BC basketball fans are tepid when winning, but this night they were downright listless and grumpy.  They had to watch a less-talented, barely noticed, underdog Harvard team put on a clinic of teamwork and scrappiness that put the Eagles to shame.  Despite my MIT roots, Lin’s personal display of excellence had me cheering and hooting loudly for Harvard from the stands.  I damn near rushed the court (and would’ve been all by myself had I done so) when the final buzzer rang. 

A few days later, I looked up some info on the kid.  No less than ESPN.com had a really nice piece on him.  Son of a 5’6″ Taiwanese immigrant who came to the States for a PhD in computer engineering.  Hours of practice in the local YMCA.  Lauded high school player who led his Palo Alto High team to a Division II state championship, followed by multiple player of the year honors.  Somehow overlooked by collegiate Div I teams offering scholarships.  Whispered questions about the role his race played in this snubbing.  Enters Harvard, which doesn’t offer athletic scholarships, for the opportunity to play Div I ball. 

It’s hard not to root for a story line like that.  You can imagine my pleasure, then, when I found out via Carisa that the Golden State Warriors declared that they would sign Lin.  Apparently he’d kicked a fair bit of butt during summer league games, even showing John Wall a thing or three.  Congrats, Jeremy – I’ll be rooting for you.

On Monday I vacated my premises and moved in with a family friend on the outskirts of Bangkok. Wednesday, Bangkok burned. Last minute negotiations failed and gov’t troops started their crackdown at dawn. The protestors didn’t really have a chance against the armored vehicles and by noon security forces were just 100 meters away from the main protest stage. The remaining red leaders decided to save the lives of the protestors and turned themselves in, asking the crowd to go home. Many of them were in tears. And then all hell broke loose. Hardcore elements vowed to fight on and they initiated a well organized arson attack on Bangkok. Major shopping malls in downtown Bangkok were set ablaze; firefighters and medics were shot at to keep them from helping. Protestors took refuge in the nearby temple and rumors spread they would be shot if they left. Anti government protestors from around the country than came out of the woodworks, far from the center of Bangkok, vandalism and arson spread to beyond the red zone. Things have finally quieted down and I just have too many thoughts to share.
 
Firstly, the acts of arson were well organized, and also targeted at specific groups. Properties of certain business conglomerates were targeted throughout the city, while others right next to them were left untouched. The conflict wasn’t merely an issue of Red vs. Yellow, Poor vs. Rich. Many different groups with different agendas were at play. The Gov’t repeatedly stated the need to weed out the militant groups, who are clearly ex-army as they demonstrated urban warfare training. The poor protestors were armed with little more than slingshots lobbing firecrackers and sitting tires on fire. The accurate sniper fire or the focused M79 grenade attacks had to have come from another group within the reds. Someone wanted to destabilize the country, for whatever reasons. Going beyond the scenes of destruction, one sees that several things were accomplished. Thaksin will probably never set foot in Thailand ever again, if he’d try, he’d meet the fate of Aquino who was shot as he stepped off his airplane in Manila. Certain business groups were hit hard. The redshirt movement has been defined as looters and discredited. Someone has essentially used the protests as a smoke screen to do their dirty work, and just like in the movies where they always say to kill the assassin after the job is done, everything has been blamed on the Reds.
 
And blame it on the reds the Bangkok elite has. My Facebook news feed is full of my Thai friends denigrating the red movement as arsonists and hooligans. “This is democracy?” “These people don’t deserve to vote” “If they hate Thailand so much, let them move to Burma”. This last comment exposes that the true ignorance of Thailand is in the Bangkok elite. First, as a matter of demographics, Thailand has a population of over 60 million, of which 9 million are in Bangkok. And even within Bangkok, the majority of the population is migrant laborers from rural areas. The Bangkok elite are predominantly ethnic Chinese of relatively recent descent. Even the name Thailand is a 20th century construct of western powers trying to define borders and later, containing communism. The famous Pad Thai dish was popularized in the 1930’s, partly as an attempt to form a national dish for national unity. During this time, the local histories were wiped from the text books. All the other Kingdoms and Kings were struck from history, leaving the Kingdom of Siam as the only remaining legacy taught in schools. Saying the protestors are against Thailand, overlooks the fact that the protestors are Thailand. This is exactly what the Bangkok upper class is doing. Facebook has become an echo chamber, as wealthy Thais rant with other wealthy Thais. The social divide is such that these people live in a precisely limited social circle, and since all their privileged friends hold the same view, then they must be in the majority.
 
