Reporter in Exile

Wordsmithing

 

• Just when we thought it had been spent, "blood and treasure" resurged in Obama's un-surge speech. Sounds like the name of a World of Warcraft guild.

• The banking derivatives economic subprime lending collateralized debt vampire squid crisis has left "tranche" deeply entrenched in the lexicon. It's become generally accepted  news-speak as an extensible metaphor and has trickled into casual parlance.

• Pray to your god/principle deity/alien progenitor/own-bad-self/talking demon head that no political necromancer is inspired to take "We've seen this movie before" out for another stumble in this pending American election cycle. It was a lemon the moment it drove off the lot. Props to its original smith. The earliest reference I can find is from the minutes of a 1995 session of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.  Bill Boyd of the pre-scandal Progressive Conservative Party used it to bookend an extended metaphor:

Mr. Speaker, my questions this morning are for the Madam Minister of Finance. Madam Minister, the reviews on your balanced budget legislation are in and it's two thumbs down.

[...]

We've seen this movie before, Madam Minister. Why not put some assurances in the Bill so that we don't see this same sad ending as we've seen in other legislation that you've done? Would you do that today, Madam Minister?

Indeed.

Update:  Actually the Saskatchewan reference is predated by one year in a New York Times news brief of a Democratic Party ad campaign during the 1994 midterms attacking the GOP's "Contract with America." DNC Chairman David Wilhelm aptly used it to invoke America's first Actor-American president, prior to Reagan's posthumous beatification:

"When it comes to the Republican contract, we've seen this movie before. While the main actor is gone, the central plot remains."

Who knew we'd see another remake in 2011?

 

UBL's terminal surprises

Nearly a decade ago I was sleeping in an icy goat shed outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in the shadow of the "White Mountain" of Tora Bora. This was supposed to be the "end game" maneuver to kill Osama bin Laden, who was believed (and later confirmed) to be hiding in one of the cave complexes from which he once made a name for himself repelling a Soviet siege.

He was within the reach -- but not the will -- of American forces at that time nine years ago.

We even heard a voice believed to be his on the radio.

But the U.S. army didn't send in the infantry, and its unreliable mujahideen proxy force let him slip out the back door.

Today's special ops raid to kill the man designated "UBL" by the U.S. government contains a number of surprises. First of which, the fact that it wasn't an expensive UAV supertoy, but a helicopter loaded with armed men who assassinated bin Laden.

Secondly, that his body, according the POTUS, is in the 'custody' of American forces. Likely to stave off the inevitable 'Osama Lives!' memes that will begin percolating ... now.

But most interestingly -- or not -- is where he was reportedly holed up. For the past decade, we've been told the 9-11 architect and spiritual leader of pan-Islamist militancy was most likely hiding on the Pakistan side of the border in the lawless Northwest Frontier Province -- a place outside the control of Pakistan's government and, from my experience, is little changed from the 12th Century.

Reports indicate he was in a "mansion" north of Islamabad (Pakistan's political capital) and Rawalpindi (the true, military capital). Not inside the NWFP. Despite Obama's unconvincing assurances Pakistan "helped" in the effort, it certainly lends the appearance of state patronage.

 

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Fingers will point at duplicitous, rogue elements within Pakistan's intelligence service, but would that distinction be applied to CIA activities?

And of course, Fox News has already hedlined "Obama Bin Laden" dead, and not for the first time.

For a good read on Tora Bora, check out what Peter Bergen wrote for The New Republic in 2009.

Warning: Thai cigarette warnings could make you seriously ill

Before leaving Los Angeles, I relinquished 95 percent of my material possessions. Just let it go to a ravenous horde of undead Craigslisters. This included remnants of bizarre collection fetishes from my youth: Antique cameras, playing cards from various states of the Union and those hideous souvenir bronze monuments. One Chinese family wanted the Liberty Bell thrown in for free with the Kodak Brownie they bought for $2. I declined.

Living in Bangkok has provided a new obsession -- the actual inspirational material I failed to include in yesterday's post re: Thais and their affection for the macabre.

Their exquisitely graphic cigarette health warnings.

