There's No Normal for You

Another Letter from Vietnam

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:16:14 +0700

Last weekend in Vietnam. I leave for Bangkok Monday morning.

I still can’t figure out what’s real and what’s not in this war. There was a report the USS Carney was sunk by Iranian Al Fatah missiles and how this was going to change the global war calculus as there are 85 or so of these destroyers in the US fleet and we heavily rely on them.

I can find no onfirmation anywhere of this sinking. I did see that the Carney was conducting maneuvers in the Caribbean. So it’s not likely the destoryer was sunk at all.

Meanwhile, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was put out of commission for a week. This was not due to an Iranian attack, but a fire that “broke out” in the ship’s laundry room.

The vessel was near Cyprus when the fire started. The carrier’s deployment has endured for a year, months beyond its scheduled return, which keeps getting extended.

Forgive me for being cynical, but when I heard that—and the origination site of the fire—I concluded—with no additional evidence—that the fire had been set by sailors who were tired of being at sea.

I remember a Vietnam War story told to me by Navy Capt. Ernie Lindberg, who crossed paths with me in Panama.

According to Lindberg, two Marines on an aircraft carrier were looking forward to a little R&R in the Philippines when an announcement came that, due to port congestion in Subic, the aircraft carrier would not be able to dock and so all shore leave was cancelled.

The Marines, fresh from the jungle, did not take this news well. They knew that if they threw a sailor overboard, the ship would have to dock for the investigation. They threw the sailor overboard. Reported it; the vessel docked, shore leave restored. It was a question of time before they would come under suspicion, so they made their way back to California.

In California, they went to the Army recruiting station, claimed that their Marine enlistment had ended and volunteered for Vietnam. Few were volunteering for the war in 1968. No basic training was required of the two. By the time the Navy caught up with them, they were back in the jungle.

So here. Away at sea for a year, shore leave cancelled, home leave cancelled and a new war that only started on February 28th demanded their presence.

The Ford would be a sitting duck trying to cross Houthi-controlled territory in the Red Sea and it was too dangerous to try to sail the Ford through the Straits of Hormuz.

Setting a fire meant an investigation, maybe returning to port in a NATO country–Cyprus—and maybe even a crew exchange. Standing in the laundry room with a cigaret lighter, just having received a message from the wife back home detailing a list of problems you can’t deal with because you’re out of the country, if you were home the fix would be trivial; what would you do?

You may have had no intention of committing arson, but the hand of evil might somehow move your own to solve your problems with a flick of the lighter’s wheel to torch just a pillow. “I don’t know what happened” is what you would say afterwards.

It wasn’t that long ago that a sailor was blamed for blowing up a gun battery during live drills on the USS Missouri battleship.

I remember the case because there was a Miami connection: the sailor was represented by Ellis Rubin, he of the Ronnie Zamora “television intoxication” case.

As ridiculous as that defense was then—you would only proffer such inanity if you had nothing else—it seems to me that today such a defense would be much more acceptable.

There was recently a crime where a teacher was beaten by a student from whom she had confiscated an iPad—and we have the word “doomscrolling.”

The Press had tried, convicted and sentenced the young sailor, but Ellis was able to show that he was completely innocent and that the crime was an accident caused by improperly packed or leaking gunpowder charges.

Ellis was an advocate for stutterers, by the way.

Perhaps the Navy, having been burned by Ellis, this time decided not to rush to judgment.

But I can’t help but think of those two Marines, standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier, outraged that their leave was cancelled.

I don’t know what happened to them. They could hardly be charged with desertion or cowardice—they were back in the jungle fighting when the Shore Patrol found them.

Charging them with murder? What was the line from Apocalypse Now about murder and parking tickets?

The Navy would be well-advised to keep the Ford out of perilous Houthi waters, not to mention the more perilous Straits of Hormuz. Perhaps keeping it on station in the Mediterranean is the more prudent course.

Perhaps blaming its failure to move closer to the war theater and risking a General Belgrano catastrophe on an accidental fire in a laundry room, of all places—is a brilliant strategic move.

I was not here. I did not say these things.

Thirty days of war as of today. And there is no suggestion that peace is at hand. The United States started this war. Was that not waging an aggressive war in Nuremberg terms? The war has expanded, but not terribly: Yemen is now involved. Israel is a combatant so counter-strikes against Israel could only be expexted.

Southeast Asia gets its natural gas through the Strait and so has been cut off. A few ships have gotten through, but now Iran is charging tolls for purportedly safe trips through its territorial waters.

Shortages and price increases apply. Helium supplies have been cut off. The gas is essential for chip manufacture and for MRI machines. Not to mention Zeppelins and children’s voice-changing party balloons.

The political situation that obrained before the war started has not changed. Iran’s Supreme Leader has been killed, but his government is still in place.

Perhaps the United States believes that, as in WWII, if you kill the country’s leader the regime collapses. This is not the case with Iran. In the absence of collapse, there is no secondary plan; what the Press calls an “off-ranp.”

Japan is a resource-poor country. We forget that one of the principal causes of the war with Japan was depriving Japan needed access to oil, then primarily sourced from Indonesia, at the time a Dutch colony. Japan learned its lesson. Out of all the Asian countries, Japan has the deepest stockpiles of oil.

After years of Western sanctions, Iran has learned the lesson of self-sufficiency. The same is true for Qatar, cut off from the world by its brothers in the GCC. Both Iran and Qatar need access to the Strait to bring in supplies to feed their home-grown industries.

Dubai, they say, is taking a tourism hit. Dubai is a strange place. There is no there there. It exists as a counterweight to the restrictions of Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia has under its young Crown Prince lessened or removed those restrictions.

It is no longer necessary to fly to Dubai or Bahrain to see a movie. Europeans don’t come to Dubai as tourists, what is there to see? They do come as tax exiles; as snowbirds.

Russians and Ukrainians both come fleeing the war back home. In Dubai they are indistinguishable. That is, though they are able to identify each other, non-Russian speakers cannot tell them apart. In Dubai as in so many other places, language trumps politics.

The Europeans are unaccustomed to civil strife at levels common to the Middle East. They simply suffered the inconvenience of connecting flights as the airports in the UAE shut down. Long-term UAE residents so far have seen little disruption: “the building next door was hit, but there’s still food at the grocery store.”

Riyadh has suffered retaliabory missile strikes from the Houthis for the better part of the last decade. Their renewal is no reason to panic.

Though they deny it, Iran has struck Aramco before. Closing the Strait is easier than imprecise targeting. Aramco will not risk sending tankers through Iranian waters and so the oil will remain in the Ghawar.

When the guns of August fired in 1914 after the assassination of the Archduke, the British cried that the “boys will be home by Christmas”. That prediction failed miserably as the war grew into a bloody stalemate.

“No battle plan,” said von Clausewitz more accurately, “survives first contract with the enemy.” Unfortunately Trump did not learn that lesson.

The Press yammers on about the start of WWIII while looking for photo-ops. Asia is not involved in this conflict and has no reason to.

Africa, now stripped of colonizers, has no reason to get involved in a war among those former colonizers. South America has no reason to involve itself in this conflict either.

No predictions here. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline is not wide enough to carry oil out of its Eastern Province. What oil it can move can be blocked by the Houthis.

Nigerian oil is not affected. Nor is Mexican or even Russian. The United States and Israel have been squabbling with Iran for decades. Only a catastrophe suffered by all sides will be enough to stop the fighting.

There is no catastrophe in the offing.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:16:57 +0700

Another absolutely true tale from the Arabias.

another-absolutely-true-tale-from-the-arabias.pdf

Representative Democracies

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:33:12 +0700

Don’t forget that representative democracy gave us Adolf Hitler.

