Monday Memes

Hierarchy

“Dad said Uncle John worked at the US Embassy in Iraq.” My daughter explained to me.

“Really? I thought it was the US Embassy in Tibet or Nepal or something.”

“Yeah but Mom what does this have to do with him?” Jasmine asked me exasperated. Maybe I just thought he could help me.

I’m sure it’s unrelated. So which “brother” am I talking about this time? Ahh yes Mr. March 18. Didn’t Joe or somebody tell me that he was a Navy Commander? I don’t pay much attention to military ranks, but it does strike me that this is a high position in the US Naval Forces. So high that it wouldn’t surprise me if it caught the attention of some military types looking through the many cases files of things which I have filed with one specific US Embassy only over the years.

“Dad did say that the military is all about hierarchy.” Jasmine conceded. This conversation had caught the attention of her father.

“Well he should know.” I answered back. “He was USMC MP.”

“What’s that?”

“Marine Corps Military Police.” Is that not fitting for a Scorpio?

“He told me he just worked with them or something.” It’s common not to be given a job or a rank or anything in the military. Sure it is.

My husband’s visa update is that all new documents requested have arrived to the US Embassy. I explained to them that I am unable to log into their CEAC system to electronically update anything, but this morning ghost phone worked to do so. They wanted me to manually upload new information on the CEAC system, which has cleared so far. I will call them tomorrow.

“So I’m supposed to be out of Thailand by the end of December at the latest.” I explained to my mother. “Meanwhile Ka’s medical clearance certificate expires on February 7, so he supposedly MUST physically enter the USA by that point in time.” Of course there probably is some way to make a new one of those, but all the same jabs are still technically required and I have had 15 months of delays over getting this one. We’re already creeping well past stupid and cruel on all of this.

May you have a happy corporate Christmas. Where money for profitable schemes to enrich the already rich at the expense of everyone else seems to be the name of the game. Do you want some milk required to have chemicals added to reduce cow farts?

Of course I read about the collapse of the Syrian government forces. That sounds like a depressing and US funded mess where Assad had already made a deal with Russia. My prayers are with the people of that country, especially Christians that may be targeted with violence. At the same time I wonder what would happen if everybody just fell back and gave the other side exactly what they wanted with no fighting? It forces the hand to reveal itself, does it not?

It couldn’t be about resource extraction, now could it?

Or just starting WWIII…

How is it that they could find this Healthcare CEO’s killer’s DNA? From his discarded Starbucks cup? This is looking like a distraction…

I’m fascinated to note that in the Daniel Penny trial the lesser charges of criminally negligent homicide are I think the exact equivalent in Thailand to what my husband got charged with in 2004. They accused him of reckless driving and speeding which caused the schoolteacher’s death. There was a discrepancy over who was going the wrong way on the road: Ka claims she turned around to pick up her sweater which had blown off of her motorbike. Based on the accident specifics her bike ended up in the main lane of traffic on the busy road while his ended up in the ditch at the side, so somebody was likely turned around in the motorbike lane. The spot was about 800 meters ahead of where I originally thought it was. If it was at the Kho En curve visibility is partially obscured a lot of traffic is moving very fast and there is nothing on highway 402 between there and the Sarasin bridge out of Phuket but a few tiny towns that don’t even require speed reductions. There’s also a turnaround right up ahead and zero logical reason why my husband would have been driving the wrong way on the road in that location. What was he doing to be driving the wrong way? Picking vegetables at the side of the road? Was he just mentally challenged and didn’t notice the turnaround lane and decided to roar past it driving several kilometers in the wrong direction?

There was no mention of the cement truck, which leads me to believe that even mentioning the possibility that the schoolteacher’s death was not directly caused by the motorbike collision would have dropped it into a lesser and likely noncriminal charge.

My guess is that nobody cares about my little corner of the world and what’s going on with my family as much as I do. Prosecutors gonna prosecute. It’s what they do. Or in the USA they’ll drop the charges on actual violent criminals because just follow the money and the politics. And regarding the war crimes of the ones who rose to the top? Forget about those things. The death of one is a tragedy while the death of millions is a statistic as Josef Stalin once said.

Maybe the whole system rots from the head first. Now here’s some politically incorrect memes:

Here’s another fun one: they say the average American has been to eight of these US cities. How many of these cities have you been to? Now Cindy Sheehan won the last round on my meme set which was about cities in the world at 57 out of 100. I was surprised in that case that I came in second. I was surprised at my number here too, but I’m in second on Gab where I saw this posted.

I have been to 47 of these US cities. I have never been to NYC, Boston or Buffalo (even though I have family there). There’s one guy on Gab claiming he has been everywhere except Buffalo, New York. How many have you been to?

Perhaps we can all find our way by trying each day to make our little corner of the world better.

This odd thing regarding the bells fascinated me. See this deep ringing sound is used in Buddhist temples too. Why would they get rid of it?

Here’s a short Youtube video regarding this:

That had me thinking of one of my favorite Christmas songs, sang in many a choir by me over the years. It sure isn’t Mariah Carey’s All I want For Christmas is You, a song I really don’t want to ever hear again on some visceral levels at this point. Every international airport flying away from Thailand without my husband seems to play that crap over the years until I want to shoot their speakers out.

Tomorrow is another day…

Buy me a ko-fi