Category Archives: War

Thai Mai Thai

June 1, 2020 – 7:18 pm

My family first came to Thailand in the 19th Century. Great Grand-Aunt Bert arrived in Bangkok on a clipper ship. Her father was the captain. The year was probably 1879, but on her 100th birthday she recounted seeing a city of golden temples surrounded by a jungle. “And all the women had black teeth from […]

By Peter | Also posted in farangs, revolution, semi-fiction, Thailand, Traditions | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Blows Against the Empire by Peter Nolan Smith

May 27, 2020 – 9:37 pm

Early in April 2001 a task force supporting the aircraft carrier US Kitty Hawk anchored off Pattaya. Its 12,000 soldiers and sailors invaded the go-go bars of Beach Road and I avoided the chaos without taking into account my Thai girlfriend’s displeasure at having to stay home night after night. “I not leave farm to […]

By Peter | Also posted in Fiction | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Blast Away

May 27, 2020 – 12:37 pm

Last hurricane season Donald Trump forwarded the idea of nuking a hurricane to weaken its cyclonic power. AXIOS reported in August 2019 that “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do […]

By Peter | Tagged | Comments (0)

Kent State 1970

May 4, 2020 – 5:55 am

Fifty years ago John Filo snapped an iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970. I was 17. Richard Nixon had been elected President in 1968 by promising to end the […]

By Peter | Also posted in 70s, peace, revolution | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

The Utter Folly Of Wise Men

August 8, 2019 – 3:27 pm

Every country has a pantheon of vaunted heroes and military leaders. Their names grace universities, libraries, towns, and cities. Children bear their names in remembrance of their contribution to country. In contrast few parents bestow any honor on the knaves of a nation. Adolf and Benito were banned by an unspoken edict during my childhood. […]

By Peter | Also posted in 2010s, history | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)