Journalist

We are trying to decide if he was the most famous alive. I think that is still on topic.

I think more people would recognise a photo of Jackson than Ali. Ali is well known to those over 35, but younger people weren't around when he was fighting, and to them he is just a silent old man with Parkinsons.

Jackson's 'death' would have been an awesome publicity stunt to promote the concerts. Every day that goes by though makes it look less like a hoax, especially post autopsy.

Obama has been on the stage six months. Jacko was there 40 yrs.

The most famous person on the planet,

Thats very true and well said. Theres only a very very small group of people whose iconic fame transcends international borders and endures for decades.

Madonna, Tom Cruise, Thaksin Shinawatra, Prince, Prince Charles, Mick Jagger, Mickey Mouse, Garry Glitter, Jodie Foster, Brendan Foster, Johnny Depp, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Enduring fame is hard to attain......I recall when I was 9, Jacko was 14 and Donny Osmond was about 15. Look what happened to me and Donny in the intervening decades - basically nothing.

I bought a bootleg copy of a Jacko cassette in Pattaya in 1989.

It seems like another life wrecked by prescription drugs. Its happened to many, including Thaivisa members.

Are the autopsy photos available yet?

Did he wear a hairpiece?

I've always wondered ever since there was that incident where the stagelight set his lacquered hairdo ablaze years ago.

If so, was he bald?

The Cathouse buffet was so ghastly that not even teachers would stoop. It was designed for the next most impoverished rung down - movie extras.

Yeah, it was cheap, but the lowest price beer (and one was confined to one product), was quite nasty and toxic.

He said to me (over several glasses of Chateau Margaux for me and double Scotches for him), that he wanted to 'securitise the non performing loans of Bangkok Bank of Commerce'.

Which even in the frothy days of 1996 was an irrationally exuberant thing to say, hence why I remember it to this day.

Why doesn't she simply plead guilty. The case voiced by the attorney seems to be that she did contravene lese majeste laws, but that the law itself is unfair. In that case she should take her jail sentence and try to depict herself as a political martyr.

If she's acquitted or pardoned, then her point about the lack of freedom of speech is negated, thus rendering her stance pointless.

Isn't that the beauty of Pardons though, that they come out of the blue and come after someone has been through a long convoluted process of being penalised in the first place.

And if Thailand can do it for people who commit the gravest offences to public morality, well ....it can't hurt to emulate the big heartedness of an entire nation.

Would people re-offend? I don't know. Would that Aussie guy who just got his pardon after his ill-fated book write a sequel? Doubt it. If he did, he'd be back in clink.

There's arguments for and against.

I have a brilliant brainstorming idea, .....given people often comment nostalgically on the old days, why not issue a George pardon to all banned members and reset all current member penalties to zero. It could be done on some auspicious anniversary. It would make everyone go 'O, I wasn't expecting that'.

That photo of the ghastly Yoobamrung clan is profoundly depressing.

Even with money politics I can't see how such unelectable people could prosper in any kind of political system of a non-failed state. Even if one is prepared to be bought - as a voter or as an MP, you'd think there is some cut-off point, some minimum standard, below which you wouldn't allow yourself to trade.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/06/22...cs_30105703.php

The Bhum Jai Thai Party yesterday faced its first ever contest and tasted bitter defeat in the by-election in Sakon Nakhon's third constituency. The result indicated former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's influence in the region remains high.

The election was regarded as a struggle between Thaksin, who backed the Pheu Thai Party, and his ex-right hand man Newin Chidchob, who defected to set up his own Bhum Jai Thai Party. Earlier, many political observers had tipped Bhum Jai Thai would win the election.

However the Newin-backed party made mistakes. Pheu Thai Party picked a young and active candidate, Anurak Boonsol, while Bhum Jai Thai settled for Pitak Chantarasri, who is in his 60s as their candidate.

Anurak -in her 40s and a former director of a private college, presented a fresher image to Pitak.

The Sakon Nakhon's third constituency is indeed the stronghold of Pheu Thai, not Bhum Jai Thai - since Anurak's husband, Pongsak Boonsol, is a former member for the constituency who was disqualified by the Election Commission.

Voters in Sakon Nakhon also rejected Bhum Jai Thai's aggressive campaign style using state mechanisms to threaten voters, while Pheu Thai adopted a humble tactic begging for votes from local residents. Former prime minister Thaksin made personal phone calls to the canvassers. "It was very impressive for the canvassers. The former premier Thaksin called them directly on their cell phones," an observer said.

Many Thaksin relatives, including his brother Payap Shinawatra and his younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra, were in the province during the campaign.

Bhum Jai Thai's key members admitted that being with the government was not an advantage for the party.

Pheu Thai's knock-out punch to defeat Bhum Jai Thai was a leaflet attacking Newin's background and his defection. At the left corner of the leaflet is a picture of Newin hugging Thaksin and on the right a picture of Newin hugging Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. The punch line in the leaflet says "Sakon Nakhon residents- oppose the disgraceful man".

