Here is a list of 38 countries. Think about what they have in common:
Albania
Czech Republic
Ireland
The Netherlands
Russia
Taiwan
Argentina
Denmark
Israel
New Zealand
Serbia
United Kingdom
Australia
Estonia
Italy
Norway
Slovania
Uruguay
Austria
Finland
Japan
Peru
South Africa
Belgium
France
Lithuania
Philippines
Spain
Canada
Germany
Luxembourg
Poland
Sweden
Columbia
Greece
Malta
Romania
Switzerland
Very soon, the United States will finally join this list of nations – most of the world’s most powerful and effective militaries – that allow gay, lesbian, and bisexual members of their armed forces to serve openly.
On Saturday, the United States Senate voted 65-31 to repeal the ban, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which has resulted in more than 14,000 highly-skilled and dedicated members of our military being discharged for nothing more than being honest about who they are.
We will look back on this, much as we do the 1948 desgregation of the United States armed forces, with no doubt that it was the right thing. In fact, many will come to wonder why it didn’t happen sooner. Some of us already do.
On Tuesday, November 2, Americans will head to the polls in an important mid-term election. The outcomes of elections have a real impact on us from the national level to the local level. The best electorate is an informed, involved one. Whatever your political leanings, I encourage you to take a look at the following tools to make sure you have the best possible information with which to make your voting decisions. These links come from OpenCongress, a non-profit and non-partisan public resource, independent from Congress and any political party.
To find who your current senators and representative are, use their zipcode look-up tool.
RaceTracker – See who the candidates are, learn about their positions, and get a snapshot of the fundraising race. This is a collaborative wiki project, so if you have information about a particular candidate, this is a great place to add your knowledge and share it on a fully-referenced, free and open-source platform.
AdTracker – In the wake of the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision allowing outside groups to spend unlimited money on campaign ads, it’s more important than ever that we have transparency in how these ads are affecting the election and exactly how they’re funded. AdTracker is a wiki project for tracking and watching all the ads in congressional races across the country and providing background info who’s sponsoring them. It provides a unique view into the advocacy work of low-profile independent political groups.
Voting Records – We typically find out about candidates’ voting records when they are being spun by their competitors, but on OpenCongress it is possible (and easy) to look at the actual vote data yourself. From your senators’ and representative’s profile pages, click the “Votes” tab and search for any topics you’re interested in. Looking at the actual data gives you a more accurate picture of how your lawmakers really voted on the issues that matter to you. To find more votes, check out our one-of-a-kind listing of Hot Bills by Issue Area.
Compare Votes – In this election more than in most, independence from party leadership is considered an especially important trait. Our head-to-head vote comparison tool gives you a view of party loyalty that you can’t get elsewhere. Compare the voting records of any two senators or representatives to see how often they vote with their colleagues and on what votes in particular they agree or disagree.
Bill sponsorship – In addition to vote records, it’s important to look at the bills your incumbent candidate has proposed. From senator and representative profile pages, click the “bills” tab to browse or search all sponsored and co-sponsored bills. Even more than votes, the bills lawmakers support are indicative of their overall vision and ideology.
Money – Last but not least, take a second to look at your candidates’ campaign funding sources. Time and again it’s been show that campaign finances are directly related to how members of Congress vote. Click the “Money Trail” tab on your senators’ and representative’s profile pages to see which industries and special-interest groups have donated to them. This is who they’ll likely owe favors to if elected to Congress in the next session.
If you need help finding out where to vote on Nov. 2nd, try this simple tool from Google and the New Organizing Institute. I sincerely hope the resources in this email help you make a satisfying decision at the voting booth.
September 28, 2010 will go down in the history of Krungthep (Bangkok) as the day when the scars from May’s political violence truly began to heal for the Big Mango’s shoppers. It will also go down as a red-letter day in the spreading influence of American fast food and the subsequent spreading of Thai waistlines.
To the first point, Central World Plaza, the largest of the buildings that were badly damaged in the fires set by angry protesters after their leaders surrendered to police on May 19, reopened today.
While about 70% of the mall reopened today, the 70% that suffered no damage in the attacks, the remaining portion depicted above is expected to be rebuilt and open next August. The portion opening today includes the Isetan department store, the 15-screen SFX World Cinema, and the grocery store.
Can a mall’s reopening indicate political healing? Of course not. That was just a banal attempt to hook your attention as a reader. Under the surface, the issues and power struggles remain, yet to be resolved. But for those of us who live here, whose lives were disrupted by the political events of April and May, the opening of Central World Plaza is another sign of life getting back to normal.