If Thailand is to move forward, it’s the Bangkok people who need to open their eyes, they are the ones who need to be educated. The red shirts, the rural farmers, are the true Thailand. Their grievances are genuine, and not just the whining of the lazy as the elite claim. In the US, the top 10% own some 70% of the wealth. In Thailand, the top 2% own 80%. Before you start thinking that I’ve suddenly given up my capitalist roots, I have not. In Thailand, wealth is derived from controlling limited resources, not from creating value. The rich are rich not due to business savvy, innovation or even hard work. They are wealthy because they have land, business permits or other exclusive resources. And they have those exclusive resources due to a corrupt government. For example, the top university of Thailand owns much of central Bangkok. When King Chulalongkorn established the university, he gave it the land for its endowment, the rental income to fund the university and provide affordable education (it costs a few hundred dollars a term all in). Rent in central Bangkok is over $1,000 a sq foot, of which less than 10% the university receives. The land is rented out at ridiculously low rates to people with connections, who reap massive profits when they sublet it. Almost every aspect of the Thai economy works in such a way.
 
Lastly, I just want to remark how liberal expats living in Thailand, somehow believe that Democracy and Freedom of Speech, aren’t good for Thailand. The rural poor are too uneducated, too easily manipulated, and unable to see the bigger Thailand. They are outraged by the coverage of western media, showing Army crackdown with guns on protestors armed with sticks and Bangkok turning into a warzone. There’s even a melodramatic rant of a letter to CNN editor complaining about the horrible coverage painting Bangkok a warzone. Amazingly, even after the carnage of last Wednesday, this poster’s Facebook page has gathered a large following. One of my American friends believes that Thaksin merely bought the poor votes with affordable healthcare, and that when given access to affordable credit, the poor just bought senseless goods, digging themselves deeper in debt. This is proof that they are incapable of proper decision making; they need paternal guidance not suffrage. Of course I pointed out that Obama is doing the same with health care, and that numerous Americans took advantage of low introductory subprime loans to finance houses they couldn’t possibly afford, wrecking the economy, yet they are not deemed too stupid to vote. I honestly believe that these expats have found a paradise in Thailand, one where they are treated like nobility and the servants always smile, happy to look up to their white superiors. When their servants revolt, and western media portrays this as a class struggle for democracy, their paradise collapses and they devolve into anger.
 
I hope to move back into my place on Sunday, I’ll see if I get new pictures of the post carnage, but cleanup efforts are well underway. I wish I could post this on FB, but I fear the backlash too much.
 

I got out this afternoon, details of my exit below for those not on my Facebook. To answer [redacted]‘s questions. The streets are empty at night as the Army and unknown snipers shoot indiscriminately. But thats mostly south of where my condo is. The street I am on is actually fairly quiet, it parallels the main red camp, but there’s minimal action on the road, its sort of, the eye of the storm. As for the US Embassy, they are notoriously useless for any such matter, much complaint for their cold, bureaucratic handling of the Boxer Day Tsunami, plus they bill you massively for anything they do. On the utilities front, the Thai gov’t has ordered the telecom agencies to shut service to the central protest zones, but only 2 of the 4 operators have complied. This is a major source of irony as the two who shut down service are the companies bought by foreigners a few years ago, while the two still in service are Thai private and gov’t owned. One of the services that shut down was AIS, which was Thaksin’s telecom conglomerate that he sold to the Singaporeans (a deal I am not proud to be apart of) which sparked the coup that ousted him. The yellow shirts caused a public outcry that Thaksin was selling a strategic national asset to a foreigner and has threatened national security (ignoring the fact that 6 months prior, DTAC, owned by a Bangkok elite family was sold to the Norwegians). The gov’t also tried to shut down water and power, but due complaints of local residents, that order was rescinded. And that pretty much sums up the Thai gov’t, they announced measures that are poorly thought out, only having to retract them hours later.
For Thaksin’s corruption. Yes, Thaksin was a corrupt basterd… but welcome to the club. All Thai politicians are corrupt. His critics claim that even so, Thaksin has raised corruption to an unacceptable new level. This is a bogus argument for two main reasons. First, its hardly the largest corruption scam in the history of Thailand. That belongs to the 97 crisis gov’t, who leaked to the powerful elite that the Bank of Thailand would be dropping the THB/USD peg of 25. The Baht promptly fell to almost 60 to the dollar. Many of that disaster of a gov’t have now come back to power. The other reason is that the Bangkok elite couldn’t compete with the new form of Thaksin corruption, and that is hard cash from a booming stock market. My first year in Thailand, the SET index almost tripled from 300ish to almost 900. Massive amounts of wealth was created and suddenly the currency of bribery was pre-IPO shares. Contrast this with the old form of corruption where gov’t officials took bribes to issue permits and licenses, small potatoes. Thaksin’s new system was quickly replacing the old, and his growing popularity with the rural farmers was big threat to the establishment. This is the central issue at hand, everything else is a PR campaign.

