Impacts of the proposed Printing Act amendment on freedom of expression and media freedom are as follows:
National Police Chief will have power to prohibit publication, distribution, import, or import for distribution of printing material deemed offensive to the monarchy institution or undermining national security, public order, or “good morals”. Violation of the National Police Chief’s order regarding such prohibition will result in a three years imprisonment, a fine no more than 100,000 baht, or both.
So, apart from its broad censorship power, this amendment will add further punishment to what stipulated in Article 112 (lese majeste) and Article 116 (sedition) of the Penal Code.
The seeds of another one are sown by circulating video footage of some as yet undistributed relief supplies still stored in a hangar at Don Muang – feverishly described by Nation Channel’s “anchor/reporter” @Juarawee on Twitter this morning as “wasted”, “abandoned”:
Juarawee Juarawee K. (Lina)
this is the VDO shows FROC unable to save dozens of donated supplies at Don Muang (boats/mobile toilet/relief packages) bit.ly/vRkYfU
followed by
Juarawee Juarawee K. (Lina)
PM waited until last minute that she had to be airlifted out of Don Muang (wasted chopper fuel cost)…so many donations gone to waste #rant
As to the jaw-dropping “chopper fuel” comment, it seems to escape this Nation Channel “reporter” that in an emergency situation time actually matters (yes – a point that applies to getting those relief supplies delivered, too).
Sunday’s Bangkok Post predicting 1.5 metre rise in flood levels –
“Anond Snidvongs, director of the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency, said the authorities could drain up to 70% of northern run-off reaching the capital of 200-300 million cubic metres per day. This would cause rising water levels of five centimetres a day on average.
The situation will carry on for about four weeks before stabilising.”
..and Thailand seels antigravity equipment-
“Deputy Bangkok governor Thirachon Manomaipibul said yesterday the BMA has asked the Provincial Waterworks Authority and the Industry Ministry to supply equipment for use in “water siphoning techniques” to drain floodwater from lower ground to higher ground in eastern Bangkok.”
[…] as well as other governmental agencies were to take orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.[3] Outspoken Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra immediately declared a water war with […]
I’m curious as to those “western style incivilities” such as refusal to evacuate and taunting the troops. Makes you wonder what eastern style incivilities might be.
We must have either overlooked there are “specially trained armed elements that will shot anyone on command in Myanmar” or we are just too dim to learn our lessons from a consistent track record of gunning down protesters. Why protest when we can quietly go away and die? Such western style incivility is nonsensical in the face of eastern style shooting straight to hit.
Much as the “western chosen neglect as well as useless careless intervention” sounds self contradictory, coming from you it’s understandable after a fashion.
Cheer up. Things seem to be going your way what with the West making encouraging noises of approval prodding your generals on along the road to ‘democratization’. The big fly in the ointment for you must be that interloper ASSK involving in the process. Why can’t she go away quietly and die, eh?
Never mind the masses; in your book they are just useless hapless pathetic victims squatting on their haunches waiting for handouts. The generals are the smart ones to put all your money on…$$$$$$ ker-ching!
I’m definitely in agreement with A Noo NY Mouse’s well made common sense points in this.
Not sure about the dead bodies though. It’s graphic and you don’t normally see dead, burnt out or otherwise Caucasian corpses. It may satisfy voyeuristic curiosity. It’s not a Hollywood film, nor in the league of the My Lai massacre that exposed US atrocities in Vietnam, although I can understand the KIA proving a point and its propaganda value.
More of a propaganda coup for their cause certainly is showing their humane treatment of POWs, not just with the wider world community but more importantly with the Burman majority and the Tatmadaw rank and file.
I think it is a bit of a stretch to assign flood blame to the Royal rain making efforts. they are undertaken with the best of intentions and the jury is still out on how successful it is anyway. Sometimes Mother Nature just dumps on you. Hopefully Thais will learn from this and improve their response tactics and infrastructure for when it inevitably reoccurs.
