The Vitruvian Man

A Discourse on Wahabiism

2011-07-26T10:09:00.002+08:00

Yesterday, an article came out about how the National Safety Council was 'worried' that Muslim religious leaders like former Perlis mufti Dr Mohd Asri, as well as several Umno ulama, were actually proponents of Wahabi teachings.

The story was interesting to me mainly because though I've heard the term Wahabi many times, I realised that I wasn't really sure what it was, what it meant or why the Malaysian government was so scared of it.

So, I took my question to that place where all questions are answered. No, not Wikipedia. Facebook. I put up a question on my wall and the result was a fascinating and stimulating discussion. I was touched and glad that so many of my Muslim friends took a lot of time and thought to actually guide me through what is obviously a very complicated theological subject.

I am reproducing the conversation here, verbatim, for easy future reference.

Marc Lourdes

Can somebody tell me why Wahabism is banned in Malaysia? I'm always hearing about it, but don't really understand it.

Norzilawati Ismail

a follower of ʿAbd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), who stringently opposed all practices not sanctioned by the Koran. The Wahhabis, founded in the 18th century, are the most conservative Muslim group and are today found mainly in Saudi Arabia....sorry if I'm wrong...:)

Marc Lourdes

Ahhhh...so if they're strict followers of the Quran, why are they banned in malaysia?

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

de most wahabi country is Saudi Arabia....byk cara mereka ni, berlainan Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah....but Malaysia dpt byk duit dr Arab Saudi....so.....

Marc Lourdes

So, in what ways are the Wahabbi's different from the Sunni Muslims here?

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

dalam mudah kata, WAHABI - pergerakan fahaman baru yang tidak selari dgn Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah (sunni).....

Norzilawati Ismail

Because their practices wasn't based by the Quran....Quran and Sunnah as the guidelines...they're away from it...

Marc Lourdes

Ahhh...okay. So they are considered more extremist in their beliefs?

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah (sunni) follow Quran, Sunnah, Hadis dan Ijtimak Ulamak.....dats de 4 roots paling penting......Malaysia adalah Sunni but most of de duit, come from them....
they r not ekstrem but some of their ways, terpesong dr cara sebenar......

Marc Lourdes

Ohhh...okay. Thanks guys!

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

what i can say, fahaman wahabi sudah lama meluas n ssiapa yang tidak mahir dgn ajaran Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah (sunni), memang x nampak perbezaannya.....tapi apapun, setiap penganut has their own right untuk memilih Ahli Sunnah Wal Jamaah (sunni), wahabi, syiah dan macam2 lagi...

Zikri Kamarulzaman

If we were a wahabi muslim nation, women can't drive.. or maybe that's just a saudi thing.

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

nope..wahabi xde kaitan dgn drive..itu undang2 sana je.....jgn terkeliru....

Zikri Kamarulzaman

oh ok. oh well, mazhab2, sunni, shiite, wahabi, ismaili blablabla, just too much political bollocks behind it if u ask me.

Marc Lourdes

No la. It's different religious teachings, which is a whole different kettle of fish altogether. Though, religion is often subverted for politics.

Petah Wazzan Iskandar

hehhe...dats ur opinion....dont worry k, its not political but ilmu yg diterima berbeza....yg uat politik ialag org yang mmerintah....

Ili Liyana Mokhtar

this is such a good discussion. Bertambah ilmu hari ni. Terima Kasih :)

Marc Lourdes

Ha! Itu la! I learned something i didn't know before today. :)

Sakina Mohamed

I actually have attended a few lectures with learned scholars from all mazhabs (school of thoughts) and found out many Malaysian Muslims are quite ill-informed about Wahabinism (including me). To spare unnecessary details, they were just a movement that brought people back to the ways of the Sunnah. The big no-no thing they did was get all Muslims to pray to one imam at Masjidil Haram (where the Kaabah is). Many Muslims don't know this, but there used to be four imam, each representing a mazhab, praying at once facing each side of the kaabah. This goes against what is taught by the prophet s.a.w. Some guy in the UK saw this as a chance to provoke Muslim disunity and unrest and spread this hoax called Wahabbinism that is so widely believed because it is perpetuated across the web. Most Muslims who have never met a real life scholar will only refer to magazines and the web, when they are actually more reliable sources. I am not putting down anyone, because what I said applies to me as well.

Sakina Mohamed

I urge anyone (Muslims or not) who have a question about Wahabbinism, to seek knowledge from scholars (ulama). Ulama are not your local ustaz. These are people classically trained in Islamic knowledge and many branches of fiqh, and they are familiar with all mazhab.

This is a very popular question at lectures, but I have never met a scholar that says Wahabbinism is against the sunnah. I might not do a good job explaining it here, but they will. Interestingly, Wikipedia gives an almost accurate description of Wahabbinism, though the followers never call themselves Wahabbi. They will say they are simply trying to get people to follow the sunnah (like levelling of graves, which is unpopular among Muslims who have poor knowledge of hadith and sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w). Sorry for the long post Marc Lourdes, hope it is useful.

Marc Lourdes

So they prayed TO the imam?

Sakina Mohamed

They pray like everyone else..to one imam in any one congregation. After Muhammad s.a.w and the caliphates died, people began to "innovate" Islamic teachings to suit their culture and lifestyles. It went on for centuries, until many people had little idea that what they were doing is against the sunnah. So this guy and his band of bros decided to set things straight and keep it real. Naturally, they became unpopular la. You know la, like election kotor for years, ppl used to money politics, tetiba a group of ppl nak change, you think those used to the "peace" nak give up without a fight? Even when they found out they were wrong, they still want to stick to it..so they spread this urban legend called "Wahabbinism" and propagate it.

Marc Lourdes

Fear tactics la tu

Sakina Mohamed

Well it worked. You know, Islam is about pondering and questioning. Even the oneness of God, we should believe because we have pondered about it, and that increases faith. Problem is when ppl repeat what they hear without verifying facts..

Marc Lourdes

Yup, true dat. Not enough rational analysis out there.

Weween Raja Adam

wow Sakinah, that is such a good explaination, THANK YOU. can i be ur friend? hehe

Weween Raja Adam

anywayz, marc - thought u might find this useful - http://drmaza.com/home/?p=805#more-805

Weween Raja Adam

i agree with Sakinah. thing is, because Malaysia practices mazhab shafie and i wont say that is wrong but Islam is supposed to follow the Quran and Hadith/Sunnah (Rasullah's way of doing things) But sadly, it has been misinterpreted in so many wrong ways and whats even more screw up is because we have to make way for Muslim "head of state" who are probably arent Islamic themselves. So religion, instead of following the Quran and Sunnah, its being practice to suit the lifestyle and culture for the people in Malaysia. and then, u have people like Dr Asri who tries to correct that - than the authority play with the law to brand him as extremist. when he is actually promoting the Quran and Sunnah. Wahhabi is a "brand" to create fear. LIke u knnw, the Islam Hadhari and dunno lah how many more Islam brand out there. But Islam, is all about following the Quran and Sunnah.

Weween Raja Adam

Its so hard to make right a wrong that has been practices for generation in Malaysia or anywhere kan.. For example, Prophet Muhammad saw said "Do not celebrate my birth date and do not celebrate my death" (Hadith) but in Msia we have public holiday and we celebrate the Prophets Birth Date in a huge way that goes on for weeks. I wont say that is wrong but if Islam is to follow Quran and Hadith than why do we tokok tambah such practice? And when this kind of things are being pointed out, authority will straightaway say we are Wahabi. and suddenly jadi terrorist or againts Islamic teaching. anywayz, sorry such long post =) i need to vent the misconception after Dr Asri's case resurrected.. yet again. Sengal lah

Marc Lourdes

But in Islam, can one branch say another is terpesong and haram?

Sakina Mohamed

Weween, sure :)

Marc Lourdes- I'm not sure what you mean by branch..

all the four mazhabs were founded by four very learned Imam who were actually students and teachers of each other. They were not only extremely well-versed in the Quran and Sunnah but also science, algebra, philosophy, alchemy - u get the drift. The last of them was Shafiee (which Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore subscribe to). In my adulthood I learned that none is more supreme or correct than the other. The Shafiees tend to be more particular - we take a "better safe than sorry" stance.

Something can only be haram if it goes against what is prescribed by Allah and His messenger Muhammad s.a.w. You can't have just one of it. For example, if you believe in the Quran alone but not the sunnah, then it is clear that there is a deviation there.

Celia Alphonsus

This was a brilliant discussion. Thank you Marc Lourdes for asking the question, Sakina and the others for such insightful commentary. I am a little less confused now. You know..instead of getting old fogeys for inter-faith discussions...it should be people our generation.

Marc Lourdes

So, what is the basis for Malaysia proscribing wahabism? Does it really have a religious basis or is it merely a political game?

Marc Lourdes

Weween, Sakina - you guys should get to know one another. Y'all will get along famously, I'm sure. Two brilliant and very cool ladies. :)

Sakina Mohamed

You can bet your bottom dollar it's the latter :)

Celia - Why thank you, and you're welcome :)

Presenna Nambiar

If only we were all so rational and understanding when it comes to religion.. You guys are great :)

Laviinia Dhana
This was an enlightening read.... Thanks Sakina and Weween !!!

Celia Alphonsus

Marc Lourdes this should be documented for posterity somehow. You know as an example of rational, intelligent discourse.

Marc Lourdes

‎Celia Alphonsus One step ahead of you. ;) http://vitruvianman.blogspot.com/2011/07/discourse-on-wahabiism.html

Celia Alphonsus

Hehehehe... ;) Excellent.

Yahoo! Malaysia's Question Time chat with Anwar Ibrahim

2011-06-24T18:12:00.000+08:00

Here's the record of the Question Time segment Yahoo! Malaysia did with Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. It was Yahoo! MY's first such session and it was a roaring success. :)

Question Time with Anwar Ibrahim

The Pursuit of Happiness.

2010-10-03T10:46:00.001+08:00

I choose to not let people who want to hurt me, hurt me.
I choose not to be dragged down to the level of people who would do anything to damage me.
I choose to keep the good and ignore the bad.
I choose to love and not hate.
I choose to be positive and not negative.
I choose to learn my lessons from the past.
I choose to not be angry, afraid or bitter.
I choose to be honest to myself and to others, even it doesn't serve my "best interests".

I choose to dream, to hope and to pray.

I choose to be happy.

More Important Than Life and Death?

2010-09-16T07:32:00.000+08:00

Manchester United and Liverpool go head-to-head again this Sunday. The fixture, played at Old Trafford, is definitely THE league game of the season for any self-respecting United or Liverpool fan. Even the regional derbies, against Everton and Manchester City, respectively, fails to take on the significance of this battle.

It makes sense, as United and Liverpool are the two most successful clubs in English history, with 18 titles each. Liverpool has the better record in Europe and the League Cup, while United is the most successful team to participate in the FA Cup.

Though both clubs are now struggling to deal with the fallout from debt-fueled takeovers by mercenary owners, the game will still be played with nothing less than the usual amount of passion, aggression and fervour of players who know what the fixture means to the fans and the club.

Still, this game also brings out the worst in the fans and is one of the times that I am glad to be an Asian fan, able to appreciate the club while escaping the need to spew bile and venom at rival fans.

Liverpool fans have often mocked the Munich tragedy which robbed United of the Busby Babes. The jeers and cruel remarks are in poor taste and utterly disgusting.

A reference to the Munich airplane crash, where almost the entire United team were killed.

United fans are no better, with their refrains of "96 Scousers not being enough" and references to Liverpool fans as 'waffles'. I recently found out what the two phrases meant and was left feeling rather sickened.

96 scousers is a reference to the Liverpool fans killed in the Hillsborough disaster, which is still the deadliest football tragedy in British history.

The "waffle" comment is about the same incident, and is a "description" of the men, women and children who were killed when the surging crowd smashed them into the stadium fencing.

YSB stands for You Scouse Bastards. One United fan actually had this replica jersey done. Sick fuck.

Dissing the players, dissing the clubs, mocking the teams' failures - that's all fair game. Take the piss all you want. Bestow pudgy Rafa Benitez with unflattering titles like Fat Spanish Waiter. Call the un-beautiful Gary Neville Rat Face, if you will.

But jeering at losses of life, making fun of unnecessary tragedy - that's just off. Unfortunately, some fans seem to throw all sense out the window the moment they slip on their replica jersey.

After all, despite the competition and the rivalry, football - and any other sport at the end of the day - is just a game. It's not more important than life and death, despite what Bill Shankly may have once said.

Independence. Yeah, right.

2010-09-15T10:56:00.001+08:00

Malaysia celebrated its 53rd independence day just over a fortnight ago. As always, there were enough parades, platitudes and shows of patriotism to make one gag.

The overwhelming displays of national pride, for me, usually results in paroxysms of public spirit. Most years, I would dutifully stand up and sing the national anthem, and thank God to have been born and to live in this land of milk and honey.

This year, something was different. Was it the cumulative effect of a largely crappy year? Was it a result of finally opening my eyes to reality? Was it overwhelming cynicism? I don't know. All I know is that there was only one thought in my mind most of the time; that Independence for a lot of people in this country merely meant a change from one overlord to another.

Is it an unfair statement to make? Perhaps. Can I be excused for feeling that way? Let's see. Malaysia is independent. Yet, I am still often told that I am a squatter, an immigrant. I am often told that I should go back to "my homeland" if I don't like the way things are run over here. The fact that I am a fourth-generation Malaysian whose family has been here for almost 100 years has no bearing whatsoever on things. As far as the government and a lot of the people are concerned, I am and always will be a second-class citizen who should be thankful that I'm "allowed" to live in this country.

My people are the poorest of the poor. They have no affirmative action policies in their favour, despite many of them being no better than slaves. My community has the highest crime rates, the highest alcoholism rates, the highest domestic abuse rates, the highest proportion of people in prison. While others grow fat and happy with their mouths firmly locked on the teat of Malaysia's bounty, there is an entire generation of my people dull-eyed and sullen faced, kicked in the teeth one too many times by a system and a country that has failed them.

Where's our place in the sun?

Thousands of us died laying the roads most people walk on today. Thousands spent their lives as bonded labourers in estates around the country. Thousands still do. Thousands served faithfully in the early civil service only to be later cast asunder as Malaysia forged its identity in this Brave New World.

With this as a backdrop, should I feel guilty for not frothing at the mouth with patriotism? Should I feel guilty for being less than enthused that "my country" has been independent for 53 years? Perhaps I should. But I really don't and really don't care that I don't.

In Books, I Find Solace

2010-09-02T21:23:00.001+08:00

Books are good. They entertain, educate and give me comfort. A book is always there for me. It doesn't judge me or decide it doesn't like me.
A book doesn't irritate me and I can't irritate it. I can't bore a book, though a book can, sometimes, bore me.

My books are my friends. Scratch that. My books are my family. They give me solace in my dark moments. I read my Khalil Gibran, or at times, my Bible, when I need words of wisdom and comfort. I read Calvin and Hobbes or Tintin when I want to laugh or smile.
When I crave tales of adventure or derring-do, I leaf through the glossy pages of my Supermans, Batmans and other costumed crusaders. Or, if I'm feeling more old school, I read my Poirots or gingerly pick through the dog-eared pages of my Robin Hood, written in Old English.
Sometimes, when I feel like a good caper or courtroom thriller, I decide to go for the Jeffrey Archers or John Grishams. And then there are the classics. Harper Lee, JD Salinger, the Johns Irving and Steinbeck.
I have a book for every mood. For when I'm feeling light and breezy or dark and dismal. My books don't let me down.
With a book, familiarity does not breed contempt. And absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.
I know my books will never let me down.

The Amazing Ibrahim Ali

2010-08-28T12:57:00.001+08:00

Pasir Mas MP Ibrahim Ali is an interesting case study in politics. This man was a nobody, a person that didn't figure in the political equation, somebody who only got the Pasir Mas seat due to the good grace of Nik Aziz and Pas.

And now, all of a sudden, he's the man in the media. Why? Perkasa. One wonders if Ibrahim formed the fascist Malay supremacist group after reading Mein Kampf or after signing up for the Benito Mussolini Appreciation Society.

Still, love him or hate him, one has to admit that his shock and awe approach to politics has worked. While his grassroots approach - speaking at ceramahs and such - has worked, it is his media bombardment that has brought him and his abrasive ideology to the attention of the greater public.

Ibrahim thinks nothing of spamming reporters a multitude of times every day. He thinks nothing of sending racially sensitive "media releases" to non-Malay members of the media. To the distinguished (ugh) gentleman (double ugh) from Pasir Mas, it is completely alright to send a nonsensical, bigoted SMS about, say, the Chinese race, to a Chinese reporter in the hopes it would be published.

But anyway, here are unedited and previously unpublished examples of some of the messages Ibrahim sends out. My thoughts are attached at the bottom.

AUGUST 26, 2010 (4:06pm)

ULASAN UNTUK MEDIA: K'yataan KJ nak keluar umno(ST.TIMES 26ogos) kalau majoriti ahli umno sokong Perkasa adalah lucu..Apa penyakit KJ?sakit jiwa.Mungkin tidak d lantik sbagai Tim.Menteri, maka kecewanya sudah climax dan jadi Perkasa sbagai alasan.Saya rasa ramai ahli umno gembira kalau dia letak jawatan atau tingal umno,kerana semasa BAPA MERTUA nya jadi PM,operasi Tingkat 4 d JPM jadi isu,menyebabkan antara punca BN dan UMNO kalah teruk PRUI2..Pd saya,tanpa nya mungkin rakyat lagi senang hati pd UMNO..apa pun kesian dia.dulu besar kepala..skg bila BAPA MERTUA TAK JADI PM,maka taring dah hilang,merapu tak tentu pasal.ok.dato ibrahim ali.

My take: KJ richly deserves whatever shit is thrown in his direction, considering the way he behaved when his father-in-law was in power. However, Ibrahim's attack just shows himself up as a vindictive man absolutely devoid of class. Jibes like sakit jiwa and merapu tak tentu pasal indicate a very small mentality indeed. This SMS, is, more than anything else, a tirade against a person who dares oppose him. Echoes of Uncle Adolf, anybody?

AUGUST 24, 2010 (4:32am - seriously)
Kenyataan: POLIS D DESAK SUPAYA SEGERA DAN MESTI BERJAYA MENANGKAP PENGKIANAT YANG Baling CAT MERAH dan 4 BOTOL ARAK Keatas SURAU SIKAMAT.N9.Polis berjaya dgn cepat menangkap mereka yg cuba membakar gereja dan sudah d penjara. Kes buang kepala babi dlm mesjid d PJ belum ada tangkapan dan sudah agak lama. Dlm kes surau d sikamat Polis d gesa segerakan tangkapan. SOI LEK JUGA WAJAR D DAKWA Kerana Menghasut SPT MANA GESAAN TINDAKAN THDP. GURUBESAR Siti Inshah Mansor...sama2 kita tengok..tk.TOK HIM.PREKASA.

My take: Ibrahim seems to think that police produce suspects and arrests from those little manbags they carry. Or is he implying that police should just round up the usual suspects and "produce" an arrest. And the baiting of Soi Lek has resulted in MCA now adopting a more "ultra" approach. The wheels of the bus go round and round...until they come off.

AUGUST 22, 2010 (11:15am)
KOMEN saya thdp Koh Soo Khoon yg tegur saya (Ibrahim Ali P.PERKASA) suruh ambil tindakan positif memperbaiki nasib Bumi bukan dgn hanya bercakap & melukai hati kaum lain.TAPI KAUM LAIN TAK LUKA HATI KAUM BUMI KE? Isunya, sbgai menteri perpaduan, kenapa dia tak tegur cina csl n dia + lcu kena bertanggung jwb membuat melayu p.penang merempat.3O% HAK YG TIDAK ADIL sbb bumi 67%.Nyatakan pendirian.Soon Koon juga adalah 'dlm one force'anti melayu cara halus.SIAPA TAK Hurmat Sosial Kontrak iaitu I53 boleh keluar Msia balek negara asal nenek monyang.Jgn .HIPOKRIT. Drp Dato Ibrahim Ali.

My take: Koh made an entirely fair comment about the need for Ibrahim to do something proactive to improve the lot of Malays. The statement must have hit uncomfortably close to home for Ibrahim, who came out with all guns blazing. Interestingly, he didn't deny hurting the feelings of other races, but merely justified it by claiming that the others have hurt the Malays too. A little tit for tat eh? Ibrahim claims that 30% of the economic pie is an unfair "right" as Bumis constitute 67% of the country's population. Thing is, your economic station is life is not a matter of right. The amount you earn and have is dependent on how hard and smart you work, save and invest. And once again, the old "go back to the land of your ancestors" argument is wheeled out. It's an old, tired and stupid argument. Many non-Malays - such as me - are fourth and fifth generation Malaysians, which is more than can be said of a lot of people who claim to be Malay these days. But that's the problem when a race is defined along the lines of language, religion and custom and not bloodline, isn't it?

AUGUST 16, 2010 (1:00pm)
Note: To All MALAYS and friends.'I5TH OGOS YESTERDAY PERKASA HELD PC OVER THE ISSUES 'DEMAND FROM CHINESE CÖNGRESS'..STAR AND ST.TIMES NO COVERAGE AT ALL. Star reporter attended.Star have their own ajenda.news dap,pkr or pas good coverage. STAR own by MCA..but no problems..malays pls take note..tq.

My take: The man has the nerve to demand that Star and NST actually cover him and allege a conspiracy theory against him when they don't. The reason why he isn't covered is simple. He is a racist and a bigot and the two papers want to give him and his cock-eyed doctrine as little newsink as possible.

JULY 2, 12:45pm (he sent the message FOUR times!)
Statement.:refer to star repot 2day page n22..... I 'm prepared to be detained under ISA anytime if the police believe perkasa or me detremental to coutry security.i have been twice detained under ISA even thou i defended strongly ISA must be retained.THIRD TIME ISA 4 ME MEANS PHD IN ISA. And if i'm been detained,i will not question the police as some peoples or group who will accused the police wrongly detained,the govt cruel and all kinds of accusation.i believe msia police act profesionally.So no problem with me at all.i will not run away,hiding or getting support from other country as other leaders did..i dare to face all challenges and take full responsibilty what i did.i'm also not kind of person who made statement without using brain and later seek apology.this are all cowards.k.tq. Dato Ibrahim Ali.PRESIDEN PERKASA.

My take: Being detained under the ISA would be the best thing that ever happens to Ibrahim. The detention would elevate him from an being bit-part player in the national political scene to a martyr for his cause. Images of Gandhi, Mandela and Anwar Ibrahim probably flashed through his mind as he sent out this message.

These messages are just snippets of Ibrahim Ali's media blitz. He has sent many, many more messages over the last few months.

It's interesting that Ibrahim Ali, a so-called "independent" MP, comes out so frequently in support of Umno. He doesn't hesitate to bash Pakatan Rakyat or BN component parties like MCA. But he has never wavered in his support and endorsement of Umno.

The easiest explanation would be that this is due to his ties to the party - Ibrahim did, after all, contest the 1986 elections on an Umno ticket.

Still, one does wonder if he is Najib's ace-in-the-hole, wooing for Umno the hardcore Malay electorate while Najib prattles on about his 1Malaysia policies in the (vain?) hopes of regaining the support of the non-Malays.

Only time will tell.

How Much Do I Love United? This Much.

2010-08-16T23:00:00.002+08:00

1) I sincerely believe that the team responds to the psychic managerial commands I send it during matches.

2) My days and weeks are affected by United results. If the team loses, I have a fucked up time until they win again.

3) I didn't kill myself as a teenager because I realised that death would render me unable to watch United games.

4) My online nickname when I first started to go online was RyanTheDevil. I still use that nickname today.

5) I once participated in an online poll, where I admitted that I'd let Ryan Giggs shag my wife.

6) My grandfather's name just about edges Eric and Ryan as preferred names for my sons. And that too, isn't 100% certain.

7) I have passed the Ernest Mangnall test and look down on those who haven't. And don't even let me get started on those who don't know what the Earnest Magnall test is.

8) I've read the history of United. Numerous times.

9) I Google Manchester United several times a day. Just to make sure nothing goes on without me knowing about it.

10) I have managed United so much in Football Manager that they've demolished Old Trafford and built a new stadium called Lourdes Park in my honour.

And, if you're wondering why I always say United and not Manchester United, it's because there is only ONE United.

Glory, Glory!

The POINT of It All.

2010-08-08T20:27:00.003+08:00

"Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?" by Paul Gauguin

It's probably the one question that's remained constant since the first caveman stood on his hind legs and began wanking. It'll probably be the last question the last man (or woman, let's not be sexist here) thinks before the earth:
a) ends in a nuclear holocaust
b) gets zapped by creepy crawlies from outer space
c) is swallowed up by the sun's death throes
d) which actually is the galactic equivalent of salmon roe, gets gobbled up by a patron in a cosmic sushi bar

The question is, WHAT'S THE POINT OF IT ALL? It's a question that bugs me more often than not and now is one of those times. There's nothing like a long weekend, brought about by a bout of Friday illness, to turn one's mind to existential angst.

Seriously though, what's the point of it all? What's the point of waking up every morning, of dragging yourself to a job you either hate or are ambivalent about, just to make money to pay bills that you often generate in the course of your work? (After all, what's the main use of the car, other than ferrying you to work every day? How many business lunches does that gold card pay for?)

