Showing 11 - 20 of 147
Sucking the wind out of the elections
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/05/2018
» The verb of the week is "to dood".
Beauties and the beasts of coup regime
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/04/2018
» It's just too rich to pass up, too weird and symbolic to ignore. The summit of the week between members of the girl group BNK48 and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was the moment when politics met pop-culture, when new met old, when cuties met coupmaker, when teens met tank, when beauty met … whatever.
Religious fervour serves no god well
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/04/2018
» Aformer rock musician has embraced the role of online preacher and denounced, above other things, rock music. In fact, he objects to most kinds of music, deeming it against Islam. Weerachon "Toh" Sattaying, once the high-pitched frontman of the band Silly Fools (love the name), has over the past six years quit his former lifestyle and became a born-again Muslim. Bearded, skull-capped, fiery-eyed and charismatic, Weerachon runs a dry-aged beef business and hosts an online religious programme that has cultivated quite a following.
Spoken crime tells the tale of two singers
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/03/2018
» In a rare ruling, on Thursday the Criminal Court acquitted firebrand and former-singer Tom Dundee in a lese majeste case. He actually pleaded guilty, but in a legal paradox that is as baffling as it is mitigating, the court said it could not rule against the defendant despite his guilty plea since the prosecution failed to provide substantial evidence.
The theory of Hawking as a parallel Thai
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/03/2018
» Had Stephen Hawking been born here, the fate of astrophysics would likely have been different: no Theory of Everything, just a Hypothesis of Nothing. Had he been born here, the starburst of his extraordinary life would have been sucked into a black hole, a metaphorical black hole, and the proof that the universe can be so unkind to some people would have been concluded.
Youth start clock ticking on old guard
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/03/2018
» Let's hand the torch to the young, for the world of cynical adults requires a dose of youthful idealism.
Writing’s on wall for our democracy
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/01/2018
» The other day I saw some graffiti in a public toilet. It read, ars longa, vita brevis. Art is long, life is short, as the popular translation goes. Like a street artist, I decided to vandalise it, scratching out and changing the first bit with my poor Latin: dictatura longa, vita brevis. Dictatorship is long, life is short.
The Faustian promise in a blaming game
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/12/2017
» Through a tangled web of pride, vanity, moral superiority, Nietzschean negativity, Faustian promises and pseudo-Jedi cool, the junta keeps to its playbook by blaming everyone except themselves.
Movies shine light on dark Thai truths
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/12/2017
» Last week, I watched a South Korean film called A Taxi Driver. Based on a true story, it's the account of a cabby who secretly drove a German journalist to cover the 1980 pro-democracy demonstration in Gwangju, a dramatic uprising that toppled Maj General Chun Doo-hwan, the ruler of the country at the time.
Vampires rule roost in this heartless land
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/11/2017
» The mother looked for her son's heart in a foam box. "Where is it?" she asked. She's already had his body, and only when she requested was she was allowed to take back his soul.