Furthermore, two bombs on Pheu Thai Party's stage were a helpful factor for the Thaksin-backed party.

Another contest round will open in Si Sa Ket between the Pheu Thai Party and a Bhum Jai Thai-backed candidate who runs in the contest next week under the name of the Chart Thai Pattana Party. The by-election in Si Sa Ket will again prove Thaksin's influence and Bhum Jai Thai's political future in the Northeastern region.

The election result in Sakon Nakhon was not simply a victory for Pheu Thai but for fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin over a powerful man like Newin.

Privacy Policy © 2006 Nation Multimedia Group page="Printable version";

RE: Thai Visa rule which forbids, "... criticism of sponsors .."

I'm sure they wouldn't mind people disagreeing with the tone of an editorial or the content of an article.

Thats part of the cut and thrust of the business. Its designed to elicit reaction. *

There's a massive difference between that and criticising their ethics, honesty and business practises.

*Having said that I sulk all day if I receive a criticism of an article.

The interviewer tanked it by not asking many hard questions (and allowing him to deflect those that he did ask), and it looks like the I/V was undertaken by e mail, which is always a lazy cop out for an interviewer (though I do it myself sometimes!!).

Are you a real journalist? Here in Thailand?

Hannibal

Yes...but not in Thailand (and I don't cover Thailand either), I am in Hong Kong.

So I learn new things here....like

"Justification, where the defendant in a civil action may escape liability if he/she can prove that the statement was substantially justified, i.e. true, but more than just true. There has to be a valid reason for having made the statement even if true. It is not an absolute defense to a criminal prosecution for libel to prove that the statement was simply true."

Wow. This blows me away, Remarkable.

It was interesting to note the ThaiVisa legal advisor's comment that being able to prove that a comment made (in an article, etc) was true, was not in itself an adequate defence against defamation.

I can't see where he says that. Can you point me in the right direction pls.

^Hey you did a good job Wedders ! If someone doesn't want to answer questions so be it. (Though I can't see why a proprietor of a web forum can't comment fluently on all lese majeste and defamation issues - members don't learn otherwise).

By e mail interviews, one can't follow up with secondary questions.

Like I say though, I often get quotes by e mail....

I'd have asked him about copyright reproduction and his policy on that..

The interviewer tanked it by not asking many hard questions (and allowing him to deflect those that he did ask), and it looks like the I/V was undertaken by e mail, which is always a lazy cop out for an interviewer (though I do it myself sometimes!!).

I am curious why the out pouring of grief. Do the same people typing RIP also go to graves of total strangers and lay flowers?

They are trying to feel engaged in an alienated world.

Making connections via computer is one way, albeit flawed and ersatz, of doing that and trying to recapture that humanity.

there definitely is mention of the fact that the tourist aspect of the problem is a fraction of the domestic problem

Sure, there is always a "mention", but very little real investigative journalism concentrating on the much bigger and much more horrific story. That is the whole point.

Oh please ! Journalists are not public servants here to provide news and investigation for people who prefer not to pay for it.

If you go to a commissioning editor of a western publication with two stories

1) Western sexpats beering and whoring in paradise.

2) The sociological dimension of the sex trade catering to lower class indigenous peasantry.

He'll likely buy the first one. So thats the one that gets written, the other one gets left. It may not be fair, but its just business.

^Are you calling for him to be re-banned in accordance with Rule 266 ?

26) Not to create multiple accounts. Any member found to have more than one account on the ThaiVisa Forum will be suspended. Suspended or banned members found creating additional accounts will be banned immediately.

We all know that war is going to come, and that is is going to be terrible, far more terrible than things are now. It is just a matter of time.

and the band drones on with the same tune...

there will be changes coming more violently. It is just a matter of time.

Ha ha. Your point is well made and understood, but I think it reflects more on you John that you have oodles of spare time and the inclination to do investigative comparative studies like this !! . Thats valuable Singha time gone forever.......

I actually think this number is fairly accurate with the caveat that others come for other reasons, but might experience the sex side as well. For example, a person may come for the golf, but might also hit a bar or two after the day's round.

Those boys are here for the bars.

The golf is the alibi.

Rather like Orwell's observation that Britain could never be fascist because the population would laugh at the jackboot marching style.

There were many varieties of marching styles in Germany. If you watch Riefenstal's 'Triumph of the Will' during the march past, you'll see that the only brigade that goose-steps is 'SS Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler'.

There is no point having a Law if the authorities announce that they are not going to enforce it.

Having cosmetic rules is all well and good, but it makes a mockery of them, if their validity doesn't even receive lip service.

Cripes, he looks totally different than when I met him 12 years ago.....yet I am even more good looking than I was then.

Somehow I can't see him ever being returned to Thailand.