HotShot

Southeast Asia Part II: Food

Flooded Forests and Floating Villages

Sometimes I need a vacation from my vacation. After a week's worth of running and rickshawing around Siem Reap, visiting the monumental, crumbling towers of Angkor Wat, I was feeling a bit templed out. The photography festival was draining, too, meeting friends new and old, and enjoying day after day of photojournalism presentations followed by gluttonous portions of food and drink. So the time was right. I escaped from the Pleasure Dome and headed for the flooded forest of Kampong Phluk.

The trip took the better part of a day. I hopped on a rickshaw that shuttled me to a motorboat that delivered me to a wooden skiff. Along the way I passed the kinds of rice fields that have inspired the backdrops of several Oliver Stone movies, countless oxen and ploughs, and I watched the population density shrink to zero as I went from the a bustling, humid city of Siem Reap to the most remote spots along Tonle Sap lake.

Kampong Phluk comes out of nowhere. One minute I was alone, floating in the middle of the largest lake in Southeast Asia. A narrow waterway through a mangrove forest reveals a dense village where every building rises from the lake on 30-foot rickety wooden stilts. An entire community seems to have no use for land, and even less need for automobiles. The residents, mostly fishermen, live off the bounty of the water. Not a bad way of life, considering that the Tonle Sap is one of the world's most productive breeding grounds for fish (and crocodiles).

But maybe not for long. Energy-starved China has begun to dam the Mekong and other tributaries that feed the Tonle Sap. The regular rise and fall of the water levels has been disturbed. Annual fish catches are down. If current ecological trends continue, Kampong Phluk and dozens of villages like it could shrink, or even disappear in the decades to come.

Or maybe not. Because no one really knows what the long-term effects of the dam projects will be. All we really know is this: previously backward countries of Asia are galloping toward the future at an unstopable rate; the price of their progress will be a great portion of their heritage. Who will get to decide if cheap electric power is worth the price of a great fishing lake? What ancient traditions will be cast aside in favor of a higher standard of living?

As a relatively wealthy Western tourist enjoying a leisurely vacation, the answer is obvious to me: I like things the way they are. But these questions matter the most to those who live here; people who may envy many of the modern luxuries we take for granted. And for them, the people who really count, I'm afraid the solutions aren't so easy.

Where In the World is Todd?

With the terror attacks in Bombay and a civil uprising paralyzing Bangkok, you might reasonably wonder why I haven't written a thing since I touched down in Vietnam and shuttled over to Cambodia. After all I've promised, I have yet to deliver a word about my travels. And so you wonder: Might Todd be trapped outside of Hanoi, forced to live inside of a tiger cage, John McCain style, cut off from the rest of the world while the Khmer Rouge force feeds him nothing but coconut fish curry and guava smoothies?

Well my friends... it just isn't so. I've had another wonderful time out here (Asia never fails to deliver) and there's nothing I'd like more than to share the details of my experience in words and pictures. But I'm battling an enemy that's far more sinister than a third-world communist insurgency. The fight is between me and Cambodia's underwhelming internet infrastructure. There's just not enough bandwidth to send lots of visual information. Remember connecting to AOL back in 1994? The phone dial up followed by a long beep? Sure it was pretty kewl back then, the sound of the future. But now it's like driving a rickshaw in the fast lane of the information superhighway.

I've got lots of travel stories to share -- from land mines in Saigon to flooded forests in Siem Reap. So be patient. As soon as I can connect to some speedier lines, we'll be back in business again. You'll be glad you waited. I promise.

Until then.

P.S.
Has the United States been as stunned by the Bombay terror attacks as we have been over here? Most people I know were glued to their televisions during the siege; I kept switching stations in my guest house, watching CNN, al-Jazeera, and the BBC to get every last bit of the terrifying story. Having had half a dozen meals at Leopold Cafe and spending part of an afternoon at the Louis Vuitton in the Taj Hotel (long, funny story) the whole terrible affair really felt alive to me.

My condolences to the people of Bombay. It's a vibrant, thrilling city and I'm confident that it will rebound like New York after 9/11.

Orientation

Yesterday I was there.

Today I am here.

The Valley Votes: Our Stupid Elections

There we go again! According to the latest report from the Imperial Research Council, the 2008 presidential election was 47% stupider than the previous election in 2004. That makes last Tuesday's exercise in representative democracy the stupidest election in the history of Imperial County.

