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Published on January 3, 2008

 Cleverness pursues its own little aims. Intelligence sees the larger whole in which all things are connected. Cleverness is motivated by self-interest, and it is extremely short-sighted. Most politicians and businesspeople are clever. Very few are intelligent. Whatever is attained through cleverness is short-lived and always turns out to be eventually self-defeating. Cleverness divides; intelligence includes".

Abhisit Vejjajiva is intelligent enough to understand that time is on his side.

As for the rest (including the Manchester Prowler) - no more need be said!

John Shepherd

Bangkok

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Prepare for many more years of disappointment

Re: "Kingmaker, mole or joker, I'm done with Snoh", Opinion, January 2.

Your stoppage time this week was a brave piece revealing a penitent man admitting his misjudgements; in Asian culture, no mean feat. I do feel however you are being somewhat cruel to yourself.

You were, from the best of motives, seeking to see good, which says as much about you as you do about the subject of your piece.

I have been in Thailand for a number of years now and have tried to watch and understand the political system dispassionately and from a purely academic viewpoint. It has been a gravely disappointing experience with only scandal after scandal followed by impropriety.

Most countries have a share of the corrupt and downright bad but do have, usually, a majority of mostly virtuous people. However, here in Thailand I have found little of merit in any of the players save for a very small number of exceptions. Most are shysters and thieves who take elevation to political office as a right to make as much money in whatever way they can with scant regard to the responsibilities of office.

So do not be too harsh on yourself; it is right that a Thai such as yourself should yearn, and hope for statesmen amongst your politicians; it's just that I fear you will remain disappointed for some time to come.

John Patterson

Bangkok

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Anti-smoking lobby is all about the money

Smoking for pleasure has been around for thousands of years, and the planet is overpopulated today, instead of extinct, as it should be according to anti-smokers' claims based on junk science. Despite that quite visible common-sense fact, anti-smoking sentiment rages around the planet. But it is not the first time. Soon after modern-day smoking began, thanks to Cristobal Columbo more than 500 years ago, tobacco ranked with sugar and tea and salt as one of the world's most important commodities.

Control of the tobacco trade was quickly realised to be a gold mine that would never end. In 1606 King Philip of Spain decreed that tobacco could only be grown in specific locations. Sale of tobacco to foreigners was punishable by death. In 1614 the king established Seville as the tobacco centre of the world. Attempting to prevent a tobacco glut, Philip required all tobacco grown in the Spanish New World to be shipped to a central location: Seville. A list of 36 maladies treatable by tobacco soon appeared, and sales and profits skyrocketed.

But control of tobacco, and the resulting profits, became ever more difficult. In 1624, the pope threatened excommunication for snuff users; sneezing was thought too close to sexual ecstasy. Selling illegal tobacco was punishable by pouring hot lead down the throats of those caught. Whippings and executions and bans became common. The rulers of Europe declared Tobacco a curse from Satan, to justify raising taxes on it by up to 4,000 per cent.

In hindsight, it is quite obvious that the anti-smoking movement 400 years ago was about the money, and 400 hundred years later, nothing has changed. We should learn from the past. Too bad we never do. We're still smoking, and anti-smoking is still about money.

News journalism entails a fiduciary duty to the public to report all sides and information. Yet the world's news media refuses to report all sides of the second-hand tobacco smoke issue. It knowingly and deliberately refuses to report that there are many researchers, scientists, doctors and politicians - and millions of tax-paying voters - who do not believe the claims about second-hand tobacco smoke.

And by not reporting that information, the news industry deliberately and knowingly violates its duty to the public.

Some day there will be an accounting for this deliberate act of suppression of information.

Steve Hartwell

Toronto, Canada

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'Killer' elephant looks to have been provoked

I write in regard to a wire agency report last week about a "Burmese Karen" man killed by an elephant near the town of Hua Hin.

  Subsequent inquiries have determined that the victim was a local man, who allegedly got drunk and decided to go out hunting with a colleague - reportedly at about 3am. The man is said to have provoked a group of elephants, one of which was a male on heat. He is also said to have fired a gunshot near the herd. The animal that allegedly tramped on the man and killed him was not the animal on heat, but another jumbo, reportedly with one tusk.

  Most people from the man's village, near Khao Luk Chang, appear to know the story - probably via the man's colleague - and accept that the herd was "not to blame". Given these reported circumstances, it does not look as though local authorities intend to do anything about the incident (against the "killer" elephant). However, these animals may also have a problem of declining habitat, or areas to roam in search of food, as there have been reports of them on local roads at night, while foraging for food.

  Wildlife supporter

  Bangkok