HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Pollution Solution needs your Help

Disappearing packages

Beach road nuisances

Haggling over 30 pence - Are we missing the big picture?

Happy birthday

Time to raise baht bus fares

Belated Happy 14th Anniversary from BCCT

Leave the beach sellers alone

Pollution Solution needs your Help

Aloha:
My name is Gerry Rasmus Sr, aka KOTO, Keeper of the ocean. I have dedicated the past 30+ years of my life to Pollution-Solutions, doing my best to assist Mother Nature to survive the destruction done by humans because of the lack of knowledge or lack of concern. For the past 7 years, from Buriram to Chiang Mai I have been waster-sizing which means bending at the waist to pick up the waste thus getting rid of both. I have also stapled laminated Pollution-Solution posters to many trees. At such a time when the posters no longer serve a purpose or are no longer legible I will remove them and the staples.
I have been out of the country for most of July and just received an email from a concerned party telling me that some of my posters are going adrift. I have checked all of Jomtien Beach and I will check all of Pattaya Beach in the next day or so. I want to thank Jack Clancey, aka Jack The Beach, for keeping me informed. I will walk the walk as long as Buddha, God, my back and legs will carry me.
Anybody out there who cares enough and is willing to put out a little effort to help Mother Nature can join the Nifty over Fifty Club. You do not need to be over fifty to participate. There is no fee to join this club. Everything you need for this exercise program is waiting for you - the waste and the bag. We call it Waster-Sizing. All you need to do is bend at the waist to pick up the waste and get rid of both. Buddha, God, wildlife and the children will thank you along with all of us at Pollution-Solution. The rewards are priceless.
If you would like, you can make a donation so we here at Pollution-Solution can, with the permission of city hall, make 20 signs, 10 for Jomtien and 10 for Pattaya. They will be blessed by the monks, set in cement and will read in Thai and English, with a picture of a monk putting trash into a garbage can. This will give merit to H.M. the King’s 60th anniversary of accession to the throne.
Donations will also help purchase garbage cans with ash trays with pictures, to be placed next to all of the beach vendors who want but can’t afford them. I will also continue talks with city hall to start imposing large fines to those who are daily in violation of the rules. Many gas stations, motorcycle repair shops, food vendors, etc., are dumping their motor and cooking oil into storm drains which go into our ocean. Many jet ski operators drain their old oil into our ocean. The fines will discourage those who depose of waste in an improper manner.
Oil, plastic, cigarette filters, garbage and other types of toxic waste are killing our land and sea life. Dolphins, turtles, fish, crabs, clams, birds, plant life are all struggling to survive the destruction of their habitat. Many animals not knowing better, ingest plastic bags, which kill them by blocking their ability to breath and eat. Toxic cigarette filters when eaten also kills them. Please “think” before you discard toxic cigarette filters, plastic or waste of any kind in an improper manner. People who can’t afford bottled water and are becoming sick because of pollution in all of our waterways. Most of the people in our hospitals are there due to water borne diseases. We need your help.
Mahalo Nui Loa (Thank you very much). Remember the “Aina.” The life of the people is in the land. May health and happiness be with you all.
KOTO, Keeper of the ocean
pollutionsolutionthailand @yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/solutiontopollution/

Disappearing packages

Dear Sir:
I’m curious! Where do the packages that come from overseas and are addressed to Pattaya/Jomtien go? There must be a very large hole somewhere between Bangkok and Pattaya that all packages are sent.
Packages to Bangkok are delivered promptly but getting one to Pattaya makes one wonder if “The Twilight Zone” really exists. I have waited 6 months for a package that has yet to arrive. It hasn’t been returned to the shipper either. Now, I’m waiting for a package marked “Priority”, and it hasn’t arrived either.
Does anyone bear responsibility for mail delivery?
D. Meyer
Jomtien

Beach road nuisances

Dear Editor;
Your item on beach chair owners preventing nuisances to holidaymakers is a touch off the mark. These owners are a major nuisance. Of course, the countless vendors hawking watches, shrimp, sex DVDs, flowers, maps and massage oils are also unbearable, but a word must be said about the tailors who make passage along Beach Road practically impossible. They block your way, they make lewd remarks about your female partner, they grab your arm and in at least one case one of them spat on the ground very close to me when I asked to please be allowed to pass.
Isn’t there anything city authorities can do to stop this ugly phenomenon? Why is this harassment allowed to go on?
They are worse than the ladyboys on the beachfront who are bad enough.
Farang For a Pleasant Pattaya

Haggling over 30 pence - Are we missing the big picture?

