Nixon-design

On järkyttävää katsoa TV-uutisista Gazan tapahtumia ja järkyttävää oli myös nähdä kaakkois-Aasiassa sodan uhreja. Amerikkalaiset pommittivat Laosia 60-70 luvulla, vaikka eivät virallisesti olleet koskaan julistaneet sotaa ja Laosia pommitettiin enemmän kuin liittoutuneet pommittivat Saksaa ja Japania toisen maailman sodan aikana. Joka puolella näkee invalideja ja pommeista tehtyjä kukkamaljakoita, kelloja jne, ns. Nixon-design. Laos on edelleen täynnä rypälepommeja.(Suomi kuuluu muuten niihin harvoihin maihin, jotka vastustavat rypälepommien kieltoa!)
Luostarin kello Mekong-joella.

Maljakko


Nähdessäni Champagnen maakunnan unikkoniittyjä päässäni kaikuu aina tämä laulu, jonka Hannes Wader on esittänyt saksaksi nimellä Es ist an der Zeit.
oh how do you do, young willy mcbride do you mind if i sit here down by your graveside and rest for a while in the warm summer sun i've been walking all day, and im nearly done and i see by your gravestone you were only nineteen when you joined the great fallen in 1916 well i hope you died quick and i hope you died clean oh willy mcbride, was is it slow and obscene [Chorus] did they beat the drums slowly did the play the fife lowly did they sound the death march as they lowered you down did the band play the last post and chorus did the pipes play the flowers of the forest and did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined and though you died back in 1916 to that loyal heart you're forever nineteen or are you a stranger without even a name forever enshrined behind some old glass pane in an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained and faded to yellow in a brown leather frame the sun shining down on these green fields of france the warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance the trenches have vanished long under the plow no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing down but here in this graveyard that's still no mans land the countless white crosses in mute witness stand till' man's blind indifference to his fellow man and a whole generation were butchered and damned and i can't help but wonder oh willy mcbride do all those who lie here know why they died did you really believe them when they told you the cause did you really believe that this war would end wars well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame the killing and dying it was all done in vain oh willy mcbride it all happened again and again, and again, and again, and again

Kaakkois-Aasian sotainvalidit musisoivat ja toivovat rahaa turisteilta:


Ei toteutunut jouluinen toivomukseni : maassa rauha ja ihmisillä hyvä tahto