Oh yes. Isaarn is supposed to bow down, and shut up – while that Prayut sock sniffer, responsible for 90 deaths in May 2010, plus thousands injured – parades himself as Thailand’s great saviour, when in fact he simply wants to grab as much of the Royals gold as he can.
Khon Khaen road signs are obviously a signal. Isaarn’s separatists have tested NM. An arm of the Australia Government. Out of touch, locally. You haven’t a clue what’s happening in Isaarn. All you have is the ridiculous clown Shane Tarr.
On the other hand, Bacigalupi, adept at self-promotion, is no expert on Asia (but is on Colorado) and while Malaysia is full of “Wind-up Girls”, I find Joseph Conrad, a man far more literate than Paolo, more prescient about Malaysia, a nation not yet in formal existence, but very much a part of Conrad’s Malay oeuvre.
Filipinos appreciate irony far more than Malaysians. They always have. The 200-year American occupation of the Philippines was vastly more influential locally than the equivalent British control in Malaya and the subsequent 22-year occupation of Malaysia by Mahathir. Malaysia is dystopic because Malaysians are always funny, whether they realize it or not.
Elderly man jailed for two years for selling lèse majesté book
The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court on 15 September 2016 read the Supreme Court’s verdict on the lèse majesté case of a 67-year-old man referred to as Defendant U.
The defendant, who requested his full name be withheld, was accused of violating Article 112 of the Criminal Code — the lèse majesté law — for selling the book ‘The Devil’s Discus’ at a pro-establishment yellow shirt rally in May 2006.
Just read the side blurb about Pavin – I assume he wrote it himself.
It claims “In late 2011, Pavin led a nationwide campaign to free a political prisoner, named Akong”.
This is a massive overstatement and embellishment of Pavin’s role in this. All Pavin did was take a selfie of himself with Akong’s name written on his hand – a tactic he’d stolen from other online campaigns.
There was no “national campaign” of any kind to free Akong and I would challenge Pavin to provide evidence of such a campaign beyond his statement here.
It is not correct to blame Hinduism for degenerate Buddhist views. However, I agree that the author’s description of these as ‘ancient Buddhist doctrine’ is incorrect.
The author assumes that contemporary Thai beliefs are all ‘Buddhism’ and therefore a representative yardstick for Buddhism, past and present. He makes the same series of false assumptions in respect of Buddhist kingship:
Thailand is Buddhist and undemocratic, therefore the Thai monarchy is Buddhist, therefore it has always been Buddhist, therefore Buddhism has always been undemocratic.
Unfortunately, Thailand isn’t really that Buddhist, not just because of historical interweaving with Khmer Hinduism and folk religion, but mainly because it has degenerated enormously in both monasteries and common culture over the last century and a half.
(Apart from the Thai-Lao and Thai-Khmer who have largely preserved their Buddhist heritage).
Thai Buddhism has been bound hand and foot in service to the Thai State for well over a century. So this constitutional move is nothing new, it is just a few extra bindings.
Buddhism is designed to be internally democratic and self-governing. Most importantly it must, at all costs, maintain a distance from worldly affairs. So constricting and binding Buddhism to force it to serve a monarch or state inevitably results in a lifeless bureaucracy, that is Buddhist only in name.
Sporting Ray-bans, limousines and fancy state titles how are these degenerate monks any different from other corrupt functionaries in the Thai government and military?
This piece confuses cause and effect. The trouble with Malaysia’s democracy is not nativism. Rather, nativism is being used by a beleagured ruling party to shore up its support among the majority-Malay population, in the face of mounting democratic pressure. The issue is a crisis of oligarchic rule, not a misguided set of ideas.
If Jory’s assertion that the Thai middle class’ gripe of the Thai poor’s ‘low merit’ has no empirical evidence to back it up, then Jory’s assertion above must have been hearsay and of really very very low merit, Jory’s PhD notwithstanding
I don’t think Patrick Jory meant to imply that the “moral hierarchy” that undoubtedly holds sway in Thai society is based in a careful reading of either the Pali canon or a profound affection for “ancient Buddhism” or what many farang apologists for Buddhism usually call “true” or “real” Buddhism.
Just as very few Christians turn away from wealth in order to ensure entrance to heaven or refrain from making judgments because that is God’s business alone, very few living Buddhists in Buddhist majority societies ponder the complexity and nuance of “ancient Buddhism”.
The founder of Buddhism was a princeling and many of his earliest supporters were wealthy and/or royal. Maybe that aspect of Buddhism is what seeps into actual existing Buddhist consciousness to create the sense that if you are born into wealth and power it must be because of merit accumulated in past lives.
