• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  PM's plan to end gridlock is pie in sky

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/08/2018

  » In three months, the angels will return to the clogged thoroughfares of Lost-Angel-ist. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, one who's never shy of making the impossible still impossible, has set his sights on, gasp, fixing Bangkok traffic, which is like untangling the Mobius strip or finding the end of Ariadne's thread. The soundbite-ready part of the PM's order is that he wants to see "tangible results in three months", which promptly sent related authorities scurrying in all directions to make it real.

• OPINION

  Chaiyaphum owed more than lost data

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/08/2018

  » In the age of video clips, one video clip is absent. At a time when we're inundated by cat clips, dog clips, accident clips, slap clips, brawl clips, grope clips, chase clips, murder clips -- when we even have clips recorded from the depths of a dark cave where light hardly reaches -- it's amazing that one crucial clip, shot in broad daylight, is missing, lost or made to be lost forever, along with transparency and maybe justice.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  Hope lives on as cave rescue crisis unfolds

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/06/2018

  » Time is not on their side, and not on ours. To beat nature and to outrun time -- and what cruel nature and pitiless time -- we give it everything we have.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  Lights out at Lido, but can art hub shine?

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/06/2018

  » It was a tearful farewell at the Lido Theatre on Thursday night, with a thousand fans congregating to say goodbye to the old-school, unglamorous, 50-year-old cinema in Siam Square. After the last picture show on May 31, all Lido’s staff and managers lined up like a guard of honour to wai and thank the audiences filing out of the rooms, a surprise parting shot that tugged deeply at the heart strings of even the most unsentimental viewers. To paraphrase Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor of Asgard, Lido is not a place but a people. It’s also a memory. That’s why we wept. That’s what we’ll miss Lido for.

• OPINION

  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.

• OPINION

  Mahathir's win shows voting works

  News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/05/2018

  » This week all my friends went to vote. In Malaysia, of course.

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