'At 5 pm, the protesters would gather at the Rajprasong Intersection and "release" 1 million red paper cranes.'

"release" ??? As in drop them on the ground?

Don't be silly!!! Cranes are birds, aren't they - they will fly away into the distance of course!!!!

Some enterprising lad will make a ton of extras and sell them at a makeshift booth for 20b each for those who can't fold or simply forgot.

As if Thailand has enough problems with deforestation and water run off causing flooding, they have waste 1 million more sheets of paper making origami cranes that will be swept up that evening. Chainsaws are licensed and regulated far, far better than cars, trucks and busses because of the illegal logging, and we KNOW how bad landslides and flooding are from greed driven, excessive logging. This takes even the red shirts to a new level of dumb or dumber. Think how many people they could help with the same wasted resources to do this useless gesture???????

OK, might as well ban Loy Krathong then. By extension of your statement above the vast majority of the Thai population must be dumber than even the redshirts, as they "release" paper lanterns into the sky every year, not to mention all those carcinogens being released from the burners, without a thought for the enviroment. Shame on them.

I wonder how many paper cranes you can make out of a khom loy?

If The Pollution Solution Group was not so busy cleaning Jomtien Beach, we would go to Bangkok.

Removed a post (and responses) that claimed others were paid to post. If you have any actual evidence please forward it to support. If it's just a lame debating tactic, further references like that may find you without posting rights.

Zero points for Thaksin Red Shirt originality...

Millions of folded paper cranes fluttered down from warplanes in the skies over southern Thailand

CBS News

BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec. 5, 2004

Guess the 2011 version never did "get off the ground".

Lets face the facts... they can't grasp how many one million really is.

And I don't mean that as a slam. Who's going to count 1 million folded birds? Seriously?

Lets face the facts... they can't grasp how many one million really is.

And I don't mean that as a slam. Who's going to count 1 million folded birds? Seriously?

Did they actually release ANY folded birds?

Lets face the facts... they can't grasp how many one million really is.

And I don't mean that as a slam. Who's going to count 1 million folded birds? Seriously?

Did they actually release ANY folded birds?

It appears that the Nations fearless reporters have struck again. With a modicum of digging the subject of the OP, one Nathee Sorawaree, far from being a red shirt leader, is in fact a red shirt "activist" / supporter (maybe) who's 15 minutes of fame was back last July when he was arrested by 4/5 plain clothes policemen during one of Sombats organised Red Sundays. He was arrested for "making a noise" - he was shouting at the police who were using a loudhailer telling Sombats Redshirts to remain calm apparently - taken to Lumphini police station for interrogation (the police Deputy Commanders words, not mine) and then released after paying a 100 baht fine. If I remember there was a video on youtube about it - the arrest did seem to be over zealous seeing as he was a group of 1 at the time. Must have been a slow news day and the reporters were looking for any angle on the Red Shirt Rally. I fell for it, I really must treat the Nations reporting with the respect it deserves in future.

Is anybody aware of anyone else apart from the Nation reporting on this Paper Crane story?

Lets face the facts... they can't grasp how many one million really is.

And I don't mean that as a slam. Who's going to count 1 million folded birds? Seriously?

Did they actually release ANY folded birds?

It appears that only one "bird" was released... by the event organizer, some crackpot Red Shirt named Nathee

.

What happened to dumping blood? I loved that idea.....

Not even if it had been spilt by a notorious on the run convicted criminal?

It was only pig's blood in any case. But a disgusting symbolic gesture by the Red's, that lost them as much sympathy as their bully-boy raid on Chulalongkorn Hospital to look for non-existent soldiers, but ended up terrorising staff and patients alike. Their publicity stunts were so incredibly ill thought out, it's quite amazing that anyone still supports them. Still, 500 baht and a square meal for a good riot is tempting I suppose, when you are jobless in Klong Toey.

What happened to dumping blood? I loved that idea.....

Not even if it had been spilt by a notorious on the run convicted criminal?

It was only pig's blood in any case. But a disgusting symbolic gesture by the Red's, that lost them as much sympathy as their bully-boy raid on Chulalongkorn Hospital to look for non-existent soldiers, but ended up terrorising staff and patients alike. Their publicity stunts were so incredibly ill thought out, it's quite amazing that anyone still supports them. Still, 500 baht and a square meal for a good riot is tempting I suppose, when you are jobless in Klong Toey.

It wasn't ONLY pig's blood. They spent a couple of days collecting blood from the protesters ... even children. Since they didn't get close to their predicted volumes, they topped it up with pig's blood.

^^ Is that 'the bird' that we are referring to that Nathee is holding up?

What happened to dumping blood? I loved that idea.....

Not even if it had been spilt by a notorious on the run convicted criminal?

It was only pig's blood in any case. But a disgusting symbolic gesture by the Red's, that lost them as much sympathy as their bully-boy raid on Chulalongkorn Hospital to look for non-existent soldiers, but ended up terrorising staff and patients alike. Their publicity stunts were so incredibly ill thought out, it's quite amazing that anyone still supports them. Still, 500 baht and a square meal for a good riot is tempting I suppose, when you are jobless in Klong Toey.

"... as their bully-boy raid on Chulalongkorn Hospital to look for non-existent soldiers"

I do believe there were "soldiers" there (check the comments from the guy in the infamous Jeff Savage video), just the red shirts - after surrounding the hospital en-mass then storming it - didn't manage to find them.

Now

why

is

that?