“The hierarchy of good, however, is not fixed and identical at all times. If someone prefers revenge to justice, he is moral by the standard of an earlier culture, yet by the standard of the present culture he is immoral. ‘Immoral’ then indicates that someone has not felt, or not felt strongly enough, the higher, finer, more spiritual motives which the new culture of the time has brought with it.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Human, All Too Human”, 1878.
“The whole party moved swiftly through the narrow path, toward the north, leaving the healing waters to mingle unheeded with the adjacent brooks and the bodies of the dead to fester on the neighbouring mount, without the rites of sepulture; a fate but too common to the warriors of the woods to excite either commiseration or comment.”
James Fenimore Cooper, “The Last of the Mohicans”, 1826.
Creeping October
Guess who is in town
Homecoming
The big college game
Goon jocks past and present
Pilsner fog
Purple painted faced engineers pursuing Colonel Kurtz?
Initiation rites
Into what?
Last binge?
And the roar after the big play
Fat assed frat girls as a caramel sundae/Sunday’s
For their boys
And we all know the topping I’m talking about
But everything is so decent when the turkey is carved
Robert K. Stephen
19October 2025: Siem Reap, Cambodia: Obese Americans with Fanny Packs (Ozempic People)
Travelling is primarily observational. Churches, monuments, cuisine, archaeological sites, topography and people. The majority of Americans are obese and benefit from the current vogue word “inclusion”. Obese Americans in fanny packs lolling through Sofitel caught my eye as a bizarre site. Throughout my Asian travels few obese people are seen except for American tourists. You can see hefty Americans en masse in the United States but suddenly to encounter a passle of them in Cambodia rather makes them “stick out”! I almost thought some of the hotel staff saw them as a “tourist attraction”!
It was bizarre to see twenty or so obese couples albeit for one very ill looking fellow. My guess from reading the activity board is they are part of the Viking Cruise clan. Gaudy attire, baseball hats and fanny packs! One of the reasons I avoid Times Square in New York are the hordes of rotund Midwestern Americans mouths agape staring up in the air excitedly gawking about and pointing, snapping photos to prove they were in Times Square.
These folks speak too loudly and hang out in a pack. Even in the sophisticated Champagne Bar at the hotel they are overly casually attired almost shouting, drinking beer, wearing baseball caps and looking like beings from a different planet. Obese in Boston is vastly different from obese in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Sort of like the usual versus the exceptional.
At breakfast their plates are piled high with pancakes, toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, orange juice and American coffee. Are we at an IHop? All avoided local fruits and Asian dishes. Why leave the ship?
One streamer of an afternoon I headed to the swimming pool where the tubby gang was bobbing in the pool and drinking cold beer. I was wearing a gaudy Uniqlo Keith Haring frog themed t-shirt and caused a stir with open mouthed stares. Was it my lithe physique (dream on) or my bright green and white frogger?
“So to begin, there’s a village not far from here called Varlungo, as every one of you knows or will have heard from other people. I had once a valiant priest, a fine figure of a man who served the ladies well. He was not much of a reader, but every Sunday he would spout wholesome holy verbiage beneath the churchyard elm to refresh the spirits of his parishioners. When the men were off somewhere, he would come visiting their wives more solicitously than any priest they’d ever had before. Sometimes bringing religious bits and pieces, holy water or candle-ends into their houses, and giving them his blessings.”
Giovanni Boccaccio, “Decameron”.
“I have heard it said that there are men who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. I know not but man may so deform his works in the settlement, as to leave that which is so clear in the wilderness a matter of doubt among traders and priests. If any such there be, and he will follow me from sun to sun through the windings of the forest, he shall see enough to teach him that he is a fool, and that the greatest of his folly lies in striving to rise to the level of One he can never equal, be it in goodness or power.”
James Fenimore Cooper, “The Last of the Mohicans”, 1826.
Another limited quantity wine from the Smith and Montpetit Winery in the Similkameen Valley in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
100 cases produced.
A Cabernet Franc and Merlot blend. Barrel aged 12 months in 30% two-year-old French oak and 70% in neutral French oak.
Six barrels produced.
Wild yeast fermented.
Aroma: Silky smoothness. Bingish Cherry. Cranberry. Raspberry. Blackberry. Dark chocolate and tar.
Palate: High strung tightwire cherry intertwined with lavender. Assertive and in your face or better said lively on the palate. Far different than this winery’s rich and heady Merlot and Tempranillo. A seemingly short finish morphs into a much longer one.
