ollylama

Heads up! Just saw a sign that Mau Tour is relocating under a different name close to Wat Phra Singh under the name "Globe Trek Thailand"

Buyer beware!

See photo for details.

One problem with the Chiang Mai Mail, as I understand it is that they have gradually phased out all the farang staff. Given that it's a paper that used to be directed at the expat community, this would seem to be a misguided maneuver. Of course, I'm not sure if it's part of a new business plan or just a coincidence and that they plan to get more expat writers in again.

Citylife on the other hand, seems to be getting better and better. If they added a news reporting section similar to Chiang Mai Mail's then there would be absolutely no reason to purchase the Mail.

While there may be folks who may have some personal grievance against Chiang Mai Mail, everyone I know seems to think it's gone rapidly downhill. I'm of the same opinion and I gather (though, via hearsay) that it's due to an autocratic management style out of touch with the interests and needs of the local expat community. It would be just okay if it was free. But not worth spending money on.

Hubby & I are considering a long-term rental of a house in old Chiang Mai City. It is just a bit west of Siam TV (electronics) and is part of a gated (Thai) family compound. This house is right on the Soi, so it's probably the least desirable home in the compound which explains why they want to rent it.

Here we've lived in either serviced apartments or high rise condos with excellent security. We've never lived in a rented house. It does have a locked gate and bars on the windows. What is security like in that part of town? How about the noise? There isn't much traffic and the landlady said no neighbors have dogs, but that's got to be some sort of anomoly for Thailand!

Incidentally, Hubby plans to check out the noise between 2 and 4 am this coming Saturday, but we'd appreciate any recommendations, expecially about security.

right on a soi in the old city? the soothing sound of motorcycles zipping by might very well lull you into madness.

who was behind the making of the film?

I was amazed how that little "B" grade movie became a sub-culture hit film. I guess a lot of Ameriicans could identify with the characters... as a sort of F-you establishment thing. But, it's understandable that some clever establishment "dude" would try and market it.

man i'm amazed at how easy it is for people to misunderstand what's going on here.

if people would click on the links i posted they'd find out more.

check out this article at the dudespaper: http://dudespaper.com/dudeism-at-the-movies.html/

for some radio interviews i gave which explain a lot more you can see this: http://dudespaper.com/jesus-man-can-you-ch...the-radio.html/

i'd love to get some dudeist events going in thailand. anyone who digs dudeism is welcome to contact me.

How do we know he is from Chiang Mai? I thought Ben Youngblood was the inspiration behind the movement?

Ben's a cool guy, a Lebowski-fan and a definite Dude. He was going to start a similar site around the time I did but I think didn't get around to it. Dude minds think alike.

That's a nice piece of property from which he's preaching his Dude-like asceticism. Give a yuppie a dirty robe and he thinks he's a Hollywood prophet.

It wasn't my house. That was just where they wanted to film. It was the house of a friend of the producer.

I'm not a yuppie. I live in Chiang Mai and write travel articles part-time.

I wonder why promoting a philosophy of being nice to people and taking it easy brings out the worst in some people. I guess these aren't people for whom Dudeism would be a very compelling pastime anyway.

Anyway, for those of you who aren't real reactionaries, Nihilists, or human paraquat, please check out the sites:

http://www.dudeism.com, http://www.dudespaper.com, http://www.dudeism.com/tao

because it feels good. try it: hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

ow, i got a cramp.

Smash. I laugh ever single time I see that.

I was in a gunfight once, the other guy had a knife. I won.

I have been in several. No bragging, just the facts. ( and wished it never woulda happened,but that was what I got paid to do..)

One was with a woman with two very large steak knives in a kitchen coming at me in a windmill fashion.

I won that one .

Another, a man with a pistol and a shotgun with a pair of pinking shears stuck in his chest. He raised the shotgun towards me.

I won that one as well.

Last one, surprised me. Shot off the tip of my trigger finger, still managed to get some rounds out, he took some rounds in the leg. He's in prison for life.

I won.

Another, man sitting on a couch. He pulled out a small pistol from under the pillow as I entered the front door.

He no longer has the use of one arm and is paralized from the waist down. I won.

I would never assumed I could have won with my eyes closed. Eyes were wide open and I still missed a couple of times.

