IT'S BEEN AWHILE

But here I am in living color or some such.  The big silver bird took me back and forth from SE Asia. The Thais and Cambodians both live under repressive dictatorships.  Three generals over see the Thai government having staged a coup after a "fair" election.  The Cambodian dictator is an individual who, almost ironically, was a member of the Khmer Rouge. On top of that, each country ha a monarchy!!

Those facts are beside the point--almost.  The point is that despite the dictators, the people we interacted with were warm, friendly, and spoke lovingly of their countries.  Thailand is a country of 60 million people.  Bangkok is enormous and is bigger than NYC.  Also, full of traffic congestion and crazed scooter drivers. It is way more advanced than its neighbor Cambodia.  An example: the rice in Cambodia is still farmed by hand without any machinery.  Thailand's rice is harvested by machinery with people helping. The Thais, btw, have taken in more than 2 million refugees from Myanmar.  Steven Miller be damned.

Finally, it is important to note that the Khmer Rouge literally forced the evacuation of Phnom Penh and other cities.  Emptied them in order to force the residents to work on farms so that they could be re-educated.  2 million died out of a country which at that time had a population of 10 million--20 %.
It does much more than simply boggle the mind.

A side benefit of the trip was that I watched no TV.  POTUS did not intrude.  A respite I enjoyed.  Saw not a minute of the House hearings and continue to believe he will not be leaving office unless he loses the election.  BTW, if you want to read about his supporters, Maureen Dowd turned her column over to her brother in yesterday's NY Times.  It is scary to read and made me very nervous about POTUS winning next November.

Most of my toes and fingers continue to be crossed hoping RBG survives this medical crisis and can
last for 11 months.

Looking out at the first snow of the year and "weathering" (get it?) the hysteria of the weather people.

SPORTS TALK
He looked old yesterday.  That would be Mr. Brady.  I think Edelman should take next week off and force Brady to throw to the other receivers.  He has put all the other receivers in a sort of purgatory.
But at least, up here, the Celtics are fun again without Kyrie and the Bruins are winning.  I can live with that.

Hope you had a good holiday.  See you in a month.