Gaccha

ISSUE:

Quote boxes are not working on threads older than the upgrade (i.e. 99.9%).

SUGGESTION:

Revert back to original style.

I am guessing there is some Java element to this upgrade as it has a remarkable similarity to the catastrophic YouTube 'upgrade' of around 3 months ago. It took YouTube around 2 months and a loss of many viewers to sort their mess out.

I don't know; speaking personally I had days that I wanted to point out every obvious truth that whole hordes of posters seemed to deliberately ignore. On other days I just felt pity for the forum keyboard warriors and thought 'at least they're not out on the street scaring the women and the horses.' and just tuned in elsewhere.

When you look back, do you see an analogy with the Thai outburst spread across Facebook and other parts of the internet?

Just like the Thais, they expressed no political views publically so long as the issue was cold, but then when it actually hit their lives, suddenly they could not be too fanatical or too vulgar in expressing their views. Multiple Thai friends reported being 'defriended' on Facebook for expressing their views, and it was from my lofty viewpoint easy to see why. And I should imagine with these farang armchair experts they probably similarly annoyed everyone to death in the bar and found their only output on the Forum.

They made their position, and once it was decided there was no turning back. They must have felt a reassuring jouissance in their fanaticism.

I note with amusement their now complete absence in making any retort to any of the comments on this thread. We have reclaimed the Forum. God Save George.

Wow I thought they had just gone back to work. Idle hands and all that....

+5555 That would be the alternative explanation. That might explain the generally pro-yellow position. And it reminds me of one member...

One board member with a porsche badge (*) for an avatar prior to the crisis spent much time extolling his brilliance as the mini-capitalist, at how success awaited all those who worked hard and remained determined. His office was in CentralWorld.

In the time of the crisis, it seemed the cat had got his tongue. His cashflow problems appeared to have perhaps changed his hyper-neo-liberal 'American Dream' perspective on life. He has seen that life does not reward hard work. A salutory but ultimately satisyfing riposte of reality, not just for those that seek schadenfreude, but also it allows those less successful to feel less failure in their misfortune.

(*) when I was unfortunate enough to work as an Investment Banker I can recall colleagues remarking that only the plebs buy porsches and that the real Hi-So have the lamborghini. I am still unsure to be more disgusted with 'porsche avatar man' for thinking his porsche meant anything, or for the bankers in popping his dream/putting him in his place, or for the inanity of the bankers in believing with their tiresome monocultural mobile lives that they were Hi-So.

From my extensive walks I need to press a point on you.

You really need maps that mark out places where the dogs are just too aggressive. Many major streets that don't get much foot traffic you will definitely be attacked, particularly at the front of Temple grounds, and particularly in the mornings and the evenings (the exact times you'll want to run). People who drive around in their cars simply never see this danger.

As an example of something you may feel to be in your comfort zone, you can run from Ekkamai to Pinklao Bridge on Sukhumvit Road (and some minor roads) and there is a possibility of not being attacked, but beyond that on either side you are just a moving target for the dogs.

I have been bitten twice and have learnt to avoid certain parts of major streets.

Thailand has the third worst levels of rabies in the World. Getting bitten means running straight to the hospital...

I very rarely do see farang runners (never Thais) around the main streets. I think it's mad, and I love running. Lumpini is your best option or the running tracks at the university grounds.

I don't know; speaking personally I had days that I wanted to point out every obvious truth that whole hordes of posters seemed to deliberately ignore. On other days I just felt pity for the forum keyboard warriors and thought 'at least they're not out on the street scaring the women and the horses.' and just tuned in elsewhere.

When you look back, do you see an analogy with the Thai outburst spread across Facebook and other parts of the internet?

Just like the Thais, they expressed no political views publically so long as the issue was cold, but then when it actually hit their lives, suddenly they could not be too fanatical or too vulgar in expressing their views. Multiple Thai friends reported being 'defriended' on Facebook for expressing their views, and it was from my lofty viewpoint easy to see why. And I should imagine with these farang armchair experts they probably similarly annoyed everyone to death in the bar and found their only output on the Forum.

They made their position, and once it was decided there was no turning back. They must have felt a reassuring jouissance in their fanaticism.

I note with amusement their now complete absence in making any retort to any of the comments on this thread. We have reclaimed the Forum. God Save George.