It was a grand day when I retired.

presumably you were a policeman?

Hummm, if I go back and read, some of them don't quite feel like humor to me, but anyway, lets say that the dust has settled.

Both the establishment and the alternative folks criticize, but the alternative side it's usually the underdog and it seems to me that its usually the one at the receiving end for the most part and it has become quite OK to criticize or dismiss anything that runs counter to the prevailing mainstream line of thought. Anyway, peace prevails

I guess it depends on what social circles you travel in, but in Chiang Mai I'm always the "underdog" when it comes to these things. And when I go home to Los Angeles it's not much better. Most people I know tend to favor the alternative view. Die hard skeptics/rationalists in Chiang Mai are thin on the ground. Carlos, I think you're probably in good company here.

Those people remind me of the religious fundamentalist, I would call them "medical fundamentalist", they talk the same way.

Planet Earth is a few billion years old? nonsense, my holy book says that it was created in just 6 days and that was a few thousand years ago. Same way of talking and same level of intelligence. They follow the all knowing god of western medical science, the same one that said until recently that acupuncture didn't work, now they admit that it does work, the problem is, they also say that they don't have a clue about why it works...... hummm that tell me that they still have a few things to learn and discover, but try to tell those guys.

take it easy, carlo. no need to go hurling insults. but i understand. you must be cranky from a lack of food. i'll happily buy you a meal sometime if you like. mad dog has a great breakfast. mmmm.

seriously, though, you've got it backwards. people who toss their chips in with scientifically-supported theories are the opposite of fundamentalists. they don't trust their own "feelings" about things. that's what fundamentalists do. they think what they feel and experience is the final answer to any question.

experience is not king. it is your buddy, your pal, your muse or your irritating sibling, but it is certainly not the ideal arbiter of what is true and what is not. if it was, we'd still be thinking rain meant that god was crying.

people don't love their gods because of what it says in a book. they love their gods because it's nice to believe in them and they imagine that jesus et. al will fix all their problems. but just try telling a religious person that! they end up getting very insulted. same thing happens when you tell alternative therapy folks that the things they believe in probably don't work. bursts the bubble.

by the way, acupuncture doesn't work either.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/07/04...5c900016f7f.txt

i must admit, i have tried fasting and i think it's nice. it forces you to slow down a bit and spend the day on the couch watching movies.

Here is a link that says that acupuncture works:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/149708.php

Also: "A poll of American doctors in 2005 showed that 59% believe acupuncture was at least somewhat effective.[111] In 1996, the United States Food and Drug Administration changed the status of acupuncture needles from Class III to Class II medical devices, meaning that needles are regarded as safe and effective when used appropriately by licensed practitioners.[112][113]. In addition, nearly 50% of U.S. health care plans now cover acupuncture, showing increased acceptance of acupuncture as a viable treatment."

By the way, acupuncture works particularly well to fix impotence, I do know someone that fixed his problem that way; try to tell him that it doesn't work!

Scientifically-supported theories are fine, but there are also many ways to scientifically point things in the direction that you want and dismiss what you don't want to promote, case in point would be all the research studies, trials, etc that are funded by parties that have an interest in getting results that will benefit or promote their products like often happens when manufactures do trials of their chemical products, pesticides, etc, etc, and they usually end up showing that those products are harmless, DDT used to be safe, remember? My point anyway, is to follow something not because of faith or belief (whether scientific or non scientific belief), but because you've done it, you can demonstrate the results and you can repeat those results over and over, isn't that how scientific facts are actually established?

After my first fast, cholesterol levels dropped from 180 to 130, triglycerides and other fats also dropped big time, etc, etc, felt great, fasting works for me like clockwork, time and time again, so it does bother me when someone says that it doesn't work and try to reinterpret my experiences. Those experiences that I have are practical facts, not beliefs or theories. I've know many others with similar experiences. Again, as I said before, fasting or colonics or other alternative practices will work for some people and will not work for others, and they also need to be done properly and under the right circumstances same as most procedures. There are many ways of doing fasting, some people know what they are doing, some don't. I think the point here should be to respect the experiences of others and not try to ridicule them, everybody should be able to offer their input and experience in a respectful way and then everybody can benefit from the discussion. Didn't mean to insult anybody, but like I said, ridiculing my experiences does bother me. Cheers.

