HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

Support the rights of others

Old Immigration office was better

Contagious effluent

Had enough of John Arnone

About those personal freedoms…

More pure balderdash

Chained up elephants

Support the rights of others

Dear Editor,

A scientific study that started in 1910 recently came to completion. One million subjects born in 1910 were followed by doctors and scientists. Half of the subjects smoked, drank alcohol, ate anything they wanted, and had sex frequently with multiple partners. The others abstained from tobacco and alcohol, ate a vegetarian diet and had sex with only one partner. At the end of the study all of the subjects were dead. The conclusion of the study was that you should do what you enjoy as you are going to die eventually no matter what your lifestyle is. I do not smoke, but support the rights of others to do so in bars and open places.

Regards,
Bill Turner
California

Old Immigration office was better

Editor;

Re RW’s putdown of the old Immigration dept in Soi 8: What could be easier than handing your completed forms over the counter at 8.30 a.m., returning after 4 p.m. and collecting your passport?

This office was close to a major bus route and was easy for mobility impaired to walk the short distance or alternatively take a motorcycle taxi to the door.

Compare this to having to travel to Jomtien by baht bus then walk 500 meters (plus). Persons who can’t walk that far are subjected to hiring a baht bus or motorcycle taxi at a cost of B300 return.

Once there you must shoulder your way to the ticket machine and if you are lucky you may get a seat. Then comes the half hour wait for processing, while all the people gather around the hand back desk. Doors open or shut, it is not a picnic with scores of people standing aimlessly about.

Then eureka, you have your passport and now you can start to exit the building through the crowd. Now you must walk the gauntlet past all the smokers outside.

Maybe this office is ok if you live in Jomtien and can return next day to pick up you passport, but there is no way it is better then the old system.

Peg Leg

Contagious effluent

Editor,

If smoking laws were only to enable raised taxes, more recreational drugs would be legal. The U.K. government promptly sacked its drugs czar for saying that ‘grass’ and ecstasy pills are less harmful than tobacco and alcohol. Dr M was right to align cigarette companies with drugs barons, but the U.S. Prohibition years, world current drugs wars and criminal control of the sex trade all tell that using laws to try to prevent the unpreventable sponsors violent disorder arising from competition in black market supply. Banning instead of regulating provides golden opportunity for the corrupt and adds more ‘naughty’ glamour to the banned item than any advertising campaign can conjure.

Excesses of officialdom are obvious to all but the staid, but the current western financial crash and smoke-anywhere support example that without regulation, human selfishness prevails. There would be no such thing as an honest advert and delivery agents for poison would be impressed on the gullible in the same way cigarettes were and still are where there is no regulation. Letters to this page have told that if smoking was allowed in enclosed areas, many people would do it, as they did and many still do, their addiction more a priority to them than its contagious effluent.

We have people continually citing alarmist statistics that tell eating or doing this is safer than that. It stems as much as anything, like restrictive laws, from need of some people to try to restrict others to their limits. Driving at 20mph is safer than at 50mph, but if the whole aim of a owning a car was self-preservation, we would never take it out of the garage. Where pleasure concerns, using a worst-case scenario to justify prohibition has always been the way of authorities and the staid. Excess can endanger others, but always taking the safest option is like being born old. Smokers should be grateful that their pleasure is still legal, as many less harmful ones have long been needlessly illegal and thereby more expensive than highly taxed.

Jack Tighe

Had enough of John Arnone

Editor;

Please, I have had enough of John Arnone. It seems that he has a letter published in just about every publication everyday and it is the same old useless rhetoric. Go away John. You are a bore. Go smoke your cigarettes somewhere else. Enjoy your life away from me. I open the paper not to read about your stupid crusade but to entertain myself with other tidbits of information to be found there.

I don’t care what laws there are for or against smoking in public places. I don’t care if it is dangerous to me or not. I just know I don’t like cigarettes nor cigarette smoke. I don’t enter into or spend money in restaurants that allow smoking. I don’t go anywhere where I have to be close to a smoker. If that means I never have to meet John Arnone and am never subjected to his brilliant take on life and his simple, stupid fixation of cigarettes... all the better.