What's the point of getting into relationships, of getting married, of having kids if it only means that you're gonna spend the rest of your life struggling and slogging to ensure that your kids have the kind of middle-class upbringing and middle class education and middle-class approach to life that will only ensure that they too face more of the same challenges and problems and heartaches that face you now?

What's the point of going to your church/temple/mosque and pay your dues to God when there is no proof whatsoever that He/She/It is even listening? When's the last time that God came down from high to prove beyond a doubt that He/She/It exists and cares about what goes on in this globe?

Upon reflection, it sucks to live a middle class existence. Being born rich is, of course, brilliant. To want for nothing, to be able to live a life of indolence and never to have to worry about bills, or think twice about taking that family vacation or to have to save for a bloody year to afford a new TV set - that would be absolutely awesome. Yep, the rich have it good.

Having been poor - and I mean really poor - I'd say one of its saving graces is that the hardscrabble existence leaves little time for any thoughts of a philosophical bent. Your thoughts are occupied by the here and now, as in, where do I go for my next meal and how do I make sure I have a roof over my head this time next month.

What's really fucked up about the middle class existence is that a person in this lifestyle, more than any other, is like a hamster caught in one of those fucking exercise wheels. There's simply no escaping it.

You want to leave your country and start over? Well, who's gonna take care of your aging parents? How are you gonna clear up your bills before you leave?

You want to leave the job you hate and pursue your life's dreams? Is it gonna pay as much as the job you hate? Is it even gonna cover the bills?

You want to learn a new language/skill/hobby? Can you fit it in between work/family/social commitments? Can you afford to give up those 14 overtime shifts in order to take up that Spanish course you always wanted?

Is this why, perhaps, that so many members of the middle class get caught up in movies/cigarettes/booze/drugs/etc? Each of these things, for better or worse, provides escapism, even if for a little while. And who could blame a person for wanting to escape the depressing humdrum existence that is the norm for most of us? Who doesn't want a life of pleasure, of adventure, of excitement, of deep insight and revelation, even if it's only for 2 hours and then too, only through chemical inducement?

Fuck it lah. Maybe life is just like Elbert Hubbard said - one damn thing after another. Or maybe it's more like Edna St. Vincent Millay's take - one damn thing over and over. Or maybe the point and purpose of life is closer to Agent Smith's opinion - "to end".

Edvard Munch thought life was a scream.

Another Trip Down Memory Lane

2010-08-02T18:47:00.001+08:00

Those old TV Pendidikan Sang Kancil cartoons sure did bring back a flood of sweet childhood memories. Not just from me, but from a lot of friends who saw the link I posted on FB. It was almost transcendental, the way so many people are affected and influenced by a shared childhood memory and the way it brought so many people from disparate backgrounds, areas and ages together.

The cartoons also reminded me of another treasured piece of childhood nostalgia - patriotic songs and jingles. And so I went a-searching on the Internet for what I could dig up. I found a few pieces, some of them in their original form, others not. Nevertheless, they were all delightful and more than a little sentimental.

What was sad though, was the cynicism with which many of the people reacted to them. They seemed to think it was all government propaganda and another evil Barisan Nasional plot, while it was in fact, nothing more than patriotic jingles or motivational tunes or civic songs. Oh well, some people will be haters no matter what.

For those that aren't, feel free to take another stroll down memory lane.

SEJAHTERA MALAYSIA

SENYUM SEINDAH SURIA

INILAH BARISAN KITA

FIKIRKAN BOLEH

SETIA

Some People Don't Deserve to Live

2010-07-31T11:46:00.000+08:00

I can't imagine what those poor children are going through right now. One of them has to contend with the fact that she was raped at the tender age of 10. The rest of the kids in that school bus have the trauma of having been made to watch the attack happen in front of their very eyes.

All these children will have to live with the trauma for a long time to come, possibly for the rest of their lives.
The only good thing to have come out of this incident is that the bastard who did it was caught red handed, meaning that it's a case even our cock-eyed and calamitous justice system couldn't fuck up.

I only wish that the people who had caught him had killed him instead of merely bashing him up. I wish they had smashed his head to tiny bits. I wish they had cut off his privates with blunt and rusty knives. But even that's too good for monsters like him.

Now, I'm hoping that he is raped, repeatedly and violently, as he rots in prison. I hear they have some very "special" treatment reserved for the likes of him.

The Business of Happiness

2010-07-28T19:00:00.000+08:00

I consider myself luckier than many people when it comes to theme park experiences. I've had the good fortune to visit not only Eurodisney in Paris, but also Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida, which can quite accurately be described as the Mecca of amusement parks.

I don't know if it's the journalist in me that's being cynical or if its just the repeated visits to theme parks like Disney, Sunway Lagoon, Sentosa Island and Genting Highlands that's made be blase to the charms of this particular mode of entertainment.

Castle of Dreams or just a prettier and much more expensive Wal-Mart?

But whatever it is, I found myself depressingly immune to the charms these man-made Gardens of Delights have to offer. For example, at Genting, I'd notice how tacky the colours are, how the paint peels from the rides, how the mattresses in the hotel rooms seem to have suspicious stains of indeterminate origins and I'd make wise (or is that snide?) comments to myself about how the casinos are places where people go to murder and bury their dreams.

In Disneyworld, I'd observe how the hour-long lines morph into minute-long rides. I'd see that there is always a huge - and often, very expensive - gift shop at the end of every ride and around every corner. I'd moan about how expensive the price of entry to the theme park is and cattily say that fun and laughter is available only to those who can pay for it.

It's ironic then that when a gig to do a freelance assignment came my way recently, it was to cover the Asian Attractions Expo 2010 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Basically it was an amusement park industry trade show featuring all the gadgets, gizmos and gimmicks that come with the industry.

Frankly, I did it for the money. A boy needs to pay his credit card bills and I ain't gonna turn my nose up at making an honest buck any way I can. Funnily though, attending the expo made me reassess my feelings about the entire concept of theme parks.

It wasn't the funky exhibits - and trust me, there were many of those! - that made me change my mind either. It was the conference sessions, which I had been dreading to attend. (Conferences are usually - to me - deadly dull things which tend to put me to sleep more often than not.)

But attending this conference made me realise one thing. The people running these shows do really want to make their customers (or, as they call them, "visitors" or "guests") happy. I tried to think of any other business or line of work which is targeted at giving joy to people and couldn't think of a single one. Music and movies come the closest, but their primary purpose is to entertain and not necessarily create joy. Plus, it seems just weird to think of dudes like Ozzy Osbourne bringing joy and light into people's lives.


	Hmmm...wonder which of these two blokes makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

But as I sat there, listening to people like Noble Coker (apparently that is his REAL name!) from Disneyland Hong Kong and Paul Pei from Ocean Park Hong Kong talking about how the main objective is to give people memories and how the idea is to ensure they have a good experience, it dawned on me that there really aren't many more noble callings than that.

Yeah, you heard me.I said "noble". No, I've not gone off the deep end. I'm saying that an industry which generated over US$11 billion in revenues in 2006 is noble. I'm saying that parks which charge you an arm, a leg and half a duodenum for entry is noble.

Not out of choice or out of any altruistic motives, mind you. This industry, like any other, has an eye and a half on the bottom line and profit column. Still, any business which aims to give me good memories and a lovely experience is alright in my book. And when I look back at the trip to Eurodisney with dad, or the visit to Walt Disney World with Hoon, I suddenly realise that it was pretty fun. That I did have a good time and create some lovely memories.

And that, to me, is worth the price of entry many, many times over.

You Can Keep Your Upins and Ipins. Give Me My TV Pendidikan Any Day.

2010-07-28T10:08:00.000+08:00

There's a whole generation of Malaysian kids that were weaned on the milk of TV Pendidikan. Yes, those were the days before 24-hour TV, before Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network and the Disney Channel.
Those were the days when cartoons were gloriously hand-drawn and 2D.

Jangan monyet...menyesal nanti...

Say what you want about visually stunning CGI and awesome modern special effects. I still think the old cartoons - local or foreign - had a charm that modern fare finds impossible to replicate.
I'm betting that those who've seen these videos before will be transported on a nostalgic trip down memory lane. And those who haven't, well take a look at this and tell me if this wasn't a more innocent time.

Football - The Beautiful Game

2010-07-08T16:54:00.005+08:00

Jogo Bonito seems to have quite literally become The Beautiful Game.

The World Cup 2010 may not have tickled and titillated too many fans, with its low-scoring games, dour tactics and God-damn annoying vuvu-fucking-zelas.

Still, it has pushed the right buttons as far as one group of people are concerned.

The South African jamboree has sparked the interest of
beauty worshipping website, beautifulpeople.com
The website has recently published a list featuring the beauties and the beasts of this World Cup. And no, I'm not talking about WAGs and visiting celebrities. The website's list actually focuses on the players themselves.

Come on, let's face it. It's a common enough thing. Most of us have had to put up with fans - mainly women - who gush about how cute Stevie G is (the answer being: not at all!) or how they'd like to despoil Iker Casillas (who, I have to admit, is a good looking bloke) and how bewitching Kaka's dark, mysterious eyes are (excuse me while I go puke my dinner).

Well, anyway, visitors to beautifulpeople have appointed
Spain's misfiring forward Fernando Torres as this edition's official Adonis.

Joining him in the "most beautiful man" category is Portugal winger/ inside forward / gay icon /new daddy Cristiano Ronaldo. Torres scored a massive 7.81 out of 10 while Crissy wasn't far behind,with 7.52.

Other Greek Gods in the tournament include Kaka, French flop Yoann Gourcuff, Casillas and Spanish hotshot David Villa. All polled scores of above 7.

Interestingly, the teams that are considered to be collectively the most lovely to watch (and I mean that quite literally) are also the World Cup's finalists - Spain and Holland. If their beauty ratings are anything to go by (5.77 for Spain, 5.53 for Holland), the Spanish will just about edge Holland to the trophy.

And what about the beasties? Who are the ones who are considered the uglies? The kinds that wouldn't be able to score in a brothel?

Well, the most prominent names are Frenchman Franck Ribery, England's Wayne Rooney (whose summer seems to be going from bad to worse), Argentine striker Carlos Tevez and Spanish semi-final hero Carles Puyol. They scored a paltry 2.95, 3.28, 3.23 and 3.98 respectively. And you really can't argue with that can you? None of them have the kind of face you'd want to encounter in a dark alley at night.

But the award for the fugliest, the most un-lovely and the most unravishing teams belongs to North Korea and the Ivory Coast.

North Korea's soccer superstars' ratings range from 2.95 to 3.53 for an average of 3.26. The Ivory Coast, on the other hand, counts Didier Drogba as its best looking bloke, which pretty much tells you how tragic they are in the looks department (3.57 for the number-obsessed among you).

But then again, that's the beauty (THAT WORD AGAIN!) of football, isn't it? Or rather, that's the beauty of sports in general.

You can be the most goddamn ugly motherfucker around and still be a God. It used to be that way in music and acting, but both art forms are devolving into popularity contests and beauty pageants as time goes by.

Sport remains pure though. Where else would the Williams sisters shine? In what other line of work would Smokin' Joe Frazier have found fame and fortune? Shaquille O' Neal has a face that even a mother would have trouble loving.

But if you're a sportsman or sportswoman, none of that matters. It's all about your talent, your perseverance, your fighting spirit, your sportsmanship and the moments of magic that you create.

It doesn't matter if you're a bug-eyed Brazilian teenager scoring one of the greatest ever World Cup goals or an aging Cameroonian with missing teeth celebrating your goal by gyrating with the corner flag. People will worship you, people will adore you, people will love you and people will remember you.

And that, boys and girls, is why we love sport.

Hanging is Too Good for Astro. It Should Be Drawn and Quoted.

2010-07-08T01:23:00.001+08:00

I have on more than one occassion heard that Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto standing up.

The reason, apparently, that Herr Marx did not sit down while penning the world-changing book was because he had a wound of some sort on his butt.

The wound was so painful that it was impossible for him to sit. Or so the legend goes.

I, while writing this, find myself in something of a similar situation. I have not one, but two minor (I hope!), but very painful little wounds right now.

One is a pimple inside my nostril which is making my entire, not-so-little nose feel very sore indeed. The other, worse, one is a boil just below my waist. It's location makes sitting down very painful indeed. I've tried squeezing it, warming it with a hot compress and even pricking and poking it with a blade. Nothing works, though I've subjected myself to a lot of - probably unnecessary - pain.

So, the only thing left is to emulate Marx and use this time to write. Unlike Marx's masterpiece, I doubt what I note down will be of any consquence to the world. But, fuck it. I'm bored and cranky. And there's nothing like being fussy and nitpicky when I'm in one of my bitchy moods.

So, there i was, surfing Astro to see if there were any documentaries worth watching. I tuned in to Animal Planet and decided to check out the programme synopsis.

I was quite simply flabbergasted when I saw what popped up. If you look at the image on the left, you'd understand quite well what I mean.

My first reaction was to just wonder how a company as big, as well staffed, as rich and as technologically advanced as mighty Astro can make a boo-boo like this.

This is a company that collects on average RM100 a month from God knows how many million Malaysians. With all that cash flowing in, you'd think that they can afford to hire people who speak and write decent enough English to know the difference between "six feet" and "six fit". And to know that it's "third" and not "thirrd". And to actually have the brains and the initiative to come up with a programme synopsis that makes some sense.

Disbelief then gave way to anger. Is this what I am paying my RM100 every month for? To get sub-standard programming? TV reception that seizes up every time it rains? Synopses that don't make sense? Programmes that are:
a) boring
b) repetitious
c) inane
d) all of the above

But then again, this is exactly what happens when one company enjoys a monopoly and stranglehold on a certain sector. A lot of us still remember humble Megatv, with its bare-bones 5 channels. It gave us the essentials for less than RM50, if I remember correctly.

But Astro, with its marketing and its thousands of unnecessary channels, blew Megatv away with ease. Then came Vincent Tan's MiTV cable provider. Only God - and Vincent - know what happened to that thing.

It ultimately means that we consumers have a choice. Put up with Astro's crap, substandard service or just unsubscribe. Not really much of a choice, is it? Not many people can imagine making do with just TV1, TV2 and the other free-to-air channels. Looking at the quality of the programmes, one can't really blame the viewership for succumbing to Astro.

And so, Mr. AK laughs all the way to the bank as he counts his ever-growing billions. And all the while, us average Joes can't say anything.

Except this.

The Alfred Friendly Press Fellowships experience, one year on.

2010-07-06T13:46:00.003+08:00

It was about this time last year that I had just begun settling in to life in the US. We Fellows had been in our newsrooms for a month and a half and were preparing to go for our mid-term seminar in Florida.

We were all relatively comfortable in our new environments, some more than others. We had all begun getting ideas and thoughts about things we could change in our newsrooms back home. These ideas would germinate and congeal as the months wore on. Some of the more gung-ho ones - meaning, Rodrigo and me - even went to the extent of interviewing the top editors in several leading publications in the country to pick their brain and find out what they were doing to survive in the brave new world of New Media.

A lot of our musings and ideas were put down in paper as the Fellowship drew to a close in Septembar. I recently revisited the AFPF website and read the reflections of the 2009 Fellows. Some thoughts were instructive, some were poignant and some were indicative of how similar the issues facing journalism are, despite the vast distances that separate us.

Most were, unsurprisingly, focussed on the need for better and wider multimedia coverage. Ethical issues like the importance of quotes also featured prominently. Another popular topic was the need for more communication and interaction between editors, reporters, photographers, multimedia folk, graphic designers, copy-editors, etc.

Looking back at our reports, at our hopes and our expectations, I wonder how many of us actually managed to put what we learned to any use at all. I know for a fact that I hit a big and painful brick wall when I tried to pitch my many ideas to my former newspaper.

I also know that four out of the nine of us left the companies we worked for in a matter of months after returning. Sherine, from Egypt, went to Reuters almost immediately after returning. Rodney, from Uganda, applied for, and received, a scholarship to study in the United States. Huyen applied to further her studies in broadcast journalism. I, having become jaded and bitter at how things had gone downhill for me at NST since I returned, left to join a TV station.

But at that point, not many of us knew what the future had in store for us. All we had were our hopes, our dreams and our expectations of what we were going to do when we returned.

Here are some excerpts from the Reflections of the Class of 2009.

Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
The News International
Lahore, Pakistan
Hosted by The Houston Chronicle

I was never over-ambitious and knew from the very beginning that it’s hard to fully replicate the working models of U.S. newsrooms in Pakistan. Because our newspapers are not that resourceful, and even if they are, the will to spend on the development of human resources and the improvement of the working environment is almost extinct.

It is not an exaggeration if I say the facilities available to a fresh reporter in the U.S. are still a distant dream for a typical Pakistani editor, nearing his or her retirement. Here I mean the facilities required for the performance of one’s professional duties and not one’s personal belongings.

I would quote just one example to explain how pathetic the situation in some cases is. A journalist from a national Urdu daily told me how his editor had rejected his application for the approval of his mobile phone allowance. He was asked to make friends with some officers in the civil secretariat and use their phones to stay connected to the office.

This poor guy can receive a missed call on his mobile from his office anytime, forcing him to abandon whatever he is doing, and run around to find a free calling facility. This way the editor and the reporter are both saving the organization some precious pennies.

The situation is not as bad everywhere, but there is no question that one can suggest to the bosses to share their funds with staffers to pay for their travel with dignitaries, lunches and dinners with their sources, and the purchase of reference books or research material.

I remember going to meet a city council member with a Houston Chronicle reporter for lunch. The venue was a popular restaurant known for its “mouth-watering” and “finger-lickin’-good” South Asian food. We had not even properly rested ourselves in our seats, or exchanged any niceties, when this reporter announced that he would foot the bill. The council member was adamant that he would pay for the food, but the reporter refused the offer and, politely, threatened to leave the place if he was not allowed to do that. Later, he told me that the newspaper pays all the work-related costs incurred by staffers for food, air-travel, lodging etc.

If I ask my bosses to adopt this practice, I am sure I’ll right away be referred to a psychiatrist for a mental checkup.

Therefore, I will focus on those values and traits of American journalism that can be adopted in my organization, without much dependence on the finance department.

To start with, I would like to see my reporters and editors get rid of their obsession with the worn-out and decayed inverted pyramid style of news writing.

The newspaper content, however dull it was, would sell when there was no Internet or independent private TV channels. Now, the only way the print edition can survive is through innovation in reporting as well by writing style and value-addition to the content.

Today, news is no secret, and many times the readers have heard it before it reaches a reporter. If the print journalists simply provide the transcript of what TV channels are saying, no one would be interested in it. I have learnt in my host newsroom that the content should be catchy enough to attract readers and to get them hooked.

Another thing that I have learnt in my newsroom is that journalists must write primarily for their readers. I am not stating the obvious; my point is that many journalists write about big names only. They have no place for the ordinary people, to whom the readers relate more easily.

Journalism is rightly called “the first rough draft of history.” If journalists behave like court historians and only record the boastful accounts of rulers and the influential elite, the history written tomorrow will be devoid of its beauty. There would be no mention of the masses, their culture and lifestyle, real-life stories of sacrifice, resilience and righteousness, and other narratives that describe a society.

The problem with many Pakistani journalists is they think they can become big overnight, by rubbing shoulders with those in power. There are very few who focus their lens on the have-nots. I would convince my bosses to spare more space for stories about people and shrink the expansive political coverage.

Sherine El Madany
The Daily News Egypt
Cairo, Egypt
Hosted by the Los Angeles Times

In today’s digital age, the Internet has taken charge, and it is not enough for a print journalist to only use the notebook. Today’s print journalist needs to support text stories with audio, video and other graphic materials.

At both the Poynter Institute and the LA Times, I have learned that multimedia tools complement the text version of the story rather than a stand alone version. The key question is to decide which medium makes the text story better. Is it audio, video, sound bytes, informational graphs or a mix of these? If the medium does not make the text version better, then don’t use it.

Jaideep Hardikar
The Daily News and Analysis
Nagpur, India
Hosted by the Sun-Sentinel

Writing with one’s readers in mind.
Time and again, copy editors wrote back to me asking to clarify and simplify sentences. Old hawks in senior positions act as filters – they help you re-write stories; simplify complex sentences and re-check facts. What do you mean by this? Do we need to say this? Are you sure? -- Common questions at work. Quotes and attributions are sacrosanct. You can’t mess around with those. This is basic, but we most often overlook this. It’ll be my regular practice henceforth, something that I’ll strive for and advocate in my own journalistic circle. It has to become a habit.

Frank discussions.
I loved the practice of open ‘budget’ discussions at The Missourian, the campus newspaper of the J-School at Columbia. TheSun-Sentinel and other newspapers in the U.S. do not follow this practice, but they have their own ways to engage in frank discussions about a story. They follow a more formal way. Sometimes reporters meet with their editors or colleagues over lunch or coffee to discuss stories and find out ways to refine their ideas. The Sun-Sentinel also has a writers’ group.

Reporters and editors meet twice a month in a conference hall, eat good food and discuss old stories. The convener sends stories to be discussed with a note: good lead, strong endings or powerful narratives. Many other newspapers in the U.S. have similar internal groups. I am recommending one for DNA. As soon as I return, I will also be forming one in my home town inviting journalist friends from different newspapers for brainstorming sessions. It is a break from the routine and an opportunity to do something creative.

Effective story-telling with multi-media.
The Sun-Sentinel is leading an experiment of an integrated newsroom – print, online and television. While the print remains its main product, the newsroom now has a strong online content and a morning television show. Programs like sound-slides enhance the online story telling abilities. It’s a new skill that I learned hands-on working alongside a photojournalist at the Sun-Sentinel. It’s an effective tool that my home newspaper could think of adopting for its online edition.

Rodney Muhumuza
Daily Monitor
Kampala, Uganda
Hosted by The Kansas City Star

The Monitor has to start valuing feedback in ways it has never done before. I wrote on my blog, madeinuganda.blogspot.com, that it was wrong for a newspaper that’s not even 20 years old to be aloof to feedback. “In Uganda, where state tyranny over the media is sometimes taken for granted, reporters know they are doing a good job when the state comes down hard on them,” I wrote. “It has become one crucial, if painful, way of measuring influence, yet one that ultimately shows a blithe disregard for what the ordinary Ugandan thinks. If we are as good as we think we are, our journalism should not merely aspire to draw the wrath of angry dictators. Above all, it should get the local people, the silent ones, talking.”

Rodrigo Muzell
Zero Hora
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Hosted by The Philadelphia Inquirer

The major learning was how to plan a story. Being a foreigner led me to develop a better way to do this. Let me give you an example from my first story. My mentor gave me a tip about a big line of people near a subway station where free food was distributed every Tuesday. He gave me a handout with the name of the group that distributes the food. In the past I would just call the guys and go there. But since I didn’t know anything about the city, I had to research the group to see if there were previous stories about them. I talked to the poverty reporter here and got some background about food stamps and food banks. Then I had to research the food banks and to learn what they exactly do and how they are organized. I did all of it before going to the streets to interview people.

Just to have a clue about any issue demanded a lot of research, and I figured that this effort resulted in more contextualized stories. Instead of a telling only about the group that distributes the food and people who receive it, the story explains what’s happening with the food banks that use groups like that to help people.

In May, I attended the Investigative Reporting and Editors Conference in Baltimore. There, I talked to seasoned reporters about their techniques, got other tips at the panels and slowly figured out my own way to organize a story idea. Planning it from the beginning allowed me to work on a bigger story later on about recycling. I talked to over 15 sources, and here’s the method I’m using now. I am using the recycling story as an example.
1) Research the clips: The general idea was to see what’s being done in recycling here. I looked at Inquirer stories about it since 2005. In the last published story, it was reported the city had set up a recycling goal for 2009.
2) Researching the internet. At city’s website, I learned that Philadelphia had achieved the goal, and that The Inquirer hadn’t reported it.
3) Finding a focus. I decided to explain what this goal means to the city. I defined two major lines of research: the economy of recycling (it saves taxpayers money) and the importance of it for the environment. I knew I would have to find citizens to tell me their doubts about it and how important the matter is to them.
4) Talking to the editor. After all that work, I pitched the story to the editors. I had the increased rate to tell them, which was enough to justify the story, and I told them what I wanted to do. The editor had some doubts about the subject, so we discussed what sources I should use and questions I should answer for the reader.
5) Get to the sources. From there, it is a regular reporter’s work.

This is an example of how the planning can be effective for a writer. But it is also extremely important to get things done in the newsroom. Since you will more and more to depend on a lot of your colleagues to make your stories better online, you need to have a well-shaped idea to begin with. You have to approach the graphic designer, or the photo editor, or the multimedia desk with something clear in your mind. They rely on you to tell them how the story is going to be written.

Huyen Vu
The Guide
Hanoi, Vietnam
Hosted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

For me democracy was right there, in the newsroom, where editors were not some supernatural power who were entitled to make a mess of my stories and get away with it. It happened more than once when my editors edited me and got me wrong. But there they were, all ears to my complaints and explanations. The result was that together we made more accurate, more readable stories. From my editors I had learned to keep my stories coherent, to try to make every detail relevant, to get every word to mean something. More often than not, the stories were kicked between my editors many times before they finally made it into the paper.

