POST BAG
POST BAG Swept away
- Published: 26/11/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: News
Fine obituaries seem to be flying in from everywhere for Samak Sundaravej.
But if memory serves me right, wasn't it Samak in an interview with CNN as prime minister in 2008, concerning what is perhaps Thailand's worst-ever modern-day massacre on Oct 6, 1976, denied it all by saying: "Only one unlucky guy died that day"?
STEPHEN CLEARY
A man of his times
Given the current climate, Samak Sundaravej will be eulogised through factional lenses labelling him a militant right-wing brute, a historical revisionist, a lapsed royalist, a latter-day Thaksinite, and an enemy of democracy, progress, common courtesy, or Thai values.
Yet, in managing to mix the odious sides of both yellow reaction and red populism with middling intellect, face-obsessed amnesia, and a true love for nothing except status and authentic food, Samak represents his generation of Thais better than anyone.
To borrow from Oliver Stone's 1995 film about Richard Nixon, a dying Samak looks up at the King's portrait and says, ''They look at you and see what they want to be. They look at me and see what they are.''
WESLEY HSU
Xmas spoilsports
This time of the year in Post Bag there will always be letters attacking Bangkok's shopping malls for quaint cognisance of the Christmas spirit.
I remember well one Post Bag writer, an expatriate lady from Chiang Mai, responding to a question of where to go to avoid the Christmas Nightmare and Santa Claus Syndrome in Thailand. She directed him to a place called''Hell''.
SONGDEJ PRADITSMANONT
Hopeless 'Net access
As an avid reader of the Bangkok Post's ''Buyer Beware'' stories, I might suggest that writers and readers consider CyberPoint Wi-Fi.
I have lived in a Bangkok condominium for five months, and until this week, when frustration with CyberPoint reached an all-new level, used this company's wi-fi internet ''service''.
While residents of the condo are permitted to use alternate services, CyberPoint is the ''in-house'' provider.
And yet, despite having a brand-new computer and living in a room literally in front of one of the building's many routers, CyberPoint's wi-fi has almost never worked for more than two consecutive hours (120 minutes) before disconnecting.
Worse, it regularly, routinely, fails to reconnect for hours at a time. From Sept 26 through Oct 2, it was unavailable for no fewer than 6 of my 10 working hours each day, including one stretch of 9 hours. I'm not kidding or exaggerating: I actually logged it.
Yesterday, it just stopped working, and as of this writing, hasn't started to work again.
While the customer service line operators are courteous and as helpful as they can be, they are also at a loss as to how to explain this service, so poor and inconsistent as to be effectively non-existent but no less lucrative for CyberPoint.
Needless to say, although readers may wonder how I lasted this long, I have just switched to an alternate internet provider.
As it was easy and only slightly more expensive, I would encourage other residents to do the same, and for future wi-fi customers to stay clear of CyberPoint Wi-Fi.
In the end, assuming the new provider actually, well, provides, it will prove far less expensive than CyberPoint, my original Wi-Fi provider.
BUYER NO MORE
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