nabokov

15 hours ago, bluesofa said:

That quote reminds me of Inspector Clousuea's boss - Chief Inspector Dreyfus, when he was in the mental hospital: "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better."

The Chief Inspector kept repeating that mantra until he went insane, apparently.  You are alluding to the Coué method (see the entry for Émile Coué in Wikipedia).  Supposedly, by means of auto-suggestion, one can reprogram one's mind to become an eternal optimist and conquer whatever negative thoughts may hinder personal improvement.  (To suggest, darkly, that later propagandists took over this method to inspire entire nations to go mad would be unfair to the Frenchman, of course, but let us suggest it anyway.)  The Coué method became something of a fad in the early 1900's.  The populace merely needs to follow the example of their dear leader, who obviously knows his Coué, and lo, they'll all soon be happily daft, and completely pliable.  A variation, if you will, on the idea of a "social credit" system, without the need for constant surveillance.

Clearly a case of unrequited love.  A stiff (ahem) fine is warranted.

No doubt there are civic organizations in Thailand active in environmental matters, and numerous activists -- many of them highly educated people -- have been sounding the alarm for years now with regard to pollution and other concerns, but it appears their influence is limited.  Are they up against some kind of ingrained fatalism in the culture, or is it that possibly any kind of civic involvement -- or a call to same -- is simply ignored?  If so, it may be ignored because it is seen as an "elitist" kind of thing, since most Thais, like people everywhere, are more concerned about their next meal, and do not see environmental issues as more than an abstraction, or something merely indulged in by airheads.  (No pun intended.) 

However, one should not dismiss also the deadening oppression of a government that is itself unresponsive in any meaningful way to the pleas of those individuals and groups calling for change -- the urgent need for which has become increasingly evident.  Autocratic governments around the world have been on a campaign to intimidate and harass dissidents, whistleblowers and investigative reporters.  In countries and cultures living under such a government, there is also what could be called self-censorship, whereby individuals have internalized what the culture does not want them to think or say; they know they will be left alone as long as they do not raise their voice.  

So I would suggest that the problem is cultural and to a certain degree political.  A state apparatus resistant to change (fearful of it, really) and ready to quash those who threaten its grip, will do what it must -- by means of propaganda, infiltration of dissident movements, and all the other usual dirty tricks -- to save itself.  Those in power will ensure that no one shall be the wiser, or even care when someone just disappears, dies suddenly foaming at the mouth on a park bench, or surfaces after a long absence in a video confessing to sedition or some other infamy.  And those unnamed powers will make sure that everything will soon be forgotten -- advising the media to relegate it to yesterday's news and kill the story as soon as possible.  Money is at the heart of it -- and fear.

Texting while driving?  A global epidemic.  All too often overlooked as the real cause of the accident.    

Delightful reading, and sometimes downright hilarious, with nuggets of deep insight relating to our technology-besotted condition nowadays .  .  . are we descending into a state of mass stupor with all the information floating around?  I believe I read a while back that a certain female novelist had resolved to commit herself to daily study of algebra just to keep herself focused and sharp.  I imagine she has by now graduated to quadratic equations.  Her zen-like meditations on the beautiful abstractions of math cannot have hurt her literary work.  The rest of us, thanks to Google, Apple and those guys, are just getting dumber, I suspect. (The banner article of an issue of The Atlantic a few years ago said as much, so it has been officially confirmed!)  But wait . . . maybe those glazed-over looks one sees are merely a consequence of too much weed, the smart phones have nothing to do with it, n'est-ce pas? 

Thanks for the essay.

1 hour ago, HHTel said:

Read that again.  All credit was given to the local brit as well as the three brit cave divers and the Australian.

 

Maybe you are a bit paranoid.

Indeed.  My thanks to the poster for the link, but the article did not by any stretch of the imagination make the rescue out to be an "American-led" operation.  I think we can all agree that the professional people involved were intent on saving the trapped boys, just that.  No one was out there waving a flag.   

I had no idea what a M79 Granade Launcher looks like so I googled and found a nice picture. It's a hand held device, like a fat rifle. Very mobile, could be launched from a back of a motorcycle... Or so it seems - I don't know if it can. Anyone knows this weapon and can tell us? Someone mentioned 500m range earlier.

The M-79 grenade launcher, as the picture shows, is a light weapon. The grenade itself looks a lot like a standard ammo round -- only much, much bigger. You could say it looks like a huge, fat bullet. There is not much recoil when the weapon is fired. The launcher is stubby, as you can see by the picture, and actually could be fired from the hip if necessary. This "bomb" had to be fired from somewhere, unless it was rigged somehow to go off with a tripwire. That does not seem likely, so I imagine someone with a launcher popped a round off from a good vantage point. Actually, it could have been fired from a passing vehicle -- a classic "drive-by." Even better, from the back of a tuk-tuk. The sound is like a hollow pop -- a champagne cork popping is a good analogy. Who would even hear or notice in the swirl of Bangkok traffic?