<snip> Hope the OP didn't get further bent out of shape by the mods' edit

I'm afraid it was. My topic depended on a detailed analysis of one poster. But the Mod can have done nothing else if topics cannot be centred on one forum member.

I will not identify the poster (so that also means I cannot quote him) but he had been a member for exactly 2 years, yet almost all his posts were between the April and May period. He is a High School teacher and frequently preached about the lack of thinking by his Thai students-- the irony is jaw-dropping. he seemed to have failed to grasp the lessons of the Western enlightenment, apparently believing that ideas are the result of apples falling or deep reflection in warm baths.

The typical trope of these fanatics was to have an avatar of some political slogan.

The risk now is that without my detailed posting I will become the target of posters as my posts now comes across as a rant or an unsubstantiated polemic. I am interested to hear of other experiences. Presumably they can be named as they will not be the centre of the topic.

As for accusations of me being "a Red". Please, I am simply not interested in that banal level of binary identity. Go back and read my posts if you must.

During the recent upheavel, that can be said to have started in April and ended by the end of May, there was an astonishing outpouring of conviction politics. On several posts I received retorts so one-sided and yet so shallow that it fascinated me and I promised myself to look at the worst example of these posters once the upheaval had died down.

I hypothesised that the more shallow and one-sided, the less likely to remain on this forum once the upheavel was over.

Or to think of it another way, they would be less likely to be engaged in the nuanced, complex but perhaps banal (if you don't know the facts) debate now ongoing on the political reconciliation of life in Thailand.

Now that this board has been rescued from these political bigots, has anyone else had occasion to think the same. I would love to see their postings along with the delicious supplément of their termination of postings around May 20th.

Central World is closed.

No idea when it will re-open and while you won't find forever21 anywhere else, Platinum Fashion Mall up on Phetburi near Panthip is an awesome place to shop. Its wholesale so you don't get to try on ( ) but the selection is overwhelming and the prices very low

Have you tried the Thai method of folding the trousers/skirt length ways and then measuring them to the circumference of your neck. If it fits around your neck it will fit perfectly around your waist.... they say.

Hang on, hang on.

This is fascinating. Yoot is re-positioning the comment as being similar to the second interpretation that I guessed it in my original posting. While Peppy positions it closely to the clever argument that I describe in my first interpretation. (this is confusing but you'll get the idea if you look at the first post of this topic on the comment of the Thai reader). This really intrigues me now-- is the post itself fundamentally ambiguous?

(by the way, thanks David for your help with the original text)

<snip>

My take on the comment:

" เดี๋ยวนี้เขาใช้แค่คำพูดมาเป็นข้อกล่าวหาแล้วเหรอ ทำไมมักง่ายจัง นี่ถ้าเราพูดว่าเกลียดอ้ายฆาตกร ทรราช มือเปื้อนเลือด เราจะเอา สไนเปอร์ไปยิงหัวมัน แล้วมันเกิดตายไปจริงๆ เราจะซวยไหมละ จะกลายเป็นคนที่ถูก กล่าวหาว่าฆ่ามันหรือเปล่านี่ ทั้งๆที่เราไม่ได้ฆ่ามัน ซึ่งจริงๆแล้วอยากฆ่ามันจร๊งๆๆๆๆๆๆจ้า "

"So they've got nothing but his statements to make these accusations with?* How come they're so slipshod? Look, if we say we hate murderers, traitors, and people with blood on their hands, and then we go and shoot them in the head and they die, won't we be screwed? Wouldn't we then be the ones being accused of murder, even if we didn't do it, though we really, really, really wanted to?"

*Not entirely sure of the context of this sentence (ie. who is accusing who, whose words were they), so this could be off the mark.

์

Notes about some of the vocabulary, in the above context:

"จัง" after an adjective means "so" or "very"

"นี่" can be a sort of interjection, like "look" ("Look, I'm going and I don't care what you say.") or "here" ("Here, take this.")

"เกิด" followed by a verb means "it happens that". I could have translated "แล้วมันเกิดตายไปจริงๆ" as "and it happens that they die", but I don't feel it adds much to the meaning, so I left it out.

That is excellent. Very much appreciated.

