Showing 111 - 120 of 147
Free speech tied in lese majeste knot
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/04/2014
» It’s great news that The Guardian and the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize. As citizens of the world, we congratulate the papers, or actually that 21st century Deep Throat Edward Snowden, for exposing the US National Security Agency’s creepy tentacles of unlawful surveillance. It’s great that Mr Snowden gambled it all and it’s great that journalism can still rock, or at least embarrass, an almighty government accustomed to impunity.
Believe it when you see it? Not so fast
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/02/2014
» Thailand in the 21st century is replete with two things: images and firearms. There are more pictures of people in this country than actual people, thanks to selfies, whether at protest sites or elsewhere. Meanwhile guns, M79s and hand grenades are so ubiquitous that even peaceful protesters do not have to look far for one when they’re in need. That the police should carry so many live rounds despite Chalerm Yubumrung’s instruction not to is, unfortunately, no surprise, since Mr Chalerm couldn’t even keep his own son away from guns.
If Somsak's crazy, why get so mad?
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2014
» From heckling to death threats, from trolling to live bullets. From malignant distribution of the enemy’s home address and licence plate number, to good old calls for his head, both real and metaphorical. Burn the witch at the stake: the “punishment” for thoughtcrime in the land of crooked smiles is severe.
Thaksin worse than Hitler? Give us a break
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/01/2014
» It is a mighty stretch of the imagination, isn't it? It is a form of extremism, and extremism is what we're dealing with these days. Above all, it's history being twisted and trampled, all for the sake of bombastic triumphalism and jubilant schadenfreude.
Suthep's rickety ark is going to sink us all
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/01/2014
» The season of non-reason continues, like the polar vortex that deep-freezes the cerebrum, icing out Bangkok from its Ratchadamnoen core.
Amid protests, line of decency must be drawn
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/12/2013
» In our atmosphere of half-truth, everyone is Cyclops. Or like a pirate, we voluntarily wear an eye patch as we squint into a telescope. We think we see, but in fact we're blind. The world is wide and puzzling, and it's easier to slice it in half. As we sail around with one eye shut, we create our own version of reality that is narrow, exclusive, defined by the confined vision that collectively becomes unwholesome truth.
Mandela let us see we're all so very human
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/12/2013
» On Tuesday night I caught the film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom at a screening in Dubai, where I was attending a film festival. On that same day, South Africa bid adieu to Nelson Mandela, the man, the fighter, the prisoner, the township hero who became a global idol for peace, the towering personality whose stature and courage were so formidable that no movie could ever match.
Losing land is bad, but don't lose your head
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/11/2013
» Maps are back. Or precisely, the interpretative wildcard that accompanies maps.
Eerie parallels between two Octobers
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/10/2013
» Justice or impunity, amnesty or licence to kill, reconciliation or oblivion, the numb comfort of forgetting or the sour, endless curse of remembering. Take your pick, for the parliamentary push for the "blanket" amnesty bill that could cleanse the legal sins of everyone from the military to snipers to protesters to ex-PMs - Thaksin Shinawatra and Abhisit Vejjajiva - has raised the political temperature and confirmed the social cracks we still have to brave.
Thanks Chin, Taweesak for making history
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/10/2013
» In a world of instant video clips and on-demand visual recordings - just draw your smartphones and start shooting, like gun-slingers - it's hard to recall a time when documenting events in moving images was a feat.