Showing 401 - 410 of 432
Bridge goes too far
News, Postbag, Published on 06/02/2016
» News of the armed raid in Pattaya by a group of soldiers, police and district officials on a bunch of mostly old-age pensioners has gone viral.
Land xenophobia
News, Postbag, Published on 30/01/2016
» Re: “Critics savage 99-year land lease scheme”, (BP, Jan 28).
Coal has black future
News, Postbag, Published on 23/01/2016
» Coal is having a rough start to the year, but there are still some voices that continue to tout its benefits for humanity. Sopon Pornchokchai, in his article “Is Greenpeace being flexible with the truth?” (Bangkok Post Sunday, Jan 10) claiming coal is cheap, safe and abundant, is one of them.
Red Bull reminder
News, Postbag, Published on 12/01/2016
» I fully agree with the storm raised against DJ Keng, aka Pattarasak Thiemprasert, who forcefully backed his pickup truck twice into a stationary car, then lied that the car had hit him. His lies were caught on a video taken by a bystander. This man richly deserves jail.
In defence of THAI
News, Postbag, Published on 02/01/2016
» Re: “Safety concerns hit industry’s credibility”, this issue really hurts the credibility of the country.
Slaves to irrationality
News, Postbag, Published on 22/12/2015
» Despite our technological progress, all too often we humans remain slaves to irrationality, prone to be led by gut feelings rather than facts, fearing and mistrusting what we do not understand. The popular reaction to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) seems a prime example of these tendencies. In Michael Setter’s recent goldmine of non-sequiturs on this topic, I was particularly taken by the following example:
Honest officer does us proud
News, Postbag, Published on 13/12/2015
» Re: “Top cop mulls suing Paween” (BP, Dec 12).
Claus for thought
News, Postbag, Published on 10/12/2015
» In their Dec 8 letters, both Barbara AK Franklin and Richard Mabbitt attempt to educate me about the origin of Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas. Sorry to burst their bubble but it’s impossible to point to a real "first" Santa, because Santa is a culmination of mythological legends and stories.
Rights are universal
News, Postbag, Published on 07/12/2015
» I respectfully disagree with letter writers who claim that Americans have no practical knowledge of Thailand and criticise the recent comments of the US ambassador (“Bahrt misses the mark” and “Criticism of Davies is fair”, PostBag, Dec 6).
The TEFL challenge
News, Postbag, Published on 14/11/2015
» The initiative to train Thai teachers in TEFL teaching to reduce the reliance on foreign teachers sounds promising, but the Ministry of Education is missing the point. English language tuition here is driven by the commercial sector, with parents paying enormous levies for their children to learn from native speakers, preferably Westerners. In other words, they expect a "white face" for their hard-earned baht. It’s superficial, and explains why there’s widespread discrimination against qualified Philippine teachers who work for lower wages, en masse, and solve the problem. But the TCT now expects them to have a Master's in Education before licensing them. In May, there was a crisis-like TEFL teacher shortage, which caused the industry to become flooded with gap-year students qualified with cheap "online" TEFL certificates. Those trained properly with a 120-hour practicum-driven course generally do a better job than locals, and teach using modern and effective methods. Thai teachers clearly have their work cut out for them if they are to compete.