Why is it that when the alternative folks criticize the establishment it's ok, but when the establishment criticizes the alternative folks, they start throwing patchouli and getting all huffy? you make one joke about a faster having a headache because he's not eating enough (not because of toxins) and suddenly you're mussolini. on a related subject, why do the alternative folks have such a poor sense of humor?

carlo, we're all welcome to reinterpret your experiences and say that what you're promoting is true or not true. this is a forum. in a forum you have discussions. and in discussions people will disagree with the idea that what you're experiencing are "facts". i don't think you've been ridiculed here - maybe joked around with a bit, but hardly ridiculed.

I would think that juice fasting would fall into the "We know it works, but we don't know why category". I do not think at there is a lot of doubt that it is healthful when done correctly. Research scientists admit that controlled starvation (few calories, but lots of nutrients) is the only way to prolong life.

so far only in mice, though. and there are some serious reservations about it apparently that you don't hear much about, at least according to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

by the way UG, I didn't mean "that you don't hear much about" to mean you personally. i mean, that nobody hears much about. i also thought that calorie restriction might pose some promise in regards to longevity.

I would think that juice fasting would fall into the "We know it works, but we don't know why category". I do not think at there is a lot of doubt that it is healthful when done correctly. Research scientists admit that controlled starvation (few calories, but lots of nutrients) is the only way to prolong life.

so far only in mice, though. and there are some serious reservations about it apparently that you don't hear much about, at least according to wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

Those people remind me of the religious fundamentalist, I would call them "medical fundamentalist", they talk the same way.

Planet Earth is a few billion years old? nonsense, my holy book says that it was created in just 6 days and that was a few thousand years ago. Same way of talking and same level of intelligence. They follow the all knowing god of western medical science, the same one that said until recently that acupuncture didn't work, now they admit that it does work, the problem is, they also say that they don't have a clue about why it works...... hummm that tell me that they still have a few things to learn and discover, but try to tell those guys.

take it easy, carlo. no need to go hurling insults. but i understand. you must be cranky from a lack of food. i'll happily buy you a meal sometime if you like. mad dog has a great breakfast. mmmm.

seriously, though, you've got it backwards. people who toss their chips in with scientifically-supported theories are the opposite of fundamentalists. they don't trust their own "feelings" about things. that's what fundamentalists do. they think what they feel and experience is the final answer to any question.

experience is not king. it is your buddy, your pal, your muse or your irritating sibling, but it is certainly not the ideal arbiter of what is true and what is not. if it was, we'd still be thinking rain meant that god was crying.

people don't love their gods because of what it says in a book. they love their gods because it's nice to believe in them and they imagine that jesus et. al will fix all their problems. but just try telling a religious person that! they end up getting very insulted. same thing happens when you tell alternative therapy folks that the things they believe in probably don't work. bursts the bubble.

by the way, acupuncture doesn't work either.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/07/04...5c900016f7f.txt

i must admit, i have tried fasting and i think it's nice. it forces you to slow down a bit and spend the day on the couch watching movies.

this video doesn't offer any new insights. he says "fasting aids mental clarity and it probably does this by cleansing the body of toxins, and i know this is a controversial claim and ultimately you just have to try it yourself and see if you feel the same way."

come on. why use the bogeyman word "toxins" in such a context? one might as well use the term "thetans" - which the scientologists have done, to resounding effect. i maintain that this word "toxins" is so badly misused by alternative therapists that it should constitute a red flag for anyone with the slightest inclination to skepticism.

just say "fasting makes me feel healthier." anything else is utter pseudoscience. and just as lame as when people invoke a severely limited understanding of particle physics to justify supernatural phenomena.

the guy in the video says that when you stop eating for a while your body gets a chance to flush out toxins. and again, that the headaches are caused by "detoxification." and goes on to say that the pancreas gets to stop creating digestive enzymes and instead can work on detoxification.

this is all made up. it's a Kiplingesque just-so story. the guy just keeps going on and on about his own personal impressions about what foods are good and which ones are bad. saying that science hasn't supported these notions because "there's no money in [studying] fasting" is specious. fasting has been studied (hence the ketone problem i mentioned above) and the results seem to have shown very little to recommend it. which (again) isn't to say that you shouldn't do it - only don't start talking about pancreases and toxins and other fantasy explanations for why you do it.

