-it’s just not fair.

Note to self.  Don’t book a 9:50 tee time when the temperature is over 97 degrees…………..

The boys at Jib Jab that is.

One of the biggest misconceptions held by the idiots who write drivel on the right, is that folks like me did not understand what they were getting when they voted for Barak Obama. Quite the contrary. Obama has a big list of faults and there are some of the ideas that are either going to succeed or fail and if they fail, I for one will not be suprised.

However, one still has to remember that , for me at least, the alternative was much worse. As long as Sarah Palin was around-and John McCain was committed to Bush’s "war without end-amen"- I was backed into a electoral corner.

And if he doesn’t fix what’s ailing the economy and get us out of that worthless hell hole of Iraq-I’ll vote against him too. In the interim, however I can really enjoy something as funny as this though:

I am saddened, but not one bit suprised, by this. Courtesy of Hemlock:

As I shut the window and turn up the air-conditioning, the two Filipino elves let themselves in.  They are carrying various provisions essential at this time of year, from bug spray to Pimms, as per instructions left under a refrigerator magnet a few days ago.  After dumping them in the living room, the pair move on to the kitchen and unwrap a bag of mysterious herbs, which they are soon grinding up with a mortar and pestle.  A few minutes later, they are squeezing the pungent white juice from this mixture into a small bowl.  Out comes a small box full of sharp bamboo needles.  The elves patiently dip the needles into the poison and leave them to dry for a few minutes.  They then put them back in the box, which they strap to a six foot-long, thin canvas bag containing a blowpipe.

Someone is in big trouble, and he is Labour and Welfare Secretary Matthew Cheung, whose sad duty it is to announce that Hong Kong’s forthcoming minimum wage will not apply to dark-skinned foreigners who toil 14 hours a day, six days a week, washing, cleaning, nursing and picking up for the Big Lychee’s middle-class families for under US$500 a month. 

He doesn’t use this exact phraseology.  He calls them ‘live-in domestic workers’.  In other words, he is not discriminating – the new law will not apply to local live-in house servants either.  But when was the last time anyone saw one of those women in their black pyjama pants and long ponytail, shopping in the market or escorting kids to school?  I think the Museum of History in Kowloon has some grainy film footage of one.  After much panicky searching for some other non-foreign category of worker to exclude from this wage protection, relieved officials have come up with student interns.

Now I have to admit, that if I were ever fortunate enough to be able to live in Hong Kong-and employed with the right salary, I would probably have myself a live in maid too-especially when the government was explicitly committed to preserving my "right" to exploit the inability of any Filipino governement to do anything about the poverty in their home country that drives these women to work in these conditions.

And, it would probably make it not as much fun to visit Hong Kong as well, if when I visited, I was no longer to perform acts of kindness and charity in pursuit of augmenting their lifestyle on Sunday afternoons.

Nonetheless, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck-its probably is discrimination a duck. Not to worry though-the Hong Kong government has a clever dodge to make all on the up and up:

This is important, because somewhere along the line Hong Kong has acquired laws against racial discrimination, and certain well-meaning do-gooder troublemakers have been itching to get the courts to decide whether separate treatment for domestic helpers is racist. 

The repercussions could be interesting.  If the yet-to-be-decided minimum wage were HK$25 an hour, a domestic helper could be looking at a 150% pay rise.  If enforced, which obviously it wouldn’t be, many families would send their maids back to poverty in the Philippines or Indonesia, and the wife would go from full-time to part-time paid work and pick up the domestic chores.  Everyone gets poorer.

(Under the Government’s nightmare scenario, the courts would also rule that maids with more than seven years’ employment here are eligible for permanent residency, though our bureaucrats are confident that they have the relevant loopholes plugged.  God forbid that our 95% Chinese population be diluted with happy, hard-working, reasonably educated, brown people who can speak better English.)

Still, the prospect of doubled pay is too tempting to think critically about, so domestic helpers will be marching on 1 July and gunning for Matthew Cheung.  They are likely to be disappointed.  The interns will come to the rescue to prove that the legislation is colour-blind.  Anyway, judges hire maids too, and unlike the Company Gwailo at S-Meg Holdings they dare not infringe the law by hiring other people’s helpers on a cheaper and more practical part-time basis.  At – in my case – a minimum-wage-multiplying HK$50 an hour.

Over to you , Gloria, for comment. ( Sound of crickets chirping ensues…..).

Just got back from the baseball game. Stars crushed Chattanooga 12-1.

First, the sad news about Farah Fawcett. All though I was more of a Kate Jackson fan-all men of a certain age can remember her poster. I never had one in the room-but I wil confess to impure thoughts about all of Charlie’s Angels.

Then tonight-Michael Jackson.

The S.O., in one of those moments of brilliant understatement, kind of summed it up at dinner when she said to me:

"This will be just like Elvis. It will become its own legend."

I was startled by the aptness of her observation. I think time is going to prove her right.

Thoughts?

