Johpa

To TV posters. I don't know if you realize this, but these posters do not read any comments that you write. They don't respond to any comments on any thread they start. They are only placing their videos to promote their business.

You are clearly out of the loop, especially the news loop. ThaiVisa only exists to be used as an ad platform to promote other businesses. In fact the entire Internet now seems to exist only as an advertising medium. Almost makes me nostalgic for the old Usenet days. Pickle King, I might almost miss you before I die.

Yes, that's right, Taylor is American and, don't you people listen to us at sporting events, We are Number One! We don't blame Taylor just like we don't blame GE for the Fukashima meltdown. When you are Number One, the fault can always be found elsewhere. All you European wussies, just get over it and blame the Greeks.

I have no idea what the Olivier awards are although currently the most influential Brit in the US is named Oliver. But always glad to see some recognition for the influential and under appreciated Ray Davies and the Kinks. Now if you would only take back, pretty please, oh pretty please, take back Piers "Morgan" Moron.

This thread is funny. People are calling one person attacking someone 'Thainess' , but having a go at all the other Thai people for not being violent.

Lest we not forget those who condemn this idiot but then go on to proclaim from their barstools or couches that if they were on the scene they would have taught the man a real lesson.

Welcome to ThaiVisa, the Hub of Hypocrisy: where insignificant stories become news and stories of significance to ThaiVisa are ignored.

wâa has an underlying meaning of 'to speak' and is used a such in Lao as in:

waa lao bo pen (I can't speak Lao).

In Thai, along with being used as a grammatical marker, like 'that' in English used to denote a new clause to be embedded within the sentence, it is used to note speaking your thoughts and conveying those thoughts to others. Up north it is common to hear:

waa yangai? (what do you think?...or...what do you say?)

But since it does carry grammatical information it is very difficult to translate as a single word. Try defining the word 'that' to a non-native English speaker.

I agree with you; one cannot superimpose western values upon islam and except similar outcomes or familiar truths; they will disappoint non believers every time. We could have a conversation about the supremacy of moral imperatives, but that is another discussion. What is quite relevant is islam simply has a different paradigm for interpersonal behavior, with the further caveat that anything which can be asserted (publicly or to self) to be in the furtherance of islam further mitigates their personal conduct. This unrestrained fiat allows every muslim to rearrange alliances, agreements, treaties, and even friendship as simply as the wind blowing. In fact, it is these same kinds of behaviors at the community, tribal, regional, and state level that have baffled outsiders for millennia. When they look you in the eye and tell a bold faced lie they have zero culpability. They simply have no sin, no guilt, no conscience because you are a non muslim. This point of behaving differently to non muslims is central to all of islam. Again, one can debate the values of relative cultures but I only want to state the formula islam guides its members to employ.

Sounds pretty much like commonly encountered western values to me. Heck, I think I might be able to replace Islam (and you do need to capitalize that word in English) with capitalism and get away with the same argument: anything which can be asserted (publicly or to self) to be in the furtherance of profits further mitigates their personal conduct.

I have just done a quick research on Int Rescue Committee.All they want is money and donations plus lobby your US senator blah blah blah.

I was looking for info about arranging for donations of clothing, dried food, pots, pans, baby requirements etc etc. If anyone has other info regarding sending real things to the real people rather than just money to the USA I'd love to help.

The IRC is one of the primary NGOs assisting the people at the Mae Nai Soi refugee camp which houses mostly Karenni refugees. The IRC works around the world on refugee issues and yes, some of the donations go to lobbying US Senators. The IRC was one of the lobbying groups that successfully lobbied the US State Department to allow refugees from the camps along the Thai-Burmese border to resettle in the United States. The IRC is also one of the very few groups, and the only non-denominational group to my knowledge, authorized by the US State Department to resettle refugees. So yes, donations to the IRC will not necessarily be spent entirely on pots and pans.

But, if you can get off your high horse, you can actually travel to Mae Hong Son and ask around in the Thai village of Ban Nai Soi and you might be able to find someone who can take your donations into the camp. I know one such a person but this is not the forum to make names public as refugee and IDP issues get politically complicated in Thailand. Take someone who speaks some Thai with you and ask around. One main contact speaks fluent English. Or maybe just go to the IRC office in Mae Hong Song town located just a few blocks from the town lake and ask for the best way to deliver goods. But remember, you will not be allowed inside the camp grounds.

คุณต้องรับผิดชอบการกระทำของตัวเอง is a bit high sounding for normal conversation. Make it more casual with คุณต้องรับผิดชอบการทำของตัวเอง

Using the previous transliteration (thank you copy and paste) kun dtông ráp pìt chôp gaan tam kŏng dtua ayng

Would like to know how much suffering should I expect

Are you referring to before or after?

Once again we see a Black person making poor choices followed by white police officer making even poorer choices. There are clearly issues within the Black community as well as systemic issues within the law enforcement community.

Sadly another case where the fat cat gets away with it, and the poor maid will probably be expelled for breech of immigration rules..

She will be lucky to survive if expelled to her home country after publicly causing her employer to lose face. She needs to apply for refugee status elsewhere at this point. And yes, I would assume that part of the deal made with the police is that she will be expelled by Thailand.

All the good ones are knocking on the gate. An era is coming to an end.

Pretty soon..it's just Lady gaga and Beyonce.

There are plenty of great younger blues musicians out there. Joe Bonamassa is the most obvious example.

Obviously, even if tourism increases for 2013, its contribuition to GDP growth will be insignificant. From an economic perspective, reound of tourism alone will not help the economy AS A WHOLE rebound. It is a false sense of security to think otherwise. Thailand's economic survival relies solely on EXPORTS.

It is the far higher net profit margins with tourism that increases its significance not only to the gross GDP, but to the player's involved. And there are some very high sakdina players who own some of the top tourist properties.

