JarJar Nixon's Blues Kitchen

From a very reliable scientist on Maryland's Eastern Shore...

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/sightings.html

...If you happen to have an audiofile of General Douglas MacArthur speaking, please send it to me at staticVOID@hotmail.com, thanks

...according to the third post in the Blog below...


http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-09/06.shtml

It's a pretty helpless feeling sitting half way around the world and watching the levees overflowing again in NoLa. Over in Houston, some friends from Saigon studying there evacuated to Austin. Looks like Rita bypassed most of Houston, though?

Courtesy of my son's Lime Wire connection, I listened to Monty Pythons' spam and robin hood sketches for the first time in maybe two decades. Cal burst out laughing, showing that the humor is still there for a new generation. Afterward I got him to listen to Tony Blair during a July Question Time at Parliament--some of the MPs reminded him of Monty Python members. Cal is representing the UK in an upcoming Model UN at his school.

I have no idea why, but I the strikers from the candy factory just across the street from my office started singing an old late 80s Korean song called, "I Am a Firefly."

Got two new HEPA filters that have Negative Ions shooting out from them! They're supposed to latch onto the dirt particles and pull them into the filter.

Does it work? Heck if I know!

Father, son rescued after seven days adrift at sea19/Sep/2005 Thanh Nien

A father son duo, thought to have perished in a vigorous whirlwind in the area last week, were found early Monday drifting in the sea near Chuoi Island, in southernmost Vietnam.

Le Van Nghia, 56, and his son Le Ngoc Thanh, 38, were among the 4 fishermen missing and feared dead after their fishing vessels capsized in strong winds off Vietnam's southernmost province of Ca Mau on September 13.

Nghia said they had managed to grab onto a plastic tank, but they still did not know how they survived the rough seas without food or drink for nearly a week.

Satirical piece in this week's Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40762

I have this new device called ReliefBand that relieves car and other forms of motion sickness. The secret? Worn around the tender part of your wrist, the thing SHOCKS you into forgetting about your car sickness. Really. I wore it in the back seat of a car while riding with my boss's boss, and thank God we both emerged barf-free.

http://www.familyculture.com/holidays/chusok.htm

The harvest festival holiday is here in Seoul. Jammed roads, packed trains, family reunions, tasty snacks. A much biger deal than the harvest festival in Vietnam--but, conversely, the Asian New Year here is small compared with Vietnam's Tet.

Education: Vietnam Likely to Raise Tertiary Tuition Fees
242 words 15 September 2005Vietnam News Brief Service(c) 2005 Toan Viet Limited Company. All rights reserved.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) has just submitted to the government a plan to raise tuition fees of universities, colleges and vocational schools nationwide by around 40%.

The increase aims to cover the education expenses as well as purchase better teaching devices for schools throughout the country.

Accordingly, the annual fees will be raised to VND1.8 million ($113) for tertiary students, VND1.5 million ($95) for college students and VND1.2 million ($75) for people attending vocational schools.

"When the prices of all goods and materials are increasing day by day, the current one is, of course, not enough to match the hike", the official from the ministry said.

If it is approved the new tuition levels will be applied to all universities and colleges and vocational schools in the 2005-2006 academic year.

Currently, Vietnam has 1.1 million tertiary students. The Ministry of Education and Training planned that universities and colleges nationwide will recruit 220,000 regular students in 2005, a rise of 19,100 seats or 9.5% over last year. The move aims to raise the number of tertiary students to 135 in every 10,000 residents, up from the current 118.

The country has decided to pour VND41,630 billion ($2.6 billion) from the State budget into the education sector in 2005, an increase of VND8,900 billion ($563.3 million) over the previous year.

© 2005 Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC (trading as Factiva). All rights reserved.

From M. on the West Coast of the U.S....

I take issue with you conclusion that Cheez Whiz is biodegradable -- the green mold is just a surface phenomenon.?Cheez Whiz is manufactured on the Hanford Reservation (along with maraschino cherries) and hasa half-life of a million years. Of course, it also has absolutely no nutritional value, so it's not a good thing to use for stocking hurricane or fall-out shelters.

Just unearthed from our sea freight my LL Bean Maine Hunting Shoes, which I used to tell my son were duck shoes. I had no need for those clodhoppers in Saigon or Cairo, but now they're going to come in handy again on muddy, cold days.

http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&categoryId=22812&sc1=Search&feat=sr

http://www.holonetnews.com/

One thing that has not changed much here: the proclivity for taxi drivers to make me utterly nauseated two minutes into a drive. It's as if the accelerator were a binary, off-on pedal, and pressing it smoothly would violate a major law of the universe.

Went to the beautiful new towering building that SBS has in Mokdong--such a breathtaking view of the Seoul cityscape! Amidst all the technological and architectural change, it has been wonderful hearing from old friends and contacts in Seoul, Daegu and elsewhere. And it's been enjoyable reading your posts here in the Cafe.

Rainy day today in Seoul. Rains here are a bit more like in the DC area: one long, dreary day of rain. A bit different from the Mekong Delta area, where brilliant bright skies give way to a downpour of pain and then the brightness returns.

Assistant Secretary Hill stopped by last night on the way to talks in Beijing for the denuclearization of the peninsula. Reporters have a good way of asking if the negotiator thinks the talks will be successful or not: "Are you bringing a lot of clothes with you to the ngotiations or are you packing light?"

...OK, just his portrait. Hung it on the wall near souvernis photos from Cairo, DC, other places.

Some of them are a blast from the past, they kind of resurfaced after moving and unpacking. Liek the photo of Charles Z. Wick shaking hands with my fellow junior officers way back in 1987.

Just a tremendous outpouring of sympathy from Koreans. The government offered $30 million, and we are receiving hundreds of offers of assistance from private individuals. This is a natural turning point in the relationship: for years--up to the 1980s--the US offered the current-day equivalent of tens of billions of dollars in assistance to help Korea become a dynamic, democratic country, and now Korea as a mature partenr is helping us.

Went about thirty miles out of Seoul last night to a new artist community and fell into the beautiful audiophile cafe owned by Mr. Hwang Yong In. Best sound system I have ever heard anywhere, period. Has three HUGE speakers built into a wall--one dates from Germany, circa 1935. Huge rack of tube-based amps and pre-amps, monstrous turntables, beauitful vinyl LP collection. Heard Dave Brubeck and Billie Holliday and it was as if it were the first time, and as if they were performing in the cafe live.

The blog below is keeping track of New Orleans-area musicians' whereabouts in the aftermath of the hurricane...

http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/

For friends overseas who wonder what people in America are saying about the hurricane's aftermath, here is a good roundup of opinion blogs:

http://news.yahoo.com/i/2413

Yes. I was surprised when my friends Lee and Carol sent around an email detailing their hiking in an area of Baltimore that had once been environmentaly lost:


http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/coastline/line0968.htm

Something that countries like Vietnam can keep in mind as a possiblity too...

380 boxes of household effects arrived yesterday. Have been slowly, slowly workng through them.

The unpacking has been sadly punctuated by scenes on the TV of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. The scenes we are seeing on Fox and CNN look more like something we would normally see in a far distant world. Really unimaginable!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01storm.html?th&emc=th