Crime and Punishment in Pattaya

Several years ago a 61 year-old farang stabbed his girlfriend three times. She was in her twenties. The hospital staff declared the unfortunate lover DOA at the hospital. The idiot in a fit of remorse slashed himself with the murder weapon. This sad story occurs regularly in Pattaya but also everywhere else in the world.

Hollywood thrives on slasher films.

HALLOWEEN 1,2, 3, 4 ad nauseum.

Men are as likely to be victims as women.

What the heck is wrong with people?

When someone stops loving you, a magic spell won't bring back the love and certainly a knife ain't gonna do it either.

So now this lovesick idiot is facing Thai Justice.

Prison time, death, or pardon?

Everyone seems to be calling for his dispatch from this mortal world, but you have to remember the old axiom.

Kill one person, you get the chair.

Kill twenty and you go to insane asylum.

Murder a million and you get a Swiss Chalet.

This farang won't get door # 3, but neither will be have to settle for door # 1.

Since it was a crime of passion he probably won't sit before the firing squad, which in Thailand is a single marksman. Instead he will be in jail for the rest of his life and life expectancy shortens mighty quickly in prison.

Personally I'm in favor of special justice in this case.

Young girl with her life ahead of her

Only one course of action

If the Thai police could do it to 2000 'drug dealers' why not put a heart-broken farang out of his misery?

Thumb up or down?

Big Pharma Bust

Opium has been a blessing and bane for people suffering from pain for over 5000 years.

According to M J Brownstein's "A Brief History of Opiates the Sumerians called the plant hul gil or the "joy plant, although the Egyptian priests reserved its use for the nobility and religious classes. After the collapse of the Roman Empire Europe was cut off from opium and Muslim traders cargoed the black tar to China, addicting an ancient culture to 'ma' or 马. Nothing was more profitable over the centuries of China Trade.

The world of the golden triangle.

And nothing earns more in today's economy.

In the last decade Big Pharma trafficked in opioids through the synthetic Oxycodone.

The Insys executives courted doctors to prescribe the pills for the smallest of ills. They bribed politicians to pass the drug through the FDA tests. It was declared harmless and millions of Americans have been addicted to the fentanyl-based pill and are ODing ata rate of 100 a day.

Last week at the Jets game Mickey crashed and burned in the top row. His friend said he was okay. Foam bubbled from his mouth. His breathing slowed to a sallow gasp. I called security. His friend left him.

"He gets like this all the time."

I tried it once for a sore knee.

I slept like a dead man.

It's bad stuff and this week Insys' billionaire chief executive was arrested in Arizona on RICO charges.

There is no mention of bail, but his companies have contributed to the deaths of over 300,000 Americans. More than any terrorist in ISIS. Killing people is not a crime for capitalism as long as there is profit.

ps finally an American president declares the opioid epidemic a problem.

Only twenty years after Purdue Pharma releasing the drug onto the marketplace to earn $31 billion in profits.

Their CEO is Craig Landau.

Another murderer.

Purdue Pharma paid $600 million in fines. The three top executives served 400 hours in public service. Craig Landau paid $31 million in penalties.

No one went to jail.

Not John Spaceley.

He liked China White.

ROCK DOOR by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in the 90s my English friend AC lived in ground-floor triplex's back door onto East 13th Street. He loved the location with his own personal exit onto the sidewalk. Homeless people also appreciated the step's functionality as a refuge from inclement weather.

"I keep walking out of my house into someone else's home." The overhang protected them from the rain and heat seeping from AC's door provided an unexpected comfort for the bums living in the rough.

"I chase them away in the morning and they come back at night."

"Like a homeless shelter."

"And I'm not getting paid by the city." AC reflected on this problem. Polite requests to vacate the step were countered by the derelicts insulting him as a limey teabag. Complaints about this problem were ignored by the landlord and police.

AC's solution proved to be simple.

In the late winter he transported a giant rock from Dutchess County. The rock was not particularly blessed with beauty, but its mass halved the alcove's sleeping space.

The rock became AC's doorman. AC called it 'Edgar'.

On warmer winter nights we sat on Edgar and spoke to the stone, as if it might answer our questions one time.

Edgar was silent.

Silent as a rock.

At the beginning of April AC exited from his apartment and the rock was no longer on duty. He quickly surveyed the neighborhood without finding 'Edgar'.

"The bums stole my rock." AC was flabbergasted by the theft.

