Friday, September 29, 2006

Gone But Not Forgotten

My computer is dead;
A blackout, a brownout,
Its lost its head.

Until the heir,
A Stray World will be in limbo.

Oh brothers wise and fair,
Look on with hands akimbo.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

On Caprice

Concomitants, Labyrinthine, Seguidilla, Spiel, Debar, Abut, Pellucid, Tenon, Mortise, Prandial, Remit, Subsume, Fratello, Cloying.

This week, on A Stray World:
  • The STPM, The Staple Torture of Pondering Men;
"The great revamp, it's coming! It's coming!" argues an incredulously optimistic lad. He believes the government knows what is best, and that all adults should continue voting for the same political party till the end of time.

Believe it or not, those sentiments are the general direction of my thoughts during Form One.

Things have changed now that I am in Form Six. Since those dark days of complete subservience, I have renounced government, god and gratification. I shall christen these my 3-ve G's.

Now that I have grown an adult brain, I will attempt to reconstruct the very situation which resulted in the creation of the STPM.

In a dark and dilapidated room, a man holding a dart sits on his wheelchair staring up at the picture of his ungrateful son.

With a swift throw the man plunges the needle of the dart into his son's forehead.

"You know what, let's make it harder for students to enter university," said the man to the then Education Minister. "Maybe they will be more grateful to us parents and continue the family coffin-making business after they realise its too damn hard to achieve straight-A's."

"Sure," said the minister, who was incidentally planning a way to give the bumiputra's further advantages in education.

And poof, we have the STPM. An examination whose sole purpose is to frustrate generations upon generations of students deemed unworthy of choosing the subjects they wish to study.

While the bumiputras receive a virtually guaranteed university ticket through their one year matriculation courses (some swift ones via SPM results), the unfortunate too-brilliant for their own good student community with slightly paler skin tones took their knowledge elsewhere.

While the incredible debts to MARA piled up, the other Malaysians, alienated by their own place of birth, took to the skies, and never came back.

Back on Earth, a new generation of STPM candidates prepare themselves for two more years of meaningless work.

Meaningless work, noun. Definition: Commonly referred to huge investments in time and energy to something completely unnecessary and meaningless, with the illusion that the person committed to the work is being productive.

Consider this, a sample question of the SAT. The examination almost all American students are required to sit to enter university:

If 44 is the average (arithmetic mean) of x, x, x, 35, and 65, then x =

  1. 40
  2. 42
  3. 44
  4. 48
  5. 50
Wow, I can see now why American universities consider the STPM inferior to the SAT.

So here I am, a candidate for the STPM, where success means scoring straight A's with a 4.0 CGPA and hopefully getting the courses requested in the university of choice.

STPM success also means suppression of the mature mind in favour of those innocent wide-eye childhood years where you consume whatever you are asked to eat.

Failure is when straight A students fail to obtain their courses of choice for no apparent reason other than praying to the wrong god.

This compounded by the fact employers prefer college graduates to their STPM counterparts, although the college kids choose the subjects they wish to study themselves, as opposed to the streaming system of Form Six where the subjects are chosen by the more knowing government.

Questions... Questions... Questions....

Oh well, let's forget about it and continue studying. We simply aren't mature enough to choose yet.

By the way, you might like to try this site, everyday.

Dead of the Week: 11
Total Dead (Since 12th Jan 2006): 752

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Irwin

Concatenate, Briar, Claptrap, Caravanserai.

"These Hitlers use the camouflage of science to make money out of animals… So whenever they murder our animals and call it sustainable use, I'll fight it. Since when has killing a wild animal, eating it or wearing it, ever saved a species?

There are people who butt out their cigarettes in gorilla-paw ashtrays, with wastepaper baskets that were once elephant feet, who have ivory ornaments… who wear cheetah fur. Don't buy these things! Then there'll be no market and the animals won't be killed.

We have domesticated livestock raised for consumption and perfectly good fake leather and fur, so why must we kill wild animals to satisfy the macabre taste of some rich person?"
- Steve Irwin

(22 September 1962 - 4 September 2006)

Conservation with action was the way Steve Irwin did his job.

From wrestling alligators on television, buying huge tracts of land for conservation, giving candid interviews on talk shows, to managing Australia Zoo; he didn't just preach conservation, he was conservation.

While the expedient actions of our nation's politicians continue to dumbfound us with their blatantly ludicrous projects, Steve showed us all you didn't need to be a man-in-office to get things done.

You didn't even need RM 400.00 business suits or speak proper English.

Steve Irwin heralded a change in filming nature. While Sir David Attenborough was content with walking through jungles entertaining us with the stories of its denizens, Steve got involved with the stories.

With his death, Mother Nature has lost one of its most outspoken voice.

Sure, good old Steve and his conservation groups are enjoying the greatest windfall ever from his sudden death.

It won't last.

We will soon forget the man, forget the mission, and remember we have wars to fight, forests to burn, mosques to build...

