Postbag
I see the police are mounting a long-awaited crackdown on rogue van drivers, which is very welcome, of course. But no crackdowns on dangerous driving, driving under the influence, tailgating, speeding, and so on?
Targeting these categories would save many people having to die a terrifying and gruesome death. It would also take half of the public minivans off the road anyway, leaving jobs for careful, responsible drivers.
HUA HIN PAUL
Bag pic was ill-advised
You made a mistake in your Sunday edition (Feb 3, page 5) by showing a boy with a plastic bag over his head.
Don't you know how many children lose their lives by suffocating themselves this way?
Many children are copycats, so something like this should never be shown in any newspaper.
WOLFGANG PROMCHAINUN
Some still 'more equal'
Re. Songdej Praditsmanont's letter ''All in the family'' (PostBag, Feb 4).
He writes: ''This police group has enhanced Thailand's rule of law immensely. Unfair and bombastic criticisms merely discourage the force from arresting more fugitives in future. Their exemplary deed has told the world that no one is above the law and crime does not pay.''
It reminds me of an incident when Alabama Governor George Wallace was still trying to justify racial segregation in the 1960s. A black couple got on a bus, and the driver asked them to move to the back so whites could be seated in the front. The driver then followed up with: ''Everyone is now equal under the law, but some are more equal than others''.
This applies to Thailand, where no one is above the law, but money and political connections still decide who is more above the law than others.
THAI RIDGEBACK
Who wants my vote?
Re: ''They will do anything for a vote'' (BP, Feb 4).
As a result of the 2011 floods here in Laksi, the sewer line in front of our house ruptured, releasing water under our driveway and causing a lot of damage.
We have made numerous phone calls and written requests to City Hall's Water and Sewer Department, the Laksi district office and even to the governor himself, but we have been ignored for well over a year.
Now it is city election time and the candidates will do anything for a vote, so will the government or any of the governor candidates repair the damage caused and garner my vote? Or do I just enter ''none of the above''?
LAKSI RESIDENT
Dubious definitions
The thinking behind the editorial ''Looming risk in the South'' (Opinion, Feb 4) could do with some explanation.
You write that the attacks on the farmers taking part in the government's rice project meet all the definitions of terrorism, yet place the word ''insurgency'' in quotation marks, which suggests that you doubt that the perpetrators meet the definition of that word and that terrorism and insurgency are alternative descriptions.
The fact is that an ''insurgency'', generally defined as an uprising against a lawful authority, precisely describes the southern situation and ''terrorism'' accurately describes the methods used by the insurgents.
Even more puzzling is your incredulity that, ''The uprising has even tried to equate the murder of civilian teachers as attacks on the state'', but teachers are state employees and attacks on them, soldiers, policemen and village heads are not attacks on the individuals concerned but on the institutions they represent.
You go on to say that last week's attack on the rice farmers ''is well beyond that justification'', but surely the justification is identical _ those who were attacked last week were not attacked because they were rice farmers. They were targeted because they were working for the government.
DOM DUNN
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