Reference: The scourge of fake medicine, Bangkok Post, February 9, 2008

A recent Bangkok Post editorial (The scourge of fake medicine, Bangkok Post, February 9, 2008) refers to sildanifel citrate pills made by firms other than Pfizer and marketed under names other than Viagra as "fake" and claims that they don't work as well as the Pfizer product because they contain less of the active ingredient than advertised. The statement may be true of the sample of pills in the Pfizer study cited in the editorial but an informal survey of old, feeble, and otherwise unable retirees in Cha-am appears to indicate that non-Pfizer 100 mg sildanifel citrate pills currently available at prices the feeble retirees can afford work just as well if not better than the Pfizer product. It is a scourge all right, but more of a scourge for Pfizer than for consumers in whose interest one presumes the editorial was written.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Vanishing homelands - new twist to sad tale, Bangkok Post, February 7, 2008

Atolls form if and only if a volcanic island with coral growth begins to sink by subduction and continues to sink until the island in the middle disappears completely leaving only a ring of coral. Atolls remain as long as the rate of coral growth exceeds or breaks even with the rate at which the submerged island is sinking. When it does not break even, the surface of the atoll begins to go under water. This phenomenon is a geological oddity and has nothing whatsoever to do with greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels or with global warming. It is a sad tale indeed for residents of sinking atolls but there is no new twist.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: A social reform agenda for the new government, Bangkok Post, January 30, 2008 and February 6, 2008

A two-part article in the Bangkok Post proposes a 12-point program for social reform in Thailand (A social reform agenda for the new government, Bangkok Post, January 30, 2008 and February 6, 2008) that includes the rule of law, autonomy for southern Muslims, community rights, media freedoms, democratic principles, no to FTA with the USA, tax reforms, guaranteed quality of life, empowerment of workers, citizenship for the stateless, a Burma policy, and military reform. The list is mostly a political agenda and there are glaring omissions with respect to much needed social reform.

Education through Mathayom 6 should be made free and compulsory and the education system should be overhauled to raise the quality of education to, say, Korean standards. We could make this overhaul a megaproject right up there with mega mass transit and irrigation systems being proposed by this government. The country also needs a comprehensive legal and social reform program to rid the society of an ancient, irrelevant, and reprehensible dowry system that denigrates women and makes marriage into a financial transaction in which the parents of the bride sell their daughter and the groom literally buys his wife. Dowries have been abolished by law in most of the civilized world even in places like Bangladesh. Last but not least, the country needs a social reform program to end the vicious cycle that starts with deadbeat dads and ends with abandoned and discarded single moms condemned to the trash heap of society from which concubinage and prostitution are often the only escape.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Samak must ensure good governance, Bangkok Post, February 5, 2008

No Prime Minister can ensure good governance. Good governance is an ideal and we can move toward that ideal only by virtue of the right kind of institutions and by the vigilance and activism of civil society and a free and vigorous press. It is up to the citizens to hold their government's feet to the fire and to hold them accountable. Democratic freedoms must be earned the hard way every day. Governments cannot give them to us any more than foxes can guard hens.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: US stimulus package unlikely to help much, Bangkok Post, February 4, 2008

The article quotes Professor Finn Erling Kydland, identified as a Nobel laureate, to make the case that the monetary policy of the US Federal Reserve Bank is unlikely to resolve the US financial crisis (US stimulus package unlikely to help much, Bangkok Post, February 4, 2008). A complex financial problem created by rising oil prices and mortgage defaults is thus further obfuscated by throwing ad hominem into the mix. Arguments made for or against an economic policy must stand on their own merit instead of appealing to Nobel prizes. After all, the last financial crisis in America was brought on by the mis-management of a hedge fund called Long Term Capital Management. It was managed by Nobel laureates.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Awaiting word from real man in charge, Bangkok Post, February 4, 2008

Much has been made of the notion that Thaksin is using Samak as a stooge to rule from exile (Awaiting word from real man in charge, Bangkok Post, February 4, 2008) and yet when the dust settles one may find that it was Samak who used Thaksin to get elected. Samak is nobody's stooge. Those who think that they have a puppet by the strings may find instead that they have a tiger by the tail.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: China's genocide Olympics, Bangkok Post, January 29, 2008

