The university I work at may be run by idiots, but unfortunately I can’t give them credit for the hair-brained origami-for-peace scheme. This comes all the way from the top: the Thai Prime Minister himself. After killing 80 people during the latest demonstration, and 540 this year, he wants to dump planeloads of garbage on the South. Unbelievable.

But then again, it is a very Thai solution. People get to spend hours and hours doing busy work, but accomplish nothing useful in the end. Thais love their busywork, from the armies of office workers sorting and stamping the mountains of paperwork that prevent any real work from getting done, to the shopkeepers scrubbing the filthy sidewalks outside their shops that will never come clean, to the old guys sweeping puddles of water around after it rains. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, as long as you’re doing something, and accomplishing nothing.

And, the students love it. Of the 12 out of 80 students who came to my last lecture, the six Thai students were all busy folding their cranes. They must have gotten bored, though, because after the break only the six foreign students remained.

I swear I’m not making this up