Showing 41 - 50 of 55
Huffing and puffing puts us in a spin
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/01/2016
» For your weekend reading, you have two gripping options: The draft of the new constitution, or the government’s proudly presented “Photobook Infographics: Government for the People”, a 104-page hodgepodge of self-congratulatory news clippings. Either way, we brace ourselves for whatever comes, for our fate is not really ours to contend.
Awaken to the dark side in our Star Wars
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/12/2015
» No Star Wars spoiler ahead.The evil Empire has morphed into the First Order, equally evil and prone to intergalactic massacres. The rebels have become the Resistance, which sounds better. Darth Vader has found his ideological protégé in a black-masked, breathy-voiced acolyte. The Stormtroopers turn out to be space Janisseries, plucked from their homes and trained to be guards and marauders. The politics of Star Wars is sketchy, childlike and classical: the light against the dark, the oppressed against the dictator, blue against red, democracy against fascism. The Force, dormant or awakened, is the supreme power that holds the galaxy together. The ultimate battle is to stop the dark side from monopolising that force and reigning in space through violence and terror.
Danger lies in suppressing the screams
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/09/2015
» On a roller coaster, who doesn’t scream? More precisely, who can’t scream? Is there someone who can’t let his voice escape from the churning innards when the ground slips and vertigo hits?
Living under a regime of infinite jest
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/08/2015
» Of course it was just a joke, how could it not be?
Learning to love shooting from the hip
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/08/2015
» Maybe some Thais dig PM Prayut Chan-o-cha the same way some Americans dig Donald Trump.
Crippling US economy is a pipe dream
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/08/2015
» Besides sleeping pills, we need a daily dose of fantasy to make life tolerable. A fantasy that we could bankrupt the US by boycotting American products after the cocky imperialist has branded us a hotbed of human trafficking (Starbucks and McDonald’s for starters, but excluding Facebook because that would be masochistic).
The 4-billion-mile voyage to open minds
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/07/2015
» We’re not going anywhere near Pluto, not any time soon. Not until we set our educational compass towards the future, towards the outside world and not the navel-gazing self. That’s as unlikely as life on the ice volcanoes at the edge of the solar system.
Dancing to nationalism's outdated tune
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/07/2015
» Why should we let the Uighur migrants stay here and “breed litters of children”? says PM Prayut Chan-o-cha in his customary UNHCR-is-not-my-father tone. “Litters of children” — the unit term usually used to describe dogs and other animals, was employed without a blink here. In the original Thai, the PM used the word krok, a rougher, throatier and much more derogatory term than the English equivalent. Krok gives the image of animal lust. It signifies a large number of puppies crawling from the belly of a bitch. It’s not the term any mother would want to be heard describing their children.
Rain bursting to let all hell break loose
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/06/2015
» Like hell, Bangkok is low-lying, hot like fire and prone to floods. It houses desperate souls punished by heat and rain, sometimes, miraculously, on the same day. It’s also extremely vulnerable to water falling from the sky, as evident again on Monday when the city was cursed by the crashing midnight downpour, transforming roads into lakes, gutters into geysers, and commuters into sinners looking for salvation. What have we done to deserve this? Everything.
The great Lee Kuan Yew we never knew
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/03/2015
» The page has turned, and everyone wishes to read about Lee Kuan Yew. But the great mind isn’t that easy to decipher, so we pick and choose and believe that we know the recipe for success that the late Singaporean ruler — brilliant, dogged, direct, merciless — practised in his nation-building cauldron to such a spectacular outcome.