"It could be stoned college kids." NYU students loved their pranks.

"All I know is that they had to be strong. That rock weighed a ton." Its actual weight was somewhere around 250. Edgar was not an easy lift.

The bums didn't return to the step. Edgar's presence had done the trick. The homeless were crashing somewhere else.

"I miss Edgar."

"You have your girlfriend."

She was beautiful, but Marina was a piece of work.

"Edgar was a friend. I could talk to it. We talked to it.

"I grew used to it." The rock was a good drinking companion. None of his friends vocalized that shared sentiment. We were considered bums by Marina, who considered us idiots..

"Personally I thought that Edgar and AC made a great couple.

AC was stunned on a June morning by the return of the rock. Edgar was in his old position more or less. He didn't look any worse for wear. AC didn't ask any questions about where the rock wanderings the last months. It was the rock's business and they keep secrets to the grave.

Dying Solo Ala Pattaya

Back in 2007 a local Pattaya paper reported on a desolate death as follows;

Residents of Nongprue municipality, near Pattaya, reported to the police that a man had sighed his last next to a wooden bench in a built-up area. Arriving at the scene, police found the corpse of Mr Jamreon Racha, aged 55 and originally from Nacho Paton province, wearing only underpants and flip-flops. Mrs Thaweeporn, who owns a house near to the expiration spot, said Mr Jamroen had been a homeless vagrant for many years but did sometimes bed down in her residence. Her son informed her that the guy was lying on the ground and was seemingly devoid of life. The investigation covered that Mr Jamroen’s only interest was drinking whiskey – a lot! Police surmise that this habit directly or indirectly was the cause of his demise, but there would be a check on the cause of mortality at Banglamung mortuary.

I like their pontificatit thousands of farangs shared Mr Jamroen’s predilection for the bottle. It was the only thing he could trust and whiskey held his hand till the end like the American poet Dylan Thomas who ODed from alcohol at the White Horse Tavern.

Thomas departed from the bar after a last shot of whiskey. The 39 year-old poet staggered outside to collapse on the sidewalk later and later die at St. Vincent's Hospital. This macabre coda to his life has famousized the White Horse tavern forever.

"Do not go gently into the night."

I doubt Mr. Jamreon Racha's bench in Pattaya will ever gain such notoriety, but what do I know?

Nothing.

Our Lady of Palm Beach MIA

In the summer of 2008 I took care of an 8 year-old Airedale in Palm Beach. The owners had rescued her from a shelter. Pom Pom was a little crazy. She liked to growl at people and loved biting little manicured dogs. My friend Lisa thought Pom Pom was a frat dog raised by college kids and they evicted onto the streets after graduation from university, but my vote was for a West Palm Beach crack house or maybe a tough fighter for ex-Atlanta Falcons' quarterback Michael Vicks. Either way I don't take Pom Pom around dogs or children or any other living creatures. I know she gets a little lonely with me as her only companion, however better than she tears apart a Palm Beach heiress' poodle.

We walk on the beach. It's safer than the dog park in West Palm Beach.

No cars.

No dogs.

A few grey heron.

Our route passed Donald Trump's Mar-O-Lago. The resort was deserted for the summer. All the cabanas were padlocked and the plastic flotsam gathered at the high tide mark without any beach boys raking the sand clean.

As we returned from our jaunt, I spotted a derelict woman scurrying from the bushes of Trump's estate. It was obvious her previous night's resting place had been in the bushes. Pom Pom's bark frightened her. Dogs were never too friendly with the homeless.

I yanked on Pom Pom's leash and shouted to the woman, "Hey."

She looked over her shoulder with eyes glazed by a long series of bad choices and she hurried toward wooden steps. Federal law allows access to the beach up to the high-tide mark, but every path was marked with NO TRESPASSING signs.

Trespassers were not allowed on the beach.

I was the exception.

"Don't go." I had $2 in my swimming trunks.

The old woman lifted her plastic bags to her chest like she feared Pom Pom might tear them from her grasp.

"I have some money for you."

These words broke her flight and she turned around warily to face me from a distance of thirty feet. "That dog bite?"

"Probably." Pom Pom had snapped at me the other night. She wanted some of my hamburger. I didn't give her any. "But don't worry, you don't have to come here to get the money."

I placed the $2 under a rock.

"Thanks." She put down her bags. "I saw you the ther day. I thought you might call the cops on me. I don't like sleeping in the rough, but sleeping in the country jails ain't no picnic either. You don't look like you'd know anything about that."

"You're right." My last time in jail was in Bangkok and the Thai police had processed by papers in an air-conditioned office. "How long you been on the island?"

"Since the beginning of the low season," she spoke with a lisp. Her front teeth were stumps. "Not many rich people around, so I buy a week of food and live in the bushes. Gets a little scary at night with snakes and insects, but safer than the shelters. They're no bargain either."

"You speak with any of the rich people?"

"Damn, no." She shook her medusa nest of grey hair. "They don't care a shit for people like me haunting their lawns. And damn they're plenty enough ghosts hanging around these houses as it is."

"Ghosts?" I wondered about ghosts after I found the sofa moved during the night.

"Oh, yeah, plenty of ghosts from men shooting their cheating wives and women poisoning their husbands. Wandering the lawns like they lost a gold bracelet. Sometimes I check where they walk to see if there is some gold, but they don't even leave a footprint. Rich people are just as stingy dead as alive."

"My friends are okay."

"Yeah, try asking them for a million." She eyed Pom Pom, as if the dog read her mind. "They treat that dog better than they treat people. So you be careful of those ghosts."

"Where you headed?"

"Someplace the sun don't shine so hard and where the dogs are not too big." She wandered off after snatching the $2 from the sand. Pom Pom barked twice and the old woman ran up the steps into the bushes. She was gone and we resumed our walk. Pom Pom moaned and I patted her head. She was a good dog. A little crazy, but then again so is everyone these days.

Vagabonding In the City

My disaster stint in Alaska cost my apartment in Fort Greene.

Too many hours.

Too little money.

How little?

$100 for a thirteen hour day.

I wasn't cut out for selling silver trinkets to geriatric cruise line passengers.

May was not the month to make sales in Juneau.

Six days a week.

I lasted a month and returned to New York with less than $600 in my pocket.

My apartment was sublet and I was $4500 in arrears to my landlord and good friend.

I worked everywhere throughout the summer.

On a house in Catskill, New York.

On a farm in Greenwich, New York.

Where a tree bloodied my skull.

My son Fenway was hurt in a motorcycle crash in Thailand.

Not bad and he remains handsome as ever.

On a house in Greenwich, New York.

My old job of selling diamonds was gone.

I hated hard labor, but it was better than not working at all, which is what I've been doing the last week.

A vagabond without a place to live.

I used to fit right into this street.

And one day I will again.

Just not today.

Texas Guide to Life

Here's some very useful Texas wisdom.

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.

Never slap a man who's chewin' tobacca.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

When you're throwin' your weight around, be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

Classic.

Dirtbag Hollywood

Hollywood is not Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The former is where dreams come true, where as the good people of the latter pray for the souls of the damned.

Even Dorothy Gale in THE WIZARD OF OZ recognized after the whirlwind carried her and her dog Toto to Oz that 'they weren't in Kansas anymore'

Hollywood doesn't pretend to be holy.

Fame and fortune are goals achieved by ruination, yet thousands of actors, actresses, directors, producers, make-up artist et al strive for greatness blinded by the allure of the bright lights.

Marilyn Monroe's tragic death scared no one from Topeka.

James Dean's gory crash glorified the cult of 'live fast and die young'.

Everyone thinks bad endings are for shitty movies or someone else.

Unfortunately the cast of characters include sexual predators like Harvey Weinstein, who has been outed for serial assaults on starlets and actresses. Some names are top rank. Many are bit players. His scumbag producers was allowed to pursue his perversion, because he put out successful films, Shakespeare in Love, Escape from Planet Earth, Who's Your Caddy? and dozens of other classics. Weinstein was powerful enough to squash any report and discredit any reporters or victim.

"You'll never work in this town again?"

The fat fuck.

All his defenders cared about was money.

Greed.

His brother had the balls to say he wasn't aware of Harvey's evil ways.

Bullshit.

But it's funny that the wall of silence has been broken this September.

He must have threatened someone bigger.

"I'm not going down alone."

It has to be someone really big, because a criminal can only snitch up to a whale..

Yes, Mssr. Small Hands.

But # 45 ain't alone.

Toilet Marathon

One early Sunday morning in 2007 the police blocked Pattaya's major streets for the annual marathon. Runners started before dawn to escape the enervating powers of the tropical sun, otherwise the twenty-six miles would be shortened to a single kilometer.

When I was in high school, I ran cross-country.