that's cool, man. you've got your opinion, i've got mine. i didn't mean to imply i had the last word on the subject by writing "THE END". That was just another ass-oriented joke. if colonics make you feel better, then you're fortunate - it's a simple way to improve the quality of your day. but i don't think that "personal experience" proves anything. even if i personally liked colonic hydrotherapy i'd probably still consider it a bad idea.

people should do whatever they want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. but i also think that there is a campaign of disinformation being waged by the new age/alternative health community. alternative health and new age therapists quite generally dispense treatment which has no clinical benefit, only placebo - but as we all know the placebo effect is more powerful than most medicines. but is it ethical to charge (sometimes quite high fees) for fakery - even if it's inadvertent? however, there are also are many unethical/moneygrubbing practices which are part and parcel of the western health community.

the problem is that since your heath is priceless, it's easy for health practitioners to manipulate the market and prey on the lack of knowledge of those who are anxious about their own well-being. as far as i know, science is the only way to cut through any of the bullshit. and that includes cutting through the bullshit of western medical doctors -- one of the main reasons the usa has such a problem with health care is because doctors routinely order expensive tests and treatments that they know probably won't do any good but which make them moolah. studies have shown that patients don't benefit from a lot of the stuff western doctors do as well.

so even though western medicine works far better than alternative medicine does (as proven by science), the business side of western medicine renders it just as prone to screw the patient in the bum as any hydrocolonic "doctor".

there is no such thing as "toxins."

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4083

http://www.massagetoday.com/archives/2002/12/08.html

the reason you had a headache was because you were hungry, dude. you don't need to be a "doctor of divinity" to arrive at that conclusion.

of course, anyone can purchase a "doctor of divinity" ph.d at the universal life church for 29.95.

just because things sound logical doesn't mean they are. the word "spurious" is a good one to keep in mind at all times, like a swiss army knife to separate truth from truthiness.

Lisa Simpson : Dad, I think that's pretty spurious.

Homer : Well, thank you, honey.

No dud, I wasn't hungry at all for the most part, maybe difficult for you to believe it or to understand how it works since you don't seem to have a clue about these things, but again, I was the one going through it and I have my experience, which nobody can take away, as for you....... why don't you joint the crowd of "The Earth is flat", same way of thinking dude.

"there is no such thing as "toxins."", wow, that's a good one

If you're done being cheeky, my bummed-out friend, let me ass-ure you that i'm quite familiar with different anal-yses of colonics and other silly ways to separate the earnest from their hard earned cash. i had a regular column in a magazine where i took the piss out of a wide array of pseudosciences.

here's one i wrote which you will no doubt find full of poo:

Zen and the Art of Utter Rubbish

The Bottom Line

What is this strange relationship between progressive philosophy and the human posterior? I mean, I’ve got nothing against the bum per se, and couldn’t imagine life without one. For one thing, It would be very difficult to balance on a barstool. And the bikini industry would see their profits slashed by 50 percent. But do we really need to pay so much attention to its inner workings? The earnest new-ager or alternative medicine aficionado would certainly assent to that assertion. And while I see their point, I’d like to take the time to interject a few important buts.

Though I often rail against new age stuff, I was once quite the fan. Many years ago I spent a lovely two weeks in the Himalayas at a yoga retreat designed to cleanse my soul as well as other equally unfathomable aspects of my person. After drinking a liter of salt water and throwing up tiny remnants of the tragic little food I’d been allowed the day before, I was invited to take a huge enema. When I balked, the master insisted, with no apparent irony, that “The ends justify the means.” I assured him that my end was already perfectly justified, and that being mean to it would serve no purpose at all.

Still, I understood why they thought this would have made me a better person. As we all know, clean is good, dirty is bad. And what’s more dirty than, well, you know? Since “purification” is at the base of all mystical practices, it stands to reason that this rather impure of locations might draw an inordinate amount of attention from those who’ve acquired such a bent.

