POSTBAG

The right to protest

I congratulate PM Surayud on concluding that the anti-coup protests are a political, rather than military, problem, and allowing public gatherings within the law. I trust that he and, hopefully, Gen Sonthi, will agree with Louis D Brandeis, who said, "Those who won our independence believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the government."

Thus, I see no reason for the authorities to block people from joining anti-coup protests. On the contrary, the police and military must make every effort to ensure the protests are peaceful and respect other people's rights, e.g. keeping pro- and anti-junta groups separate, or ensuring the free flow of traffic. The protesters should cooperate with the authorities by respecting the letter and spirit of all laws, speaking like statesmen and not demagogues, and appointing protesters as marshals to help keep the peace. Speakers should be constructive, and propose solutions.

Speak out, within the law, to help we the people decide where we want our government to lead us.

BURIN KANTABUTRA

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Dodgy deal at airport

King Power must surely be in crisis now, having had their flagship contract at Suvarnabhumi cancelled. It's not the final word, however, for they still have the right to re-tender under a more transparent bid. They might feel a little hard done by, considering AoT is equally at fault in the process, and could quite fairly claim damages for their investment cost so far.

Nonetheless, they entered into this dodgy agreement with full knowledge of the collusion and should now suffer the consequences, so that it might serve as a stark warning to other dodgy, large tender bids.

At the same time, charges should be brought against those AoT board members who were party to the arrangement, and provisions (financial and otherwise) made for the innocent sub-lessees. As with many other things at Suvarnabhumi, it is a complicated mess and right from the start the retail aspect of this airport has been far from transparent, sensible or just.

The breach of agreement, specifically regarding exceeding allocated space, should be strongly considered when and if King Power submit a fresh bid.

FRIEND OF THE DON

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Let's leave it 'Muang'

Stephan Grimm's criticisms of your newspaper and previous Postbag writers who were against the spelling of "Mueang", were somewhat high-powered and yet against good sense ("Getting it right", Postbag, March 30).

Even if it is true that the spelling of "Mueang" has the support of the column in Learning Post's "Phut Phasa Thai", the official Romanisation System of the Royal Institute, the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names in 2002, it is still against our good sense in accepting the spelling of "Mueang".

Officialdom cannot suppress one's ingrained good sense just because of the outlandish academic justification which had yet to be spelt out in his letter.

To ask the Bangkok Post to use "Mueang" for consistency sake is rather arbitrary, since most have been using the word "Muang" for ages.

I have yet to see someone other than the airport directly adopting the word "Mueang". Would the companies with the name "Muang" change their spelling to "Mueang"? Do you think Muang Thai companies or Muang Thong Thani stadium and exhibition halls would change to Stephan Grimm's liking of "Mueang Thai" and "Mueang Thong"? The change would be commercially damaging to their brand.

On the contrary, using Grimm's consistency basis, the airport director should stick to the old name, Don Muang, since others are unlikely to change to his "Mueang".

SONGDEJ PRADITSMANONT

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Back to red screens

Now that the Alcohol Control Bill looks like being finally accepted, there are two likely consequences: First, nothing at all. Next to zero effect on alcohol consumption, even with minors.

On a recent weekend at wonderful Koh Samet I saw the most popular bar on the island was heaving with young Thais, many of whom seemed barely 16 years old, let alone 18 or 20. And every table was freely consuming alcohol. Many were smoking, too, which just proves the action to hide cigarettes from view (but placing a large sign saying "Cigarettes Sold Here") is nonsensical and ineffective.

Second: I will miss important parts of the Formula 1 racing. This is because those annoying, red, "Intermission" screens will be back on True Visions. As usual, the technician who controls the screen will be confused over what is a real advert and what is a race with advertising banners around. Or he will nod off during a real alcohol ad and forget to press the button to cancel the red screen. Believe me, I have missed some classic overtake manoeuvres in the days when all UBC adverts were banned.

I applaud the initiative to tackle alcohol problems, but why do I predict these consequences? Because it's not the initiatives that are lacking (though I believe many are ill-conceived), it is the enforcement.

PAUL HAINES

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Fine and punishment

Let's put some perspective on the punitive aspects of Thai law. If found guilty of tax fraud, Khunying Potjaman may face a fine of 400,000 baht. The family can afford to pay 400,000 baht every day for the next 500 years, just from the proceeds of the Temasek deal, ignoring any other assets or income (plus the evaded 500+ million baht).

Where is the punitive nature of the fine? The 300-baht fine for a street vendor trying to earn a living on a Monday in Bangkok is a more onerous imposition.

OZTAURUS

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Slower growth

It is my impression that consumption and economic growth have slowed at least in part because a lot of us are taking the ideas of the sufficiency economy a lot more seriously. For example, we are mostly buying what we need for our daily lives rather than buying things just to be buying things, as we often have done (and been encouraged to do) in the past.

While this may be discouraging to businessmen and to the Finance Ministry, I think this is healthy. It is very stressful for us to be in debt, so buying only what we need is an effective way to avoid this kind of stress. (Of course, there are many, many poor people who have no choice and live under constant stress.)

I hope that those of us who do have a choice will continue on this less materialistic path, and that the government and businessmen will come to accept the idea that there are more of us now who are trying to live more modest, happy and less stressful lives away from the shopping malls, instead of being just customers and taxpayers who should be spending x-number of baht each and every day in order to keep the economy going or else!

THE MIDDLE CLASS

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Death on camera

Re: "Patient dies as rescuers fight over who gets to treat him" (Bangkok Post, March 28). What a sad state we live in when things like this happen. It just goes to show that these people are more interested in themselves than they are for their supposed profession.

To prove my point, all you have to do is watch the news on Pattaya's cable channels. Every night you see at least one, and often more, scenes of a pickup in an accident with a motorcycle. The motorbike driver and/or pillion rider, lying on the street possibly bleeding to death, while the TV cameraman is taking shots of the rescue people kneeling beside the victim, pointing their fingers. As far as I am concerned, they are more interested in getting their picture on TV than they are at helping the poor victim.

CHARLIE BROWN

Pattaya

Bangkok Post

Saturday March 31, 2007