The circumstances in the attack by the Sudanese army on UN peace keepers in Darfur and in the murder of John Granville in Khartoum this month are not known and are subjects of investigations by the Sudanese government and the United Nations. It is premature and irresponsible journalism to presume guilt and to state that the Sudanese government had a hand in these events and by implication to smear the Chinese government and the Olympics (China's genocide Olympics, Bangkok Post, January 29, 2008). Also the claim that the soft power of subtle Chinese diplomacy does not work ignores its obvious success for it was deft Chinese diplomacy that made it possible for UN peace keepers to be deployed in Darfur. It is a theatre of the absurd for Americans to lecture the Chinese on the subject of failing to adequately address human rights issues when securing oil supplies. It takes hypocrisy to new heights.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Hypocrisy about sex damages society's health, Bangkok Post, January 9, 2007

Khun Jon Ungphakorn tells it like it is in the tradition of the great Howard Cossell and points out the contradictions between what Thais believe to be their traditional values and how they actually live their lives (Hypocrisy about sex damages society's health, Bangkok Post, January 9, 2007). His courage and sincerity are admirable but it must be said that whatever the reality on the ground may be, all societies need a moral compass just to define what it is that they aspire to. Traditional Thai values do serve that purpose in spite of the contradictions described in the article. In all the countries where I have lived I have always found that traditional values serve only as a reference and do not necessarily reflect reality. However, the problem of Thai men fathering and abandoning children is a serious one and requires urgent attention. The single moms are left to fend for themselves and even ostracized by a male dominated society as undesirable women with a "history". Many of them end up resorting to prostitution or concubinage just to raise the child. I know of no greater institutionalized social injustice.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Plants or animals begin to change or die, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2008

A global warming article in the Bangkok Post raises the alarm that climate change is causing mass extinctions of species and is expected to devastate the biodiversity of the planet (Plants or animals begin to change or die, Bangkok Post, January 7, 2008). I would like to remind the concerned individuals that there have been many epochs of climate change in earth's history and the data in the fossil record show that in every occurrence of climate change there has been, not a reduction, but indeed an explosion in the number of species. In fact, these data have caused biologists to revise Darwin's theory of evolution to include the idea that environmental stress causes biodiversity and that mutations occur in spurts when life is forced to adapt to changing circumstances. In any case, evolution is the way of Mother Nature and extinctions and mutations are part of that process. It is unlikely that She needs human beings to micromanage evolution for Her.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: The best hope is gone, Bangkok Post, January 6, 2008

There is no doubt that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was a tragic event and that she deserves an eulogy but the one presented by Global Viewpoint (The best hope is gone, Bangkok Post, January 6, 2008) takes things a little too far all the way into the realm of fairy tales. The assumption that Al-Qaeda carried out the killing is premature and the conclusions drawn from that assumption including the comparison with Ahmed Shah Massoud and a heroic role for Ms Bhutto in the fight against Al-Qaeda are just plain silly. Pakistan still has whatever hope it had prior to the assassination of achieving democracy and containing Islamic extremism. Some hopes are probably gone or at least weakened and those would include the hope of unfreezing certain Swiss bank accounts and sealing forever certain pending court cases by way of political deals made with Musharraf. Other hopes are still as distant as ever and among them is the hope that the day will come when real democracy overcomes dynastic politics in South Asia and real issues rather than family soap operas sway the electorates there.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Monk molests girl 8, Bangkok Post, January 1, 2008

The news story about a Cambodian monk who molested a Western child (Monk molests girl 8, Bangkok Post, January 1, 2008) serves to illustrate that pedophilia is not a social evil that is imposed on innocent Cambodians by Western debauchery. There are plenty of Cambodian pedophiles. The child prostitution industry in Cambodia is an internal social problem with the supply side controlled entirely by Cambodians including parents who sell their daughters, poverty stricken jobless girls trying to make a living, and the powerful moneyed elite who control the lucrative trade. The demand side is more than 90% Cambodian and the rest consists mostly fellow Asians who share a natural proclivity for misogyny and prostitution as social institutions. There is also a superstitious mystique in Asia with respect to the health and spiritual value of having sex with a virgin and the younger the better, and it is this Asian weirdness that is responsible for the demand side in the market for child prostitution in Cambodia. Poverty provides a ready supply. Wester pedophiles did not invent the Cambodian child sex industry. They choose to go to Cambodia precisely because that industry already exists over there. Yet, international organizations, Cambodian NGOs, and the Western media continue to mis-represent this phenomenon as a social evil imposed on Cambodia by debauched Western pedophiles. The targeting of Western pedophiles particularly in high profile cases offers the illusion that something is being done and it brings in a lot of funding from Western donors to the concerned NGOs in Cambodia. It also provides additional leverage to a corrupt criminal justice system to extort money from rich Westerners. In a comical and ironical twist, parents who sold their daughter to Western pedophiles often demand and receive compensation in this extortive process. However, the targeting of Western pedophiles does nothing to solve the underlying problems of poverty, child prostitution, and the market for virgins in Cambodia. In fact it makes things worse for Cambodian children because the real underlying social problems are not addressed and because children at risk can now be used to entrap farangs for the purpose of extortion on a grand scale.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Bhutan elects National Council, Bangkok Post, January 1, 2007

