OPINION

Beastly diversions

Re: "Thailand's most unlikely A-list celebrity", (PostScript, Sept 22) & "Hippo rescue", (PostBag, Oct 17).

Lionel Biers' observation in a recent PostBag letter about "Celebrity Moo Deng's" attraction as a welcome diversionary tactic to give public figures a break from being scrutinised is insightful even as two gift panda bears from China have recently arrived in a Washington zoo as a "furry diplomatic" gift interlude to the high drama in US politics, the upcoming presidential elections Nov 5 and the attendant discomforting allegations against migrants eating towns folks' pets.

Rather interesting, isn't it?

Before we perchance hear the renowned Roger Crutchley's take on these "bestial times", we must hasten to remember the 55th anniversary of The Beatles' Octupus's Garden, written by George Harrison in 1969, after he and Peter Sellers had spent a vacation on a beach in Greece, where they were informed by the locals that octopuses surrounded themselves with stones to form gardens.

Behind the glitz

Re: "iCon sees cops hold its assets", (BP, Oct 18) & "Icon saga smells bad", (Editorial, Oct 17).

There has been much negative publicity regarding the iCon group, an unscrupulous direct sales company. Now, several government authorities are involved in investigating the issue, which has caused financial damage to many easily preyed buyers.

It is very clear that the company's marketing promotion strategy involves using celebrities (not the actual product) to lure buyers or dealers, not end consumers, into becoming part of the company's family.

It is difficult to establish whether this is a genuine Ponzi game because the company offers products. Nevertheless, the company's marketing promotion does not mention much about the product information or benefits being marketed.

The company's financial results for the past few years raise questions about whether revenue picks up quickly and then tapers off, further substantiating that the "products" may not collaborate with stock turnover, whether from the company warehouse or the dealer shop. The number of dealers recruited is being overly saturated.

According to the victim complaints, the products are merely being inactively kept without moving because of the non-competitive pricing or product quality. It, therefore, could be elucidated that the result of this kind of marketing strategy will eventually come to an end.

One financial analyst even further suggested that the company's long-term strategy is to use this short-term financial success to be listed as a public company with stock pricing manipulation, similar to the situation with STARK.

The other most worrying issue is a rumour that the company is paying off some higher-up government officials or politicians.

The lesson of this financial tragedy, which is happening repeatedly, is that people's mindsets are "greedy, idolising the rich and celebrities, mentality of getting rich quick, without any critical and reasonable thinking".

This kind of mindset is a serious social issue that must be amended and addressed -- otherwise, we will see this issue come to haunt us again and again.

Nobel gets political

Re: "Nobel economics prize goes to inequality researchers", (World, Oct 16).

The 2024 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to three white men whose work focused on inequality. Your article's summary, "Nobel economics prize goes to inequality researchers", revealed absolutely nothing noteworthy or new.

It appears this award is for another bit of political trivia by the socialist-leftist mob that has taken over US academia.

One of the recipients, Simon Johnson of MIT, was quoted by Reuters as saying (just three weeks before the election) "that established institutions in the United States were under stress, notably due to Donald Trump's refusal to acknowledge he lost the 2020 election".

Yesterday, in the US State of Georgia, a judge ruled that election officials have to certify results even if voter fraud is suspected. Democrats are also suing to prevent the surveillance of voter drop boxes, a common target of voter fraud.

This news might lead one to conclude that Democrats do not want free and fair elections and that Trump may have been right about the 2020 election.

Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu, also of MIT, said, "Authoritarian growth is often more unstable and doesn't generally lead to very rapid and original innovation," referring to China as "a bit of a challenge". Give that man a prize -- absolutely brilliant!

The third recipient, James Robinson of the University of Chicago, said of his research, "The first thing is to think about a question that's relevant to those people, to their context and to their aspirations." He mentioned the word "aspirations", currently a buzzword in Kamala Harris's meaningless stump speeches, a second time saying, "all humans have the same aspirations…".

Reuters should have had a political disclaimer tacked onto this pile of garbage.

Freudian slip?

Regarding Miro King's letter on Oct 18 concerning yet another traffic incident -- I refuse to call it an accident-- when he refers to Thai drivers' knowledge of the braking distance of their vehicle, was it a Freudian slip?

World in turmoil

Re: "Fake celebrity endorsements plague US poll race", (World, Sept 22) & "Beware of Big Tech steering AI rules", (World, Sept 4).

Given crucial factors, including growing technology, a new world order and geopolitics, terrorism today cannot be restricted to any particular country. The East or the West, countries from across the world, have long been in the grip of terrorism.

Remember, the US and even the whole world have still been recovering from the mammoth aftermath of the 2001 New York attacks [Sept 11 attacks] -- the most coordinated and stage-managed attacks ever seen worldwide.

Right here, the fact of the matter is that terrorism has been omnipresent one way or another -- or in any form [political or religious].

Way back in 2001, as a college student, I seriously discussed the World Trade Center attacks and even wrote letters to the newspapers, in addition to discussing this with my friends and other people in my native areas, like Korkai, Tuticorin, Tiruchendur, and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.

That said, the time has come to get serious about the menace of terrorism.

At the same time, it is really encouraging to note that the media groups from the West have been constantly paying their full attention to climate change issues through regular news updates on climate crises -- not to mention the big Asian media out there.

Way to go, indeed!

More to the point, the media houses must say a "BIG NO" to speculative theories apart from shunning unwanted stories about millionaires and billionaires. Rather than this, there have been more and more realistic things on the ground that they can focus on instead.

Added to this, columns and talk shows must be filled out with all the good and practical things as such.

Right now climate change has to be tackled urgently as it has been eating into the natural resources on Mother Earth too fast.

As a parting shot, the international community must contemplate all the steps possible, not to mention technological advances, to fight off terror groups head-to-head, thereby eliminating terrorism from the globe entirely.

Meat-eaters beware

Re: "The future of food?", (Life, Sept 15).

It has come to my attention that meat-eaters are increasingly ignoring the quite reasonable pleas of us vegetarians to give up their nasty, filthy, deadly habits.

The time may have come to ratchet up our efforts. I propose the complete withholding of any type of health- or medical care for anyone found to be consuming meat products.

These scum have made their bed; now they should lie in it.

Let them pass into the dustbin of history, one by one, until not a meat-eater is left in this world. Who, really, would miss them anyway?

The King's wisdom

Re: "House to finally debate amnesty for lese majeste cases", (BP, Oct 15).

At last, we get to debate whether or not we should honour our beloved national father by harmonising our application of Section 112 with his wishes.

In His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great's 2005 birthday broadcast to the nation, the late monarch noted that: "The king is a human being and as such should be subject to criticism. Charges against those accused of lèse-majesté should be dropped, and those held in jail for lèse-majesté should be released, and the use of the lèse-majesté law ultimately damages the monarchy,'" according to the book King Bhumibol Adulyadej: A Life's Work, Grossman and Faulder, Editions Didier Millet, 2012.

Some say that the late monarch's wisdom is outdated but refuse to defend their stance. If your children acted directly against your clearly expressed wishes in high-visibility cases -- and stonewalled discussing the matter -- would you feel that they honoured you? I doubt it.

Let us honour His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great with a full and open discussion about whether his wisdom still holds true through the years.

I say, "Yes!"

CONTACT: