Tips on staying calm
Re: "Chadchart urges fire drill revamp", (BP, June 25).
I fully agree with Bangkok governor Chadchart that fire drills should be revamped, including but not limited to inspecting fire-fighting equipment. Whatever we do, we should keep our goals in mind and work towards achieving them. Specifically, fire drills have two goals: (a) remove those not involved in fire-fighting out of harm's way, and (b) minimise damage to persons and assets.
So (a) Schools/workplaces should focus on moving non-firefighters to a safe place as smoothly and quickly as possible. They should practise orderly, smooth evacuations of teachers, students, etc, at unannounced, irregular times. Having students observe fire-fighting methods isn't useful and should be stopped.
(b) Annual pre-announced fire drills are useful, but there must also be unannounced snap drills during which participants don't know if there was a real fire or not. When everybody knows that there's really no fire, nobody gets excited. There's no panic, and nobody knows how to prevent/control the panic that might easily accompany the real thing.
How should such a drill be handled? A friend at a multinational oil company for many years told me that at irregular intervals, an employee who'd been designated as a fire warden would appear, announce that a fire alarm had gone off, and to please drop everything and follow him. Everybody, regardless of position, had to comply. He'd lead them down the stairs for three floors, and only then would he reveal if there was a fire or not. Because nobody knew the truth until then, nobody panicked, and if people got alarmed, the warden would have had training on how to handle it.
Keep our goal in mind and save lives.
Burin Kantabutra
Give taxis their due
Re: "Industry hopes for action on bribery", (Business, June 24).
I feel that the comments made about taxis in your column are a little generalised and unfair. In the 20 years that I have lived in Bangkok and used taxis -- I have no car and am unable to use motorcycles -- I have had really very few negative experiences with taxis or their drivers. Yes, we know that bad news sells and that we humans have a basically ghoulish nature, revelling in schadenfreude and superciliously enjoying reading of the misfortunes of others, but few people are willing to write of happy or lucky incidents.
I would say that, in my experience, 95% of taxi drivers are simply doing their job, for which they receive a pittance. They are pleasant, helpful people and deserve a little more respect and appreciation than the press offers them. There will always be rogues in any field, but let us not allow that to blind us to the good that exists.
Warner
Proud of Pride
Re: "Don't overdo it", (PostBag, June 29).
Ellis O'Brien seems not to understand the many values of Pride Month. The LGBTQ+ community is proud both of their achievements and of who they are. Both testify to great progress.
In mere decades, within my own lifetime, we have done much to reduce the suffering of fearful LGBTQ+ people desperately seeking some honest human contact while living a lie under constant threat of family rejection, being thrown into prison, losing a job, of being poofter bashed for sport, and so on. This is cause for celebration.
Pride Month in Australia, Thailand, the US and elsewhere sends a message of hope to those yet suffering in places like Russia, Uganda, the Arab nations, China, and other benighted places still under the sway of traditional darknesses. This alone is a sufficient reason for a colourful celebration of Pride Month.
Let me assure Mr Ellis that, in the meantime, I am perfectly happy for him to hold a Straight Pride month. Why wouldn't I be? Pray tell, Mr Ellis, what exactly are you planning to celebrate in your Straight Pride month? What messages will you be sending? Please send the brochure.
Felix Qui
Just get on with it
Re: "Don't overdo it", (PostBag, June 29).
"LGBT people need a place where they can express their sexuality"? Why do they need to express it? Heterosexuals don't need a place to express their sexuality. They just get on leading their lives in the body they were given by their parents.
How many strut and say, "Look at me. I'm heterosexual?" If you turn out to be homosexual or whatever, just get on with it and don't broadcast it. There is no need.
Ron Martin
Memory lane
Re: "Those happy days of family albums", (PostScript, June 25).
Thanks, Roger Crutchley, for taking us down the Kodak memory lane. Kodak began as a partnership between George Eastman and Henry A Strong to develop a film roll camera. After the release of the Kodak camera, Eastman Kodak was incorporated on May 23, 1892. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that deserved to be recorded for posterity.
Although the film development process in a lab was exhausting, it was also exhilarating when you saw yourself holding the glossy prints in your hands. The darkroom romance for developing Kodak films is now lost. Instant and dull iterations on mobile phones have replaced photography's physical and sensuous aspects. Say "cheese," and all other exciting sounds and screams are lost. Holding albums in your lap always took you to another world.
Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s. Increasing competition from Fujifilm from Japan led to its demise. Since 2012, the production of digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and digital picture frames has ceased, and instead, it is now concentrated on the digital printing market.
We are now in the age of "selfies", where the instant click has led to endless infatuation and self-indulgence. Combined with social media, the digital landscape seems exhausting.
Roger's Sunday columns take us down memory lane, where life always looked tedious but exciting. After all, nostalgia is not about a place but the feelings of physical proximity and pleasures we experienced and shared there. Thank you, Roger, for Kodak moments.
Kuldeep Nagi
Defending Greta
Re: "Yok should rein it in", (PostBag, June 27).
In his letter, "A foreigner in Thailand", it shows his true views on the young by saying that in, what he considers to be antisocial behaviour by Yok, she is taking her lead from young people such as Greta Thunberg.
Thunberg has arguably done more to focus the world's attention on the existential threat of climate change than any person I can think of and is worthy of praise and admiration, not criticism.
As for his solution of giving Yok an old-fashioned spanking -- really?
Phil Cox
Another PM option
Re: "A possible PM", (PostBag, June 30).
Does Abhisit Vejjajiva ring a bell? After the 2014 charade. Yes. For the wrong reasons, maybe.
The one who rings my bell is Dr Anand Panyarachun. But sadly, he may be too old now. In his short term in office, he made a difference for the good.
Ron Martin
Climate wars
Re: "Climate folly", (PostBag, June 17).
Michael Setter has gratuitously informed us several times that CO2 makes up only 0.04 % of the Earth's atmosphere, which I suspect indicates he was as surprised as many of us at such a low concentration, given all the talk about its role in global warming.
Mr Setter may be correct in saying that scientists estimate that CO2 levels in the Cambrian period were 10 times what they are today, but he fails to mention that those same scientists also estimate global temperatures could have been as high as 120 degrees F at that concentration.
He has, however, gotten completely the wrong end of the stick with the notion that this abundance of CO2 was some sort of happy gas that led to the proliferation of plant life on Earth.
As usual, Mr Setter has cherry-picked the parts of the paper that seem to support his theory of an intelligent Earth healing itself.
He appears to suggest that the increase in green coverage of our planet's surface observed in satellite monitoring is the spontaneous reaction of planet Earth to excess CO2 levels by producing extra cooling vegetation.
In fact, the report concludes that the global increase in vegetation detected by Nasa in the first 15 years of this century is most likely a result of intensive agriculture and large tree-planting initiatives in countries such as China. The latter would presumably qualify as one of the " unscientific man-made efforts to remediate climate change", which Mr Setter scoffs at.
Ray Ban
El Nino or prophecy?
Re: "El Nino set to weaken rainy season", (BP, June 28).
No, no, no, no, no, BP! You really must try to be more consistent. On May 17, you reported that sacred cattle had chosen to consume grass which, as everyone knows, signifies, without doubt, sufficient water for the rice growing season.
Careful; you wouldn't want to be accused of contradicting bovine seers, would you? They are bigger than you.
Warner
