Western fast food would not improve national cuisine

In your column on Nakrop Niamnamtham you mention his plan to open chains of fast-food restaurants, presumably on the lines of major North American fast-food chains. Don't you think this is a really bad idea? Western nutritionists have shown that the rise in obesity, both in children and adults, is directly linked to fast-food restaurants. In 30 years in New York I saw the vast proliferation of these chains with the result that the US leads the world in the percentage of obese men (the UK leads in obese women). In the six years since my return to my home city of Chiang Mai I have seen Thai children get fatter and fatter. A friend who teaches Prathom 3 and 4 (in an international school here) tells me that about half his class (boys and girls) is overweight. My friend says that in spite of the school providing lunch, most of the students go to the convenience store and snack on junk food (as lacking in nutrition as fast food).

Why do we Thai have to ape the West and continually import much of the negative from there? When will we start thinking for ourselves? (A rhetorical question since our school system specialises in students not thinking for themselves. In any case, I cannot think much of a school system where teachers are told point blank that they are not to fail a student no matter how poor the grade.)

By the way, in a column of yours many months ago, you spoke about a country's ambassadors being all professional civil servants (sorry I cannot be more precise than that). Do I need to remind you that most ambassadorships, especially to "important" countries, are political appointments, with the appointee having no diplomatic experience? In the US these appointments (to "second-tier" and third-tier" countries) are usually given as a reward for financial contributions and rarely do the appointees to some countries have diplomatic experience.

The bottom line is that the professional diplomat, more often than not, does not finish his Foreign Office/State Department career as an ambassador.

Sombat Kapeng

Chiang Mai

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Public silent on punishment of corrupt politicians

Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej is determined to quickly change Constitution article 237, which says a party can be dissolved if its executive officers are found guilty of electoral fraud. The Supreme Court has upheld the decision to give a red card to Yongyuth Tiyaphairat for violating the election law. When Yongyuth committed electoral fraud, presumably he and the People Power Party knew about article 237, which they'd sworn to uphold, so the party's rush and insistence to revise this article appears to be most self-serving.

What concerns me is the lack of a public outcry by you and me, dear reader, for stealing an election is no less than stealing from the public coffers to which you and I contribute. We get the government we deserve, for as Ralph Waldo Emerson noted, "In a declining state of public morals men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay our hands on our own hearts and say, Here is the sin that makes the public sin".

Why are you, dear reader, letting him get away from the punishment that article 237 ordains if his party is guilty? Why aren't you even bleating?

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Old soldiers should not go to the beauty salon

It bothered me when I saw a four-star Army general appear in uniform at the People's Alliance for Democracy rally - not because he is a four-star general and should refrain from politics, but because of his appearance.

I expect a general to look like a general, not a cosmetic presenter with whitening cream on his face. A general's hairstyle should be conservative; he should not look as if he has just left a hair salon. And I don't expect a general to wear a pink bracelet!

Somsak Pola

Samut Prakan