Hi, Dean. Thanks for sharing all your varied experiences, you and your intrepid wife have shared around the world. It makes me realize how most of us Westerners have no idea how the majority of the rest of the world lives! There certainly has been much tragic history associated with Cambodia,
inflicted largely by the US and its NATO minions. I just read that Cambodia was bombed far more heavily during the Vietnam War than previously believed--and that the bombing began not under Richard Nixon, but under LBJ. From October 4, 1965, to August 15th., In 1973, the US dropped far more ordinance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons of bombs, dropped in 230,516 sorties, on 113,716 sites! Absolute insanity! On a side note, it is estimated that over 100,000 tons of US-made bombs have been dropped on the tiny Gaza Strip in the past 18 months by the IDF air force. Man's inhumanity to man boggles the mind.
Thank you, Dean, for this fascinating tale of your trip through Cambodia. Though I am familiar with the country's tragic history thanks to the Americans, the personal experiences
you relate give one a true feel for the people and their country.
Dean, what a great description you have written on this trip. I’ve seen and experienced similar situations when living in China in the mid 50’s. Grinding poverty and short lives from the lords of the land. Our world seems to be a prison planet with any other thinking, like socialism, that works for the greater part of the underclass, to be banned at all costs. And where is Christianity when people need the pure version, ie Gaza.
So very charming. My sole, one-day trip to Cambodia took place with the late Dean Bishop, who had assisted various Cambodian refugees in various ways, long before the Year Zero festivities of the Khmer Rouge. We passed an old lady on the corner with a display of loco-weed arrayed before her on the sidewalk. Dean bought a couple of frizzy ones, as he was a smoker, and we sat in a darkening city park and puffed away, with a local friend of Dean's who gave me a surprise as he casually leaned over the big American and tickled his pickle in the fading light. It was just dark enough that passersby could not discern what was going on, right out there before God and the passing public, unless you stopped and snooped (I happen to be from SnoopLand [of the free yadda yadda], where the hardest thing in life is to do is to mind your own fucking business). Everybody gliding through the woods looked kind of ghostly in the darkening evening. Dean is meanwhile dead, having been shipped back to Seattle when he broke down from the effect of strong drink in Bangkok; his fellator-friend probably as well, judging from his apparent classiness (it was said that they would kill you outright if you wore glasses). So very hard to put together the calmness and tolerance of the Cambodians with that pyramid-of-skulls era. They've energetically worked to pin the blame on one Henry W.C. Kissinger, architect of the bombing of Cambodia. That the PRC entrepreneurs and the multinational thugs have seized control of their economy is to be expected, I suppose, although it reeks of ongoing tragic exploitation. As for their neighbors the Thais, I love them but could never live there. As Spalding Gray cracked, they are "...the nicest people that money can buy". Also a living tragedy in its way.
Hi, Dean. Thanks for sharing all your varied experiences, you and your intrepid wife have shared around the world. It makes me realize how most of us Westerners have no idea how the majority of the rest of the world lives! There certainly has been much tragic history associated with Cambodia,
inflicted largely by the US and its NATO minions. I just read that Cambodia was bombed far more heavily during the Vietnam War than previously believed--and that the bombing began not under Richard Nixon, but under LBJ. From October 4, 1965, to August 15th., In 1973, the US dropped far more ordinance on Cambodia than was previously believed: 2,756,941 tons of bombs, dropped in 230,516 sorties, on 113,716 sites! Absolute insanity! On a side note, it is estimated that over 100,000 tons of US-made bombs have been dropped on the tiny Gaza Strip in the past 18 months by the IDF air force. Man's inhumanity to man boggles the mind.
Thank you, Dean, for this fascinating tale of your trip through Cambodia. Though I am familiar with the country's tragic history thanks to the Americans, the personal experiences
you relate give one a true feel for the people and their country.
I still have a PTSD from the shocking amount of RUBBISH throughout Cambodia
Dean, what a great description you have written on this trip. I’ve seen and experienced similar situations when living in China in the mid 50’s. Grinding poverty and short lives from the lords of the land. Our world seems to be a prison planet with any other thinking, like socialism, that works for the greater part of the underclass, to be banned at all costs. And where is Christianity when people need the pure version, ie Gaza.
So very charming. My sole, one-day trip to Cambodia took place with the late Dean Bishop, who had assisted various Cambodian refugees in various ways, long before the Year Zero festivities of the Khmer Rouge. We passed an old lady on the corner with a display of loco-weed arrayed before her on the sidewalk. Dean bought a couple of frizzy ones, as he was a smoker, and we sat in a darkening city park and puffed away, with a local friend of Dean's who gave me a surprise as he casually leaned over the big American and tickled his pickle in the fading light. It was just dark enough that passersby could not discern what was going on, right out there before God and the passing public, unless you stopped and snooped (I happen to be from SnoopLand [of the free yadda yadda], where the hardest thing in life is to do is to mind your own fucking business). Everybody gliding through the woods looked kind of ghostly in the darkening evening. Dean is meanwhile dead, having been shipped back to Seattle when he broke down from the effect of strong drink in Bangkok; his fellator-friend probably as well, judging from his apparent classiness (it was said that they would kill you outright if you wore glasses). So very hard to put together the calmness and tolerance of the Cambodians with that pyramid-of-skulls era. They've energetically worked to pin the blame on one Henry W.C. Kissinger, architect of the bombing of Cambodia. That the PRC entrepreneurs and the multinational thugs have seized control of their economy is to be expected, I suppose, although it reeks of ongoing tragic exploitation. As for their neighbors the Thais, I love them but could never live there. As Spalding Gray cracked, they are "...the nicest people that money can buy". Also a living tragedy in its way.