There are many aspects about institutionalized religion that invite cynicism, but at the end of the day it seems to bring its followers peace of mind and purpose. Ironically for the bigger philosophical picture there are more similarities than differences, which is of course what makes killing other denominations so completely irrational.
Hopefully the dialogue will be successful and the hate mongers lose influence, in the end the only definitive answer lies in death and we are yet to be flooded with accounts of who was right from that side. When you think about it what utter arrogance leads men to claim to know or interpret the will of God, and even worse to direct others to implement said interpretation.
Hence the old truism, don’t discuss region or politics, they are generally emotive issues rather than objective, as such rational discussion and challenging debate is off the table.
Patsan: you are right, there are a ton of misleading stories. There are also stories that are made up. The idea seems to be that if you believe that Pheu Thai should never have won the election, then throw as much as you can into the air and some of it will stick and weaken those they believe are evil ones.
My neighbor tells me of a flood years ago where all the trees, which were mainly fruit trees died except for big American Rain Trees. I asked her about Don Takien (Hopea odorata) , the famous spirit tree which one lined all our rivers and used for making war canoes. “Oh they are all long gone” she said. I might add that the same is true of the great Yang Na, Dipterocarpus alatus, which the King has successfuly grown at Suan Chitlada in large numbers.
My neighbor suggested that the best way for us in the north to help flood sufferers is to start growing lots of trees for their gardens, and to start now. I would add that as this has been a year of abundant seed production of Yang Na trees and that our forest nurseries have them in abundance, that come Songkran time they all be shipped to Nakorn Sawan and beyond to be planted to grace the roads and klongs and in years to come provide timber for building in the old style.
Can anyone suggest which organisations are best placed to organise this assistance, without turning it into an exercise in corruption?
Robin Grant: It’ll be fair if the person did the fund raising himself, then he can put his name on. In this case the fair thing was to have FORC took the credit. In this difficult time of Thai people, should he (the MP) take more responsible on helping the people or at least his voters rather than try to raise his popularity by taking advantage from the young volunteers? Or it’s no need to consider of integrity among the politicians, and just say “they just do it that way”?
Bill Gates & Warren Buffet give a chunk of their (self-made, hard-earned money) multi-billions to charity. They didn’t even get a ‘Sir’ or ‘Datuk’. Here you have a giant criminal rotten to the core, stealing from the state & people who elected him, and you honour him with ‘Tan Sri, Datuk, Pehin, Patinggi, Abang….’ Laughing Stock! Outrageous, disgrace. He should have been in jail years ago, and you are tolerating him day after day!
Thank you very much for the article.
(First of all I apologise for my english which is very poor)
I personally translate from sanskrit (in italian) very well-known texts such as those of Bhasa and Kalidasa and I find many mistakes that deeply spoil the poetry.
Amazingly such errors are copied from one translator to the other, without even the effort of proposing new solutions: the only thing they do is getting more elusive about the possible mistakes made by the former translator.
Obviously these kind of mistakes take place in non-obvious passages, where one has to try hard to understand what the poet is saying.
I myself also find that one of the problem is the dictionary: but with sanskrit, thanks to the often crystal clear morphology of the words, it is easy to “improve” on the entry given. The risk to be compliant with one’s own intuitions (and tastes, in the case of poetry) is indeed high, but it’s always better to take that risk than copy a mistake (an “original” mistake is better than a copied mistake in my opinion, because intellectual honesty is not an option in intellectual enterprises).
After having struggled with many of these mistakes I realized that one very powerful tool is common-sense; something like asking oneself this sort of question: “Is it ever possible that a great poet has said such and such a thing, which seems so little poetical?”