Little wonder why the Perak and Sabah State Government can still carry out unsupervised and approved deforestation practises.

It is a sad fact that no matter how many Steve Irwins are born, people will be more preoccupied with the bust size of the next Hollywood starlet, the littlests squabbles of our neighbours, and the love scandals of our close circle of friends.

It sickens me:
  • When the people elected never give a thought to the welfare of the environment until it's too late;
  • When the people choose a neighbouring country's concrete safari over their own parks;
  • When we stop seeing.
The next time you plan your holiday, take a trip to the Belum-Temenggor National Park.

The reason: You might never see it again.

Dead of the Week: 22
Total Dead (Since 12th Jan 2006): 741

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Realism

Raffish, Gaudy, Pejorative, Mitigate, Surfeit, Coquette, Eschews, Creolised, Pidgin, Pontificate, Dogmatism, Contiguous, Repast.

This week, on A Stray World:
  • A Speech
In schools, we are given guidelines on how to write speeches, with the customary greetings, the presentation of facts, and a standard milked dry conclusion.

The fact of the matter is, if you used every principle of writing your teachers or tutors have imparted to write your speech - your audience will be so enthralled, they will take disapprovingly long and frequent toilet breaks throughout your lecture.

With my physical self far away from the nearest television on the 1st of September, I wasn't able to catch Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's speech.

On the 30th of August, I manage to catch Gandhi, the movie with Ben Kingsley playing the title character. Almost everything he said was quotable, all of his words trenchant, every action meaningful.

This afternoon, on The West Wing, Matt Santos, a Democratic candidate refused to play by the normal rules of demeaning your opponents; instead reiterating why he wanted to become President of the United States, live.

Stating his policies in person.

The power of words lies not in a fabricated template of phrases or terminologies handed to you by your teachers or hired image consultants.

It lies as I have always said, by being passionate about what you are trying to speak or write.

This is starkly apparent when I find myself drawn to the plights of an African speaking broken colloquial English over the smooth, sleek, and ultimately pretentious self-serving speeches of Tony Blair.

I have great respect for a person willing to speak his mind, unadulterated and uncensored, even though I may dislike it.

So even if Khairy Jamaluddin just committed political suicide by intentionally dropping the racial card, I respect him for willing to push the boundaries of 'sensitive issues'.

He may be a racially-charged, Oxford-educated demagogue. But at least he has the balls to say what he thinks must be spoken.

I can't say the same for the rest of the politicians in Malaysia.

A half-a-billion ringgit sporting centre in London, forty-eight million ringgit worth of clothes for government officials are reduced to nothing more than pointless debates - we all know how much the government actually cares about this issues and their remedies.

So here is my challenge:

Let's suspend reality.

Malaysia is a democratic society where anyone can run for Prime Minister.

I am going to write my speech, a speech addressing the nation on why they should elect me as Prime Minister of Malaysia. And after I write my speech, I want you to write yours, or are you too busy with school projects and idle gossips?

My Speech
Greetings everyone, my name is Rewarp, and I am one of the many candidates vying for the post of Prime Minister of Malaysia.

You may not heard of me, and after this short televised interruption of Akademi Fantasia, I am sure you will never hear of me again.

Here is my agenda.

The present government has promised a budget that protects the rights various ethnic communities and safeguards the nations future.

It has given millions hope with a multi-billion ringgit education plan, and improvement of public transports.

To me, promising to protect the rights of every ethnic community is a failure in itself. Why can't we protect the right of the people? Using a single term to describe everyone. To impose no restrictions on a particular group of people with different skin tones and to give no handicaps to another group based on genealogy and belief.

Abdullah may speak of 'towering Malays'. But the only thing towering about them right now are their debts. Unpaid loans the government has kindly dismissed, loans derived from public funding and taxes.

Fuel subsides should be abolished.

This will cause a brief spell of hardship to the people, but think of the chain of events that will inevitably follow.

Research into alternative sources of cleaner energy will accelerate. Taxes on foreign cars with hybrid engines will be dramatically lowered, and the people will return to the days when only using what is necessary is the norm.

Not out-pimping your vehicle with silver hubcaps or expensive spoilers.

Not racing down the streets on modified motorcycles.

I must state here that I am an atheist. Unlike most religious leaders who might walk the thin line of 'holding great respect for every religion" because "we are all praising the same god in different ways", I choose to despise all religion equally, because all they do is to divide.

An undeniable, undesirable truth.

I loathe racial profiling, unless it's for medical reasons.

If you elect me I assure you I will not protect the "rights" of the Bumiputra. I intend to treat every single person in this country equally.

And if you can't accept isocracy, you are free to elect someone else.

Because this is a democratic nation, and it is your right to choose the leaders you want.

It is also your right to nominate yourself as leader, if you feel there are no leaders to your liking.

That, is the meaning of freedom.

Dead of the Week: 212
Total Dead (Since 12th Jan 2006): 719