OPINION

By royal request

Re: "Royal pardon for prisoners," (BP, Dec 6).

I'm glad that 138,175 inmates will have their sentences reduced due to royal pardons. But in addition, there's another most meaningful way for us to show our love and appreciation of the late HM King Rama 9 -- and he's specifically spelled out what he wishes done.

As the book King Bhumibol Adulyadej, A Life's Work: Thailand's Monarchy in Perspective put it: "Thailand's law of lese-majeste has one very prominent critic: King Bhumibol ... In 2005 King Bhumibol used his annual televised birthday address to convey three concerns: (a) 'The king,' he said, 'is a human being and as such should be subject to criticism; (b) charges against those accused of lese-majeste should be dropped, and those held in jail for lese-majeste should be released, and (c) the use of the lese-majeste law ultimately damages the monarchy.'"

We've been using lese-majeste laws to muzzle critics even though such usage "ultimately damages the monarchy".

We should put King and country above our petty vested interests. Let's drop charges and release prisoners in all lese-majeste cases each Father's Day.

Re: "Too late to stop virus," (PostBag, Dec 7).

It's a bit rich for Jason Jellison to accuse others of lacking humility as he lectures us with all the self-assurance of a real epidemiologist. He seizes on one phrase from an editorial devoted to a separate issue and claims it supports his conviction that vaccines are ineffective. Again he uses a condescending description he used in a previous letter to describe current vaccines as "first generation" and reminds us that, as one who dealt with the last outbreak (whatever that is), he's been telling us all along that vaccines would not work. They do of course, however much he chooses to ignore the evidence.

Mr Jellison is right that Covid-19 cannot be eradicated at this stage but his blithe suggestion we abandon vaccination and accept the loss of life skips rather lightly over a potential death toll greater than the 50 million of the 1917/18 pandemic, not to mention the devastation such a policy would inflict on hospitals and health systems around the world.

I hope PostBag will accept that it is fair comment that Jason Jellison by his own admission, despite his anti-vax/pro-natural immunity rhetoric, chose to hedge his bets by backing up the natural immunity from infection with a double dose of Pfizer … a luxury not available to most of the world's population.

Re: "Rotten habit," (PostBag, Dec 4).

On Nov 29, 2021, a foreign resident in Thailand bought some smoked salmon in a local supermarket and found out later that it was labelled to be consumed between 20/10/64 and 01/12/64, which obviously to Mr Ellis O'Brien could only mean that the salmon package dated from the year 1964 of the Christian calendar. Finally, after 57 years in Thailand, I know now, thanks to Mr O'Brien, that some people can live in a foreign country for years without knowing their official calendar.