Danny's Weblog

Bangkok Post Letters 2004-02-02

To: postbag email at bangkokpost.net (Bangkok Post) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 07:15:04 -0500 (EST)

In today's letters column, a Thai disagrees with the idea that Cambodians hate Thais: he suggests "Thai friends... mesmerized... well-meaning foreigners" into thinking this.

I've been to Cambodia a couple of times, and I've asked half a dozen or so what they think of Thais. They all said they hate Thais. It occurred to me that maybe my stumbling Cambodian and their imperfect English were ironing out subtleties, so I asked someone with good English whether they really meant "resent" or "have quarrels with" . She considered the idea for a millisecond and said "No, we hate the Thais".

The writer may have forgotten Thailand's brutal treatment of Cambodian refugees during the Vietnam War/Pol Pot years, and may be unaware of the sadistic cruelty meted out to Cambodian guest workers. And it's certainly the case that the current Cambodian regime has no compunction about fanning nationalism. But as far as I can tell the feeling of the Cambodian people is truly hatred.

The LondonSpectator 2004-01-10 p12 "Speed cameras..."

To: letters email at spectator.co.uk (Spectator Magazine) Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 02:07:52 -0500 (EST)

I'm not a fast driver. Indeed, I haven't owned a vehicle for two years. (Perhaps I should add that my license is clean.)

But I'm not in favor of government meddling in general and speed limits in particular. So I was pleased to find many non-sequiturs in Ross Clark's article "Speed cameras are good for you". I was particularly pleased with the paragraph "The first argument is fallacious..." because the causes listed for accidents, which Clark insists are "speeding by another name", have no particular relationship to speeding, and the logical confusion in Clark's mind which this exposes is at the heart of the socialist perfectionism which drives the anti-speeding fanatics.

"In a hurry" – "aggressive driving" – "reckless behavior". Is it really impossible to be in a hurry without speeding? "Speeding" means exceeding a posted speed limit. If you are in a hurry you may indeed take risks, but is it logically necessary to thereby exceed the speed limit?

"Aggressive driving" – again that could mean a lot of things. How about tailgating, for instance? You can tailgate at 15 mph and cause an accident. Will speed cameras stop tailgating?

"Reckless behavior" – if I remember rightly I was fined for this once because I turned right without realizing that my vision was blocked and a car was approaching rapidly but invisibly. Well, it was indeed my fault but I can assure you I was doing no more than ten miles per hour when I made the turn.

People like Clark just assume that speed cameras and indeed speed limits have some relationship to dangerous driving, but that has not been proven because it is logically very hard to prove.

Personally I suspect that people like Clark really like speed limits because they annoy people, although that would be hard to prove.

International Herald Tribune 2004-01-09 p3 "As Khmers' end..."

To: letters email at iht.com (International Herald Tribune) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:56:58 -0500 (EST)

One of your editors apparently chose to abbreviate "the Khmer Rouge" to "Khmers".

The word "Khmer" means Cambodian. Like many romanisations of Cambodian proper names, it comes to English via French, in which it is intended to be pronounced "khmey". I would say for English speakers that the pronunciation is something like "khma-ey".

The phrase "Khmer Rouge" is likewise from the French. The Cambodians themselves say "khma-ey grahom" – literally, "Cambodian (people) red". Also, they often say "tiahian hkma-ey grahom" – literally "soldiers (of) Cambodian (people) red", rather than just "khma-ey grahom".

Anyhow, I don't think you were referring to "the end of the Cambodian people".

BP 2003-12-24 "Thai pimp basher gets six years in jail"

Re: BP 2003-12-24 Home & International P4 Thu Dec 25 07:48:58 2003 To: postbag email at bangkokpost.net (Bangkok Post)

I was surprised that there was no comment on this one. According to the story at least, the guy he clobbered was demanding *protection money* from these girls. Thai girls have been *murdered* in Singapore and their assailants get less jail time than this Thai. What is really going on here?

I guess the plot of "Death Wish" (with Charles Bronson) wouldn't work very well in Singapore. Or "Taxi Driver".

the Nation: Prostitution and elephants (2003-10-30, pp 5A, 17A, 18A

To: editor email at nationgroup.com (The Nation) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 11:28:46 -0500 (EST)

Re "sex workers must be allowed..." – I am in agreement with all of the points raised by Rojanaphruk. I would only add that it would be amusing to try to legalize the *customers* of prostitutes instead of the prostitutes themselves. I envisage sex tourists needing to get a special visa and needing to carry an STD test report; and raids on brothels where sex tourists get carted off to jail instead of the prostitutes. Bwahahaha!

