Please pay your respects to His Majesty

The signs of Thailand's growing culture of conformity and fear are ever present. I just finished reading an article about a confrontation in a movie theater in Bangkok. Every theater in Thailand begins each movie by first showing a film honouring the king and accompanied by his anthem. All patrons are required to stand and pay their respects to His Majesty.

Recently an anti-coup activist attended a movie but refused to stand during the King's anthem. Other patrons shouted at him, threw popcorn and water bottles, and then physically confronted the man leading him to call the police. His assailant, in turn, promised to files charges against this man for Lese majeste. You can read the article here if you're interested.

Meanwhile we in the U.S. decry state censorship because FOX has the audacity to edit out Sally Field's rambling, incoherent dribble about the 'GD war.' This is supposed to be proof that the Right Wing controls the media? That Bush has created a police state where anyone who disagrees with his Iraq policy will be silenced?

When we go to the movies and have to a salute a portrait of W or risk getting ruffed up by some Eagle Scouts, then I'll be worried.

Your face is a comeback

Out of all our family, I think Jake might be having the most difficult time making the transition here in Hawaii. I have my teaching, research, and life within an academic community. Kaddi is so happy not to be in Thailand that she could make due living in Lovelock, Nevada (temporarily). And Meg...well, we all know that she is the sun around which the rest of us revolve.

But in many ways Jake has got the shaft. We arrived too late for him to be enrolled in soccer. He's been lectured by people here in the projects for riding his skateboard on the sidewalks. And since he's in fifth grade this year he's old enough to learn why Hawaiian schools have a reputation for bullying white-kids. He comes home and tells us about how the large Polynesian girls have yelled mean things at him or shoved him in the lunch line. What can you do about that? What boy wants to be known as the kid who complained to the teacher because the girls were too rough on him?

Then today Jake mentioned a boy who goes out of his way to insult him whenever possible. I've no doubt it's one of these dumpy kids with brush cuts who spend their afternoon shoveling Spam into their pieholes while watching Nickelodeon. Anyway, yesterday Spam-Spam the future offensive lineman sat down next to Jake at lunch and said:

"You're ugly."

The fact that such a pedestrian insult could still make poor Jakey feel bad about himself told us that...1) He'd never lived in the projects before....and 2) We needed to toughen him up a bit. Bless his sensitive little heart, he just can't understand why the Polynesian kids would be so mean to him. So, after we got back from Family Home Evening at the beach we sent Meg to bed, then Jake, Kaddi and I sat around brainstorming potential come-backs for this incredibly lame putdown.

So the next time someone says "You're ugly," we've instructed Jake to respond with:

1) Hmmm...which of the other boys do you think is hot?

2) That's a relief. The way you're staring I thought you were going to ask me out.

3) Well, apparently I'm good looking enough to date your mom.

4) Are you talking or did you just fart? I get your face confused with your butt.

We realize that this may not be the most Christ-like way to respond to a bully, but at least it's non-violent. Hopefully, this will work. Next family home evening we may have to teach him how to make a shiv out of his protractor.

All that you know is at an end

As a Canadian-American I have for years struggled with my minority identity as I see my beloved native country made the punchline of jokes in movies, television, and print media. As a country dedicated to solid values like multi-culturalism, international peace, and legalized-prostitution, we are often overlooked in world system based on economic power and military might.

Well, that's all about to change now that the loonie has reached par with the greenback. Canadians are getting ready to flex their new economic muscle, soon we will be the masters of the North America trade system, and eventually the world. Those of you who have pushed Canada around for the past...well, since it has existed, really...better start looking over your shoulders. You're about to get a hockey glove right in the grill.

Many of you Americans probably have many questions right now. What about me? Is my job safe? Will I have a place in the new order? Most of you needn't worry. When I take my rightful place as Prefect in the Canadian Empire, I will be sure to provide employment positions for all my former associates. Preference will be given to those with landscaping ability, but anyone with experience in construction, fruit extraction, or the fast-food industry will also have a place.

Please take my advice and embrace the emerging regime instead of clinging to the old ways. I don't want my first year of governance marred by any unpleasantness.

Welcome to the year zero.

The KA Crew

I managed to find the group photo taken that summer afternoon (a day which will live in infamy). Mellow D is standing behind the car with Boyd K. Punker sitting in the passenger seat. And Corey is sitting on the hood lifting weights. Ironically, he's now the most famous of our group having gone on to found the Corey hotline, where young girls can call in and listen to him talk for 3.95/minute. ("Here are some words that rhyme with Corey....story, glory, allegory.")

Young Mack Strate looks even better without the hat on, you get a good look at the Wang Chung haircut. I suppose it could be worse. Some people's high school pictures show them wearing half-shirts made out of mesh.

Fear of a Mack Planet

1989

the number, another summer
get down! sound of the funky drummer
music hittin' you hard 'cause I know you got soul...