The IRC report cites "canine suffrage"  as an important factor in this year's surge of idiocy. In one example, Roxy the half-Chihuahua half-Pekingese represented the Mexican-Chinese constituency at the ballot boxes in El Centro.

Meanwhile, Bob the Bulldog stood on the corner of Imperial and Main in El Centro in order to make an ambiguous statement about gay rights.

Rumors of Bob’s homosexuality were strongly denied by his owner, Karla Burke, a self-described evangelical Christian and a supporter of Proposition Eight. “Bob is no queer,” said Burke, who was visibly upset at the smear campaign against her wrinkly-faced pup. “He’s all about the bitches.” 

Election stupidity increased by 7% when this young girl made her pick underneath the voting booth. By the looks of things, she chose the green candidate.

Just when it seemed that this election could get no stupider, Robert Forrester the Election Nazi showed up at El Centro City Hall. When Yours Truly appeared at his polling station, wearing press credentials around my neck, Forrester freaked out in front of a crowded room of voters.

“You! You with the camera! Get out of here!” shrieked Forrester.

“You might want to ask me a few questions before kicking me out,” I replied.

“Get out.”

“I’m here to cover the elections for The Imperial Valley Press,” I handed him my press pass. “Your local newspaper.”

“I don’t care,” snapped Forrester who didn’t so much as glance at the press credential. “Get out of here now! NOW!”

I pointed the camera at Forrester, took a photo of der führer’s face, and said good-bye. 

Think you've seen enough blundering for one day? Think again! Workers at the Elections Department were still counting ballots at 8:30am the next day – that's twelve hours after John McCain conceded the presidential race to Barack Obama! Results were further complicated in Imperial County when election workers got around to counting the remaining thirty-eight ballots in support of Millard Fillmore.

While ballots were still being counted, other Valley institutions were celebrating the election results by hanging the American flag upside-down. What was Southwest Sign System's excuse for their public  display of anti-patriotism?  Sign company administrator Dennis Bergh chalked it up to "a bad coincidence." In case you're not familiar with the regional dialect that's spoken in the Imperial Valley, let me translate that one for you. It means: "We are dumb."

Can the Valley conduct an election with any more stupidity and ineptitude than this one? Critics say that it cannot be done, that the standards have sunk too low.

Surely it will hard to beat this year's parade of homophobic hounds, elderly Nazis, comatose volunteers, distress signals and enthusiastic nose-pickers. But I still believe we can be even more dimwitted in the future. I believe in the audacity of dope!

See you at the ballot box in 2012!

Ten Tough Questions the Media Forgot to Ask McCain and Obama

When it comes to challenging our presidential candidates with difficult questions, our national media can be a very obedient puppy. Reporters who cast a critical eye on candidates can find themselves excluded from key events or banned outright from the campaign trail. Television and print news rarely stopped to question the invasion of Iraq or doubt the existence of “weapons of mass destruction.” In short, our reporters have learned to ask politicians lots of questions – as long as they’re not too hard to answer.

Has the media learned anything during this election cycle? Judging by the amount of media attention focused on catchphrases like “lipstick on a pig” and caricatures of Obama the Arab Muslim Marxist  – the answer, sadly, is no.

It's not too late to ask a few questions that really matter. Here are ten important questions that the media hasn’t – and won’t – ask McCain or Obama before election day.

John McCain: You have advocated stricter prison sentences and penalties for drug addicts and first-time offenders. Yet when your wife Cindy was caught stealing Percocet and Vicodin from her own charitable organization in order to support her addiction to prescription drugs, she received neither fines nor a prison sentence. Do you think she would’ve been better off serving hard time behind bars for her crime? Why should she get more leniency than other Americans?

Barack Obama: If you really believe that “a free, quality public education is at the heart of the American promise” why have you attended and taught only at private schools throughout your career? Why do both of your children attend a private high school instead of a public school? Why do you oppose school choice for families who can’t otherwise afford to attend your exclusive alma maters Harvard, Columbia, The University of Chicago and Punahou Prep School? 

John McCain: Now that Obama has outspent you 3-to-1 in television advertisements, do you think that the McCain-Feingold “Campaign Reform” Act has been an effective tool in making elections fair and competitive? In light of the tone of your own presidential campaign, do you think your Act has been successful in curbing “negative” ads?