It is easy for the establishment to frame the issue as Pro/Anti Thaksin. He’s an easy character to vilify due to his villainous actions. But I think its pretty clear now that the fight has moved on from Thaksin and is now that of a class struggle. Thaksin for all his evils, has given the rural poor something they have never had, and thats a political voice. It amazes me how much people in Thailand think democracy is a failure. I even had a very heated argument with a close friend over this matter today. Many feel that Democracy isn’t always the answer, and that it won’t work in Thailand. They believe that there needs to be some enlightened and benevolent stewardship. This is essentially what the Palace has provided for decades. For more on that

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/asia/16king.html?hp=&pagewant…

The other argument is that Abhisit is democratically elected and this is democracy and that the Reds are merely being selfish. This is also more BS from pseudo intellectuals. I’m not that familiar with parliamentary system, but Thaksin’s party won a string of outright majorities. The Thai Courts, known only for how easily bribed they are, issued a series of election violations and banned members of Thaksin’s party. The grounds for these dismissals ranged from, voting tables too high or too low to campaign posters the wrong size. Eventually, Thaksin’s party held only a plurality of seats and thus had to form a coalition gov’t. When the yellow shirts shut down the airport, the Thai Courts kicked out Samak the PM on the grounds that he illegally hosted a sunday morning cooking show, a member of the ruling coalition flipped sides and the Democrats formed a gov’t and Abhisit took over. Abhisits initial stance was to hold out the maximum 4 years before calling a new general election. I cannot see how anyone not a fucktard can possibly call that a functional democracy in action. This is why I think the reds have a completely legitimate grievance and the gov’t has absolutely no legitimacy. The reds have won every general election since 2001. When there was an elitist backed uprising, Thaksin called new elections as a referendum that he soundly won again. The Bangkok elite then resorted to a military coup, Mickey Mouse court rulings and back room bargaining to regain power, and then decide to squat the maximum amount of time before calling new elections. And while in power, their agenda consists of only 2 items, seize Thaksin’s assets to deprive the reds of resources and redraft the constitution to strip power away from the rural farmers. There are clearly many other agenda’s going on, but the elitest’s dismissal of the reds being purely the brain washed pawns of Thaksin is wishful thinking. But I believe this to be the core issue, and if the gov’t cracks down instead of finding true reconciliation, the desire of people to have a political voice will not be squashed and the red movement will return quickly and in new forms (I fear terrorism).

Exodus (from my FB)

It was tough sleeping through the the fighting last night, but I managed a few winks. I’ve gotten good at identifying the sounds from home made fire crackers, 12 gauge shotguns, M16 on 3 round bursts or the terrfying thump of the M79 grenades. Last night was different in both the intensity and proximity of the blasts and weapon reports. Fighting errupted up north at the chidlom/petchaburi intersection, less than a kilometer away. Action got much closer as the 7/11 on Langsuan was looted for supplies (as well as the adjoining CIMB ATM machine). Fighting down south was furious with hundreds of shots fired and over a dozen grenade blasts. But there was a new blast I heard that ended up being RPGs fired into the Dusit Thani hotel.

