Going to the movies should be a fun experience, especially in Siam Paragon, supposedly the best mall in the entire universe. But there's a dark force at work in the lounge area where people buy their cinema tickets. That dark force is the bizarre choice of music someone made to play for the masses all day, every day.
Do you see anybody dancing?
More than like it's only a coincidence, but still…
An earthquake of 7.5 magnitude has hit near India's Nicobar Islands, in the Indian Ocean.
The US Geological Survey said it occurred about 150km (95 miles) west of the Nicobar Islands and 440km from Sumatra, Indonesia.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially issued a warning for the entire Indian Ocean region.
The agency later downgraded the warning to India only, before cancelling the alert altogether.
The Bangkok Post has a bizarre story today about how a solar eclipse could cause massive earthquakes and tsunamis in Southeast Asia. It's just so odd, and I cannot find a single other news story, anywhere in the world, that is going with this.
Earlier, Kongpop U-yen, a Thai engineer who works at the US National Aeronatics and Space Administration (Nasa), said the alignment of the planets today could cause natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis.
National Disaster Warning Centre chief Smith Dharmasarojana agreed with the forecast, saying it was backed by scientific data.
The forecast, however, met with criticism from the scientific community as authorities did not clarify the prediction.
Mr Smith recently said during a TV interview that a solar eclipse was due to occur on June 12 as a result of the alignment of the Earth, the moon and the sun.
He said the alignment would release considerable cumulative energy, which could affect the Earth. Mr Smith, quoting Mr Kongpop, said the phenomenon would have a direct impact on the Earth in the forms of climate disruption, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
Mr Smith said that Southeast Asia could be the first region to be affected if the planetary alignment, due to occur at 6.30pm local time, triggers natural disasters.
A 7.0-8.5 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale could occur, possibly causing a tsunami.
I did a quick search and found some info about a similar rumour last year in Hong Kong that turned out to be a hoax. At that time, the Hong Kong Observatory released a statement:
A rumour recently circulated over the Internet, claiming that a tsunami would occur during the solar eclipse on 22nd July 2009 and asking recipients to stay away from beaches. There is no scientific evidence substantiating that solar eclipses would cause tsunamis.
With the current scientific and technological capability, there is no reliable method to predict the occurrence of an earthquake, nor the occurrence of a tsunami in the event of an earthquake. Please do not believe in such a rumour and make unnecessary speculations.
And this, from DailyNews:
While it is true that a solar eclipse will occur on July 22 [2009], experts said there is no connection between an eclipse and an earthquake. The e-mail reports that apart from Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, the giant wave may also hit countries as far as Japan, Australia and India.
Further reading reveals there are theories that an eclipse can trigger earthquakes, but the evidence looks sketchy at best, which may explain why Bangkok Post is the only newspaper in the world running this story. There's even a whole moon-earthquake theory page on Wikipedia.
To further confuse the matter, I can't find any reference to a solar eclipse happening on June 12, 2010. It looks like the next solar eclipse won't happen until July 11, 2010.
June 12 is actually the day we get the new moon, which as far as I know, happens every month. How could the Bangkok Post have got so many things so wrong?
Phuket Gazette had a story yesterday, that obviously slipped by a lot of people.
The Meteorological Department (MET) has dismissed as groundless Internet reports that a celestial alignment will cause a tsunami-producing earthquake and solar flares tomorrow.
The rumor appears to have started in Thailand following a posting on a Thai-language website.
According to the post, a rare alignment of the Earth with Jupiter, Uranus, the Moon and the Sun will create strong gravity effects causing earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and solar flares starting at 6:30pm and persisting for a few days.
So it isn't even an eclipse and the Bangkok Post has completely bodged its reporting of a rumour, a day after the Gazette shot it down.
A commenter on the Bangkok Post website said this:
First of all, the moon and sun aren't planets.
Second, the sun isn't going to suddenly "unleash" its energy during the eclipse. It's unleashing energy constantly in many forms. The only additional energy the earth will notice during the eclipse is the combination of the sun's gravitational force with that of the moon, causing extra high and low tides, depending upon where on earth you are. These unusual tides aren't caused by the eclipse itself, but rather by the alignment of the three masses.
Thirdly, scientists know exactly how the earth will be aligned in terms of its rotation at the time of the eclipse, and exactly when and where the maximum gravitational pull will be experienced.
Are the scientist quoted in the article by any chance responsible for convincing the army to buy those magic wand bomb detectors?
Addendum: This story was covered by the Thai press and was apparently "all over" Thai TV, with "experts coming out to calm down the masses," says Terry Fredrickson from the Post, but that doesn't explain why the Post ran this story today about a solar eclipse that isn't happening. Surely the angle of the story at this point should have been the scientists shooting down the rumours and calming people down, which I didn't see much evidence of here.
What have I missed?
Roger Mitton has a piece on Todayonline looking at the ridiculous media backlash we've been seeing recently.
It is the old blame-the-messenger routine from those who benefit from the status quo.
