Digitisation needed
Re: "New DES minister urged to prioritise AI", (Business, Sept 23). My son, who completed a BBA, has just joined an MBA programme at a local university. For this, he had to cancel his existing visa from his college and apply for a fresh one through his new university. He reached the immigration office at 8am and was given token 78 for cancellation and 900 for issuance of a new visa. With each applicant's process taking about 10 minutes, he would easily be spending over 12 hours there. The officials work beyond 4.30pm and until 9pm to issue or reject every visa.
This is not only taxing and tiring for the applicants but also for the immigration officials themselves. They too have families to return to after long, draining days. The government should digitise the whole process instead of relying on piles of paperwork. That would make life easier for both sides.
Every counter at Chaeng Wattana handles between 700–900 applicants daily. If digitisation is too costly or difficult to implement immediately, the government should either open more visa centres in each zone of Bangkok or appoint more officers. In countries like Singapore, student visa renewals are quick, largely digital, and can be done online with only minimal in-person visits. Thailand too can learn from such efficient systems.
George
A few good monks
Re: "Honest monks hung out to dry", (Editorial, Sept 28).
The Post is correct that there likely do remain a few good monks in Thailand.
Perhaps those good monks being tarnished by association with the rich and powerful in the Buddhist hierarchy could more actively promote the Buddha's teachings, even if legally risky. Could there be a better moral example to set the nation?
What the good monks really need to do, however, is a tad more radical. They need to start rejecting the venerated marriage to a traditionally corrupt and corrupting state.
It is hardly credible that anyone who admires the Buddha's great wisdom could think that yet more state control via a state office called, no less, the National Office of Buddhism, could possibly make Thai Buddhism more Buddhist.
Felix Qui
Weed ruins lives
Re: "An eager nose", (PostBag, Sept 29).
I read Tarquin Chufflebottom's closing comment, "You don't like weed, Mr Jellison. We get it". Actually, speaking as an educator and former musician, you clearly don't get it, sir.
Before I started reading the Post this morning, I was listening to a recent live performance of one of my favourite songs written by STYX, but performed by a teenage youth orchestra seven years ago. The dynamic organ solo was instead played by one teenage Asian violin prodigy; about 15-years-old then, and the sound was majestic because not one of those 100 teenagers was on drugs.
I contrasted this with one day when I walked into my 7th grade classroom in the United States and found one of my students to be high; apparently on weed. She was a mess, and while she also was a good musician, the only music heard that morning was the siren of an ambulance rushing in to get her to a hospital, and the sound of my tears.
Weed ruins young lives, period, and since weed shops are now on every block, it's finding its way into your children's schools.
Jason A Jellison