Enough is Enough

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 12:04:52 +0700

Kurt Vonnegut advised, “pity the reader.” Last week’s piece was long and true; this week the selection is short and fictional. Who has time to read all this drivel?

After Trump failed to win re-election in 2020, he became the subject of three criminal prosecutionst: one in New York, another in Washington, D.C. and the third in Atlanta, Georgia. “Lawfare” is a word coined to describe the use of criminal prosecution against a political foe. After his conviction in New York, it looked like Trump would be sentenced to prison there.

This is a selection from a novella that asks, “what if” Trump had been incarcerated in a New York State prison following his conviction? It has been decades since I’ve looked at the Federalist Papers, but I don’t think the Founders contemplated this scenario.

Whatever you think of Trump, it is a truism that a political leader who fears retribution will hang on to power if there is nowhere to go. Haiti’s Baby Doc had France, Uganda’s Idi Amin had Saudi Arabia; Mexico’s Salinas de Gotari, Ireland. More recently, Assad left Damascus for Moscow. Without a place of refuge, all of these might have decided to cling to power.

Trump must realize that after 2028 he will not be protected and prosecutions will follow.

At the beginning of this novella, Trump is in a prison cell in New York.

Can’t happen here…

The entire text is in a somewhat amorphous form, I couldn’t keep up with the changing facts on the ground. Originally, the story assumed that Trump wouldn’t be elected but the “Four Colonels” busted him out anyway. If you’d like to see the abandoned but more or less complete version, let me know.

enough-is-enough.pdf

Stranded in Chicago

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 10:49:59 +0700

The collapse of America’s air transport network due to storms and government funding shenanigans has left long lines of passengers trying to get to canceled flights and general havoc.

There are no trains, inter-city buses or rental cars, leaving people to sleep on O’Hare’s terrazo floors because the hotels are all booked.

What to do?

Call Car•Max. If your credit is good, you can buy a car. Drive it home. When you get home, sell it immediately. You will take a loss, sure, but if you buy a used car it’s already depreciated. You can sell that $6k used car for $4k. Have you lost $2k?

No. that was the price of transportation in an emergency situation.

You can thank me later.

Fourteen Centuries

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 17:52:19 +0700

Irish monks in the 7th century began to insert spaces between words, a technology that has not reached 21st century Thailand.

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 22:37:27 +0700

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 11:43:34 +0700

News:

The website (http://mu7ami.com) is up and running, but I don’t know if all the links work. If you find a mistake, you can report it to no-reply@mu7ami.com.

This Week

During a past life as an 80’s-90’s era criminal defense lawyer in Miami, I wrote many appellate briefs. The first time I was assigned a murder case, I was overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. “What are you worried about?” a Lauderdale lawwyer said, “a murder is just an agg battery with one less witness.”

In 1995 a Miami man named Donald Porter was murdered by four men looking for money and drugs. One of them, Jabbar Woods, confessed to the crime and was sentenced to life in prison.

Appellate briefs tend to be dry and must fulfill a list of formal requirements. This is the text of the actual brief that was filed on appeal in the case of Florida v. Woods. The cover is new and would be rejected.

tinywow-ghost-88410826.pdf

The Curse of Sendero Luminoso

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 11:39:04 +0700

The Peruvian government rewarded the 80 or so officers that comprised a special investigations group that captured Abimael Guzman with cash bonuses of $14,000 USD.

Almost all of these officers invested their rewards with a loan scheme that promised high rates of return. Given Peru’s historical inflation, this appeared to be a prudent move.

It wasn’t. The loan scheme was a Ponzi and a mere three months later all their hard-earned rewards were lost.

No Ice in Drinks

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 11:25:29 +0700

In Southeast Asia, a legacy from French colonial times is an aversion to ice in beverages.

2d Letter from Da Nang

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:25:19 +0700

Retirement Part 1

When asked about his retirement plans on his 70th birthday, the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, demurred, pointing out plans to complete seventy new schools that year.

It may or may not be obvious that these circulars are sent weekly on Sundays to a mailing list consisting of, well, anyone who has ever emailed me. Last week I got a bounceback. A little research revealed that the recipient had retired and I had been using his now-canceled business email address. An indexed FB post revealed that he had retired. When an email address disappears, the person it’s connected to is gone…

At least the USPS forwards mail.

When it comes to retirement, I prefer to take the Rebbe’s advice.

Hadrian VII

If you told me in the 1970’s that in the future the pope would be American and there would be no newspapers, I would have laughed. Today the pope is American and newspapers are just barely hanging on.¹ Already a person reading a newspaper looks anachronistic. Newsstands are gone. Coin boxes have been abandoned, splattered with graffiti and stickers; unrepurposed sidewalk eyesores that no one has bothered to pick up.

Charlie Don’t Surf

Charlie surfs.

I am a Ghost

For some reason, history weighs on me here. It’s hard to ignore the fact of the Vietnam War, a war they call here the American War. I was too young for the war, but by months, not years. I still remember the Canadian immigration rules as they stood in 1973. You needed 30 points to become a landed immigrant with legal status in Canada:

one point for each year of education
five points if you could speak English
five points if you could speak French
ten points if you had a job
ten discretionary points

The language points were on a scale so that a native speaker of English would score a full five points and a person who only had high school French might score only two or three.

Having achieved the academic status of high school graduate, I would have twelve points. Five more for English. That’s seventeen. Three more for French, maybe four if I could take the French exam while intoxicated. Quebec would be more forgiving, Ontario didn’t really care. So let’s say 20. The missing ten points seemed an unscalable obstacle. With 2-S (student) deferments limited, the draft was a real possibility.

A Vietnamese army vehicle stopped at my hotel’s parking lot the other day. It was…ominous. Hanoi hadn’t sent a patrol to pick me up. The real attraction was the two popular seafood restaurants next door.

At university, I was taught by Ricardo Gullón, who suffered a leg wound while fighting for the doomed Spanish Republic. A few years later, while in Chengdu, I walked through a park where Chinese fighter planes were exhibited on elevated stalks as if they were in flight. I had the same ominous feeling of displacement, of being where I was not supposed to be.

In Panama’s Tocumen (then Torrijos) airport, I once watched a three-engined 727 land. There was something off about this airplane, something different. The landing gear consisted of too many tires: sure enough, it wasn’t a 727 at all but a Cubana de Aviación Tupolev-154. My parents once sent me a postcard from Berlin. Berlin DDR, that is. Seemed odd at the time. I feel that somehow these events are connected in some mysterious way.

Expats in the beach town of Da Nang prefer t-shirts, short pants and flip-flops. But the clothes that have come to me to wear here—an olive green 5.11 police shirt (I need all the pockets I can get) and similarly colored trousers—I swear that when when I tried them on I didn’t realize they were cargo pants—together make up the look not of someone who is headed to the waves but of someone who was in the military or still is, waiting for a mission.

Wars always spawn ghosts. My white hair is yet another problem—in Vietnamese mythology, ghosts have white hair. Some say that a tall (comparatively) Western ghost in a nondescript military uniform has returned to haunt the streets of Da Nang. That the ghost is responsible for finding and disarming unexploded ordnance. Or worse, the ghost seeks to detonate a bomb, to take one last kill. The police have not yet been called in to investigate.

Let’s just say that children aren’t giving me any trouble on the street.

Do ghosts haunt your town?

Retirement Part 2

I had an interview with a recruiter the other day. The Saudi market is not as rosy as it once was. Nevertheless, BigLaw firms are rushing to the desert. American firms, for the most part, haven’t figured out how to exploit the Saudi market. They worry about bar admissions and the like, matters that mean little where traditionally, a male Muslim with a power of attorney had a nearly absolute right to act on behalf of another.

