Tourists in Thailand

Fun in the sun for some I suppose.  Bloated, dead corpses of children for others.

Six days after one of the worst natural disasters in decades, foreign tourists were back on the beaches of this Thai resort island Saturday, frolicking in the gentle waves of the Andaman Sea, riding jet skis, posing for snapshots and sunbathing topless on the sand. 

That was mindboggling — and infuriating — for island resident Aime Yodkaew, as she swept away debris.

“I just figure if everyone uses about an hour of their holiday time (to help clean up), this would help a lot for the locals,” said Yodkaew, a Swede who lives on the island with her Thai husband.

Exactly.  It’s not that these people are continuing their vacations.  It’s the callousness with which they are continuing their vacations.  I completely disagree with Bill Quick at Daily Pundit and Glenn at Instapundit for taking Reason to task for this column. Maybe there are legitimate reasons to say that Reason has lost it’s libertarian edge, but this is not one of them.  The callousness of these people is beyond my imagination, as I noted on 12/30/04.

That is the real argument here, not this silly notion that Reason wants people to boycott Thai tourism or that people don’t readily grasp that commerce is as vitally important to the rebuilding process as relief aid.  I’m surprised that people don’t see the callousness as a problem.  I am especially surprised since Bill at Daily Pundit read and posted about the same article that I quote above.  Amazing how two people can read the same thing and have such a disparate reaction, isn’t it?

Posted by JimK at 08:33 PM on January 01, 2005
Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email to a friend

Categories: The Blogosphere,  Natural Disaster

We’re here for the bar girls and beer

And people say Americans are heartless? 

Stefan Johansson, a 41-year-old air force officer from Sweden, is hoping tonight is the night. He is not concerned about aftershocks hitting the beach less than a kilometre from here, or about the haphazard rescue operation under way in southern Thailand.

Nor is he worried by the deaths of several hundred compatriots. Mr Johansson is anxious that the bar girl he has his eye on is going to keep holding out on him. “I’m having a good holiday,” he said. “I went for a walk along the sand this morning, did a bit of swimming. Now I’m off drinking, and then we’ll see.”

One new arrival at the Diamond Cliff, who flew in with her family from Moscow on Tuesday, relaxed by the pool. “We are here on holiday, not to be sad,” she said. “I know bad things have happened, but it’s nothing to do with us.”

I’d pay good money to make these idiots haul dead. bloated corpses in an effort to stem the tide of desease due to decomp.

Oh, and the picture:

That’s just lovely.  That’s in Phuket.  TODAY.  Here, read what it’s like just a few hundred feet away from the resorts. May these idiots never need help from others.

I have two final words for these cold-hearted pieces of filth; “fuck” and “you.”

The article is from the Sydney Morning Herald, registration is required, so I grabbed the full text and put it in the “More” section.

More

Tragedy? We’re here for the bar girls and beer
December 31, 2004

Stefan Johansson, a 41-year-old air force officer from Sweden, is hoping tonight is the night. He is not concerned about aftershocks hitting the beach less than a kilometre from here, or about the haphazard rescue operation under way in southern Thailand.

Nor is he worried by the deaths of several hundred compatriots. Mr Johansson is anxious that the bar girl he has his eye on is going to keep holding out on him. “I’m having a good holiday,” he said. “I went for a walk along the sand this morning, did a bit of swimming. Now I’m off drinking, and then we’ll see.”

Mr Johansson is not alone. Four days after the tsunami hit, normal life has returned to much of Phuket and surrounding resorts such as Patong. The girlie bars are reopening, the bazaars selling fake Rolex watches are busy, the tourists are streaming off flights and onto the beach. Here the request by the Thai Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, for the country to wear black and forgo New Year festivities seems likely to fall on deaf ears.

“I heard what was going on with the wave and so on, and I just thought it was a bit of an exaggeration,” said Peter Anstiss, 48, from Sydney, as he shared a beer with his brother in a bar off Patong Beach’s main drag. “I didn’t think too much about it.”

At Phuket’s airport, Pornthip Sucharitcharan was preparing to welcome 200 new arrivals on behalf of the Phuket Hilton. Yesterday, 200 guests were due to fly in to stay at the hotel.

The only problem, as far as Mr Sucharitcharan was concerned, were delays to commercial flights by the unprecedented number of aircraft landing at the airport. The congestion was caused by aid flights coming in and planes bearing the dead, injured and badly shaken, going out.