In other news – and possibly an attempt to draw away some attention from Central World’s reopening – the first Krispy Kreme doughnut franchise in Thailand opened today at the Siam Paragon mall, just down the street from Central World. Doughnuts have been popular in Thailand for at least a few years, as evidenced by countless Dunkin’ Donut and Mister Donut outlets. Last year, a Malaysian chain called Daddy Donut entered the market and they even have a mobile donut truck that sets up in different locations to sell donuts to hapless passersby.
Nonetheless, there is no lack of hoopla surrounding the opening of this first Thai Krispy Kreme. If you want my opinion, I think the fad won’t last. The Hong Kong locations of Krispy Kreme only lasted a few years before they closed and I don’t think the Bangkok crowd, which is quite fickle with its fads, will turn Krispy Kreme into an overwhelming success.
The big question is this: What’s the big deal? Thai culture has so many fantastic desserts and snacks and they are inexpensive, readily at hand, and perhaps slightly healthier than a doughnut. As I notice the Thai high school and university students in their uniforms, bigger, taller, and heftier than their counterparts were even a half-decade ago, starting to approach the bodily proportions of their peers in the American Midwest, I can’t help but wish the influence of Western style fast food chains would wane.
So here’s to progress, as it were. A reopened mall and a new fast food shop. Bangkok, you’ve come a long way.
For my friends in America, a brief request for your action:
The big Senate vote on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which will actually be a vote on invoking cloture on the Defense Authorization bill that contains it, will be on Tuesday. Some senators who once supported DADT repeal are starting to flip-flop, making the outcome of the vote uncertain.
Please take the time to contact your senators and let them know that it is time to repeal this discriminatory policy that serves only to undermine our soldiers and diminish troops readiness at a time when we can least afford it. Military and defense leaders agree that DADT serves no rational purpose.
Thanks for making your voice heard and please share the news with your friends and neighbors.
Two weeks ago it was the furor over the inaccurately named “Ground Zero Mosque”. This week, everyone is up in arms about a small-time Gainesville, Florida preacher’s plans to burn copies of the Quran on September 11th. Reverend Jones, leader of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center, has received oversized attention for someone who leads so small a flock. Surely we are giving him more attention than he deserves.
With such a deep hatred of Muslims and an uncivil way of expressing it, Reverend Jones is a world-class jerk who doesn’t live his life as an example of the teachings of Jesus Christ. There is no loving of his neighbors, doing unto others, etc. that we would reasonably expect from a man who claims to be a man of God.
But there is one point I find very interesting in all this fuss. While burning a Quran is a rather stupid and insensitive way to express his beliefs, isn’t the fact that the wrong Reverend Jones has and can freely exercise freedom of speech actually a big raspberry in the face of those who despise the freedoms that America represents?
Wouldn’t Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda ilk like nothing better than to see Americans stifle our own civil liberties and freedoms?
While I’m sure there will be plenty of people in Muslim lands and elsewhere who will be outraged at the sight of an American “Christian” minister burning copies of the Quran, I have to wonder if there won’t also be a whole lot of people who will be amazed that there is a country out there where someone can express contrary opinions without fear of persecution, repression, or execution by the authorities?
That is not the case in many countries out there, certainly not the ones where Al Qaeda likes to spread their poison.
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Not to get bogged down in this topic, but I was amused to read this quote in a newspaper article today:
“Ground zero is hallowed ground to Americans,” Elliott Maynard, a Republican trying to unseat Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat, in West Virginia’s Third District, said in a typical statement. “Do you think the Muslims would allow a Jewish temple or Christian church to be built in Mecca?”
What the Saudi government would or would not allow in their own country is irrelevant to the question at hand. Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy. The United States is a federal constitutional republic and a representative democracy. Is Mr. Maynard proposing that we change our system of government so that we can meet out religion freedom (or the absence thereof) in the same manner as the Saudi throne?
Oh, brother!
There are a couple of salient points made in an op-ed on NYTimes.com that I want to highlight:
The problem with [Republicans’] claims goes far beyond the fate of a mosque in downtown Manhattan. They show a dangerously inadequate understanding of the many divisions, complexities and nuances within the Islamic world — a failure that hugely hampers Western efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism and to reconcile Americans with peaceful adherents of the world’s second-largest religion.
Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.
Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith. Had the George W. Bush administration been more aware of the irreconcilable differences between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the United States might never have blundered into a disastrous war, and instead kept its focus on rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan while the hearts and minds of the Afghans were still open to persuasion.
There is a great deal of furor going on about the proposed building of an Islamic community center and mosque a short distance away from the World Trade Center site in New York City. On Friday, President Obama made a public statement about the issue, pointing our that “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”
Republicans jumped right on him, accusing the President of “pandering to radical Islam” and saying he “caved in to political correctness.”
I’d like to ask the Republican leaders a simple question: When did you stop supporting the Bill of Rights?
In case there’s any confusion out there, or Americans who didn’t get civics lessons because their teachers were busy ensuring no child got left behind, let’s quickly review what the Bill of Rights is. Namely, the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, and came into effect in December 1791. They include such “golden oldies” as the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The Bill of Rights is about our civil liberties. It is about our freedom, the freedom for which men and women in uniform are fighting and dying. Protecting our civil liberties is not “pandering to radical Islam” or “caving into political correctness.” Denying our civil liberties plays into the hands of terrorists, letting those who would undermine American values, win.
Conservatives go on and on about the importance of upholding the Constitution. Their claim is that President Obama has been “trampling” the Constitution throughout his first 20 months in office. But suddenly, when he explicitly upholds the Constitutional rights of Muslims to build a place of worship on private land, these “staunch defenders” of the Constitution are nowhere to be seen.
Let’s give credit to Flordia Governor Charlie Crist, the former Republican now running as an independent candidate for senator, who supported Obama’s statement. Let’s give even more credit to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who actually led the way making a powerful speech in favor of religious freedom on August 3rd. The video of this 7-minute speech is here. Here’s the bit that I thought was most important:
“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property, based on their particular religion?”
As we head into the midterm elections in November, before you make a decision about who deserves your vote, I’d ask that you take the time to ask the candidates whether or not they support the Bill of Rights. Use this case of the New York City mosque as a litmus test, because there really is only one way to support the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. That’s to answer “no” to Mayor Bloomberg’s question: the government should not attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property, based on their particular religion.
Near the end of June each year, parades are held in cities throughout the US and elsewhere in the world to celebrate gay pride. These marches began as a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, in which patrons of a gay bar in New York City rioted in response to a police raid and continued harassment. Originally these parades were knows as “gay freedom” or “gay liberation” marches, although over the last four decades they have come to be known more general as “Gay Pride”.
Pictures and stories in the media tend to focus on the most titillating aspects of the parade: the “Dykes on Bykes,” the naked or nearly-naked revelers, the fabulous drag queens, etc. With a mixture of confusion and derision, many in the heterosexual community (and even a few in the gay community) don’t understand what these events are about and the displays of outrageousness provoke the common refrain that gays should just “keep it to themselves” instead of “flaunting it”.
In fact, a recent post on the front page of Xanga asked the question, “Why Gay Pride?” Many of the responses echoed the themes of those who don’t understand what Pride is and its importance to members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered (GLBT) community.
Let me share with you my answer to the question, “What is Pride about?”
Growing up gay is, more than anything, about invisibility. You don’t see anyone like you, you have nobody to confide in, and you often don’t realize that you are not alone in your attraction to members of the same sex. This invisibility is debilitating and while there are many more examples of GLBT people in the media and in everyday life than there were a few decades ago, hundreds of thousands of young people around the world who are GLBT or questioning, continue to grow up feeling invisible.
A friend I interviewed in a university project shared this story with me: Growing up in a large immigrant family, he was convinced that his homosexual feelings were an illness, a sickness that only he had ever experienced. He kept this secret buried deep inside and it was taking a toll on his health, his studies, and his wellbeing. One weekend in June he took the subway into the city to do some shopping and as he emerged from underground, he found himself in the middle of a large parade. As he stopped to watch, he had a dawning awareness that all of the people at the parade were just like him. Suddenly he realized that he wasn’t alone, that there was a huge, colorful, and proud community of others who felt they same way he did. Needless to say, it was a life-altering and possibly even life-saving event for him.
Why the drag queens? Why the blatantly sexuality? The media loves to focus on the things that are most outrageous and that will make the best photos and headlines. But these members of the GLBT community play an important role in Pride. The Stonewall Inn, the gay bar whose raid led to the Stonewall Riots, was frequented primarily by the most marginalized members of the gay community: the drag queens, transvestites, transgendered people, and effeminate men.
