Dissident Veteran For Peace: For the Phin of it

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Sunday, March 09, 2014

For the Phin of it

The large wood mouth organ at 0:17 is called a kaen or khene. The double-necked electrified string instrument at 0:59 in the video below is called a phin. The music seems to be a luk thung-influenced version of a traditional Lao folk style known as mor lam from the Isan region of Thailand--the northeastern part of the country sandwiched between Laos and Cambodia. The female lead singer is Angkana Khunchai and I can't find much information about her in English but she's been singing commercially since at least the 1980s though I'd guess the "Sa-la-wan rum wong" video is from the 1970s.