An interesting thing I discovered there was the editors are able to apologize if they make a mistake. And I had learned that almost any problem can be resolved by talking about it. I’ve gotten to really believe in the power of explanation and discussion.

Myoung Hoon Suh
Money Today
Seoul, South Korea
Hosted by the Los Angeles Business Journal

Multimedia
What I cherish most and would like to share first and foremost with my colleagues is my experience with multimedia. In Korea, IT has developed to a stage where free DMB technology is enjoyed by the majority through their mobile phones. Ages before Facebook made its debut, Koreans were already uploading photos on their own CyWorld homepages. (This may be the reason Koreans call Facebook America's version of CyWorld.)

America's use of multimedia by a print media company lags far behind Korea's. For the most part, there's only an accompanying photo or a video link to an article. But in a word, what I saw of multimedia use at American print media companies while I was at the Poynter Institute was, shocking. It was not only a matter of 'copying and pasting' a photo or a graphic, but a whole host of multimedia platforms in use, including photo slides, interactive graphics, just to name a couple. I would like to let my colleagues know the enormous benefits that can be realized when the use of multimedia is employed well with an article.

At The Missourian
What was most interesting at The Missourian was learning about 'Citizen Journalism'. It was new and refreshing to see coverage of next door neighbors and ordinary people gracing the front pages of the paper. Most of the people who I have interviewed in my career are very successful and recognized both far and wide. The centerpiece of the articles focused on their successes and what tests and hardships were overcome to reach these successes.

But the stories in The Missourian were about people one would easily meet on the street. It was a way of getting to know what was occupying their minds right here, right now. But it turned out that what was on their minds was usually not only about them and them alone. Everything they had to say was relevant to others in one way or another, and the reporters at The Missourian sought questions to produce quotes with the widest possible relevance. I was ultimately reading articles that addressed ideas and opinions held by many.
All reporters constantly concern themselves with relevance and the value of information when writing articles. But cases abound where the blanks are sought to be filled only after setting an article's angle and parameters. At least that is how it seemed to me. That may be because I learned that it was only then that a more detailed article could be written.

Zhiming “Diego” Xin
China Daily
Beijing, China
Hosted by the Saint Paul Pioneer Press

If there’s any skill I’ve learned, I would say I had some practice doing business stories and making them more like features. In the limited number of stories I’ve done for my host newspaper, the most impressive thing for me is my relentless effort to make my story different from news releases.

The most challenging of it is to produce an enticing lead. I have not done that successfully (I’ve usually spent most of the time figuring out a good lead; it’s much easier to complete the other parts), but I’ve read numerous of my colleague’s headlines, such as in the September 17th St. Paul Pioneer Press, in which Richard Chin used the lead: “The Constitution is never far from Chuck Samuelson’s heart.” He used a pun to indicate the fact that many people not only keep a small book of Constitution in their breast pocket, but also keep the ideals of Constitution in their heart.

Using a pun requires much linguistic skill and wit, something not all writers could accomplish. But there are other easier ways to make our stories more readable, such as starting them by relating someone’s personal story. As always, it’s easy to find and memorize tips on how to write business stories as features, but it’s hard to carry them out in real writing practice. It takes time, energy and persistence to improve in that direction.

Another thing I’ve learned from my host newspaper is the combined use of multimedia and print and the cooperation between the print and the online sections to cater to the readership. For example, when something significant cropped up, the writers would first write a short piece for the website before digging deeper to write a story for the print edition. While my host newspaper doesn’t make many multimedia videos, sometimes it put Youtube clips on their website, such as the one on a September 14 emergency landing of a German plane with landing gear problems. Of course, the editors must be very careful to abide by the intellectual property rights and rules and make sure not to pick up the wrong video.

Reporters and editors do make mistakes, however which I learned during my fellowship in the US. On July 5, China’s Xinjiang saw a brutal mass killing tragedy, in which more than 100 ordinary Han people were killed by a local minority group. The US newspapers reacted enthusiastically and promptly to cover the event. Their reporters interviewed extensively the local minority group, related in detail how they were treated “unfairly” in the past, and how “peaceful” they were this time, without mentioning the fact that they brutally killed more than 100 people in their “peaceful demonstrations”! They did mention the number of deaths, but in a way as if those dead were all from the minority group crushed by the Chinese government.

Those newspapers also quoted the Chinese government, but it seems they did it simply to have it refuted later by giving more voices to that minority group. They went so far that in a picture shot by Reuters, in which the Reuters caption was “People who were injured during riots …”, a major US newspaper simply changed it to “Uighurs injured at a hospital …”, while the face of the man and his name card on the wall clearly indicate he is a Han Chinese, not a Uighur. The editor could explain it away by saying he/she can’t tell Han Chinese from Uighur Chinese. Then since he/she can’t tell them from each other, why did he/she make the change? I don’t know why the editor of that internationally renowned newspaper made the mistake, but it’s thought-provoking. What they did reminded me of last year’s incident in Tibet in which some western newspapers simply used fake pictures or changed pictures to show the “brutality” of Chinese troops.

I’m very upset, since they are newspapers from which I’m supposed to learn how to do good journalism -- fair, balanced and accurate. Apart from feeling upset, I should learn some lessons from them, too.
1. Never take something for granted. For a long time, thanks to ideological differences, the Chinese government has always been described as “communist” (every English speaker knows what “communism” means). So I guess many journalists simply take it for granted that whatever the Chinese government does, it’s wrong. It’s an easy way of doing journalism, but is it a good way?
2. Try to be balanced, fair and accurate, no matter how different a journalist’s opinion is from the party he/she is going to cover. It takes a lot of time, energy and effort to achieve this. It’s no simple task.

Marc Lourdes
New Straits Times
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hosted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Though blogging has a tremendous following in Malaysia nobody has quite figured out how to make it pay just yet. I may just have an idea to change that.

Malaysia is a small country if compared to the United States. We've only got a population of 27 million people. Our land mass is roughly equal to that of New Mexico. With such a small and dense population, it's inevitable that our newspapers focus mainly on national issues. We do have certain sections devoted to high-density urban areas, but due to a lack of space, large swathes of the land lack close coverage, unlike America, where regional and local papers service even the smallest of communities.

But we do have bureaus scattered throughout the country. What if these bureau reporters were to each set up local blogs and put up reports there? The big stories that have national impact would of course go into the newspaper. But the smaller pieces, the pieces of local interest, but not national, could be blogged about.

What's the big deal about that? After all, aren't there many citizen bloggers out there? And more importantly, how would one make money from this idea? Well, let me answer these questions one-by-one.

1) The main difference between citizen bloggers and journalist bloggers is the ethical and professional gulf between them. Think about it. The reason why bloggers exist is because they address a need. A need that newspapers and journalists haven't addressed. So, why not start addressing the need? I'm convinced that if we can give the people blog content, along with the citizen participation a blog allows, coupled with high journalistic standards and ethics, the readership will follow. Secondly, journalists enjoy something most citizen bloggers don't. They can do this full-time, with the machinery of a big company supporting them. If journalists can't win with the aid of a stacked deck like this, then they really have no business being in the business.

2) So, how does one make money from this? Advertising, of course. How many small businesses out there can afford the high cost of advertising in a newspaper? How many want to advertise on a national platform when all they want is to get their message to the people in their area? With small, concentrated, highly localized blogs, this under-served community can be tapped into and hopefully become a revenue source.

Granted, the money made from each individual blog advertiser would be a mere pittance compared to the huge sums paid for full-page newspaper ads. Still, if things go right, there will be tremendous volume, which will more than compensate for it.

So, that's it. That's my great idea. For it to work though, there needs to be a concentrated effort from all those in the newsroom. We cannot afford to wait for people to catch on to it. There needs to be an advertising blitz to inform local readers about it. I'm thinking flyers tucked into copies of each paper at bureau level, informing readers about the blogs. Add to that a daily page in the newspaper dedicated to promoting the highlights of our web-only content, including the Best of the Blogs. We need to get hits, and we need to shamelessly promote ourselves to do so.

A potential pitfall is the willingness of journalists to actually take on the extra work and responsibility this will entail. I admit that this element baffles me a little. How do you motivate reporters? Through the threat of job losses? Through dangling carrots like individualized performance-related bonuses? Through creating lucrative monthly awards for best bureaus, bureau reporters and bureau blog posts? The methods are many, and I think what it calls for is a combination of all these elements. Straight talk. Tell them what awaits them if they don't change and promise to reward the ones that do. That's what would work for me.

The entire collection of Reflections essays can be accessed here.

I Miss My Column.

2010-07-06T12:32:00.001+08:00

I told myself I would not go down the path of certain people who left the New Straits Times only to devote their blog to bitching about the company and the people in it, even though their treachery seems to have been ultimately rewarded with triumphant returns to positions of power and prestige.

However, there is one thing on my mind which has been bothering me and I'm hoping this blog posting will prove cathartic. At the very least, it'll allow me to vent. So, here goes.

I never asked to be a columnist for the paper. I only ever volunteered to write one column, with disastrous results. In fact, the fallout of that column - and there's a huge back-story to the writing and editing of the piece itself - was so bad that I resolved to never write another column again.

However, I was encouraged and prodded to turn my hand to attempting columns and commentaries by an editor, who was very supportive and helpful in my early days. When my fellowship came up, it was this editor that told me to turn the column into a regular fortnightly thing.

It took a while to get used to it (column writing, to me, is a very personal thing, something which gives the reader a glimpse into my soul), but I did and began to really enjoy it. This despite the fact that most of the columns that really meant something were rejected because they were too sensitive. But hey, you don't work for the NST without knowing the constraints that come with it.

But anyway, before I left NST, I asked the Sunday Times editor whether I would be able to maintain my column. She said she saw no conflict of interest with my production duties in BRTV and writing columns in NST. I was happy, because it meant that I could still write and still, in a way, have some sort of a link to NST (which I was very fond of, despite certain odious trolls in charge of the paper today).

I mentioned the same thing to the CEO, GE and Deputy GE as I said my goodbyes. Everything passed with no negative comments from them.

And then from out of the blue, I was told by the Sunday Times editor that the GE had decided not to retain my column due to a supposed "conflict of interest". I was sad, but accepted it as a judgement call made by upper management in the best interests of the company.

But as time has passed, I realise that it is a shallow excuse. Why? Three reasons.

1) Jason Dasey. He writes a regular sports column. Yet, he is also the editor of 442 magazine and a host on Astro. Isn't there a conflict of interest here, considering that 442 is in the print media and Astro is a competitor to Media Prima?

2) Teoh Teik Hoong. He's a friend and a nice enough dude. But he is also the owner and editor of the SJ Echo, which is a publication in direct competition with NST Streets. Yet, he too is writing columns for Sunday Times.

3) Malay Mail. When the paper decided to go free, NST blared the news. The decision didn't make sense to me as well as to a lot of other reporters. Why promote a rival newspaper. An editor who used to work at MM said it was because we were helping out a "friend". I'm all for helping my friends out, but it doesn't make any kind of sense to promote a competing business, especially when NST Streets itself is trying to get a foothold in the same market.

Ultimately, anybody who reads this posting would probably surmise that I am bitter and reeking of sour grapes over my expulsion as a columnist. And to a certain extent I am. But I'm not saying that I SHOULD have been retained. All I'm saying is I think I deserved to hear the real reason of why I was not retained.

Facts. Of A Sort.

2010-07-04T21:02:00.013+08:00

Idle minds are the devil's playground. And it seems my mind is very often idle these days. So, in order to avoid Lucifer, Beelzebub and co moving in, I've taken to reading FACTS. (Facts to be pronounced with raised eyebrows, pulled down lower lip and exaggerated haughty voice. Why? Coz they are FACTS!)

I would describe these facts as useless, except that I'm sure that somewhere out there a sociologist/anthropologist/zoologist or whatever-ologist is creaming his panties over these esoteric grains of knowledge.

Here are said facts - in bold - with my humble opinion - not in bold, since it is supposed to be humble - attached.

The housefly regurgitates its food and eats it again.
A very useful ability. Gross, and bound to ensure a barren love life, but has anybody ever
heard of a housefly that died of hunger?

Some sailors believed that if there is a cat on a ship, it means it is a lucky trip.
Didn't they also believe that having a woman on a ship was considered unlucky? So what if it was a female cat?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was named Lew Alcindor when he was born.
Lew Alcindor just doesn't have the same ring to it. Say it after me now. Karrrrreeeeeem Abdoooooool Jabbbbbbbbbarrrrrrr...

Fingernails grow about 3 times faster than toenails.
Chew on that!

Cher wore braces as an adult.
And the Osmonds obviously didn't...

The Poison- Arrow frog can kill about 2,200 people.
May I add a few of my gruesome ex-bosses to your hitlist, Mr. Poison-Arrow Frog, sir?

Notaphily is someone who collects bank notes.
And a necrophilly is?

Richard Milhouse Nixon was the first US President whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal". William Jefferson Clinton is the 2nd.
There's really nothing to add to this, is there?

The only insect that can turn its head 360 degrees is the praying mantis.
That ain't nuffink! Linda Blair can do that AND spit out a pint of green pea soup!

At Disneyland they have hundreds of wild domesticated cats running around the park. They never come out during the day because there's too many people, but the reason they're there is to catch the mice.
Okay, this is literally like something out of a...well, Disney cartoon!

An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
Something tells me the tango never made it big in Bellingham.

When Coca-Cola began to be sold in China, they used characters that would sound like "Coca-Cola" when spoken. Unfortunately, what they turned out to mean was "Bite the wax tadpole".
Is this Chinese code language for "suck my dick"?

The hundred billionth crayon made by Crayola was Periwinkle Blue.
There are more than a hundred billion crayons??? There's a colour called Periwinkle Blue???

Charlie Brown's father was a barber.
And Charlie Brown had, what? Three strands of hair? The irony is beautiful, innit?

In the movie "Toy Story", the carpet designs in Sid's hallway is the same as the carpet designs in "The Shining."

As if the idea of your toys coming alive at night isn't freaky enough by itself...

Clinophobia is the fear of beds.
Well, it could have been worse. Imagine if it was clitophobia.

Sigh...I'm getting neither funnier, nor wittier, am I?

The I.S.A. - You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too.

2010-07-02T14:11:00.004+08:00

It's not really surprising that right wing Nazis like Perkasa evoke the spectre of the Internal Security Act the moment anybody says anything contrary to their narrow world-view.

The latest example of Ibrahim Ali and co's warm and cuddly approach to making friends and building bridges is Perkasa's call to detain Wangsa Maju MP Wee Ka Siong under the ISA for daring to suggest that Mara scholarships should be reduced in tandem with Public Service Department scholarships.

And of course, everybody's favourite political scion, S. Vell Paari (who is proud of the fact that he is more Italian - or was it Australian - than he is Indian), is demanding that Ibrahim Ali himself be detained under the ISA for being racist. (Read the story here.)

I, along with many others, relish the thought of that troll of an MP being thrown into a cold, dark hole to commune with his fellow cockroaches for the rest of his natural life.

However, it is saddening that influential politicians (well, to influential to a certain degree-lah) are still using the ISA as a bludgeon with which to inflict blunt force trauma on those with alternate views.

The ISA was, is and always will be a "BAD" law. It is a classic example of how the Rule OF Law is subverted to become the Rule BY Law. The introduction of other such draconic laws, like the Patriot Act in America for example, by no means makes it "better" or less of an abuse of the legal process.

Everybody - terrorist, thug or tycoon - is entitled to a fair and impartial hearing in a court of law. I, for one, truly believe that if there is a lack of compelling evidence to indicate a person's guilt, that person should be released and allowed to live his or her life as freely.

The ISA is a slippery slope and Malaysia has slid down its precipice more than once. Ops Lalang, in the 80s, proved that the law was just as applicable against political opposition and hard-hitting media practitioners as it is against genuine threats to the nation. Some would argue that it is used far more often as a political tool by the Barisan Nasional overlords than it is to really protect the safety and security of the country.

It's especially galling to see it endorsed by the likes of Vell Paari when it was his father who not so long ago lobbied for the release of ISA-detained Hindraf leaders to gain brownie points from the Indian community. You can't have it both ways. You either use it or you lose it.

Many a regular Malaysian would say - lose it.

Pudu Jail's Death Sentence

2010-06-25T00:33:00.005+08:00

~ This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper ~

If Pudu Jail had a voice. If those historic walls could speak. If those forbidding iron gates were allowed a final death rattle. They may have very well quoted T.S. Eliot.

After all, that was exactly how the iconic century-old prison's world had ended. After a lifetime of keeping the city safe from evildoers, after more than a 100 years of drama, intrigue and controversy, the jail's landmark mural-adorned walls came tumbling down in a bulldozer attack carried out in the dead of night. The reason for this ignominious end? It had to be demolished to make way for wider roads.

It's the tragedy of Malaysia that as we put on our blinkers and stolidly march towards the stated aim of becoming a developed nation, we seem to be more intent on imitating nouveau riche Dubai's crass materialism and uncouth notion of modernism than in aspiring towards the beautiful blend of space-age wonders and historic, cultural and environmental preservation one sees in Europe and America.

The sad story of Pudu Jail, built in 1891, is not an alien one here however. After all, it wasn't so long ago that the Information, Culture and Communications Ministry (A misnomer if there ever was one!) tore down Bok House, one of the most beautiful buildings to have ever stood in Kuala Lumpur.

Then, as now, the government bulldozed its way past public opinion as thoroughly as it did through the lovely old house. Read the story here.

What makes the Pudu Jail case more annoying however, is that there are so many things that can be done to turn the disused prison into a money-spinner for the Tourism Ministry and a host of other spin-off industries. Unlike Bok House, which was mainly a private residence, Pudu Jail was a place where a multitude of historically fascinating events occurred.

It housed Allied soldiers during the Japanese Occupation around World War II. Some of Malaysia's most notorious criminals once called the place home. It was the centre of international dispute when two Australians were executed there in the 1980s for drug trafficking. Not so long ago, Hindu Rights Action Force activists were held there following their organisation of a massive public protest.

With a history like that, only a fool would say it could not be turned into an income-generating tourist attraction.

For examply, let's take two of the most famous prisons in the world - Alcatraz Island in San Francisco and the Tower of London in, well, London.

Alcatraz Island, according to a Viamagazine report, draws 1.3 million tourists a year. Its minimum ticket price for adults is US$26. The maximum is US$58, making the average ticket price for an adult US$42. Multiply that by 1.3 million and you get a staggering US$54 million, or RM175 million, in income every year.

The Tower of London, on the other hand, draws 2 million visitors yearly and has an average ticket price of 16 Pounds. Thats a yearly income of 32 million pounds, which is RM155 million.

Bear in mind that these figures don't factor in elements like merchandising and such. And don't forget that such tourist attractions give rise to an army of subsidiary businesses like tour operators, food vendors, maintainence companies, transport operators, etc.

Merely keeping Pudu Prison open as a tourist hotspot could have brought the city more benefits than a hundred Berjaya Times Squares, just across the road from the prison, will in a thousand years.

But of course the geniuses charting our nation's course have decided that Pudu Gaol is not something worth remembering. (MIS)Information Minister Rais Yatim in fact went on record to insist that Pudu Jail should NOT be made a national heritage.

In the eyes of these leaders (and I use the term "leaders" in the loosest possible sense of the word), only the salubrious things, only the things that we did right, are worth remembering.

We are none of us supposed to remember the darker aspects of our history.

Going by that logic, the world should not remember Jack the Ripper. Auschwitz should be flattened. All traces of the Incan empire, which practiced human sacrifices, should likewise be eradicated. The world should only retain bright shining examples of our triumphs so we can blisfully repeat the mistakes of history over and over again.

To put the icing on the cake, Rais told the media that the bright lights at the National Art Gallery dismissed the jail's 394-m long wall as unsignificant. They apparently said the wall, painted by inmates and once the world's longest mural, was "graffiti with lots of scenery".

It seems that everybody but the Barisan Nasional government is able to see the significance of the prison and its wall. Foreign publications and civil society, opposition politicians and ordinary Malaysians all voiced bewilderment at the government's actions.

And in the end, when the dust from the wrecking balls has settled, what'll be left? Well, according to Rais (again), only the arched gate of the prison will be retained as a memorial. The wall and everything else will probably be considered detritus and treated as such.

Meanwhile, in Germany, 2 to 4-inch fragments of the Berlin Wall are going for between US$55 to US$290. Makes it pretty obvious that the brains drained out of good ol' Malaysia a long time ago, doesn't it?

What's Neither Useful, Nor Good and Often Not Even True?

2010-06-02T00:06:00.006+08:00

I got a lovely email from Dharshini Balan recently. It's about how this dude approached Socrates with a juicy piece of gossip that he couldn't wait to spill.

The philosopher stopped him before he could talk, telling the man that he would be put through a Triple Filter test before being allowed to share his salacious story, which was about Socrates' student.

The first filter was whether or not the man, let's call him Bob, knew if the story was true. He didn't.

The second filter was whether Bob's story was something positive about Socrates' student. Bob's answer was, unsurprisingly, no.

The third and final filter was whether or not the news would have been of any use to Socrates. Bob again replied in the negative.

So, old man Socrates said, "If the story is neither true, nor good, nor useful to me, why would I want to hear it?"

And with that, the eager beaver rumour-monger slunk quietly back to the hole he had come from.

Looking around us today, it would seem like we could all do with a good dose of Socrates' common sense.
Society seems to thrive on gossip today. Scratch that. Society seems to WORSHIP gossip. We have blogs, websites, TV shows, newspaper articles, even entire magazines, devoted to the fine art that gossip has become.

How long does it take for a dirty little Hollywood secret to graduate from low whispers to a gleeful blow-by-blow account on Perez Hilton's Twitter feed?

How quickly does the New York Times or Washington Post jump on the case of a philandering politician?

Closer to home, how often do we come across SMSes that make the most outrageous of claims, stirring us up into a fine frenzy, often for no good reason at all.

Remember the "case" of the Muslims being converted into Christianity in Silibin? Or how about the alacrity with which Chua Soi Lek's sex video was distributed by anybody who had access to email?

Do people even ask themselves anymore what, if anything, this kind of gossip brings to their lives? How does it affect us if Lindsay Lohan is caught snorting coke for the millionth time? Or if some American senator takes a dirty weekend off in South America? Or if Chua Soi Lek is getting some tail on the side?

We pretend that it is important that our politicians and movie stars and sports heroes be good role models. But the truth is we will still continue voting for them, watching their movies and seeing them play if it suits our purposes and our interests. At that moment, it's morals be damned. Who cares if all this is neither good, nor useful nor true? It's fun. Yee haw! Fact is, it's almost impossible to find a person with Socrates' sense of decency these days.

But even as I write this, I realise the hypocrisy of my words. I, more than most others, relish gossip, especially if it's about people I dislike. There's a malicious kind of satisfaction in hearing and re-telling stories that are embarrassing and negative about them, even if the stories may not necessarily be true and even if they may be irrepairably damaging. But the evil troll in my heart takes over and decides that the consequences don't really matter because the story is too much fun not to broadcast.

It's interesting to note that in Dante's nine circles of hell, sowing discord - which is often the ultimate result of malicious gossip - warrants one a lengthy sojourn in the ninth bolgia of the eighth circle of hell.

Its "esteemed" placing is bad enough, considering there are only nine circles of hell altogether. But when you consider that pimps, thieves, sodomites and even corrupt politicians are considered less evil, you begin to realise that the sowers of discord are considered scum even in hell.

The punishment meted out to them is also stomach-churningly dire. In the ninth bolgia, a sword-wielding demon hacks them, dividing parts of their bodies as in retribution for the way they divided others.

As the damned make their rounds there, the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again. Not a fate one would wish even on one's worst enemies. Well, maybe on the very worst of enemies. You know, characters like evil ex-girlfriends, bitchy relatives, sadistic bosses and backstabbing friends...

Ultimately, to gossip is to indulge in one of the basest of human instincts. Like all other perverse pleasures, it gives the gossiper a twisted sense of satisfaction and joy. But it does nobody any good and neither the gossiper, nor his listener, nor his victim comes out smelling of roses.

That being said, the saintly Socrates never found out that his student Plato was also having an affair with his wife.

NOTE: I am extremely sleepy and tired as I'm writing this, so pardon me if my grammar sucks and I don't sound entirely coherent.

Are We At War With The Overweight?

2010-05-04T16:38:00.006+08:00

In today's world, it ain't phat to be fat.

Gone are the days when figures of Ruben-esque proportions would be considered voluptuous, beautiful or even desirable. In fact, it is often pointed out that Marilyn Monroe, if she were to be in her prime today, would be considered overweight by current standards.

It is undeniable that "excess luggage" brings with it a plethora of health problems, ranging from diabetes to heart disease and many others in between.

Still, Joanna Gilbert Asson's explosive allegations late last year about being told that she was too fat to be a teacher also points out an oft unspoken issuue - overweight people are discriminated against, jeered at and sometimes hated simply because of the shape of their bodies.

America's "Glamour" magazine made a bold statement with one of its pictures in September. It wasn't a routine, airbrushed photograph of an emaciated-looking model the likes of which adorn almost every fashion rag. Instead, they published an image of 20-year-old, plus-sized Lizzie Miller in the nude. Readers, more used to protruding ribs and jutting collarbones, were instead given a look at a tasteful and nicely done portrait of a woman with generous curves and a little stomach pouch.

