Showing 1 - 10 of 26
Will gentrification respect city's people?
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/06/2023
» We've lived for over a century in the shadow of grandeur: near the Customs House, known to Thais as rongpasi. "We" means my maternal family and the community of Haroon Mosque. Each day before sunrise, the muezzin's sing-song call rings through the neighbourhood, carried on the river wind towards the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the French Embassy and Assumption Cathedral.
We need less 'content' and more journalism
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2020
» Content, as media gurus keep preaching, is king. But such PowerPoint pep talk is shallow: "Content" -- an increasingly bastardised term that has come to signify TV newscasts, podcasts, movies, viral videos, Netflix series, memes, news articles, editorial features, real advertising, covert advertising, tweets and Facebook posts, organic or boosted -- is also an anaesthetic. It dulls the senses and kills meaning, then proceeds to belittle essence, promote shallowness and eventually undermine the practice of journalism.
Wild Boars may well need saving again
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/07/2018
» I thought we could let it rest, but apparently the post-rescue drama of the 13 cave survivors is here to stay. On Wednesday, the 13 Wild Boars members were put on stage in a live broadcast, a 6pm state-run slot usually reserved for military propaganda.
Hope lives on as cave rescue crisis unfolds
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/06/2018
» Time is not on their side, and not on ours. To beat nature and to outrun time -- and what cruel nature and pitiless time -- we give it everything we have.
Knives are out in death penalty row
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/06/2018
» To execute or not to execute, the question weighed on Thai society in the past week with the force of righteous anger. It is a tough question, one that lays bare the complex intersection of morality, law, religion, belief, value, and even the position of the country on the spectrum along which the international norm is moving.
Look ahead after a grand farewell
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/10/2017
» The yarn of history has spun its fine threads. History is the majestic pageantry that took place on Thursday, the likes of which we'll never see again. It is the centuries-old chariots dripping with gold, the festooned processions and severe steps of solemn marchers, the sorrowful magnificence of the royal crematorium. History is the elegiac trumpet salute to the beloved King, the fabulous cosmology of heaven recreated on Earth, the stunning synchronicity of the masked dance performers, and finally, history is the invisible fire and the grey smoke in the night sky, signalling that everything must return to ashes.
Our newest mission is to love the bomb
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/07/2017
» Like all soap addicts, I caught glimpses of the debut episode of the television series Love Missions last week. Not a strand of hair misplaced despite his dangerous expedition, Capt Purich (played by Sukollawat Kanarot) enters a red zone to battle terrorists after they've abducted foreign delegates from a conference in Bangkok. "This act of terrorism has a big boss behind it," intones the captain.
'Bob' Halliday gone, but his light lives on
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/06/2017
» Bob told me many stories from a time when I hadn't even been born: During the Oct 14, 1973 student uprising, the authorities suspected he was a spy. When the Oct 6, 1976 massacre took place and the stench of blood was still fresh at Thammasat University, he surveyed the wreckage and bemoaned the state of the country he had adopted as his new home. Some evenings he reminisced on how he had lived through several dictators and prime ministers, hijacked or elected, overthrown or incapacitated -- he talked about Richard Nixon, Thanom Kittikachorn, Tanin Kraivixien, Thaksin Shinawatra, Prayut Chan-o-cha, etc. It didn't matter what happened, he'd say, as long as he could prowl produce markets in search of the perfect durian -- the caramelised Holy Grail of the fruit he adored above all else, the fruit that, as he'd say, made him "slobber like a mastiff".
We all live in a regime submarine
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/04/2017
» What did Donald Trump say when he was a hotshot Republican candidate in January 2016? "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."
All aboard for a scary trip down South
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/04/2016
» The news reads: Hard-line critics of the regime will be sent to take intensive "training courses" in the Deep South. The National Council of Peace and (dis)Order (NCPO) has confirmed the courses in the camps, which will be longer and more rigorous than the regular attitude adjustment series.