Nearly all spiritual retreats now offer supercharged versions of the humble enema – it’s called “colonic irrigation” and is essentially a variation on the childhood taunt “up your nose with a rubber hose” only God, in his eternal wisdom, placed your nose far away from where this rubber hose is headed. Plus, if you stuck this high pressure stream in your nose your eyeballs would fly across the room.

The principle behind colonics is that because modern humans eat so poorly we’ve got all sorts of petrified crud (“plaques”) on the insides of our intestines, and outside of surgery, only a firehose can remove them. The problem, of course, is that there are no plaques in there at all. After hundreds of years of dissecting cadavers and a few decades of colonoscopies, the medical community can state with rather fundamental authority that there is absolutely no such thing as intestinal plaques, or tar as it’s affectionately referred to by licensed colonic irrigators (who are sometimes affectionately referred to as Tarminators.). Any benefit the patient receives from the procedure, therefore, is probably purely psychological. Call it the assebo effect.

This, of course, flies in the face of first-hand knowledge of many of those who have been irrigated. “I saw it with my own eyes, man,” a friend once told me “it was like a piece of bicycle tire!” The possibility that it really is a piece of bicycle tire planted there by overzealous irrigationists notwithstanding, there is likely a far more simple answer. What most colonics patients fail to remember is that they are normally fed an oral solution prior to receiving their treatment. This solution often contains psyllium fiber – a plant compound normally used to treat constipation that grows to many times its dried size on contact with water. A couple spoonfuls with a meal will approximate the driving of an eighteen-wheel lorry through your digestive tract. So even the smallest amount of this tough, fibrous powder will be likely to make a pretty grand exit.

Nevertheless, this whole “plaque” bogeyman is just window-dressing for the real problem, namely that of “toxins.” The reason we must “purify” our bodies via induced vomiting, turbo enemas, extended fasting and bitter herbs is because we unfortunates are filled with malevolent “toxins.” But what are toxins, anyway? The standard answer is that they are things that shouldn’t be in our bodies (rubber pipes being apparently exempt). Most toxins, it is assumed, are byproducts of the modern world – pesticides, artificial hormones, industrial carbon and the entire McDonalds menu. As the primary channel to receive toxins is presumably through food, it stands to reason that we should be obsessively aware of the process of taking in food and excreting its waste products.

And yet, the body does just fine on its own. That’s exactly what our livers and kidneys and colons are here for. If nature wanted us to stick high pressure torrents up our bums she would have given us garden hoses for arms. Of course, this is a potentially specious argument – nature didn’t intend for us to eat Big Macs for breakfast either. But then, our distant ancestors dined on things far filthier and they didn’t need to sit on any geysers.

Of course, the best way to avoid taking in toxins is to avoid taking in anything at all. Practitioners of alternative medicine therefore recommend periodically going without food of any sort for extended periods of time, a solution that virtually every trained medical practitioner will tell you is not only utter nonsense, but unhealthy and if carried on too long, quite dangerous. All one needs to do is visit a refugee camp anywhere in the world to see what the effects of extended fasting are. Yet many fasters report that they feel much better after a fast. Of course the operative word here is “after.” There is nothing quite so wonderful as plain white rice and water after you’ve starved yourself stupid. Suddenly a sliver of carrot looks like a heavenly boon and the world is vibrantly alive with wonderful offerings you once took for granted. If you push it too far, though, those wonderful offerings can include a saline drip, shots of adrenaline, and a comfy hospital bed.

The sad and resolutely scientific truth is, when it comes to removing toxins, fasting will do nothing. It takes energy for your system to work, and without energy it will have a harder time filtering out things that should not be there. In fact, after an extended time without food, “toxins” will actually build up in the body in the form of ketones, causing the blood to become dangerously acidic. Still, there’s nothing wrong with going without food for a day or so, however, and some travelers report that this is not only a good way to get over the runs, but also leaves more money for beer.

So if you really want to be clean and healthy inside and out, just eat a high-fiber diet, exercise regularly, and let the amazing human body doo-doo what it does naturally.

You’re better off using the hose to irrigate your vegetable garden.

THE END

Didn't he turn water into Milk of Magnesia?

Time for a prayer...

Our Doctor, who art not a real doctor

Give us today our daily enema.

And lead us not into constipation.

For thine is the colonic, and the water, and the gory.

