Showing 1 - 10 of 65
A nation of millions can't hold them back
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/10/2018
» Rhymes and misdemeanours. Yo, yo. Rappers are threatened to be thrown in a slammer.
Thai idols fall in line with orthodoxy
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/09/2018
» Poor coup-makers, no one wants to see them on TV. At 6pm sharp when the theme song begins, there's a rush of hands to the remote control. Not that you can escape them. The true mark of dictatorship is audiovisual dictatorship: They beam their images on every TV and radio channel, monopolising your sensory reception, like a sci-fi movie, or like a spoiled child demanding your full attention. At 6pm every day for the past four years, the hands clutching the remote have reached for the only possible button. Off.
A poll date and elephant in the room
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/08/2018
» We've heard distant drumbeats and dates are being thrown around. The election will -- may -- happen on Feb 24, 2019, which is the Year of the Pig, if that portends anything. The latest possible date, if things get pushed around by design or by fate, is May. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe never. Who knows? For a regime that prides itself as rule-keepers, rules and promises have been treated like toilet paper since day one.
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.
Time to let Wild Boars roam freely
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/07/2018
» If nature was mother, the cave the womb, the divers the midwives, then the 12 boys and their football coach have experienced a rebirth -- the strangest rebirth because, held captive inside the wet catacomb for 18 days, they were reborn after escaping death by the skin of their teeth.
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.
Stop the tall tales about election dates
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/05/2018
» There's no way round it and there's no time for subtlety: The past four years have been a sham, a false dream stage-managed by false prophets.
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.