Because it certainly isn’t the maunderings of “ancient” Buddhist philosophers as they contemplate the number of Arhats who can sit zazen on the head of a golden pin.
I can remember seeing an article in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economics,that from memory ,provided evidence that corruption,or at least some form of corruption, was “good”.
The authors of this post write that Jokowi ‘explained’ to Turnbull that the forecast will be of $130 billion by 2020. But there is no explanation here. Couldn’t the authors have researched the grounds for claiming, not ‘explaining’, the prediction that Indonesia’s digital economy would be worth $130 billion in just four years? And what is this economy worth now, just four years short of that deadline?
The authors say that Jokowi has led Indonesia’s capacity for investment in the digital economy (sic). How does a president lead a country’s capacity for anything? Is this poorly-drafted sentence a sign of what we native speakers of English face as the digital revolution advances?
‘By 2020 the forecast of Indonesia’s digital economy will be $US130 billion’. What does this mean? That the telcos will make this much by selling cellphone credits? That people will buy and sell goods on the net and this is the estimated value of those products? If so, what’s in it for the government unless it plans a GST on small private transactions.
How will the government benefit by people using new ways to chat – but still just chatting?
Does anyone scrutinise these comments and estimates in the way that Jokowi’s claims about druggies have been examined – and found flawed.?
Nice piece Najib’s god is money , not Allah, and he uses race and religion to make sure he and his cronies steal it from the people, Indian and Chinese capitalists collude with him and UMNO. In the politics of being Malay people forget Malays were animist Hundu and Buddhist before they were colonized by Arabs and other Muslim traders. And, in fact, they were from Indonesia , they are immigrants, and were not called Malay. Malay is an invented ethnicity and Islam is a foreign imposition.
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
Religion after the referendum
Oh yes. Isaarn is supposed to bow down, and shut up – while that Prayut sock sniffer, responsible for 90 deaths in May 2010, plus thousands injured – parades himself as Thailand’s great saviour, when in fact he simply wants to grab as much of the Royals gold as he can.
Religion after the referendum
Khon Khaen road signs are obviously a signal. Isaarn’s separatists have tested NM. An arm of the Australia Government. Out of touch, locally. You haven’t a clue what’s happening in Isaarn. All you have is the ridiculous clown Shane Tarr.
Violence in Thailand’s Deep South
It is very very interesting indeed that Isaarn’s Khon Khaen has started putting up Lao Isaarn’s road language signs.
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
Americans occupied the Philippines for 200 years? Well, I learn something new every day . . .
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
On the other hand, Bacigalupi, adept at self-promotion, is no expert on Asia (but is on Colorado) and while Malaysia is full of “Wind-up Girls”, I find Joseph Conrad, a man far more literate than Paolo, more prescient about Malaysia, a nation not yet in formal existence, but very much a part of Conrad’s Malay oeuvre.
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
Filipinos appreciate irony far more than Malaysians. They always have. The 200-year American occupation of the Philippines was vastly more influential locally than the equivalent British control in Malaya and the subsequent 22-year occupation of Malaysia by Mahathir. Malaysia is dystopic because Malaysians are always funny, whether they realize it or not.
The Devil’s Discus – in Thai
Elderly man jailed for two years for selling lèse majesté book
The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court on 15 September 2016 read the Supreme Court’s verdict on the lèse majesté case of a 67-year-old man referred to as Defendant U.
The defendant, who requested his full name be withheld, was accused of violating Article 112 of the Criminal Code — the lèse majesté law — for selling the book ‘The Devil’s Discus’ at a pro-establishment yellow shirt rally in May 2006.
http://prachatai.org/english/node/6566
Dim prospects for Thailand’s democracy
Just read the side blurb about Pavin – I assume he wrote it himself.
It claims “In late 2011, Pavin led a nationwide campaign to free a political prisoner, named Akong”.
This is a massive overstatement and embellishment of Pavin’s role in this. All Pavin did was take a selfie of himself with Akong’s name written on his hand – a tactic he’d stolen from other online campaigns.
There was no “national campaign” of any kind to free Akong and I would challenge Pavin to provide evidence of such a campaign beyond his statement here.
The real meaning of Thailand’s referendum
It is not correct to blame Hinduism for degenerate Buddhist views. However, I agree that the author’s description of these as ‘ancient Buddhist doctrine’ is incorrect.