When I first read this Thai reader's response, I took it as quite an impressive thoughtful take on the situation. I thought the Thai was saying that we should be cautious to just prosecute for only words spoken as after all had things been different then that could be us now (ie.e. we could be the ones on trial)since we did demand the death of people by sniper.

However, on re-reading and reflecting I fear his argument is the rather more tiresome and well-trodden argument that Mr Savage’s argument that he was only saying words can just as easily lead to the death of people as an action can lead to someone's death.

What he is saying is ambiguous for me by several factors. The odd spacing:

e.g. ~ทำไมมักง่ายจัง นี่ถ้าเรา~ Why not ~ทำไมมักง่ายจังนี่ ถ้าเรา~ ?

Also, what does this phrase mean:

เกิดตายไป. Born and die and go somewhere

So my translation is very rocky, but here goes:

Right now (am I right to think) he has an indictment only for words spoken. Why were these so hapless. If we said we hated a nasty dictator-type we would have blood on our hands. We will want a sniper to take him out. And then clearly it will happen and he will die and go somewhere else[?]. Will we be jinxed? It will change the person that is correct, and will (they) mention or not that we claimed to assassinate him? Even though we did not kill him, which is already clear, we wanted to kill him and that is awfully clear.

Please help...

I am watching with great interest how the Thais respond in the Comments section of the Matichon to the article. The first response seems interesting but there is a word that seems crucial but I don't know it (and nor do my dictionaries):

จร๊งๆ (it actually says จร๊งๆๆๆๆๆๆ) (i take it as an alternative spelling of จริง )

Addtionally, it uses the excellent word:

มักง่าย hapless

and the probably- new- to- the- Thai- language:

สไนเปอร์ sniper

Here is the whole reader's comment:

" เดี๋ยวนี้เขาใช้แค่คำพูดมาเป็นข้อกล่าวหาแล้วเหรอ ทำไมมักง่ายจัง นี่ถ้าเราพูดว่าเกลียดอ้ายฆาตกร ทรราช มือเปื้อนเลือด เราจะเอา สไนเปอร์ไปยิงหัวมัน แล้วมันเกิดตายไปจริงๆ เราจะซวยไหมละ จะกลายเป็นคนที่ถูก กล่าวหาว่าฆ่ามันหรือเปล่านี่ ทั้งๆที่เราไม่ได้ฆ่ามัน ซึ่งจริงๆแล้วอยากฆ่ามันจร๊งๆๆๆๆๆๆจ้า "

I am really hopng you make a fast recovery.

All the best.

The Jeff Savage as arsonist is getting some attention in the Thai press, allowing for an interesting set of vocabulary.

Here are some of the words:

จัดฉาก . to "set up" a contrived crime scene or evidence against an innocent person

กุเรื่อง. to cook up; concoct; invent; make up; contrive; fabricate; trump up

แพะรับบาป. Scapegoat

กุ. Trump up, fabricate

The story is remarkably close to The Guardian newspaper story from which it extensively quotes. I don't see any attempts to subvert the narrative.

The article is here:

http://www.matichon.co.th/news_detail.php?...id=01&catid=

I have two initial questions:

ปฎิเสธไม่ What is this?

มีอารมณ์ dictionary says this means 'have an erection'… I think shorely shome mishtake

Had a quick chat with a Thammasat law professor yesterday. He was very sure that this would change things.

I pointed out that InterPol has infuriated Thailand by declining to assist them in the arrest of Thaksin. "Yes" he said "but this is a terrorist charge". He seemed to think it obvious that this would change the dynamics.

I recall InterPol having Red Notices up for British citizens, who are evidently living quiet lives in the UK, where the police do not attempt to arrest them, and where their homes and sometimes telephone numbers can be found with a quick google search [see the enormous number of British newspaper articles on this subject about 3 years ago]. They are able to idly live their lives in peace despite being classed as 'fugitives' on the Interpol website becuase it is Libya that asked InterPol to put them on it. The UK simply ignores these obviously politically motivated requests by Libya.

So my impression was InterPol would just about assist any sovereign state with their dirty work, yet Thailand's humiliating treatment suggests otherwise. It does reinforce the point that in the (real) world outside Thailand this government is regarded as illegitimate, no matter how many democratic technologies it uses to usurp power.

