Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis Attacks Carpenters In Thailand

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup, TV Friends,

A rare example of a parasitical fungus in Thailand which can literally "possess" carpenter ants, and cause them to stray far from their homes in the jungle tree-canopy to go into a state of zombie-like paralytic rigor with their mandibles locked into place, so they hang down conveniently near the jungle-floor home of their fungus masters, who then "mummify" them while using their bodies as both food source and hatcheries for new spores ... is reported in the September 2009 issue of the American Naturalist journal.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/12/an..._fungus_horror/

You can read the official abstract of the article here :

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/603640

The press release from the University of Chicago Press here :

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/action/sh...amp;cookieSet=1

... Please think about this : some biologic entity or entities which cause(s) their victims to go far from home, engage in self-destructive behavior, become paralyzed, and then become a nursery for future demonic instances of themselves ... for ... yes, I believe they are here among us in Chiang Mai, and that certain farangs on TV (you know who you are) already exhibit the symptoms. I also think it very possible that certain areas of Chiang Mai, like the half-kilometer of Loy Kroh road running from the Ping side of the moat toward the Night Bazaar, may very well be one of the "feeding centers" of this hypothetically more advanced form of the Thai fungus described above which has learned to use humans, specifically farangs.

Now, you may (righteously) ask : "why would this hypothetical super-fungus use farangs when Thais are so much more plentiful ?" While we can look forward to Science answering this for us rigorously one day, in the meantime, we can use William of Ockham's Razor to postulate the obvious simple hypothesis : farang are, in general, older, weaker, fatter, fuller of (possibly more delicious to the fungal masters ?) high-carbohydrate easy-to-degrade foods like burgers, fish and chips, etc., and fluids like Guinness, more senile, perhaps more prone to dementia already if not actually Alzheimerian. Could the well-known depletion of testosterone of the farang males also be a contributing factor ?

That farangs who spend many hours in a state of semi-comatose partial paralysis in the subliminal flickerings of a television set attending to, while consuming much alcohol, the strange rituals of human sports like soccer and cricket and football, often to the accompaniment (in the case of soccer) of repetitive and hypnotic mantric chants might be the most vulnerable for "recruitment" for cerebral hi-jacking : another obvious hypothesis.

Good taste (as known here on TV) and scientific rigour preclude me delving further into the less obvious qualitative hypothetical symbiotic mechanisms that might also be occurring based on gender and age. But, I can't resist posing the question of whether the postulated super-fungus might have evolved to co-opt certain human farang agents as "virtual overseers," or "amplifiers," of their food-chain mechanism : for example, by driving those select farangs into the restaurant or pub business rather than just having them for dinner.

Does not Nature (in all his/her/and/or/twixt genderous glory) show us that Evolution so frequently uses the techniques of seductive masquerade ? One of the most famous (and enigmatic) sayings of Ur-Orang, reputedly one of his last fartwahs (public, Melon Level Two, aphorisms) before his untimely death while coupling energetically with a lovely young instance of Ur-Immanympha, is :

"The only difference between I and Thou is that I have seen through the disguise of Ur-Maphrodite* into what I am not."

*unfortunately the human concept of "biologically grounded gender" provides such a weak approximation of the Ur Orang concept/archetype/symbol/biological-reality, etc. that there is no effective word in any human language that translates "Ur-Maphrodite." the "best approximations" would be found in human stories like "Scheherazade and the 1001 Nights," "Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils," or, in more formal human literature in places like the Jataka Stories in Theravadan Buddhism (specifically the stories of incarnation of beings, baygo, who are mixtures of 'human" and "animal"), in the Vedic concepts of the twenty-two "evolutionary" incarnations, or avatars, of Vishnu (in Thai "Phra Prom") in "western" classics like Ovid's Metamorphoses, or Apuleis' "The Golden Ass, etc.

And now, Khon Thai, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Farang, I'd like to introduce our next guest who will testify to his own unique experiences as a direct participant in some of what I have hypothesized, who must remain anonymous, but whose initials are KH.