The author assumes that contemporary Thai beliefs are all ‘Buddhism’ and therefore a representative yardstick for Buddhism, past and present. He makes the same series of false assumptions in respect of Buddhist kingship:
Thailand is Buddhist and undemocratic, therefore the Thai monarchy is Buddhist, therefore it has always been Buddhist, therefore Buddhism has always been undemocratic.
Unfortunately, Thailand isn’t really that Buddhist, not just because of historical interweaving with Khmer Hinduism and folk religion, but mainly because it has degenerated enormously in both monasteries and common culture over the last century and a half.
(Apart from the Thai-Lao and Thai-Khmer who have largely preserved their Buddhist heritage).
Religion after the referendum
Thai Buddhism has been bound hand and foot in service to the Thai State for well over a century. So this constitutional move is nothing new, it is just a few extra bindings.
Buddhism is designed to be internally democratic and self-governing. Most importantly it must, at all costs, maintain a distance from worldly affairs. So constricting and binding Buddhism to force it to serve a monarch or state inevitably results in a lifeless bureaucracy, that is Buddhist only in name.
Sporting Ray-bans, limousines and fancy state titles how are these degenerate monks any different from other corrupt functionaries in the Thai government and military?
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
This piece confuses cause and effect. The trouble with Malaysia’s democracy is not nativism. Rather, nativism is being used by a beleagured ruling party to shore up its support among the majority-Malay population, in the face of mounting democratic pressure. The issue is a crisis of oligarchic rule, not a misguided set of ideas.
The real meaning of Thailand’s referendum
If Jory’s assertion that the Thai middle class’ gripe of the Thai poor’s ‘low merit’ has no empirical evidence to back it up, then Jory’s assertion above must have been hearsay and of really very very low merit, Jory’s PhD notwithstanding
The real meaning of Thailand’s referendum
I don’t think Patrick Jory meant to imply that the “moral hierarchy” that undoubtedly holds sway in Thai society is based in a careful reading of either the Pali canon or a profound affection for “ancient Buddhism” or what many farang apologists for Buddhism usually call “true” or “real” Buddhism.
Just as very few Christians turn away from wealth in order to ensure entrance to heaven or refrain from making judgments because that is God’s business alone, very few living Buddhists in Buddhist majority societies ponder the complexity and nuance of “ancient Buddhism”.
The founder of Buddhism was a princeling and many of his earliest supporters were wealthy and/or royal. Maybe that aspect of Buddhism is what seeps into actual existing Buddhist consciousness to create the sense that if you are born into wealth and power it must be because of merit accumulated in past lives.
Because it certainly isn’t the maunderings of “ancient” Buddhist philosophers as they contemplate the number of Arhats who can sit zazen on the head of a golden pin.
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
It seems the Southeast Asian dystopia depicted in Paolo Bacigalupi’s novella “Yellow Card Man” was prescient.
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
“Radical Kucing” is correct on all counts.
Graft games
I can remember seeing an article in the Bulletin of Indonesian Economics,that from memory ,provided evidence that corruption,or at least some form of corruption, was “good”.
Digital can breach the divide
The authors of this post write that Jokowi ‘explained’ to Turnbull that the forecast will be of $130 billion by 2020. But there is no explanation here. Couldn’t the authors have researched the grounds for claiming, not ‘explaining’, the prediction that Indonesia’s digital economy would be worth $130 billion in just four years? And what is this economy worth now, just four years short of that deadline?
The authors say that Jokowi has led Indonesia’s capacity for investment in the digital economy (sic). How does a president lead a country’s capacity for anything? Is this poorly-drafted sentence a sign of what we native speakers of English face as the digital revolution advances?
Digital can breach the divide
sorry, meant to push the up thumb and it won’t let me change it :((
Digital can breach the divide
‘By 2020 the forecast of Indonesia’s digital economy will be $US130 billion’. What does this mean? That the telcos will make this much by selling cellphone credits? That people will buy and sell goods on the net and this is the estimated value of those products? If so, what’s in it for the government unless it plans a GST on small private transactions.
How will the government benefit by people using new ways to chat – but still just chatting?
Does anyone scrutinise these comments and estimates in the way that Jokowi’s claims about druggies have been examined – and found flawed.?
Behind the rifts in modern Malaysia
Nice piece Najib’s god is money , not Allah, and he uses race and religion to make sure he and his cronies steal it from the people, Indian and Chinese capitalists collude with him and UMNO. In the politics of being Malay people forget Malays were animist Hundu and Buddhist before they were colonized by Arabs and other Muslim traders. And, in fact, they were from Indonesia , they are immigrants, and were not called Malay. Malay is an invented ethnicity and Islam is a foreign imposition.