Thousands of Thais are thought to have been killed when their flimsy bamboo homes were destroyed.

Many remote fishing villages are yet to be reached, though reports indicate severe damage. There is also little hard information on the effect of the tsunami on islands to the south of Phuket.

Yet the luxury Royal Lighthouse Villas is booked up for the rest of the season, and has had no cancellations following the disaster. And the sprawling Diamond Cliff Resort, set on a bluff directly above Phuket’s debris-strewn Patong beach, welcomed 136 new guests.

One new arrival at the Diamond Cliff, who flew in with her family from Moscow on Tuesday, relaxed by the pool. “We are here on holiday, not to be sad,” she said. “I know bad things have happened, but it’s nothing to do with us.”

Back in Patong, Elliot Reid, from Melbourne, was finishing his gin and tonic. “I heard the warning from the Government not to go to Phuket and just thought, f--- ‘em,” he said. “If your number’s up, your number’s up. By the time the next one happens in a hundred years, I’ll be dead.”

Less

Posted by JimK at 09:10 PM on December 30, 2004
Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email to a friend

Categories: Natural Disaster

Up close and personal with the tsunami

I have been debating this post for like, 36 hours.  I feel the need to preface the posting of these images with some explanation, because I have never, and I mean NEVER, seen anything that hit me as hard as some of these have.

First of all, they come from a news agency and apparently they aren’t being used by most papers...and you’ll know why if you choose to look at them.  I got them from someone who is friends with someone at the unnamed agency.

Secondly, and please do not take this lightly, these are horrifying.  I am not hyping them.  I am not exaggerating.  Especially the last one, number 11.  Please really think about it before you decide to view that one.  It’s bad.

Thirdly, the reason I am actually posting them.  I have two exactly even voices screaming in my head:

POST THEM, THEY ARE NEWS AND PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE DEVASTATION IS NOT JUST A NUMBER

DON’T POST THEM, THERE IS NO NEED FOR THAT SHIT, IT’S TOO HORRIFYING

Whenever these two things compete, I tend to default to sharing.  I’ve always felt it’s better to share it than to try to minimize and de-humanize the damage of an event like this.

I guess the way I think about it is too many people live sheltered lives and never see the reality of the often violent and terribly destructive forces all around us, the least dangerous of which are man-made.  This was the Earth reminding us all who the real top of the food chain is, and all our crying about our pet peeves means fuck all when a 300MPH wave comes a’callin’.  Some people need to see that.  I firmly believe that people draw blinders around their own eyes and try to pretend the world is not what it is.

On the other hand...well, the other hand is very obvious once you see the images.

Anyway, after talking to some people, based on their advice and my own default urge to share what I feel is newsworthy...I am posting them.  Please don’t view them if you disagree with my reasoning, but I hope that you will choose to look at them and that you will see them in the same light as I do: as pieces of this massive, almost incalculable tragedy that bring a human, individual perspective to something that is almost to big to really grasp.

Tsunami aftermath photos

As I mentioned in other posts, for an excellent list of resources to help, don’t forget to visit The Command Post, and if you want to give cash and be assured that ALL your donation is going directly to relief efforts, you can use the Amazon.com relief donation page.

BTW, the private donations through Amazon, which I guarantee you are primarily the U.S> since it is through the .com and not any regional Amazon site, is currently at 3.2 million dollars.  Which is almost equal to the four million that the ENTIRE EUROPEAN UNION has committed, and yet the United States is being insulted and chastised by the world, and the American left, for not doing enough.

Just a reminder that no matter what we do as Americans, it will always be wrong in the eyes of certain kinds of people.  So to them I say go to hell.  We’re getting things done with or without you.  Stop trying to make political hay and spend your energy helping.

Posted by JimK at 10:30 PM on December 29, 2004
Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email to a friend

Categories: Natural Disaster

The tsunami

I’m not even going to try.  No one cantop the reporting being done over at The Command Post.  Just head over there and find everything you need, from information to relief links.

All we can offer right now is money to help provide medical care and rebuild.  So open your wallets.  We can scream our fool heads off about tidal alarms later.

Posted by JimK at 03:25 AM on December 28, 2004
Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email to a friend

Categories: Natural Disaster