On vacation in TXTland

On vacation in an Internetless region, or rather can you believe an area that tries to function on DIAL-UP speeds?

Result: Blog suspended until January 3 when I can upload postings that take less than an hour to arrive on the blogsite.

Give you three guesses where this is being sent from:

(a) Auckland, NEW ZEALAND.
(b) Rotorua, NEW ZEALAND.
(c) Napier, NEW ZEALAND.

Correct answer: All three... UNTIL THEN!

NO WONDER the NZ dollar has almost halved in value against USD, JPY and EUR in the last 4 months!

Weather's nice though... would post a photo but graphic capabilities are reduced to lopsided smileys :-)

Story Oneupmanship

In the Canal Café, friends play one upmanship with aircraft stories.

 ...

Kathy: Three hours? Bit long. Reminds me of the time I was on a flight out of Chicago to LA and there were thunderstorms and we were kept waiting for FIVE HOURS.

Noriko: And you couldn’t get off?

Kathy: They gave us a choice. We could disembark and come back the next day. Or stay on and wait.

Noriko: You waited.

Kathy: I waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally we got away but then we got in to LA at 3 in the morning and I had phone my husband to come and get me and he drove in for two hours and then we drove home for two hours. That was a bad one.

Noriko: I was stuck once for EIGHT HOURS.

Kathy: EIGHT?

Noriko: There was nowhere to go. I was in China.

Kathy: They let you off?

Noriko: They were waiting for the weather to clear. After eight hours we took off.

Kathy: How long was the flight?

Noriko: 45 minutes.

___________

Voice-over

I used to be afraid of flying. These days, with the delays, I’m more afraid of getting on an aircraft and NOT flying.

...

Fly the Unfriendly Skies

Untied Pilot advising passengers of delay...

...

18:30 Pilot: Sorry folks, we’ve had a little problem at the gate, I’m just going down to sort it out, this could delay our departure by a couple of minutes.
(Sigh)

19:00 Pilot: Sorry folks to keep you waiting. All fixed now. We should be on our way in ten minutes.
(Good old Untied, they never miss a chance)

20:00 Pilot: Apologies again folks. I’ll just update you to keep you in the loop. A passenger was denied boarding because he was drunk. Our airline has zero tolerance for alcohol so we had to deny him. Unfortunately he took a swing at me. The doc has OKed me but regulations state I have to complete some paperwork. It shouldn’t take more than an hour. (Oh no, what kind of pilot have we GOT here? What kind of airline IS this?)

21:15 Pilot: Hello again folks. Sorry, it took a bit longer than expected. Unfortunately we have lost our place in the line so we’ll have to hold here for another half hour until we’re cleared for takeoff.
(Could I have a glass of water? Sorry, water's off)

21:40 OK folks. We’re on our way. Get you there as quickly as possible.
(Where is this pilot GOING? He's heading NORTH, we should be heading SOUTH).

______________
Voice-over
300 people were kept waiting for three hours. The airline blames the drunk. But I wonder if the airline regulations weren’t at the heart of this Kafkaesque episode.

Managing problems like this requires some commonsense. First, and most obviously, an airline captain should not be exposed to potential physical injury prior to or during a flight. Second, backup airline personnel should be on hand to cope with such events and to do the paperwork so the flight can depart on time. Third, some better prediction of how long the process would take with appropriate announcements and actions like deplaning passengers to the lounge could be expected. Fourth, would you have confidence in flying with a pilot who has just been assaulted? And lastly, this simplistic “zero tolerance” attitude seems to be encapsulated in the “You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” For their dedicated efforts to mismanage this event, Untied Airlines gets the award for “The Worst Flight I Have Ever Taken.”
...

Do you think he knows?

Sunni and Shariah peer over the balcony at the construction site below.

...

Sunni: They've started already.
Shariah: Demolition will be finished this week. Did you see the report?
Sunni: Oh yes. Construction starts January 10th. Noise and dust. But worse than that. Thirty floors.
Shariah: Thirty! I didn't think any more high rises were allowed.
Sunni: They changed the law.
Shariah: Oh no. Our view! It'll totally block our view.
Sunni: At least we don't own it. We can move to the other side of the building.
Shariah: But poor Eric. Do you think he knows?
Sunni: Move out first. He'll find out in due course.
____________
Voice-over
Eric, being the landlord, would, in the normal course of events, be the first to find that the view from his condominium was about to be "built out." But being an absentee landlord means that his information lines are sometimes blocked, or shall we say, "filtered."
...

