OPINION

Bad parks image

Thai prisons are full of non-violent offenders including for petty crimes.

But we have a man who ordered the burning down of people's houses (including a 100-year-old man's house) and who was in charge of a national forest when a young man protesting this "disappeared" still running around free and apparently still employed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment. How is this possible? This man has become the face of the National Park Department for me. Is the way the department wants to be seen by the public?

"Winston Smith" suggests we read the book 1984 to get an idea of what the Thai government is up to. The book is a novel about a man named Winston Smith who lived in a totalitarian society where everyone was in grave danger of getting arrested if they were suspected of being against "Big Brother", who perhaps could have been named "Prey-ut"! A Thai man was actually arrested for merely reading that book in public. I wonder why!

Re: "Trump announces halt to US-S Korea war games", (BP, June 12).

Critics of the US-North Korean agreement are right to tamp down expectations a bit, but there is a big difference between cautious-optimism and outright cynicism. Time will tell what the true intentions of all concerned really are, but Buddhism teaches that there is goodness to be found in everyone if we are willing to look hard enough.

Tuesday's summit was a substantial, historic step towards world peace between two very strong world leaders. Many enemies have become great friends in recent years, but the process has never been instant or free of growing pains -- a common excuse used by "assassinaters of joy" who just want to kill any hope that things can get better. (They can, in fact.)

World peace and progress towards it hinges on the growth of hope. Never give up on hope. There is always hope, and a lot of people went a long ways in this world on nothing but hope.

Suvarnabhumi airport-licensed taxis demand fare increases, citing rising costs of living. But fare rises must be earned -- and licensed taxis have yet to live down their reputation for sub-par service. Just a few weeks ago, TV reported that a National Artist had been refused service not once but seven times, and on Wednesday night TV reported that a driver reneged on his promise to turn on his meter.

I've never had such problems with now-defunct Uber, Grab, or the licensed All-Thai Taxi. Ride hailing exists because licensed taxis' services are so poor. Letting fares rise now would encourage rider refusal, excessive fares, assaults by drivers, etc to continue and must be refused.

But, I support a modest rise in fares for van taxis, due to their extra luggage space.

Is anyone else sick of Apple's marketing of iPhone applications? What I am talking about is a pop-up advert offering a free application, you download it, and then get an email telling you to enjoy your first month free trial after which you are charged a certain amount a month.

Here is the latest gobbledygook from Apple and I quote verbatim: "This email confirms your order of the following subscription with a free trial of 3 months. You are not charged for the free trial period, but when your 1 month subscription automatically renews on July 13, 2018, you will be billed $9.99 for the period."

Can anyone make sense of this? A free trial period of three months, but they will start charging me in one month's time.

The other thing is the extreme difficulty in cancelling subscriptions like this. The above example included a website for confirmation or cancellation, but when you click on it, it takes you all over the place, but nowhere near anything that says you want to cancel the subscription that you unwittingly walked into.

Once bitten, twice shy. I won't fall for your tricks again Apple.

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