Vaseline Girls in Thailand

Vaseline girls paraded through Bangkok to promote the hydrocarbon mixture derived from our old friend, petroleum jelly, whose discovery dates back to 1859 in Texas. First considered a cure-all for burns, people soon found divergent applications for the all-purpose substance.

Company spokespeople extolled it as a curative for cuts and scraps, although doctors have never been able to prove any benefits from smearing the jelly on a burn other than to prevents germs from entering a wound or skin's from being too dry.
People now use Vaseline for a variety of ailments such as chapped hands and lips, toenail fungus, nosebleeds, diaper rash, chest colds, and even to remove makeup or stains from furniture. Uses for pets include stopping fungi from developing on aquatic turtles' shells and keeping cats from making messes when they cough up furballs.

Moustache enthusiasts swear by its power to wax a moustache.

In modern times Vaseline is widely used as a sexual lubricant, although not while using condoms, which dissolve upon contact with the jelly.

Maybe the Vaseline girls of Bangkok will be exhibiting how to best apply the substance to various body parts.

Now that would be a show.

Vaseline is banned in major league baseball, because of pitchers using it for spitters, but it's great to lubricate a Rubik's Cube.

President of Russia Officially Smart

George W. Bush was a C student at Yale. He studied enough to recognise intelligence and declared its new president, Dmitri Medvedev, at the G-8 summit in Japan, "a smart guy."

"He even could find New York on a map." The US President added while checking on flight plans to his next destination. "I couldn't?"

"You turn west at England." Comrade Medvedev joked with the leader of the Free World.

"Thanks for that heads-up. You know I can look into your face and see that when you tell me something, you mean it." George W Bush beamed, "And I know when you wish me a happy birthday, you really mean it. I know this is a summit, but birthdays are big events. Everybody has a birthday."

And a happy one to you, Mssr. President.

Hurricane Bertha

I'm living in Palm Beach. The Atlantic is about 100 yards away from the house on King's Road. A Storm surge of twenty feet would put me under water and National Hurricane Center has alerted the public that the storm Bertha has strengthened to become the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. It's generating winds of 75 mph about 1000 east of my position. The sunny skies overhead are deceptive. It's traveling at 20 miles per hour. The meteorologists can predict its tracks, giving me about 50 hours to prepare for its landfall.

I hope I have enough beer.

As of 5 a.m. Monday, Hurricane Bertha was about 845 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center say it is too early to say if or where the storm will hit land.

My great-grandaunt was named Bertha.

We called her Bert.

She lived to 103.

Sex in Space

In 2002 I wrote a screenplay IN HEAVEN ABOVE where former Soviet province attempts to save itself from bankruptcy by holding a lottery with the prize of being the first man to have sex in space in their revamped space shuttle. I sent the scenario to a number of film companies. Rejection rejection rejection. One film producer was intrigued and asked how i knew that no one had not had sex in space.

"NASA is too square. In fact NASA spokesman Bill Jeffs of the Johnson Space Center in Houston has said,m "We don't study sexuality in space, and we don't have any studies ongoing with that."

"They are a little square. But what about the Russians?"

"You need a special suit to maintain blood pressure for sex. Their suits are built for that. If you google 'sex in space', you come up with nothing. It doesn't interest the scientists and most of space missions have been with men and astronauts are not gay. At least none have come out of the closet."

He accept my explanation, but didn't offer to option my screenplay.

Now celestial space tours are offering weddings in space for $2.3 million per person.

Honeymoons in orbit can't be far behind this venture into Space with special suits made for the conjugal passage through the stars.

Space hookers will be next, unless we're heading for Venus which everyone knows is populated by blue-skinned vixens in fur bikinis. And they do it for free.

Thailand Blamed For Viking HIV

The statistics are clear: Thailand is the country where most Norwegian men infected with the HIV-infection while traveling abroad.

Health officials from the Scandinavian country offered the following advice “Do not to have sex with the local population. Do not take local women with you to the room. There is a great probability that they have sexually transmitted diseases. Use by all means condom if you choose to have sex with the unknown, but remember that even condom do not provide 100 percent protection against infection."

No report on the effect of this warning for bar girls in Pattaya.

And Norwegian women have shown no signs of not looking like men.

Where am I Thailand or Cambodia

US citizens are geographically challenged partially because they don't travel outside the USA, except to DisneyWorld. Most Americans don't have passports. Not even the 160,000 troops in Iraq. More surprising is the fact that over 70% of Americans can't find New York City on a map.

"What do I need a map for when I have GPS?" One long-distance driver retorted after failing the test, but it is important to know where you are, so you have an idea where you have been and/or are going, and not only Americans can benefit from a better grasp of geography.

In 2003 anti-Thai riots broke out in Phnom Penh after a Thai TV actress, Suwanan Kongying, supposedly claimed that Angkor Wat and its treasures belonged to Thailand and should be returned to its rightful owners. The Thai embassy was burned and the ambassor had to flee to safety. Later on no one could prove that the popular actress ever said these words other than in a TV series from two years earlier. Hun Sen the prime minister is partially to blame for the troubles for having stated, "Some Khmer houses don't even have portraits of Cambodian king, queen or even their own parents. But they hang that Thai girl's picture."

Most Thais know which way is Cambodia, however the present government is still fighting for recognition of the new frontier for the Preah Vihear Temple. The World Court has supported a 1962 border agreement, which cedes a parking lot owned by friends of Thaksin to Cambodia. The former PM protested this decision by saying, "Who knows what is the border? One day it's Cambodia, next year maybe Thailand. Who knows? Certainly not me. I'm no good at geography."

So Americans your geographical ignorance is shared by other nations.

No one knows where they are and sometimes that's a good thing.

Aurora Borealis Maine 1971

In the summer of 1971 my friends John Gilmore, Mark McLaughlin, and Tommie Jordan drove from the South Shore of Boston for a 4th of July holiday in Maine. We first stopped at my grandmother's cabin on Watchic Pond for a swim and Italian sandwiches. We watched the fireworks over the Presumpscot River and then headed north for Bar Harbor in my 1968 VW Beetle. By the Turnpike it was 3 hours, but we chose the coastal road.

Someplace outside of Bath, the sky shimmered with an unearthly light. John thought we were hallucinating on LSD from smoking too much hashish.

"It's not the hash. It's the Aurora Borealis." Mark declared with debatable authority.

"How would you know?" John demanded before sucking on the bong.

"Because I have a Boy Scout merit badge in astronomy."

We bowed to his greater wisdom and I parked the VW by the side on Route 1. The celestial phenomena sashayed across the sky like iridescent curtains blowing in the wind. The light show lasted about 20 minutes and disappeared like a mirage.

"The Aurora Borealis." John remarked in awe.

"Wow." The rest of us said in admiration of nature.