Now, I don't recall Bangkok being so stridently anti-tobaccy a decade ago. Urbanite sensibilities, however, have integrated nonsmoking into the prevailing obsession with fastidious cleanliness. Not to worry, plenty of Thais still smoke, and a huge span of prime real estate in central Bangkok still belongs to the frankly named "Thai Tobacco Monopoly."

The state-sanctioned public health campaign, however, might be a little too extreme to ever go over in Pomona.

Inside each 7-11 -- as prolific in Bangkok as Thai restaurants are in Los Angeles -- cigarettes are housed inside  shuttered metal cabinets. At first this seemed to keep them from young eyes. A more likely motive is the fear some customers may opt out of that day-old hot dog or Pocky if confronted with a wall-spanning gallery of horrors.

Who needs the Forensics Museum?

 

 

 

 

 

 

¡Que horrible! - Thailand's enduring passion for grisly horror

Want to watch a Thai movie? You basically have three choices. The Crouching Thai-ger variety of epic-lite, action-fest, well-hyphenated period-pieces. True derivatives of the Chinese form, they also tend to be fringed with a nationalist politic. Or sup from the Thai-larious trough of  jejune physical comedies.  You can bank on funny fat guys and wacky transvestites; the vapidity of this stuff makes Sandler look like Carlin. (At right: Given his "fallen pants" gag, it is no wonder Udom is the most popular Thai comedian.)

Should neither choice coax the crumpled baht from where it's securely strapped to your sweaty belly, all that remains are the sanguinary delights of Thai splattercore. More talented wordsmiths would simply say "bloody," but such is my vanity. Horror is huge here. Though I prefer the artfulness of the older posters to the new.

Moderation and serenity are core to the Thai social brand, but despite this -- or perhaps because of it -- there is a huge appetite for the grisly and gruesome.

Unexpectedly, some good news for Thailand

Thai film takes out top prize at Cannes:

Thai film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives has won the coveted Palme d'Or for best picture at the Cannes film festival. The mystical exploration of reincarnation as a well-to-do farmer confronts his imminent death was directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. "I would like to thank all the spirits and all the ghosts in Thailand who made it possible for me to be here," he said after receiving the award, decided by the jury headed by US director Tim Burton.

Update: And apparently none other than Thaksin Shinawatra was there! (h/t BP)

From another night under Bangkok curfew; my inevitable social networking post

While crouched behind a tree inside Lumpini Park came the realization I'd advanced past the soldiers and was now between them and the back gate to the Red Fortress. While each rifleman had lines of fire clear of me, I'd gotten the impression in recent weeks that Thai Army gunfire can be downright friendly.

At that moment I caught sight of the Chinese-American photojourn I'd met up with while chasing the APCs up Sathorn Road. I crouch-ran over to his location and found him fiddling with his phone.

"What's up, are you good?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm just reading your Tweets!" he replied.

Covering this story brought an end to my Twitter ambivalence. Although I won't be updating the world with snappy Haiku describing the tartness of my som tam lunch, it won me over as an effective reporting tool.

Not just by allowing me to report while reporting, via updates to an audience in real-time from the battlefield, but as a newsgathering tool.

I probably would have slept through the crackdown had I not caught UDDThailand's 4:01 a.m. update after a long night of editing, writing, posting and, well, Tweeting.

"Highest Alert! 30 APCs left Gierguy 20 minutes ago got in Expressway and will land in at Silom and unknown numbers... http://bit.ly/9X5BG," read the message from the Reds' United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, or UDD. That strange bit at the end is a link to another website, abbreviated to accommodate Twitter's immutable 140-character limit. More than ever, brevity remains the soul of wit.

But at 4 a.m. I was not about to race off on another wild-goose chase by yet another shrill UDD wolf-cry.

Kick in the eye

Satori can be quite literal. Today's deep thought stems from the blinding flash behind my eyes at the moment. At 5-feet, 9.5 inches, I index at precisely average height for my people.

Based upon how many bangs, bashes, blows, whacks and cracks to the head I've stumbled into during the past six months, it's clear the difference 3.5 inches can make.