Showing 51 - 60 of 100
Proustian questions for our leaders
Oped, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/12/2015
» What is your idea of perfect happiness? When 99.5% of respondents in a government-sponsored poll think that the government is the best thing that ever happened for this country. Or maybe in the all of the universe, because such figures are even higher than God's rating.
Web warriors unite for an F5 rebellion
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/10/2015
» This past week ultra-royalists converged at the US Embassy while ultra-malcontents converged on the F5 button. How the world has changed, and how sad that some people are still stuck in a medieval fortress, trying to fend off invaders with hot oil and poisoned arrows?
A poem in motion
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/09/2015
» From the first shot to the last, when the assassin leads a group of peasants into the majestic wilderness of Tang Dynasty China, this is likely to be the most ravishing film you'll see in a long while. The swift tumult of fabric, the heart-bleeding colours, the luxuriant verdant of the forest -- The Assassin, shot on 35mm at a time when almost every film in the world is shot on digital, is also a martial arts drama that compels us to rethink the essence of the genre. Historically regarded as a cheap, sweaty form of entertainment, the wuxia film has reached the pinnacle of high-art in this Taiwanese production -- and some audiences will certainly feel baffled, if not exasperated.
The Shrine's history: more than four faces
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/08/2015
» Unperturbed, the four-faced Brahma statue still stares out at the Ratchaprasong intersection, the scene of Bangkok's worst bomb attack in recent memory. One of the most popular tourist spots in the capital has become a site of terror and tragedy and as the dust begins to settle, it's worth taking a look at the long and sometimes tortuous history of the shrine. This history is influenced as much by the city's modernisation and superstition as it is by its politics and moments of insanity.
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).
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.
The purveyors of Islam
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/06/2015
» At the age of 12, after finishing Prathom 6, Shakireen Malilee left normal education to study to become a hafiz. Originally from Prachuap Khiri Khan, he moved to an Islamic boarding school in Min Buri, a Bangkok suburb, and devoted himself to the ancient art of memorising the Koran. Every day for eight hours, Shakireen recited from Islamic holy scripture and committed each word, each verse, each page, each chapter into his young brain. After four years, he had memorises the entire book, roughly equivalent of memorising every single word of a 500-page tome. At 16, he achieved the rare honour of being called a hafiz.
Snowden under siege
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/03/2015
» The Oscar-winning Citizenfour has opened in Bangkok. An opportune cinema experience here in our land of 99.9% democracy where the contentious Cyber Security Bills are being revised, the so-called Edward Snowden documentary seethes with unsettling power. Its civic outrage is strong, but the cool-headed storytelling gives it gravity. The immediacy of the issue at its heart is also the debate of the early 21st century. And if the film lets us know from the start that it's taking the side of the whistle-blower, all the better.
In fighting IS, don't mimic its evil ways
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/02/2015
» It was a sad week, a week of satanic beheadings, then the barbarous immolation, executed and filmed by that godless bunch as if in mockery of Hollywood war movies. A week of moral anger and global blood lust, from Amman to Tokyo by way of Iraq. A week of sadness that quickly morphed into something like vengeance, as war cries sounded over the medieval fortresses of Jordan and Egypt and echoed to the South China Sea.