The case against tom yum goong

On November 21, 2006, prime minister Surayud Chulanont claimed that the main source of insurgent funding came from a chain of Thai restaurants operating in Malaysia, which sold Thai spicy shrimp soup.

Alhough Malaysia responded by calling this claim "baseless," it really does seem like the only reasonable explanation for the apparent indomitability of the brutal Muslim insurgency in Thailand's south.

The case against tom yum gung

Thai cuisine is some of the best in the world. Its unique dishes combine sweet, sour and spicy ingredients to create a deliciously diverse variety of flavors. Thai restaurants are everywhere, their presence increasing with the spread of Thai immigrants.

Most people don't even think about where their money is going when they buy a delicious bowl of curry or a plate of freshly grilled satays. Some may even assume it is being used to pay for things like the the staff's salaries, water and electric, or other expenses of running a restaurant.

On November 21, 2006, prime minister Surayud Chulanont claimed that the main source of insurgent funding came from a chain of Thai restaurants operating in Malaysia, which sold Thai spicy shrimp soup.

the snail's final plea

there are three small frogs
who saw the snail drown
and they all attest
to his dying song

"as the poor snail sunk," says frog number one.

"in the seeping muck," croaks frog number two.

"his eyes opened wide," moans frog number three.

and together they sigh, "oh with great might he cried:"

"I've lived a long life in many a place,
I've seen cities built and other erased.

I was around for the dawn of mankind,
I watched the first monarchs burst from inside.

I saw great winds destroy Khan's mighty fleet,
and Hitler's grimace at a plate of red meat.

I spoke in rhyme with the great kings of time,
in their gold palaces of grand design.

I watched the towers dissolve in mere hours,
while flowers of all kinds were devoured.

Over all the years, the battles and tears,
There's one thing I do that calms all my fears.

I think of some things, not a lot, just a few,
I think to myself, what is false, what is true?

I know what I am and know what I've been,
but most truths could fit on top of a pin.

Though it may be futile, hopeless and tiring,
pursuit of truth is a thing worth admiring.

So I beg of all with my final breath,
remember Truth," and with that, the snail left.

love letters for the illiterate part 2

a happy day
have you ever been smiling?
a cup of coffee
add a little creamy good feeling for a start
dip a little sugary heart
sprinkle a little warm and honest part
that's how wondeful coffee tastes

today's special menu is love
encouragement topping with caring thought
anyone care for a dish?
i'm not the hungry ghost just cheering you up and bothering your heart
when we're apart we miss each other
when we're closer our hearts will shiver
when i'm hungry i think of you

what is 2x2?
tell me and i'll treat you to the movie
how old is saddam?
tell me and i'll buy you sausages
i'm looking for my heart
i think i dropped it off somewhere near yours
waiting it's full of hateful craving
longing for you love to come back
darling

Regarding Mothers, Flowers, Clichés and Words

Mother’s Day, like most Days, is a fairly ridiculous thing. On Earth Day, we celebrate our planet and appreciate its grand fragility by recycling our plastics and driving SUVs to environmental awareness gatherings, where we declare our disgust with the wastefulness of mankind. On Memorial Day, we remember the many young men killed in the name of glorious freedom, and how wonderfully tragic it is that they are dead and we are free because of it. On Mother’s Day, we dedicate several hours out of the allotted twenty-four to buying gifts and Hallmark cards to give to the person who sponsored our attempt at existence. So, in reluctant observation of this tradition, I have decided to write a few paragraphs, consisting mainly of words, about the touchingly laughable holiday known as Mother’s Day. Dedicated to my own mother, I feel it will be a most acceptable recompense for the two hundred thousand odd hours of thoughtful love and care my mother has given me.

The problem, of course, with writing about things like boundless love and infinite gratitude, is that that it’s hard to do without slipping into sappy clichés. Clichés have a nasty habit of taking perfectly good emotions and butchering them in the name of comfort and comprehensibility. They inspire feelings only by tapping into pre-existing emotional sockets already well-lubricated by a lifetime of use. At some risk of sacrificing lucidity, I’ll attempt to minimize my use of clichés while I explain what is, in my opinion, the best way to show gratitude towards our mothers, not only on this one day and its twenty four hours of succinct appreciation, but over an entire lifetime.