Please Pattaya Mail... I paid thirty baht to read your paper and all was going well until I saw that you allowed Arnone to smear your paper with about twelve inches of copy... what a waste. Enough of John Arnone!

Al Reynolds

About those personal freedoms…

Editor;

Re: your last issue personal freedoms by Ken. Ken speaks of taking walks down Jomtien Beach in the morning for his exercise and speaks of absolutely horrible amounts of plastic garbage that washes up everyday. Ken goes on to say, for certain he detests litter and he refuses to litter. Ken also states, complaining about cigarette smokers is like complaining about someone bringing a bucket of sand to the beach.

The Pollution Solution group’s response to this, is that Ken most likely has never seen a child choking on a toxic butt, which is the main problem with many smokers, flicking their butts. We realize Ken takes care of his butts, Mahalo Ken. Then Ken goes on about seeing all this plastic garbage on the beach when he is exercising. Why doesn’t Ken and many other expats that exercise on the beach pick up some of this plastic and get some good exercise instead of complaining? Try doing some walking the walk, instead of just talking the talk.

This also opens the door to speak to all the beach walkers that are exercising: if they could take 10 minutes a day to do some bending exercise, they would not only be making the beaches cleaner and safer for children and sea life, they would also be setting examples for others to see. That just might get the message across.

We see many of these elders here (expats) that could be doing something. People hear what we say, but see what we do and seeing is believing. Isn’t it time that we “all” start giving back or is the Pollution Solution group and Pattaya City Hall just blowing smoke? We elders should be the example setters, not the complainers. Open your eyes and ears, Mother Nature and the voiceless, children, wildlife and waterways are crying for our help.

It is never too late to make a difference in our health by exercising plus our good deeds and acts of kindness to our Earth. Leaving trash behind is wrong. Walking past it when you could be doing something about it is also wrong. Let’s not all be so proud that we can’t do a little clean up for the sake of children, wildlife and waterways.

Gerry Rasmus,
The Pollution Solution Group

More pure balderdash

Editor;

So long as the anti-smoking fanatics continue to misquote me, I find it necessary to reply. In his last missive, Dr. M. refers to my well known support for unrestricted smoking. Pure balderdash. I have said it before and I will say it again, I understand that smoke from smokers can be annoying so it would follow that I agree with no smoking in public buildings, banks, movie theaters, etc. I also understand no smoking in restaurants; however, there was no reason that either non-smoking sections wouldn’t have worked or that the restaurant be allowed to determine whether or not it was a smoking restaurant. Non-smoking sections in bars is not practical, so again, the bar should be allowed to determine who it wants to cater to.

In all fairness, I must also admit that I also misquoted someone. In my last missive I incorrectly blamed Lawrence Remington for contriving the theory about smoke being lethal up to several hundred meters depending on the wind. Actually, it was Dr. M. who came up with that one and I apologize to Lawrence for my error. But I might also point out that in his letter of May 20 he referred to the “polluted smoky air” in public parks, thanks to smokers, which would indicate that he is a supporter of Dr. M’s nuclear fallout theory about cigarette smoke.

Gentlemen, everything that we have argued is nothing more than fallout from our basic disagreement. You believe that second hand smoke kills and I don’t. How you can believe that it is possible to prove such a theory escapes me, but I suspect that it is because smoking just annoys you. The solution is simple. Set the laws as recommended above, cut the illegal taxes on cigarettes, and avoid us when you see us. If you can’t do that, and you truly believe that second hand smoke kills, then simply get the government to outlaw cigarettes. With the windfall profits all world governments have enjoyed I doubt that you will be able to pull that one off, but if you can’t, then reconsider the validity of the claims about second hand smoke is killing people. Because if it is, then every government in the world is guilty of aiding and abetting murder.

John Arnone
Yasothon

Chained up elephants

Editor;

I visited the floating markets yesterday and enjoyed my visit. But one thing spoiled my day; they have one cow and two elephants with chains around their feet that have to stand in one place all day long so people can feed them there. The animals can not walk more than a few meters and have to stand in the same place all day. If authorities were successful in banning elephants from the streets can they do something about this too?

Rob

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