5K-10K.

Not anymore.

My friends and I have a standing challenge for a 100-meter dash. Most ask if they get time-out during the race and if an EMS ambulance will be in waiting. None of us are in good shape. My 4 year-old daughter is faster than most farangs and yesterday I was slowed down to a snail's pace by a bad oyster.

Total standstill.

On previous Saturday I had gone to a Jomtien seafood restaurant. The waiter brought a plate of hoi nang rom sod or fresh oysters. The first was delicious and I downed the rest with crispy garlic. The last tasted a little funny and with good reason.

That night I was stricken with stomach cramps followed by an urgent need to vacate my lower tubes.

Time from my office to the toilet. One second and I barely made it.

I must have gone to the bathroom 200 times in the next 24 hours.

So much that my loo-tut or asshole protested working overtime. My dog stayed out of the house as her delicate nose was offended by my offerings to the porcelain goddess.

They didn't smell too bad to me, but I passed gas on Walking Street next to an apparently crippled beggar. Upon being enveloped by a miasma of flatulence he got to his feet and walked away fast. My friend Fabo laughed as well, calling it the 'miracle of the fart'. His mirth ended upon smelling the foul fog.

"Go home."

And I stayed home until I was better.

The only plus was that I lost about 2 kilos.

Several of my chubbier comrades asked where I ate, so they might also shed some unwanted kilos.

Hoi nang rom sod the fresher the better.

Warning: Dog Farts

It ain't right blaming farts on the dog.

Near-Lethal Farts

Passing gas has been a great source of humor since Adam's first fart aka the undivine wind.

Throughout history comedians have eked jokes from this human frailty.

My best i.e. worst fart was at the Ritz in New York City. Public Image was on stage. I had eaten a bad oyster and my intestines gurgled with an exiting vapor. Richie Boy and Werthel were standing next to me. I told them to vacate the dance floor.

"Something bad is in my gut."

How bad can it be?" Werthel was the meanest man in the world and wanted to know if it would kill members of the audience.

"Bad, but not deadly."

"How bad?"

Werthel and Richie Boy had spent many evenings with me eating BBQ, drinking beer, and watching Monday Night Football and they recognized the urgency of my warning. All three of us were aware of the other's weaknesses.

"Bad enough to clear where I'm standing by ten feet in each direction." I was dying to cut loose.

"Werthel, let's go." Richie Boy had a big honker. Only a hound dog was more sensitive to smells than him.

"We'll meet you in the balcony."

Richie led Werthel to the stairs and they gave me a thumbs-up, as if I were competing in the Olympics.

Two seconds later the fart ripped through through my jeans.

I ran to the stairs and joined my friends at the balcony railing. Public Image was playing behind a screen. The crowd was pissed at not being able to see the band. They wanted a show not shadow puppet theater, then the crowd parted in the center of the concert hall exactly where I had been standing thirty seconds before.

Their faces were contorted with disgust and their eyes searched the nearest faces for the guilty party. No one stood in the circle of death for a good two minutes after which the anger at Johnny Rotten's band overwhelmed their sense of smell. Bottles flew through the air to the stage. The bouncers tried to stop the mayhem, but the hail of bottles came fast.

"Nice fart." Richie Boy was proud of me.

Werthel could only laugh, but not everyone these days considersed a fart so funny.

A SC motorist was arrested for drunk driving. The police drove the guilty party to the station. At one point the drunk man farted in the proximity of the arresting police officer. It was so bad that the officer charged the DUI offender with assault and battery.

Crime in America today.

Hashish Farts

In 2008 on Koh Samui a middle-aged English tourist arrived at the local emergency ward with complaints of severe stomach and intestinal cramps. The ER staff fought for several hours to extract a long plastic bag from the Englishman's intestines. They were surprised to discover the bag's contents werea nearly a kilo of hashish worth approx. one million baht. The Thai police arrested him on charges of smuggling the Class 5 drug onto the island, which sold for 1,500-2,000 baht a gramme. In custody the UK resident explained he had been in pain for over five days and panicked upon his farts starting to smell like the drug, indicating that several of the sealed packets might have burst in his stomach. None of his customers wanted to take a bong hit from his butt and now he will be subject to the full measure of the law for his folly.

Provincial governor Vinai Buapradit suspected Mr Jones swallowed the drugs when he was overseas so he could pass through drug detectors and sniffer dogs at airports and at the pier on Samui where boats leave for Koh Phangan.

