I begin my weekend with a sincere thank you for the storm that decided to give the Mississippi Coast a break….but the same cannot be said for Louisiana….please keep their plight in your minds and help if you can.

Does anyone remember Qaddafi’s body guards?

Since the early 1970s, an eye-popping cadre of 30 women have shadowed and at times taken bullets for the man who is today, at 68, the Arab world’s most senior dictator.

The women pledge oaths of loyalty to Gaddafi, including a vow of virginity, according to reports. The female bodyguards are not just for show. In 1998, one died and two were injured when Gaddafi was attacked.

It’s a dangerous job and yet for most of the four decades that they have stood by Gaddafi, they have seemed as much his statement on style and gender politics as his security detail.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-03-16/photos-gaddafis-female-bodyguards

Sorry I shall get to the point……I bring up this piece of nostalgia because Qaddafi was not the only one to use the idea of these ladies……..

Seems the new king of Thailand, Rama X, has an army of sex soldiers….

Maha Vajiralongkorn, the 68-year-old king of Thailand, better known as Rama X, sits atop both a throne and the upper-most floor of a luxury hotel in a tiny ski village in the alpine regions of Germany. He fled there back in April. It’s his quarantine pad. (The king was granted a special dispensation by local German authorities that allowed the hotel to remain open, since all others in the town are closed due to COVID.) And because he’s royalty, he’s brought a private army with him. 

But this army is no conventional fighting force. It’s a unit of 20 “sex soldiers.” They’ve been given the honorary title of “Sirivajirabhakdi,” which means “The Beautiful One Who Will Be Faithful to the King,” per Max Boddeker, a reporter at the German newspaper Bild. 

For the women called to serve their king, it’s both an honor and a privilege. Yet, in a society where women are subservient to men, honorable exploitation doesn’t seem all that honorable, just exploitative. As journalist and Thailand expert, Andrew MacGregor Marshall explains, “The concubines make a big gamble — with the hope of winning big. Some are happy to join and are hoping for riches and success for themselves and their families. … Others give in to the king’s pressure to join over fear of the consequences if they refuse.”

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/with-an-army-of-sex-soldiers-a-thai-king-makes-his-great-escape

Have you now heard it all?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”