At dawn, heavy rains stopped the fighting and tire fires and the remaining residents discussed to stay or to make a run for it. I had debated going at 10am after the rains, but fresh explosions made me rethink that move. At noon a small army of reporters relocated to my building, each in body armor and Kevlar helmets, sporting communications gear out the wazoo. They had vacated the Dusit Thani after the RPG attacks and moved to the safest hotel in the red zone, ie my place. This gave me pause to think it best to stay, but then again, what the hell do fahrang journalists know about Thailand. So I shut down my apartment, tossed the perishables, flipped the electrical breakers, closed the water main, pulled the hard drives from my server and grabbed my go bag.

More heavily kevlared journalists checked in as I headed out. I asked for intel on what it was like beyond wireless road, but they gave me geographically impossible advice. So In turn I rhetorically asked if their level I Kevlar vest without the ceramic plate would stop a 5.56mm. I hoofed it north on Langsuan on news that motorbikes there can get you out. I passed the looted 7/11 which had more journalists filming the carnage. Along the way I spotted even more journalists, at this point semi bullet resistant fahrangs out numbered reds by at least 2:1, more astonishingly they outnumbered soi dogs at a staggering ratio of infinity. The oddest sight during the last few days was that I hadn’t seen any dogs or cats in days.

I made it to Ploenjit and surveyed last nights carnage. The streets were scarred with black marks from the tire fires. The scent of garbage filed the air as the city suspended sanitation services days ago. I approached a group of motorbike taxi and I thought of asking for the fastest transport for me, a boy and these two droids. Headed north on Chidlom, but cut across the side soi towards BigC to avoid the main road block on Petchaburi. After winding our way through the small sois we eventually came out onto Petchaburi with all the devastation from the night before. The road was covered with seeping black ooze from the tire fire. Debris littered the road and the reds were busy building new fortifications. Piles of tires and razor wire forced us to zig zag through. At wireless road we met the red check point, they merely asked where we were going. Passing the last of the red encampment I entered no mans land. It was open space for 100 meters to the army lines. An army transport truck and humvee were stationed there along with more razor wire. I was most scared at this point as the army has been practicing head shots on the reds and had warned that they will shoot to kill at anyone within 30 yards. I have taken adrenalin pumping trips on motorbike taxis through Bangkok rush hour many times before, but this open stretch was my scariest ride.

At the army checkpoint, a few cars were lined up infront of me, waiting to be cleared. When it was my turn, I was asked to get off the bike, and my crumpler bag was searched. I showed them my US passport and said nothing and was allowed to pass. Further along towards Nana, I came up to another army/police checkpoint where I was searched again and asked for more documents. After that I had returned to a normal city. It is amazing how little changed life is outside the red zone. There are tourists walking the streets, people shop and line up for Robin Hood as they enjoy two days of new public holidays. Bangkok never ceases to amaze me.

Many of you closely followed the latest goings-on in Bangkok a couple weeks ago.  I watched with particular interest since I have a good friend living there currently.  As it turns out, he was very close to all the action – a little too close, if you ask me.

Try as I might, on my own I wasn’t able to really dig deeper beyond the superficial facts of the protests.  CNN, BBC, and other news organizations were annoyingly undetailed about the political and cultural underpinnings of the protests.  I felt unsatisfied.  The comment sections of the various news sites hinted at the emotions seething underneath the distanced, objective facade of the news, but that taste was all I had.  At least, that was all I had until my friend wrote a sizeable missive that went out via email to a circle of his friends.  With his permission, I’ve pasted his message below, minus elements that could identify him or localize him.  Granted, it’s only one view, but it’s the best I’ve had so far into this whole conflict.  I hope you find it interesting.

Some of you may have noticed Bangkok in the news, and since i’m barricaded in my room, I thought I would send out an update…

[...]
Thai’s Love Thai
In 1992, the army took a power grab and a series of pro democracy protests ended in violent clashes. It was only ended when the King stepped in and famously made the army general kneel and apologize on national TV. The constitution was redrafted, giving the lower house, which is directly elected, most of the power while the upper house remained appointed by the aristocracy. The military top ranks were also to be appointed by parliament every 4 years. Things went great until the asia crisis in 97 when all went to shit. Shortly after, Thaksin formed a new political party called Thai Rak Thais, literaly, thai’s love thai’s. Thaksin was not from the established elite, he was a former policeman from up north who became a billionaire with his mobile phone company (funny, story, as a police man, Thaksin wanted the two way radio repeater service, but the powers that be kept it for themselves, instead they sold Thaksin the completely unwanted cellular phone frequencies).

