By Harrison George |
<p>The introduction of full body scanners at Suvarnabhumi International Airport caused some technical problems of a perhaps predictable nature.</p>
<p>‘Whoa, would you get a look at this guy’s kor kor nor.’</p>
<p>‘Hey, we’re supposed to be checking for explosives, not admiring people’s underwe – holy bananas, what’s he got in there?’</p>
<p>‘Dunno, but anything that size looks suspicious to me. What do you think?’</p>
<p>‘OK, get him in and strip him down.’</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>For those who have spent the past 7 days in a frenzy of head-scratching, Googling and fears of incipient Alzheimer’s, relief is at hand. Below, find the answers to last week’s quiz. Anyone scoring more than 5 might be proud of their capacity for memorizing trivia. Anyone with a score of more than 10 should give serious consideration to a drastic change of lifestyle.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>So as a dedicated Prachatai reader, you think you know what’s going on in the world. You have 7 days to answer these question before your ignorance is revealed in next week’s column. All questions have been pre-tested with Prachatai staff and any question that any of them could answer was eliminated and replaced with something even more obscure.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The Post Whingebag column of the Bangkok Post has recently contained the almost obligatory pre-Christmas brouhaha about the noises coming out of department store sound systems. And they do have a point.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>‘Hello. Could I speak to Tuy, please.’</p>
<p>‘Who’s calling?’</p>
<p>‘This is Somsri. It’s about my loan.’</p>
<p>‘Somsri? Which Somsri?’</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>There has been some discussion recently as to whether the Thai constitution (2007 version) guarantees the rights of all persons, or just Thais. This is, in fact, a minor issue when compared with the special rights that some Thais have created for themselves, and which the rest of world knows nothing about.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>At the end of the People’s Dalliance with Democracy rally last Sunday, a Thai People’s Declaration to the World was read out and is available in Thai, Cambodian and English on the Manager website. Like all such declarations, it went through a few drafts before emerging in its current form.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The furore, carefully stoked by The Sun tabloid, about UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s handwritten letter of condolence has revealed a shocking combination of misspelling and illegibility. Blamed on the loss of sight in one of his eyes and fading vision in the other, compounded by a natural tendency to slovenliness, the PM’s difficulties with the written word were not widely known until now.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The Thai armed forces’ plans to purchase 222 more GT200 remote sensing units for national security purposes are raising concerns. At a price of 900,000 baht per unit, there are the usual unsubstantiated rumours of kick-backs and corruption, but such stories swirl round every military purchase of any size.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>The last session of the Sri Lankan Advisory Mission on dealing with the problems of Thailand’s deep south was intended as a wrap-up session to deal with any outstanding questions arising from the previous days’ specialized strategy workshops on Military Actions against Dissident Civilian Populations, Approaches to Negotiation, Treatment of Internally Displaced Persons, Squeezing Terrorist Funding, and Control and Suppression of Independent Media.</p>
By Harrison George |
<p>It’s hard going at the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) where the Detecting Scapegoats for Irresponsibility (DSI) Section is conducting a Detaining Suspicious Individuals (DSI) operation by the Doing Simultaneous Interrogations (DSI) process. </p>
By Harrison George |
<p>[Press Announcement by Harrison George on Being Awarded Numerous Prizes] In response to the signal honour of being awarded the Wurlitzer Prize for Promising Journalism (Retirement Age Category), I wish to express my humble and sincere thanks to the selection committee. </p>