However, I was also struck by the article about the new Thai movie "Sanim Soie". I don't know whether the movie and the article about it are valid as history, but it sounds like many of the evils of prostitution today date back to the changes in the law made in that period.

Apparently bigamy had just been made illegal. Bigamy is probably a bad deal for poor men who can't find a mate because rich men have taken up the entire supply, but for women it's a pretty good deal: they continue to have legal rights and a home, not to mention companionship and someone to share the chores. In the absence of bigamy, what do poor women do? At best they can steal a husband from an older woman.

Likewise, it seems most prostitutes until that period welcomed men into their own homes. This allowed them to be independent of pimps and brothel owners, unlike today: now men get a rakeoff from the girls to handle bribery and marketing.

Oddly enough, this connects to your article about the children's book dealing with the plight of elephants in Thailand (p18A, "colorful Elephant Tale"). Now the law prevents elephants from being dragged along Bangkok's dirty, dangerous streets – except, of course, it doesn't.

Here's a proposal: instead of blowing billions of baht on flimsy, tacky Apec celebrations that have no relevance to Thai customs, why not establish a safe area somewhere in Bangkok where elephants *can* be paraded for everyone's enjoyment safely? Elephants are the symbol of Thailand and beloved all over the world. Some money and effort could create a safe pedestrian area – let's call it "Elephant Avenue" – that would allow foreign and Thai tourists to meet a happy, safe elephant as part of an ordinary day. I've heard a Thai say "Chaang, Chaang!" with absolute delight from just a glimpse of an elephant. Why not allow that in Bangkok?

The Nation: series on legalizing prostitution

To: editor email at nationgroup.com (The Nation) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:11:38 -0400 (EDT)

I think most sex workers would much prefer *decriminalization* to legalization: that is, rather than having to undergo regulation by the government – probably involving registration, monitoring, fees etc – the existing laws are simply repealed.

If you have to have legalization, why not apply it to the client instead of the sex worker? Men would have to go down to the police station and register with the police as a sex buyer. This would be marked on their ID cards. Any man found having sex with a sex worker who had not registered with the police would be put on TV and heavily fined. Hospitals would provide regular testing and would put a date on the card which police could also check.

Tourists wanting to have sex while in the kingdom could get a special stamp in their passports by providing an extra fee when they get their visa.

...Bwahahaha!

International herald Tribune 2003-09-19 "France and the United States are at war"

To: letters email at iht.com (International Herald Tribune) Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 08:17:39 -0400 (EDT)

In "France and the United States are at war", Thomas L. Friedman complains about the French reaction to the invasion of Iraq.

The US invaded a sovereign state on the basis of a tissue of blatant lies. The French are a sovereign state, and they already tried appeasement. Also, the French may well feel that their debt to the American people is best served by extending the offer of their tumbril technology.

The Nation 2003-08-02 5A "More Orwellian than you Think"

To: editor email at nationgroup.com Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 00:47:41 -0400 (EDT)

In his op-ed article, Mike Gonzalez of the Wall Street Journal attacks the BBC as Orwellian.

For some reason he omits the suggestion I have seen elsewhere that Orwell actually based the operations of 1984's "Ministry of Truth" on his experience of working for the BBC during WW2.

But it's funny: right now it's the backers of the war in Iraq who seem to me to be creating the situation of 1984: the giant power blocs, the ceaseless wars, helpless captives paraded before the citzenry and then sent to disappear in ghastly prison camps, the meaningless shifting of alliances, the permanent loss of civil liberties...

Gonzalez simply proceeds from the assumption that the war was justifiable, and uses that proposition to bolster the point that the BBC was tendentious. Most of the world thought that there was inadequate basis for an invasion even before the WMD claims lost all credibility; for him to continue to take that proposition as a given simply makes his argument ridiculous.

Note to the editor: I have an excellent dissection of the twisted history of the US position on Iraq on my website. It's not my own text; I copied it from a Usenet discussion. I quote the link below; if you use the material please don't print the link to my website, for privacy reasons.

www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/2003/07/22#iraq1

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