In 2001 Thaksin’s TRT wins and he becomes PM. He seemingly is the only politician in thailand to realize that the rural north is where the majority of the population. Once in power, Thaksin enables populist measures, $1 a day health care, land reform, farmer credit, micro finance etc. He also goes pro business, privatizing many state enterprises and opening up more markets. He becomes incredibly popular with the poor and working class and becomes the first Thai PM to complete an entire 4 year term and also becomes the first thai PM to ever get re-elected. He also engages in some atrocious human rights violation, giving police dept carte blanche in a war of drugs that left some 2,000 suspected drug traffickers dead. The old elite are quite threatened by this. His old media mogul mentor a guy named Sondhi starts a series of public protests in the park against Thaksin. He forms a group called the People’s Alliance for Democracy and they wear yellow shirts in honor of the king. Sondhi blasts thaksin with various non sensical accusations ranging from wanting to establish a Republic to disrupting the harmony of Thailand. Eventually, Thaksin dissolves parliament and calls for new rounds of elections, giving the people a referendum. The opposition, knowing that they will once again lose in a landslide in the election, boycott the polls, in an attempt to discredit the results. TRT of course, wins in yet another landslide. The establishment, having no way else to remove Thaksin, stages a coup in 2006.

The Yellow and Red shirts
The Army, having seemingly learned its lesson from the 92 crack down, really not interested in violence, or in running the country. They happy just taking their bribes. They announce that the coup is to protect democracy and that they will call elections in one year. The courts disband TRT over election fraud for, get this, having polling stations where the table was too tall. The establishment of course, squanders its year in power. They are split trying to seize Thakin’s assets as well as redrafting the constitution. In their amendments, they want to have only 40% of the parliament directly elected, with 60% appointed by the elite. They fail to do either and new elections are called. Thakisin now in exile, forms a new party called the People’s Power Party (PPP). PPP again, wins in a land slide. Sondhi and his yellow shirts start protesting, he successfully paints Thaksin as anti King and mobilizes the bangkok middle class. They stage massive protests, shut down much of the city, take over parliament all the while the police and army just stand and watch. Eventually they take over the airports, shutting down bangkok for a week. Eventually, the courts find Samak, the PPP prime minister guilty of election fraud for… hosting a sunday morning cooking show. A member of PPP flips sides, and the democrats form gov’t and Abhisit becomes PM. No election was called.

The rural poor form a Red Shirt movement to counter the yellows. Two months ago tens of thousands of them moved into central bangkok, parking themselves in the posh shopping district near where I live. They demand that Abhisit call for elections, saying he was not democratically elected and had no legitimacy. They effectively shut down central Bangkok. The government is seemingly powerless to stop them as once again the military and police do not act to stop the crowds. At issue is that the 4 year army cycle is up and the next round of gov’t appointments is up in September. The army chief, not willing to end his career in blood shed, takes a passive stance. However, the generals and colonels who aligned themselves with the current gov’t have a stake in the current gov’t staying in power. On April 10th, they stage a crackdown at one of the red camps at the Democracy Monument. The monument is quite symbolic as it is the location of various protests and bloody clashes with the army over the years, but is mostly a farce as it is a monument to the 1930′s peaceful coup when the army took power away from the palace. The army gets humiliated in the crackdown, the reds are very well organized and reinforcements quickly outflank and surround the army. The army loses several tanks and hundreds of assault rifles and heavy weapons. 25 people died in the conflict. During the conflict, mysterious armed gunmen are seen firing into both lines, instigating the conflict. In addition, army ground commanders were shot by snipers, including a colonel who many was expected to be promoted by the current gov’t in the army reshuffle. The army is clearly divided btw those who have aligned themselves w the gov’t, and those who have been passed over. Many call the army Watermelons, for green on the outside red on the inside.