The photograph included with the article about elections in Bhutan (Bhutan elects National Council, Bangkok Post, January 1, 2007) shows Bhutanese citizens holding identity cards lined up to cast their vote in a place identified as "a polling station in Jaigaon, 45 km from the Indo-Bhutanese border". Kindly note that Jaigaon is in India on the border with Bhutan and across Bhutan Gate from the Bhutanese border town of Phuntsholing. Bhutanese citizens in Phuntsholing do cross over to Jaigaon to make international phone calls and to use the internet but it is not likely that they would go there to cast their vote.


Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Troops get amulet protection, Bangkok Post, January 1, 2007

On December 11 2007, one of the buses in a convoy of three buses carrying soldiers to Pattani in southern Thailand was hit by a roadside bomb and 15 soldiers in that bus were injured. There was no fatality. Incredibly, in the investigation into this incident, data were taken on whether the soldiers were wearing a talisman called the "Luang Poo Jiam" around their neck at the time of the bombing. The data showed that while all the soldiers in the convoy possessed these talismans, only those in the unfortunate bus were not actually wearing the amulets on their neck at the time of the bombing. The military concluded from these data that the talismans had protected the soldiers who wore them and had exposed those that did not to the injuries caused by the bomb. Subsequently, the the military commander of the Pattani Task Force ordered all his men to wear the "Luang Poo Jiam" amulet around their neck at all times saying that they would be protected from harm if they did so. The military has acted in an unprofessional manner in this case and in so doing has provided all the reasons to those still in doubt why there must never be another coup in Thailand. The economic powerhouse of Southeast Asia can ill afford to place its future in the hands of talisman jockeys.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Your horoscope for 2008, Bangkok Post, December 31, 2007


I read in the Bangkok Post today that in 2008 my "dept repayments will not be satisfactory" and that I will "have no fortune in taking risks". I am also told that "huge spending will incur" (Your horoscope for 2008, Bangkok Post, December 31, 2007). My horoscope for the Bangkok Post is that in 2008 they will find a competent copy editor among the large number of educated farangs in the Kingdom and thereby serve as a more reliable reference for students of English in Thailand.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Stop sacrificing environment, Postbag, Bangkok Post, December 30, 2007

In Edmonton, Alberta there is a shopping center where, even in the dead of winter when it is forty below zero outside and not much daylight to speak of, one can go to a gargantuan indoor tropical paradise where it is sunny and warm and where there are all things tropical including a beach with artificial waves where one can go surfing. All humans aspire to hedonism given a chance so why should Asians be excluded? If energy and natural resource consumption by human beings on a per capita basis is a concern one should address it where it matters and where such consumption is an order of magnitude higher than that in developing countries like Thailand. It is weirdly hypocritical for a Westerner whose wealth and spending power in Thailand were generated by wanton consumption of natural resources to lecture the Thais on the evils of what little consumption they have been able to achieve.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: An inconvenient query: who'll pay the bill, Bangkok Post, December 29, 2007

The author of the article on global warming (An inconvenient query: who'll pay the bill, Bangkok Post, December 29, 2007) says that he felt a jolt of fear from what he describes as a scientific assessment contained in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report on climate change. That jolt of fear was not accidental because the report to which he refers is not an unbiased scientific assessment of climate data but a carefully scripted instrument of fear written for the express purpose of jolting its readers with misrepresentations of the data, exaggerations, and even outright lies. The summer melt of the Arctic ice is not unprecedented, extreme weather events have not become more frequent or more severe, and atolls in the South Pacific are not sinking under rising sea levels. The IPCC's claim that Hurricane Katrina was caused by man-made global warming has been thoroughly discredited and their forecasts for more severe hurricane seasons in 2006 and 2007 have been proven wrong. They are merchants of fear and their method is the dissemination of convenient lies.


Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: PPP-led govt not a foregone conclusion, Bangkok Post, December 25, 2007

In an election held on December 23, 2007 by the military-led interim government that was deemed to be fair and impartial by all concerned observers, the PPP captured 232 seats in the 480-seat parliament with the Democrat Party a distant second with 165 seats. Yet, Bangkok intellectuals dismiss the people's choice as less than real because the PPP was "trounced by the Democrat Party in Bangkok". All doubt of the elitist tenor of the their position is then removed with the description of Bangkok first as "the nerve center" of Thailand and further as home to the "movers and shakers of Thailand". The implication is that the rest of the country including the Northeast is populated with "grassroots" who neither move nor shake and who cannot be trusted to think for themselves much less to make decisions that affect the country as a whole. The argument exposes not only the elitist nature of Bangkokians but also the complete inability of self-proclaimed thinkers, movers, and shakers to comprehend the fundamental principles of democracy including the that of universal suffrage. Democracy is a form of government in which the people rule even if they are just common folk out there in the hinterland and even if their decisions are deemed incorrect by intellectuals.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Inconvenient truth in Bali, Bangkok Post, December 23, 2007

The "soul searching" column in the Bangkok Post says that "hurricanes, cyclones, snowstorms, and floods" are "killing people largely as a result of the war on nature waged by humanity in pursuit of economic development" (Inconvenient truth in Bali, Bangkok Post, December 23, 2007). The reference is to alleged causal relationships between carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and global warming and between global warming and the frequency and severity of extreme weather phenomena. Kindly note that extreme weather and weather related calamities are not new nor have they become more frequent or more severe. As far back in time one cares to look in either weather records or geological data, one finds calamities caused by extreme weather. In the drought of 1877 in China parents sold their daughters into sex-slavery for the equivalent of $5 each and in the famine of 1790 in India parents killed their children and ate them. The devastation caused by the cyclone of 1737 in the Bay of Bengal is yet to be outdone by any weather phenomenon. In 1933 there were 21 hurricanes in the Caribbean and extreme hurricanes there have been recorded prior to the current phenomenon of rising atmospheric CO2 in 1856, 1910, 1922, 1926, 1930, 1938, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1979, and 1988. The allegations that extreme weather is a new phenomenon and that it is caused by human activity have been repeated so many times that they have become truth by default. The Karl Rove Principle holds that if you repeat a lie enough times it will take on all the properties of truth.

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Certainly not my cup of tea, Bangkok Post, December 21, 2007

Mr Prasong once tried to shame the Prime Minister into coming clean on his real estate dealings by saying that Mr Surayud should have the courage to do "what even a little girl could do" (Bangkok Post, October 11, 2007). That reference was to Marion Jones, a world class athlete, who had returned her Olympic gold medals when she tested positive for drugs. The Bangkok Post ran a story about Dr Kathleeya Stang's special musical performance for HM the King with the headline "Thai-American girl to pay musical tribute to HM the King". Dr Stang is 28, an ophthalmologist, and an accomplished musician. When Mr Samak was asked by a young female journalist whether former TRT executives had influenced PPP's selection of candidates for the elections, Mr Samak retorted with an obscene reference to the journalist's sex life as a way of dismissing the question. Misogyny and sexism come naturally to Thai men and are not unique to Mr Samak as suggested by today's commentary (Certainly not my cup of tea, Bangkok Post, December 21, 2007).

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand

Reference: Jakarta scurrying to fix ad blunders, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2007

Indonesia does not have a monopoly on odd English. All over Asia there appears to be some confusion when it comes to the word "battery". Does the "a" come first or the "e", or are they both "e" or perhaps both "a"? Is there one "t" or two, and is the last consonant "r" as in "arroy" or "l" as in "alloy"? One can find odd prose in any issue of the Bangkok Post. For example, on page B4 (Orient Thai to start flights to Kathmandu, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2007), we read that "Thailand will use the maximum number of flight frequencies allocated to Thai airlines" and on the same page (International aviation groups criticise AoT, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2007) we find "Airlines are up in arms about plans by Airports of Thailand to raise user fees". The headline about a single Indonesian blunder says "Jakarta scurrying to fix blunders". In the editorial on page 12 (EC must carry on with its work, Bangkok Post, December 20, 2007) we read that the Election Commission must have the courage to "punish wrongdoers by issuing them with red cards".

Cha-am Jamal
Thailand