In this sense (and I refer to the thesis of the author of the article that prANa is not the air we breath, it has not to do, at least only, with breathing– or farting, for that matter), I wonder if in a highly advanced meditative context like that of the Buddha and of the monks (at least some of them), people that devoted themselves completely to meditative practises, every day, every hour, renouncing to everything else (the joy of a son, of a kiss etc..), one of the central practice could be to be aware of their own breath? Isn’t it too simple? Couldn’t it be something like awareness of the internal “movements” of the body? Something that nobody of us “normal” people can really be aware of? And in this sense we could have (sanskrit) dIrgha (which means also deep) “movements” in the body withouth having to think of breathing?
Before to discard this hypothesis as non-sense, I suggest to remember that Buddha thought a method to reach nirvANa in this very life, so, I mean, it can’t be that easy; and that the legend says clearly that he surpassed all the yoga teachers, so he was a super-great-master of yoga: for one like him, what can possibly mean to check on normal breathing? (I think of the passage quoted by a comment on the article referring to the sense of joy etc. that the practise gives). And if prANa was normal breathing, what is the sense in multiplying the prANa in all the different sort of it?
My proposal is that all these different prANa might well have to do with biological processes totally unperceived by a non-advanced meditator, at least if we go back to the time of the Buddha, when only monks, i.e. people totally committed to nirvANa-seeking, could and would do meditation on the different prANa.
You’re right — it’s a tricky one. That’s why I suggested I was “somewhat” uncomfortable. Perhaps getting pictures of prisoners out in public helps to guarantee their safety. I would hope so. But then I also understand why images of prisoners must be used with such care. Perhaps some of the lawyers among us would like to add to this discussion.
Uncomfortable about footage of prisoners being broadcast?
While that may be technically against some antiquated convention, it is almost certainly favorable to the prisoners in a messy civil war.
We’re talking about a guerilla army without POW camp facilities, and possibly unable to hold territory consistently — chance of being randomly executed in such a situation is high (e.g. shoot the POWs since they’re a burden to transfer around and feed).
Appearing on a well-publicized video decreases the chances of being shot, and for those who end up dead anyway, it at least gives some indication of their final whereabouts (so their families can discover their fate more easily). If I were a POW of a guerilla army, I’d be quite eager to show my face in a YouTube video clip.
Well from someone who does not sit in Singapore – not that I think Michael Montesano based on his analyses spends all his time in Singapore either – has offered the most interesting analysis of the political undercurrents linked directly or indirectly to Thailand’s floods and Bangkok’s floods in particular that I have seen to date. However, no surprises as to why such an analysis has not appeared in the English language media in Thailand. Perhaps Michael should try the Thai language media although not too sure how far he will get there either.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
What’s going on with the Thai Printing Act?
Impacts of the proposed Printing Act amendment on freedom of expression and media freedom are as follows:
National Police Chief will have power to prohibit publication, distribution, import, or import for distribution of printing material deemed offensive to the monarchy institution or undermining national security, public order, or “good morals”. Violation of the National Police Chief’s order regarding such prohibition will result in a three years imprisonment, a fine no more than 100,000 baht, or both.
So, apart from its broad censorship power, this amendment will add further punishment to what stipulated in Article 112 (lese majeste) and Article 116 (sedition) of the Penal Code.
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
c36
“There are also stories that are made up.”
There certainly are. For an illustration take a look at Michael Montesano’s piece for the Jakarta Globe at http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/as-the-floodwaters-rise-in-thailand-an-ideological-debate-comes-to-the-surface/474273 – the section describing a supposed “alternate crisis center”.