Glamour's editor-in-chief Cindi Leive said the most shocking thing about Miller is that she has a "belly that looks...wait for it...normal."

The comments from the fashion magazine's readers - women for the most part - were mostly wildly enthusiastic. However, when the story was picked up by newspapers - fashion critic Debra Bass being one of them - the reply was very different.

The LESS nasty comments on Bass's Style File blog called Miller names like "overweight", "foul", "gross" and "disgusting".

Overall, the comments - mainly from men - were so appalling that Bass had to begin policing the usually uncensored column.

Also in September, a book, titled “Hungry: A Young Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves”, was released. It tells the story of Crystal Renn, a 23-year-old size-12 model. She relates about how she was discovered as a "chubby cheerleader' at the age of 14. The fresh-faced kid was told to lose 50lbs - 40 per cent of her body weight - in order to model. Renn lost the weight and became a constantly hungry, always exhausted teen model whose hair fell out in clumps. Eventually she rebelled and settled into a weight she was comfortable with.

But Renn's case is the exception rather than the norm. Models are routinely encouraged to lose insane amounts of weight in order to further their careers. Actresses are also made to shed weight because "the camera adds 10 pounds to their figure".

Clothing in department stores too seem to be increasingly cut for small figures, with larger framed women (and men!) having to trawl the nether regions of shops for sizes that fit them.

Beautiful but unrealisitcally waifish characters like Kate Moss and Keira Knightly are held up as ideals of beauty, influencing millions and millions of women and girls around the world. Does it surprise anybody then, that girls have the highest rates of eating disorders and self-esteem issues?

In a follow-up blog, Bass noted that a global study revealed 40 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women are overweight.

She further pointed out that the American Centers for Disease Control research showed that 66 per cent of U.S. adults over 20 are overweight or obese and asked whether there really is "a raging, pompous, condescending 34 percent of the population making all the noise about weight control".

Newsweek recently published a report called “America’s War on the Overweight: Anti-fat rhetoric is getting nastier than ever. Why our overweight nation hates overweight people.”

The article said that a lot of the jeers and catcalls come from self-haters who struggle with weight but consider their missteps to be legitimate excuses, while the missteps of others are foul acts against will power and discipline.

Associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, Ryan Martin was interviewed for the piece and, citing studies done on people’s emotions, suggested that people actually enjoy feeling angry.

“It makes them feel powerful, it makes them feel greater control, and they appreciate it for that reason.”

A person's body size comes down to a variety of factors, including exercise, eating habits and genetics. In some instances and occupations, weight and fitness is undoubedly an issue. Nobody wants out-of-shape policemen or firefighters, for example.

However, in most instances a person's size has no bearing whatsoever on their capability to do a job, whether it's teaching or administrating or whatever. And being rude, obnoxious or discriminatory about somebody's weight is just plain wrong. Human beings are more than just sacks of meat to be measured by the pound.

Thin may be "in", but a person's body is ultimately their private and personal concern which nobody else has a right to criticise or condemn.

Agama, Bangsa atau Negara?

2010-04-03T14:58:00.008+08:00

It's been a while since my last posting. In that time, I've managed to steer clear of "touchy" issues in my NST columns and avoided having too many being turned down.

But sometimes, especially as a writer, issues come up which are impossible to ignore. Writing about it is cathartic and therapeutic. The recent Kit Siang and Muhyiddin spat about "Malay" or "Malaysian" is one of those issues that I felt I just needed to wade into.

Unfortunately, NST is not taking up the piece, mainly because of a lack of space. I'm pretty sure that is the real reason and not just the "official" reason, simply because the editor in charge is a straight talking person. Yes, there are still people like that in the newspaper.

Anyway, that means this blog is scraped out of the top shelf, the dust is blown off its covers and it is pages are once again opened to provide an avenue for the thoughts I couldn't share via the NST.

To those 1 or 2 people who do watch this space, enjoy.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Setia will probably always be one of the most memorable patriotic jingles to have ever come out of RTM's production line of anthems.

It's unforgettable mainly for Francisca Peter's gorgeous voice, the rousing melody and its soaring ending. The one that went, “Untuk agama, bangsa dan negara”.

Much as I loved that song, that one line was always a source of some discomfort to me. The question that often floundered in the murky recesses of my mind was: Is that the order in which we place our allegiances? Does country come last?

It's a question that has hit the collective public conscious following the lovers' tiff between DAP's Lim Kit Siang and Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

The question Kit Siang put to Muhyiddin was as simple as it was clever. Are you Malay first or Malaysian first?

It was a Catch-22 situation for Muhyiddin. Choose the latter and risk alienating your Malay supporters. Choose the former, which he did, and be bashed by the naysayers, which is what is happening now.

But, how does one prioritise any of these loyalties over the other anyway?

The idealists and nationalists would say that fealty to nation should be placed above all. That we should look at everything in the greater context of being a Malaysian. That there will not be peace, unity and stability unless we look at ourselves as Malaysians and not Malaysian Portugese, Malaysian Ibans or Malaysian Orang Asal.

Try telling that to those with a religious bent. To them, it is God and religion above all else. And when you consider that adherence to religion directly affects you in the afterlife, is it any wonder that the faithful choose to place religion above all else?

And then we come to race. On the surface, this seems like the flimsiest of ports to which to anchor our loyalties to. But, like it or not, race is often one of the most crucial components in a person's – especially a Malaysian's – sense of identity. There's a chicken and egg situation in this. Has Malaysia become so hypersensitive to “race” due to the largely race-based nature of its politics and policies? Or have those politics and policies arisen mainly due to the diversity of Malaysia’s races? As with all chicken and egg scenarios, there is neither an answer nor an end to that argument.

The fact is, it is the people of our own social group that, for good or bad, often make up our support systems; reinforce our beliefs and generally influence our lives in a great many ways.

These social groups can range from people of similar interests and hobbies, to members of sporting clubs, those of similar sexual orientation or people of similar occupations. But at the most basic level, it still often comes down to race. Our race is our culture and our diverse cultures makes up the gorgeous tapestry that is Malaysia. It is not something to be sneered at, looked down on or belittled.

So, it comes back to Kit Siang's conundrum. Which is supreme? Agama, bangsa atau negara?

Could the answer be none of them, and all of them?

After all, why do they have to be mutually exclusive? Why does any one have to be superior or inferior to the other? Why can't they all be of equal importance?

At the root of it, I am a Malaysian by nationality, Indian by race and Catholic in religion. Being Indian doesn't mean having to pledge allegiance to the flag of India. Being Catholic doesn't mean being any less Malaysian. Being Malaysian doesn't mean the dilution of my Indian heritage.

And why can't one fight for the people of his race without being any less of a Malaysian. As long as that fight is not to the detriment of people of other races, where's the problem? Would Kit Siang's question have been put to, say, an Orang Asal activist? “What are you? Orang Asal first or Malaysian first?”

It's striking that when a Malaysian meets a fellow Malaysian outside the country, the question is never “Are you Malay, Indian or Chinese?” It's “Are you Malaysian.” And the joy in an affirmative answer is always genuine and unforced. It's odd, and a little sad, that the moment we step back onto our shores we immediately have to break it down to petty sub-categories.

Let's look at Setia again through the lenses of this particular controversy. Maybe we've been placing the emphasis on the wrong words of that closing line. Maybe it's not the “agama”, “bangsa” or “negara” that's important. Maybe, just maybe, the operative word in that line is the humble “dan”.

Race, religion AND country. All at once, all equal, all important.

I can live with that.

The BTN story, from the inside.

2009-12-04T17:54:00.003+08:00

There is a lot of hoo-ha about the Biro Tata Negara (BTN) these days. The National Civics Bureau is being accused of a lot of things, from being a brainwashing centre to sowing racial and religious prejudice and many others in between.
However, none of the articles that have come out so far (the ones I've read at least!) have actually interviewed a person who's gone through the BTN course.
So, I took the liberty of getting in touch with somebody who did, just to hear what it sounds like from someone who's "been there and done that".
I know this piece will not have a snowball's chance in hell of making it into the pages of the NST, so I'll just go ahead and put it up here.
Here, in the person's own words, is the BTN experience:

Yes, I'm a graduate of the program and hated it but unfortunately, I'm afraid I can't talk. I would love to, but I'm waiting for an answer for my scholarship extension and really need it to finish my studies next year.

However, I can tell you that there is the "Malay supremacy" idea in the program esp by some of the speakers, and there is no 1Malaysia concept whatsoever. And the instilling patriotism thing... well, let's just say (it's) patriotism according to how they want us to feel. So felt like brainwashing although at the end of each day I would complain about it with a friend there who hated the program as well.

The experience was not that bad for me since it was for sponsored students (Mara, JPA, universities) who will be doing their graduate studies overseas. They were not particularly strict on us. Probably because there were some Chinese and Indians students in the group. I heard it is worst for undergrads since there are some political play in the program (I managed to avoid not attending them while in UiTM).

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

So there you have it - BTN in a nutshell.

In Defence of Democracy

2009-11-24T16:12:00.002+08:00

Let’s face it - rhetoric flows out of politicians’ mouths like milk from a cow’s udders.

That’s why some media hacks jump at the chance to cover certain politicians – they’re good for a quote beyond the usual, mind-numbing balderdash.

Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz was renowned for her acid tongue. Tun Dr Lim Keng Yaik was notorious for his bawdiness (and his tendency to…spray) and Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, for his feistiness and drama. Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is still known for his charm, charisma and ability to sell sand to an Arab.

And then there’s the elder statesman of Malaysian politics – Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

His soundbites have become the stuff of legend, whether it’s accusing Jews of ruling the world by proxy, popularizing the term “flip-flop” or coming up with nifty slogans like “Look East”, “Malaysia Boleh” and “Vision 2020”.

It has to be admitted that even his more controversial statements, delivered in that famously knowing and somewhat cynical voice, tend to make one think and reconsider notions long held as gospel.

Recently, during a talk entitled “Asia and the 21st Century”, organised by Universiti Malaya’s Asia-Europe Institute, he spoke glowingly of authoritarian regimes like China’s and compared them unfavourably with the democratic systems, such as India’s.

His exact words were that India “made the mistake of being too democratic”. At a press conference later, he elaborated, saying that democracy can be a hindrance to progress because it makes people spend too much time politicking and added that China’s development was because “there’s not much politics”.

More interestingly, he identified the West’s focus on democracy, civil rights and individual freedoms – its decentralisation of power to citizens and civil society - as being the reasons behind its lack of productivity and current economic flaccidity.

One has to admit that Dr Mahathir does have a point. It’s definitely easier to control, prod, push and, if necessary, drag a country kicking and screaming towards advancement, modernisation and progress if one stifles dissent and does away with the necessity of having to deal with pesky citizens who demand to be allowed to decide their own fates and futures. His critics would argue that this was the exact style of leadership Tun himself practiced as he jet-propelled this young nation into the 21st century.

The problem with this line of thought is that it ignores one basic fact – absolute power corrupts absolutely. History is strewn with examples of totalitarian – the most extreme form of being authoritarian - regimes where the masses suffer amidst their leaders’ lives of opulence. This was true in Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China and still is in Beloved Leader Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea.

It takes a big man – one could suggest that such a man has yet to be found – that can wield such power wisely and properly. Authoritarianism, with its insulation against criticism of any kind, often inevitably leads to cronyism, nepotism, despotism and every other kind of –ism in the book. Its lack of transparency also means that citizens often don’t even know what their governments – or should we say, masters? – are up to.

A democracy, while arguably less “efficient” and “productive”, has the checks and balances that guard against such abuse of power. Proper separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the courts, along with a free and fair media – beautifully described by Edmund Burke as the fourth estate of government – and viable opposition parties ensure that politicians’ hands don’t get too grubby or their actions too bloody.

It is undeniable that there are democracies in which people are still financially insecure and in some cases, literally starving to death. India – the world’s largest democracy - is proof enough of this. And at the same time, China is proving that its brand of governance doesn’t necessarily mean people have to live in squalor.

Still, it could be argued that India’s struggle and China’s triumph aren’t because of their leadership styles, but in spite of them. China’s experiment with democracy at local government level is an indication that the country is beginning to admit and appreciate the benefits of the ancient Greek ideology.

The assertion that democracy is the root cause behind the West’s decline is flawed. Yes, their trade unions are strong – sometimes to the point of holding governments to ransom with nationwide strikes and such. But the point is, they democratically represent and speak for the working-class, who, if left untended, would most likely be trampled by Big Business. The West’s increased costs of labour and of doing business are down to increasing standards – and costs - of living, a problem we are now seeing and one that will eventually bedevil China as well.

Dr Mahathir justified his viewpoint by saying most people “don’t understand the limits of democracy.” This isn’t a reason to do away with democracy, but one to strengthen it further with more awareness, education and institutional reforms.

After all, if we breed a nation of sheep, how are we ever going to cultivate another generation of leaders brave and brash enough to exercise their democratic rights, even if it means using freedom of speech to advocate totalitarianism?

Goodbye, St. Louis!

2009-09-28T12:20:00.005+08:00

Dreaming of change.

2009-09-24T06:47:00.009+08:00

I'm beginning to grudgingly accept that all that psychobabble about dreams is true. About how dreams provide insights into the workings of our subconscious and all that jazz.
I've been having some very vivid dreams lately. They range from idiotically bizarre (playing football in a condominium construction site built in - get this - outer space!) to the poignant (mending bridges with a recently deceased, estranged aunt) to pretty fucking terrifying (can't remember the dream, thank goodness).
The dream I had last night though, is the one that really makes me wonder whether my subconscious mind is trying to tell me what my conscious mind refuses to accept.
This is what I dreamt about.
I'm driving a car up a steep, winding mountain road. On my left is a wall of rock. On my right, a sheer cliff with an endless drop. The road basically corkscrews its way up a mountain. It's dangerous and full of gravel. My car doesn't have traction.
Yet, I'm pressing on, full steam ahead. Tyres screech as they fight for purchase. My heart pounds away in fear as time and again I almost fly off the road.
I'm getting closer and closer to the top and I gun the accelerator even harder. Eventually, the expected happens. I lose control and veer off the cliff.
I plunge down into the murky depths. And I wake up. As I wake up, I realise that my last thought as I'm falling is not one of fear or terror. As I fall, I'm thinking that this was expected. That I knew I would fall from the moment I began the ascent.
That dream sums up my fears and insecurities pretty well actually. Let's face it. I'm doing very well, career-wise. In fact, I think it's fair to say that I've never been in better shape as a journalist.
The problem with that is that every mountain I climb, every small triumph I savour, is replaced by an even bigger mountain, an even greater challenge.
Before I came on the AFPF fellowship, the fear was whether or not I was only a reporter who could cut it in his own backyard. That I wasn't really as good as I imagined myself to be.
Coming here, I proved to myself - as well as to the folk back home - that I may actually be a half-decent journalist. Well and good. But now that I'm going home, it means that I'm going to have to take everything I've learned here, all the stuff that I've picked up and somehow try to apply it to a Malaysian setting.
I've got to go back and be an even better reporter than I am now. After all, that's the entire point of the fellowship, isn't it? The mere thought of it tires and depresses me. Won't there ever be a time when I won't need to prove myself to the world, and more importantly, to myself?
The nagging thought at the back of my mind though, is whether I'm actually doing any good at all. Whether my work is, even in a small way, changing the world.
That's all I want in life. I don't really care about money or fabulous things or whatever. I just want to, corny as it sounds, make the world a better place. Even if it's just one tiny little piece of it. I want to be remembered one day as somebody who made it just a wee bit brighter.
I was listening to Playing For Change's cover of Peter Gabriel's Biko in the car today. The song, about the martyred South African anti-apartheid activist, was one I've been listening to over and over since coming here.
I don't know why, but when I heard it today I got goosebumps all over my skin and tears just sprang to my eyes. I mean, think about how great a person has to be to inspire people to write and sing songs about him? How tremendous must his impact be for folk to still be recalling him more than 30 years after his death?
As a journalist and a writer, I have the opportunity to make an impact too. Most probably not the kind of impact the Steve Bikos or the Mahatma Ghandis of the world. But an impact nevertheless.
The question though is, am I doing so? Or am I so afraid of moving out of that cocoon of financial and career security that I want to challenge and change neither myself nor the world around me? If that's the case, wouldn't it mean that my life has been a wasted life? After all, what good's a life if a person has come into and left the world without making even a little bit of a dent in it? Surely as humans, as the stewards of this realm, we have been entrusted with greater responsibilities?
Even as I ask myself these questions, I know that I know what will happen in the future. I'll go back to Malaysia, surround myself with people, places and things comforting and familiar and slowly but surely slip back into the old routine.
I'll tell myself that all this idealism is not practical, that I'm a poor boy with aging parents and no silver spoon in sight. I'll tell myself that the responsibilities to family and self come before any notions of honour, nobility, glory or martyrdom.
Eventually, I'll euthanise myself into actually believing most if not all of it. And the only place where I'll face the truth is in my dreams.

The Demonisation of Islam.

2009-09-14T13:19:00.005+08:00

These days, it seems that for every column I write, there's one that gets rejected. Why is this happening? Am I getting too radical, starting to think that I can write whatever I want just because I'm a columnist? Am I getting too big for my britches?

But then again, isn't that what column writing is about? Airing your opinions? As long as it's not libellous, seditious or otherwise illegal and damaging, shouldn't the column be the voice of the columnist? If only. Newspaper writing in Malaysia has never been that straightforward.

So, once again, thank God for this blog, where I can rant the rants that would never otherwise see the light of day. This is another one that didn't make the cut:

It was just one of the many forwarded emails a person gets on any given day, with the “Fwd: Fw…” heading, familiar to email users, indicating that the message has been passed around to many people.

I would have deleted it, if not for the heading, which piqued my interest. The email was titled “Eye Opening and Mind Shocking: Mass Marriage in Gaza.”

Since it was in a region of the world that interests me and from a friend who doesn’t usually send me rubbish, I opened it.

Pictures of doe-eyed Palestinian brides greeted me. Their faces were expertly made up, hair prettily coiffed, white gowns resplendent and hands protectively enveloped by their grinning husbands-to-be.

The girls looked like they were between 6 to 10 years old. The grooms, on the other hand, were strapping young men in their 20s.

Yes, it was disturbing. But what was actually more disturbing was how this unsettling event was used, along with other carefully picked pieces of information, to launch an attack against Islam.

The article, apparently written by a PhD. holder, accused Islam of encouraging pedophilia and the Prophet Muhammad of being a child molester because of his marriage to Aisha.

It’s at points like these that I wish cursing were allowed in columns. I would have a few very choice phrases to throw at the author of this particular piece of excrement.

All around the world, there are people who dedicate their lives to promote better inter-faith understanding and greater tolerance between religions. People make all sorts of sacrifices, sometimes even their lives, just to make the world a better place for all faiths.

And while these unsung heroes go about their Herculean labours, there are others who make it their life’s work to tear down other people’s faiths.

Very often it is Islam that is on the receiving end. Almost every day emails are circulated among millions of people. They denigrate this religion, painting it as being a vile and evil belief practiced by bad people. Almost every day, some new condemnation is cooked up and hurtled at the believers of the religion which’s name means peace.

People often forward these emails without even trying to ascertain where they originate. After all, with our busy daily schedules, who has the time to do so? But sometimes, it pays to see whose message it is we are spreading.

This email was originated from an American-based anti-Muslim website that spews venom, oozes hate and calls for violence against Muslims. All those who don’t subscribe to this stance, including the F.B.I. and even President Obama, are considered enemies.

To put it simply, it is the American-Christian equivalent of Al Qaeda’s propaganda machine and recruitment spiel. “It’s us against them. We are on the side of God, they are the evil Satan. It’s a Holy War. Defend your faith against these infidels, blah, blah, blah.”

Isn’t it amazing though that these defenders of the faith, be they Christian or Muslim or whatever, are always eager to point a damning digit at someone else but ready to make excuses for their own skeletons?

Take this crusader for example. He’s so eager to point out that Muhammad married a child bride. Does he mention that Mary, the mother of Christ, was married when she was about 13 or 14? Granted, Christian dogma states she was a virgin and remained one till she was assumed into heaven. The point, though, is that she was a child bride too, right? What about King David,
who sent a man to his death simply because he coveted his wife? Not very nice, is it?

The email also spoke and criticized the fact that the Prophet had more than one wife. What about King Solomon, who was said to have had a thousand wives and concubines? What about the Mormons of today, who believe in polygamous marriages?

Islam was spread through the sword? What about the Spanish Inquisition? What about the great Hindu empires of the past? What about the pilgrim fathers in America, who brought Christianity, disease and big guns with them on their boats to the New World?

Many of the practices of yore seem weird, barbaric or inhumane by today’s standards. The Egyptian gods and pharaohs married their own siblings. Hindu widows would commit sati, immolating themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres. Pagan Romans used to serve lions a diet of Christian du jour.

But upon closer inspection, most of the things that happened then often did so for a good reason, if only people would take the time to learn what those reasons are. For example, women got married younger because life expectancies were much lower. Looking at everything through modern eyes would be to get a cock-eyed view of the past.

What really bites is that it is Islam that continues to be demonized. The responsibility for acts committed by some deluded souls is placed squarely on the collective head of the whole global Muslim community. Muslims and Islam is painted with broad brush strokes as being hate-filled, violent, terrorists and extremists.

Yes, some Muslims are jerks. I mean, we had a whole bunch of them dragging a severed cow’s head on the streets of Shah Alam recently. But some Christians are jerks too. There are also Hindus who are jerks, just as there are jerks in Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism and just about every other religion under the sun. They’d probably be jerks even if they were agnostic!

These card-carrying defenders need to realise that most religions have a spotted history. You can’t go through centuries and millennia of existence without slathering yourself in ignominy at some point or the other. So, for every finger that you point at other people, you’d find four more pointing back at you.

It would be better if these physicians healed themselves.

Pig-headed cow-head protestors.

2009-09-05T20:56:00.004+08:00

The idiocy continues.
The Selangor Menteri Besar tried to hold a forum with the residents of Section 23, to discuss the controversial relocation of the Hindu temple to the Muslim majority area.
What was supposed to be the exercise of democracy turned into a farce. The Malay residents turned the proceedings into a mob scene, hurling curses, insults, threats and obscenities.
The Indians, far outnumbered, mostly sat quietly in their seats. The placid and defeated looks on their faces said it all - this wasn't a fight they were expecting to win, or even make an impression on.
Malaysiakini's video of the incident illustrates the whole point better than anything anybody can say.
The worst part of it was when one Indian man stood up to make a point. He drowned out by the jeering boors. That was expected. What was unexpected, and really low, was when he took his seat again.
One of the men in the room - one of the loudest and crassest, I might add - snuck up behind him and pulled the chair from right under him.
That moment said it all. That moment was a snapshot of the childishness, the cowardly belief of their strength in numbers and the complete lack of respect and understanding these residents displayed.
The Malaysian Insider published an interview with these people, asking them why exactly they didn't want a temple near their homes, which they had previously attributed to "Muslim sensitivities." (I wonder if any of them realised the irony of their insensitive behaviour in the name of their sensitivity) None of the interviewees could give a decent reason for their stubborn resistance.
One said it would "disrupt traffic flow". Others said it was the "smell" and the "noise".
Traffic flow??? Hindus, unlike Christians or Muslims, do not have strict worship schedules. Devotees go in drips and trickles to perform their obligations. The only time Hindus cause traffic congestion is during Thaipusam. And that too is only in certain spots, like Batu Caves, around the country.
Smell?? Since when has the smell of incense permeated an entire neighbourhood?
Noise?? Are temple bells really louder than the call of the azan five times a day?
Why don't these people just come out and admit it. They are religious bigots. They are racist pigs. They are bullying cowards.
And their arguments don't make sense. Going by their twisted logic - which is that there shouldn't be a temple there because it's a Muslim majority area - there should not be a single temple, church or tokong in the whole country, since it's a Muslim majority country.
Likewise there should not be a single mosque in China, in India, in America, in the UK or anywhere in the many countries where there aren't at least 51% Muslims.
While we're on this tack, these Section 23 Muslims really should only be eating Muslim food, wearing Muslim attire, listening to Muslim music, trading with Muslim businesses, working for Muslim people, going to Muslim schools, learning Muslim curriculum, etc. After all, God forbid that their Muslim sensitivities be offended by Miley Cyrus's latest song or Nike's latest line of shoes.
I mean, once you start down this line of thinking, where does it end?
I'd call these folk "pig-headed", but we wouldn't to offended their sensitivities, would we?

The Column That Never Was.

2009-09-01T01:10:00.004+08:00

It can be very frustrating writing for the mainstream media in Malaysia. Stories have been killed because they're too "sensitive". Articles have been made to disappear sometimes because the of the subject's friendship with the higher-ups in the company. Worse still, reporters are sometime made to write stuff because of connections certain people have.

I feel it a little more now that I've become a columnist. There are certain "no-go" areas, certain things we're not supposed to write about. One of these things is the recent spate of religious fucked-upness that's been going on in the country.

Thankfully, I still have this blog. So, here it is, the column that never was:

When I was a child, my favourite song at church used to be called Pass It On.

It had an opening line that I really loved, which went, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.”

