#patrick winn

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Patrick Winn - Fact X - Robert Hale - 1966

[fyeahcindie]

In Hong Kong, lighting a candle for Tiananmen victims is now a crime

Wearing black, or being in or around Victoria Park on the anniversary, could also land someone a one-year sentence in jail.

Cui Jian 崔健 - Nothing to My Name

[poetinbangkok]

This gym in Thailand is staffed exclusively by transgender men

Welcome to Transfit, part of the booming industry that has emerged to serve trans men and gay women in Thailand.

"Thailand’s trans men, while invisible to much of the world, are enjoying more social prominence at home than ever."

In this radio segment, our friend Patrick Winn meets with the owner of TransFit, a gym in Thailand staffed entirely by transgender men.

[themoguls]

PREVIEW: So delicious that it might kill you by The World http://ift.tt/1qQQLUk

[poetinbangkok]

“I guess he was pretty good at being a CIA officer...”

In our interview with Kathy MacLeod in Episode 1, Kathy talked about how she came to learn of her father’s work with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. 

She mentioned that her friend Patrick Winn, a journalist, took it upon himself to track down the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand at that time. He interviewed John Gunther Dean about Walter E. MacLeod, Kathy’s dad. Though during the interview Ambassador Dean thought that Patrick was calling about his own father. 

Anyway: it’s a fascinating interview, that includes some difficult details about attempts by American agents to form a coalition government with the Khmer Rouge: if this effort had been successful, perhaps the history of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the genocide there, would have been quite different. Patrick and Kathy were kind enough to share the interview with us, and we’re posting it here in full for you. 

[farangcorrespondent]

Southeast Asia's Surging Significance, from an Apologist

It's been a while between posts for Farang Correspondent. I've been working on a number of stories for Asian Correspondent, including a new tech blog that should be launched soon. That, and with the election farce of last weekend it's an exciting time to be in Southeast Asia. I thought I ought share this with you. A journalist I read regularly, whose work always cuts through the chaff, is the Global Post's senior Southeast Asia correspondent, Patrick Winn (aka the @BKKApologist). His description of the region is characteristically spot on:

Winn is documenting a region in flux, where despots experiment with democracy (Burma/Myanmar), communists excel at capitalism (Vietnam) and cell phones are rife among peasants surviving on $2 a day (half of Indonesia). Southeast Asia's importance is unquestionable. Its jungles and sea lanes supply China with energy and raw materials. Its factories supply the West with food and cheap goods. Its modern appetites and old codes clash daily as Thailand's Buddhists pray for winning lottery numbers and Malaysia's Muslim mall rats color code their sneakers with their hijabs. And as the U.S. and China intensify a diplomatic chess game from Laos to the Philippines and everywhere in between, Southeast Asia's strategic significance is set to surge.

As the "Pacific Century" unfolds, Winn is here to help break down Southeast Asia's conflicts, trends and absurdities.

More from me -- of this standard, I hope -- to come soon.

[chloeannriley]

Terrorism: A Word More Loaded Than a Paula Deen Baked Potato

While I was busy taking the lead, so to speak, in Swing Dance class, (I dance the boy part because if I don't, who will?) Global Post was busy criticizing Thailand. 

Let's listen in, shall we?

Al Jazeera reported that the Thai government recently discovered bomb-making materials in a warehouse just outside of Bangkok. 

The U.S. says it was a potential terrorist attack and is advising travelers to avoid that part of Thailand.

Thailand's government says they knew about the threat and already have a suspect in custody. The government claims the situation is under control.

Our friend and cohort Pat Winn points out that these discrepancies are only going to totally mess with the tourists, adventure seekers and peace loving hippies that are trying to carve out a small bit of Bangkok for themselves.

In true Winn fashion, he even provides the point of view of the alleged terrorist group. Like Shaggy, they say "it wasn't me."

And so we run once again into this word terrorism. It's a dangerous word, and not just because of the physical implications. In the Bangkok case, the U.S. has decided that the situation holds a terrorist threat. Thailand says it doesn't. Who's right?

Hard to say. But "terrorist" does sort of have a "commie" McCarthy era twang to it. Recently, writer Chris Hedges filed a complaint against Barack Obama, challenging the legality of a recent add on to the National Defense Authorization Act.

As of March 3, The add on makes it so that the military can detain, without trial, any U.S. citizen suspected of being a terrorist or even an accessory to terrorism.

Indefinitely.

Hedges biggest criticism is of the extreme vagueness surrounding the word "terrorism," which he says has been consistently impossible to define ever since that gem The Patriot Act graced us with its presence. 

I'm sure I've said positive things about China in previous posts. Does that mean this writer is going to be burned at the proverbial patriot act stake?

I take it back China. You're all a bunch of commies.

[chloeannriley]

The Buzz on Cambodian Worker Bees

My girl (or grrrl) Anne Elizabeth Moore will be happy about this one.

Pat Winn's latest post reveals that Cambodian garment workers are getting a raise. In U.S. dollars, that's a whopping $5.

But, as Winn points out, that's a significant amount for the workers, some of the poorest in Southeast Asia.

I bring ol' Anne Elizabeth into this because she has been campaigning for this cause for years. Moore, an artist/writer/activist actually went to Cambodia and lived, breathed and wrote about the Cambodian garment industry.

Here is a great excerpt from her essay, "Report from Cambodia's Garment Factories":

Meet the international working class—the faceless laborers that likely had a hand in stitching together your mid-range jeans, your jaunty parka, or your favorite silky smooth T-shirt: They are super giggly and sharing snacks in the back of a converted military pickup truck over their lunch break. In fact, they’re downright cute as buttons, and make about that, too.

Moore reports that 70 percent of of clothes produced in Cambodia are intended for sale in the U.S.

When I saw her over the summer, she was at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art to promote her exhibit "Garment Work," in which she completely rips apart a pair of H&M jeans.

Something we should all do more often.

At any rate, when Moore wrote that essay in 2009, the standard pay for garment workers was $55 per month. Now, with this increase, they will make $66 per month.

The raise, Winn points out, is most likely connected to a bizarre string of mass fainting that started in August and continued across different factories across Cambodia.

Are the faintings a result of poor working conditions? Long hours? Mass protest?

Then again, if you had to sew clothing for H&M all day, wouldn't you be sick too?

(Author's note: I was going through my closet to add some snarky photos of H&M clothing. Not only did I not find any Cambodian-made articles, I came to the conclusion that a significant portion of my closet was bred right here in the good ol' USA. -Granted the rest is from China, but you can only win so many wars.)