Screaming and Cheering a measure of entertainment

Passing by a kindergarten or elementary school one can observe that the children are no longer capable of talking to each other or to anyone else. Instead they make sounds more meaningless than a flock of crows or a pack of barking dogs, competing to make the loudest noise. But now this malaise has spread to university students as shown on a video of a welcome for new entrants by the students of Thammasat University; See http://www.bangkokpost.com/vdo/thailand/632560/youth-gone-wild
This is glorified idiocy. Perhaps one can excuse it on the ground that any rational and sensible exchange between students and new arrivals would be suspect. Thammasat students have a glorious history, perhaps their present day avatars are screaming in frustration at the anomaly of pursuing an education in an atmosphere of illiberal repression. A few days ago I visited a political prisoner; a student prisoner walked by but turned to greet us with a three finger salute. All hail, student, your salute was more eloquent than the screams of the mass of frenzied Thammasat neophytes.

Travels in e-Space

                                                                       

Trash Download

Noise Dragon

                                                         E-Travellers
                                                                                

 

Yesterday I travelled by BTS from Mo Chit to Phaya Thai stations. Viewing my fellow travellers across the way, I noticed their diligence in travelling in another world, they were e-travellers, present in the carriage confines, but absent in a quiet e-world of their own. I became aware of the unusual quiet and quickly looked at the display screens, they were blank, and SILENT. The quiet of the e-world had conquered the noise dragon which haunts BTS, where passengers sit staring with empty expressions as the infernal  machines download commercial trash to their captured brains.

 

Is this a real respite, has the absorption of passengers in their personal e-travels beaten the trash delivery? The time was 6.0pm when the carriage was crowded with tiered workers. Has there been a change of policy by BTS, a change previous requested by Quiet Bangkok? Is it a temporary lapse by the noise dragon? Or has the loss of audience to their private world, turned to a loss the trash downloads? So be it!