nam prik pao

10/04/07

“Valor lies just half way between rashness and cowheartedness.” Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605-15


The chemo, the steroids, the coffee, the smoke…
Regarding my dog and cats, it doesn’t say anything about smoking pet hair in my chemo handbook. Did I mention that I no longer have to apply Rogaine to my balls. In biology we learn that the simplest animals, like worms and analids, are fundamentally comprised of a mouth and anus. In humans, these are areas where sensitive mucous membranes are constantly replenished by fast growing cells. Yes, I have a sore throat, tongue and butthole. What I aim to avoid is the kind of nam prik pao, a Thai chili paste, recently served up in a London restaurant: “A Thai restaurant cooking up a big pot of bird’s eye chili brought road closures and evacuations in the Soho area of London after passersby complained that a noxious chemical was burning their throats and the London Fire Brigade sent a chemical response team….Smashing down the door of the suspected source—the restaurant—they emerged carrying a pot containing about nine pounds of chilies that had been left roasting.” Speaking of burning buttholes, when I looked up the spelling for “analid” (of which there was none) I came across the word “anilingus,” you guessed it: n. Oral stimulation of the anus. [Lat. anus, anus + Lat. lingere, to lick.]
While contemplating my black, tarry stool (in the film, The Madness of King George, as you may recall, the royal physicians observed the stool for signs of ill health) I couldn’t help but reflect on the Blackwater USA horror. As Nietzsche famously said, “If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

How sad, how tragic, how unconscionable, how utterly outrageous: “’My son was very gentle, very clever,’ Mr Ahmed said, where he had come to provide details after the murder of his wife and son by Blackwater USA forces. ‘He was easy to be around. He planned to be a surgeon.’ ‘She is a beautiful women,” he said of his wife, speaking as if she were still alive (NYT 10/04/07).’” Imagine driving down the Big Bay road and randomly shooting at folks along the way. Wow! We’re talking about armed contractors, hired soldiers, who indiscriminately fire at Iraqi civilians. Aegis, another contractor posted a “trophy video” in 2006 that graphically depicted the murder of innocent civilians. Several employees of yet another contractor, Triple Canopy, have been fired for the “joy-ride shooting” of, you guessed it, unarmed Iraqi citizens. There’s no denying the fact that these are hired mercenaries making big money. Given that Blackwater’s owner is Erik Prince, a Michigan man strongly influenced by Evangelical and Neo-Conservative ideology, there may be some truth to Maureen Dowd’s contention that Ike’s warning of a military-industrial complex might now be considered as the threat of a mercenary-evangelical complex. Speaking of princes, as that most esteemed of political sages, and one that both liberals and conservatives find truth in, Niccolo Machiavelli, warned over 400 years ago, hired mercenaries are “useless and dangerous.” It’s also worth noting that Americans (we who fund these armed contractors) have long been anti-mercenary. It may be that the 30,000 German Hessians the British hired to kill Americans, specifically old greenback George himself, left a bad taste in our mouths.

One of the more disturbing statistics I’ve noticed of late is the rise in age of our soldiers killed in action in Iraq. Age wise, there are more and more upper 30s and lower 40s names showing up in this sad statistic. This undoubtedly has to do with just how thin we are in terms of our armed forces. Given that we’ve increased the age at which one can join the fight against the terrorists, perhaps it’s time that our most courageous patriot, the esteemed Rush Limbaugh, step up and take the place of those “phony soldiers,” (you know, they who have actually fought in Iraq and, having seen what they’ve seen, object to the war). How lucky we are that his wisdom is coming to the fore now that his oxy-adled brain has returned to normal; that his formerly nicotine stained fingers are taking calls from REAL Americans; that he’s renounced his illegally hired dope-peddling servants; that he’s saving us from lezboes, feminazis, and homos trying to sap our body politic of its vital nationalistic juices, that he’s preserving the quality of the traditional family; and that he’s so handsome with his new hair and physique. Praise God! Praise him again! Land o’ Goshen, we need more like him.