I checked the blog this morning to find that my brother-in-law had posted a comment including a picture that chronicles the development of the internation superstar Mack Strate. Most people would try to cover up such episodes from their past by simply deleting this comment. I've learned from my historical study that when a scandal breaks, instead of trying to deny or stonewall you just embrace it. So, I share it with you - the 301NIB viewership.

If I remember correctly, this photo was from my grade eleven year. We took a series of pictures with Dave, Kevin and Corey (the KA crew) with the Mustang in the background. I think I drove that car a total of eleven times because it got 7 miles per gallon. By the way, I know I have a photo with all four of us in it and I will be looking to post that one in the future.

I know you are all in awe of the ensemble. Of course it all begins with the Dallas Cowboys hat, still featured on the latest Mack Strate t-shirt. The pegged pants were ahead of their time in the world of hip-hop. I really think that you'll be seeing a lot more rappers wearing their pants that way in the next year or so. My favorite part is the bling-bling. You can't really see it in the photo but I'm wearing an over-sized Mercedes symbol around my neck - the kind you take off the trunk of the car. Of course, a nice Mormon boy like me wouldn't dare steal the thing himself I just paid for one stolen by another guy. It was so big I really couldn't move without it banging against my chest and collapsin a lung. But it was cool.

When you think about it, the photo is sort of like an episode of Before They were Stars on VH1, where they take someone like George Clooney and show his role on the Facts if Life, where he has the goofy clothes and huge hair...and everyone says 'I can't believe that was him!' I know its hard to look at that photo and believe that awkward, spindly young man could transform himself into the blogging sensation Mack Strate.

Well, maybe it's not that hard...

J-Dog hits double digits

In celebration of Jake's birthday we've decided to publish one of his homeschool essays written during his exile in Thailand. His thoughts on electricity combine a unique approach to history with a "let's just go this over with" attitude.


In my opinion the best invention is electricity. If we didn't have electricity we wouldn't have warm water. That means that when we took showers there would only be coldwater. Plus, lights use electricity so we would have to use candles all the time. I think Beethoven went blind because he wrote all his music with only the light at a candle.

Air conditioning also runs on electricity. I am living in Thailand right now and my family gets hot a lot. So not having the A/C would be bad. Our refrigerator runs on electricity all our food would go bad. My sister and I like to play Gamecube and that uses the TV. The TV uses electricity. You can also get information from the news. For instance if there is a tornado they can tell you the drills for safety. We use electricity every day so I guess its pretty important.

We hired Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic to put on a show for Jake's birthday. Sure, the special effects were incredible. But the characters had no chemsitry and the storyline felt stilted and predictable.

Happy B-Day Meg

Today we had our family celebration of Meg's birthday. It started last night when we caught a ride with a friend to the grocery store where Meg got to pick up what she wanted for her 'birthday dinner' along with cake, ice cream, candles, and a few other accesories. I think this may have been her favorite part of the festivities.


This morning she woke up to find that Kaddi and I had blown up balloons and placed them around her presents. Opening up her presents, which included (of course) Polly Pockets was a great start to the day, although she was a little disappointed to learn that we weren't going to take her to Subway immediately following church.

In the afternoon we ran into a few snags as we prepared for the dinner. Meg had selected pasta with butter (which the kids practically lived on in Thailand) masshed potatoes, and peas as her special meal. Despite our preparations we had forgotten to get both peas and margarine. I managed to procure some margarine by knocking on doors here in the ghetto, but sadly there were no peas to be found. We also planned to write 'Happy Birthday Meg' using decorative icing on her cake, and discovered we had no attachment to go on the end of the tube of icing. But Kaddi persevered using a Ziploc sandwich bag and managed to scrawl out 'Happy B-Day Meg.'

When it was finally cool enough to go outside we had cake and ice cream down at the picnic tables. The Hawaiian breezes made it almost impossible to light candles, but we managed to get four out of seven lit at one time and Meg quickly blew them out. We finished our cake and ice cream and then let the kids play in the street.

Thankfully Meg seems to be young enough to not be affected by life here in the projects. I'm more worried about Jake, though. When we asked him what he wanted for his birthday said he said a Lebron jersey, a diamond-studded crucifix necklace, and some gold teeth.

BYUHigh School Musical

At BYUH the party's always at the library.


A word of caution for young scholars.


BYUH students engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.

How to Win Friends and Manufacture People

One of the biggest worries about starting over again (for ten months) in Hawaii was how long it would take the kids to make friends. Fortunately, a family from Utah moved into the building right across from us with a little girl Meg's age. This simply confirms the univerally accepted principle that the world is Meg's oyster.

Meg and her friend celebrate Hawaii's beautiful natural scenery by staying indoors and playing Polly-Pockets.

Unfortunately, there aren't any other nine-year old boys in our complex, so we just took Jake and had him cloned. If you look closely you'll notice it's not an exact copy, but I thought it was a pretty good for our first attempt.

We may have to continue testing on some neigbourhood kids. I still don't have any friends and I want to get the genetic sequencing just right before creating Mack Strate II.