I once asked an attorney from Lebanon if he had ever appeared in the local shari’a courts, tribunals that were supposedly reserved for Saudi lawyers only. “I am a Muslim with a power of attorney,” he replied. “No judge would dare deny me the right to speak.” Things are different in the Kingdom. Really they are.

Visa Issues

Americans normally get 90 day visas for Vietnam if they simply ask for them on the country’s eVisa platform. For some reason I only got 30 and by my counting, January 18 to February 11 is not 30 days. I don’t know what happened. I don’t want to be put in the position of overstaying my visa. I can’t imagine that the punishment interview would go over too well.

Falling

One of the facts of aging is that you become unsteady on your feet. I have never been that athletic to begin with, so I’m probably starting from zero. I went to a Thai restaurant the other evening—familiarity with cuisine is indeed helpful—and on the way back to my hotel, I fell.

A friendly Australian picked me up off the ground. A group of Vietnamese surrounded me. “Are you alright?” they asked. “No, I’m not,” I relied.

So often I am reduced to celebrating an event that could have been worse. In 2008 when I lost my house to the Crash I couldn’t have been more excited since the mortgage was taken off my hands for a home that pre-Crash was assessed at $750k but was now worth only $100k.

All those poor seniors you saw working as greeters at Wal-Mart? Thank God I had no money invested with Bernie Madoff. So when I fell onto the sidewalk I thought, at least I can walk, nothing seems to be broken. Hooray! And all this coming from a person who is rarely an optimist.

A buckled sidewalk was the likely culprit. On the way back to the hotel I stopped at a pharmacy. I told the pharmacist that I would like some painkillers. I was offered paracetamol, that is, Tylenol. Why are we so afraid of painkillers? It’s not likely I’ll become addicted to Vicodan or Percadoos if I just take a few after an accident.

The pharmacist told me that the paracetamol was strong, 650 milligrams worth. In response, I rolled up my pants leg to reveal a bloodied knee. He went in the back of his store and brought out the codeine. I only took one.

The next evening, on leaving yet another restaurant I tripped, but this time on the way down I was able to grab a light pole, swing myself around, turning that falling momentum into an acrobatic-like twist.

I’m surprised that none of the innocent bystanders applauded the acrobatic antics of the white ghost in a strange military uniform.

The Dalai Lama, Passports and other Heads of State

The Dalai Lama visited the notorious Epstein Island more than once. I trust that Jeffrey toned down the parties while His Holiness was visiting.

Since passports, visas and paraphernalia are on my mind, what travel document did His Holiness² use to enter the USA? I doubt that he has a Chinese passport. Did India give him a travel document? Or are there still post-war UN travel documents still available?

Pope Leo has at least three passports: American, Peruvian and Vatican. Only his Vatican passport carries diplomatic status, a status the United States will not recognize. Whenever Leo enters the US, he has to use his American passport.

Milwaukee-born Golda Meir gave up her American citizenship and passport (I think), held a British Palestinian passport during the mandate and an Israeli passport after 1948.

The previous king of Thailand, Rama IX, was born in Boston in 1928, but never took American nationality. A prime minister of Guyana was previously American. Did any other American, technical or not, ever lead a foreign nation? Besides Eamon de Valera, of course.

William Walker proclaimed a republic in Baja California with himself as president, but it didn’t last. Texas was a republic created by Americans out of Mexico which lasted for ten years, but if you include Sam Houston you’d have to include Jeff Davis too.

Game at 50 Advertising

Andalus Publishing puts out a pithy text entitled Game at 50 (and Beyond): Secret Seduction Tips for the Older Man.

Rupert Murdoch is rumored to have been a reader:

“By August 2023, barely five months after calling off his engagement, the ninety-two-year-old mogul had a new girlfriend.”

-from Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman.

Before the events described above and while still in his 80’s, Murdoch dumped his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, who previously had been married to Mick Jagger.

We can thank the Murdochs for Fox News. The conservative architect of that channel, Roger Ailes, was #metooed in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Predictably, Ailes denied all the charges before other victims came forward with similar claims.³ A month after his departure, he fell at his mansion at Palm Beach, hit his head and died.⁴ The Murdoch organization settled the remaining lawsuits.

Khe Sanh

With time remaining on my visa running out, I made a border run to the Bao crossing with the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos. In Vietnam I am mute and illiterate, but the Lao, Isaan and Thai languages are all close cousins. After crossing the border into Laos I could once again speak, albeit badly.

After returning from Laos, Vietnam border guards wouldn’t let me in because my passport expires in less than six months, even though I will be leaving Vietnam before then. Word to the wise: subtract six months from your passport’s official expiration date to get the real world validity period.

When I was an intelligence officer⁵ I never would have made a rookie mistake like this one, showing up at a land border with a passport that was about to expire. Oh wait, I never was an intelligence officer. Maybe I just looked like one that day.

On the way to the Bao border crossing the bus passed through the town of Khe Sanh. The famous battle of that name took place in 1968. The town overlooks a great valley; both sides determined that it had strategic value and it was only 20 kilometers from the Lao border, a jurisdiction the Americans could not enter while weaponry from North Vietnam roared in.

Today the region is known for its coffee which tells you something about the futility of war.

The immigration officer wore the uniform of the victors; there was no point in complaining. Running through my head were hypothetical scenarios that could occur if I were not freed: the fate of my belongings back in Da Nang; where I would stay in Laos; how I could find assistance, how long it would take to get a new passport.

Shortly the matter was settled and I was permitted to enter the country. Those who are on active duty today are too young for the war. Coming up through the ranks was difficult because the spoils were given to veterans, veterans who once patrolled combat zones but now are aged. In dealing with American passport holders it would be naive to believe that all of the wounds have healed completely.

The Depths

Today I published The Depths to my mailing list, a re-telling of a conversation I once had. The conversation did not take place while on the run from gangsters.

In those waning days of the Canal Zone, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana sitting in New Orleans had jurisdiction over vessel accidents that occurred within the locks of the Panama Canal. Working on those cases, I was introduced to New Orleans and eventually took and passed the bar there.

I was introduced to the story of Abelard and Heloise while an undergraduate. Looking back, I’m not convinced that a story of a passionate, limerent and ultimately destructive love affair was appropriate for undergraduates. Then again, many of these same undergraduates played real-life Dungeons and Dragons in the university’s steam tunnels. Love affairs then and there were deemed DMR’s, for “deep meaningful relationships.”

Just like that of those two long-ago French lovers.

ps I hope to have an “unsubscribe” page up and running soon. (Note: there’s now a link.)

Tet

Whenever I hear this word, I expect it to be followed by the word “offensive.” Today the word is much more likely to be followed by the word “holiday.” It’s Chinese New Year in Vietnam, a nine-day festival where people return to their villages, businesses close and fireworks displays are mandatory.

The Year of the Horse is upon us. During the holidays businesses close without warning as I found out today when I found the popular Nomad Kitchen had closed for the holiday.

I expected Da Nang to be full of French cafés where I could while away the day over coffee, or Ca Phé as it is called here. If there are such places in Da Nang, I haven’t found them yet. I don’t remember finding them in Saigon when I visited a few years ago while on a visa run to Cambodia.

Cambodia

Speaking of Cambodia, Christiane Amanapour hasn’t showed up in Thailand, peace broke out, so my fantasy of sending dispatches from the front remains delusional and unfulfilled. A group of Australians of a certain age announced loudly at lunch that they were canceling their trip to Cambodia “because of the war.”

There is no war, and the casinos on the Vietnam-Cambodia border are open. To find a war, I would suggest Gaza or Kiev.