A very positive message indeed. But those same words can be used to describe the possible outcome of the repeated poking and prodding of the religious hornets’ nest that is being carried out by some elements in our country.

I refer to the increasingly shocking cases of religious baiting that have suddenly become the “in” thing to do for protestors who want to make a splash, people who want to make a flashy point or journalists that want a cheap headline.

In January, a student found a pig’s head on a PAS flag in a surau at Universiti Malaya’s Islamic studies academy. A month before that in Malacca, a wild boar head was found hanging next to a banner highlighting issues concerning Malays there, including that of a pig farm in Paya Menkuang.

Then, a couple of months ago, there was the case of the two crusading journalists from Al-Islam magazine that “infiltrated” a church hoping to land a story about Muslims being surreptitiously converted to Christianity. When they didn’t find any, they decided that they would partake of the Holy Eucharist – the holiest of Catholic rituals. They then spat out the sacred wafer, took pictures of it and published the story in their magazine.

And now, we have the case of Shah Alam’s Section 23 residents who were apparently so angry at the relocation of a Hindu temple to their area that they thought it warranted a cow’s head being dragged and defiled in front of the state secretariat.

All it takes is one spark to get a fire going. These insensitive actions are being uneasily tolerated by the larger segments of society. But, it’s impossible to expect that cooler heads will always prevail. It’s inevitable that the more people tear down each other’s dearly held beliefs and values, the more likely it is that we will eventually arrive at a disastrous flashpoint.

We’ve seen it happen over and over again in many countries around the world. The Bombay race riots of the 90s. The lynching of blacks in America’s Deep South. Hitler’s persecution of Jews during World War II. Time and time again blood has been spilt because insular and chauvinistic beliefs have held sway. Time and time again evil has flourished because good people have done nothing.

What if one day, some decide they’ve had enough? What if they decide to strike back? How long will it take for it to descend to all out racial and religious warfare? How long will it take for our streets to become as troubled as those in Sri Lanka or Gaza? How long will it take for Malaysia to literally become tanah tumpahnya darahku, spilt by our own brethren?

It’s not as farfetched a scenario as you can imagine. After all, the instigator behind the cow’s head incident proudly told the media that the residents will not budge an inch, “even if lives are lost and blood is made to flow.”

In To Kill a Mockingbird, lawyer Atticus Finch, in an attempt to divert his children from his town’s bigoted worldview, tells them that they can never understand a person until they consider things from his point of view, until they climb inside his skin and walk around in it.

These people would do well to do the same. The protestors, who say they are residents of Section 23 insist that there shouldn’t be a temple there because 80% of its population is Muslim (reports vary on the actual demographic mak-up). They would do well to put themselves in the skin of the remaining 20% and ask if they too deserve a right to have a place to worship. How would they have felt if residents in a non-Muslim majority area were to have paraded a pig's head in response to reports of a mosque being built?

The reporters from Al-Islam should ask themselves how unhappy they were when the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad appeared in Scandinavia. Or, closer to home, when The Herald used the word Allah in a Christian context?

The culprits who put the pig’s head in the surau should do well to ask themselves if they’d like their house of worship desecrated in such an awful manner. Is it too much to ask for everybody to just treat others the way they themselves would like to be treated?

What can the larger populace do about this though, is a question that still boggles many. A veteran reporter I was talking to about this voiced his own dismay and confusion at the terrible turn things are taking.

“It doesn't go away any more. It goes everywhere, immediately, and stays forever,” he said. “What do we do? Forgive them, for they know not what they do? Or crucify them? Make examples of them?

“In the past, education was always the answer. One learned. One understood. One figured things out from the facts - even the facts of others' myths. Understanding wasn't impossible. I'm sure this still holds true for many but, I fear, not for most,” he told me.

The authorities are quick to come down hard on civil rights’ protestors. They’re quick to use the various laws of the land to incarcerate those who are deemed to be disturbing the peace. They’re quick to come up with harebrained ideas to censor the Internet (and equally quick to dismiss them when they see that they don’t find favour!). Why can’t they be equally quick to do something about this, be it through education or enforcement?

At the same time, the rakyat these days are becoming increasingly aware of their rights. They’re becoming increasingly effective in finding ways to air their grievances. Isn’t it time for people of all stripes to get together and tell those among us that would sow strife and discord that hate will not prevail, that we, as a nation, want peace, love and harmony?

It’s impossible to expect Malaysia to be a utopia of rainbows and daffodils, where everybody loves each other. But is it too much to ask that we at least respect each other?

Notes from St. Louis.

2009-09-01T00:19:00.004+08:00

I've always loved books and reading. It's unsurprising then that one of the first things I did when I came here was to enroll in the local library.

It was one of the best moves I made. The library system in St. Louis is wonderful. The books, the CDs, the DVDs, the programmes - they're fantastic and the perfect example of the gulf between a developed country like the United States and a third-world country (I will not call it a developing country until I see signs of development in the mentality of its people) like mine.

The Central Library on Olive Street is a thing of beauty in itself. With it's massive arches, vast marble floors and beautiful stained-glass windows, it has a cathedral-like grandeur that takes my breath away every time I go in.

With all the time I spent in the library, it was inevitable that I would eventually end up writing a story about it.

Fact is, my article on libraries was a labour of love from start to finish. I conceived the idea, wrote the story, took the pictures and got the graphs and statistics. Seeing it published has got to be one of the most satisfying moments of my time here. It's not the biggest story I've ever done, but I just loved this one a lot.

That being said, work recently has been a curious mixture of triumphs and disappointments, of satisfaction and frustration.

The library story was definitely a triumph. The disappouintment was my story on human trafficking, which I was really keen on. Human rights coverage has always been my area of interest and one of my early forays into contact building was with the International Institute in St. Louis. The Post-Dispatch already has a reporter, Doug Moore, working the beat. So, finding an untapped angle and not stepping on his toes was the key. I thought I had managed to do that with the human trafficking story, which was basically about people being brought to the US under false pretexts and being made to work in slave-like conditions.

It was not to be because my contact person at the Institute said the victims were unwilling to be interviewed, even after I offered to not take pictures or use their real names.

I could deal with that. After all, this kind of rejection is part and parcel of every reporter's life. What annoyed me was the unprofessional way in which the person at the Institute handled it. She promised to get back to me after I had gone to see her and discussed the story with her. However, two months and several emails and voicemails later, she still hadn't told me what the situation was one way or the other. I hate being left hanging like that and really expected more. Oh well...

Work on the whole has been good though. I've had stuff to do regularly and that's always good for my mental health.

That being said, I have been getting a little frustrated at the number of parades/fairs/street events I'm asked to cover. Sometimes, it feels like all I'm doing is parades. In the past month alone, I've done stories on Baden Taste, the Corvette caravan and Festival of Nations. It's nice to attend these events, but I'd really like to get a greater diversity of coverage while I'm here. I don't mean I want to be assigned to all the front page stories. What I do mean is that I'd like to not be the "intern" that's given the stories that can't be screwed up.

It's galling also because I've been getting compliments from my editors and colleagues on the quality of my work, which makes it hard to understand why I'm not getting more challenging stuff to do. Well...at least they're receptive to the ideas that I pitch.

However, it is this that I feel is one of the weaknesses in the fellowship. While we have mentors - and I have a great one in Elisa Crouch - it appears that in my case at least, the higher-ups in the newsroom don't really seem to be on board with the fellowship's ideas and ideals.

Don't get me wrong. They're all fantastic people and have really made me feel welcome at the Post-Dispatch. It just seems that they often don't know what to do with me. For the benefit of future fellows, it might be a good idea for the foundation to work with the higher echelons of the company and come up with a work plan based on the fellow's goals.

All I Want To Do...is shag you silly.

2009-08-19T04:15:00.008+08:00

<--- Would you throw these babes out of your bed?

If there were to be an award for dodgiest song ever, Heart's All I Want To Do would be right up there, along with Extreme's More Than Words.

Both these songs could definitely be voted as the official anthem/theme song of playas too. I'd have to say though, that All I Want To Do just about nicks it for sheer hypocrisy and blatant playa-ism.

But don't just take my word for it. Let's have a look at the lyrics of the song and then you can decide for yourself.

ALL I WANT TO DO

It was a rainy night

When he came into sight,

Standing by the road,

No umbrella, no coat.

So I pulled up alongside

And I offered him a ride.

He accepted with a smile,

So we drove for a while.

I didn't ask him his name,

This lonely boy in the rain.

Fate, tell me it's right,

Is this love at first sight?

Please don't make it wrong,

Just stay for the night.

Let's take this one verse at a time. First of all, what is she doing picking up strange men on rainy nights? Hasn't she watched enough slasher flicks to know better? This song could have just ended right here if she'd picked up the wrong man. You know..."He accepted with a smile, so we drove for a while....acckkk!!! Gurgle, gurgle, moan, moan, Kersplatttt!!!!"

Plus, she didn't ask him his name! Wtf?? You give a ride to somebody and don't even ask his name? And, love at first sight? C'mon. Call it like it is! It's lust at first sight. Ain't nothing wrong with that!

So we found this hotel,

It was a place I knew well

We made magic that night.

Oh, he did everything right

He brought the woman out of me,

So many times, easily

And in the morning when he woke all

I left him was a note

I told him

I am the flower you are the seed

We walked in the garden

We planted a tree

Don't try to find me,

Please don't you dare

Just live in my memory,

You'll always be there

My question is, how does she know that hotel well, hmmm? Sounds like she's paid more than one clandestine visit, hasn't she? And 'he brought out the woman in me so many times, easily"? Puh-leeze! He gave you multiple orgasms is what he did! And in the end, what did you do? Bailed out on him without even splitting the hotel bill. The guy can't even afford a car. You think he can afford to pay the bill? Poor dude. And she has the nerve to tell him not to look for her. Some people...

Then it happened one day,

We came round the same way

You can imagine his surprise

When he saw his own eyes

I said please, please understand

I'm in love with another man

And what he couldn't give me

Was the one little thing that you can

And now we get to the climax (no pun intended) of the matter. They meet again. And he sees the fruit of his loins. And what does she do? She tells him she's in love with another man and the only reason she shagged him was coz that dude either couldn't get it up or was shooting blanks. And all this comes after she's earlier said it was love at first sight and warbled chorus after chorus of how she wants to MAKE LOVE to him. She justifies it by saying she just wanted a kid. What about IVF or adoption? The Wilson sisters were reaaaaallly stretching it there, weren't they? Jeez. And to say that he gave her a 'little' thing was a low-blow. There's absolutely no need to do that to the boy's ego.

They should have just titled the song "I'm Horny and Need a Shag. Fertile Studs Apply Here."

Fire!!!

2009-08-14T08:04:00.003+08:00

My apartment building caught fire yesterday! Since nobody died or got injured - except for the cat which suffered some slight smoke inhalation - I can say what I'd really like to say without sounding like an insensitive twat.

And what I'd really like to say is - how cool is that??? Woo hoo!

This is what happened. Unit 105 usually has a guy, his aunt, his dog and his cat living in it. His aunt, at the time of the fire, had been hospitalised due to depression and thus, wasn't home (a very good think, coz the guy later told me that she was quite old and very heavy.)

So, our friend goes to sleep in the living room and next thing he knows, he wakes up to the sound of roaring flames and the sight of thick smoke.

He grabs his dog and his laptop, looks unsuccessfully for his cat (that much vaunted feline independence ain't so hot now, is it??) and runs out, with only his shorts on. No T-shirt, no shoes. Nothing.

While all this drama is happening, I'm at home, in unit 501. (105:501 - what are the chances?) Usually, I'm at work at that hour - about 4:45 p.m. or so. But today, for the first time, I'm actually working the afternoon from home, due to the fact that my just concluded interview was at a nearby library.

I hear the smoke alarms and pop my head out of my unit. All appears normal. I get back in again and decide that it's a false alarm - which has happened before.

Something tells me then just to go out anyway. So, grumbling and cursing I throw on some clothes, grab my wallet and passport and head out. Still thinking that it's not a real fire, I don't bother bringing my laptop, camera and most importantly, my reporter's notebook.

I take the stairs down and that's when I realise that the building really is on fire. Acrid fumes hit me the moment I reach the third floor. For a moment, everything is black and I feels the stirrings of panic in my guts.

Here's where that fireman training I went for back in Malaysia held me in good stead. Squinting and stuffing my face into my shirt (good thing I wasn't loaded with my camera and laptop), I crouch as low as I can and head for the exit as calmly as possible.

I expect to see pandemonium reigning outside. Instead, what I do see is impressive orderliness on the part of the residents and superb efficiency on the part of the firefighters.

The blaze, which thankfully consumed only one unit, was put out in less than 15 minutes. While debating whether or not to call the Post-Dispatch and tell them about the itty-bitty fire, I get a call from Elie (yes, I grabbed my phone too!) telling me she's covering it and asking if I'm taking pics. I had to disappoint her by saying my camera was stuck upstairs (what kind of reporter leaves behind the tools of his trade when a story literally falls into his lap? So embarassing!)

But, I managed to borrow Elie's notepad and pen and jot down some quick interviews with the guy as well as the fire captain. So, my honour has been regained somewhat.

Oh, and the vic was wearing what I thought was one of those fancy jogging GPS/odometer devices on his ankle. Elie later told me that it's a tracking device for prisoners who are under home arrest. So, now we're speculating that the cause of the fire was a meth-lab accident and not a falling shitty lamp as the guy claimed earlier. Hmmm....

Making crime pay.

2009-08-14T03:42:00.003+08:00

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here. There've been quite a few developments, personally and professionally.

My time at the Post-Dispatch is almost coming to an end, with me hardly even realising how quickly time has flown by. All of a sudden, I find myself with barely enough time to do all the things that I wanted to do when I first came here (visit Memphis, Chicago, as well as check out several things in St. Louis itself). And I still haven't even come close to doing any of the souvenir shopping that I need to do! Having so many friends can be a tough proposition sometimes, you know!

The good news is that I have, since the mid-term seminar at Poynter, managed to dispel the feeling of homesickness that used to descend on me every few days. I've finally settled nicely here, made some friends and have started slowly counterfeiting what passes as a social life.

I've started going clubbing (courtesy of the Post-Dispatch, which wants me to do reviews), properly checked out some of the many attractions of Forest Park and even attended a Cardinals baseball game (and it was a cracker of a game too!). Go Cards!

But, I digress. This posting, as we Fellows keep being gently reminded, is about the trials, triumphs and tribulations of the 2009 Alfred Friendly Fellows as we muck about at the newspapers in our host cities.

Since my last posting, I've come up with the aforementioned club reviews, a piece on my Disneyworld experience with Hoon, as well as a story on a fire that killed three children.

Each of these experiences has been an interesting learning experience in itself.

I'm particularly proud of the club reviews, because it contains an innovation (I think!) which I suggested all by myself. Our editor, Evan, asked us to do the review in a conversational form. So, I suggested actually having a Gmail chat session with Sherice, the other reviewer. It's worked very well. Having a real chat session enabled us to have a very natural sounding article written in the dialogue form. It also helped us inject some quirkiness (like me ordering a vodka martini, shaken not stirred) as well as some informality (like asking if a dodgy foreigner can pick up a girl at a club) into the proceedings. Check out the finished product here. Btw, in case you're wondering, the vodka martini gag was for a different review. I'm now considering suggesting a similar club review form - probably called Saturday Nightlife - to my paper back home. I really think it will work out well.

The Disney article , on the other hand, was both an opportunity taken as well as an opportunity missed. It was an opportunity taken because I got off my backside and pitched it to the Features editor, Christy Bertleson - who I have to say, was very supportive. Don't you just love editors like that? What started off just as a lark for Hoon and I became a story which got some interesting feedback from readers. Some people - including one guy who works at Disney and had a half hour long phone conversation with me (phew!) - loved it. Others actually called and told me that I went for the wrong rides and should have done other things in that time. One lady left a message saying that I was an 'amateur' for only being able to do so much in one day. Lol!

It was also educational because I got to see how an editor who thinks outside the box can completely change and improve on a story. You see, my original was a long-form feature which ran up to 1,600 words.

Needless to say, it was too long. However, I was pretty much brain-frozen by the time I had done it and asked Christy to surgically remove anything she felt like removing.

However, instead of doing that, she changed the style of the first few paragraphs, from an actual narrative to a snappy, timeline-based almost point-form article and told me to do the same for the rest of the article. It dramatically reduced the length of the story but retained the style, the humour and the flavour.

That being said, the same article also presented an opportunity missed for me, as in I finally didn't get to insert multimedia elements like I wanted to. I had an idea of doing a picture slideshow, along with audio narration for the website. However - and this is mainly my fault. I dawdled - in the end, there just wasn't enough time for it and it ended up being just a regular text-based article on the website as well. Worse still, for some reason, the picture used in the paper was not put up along with the website's article, making it look rather unimpressive. Oh well...

Finally, I worked on a story about a fire that killed three children. It made the front page (woo hoo!!). It was a tragic story, but very interesting from a professional point of view. You see, in Malaysia, most crime (i include accidents and disasters under crime) stories - unless they're really sensational - rarely make the front page. Most of the time, we just give it the regular, run-of-the-mill treatment and it ends up stuck wherever there is space to stick it in. And most of the time, one reporter is sent out to do the story and he comes back with the essentials.

But, what happened here was this: I was sent to the scene, to interview witnesses, get some atmosphere and wait to see if the surviving members of the family returned to the scene.

Another reporter, Michael Sorkin, remained in the office and worked the phones, calling the police, fire department and other authorities to get the nuts and bolts of the story.

This division of work actually makes a lot of sense. Leaving the reporter on the scene free to get anecdotal information and letting somebody else get official statements means both reporters are free to concentrate on one specific element of the story. Hence, nobody is rushed, nobody is pressured and nobody is overwhelmed. Also, when the two different sides of the story came together, the result was interesting - the officials said the smoke detector was not working, while the residents said it was. And that became the crux of the story.

I've got two projects still in the pipeline. One is about the library system here and I finally got all the interviews done today. I'm hoping this might sneak into page one as well. Fingers crossed! The other, a human trafficking story which I would say is a more likely candidate for front page treatment, seems to have hit the skids, mainly because of a lack of response from certain authorities. Very inconsiderate of them, really! But, I've still got a month and a half to go and will continue bugging them until they either tell me yes, or tell me to bugger off. Watch this space. :)

The Column. Uncensored.

2009-08-06T02:52:00.002+08:00

On (or is that In?) hindsight, I should have known that my last column for NST would be heavily edited. I mean, what was I thinking? Writing such a risque piece for a stodgy establishment like mine? I don't think I'll live to see the day when talk about condoms, porn and the missionary position will be printed in my paper. And no, I'm not bitching, nor am I angry or bitter about it. I completely understand why the cuts had to happen. Seriously!

But thanks to the blogsphere, the original incarnation of that dirty ditty will see the light of day. So, here it is. Bigger, longer and uncut.

Tun Dr. Mahathir must be sorely disappointed in us. After all, hasn't he for the longest time wished, hoped and aimed for a Malaysian population of 70 million souls?

And instead of heeding the old man's call to be fruitful and multiply, what do we do? We go and reduce our birth rates from an ego-boosting 6.2 to a measly, morale-sapping 2.2. Shameful, really.

I for one, know exactly who is at fault. Ladies and gentlemen, the finger of blame should be pointed at none other than Ananda Krishnan.

Yes, the billionaire industrialist is to blame for the lack of fruit falling from our loins these days. No, this is not the plot for the latest James Bond movie. My reason for blaming him can be summed up in one word: Astro.

Think about it. What do most of us do when we go home these days? Do we rush home, tear off our clothes and jump into bed in a frenzy of lust. I wish.

No. We plop ourselves down in front of our flat-screen plasma TVs, turn on our decoders and gobble up the latest tele-novela on Astro Ria, the newest never-ending drama on Vanaavil, the current soap on Wah Loi Toi and the flavour of the week on American Idol.

And what about Saturdays and Sundays? What used to be date night is now more often becoming a night where we men would rather watch 22 other men sweating it out on a football field a zillion miles away instead of cozying up to our better halves. And don't forget those European football games in the wee hours of weekday mornings. Since we all have to be at work the next morning, what are the only things left to sacrifice? Sleep and sex of course!

But, it's not solely Ananda Krishnan's fault.

U.P.M, I think, had a point when it said men were at fault for the declining number of Pampers consumers in the country.

Think of 1980s fashion. I for one don't believe it's purely coincidental that birth rates plummeted in the 90s. Remember those crotch-hugging jeans of the 80s that all but cut off the blood flow to the nether regions? I don't have scientific evidence to back me on this, but I dare say all that confinement was not good for the unborn children we men had swimming inside us. I mean, how would you feel if you were stuck in a car all day with the windows rolled up? A trifle toasted?

Then there's the issue of underwear. I clearly remember the kind of underwear my grandfather - a fertile fellow if there ever was one - used to wear. They were either the Crocodile/Scuba brand briefs (spectacularly unstylish, very roomy), or striped, baggy boxers.

And what do we wear these days? Tight, 'bikini style' briefs designed to make a cocktail sausage resemble a frankfurter. Very flattering, I'm sure. But all that mashing up is bound to do some damage. No wonder my grandpa had 7 kids while I still don't have any little Marcs scampering around.

Equally culpable are those 7-11 joints out there, with the rows and rows of colourful condoms (some of them are more gaudily packaged than candy!) neatly stacked on the front counter. Where would we (or should I say, wouldn't we) be, if these slimy pieces of rubber had 50 years ago been as widely dispensed in sundry shops? And ended up in the wallets of our forefathers? The next time you find yourself reaching for a condom in 7-11, think of what the wise men of Monty Python told us – every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great.

And what about pornography? Surely there's some blame to be accorded in that direction too. 50 years ago, when 'blue' movies weren't so widely available, most folk were satisfied to 'do it' the good old-fashioned way – missionary style.

But now, after being weaned on years and years of illicit porn viewings, men are under pressure to live up to the skills displayed by all those pony-tailed, mucho-macho dudes with elephant trunks hanging between their legs.

Now, the trusted missionary position is no longer adequate. Instead, we've got ourselves twisting into positions and formations that even contortionists would find difficult to replicate.

Yet, most of these fancy techniques don't have the one crucial thing the missionary position does when it comes to sowing oats – gravity on its side. After all, isn't it easier to walk downhill instead of uphill?

But thinking about it, perhaps it's better to have fewer kids these days. I mean, I certainly don't want to have any while the nation's education system is still – to use a Mahathirism – flip-flopping. Or while the killers of sweet little girls and boys are still walking free. Or while nimrod politicians still tussle for power and prominence.

Maybe it's a good idea to hold back on trying to reclaim our pride until we get these things sorted out first. After all, we still have Astro, sexy underwear, colourful condoms and illicit porn to keep us occupied in the meantime.

Sacriliege. Desecration. Just another day in the life of Malaysia.

2009-07-30T04:23:00.006+08:00

A lot of what's going on in Malaysia slips by me these days. It's hard to keep tabs on the country when you don't live in it. One that I would have completely missed, if not for a chance email I got from a friend, was the 'investigative' piece written by Al-Islam magazine.

Two 'intrepid' reporters from the magazine were tipped off that Muslims were being surreptitiously converted into Catholicism by churches in the country and saw it as their duty to go undercover to find out if it was true.

As a journalist with pretensions to being an investigator myself, I can understand their excitement in getting the tip-off. After all, I too would be similarly excited if I were to get onto a story that was so obviously sensational and so obviously up my alley.

So, these two men went to a church one fine Sunday and decided to find out if the allegations were true. They discovered it wasn't. Their curiousity satisfied, they should have done the right thing and left.

They didn't. Instead, they stayed on and during the Mass, joined the Catholic congregation in accepting the Holy Eucharist.

After that, they left, spat out the sacred wafer and took pictures of it, probably not even realising the gravity of the sacriliege they had committed.

What they did insulted, infuriated and hurt Catholics around the country. The government's predictable lack of a response only made matters worse.

Emails began flying around (I got one of them). Police reports were lodged. Angry missives were sent to the magazine (once again, I was one of the writers). Blogs and letters, including input from people like Martin Jalleh (who wrote a fantastic open letter which was picked up by many outlets), Khairy Jamaluddin (the cockroach probably wanted to score points), and Lim Kit Siang (also never one to pass up the opportunity to score brownie points), were plastered all over the web.

And ultimately, nothing has happened.

Some time back, Herald - the Catholic weekly got into a court battle with the government over the use of the word Allah. They were threatened with closure if they didn't rescind the usage of the word.

Cast your minds back to an incident that took place sometime before that, when the Danish publication drew a caricature of Prophet Muhammad. The furore that greeted that piece was awesome. Even in Malaysia, there were calls for public apologies, threats to boycott Danish products, etc.

Yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, these same people, these defenders of the faith, are nowhere to be seen or heard.

The lack of respect, the lack of grace and the lack of understanding shown to other races and religions in Malaysia is becoming worse by the day. From having to deal with catcalls of 'immigrant' and 'squatter' to playing on uneven fields during court cases to now having our most sacred religious rites - Catholics believe that that little wafer is literally the transfigured Body of Christ - desecrated and defiled.

Our Muslim brothers in Malaysia are in an enviable position. They have the full machinery of the government, an Islamist opposition party and the institution of the Sultanate to protect and speak out for them.