~o:37;

Edited August 24, 2009 by orang37

[KevinHunt]

Sawasdee Khrup, TV Friends,

 I also think it very possible that certain areas of Chiang Mai, like the half-kilometer of Loy Kroh road running from the Ping side of the moat toward the Night Bazaar (but stopping just before The Royal Lanna Hotel) , may very well be one of the "feeding centers" of this hypothetically more advanced form of the Thai fungus described above which has learned to use humans, specifically farangs.

And now, Khon Thai, Ladies, Gentlemen, and Farang, I'd like to introduce our next guest who will testify to his own unique experiences as a direct participant in some of what I have hypothesized, who must remain anonymous, but whose initials are KH.

~o:37;

Just a small modification to avoid any further confusion, and possible court cases.

You're getting better. I understood almost half of that one. Did you double the dosage or halve it?

Who is this anonymous KH?It couldn't possibly be me.

    Kevin Hunt

Edited August 24, 2009 by KevinHunt

[Rasseru]

You're getting better. I understood almost half of that one. Did you double the dosage or halve it?

I would suggest, Mr Hunt, and it would be to your great credit too, that it is more likely you who are getting better! I understood more before, and less and less as time passes. If I may say so without frightening you, you may perhaps be, as is sometimes said, getting into the groove of the Ur-Orang!

Edited August 24, 2009 by Rasseru

[orang37]

... snip ... (but stopping just before The Royal Lanna Hotel) ... snip ... Just a small modification to avoid any further confusion, and possible court cases.

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun Kevin,

Yes, you are certainly right on that ... I really should have said just the first "hundred yards" or so of Loy Kroh on the going-to-the-Ping side ! I once lived with SWAMBO (She who always must be obeyed) on the 17th. floor of the Royal Lanna with a great view of Doi Suthep (of course that view is now gone courtesy of the latest incarnation of the Eyesore Hotel chain).

"Peace, good pintpot, peace, good tickle-brain." Henry IV, part I

best, ~o:37;

[anonymouse]

Orang37's posts are starting to read like mapguy on acid

Edited August 24, 2009 by anonymouse

[Rasseru]

Orang37's posts are starting to read like mapguy on acid

I imagine some of us will have to take your word for that, as we have not all had the pleasure of knowing Mapguy on acid.

[Ulysses G.]

That is one pleasure I could do without.

Sleeping pills would be better.

[Blinky Bill]

Some may prefer him in a vat of acid.

[TPI]

Some may prefer him in a vat of acid.

Bravo! Blinky Bill...do you have clymidia, eat gum leaves until you spin out and sleep 23 hours a day like your erstwile namesake??

After God made Australia he stood back and said "bugger".

[IanForbes]

Well, as long as they only attack carpenters in Thailand then it's okay. My son is a carpenter in Canada but he's never been attacked by anyone with a name that long.

[orang37]

Orang37's posts are starting to read like mapguy on acid

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun Anonymouse,

Ur-Orang once said, in the Public Melon Level One teachings : "while you are blind and deaf to yourself, I can only be a reminder of things you have experienced before; when you see yourself, and hear yourself, I can only be an opacity in which your own transparency is temporarily reflected."

in karuna metta, ~o:37;

p.s. please do be careful in what you take before you go reading MapGuy's posts (which I have never been bothered by, only intrigued by because of what appears to me an interesting combination of intelligence and socially self-alienating behavior)

[anonymouse]

Orang37's posts are starting to read like mapguy on acid

Sawasdee Khrup, Khun Anonymouse,

Ur-Orang once said, in the Public Melon Level One teachings : "while you are blind and deaf to yourself, I can only be a reminder of things you have experienced before; when you see yourself, and hear yourself, I can only be an opacity in which your own transparency is temporarily reflected."

in karuna metta, ~o:37;

p.s. please do be careful in what you take before you go reading MapGuy's posts (which I have never been bothered by, only intrigued by because of what appears to me an interesting combination of intelligence and socially self-alienating behavior)

That's what I thought you'd say