Da Nang wants to be Vietnam’s “crypto” city. I’m not sure if Vietnam has global crypto aspirations. So far no one has been able to make it work.

Phi Tai Hong

As bad as my Thai is, I can at least get around. Here in Da Nang I’m reduced to pointing. Even though the American influence and presence ended a half century ago, enough people speak English well enough so that I’m not entirely lost.

I take a lot of motorcycle taxis here. When they can’t find me they call me and…we bark at each other. I simply have no idea what they’re saying.

Echoes of Vietnam in the 1970’s: I cannot disassociate Vietnam from my own 1960’s and 70’s.⁶ A college classmate walking through the corridors of now torn-down Lower Flint wearing a lampshade on his head, asking “where are the rice paddies?” People indeed wear such pointed circular bamboo headwear here. Still.

Next to my room, then 3222⁷, I posted a National Geographic map of Southeast Asia on the wall. One of the residents of Woodward, I don’t remember who, celebrated the triumph of the Khmer Rouge.

After a few years of Khmer Rouge governance, even the Communist Party of Vietnam had enough, invaded and threw Pol Pot out for giving communism a bad name. The government Vietnam installed is still going strong, strong enough to squabble with Thailand.

As to Thailand, I can’t go back at the moment–for several reasons. No, none of these have to do with being on the run from gangsters, thankfully. You can only stay so long each year, and it’s not a calendar year, but a rolling year. So my year doesn’t reset until some time in March, 2026.

Vietnam doesn’t seem to be a mail country, unlike Thailand, where I’ve had a PO box for a decade. In Saudi Arabia, mail was traditionally dumped in a pile in Riyadh’s town square (today’s place of execution) and if you saw an envelope addressed to someone you knew you took it and delivered it yourself.⁸ I do have some connections (clout, Chicago; wasta, Saudi Arabia) and I can get back into Thailand by paying $300, but…if I can get the passport in Vietnam, I’d rather save the money.

I hate to penny-pinch, but such is the lot of the unemployed. I thought I’d have a new Saudi contract by now, but that is not the case. I could teach English here–I suppose–or even in Bali. They’re recruiting, or so I’m told.

Part of the problem is that I lack the skills or knowledge to achieve my goals, goals which therefore, by definition, are delusional. For example, I heard a national security podcast where the guest, owner of a recruiting company, was complaining how candidates never list whether they have a clearance, are clearance eligible or even have a passport.

Listening to the podcast, I assumed that he would hire me if I remedied these two minor resumé deficiencies. I sent in my resumé, altering it to include information about my clearance eligibility ⁹and my soon-to-expire passport. He wrote back! Not to offer me the much-wanted position whose offer was but a formality but to answer a question I asked about the Maginot Line.

At some point I need to return to the United States to throw away the contents of my storage locker. I need to do this to make sure its contents don’t end up on Storage Wars.¹⁰

Since no U-Hauls are ever towed by a hearse, it’s best to dispose of your personal effects, not to mention the odd barrel, while you still can.

I have the feeling that if I’m going to go it will be either an accidental death—death by misadventure—or as a victim of crime. Anything else would be…boring.¹¹

There is a special word in the Thai language for a ghost left behind by the spirit of a person who died by a violent crime: phii tai hong. In Vietnam, the ghost population is few, both less specific and less colorful.

Somalia and Me

The ICE surge in Minnesota against the Somalians has affected me. The Democrats, disagreeing with the surge, have left the government without funding, so one government office after another is shutting down or going into shoestring mode. This would include, presumably, State and the Passport Office. My passport renewal application is likely to sit on someone’s desk for now.

A government shutdown, once thought an anomaly, has become a feature of American life, like impeachment. Once upon a time, children learned that only one American president had to endure an impeachment, a century old anomaly, nothing likely ever to happen again.

Now we’ve added Trump (twice) and Clinton: the ball is just starting to roll. Any political squabble can result with a government shutdown. This is to be expected given that the country is broke and politically evenly split.

It’s easy to look at Minnesota and reach the conclusion that the Somalis are out of control and had learned to effectively game the welfare system in their new country. Nothing to do with me—I’m not Somali. I don’t live in Minnesota.

Until a circumstance that has nothing to do with me all of a sudden has very much to do with me.

A Loan Request

I’m sitting on the patio of my hotel eating a banh mi chicken sandwich, minding my own business. I have noticed that as you get older, there is a tendency to unnecessarily insert yourself into the affairs of others. But this time, I was merely watching a Tik-Tok video that warned of “Dark Prophecies” for March 7, 2026, without s;ecifying what they were. Please follow and subscribe and hopefully I’ll get a heads-up before the terrible day.

A white haired Australian who was slurring his words sat down next to me on the bench and started a rant. The first words out of his mouth were that he had run up a bar bill, three million Vietnamese duong, ($120 USD) a substantial sum in these parts. If I would agree to pay, he would pay me back. One of my talents is getting people off script. I asked how he proposed to pay me back. “By telephone,” he said, “but unfortunately I lost my phone.” “So that won’t work,” I said. Turns out, his wallet had gone walkabout as well, so no ATM card.

Then two Vietnamese individuals joined in. One said that he was the bar owner where my new friend had run up a bill. The other was a Vietnamese police officer. I noticed that the policeman’s gun was hanging, ready and clipped to his belt.

It had just started drizzling and the policeman was wearing a new raincoat; his uniform was pressed and he wore a military-style dress cap. He could easily have passed a parade review.

You rarely see policemen in Da Nang. My guess is that this is due to the fact that Vietnam is a communist country with low tolerance for misbehavior.

In fairness, it seems to me that the police here are somewhat lenient. In Thailand my new friend would already be in jail. The Thai police have little patience for misbehaving foreigners. Thai police know not to go on wild goose chases accompanying foreigners in search of funds. By the time a reluctant payor had sobered up, the Thai police would have had the bank transfer forms filled out and if he did not complete them, he could stay in jail until he did. An ad hoc fine would be added to the bill.

The Australian then disappeared into the hotel lobby, where he asked the receptionist to pay his bill and offered to pay her an extra two million duong. Unfortunately, he did not have a plan to obtain the funds.

In the old days, travel writers such as Richard Halliburton (and arguably, L. Ron Hubbard) would journey into the great unknown and bring back jungle tales of man-eating tigers, ferocious cannibals and exotic rituals. But these days, tourist adventures often come down to the consequences attendant to an unpaid bar bill.

I wish I could offer tales of unconnected tribes or breath-robbing cities hidden amidst mountains filled with people who did not know the white man and assumed I was a returned deity. But no.

The Aussie approached me again and said that he owned a bar, he had cash in the bar, and that if I would pay he would take me to his bar where he had the funds. “I’ve got a better idea,” I told him, “take this Vietnamese man to your bar and pay him. You need not involve me in this.” The Vietnamese policeman nodded. One less name to add to his report.

“That’s the thing,” he said, “I don’t want him to know where my bar is.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s a long story,” the Australian said.

Too many long stories for me.

