High School Then And Now

Scenario 1:

joey goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.

1959 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Joe’s shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Joe.

2009 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Joe hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers..

Scenario 2:

Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.

1959 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins.. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.

2009 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario 3:

Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.

1959 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2009 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD. The school gets extra money from the state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario 4:

Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.

1959 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman..

2009 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse.. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.

Scenario 5:

Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1959 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock.

2009 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations. His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario 6: Pedro fails high school English.

1959 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.

2009 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario 7: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.

1959 - Ants die.

2009 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -- and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario 8: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1959- In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing...

2009 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

Beijing Beermas

Beijing Airport is enormous. The thousands of travelers passing through the terminals are dwarfed by the expanse. 30-meter windows offer a wide vista of the runways. Beijing International may be busy, but the scale of this airport shrinks everything into antlike proportions. I'm here on a six-hour layover from Bangkok. My destination - JFK in New York.

Beer at JFK is $9/draft.

$2.50 for a Chinese beer at the Shamrock Cafe. Free Internet too.

Nothing is free at JFK.

Time to head to the gate.

13 hours more and I'll be back in the Land of the Fat and the Freaked.

Beermas at the White House

The Media had its diapers twisted by the uproar over the arrest of a Harvard professor in his own home by a Cambridge police officer. President Obama entered the fray by calling the incident 'stupid'. His off-the-cuff comment racketed up the GOP attack dogs at a time when the White House is promoting legislation on Health Care reform. Obama decided to handle this crisis with a tactic unknown to the previous administration. he invited the arresting officer and the arrested professor to the White House for a few beers on the White House lawn.

The outrage dissipated into a pundit frenzy of tea-reading the choice of beer.

Obama - Bud Light. The cop - Buckler. The professor - Red Stripe.

Joe Biden was also invited although no one cared about the VP's choice.

The media was kept at a distance and Obama later said about the 'beer summit', "This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day and hopefully giving people the opportunity to listen to each other."

Officer Gates and Professor Crowley parted not as beer buddies, but at least gaining another taste in each other's mouth about the charged incident.

All hail the power of beer.

Hello I Love You

Walking Street Sign

The entrance to Pattaya's Walking Street was adorned by a glorious sign for decades. Simple in concept it announced your arrival on the wicked street in the world. The town fathers have been trying to clean up the city's image for an equal length of time and decided to replaced the old sign with a high-tech banner complete with giant TV screen promoting the clean things to do on Walkin Street.

No mention of go-go bars, ka-toeys, short-time, Viagra, and fat tourists with young girls.

I was broken-hearted to see the new sign.

Shocked.

"It is new." Junior Mint liked the new sign. She's young. I'm old. "You like old things because you are old."

"You're right about that." Old things are old because they are good sometimes and the old Walking Street sign said everything without any help from a TV screen.

FUN FUN FUN.

The new sign says, "Old fun no good. Want new fun."

And I'm scared that there fun begins where my usually ends.

Desertion by Weight

Desertion of Duty is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission from one's Government or superior by a soldier or sailor. The term AWOL is an acronym for "Absent Without Leave', but sometimes desertion is in the soldier's best interest, however any absconder is in danger of being prosecuted by the military tribunal. The British executed over 306 soldiers for this 'crime' during WW 1.

Shot at dawn.

Over 1,000 British soldiers have deserted since the beginning of the Iraq war. Over half of those come after 2005, but an even greater number have chosen another exit strategy by gaining too much weight to qualifiy for combat. Thousands of soliders are unfit and Patrick Mercer MP, head of strategy at the Army Training & Recruiting Agency, said: "This lack of personal fitness is a disgraceful state of affairs. The army is desperately undermanned anyway and for obesity to be a problem is extraordinary."

How else can soldiers end a war?

By walking off the field alive and fat.

Have another Happy MRE. The life you save might be your own.

The Scream

My 1st Thai wife or mia luang and I haven't shared intimacy since before the birth of our daughter. 6 years without a kiss or a gesture of affection. Needless to say this dearth of embraces includes the act of sex. The whys are many and the state of abstinence is two-sided. Being Thailand I wandered from our bed to the arms of other women, finally settling on Junior Mint from Soi 6. She was skinny, beautiful, and funny. Dangerous too. I never expected to be more than a customer, however she retired from the Game and we ended up having a child together.

The problem is that I still haven't left my first wife and Junior Mint considers herself a mia noi or small wife. This status is reviled on Thai TV and her family shakes their head at her predicament.

"I can not tell them I love you. I am only mia noi."

This trip has been split between my two wives.

Chain-nat and Jomtien. 360 Kilometers. A six-hour bus ride. I've passed through Morchit 8 times in 5 weeks. The woman selling tickets to Chia-nat asks after my daughter. She knows my wife. Normally the wife is the last to know about her husband's transgressions and my friends have asked if she knows about my Jomtien wife.

"No," I answer, but I can read on her face that she knows. Her eyes show hurt and regret. She did me wrong and I was not the worst of all men. A man but not a bad one, except on one occasion.

My Jomtien wife Junior wife is less reticent about her fate. The other day I was leaving for Chai-Nat. She was jealous about my daughter. The words out of her mouth were hateful. Mostly about me. We were in our room. Her spleen finally gave out an anguished scream. Despair and hate. I wish I could have recorded this exorcism of pain. Any movie studio would have bought it. My friends in the building said she sounded like a wounded animal lost in a morass. Nothing I could do would make her feel better that evening and on the next morning I left for Chai-Nat, thinking it was all over between us.

I would send money for my son. She would find someone else. Junior Mint is beautiful as is my wife. Life would go on. Somewhere I would find someone else to love. Two days in Chai-Nat. Junior Mint had an ex-boyfriend call me. I figured she was getting on with her life. I wished her luck and devoted myself to my family up north. My wife was affectionate. She loves me in her own way. I slept in the bedroom., She slept with my daughter. We hugged as man and woman do when they have fallen apart and I said I loved her. My daughter told me to be careful. I was heading back to the States. She thought everyone killed each other there with guns.

"Not everyone. Just bad people." I never carried a gun. If I did I would have murdered hundreds on the streets of New York and the highways of America.

I felt awful leaving her, but I don't have a job here.

Maybe I do, but there's a bright opportunity in New York and I have to see it out.

I came back to Jomtien expecting the worse. Junior Mint offered no kiss. She turned her head. It was over. That night we fought. I moved to the room below hers. I texted her a message saying I was heartbroken by her betrayal. In truth I wasn't fussed at all.

Maybe a little bit.

My bags were packed and I was ready to go, but a little before the dawn Junior Mint crawled into my bed.

"Now I know you care about me. You jealous I with other man." She was happy to think that she could hurt me. "Now you know how I feel when you go to Chai-Nat."

"Yes, I do." Not really but in her naked arms I was more than willing to believe that I did. Any man heading back to the States could do no less. The best lies are the ones we tell ourselves.