The seeds of another one are sown by circulating video footage of some as yet undistributed relief supplies still stored in a hangar at Don Muang – feverishly described by Nation Channel’s “anchor/reporter” @Juarawee on Twitter this morning as “wasted”, “abandoned”:
Juarawee Juarawee K. (Lina)
this is the VDO shows FROC unable to save dozens of donated supplies at Don Muang (boats/mobile toilet/relief packages) bit.ly/vRkYfU
followed by
Juarawee Juarawee K. (Lina)
PM waited until last minute that she had to be airlifted out of Don Muang (wasted chopper fuel cost)…so many donations gone to waste #rant
The video ( http://video.l3.fbcdn.net/cfs-l3-snc4/349722/204/10150345203108379_56373.mp4?oh=f887f42646977a56ce35a08c1ef990b7&oe=4EAF3B00&l3s=20111029170912&l3e=20111031171912&lh=0ca7b30093f0111dbc584 ) actually shows pallets of bottled water, boats, bamboo rafts, portable toilets and bagged supplies – all dry and ready to use. Yes, they do need to be got out to where they’re needed – and with the floods set to persist in some areas for a few weeks yet it seems certain they will be. “Late” yes – but hardly “wasted”…..
As to the jaw-dropping “chopper fuel” comment, it seems to escape this Nation Channel “reporter” that in an emergency situation time actually matters (yes – a point that applies to getting those relief supplies delivered, too).
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
Sunday’s Bangkok Post predicting 1.5 metre rise in flood levels –
“Anond Snidvongs, director of the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency, said the authorities could drain up to 70% of northern run-off reaching the capital of 200-300 million cubic metres per day. This would cause rising water levels of five centimetres a day on average.
The situation will carry on for about four weeks before stabilising.”
..and Thailand seels antigravity equipment-
“Deputy Bangkok governor Thirachon Manomaipibul said yesterday the BMA has asked the Provincial Waterworks Authority and the Industry Ministry to supply equipment for use in “water siphoning techniques” to drain floodwater from lower ground to higher ground in eastern Bangkok.”
Managing people harder than managing water
[…] as well as other governmental agencies were to take orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.[3] Outspoken Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra immediately declared a water war with […]
Aung Gyi’s letters to Ne Win
plan B,
I’m curious as to those “western style incivilities” such as refusal to evacuate and taunting the troops. Makes you wonder what eastern style incivilities might be.
We must have either overlooked there are “specially trained armed elements that will shot anyone on command in Myanmar” or we are just too dim to learn our lessons from a consistent track record of gunning down protesters. Why protest when we can quietly go away and die? Such western style incivility is nonsensical in the face of eastern style shooting straight to hit.
Much as the “western chosen neglect as well as useless careless intervention” sounds self contradictory, coming from you it’s understandable after a fashion.
Cheer up. Things seem to be going your way what with the West making encouraging noises of approval prodding your generals on along the road to ‘democratization’. The big fly in the ointment for you must be that interloper ASSK involving in the process. Why can’t she go away quietly and die, eh?
Never mind the masses; in your book they are just useless hapless pathetic victims squatting on their haunches waiting for handouts. The generals are the smart ones to put all your money on…$$$$$$ ker-ching!
Prisoners in Burma’s Kachin war
I’m definitely in agreement with A Noo NY Mouse’s well made common sense points in this.
Not sure about the dead bodies though. It’s graphic and you don’t normally see dead, burnt out or otherwise Caucasian corpses. It may satisfy voyeuristic curiosity. It’s not a Hollywood film, nor in the league of the My Lai massacre that exposed US atrocities in Vietnam, although I can understand the KIA proving a point and its propaganda value.
More of a propaganda coup for their cause certainly is showing their humane treatment of POWs, not just with the wider world community but more importantly with the Burman majority and the Tatmadaw rank and file.
How much of this years’ rain was royal?
I think it is a bit of a stretch to assign flood blame to the Royal rain making efforts. they are undertaken with the best of intentions and the jury is still out on how successful it is anyway. Sometimes Mother Nature just dumps on you. Hopefully Thais will learn from this and improve their response tactics and infrastructure for when it inevitably reoccurs.
Study guide for Muslim-Christian dialogue
There are many aspects about institutionalized religion that invite cynicism, but at the end of the day it seems to bring its followers peace of mind and purpose. Ironically for the bigger philosophical picture there are more similarities than differences, which is of course what makes killing other denominations so completely irrational.
