Asylum Earth

SO SIMPLE A CHILD CAN PLAY IT . . . PART I

Making Chess Sound Easy . . .

Now, how tough can explaining the game of “Baseball” be, seriously? It is such a simple game that little children play it! Big children play it! Even the Canadians play it! So, what’s to understand? Throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball and run; there it is in a nutshell, what other possible questions could there be?

With this mindset I sat down with my beautiful Thai wife and began to describe our “American” sport, in the hopes that by understanding the game she would become more acclimated to her new country and would enjoy watching it with me. I would start simple.

“Okay, sweetheart, you have two teams of nine player each,” I began. “Why,” she asked, “do you have nine players each?” “Okay, sweetheart, I didn’t invent the game and we are not going to change it, it is played with nine players on each team, let’s just accept that and move forward.” “Who invented it?” she inquired. “Okay, sweetheart, there is some question to that, however it is not important to the rules and that is what we are talking about here.” “It’s an American sport and you don’t know who invented it?” she replied.”

“Okay, sweetheart, watch my lips, I am going to explain this once and it will have a bearing on every discussion we have about anything invented in America, so listen carefully. Some historians, in matters such as these, believe that an Abner Doubleday invented the game of baseball. However, because he was a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, this has now come under serious contention by Black historians, Italian historians, Jewish historians, Mexican historians, Irish historians, French historians, German historians, The American Indians, The National Association of Women, MADD and just recently, The Southern California Council of Muslim’s. It’s an American thing. Seems nobody ever invented anything that they didn’t steal from someone else. But, for the sake of missing our Son’s childhood, let’s just assume that somebody invented it, it is played all over the country and it is played with nine players on each team, can we move on to the rules, please?” “Sorry, I’m a Thai lady, I’m just trying to understand.”

“Now . . . there are nine innings of play in each game, unless the game is tied and then they play “extra” innings until one of the teams wins.” “Why,” she asked, “is it called an inning?” “Because,” outing was taken by the Gay Alliance I suppose, just consider it nine periods of play and let’s not worry about what they call each period.” “Did the Gay Alliance invent baseball?” she quizzed? “Maybe,” I replied, “but since they are all French, we’ve already covered them.” I began to realize that if I gave an even more confusing answer to her confusing questions, we were actually moving forward.

“Stay with me . . . One team takes the field and plays defense, while the other team is “at bat” and plays offense.” Scratching her head, she says, “Wait a minute honey, if one team is the defense, why isn’t the other team the Prosecutor?” “Okay, sweetheart, that’s a very good point, and we just don’t know what Mr. Doubleday was thinking about, but “offense” and “defense” was what he called each side and that seemed to catch on in other American sports that I can hardly wait to explain to you at a later time. Let’s just go with one team is playing defense and the other team is batting and see just how far we can get, Okay?”

“Each team, at bat, is allowed three ‘outs’ and put your hand down, the Gay Alliance didn’t care about them using that word and I intend to fully explain how this all works if you will just give me one iota of a chance.” What I really need is the guy that explained it to the Japanese . . . “I’ll tell you what, why don’t I explain the Seventh inning, errr, period, stretch, where every fan drinks a six pack and lets see if it doesn’t get a little easier to understand, okay?”

AND, NOW TELL THEM WHAT’S BEHIND DOOR NUMBER 3 . . .

We Met The Enemy . . . And It Was Us . . .

I am ever amazed at what America’s media shares with me, and I’m not trying to terrorize much more than door-to-door sales people and an occasional unwanted phone solicitor. First they do in-depth analysis on exactly who our enemies are and the fact that many of them are most likely living right here in the U.S. Then, in case they haven’t already thought of enough ways to wreak havoc on our soil, they give them exacting details of how to maximize their efforts (“Nuclear Plants Near Airports May Be At Risk,” USA Today, Money, Wednesday, June 11, 2003), with color maps, distances and approximate travel time.

I have to admit that I was awakened when I became aware that just flying directly into a nuclear plant tower would be a waste of a perfectly good stolen plane and that by directing it at the “stockpile of used fuel stored in less-protected pools at the plants,” much more damage could be done. I also thought it was nice that the composition of these, “pools’ roofs,” was explained, to the uninformed, in such detail. Explaining that most, if not all, of these private airports have little security and most anyone could wander out and take their plane of choice for a spin was of great interest to whom? And, of course, why leave out a small detail like the fact that it would take a decade to do anything about making these nuclear plant sites safer. Take your time boys, no reason for any sense of urgency here . . .