Living near the red camp was rather surreal for the last few weeks, my office was still open, but I had to pass a red security point where they would search my bags. At first they were happy to have me take pics of them, as did many other tourists, but as tensions built, they no longer allowed any picture taking. In the evenings, gov’t helicopters would buzz the area and the reds would fill the sky with lanterns and shoot home made rockets at them. A very odd feeling seeing all this from my window.

Over the last few weeks, negotiations slowly progressed until last week the gov’t agreed to a compromise of November elections, giving the gov’t what they want (to be in power for army reshuffle) and the reds what they need, early elections. Unfortunately, extremists on both sides moved to sabotage the deal. Hardcore red shirts refuse to accept the offer, and Sondhi and the Yellow Shirts demand that Abhisit step down for negotiating with the Reds on their demands he step down (I don’t know what the Thai word for irony is). On thursday, an unknown sniper shot the ex general militant leader of the red security forces in the head while he was conducting an interview. The gov’t also announced that they had withdrawn their peace offer and would no longer negotiate. The army moved in to block all roads into the red camp to cut off their supply lines.

My condo is a block away from the main red camp, and inside the red perimeter. For weeks, the redshirts have erected massive barricades made of trucks, tires and point bamboo sticks. I have gradually stockpiled supplies in my condo. When the army shut down roads, I have effectively been trapped at home. To the south of me is Lumpini Park, where the red shirts have setup blockaid and supplies. To the north are other blockades. To the east is embassy row where the british, US and netherland embassy are. Friday morning I attempted to head out on foot. I knew they had shut down the nearest skytrain stop, but thought I could cut across to embassy row and head north to the next closest station. No dice, it too was closed. I took a few steps north to get to the next main road, but sounds of gunfire errupted so I headed back. To the south, warfare had broken out in lumpini park. No longer do i hear the booms. It is safer for me to stay indoors then to venture out and try to cross the battle lines on foot. The Army’s goal appears to be to isolate the red shirts, and all day friday and sat, the reds have tested the army lines, but haven’t been able to break through. Today was another violent day with non stop sounds of automatic weapons fire outside my window. The gov’t has hinted that it is now prepared to crack down on the main camp. As i write this, I have heard a dozen massive explosions coming from the park to the south. Hopefully this will end soon, but it doesn’t look to be ending peacefully. And big picture wise, the class division remains high in thailand and I suspect the reds will resort to terrorist tactics.

Overall, I am sympathetic to the reds. They have won every election in the last 8 years, yet they have no political power. The establishment argument is now one of Democracy doesn’t work in Thailand because the farmers are too dumb to vote. They merely sell their votes to politicians in return for cheap health care. The elitist ideal is that of Poh Pian, which translates to To have Enough. They claim that Thaksin has exposed the rural poor to the global economic cycles and that thailand should return to the simpler life of being self sustaining and happy. This is all easy for the barons to say to the farmers from their mercedes benzes. Over the decades, all the wealth generation in Thailand was centered in Bangkok, the rural poor has had almost zero economic growth. I have many rich and ivy league educated thai friends who come up with some crazy rationale on why democracy is a failure. They have become increasingly angry towards the reds and many wish to see them die. Its rather upsetting when the peasants and servants rise against their masters. But what dumbfounds me the most is the number of expats in Thailand who are also so anti red shirts. They deride them for being too uneducated to vote, too easy to mislead with propaganda. They believe pro red media stations should be shut down and that freedom of speech and press is a western value and not a universal one.

What it boils down to is that governments around the world - including Thailand, Mexico, and Iraq -  have been duped into purchasing glorified dowsing rods as bomb detectors.  Apparently, since dowsing for oil, gold, and buried hoards of cash wasn’t proving profitable for the manufacturers of these devices (gee – I wonder why), they have chosen instead to defraud national governments.  I guess it was just easier.

As sad as it is that some malicious groups out there are trying to profit off of people’s gullibility (and don’t get me wrong – these people should absolutely go to jail), it’s just as disheartening that there are national governments falling for this crap.  If you’re Iraq, for example, not only are you tens of millions of dollars poorer from purchasing these carnival gadgets, but you’ve failed to prevent an unknowable number of deaths.  All from placing your faith in a woo-toy to sniff out bombs.  This is the true cost of pseudoscience and stupidity.

