kalamata olives. named after a greek city. but in indonesian, kala is the beast that eats the sun and the moon, a metaphor for time itself, and mata means the eye.
i’m gonna eat the eyes of time right now. yummeh.
“ต้นร้ายปลายดี” — dtohn raai bplaai dee. all’s well that ends well.
the rational person acts based on what he knows. he is unimaginative and, in many ways, he pays for it. it is not enough to be rational. one must know that he sees but little, and thus in his plans must he consider all those things that he cannot and does not see.
it is tragic that the unimaginative rational is so arrogant in his own intelligence that he cannot understand the ideas of him who understands the nature and the flaws of rationality.
“After perusing a few pages, it became clear that this was a Chinese government propaganda piece, and it seemed out of place with the bookstore’s very mainstream wares. I asked the owner why he had decided to carry such a biased book and whether he had any that presented other sides of the Tibet issue. After looking at the book he replied that he had not ordered it. He then went to his computer and checked past book orders, and concluded that neither he nor any of his employees had ordered it, and that the store did not even do business with the book’s distributor… I later found that other bookstores in the area had unordered copies of this and other Chinese government-produced books on their shelves, apparently surreptitiously placed there by Chinese officials hoping that these cheaply priced volumes would be purchased by Australian readers, who would be converted to the Chinese position regarding Tibet.” — History as Propaganda: Tibetan Exiles versus the People’s Republic of China, by John Powers. Amazon link here.
“ความสุข!” — khwaam sook. happiness! phom mii khwaam sook. i am happy!
What is History: Life, the Universe and Everything
What is History: Nationing and Unnationing the Nation
Dragon: The Lee Kuan Yew Story (he knows kungfu)
To Catch a Tartar II: On the Indefinability of the Nation
The Tartar Apprehended: On the Definability of the Nation
Fashion, Make-up and Magazines: Womanity in Singapore
The Vegetarian Agenda: Environmentalism vs. the Body Politic
Witches and Bitches: Radical Religion and the Hijacking of the State (haha)
Indonesia and Singapore: Best Friends Forever (dunno why this is here)
Money, Sand and War: Popular Perceptions of Burmese Relations with Singapore
Thaksin Shinawatra: An Account of the Swashbuckling Adventures of a Travelling Politician in Southeast Asia (i like this best, i think)
Highlanders: The Assam Region and Why Southeast Asia Does Not Exist
From Babies to Crazies: Why Our Political Leaders Are Completely Off Their F*ing Rockers (where i trace the childhoods of politicians who amuse me)
no thanks to a super popular tv series some time ago, this guy is now popularly perceived as the most bullied deity of all time
“当局者迷，旁观者清” — dang ju zhe mi, pang guan zhe qing. those involved are in a fog, the on-lookers are clear. almost literal translation. you get the gist.
“นอนหลับฝันดี” — non lap fan di. “Good night and sweet dreams!”