The Thai language doesn't have a future or past tense so when some writers translate to English they use the wrong tense.

Technically speaking, English too does not have a future tense. But both Thai and English are quite capable of indicating future events. It is the ThaiVisa headline that is misleading and lost in translation. Of course proclaiming that tourism will rebound remains just wishful thinking based upon the Thai animist notion that if you think it and repeat it that it will happen. Sort of like prayer.

As for Chequebook Buddhism, perhaps compare it to the Christian "Prosperity Gospel". It might be interesting to see if such prosperity movements tend to coincide with millenarian movements.

Yeah, maybe 10 - 15 years ago or even longer, the "Prosperity Gospel" was going on really strong. Every Evangelist on TV was into it. I wonder how that worked out?

Judging from recent news items Prosperity Gospel continues to be a strong and attractive message to the faithful.

Seems to me Buddhism in Thailand is very much in crisis when people like this strut about making such outrageous statements.

Not just Buddhism in Thailand but in most religions millenarianism and charismatic figures come to the forefront during times of crisis and change. May I suggest Norman Cohn's book "The Pursuit of the Millenium". And, if I recall correctly, Prof. Keyes wrote a number of scholarly articles on millenarianism within Southeast Asia.

As for Chequebook Buddhism, perhaps compare it to the Christian "Prosperity Gospel". It might be interesting to see if such prosperity movements tend to coincide with millenarian movements.

The AP article was front page on my local US big city newspaper. Needless to say, the article does not put the Kingdom in a positive light. Basically the article paints a picture of modern day slavery exploited by Thai and Indonesian influential people, including high ranking Thai police.

Chaiyo!

If you are adept at speaking then reading should come easy, but not without effort. It really just becomes memory and the tone rules that I once remembered from classes at the university have long been forgotten. Get a children's book that associates the letter with the sound. Start with simple words and don't bother trying to read a newspaper, that is a far more advanced skill. Start with childrens books, menus, or labels on bottles. Unlike English, the Thai alphabet is highly phonetic. My son is fluent in Thai, and from a very early age, but he was illiterate. But even that lazy kid eventually taught himself to read after dad, whose Thai is good but not nearly as good as son, had to read road signs and menus for him. And like almost all Thais, son can now read but knows little about the formal tone rules.

The Thai Christian churches of the Protestant denomination offer a very different approach. I have been in a few of them and the Thai version intentionally avoids the excesses. It explains why a small but growing number of Thais are interested in the Churches which focus on non material activities and emphasize equality and spiritual aspects.

Thai Protestant churches can be commended for their emphasis on equality, but there is a lack of spirituality as the focus is upon belief, which leads to answers to prayer, which often is about material success. It appears to me as an amalgamation of Thai animism with evangelicalism, similar to the amalgamation of Catholicism in South America with the preexisting animism found in than continent.

The Caliphate does not recognize Palestine anymore than it recognizes Israel.

Google "Amos Lee" to watch a hilarious video with another view of Lee Kuan Yew and then maybe contribute to Amos Lee's defense fund.

There's a storm coming!

The storm has been on the horizon for many years now. Whether by black magic or by artificial machinations or by mere luck, the impending storm been delayed but it has never abated, leaving the Kingdom in a type of political paralysis that has opened the door for a politician like Prayut to get his foot into the door of the national political psyche.

Always interesting to take note of the iconography of the photos of Prayut. The photo above shows his attendants dressed in livery. I am waiting for the photo of Prayut at some remote provincial airport with the locals sitting upon the ground with hands clasped together with Prayut standing above them surrounded by his attendants, and with his airplane in the background.

Up north I use the GT-Rider maps as my primary road maps. I also use the now somewhat dated Berndtson road map of the north, but its tough rain-proofing finish has allowed it to last many years now. Berndtson also has country wide road maps, but those are a larger scale than their regional maps. There are also many road maps designed for the various tablet platforms, I use the maps.me app, that can be used by those of us who eschew GPS but travel well beyond the reach of cell towers.

And only tangentially related, but another five star recommendation for Prof. Thongchai's book 'Siam Mapped'.

The author of the article has essentially missed the point....he/she thinks that by concentrating mainly on statistics a conclusion can be reached - and does this purely on their own observations - the whole thing is misleading - whereas drink-driving is obviously an issue seeing it as the single be-all and end-all is simply wrong. There is a clue in the OP question - i.e "Thailand's roads" - here is a significant contribution to the appalling death rates.

Road safety relies on proper use of the 5 Es.

1 Education

2 Enforcement

3 Engineering

4 Emergency

5 Evaluation

Not sure what article you read, but Austin seems to have touched upon most of your points. Or did you fail to see that the article was not written by a Thai and thus felt it needed some criticism? When the statistics indicate that drinking has a ridiculously high association with the fatalities then it makes sense, from an efficiency perspective, to use the statistics to put efforts where you might get the biggest bang for the buck in desired outcomes. Overall a good article from one of the young hands writing some insightful articles on the Kingdom geared towards both the domestic Thai scene as well as an international audience.

And then there is the producer thing.

Stewart had produced Colbert Report, and now produces Larry Wilmore's show.

I watched it for the first six weeks or so. I could see where, at times, he was trying to avoid racial topics, but then they just gave in to it. I'm not unsympathetic to the cause, but a daily half hour of racial commentary and white-people jokes has worn thin. Now with Noah it looks like it's going to be extended to an hour. I wonder who's going to produce.

I find Wilmore's monologues to be pretty darn funny and insightful. The guy has long been acknowledged as a great writer. But I find his round table second half of the show, a la Bill Maher, to be as boring as Jon Stewart's interviews with media celebrities. I still miss Colbert.