Hopefully the dialogue will be successful and the hate mongers lose influence, in the end the only definitive answer lies in death and we are yet to be flooded with accounts of who was right from that side. When you think about it what utter arrogance leads men to claim to know or interpret the will of God, and even worse to direct others to implement said interpretation.
Hence the old truism, don’t discuss region or politics, they are generally emotive issues rather than objective, as such rational discussion and challenging debate is off the table.
Floods and political ideology
A brilliant article written with Montesano’s signature weaving together of oft overlooked detail, insight and aplomb.
Thanks New Mandala for bringing this one to my attention.
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
Patsan: you are right, there are a ton of misleading stories. There are also stories that are made up. The idea seems to be that if you believe that Pheu Thai should never have won the election, then throw as much as you can into the air and some of it will stick and weaken those they believe are evil ones.
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
My neighbor tells me of a flood years ago where all the trees, which were mainly fruit trees died except for big American Rain Trees. I asked her about Don Takien (Hopea odorata) , the famous spirit tree which one lined all our rivers and used for making war canoes. “Oh they are all long gone” she said. I might add that the same is true of the great Yang Na, Dipterocarpus alatus, which the King has successfuly grown at Suan Chitlada in large numbers.
My neighbor suggested that the best way for us in the north to help flood sufferers is to start growing lots of trees for their gardens, and to start now. I would add that as this has been a year of abundant seed production of Yang Na trees and that our forest nurseries have them in abundance, that come Songkran time they all be shipped to Nakorn Sawan and beyond to be planted to grace the roads and klongs and in years to come provide timber for building in the old style.
Can anyone suggest which organisations are best placed to organise this assistance, without turning it into an exercise in corruption?
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
More news on the flood victim supplies by PT MP in The Nation:http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/FROC-complaints-bring-shakeup-of-handout-system-30168645.html
Funny thing is if the PT MP did’nt do it on pupose why was he deposed from the job?
Floods, hacks and the Nitirat effect
Robin Grant: It’ll be fair if the person did the fund raising himself, then he can put his name on. In this case the fair thing was to have FORC took the credit. In this difficult time of Thai people, should he (the MP) take more responsible on helping the people or at least his voters rather than try to raise his popularity by taking advantage from the young volunteers? Or it’s no need to consider of integrity among the politicians, and just say “they just do it that way”?
How much of this years’ rain was royal?
According to what I have found here: р╕Бр╕й.тАЛр╣Ар╕Ьр╕вр╕Ыр╕Пр╕┤р╕Ър╕▒р╕Хр╕┤тАЛр╕Бр╕▓р╕гр╕Эр╕Щр╕лр╕ер╕зр╕З 5 р╕зр╕▒р╕Щ 55 тАЛр╣Ар╕Чр╕╡р╣Ир╕вр╕зр╕Ър╕┤р╕Щ р╕бр╕╡р╕гр╕▓р╕вр╕Зр╕▓р╕Щр╕Эр╕Щр╕Хр╕Бр╕гр╕зр╕б 31 р╕Ир╕▒р╕Зр╕лр╕зр╕▒р╕Ф The Royal Rainmaking Unit was still continuing their operation during July 29 – August 4, 2011.
How corrupt can Malaysia get?
Bill Gates & Warren Buffet give a chunk of their (self-made, hard-earned money) multi-billions to charity. They didn’t even get a ‘Sir’ or ‘Datuk’. Here you have a giant criminal rotten to the core, stealing from the state & people who elected him, and you honour him with ‘Tan Sri, Datuk, Pehin, Patinggi, Abang….’ Laughing Stock! Outrageous, disgrace. He should have been in jail years ago, and you are tolerating him day after day!
Flatulence and breathing meditation
Thank you very much for the article.
(First of all I apologise for my english which is very poor)
I personally translate from sanskrit (in italian) very well-known texts such as those of Bhasa and Kalidasa and I find many mistakes that deeply spoil the poetry.
