https://aseannow.com/rss/44-thailand-news.xml/National and regional news from all around ThailandenThe Siam Hotel on New Phetchaburi Road was one of Bangkok’s older mid range hotels, dating from the 1960s and 1970s. Although never considered particularly luxurious, it became well known among long term Bangkok residents for its lively coffee shop. Like several hotel coffee shops of that era, it developed a reputation as an informal late night meeting place where businessmen, expatriates, freelancers, and women looking to meet clients would gather well into the early hours. Before dedicated nightlife venues became widespread, hotel coffee shops often filled that role, forming an established part of Bangkok’s social scene from the 1970s through the 1990s. The atmosphere was mostly local, with a few foreign punters mixed in. Many women who worked in the massage parlors along New Phetchaburi Road would also gather there together after work. The Siam Hotel stood at 1777 New Phetchaburi Road. It was completely demolished in 2007 to clear the site for what would later become the Lancaster Bangkok.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:56:56 +0000So, anyway, I posed the following to Gemini, concerning The Big Chill: Is there any deeper meaning to the film, The Big Chill, or is this just a superficial comedy supplying nostalgia and good music from the past? Have any scholars analysed The Big Chill, in any serious way? =========================== And, as we all know by now, the Gemini BOT is getting smarter, by the day. Gemini's output was as follows, and do you agree, or disagree with the robot, Gemini.....: The Big Chill (1983), directed by Lawrence Kasdan, has been subjected to extensive scholarly and critical analysis. Rather than a superficial exercise in nostalgia, academic literature treats the film as a seminal cultural text documenting the psychological, economic, and ideological transition of the American Baby Boomer generation from 1960s countercultural idealism to 1980s bourgeois materialism. Scholars deconstruct the film through several primary frameworks: 1. The Sociology of Ideological Capitulation ("Selling Out")Sociological and cultural analyses frame the film as a study of the "cooling process" of a generation—shifting from outward-directed political activism to inward-directed self-absorption (the "Me Generation"). Scholars point to the specific occupations of the characters as deliberate allegories for institutional co-optation: Harold (Kevin Kline): The running-shoe entrepreneur represents the commodification of the 1970s fitness boom and the embracement of corporate capitalism. Meg (Mary Kay Place): A former public defender who transitioned into corporate real estate law, symbolizing the structural retreat from systemic social justice to personal asset accumulation. Michael (Jeff Goldblum): A journalist writing superficial, short-form profiles for People magazine, representing the degradation of New Journalism into celebrity gossip and consumerist distraction. Academic consensus views the weekend reunion not as a celebration of the 1960s, but as its formal burial. The characters use their shared history to rationalize and forgive their current bourgeois complacency. 2. Psychoanalytic and Existential Frameworks of BereavementThe narrative catalyst—the suicide of the unseen character, Alex—is analyzed by film theorists as an existential void. Alex represents the uncompromised idealist who refused to adapt to the 1980s political climate (the Reagan era) and paid the ultimate psychological price. From a psychoanalytic perspective, the characters are not merely mourning a friend; they are engaged in collective ego-defense. By analyzing Alex's failure to survive adulthood, they validate their own compromises as necessary survival strategies. The "Big Chill" of the title is dual-coded: it represents both the cold certainty of mortality and the chilling effect of adult reality on youthful aspiration. 3. Musical Semiometrics and Proustian NostalgiaMedia scholars have heavily analyzed the film’s soundtrack—predominantly Motown and late-1960s rock—as a narrative device rather than passive background music. The Funeral Sequence: The transition from a traditional church organ rendition of the Rolling Stones’ "You Can't Always Get What You Want" to the original studio recording serves as a structural thesis for the film. It signals that the characters must substitute their grand historical expectations for immediate, pragmatic needs. Proustian Shorthand: Scholars note that the music acts as an affective anchor, temporarily retrieving the emotional states of their college years to mask the ideological divergence that has occurred in the intervening fifteen years. Comparative Academic ContextIn film studies, The Big Chill is frequently juxtaposed with John Sayles’ The Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980). Scholars contrast Sayles' low-budget, structurally raw depiction of leftist disillusionment with Kasdan's highly polished, studio-backed narrative. Where Sayles observes the political stagnation of the left, Kasdan documents its affluent absorption into the dominant socioeconomic order. The film remains highly evaluated in academic treatments of New Hollywood and 1980s cinema as the definitive text on post-utopian generational melancholy. ============== So, as I say, The Big Chill is not a typical film. And, The Big Chill is NOT The Breakfast Club, by any means. What are your views, assuming that you might even HAVE a view? Best regards, Gamma Hint: What I think is that we need to GET BACK TO THE GARDEN......(Do you agree?) If we do not return to the Garden, then we are doomed..... DOOMED....I say....!!!! Please do not doubt me, or we are all doomed. Change your ways....FOLKS......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are at the cusp of doom. Everybody knows this..... Please just ask my fellow alum....Noam..... Or, just ask the frogs which are dying......Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:56:00 +0000Don't know if this is relevant, but :- I've known 2 English expats with NO official qualifications work at our Amphur Govt. School as English Helpers. About 4 hours a day depending on schedules, sitting in the back of the class room and correcting the teacher! They did not have any Thai comprehension? 20K / Month. Not paid through holiday periods. 5500 Baht is misprint or they're looking for some potless Filippino.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:55:30 +0000oh look another jew obsessed topic from our resident hoess. wonder how many jew hating cockroaches will crawl out of the sewer to join in and disgrace this forum.