Barack Obama: Since you consider yourself the “candidate of change,” why do you advocate an expansion of the same employer-based health care system that is the source of so much dissatisfaction? With all due respect to Schurz Communications, Inc, why do you think my employer should be involved in my health care decisions at all? I make decisions about my own food, transportation, and shelter – which are more important (and more expensive) than health care – without the help of my employer. Why should a visit to my doctor be any different?

John McCain: Following the precedent set by Dick Cheney, will Sarah Palin avail herself of the expanded powers of the vice president? Will she exert the same degree of behind-the-scenes influence over the presidency? Or will her role be restricted to the traditional boundaries set forth in the Constitution?

Barack Obama: As Senator you called for $750 million in federal earmarks. Included in that figure is $1 million for the hospital where your wife worked as a vice president; $8 million to the General Dynamics Corporation, where a member of your finance committee, James Crown, sat on the board of directors; $3 million for a space center named for Mr. Crown’s grandfather at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Is this spending pattern indicative of what we can expect from President Obama’s federal budget?

Both candidates: Although we are experiencing the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, no one seeking the presidency has any expertise in economics, business or finance. McCain has admitted that he doesn’t understand economics very well. Obama has neither run a business nor balanced a state budget. Why should the American public trust either of you to rescue us from a banking crisis that threatens the foundations of global capitalism?

Both candidates: In the eight years since President Bush defeated Al Gore with fewer popular votes, America still faces the possibility of an electoral college that will contradict the ballot box. What will you do to ensure that every future candidate for president who wins the popular vote will actually become the next president of the United States?

Both candidates: As president, will you pledge in advance to abstain from pardoning any member of your own administration who is found guilty of corruption? Ford’s pardon of Nixon so upset the public that it destroyed his chances in the next election. Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby made an untrustworthy administration even less credible. Will you promise us in advance that you won’t follow in these crooked footsteps?

Both candidates: To date, no one higher than the rank of staff sergeant has been indicted for torturing innocent Iraqi civilians at Abu Ghraib Prison. If it turns out that highly placed officials in the Bush administration knew about – and sanctioned – these atrocious acts, would you be willing to pursue war crimes charges against them? 

Imperial Valley: Secret Twin

It's a little known fact that everyone has their own secret twin. I have discovered several cloned personalities trying to conceal their secret identity here in Imperial County. For example:

Law and border congressman Bob Filner and…

...Law and Order thespian Jerry Orbach.

Acting director of the Imperial Irrigation District Mike Abatti and…

...actor and director Robert DeNiro

The genial director of the I.I.D. John Pierre Menvielle and...

...the genocidal dictator of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina, Radovan Karadzic.

El Centro Behavioral Health Services director Michael Horn and...

...misbehaving prime minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin.

Financier of the new Calexico port Jon Ballard and...

...fashionista Mister Blackwell.


The pleasant president of Imperial Valley College Ed Gould and...

...Pleasantville actor J.T. Walsh.

The Harley-Davidson worshiping “Pinches Cucarachas" and...

...Hindu devotees worshiping Lord Shiva in India.

Have you spotted any secret twins lurking around the Valley recently? Or maybe you have a secret twin of your own. Perhaps you mistook Cathy Kennerson for Florence Henderson. If you see a doppelgänger, send photos to: tkrainin@ivpressonline.com for immediate publication and ridicule.

I am Alive

I am joyously, amazingly, improbably alive tonight after a tractor-trailer struck the rear of my Acura on the 210 freeway, causing my car to fishtail severely before 360-ing across five lanes of heavy traffic and colliding headfirst into a concrete median.

It happened in less than ten seconds.

The impact with the truck is loud, disorienting. I suppose I’m in denial about the severity of the collision, because I’m more worried about the damage to my car than my personal safety. My attitude changes when I notice that the steering wheel is helpless to stop the back and forth swerving of my vehicle, pushing my body left and right. “This is not actually happening to me,” I tell myself, already in the opening seconds of a nightmare. “The car will soon right itself and everything will be okay.”

No such luck. A terrifying reality sinks in as I watch the world outside my windshield revolve around me; I’m spiraling from the far right lane into to the extreme left. Oncoming vehicles come at me, only to whizz past my door, dodging me at 80 miles an hour. First they come at my left. Then I’m face-to-face with oncoming traffic – my vision is blinded with whiteness as their headlights shine directly into my eyes. Suddenly everyone is behind me again as I spin into the carpool lane.

