It Makes Me Want To Thai One On
THE EVER CURIOUS GNOME THAT I AM, it is a common thing for me to go out looking for stupidity. True, I produce enough of my own, but some days you just can’t have enough. Stupidity is like potato chips.
Using that simile – I recently bumped into a story out of England that might qualify for a car load of Pringles.
“An organization for the deaf is holding a major festival in England this summer. It’s scheduled for July, in a town called Eggington. But the police there are fighting against it, and trying to get its license revoked . . . because they’re worried it’ll be too LOUD.”
I repeat, for latecomers – this event is a festival for the DEAF. But because there is to be music at the festival, the locals are concerned that it might get out of hand.
“As for why there’s music, a spokesman said, quote, ‘The event is for the deaf community, and anyone is welcome to come to learn sign language and make new friends’.
“The license WAS going to be debated at a town council meeting last week, but the guy organizing the festival couldn’t participate . . . because the sign language interpreter didn’t show up.”
If I’m reading this thing correctly, and I think I am, it looks like the town of Eggington has its Civic brain up on blocks. But, then again, that is a condition that knows no geographic boundaries.
To make my point I offer up another example of governmental brain freeze – this time from the other side of the planet, in Thailand.
To preface this I must tell you that there was a military coup in Thailand a couple of years ago and the country is now being run into the ground by a coven of Generals who are as capable as Wily E. Coyote.
Since the coup some things have changed, while others have not. The fact that the military/police, for many years, have not only protected the numerous, yet illegal, Casinos and Brothels, but have owned and operated a number of these castles of morality themselves is nothing new. What has changed is the official attitude toward anyone who is not Thai. This includes Expatriates from around the world who have retired to Thailand. Now, with that knowledge in place –
A couple of weeks ago in the Thai resort town of Pattaya, a force of more than fifty Thai police and “Anti-Vice” bureaucrats from the Thai Ministry of the Interior staged a raid on a restaurant where they interrupted a game of Bridge being played by thirty-one elderly Non-Thai retirees.
Safeguarding the purity of Thai culture, the police hauled off the retirees to the local hoosegow. It wasn’t easy getting all of the desperados into the police vans because most of those under arrest ranged in age from 50 to 84. They were held until about 3 AM when they were allowed to post bail. Their crime??
They were all charged with having more than 120 playing cards in their possession and with not having the latest government authorized tax stamp on the cards. Move over Al Capone! If Al Capone had been running the game there would at least have been some real gambling going on, but with the Senior Citizen Mob, there was no money involved – not one red Baht.
Here is a video link about the raid with actual footage of the criminals in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYGMnHQbKk
And so things go in modern day Thailand, and England.
I need a drink.
Down the Hall on Your Left 