WOULDN’T IT BE NICE?

In a few minutes I shall be landing at Don Muang Airport, Bangkok. Safety belt already tied, smiling and beautiful air hostesses are kindly collecting my headphones and putting my seat in the upright position according to the rules.
Once again I am back in Thailand, surely happy about it but after three weeks of Europe, after reading for 21 days news about the deadly avian flu that is about to spread all over the world, but mainly in South East Asia I start to feel extremely worried and anxious.
I do imagine after passing through immigration and custom to find myself outside the airport, on the streets of Krung Thep and seeing its sidewalks covered by a huge quantities of rotten dead bodies of humans and chickens. I imagine the few survivors walking like zombies after such huge devastation.
I am getting ready, “nueng, sawng, sahm” and here I am outside the airport and… to my big surprise everything seem to be normal. What happened?Maybe Bangkok authorities they did like their colleagues of Calcutta when some Pope went and visit the city: they hid the dirt, the rubbish and the poor people on the back streets!
Too good to be true anyway, I greet my friend Pe Daeng with a “Wai” and take my “Pusao” (a very old second hand Toyota) and start my road trip to the guts of interior Issarn, Ban Naudom, Rattana Buri, Surin.
And then I do realize one thing. How stupid I am, there are no chicken in Bangkok, the only ones are those fried by the lousy KFF. So I will have my vision of doom once I will enter the country side of Thailand, the rice belt of the Northeast.
I reach Saraburi and again everything is normal, but wait… Saraburi is not yet in Issarn so I told to myself to drive confidently until Korat, then I will start my journey to the “Bird flu Hell”.
Once again to my huge surprise nothing seems to be wrong in Korat and the same in Buri Ram and finally in Surin, Rattana Buri and Ban Naudom.
Oh, here I understand, the miracle of Tamiflu has probably reached those places and saved thousands of people. So I ask my wife and she doesn’t know a fuck about the miracle drug and very little about the Pandemic that is hanging on our very civilized world.
Here people are too busy harvesting rice, on which depends their livelihood to worry about something that is just on the papers and on the news. They are so lucky to live so far away of the media domination, as it seems that in the West all people who lives in front of the TV are getting ready for the imminent Armageddon!The evil power of the media hit again! People are once again scared thus so easy to manipulate and to be kept quiet. After the terrorist, SARS and many other things thanks God we have now the bird flu to fill our pages and to scare people, isn’t it?
Over there in Europe it seems there is no more Tamiflu available, people did rush to buy it at such a ridiculous high price and with no guarantee that it may be even effective. I suppose it was a really very good job by Roche PR people!
Anyway it seems that now all pharmaceutical companies are searching for a vaccine for this new virus.That’s is good but let me just wonder … how many people died so far of “Bird flu”?100, 200, 500 or 1.000 ?
Honestly I do not know, but let me ask you then…. How many people has George W. Bush killed? Many more I think, so why not try to produce and anti GWB vaccine?
And how many people has Osama Bin Laden killed? Many more I think, so why not try to produce and anti OBL vaccine? Or maybe the above GWB is attempting that in killing thousands of poor Iraqi people?
And how many people have Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouges killed? Many more I think , so why not try to produce and anti PP vaccine?
And how many people has religion killed? Call it “Crusade”, “Inquisition” or “Jihad” is the same fucking shit. So why not produce an anti Religion vaccine?
And finally how many humans have been killed by fellow humans being them Americans, Japanese, Germans, Chinese, whites, reds, yellows, blacks, blues, greens, purple or whatever! And how many innocent animals have been mercilessly killed by humans?
So for the sake of humanity and for our future generations why not try to prepare an anti human vaccine that can kill all really dangerous and deadly human viruses such as greed, selfishness, violence, bigotry and fundamentalism among many others?
As the Beach Boys were singing, wouldn’t it be nice?

And what about our darling chicken friends?Well poor birds, they are nothing else than, once again, victim of human madness and greed. Have you ever heard for “Factory farm” where those poor birds have to live for the sake of productivity and humans’ gain?Those environment, surely not their natural one, where they live in cramped, heated, airless sheds is a really breeding ground for any viruses.
That's what they call the "Karma Law" isn't it?
Blame the chicken? Nope, blame once again the so called “most intelligent” of animals, the “Son of God” according to the Christians. Wow, me I know I have not been a very good father for sure, but at least my daughters and son are way better than those of God, not bad after all, isn’t it?
Ban Naudom, November 15th, 2548
COPYRIGHT C – Claudio Romano