Changed, changing and stuck

Singapore was all agog recently because a Chinese immigrant professed that she still loved her native country. What they would think of someone with three "homes" escapes me ...

When I first interviewed for a job in Oklahoma, the only thing I knew about the state was "Grapes of Wrath". I came expecting dusty cornfields and weather-beaten people. Instead, I got a dramatic horizons, green fields and a friendly bunch of people. So, this struck me as true:

... several locals were telling a visitor about some of the assets of their state ... Their wives say that Oklahoma could use a beach. Otherwise, they had no complaints ... Between 2005 and 2007 Oklahoma had some 6,000 transplants from California. The grapes of wrath taste a little sweeter now.

In India, a government-owned enterprise is trying to increase condom usage amongst prostitutes:

WHICH flavour of condom do you prefer? ... Prostitutes in India opted for paan, or betel nut wrapped in a leaf, which many Indians chew as a digestive. Their answer persuaded HLL Lifecare, a company based in the state of Kerala, to market a paan-flavoured condom.

Admirably open-minded, don't you think? A state-owned enterprise conducting surveys among prostitutes and listening to their preferences ... Less open-minded, not suprisingly, is Africa. Liberia is, hands down, the most bigoted place I've ever lived in (not that I don't love Liberians and Liberia, mind you). It may be Uganda, but this describes Liberian attitudes to a T:

The country’s mix of vigorous heterosexuality and religiosity have made it one of Africa’s more homophobic places ... “Carnal knowledge against the order of nature”, as one MP put it, is imported by corrupt white men and women.