Oh well, you can keep track here:

http://www.interpol.int/Public/Wanted/Search/Form.asp

Grounds for InterPol assistance in a case are provided here:

(http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/LegalM...Sheets/FS07.asp)

Had a quick chat with a Thammasat law professor yesterday. He was very sure that this would change things.

I pointed out that InterPol has infuriated Thailand by declining to assist them in the arrest of Thaksin. "Yes" he said "but this is a terrorist charge". He seemed to think it obvious that this would change the dynamics.

I recall InterPol having Red Notices up for British citizens, who are evidently living quiet lives in the UK, where the police do not attempt to arrest them, and where their homes and sometimes telephone numbers can be found with a quick google search [see the enormous number of British newspaper articles on this subject about 3 years ago]. They are able to idly live their lives in peace despite being classed as 'fugitives' on the Interpol website becuase it is Libya that asked InterPol to put them on it. The UK simply ignores these obviously politically motivated requests by Libya.

So my impression was InterPol would just about assist any sovereign state with their dirty work, yet Thailand's humiliating treatment suggests otherwise. It does reinforce the point that in the (real) world outside Thailand this government is regarded as illegitimate, no matter how many democratic technologies it uses to usurp power.

Oh well, you can keep track here:

http://www.interpol.int/Public/Wanted/Search/Form.asp

I think most of the press are concerned that she plays softball.

Presumably you raise this issue because of the large number of (middle class) Thais protesting (via the social media of Facebook etc. )against the supposed media bias of the Western press (CNN is particulary targetted).

Certainly the Western TV press is vague in explanations and sensationalist in tone. But of course it is. There barely can be a sentient being left on the planet who expects TV news to answer the question 'why'. If you want this answered then you must read.

As for bias, everyone is biased. There is no such thing as neutral since it presupposes a Truth, that if only we looked hard enough we could all agree upon. If you even raise a topic you are displaying a bias by creating the framework for debate.

What is odd about the furore over the Western press bias is the lack of protest about the astonishingly unreasonable Thai press. The Thai press is intentionally biased. I know from insider sources on a certain channel that when a reporter wanted to show a soldier throwing a grenade she was told they must not show it. The Thai press is mostly owned by the Thai government or Thai military. A quick check on Wikipedia can verify this claim.

What this furore is really about is the fundamentally incompatible viewpoints of the Westerner and the Thai. The Westerner finds coups totally repulsive and unforgivable in all circumstances. The Thai is blase about them because they are so used to them. So when a Westerner says Abhisit is illegitimate he is absolutely right from his viewpoint. It does not matter a jot that Abhisit was elected to parliament and has formed a coalition governemnt. All that matters is the method that started the process to get him to power started in 2006 with a coup. That's it. So the foundational position of the Westerner looks biased to the middle-class yellow-leaning masses.

I went along today but Michael had gone home a couple of hours earlier.

They gave me an application form, asked me come back and to bring two photos and a passport copy.

From the chat between themselves, it does seem to be the polices' intention to make a volunteer police force in the same mould as the volunteer police in Phuket/Chiang Mai/Pattaya.

Oddly, they spoke to me in English and showed little interest in testing my Thai language skills. But they were interested to know how long I had lived in Thailand.

I think this could be interesting.

Let's look at his sense of humor. This is when he reported that many 7/11 shops have been looted by the mob.

เอาไปหมด ยกเว้นหนังสือ ไม่ยอมอ่านข่าวสาร ฟังแต่แกนนำบนเวทีอย่างเดียว

Another one when we showed the press the tear gas launcher.

เสร็จแล้วยิงเลยมั้ยครับ

Can you explain the humour of the second sentence.

Is is that he is implying he is going to shoot the journalists with the launcher? Is this demonstrated by the odd word order ยิง before เลยมั้ย ?

When it was spoken was it like this:

เสร็จแล้ว... ยิง... เลยมั้ยครับ

If this is where the joke is, I don't think an English translation is possible because of the need for a subject and object marker.

It's getting out of hand...

Mr Gotte

Can you clarify. These are simply volunteers (not in police uniform, no weapons, no handcuffs) who act basically as translators for the police officer they are with, is that right?

I ask since in the UK I was a police volunteer for 4 years, I was a lawyer (so I have a very good understanding of criminal procedures), I speak japanese and english fluently but I think my Thai is dodgy, so I could not be an 'interpreter' for the police.

