OPINION

God complex

Re: "PM invokes epic myth to hammer opposition," (BP, Feb 18). Self-appointed Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha apparently thinks he is Phra Ram (Lord Rama), or God in other words.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders uses the recognised diagnostic name, "narcissistic personality disorder" to describe someone with a God complex.

This mental disorder describes someone with an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility.

Wikipedia says such a person "may refuse to admit the possibility of their error or failure, even in the face of irrefutable evidence, intractable problems or difficult or impossible tasks. The person is also highly dogmatic in their views, meaning the person speaks of their personal opinions as though they were unquestionably correct".

Sound familiar? Ring any bells?

The unfunny thing is just how difficult this disorder is to treat.

Parroting Putin

Re: "The West must accept the cold reality of Ukraine", (Opinion, Feb 16).

Nancy Quian, the writer, argues that the West ought to accept the harsh reality of Russian control of the Ukraine, stating -- with a remarkable disdain for history -- that for the past 200 years Russia has "managed to use small neighbouring countries as a buffer against Western European countries that might threaten it".

Far from doing this, the Russian Empire simply swallowed whatever bits of Eastern Europe it could get away with, bringing its borders right up to those of the German, Austrian-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. Stalin, with superb cynicism, extended his rule even further, dressing it up with Communist Democratic republics totally under his control.

Believe it or not, Eastern European countries including the Ukraine do not want to be controlled in this way ever again. How your writer can parrot Putin's propaganda that Western European countries threaten Russia is beyond belief. The cold reality is that Putin is bent on expanding Russia in true Tsarist fashion, and China supports him.

Orwellian logic

Re: Curbing Covid is everyone's task, (Opinion, Feb 11).

In this opinion piece, Dr Jos Vandelaer espouses propaganda, if not misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. This problem results when a political organisation falsely presents itself as a scientific institution. If you contract Covid, you have over a 99% chance of surviving. This is a fact.

According to the WHO's own statistics, cancer is the leading cause of deaths globally (one in six) yet this organisation does not demand that industries stop polluting and contaminating the world with carcinogenic substances and forcing them into "lockdowns" until they comply. They do not demand that all citizens living in areas with toxic air pollution be given N-95 masks to protect them. Forcing surgical masks that are not designed to stop a viral particle though are considered sound advice.

Pretending the "jab" is a vaccine instead of calling it an "Experimental Medical Therapeutic" is Orwellian to say the least. A vaccine until now has always been expected to confer immunity. The jab can only supposedly reduce symptoms and persons receiving the jab can still spread the disease. This reality demonstrates it is not a "vaccine". The insistence of "boosters" shows it is ineffective since most of the Covid cases are now from people who have received the jab. If we are to "follow the science", then the political narrative requires drastic adjustment.

The origin of this plague should be investigated fully with scientific rigour, yet the WHO is stymied from performing this due to obstructions from China. The US and Dr Fauci have been exposed in supporting "gain of function" research on Covid in China but exploring a lab-leak hypothesis as to the origin has been avoided due to political considerations, not scientific standards.

In this age of digital information, one should always question everything, even from "trusted" sources. Are we going to "wise up" or be led?

Olympic vacuum

Re: "Students don't care," (PostBag, Feb 8) and "Unspoken English," (PostBag, Feb 6).

The Winter Olympics are occurring before our very eyes right now, yet if one has a basic Thai cable TV package, one would hardly notice. There is basically no coverage of this important world sporting event on Thai TV, save for a few highlights at night.

Yet the Singapore News Channel has updates on the Winter Olympics on seemingly a minute-by-minute basis, while the Vietnamese channel that I saw actually shows the events.

To me, nothing encapsulates more for why Thais are not motivated to becoming proficient English speakers than this difference among the respective countries.

Singapore and Vietnam don t really have any more athletes or do any better than Thailand does in the Winter Olympics, yet there is coverage of the Beijing Winter Games on their TV stations.

And, considering that there is only a small time difference between China and Thailand, there really is no excuse for why there is not more coverage of the Winter Olympics on Thai television.

The sad conclusion is that most Thai people don t really care much about what goes on outsides their own backyards.

One thing that I have noticed during my teaching duties in the kingdom is that Thai students don't know much about the world and don't really care to.

Being that this is the case, it does not at all surprise me that many Thai students do not speak English well, nor are interested in learning it.

Hence, more emphasis needs to be placed in Thai schools on teaching students about the world. Once Thai students really learn more than just about their own country in Thai public schools, they will have a better understanding of their place in the world, and realise that learning English is their ticket to a better life, both in the kingdom and abroad.

B-eating Covid

Re: "Most parents back jabs for kids," (BP, Feb 15).

Chula university asked parents about their preferences on vaccinating their children against Covid-19. But there are other ways to protect children besides vaccination, and these weren't asked about.

Specifically, TDRI reported that even pre-Covid, 16% of Thai youth were malnourished, and this should affect their resistance to the virus. The US CDC found that the chances of an under-18 dying from Covid-19 was only one in 300,000, so there's time to build up their bodies.

Thus, giving children healthier meals is an alternative to jabs -- and should have been considered in the survey. This is especially true since the benefits from jabs is only a few months vs the lifelong gains of teaching students and parents on how to select healthier meals.

City semantics

Re: "City name row stings ORST," (BP, Feb 17).

Imagine if this newspaper's name were to become "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Post" (ha!).

The news article dealt with the city's name officially being called "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (Bangkok)".

I would like to discuss some other points than those deliberated in the news article. My main point is the way the name is spelled.

Firstly, when a name (or a word) is formed by adding two (or more) words together, it should always be written as one word.

I understand that the ORST takes the principle that in case two words are added straight on without any change in the spelling, it should be written as two words, like Chon Buri, but if fusing occurs in the process, it is written as one word, like Kanchanaburi.

My point is, if you take that principle, like how the ORST writes Krung Thep and Maha Nakhon, then how about Bangkok? Should the ORST not change the name to Bang Kok? (and perhaps Thai Land!).

Therefore, fused or added straight on, a name formed by two (or more) words should always be written as one word, like Bangkok.

Secondly, there is no reason to spell "Nakhon" as there is an alternative with the pronunciation more accurately resembling the way we say it in Thai, which is Nakorn.

My conclusion is that "Krungthep Mahanakorn" would be better than "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon". Note that the spelling "Mahanakorn" is well adopted in society, for example, there is a big university named "Mahanakorn University of Technology".

My other point is that the word Mahanakorn (or Maha Nakhon) is superfluous. The word Mahanakorn was added to the name Krungthep in 1972 after Bangkok (Krungthep) and Thonburi, which formerly were two separate provinces, were added together to become one bigger Krungthep in 1971.

The word "Mahanakorn", which means "greater city", was added to distinguish between the former Krungthep (Bangkok) and the newly formed Greater Bangkok.

At present there would be no such confusion. Thus it would be better to call it "Krungthep" in English (as the secondary name of Bangkok).

Lost in translation

Re: "City name row stings ORST," (BP, Feb 17).

I assume the name of my daily newspaper will soon be adjusted to Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (Bangkok) Post and I will travel on Krung Thep Maha Na-khon (Bangkok) Airways in line with the current thinking. International airport departure/destination board operators will be scratching their heads too. Or rather AI will blow a fuse. KTM instead of BKK? Millions of lost tourists who haven't a clue where KTM is. Typo for the Dutch airline? Schiphol in turmoil?