Pinyo Thongchai, the deputy chief of the Department of Special Investigation, said trans-national criminal groups were rampant on Koh Samui.

As well as the Bandidos motorcycle gang, which recently faced a crackdown by authorities, there were also international mafia gangs doing illegal businesses in drugs, land and property deals and extorting money from foreign businessmen.

In June last year police on Koh Samui arrested Frenchman Pittet Pasca Maorica, 53, who was also admitted to Samui International Hospital after suffering from stomach pain.

Doctors found one kilogramme of heroin in his stomach. 

He was lucky his bag had not broken.

The Police might have caught these two, but the real drug dealers are the banks laundering oney for the ja bah and heroin trade, controlled by people whose name can not be said in public.

Not if you want to live.

ps No one's farts smell better than your own.

Thai Swearing 101

Like most farangs I had a hard time learning Thai.

I can tell a joke, although my wife says that I speak with funny accent.

"You should hear my German."

Speaking a foreign language with a Boston accent has never been easy.

One on one I catch the drift of the speaker's meaning, but in a large group most of the conversation is spoken too fast for my ears to translate, but one day I was arguing with a woman from whom I rented a motorcycle. I had slightly scratched the front fender. Other scraps graced the bike. She wanted 1000 baht to replace the fender. I knew that was too much and countered with 200. We couldn’t meet in the middle and she spat, “Yet mung.”

I’ve been called many things in many languages.

Thanks to Hollywood most nationalities know how to say ‘Fuck you’.

I instantly realized she had said the Thai version of the f-word, although when I asked anyone what this meant, they all said, “You can not say that.”

“You can, why can’t I?”

“Can not.”

Anytime I have since asked about swears, the Thais smile and say they don’t know any bad words. I think they are lying since most swearing occurs behind the wheel of a vehicle and judging from the faces of drivers I have cut off, there seems to be a broad vocabulary for slagging off both farangs and their own countrymen.

I’ve picked up a little by eavesdropping and made up a few like hua-kee or shithead, which my Thai friends say doesn’t really get anyone worked up, but was one of my hometown favorites.

In really it’s better to keep it simple and stay with what the locals use

I advise you not to use them too often.

And be very careful no one can catch you either.

Back in the 90s a German gave a finger to a local in Chiang Mai. A year goes by and the Thai shoots the German dead. Like an elephant he had a memory. Better to use the following words against farangs. Always makes the Thais smile.

Farang ba = Stupid foreigner (we’ve all been called this)
Yet = Fuck
Kuay = Cock (banana also. Amazing how some words have different meanings)
Ai sat = Twat
Kwai = Buffalo (we all know what this means ‘MOOOOO’)
Hoop baak = Shut up (my wife’s favorite expression when I’m talking about $)
Orn kuay = Suck cock
I hayer = Son of a bitch
Gengri = Whore
Farang keenohk = Birdshit foreigner (Actually said because you’re cheap)
Chong mang = I don’t give a fuck
Ga-ree = Whore, Slut
Dollair = Bullshitter ( sort of the bad version of barg wan or sweet mouth)
Sudd-Na-Rok = Damned Devi
Tood-Muek = Asshole
Gook Kuay = Damned Penis
Na-Hee = Cuntface
Ai Na Dad = Clit face (Very vulgar)
Hee mah = Dog pussy
Gratoey = Homosexual
Yet ped = Duck fucker
Hee = Pussy
Baan poh mung = Bullshit (lit. your father’s house)
Naa maw = Flirt (vulgar)
Laew = Evil (vulgar)
Baa = Crazy (vulgar)
Chuk wow = (male) Masturbate (lit. fly kite) (this I understand very well)
Tob bhed = (female) Masturbate (lit. fishing) (no woman will admit to doing this)
Kun Heeat = A lizard that eats garbage (quite vulgar!)
Mai chawp khun, dag ling = I don’t like you, monkey arse
Som nam nah! = In your face! (probably the #2 Thai expression used by farangs
Nah peeh = Ghost face
Hua kuai = Dickhead
Heeh men = Smelly pussy

Caution

Don’t ever use the next eight.

I only added these so you understand what is being said to you.
Mung = Highly derogative form of ‘you’
Goo = Highly arrogant form of ‘me’
Loog-Ga-Ree = Son of the bitch
Por Mung Tai = Wish your father dead
Mae-Mung-Tai = Wish your mother dead
Yet Por = Fuck your father
Hee mae mang = Fuck your mother
Mae mung = Your mom (yo mamma)

I only use about 4-5 of these words a day unless I’m driving and then I use them all, but only with the windows shut. It’s one thing to use bad language and it’s quite although to have people hear you go into a Tourette's Syndrome frenzy.

