OPINION

No erasing history

The whole world is gripped in an emotional, over-reactive insanity -- the belief that if you erase the past, you will insure a better present, and perhaps a future.

A statue of Teddy Roosevelt has been removed from the entrance to the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, New York City. Even Thomas Jefferson was not immune.

Why? Is this going to make a difference in the way people think? It represents an uneducated, silly concept that this will somehow soothe ruffled feelings.

Christopher Columbus has been removed from his pedestal in San Francisco, a host of other statues were toppled, to becalm guilty consciousness, but most of all, to cater to a minority or uneducated fringe groups who are hell bent on having America's past expunged.

It is time for the nation to simply own up to its past, heal wounds, and go forward. What a boring country the USA will eventually turn into, with no past, present or future.

I once attended a lecture at Queens College during my undergrad days in New York City. The world-renowned entertainer, Theodore Bikel, told us it would be a dreary world if all the flowers, people and places were the same colour, with no diversity. His speech was prophetic in a way. It's quickly coming to that. Is anyone going to accuse him of being a racist?

Temper that pride

I think this government can take pride in its measures to contain the Covid-19 virus. However, yesterday I read that, according to the World Health Organization, Thailand has the highest suicide rate in Southeast Asia, so I think perhaps the government's pride in its accomplishment needs to be more than a little tempered. I don't think anyone knows why most of these people committed suicide, but I think it is a pretty good bet that economic factors figured prominently.

This government has been woefully slow in getting economic help to people. Isn't it time that the government stops depending on private charities so much and starts worrying as much about people's stomachs as much as they do their lungs?

'Green' machines

Re: "Strength of graft," (PostBag, June 24).

Khun Lungstib's comment about green concrete might have been made in jest, but it is indeed a reality. In and around the Prachin Buri area there are indeed road dividers, lanes, and sidewalk areas painted green to simulate the once real grass that grew there.

What a pity. Even some live palm trees were taken out in the Prachantakham area and replaced with fake, brown plastic looking things. There is a Yiddish term for it. It is "chaloshes", meaning revolting, disgusting. You get the point.