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Thailand’s Buddhists are a bit annoyed with Today’s Young Monks

Thailand’s Buddhists are a bit annoyed with today’s young monks. As mobile phones and other devices grow more popular, it’s becoming harder for religious leaders to control the images of Buddhism in the media and marketplace.

 

Chiangrai Times – Each year as monsoon rains sweep their way over Thailand, tens of thousands of teenage boys shave their heads and are ordained as Buddhist monks in a traditional rite of passage. Some find their life’s vocation during the few weeks they spend in the monastery, and they become full-time monks.

Others post videos of themselves on YouTube, as they play air guitar to hard-rock tracks like Yngwie Malmsteen’s “Iron Clad,” or recite religious chants to thumping

A YouTube video shows novice monks playing air guitar.

The Buddhist faith practiced by more than 90% of Thailand’s population is going through something like culture shock as the country quickly modernizes alongside East Asia’s other booming economies. With more Thais going online, often through mobile phones, some of the country’s novice monks are becoming online media stars, jarring an older generation that doesn’t quite know what to make of it all.

“Technology is advancing very quickly and we can’t keep up,” said Phra Kasem Sanyato, secretary of the Buddhism Protection Center of Thailand, a watchdog for religious affairs. “The younger generation is losing respect,” added 48-year-old Pornpun Kaewbundit, as she emerged from a temple in Bangkok’s historic old town recently.

Besides rocking out to Mr. Malmsteen, who was born in Sweden and lives in Florida, some monks film themselves playing pranks on other novices or shouting out lyrics to the likes of Thailand’s heavy-metal band Bodyslam. They often use deodorant sticks or whatever else is at hand as stand-ins for microphones. Brooms often double as guitars.

The clips are quickly becoming a genre of their own on YouTube and other sites, with some users taking one clip and remixing it with fresh backing music. The result: mash-ups of monks with shaved heads cavorting about in wigs to Dead or Alive’s 1980s hit “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).”

Monks old enough to know better are getting caught up in the excitement, too.

As mobile phones and other devices grow more popular, it’s becoming harder for religious leaders to control the images of Buddhism in the media and marketplace.

Phra Klairung Rujidhammo was recently catapulted to national fame when he was filmed performing suggestive dance moves, known here as coyote dancing after the film “Coyote Ugly” set in a New York dance-bar. Phra Klairung, a chunky temple secretary in his mid-forties, quickly apologized after the clip went viral, explaining that he was trying to cheer people up after flooding hit the area around his temple in northern Bangkok.

His superiors gave him a two-week suspension, and Phra (Phra is a religious title) Klairung is back collecting food offerings and other alms from the local community each morning.

Some Thais, though, fear that the Buddhist clergy’s standards are slipping. They are urging Thais to be a little less tolerant than the country’s image as a magnet for night-clubbers and sun-seekers might suggest.

Bangkok jeweler Acharavadee Wongsakon, for instance, on June 30 led a procession of several hundred protesters through the city’s famous Chatuchak weekend market and the Khao San Road backpacker district to persuade Thais and foreign tourists to show more respect. That includes avoiding getting inked up with Buddhist tattoos.

Accompanied by ornate floats and banners saying “No” to the Disney movie “Snow Buddies,” which features a dog named Buddha, Ms. Acharavadee silenced the normally raucous backpackers who frequent the area as she and her followers made their way past bars with names such as Lucky Beer and the Lava Lounge.

“I think they have a point,” whispered 23-year-old Carla Bennett from Canada, who was getting her hair braided at a street stall at the side of the road. “Maybe they are tired of people stomping over what they believe in.”

During a breather between parades, Ms. Acharavadee complained that some Thais regard Buddhism as little more than a detail listed on their national identity cards. “The Internet is compounding the problem. People are spending less time studying Buddhism, and they are missing its message,” she said.

Another source of worry in religious circles is the fact that Thais are having fewer children than they used to as more families move from farms to the country’s cities. Thai women now have an average of 1.5 children, down from more than six in the 1960s. That means fewer teenagers are ordained as novices. All Thai Buddhist males generally get ordained at some point in their lives, though most often in their teenage years and sometimes earlier.

Some Buddhists are fighting fire with fire by turning to reality television shows and the Internet to revive interest in Buddhist teachings. Thai cable network True Corp. this year began airing a live, rolling documentary about the lives of nine novice monks ordained at a temple in eastern Bangkok. Snappily titled “Novice Monks Cultivate Dharma Wisdom,” it was a surprise hit.

One fan, 64-year-old Wallapa Chairat, says she gets up at 5:30 each morning to watch the young monks go around collecting alms. One day she got out of bed at 4 a.m. and left her house in Nonthaburi province near Bangkok to offer food to the young monks herself.

“The news programs and soap operas are full of angry people who are jealous and fighting,” Ms. Wallapa says. “But the little monks provide peace and happiness.”

The young monks seemed to enjoy it, too. “I think living in the monkhood is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” 9-year-old Theerapath Suthipatharapan told the show after his stint in the temple was up. Unlike other reality shows, the monks aren’t voted out by the audience.

—Wilawan Watcharasakwet contributed to this article.

Write to James Hookway at [email protected]

 

 

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

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Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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