All the while I’m fighting a losing battle to regain control of the car. Flushed with adrenaline, I'm aware of every sound, every movement, every fraction of a second that ticks by. When I’m flung to the left, I counter it by turning the wheel to the right. When I feel acceleration, I squeeze the brakes firmly, but not too much. The metal inside my car creaks and strains under the pressure. But I don't lose focus. My hands are full of purpose; they never leave the wheel.

It matters only a little. Because I realize this is collision is much bigger than I am. What can I do against a ton of metal and momentum? Though I make an extraordinary effort to stay in control – to stay alive for a few seconds longer – I know this is a fight I will probably lose.

Spinning and spinning. As the oncoming traffic approaches, I brace myself for unimaginable injury. I can see the silhouettes of other drivers drawing nearer; I imagine how frightened they must be to get sucked into this senseless collision. I wish I could talk to them. I wish could warn them. I wish I could go back in time before the truck hit me and do everything differently.

My inner voice speaks quickly now. And it says:

In a few seconds, you may wake up in a hospital bloodied and missing a few limbs. If this happens, don't be too horrified. Be as ready as you can for this moment. However surreal everything may seem right now, an unthinkably hard reality is just around the corner. You can rage and freak out later. That’s for another time. Prepare for the impact now. And prepare for a future of pain and uncertainty.

I don’t know why, but the cars don’t hit me. Instead I collide with the concrete median at about forty miles an hour. The median saves me from flying into the opposite lane, where I certainly would have been killed by five lanes of freeway traffic moving in the opposite direction. No: the median grabs hold of my front tires and lifts my car into the air. I let out a scream, but cut my breath short, as I think I scared myself with the sound of my own panic.

My tires return to the pavement with a crash that would make the Duke boys proud. When I take a breath and look ahead, I see that I’ve landed in the carpool lane, and I’m facing the right direction. I’m still moving ahead, and the accelerator works. I test the steering wheel, and amazingly, I’m back in control. The car still functions! A smile grows on my face because, despite the odds, it looks like I have emerged from the fire alive and unharmed. But at twenty miles an hour I realize the terrible irony it would be to survive such a disaster, only to be rear-ended by an oncoming car moving at four times my speed.

I press the hazard lights and accelerate. I feel my life-force rise in sympathy with the red speedometer needle as I go from 20 to 30 miles per hour to the speed limit. Soon I am passing other cars on the freeway. My confidence soars. I feel invincible. I am alive.

Having driven through the valley of death, I am ready for justice. In less than a minute I catch up to the tractor-trailer that hit me and sent me spinning. It is driving in the same lane, traveling at the same speed as if nothing had happened. Strange to return to the scene of the crime, and so quickly at that. I note the license plate number and move on.

If you’ve read this far, you can probably guess that I’m unhurt. My car wasn’t so lucky, though it remains drivable and my mechanic assures me that all the the damage is fixable. All else is in the hands of the insurance companies and the California Highway Patrol. Which is the way it ought to be.

This is my fourth loss of my nine lives in the last three decades. I lost my first life when, at five years old, I was knocked unconscious and temporarily paralyzed by the venom of a Portuguese man-o-war on Miami Beach. My next life bit the dust in a swaying 10th floor hotel room during a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Mexico City. In 2006 I got trapped on a street in between a violent mob and The Royal Nepalese Army, avoiding bricks and bullets on my escape.

I mention these near-death experiences, not to boast, but to wonder what they all add up to. This latest scrape in particular has given rise to a lot of self-reflection. While bouncing across the freeway like a pinball, I could feel Death sitting on my shoulder, laughing in my ear. My luck seems so improbable that I don’t know why I’m here to write about it. I only hope that as the days go on, I can hold on to that sense of improbable survival and feel as lucky to be alive as I do in this very moment.