What do we non-Muslims have? Only the leaders of our churches, temples and tokongs. That's it. I suppose that makes us easy meat - sitting ducks for all would be crusaders to target.

It's precisely these kinds of things that make Najib's high-falutin' 1Malaysia campaign come across as just a lot of wind being released from the rectum of another political gasbag. All this talk of unity and togetherness, my dear P.M., rings shallow when you don't walk the talk.

I can bet that if the situation were reversed, that if, say, a journalist for the Herald were to go undercover into a mosque, he would be locked up under the ISA faster than you can say Al-Islam. I bet that the paper would have been shut down unceremoniously in the blink of an eye. I bet politicians would have jumped up and down spewing all the rhetoric that they could come up with. I bet that the more fanatical of our Muslim friends and politicians would have taken to the streets, swearing the bathe the keris in blood. After all, they've threatened to do so for far less before.

And what do we do? We gather in our churches and pray for things to become better. We write our letters and wait, mouths open, for responses that never come. We lodge our police reports and get fobbed off with fine words and empty promises. We turn the other cheek, while at the same time, keep getting slapped over and over and over again.

~ I'm not concerned with you liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being ~ Jackie Robinson.

Flouncing about in Florida.

2009-07-27T22:45:00.005+08:00

Going to Florida was always going to be the highlight of my July. Meeting my fellow Fellows, seeing Katie again, checking out sunny Florida - all these prospects had me in a state of high excitement.

I was also actually looking forward to Poynter itself. All my colleagues at the Post-Dispatch had told me what a cool place it was. Former Friendly Fellow Audrey Edwards also said that the mid-term seminar would actually be the point where I would start to see things differently and begin to settle down.

So, it was no great surprise to find out that they were all right. On all counts. Poynter was a really cool place and it was the point where I began to see things in a different light and feel more settled. Which, if you think about it, ain't that great a thing, considering that I'm settling just as I'm beginning to get ready to return. - _ -

The weeks preceeding Poynter were relatively quiet for me. I did a couple of interviews - one a follow up on an earlier story, the other a Q&A with a college student who gave up his studies to volunteer with the American Red Cross in Baghdad.

Going to Poynter, I had a pretty set idea on what I wanted to learn. And multimedia wasn't really high on my list of priorities because my paper back home seemed hell bent on having the world's worst (and ugliest) newspaper website.

In a happy coincidence however, they revamped the site to give it a more streamlined and multimedia intensive look, giving me the impetus to actually learn more about multimedia myself.

And we certainly did learn about multimedia. There was so much information given to us that at times I felt my brain would just go kaboom! Soundslides, Audacity, Audioboo (for my Iphone), Bubbleply and the entire battery of online tools we got from Ellyn Angelotti (though most of them aren't available outside the U.S.) all open up such an array of storytelling possibilities for reporters. I'm still so excited about them!!!

And it wasn't only multimedia. Roy Peter Clark focussed on plain, old-fashioned writing skills and that was just as interesting, challenging and exciting as all the multimedia sessions. After all, no matter what happens, I'll always consider myself a writer first and foremost.

One of the most unexpected things was the heavy focus on training our fellow reporters when we go home. I really enjoyed this part, especially since I do enjoy guiding and mentoring my younger colleagues anyway. To be actually given tools and knowledge to do this better was an enriching experience. To be given these tools by folk as seasoned as Bill Mitchell and Paul Pohler was both humbling and uplifting. Humbling because seeing them in action made me realise how far I had to go if I really want to be a good teacher and mentor. Uplifting because it showed me that these gentlemen, men who'd been there and done that, were still humble, approachable and down-to-earth despite their experience and their achievements.

I took what I thought was a vacation to Disneyworld with Hoon after our Poynter session. However, I - quite cleverly if I do say so myself - managed to sell the idea to my editor. On top of that, I also managed to work in a multimedia slideshow to go with it. Not bad, huh?

I've managed to also get quite a nice gig at work now - doing club reviews. So, essentially, I'm going to be paid to eat, drink and be merry. Not the worst job in the world.

Life's looking good.

Bullshit, bullshit and yet more bullshit.

2009-07-23T05:20:00.009+08:00

Is it just me or has my newspaper's claim to being the most literate (a position not too difficult to achieve in Malaysia) paper in the country gone to the dogs lately?

Yes, we are BN flunkies. But at least we've (almost) always been BN flunkies who wrote in polished, grammatically accurate and intelligent-sounding English.

The quality of the writing these days however - and this is down mainly to one culprit - has made us the laughing stock of many a reader, blogger and reporter out there.

Using multi-syllabic words and lengthy sentences is a tricky enough proposition when the writer knows what he's writing about and has a good command of the language.

When the writer doesn't and has, at best, a tenuous grip of English (and reality, judging by the content of his comments), the results are farcical articles couched in absurd turns of phrase (like 'Anwar Ibrahim moshes his way surrealistically to the House') and totally inappropriate usage of words (like 'cadre' to describe an individual).

Here's my particular favourite - 'If you are to base last week’s rampage of putting the blame solely on the MACC and implicating senior Government leaders, Pakatan Rakyat minions will insist no less than a guilty verdict, that some MACC perp pushed Teoh Beng Hock out of the 14th floor to his death for no reason other than wanting to torture the young man.'

Forget about the incredibly unwieldy length of the sentence. Forget about the weird choice of words and the inappropriate use of the second comma.

Just think about the last part of that sentence - 'some MACC perp pushed Teoh Beng Hock out of the 14th floor to his death for no reason other than wanting to torture the young man.' Is it just me or is pushing somebody to his death a little counterproductive to torture? I mean, you ain't gonna get no joy out of torturing a dead man, are you?

I can understand grammatical slips. I'm as guilty of bad grammar as the next person. Not all of us know when to use the semicolon instead of the comma, whether to hyphenate the words or not and when to use '...' instead of "...".

But what I don't get is why use so many big words when you can say the same thing more succintly and clearly with small words. What are people like this trying to prove? That they're clever? Even Hemmingway and Orwell were able to get by without the 'benefit' of such idiotic bells and whistles, for crying out loud!

If they would just google their name, they'd find out what people actually think about their 'command' of the language. I'd prefer to be repeatedly kicked in the balls while at the same time have root canal work done without anaesthesia rather than be subjected to an article like that. Seriously.

Even more baffling is how such shameful goings-on can...well...go on, with absolutely no intervention by the editors and the powers that be. Toeing the party line is one thing. Doing it in such a shambolic manner is another entirely. When us 'normal' reporters fuck up our articles, they usually end up on the wall of shame at the office. But when some people routinely inflict grevious bodily harm on the English language, the result is an online posting trumpted on the home page of the newspaper with the grand tag of 'Online Exclusive' attached. It would be funny if it weren't so damn embarrassing.

There are so many good and potentially good writers in the company. Writers with wit, grace, insight and charm. Many of our sub-editors are handy with a pen too. Yet, it is the grotesque work of certain twerps that we are promoting. Why? Why? Wwwwhhhhhyyyyyyyyyy????????

The paper is moshing its way surrealistically to the bottom of the junk heap.

My week as a shutterbug.

2009-07-02T02:54:00.007+08:00

<---- This is probably my favourite picture ever taken. I love the emotion.

It's been a good couple of weeks at work. The training plan that I worked out with Elisa and Christopher saw me spending a week in the photo desk right after my stint at the editorial desk was over.

I had really been looking forward to this because the new camera had given me photography fever. In a big way. I've been so taken up with it that I spend hours online looking up Steve McCurry pictures (Thanks for pointing out to his website to me Kamsie!), and visit websites that give photography tips.

The craze has gotten so bad that I'm beginning to see the world in terms of pictures! I'd be minding my own business, walking down the street and then I'd see a person, a tree, an animal or even something like a doorway or a window and I'd get immediately excited about how it would look in a picture. Then I'd cuss myself out for not having my camera with me at the time.

<---- This father-son moment at the Central West End Art and Taste Fair brought back memories of my own childhood.

But anyway, back to work. The week spent in photo desk was fascinating, probably the most educational time I've had since coming to the Post-Dispatch.

I covered the Central West End Art and Taste Fair, the Missouri Botanical Gardens' 150th anniversary and adventurer Dan Cook's visit to St. Louis, among others.

<--- I experimented with being arty-farty. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. :)

Some of the pictures were used as slide shows online while others were published in the paper. The week culminated with me being sent for an assignment on my own (the previous ones had me shadowing Elie Gardner). I was assigned to do a portrait of a lady who collects and makes blankets for sick kids in hospitals. The assignment went well and the picture got published a week later.

All in all, I emerged from my week as a photographer with a greater understanding of the technical aspects of photography, such as how aperture, shutter speed, lighting, etc affect the quality of a picture. At the same time, I also managed to develop my 'eye' for a picture better, improving my composition and framing skills.

<---- What's Oscar de la Renta or Versace compared to the beautiful gowns mother nature dresses her children in?

To me, these skills are very important because I want to ultimately become a self-contained journalist who's output will include articles, pictures and multimedia and will need minimal, if any, editing before being ready for the paper or website.

With the added knowledge and increased confidence in my photography skills, I'm just that little bit closer to getting to where I want to be.

Once the photography week was finished, I went back to the newsdesk only to find that Iran was in the throes of its post-election unrest. Christopher suggested I do a story on local Iranians and how they felt about what was going on in their homeland.

Getting the story done was a little tricky, because I didn't have any connections here. I got one contact from fellow reporter Doug Moore, but the guy didn't want to be interviewed. I also tried going to a mosque to see if I could find anybody. The first time, nobody was there. The second time, the only one there was the imam, who said the last time he had been interviewed, the report got skewed, resulting in him losing his job and being interrogated by the CIA. Needless to say, he didn't want to talk.

So, I googled up Iranian restaurants in St. Louis and started from there. I spoke to the owner of the restaurant and once I had interviewed her, asked her for other contacts in the area. From then onwards, it got progressively easier.

Their stories were compelling and I think the editors agreed with me because they decided to out it on the front page. :) One of my stated goals in my fellowship application was that I wanted to get a front page story for the paper I would be working at. Looks like that goal has been achieved a little ahead of time.

And so, as July beckons, I'm working on what has become something of a pet project for me. As always, I'm a little paranoid about giving out details of a story before it's published. But let me say this - the angle is interesting and if the pieces fall into place, it'll be an interesting story and hopefully my second page one. :)

Missouri meets nasi lemak.

2009-06-18T13:05:00.007+08:00

I'd promised Elisa and Elie nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis. No, wait. Let me correct that. I'd tantalised Elie and Elisa with descriptions and pictures of nasi lemak even before I came to St. Louis.

Upon hindsight, it wasn't the smartest thing I've done. Setting the expectations so high was asking for trouble. The pressure that came with cooking the best possible nasi lemak (well, the best nasi lemak a bachelor living in a foreign country can cook anyway!!) had me in a dither for more than a week.

Even organising the dinner wasn't easy! Everybody's schedule seemed to clash and we couldn't seem to find a single night when everybody was free. Somehow, we finally decided on last night and the only casualty was Jeff, Elisa's husband. Those who could make it were Elie, Repps, his wife Stacey and Elisa. Also present was Derrick, the guy who was repairing my computer. But since he was allergic to shrimp and couldn't eat, let's not count him.

So, anyway, I got lucky on Monday, when I found pandan leaves, some decent looking coconut milk, lemongrass and even banana leafs (to line the plates with) for my Malaysian meal. It seemed that I had every single thing I needed to make the dinner a success and I decided on shrimp sambal.

But, the omens didn't look good from the moment I woke up today. I went online early in the morning to read up on background for my assignment today. Then some stupid software update came from my Internet service provider and the bloody thing just lobotomised my entire operating system! Kaput! My whole computer died! Finito! Adios amigo!

I freaked out! My songs (there are 19,000 of them now!), my pictures (God knows how many thousand of them I have!), my videos, my documents, my files....I could see them all disappearing in a puff of smoke in the shape of the Internet explorer logo.

And that was just the beginning. It just went downhill from there. I got lost three or four times on the way to Ballwin (a nearby city) due to highway closures. I reached there only to find that the place I was aiming for was closed. Then I got lost three or four times on the way back. Embarassingly, I ended up in the same place I got lost on Monday when I was shopping for food. So much for the convenience of GPS...

There were other speed bumps during my day as well, and all these led my superstitious heart to believe the nasi lemak dinner was doomed.

In the beginning it seemed like everything was going to be alright. The nuts and anchovies turned out fine (but then again, if I can't even fry the bloody things right, I've got no business attempting nasi lemak!), the eggs were boiled perfectly and the cucumbers were just on the right side of crisp.

<--- (The rice looked absolutely fine BEFORE it was cooked!)

And then came the rice. I had bought the best possible quality of rice and the best possible coconut milk i good find. I estimated how many people would be there and decided that 4 cups of rice would be enough. Which meant 8 cups of milk. Only prob was, that would take everything right up to the brim of the rice cooker.

Against all the alarm bells jangling in my head, I put it to cook, the edges of the milk coming crazily close to overflowing from the cooker. I said a little prayer and left the rice to its own devices while turning and addressing the shrimp.

The shrimp sambal was a little tricky, coz the lime that i used as a tamarind substitute turned out to be too sour. But, nothing I couldn't balance out with a dash of sugar.

I hadn't even finished with the sambal when I heard the pop of the rice cooker button and knew my coconut rice had been shot to shit. One look confirmed it. Instead of a beatiful, moist and rich bed of pearly white grains, I saw glob of crummy-looking, 1/4 cooked crap which was basically inedible.

Btw, Derrick the computer guy was on hand to watch me freaking out.

So, a little McGyver action was called for. I chucked out half the rice (oh how it hurt me to waste the Thai jasmine rice like that!) and put the rest back on to boil and quickly decided that if it got screwed up again I'd just make normal rice.

Thank God, it was okay the second time around. I decided that if that wasn't enough for the gang, I'd just make another batch later.

The next problem was the flies and the smell. The shrimp paste (belacan) I used stank up not only the whole house, but also the whole corridor of the 5th floor and the whole elevator for good measure. The stench attracted a swarm of flies (the first flies I've seen in St. Louis!). Arrghhhh!

Stashing all the food where the smell wouldn't escape, I went on a merry run around the house trying to chase the flies out. Have you ever tried herding flies? Not the easiest exercise around, let me assure you. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to find that I have one hardy soul still clinging on to the edge of my couch or something.

Even more embarassing was that when I was going down to pick up Elisa later, I bumped into one of my neighbours who was bitching about the smell in the place. She said it smelled like "week-old Doritos" or something.

I nodded sympathetically and said, "Thank God my apartment is okay. All I get is the smell of the food I'm cooking." (!!)

Ultimately though, everything turned out fine. The guests at my fancy dinner party (did I mention that everybody had to bring their own chairs coz I didn't have enough?) enjoyed the food, even though Elisa was worried at first about the smell (her exact words were that "it smelled like feet.") In the end, she even packed some home for Jeff, who's a big fan of spicy food (and whose Mexican chilli, which I ate a few weeks ago, actually made me sweat!)

<--- (The final result sure looks good though!!)

And so, I now am looking forward to cooking more for my friends without so much fear of messing up or not doing justice to Malaysia's awesome cuisine.

Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da...life goes on....

The Beast that is Blogging

2009-06-13T21:55:00.004+08:00

I've always viewed blogging with equal amounts of trepidation and contempt. Trepidation because it mainly seemed to be a hotbed of malice, spite, bitching and backbiting. Contempt because most of what passes as "news" on blogs is a combination of hearsay, rumours and fairytales.

Yet, it's undeniable that blogging has caught on and irreversibly changed the Internet and the newspaper industry. Publications that at one point turned their noses up at blogging are now desperately trying to get onto the bandwagon, while papers that embraced it are now looking for the next best thing. Most have realised that blogging, coupled with proper journalistic ethics and principles, can be a powerful tool in reaching out to your audience.

One of my main aims when I came to the Post-Dispatch was to explore blogging and online journalism. While it's embarrassing to admit that the New Straits Times is still in the stone age when it comes to our online presence, it does mean that there are a lot of innovations which other papers have successfully implemented which we can cherry-pick from.

And so, these last couple of weeks were notable for the fact that I was stationed at the editorial page desk and churning out at least one editorial blog a day.

The experience has been fun and illuminating, and has raised just as many questions as it has answered.

What have I learnt? Well, mainly, and most importantly perhaps, I've learned to develop a thicker skin. Almost every blog written by the editorial writers, including myself, has been subjected to a barrage of criticism and complaints. This is even in cases where the blog entry is one which is, say, about the necessity of having a helmet law, or the need for stricter control regarding texting in vehicles. What appears to be a matter of safety and common sense for the writer can be a totally different issue for some people and they will vehemently, passionately defend their rights not to wear helmets or to text while driving.

This raises a very interesting question. If much of the blogging receives such a negative response, does that mean the writer is out of touch with the common man? Has he become too highfalutin for his own good? Or does it mean that it's only the crazies and the ones who have something bad to say that respond? Do the ones who agree with the ideas just read the post, nod and move on? For my own sake, I hope it's the latter and not the former. To be out of touch with your audience is to hasten the demise of your career as a journalist, methinks.

However, the blogsphere is amazing because it gives you an interactivity that you've never had before with your audience. Done properly, it can engender great discourse with a great flow of ideas from all sides.

I've experimented with this notion, both in the tone and in the content of my blogs. Unlike the other editorial writers, I am not an expert on any of the subjects debated on in America. As such, the tone of my blogs is that of a person who is seeking answers and asking questions of the audience instead of telling them how a thing is or trying to "educate" them on a certain issue. I've noticed that people seem to respond well to this. Maybe they feel good that their opinions are being sought or that their ideas seem to count to the writer. I don't know. But it is something which I'll seek to delve into more fully when I get back to Malaysia.

Blogs are also useful when you want to gauge what people's sentiments are on a certain matter. For example, I've been curious about the ethical debate surrounding undercover reporting in the US ever since I came here. But, most of the opinions I got were from journalists and pseudo-intellectuals who were dissecting the issue and I wasn't sure how attuned they were to the sentiments of the reading public.

So, I just put the question to the readers and got some pretty candid and revealing answers - which were quite often, totally different from the views of the people who dreamed up this notion of ethics.

Blogging is also as much about new techniques in presentation as it is about new techniques of communication. With blogs, you can include pictures, sounds, links, animations, videos and all manner of multimedia. It's an amazing playground for a journalist as it enables him to exercise his creativity to the fullest. While I haven't had much time to explore a lot about this element of blogging, I have a rudimentary grasp of the basic ideas and fleshing out this skill is on my wish list of things to pick up before I go home.

Tempus Fugit.

2009-06-02T04:54:00.005+08:00

My oh my, how time does fly. Caught between settling down in St. Louis and my orgasmic throes of self-pity at being given the chance to experience what most people can only fantasize about, I almost missed the fact that it's been close to 2 months since I came to the United States and a month since I landed in St. Louis.
A lot has happened since then, some good, some bad and some pretty ugly.
Most of what happened in the first two weeks of May have already been addressed in my entry of two weeks ago. Here's what's happened since then.
Most importantly, I got my first few stories and bylines out in the paper. The first was about the Annie Malone parade - the second largest African-American parade in the country. I covered the parade as well as some violent clashes which occurred shortly after it, and which seemed to be a yearly ritual, as one look at the paper's archives showed me. (And by violence, I mean the bust-a-cap-in-yo-ass kind of violence!)
The next day, I assisted reporter Doug Moore to find out why this parade is plague by this kind of unseemly behaviour. My task was to call the CEO of the Annie Malone Center and do a quick phone interview, which I did. The guy was quite defensive, despite me trying to point out to him that the intention of the story wasn't to put any blame on the foundation. But, he wasn't really keen on listening. The good thing though, was that the story generated a huge amount of buzz online! Talk about making a quick impact!
What really took my by surprise though, was that the next day the bugger actually held a press conference to denounce the paper and me specifically for being racist!! He said the only reason we covered the story was coz it was a black parade! Crazy! It amused me and pissed me off in equal measure. Amused me coz I think he thought I was a white boy (another reason to hate my name!!). Pissed me off coz I'm not racist! A line-up of my ex-girlfriends would resemble the bloody United Nations for crying out loud!
So, now I have one angry brother to join the legion of anti-Marc Indians from Malaysia. Great!
My story on an Indian temple project which never took off was also published, and it made the front page of the community section, I'm happy to say. :) That piece too generated quite a bit of buzz.
Unfortunately, things just kinda died off after that. I was asked to do a piece on Sri Lankans in the US after the fall of the Tamil Tigers, but i couldn't manage to find any Sri Lankans in St. Louis.
After that, I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend in Atlanta with my uncle's family and felt even more depressed to come back to an office where everybody seemed to be working except me.
I began to get pretty depressed and agitated, not having anything to do. You know...idle minds being the devil's playground and all that jazz.
Happily, the week ended on a better note than it began. I had a meeting on Thursday with Elisa and my editor, Christopher Ave. There we thrashed out what my goals for the training would be. They included:
1) Improving my skills in writing columns and editorials
2) Working on investigative journalism
3) Working on photography and video skills
4) Improving my interviewing techniques

Ave and I both immediately got to work. I linked up with investigative reporter Joe Mahr, helping him out on the groundwork of a story he's doing. It gave me a chance to see how useful database management software can be for a data intensive story.
Ave hooked my up with Adam Jadhav, who'll train me on video later this week. He also set me up with the Editorial Desk, where I reported for work today. I'll be here on and off this week, and all of next week. And already I'm having fun. I did a piece today on abortion, which is sure to generate me oodles of hate mail. I doubt they can be any worse than what I received at the height of my infamy, but we'll see...
So, all in all, it's been a topsy-turvy two weeks. And something tells me the rollercoaster ride ain't over yet.

The Atlanta trip.

2009-05-27T11:51:00.005+08:00

I went to Atlanta last weekend to visit my uncle. A friend from Malaysia was coincidentally also there to attend a biotech conference. Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, I brought them together. It was a great success as they hit it off immediately. We had a lovely time, visiting many places, eating some great home-cooked food, drinking some fine single-malt whiskey and staying up late at night every day to chit-chat. We visited Tallulah Gorge State Park, Lake Acworth, Coca-Cola Museum and Georgia Aquarium, among others. I stupidly forgot to charge my camera for the Coke and Aquarium trips, but here are some of the pictures from the lake and the park. Enjoy!

The photographer, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and eager to get on with the job.

One of the many stunning views of Tallulah Gorge State Park.

The leaves on the forest floor make such a lovely pattern.

They were soon running for cover. It started raining cats, dogs and horses.

Presenting Tallulah Gorge State Park..

And to think we Malaysians actually pay money for pine cones during Christmas.

Wildflowers are planted all along the highway. Too bad I couldn't stop for a proper picture. :(

I just had to take a pic of this fence! Okay, I'll admit it. I had to take MANY pics of this fence!

Lake Acworth was stunning, to put it mildly.

My new toy.

2009-05-22T00:06:00.006+08:00

Well...I finally did it. I went out and blew a shitload of cash on something which I've always wanted for a long time. A really nice camera. To be more exact, a really nice Nikon D60, 10 megapixel machine, with two lenses - a 18-55mm lens and a 55-200mm lens.
Elie, who took me to buy it and acted as my consultant, said that with this purchase, I will not need to buy another camera for years.
Funnily, actually just holding it in my hands gives me greater ideas about taking pictures, including composition, lighting and so many other things which I never even thought about with my old point and click Olympus.
I went on a walkabout at my neighbourhood yesterday and here are the results, along with the mighty machine that made it possible.

The table and bench look so dark and lonely compared to the greenery and brightness outside.

A fountain in front of a Jesuit Church.
The flower though pale and colourless is nevertheless still beautiful.
I was told that this part of town is colourful, flamboyant and full of murals like this one because it's a gay district. If that's the case, I think we need more gay districts around!

I love how the bicycle melds into the scene so beautifully.

The Angel of Harmony sculpture at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. It's a beautiful piece, and the stuff that makes up its wings are actually chimes.

Another beautiful sculpture/fountain at the cathedral. Elie said the pic would have been better if there was somebody sitting on the bench on the right.

Straub's is the place you'd run to if you're living in the West End and need to urgently buy something for the kitchen. Shop there often though, and you'll find a pretty sizable hole burnt in your pocket.

Purty, purty fountain.

This is the most happening part of the Central West End, where I live. It's the intersection of Euclid and Maryland and this is where all the bars, restaurants and cafes are. A really cool place. Elie and I went for an afternoon mojito at one of the bars here last Saturday! :)

And of course, the thing that's made it all possible...

Bedding in at St Louis.

2009-05-17T03:54:00.004+08:00

Well, it's my second weekend in St Louis and I'm beginning to settle down quite well. The going was tough at first, what with having to deal not only with a new job in a new company but also a new town, a new country and new friends. But, as time has gone by, I've begun to get more comfortable in my surroundings. The turning point, I think, was a potluck party (pic below) we had in the office to welcome me to the Post-Dispatch (It also turned out to be a surprise birthday lunch!). The party let me sit down with some of the people I had been introduced to previously and have get to know them better.

The next day, I went to a barbecue at one of our photojournalist's homes. That too was a good icebreaker, especially with the younger batch of reporters whom I'm expecting to meet more on a social level than I will many of the older staff.