This week Amazon’s Washington Post laid off all of its photographers, closed a bureau in Kiev and made 1/3rd of its reporters redundant. ↩︎
Here I am not referring to the American pope in Rome. Leo XIV has both American and Peruvian passports and probably has a Vatican passport as well. Leo never visited Jeffrey’s island, either. ↩︎
That is called 404(b) evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence, for those who are wondering. ↩︎
I didn’t know this when I fell the other day. ↩︎
I just made this up. However, see Mathews, My Life in the CIA. ↩︎
There were at least two South Vietnamese students in the red, new student directory the year I was a first year student. While in Chicago, their country disappeared. Mark Zuckerberg digitized the student directory and made a billion dollars. ↩︎
Before the room was “mine” it belonged to an Israeli woman named Tal Tammari. One evening, my roommate tried out his Hebrew with Ms. Tal. He said something which I heard as lasteen hamad. This sent Ms. Tal into fits of laughter. Face full of tears, bent over at the waist laughter. She refused to tell my roommate what was so funny. I had dinner with him in January, 2024 and we discussed this incident. He investigated the phrase and couldn’t figure it out. Maybe someone knows? ↩︎
I was a civilian US Navy mail officer in Iraq. In Panama I created a trystero that provided US mail services for 1700 or so people. I initiated a worldwide APO mail survey in 1982, for which I was scolded by the Department of Defense. Mail is a subject dear to my heart. ↩︎
My classmate Steve Thompson claimed that his brother had converted to Islam, had joined the Jordanian armed forces and had been assigned to a position in Montreal. He insisted that his brother held the rank of luft. Fast forward, and your correspondent was conversing with a Sudanese intelligence officer about such matters. “The Jordanians have no such rank,” he told me. “Maybe I’m pronouncing it wrong,” I said. “No,” he said, and he ran down the names of the ranks of the Jordanian army, in English and in Arabic. Nothing was remotely close. In Steve’s defense, I don’t believe that he simply invented this story. There must have been more to it. So what if he got a few details wrong? ↩︎
True story: several years ago in Boynton Beach, a man in his 70’s entered the garage of a house under construction and blew his brains out. That morning he had received a call from two New York cold case squad detectives. A 55 gallon drum had been found by a new homeowner of his recently purchased home in Brooklyn. He opened it to find human remains. A forensic examination revealed that the body had been placed in the drum in the 1950’s. Property records linked the man to the house. The house had been bought, sold and lived in by three different families who never took notice of the drum in the attic. The story was filmed as an episode of one of the NCIS shows. The suicide was reported in the Boynton Beach newspaper. ↩︎
Author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton was electrocuted in a Bangkok hotel; David Carradine was found hanging from a pole in his closet at another Thai hostelry. ↩︎

Law and Rockets: An American Lawyer in Iraq

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 23:42:02 +0700

Here’s a selection for your reading pleasure. The book can be found at Amazon or a copy ordered from your favorite bookstore.

law-rocketspart-1.pdf

Rita’s Daughter

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 10:55:34 +0700

Rita’s daughter was just sixteen when she told her mother she had a boyfriend. Rita was immediately suspicious because of the way her daughter left off details.

The young man—younger than Rita, at least, but not by much, worked at a local gas station and convenience store. There the couple had met when Rita’s daughter went in to buy a smoothie. Rita’s daughter was impressed by the man’s attention; she flirted back. He told her that if she waited till later in the afternoon he had a break and they could continue their conversation.

Rita’s daughter came back later that day and the two of them continued their conversation in Rita’s car. First one thing, then another. Afterwards, Rita’s daughter’s new boyfriend told her she was his woman and he wanted to meet Rita.

A week later, Rita’s daughter was sitting next to her boyfriend on the living room couch when Rita got home. The boyfriend didn’t get up and kept his arm around Rita’s daughter. She got up, pointed and said, “Mami, this is my new boyfriend.”

—We’ve got some talkin’ to do he said. Rita wasn’t good with American accents. This one came from somewhere in the South.

—My woman

—You mean my daughter? Rita interrupted.

—My woman, the boyfriend continued, she’s had enough enough school. She’ll drop out so she can take care of me.

—Hello to you too, Rita said. Your name is?

—They call me Snake, he said. Rita noticed he sported a tattoo of a scorpion on his left arm.

—We’ll get our own place soon’s as I can get a stake together. Till then, she can live with me and my roommates at the pad. Does she know how to cook? I forgot to ask her. She can cook for us. If she don’t, maybe you can teach her.

Rita didn’t know what to say. Her daughter had a big smile and had returned to the couch, next to Snake.

—Mami, I’m getting married! She looked so happy.

—Quién es ese pendejo? Rita asked her daughter in Spanish. Who is this asshole. Sáquelo de mi casa. Get him out of here.

—Hey, none of that Mex’can talk, Snake said. The eenglish only.

—Snake, you better go. I’ll talk to my mom, Rita’s daughter whispered.

—I’ve got to get back to the gas station, Snake said. End of this courtesy call anyway.

With that, Snake got up and left. He left Rita and her daughter alone in the apartment.

—Mami, aren’t you happy for me?

Rita said nothing.

The next day, Rita went to see Hector. She had known him for a long time, from when he was a teenager. He and the other Latin Kings called her Mami as well, but solely out of respect. Favors run both ways.

—I need a pistol, Rita said. A favor.

They usually spoke in Spanish but now Rita spoke in English, to make it more serious. She knew he understood.

—For what? Hector said. Really, you don’t. Let me help you instead.

Hector knew that Rita did not need a gun to rob a store or to commit some kind of crime. Why she would need a gun, he didn’t know. Rita was a wise woman, with good instincts. In the neighborhood, she helped everyone.

—This time let me help you, he said. Te debo. I owe you.

—You remember that? Rita said. It was nothing.

Several years ago Rita had gone, alone, to the courthouse on 26th Street when no one else would go. After Hector was arrested and put in jail. Sh talked to the judge. No one was sure exactly what she said. They made Hector listen through a translator who couldn’t keep up and he heard some of what Rita said. It was confusing. Something about responsibility, mistakes, second chances. Rita was sincere. The judge nodded.

Whatever it was she said, all the neighborhood and the Latin Kings knew was that she brought Hector home that day. That was a kindness that would not be forgotten. Rita had helped when Hector needed help and now Rita needed help.

—At least let me go with you, Hector said.

—I’ll go alone, Rita said. It’s about my daughter.

—Don’t worry, Hector said.

You never forget a kindness. Especially a kindness that gets you out of jail.

A few days later, a young man Rita’s age knocked at the door of the apartment. Rita’s daughter wasn’t home and she only hoped she wasn’t with Snake. She was at Snake’s apartment; Snake was at work at the gas station. The young man handed Rita a paper bag. Inside the paper bag was a cigar box that once contained Arturo Fuente cigars from the Dominican Republic. Now it contained a revolver and a baggie with seven loose bullets. The young man nodded and left. Rita didn’t know him and did nt want to be able to recognize him.

Rita went back inside, put the cigar box on the kitchen table and loaded the revolver. Her father had taught her back home. “It’s something every woman should know.” Those weren’t his words. He didn’t have time to learn English. Rita put the gun in her purse and left the apartment. She drove to the gas station where Snake worked.

She went inside. Snake was behind the counter and greeted her with a smirk. Not a smile.

—Come outside, Rita said. I want to talk to you.

—You’ll have to wait till my break. Another hour. Unless you’re having trouble pumping gas.

‚Rita put her purse on the counter.

—Up to you. We can talk here.

—What is it, suegra? Again with the smirk. Rita’s daughter had taught him the word for mother-in-law.

Rita opened the clasp on her purse and removed the gun. He stepped back from the counter. Rita was pointing the gun at his head.

—There’s cameras, he said. What are you doing?

A dark spot appeared in the front of his jeans. Rita pulled the hammer back.

—I don’t care, Rita said. I only care about my daughter. You will never see her again. When you go home, you tell her you’re breaking up with her. You don’t want to see her anymore. You do not touch her. If she tells me that you touched her, if you even try to shake hands, I will come back.

—What if she comes in here?

—If she comes in here, if you see her on the street you leave. You walk away. I swear by all the saints that I will find you and I will pull the trigger and pissing in your pants will be the least of your problems. Do you understand me?