While we’re at it, I’m not sure that we doing enough to facilitate our enemies. From now on I believe they should convert all distance to the metric system so as not to confuse the 90% of the worlds populace who use a different system of measurement. It would also be nice if they (USA Today) would republish the recent graphic on the distances between our nuclear plants and our airports to include a column with “longitude” and “latitude.” This way our militant brethren don’t have to waste time calculating these for entry into their shoulder mounted rocket launching GPS guidance systems . . . just in case the neighborhood kids have taken all the unprotected Lear Jets for a joy ride, you understand.

THE BREAST ARTICLE YET . . .

My Cups Runnith Over:

After a year of 24/7 breast-feeding our Son, my wife decided on Friday to ween the unsuspecting tot “cold turkey!” The Dairy Queen would simply be closed, so to speak and the feast flaps sealed for good. Being a country girl from the rice paddies of Northern Thailand, no pills or outside assistance would be required. She boldly announced, I turned it on, I can turn it off . . . a phrase, no doubt, borrowed from the best selling book, “How To Win The Big Ones,” by General George Custer. For the three of us, it was going to be an extremely long weekend.

I awakened on Saturday morning to the usual sound of crying and general moans of an unhappy camper. The difference this time was they were coming from my wife. She was standing in the bathroom looking in the mirror at what amounted to the worst possible “good news/bad news scenario . . . bosoms growing, unchecked, to mammoth proportions right before her eyes. For lack of a better description, this was six pounds of mammary masonry being stuffed into a five pound sack . . . It was as if God had said, “OK, the good news is, I’m going to give you the breasts every woman wants, the bad news is, they are going to hurt so bad you will feel your hair grow!” Giving me that, “touch ‘em and you die” look; she recoiled to bed to spend the day with a cold compress and an Aspirin bottle.

I was then left with the unpleasant task of awaiting our Son’s early call for nourishment. Now, there are two things my infant Son does not want to see when he first wakes up and I am both of them. Add to that the fact that we now made a rather wide circle around Mom and the poor little tyke was even more confused than the normal one-year old. I made the obligatory offer of the baby bottle only to see him throw himself on the floor and flap around like a guppy in cat-litter. He put his mouth in an open pucker position and began to suck toys, table legs, the fireplace poker and was headed for my big toe when I decided to pick him up and give him some fatherly comfort.

It then became overtly obvious that while not his first choice, I was either going to have to reintroduce him to the plastic alternative to Mother’s milk or lose every button on my shirt. He was out of control and prepared to do major damage, with the five teeth he has, to anything that wasn’t up to his expectations . . . better the bottle’s nipple than mine.

Around noon Mom decided to come out of her cave and survey the damage. While a bit too modest to walk around the house sans clothes, she entered the room in a walk that looked something like a slow motion video of a severely sunburned person not wanting any portion of their upper torso to actually touch the cloth they were forced to wear. Our Son suddenly took to her leg like it was Mount Everest. Reminded of a dog in heat, I looked for a bucket of water, but had second thoughts when I noticed that, “whatever you’re thinking of doing . . . don’t” look and decided to just extract the child one phalange at a time. This, I can assure you, became much more like pulling an Octopus off a fresh Tuna than I had envisioned. This process was repeated numerous times over the next 48 hours.

By Sunday evening I had managed to work out a plan closely resembling the Israeli, Palestine Road Map to Peace, whereby settlements taken over during the last twelve months would be evacuated in return for a safe demilitarized zone and a halt to aggressive behavior by the little militant with nine hands. After a reconciliation period, each side would be allowed their own homeland and the kitchen would be shared by everyone with a common goal of enjoying meals in peace.

I am delighted to report that the peace has held for a full twenty-four hours now and “guppy-mouth” had decided that the Similac shake isn’t all that bad after all. Mom is still safe beyond the demilitarized zone, which is now affixed squarely down the middle of our bed, but relations seem to be thawing nicely. I expect all territories to be back to normal in another twenty-four hours and for Dad to be welcomed back to the bosom of his birthright.

Now . . . before you break out the celebratory Champaign and nuzzle into the passion zone, try to remember that this is what caused all the hubbub in the first place!

A BOGIE HOGIE . . .

