Showing 251 - 259 of 259
A bit of convenience is a breath of fresh airport
Life, Peerawat Jariyasombat, Published on 05/02/2015
» Airport taxis have yet again become the talk of the town. Last month, when a Japanese man took an airport taxi, instead of being charged the standard 35 baht fee, the driver insisted on a starting rate of 75 baht.
Another year to remember, or maybe forget
News, Roger Crutchley, Published on 28/12/2014
» Well, we've just about scraped through another 12 months, although at times things did look a bit on the shaky side. At least all the whistle-blowing has abated. Here are a few reminders of events and characters that graced the year 2014, although some you may prefer to forget.
A glossary of 2014 Newspeak
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/11/2014
» Constitution (noun/slang): A piece of paper torn to shreds every few years by gun-toting soldiers who perform such deeds on national TV. Usually, a new piece of paper is written shortly afterwards, invariably by a clique of handpicked Samaritans, legislative superheroes, heartbroken mavericks and all-purpose sycophants.
Replacing statistics with narratives
Life, Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana, Published on 05/11/2014
» I spent my Halloween weekend shuffling between panels at the Singapore Writers Festival, listening to horror stories. I had been assigned to attend sessions on a variety of discourses, from jazz and poetry to writing about the female body. Instead, I found myself sitting front row at every session featuring Jang Jin-Sung, a North Korean defector, Loung Ung, a survivor of the Pol Pot regime, and Mukesh Kapila, who was the UN commissioner in Sudan as genocide in Darfur broke out.
Filthy rich forces
News, Published on 05/10/2014
» Re: "Anti-graft body reveals NLA riches" (BP, Oct 4).
It's really best when you say nothing at all
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/09/2014
» Dear diary, it is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt, as Mark Twain said. How charming my mouth has been in the past week. If it had been Yingluck Shinawatra saying those things, I'm sure a riot would've broken out and the sound of a million whistles would've shattered your eardrums. But it's me, so it's different. It's not the action but the man. How could those pettifogging critics interpret my speech as avuncular nonsense, when in fact they're pieces of wisdom worthy of being chronicled in the national archives and inscribed onto monuments?
Farmers' smiles bring hope we can move on
Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 27/05/2014
» It is indeed heartening to see our brothers and sisters in the rice farming sector smile and laugh again – thanks to the quick action by the National Council for Peace and Order to address the problem of outstanding payments for rice crops pledged more than six months ago.
Showdown? It's just window-dressing
Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 18/02/2014
» The stage was supposedly set for a major showdown on Tuesday. What was not clear was whether it would be a make-or-break confrontation, or just another show of force by the two opposing forces, the Centre for Maintaining Peace and Order (CMPO) and the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC).
Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives is broke
Veera Prateepchaikul, Published on 08/11/2013
» There is both good news and bad news about the rice pledging scheme, events which seem to have been overshadowed by the current political turbulence.