Choice quote:

What we really need is a new women’s health movement, one that’s sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly lifestyle) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments such as chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if the old narrative of cancer’s progression from “early” to “late” stages no longer holds, what is the course of this disease (or diseases)?

What we don’t need, no matter how pretty and pink, is a ladies’ auxiliary to the cancer-industrial complex.

Regardless of how you feel about Bart Stupak’s amendment to the health care bill, I think Ehrenreich makes a very valid point about the need for skepticism and reason.

The real circus began when I called up Lenovo support.  Ostensibly it’s in Atlanta, Georgia, but I ran into just as many hard-to-decipher accents as I do when I call tech support in Mumbai.  But that was just the beginning.  Turns out my warranty had expired a mere six days earlier.  I shook my little fist at Shiva and was transferred to warranty sales, where I was offered a $149 extended warranty.  It was more than I would have liked, but I bit, figuring that purchasing a new hard drive and going through the reinstall process would be at least as costly in terms of time and money.

The warranty dude said that I should be able to use my warranty to get service on my laptop in 24 hours.  I called back the next day, only to find that the warranty wasn’t invoiced yet.  I had been misinformed, the new rep told me; warranties don’t invoice for 2-3 business days.  I called back again 4 business days later – still no dice.  This time I was told that it takes 10-14 business days for a warranty to become active.  Flustered, I requested that the extended warranty be canceled.  I couldn’t wait that long to get service on my laptop.  The rep apologized and said that he would expedite the warranty invoice process so I could get warranty service within 2 business days.  I hesitated (why couldn’t they have done this in the first place?!?) but eventually said ok, asking for some sort of email confirmation of the warranty being ready.  Of course, I never got that email confirmation.  I called back a few days later, thoroughly peeved, ready to cancel my warranty order for sure this time.  Guess what?  My warranty order had been canceled already, back at the time of my last phone call!  Gah!  It’s enough to make a guy go Mac…

So after a couple purchases at Newegg and an afternoon of installing software, I’m back to blogging on my laptop.  I’ve got a blacklog of stuff I wanted to write about but probably won’t have a chance to get to.  Fortunately, one topic has continued to be current enough for me to comment on: the “birther” movement.

Unfortunately, you’ve probably heard about these yahoos already.  The internet allows for the creation of an infinite number of echo chambers in which fringe lunatics can congregate and convince themselves that their ideas aren’t pure drivel.  The internet also allows for easy dissemination of these ideas, with the end result being that whackjob claims that would’ve been completely unheard in the pre-information age now have the capability of amassing a larger audience.  The birther crowd – those who believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and thus not qualified to be president – is just one sad, deluded poster child of this trend.

Two weeks ago I listened in on an NPR show in which Tom Ashbrook, the moderator, tried to host a discussion with Orly Taitz, one of the leaders of the birther movement.  I’m not the biggest fan of Tom Ashbrook’s style, but if anything he’s a very capable, experienced moderator.  I don’t think I ever heard Tom Ashbrook as not-in-control as he was that night.  Since Tom typically has very reasonable, intelligent people on his show, I think he may have made the mistake of assuming that his usual conversation-control tools would work on Taitz.  Then again, I don’t think anything short of a Tazer and injectable tranquilizers would have worked on Taitz that day.  Her careening, shrieking, disjointed commentary made my brain hurt, and any shred of credibility I might have afforded her (admittedly, not much to begin with) vanished instantly.

People like Taitz don’t go away, though.  And now, with the release of an image of a document purported to be Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate, she continues to dig a deeper hole for herself.  This (pretty clear forgery) is now the smoking gun, the unassailable proof that Obama is the centerpiece of a vast left-wing, Communist, Zionist conspiracy designed to take over the world.  I’ll let snarkier minds lay out the details for you.

I could despair that such a ridiculous issue has wasted so much time and energy, that such rabid lunatics can steal the nation’s attention for such a long time.  And I do, admittedly – just  a little bit.  But outwardly, at least, I’m laughing.  I’m laughing in mockery of the stupidity, close-mindedness, and downright lunacy of these whackjobs.  I can at least get a little entertainment out of them.