Showing 1 - 10 of 18
Thai TV not yet destined for global love
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/03/2018
» The soap series Bupphaesannivas (Love Destiny) is all the rage these days in Thailand. I enjoy some parts of it, especially one memorable episode a few weeks back when the female lead, a beautiful vixen in 17th century Ayutthaya, displays her vituperative talent by shouting at her servant, "Shut up or I'll smack your mouth with my piss pot." Neither did we see the piss nor the pot, but we get the picture. There's even a YouTube clip of that.
PM trumped by president's sales pitch
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/10/2017
» A match made in heaven, or in Purgatory, or at least in the White House. Two men known for belligerent rhetoric and rambling speech sat side by side, one elected, one a pretender, both famous for throwing tantrums, their respective wives kept out of the frame (of course). It was a press conference at the White House between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on the occasion of the latter's trip of a lifetime.
Poetic licence in how to run the country
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/07/2017
» There was once a general in Thailand Who thought the country needed a helping hand How he was so frank And rolling out tanks He banged the table and took power over Thailand
First they came for those who 'twerk'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/06/2017
» The police this week visited several cultural spaces, to appreciate the art and to mete out censorship. Next they'll give out art prizes -- to those who toe the line and serve the official ideology -- like the propagandistic communist states did in the last century.
Pray against intolerance in the far South
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/02/2017
» Being a teenager is hard. Being a teenager in the deep South is harder. Being an LGBT teenager is also hard. And being an LGBT teenager in the deep South is even harder, sometimes the hardest.
Charter tune plays like a broken record
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/06/2016
» One song is championed, the other outlawed. One song hides its prejudices in the subconscious, the other clear in its messages. Both songs are about the referendum. That is, in case we still have the referendum, because it's almost safer now to bet on Albania winning Euro 2016 than on our slippery Aug 7 poll taking place.
'No' drama being played out in real life
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/04/2016
» In October 1988 there was a national referendum. A military dictator, under pressure from the international community after years in power, years of human rights violation, abductions and forced disappearances, held a plebiscite where citizens could go to the poll and tick "yes" or "no".
Hushing up harsh facts into oblivion
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/11/2014
» You've heard the news, and you know what they're talking about even though they're not talking about it. Or maybe you don't know, but you think you do, and as they keep talking about it in codes, in murmurs, in paranoid whispers shielded by cupped hands, you're not sure if they're really talking about it. About what? Those policemen who fell from grace straight into the gutter, among other things. But what do you talk about when you talk about something people don't want to talk about, or not in public: you burrow into the deep stream, into the silo of speculations and rumour mills. You do it and I do it, and we contribute to our descent into an anti-knowledge society.
When in doubt, gag the dissenters
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/09/2014
» Banning is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook, dating back to the pre-Medici, pre-Bolshevik, pre-YouTube era. It's placebo, and yet the illusion of efficiency still works like drugs among jittery leaders and strongmen who fear papers, images, testaments and sometimes truth.
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.