Amazingly such errors are copied from one translator to the other, without even the effort of proposing new solutions: the only thing they do is getting more elusive about the possible mistakes made by the former translator.
Obviously these kind of mistakes take place in non-obvious passages, where one has to try hard to understand what the poet is saying.
I myself also find that one of the problem is the dictionary: but with sanskrit, thanks to the often crystal clear morphology of the words, it is easy to “improve” on the entry given. The risk to be compliant with one’s own intuitions (and tastes, in the case of poetry) is indeed high, but it’s always better to take that risk than copy a mistake (an “original” mistake is better than a copied mistake in my opinion, because intellectual honesty is not an option in intellectual enterprises).
After having struggled with many of these mistakes I realized that one very powerful tool is common-sense; something like asking oneself this sort of question: “Is it ever possible that a great poet has said such and such a thing, which seems so little poetical?”
In this sense (and I refer to the thesis of the author of the article that prANa is not the air we breath, it has not to do, at least only, with breathing– or farting, for that matter), I wonder if in a highly advanced meditative context like that of the Buddha and of the monks (at least some of them), people that devoted themselves completely to meditative practises, every day, every hour, renouncing to everything else (the joy of a son, of a kiss etc..), one of the central practice could be to be aware of their own breath? Isn’t it too simple? Couldn’t it be something like awareness of the internal “movements” of the body? Something that nobody of us “normal” people can really be aware of? And in this sense we could have (sanskrit) dIrgha (which means also deep) “movements” in the body withouth having to think of breathing?
Before to discard this hypothesis as non-sense, I suggest to remember that Buddha thought a method to reach nirvANa in this very life, so, I mean, it can’t be that easy; and that the legend says clearly that he surpassed all the yoga teachers, so he was a super-great-master of yoga: for one like him, what can possibly mean to check on normal breathing? (I think of the passage quoted by a comment on the article referring to the sense of joy etc. that the practise gives). And if prANa was normal breathing, what is the sense in multiplying the prANa in all the different sort of it?
My proposal is that all these different prANa might well have to do with biological processes totally unperceived by a non-advanced meditator, at least if we go back to the time of the Buddha, when only monks, i.e. people totally committed to nirvANa-seeking, could and would do meditation on the different prANa.
Prisoners in Burma’s Kachin war
Thanks A Noo NY Mouse,
You’re right — it’s a tricky one. That’s why I suggested I was “somewhat” uncomfortable. Perhaps getting pictures of prisoners out in public helps to guarantee their safety. I would hope so. But then I also understand why images of prisoners must be used with such care. Perhaps some of the lawyers among us would like to add to this discussion.
Other views are certainly very welcome.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Floods and political ideology
In the last few years, Royalists have done single-handled best to tarnish the otherwise almost-perfect image of His Majesty.
His supporters are turning out to be doing far more damaging to his legacy than his alleged enemies.
Prisoners in Burma’s Kachin war
Uncomfortable about footage of prisoners being broadcast?
While that may be technically against some antiquated convention, it is almost certainly favorable to the prisoners in a messy civil war.
We’re talking about a guerilla army without POW camp facilities, and possibly unable to hold territory consistently — chance of being randomly executed in such a situation is high (e.g. shoot the POWs since they’re a burden to transfer around and feed).
Appearing on a well-publicized video decreases the chances of being shot, and for those who end up dead anyway, it at least gives some indication of their final whereabouts (so their families can discover their fate more easily). If I were a POW of a guerilla army, I’d be quite eager to show my face in a YouTube video clip.
Floods and political ideology
Well from someone who does not sit in Singapore – not that I think Michael Montesano based on his analyses spends all his time in Singapore either – has offered the most interesting analysis of the political undercurrents linked directly or indirectly to Thailand’s floods and Bangkok’s floods in particular that I have seen to date. However, no surprises as to why such an analysis has not appeared in the English language media in Thailand. Perhaps Michael should try the Thai language media although not too sure how far he will get there either.