Last Friday, Arglit Boonyai, editor of the Bangkok Post's weekly supplement, Guru, wrote: "The international press is making a complete mess of their reporting of the situation." Letters in the Bangkok Post that day said the "international media has been so one-sided" and referred to the "childish and misinformed reporting by both the CNN and BBC".
The well-known novelist and artistic director of the Bangkok Opera, Somtow Sucharitkul, issued a critical piece in his popular blog entitled Don't Blame Dan Rivers.
Depicting CNN correspondent Dan Rivers as being typical of the foreign press, Somtow wrote: "A lot of people here are astonished and appalled at the level of irresponsibility and inaccuracy shown by such major news sources as CNN."
…
The nadir came when the Bangkok Post's Sunday columnist Andrew Biggs, writing from the safety of Los Angeles, called CNN "the world's biggest mouthpiece for the Red Shirts". Tearing into the network's commentators (neither of whom I have ever met), Biggs wrote: "I have watched helplessly as Dan-somebody and the aptly-named Sara Snide – or is it Snider? – reporting (sic) breathlessly from the Red Shirt camp."
He foamed onward: "I don't damn Dan and Sara for being deluded or even misguided … I don't like them for being lazy." He even stooped to asserting that the duo made up their reporting as they went along.
That was not the end of the nastiness. On Monday, Bangkok Post commentator Philip J Cunningham lambasted CNN for giving "undue airtime to overly made-up, puffy-haired announcers with fancy graphics tools who make ignorant comments about Thailand".
Wow. Journalists sticking the knife into colleagues who have been doing their best under harrowing, dangerous conditions.
This is what I've been saying for the past few days. It's one thing to critique the work of journalists, but it's another to do it purely by dishing out crass insults. So-called writers and journalists, Thai and foreign, are finding it difficult to put forward convincing arguments as to why CNN et al have been getting it wrong. People are convinced CNN is wrong, but they seem unsure why they think this. It's the pack mentality.
As I wrote before, I've been unsettled and saddened by the abusive, violent, irrational things some Thai people have been saying recently. The anti-foreigner sentiment hasn't calmed and there is still a tendency to react angrily to news stories. Just to give you a few examples of what I'm talking about, here are some quotes aimed at the Western press from around the Internet, some from my own Facebook friends.
"If i had a chance or a license to kill someone, I'll have those people killed. no peaceful to these ridiculous asshole people, fuck you and your career."
"mind his own business, he doesn't even know much about THAILAND (except food, possibly) and seems too much a prick of himself…I bet he's born that way…a whining prick!"
"FUCK YOU CNN, WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP !????! sorry for being rude but WHY? they need to drag our King to be involved with this situation???"
"The stupid Americans are too arrogant to search for the right conclusion."
"Fuck CNN, let's get Dan Rivers out of Thailand."
"Judging from his work from the past, this foreign journalist who has been staying in Thailand for that long period, we would have no doubt that he has been paid not only by CNN to perform his duty."
" I am Thai. I love my country, my king. before reporting please investigate.So, don't report any thing if you don't know the truth.you should change a new reporter now."
"dan river,let him go to rest in peace with SEH DEMONS DEANG in hell."
"CNN hires him to lie the world coz US gov. would like to take over our country like Iraq."
"I am in a war against Dan Rivers of CNN. Go to my facebook and help me!"
"Actually, he should shut up and also shut his life in Thailand. I encourage Thai people to express our hateful feeling to him and if we have chance, aggressively tell home to go away from Thailand. He is useless for our country."
"if you not a stupid you should know that Dan River was take side with the suck RED SHIRT and seem to be he get a big money from the Tyrant Thaksin."
I could go on. These outbursts aren't coming from uneducated people. They're not even coming from people unfamiliar with foreigners and the Western press. It is perplexing to think that these Thais cannot see the dangers of stirring up this anti-foreigner sentiment that is becoming increasingly more filled with hatred, to point of wishing death on journalists and others.
And this isn't even touching on the two op-ed pieces the SMH has ran on the Thai King or the clusterfuck that was CNN's Brooke Baldwin covering the same subject.
Thailand's Ambassador to Australia, Kriangsak Kittichaisaree actually had an opinion piece published by SMH. He also wrote a letter to SMH in which he went so far as to accuse an SMH journalist of being one of many hired "spin doctors" who are apparently paid to write bad things about the monarchy and the government.
There's also a letter to Dan Rivers written by someone from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who apparently thinks Dan Rivers is in charge of everything at CNN.
Tulsathit Taptim said this in a recent op-ed for Nation:
All I'm saying is, we have reached the unfortunate point where nobody can do anything without offending or infuriating someone else. Like it or not, it's the reality that we have to live in.
There's a lot of truth in that, but angering someone doesn't have to result in such knee-jerk fury. Of course, anyone who has spent time in Thailand will have come across this before.
Anyone who even dares to question the government or the monarchy is labeled as stupid and on Thaksin's payroll.
