OPINION

No-show Prawit

Re: "Call to probe Prawit absences", (BP, Sept 26).

If we treat the parliament as an organisation, Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, of course, would not qualify for the probationary period given that he missed 84 meetings without a valid reason for absence.

Perhaps the fact that he has gotten away with this is because whether or not he attends the meeting makes little difference, or there are no proper house rules to manage attendance.

How can such a hierarchical institution like the parliament have no organised, systematic approach to managing its people or employees? If Gen Prawit were to be evaluated, who would be his manager?

I can only think of the President of the National Assembly and the House Speaker, Wan Muhamad Noor Matha.

If we adopted a performance evaluation system in the parliament, it would be ideal to have MPs and senators assessed by the House Speaker.

By paying taxes for the salaries of these irresponsible individuals, shouldn't we have the right to remove them and replace them with someone who truly devotes themselves to working for us? As of now, despite his widespread absences, he remains in his position (and does not regularly attend parliament meetings).

I am sick and tired of this deep-rooted inefficiency.

A broken-hearted boy who has no time to be sad because of politics.

Same old talk

Re: "Plan won't end poverty", (Editorial, Sept 30), "Prawit vows to lift millions from poverty", (BP, Feb 11, 2023) and "Grand plans mean little to the poor", (Opinion, Nov 21, 2017).

In the past, former deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwon and then-deputy prime minister Somkid Jatusripitak's declaration that there would be no more poor people in Thailand was discussed. Now, the Paetongtarn government wants to end poverty in three years.

It sounds like a broken record on the same old topic. Wouldn't it be time for Thailand to structurally overhaul the complete economy and do something serious about household debts of more than 90% of GDP instead of throwing 10,000 baht of short-term helicopter money at them?

TM47 fiasco

For the third time in as many attempts to file my TM47 every 90 days (March, June and September) the artificially unintelligent bot of theirs rejected my submission without any explanation.

And again I sent them their proof of submission and they failed to respond with a receipt. So what is their problem? The dumb bot rejects an online submission, then someone doesn't know how to handle proof of submission and then does nothing.

I asked some other foreigners if they had encountered this problem, and surprisingly, some said yes. They went to Chaeng Watthana only to be told that there was a problem with the bot.

Of course, nothing has been done to correct the problem, and foreigners pay the price of immigration's inefficiency.

So when is the 90-day report going to be terminated? After 30 years of submitting the same information, I am -- and I am sure many other foreigners are -- tired of this totally useless exercise.

Dog owners who fail

Re: "Dog attack dilemmas", (Editorial, Oct 2).

Soi dogs should be painlessly euthanised. It is not their fault that they were abandoned by irresponsible humans, but they deserve relief from their miserable lives.

If abandoned at a Thai temple, they should also be euthanised unless the monks undertake to be responsible pet owners subject to the same legal requirements as any other pet owner.

If the irresponsible owner who dumped a dog on the streets can be traced, they should be fined 20,000 to 40,000 baht.

If a dog attacks someone not intent on robbery, rape, assault or another serious crime, that dog should be euthanised and its owner fined, with substantial punitive damages ordered paid to the person attacked.

In case a dog kills someone not intent on a serious crime, the owner should be required to pay serious compensation to the family of the dog's victim.

A Grab rider making a delivery, even to the wrong house in error, or a child trying to retrieve a toy, or simply play with the dog, do not count as people acting with serious criminal intent.

Although dogs, unlike cats, are prone to biting and sometimes eating humans should their beloved humans die alone with their beloved pets. Dogs are great pets. They are loyal, friendly, and patient. That is how we humans have evolved them over thousands of years.

They appear to sometimes maul a loved dead human not because they are hungry but because their human is not responding with the expected attention.

Unless taught to be attack dogs or not to attack, dogs do not tend to attack humans.

However, a powerful dog, such as a German Shepherd or Great Dane, especially one upset or provoked, that playfully bites a child or even an adult human can inflict more serious damage, too often fatal, than can a chihuahua or bichon frisé doing the same.

Vanishing wildlife

Re: "Dog attack dilemmas", (Editorial, Oct 2).

When I built my house in the year 2000 in Chiang Mai province's Ban Yuam district, there was an abundance of wildlife. Our house is situated among paddy, with snakes, lizards, giant centipedes, scorpions and temple dogs with a lot of ticks.

Now that the paddy has been converted into real estate. I no longer see any of them anymore.

I can understand habitat destruction resulting in a lack of local fauna, but I don't actually know where the dogs went. Maybe a covert spaying/castration operation worked.

Then, I bought a dog and had her spayed on the next day. No litters here. And dogs, amongst other household pets, are a source of companionship and comfort to humans. These instances of attacks and savagery should be treated as such: instant euthanasia.

Return to civility

Re: "Debates get heated", (PostBag, Sept 18) and "Canine conundrum", (PostBag, Sept 30).

Recently, I wrote to compliment the editor for keeping PostBag on an even keel while navigating correspondents' letters that, at times, tended towards the abusive.

But obviously, the editor has taken his hand off the tiller, and PostBag has hit the rocks with the publication of Enough of Dogs' letter in which he writes that people who disagree with him have "serious mental health issues" and that dog owners should "be treated for their mental issues in facilities far away from normal people".

This is highly offensive, particularly as the letter was directed personally to Eric Bahrt. I often disagree with Eric, but he should not be subjected to this vitriol, particularly by someone who is not prepared to sign his name to his letter.

PostBag editor, you have let your standards drop.

Not man's friend

Re: "Dog attack dilemmas", (Editorial, Oct 2).

Interestingly, the idea of a dog as a pet is quite new and should not be confused with domestication.

Until a couple of hundred years ago, apart from a few exceptions amongst the very rich, a dog was a tool to be used -- cattle and sheep dogs, aggressive guard dogs, even more aggressive fighting dogs.

And, of course, as a source of food in some cultures.

Now we have dogs as fashion accessories. Something went badly wrong, probably starting with the lie that "A dog is man's best friend". A dog is a lot of things, but it is a friend to no one.

FWIW, the reason I "hide behind a pseudonym" is not due to any instability on my part, but the fact that I have found over the years that dog owners are irrational. Sometimes even more dangerous than the vile animal they hold so dear.

Cultural views

Re: "Canine conundrum", (PostBag, Sept 30).

In the Islamic traditions, dogs are culturally anathema.

Islamic scripture recounts that the Prophet Mohammad once commanded his followers to slay all dogs but subsequently, due to widespread protest, confined his fatwa to include only black dogs.

However, in the more orthodox sects, there is a generalised hatred for all dogs, which remains ingrained in many adherents. The contributor Enough of Dogs seems to be such a one.

It has also been said that a man who cannot befriend a dog has a black heart and it is my observation that all creatures may exhibit mutual compassion and learn tolerance.

Alternate realities?

Reading through the PostBag letters on some days makes it seem as though one has slipped through Alice's rabbit hole and ended up at the Mad Hatter's tea party.

There's Songdej Praditsmanont's chuckling over Pheu Thai's shape-shifting ability on ethical issues, Enough of Dogs' rabid tirade against man's closest animal companion, radical Jayut Jayanandanas raising a cup to our borders being fenced off, and Felix Qui's word-maze through which you emerge more confused than when you started.

And, of course, seated among them is conspiracy theorist Michael Setter, who I'm pretty sure would have us believe that fluoride in toothpaste is an Illuminati plot to erase masculinity.

Sanuk!

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