KPBS Fumbles

“The biggest threat that we face right now is not a nuclear missile coming over the skies. It’s in a suitcase. This is why the issue of nuclear proliferation is so important. The biggest threat to the United States is a terrorist getting his hands on nuclear weapons. We can’t simply be focused on Iraq. We have to go to the root cause, and that is the Calexico Bulldogs! We’re looking at a great night for high school football here in the Imperial Valley…”

--U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama during his debate with John McCain (as broadcast on 97.7 KPBS radio)

I know that few things in Imperial County are more important than watching several dozen thyroid-enhanced adolescents jump on top of each other on a dimly lit playing field. But is KPBS expletive deleted kidding us?  Our public broadcasting station interrupted last night’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain in order to bring us a live broadcast of… high school football.

There was no warning. No segue. No explanation. One minute Barack Obama is telling America how he plans to prevent a future terrorist attack. But he can’t finish his thought, because suddenly the Calexico High School quarterback is defending against a blitz from Vincent Memorial’s linebackers. Unlike the presidential debate, every minute of Calexico’s 65-0 victory was aired without interruption by our public broadcaster.

This isn’t the first time that KPBS – or its local outlet, KQVO Calexico – has gotten its broadcasting priorities bass ackward. Those of us old enough to remember the first landing on the moon in 1969 will recall their coverage of Neil Armstrong’s first words on the lunar surface. (See the archival video footage below:)

Shameful. And who can ever forget KPBS’s coverage of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001?

I don’t know about you, but I think this is an outrage.

I guess the old public radio programming format just doesn’t cut it anymore. That delicate mix of Brahms, in-depth news analysis, and A Prairie Home Companion can’t compete with touchdowns, cheerleaders, and the halftime band’s 847th consecutive rendition of Mustang Sally.

I think it's time for satellite radio.

Return to Cambodia

The sweet smell of pineapple fish curry.

Monkeys cracking coconuts in the palm trees above.

Straw huts on stilts with a gaudy two-star hotel in the backyard.

That’s right, I’ll be returning to Siem Reap for the 2008 Angkor Photography Festival this November. It feels great to be re-invited. Not just for the honor of exhibiting my photographs next to some of the best photojournalists in the world. It also means that I didn’t make a complete ass out of myself last year.

Loyal readers will recall what a strange thrill it was to be a part of last year’s Festival. Once you recover from a twenty-one hour flight, lulled to sleep by jet-lag and reanimated by high voltage culture-shock, be prepared for two weeks of relentless activity.

Do the tourist-thing at the Angkor temples by day, followed by hours of photo exhibits at night. Consume hors d’oeuvres and alcohol until your innards cry out for mercy. I made more new acquaintances than I could keep up with in the last year, while reliable old friends from Nepal and France came out of nowhere to surprise me during the exhibition. And the case of nerves I had in the hours leading up to my photo presentation – that was the worst. Now that I'm a Festival veteran, I intend to keep my cool this time.

Some don'ts: When you're chatting with your favorite living photographer over a pot of steaming massaman curry in the Old French Quarter, try to speak in coherent sentences and avoid looking star-struck. Très uncool. And for the love of Siddartha Gautama, don't ask why every third photojournalist wears a neck-scarf in the humid southeast Asian jungle. It's just what we do.

If you make the most of your time, the Angkor Festival is a crash course in photojournalism at the pinnacle of the art. My photographic eye got a world class education, and my social conscience got some fine-tuning as well. I swear I saw light and shadow with greater acuity when I left Siem Reap. Not bad for two weeks in a strange city.

Still on a high from the Festival, I returned to the Imperial Valley inspired to photograph the Trejo story, which was later awarded by the Associated Press. I don’t think that would’ve happened had I not been basking in the 5,000-Kelvin afterglow of the Festival. I wanted to make images in the spirit of the best photojournalism that I'd seen in Cambodia – an inspiration that I carry with me to this day. It's another reason why the re-invitation is meaningful to me.

Of course revisiting Cambodia also means a return to Cambloggia. Now that I'm ready for the whirlwind of the Angkor Festival, my blogging plans are a bit more ambitious. I'd like to interview some of the photojournalists who I admire the most and share those meetings with you, my readers. As a side-benefit, a formal interview for a legitimate publication will lend me the super-powers I need to overcome my shyness in introducing myself to strangers and stars of this wonderful profession.

Most important of all things: My return to Siem Reap also means that I have another opportunity to eat a deep-fried spider. Cambodians gobble arachnids like border-folk scarf down chicharrones. I will not chicken out this time. I am up to the task. I think.

If one night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble, I can't wait to see what two weeks in Siem Reap will do.