And of course, there was a lovely dinner at the home of my mentor, Elisa Crouch last night. I'm not sure what I enjoyed the most - the food (spicy Mexican chilli!), the beautiful home or the enjoyable company.

But, this blog isn't about my skills as a social butterfly. It has to, as Katie said, answer three questions. These are:

1) What I did during those two weeks.

2) What I learned—any difficulties or triumphs I had.

3) How what I did and learned relates to my training plan and goals for the fellowship (or how it taught me something not in my training plan.)

Well, I shall proceed to try to answer these questions now.

Well, the first week was extremely slow. Most of the time, what I did was go out for lunches with various different editors. Though it was interesting (and flattering!) to have such attention lavished on me, it didn't translate to me actually getting to do any work at all for the first few days. I was basically just loitering around in cyberspace, checking emails, chatting, and playing silly games on Facebook.

At one point, it seemed like I had finally found an opening. This was when one of the editors, Kurt Greenbaum, took me out to lunch. The discussion we had led to me writing a blog for the paper which was generally well-received. Doing the blog was also an educational experience as I could see what editing tools they used and how much more control it gave you over the blog than just a normal posting software like the one you'd find on blogspot.com.

So, I thought that things would start flooding in after that and I'd be able to start rolling.

They didn't.

This got me even more frustrated and by the end of the week, I had begun to start feeling useless and depressed. Part of me understood that the editors would naturally be a little wary of giving me stuff, considering how I'm a strange dude from a strange land. Yet, the other part felt like screaming that I was just as capable as any of the people on their payroll and I would prove it if they just gave me a chance!

I wasn't being a complete vegetable though. I had a working lunch with the investigative reporter here, Joe Mahr. I threw some ideas at him and he seemed to think some of them had merit. He also took me to the county courthouse at one point to show me how he digs up court records to help him with his stories. This, I would say, was the single most useful thing I've learned since coming to the Post-Dispatch. It's something that just isn't done in my country and I'd like to go back and find out if it can be used as a journalistic tool. It also dovetails with my hopes of learning more about investigative journalism here.

Yet, it didn't detract from the fact that I still wasn't doing what I'd come here to do - which is to write.

However, my mentor/guardian angel was working feverishly behind the scenes to try to get me something to do. She buzzed about and put the word out to her fellow reporters that I would be glad to do any stories which they wouldn't have time to follow up. This paid off as one of the Jefferson County based reporters, Christine Byers, then tipped me off to a controversy regarding a Hindu temple development in that area.

Glad to finally start doing something, I pounced on it. I worked on it for a couple of days and sent it off to the editor overseeing me, Christopher Ave. I was feeling quite a bit of trepidation at this point, wondering if he would find it acceptable or below-par. Thank God, he didn't. He told me that except for a few minor things, it was pretty okay. It comes out on Wednesday and I'm totally excited to see it in print.

I think he might have also been glad to see that I wasn't totally hopeless and designed to merely be a passenger in the newsroom for the next five months, because he immediately assigned me to cover a massive parade on Sunday. It's called the Annie Malone parade and it's the second largest African-American parade in the country. There're also scenes of violence and murder there every now and then and it looks like it's going to be anything but boring. I'm really looking forward to attending it tomorrow.

Just me.

2009-05-12T10:22:00.002+08:00

Sometimes a cliche says it best. In this case, the cliche that would best describe my situation would be time flies.
It seems like only yesterday that I was boarding the aeroplane to America with such trepidation in my heart. In reality, more than a month has passed.
In the past month, I've learnt many new things, made some friendships which I think will be lifelong ones, and had quite a few experiences.
Yet, looking at the big picture, I guess you could say that I've barely begun. One month has passed, and five still remain ahead of me before I return to home and hearth.
I've come to the business end (my how easily the cliches flow) of the fellowship, where I actually knuckle down to work.
Things are slow right now, with the editors at my new paper trying to feel me out and get a rough idea of my skills, attitude and aptitude. Or at least, that's what I think. If not, it just means that they have no idea what to do with me!
It's a little frustrating because I'm feeling quite underworked and useless. And with every passing day that I don't do something productive, I feel the lethargy growing, like some odd species of vine that has clung to me and is now enveloping my body with its creepy tendrils.
There's also the lack of a social network and support system, something which I always thought I never needed - until I came here.
Back home, I always prided myself on being independent and not really needing anybody to really mollycoddle me. In my more fanciful moments, I imagined myself to be some heroic lone wolf character.
But, being displaced to a strange city in a strange country full of strange faces, I realise how important my social network is to me. I didn't feel it so much back at the university because I at that point had my comrades around me.
But now, as I come home to four grey walls and listening to the thundering silence of my mobile phone, I am beginning to understand loneliness.
Being so alone makes me realise how much the people I gather around me mean to me. Family...friends...without these people, it feels like I don't really have an identity. It's as if I cease to become myself when these people are no longer beside me.
Yet, it's also beautiful in a way. But it's a kind of terrible, consuming beauty. Why? Well, this solitude leaves you with nothing but your thoughts. And if a person can't live alone with his thoughts, then that person is damned. But if he can, then he is truly at peace.
Soon, I'll start knuckling down to work. Soon, I'll start making friends. But for now, I'm alone and it's an interesting experience.

My Year In Review

2009-01-03T16:24:00.003+08:00

2008 was more than just 365 days connected to each other by virtue of their places in the calendar. It was, as all other years before it were and as all other years after it will doubtlessly be, full of drama, full of joy, of sadness, of pathos, of tragedy, of excitement, of dullness. In short, it was life.
Many things happened, naturally. But the one defining moment that stands out above all the rest was the passing of Kuldeep. His untimely death brought into sharp focus how fragile and tenuous life actually can be. Now, months from the actual incident, not a day goes by when I don't think of him, or miss him or wonder if he's really gone.
His death, and the subsequent devastation in wrought on his widow, Manjit, made me think of what would happen to me, of how I would react, when the time came for my father to slip the mortal bonds of earth. He's the most important person in the world to me and if I could, I would want him with me forever. But, that is not the nature of things and he too eventually will go. But, the thought of being orphaned, of losing his wise words or ready smile terrifies me. It really does.
It was ironic that Kuldeep died exactly a day after I went bungee jumping. The moment I jumped from the platform and into space, trusting only the uncertain hold of a bungee cord, was one in which I felt utterly exhilarated and completely joyous. The uncertainty of it all - the possibility, however remote, of a messy end, was like an intoxicant, an aphrodisiac and it was a sublime experience and made me alive as I'd never felt before. And the next day, my friend died.
In terms of work, it was a year of new experiences, both good and awful. While not exactly covering myself in glory, I acquitted myself reasonably well and worked my pants off to try and bring in the best stories I could. Of course, everything good I did was marred by one moment of arrogant idiocy, marked by a published piece which was greeted by a righteous torrent of abuse from the not-so-adoring public.
After that, whatever I did seemed to be an effort to make up for that sin, to purge that stain on my record and on my soul. Yet, nothing ever seemed to do it and I'm slowly resigning myself to the fact that it was a very precious lesson learnt at very high a cost.
2008 was also a year of friends gained, friends lost and "friends" discarded. Besides Kuldeep, I lost two of my best friends to totally differing fates. Taran got engaged in mid-year and will be getting married later this month. We've grown from boyhood to manhood together, known each other for 15 years and have seen or spoken to each other almost every day of our lives. I'm happy for him - that he's found his soul mate, but am a little melancholic in the knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again.
Dominic, on the other hand, has become a sailor. This is the same guy who helped me through some of the toughest times in my life, and who's become my pillar of strength and my source of advice. Suddenly he's gone and it's as if I'm floundering without a rudder.
Yet, life is nothing if not balanced. While my two best friends slowly fade to black, others step up to take centrestage. Lovely people like Jacky and Melissa, like Audrey E, like Leslie, like Eve, like Darshini, like Ranjeetha - these people have become more important to my well-being and my sanity. A lot of people flit in and out of our lives, seasonal friends who are good for that period of time. I don't know and wouldn't presume to say that these people are above being just seasonal buddies, but I have a good feeling about them.
As for friends discarded, what need I say? Life's too short to waste on people who have no respect for you, only come to you when they need something or only use and abuse you to feel better about themselves. Naturally, this category would include people I wouldn't care to name. It's easy to feel pissed off about it, but I'm trying to take the high ground and just think that it was good while it lasted.
Finally, we come to the issue of l'amour. Always one to bedevil me, this year has seen it taken to new and more ridiculous heights.
From having a blazing row with my family (simply because of my own stubbornness) over somebody who was patently wrong for me and over a relationship I knew would not last, to going against my usual nature and falling deeply in lust with somebody and engaging on a torrid affair despite knowing the damage it could cause, to finally rounding up the year making an amazing connection with somebody and probably falling in love with her only to be buggered by the problem of "bad timing" - 2008 has thrown a lot of curve balls my way.
But, that was in the year past. It's 2009 now, and we're at the tail end of the first decade of the new millennium. And what have I decided to do?
I've decided to look internally, and to the higher power, for the answers and not just float along with the tide.
I've decided to be in more control of my emotions, to guard my heart with greater care.
I've decided to save my time, my energy and my love for those that deserve it and to be cleverer with how I handle the "hi-bye" friends.
I've decided to try to curb my negativity and self-destructive tendencies.
I've decided to use my 6 months in America to learn as much as I can, experience as much as I can and come back a better man.

New Year resolutions have a way of being routinely broken, which is why I hesitate to lump these decisions under that category. So, I'll just call them things I need to change about my life, for my own sake.

~ Live well, laugh often, love much ~ Italian proverb.

Christmas and other ghosts

2008-12-24T12:09:00.004+08:00

It's the same story every year. As Christmas swings slowly by, I begin to get into the mood by blaring out carols on every available music player. Throughout Advent, the excitement and anticipation builds up, thanks in no small part to the frenzy of shopping, music and parties.

But then, as the day itself dawns ever nearer, the delightful mania loosens its grip and is replaced by what can best be described as a hazy sense of melancholy.

Christmas can be the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because that is often when all that's good about a person's character comes to the fore. When peace and goodwill become more than mere words. When giving is indeed better than getting. When we truly take pleasure in other people's joy.

Come Yuletide, my mind always trudges back to the Christmases of my childhood and my early youth. Half remembered images from when I was a toddler - like the trip to Sungai Wang in 1985, where i took a polaroid with Santa on his sleigh.

Crystal clear memories of the preparations we would undergo when grandpa was still alive. The records that would be playing. Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Ray Conniff, and always on the night of the eve, - Christmas Bells.

The fun we kids would have when opening up our presents on the day. The bread pudding Aunty Nicole would make, rich and dripping with brandy and with creamy caramel coating the sides and bottom of the pudding.

In my teens, it would be the excitement of midnight mass, when all the plain Janes from Sunday school would magically transform into lovely swans and how we boys would go around, huge foolish grins on our faces, wishing all and sundry a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I still wonder when exactly everything changed. When that sense of innocence was lost. When the real world started intruding on Christmas. And with the whens come the whys, the hows and the whats. Each question breaking the heart a little more that the one before.

The tragedy of every passing Christmas for me is the knowledge that as I grow up, grow older and grow wearier, the magic of Christmas dies a little bit more. As I see how everything around me - from the people, to the memories, to the world itself - changes and becomes a little more cynical and a little more bitter, I long for the past and wonder if the future will bode better or worse for me, for my loved ones and the world.

A Moment to Cherish

2008-11-21T00:54:00.007+08:00

Somebody once said that life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
As I was driving to work today, I experienced one such moment. A moment of simple, yet breathtaking beauty that made me just glad to be alive.
I was in my car, making my way along the inner roads of Bangsar to the NST office. It was simply pouring down and visibility was simply terrible.
And then, as I rumbled up a little hillock, the rains began to abate and the skies started to clear. What happened next was surreal, beautiful and strangely hypnotic, all at once. The skies around me were all still a dull grey, but up ahead the evening sun was poking out through the angry clouds.
Shafts of radiant light began pouring out, each one clearly defined and illuminating the city below it an a soft, heavenly glow.
All around me, drops of rain were still pattering down. But, what was just moments ago furious drops of stinging water had wound down to steady drizzle. Water splashed off my windscreen, every drop splattering into smaller and smaller droplets.
It throbbed on my roof, a calming, hypnotic drumbeat, the rhythm much like that of a heart. All around me, the world seemed clean and fresh and magical. The rainwater seemed to have had an almost divine cleansing effect on creation.
The world too seemed to be in a slumber, the roads mostly empty, what cars there were crawling by at half pace and hardly a person to be seen anywhere.
It was in a word, beautiful. And coming as it did on the back of a pretty lousy week, where the ugliness of humanity once more made itself painfully apparent, it was a welcome and appreciated reminder that things are more than just about humans and human relationships.
Sometimes, man can be an isle. Sometimes, it is better to seek solace in the inanimate, or in nature, than it is in your fellow man.
Sometimes, it is better to be alone and cherish the solitude.

Welcome to the Jungle

2008-11-18T21:25:00.003+08:00

When I joined the NST, a friend warned me that the politics here is akin to nothing I've ever seen before. Whatever I've experienced in the past, she said, would pale in comparison to the sheer nastiness of the bitching which goes on here.
It's a been a year and some since I stepped through these doors and to be frank, it's been the most fulfilling year of my life, career wise. I've improved myself, proved my worth to the team, made some great friends and generally learnt a good deal since I joined.
And yet, recently those words of my friend are starting to prove ominously prescient. And all because of damn promotions.
Always a bone of contention, promotions are bound to please some and piss others off. But, that's the way the dice rolls, isn't it? Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what you deserve, sometimes you get shafted.
But, here it seems that the frustrations felt by some at being passed over are translated into bile-filled online blog entries bemoaning the fact that some people are being promoted because they're the bosses' "machais" and favoured ones.
They don't seem to realise or take into account the fact that these people who are promoted come in to the office earlier, stay later and come in on their off days in order to do their stories. They don't take into account the fact that these people work their ass off to bring in their own stories. They see only what they want to see. They see these people's ability to get along with their bosses as ass licking. They see these people's hard work as currying favour.
What they seem to want is for everybody to drop to their level, to be as sad, as dead and as demotivated as they are.
Instead of doing their own work and looking to be assessed on their own merits, they'd rather spend their time worrying, moaning and bitching about how others are being given a better deal than they are. They'd rather spend their time tearing others down instead of getting on with their lives. It's just sad. Sad, pathetic and funny in a perverse sort of way.
But, whatever la. If those of us who actually want to work and enjoy their work waste our time reflecting on the meaningless venom of these bitter people, we'll just end up like them.
I'd rather just go on doing what I do, chin up and heart light, secure in the knowledge that whatever I get, I get on my own merits and through my own hard work. And for those who think otherwise, God bless you anyway.

The Art of the Mixtape

2008-10-14T15:50:00.008+08:00

It ain't easy, let me tell you that.

It came upon a midnight clear, this wonderfully Christmassy idea. Or should I say, IDEA.

I was lounging in bed, once again unable to sleep, when it dawned on me - the perfect Christmas gift for my family and friends.

I thought that this Christmas, I'd (instead of leaving in their stockings presents, two front teeth or promises I don't intend to keep) make my near and dear ones a compilation of wonderfully unique, unusual and relatively unsung Christmas tunes - a merry mixtape, if you will.

So, as they say in the snooker parlour - set biji sepuluh! Game, set and match. After all, how hard can it be to burn an Xmas CD, right?

Pretty hard, as I'm finding out now.

You see, the art of the mixtape is all in the setting of the tempo. The tempo of the tape, or CD in this case, determines all. It determines how successful, or not, your offering is.

Do I start fast and gradually wind down? Or do I start slow and progress to a grand finale? Or, do I start slow, build up to a crescendo and then taper off towards the end?

If I start too fast, the risk is of an anti-climatic ending. If I go too slow, the danger is that they will lose interest too soon. Problems, problems! Everything has got to be just nice, the perfect blend of fast and slow, upbeat and mellow, religious and commercial, frivilous and profound. In a nutshell, it has to encapsulate Christmas and all the emotional, nostalgic bric-a-brac contained therein.

I've already cooked up in my head a list of songs I want to have. None of this stupid Jingle Bells or Silent Night shite for me (unless of course it's the Bing Crosby version of the former and The Temptations' take on the latter).

My mixtape is going to be full of unknown, but beautiful numbers.These are the contenders for the final list, in no particular order (since the order is my biggest problem!):

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams

Pretty Paper - Roy Orbison

Little Altar Boy - Glen Campbell

Senor Santa Claus - Jim Reeves

Sarajevo 12-24 - Trans Siberian Orchestra

Happy Christmas (War is Over) - John Lennon

O Holy Night - Tracy Chapman

Ave Maria - Connie Francis

Hallelujah It's Christmas - Roger Whittaker

Merry Christmas Baby - James Brown

Santa Baby - Madonna (or, preferrably, Eartha Kitt, if I can find her version)

Christmas Bride - The Ray Conniff Singers

White Christmas - The Drifters

Auld Land Syne - Kenny G (I'm still very iffy about this one. Not only does Kenny G just scream corny, but the interspersed dialogue is just to Americana-oriented for me)

Kids - Kenny Rogers

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Jackson 5 (I'm iffy about this one too, coz I always thought the kid must have been a mean trouble causer to want to tell on his mom. And not to mention dumb for not knowing Santa was his dad..)

The Fairytale of New York - Ronan Keating and Marie Brennan (I don't have the original and superior Pogues' rendition, sadly)

Christmas in New Orleans - Louis Armstrong

Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth - Bing Crosby and David Bowie

Silent Night - The Temptations

Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland

I'll Be Home For Christmas - haven't decided whose cover I'll get for this one

Yes, I know I said it's going to be full of unknown songs. Yes, I know that most of these songs are known songs. So, let me rephrase what I said earlier. I want it to be full of my favourite Christmas songs and everybody has no choice but to like them. So there!

After all, what is Christmas without Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or I'll Be Home For Christmas? And anybody who's listened to Chapman's soulful take on O Holy Night will definitely fall in love with it. Also, the songs by The Drifters and The Temptations both just beg inclusion, being such unique renditions of terribly overdone numbers.

And last but not least, how can we celebrate the arrival of the Kid without a song by the King?

Idle-fitri thoughts

2008-10-02T20:58:00.003+08:00

I always used to think that its only the incredible losers who stand in line for hours to shake hands with cabinet members and eat free food at open houses. Similarly, I used to think that politicians only did it to appear beaming and magnanimous.
This year, I've begun to look at it a little differently. Perhaps it's because of the bad news that's been floating around all year. Perhaps it's because of all the racial and religious strife we have been embroiled in. Perhaps it's because we have never seemed more divided than we are here and now.
But, as I watched the people milling around me at the PM's open house in PWTC, I suddenly found it immensely refreshing to see smiles, laughs, goodwill and togetherness in place of spite, mistrust, anger and loathing.
The rakyat seemed happier and the politicians too seem less cagey. Most people, with the exception of the protesting crowd who had an axe to grind, seemed to genuinely want to give out and absord positive vibes on the day, which was as mild and as pleasant as the mood it seemed to engender.
On the street and in cyberspace, Malaysia, for the most part, took a break from its problems for a day or two at least. It was refreshing and in fact, wonderful, to see wishes of peace, goodwill and forgiveness on Facebook status messages instead of the usual curses and rants posted everyday. It was lovely to see the toll booth attendants smile and respond to my Selamat Hari Raya wishes instead of just ignoring me. It was awesome to hear old friends replying my festive greetings, even though the promises and pledges to meet up and connect again rang hollow most of the time.
This is the Malaysia I know. This is the Malaysia I remember. This is the Malaysia I love. But why does it only come out on one, two or three days a year?
Because most of the time, we, led willingly by "leaders" who are only too willing to exploit us, prefer to look at what divides us and at what makes each one of us different from the other. Our days and our lives are poisoned by greed, envy, malice, inconsideration and hate.
I refuse to believe that's who we truly are. Call it naivete, but I sincerely believe that the average Malaysian, the Malaysian on the Len Seng omnibus if you will, is a decent and tolerant person, not a racist, supremacist or bigot.
My Hari Raya wish is for all of us to look for and find that Malaysian within us. Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maaf Zahir Batin.

Blogging

2008-09-19T19:59:00.003+08:00

There seems to be a problem here. I find myself unable to write about deep, intelligent issues in the written equivalent of a sonorous baritone.
Don't get me wrong. I still think magnificent thoughts and come up with potentially world-changing ideas all the time. The problem is that all these wonderful pieces of inspiration usually come to me when i'm driving, taking a dump, in a state of extreme inebriation or in that hazy space between sleep and waking.
Once I am in front of the pc and looking down at the dust-lined (and God knows what else!)keyboard, all these marvellous schemes just drift away like gossamer spiderwebs torn apart by a stiff gale.
Oh well...I'll just write total rubbish then la. Like what I'm doing now. :P

A Racist Malaysia

2008-09-01T19:26:00.013+08:00

It's been a few weeks since the horrid incident of the racist teacher in Banting.

From what has happened, it looks as if the drama is at an end; swept under the carpet and buried deep in the hopes that people will forget the problem if it is not acknowledged. There has been neither reprimand nor inquiry. Neither punishment nor blame.

Most amazingly, even the police - normally so quick to act when it serves their purposes - have come out to say that it is "difficult" to act in cases of racial abuse.

The Klang criminal investigation department chief said the only action that could be taken would be to forward the information to the Education Department for further action.

He, for good measure, added that they can only charge the offending teacher if there is "strong supporting evidence" and "eyewitnesses who are willing to testify in court".

Firstly, with five police reports lodged regarding the same issue, does he really think getting witnesses would be a problem?

Secondly, what does he mean when he says the only thing that can be done is to forward the information to the Education Department for further action?

She called all Indians the children of prostitutes, who have no testicles and who constantly menstruate.

Under Section 509 of the Penal Code, words or gestures intended to insult the modesty of a person constitutes a crime. It is punishable with imprisonment for a term for up to five years.

If that's not enough, the much feared Sedition Act the government trots out to handle their political enemies also provides for people who incite racial hatred.

Section 3 (1) (e) clearly states it is an offence to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia, which is a very mild description of what the 'teacher' did.

And has anybody forgotten the tiny allegation that she actually stamped on her students' backs while making them do push ups?

Section 319 of the Penal Code describes as causing hurt the act of causing bodily pain, disease or infirmity to any person and prescribes a jail term of up to one year.

So, what the police mean when they say no action can be taken in this case is really beyond me. It's one thing to not take action due to whatever orders you have from above. It's another thing altogether to insult our intelligence by feeding us crap like this.

Does the Barisan Nasional government wonder why people, Indian, Chinese and Malay, are rejecting them like never before. Nobody likes racism except racists. And Malaysians, at heart, are not a racist lot. We are tolerant, friendly and open. And the more our government plays to base instincts and the more it resorts to gutter politics of this sort, the more our nobler ideals come to the fore. That is why Malaysians are opting more and more for the high-minded rhetoric of the Pakatan Rakyat component parties.

This Barisan Nasional is not the Alliance of old. It is a huge, hulking tree that is rotting from the inside and bound to fall sooner rather than later. The mistakes our parents and grandparents did was to give their support to the Barisan Nasional. It is not a mistake we are going to make as well.

The younger generation is not going to stand for politicians who tell us that we are "pendatang" and who refuse to take action when our mothers are branded as prostitutes. We are not going to support a government who expects to be served rather than to serve. We are not going to bow to the climate of fear that gripped our forefathers. We would rather watch everything burn than to continue living like this anymore.

It is no use telling us how important racial integrity is and how crucial it is for us to live in harmony when you don't take concrete action to ensure that harmony. The first step to harmony is in ensuring racism has no place in our Parliament, in our classrooms, in our police stations and in our lives.

R.I.P Kuldeep S. Jessy

2008-08-18T22:08:00.005+08:00

Kuldeep Jessy, my good friend, died early today. Born on May 4 1967, he was 41 years old and had been married for five weeks.

I was on vacation in Thailand about to boat across the Mekong River to Laos, when I received news of his fatal heart attack.

As I sat in the boat, no longer caring about the Mekong, the Golden Triangle or Thailand, my thoughts went again and again to his widow, Manjit. Only last month, she was a blushing bride and he a nervous groom. And now he's gone and she's a widow.

It doesn't make sense or seem fair. He was too young and too good to go. I never in my life met a person who didn't like Kuldeep. He was the kind of guy who could make anybody smile with his lawak bodoh, his nasal voice and his puppy dog eyes. He was kind and gentle, and a wonderful friend to have.

He loved Alleycats and teh tarik. He really enjoyed his beer and cigarettes. He used to call his mother Mr. Magoo behind her back and used to tease Manjit incessantly, calling her a praying mantis, among others.

I'm now frantically trying to book a flight back to make it for his funeral on Wednesday. I owe it to him to be there. But part of me does not want to. It's too painful to go back to the same house where we so recently celebrated the happiest day of his life.

It was supposed to have heralded the start of a new life, but instead, he and Manjit have been cheated out of their happily ever after.

He's gone now, forever. We will never have another beer together, we'll never bitch about work together, or cook up any more pranks together.

I love you my friend, and I'll never forget you or stop missing you.

Heaven was made for people like you. Rest in peace.