Right smack on the front page for everyone to read, the Bangkok Post refuses to leave one single person on earth without a good chuckle . . . some downright curl up in a fetal position laughing and are just never the same again. And to top this, what they report is not the slightest bit funny to thousands of Thai’s who wholeheartedly believe in spirits, both good and evil. To an enlightened (or unenlightened, depending on whose perspective your coming from) world, these customs seem a bit bizarre; I prefer to just see the humor in a citizenry still caught in the 15th century, while a round world seems to revolve right past them.

This is in reference to an article dated Wednesday, June 4, 2003, titled, “HAUNTED COMMUNITY, Ghost busters hunt entrail-eating bogies . . . unexplained deaths alarm Isan township.” Now to start with, if you don’t want to invite unwanted attention or reaction to your little spirit ceremony, I would leave the “entrail-eating bogie” part out of the headline, but what do I know? Seems that over 1,000 people joined in a ceremony to exorcise “pee-paub” they believed responsible for unexplained deaths in their neighborhood in the past few weeks. Even more interesting was that local officials were so unaware of just what a “pee-paub” exorcism is that they mistook the ceremony as a protest against the APEC Trade Ministers Meeting being held in Khon Kaen the day before. This was all straightened out when they found an APEC Minister actually taking a pee and he explained the difference.

To further plagiarize this article . . . “Traffic on the Friendship highway was disrupted for hours as the villagers hunted for the “paub, a kind of ghost that feeds on raw human . . .” Do we really have to finish that one? Whispering now, the article continues, “A similar ceremony had been held twice before to expel the evil spirits from the 1,200-household suburban community in tambon Maung Kao, in Maung district.” Yet, as hard as it is to believe, some ghosts remained, people believed. Well, the dead people were down right certain that something was amiss.

“Phra Khru Udom Panyakorn, a veteran exorcist from Udon Thani’s Wat Banpotwanaram, was called in to catch and destroy the paub.” And, nobody wants to mess with Udom from Udon, much less a pesky paub. Now, everyone was just having a good old evil spirit chasing time when someone mentioned that this little exercise was costing one-million-baht out of the Village fund. Seems that four Village heads had called a meeting, and after enough rice wine to kill a water buffalo, they had agreed that this was a worthy expenditure. Participants were encouraged to make donations and three Villages threw their “elder” in the pot.

“The activity began with Phra Khru Udom chanting a mantra to suppress the evil spirits.” This is done rather quickly before the citizens realize that the million-baht isn’t going to the paub . . . “Ten people were then selected to lead five catching teams, each carrying lengths of hollow bamboo in which the evil paub could be trapped inside once caught.” Understand that the dead people had tried this with solid bamboo polls and that had not worked out so well.

“At the end of the three-hour search in every corner of the community and along the Friendship highway, Phra Khur Udom declared that a total of 39 ghosts were caught. They would be eliminated later by cremation.” This, of course, is done when all the Village elders get together and drink rice wine and then breath on them. Incidentally this emits a strong order that smells a lot like chicken.

So as to soften the million-Baht blow, Phra Khru Udom stated that, “Nine of them are strong-willed pee-baub”, but had to admit that the rest were other ghosts and stray spirits, but like Joe, in Joe and the Volcano, he then shouted, “Show Me The Crematorium!” and marched off with his sack of rather disgruntled pee-paub.

The Thai government, wanting to put the best 19th century face on the matter, summoned Udom Buasri, former lecturer on Buddhism and philosophy at Khon Kean University, to explain their position regarding pee-paubs, the general cremation of evil spirits and other things that seem sort of out of whack with the general public. Mr. Udom (no relation to Udon from Udom) went on to explain that no more than 10% of the population believed in exorcism, which was great news for the remaining pee-baubs. However, he explained, the fact that almost 2,000 people joined in the ceremony was quite extraordinary, especially on double-coupon day at the local Temple and all.

As if talking to a pee-paub, Mr. Udom went on to say, “I think so many people joined the ceremony because they didn’t know the cause of death of those people. This is one way to explain it and it really has psychological effects.” Well, who needs the CSI unit after that?

And, in what has to be in the top ten for, “understatement of the year,” he warned, however there were people who played with people’s beliefs and tried to cash in on a good-faith ceremony like yesterday’s . . . “Sometimes it turns out to be a scam!”

Well, I thought my “Pee on the Pee-Paubs 2003” T-shirt was coming unraveled kind of quick . . .