Failing students

Two teachers discuss turning in student grades at the end of the year.
...

Raquel: They're hopeless. I'm going to fail half of them.

Jaime: Half?

Raquel: They just don't get it. They don't participate. How many of your seniors are you going to pass?

Jaime: All of them.

Raquel: All? That's impossible. You can't do that.

Jaime: They all passed the SAT. Can't fail them if they pass that.

Raquel: You leaked the questions, surely?

Jaime: How would I know what the SAT questions are going to be?

Raquel: Then how...?

Jaime: I put in the time, act up a bit, get them to repeat, "Yes we can."

_________
Voice-over

Emphasizing a syllabus and applying educational statistics to class performance has its place when viewing an educational system as a whole.

But hire an inspired teacher who has vision, charisma, ideas, and leadership and distortions can pop up. It's like running against someone who trained for the Olympics. A normal lockstep syllabus is irrelevant. And fitting class performance into a normal curve distracts from what is really being accomplished.
...

Two cheers for Democracy

As they cross the bridge, Narong and Vijay discuss what democracy means.

 ...

Narong: Democracy? Majority rule, I guess.

Vijay: And in Thailand, that’s the problem. Majority rule. But without responsible government the rights of a minority can be abused by the tyranny of the majority. Like now.

Narong: Democracy is supposed to mean that someone comes along and says, “Vote for me and I’ll get you this.” He or she presents an idea, makes a promise.

Vijay: But what we are objecting to is that in rural Thailand, and this was something that Thaksin exploited, was that if you go along and say “Here’s some cash, vote for me,” that's not fair government.

Narong: What’s the difference? In the first case, a politician says “Vote for me,” and gives a long-term reward, and in the second case, the politician says “Vote for me,” and gives a short term reward.

Vijay: But the central idea is that the first politician has ideas to make society better and fairer. The second politician may or may not have these ideas, but by distributing cash, he just wants to get into power.

Narong: But the poor rural voter is saying, “Promises, promises. Heard all this before. Show me the money.” That’s what they respond to.

_________

Voice-over

It could be quite some time until Thailand can have elections that are competitive as well as being procedurally fair.

...

Japanese jury system

A man has killed his employer and the employer’s wife. The jury deliberate over whether he should be given the death sentence or life imprisonment.

 ...

Juror 1: Death sentence.

Juror 2: He intended to kill them. Death.

Juror 3: He didn’t have an intention to kill them, so life imprisonment. If we don’t, his mother might commit suicide.

Juror 4: Life.

Juror 5: Death.

Chairman: So the consensus is, by 3 to 2, the death penalty, then.

____________________

Voice-over

So goes a mock retrial of a man who admitted to the crime. Japan prepares for adopting a jury system composed of six lay judges (裁判員)and three professional judges beginning in May 2009.

The mock trial on NHK caused lively discussion and drew comments like “dreading the responsibility.”

...

Boris Fyodorov

Boris who?

Fyodorov. Boris Fyodorov. Did you know him?

I didn't know him.

Deputy prime minister of Russia. Briefly. Wrote 200 articles. Director of Gazprom. Enemy of corruption. Died at age fifty.

Only fifty?

A stroke. Liked stripy lawns and old buildings.

Then he had something.

Yeah, he did a lot.

________________
Voice-over

When someone dies, one of the first questions is, what caused it? And how old were they? Then their achievements. Economist, anti-corruption. This is a laudable position. Which precedes the reminiscing about foibles. The preservation of old buildings, okay, but the ecology of lawns. This man had balance.
...

Democracy... Thai style

A-wut and Channarong, PPP supporters, hear the court dissolved Thai government.

 ...

A-wut: Wonder what the red shirts will do now.

Channarong: They’ll hold rallies outside parliament, like we did.

A-wut: Do you think they’ll take over the airports?

Channarong: Like we did? Might. Then the army has a coup, and cleans up everywhere.

A-wut: Another coup?

Channarat: Another coup. When the coalition has reformed with new names and the vote-buying all starts again, then it's time for another coup.

A-wut: How do they buy votes?

Channarat: Go out to the provinces, spread a few million around the village heads, get them to vote you in, and then you’re on the way to making tens of millions on your original investment.

A-wut: Democracy. Thai style.

Channarat: Eventually it ends in exile if you can’t get those courts and judges under control.

_______________

Voice-over

A ray of hope? Words and the law prevail? Dialogue, the military holding off, due legal process being followed results in the situation maybe being resolved. For now. For now.