Simply unbelievable. Simply un-fucking-believable.

2008-08-12T20:17:00.003+08:00

Keling pariah

Negro

Black monkeys

Indians come from dogs

Indians are children of prostitutes

Indians are stupid

Indian youths don't have testicles, always menstruate and indulge in thuggery and theft

No matter where it comes from, these insults are shocking, dismaying and downright painful to read. But knowing it was made by a teacher, the person we depend on to form the minds and characters of our nation's young, is like taking a sucker-punch right in the gut. The pain is dull and throbbing, the effects long lasting.

Yet, what do our authorities do about it? They transfer her to a better school, and one that is closer to her home. In essence, they are saying "good job, keep it up."

Where's our firm stand on racial and religious sensitivity at a time like this? Where's the dire "ISA detention" threat reserved for those who stir up racial hatred?

Or are do all these punishments only apply one way? Is only one race and one religion protected by our government and our leaders?

What if I were to take the word Indian out of those insults and replace it with the name of another, more privileged, race? How long would it take for them to track me down and throw me into a windowless cell? How long before they would denounce me for inciting the masses?

This woman called every Indian in this country a bastard and a dog. She called us a bunch of mindless gangsters and scoundrels. She called us eunuchs. She called us untouchable.

And she got away with it.

The Goat-inator

2008-08-05T01:32:00.004+08:00

WHen you've been friends with a person for close to two decades, you really know each other's sense of humour inside out.

Tareq and I have been childhood friends, being in the same school and after that neighbours too. Needless to say, we've taken shooting the bull and talking cock to a higher art form.

Our latest noteworthy episode was The Goat-inator.

It started because we were both bitching about how bad our salaries were and how much we needed to get out and make some decent money so we can enjoy the finer things in life.

As usual, Tareq came up with one of his brilliant suggestions (and I mean that in all honesty. His ideas are usually brilliant. It's just that we're too bloody lazy to follow up on them..).

This time it was to go into goat farming. As he told me (and as I confirmed later), Malaysia's goat supply only accounts for 25% of our need, which means it is a gold mine waiting to be tapped.

And so, we began to fantasise.

We will open a goat farm somewhere in Nilai or Seremban or something like that. And slowly, through sheer hard work, we would turn our business into a raging success.

We'd then broaden our scope and start taking over other goat farms. We'd first conquer Negeri Sembilan. Then The whole south and from there the rest of the country. Once every goat farm in the country belongs to us, we'd go international. (Don't ask for specifics on how we'd do it. it's just a fantasy, okay!)

So, eventually, we'd own every single goat farm in the world. And we'd own every single goat in the world. We'll be sitting pretty on a pile of money and all that jazz lah.

Meanwhile, (ooohhh... I've always wanted to use "meanwhile" in a story. It's so comic book-ish!) in another planet (or it could be an alternate future, take your pick), in which goats are the dominant species, we have been branded as the anti-Goat and the great satan for ou role in holding all the goats of the world in bondage.

Thus, a lone goat warrior is chosen to be sent back to our time (or is that to our planet?) to exterminate us and free all the goats of the world from bondage. This chosen one has the ability to shape shift and thus infiltrate our lives without us noticing.

He can not only alternate between all breeds of goat and sheep, but also assume the form of the various pak haji, Fred Durst, Lenin and various other goateed folk around in his bid to finish us off once and for all.

So the story went something like that la. I wonder why it seemed much funnier when Tareq and I were giggling about it. Now it just seems lame and pointless.....

Oh, and the Goat-inator's catchphrase would be "I'll be baaa-ck"

Midnight Musings

2008-08-03T00:59:00.002+08:00

It’s always the worst at night. During the daylight hours, I can go through the motions and pretend that everything is fine. I can laugh, smile and make merry.
But at night - when the sun is down and I’m all alone with my thoughts….that’s when the walls start closing in.
Everywhere I look, every place I go, I see ghosts of us. I remember a song we loved, a meal we cooked or a movie we watched. The present fades into the dark and the past runs into the spotlight of my mind’s eye.
I think about the years, days and minutes we spent together. I think of every laugh we shared, the little games we played and the dreams we dreamed together. I remember the days when the sun seemed brighter and the world was filled with colour. And every time these memories intrude, it takes everything I have to stop myself from breaking down.
I think of all the harsh words we threw at each other. I think of all the bad things we did to each other, all the lies and all the deceptions. I try to hate you for what you did to me, for what you did to us. But I only end up hating myself more for all that I did to you and all that I allowed to happen to you. And I wonder if I gave up too soon, if I didn’t fight enough to keep us alive, if I wasn’t strong enough to make us last.
I tell myself that I am only in love with the memory of you, with the memory of us. And most of the time, I can fool myself into believing it.
But all it takes is one phone call from you to send my careful constructs crashing down. Just one of those “hello-how-are-you” kind of calls that we make day after day to all and sundry is enough to bring me hurtling to the realization that I am still very much in love with You. Not any sepia memory, but the sound of your voice and the thought of your face.
I’ve tried to lose myself in so many ways. Chemical relief does only so much before reality creeps in. Celluloid escapism vanishes when I exit darkened cinema halls. Willing arms and warm embraces of fair ladies do little to thaw the cold I feel inside. Nothing works. I wonder if anything ever will.
I sometimes wonder why I can’t get over you. I remind myself that you’re no looker, that you aren’t the brightest bulb in the box and that you aren’t the most fascinating of conversationalists. I try to remember how my eyes glaze over when you begin to drone on about your pet peeves. But yet for all that, I can’t stop feeling that while you are not perfect, you were still perfect for me.
It’s been a year and a half and I still miss you. I still remember the exact timbre of your voice, every contour of your body and that special scent of your skin. I remember how you used to feel when you would sleep snuggled in my arms and how you used to hate waking up in the mornings.
Friends keep telling me it gets better as time goes by, that the pain will eventually recede and disappear. At first, they said it would take a few months. Then they said it would take about a year. Then, it became a year and some months.
It’s been more than that now and they tell me it will probably take another year or so.
I wonder if it will ever go away.

This is the sum of all the work I did today.

2008-07-28T17:07:00.004+08:00

My top 10 songs (in no particular order) to listen to while I luxuriously wallow in my own depression are:

1) I Am...I Said - Neil Diamond

2) Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word - Elton John

3) I’ll Never Fall in Love Again – Tom Jones

4) Piano Man – Billy Joel

5) The Trouble With Love Is – Kelly Clarkson

6) Crying – Roy Orbison

7) Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

8) Eleanor Rigby – The Beatles

9) She’s Out of My Life – Michael Jackson

10) I Started A Joke – The Bee Gees

Honourable mentions go to Nobody's Child (Karen White), Are You Lonesome Tonight (Elvis Presley), Little Altar Boy (The Carpenters) Holly Leaves and Christmas Trees (Elvis Presley), Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson), Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson).

My top 10 stoner songs are:

1) Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd

2) Puff The Magic Dragon – Peter, Paul and Mary

3) Pass the Dutchie – Musical Youth

4) Legalise It – Peter Tosh

5) Cos I Got High – Afroman

6) Summertime – Janis Joplin

7) Yellow Submarine – The Beatles

8) Don’t Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin

9) Dream On – Aerosmith

10) Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Honourable mentions go to A Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles), Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys), Paint It Black (Rolling Stones) and Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (Bob Dylan).

The battle of wills

2008-07-27T20:28:00.004+08:00

I see you lying there before me, among the many others of your ilk.
Mysterious and magical, your face promises hidden and sultry delights I wouldn’t be able to find in any other.
And so, I decide that you it shall be. I pick you, choose you from all the rest and ask you to be mine.
I approach, my hands hungry to touch you, my eyes wanting to devour your every secret.
I pick you up. You weigh nothing, and I find it almost impossible to believe that under your feather-light weightlessness lies so wondrous a treasure.
I put you down on the cold, flat surface of the table in front of me.
As I run my hands all over your body, taking immense pleasure in the velvety smoothness of your skin, I wonder for a moment whether it is appropriate to do in public what I’m so blatantly doing to you now.
After all, I’ve been told that what we are now doing is the sort of thing that is only usually done in privacy, in solitude and in the closed confines of silent places.
And I tell myself, fuck it. And I continue.
But then, something happens. You turn off. You close yourself to me. I try to coax you to open, to reveal your innermost secrets to me but you don’t listen.
I try holding you in place. I try to keep you steady as I have my way with you. Yet, nothing works. You keep shutting me out. You keep brushing me away. You answer neither the gentle probings of my fingers nor the insistent strength of my sinews.
And I know I am losing you.
Then I realize there’s only one thing I can do. If I am to have you, I must first break you. Only when you lie helpless and unprotected will you obey my commands. Only when you are physically incapable of resisting me, will I be able to do with you as I will.
I know that you will never be the same if I do embark on this gruesome course. You will never be as beautiful again, inside and out. You will eventually come apart at the seams and fall to bits. You will be a shadow of the magnificent thing you are now.
But I don’t care. I must have you now and if having you means breaking you, break you I will.
And, break you I do. Without hesitancy, without doubt, without remorse, I break you.
I pick you and without batting an eyelid, snap your spine.
I hear the crunching and see the unnatural backward bend of your body and I know the deed is done.
I put you down again and note with satisfaction that you now lie open to me and indifferent to your fate.
And so I settle myself down to eat my roti canai and drink my Nescafe while I thumb through your pages.
Ahhh.....a meal and a good book. One of life's simple pleasures..

sLauGHteR iS ThE bESt MedICInE

2008-07-23T01:20:00.004+08:00

Since everybody and his dog seems to be throwing in his two-cents worth about The Dark Knight, I figured I should too. (Heaven forbid society think me uncool for not bouncing onto the Batwagon!)

In all seriousness, I, unlike the rest of the watching world apparently, don't think the Joker is the best thing since bread came sliced, or that the sun shone out of Heath Ledger's now maggoty ass.

Don't get me wrong. He was brilliant. Oh well, since I'm going that far, I might as well go the full monty. He was (lets say it in a single breath now!) amazingmarvellousawesometremendousfantasticmesmerisingbrilliantastoundingbreathtakingterrific.

He is just Evil for the sake of being Evil, with no thought for profit or gain, no quarter given to mercy or kindness and revels in death, destruction and chaos.

He's the kind of personable chap even the Lucifer himself wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. He makes Emperor Palpatine, Count Dracula and Hannibal Lecter look like Larry, Curly and Moe. He'd give Charles Manson and Ted Bundy the willies.

In short, he is one of the greatest villains in cinematic history. All that talk about a posthumous Oscar really is warranted and not just the work of a PR machine on overdrive.

But for me, the movie can be summed up in two words: Harvey Dent.

While Ledger's portrayal of the clown prince of crime is mesmerising in its intensity, Eckhart's depiction of Gotham's white knight is a study in character development.

He brings out the best in the the idealistic District Attorney out to clean Gotham's crime riddled streets and imbues the character with moral strength, unquenchable fortitude, immense courage and the dogged determination to see good triumph over evil.

And then the Joker blows his world to bits.

When Dent becomes Two-Face, you don't hate him. You weep for him. You weep for all that he was and all that he has become.

You weep because you see that every evil, every vile cruelty is not so much an act of wickedness but a cry of pain, a cry of misery and a cry to be put out of his suffering.

Despite the trail of murderous destruction that he wreaks, despite the horrifying choices he makes and despite the terrible things he does, Two-Face is still one of the most sympathetic villains I have come across.

If Ledger were to not get the posthumous Oscar he is worthy of, I would choose Eckhart as the man to win it over him.

Gary Oldman more than does justice to the role of James Gordon, while Eric Roberts, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman all acquit themselves reasonably well too.

Sadly, Christian Bale himself was the most disappointing member of the cast (lets leave out Gyllenhall - the only reason she's even in the movie is to facilitate Dent's transformation). Batman is arguably the most complex and intriguing of all comicdom's caped crusaders, but in The Dark Knight, he is a strangely one-dimensional cardboard cutout.

Is it because he is so completely eclipsed by the baddies? I don't know.

What I do know is that while so much effort was put into making the action scenes spectacular and in giving Batman more cool gadgets, relatively little was put into highlighting his inner turmoil and the conflict raging underneath the cowl.

For example, while he could, without a qualm, let Ras Al Ghoul die a fiery death in Batman Begins, he does not kill the Joker - a more dangerous and devious villain. While we all know that Batsy's code is to not kill, more could have been done to explain the motivations behind this.

When Joker threatens to kill one person every night unless the Bat reveals his true identity, we see a very muted response to what must have surely been a mind-warping conundrum.

His reaction to (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) Rachel Dawes' death is equally muted and unimposing. I mean, this is the same man who, having seen his parents gunned down, dresses up as a winged mammal and flits from roof to roof in response. You'd at least expect him to tear off a couple of Joker's limbs for blowing the love of his life to kingdom come, wouldn't you?

Yet, even with these inadequacies The Dark Knight is a spellbinding tale. It is not one painted in shades of black, white or even gray.

Rather it is splashed with the bright purple of the Joker's suit, the toxic green of his hair and the blood red of his grinning maw. It is a painted with the brittle brush strokes of Two-Face's burnt and deformed face.

And it is accompanied by a duet of manical laughter and anguished howls.

WHAT IF THEY LIVED?

2008-07-21T22:08:00.005+08:00

Elvis
Elvis He would have probably have died sometime in mid-2006. In 2004, he'd have released, That's All Right: 50 Years On, his first album in 20 years. It would have been produced by Rick Rubin, and, like Rubin's work with Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond, would have been bare, stripped down and minimal. It would have been hailed as one of the best albums of the year, Elvis best work since his Aloha from Hawaii concert and a shoo-in for a Grammy. It would have been the high point of a career that had gone seriously downhill since he narrowly cheated death in August 1977. Fans around the world watched with sadness as the King of Rock n' Roll's drug-fuelled lifestyle led to a downhill slope he never fully recovered from. His battle against the bulge was as well documented as his various aborted comeback attempts. The newer generations wondered what it was their parents saw in the foolish old man arthritically flailing about the stage, clearly doped up to his eyeballs and struggling to remember the words to his signature numbers. The only things that went worse than his music careers was his film work and his family life. Never the greatest of actors, his releases in the 80s were so bad they couldn't even be called B-grade movies. Bleary-eyed and paunchy, his romantic loverboy roles would have been hilarious if the lecherous pairings of Elvis with women young enough to be his granddaughters were not so paedophilic. Friends said he lost interest in his music, and in life itself, after Priscilla left him, taking Lisa Marie with her. A succession of incresingly vapid and hollow-eyed girlfriends did nothing to bring him out of his funk. At his funeral, his fans - the legion of once screaming teenyboppers now in their dotage - ruefully said said That's All Right was too little too late. They couldn't reconcile the bald and stooped old man, flabby gut hanging obscenely over his belt garter, to their memories of the sleek, gyrating Adonis of their sepia toned memories. They said it would have been better if the 1977 overdose had killed him.

James Dean
James Dean It was ironic that Dean cheated death while driving his Porsche Spyder only to die a few years later in the same car while playing the part of a stock-car driver.The first accident, in 1955, came as he had just burst on to the scene as a devilishly handsome movie star who seemed destined to be Hollywood's torch bearer for the next decade. For a while it seemed as if the car crash had smashed his future as gruesomely as it smashed his legs. But, with a determination that became the stuff of countless articles, anecdotes and stories, Dean fought his way back from the brink.In a coma for two months, and his legs mangled in the wreck, nobody expected him to pull through. But pull through he did. When asked in interviews later how he managed to steel himself for the 9 months of intense physiotherapy, Dean would always have a perplexed look in his eyes."What would you have expected me to do? Lie back and let the accident lick me? Stay an invalid for the rest of my life?" was his stock answer.He did admit that the crash made him reassess his life and throw himself more frenetically behind his work.In the decade that followed, he amassed a body of work that became legendary. Anything and everything he touched immediately turned to gold. The critics loved him, but the audiences loved him more. Drama, action, westerns, epics, comedies, horror - he did them all. Good guys, bad guys, fathers, sons, priests and playboys - he played them all. His romances became the stuff of legend, the most memorable being his courting of young Tina Turner. Their interracial relationship became the talk of the town and played as important a part in ending segregation as did Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat on the bus. Even though the relationship eventually ended, Turner always referred to him after that as "the great love of my life".His second accident - this one fatal - occurred in 1967. His directoral debut, the movie was about an aging race car driver who is killed in the race that would have won him his first championship. Poignant and touching, with gripping race squences, the movie won Dean an unprecendented posthumous double Oscar - for best director and best actor. He won a five minute standing ovation at the ceremony. The scene of his crash was used in the movie, as was the actual footage of the desperate attempts to save his life. The tears were real.

Kurt Cobain
Everybody always predicted that Cobain was just crazy enough to one day take a gun to his head. Nobody would have ever, in a million years, thought he would end up as the quintessential suburban dad, complete with the minivan and white picket fence.It was on Oprah, in 2004, a full decade after he had left the music scene once and for all that he revealed how close the predictions came to coming true. He broke down - as everybody but Tom Cruise does on Oprah - and admitted that he had gone so far as to write out his suicide note and point a shotgun at his chin."I hadn't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing for too many years," he said, sobbing like a new-born babe."I was so high on heroin and valium that I had no idea what was going on around me. I just needed to escape. "And then I pulled the trigger. And nothing happened. I pulled the trigger over and over and nothing happened. So, I just went to sleep hoping I would never wake up again."I woke up the next day and found that the only reason my brains were not all over my wall was because I had forgotten to load the gun. It was then that I decided that it was either my music or my life," he said.That same day, Cobain held a press conference to announce his immediate retirement from music. He sold everything he had, bought a mid-sized house in a leafy Atlanta suburb and all but disappeared from the public eye.Rolling Stone called it "music's greatest loss since Lennon was killed". Time magazine put him on the front cover. CNN had an hour-long special report on him and his work with Nirvana. Everbody mourned his exit as leaving the industry so much the poorer, but Cobain himself has no regrets.As he told Oprah - "I'd rather be a live, ordinary man anytime over being a dead legend."

The Death of Patriotism, part deux.

2008-07-21T21:32:00.006+08:00

Ground rules have to be established. The rule is simple - NO NAMES. Not yours, not mine. Call it fear or call it caution. I like the freedom the anonymity (or the illusion of it) gives me and you. I know who you are, you know who I am. The world doesn't need to.

If I think up any more rules, I'll make sure to put them up. Gee, I like being king of my own little cyber world.... I could get used to this. :)

The Death of Patriotism

2008-07-21T00:02:00.003+08:00

When I was a schoolboy, my friends and I would sometimes talk about what we would do if war were to ever break out. In our youthful naiveté, we all agreed that if the worst were to happen, we would fight, and be willing to die, for our country.A decade has passed and more has happened than just the addition of a receding hairline, a few wrinkles and some extra pounds. Somewhere during that decade, my love, loyalty and patriotism died. It wasn’t a natural death. Rather it was a slow, agonizing death that came from brutal, systemic torture inflicted by the very people who were supposed to guide and care for me – my leaders.With time and maturity, has come the realization that I live in a racist state. Worse, I live in an unashamedly racist state. A broad, sweeping and unfair statement perhaps? Well, consider the reasons behind my assertion.Recently, I read for the umpteenth time how the government is aiming to increase the Bumiputra influence in the political and economic sectors. This despite the fact that we already have a Bumiputra Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. This despite the fact that most of our Cabinet consists of Bumiputra representatives. This despite the fact that most government departments heads and staff are Bumiputras. This despite the fact that most government-linked companies have Bumiputras at their head. This despite the fact that every university vice-chancellor is Bumiputra. I could go on and on, but you get the picture I’m sure.The amazing fact is that nobody seems to be the least bit bashful about this in-your-face racism. Terms like Malay superiority and Ketuanan Melayu keep getting bandied about by all and sundry. What are these people trying to say? That the non-Malay’s sat on their arses and waited for handouts? That the non-Malays were handed the keys to the kingdom of heaven on a silver platter? That we didn’t earn our right to live here?Where would Malaysia be without the Chinese tin miners? Where would Malaysia be without the Indian rubber-tappers? Where would Malaysia be without old Ah Seng the merchant? Or Thangamma, who broke her back laying tar for roads? Or for that matter, where would Malaysia be without the educated Malayalee and Ceylonese civil servants who served the government in the early days of our nation’s youth?At the same time, where would Malaysia be without the Bumiputra who planted our rice and caught our fish? Or the many Bumiputra soldiers who fought and died for us?The fact is that we are all equal partners in this, share and share alike. Nobody deserves more and nobody deserves less. We have all contributed to our nation’s growth and we are all responsible for its future.Yet, we have come to a point where the matter is not up for discussion. The non-Bumi is a second-class citizen. Period. The Chinese businessman knows he will never have as strong a chance as a Malay does when it comes to getting a contract or a tender. The Indian academic knows that he will never attain the top post at his university simply because of his race.We pay more for our houses, we pay more for our cars. We get fewer rights, fewer perks and fewer loans. We don’t have trust funds. We don’t have anything, in a nutshell.Nobody is allowed to question this arrangement. Nobody is allowed to criticize it. Nobody is allowed to debate it. We get slapped in the face with the “fact” that our forefathers signed “the social contract” agreeing to the Bumiputras’ special rights and privileges.What if I disagree with the contract my forefathers went into? Don’t I get a fucking say in the matter? Am I supposed to be bound to this “social contract” ad infinitum? I’m supposed to pay for the sins of my fathers? My sons too? How about their sons and grandsons?This is the only place I have heard of where the vast majority enjoys extra privileges at the expense of the minority. Make no mistake, this is not a fair and a just fight for equality. This is a fight for EXTRA and ADDITIONAL benefits, something which is both unfair, unjust and inhumane. That’s right. INHUMANE. After all, what is humane about a good student being told that her scholarship award is going to a less deserving candidate simply because the quota has been filled? What’s humane about a hardworking civil servant being passed up for promotion time and again because he is not a Bumiputra?The worst part is that this system doesn’t not even have the effect its architects wanted it to have. They claimed they wanted to elevate the Bumiputra to the level of the other races. Yet, when the original 1991 deadline came and went, the Bumiputra had still not got their “fair” slice of the economic kuih lapis. Fast forward 17 years later and it seems that they are still no closer, which means there is still no end in sight to the NEP. I sometimes wonder whether the NEP has in fact weakened its beneficiaries instead of strengthening them.
In the meantime, the underprivileged non-Bumi is forced to become stronger, wilier and more adaptable to survive in this rotten system. The non-Bumi has to learn every dirty trick in the book in order to survive. Worst of all, the non-Bumi ends up filling his belly and nursing a deep grudge, a deep hatred against the leaders and the country that has forced him to slog for every crumb of bread he puts in his mouth.Whatever I have said in this posting could very well be seditious, going by the fluid definition of sedition this nation seems to have. I neither know nor care. I find it hard to pledge love or allegiance to a country that places so little a value on my life and my being.If there ever comes a time when I will no longer be regarded as a lesser man than the Princes of the Earth and if there comes a time when I will be judged by the content of my character and not the colour of my skin, I might change my mind.Hell, if that happens I might actually be willing to fight and die for this godforsaken country!

The Royal Bitch

2008-07-15T11:33:00.004+08:00

My latest resolution is to not bitch anymore. Or rather, to no longer bitch about people who piss me off. How long this noble resolution is going to remain afloat, I really can't say, especially considering my lengthy history of failed resolutions and lengthier list of failed attempts at reviving failed resolutions.
Whether it is about the twat in the office whose been my nemesis since day one, the kid who made a careless comment that cut me really deep, the friend who irritated me deliberately and maliciously knowing that he was annoying me or the mother who forgot my birthday, I have resolved to not bitch about it.
I shall attempt to exude only good vibrations and earn good karma by being saintly and benign, turning the other cheek, doing unto others as I would want others to do unto me and all that jazz. You get the general idea la.
After all, when even my nearest and dearest start calling me The Royal Bitch, then I know that I've been ranting and raving way too often.
And so, I have resolved as of this moment to, whenever I feel the urge to bitch, merely satisfy myself with a martyred look, a face turned up to the heavens and the sorrowful voice saying, "God Bless Them."

And I'm doing this because?

2008-06-23T18:52:00.004+08:00

This is not meant to be my platform. It is not meant to provoke thought, to invite debate, to enlighten, enrage or ensnare.
It isn't meant to solicit advertising, to gain notoriety, to achieve fame or to make an impression.
It is only meant to be a retreat, a solace and a sanctuary.
I am in love with the written word. The written word has given me everything I have. It puts the food on my table, the clothes on my back and the fuel in my tank.
It inspires me, moves me, motivates me and humbles me.
Yet, in the humdrum movements of daily life, I have fallen out of love with the simple beauty and power of words.
I want to find that lost love again. I want to remember again what it was like to be awed by the ability to build and shape something that lingers in the mind. To gain immortality with the knowledge that somewhere in the deep a part of me will survive.
Read, if you will, whatever I scribble here. It may be a rant, it may be a boast. It may be me gushing in happiness or wallowing in my misery. I may curse politicians and their bluster. I may laugh at footballers and their indignities. I may wax lyrical about the latest movie. I may philisophize about the meaning of life and the existence of God.
But be warned. There are no promises that it will enrich your life and improve your moment. There are no assurances of quality and good craft. This is only me continuing my love affair with the written word.