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING . . . SIT THERE!

Well . . . Excuse Me ! ! !

To take a small respite out of the arduous task of world affair analysis, I dove head first into a job even the Monster Garage would turn down . . . putting a forward facing child seat in the rear passenger compartment of my automobile. Reflecting back on when my parents told from one to six boys (depending on how many brothers were home at the time) to get in the back seat and shut up, this whole car safety seat rigmarole seems like a giant waste of time, however, the law is the law so here I go, welding torch in hand . . . I didn’t get far!

If you read the directions very carefully, you quickly understand that the primary reason for the entire exercise is to make you understand that the best option is to simply leave the child at home. It is very simply put on page two (2) under, “General Warnings.” To wit; “Never take your child out of the car seat or try to tend to you child’s needs while the vehicle is moving. Never leave the child unattended.” SAY WHAT?

Let me get this straight . . . It is okay to have the child in the car, in the car seat. It is okay, nay, mandatory to take care of the child, while the child is in the car, in the car seat. It is just not okay to move the car under these circumstances! Let’s see, hmmm . . . in order to get to the child’s doctors office, which rule do we break? Do we leave the child unattended and actually move the car? Or, do we, “never leave the child unattended” and just sit in the driveway, thereby not moving the vehicle while attending to the child?

Well, what the hell, everyone back in the house. Those pesky vaccination shots are expensive and he really doesn’t like them anyway . . .

Help Me Before I Blog Again . . .

WARNING – VIRUS – ALERT

It has just been announced that the worst, most dangerous, type of computer virus, ever, has been discovered. This virus goes by the name “EMAIL” and has been classified as the most destructive virus every concocted by humans. The virus originates with people who mistakenly believe they have something (original or forwarded) that other people would give a giant rat’s ass about. EMAIL disguises itself as relevant information under such names as, “You’ve just got to read this,” “Now this is really funny,” “I thought you might enjoy,” and the ever fatal, “For your information.”

This virus acts in the following manner; It enters the mind of an original single sender as a “brain fart” and causes an otherwise rational thinking human being to send it to an entire address book full of people that wouldn’t know them if they danced naked with the Pope. When opened, this virus does absolutely nothing to your files or hard drive, however it does slowly eat away at your brain until you are completely possessed and are unable to control the ensuing urge to not only “reply” but, for some inane reason, SPAM the crap out of everyone in your address book with the gibberish. Each successive recipient is infected in a like manner and, in a totally illogical thought process, hammers that puppy into mush sending it to friends and family. The likelihood of complete Internet “gridlock” increases with each infected persons total lapse in judgement.

In a major study, using extensive interviews with infected individuals, 99% could not recognize the original offending EMAIL or think of even a bad idea for forwarding it in the first place. 90% said, “What’s that all about?” 88% called the police on the interviewer and 55% assumed a fetal position and are still there.

In just a few hours, this EMAIL virus can infect millions of formally productive people, cause computer hard drives to actually gain weight and be reported in major publications under the title; “Now how stupid was that!” There apparently is no cure for this virus (as witnessed by the fact that you’re participating in it at this very minute). Given this prognosis, the U.S. Post Office has announced it is just giving up on every regaining these infected individuals and raised its prices on the few humans that still do not know where the “On” button is for their computer.

In an unprecedented move yesterday, every single computer manufacturer jointly announced an effort to educate the masses on the use of the only known way to slow this EMAIL virus down. They have agreed that, starting in 2025, all keyboards and “drop down” menu boxes will have the “key” or word, “DELETE” in the same location. This standard will allow even the brain dead to keep a modicum of sanity, but is acknowledged as only a short-term cure for a long-term problem.

Many experts have also suggested trying the process known as IGNOR, however the ones making this suggestion were actually confined at a Home and wearing a rubber suit at the time. On the software side, all major suppliers of software applications put together a “taskforce” to tackle this problem, but unfortunately in their own haste to communicate they created a whole new version of EMAIL and began to tackle each other instead.

President George www. Bush announced late today that he had informed Al Gore that; “You invented it, you fix it!” However, it seems that Al is currently tied up trying to invent the wheel and would only commit to http. (Have Tipper Type a Proposal). Intel in a statement yesterday stated that they had narrowed down the problem to only computers that had software and a processor and in a bold proactive move today recalled every computer “chip” it every made and said, “that ought to about solve the problem”.