They were the ones who led the riots against the police, fighting back against years of abuse and oppression. Embracing this outrageousness is a way to remember that it was the most outrageous members of the GLBT community who first stood up for all of our rights. Plus, what’s a parade without some frivolity?
In my mind, the most important and most prideful parts of Gay Pride events are the contingents of GLBT families, friends, and straight allies, a representation of every stripe of the larger community, fulfilling the promise in the Gay Pride symbol, which is the rainbow flag. Is the man above a gay father? The brother of a gay sibling? The son of a gay parent? The friend of a gay person? Or just a member of the larger community who wants his daughter to appreciate the breadth of diversity in their community and to learn to respect each member of it?
We don’t know the answer to that question but the fact that there are so many possible answers tells every person who is still in the closet, who is still struggling with his or her invisibility, that he or she is not alone. And that, for me, is what Gay Pride is really about.
This morning I pulled out my bicycle and, figuring that five days had been enough time to wait, pedaled my way to the various spots that had been affected during the Red Shirts’ protest and the subsequent riots and arson.
At 8:00 on a Sunday the streets were very quiet although there were others out. For closed off sections of road, there were a surprising number of sightseers there to absorb the unimaginable. This raised a question that has crossed my mind many times in the past two months: where were the police?
All in all, there is quite a mess. The damage is a little less extensive than my wild imagination had feared after seeing selected pictures shown again and again last Wednesday while the city was burning. But it is still a mess. Everywhere that the protesters had burned barricades made of tyres, there is a thick layer of burned rubber, a slick that has permeated the asphalt. Plants and landscaping are destroyed, the same fate suffered by every police box in the area.
Please let me share some photos and video with you. The commentary may sound a little pro-government, when in fact I don’t align particularly with any side in this conflict. But after seeing my city heavily damaged, largely by outsiders who claimed to be peaceful, I’m a bit jaded.
My first stop was the Chidlom intersection. You can see the Chidlom Skytrain station and are looking down Ploenchit Road towards Siam Square. There was a very large barricade here that was torched. There are large scorch marks on the underside of the Skytrain station and you can see that the traffic lights melted. The ground by the looted police box is slick with the residue of burned rubber.
The same intersection from the other side, with Soi Lang Suan running off to the back right of the picture. This was the largest contingent of troops I saw. Many soldiers seemed to be assigned to clean-up duty but this bunch was armed and definitely doing security. The curfew is still day-to-day but the hours are being shortened. What started at 8 pm – 6 am is now something like 11 pm – 5 am and will hopefully be lifted in the next few days.
The Ratchaprasong intersection. Ploenchit-Rama I runs left to right through the picture. Straight ahead is Rajadamri Road heading towards Lumpini Park and Silom. On the back right of the picture is the police headquarters. Would you like to ask the obvious question? How in the world was a protest of tens of thousands of people that lasted 40+ days allowed to happen right in front of the nation’s police headquarters? Were there no officers around to put a stop to it when it first started?
The answers lies in the complex politics of Thailand’s military and security services: it has been reported that there are many factions within the police, several of which are loyal to the former Prime Minister.
The Skytrain started running today and will be back to a full schedule starting Monday. The only station not open is Rajadamri due to damage to the station.
Gaysorn Plaza, on the Ratchaprasong corner, appeared to not have sustained much damage. Louis Vuitton, in particular, seems to have come through unscathed. Given the number of LV knock-offs sold in Thailand, I can only imagine that the shop was saved only by its immense popularity, even among Red Shirts.
The collapsed section of Central World Plaza, which was still smoldering. This is in the Atrium section, a part of the mall that was new construction since I moved here. The right half of the mall is expected to be reopened within six months but this portion and to the left will have to be completely razed and rebuilt.
Doesn’t that look like more damage than would be caused by a couple of Molotov Cocktails? Sure enough, the authorities report finding at least one compressed gas cylinder amid the debris. At the nearby Four Seasons hotel, it is reported that several cylinders were found, wired to make a bomb.
Along the Rama I side of Central World, you can see the extensive damage to the Zen department store. No word as to whether the high-rise portion was affected, but I cannot imagine how the structure could not have sustained damage.
Down the street in Siam Square the damage was also extensive. Of the six or seven soi (alleys) in Siam Square, it appears that two suffered extensive damage. This building is on the corner of Rama I and Henri Dunant Roads.
