OPINION

Hysterical reaction

It was sickening to read about a five-year-old girl being deprived of her education because of all this Covid-19 hysteria (BP, Jan 10).

Not only is it rare for children to get Covid-19, but even if they get it it's very unlikely they'll transmit the virus or die from it. In fact it's even rare for an adult to die from Covid-19 unless he/she has some life-threatening illness such as heart disease or diabetes. How many five-year-old children have those illnesses? This is just another example of what happens when we're guided by ignorance and fear instead of rational thinking and common sense.

So good it's priceless

It is interesting to note that the campaign to bring a little bit of the 21st century to the children of a far-flung village in the mountains of Chiang Mai has come under attack and labelled by some critics as "An exercise by the urban middle class". The campaign, which cost 550,000 baht and was widely captured in local media, was mounted by a popular YouTube poster and online retailer. The children in the video are seen congregating wearing torches fastened around their heads and waiting for the big moment when a giant television screen is unveiled and they are asked to turn off their head torches. The children's expressions on experiencing electric light and for the first time seeing a television are priceless and say a lot about the good deeds performed by so-called "urban middle class". If this was an exercise, long may these exercises continue. Definitely worth a viewing.

Bangkok

Keep it real

Re: "The meat of the matter", (PostBag, Jan 10).

There is simply no substitute for the real thing. I tried a veggie burger and a veggie hotdog. There is a wonderful Yiddish word for it: chaloshes (rhymes with galoshes). It means something revolting or disgusting. Pyrite does not take the place of real gold. Glass does not take the place of real diamonds. Ersatz coffee or chicory that we drank during the war years never was a decent substitute for real coffee. This list can go on forever. Folks, if you want a juicy, mouth-watering medium rare prime rib of beef, then have it. A substitute made out of green leaves and grass will simply not do the trick.

I'm not amused ...

Thank you, Tiger By The Tail, for your Jan 11 letter that pointed out the "Cartoon Derangement", which you, Gary Fox and many others of the Bangkok Post-reading silent majority including myself have noticed. Rather than encourage the constructive exchange of opposing opinion, the path of least resistance was to simply run those non-stop, one-sided, anti-Trump cartoons to fast-feed the conditional bias of haters.

... but I am

Please disregard Gary Fox's comments ("Cartoon Derangement," PostBag, Jan 9) about Matt Davies's cartoons. These are excellent and I can assure you they are truly appreciated. The cartoons are well described and tell us clearly what is going on. Like Oliphant before him, Mr Davies is a truly remarkable, insightful artist. And, by the way, who isn't obsessed with Donald Trump these days?