Sway At The Stiletto

Last night at Pattaya's Stiletto A Go-Go the ladyboys painted their faces for the evening rush. I ordered a beer and asked the veteran mama-san about a star employee. The dragon lady said Lil Vee was in Germany and pointed a long fingernail at a svelte teen sheathed in a shimmering silver dress.

"That's her younger sister. Her name is Ae."

The mama-san modded and ae swung off the stool with serpentine sleath. She sat on the stool and I breathed the scent of seduction against which I was defenseless.

Ae slithered against me and toyed with coal-black tress.

"I remember you with Vee."

That was five years ago.

Ae had been 13.

She was 18 now.

I wanted you then and want you now."

Her lilting tongue preached pleasure to non-believers.

She wore nothing under the shiny skin. Her hardness rode my thigh in time to the Thai pop music. A thick gold necklace swayed across her flat chest. Her cousin Vee had been a goddess. Ae was the universe. She whispered a number in my ear.

I fell from the stars.

Ae rad y face. She smiled with the wicked eternity of youth and said, "I have a customer like look through hole."

"No see no hear. He pay. Watch. You can do?"

"Hell, yes."

"Her left hand unbuttoned my jeans."

The Stiletto A Go-Go was very open-minded. Ae turned to a fat man and pointed up. He waddled across the floor and climbed the stairs. The mama-san closed a curtain around us.

"He like look down."

Obviously Ae had never asked why. The money killed any curiosity. She dropped to her knees. I didn't look up.

The fat man might have been above us, but I was in heaven below as was everyone in the Last Babylon from time to time.

Mao's Bird Fetish

Chairman Mao has been dead for forty-one years. China's glittering shopping malls, high-speed trains, ultra-modern skyscrapers, super highways, and expansive airports have transformed the Middle Kingdom into a workers' paradise. Mao Tse-Tung's statue overlooks Tiananmen Square with stern serenity. His followers praise him every May Day, but nothing can stop the birds from shitting on the Great Leader.

They want revenge, for in April 1958 Mao declared birds to be enemies of the state.

Especially sparrows.

To Mao birds symbolized freedom from authority and the Chairman urged his people to bang on pots to prevent the sparrows from landing to rest. They died in the millions and the crop output increased to meet party demands. The only problem was that the sparrows controlled the insect population and the next season the locusts ravaged the harvest. More than 30 million starved to death during the Great Leap Forward.

In the end Mao recognized his error and quietly pardoned the surviving sparrows.

Their population quickly recovered from the slaughter.

The Chinese people took a little longer, but they had learned their lesson.

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery." Mao Tse-Tung

And China was not for the birds.

The Mao is an endangered species on the Samoan Islands. Little is known about its feeding and breeding habits.

"The idea that the state mistakenly took too much grain from the countryside because it assumed that the harvest was much larger than it was is largely a myth – at most partially true for the autumn of 1958 only. In most cases the party knew very well that it was starving its own people to death. At a secret meeting in the Jinjiang Hotel in Shanghai dated March 25, 1959, Mao specifically ordered the party to procure up to one third of all the grain, much more than had ever been the case. At the meeting he announced that 'When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.'" [47]

The Blessing of The Second Amendment

America loves guns.

The bigger the gun they better.

I'm no exception, however I only shoot on a gun range. I never carry. I don't even own a gun.

Donald Trump is an NRA member.

In an interview with ammoland.com he said, "I am a Life Member of the NRA and am proud of their service in protecting our right to keep and bear arms. The NRA’s efforts to stop dangerous, gun-banning legislation and regulation is invaluable. The media focus on those efforts overshadows the great work the NRA does on behalf of safety and conservation."

A punk bully he likes to play the tough guy.

With very small small hands and his political base are gun-loving Americans like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock and hunters and Nazis and KKK and white people scared of becoming second-class citizens after repressing every other race and nationality in the USA.

To them guns are as sacred as Jesus.

Serious as stall beer.

But not everyone with an AR is a Nazi and on October 1 in Las Vegas 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada shot into a crowd of thousands attending a Las Vegas country western concert killing 58 and wounding hundreds.

People ran for their lives.