Normally, I adore Filipina women. No, really I do-and not for the reasons you gutter rats may think. While in Japan I got to observe both the good things and the bad things about Filipino society up close;  from time to time in other cities I got do good works of charity for a few ;  and at the end of the day, there is something to be said for the challenges that so many of them put up with-while still maintaining a kindred spirit. 

What other country in the world is proud of the fact that its #1 export is people?

Which is why there is one woman in the Philippines I actually loathe-Gloria Arroyo. Over the last few years she repeatedly has admitted that her administration is a complete and total failure.

140,000 women working as maids in Hong Kong? 150,000 working in Singapore? Doesn’t phase her.

500,000 men and women working in the middle east? A great national achievement.

And now-a further admission of the fact that she can’t, or won’t do a damn thing to help Filipinos in their own homeland:

Arroyo calls on Japan to accept more Philippine workers

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp…bwLZzsV8dfsAIg

Like the hostesses need that kind of competition……………

Besides the fact that its a blatant admission the Philippine economy  sucks, lets look at few obvious flaws with this line of thinking:

1) Filipino English is better than say that of-Thai’s. But unless they have lived in an English speaking country, its not the same as an native speaker.

2) Japanese hold Filipino’s in lower regard than the Chinese do-and that’s tough to do.

3)Filipino’s have this nasty habit of "importing" family behind them-if they think they can do it. Ask the US Navy, which had to do a severe crackdown on the practice in the early years of the 21’st century. The Japanese know this and want nothing to do with it.

And finally, there is still one industry that Gloria did not talk about but still gets a lot of Filipino "talent":

Against that backdrop-you think you are going to get Japanese students to Filipino eikaiwa? Not a chance.

But then-Gloria Arroyo was never known for thinking things through.

Surely, you don’t expect me to get the country to work?

Can having US support be bad for a revolution?

Apparently so.

 He’d been crying on stage about what a socialist Taro Aso is.

Loss-making Japan Airlines (JAL) could receive up to 100bn yen ($1bn; £635m) in state aid, say reports, on condition that the airline’s management improves. 

Any loan would be made through state owned Development Bank of Japan (DBJ). 

Oh the horror! Especially since ANA has better service anyway. As for Beck-well at least I can call him an asshole in two languages.

 Whenever a man hears these words:

The star of TLC’s "Jon & Kate Plus 8" filed for a no-fault divorce Monday inMonday in Montgomery County Court in Pennsylvania. She says in papers that she’s willing to "negotiate a fair and reasonable" settlement with her husband of 10 years.

 Fair and reasonable my ass- Stand by for a freight train to come running through your life.  Child support for eight has to be a bitch.

Get a good lawyer-and blame her for everything.

Alas, you can no longer buy Kodachrome:

Eastman Kodak Co. announced Monday that it’s bidding farewell to Kodachrome, its oldest and the first commercially successful film. At first, it seemed like another moment to engage in brief, Pavlovian nostalgia of the rotary telephone or monophonic record album sort.

There were pro forma histories of the film and mention of its invention by two young musicians; its early use by Hollywood; how sales are just a smidgen of Kodak’s total sales; and how it’s so difficult to process that only one joint in Switzerland and one in Kansas handle the film.

Then I wondered: Might this be different? Is there be a reason to be sad, even in this wondrous digital age in which hacks like me can stumble onto a great image, perhaps quickly juice it up and, then, voila, send it to every village and hamlet on the globe (not to mention CNN or MSNBC)?

Much of my youth is captured on Kodachrome-slides and prints. Also during the voyage of the damned in 1981, I bought a Canon Camera in Singapore-and learned to shoot stop action photography on the ship with it-and high speed Kodachrome film.  If I could get a scanner that is worth a shit-also in my "to do list"-I might even post some of those photos.

A lot of history is also recorded on Kodachrome film. Go here for a great slide show of some of those moments.

"Today, shooting with a digital camera offers some advantages — you never have to run out of film.  And you can see what the picture looks right away, no waiting. But when you shoot, stop, look, and shoot again, a different rhythm sets in.  No momentum builds up, and you never have to trust your judgment. "

"With film you never knew you’d lost that key moment until you found out what the film looked like.  But now, you might lose it while inspecting the shot that didn’t work."

"I know that digital images can travel around the world in astonishingly brief intervals of time, and that for many reasons time is now our most precious resource.  But in exchange for speed it seems to me that we’re losing the ability to concentrate, wait, and seize the chance."

Farewell,  old friend.

Anybody- got any for a good Digital SLR camera? I’ve got the bug to get one.

Nikon or Canon? What say you?

With all the money the Navy is blowing on F-18’s and F-35’s and LCS’s  these days-they could buy the whole E-2 fleet a couple of times over:

The E-2D Hawkeye is over budget, but the Navy needs it anyway, defense officials told Congress this month.

Since 2003, the E-2D program’s unit cost grew from $163 million to $204 million, a Navy spokesman said.

I could buy more than few E-2’s for what the Navy is going to waste backfitting F-18C’s with a radar it could get by without.

Funny thing though- I never hear any fighter pilots whining about the "hummer gap".  Why is that?