Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
There’s a new and especially antibiotic-resistant bug on the loose, threatening to spread worldwide. As though we needed another new epidemic, not to mention all the floods and earthquakes and rising seas and so on. In fact the suspense is killing me, as I await the plagues of toads and suchlike falling from the skies (Exodus 7-12).
But the near-universal spread of the consumerist virus doesn’t get enough press. (Maybe that’s because governments around the world have every … Read more
I’m not going to buy the iMac. (See my earlier post 26 July: “Make yourself feel better and save $200,000 to boot“.)
I recognize the syndrome. The world is going to hell all around me, and I haven’t won any literary prizes this week. My girl don’t love me and my chickens all ran away, not to mention my cotton won’t grow (© Mad Max iMac McGinty), and I sit here singing the blues and wondering … Read more
I saw a letter to the editor in yesterday’s *Bangkok Post* that raised the question of whether exploration oil drilling could do any more harm to Samui’s natural environment than mass tourism has already accomplished. Same old story, wherever you go–the same scenes that are being “spoiled” for the old hand, are often “just wonderful, so natural!” to the first-time visitor.
Here’s a take I did on this notion years ago (first photo from www.phuket-trips.com):
The silence boomed. At … Read more
Khao Phansa—roughly, “Buddhist Lent,” also known as the Rains Retreat, a time of spiritual renewal—began yesterday.
Sara came home late from a post-workday shopping excursion with Ms. Kook, her chief mentor in all things consumerist. They went to Siam Paragon Center, where many items were “70-80 percent off.” And what did she buy? A bunch of leaded crystal balloon glasses from the Czech Republic.
“Just look at all the money I saved,” she says, with a knowing … Read more
I made the mistake of going into an iStudio shop yesterday and sitting in front of a lesser version of this Uber-computer I could buy for half price, which is so sophisticated the iStudio staff not only didn’t have one, they found it hard to believe that Apple had let one escape into the wild. Never mind, even the lesser version, with its acres of screen space, the entire computer built into the monitor’s frame, already had me thinking. 
But … Read more
We’re afflicted, here in Bangkok, by an atmosphere of foreboding. The messy events of April-May might appear to be behind us. But this surface calm, in some ways, resembles a moonlit pool on a still night. You’d never suspect this pool is full of big sharks just waiting to erupt in a frenzy. All they need is for someone to toss them a nice chunk of something bloody. Yesterday’s bomb was the mere slice of a dorsal fin, a wee … Read more
Okay, so it’s a stretch. But one has to think, given current sensibilities with respect to offshore oil drilling, Rak Aao Thai Network Group couldn’t have found a better time to protest oil exploration in the vicinity of Thailand’s third-largest tourist island.
Come July 31st, we can look forward to aerial coverage—with possible surprises for aerial viewers—of a 35,000-strong human chain standing hand-in-hand on the 52-kilometre road that encircles Koh Samui. Better still, we can hike on down … Read more
Hypothesis: Education should aim at producing critical thinkers, citizens who can choose intelligently between competing claims regarding our proper ends and means as individuals and communities.
Really critical thinkers are in relatively short supply in any country. In Thailand, some would argue, there’s an actual cultural bias against critical thought. Questioning the way things are can easily become confrontational, and thus bad form. Impolite. Such a taboo might explain why even today a lot of teachers react badly to … Read more
It’s my turn to compliment Jack on a nice turn of phrase, one I’m now going to adapt to yet another haiku, which, as anybody can tell you, is easier than writing a novel.
Summer sun-swollen
Dead horse abuzz with blowflies
Conjures the World Cup.
“Not beautiful,” is Sara’s opinion. She could be right. But, hey. There are already enough haiku-ish conventions without some rule it’s also got to be beautiful.
The illustration is from David M. Hart’s webpage, … Read more
S. Tsow, whom we all recognize as a canny businessman, says the vuvuzela craze will end with this year’s World Cup series.
Ms. Mu (“Pig”), on the other hand, who knows more about “biznet” than Rockefeller and Trump combined, says that is not so. Mainstream support for her claim is to be found in news reports (e.g. this one, and this one) regarding Chinese vuvuzela manufacturers, who are moving millions of these
items, and who plan, before they … Read more
