Monday 13 Jan, Dateline Bangkok

Okay, Kiddo

Google maps shows Bangkapi (area of north-east Bangkok)

and a large boulevard running generalle E-W

Lahd Prao (or Lad Phrao) and we live way out toward the right,

but I'll be reporting from the leftward-most intersection
where Lahd Prao turns into another big street/boulevard,

Here's the GMap linkie where we live: Lahd Prao 101, going UP
off the screen, and Lad Phrao clearly marked angling across the screen:
http://bit.ly/1eIQ4AD

Follow Lahd Prao LEFTWARD until it merges with Wipawadi
(mal-written Vibhavadi)-Rangsit, and from that intersection
BACK, rightward, to the large MALL-ROOF you can see about mid-screen,
I expect to be elbow-to-buttbulge with MOB-people Monday...

The mall-roof is Central Lahd Prao, one of the loci of focus Monday.


Now, here's what I gather so far: there is the Red-Shirt faction
which has been denied its turn at the trough since electing Taksin Shinawat
only to have him deposed;
then Yingluck Shinawat's first electionwas nullified by the Supreme Court;
and her second national votewas 2010, when the Red-Shirts rioted downtown,
so the vote was delayed;

then she was finally elected with an absolute majority in parliament, because
the Shinawat family is either popular enough OR
has enough CA$H to pay plenty of peasants
to get an absolute majority (I think a bit of both, as Taksin owned Shin communications,
with TV, cell-phone infrastructure, satellites and radio,
AND ca$h galore)

which all meant the Yellow-Shirts were OUT of power for a while, along with
the Democrats and a couple other more-or-less minor parties that USED TO
gain power by forming alliances, but they really lost traction
against the full majority that needed no alliances, so

they started agitating about Taksin's 'corruption', even though he is/was
out of the country, and HIS corruption must mean that Yingluck IS CORRUPT, too,
just ask us... (methinks there is more than enough corruption to go around, but
the 'powerless' outsiders don't dwell on THEIR suck at the national tit, so

when the pre-Christmas bruhaha started last year, it started as Yellow-VS-Red shirts,
but morphed through the Whistlers' Demonstration, and again into
a more-or-less broadly supported CALM demo
set for Monday, with several MILLION expected in the streets,
even after Sutep (suthep) being told by all sorts of Talking Heads on TV
that he CANNOT be Prime Minister because he, too, is tainted
because of his public, rabble-rousing statements, accusations and
defamatory allegations leading up to today while rallying the
Yellow Shirt mob, when

Sutep was shown on Thai TV, walking with a quarter-million people
NOT totally enamored of Sutep, but willing to put it ALL on the line Monday,
demanding CLEAN (honest, transparent, accountable) government!

Karridine