In spite of Mother’s Day being, as previously mentioned, a ridiculous thing, it is somewhat important to at least attempt to rise to the occasion, a feat which many believe is best accomplished through buying things and then giving them to your mother. I, personally, cannot shake the feeling that perhaps a mother is a thing best appreciated less with roses and more with putting to proper use the life which they have given us. A life well-lived on the part of a child would likely make for an even better gift than even the most marvelously clever greeting card or luscious box of chocolates. The feeling of a job well done is one of the best sensations in the world, and particularly so, I would imagine, when the job is so complex a one as nurturing a small, barely sentient creature into a self-sufficient human being. It follows, then, that the best gift a son or a daughter could give their mother is to live their own life to its fullest potential. I myself have decided that in order to properly honor my mother, I will live from this point onward in a manner of complete perfection. In this way, I will be sure that not one more fraction of a second is wasted squandering the gift she has given me. I have recently sworn a vow to reinforce this attempt at flawless living, and attached a written copy to this essay. I recommend to all those who read this, if they have a mother, to read the attached vow and do the same.

In accordance with my newly affirmed oath, I will live as pristine a life a human can manage, and in doing so, I will be able to do justice to my mother and the fantastic gift of being she has bestowed upon me. For a mother is first and most importantly a vehicle to propel her children into the world, and a child is just the force behind the resounding ripple of such propulsion, which mingles with similarly caused ripples creating the churning undulation in the eddying current we have come to call life. I could continue to allude to metaphors about life and its similarity to large bodies of water, perhaps even branching out into drawing comparisons between humanity’s existence and various stages in the water cycle, but given my earlier condemnation of clichés it may be a bit hypocritical. The point, however, is that a mother’s life is both reflected in and completed by the life of her child, a life she has been so kind as to make possible.

Other than using it to its fullest potential, how do you thank someone for a gift which has an infinite and unfathomable value? If the meaning of life is so goddamn elusive, how is it possible to properly thank the person who gave it to you? In the face of this absurd conundrum, we do the best we can, which often involves such trivialities as roses and words. Some words I am particularly fond of were spoken by a Thai lady-friend of mine. “You are good person Eli,” she said. “I say thank you for your mom, your dad.” I would like to echo her thanks now (for my mom at least, my dad would be quite an inappropriate person to be thankful for today). So, thank you mom. Thank you for giving me this life of mine. It’s something I quite enjoy on occasion, and I’m learning to live it a little bit better every day.

My vow:


I will never be hungry.

I will never feel sad.

I will never grow tired.

I will never get mad.

love letters for the illiterate

menu
fried thoughtful love in spicy soup
and supper tonight a pink-hearted pie, seal sundae
forecast today my cloud of thought starts flowing to you
soft misty wind kisses the blue sky
open up your heart door to the travelling love
day rainy days flash and dreamy thought about you
rainy day rainy days feel like dancing and singing with you
to rest and lay in your homely truth

na

Na was dreaming. She was standing at the edge of a brilliant green field of ripe rice. A small boy stood by her side. The sky was full of luminescent rainclouds . They didn’t obscure the sun, but transformed the light into golden beams which crisscrossed the sky. A gust of wind was blowing towards them, turning the rice paddy into a shifting emerald sea. The boy put his arms around her waist, bracing himself against the gale. She held him tight and together they closed their eyes, smiling into the wind.

Na woke up with a jolt. She winced against the harsh flourescent light flickering overhead.

the forest of fairy chasm

I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan in southeastern Wisconsin. The neighborhood I lived in was called Fairy Chasm. It was a beautiful place to be a child.

There was a forest next to my house that stretched for thousands of miles along the coast. If you lost your way in that sprawling labyrinth of oak and pine, it would surely take years to find your way out. Perhaps, if you were lucky, you might come across one of the many moss kingdoms that were scattered throughout the woods. You could enter through the rotten gates and climb your way to the tops of the towering wooden spires, where you could plead for help with the great lords. They would look down at you pityingly from upon their thrones of pungent fungus, their robes of iridescent moss flowing majestically around them and crowns of perfect white birch on their heads. Perhaps, after much begging, they would send you on your way with a map and a bag of supplies so could survive the long journey through the forest.