Personality: Brash, assertive and eye opening and perhaps even juicy?
Food Pairing: Pork medallions in a raspberry jam and Port reduction sauce.
Cellarbility: Until Canadian Thanksgiving 2027.
Price: $34 CDN.
RKS 2026 British Columbia Wine Rating: 88/100.Gismondi 88.
(Maison Smith Montpetit 2023 Muse, British Columbia VQA, Maison Smith & Montpetit Bottega & Vineyard, (Produced by Mythology Vineyard, Osoyoos, British Columbia) 750 mL, 14.3%).
“There was once a judge in Pisa with more brains than muscle called Messer Riccardo da Chinzica, who may have thought that what worked well with his studies would satisfy a wife too. Being very rich, he was able to devote considerable time and effort to searching for a good-looking young lady to marry, whereas if he had been able to give himself the sort of professional counselling he gave others, good looks and youth were just what he should have run away from.”
Giovanni Boccaccio’s “Decameron”
ANXIETY
That horrible feeling of terror
Upon waking up
Nothing wrong physically they say
Based on MRI and trusty brain dye
Cognitive therapy
Medications
Mindfulness
CBD
The coping tools
But I am feeling what fools
As I wake up yet again with that feeling of terror
Robert K. Stephen
19October 2025: Of Rabies and the Ozempic Cast from Viking Cruise Lines
Descending into Siem Reap airport I was taken by the sparseness of vegetation and the flat topography. I was thinking Cambodia…jungle. On the bus to the hotel one can see what is referred to a mountain in the far distance. Flat fields with scrawny cattle grazing. The sparse traffic encountered are motorcycles. A few villages stamped with poverty, children in bare feet and feral dogs. What did my travel physician say about Cambodia…stay away from dogs and with some 200,000 dog bites a year sounds like a plan.
An embarrassing “gringo moment” upon arrival to Sofitel Angkor Phokeetrhra Hotel and Golf Resort being greeted by a traditional dance troupe…a show for the gringos!
Right to the dining room for lunch. The furnishings, service and menu indicate a true luxury hotel in a sea of archaeological heaven and poverty. Golf anyone? Perhaps a glass of champagne at the champagne bar?
An excellent lunch of sea bass in Putanesca sauce cooked to perfection with tossed greens and tomato salad for the brave (or the foolish). Chocolate tart with vanilla ice cream for dessert. ABC International, our tour company, says beer is VERBOTEN unless you pay $5USD. Obnoxious and parsimonious considering the large amount of USD paid for this trip! Excellent Angkor Wat lager!
Sofitel Angkor Phokeetrhra Hotel and Golf Resort is colonial in style with a plenitude of gleaming polished wood throughout. Our room 139 comfortable but a more colonial style than Singapore Shangri-la and Peninsula Bangkok. The bathroom is somewhat outdated and not what one might expect from a Sofitel.
Wanting to explore just a tad and get the legs moving I went with a couple of birds from ABC International to a pharmacy across the road from the hotel. A very busy street with waves of motorcycles and tuk tuk drivers gently inveigling you for their services. There are no pedestrian cross walks near the hotel and the traffic lights are rarely obeyed so crossing the street is a bit of a challenge. There are a few tourist centric businesses about including large souvenir and carpet shops and restaurants. There is a huge ramshackle buffet restaurant for locals intriguing to look at and with a buffet supper for $4USD sign me up! Not really as food safety Cambodia ranks behind Singapore and Thailand. There is clean adventuresome eating and there is unclean exotic! As my travel physician stated exercise extreme care in eating in Cambodia and be most careful hiking off the beaten path….landmines.
Oh back to the pharmacy which is a true pharmacy dispensing medications only unlike a U.S. or Canadian pharmacy which have morphed into mini supermarkets in the last couple of decades. There is a huge poster advertising rabies vaccine with a salivating German Sheppard. Perhaps a good business in a country with over 200,000 dog bites a year. Most medications at pharmacies do not require a prescription although I have heard many of the prescriptive medications may be counterfeit.
Back in the hotel lobby a bizarre sight of about 40 obese Americans with fanny packs heading out (in very loud voices) to some excursion. Could this be a cast from an Ozempic television advertisement? I see on a hotel poster board activities for Viking Cruise Lines. Are these the sophisticated passengers I see depicted in Viking Cruise line commercials. Worthy of a frog shirt scandal at the pool!
America is the 10th most obese country in the world and Canada 50th so pardon me staring at our supersize friends to the south. Quite a touristic site and what a goldmine for American pharmaceutical companies!
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