Showing 1 - 10 of 15
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 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.
'Bad Genius' exception to Thai film rule
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/10/2017
» She cheats because she wants money, and because she believes the system has cheated her first. No politics please! The exciting Thai pop-culture news of the week was the box-office triumph of the Thai film Chalard Games Goeng (Bad Genius in English), an exam-cheating thriller packed with heart-racing set pieces in which bright students orchestrate an elaborate international cheating ring, outsmarting the system on the expense of their moral equanimity. When you're 17, perhaps that's a small price to pay.
When art imitates life in the South
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/08/2017
» Suhaidee Sata is an artist from Pattani whose art pieces include charcoal sketches of guns used by security officials in the deep South. "This is M16a1," he pointed at one drawing. "This is M16a2. This is M4. And this is AK47."
'Pre-truth' far scarier than 'post-truth'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/11/2016
» 'Post-truth" -- that's Oxford Dictionaries' word of 2016. Trump-inspired and aided by Facebook algorithms, it clicks. What happens isn't as important as what you think happens, and if you think something is true, then what is true is simply what you think. But truth be told, post-truth still suggests an involvement of truth, how truth is there and yet is blithely bypassed by emotion and prejudice, and thus there's a more dangerous term that fits better in some places: "pre-truth".
IS a threat even if they aren't here
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/07/2016
» Ramadan has ended, and what a bloodied Ramadan it was as the godless terror of the so-called Islamic State (IS) -- though I prefer Daesh -- spilled innocent blood and soiled the spirit of the holy month.
Living in a void of white wilderness
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/12/2015
» They look like modern art, those blank spaces in the International New York Times, an emptiness in the forest of stories.
Past actions lead to sense of numbness
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2015
» The date is June 18, 2026, and this is a diary from the future. Thailand in 2026 feels like 2015 in many ways, except it’s worse, despite the half-finished high-speed rail to Chiang Mai — the budget bloated from three trillion baht to five trillion baht in 2020 — and the half-finished Pak Bara deep-sea port — the budget didn’t bloat, but the government shifted its priority to buying nuclear submarines.
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.
Young minds soldier on for Children's Day
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/01/2015
» On this Children's Day, what are we hoping for our children?