If you weren't so lucky you could lose your way in the gloom marshes, places where the sun never reaches the ground. Trees of absurd height blot out the sky, and soupy mists obscure the treacherous ground. Sinkholes are everywhere, all leading to the depths of a giant subterranean ocean. You might fall into one and slip downwards into the ancient green water, clawing at nothing but old roots as you descend. If you could hold your breath for long enough perhaps you would survive and wash up on the pitch-black shores of that great sea under the earth. You would feel your way way across the sandy grit for weeks until you found a spiral stairway leading upward. After climbing the miles to the surface you might emerge under a magnificent weeping willow, whose endless tears feed a small and winding creek. If you followed this creek it would take you through the land of skeleton trees where no flora or fauna lived, except for the fearsome but tiny mite trolls. If you minded your wits and kept away from the mite trolls' patrols, you could find follow the creek to its mouth where it released itself into the lake Michigan. You might decide to build a hut on the beach, from whale bones and giant pomegranate shells and moss, and wait for a ship to come. It may be years before you see one, but when you do, you could ignite your incensed pyre of fossils and twigs so that the ship might notice and come to your rescue.

If the ship is not attacked by large mollusks nor capsized by fearsome typhoon winds, you may make it back to your neighborhood, where you can regale your friends and family with your many stories of adventure in the forest of Fairy Chasm.

the man in the bushes

I live on a hill in Los Angeles. It's a not a big hill. It has just enough of an incline to tax your breathing slightly while walking up it. That's what I do. I walk down it in the morning and then back up in the evening. Sometimes while I'm walking up and down the hill I see homeless men sitting in the bushes by the side of the road. Sometimes they're talking to eachother. Sometimes they're just watching the street and the people on the street who are usually going somewhere else in a great hurry. On one occasion one of the men spoke to me. It was a cold, windy day, and the sun was just disappearing under the smoggy horizon. "Aren't you cold?" the brown, bearded face asked me. "Freezing," I replied, never breaking my stride up the hill.

A few days ago, while I was walking home from work, I saw a coroner's truck and a police car parked at the foot of the hill. The coroner's truck had the words "CORONER" written on it. As I approached, I saw that there were people standing in the bushes, looking at something on the ground. A female police officer stood on the sidwalk. She appeared to be standing guard, or at she least thought she should appear to be doing so. She was smiling. She was very important. I stopped walking and looked into the bushes. I still couldn't see what it was that everyone was looking at.
"What happened?" I asked the officer.
"It's okay, some guy just got real sick," she replied soothingly.
"Did he die?"
"Yeah..." she said with a drawn out tone of mild regret. She almost stopped smiling.
"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say.
She told me then to move along, smiling and waving her hands in a gentle shooing motion. I moved along, and kept walking up the hill.

The next day, I thought of the dead man in the bushes as I walked home. I wondered how he had died. I wondered if he had had a family. I wondered if they knew he was dead. I wondered if they cared. I wondered about many things as I neared the place where the man had died. I looked into the bushes as I started up the hill. Someone was sitting in the same spot where the body of the dead man had lain yesterday. He was young, no more than thirty. He didn't have a beard, but a surprisingly well-trimmed mustache. He looked like he had been crying. I thought about stopping to question him. I could have asked him if he had known the dead man. I could have asked him if he knew the man's name. But I didn't stop. I kept walking up the hill.

a dog maybe

There were no clouds to be seen in the perfectly blue tropical sky overhead. Nothing to separate my unfortunate pale flesh from the burning sun as I walked down the streets of Chiang Mai. "There are three seasons in Thailand," my TEFL teacher had once told me, "the hot season, the hot rainy season, and the fucking hot season." Wiping the sweat from my freshly sunburned forehead, I couldn't help but agree. It was the end of April, and the height of the (fucking) hot season. I began to question the wisdom of my choice to venture outside of my cool, dark apartment and its blessed fan. I thought about turning around and heading back. I could always go out tomorrow for a photo shooting expedition, and tomorrow might not be so hot. But hell, I was almost to the temple. I could already see the crumbling remains of of the ancient central stupa jutting out from behind the jumbled shops which lined the road. I trudged onward through the thick air. It occured to me that perhaps intense discomfort and risk of heat stroke was not worth saving twenty baht on the taxi fare, but I quickly dismissed this thought as nonsense.