Simply listen to each sentence 10 times or so, write down what you understand, then look at the Thai transcript

Yes, this is the method which was known as 'dictée' (dictation) when I was learning French at school, and is a good, challenging way to learn.

(By the way, I downloaded it, but because I use Chrome, which opens PDFs directly in the browser, it doesn't add to the 'number of downloads' figure.)

That means two downloads so far

I really like this method. When I was learning Japanese I went through the Hollywood movie Apollo 13. Interestingly there is still one sentence in this movie that I cannot catch (by the way, if anyone has seen this movie on sale anywhere in Bangkok let me know as it is proving incredibly difficult to find...). I can now without a second's thought understand "orbital re-enty plan" in japanese, but unfortunately, not many people say that.

Here is what you have been waiting for: Intermediate/Advanced listening practice book-- Desert Fox and Commando

Features

the English language transcript

a Thai language transcript

(in two font styles)

a romanization of the Thai (sentence by sentence)

a breakdown of every single word

all tricky words translated

How to use

Do not read the English script first. Simply listen to each sentence 10 times or so, write down what you understand, then look at the Thai transcript. If still difficult look at romanization if tricky spelling, or English translation if tricky meaning.

Listen to them all in this way, should be extremely enjoyable (you will feel a thrill of success when you can listen to the whole transcript and understand everything).

It took hours to do it so download it just to make me feel better Cheers

The same style can be found in an earlier post by me of 'Ghandi and the reverend' and the "redshirt protests'. Because of the level of detail it is 20 pages long.

D_Day_Rommel_and_Commando_FINAL1.PDF

Your responses concerning my decision to take a risk are, if nothing else, reassuringly predictable.

The obsessive and fetishized Western obsession with 'risk', where risk has become confused with 'hazard' is one of the great new tropes to rot Western thinking in the early part of this new century. Where just ten years ago, someone could speak of 'that being a good risk to take' it now seems an absurd sentence, since now all risk is unacceptable. The preaching of no risk has reached such a point that a reaction of being treated as just slightly more moral than a paedophile is now common.

One of the great things about Thailand is that it is not locked into a tiresome biocapture by a state keen to create the docile, productive citizens of which, no doubt, some responders on this forum are healthy members. You go for health checks, eat the right greens, read magazine articles on cancer treatment brealkthroughs as you have bag and baggage allowed yourselves to be subject to this biopolitics of the neo-liberal state.

I do not have have to justify my experiencing of life, it is you that attack me so vehemently when I dare to reject the mollycoddling of the biopolitical state that should be ashamed of yourselves.

So why did I do it? Well, at an intellectual level I am very interested in the notion of the 'State of Exception' pushed by Giorgio Agamben. I conceive the Redshirt demonstration as a perfect example of Jacques Ranciere's breaking of the 'partition of the sensible'. No doubt, at a more biological level, I am obviously more of a risk-seeker than others. And at a rational level, I don't have any children, so the only risk is my own. At an experience level, I am experienced in much worse (Kosovo, Algeria, West Bank).

Let me leave you with this:

"To efficiently manage a diverse culture, mechanisms of social control and surveillance must be noninvasive. Hegemonic control (Gramsci, 1971), therefore, must manifest in seemingly benign patterns of behavioral regulation. These will be expressed as actions necessary to preserve the peace and will carry the weight ofmoral authority characteristic of utilitarian motivations to preserve the “greater good.” Here, Foucault’s (1979) articulation of docile bodies, serial space, and panopticism is illustrative. Similar to Garland (2001), Foucault (1979) associated the proliferation of docility in direct proportion to the state’s interest in enhancing discipline and social control."

[Conventional Risk Discourse and the Proliferation of Fear, Robert Carl Schehr, 2005; 16; 38 Criminal Justice Policy Review]

Thank for the good post Gaccha, much more informative as

Clashes Continue, Turning Central Bangkok In Virtual Warzone

OR

Yes, (The) Clashes Continue, Turning Central Bangkok (Thaivisa) In Virtual Warzone

Where only feral people post, you did attract one by the way in your post!

Can we get transparency bubble next time? Could see more of the street map behind

I always find interesting the odd little points that residents in Thailand would spot but a reporter flown in would be none the wiser.

Your 'transparency bubble' thought is an excellent idea. I just forgot to do it.