Of course, unless the grenade was a dud, it would have gone off on impact. So I suspect it wasn't fired at all; rather, it was "planted" at the entrance way, as a kind of Mafia-like memento mori. Somewhat like the horse's head in the movie The Godfather -- but nowhere nearly as imaginative ...

I had no idea what a M79 Granade Launcher looks like so I googled and found a nice picture. It's a hand held device, like a fat rifle. Very mobile, could be launched from a back of a motorcycle... Or so it seems - I don't know if it can. Anyone knows this weapon and can tell us? Someone mentioned 500m range earlier.

The M-79 grenade launcher, as the picture shows, is a light weapon. The grenade itself looks a lot like a standard ammo round -- only much, much bigger. You could say it looks like a huge, fat bullet. There is not much recoil when the weapon is fired. The launcher is stubby, as you can see by the picture, and actually could be fired from the hip if necessary. This "bomb" had to be fired from somewhere, unless it was rigged somehow to go off with a tripwire. That does not seem likely, so I imagine someone with a launcher popped a round off from a good vantage point. Actually, it could have been fired from a passing vehicle -- a classic "drive-by." Even better, from the back of a tuk-tuk. The sound is like a hollow pop -- a champagne cork popping is a good analogy. Who would even hear or notice in the swirl of Bangkok traffic?

An interesting forum ... So often a traveller in these cities can be lulled into a sense of false security by the modernistic look of a building, its glitter and conveniences. A death trap? One would hardly think it possible. And yet, as some of you have pointed out, the design of MBK leaves much to be desired as far as safety is concerned.

I personally had never considered this an issue at MBK, which I have visited. Now I'll begin to think more seriously about the possibility of fire -- not only there, but at hotels, restaurants, etc. And not only in Thailand.

We tend to forget that standards in many countries are, well, substandard. And inspectors may be on the take or else impotent to enforce regulations. Kinda scary when you think of it ...

Thank you for the enlightening discussion.

I had just about concluded before these latest posts that it was a case of "Naked Lunch" revisited -- with the roles reversed, of course.

William Burroughs stated later in his defense that the problem was not his aim, but that the gun shot low.

But now, too many complications . . . Thai girlfriend, ex-wife, Herbalife etc. What a mess. And next we'll hear that the CNN connection was really MI5 or CIA. A hitman? This gets more twisted with each passing moment.

One almost wishes it had been simply a friendly game of William Tell gone bad.

The news item that started this discussion was almost entirely barren of details. However, something apparently touched a nerve here, because there were so many replies.

I think we must keep in mind that everyone, to a certain degree, suffers from limited perceptions due to cultural influences and conditioning.

Thus, although we may not understand exactly how "justice" is meted out in a country like Thailand, we can't therefore conclude that the Thai system is bankrupt.

I suppose my appeal here is to common sense. All societies are aware that murder must be dealt with. The problem, culturally, is what constitutes a definition of murder, as opposed to, say, religiously-sanctioned killing, or killing of the enemy in combat, or killing in the name of state power or law enforcement. That cliché about one person's terrorist being another person's freedom fighter is quite relevant here.

Essentially, the threshhold of acceptable killing differs according to time, place and circumstance, even in the same country at different times. One could say, somewhat cynically, that a murderer is simply a killer without a constituency to defend him. A rigid moralist would counter that such a "constituency" is complicit in the crime, but in the real world, the finding of "extenuating circumstances" happens all the time.

On another note, we mustn't forget that the British authorities will be putting the screws on the Thais to get to the bottom of this. The Thais, for their part, have to tread carefully, inasmuch as this episode brings to the surface all the difficulties in dealing with foreigners generally.

In Bangkok back in 2005, while looking across the alley from a nice open-air restaurant off Khao San Road, I witnessed Thai police very diplomatically attempt to subdue a totally out-of-control farang whose drunkenness and nasty demeanor were, quite frankly, enough to make me feel ashamed that I, too, was a foreigner.

Yes, it goes the other way -- frequently. The tensions between farangs and the locals will never cease. This forum is replete with tales of farangs being ripped off, accosted, violated or taken advantage of. (One reason I like to visit it.)

There is no easy solution to this one. Perhaps the real question is when to be diplomatic, when to exercise due caution lest one tread upon cultural sensibilities, and when to smash someone in the face with your fist.

We shall never know, of course, what will happen to the 80-plus kilos of smack after it has been confiscated.

Perhaps it will disappear from the storage room at police headquarters. Or perhaps there will be a ceremonious burning of plastic-wrapped bricks of brown sugar . . .