Finally, I stumbled through the open gates of Wat Chediluang. Milling about in the main square were saffron-clothed monks, Thai worshippers and tourists whose flushed complexions and haggard demeanor suggested that we shared a similarly dismal acclimatization to our host country's environment. I took out my camera and began snapping shots of the standard temple fare, all the while keeping my eyes open for anything that might make an actually intriguing photograph. Walking between the temples, bells and stone naga, I saw something which made me pause. Some sort of creature was laying on one of the stupas. It was white, or at least should have been. Its fur was smudged with sooty spots of black grime and the pitiable pink of open wounds. It was not self-conscious about its decrepit appearance. It lay calmly upon the peeling white paint and regarded me with cool black eyes.

"Hello," I said to the strange beast.
"Hello," it replied in a rasp whisper.
"Excuse my ignorance, but what exactly are you?" I asked.
"I am an ancient dragon."
"You don't look like a dragon."
"Don't be ridiculous. I am a great and mighty dragon. Do you not see my glorious wings?" It arched its scrawny back.
"Do you not see my fearsome claws and my razor-sharp fangs?" It bared its broken and blunt teeth while feebly pawing at the air.
"I could destroy this city with great breaths of liquid fire." It panted from the exertion of speaking.
I remained unconvinced. "But you don't have wings, and you are small and frail."
"THAT IS ABSURD!" the creature attempted to roar. It came out sounding like a scratchy wheeze.
I rolled my eyes.
"Very well," I said, "you are a great and mighty dragon, and it was an honor to meet you. Goodbye."

As I turned to leave, the ancient, great and mighty dragon leaped off of the stupa and into the air. It spread its glorious wings and swooped down upon me, grabbing me with its fearsome claws and lifting me into the air. Up we flew from the temple grounds, higher and higher until the city beneath us was nothing but a patchwork of greys and browns and greens. A 747 flew through the sky nearby. The dragon breathed deeply, then expelled a blast of liquid flame from its razor-studded maw. The stream of flame enveloped the plane, which exploded in a beautiful plume of jet fuel and dragon fire. We flew higher still, until I could see the curves of the Earth and the clouds and the oceans. We flew through space and time and I saw the world shimmer and shift and the cities turn into trees and fire and water and clay. We flew away from Earth through the solar system and into the Sun. The dragon clawed his way through the atomic inferno until we reached the center of the star and saw the glorious Sun Kingdom, a symmetrical three dimensional palace stretching millions of cubic miles and wreathed in white flame and violet flowers. The great dragon waged war on the Sun King's army and devoured the Sun Princess and then we were on our way, out of the sun and through the Milky Way Galaxy, through the empty embrace of space and the scattered chaos of time. We flew into a writhing black hole and saw Hell in all its dimensions, where everything was still and none of the Damned really cared about much at all. We careened through a cosmic crevice out of Hell and into a planar hurricane that whipped pure energy into a swirling froth and stretched millions of years in every direction. The dragon twisted and turned as it flew and I felt the winds of everything and the stillness of nothing touch my face. I caught a glimpse of Heaven to my right, but we didn't go there although it looked very pleasant. We entered a spasming tunnel of light which was collapsing and reforming itself a thousand times every second. Up ahead in the distance I saw April of the year 2006. I saw the face of the planet Earth and the continent of Asia and the country of Thailand and the city of Chiang Mai and the quiet temple Chediluang where the dragon then released me from its talons and I fell to the ground. The great beast returned to its spot on the white stupa and laid down contentedly. I rose to my feet. It was very hot outside that day, and I decided to return to the cool comfort of my room. I could always take pictures of temples another day. I took a taxi back to my apartment. It cost me twenty baht. After showering, I laid down in front of the cool breeze produced by my fan. I fell asleep then, and dreamed of dragons and of nothingness.

This is a blog

This blog is my blog. Out of all the blogs on the Internet, this blog is special because it belongs to me. I am a blogger, and this is the blog I blog upon. This blog is unlike all other blogs. Never before has there been a blog such as this. Not in the history of of the blogosphere. The genius which will soon grace the pages of this blog is without precedent. Other bloggers will flock to my blog in awe of my masterful blogging. This is the blog which will render blogging obsolete. Right now this is a new blog. It is my first blog. I understand blogs do not blog themselves. That is why I am prepared to blog on a daily basis, until this blog achieves the greatest of honors among blogs. My blog shall sit upon its rightful throne, and I shall sit atop my blog. Welcome to my blog.