The Hmong and the Vietnamese : Mésentente not so Cordiale

The Hmong are a fiercely independent people who see Vietnamese profiteers moving in on their land as a threat.  But the biggest threat to their way of life is probably tourism.

The Gambia and The Gay Diversion

Banjul, May 5, 2012 – When Europeans went to Berlin with their scissors in 1884 to cut up the map of Africa, they played a sick joke which is still felt today. The British wanted the Palm oil from the Gambia River so they took that out of French West Africa and today the place is called a country: 60 kilometers wide at the Atlantic it snakes 338 kilometers up river where it is just a dozen kilometers wide. French diplomats like to refer to it as the finger in the ass of Senegal. The metaphor is à propos this year as the country obsesses over all things anal.

Universal Helath Care is a ‘No-Brainer

The idea of a universal, government run, health care system seems from this side of the Atlantic a ‘no-brainer’. At 17% of GDP, or more than $7,500 per American per year, you are paying double what any of the other industrialized nations pay where everybody is insured, while in the US 46 million go without health coverage.

Good fish without the EU

Trikiri, The Pillion, Greece – June 15, 2008: Kiriaki is a small cove three hundred meters below the village of new Trikiri at the far tip of the Pillion.  It is a small fishing village with a working harbor and busy little shipyard. The village will be ruined soon by the new road just built to it with tourist bus parking at the edge of town and all thanks to EU money.  But for the moment only adventurous foreigners make it here.  The village is still fairly isolated.  I am told electricity arrived here in the 1970s and a small winding road from Trikiri opened the town up in the early 80s.

Salmonella

Volos, Greece – June 10 – 15, 2008.

The vomiting and diarrhea began in N’Djamena on the morning of the 7^th.  By the afternoon I was bed-ridden but had to catch the plane to Paris late that night.