The Golden Coronation of the 21st Century

Today’s news has been quite troubling.  The republic rots from within as grifters and fraudsters the treasury secretary and attorney general ignore Congressional oversight and mere national laws and wholeheartedly dedicate themselves to protecting Dear Leader President Trump’s dirty secrets.  Meanwhile, in even more troubling news, the U.N. released a report projecting the imminent extinction of more than a million species of plants and animals due to human activities.  The decline of our republic makes me so furiously angry that I feel like my teeth will break, but that feeling is nothing compared to the bone deep sadness which I feel contemplating the extinction of so many living things for our frivolous and corrupt economic system.

There is no way I could write about either of these things without spending all day at it (and spending a lot of time screaming at the heavens).  Is this what life is going to be like from here on out? Increasingly emotionally devastating headlines as ever more corrupt figures vie for power and the web of life slowly dies? Almost certainly.

Anyway, I can’t come to terms with these national and planetary headlines, so I am going to write about something frivolous and stupid instead. The King of Thailand is the world’s richest monarch with an estimated net worth of around 30 billion dollars (U.S treasury secretary’s Mnuchin’s personal fortune is only a hundredth of that amount–so we still have a lot of catching up to do in order to create a perfectly corrupt society), but, sadly, the king of Thailand died three years ago.  For three years the new monarch, King Vajiralongkorn, has been preparing his lavish coronation to match the overstuffed opulence of ancient Ayutthaya (an absolutist Siamese kingdom of enormous wealth and splendor which existed from 1350 AD to 1767 AD).  I feel that he succeeded! Just contrast his own nine-tiered parasol of righteousness with those of past kings.

This is the first coronation in Thailand for the last 69 years (!) so it was indeed spectacular to see all of the pageantry and props of the monarchy. The king even put on the famous Great Crown of Victory (which is no mean feat, since the crown is made of 7.3 kg (16 pounds) of gold).

In some ways the Thai coronation is a glimpse back into the excesses of the age of absolutism, when the only thing of any importance in society was the whim of the ruler.  Such ostentatious displays of excessive wealth in a land of sustenance farmers underlined the social contract in a way which was very evident to all.  Yet it is hard not to see the Thai coronation as a bridge to a new golden future.  This is how the world of the 21st century is likely to look not just in Southeast Asia, but right here in America.! The writing is already on the wall…just ask Steven Mnuchin (not that such a glorious vizier… er…”secretary”, would talk to the likes of you).

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