Bangkok’s MRT is now even more tourist friendly--just use your Visa card
No need to buy tokens for Bangkok’s MRT (metro system). You can use your Visa card to enter and exit (make sure to use the same card); the fare is calculated based on your entry and exit and the money (converted into the currency your Visa card transactions are) is charged to your card. Very convenient!
Here is the summary of Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference:
1. We must retain whiteness: Americans are actually Europeans; we share the same culture and the faith in Christianity. We can preserve the European demographics of these two places by putting strict control on immigration. We must not allow browning/blackening of Europe and the United States. [My ancestors were from Southern Europe--not quite Anglo-Saxons, but still European.]
2. Human rights of the weak don’t matter: [Post Renaissance] The Europeans explored the world and used their better technology to subdue other people. That is the path we should continue. [The wellbeing of the Cherokees, the Navajos, the Aboriginal Australians, the Maoris, the Zulus, and other indigenous people must not burden our consciousness.]
3. What Conservation! : [Global warming/climate change is a hoax.] We must not curtail our progress by trying to abide by laws that restrict our use of oil and gas. We must unscrupulously exploit whatever resources we can get our hands on.
Photo: Courtesy of Getty Images via New York Times
Have you seen the world?
Last year I traveled a bit but did not go anywhere new. This was disappointing because the world is full of wonders and traveling to foreign places you always find enchanting things. Staying in Karachi for most of 2025 I found myself reflecting on the idea of ‘seeing the world’ and what people normally mean when they say they have seen it all.
At a wedding, I sat at a table where I knew some people but did not know others. I was keenly listening to the conversation taking place on the other side of the table. A man in his fifties had recently returned from Oslo; his colleagues were impressed by his travels and asked where else he had been to. He told them he had been all over and claimed he had seen the world.
This was impressive! I interjected. I told him it had always been my dream to see the world; I was genuinely impressed to meet someone who had already done it. I asked him how he found Burkina. He looked at me in astonishment. “Burkina?”
“Yes, Burkina Faso,” I clarified. “Was it easy to travel in that country?”
He paused, then recalled his geography. “Oh, Burkina Faso, close to Mali!” he said.
I pressed on. “Yes. Burkina Faso. How was it?”
“Who goes to Burkina Faso?” he asked.
I was a bit disappointed by this answer. Surely anyone who claimed to have seen the world would go to Burkina Faso. But out of politeness I kept that thought to myself. Instead, I asked him which country he found to be most alien. He said he enjoyed visiting Cuba.
If he found Cuba to be an interesting place, what did he think of the DPRK. No, he had never been to North Korea. From there, the conversation went south. Obviously infuriated, he said ‘seeing the world’ was just an expression, and it did not mean he went to every single country. I learned that his ‘world’ comprised most of Europe and North America; Costa Rica alone in Central America; Argentina and Brazil in South America; most of East Asia, and a couple of places in Africa. We got busy with dinner, but the conversation stayed with me and made me think about people’s desire to see the world. Does seeing the world mean visiting every sovereign state? But some countries are so big there are vast differences between their various regions. Can someone claim to have seen China if they visit only a couple of major Chinese cities? Going by the count of regions with distinct cultures and languages, the ‘world’ to be seen would keep expanding. Add to this the constant transformation of places. The South Africa I saw in 2023 was quite different from the one I saw in 1992. Perhaps the desire to ‘see the world’ is nothing more than chasing a rainbow. That nobody ever saw the world, and nobody ever will.
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When does truth come out?
If you want to hear truth from someone, either get them intoxicated or get them angry.
The email came from Jeff Waddell <ljdoubledog@aol.com>
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