Snake nodded.

—Never again, Rita said. And if you have any stupid ideas of taking the cameras to the police, remember that I will find you. I will find you and I will kill you. If they put me in jail I will still find you and kill you.

Rita returned the gun to her purse and left the gas station.

Rita’s daughter came home early. She was crying.

—Snake broke up with me! I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything.

Her tears flowed.

—It was only one box of Kleenex, Rita told Hector. After that she was better.

—No more Snake? Hector asked her.

—No more Snake.

—Keep the gun, Hector told her. You never know.

Letter from Vietnam

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 18:26:24 +0700

Last week’s circular (I’m not really sure what to call these installments) solicited several questions asking if it were true or based on a true story.

There is a Hotel Lafayette in New Orleans. There was a one-armed man who worked at the Camellia Grill past Tulane at the curve on St. Charles Avenue. I have never been on the run from a drug cartel. If I were on the run, New Orleans would nevertheless be a possibility. Yet at this point, it’s unlikely that I will be so pursued, but you never know.

I did visit New Orleans most recently in June, 2024 before leaving the United States. Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in New Orleans, including a stint taking the Louisiana bar exam. It doesn’t feel like home, but it feels…familiar.

As recounted below, Vietnam has no extradition treaty with the United States. If you’re on the run from the authorities, you cannot trust too much in the absence of an extradition treaty to protect you. The foreign government can refuse to extend your visa or deliver you to the authorities of another country even if there is no extradition treaty in force.

There’s also extraordinary rendition, kidnapping and invasion.

Jho Low, the fraudster who financed The Wolf of Wall Street is on the run and protected by China for reasons yet unclear.

If you needed to go on the run, I suppose Da Nang in particular and Vietnam in general is as good a place as any. There’s a transient international expat community. Two different international borders are only hours away by bus.

The next planned circular will discuss federal criminal arrests and so will be 100% factual.

Vietnamese cuisine is not spicy. You might find someone who likes to put Tabasco sauce on their food; the grocery stores are full of bottles of spicy condiments, Sriracha and other imported brands. Not to be outdone, the Heinz company weighs in with its own brand of capsicum flavoring.

Unlike Thailand, the norm here is non-spicy. I had a plate of Louisiana jambalaya before I left Bangkok. The plate had been prepared for the Thai palate.

My eyes watered involuntarily. My nose became a faucet. I could no longer feel my tongue. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep breathing.

A waitress appeared. She could see I was under not a small amount of distress. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

—Spicy, I answered, just barely getting the word out.

—Not spicy at all, she said, and walked away.

I have not had this issue in Vietnam.

If there are spirit houses in Vietnam, I haven’t come across them yet. The consequence may be that the place is overrun by hungry ghosts.

There were over a million casualties in what here is called the American War. That ended with unification in April, 1975 but was followed by a skirmish with China and an invasion of Cambodia. The potential number of homeless ghosts is troubling.

Da Nang will soon become Vietnam’s crypto city. Crypto will be accepted for goods and services. Crypto can be exchanged for cash and cash can be converted into crypto.

Crypto is a way to avoid US financial sanctions. Converting Da Nang into a sanction-free international city may have more than a few unforeseen consequences. It could well become a criminal Casablanca all under the watchful eye of the Vietnamese Communist Party, an organization that not everyone is free to join.

The word is that the crypto experiment will be rolled out to other Vietnames cities if the project is successful here.

While keeping to myself and drinking my coffee this morning, I noticed that a man sitting catercorner from me (in Chicago we called this ‘kitty-corner’) appeared to be wearing a GPS ankle tracker, much like the one sported by Anna Delvey, she of Inventing Anna fame.

The man looked like a sex offender on the run. You’d think that if he had come to Vietnam, a country that has no extradition treaty with the United States that he would at least have gone to the trouble of cutting off his ankle monitor—it would set off the metal detectors in the airport.

I know that there is no extradition treaty because not too long ago, a Florida woman tried to fly to Vietnam and was grabbed before she could make it down the jetway.

Her name is Donna Adelson and in 2025 she was convicted for “orchestrating” (i.e. conspiring) the murder of her former son-in-law, a FSU law professor. In Florida, if you come across a hitman it’s usually a police officer pretending to offer such services. But in this case, it was a killer unaffiliated with law enforcement who accomplished the murder. Grandma Donna’s own son hired the hitman and paid him $35,000 for the hit.

This seems to be quite low. A hitman who works for low wages is unlikely to keep his mouth shut and this one didn’t.

After the murder, the police started connecting the dots: the law professor was involved in a bitter custody battle with Grandma Adelson’s daughter. Florida law grants visitation rights to grandparents, but some prefer an extrajudicial solution.

The FBI wiretapped their suspects, then sent an agent to Grandma Donna, asking for money. The wiretaps then recorded a chatfest among the conspirators. When the hitman was arrested, having already provided services on a discounted basis, he offered to help the prosecution by providing key testimony at Grandma Adelson’s trial.

While last year Grandma Donna was willing to chuck it all and move to Vietnam; ten years ago murder was a more practicable solution to her family’s problems. Her dramatic arrest at the airport at the door of the jetway, was, in the prosecution’s case, evidence of consciousness of guilt.

Here’s a view of the ocean from my hotel in

Da Nang, a view Grandma Addison will never see:

Donna was sentenced to life plus 30. She has appealed her conviction, but of course she would. They have her on tape so the trial error will have to be…substantial.

Florida is home to spectacular hits. In 1990, Marlene Warren answered her doorbell to find a clown who handed her flowers before shooting her in the face. She did not survive.

Advances in DNA detection led to an arrest almost three decades later: the killer clown was the deceased’s husband’s girlfriend. The killer clown wanted her boyfriend for herself.

The killer clown plead to 2nd degree murder, was sentenced to an absurdly light twelve years and was released after only six, still proclaiming her innocence.

At least Donna didn’t pull the trigger herself.

I suspect that there is much more to the Donna Adelson story but what, I don’t know. This pair of cases shows the vast difference in outcomes when you plea vs. taking a case to trial. Donna got life plus 30 years, the killer clown only got 12 and served only six.

If the FBI’s undercover operation or wiretaps were illegal, the suppression of evidence at a new trial might make an early release possible. Theoretically possible, that is, but not likely.

Would it be cruel if I sent Donna a postcard from Vietnam?

I would remiss if I did not recommend Gordon’s New York Bagels in Da Nang. I got a cinnamon raisin bagel with a schmear of cream cheese. It’s about a fifteen minute walk from my part of the My The beach. I tried to take a motorcycle taxi but I couldn’t read my phone’s screen in the sun. An automobile taxi stopped for me and communication was remarkably easy, easier than Thailand.

There’s a real advantage in taking a cab when the driver is familiar with the destination.

Since beginning this letter, I have come across several influencers who have found spicy food in Da Nang. I ate at a Chinese restaurant yesterday. I was hoping for Cantonese, but no. There was a good deal of Dim Sum on offer as well as Vietnamese dishes. I ordered Taiwanese beef with noodles.

—A little bit spicy, the waitress said.

Halfway through the bowl I felt like I had been pepper-sprayed.

So yes, there is spicy food in Da Nang.

I had some Korean-style fried chicken for lunch. It was horrible. The breading was stone-like. Once you broke through the breading, the chicken wasn’t half bad.

I’ll try to do some tourist things on Monday. I understand that made to order footwear is a feature of Hoi An. They even do Birkenstock style. A pair of authentic B’s in Bangkok will run you close to $200. I’m guessing $45 for the custom-made clones here.

