OPINION

Share the blame

Re: "Stipend fiasco reveals flaws", (Editorial, Jan 28). Many elderly Thais inadvertently received monthly living allowances for years, sometimes decades, without being aware that they were ineligible.

The local administration authorities should have ensured that the recipients were not receiving other state benefits before disbursing the elderly allowance -- but didn't.

The local authorities are now seeking to get the funds back, plus 7.5% per annum interest. But the funds were spent years ago as they were received in good faith, without deception. The recipients are very old and often impoverished.

Local officials should learn that their errors have consequences. Where they made payments to those ineligible, the officials should share in making reimbursements, bearing 75% of the burden.

All too frequently, I see clusters of mask-free drinkers, knocking back alcohol as the social distance between them shrinks dangerously. For the most part, these boozers gather close to convenience stores, no doubt because beer and dirt-cheap spirits are readily available there.

Let's face it, such beverages are a lot more available in practice than the law is supposed to allow. It's an alarming fact of current life in Bangkok that convenience stores are becoming a danger to public health, while the law turns its customary blind eye.

Meanwhile, legitimate restaurants are subjected to punitive anti-alcohol measures. Even if the CCSA allows eateries to stay open until midnight, the time-honoured glass (or two) with dinner will still be barred. But while red wine in moderation may have health benefits, the same can't be said for cut-price whisky.

Advertising the city's attractions, we tout the range of international cuisines that visitors can enjoy here. So it makes no sense to banish wine from restaurant tables -- it is a feature of dining culture in most of the great culinary traditions. Besides, precautions such as social distancing are much easier to manage in a well-run establishment than on a street corner.

As a restaurant operator, I've learnt that the so-called ban on alcohol advertisements is run in a highly questionable fashion, to put it mildly.

We were forbidden to show the image of two champagne glasses in an ad for Valentine's Day fare -- just the two glasses, mind you, no drinkers in sight. But well-known yellow and green logos appear on billboards all over town and everyone knows the beer brands and/or whiskies and other alcoholic drinks that are being promoted, despite the words "mineral water" tucked away in a corner.

Double standards are always galling. Now, we face a threat to health, too, and permanent damage to a key industry: hospitality. Unless the authorities rethink their priorities, the cost to the economy -- and people's lives -- will be all too high.

Re: "Lockdown madness?", (PostBag, Jan 28).

Paul needs to learn about statistics. The number of cases per 100,000 people is the proper, much used, measure for understanding Covid-19 infections.

South Dakota, a Republican-run state, leads the list by this measure. One can understand why: The governor followed Trump's lead. And the sanctioned motorcycle event at Sturgis, SD was a virus disaster, spreading infected people back to numerous other states!

As to the statistics for other countries, South Korea and Taiwan, they made a quick start and took adequate tracing steps from the beginning.

Unfortunately the US president at the time, Mr Trump, said the virus was like the flu and would go away in a few weeks! The steps [since then], such as lockdowns, have been an effort to correct the initial errors.

In his Jan 28 letter, "Lockdown madness?", Paul insists on rolling back the coronavirus lockdown. The examples that he cites are incredibly dishonest. For example, he mentions that Republican-led states had lower rates of Covid infections, yet this hasn't been true since July of last year. He also holds up Sweden as a positive example of a country that doesn't impose heavy lockdowns on its citizens, yet Sweden is currently near the top (#24) per capita country for Covid infections.

Can we please be a lot more careful before taking action that will cause countless deaths to the most vulnerable citizens here? Why would anyone be in a rush to be in the same situation that the US and UK are in right now?

As a long-time resident in the north of Thailand (21 years), I have noticed that there is no improvement in the fire and smog situation, even though hundreds of kilometres of firebreaks have been cleared every year. My conclusion is that they are worse than useless. Doing nothing would perhaps be preferable as there would be more time for villagers to do useful activities.

These might include studying better land management, such as use of biochar and making sure all villagers understand the dangers of fire and smog and the need to prevent arson. There needs to be patrolling of all the forests to deter would-be arsonists. Staff of the Department of National Parks (DNP) conduct patrols to deter illegal activities in the forests but their numbers are very limited, and funds to support them are too limited.

Another problem for country folk is that many young fit men are removed from their communities for military service for a two-year period with around 100,000 joining the army every year.

In fairness to the country people, I suggest 100,000 soldiers be released for volunteer service for forest patrolling for up to four months every year to carry out patrols under the guidance of DNP staff and village fire prevention volunteer committees. Remember people start fires, not nature.

A week ago, two days before the USA inaugurated a new president, I went to the new shiny Chiang Mai Provincial Administration Organisation offices in search of the newly elected chief, the reason being among others, that he had PM2.5 prominently mentioned in his campaign leaflet.

Now, of course, if I were to meet him, I would take a copy of my proposal for army conscripts to assist villagers and forest rangers to patrol the forests, deter arson and seek his support.

However, the agonisingly slow transfer of power in the USA looks like a sprint compared to the PAO as I was told it will be two or three months before the new PAO chief takes office, by which time we can expect to be in the thick, pun not intended, of our annual four-month-long deadly smog event.

Ploenpote Atthakor's Jan 25 commentary "Old solutions no answer to dust menace", about having a flood of cancer sufferers from smog should not be written in the future tense as far as Chiang Mai and the North are concerned, and you can add heart disease to that as well.

On one hand, the radio broadcaster (Mcot) English-language newscast tells us to cut pollution by not driving, not to burn fields, not to cook with charcoal fires. He urges us to use public transport. Then the Bangkok Post runs stories about how much the fare increases will be on some public-transit lines in Bangkok, going to as high as five American dollars. It is a sort of oxymoron in a way. To tell you the truth, I'd rather drive for that amount of money. It might be slower but I have my car radio, CD player, air con, comfort and convenience.

I read with interest, and some frustration, the article on whether older drivers should be retested at a certain age.

Putting aside that nobody seems to know how many lifetime licences are still out there, the statistics for the age of drivers involved in accidents must be some of the easiest to obtain.

In very early January the Road Safety Directing Centre was able to give us numbers for the New Year holiday weekend: 58% were over 30 and the remainder, by deduction, younger.

In your article, the Department of Disease Control (?) refines those figures to tell us that the number of road deaths generally are in the age groups 15-24 (a very sad figure in itself) and the 50-80 range. Why can those figures not easily be broken down further to show numbers for 10 or even five-year increments in age?

I understand that deaths is not the same as accidents, but while police here are not interested in "fender benders", they do attend major accidents and presumably record the licence details of those involved. From there, it seems like a simple case of reporting and basic arithmetic to determine the number of drivers in any age group. This would give a fairly good indication of what age should trigger the need for a retest.

Forget the hand-wringing about ageism and citizens' rights. Just do the science and apply it.

I have to add, however, that if the retest is as basic as the first-time test -- you drive around the equivalent of a kiddies' bicycle track at 5kph -- the whole exercise will be a waste of time and effort.

I dreamt that there would be Meglev or even effective, convenient shuttle trains by schedule from Bang Sue to Hua Lamphong station for the benefit of commuters and travellers like that in Shanghai. I woke up and found that I am in Bangkok, Thailand with the red tape of the SRT. I cannot expect it to happen in this generation.