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:51:30 +0000If you want to reword the question to patriotism, yougov did a poll on that; 75% of Republicans describe themselves as "very patriotic", compared to less than 30% of Democrats. https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/55054-half-of-republicans-and-11-of-democrats-define-patriotism-as-supporting-their-country-unconditionallyFri, 03 Jul 2026 11:50:56 +0000how would you know lol. good idea. lets deport them to your countryFri, 03 Jul 2026 11:48:59 +0000As an Australian Jew who publicly supports Palestinian freedom, I’m targeted by my own community – and neo-Nazis Jews should be able to criticise the actions of Israel without risking exclusion from communal life Sarah Schwartz The Guardian: 2 Jul 2026 As a teenager, I walked through concentration camps in Poland, where the Nazis industrialised the murder of European Jewry. That history has shaped not only my Jewish identity, but a commitment to political struggle. It taught me that memory carries not only grief, but obligations: to resist racism, dehumanisation and the silence that permits the erasure of a people. Today, I’m giving evidence to the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion, established after the slaughter of 15 people at a Hanukah celebration at Bondi beach. Their murders demand an honest reckoning. The question is whether we can confront antisemitism without weaponising Jewish grief or turning Holocaust memory into a political instrument to silence the very forms of solidarity and dissent it should compel. Over the past two years, as a Jewish person publicly supporting Palestinian freedom, Israel’s defenders have repeatedly turned symbols of Jewish persecution against me. Online, I am called a “Kapo” and “Judenrat”, invoking the institutions the Nazis created to make Jews complicit in their own persecution. Those who claim to be the inheritors of the Holocaust circulate memes depicting me as a rat, pin yellow stars on my clothing, place me on a train to concentration camps and describe me as “Hitler’s Jew”. During a live ABC interview, another Jewish guest declared that I was “an anti-Jew”. Afterwards, a publication launched a “debate” about whether that description was justified, as though my Jewishness itself had become a matter for public adjudication. At the same time, I’m a target of actual neo-Nazis. They traffic in conspiracies such as the “Great Replacement”, portraying Jews as the hidden force behind multiculturalism, migration and anti-racism. They recycle familiar caricatures of Jewish appearance and Jewish power that have animated antisemitism for generations. They are indifferent to my views on Israel. They target me because I am publicly Jewish, and because I stand with those they imagine to be the enemies of a white Christian nation: Muslim people, migrants and anti-racists.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:48:53 +0000I don't believe she had a knife. But I believe the "scam gone wrong" story.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:48:19 +0000The only English speaking country than can issue the 1968 Vienna IDP is the UK. The USA, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand have not. They can only issue the 1948 Geneva IDP that is good for one year. None of them ratified the 1968 Vienna Treaty.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:47:08 +0000Very true. As it is also time for the rest of the world to have Israel stop it's land grabbing and return the areas they have stolen. It's the only way to stop the fighting amongst all the terror factions and groups involved.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:46:04 +0000Ah, so in your opinion, one can be proud of one's country without being patriotic? Then logically one can be patriotic without being proud to be a citizen..... Sounds to me like you are doing what the Dutch call "ant fvcking"....the equivalent of splitting hairs to avoid the actual issue. So then, if you want, what explains the lack of pride in Democrats?Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:44:01 +0000Time for the rest of the world to tell the US to butt out and go home.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:44:00 +0000I'm glad some Americans aren't falling for BS nationalism. It's a cancer on society. Look at Israel.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:43:02 +0000Very true and some still live in a polarized cold war era of last century where the good guys are America and Russia Russia are the bad guys. In today's globalized world, Russia with all it's ressources and XXXL market is just not a place that any developped economy can affort to turn it's back,. Despite the fact that Russia is a rogue nation, but then show me one single nation wil 100% honest politicians in power.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:42:59 +0000jen psaki lol lolFri, 03 Jul 2026 11:41:23 +0000Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:41:16 +0000Reflecting the demise of democracy...Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:41:00 +0000Trump by helping still Ukraine is causing inflation to hike all over that is destroying even America's economy. As the Ukraines are bombing oil refineries in Russia. This is decreasing global oil supply and thus prices hike. Obvious. It will plainly make the muslim producing countries more powerful. Europe is foolishly also giving large amount of aid to Ukraine that is backfiring. With his mess Trump is all set for the Republicans to loose forthcomming elections in America and global support of the USA is going to dwindle even more.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:40:47 +0000Some people are SO old and miserable that they just want to see the world burnFri, 03 Jul 2026 11:39:06 +0000Where's the check he promised me for $1776? Did he forget that part of the celebration?Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:38:10 +0000Or residencyFri, 03 Jul 2026 11:38:08 +0000I'm glad you consider us progressives as opposed to the other side: retrogressives. Previous administrations did not round up people from their homes, work, Home Depots and immigration hearings. The way ICE practices is sheer brutality. Separating children from parents, making those parents make that choice is nothing short of barbaric. Sometimes laws need to be administered flexibly and with compassion. Have you thought about if you were in their shoes? I doubt it. Threat to public safety?!? Give me a break! Show me.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:37:53 +0000The 1968 Vienna IDP is actually the correct one for Thailand and lasts 3 years if your home licence is still valid.Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:37:29 +0000Brilliant idea. That will increase even more the oil prices all over the world as there will be less supply and higher demand and it will make all the muslim oil producing countries even more powerful. Well thought...any other such brillant ideas ? 😂Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:36:32 +0000As I have said, they may make the retirement visa criteria from 50 to 75 years old. After 75 years of age, you are not spending much anyway, plus, they don't want foreigners dying here. It's called a retirement visa, not a dying visa. 🙂Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:36:07 +0000