Everyone extols the rideshare program “Grab” here. The first time I tried to use it, I couldn’t read the screen even with my magnifying glass in the sun. So I ended up just taking a regular street taxi which was 2.5x the price. I was happy to get picked up.

The second time was stranger. I put in my info and went to wait for the car. One appeared. I got in the car and off we went. I showed the driver the name of our destination. I had written this down because I knew this had happened. He said he knew where it was, so off we went. A few minutes into the ride, my phone rang. The Caller ID read, “Grab Driver,” which was strange as the Grab driver driving the car hadn’t called. I handed him the phone nevertheless and there and then a lively conversation in Vietnamese took place.

Apparently, despite checking the license plate I had gotten into the wrong vehicle. We stopped at the nearest roundabout, waited for the contracted driver and I changed cars. When we arrived at the destination the new driver announced that he could not take cash. Long story short: it’s better to take cash than not get paid.

While eating the stone chicken I found that I had not entered a credit card into the Grab program. This was surprisingly easy. After navigating to the correct page, you merely hold the card next to the back of your phone and almost all the details are automatically entered. The secret code has to be entered manually so the card was entered successfully.

I may even try using Grab on a sunny day.

Gold Shops

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 22:02:56 +0700

Danang has gold shops like Thailand. Unlike Thailand, the gold shops here are also places to convert foreign currency into Vietnamese Dong.

I didn’t know this when I went out in search of a place to change money. I didn’t see any ATM’s in my perambulations and the sun, even at 9 am, was blindingly bright.

Reading street signs just across the street was a new challenge. A few restaurants had fish in tanks; species I had never seen. A turn into a side-street turned up a French boulangerie and street stalls where banh-my sandwiches were on offer. There’s a breakfast place not too far away, but a fifteen minute walk without a map is a risk.

I responded to a letter that explained the geopolitical function of the French Maginot Line: it forced the Germans to march through Belgium which international the conflict. Thus, while it failed to stop the Germans it achieved the political goal.

In polls, Greenlanders reject American enticements because they have no interest in the lack of a comprehensive American health care system.

I spent the afternoon on a cushiness wooden couch in front of the hotel. The beach was a few hundred yards away. For most of the afternoon there were no waves, but around four pm breakers started to form. The light wind was so pleasant I stayed there for the whole afternoon.

Around five I went for a walk but tired quickly. I had a $3 bowl of pho for dinner. This meant that, apart from the cost of the hotel, I had only spent $10 or so for the day. I suppose I should arrange for tours but so far I haven’t.

Danang is a beach town but it doesn’t feel like a beach town. I stopped for a salted coffee which was…interesting and a Western tourist pushing a baby stroller complained in an American accent about the low chair I was sitting at. This, despite the fact that he was only walking past the coffee shop and most chairs in Viet Nam are low.

Not being able to speak any Vietnamese at all is kind of embarrassing. I can’t even say “thank you.” On my walk I saw massage shops, a convenient store, a few hotels, optometrist shops, more massage shops, coffee shops and a KFC. I didn’t see any maps for sale. I guess everyone who needs orientation looks up their location on their phones.

Da Nang

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:45:37 +0700

The flight from Bangkok was uneventful. Some turbulence on take off; there were low clouds but I didn’t recognize any when I left the hotel.

We landed at a high rate of speed but then coasted to a stop. I realized the the runway was one of the long ones built by the Americans during the war to receive crippled B-52’s that might have had trouble breaking. The war was far away but seemed to be all around us. Da Nang was one of the theaters of that war. There was no jetway in the airport for us; a bus pulled up to the airplane to ferry us to the terminal.

We arrived at the terminal, there were over a hundred people waiting in the immigration land. My APEC card got me into the diplomatic lane, I was through in three minutes while all the others waited. Next stop was to get a SIM card. Here’s where Apple phones struggle to compete with Android. My Xiaomi took seconds to configure with a physical SIM. Unlike the US of A, Chinese and Thai iPhone models support a physical SIM. With an American SIM there is yet another line. Everyone passed through the same Customs line, travelers were picked out at random to have their bags x-rayed.

Outside, traffic drove on the left, French style, and signs could be read. Not understood, but at least read. The Vietnamese alphabet is the Roman one with added diacritics not found in the Romance languages, but it can be read nonetheless. Coffee is ca phe plus a few diacritics, but at least understandable, unlike the Thai alphabet which is based on ancient Khmer and contains Pali and Sanskrit letters which are only really used in religious rituals. All the other Southeast Asian languages rely on fiendishly difficult scripts. The only exception are the Vietnamese and the Christian Mizo of Northeastern India. Before the Missionaries came to Mizoram, the people were cannibals. The people left their old ways, stopped shrinking heads and accepted the language of the Romans.

The French brought their Catholicism to the Vietnamese. Because that language was so close to power, there were political ramifications to worship. Post-war, I don’t know how strong the Roman religion is here. Perhaps I will find out. The were two orange-robed monks on the flight. I have seen red-robed monks here, they follow the Buddha of Sri Lanka and Tibet. The orange bonzes follow the Buddha of Siam and the Khmer Empire, a Buddhism with deep Hindu roots.

Tiger prawns and soft drinks for dinner cost $10. Not too bad. The exchange rate is $1=D26,480; a calculation not easy to perform without a conversion not easy to perform without a calculator.

Dans l’Hotel Lafayette

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 21:32:37 +0700

On the run from a drug cartel in the Crescent City, there’s still time to discuss Wilde, Heloise, Abelard…and waffles.

Alternatives to Conquest

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:24:10 +0700

Or should I say Anschluss?

99 year lease
“As if it were sovereign”
Condominium
Shanghai-like extraterritoriality
SOFA

January 11, the Draft and Max Factor’s brother Jake

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 10:37:18 +0700

Today is January 11.

In 1942 the war wasn’t going well for the Allies. The US tightened rules for its draft, requiring all able-bodied men to register. My grandfather duly registered, listing his birthday as 11 January, which in fact was not his birthday.

Perhaps he felt that having avoided service on behalf of Britain in WWI and having lived through the Irish Civil War that enough was enough.

What my grandfather was up to during those years is not entirely clear. He could have fought for the British, the Nationalists or the IRA. Or he could have fought for no one. In those days, not to take a side was to take a side.

The family story is that he stayed away from these conflicts by working on the family farm. But he could also have been in prison. In Ireland, to say that a family member was “working on the farm” was a euphemism for a prison stay.

My grandfather was engaged to an English woman he met in 1914. He returned to Ireland to seek the blessing of his own parents. Shortly thereafter, war broke out. He was warned that if he returned to Liverpool, he would be drafted. He stayed in Ireland. Even though Ireland then was part of the UK, the British did not extend their wartime draft to Ireland until 1917.

The story is that this young couple forgot about each other after WWI broke out. I do not believe this. My grandmother was 21 and in love. If my grandfather could not return to England, there was nothing stopping his intended from traveling to Ireland.

Even during the war, there was a daily ferry from Liverpool to the Irish port now called Dun Laoghaire. She could have reached him if that were possible. When a woman wants a man, a world war is no obstacle.

Did she write to him while they were apart? She was a great letter writer but none of her letters survive.

Prison or service in any one of these armies would have discouraged her from paying him a visit. If he really was working on a farm, that work would have presented no obstacle to a visit or their nuptials in Ireland. She didn’t go because she couldn’t go; she knew what was going on.

When the Irish Civil War was over, they were married; an act the IRA was unlikely to approve.

In 1925 he came to Al Capone’s Chicago, leaving his wife and my toddler aunt in Liverpool. At that time, Chicago was the murder capital of the world. He already had a good job in England and had purchased a home.

