Service Charge
Why do some buffets at restaurants charge a service fee? If I have to fetch my own food, and do occasional trial backs to find some missed foods and drinks or sometimes retrieve an additional utensil, then shouldn’t I be the one to collect a service fee? I even engage in idle conversation with the buffet staff, as the personal waiter that I am that particular day. Granted it’s usually a nominal fee, but I do enjoy the luxury of expressing my gratitude on situations when rightfully warranted. Especially when an individual takes that ‘extra step’ or simply extends an infectious smile to brighten ones day, that an enhanced tip is certainly in order, but not when I have do all the work.
Jonky Dawson
Dear Prime Minister of Thailand
(a copy was sent to be published in Citylife)
I recently emailed you asking you to legalise yaba (which means medicine that gives you get up and GO NOT crazy drug). If you are not prepared to legalise the decaffeinated nervous-wreck-free Yaba then perhaps you could get the police to start a new attitude towards yaba users who are generally nice people, I’ve met thousands of them.
Instead of imprisoning people for using yaba the police could simply confiscate the pills and send the offender home, prison does no good to harmless recreational users of drugs it just makes people very bored and depressed and exposes them to life threatening medical conditions like Hepatitis B and C. I watched seven people die in six weeks in the Bangkok prison I was trapped in, all of them quite young around thirty years of age ALL would be alive today had they not been in prison.
These yaba users are not real criminals they just use the substance, which is made from Ephadrine Lithium Iodine and vanilla (all harmless substances and metal) to feel better. It takes the sharp edges off poverty and makes you feel happy.
I think it should be legalised it is a fix for people in poverty taking away the misery and stress helping to see Thailand lives up to its name ‘Land of Smiles’. It is heroin that is the great risk that needs to be eradicated, in Myanmar at some of the universities one third of the students are injecting addicted heroin users, the same will happen in Thailand if there is no yaba. Yaba has been a God send for Thailand saving the country from a heroin epidemic.
So speak with the hospitals not the police and decide what to do, yaba does not send people out of their mind anymore with the massive dosages of caffeine removed. There are no recent cases of a yaba user going crazy. In my opinion about 30% of Thai citizens use yaba from time to time or regularly so you can’t win the battle by keeping it illegal and putting people in prison. It was of no concern to doctors at the Bangkok Nursing Home that a pregnant girl was using yaba every day they just stated there is a small risk the baby may be slightly smaller than the baby of a non-user and then the doctor said don’t worry the girl about it better she takes yaba and is relaxed than stressing her out over using yaba. Legalise it and the problems will be solved.
Regards,
Erik JC Young
Requests for the Editor
“Last year Chiang Mai produced over 420,000 tonnes of waste” [CityNews August 3 — Chiang Mai Aims to Reduce Waste by 5% in 2017] How much over? Chiang Mai City? Or municipality? Or Chiang Mai Province? How was the 420,000 tonnes calculated? Are there scales for the trucks at the landfills? Are there any illegal landfills? (dumps)….any measurement there?
There are privately owned recycling centres that buy glass, plastic, metal, cardboard from citizens. Are the recycled materials included in the 420,000 tonnes?
If the aim is to reduce solid waste by 5% in the year 2017, why was this announcement made in the 8th month of the year? Why not make this statement before the year starts?
John E. Conover, Jr., P.E.
[Ed. Thanks for all the questions John, we also are asking similar questions and will be publishing an article in the coming months on this very topic! Hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of how much waste Chiang Mai actually makes, where it goes and how it is managed.]
Some two years back I wrote protesting about the noise and pollution we’re subjected to by Chiang Mai Airport.
The situation is now much worse, given the change to 24-hour operation, with the number of flights into and out of the city constantly increasing, and any previous flight- and noise-free period (late night and early morning) totally lost.
Isn’t it time we (led by Citylife) kicked up a bit more fuss about it, with the aim of increasing awareness of the dangerous idiocy (virtually unique world-wide) of Chiang Mai having its major airport inside the city?
Hoping Citylife and Chiang Mai’s conservation groups will join forces to bring about the change needed in this respect,
I am,
Yours sincerely,
Fred Greene