A-Menorreah.

there is no such thing as "toxins."

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4083

http://www.massagetoday.com/archives/2002/12/08.html

the reason you had a headache was because you were hungry, dude. you don't need to be a "doctor of divinity" to arrive at that conclusion.

of course, anyone can purchase a "doctor of divinity" ph.d at the universal life church for 29.95.

just because things sound logical doesn't mean they are. the word "spurious" is a good one to keep in mind at all times, like a swiss army knife to separate truth from truthiness.

Lisa Simpson : Dad, I think that's pretty spurious.

Homer : Well, thank you, honey.

i also have been somewhat puzzled by the continuing enthusiasm for jackson's work - particularly by people who weren't even alive when his best material was released. i've been watching TV in the US tonight and every channel is filled with teenagers bemoaning his passing. i didn't even realize that anyone listened to him anymore.

the thing also is, "king of pop" almost sounds like a pejorative moniker to me - someone who panders to the fashion of the times. in many ways i think he did just that. very lowest-common-denominator kind of material.

all in all i think what he was most talented at was dancing. and i don't really care much for that. presumably many others do. his music was hardly ground-breaking, and much of what he accomplished should be attributed to Quincy Jones, not himself.

weird that two such immense 70s icons passed away on the same day - jackson and fawcett.

i've always been a bit turned off by the name. too close to smegma.

o

My house with the wife, kids and five dogs* has never been broken into in 20 years. Just fortunate, I suppose.

I remember the time when one of my dogs used to follow me to the tennis courts. My tennis partner Jack thought he was a lovely dog and patted and played with him, which the dog quite liked. One time, when Jack came to my house to see why I was late, the same dog nearly had his leg off when he entered the gate uninvited!! I consoled him with the statement 'Don't worry, he's just being territorial' which I thought was slightly better than 'He's only playing'!!

*Beware - they WON'T lick you to death!!

re: my original post, after we moved out of the university-area house (which i mentioned had been broken into twice) a thai woman and her son moved in. they weren't worried about getting robbed since they had two dogs. guess what happened? they went away for a while and when they came back everything in the house was gone, including the two dogs.

so we considered ourselves lucky that we got out of there when we did. still, i'm sure having dogs helps a lot. it depends on how determined the thieves are. some locations are worse than others. that area behind the university (lang mor chor) by suthep road is particularly bad - three years ago a friend who lived around there said almost every house on his lane had been broken into.

i guess i was hoping that wat gate was a more secure area. presumably there's no such thing.

let's have the upcoming thaivisa party there! all drinks are on me!

In the five years I've lived in a house in Chiang Mai, various houses I've rented have been broken into three times. The first two times (I believe) were due to the fact that our house (near the university) was adjacent to a construction company that housed a mass of illegal Burmese migrant workers who could keep tabs on us and see when we came and went. The first time it seemed that we surprised them because they only a small camera was missing and a gathered pile of valuable stuff was left in the middle of our living room. The second time a friend who was house sitting seemed to arrive just in time for them to escape because the door was forced open but nothing was missing.

After living in that house for three years, we lived in a house on a Nimmanhaemin soi which had just been broken into before we rented it -- the farang girl who lived there prior to us had lots of valuable stuff stolen including her laptop. But the landlord took great pains to secure it and so it was pretty hard to break into.

We moved into a new house in the Wat Gate area last September. Three days ago our house was broken into. Our landlord who lives next door says such a thing has never happened in the neighbourhood as far as he knows. About 900 dollars in cash (unlucky - normally we don't keep that kind of money in the house) and a camera was stolen, but all other minor valuables were left behind. A door was forced open but not before they almost managed to unscrew the entire set of bars from one of our windows and go in that way.

Interestingly, all three break ins happened during a holiday - Loi Kratong, then Songkran, now Macha Bucha.

I'm curious to know if we're just really unlucky or if any of you all have been robbed, and if so, how often?

By the way, the tourist police were totally unhelpful, rude and unwilling to come out and investigate. It was only when our landlord (who is from a well known family) called the cops that half the police force showed up.

Word to the wise -- double check all your doors, maybe install deadbolts instead of padlocks, and secure your valuables. And unless you're well-connected, don't expect any help from the Thai police.