I had originally heard that both the Siam and Scala theatres, the last two independent single-screen cinemas in Bangkok, had burned. Thankfully the Scala, architecturally the more interesting of the two, survived unscathed.
However, the building housing the Siam, as well as dozens of small, owner operated shops, was destroyed. This area is immediately below the Siam Skytrain station, directly across from Siam Paragon mall.
Extensive damage to many shops.
There are still some coils of razor wire here and there. This is at the Payathai – Rama I intersection across from MBK Mall. These appear to be awaiting clean-up and are not part of any current security operation.
The Metropolitan Electric Authority office in Khlong Toei along Rama IV Road (between the expressway and Asoke-Ratchadapisek Road) was completely destroyed. There are still sections of this generally poor neighborhood that are without electricity.
The good news is that there was an important sign of the city coming together this morning, a volunteer clean up effort which drew at least 1,000 people to Lumpini Park and the Silom-Saladaeng neighborhood. The name of the event: Together We Can.
Okay, I’m ready to put this topic aside for now and move on to other things.
Thursday evening, the second night under curfew has started. The government has announced that these will last through the weekend. There were very few reported incidents today apart from a brief confrontation between about 100 protesters and a few police officers up near Victory Monument, and an arson attack on another bank branch. Relatively speaking, things are calm both here in Bangkok and in the provinces.
To be certain, no long-term fix has been found to the political situation. But for now, at least, things are calmer.
Lines around lunchtime at the local Villa Market were twenty deep as residents of the Thong Lor neighborhood and beyond rushed to stock up on supplies. With all the malls closed and many of the supermarkets, the Villa Markets in the mid-Sukhumvit area have been some of the few proper supermarkets that are open. We are stocked up enough to get us through the weekend.
This afternoon, Ajarn Yai, the retired school director pictured below for whom I volunteered as an English teacher a few years ago, called and expressed her concern. Her worry? How bad these events will make Thailand and the Thais look in the eyes of the world. She wants everyone to know that this isn’t Thailand and this is not how Thai people are.So there you have it, from her lips to your screen.
One of the most useful sources of information in the past 48 hours has been Michael Yon, the freelance American writer, photograph, and former Green Beret. With loads of war zone experience he has been reporting from Bangkok and has provided a near-continuous stream of information and updates through his Facebook page. Hundreds of locals have started following and commenting on his feed as he has provided a unique insight both in terms of quantity and also in terms of providing his military knowledge.
Best of all, he has been very generous in giving permission to people to use his photos. All he asks for is attribution and a link to his page. Here are some pictures:
Northeast corner of Rama IV and Ratchadamri looking down Rama IV towards Sathorn. Lumpini Park in the foreground with Silom subway entrance visible. The large barricade has been removed and there is a small army of city workers who have been cleaning the park. Still a lot of debris and damage to the pavement.
Damage to shops (possible a bank?) at Siam Square. On the far right of the picture is Siam BTS Skytrain station. From what I’ve heard, both the Siam and Scala cinemas were destroyed. Many small shops were also destroyed, ruining the livelihoods of the independent owners of those businesses.
Michael and a Thai reporter he was traveling with spoke with one of those owners, who went into her shop trying to salvage inventory. As you can see, things are pretty well destroyed here. Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) reports that because of the damage, the buildings that house the cinemas and shops (Siam Square Sois 5 and 6) will likely need to be demolished.
Damage at Central World. This is the front side, the Zen department store that faces Rama I road. From what Michael reports, it looks like the damage was limited mostly to the department store and this end of the mall. The remainder of the mall looks like it might be okay.
Same building but around the corner looking back towards Rama I Road and Siam Square. The central structure of the department store collapsed after the fire. BMA also says that because of the extent of damage, this structure will need to be demolished. Now, the reports are that the BMA is saying that Central World will have to be demolished, which I would interpret as the entire mall. However, this doesn’t seem to jive with the firsthand reports from Michael so we’ll have to wait and see what the truth is over the days and weeks to come.
The seven-story Big C superstore and mall across the street from Central World also was destroyed by fire and will need to be torn down. The first floor or two of that is filled with small, independently-owned shops. Anger vented at “elites” managed to do more damage to “common people” than anything else.
Finally, not from Michael’s website but floating around from various Thai bloggers, this picture that compares a clip from Resident Evil 4 to the real skyline of Bangkok yesterday. The film shows downtown Los Angeles, the other City of Angels, on fire. Eerie, isn’t it?
christao408 