Editor;
Last Sunday morning, I went to Jameson’s Irish Pub for breakfast with Little Miss, now aged three and a half years, going on 33. At 9 a.m. on that morning, there were numerous TV sets tuned in to different channels all round the pub, and we sat in an area with a good view of the British Sky TV, a channel I was not familiar with at all. Not surprising, as my local cable provider does not even give me Pattaya Mail TV (which may or may not be a blessing)! However, I do get Banglamung TV which gives me news which consists of a never-ending procession of wrecked motorcycles whose helmetless riders are spirited away by yet another Sawang Boriboon pick-up truck. In its defense, I also get BBC, but I don’t get 100 percent of the sound.
Sky TV is also a news channel and I watched it with morbid fascination as their succession of newsreaders took over the role of doomsayers. The British Isles it seems is now home to adult murderers of small children, teenaged murderers of other pregnant teenagers, missing girls of all ages, rampant animal diseases, floods, pestilence and other blights, but the good news was that some county or other won the cricket at Edgbaston. I was so relieved!
It was the Australian group Skyhooks which had the hit many years ago which ran something like “Horror stories – it’s the 6.30 news!” and Sky TV has certainly got that one right. It would seem that the UK is a great place to leave from right now.
This had me thinking about our own local situation in Pattaya and the endless debates over the rapacious baht busses. Shock! Horror! A British tourist was charged 30 pence for a trip along Beach Road, instead of the 15 pence it should have been. The baht bus driver also looked threatening. Dear Oh Dearie me! I suppose it makes a change from the debate over how we have evolved a society where a 15 year old is charged with murder of a 17 year old pregnant girl, or another 16 year old gone missing. And an Iraqi team winning the Asian football tournament pales into insignificance compared to county cricket at Edgbaston.
I grant you Thailand still has its problems, Thailand still has its crime, and Pattaya is one of the centers, but compared to the west, we are living in Paradise. I thank British Sky TV for reminding me just how lucky I really am. (The breakfast was also much cheaper than anything comparable in the UK.)
On a more positive note, Sky TV did inform me that the Americans were sending a probe to Mars to see if the red planet might support life there. In a few years time, I think we’ll all be ready to emigrate, if the rest of the news was anything to go by.
Dr Iain Corness

Happy birthday

Dear Pattaya Mail,
Friday is a special day for me since a long time: we are close to the weekend and the family activities I love, we have during the evening our Rotary Club Pattaya Marina’s weekly meeting and Pattaya Mail makes my morning coffee break a real pleasure! Happy 14th anniversary, please give me good time to read you again and again and keep on doing your good job!
Dr Olivier
(Dr Olivier Clinic)
(Past President Rotary Club Pattaya Marina)

Time to raise baht bus fares

Dear Editor,
As the cost of fuel and living rise in Thailand, the cost of riding a baht bus remains at the same rate. How are baht bus drivers supposed to support themselves and their families? It is high time that baht bus fares be raised to reasonable rate that will reflect out current economic times. 15 baht per trip would be realistic. This is a pittance to most tourists and would hopefully lead to better service.
Yours,
Bill Turner
Los Angeles, CA USA

Belated Happy 14th Anniversary from BCCT

Dear Peter
A belated Happy 14th Anniversary from the British Chamber of Commerce Thailand (BCCT). Pattaya Mail has been a much-valued BCCT member and one of our biggest supporters on the Eastern Seaboard for the past ten years. Best of luck for the future.
Greg Watkins
Executive Director
British Chamber of Commerce Thailand

Leave the beach sellers alone

To the beach council,
I read with amazement: your wanting to stop the beach sellers. These people are at least trying to earn money by working and not by robbery. In my mind they add to the atmosphere on the beach and I enjoy the conversations I have with them, so please leave them alone and let the police concentrate on the thieves which do destroy the image you want for Pattaya and Jomtien. If I did not know better I would think you are working for Phuket and Hua Hin.
Ray Wallis
Australia

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