Wife and child came later, my aunt persuaded to leave Britain with promises of chocolate. When they were reunited, she had already forgotten him and asked her mother, “who is that man?”

What he did in Chicago wasn’t entirely clear either. He didn’t get a job in the stockyards, like most poor immigrants and especially one who supposedly had agricultural experience. Somehow he ended up working at a mobbed-up hotel. My mother recalled that “Daddy had a crew,” which suggests he did more than just take reservations at that hotel.

In the 1920’s, the Outfit, the name given to organized crime in Chicago, was known for bringing in Irish talent for the occasional hit. I can’t say that there are enough dots to connect.

My grandfather had no birth certificate. He claimed he was only given a baptismal certificate, a document which was lost when the local parish church in Galway burned down.

Curiously, Jake Factor (brother of Max Factor, he of the famous cosmetics brand) also claimed, when the US tried to deport him to his native Poland, that in fact he had been born in England where his parents had him baptized, despite the fact that they were Jewish.

The baptismal certificate was lost, Jake explained, when the church where the document was kept burned down. The claim was credible enough to block the US government’s efforts to deport Jake to Poland on account of his involvement in organized crime, specifically, the Outfit.

January 11 was the birthday of my father, whom my grandfather was not to meet until the 1950’s, a decade after registering for the draft. That the dates coincide is due to mere chance.

In 1941, when he was only thirteen, my father made a clumsy effort to alter his birth certificate by spilling ink on it in an effort to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but the US Navy was not fooled. They told him to come back with a parents' permission slip when he was 17, but the war surely would be over long before then. But it wasn’t.

Four years later on now 17, on January 11, 1945, he returned to the Navy recruitment office and enlisted. He finished basic training at Naval Station Great Lakes, north of Chicago on Lake Michigan.

Like all sailors, he was preparing for the invasion of the Japanese homeland when the Imperial Japanese government surrendered, ending the Pacific War.

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 19:01:25 +0700

Venezuela and Napoleon

I hope that Maduro takes Napoleon’s advice concerning Louis XVI. That is, Louis should not have recognized the French court’s jurisdiction to try him, he should not have participated in the proceedings.

Noriega, unfortunately, didn’t answer to History. Chavez certainly did. I don’t think Maduro does—not a great thinker, does little more than try to follow or imitate Chavea’ policies.

The last time a similar situation came up—Saddam. I don’t think you can include Duterte because the Phils delivered him to the ICJ. There was no foreign invasion; Duterte was not in office.Saddam was left to the courts of Iraq—the CPA wasn’t in charge anymore at the time of his trial. So there may be a realpolitik analysis that says the US was still pulling the strings but formally we were not. Like Noriega, Maduro faces an open indictment but in New York. The outcome is predetermined. The US cannot risk returning Maduro to Venezuela to a trial before a new government because of the chance he’ll be released and returned to power. You may recall we tried and failed to throw out Chavez.

Offering Maduro exile in a friendly country—Mexico?—would be the smartest thing, on the understanding that he could not return to Venezuela. But I don’t think we’re that smart. Every single Latin American country is now against us. They may not overtly say so, but they don’t have to.

Have you been following the drama at the Bank for International Settlements? (The Central Banks' central bank.)Fear of chaos if there is rapid de-dollarization. Saudi Arabia joined BRICS—so much for the petrodollar. One of their bankers was asked, “what could cause the collapse?” His response: anything. A political event.

The weaponization of the dollar started this. We froze Russia’s assets, ha ha, how smart of us. But now other countries are quietly exiting the dollar lest they be next. Quietly, so as not to cause a panic.

Or I could be cynical and say, “yay us” because as of today we now control the largest proven oil reserves on the planet. That should give the dollar life yet.

There’s a history—a secret one—that says the real reason for Iraq was Saddam’s announcement that he’d take Euro for oil. We desperately needed to monetize the trillions in paper we’ve been printing. As of today, we’ve done so. That won’t help Maduro, but that is what all this is about.

Of course, maybe the panic evidenced by the central bankers is not real.

Maybe.

Electronic Signatures

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 15:20:08 +0700

The Danish post office announced that it will no longer accept or deliver letters. The writing has long been on the wall: paper documents are deprecated. Given that a forty-page contract would probably not qualify as a letter—but then again, there’s Wilde’s De Profundis—and so could still be delivered, even in Denmark, as a “small package,” the day of digital-only contracts is upon us an has been for a long time.

It’s probably enough to include a short contract provision—even a sub-subsection, along the lines of, “The parties agree that this agreement may be digitally signed.” But what fun is that?

Even though your client will be bound by this short, clear sentence, he won’t be happy. After all, he can write short clear sentences himself. From a lawyer, he expects something more. That something more follows and guarantees that your bill will otherwise be paid. There’s no way your client could come up with something like this himself. Oh sure, he could cut and paste, but he already knows that’s dangerous. And he could try AI and hope he’s not caught in an AI hallucination.

Need to include a provision for digitally signing an agreement?

“Electronic Signature: By electronically completing the fields in the signature section below, you, (i) are agreeing to use electronic signatures to execute the Agreement, (ii) are agreeing to being subject to the provisions of the U.S. E-SIGN Act (i.e., the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN, 15 U.S.C. ch.96) and (iii) the country in which your company resides is listed herein and has enacted legislation accepting electronic signatures as enforceable. Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Republic Of, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Province Of China, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay.”

ps: note that Saudi Arabia is not mentioned.

Happy Holidays

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 10:15:13 +0700

The Fire: Thai-Cambodia Border Skirmish, December, 2025

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:52:25 +0700

When I was in Riyadh, Houthi missiles would fall from time to time; now I am in Bangkok where a new war threatens.

Following a peace conference between Thailand and Cambodia held in neutral Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and Cambodia accuse each other of violating the cease-fire. Responding to these violations, Thai fighter jets strafed a Cambodian casino in the border areas between the two countries.

Casinos are legal in Cambodia but illegal in Thailand. There are nevertheless clandestine casinos in Thailand which compete with legal casinos on the other side of the border. The casino attack had nothing to do with an effort by the morality police to reduce wagering: the Thai Air Force reports that the casino’s roof was being used to direct cross-border drone strikes.

Thai gamblers' custom has always been welcome at the Cambodian casinos. A Thai passport is accepted as collateral for an extension of credit at the casino cage. If a customer for some reason does not qualify, Thai and Cambodian loan sharks are happy to extend credit on unfavoble terms.

After losing–and they always lose–the gamblers try to return to Thailand by crossing the border through the jungle, using paths where border controls are absent so no passport is required. Unfortunately, these informal entry points have been mined: both sides blame each other for laying the mines. I tend to believe the Thais in this instance as one of their soldiers lost his leg while on patrol in the area. That would not have happened if the Thai Army had laid the mines.

The US Press analysis of this conflict centers around Donald Trump, the American president who was happy to insert himself in order to win more peacemaking cred. On the ground, Trump is irrelevant; outside American borders he matters little.

Cambodia has always been the dark to Thailand’s light; in whispers Thai people discuss the powers of ancient Khmer magic. Cambodian soldiers get yang sat ghost shirt tattoos to protect themselves from the bullets of the enemy. The enmity runs back for centuries and Donald Trump believes he can put an end to it all with a phone call.

(As in, “Out of the frying pan into the…”)

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:58:36 +0700

German Fanta has 3% fruit juice, real sugar and natural colors. American Fanta has no fruit juice, corn syrup sweetener and Red#89. According to European legislation, American Fanta can be sold in the EU but must carry a warning label.

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 12:18:17 +0700

Adm.Doenitz' order to machine-gun survivors of U-Boat attacks rather than take them as prisoners was the basis for his Nuremberg war crimes conviction.