Sunday, January 20, 2008

Finis

New words: Barrette, Enfilade, Oast.

The title is in Latin, and it means boundary or end.
  • Reality sets in.
It is very common for me to ponder world events, and to fire off comments that are hopefully smart enough to warrant reading. It's easy for me, to just read the various news stories and call each and every one of them an idiot, a moron, a lunatic, an omadhaun, or any other word that is synonymous with useless infidel!

It isn't very healthy, and runs in direct contrast to my personal aspirations to rid myself of negative emotions. As much as I like writing about other people's follies, it has to stop.

This blog has to stop.

I remembered taking a vow to myself not one year ago (I am an atheist, so the only thing I can swear upon is my own honour and conscience), to judge no one but myself.

As the days and months pass, this has become rather hard a demand, as I always have an opinion, mostly one that reduces my target to a ludicrous three-dimensional piece of molecular interaction that happens to speak.

This is not only unhealthy, it is unhelpful.

Enough is enough, and if I must stick to my vow, to judge no one but myself.

There is only one inevitable solution. To stop playing the hypocrite, and start behaving like a grown man. The time for words in an inconsequential blog is over.

I want to change the world, but I can't write change into existence. I must study it, discuss it, work it into existence.

By the end of the day, maybe I will stop hating myself.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Short, Shot, Shoot!

New words: Prestidigitation, Taproom, Cocksure, Quiff, Brigid, Servile, Rondo, Bollard, Parser, Doeskin, Aslope, Contumacious.

This week on A Stray World:
  • Oily skins missed;
  • Not the face! Not the Face!
  • A. Asohan goes Stray
What's with the goo?
This week has been particularly hectic.
Oil hits $100.
Jon Stewart returns with A Daily Show.

And Malaysia, the second largest producer of palm oil world, ran out of palm oil.

Fascinating. Almost fictional in fact. It's like saying Thailand has ran out of prostitutes, or Kelantan without muftis, or George W. Bush without lies.

Without realising it, we citizens have failed to notice the convenient subsidies on cooking oil quietly nestled in place somewhere in the bowels of this immature democracy. Keen to keep prices low in our favourite char koay teow stalls, proprietors seemed to have caught on to the subsidies placed upon store bought cooking oil.

The larger barrel-like ones woefully forgotten.

Incredible as it seems, people refused to buy anything but cooking oil for the first two days of the apparent oil crisis. Like the geopolitical factions at play for its non-edible distant relative, storekeepers were accused of hoarding attacks were carried out by government officials, and general chaos from media coverage and frustrated oil-dependant citizens brought about a final agreement to raise production.

Alternative to oil-fried food - water.

People are addicted to oil.

Quite fascinating.

Bullet
Datuk S. Krishnasamy. One slug to the head. Close range.

Reading Gunslinger Girl has given me morbid insight into the mind of professional assassins.

The set-up was perfect. Here's my theory.

This mid-ranking member of the MIC was murdered in an MIC branch. Not on the road in some secluded junction. The building would be guarded, and with elections around the corner, very likely to be rather busy with human traffic.

Why take the risk? Why kill him in an elevator in a political building buzzing with pre-election activity?

This implies a political message.

A straight gunshot to the head implies rather obviously, an intent to eliminate, not intimidate the victim.

Since the MIC could easily replace one of their fallen with another mid-ranking representative, it could be postulated that this was a warning.

It would be naive to assume Datuk S Krishnasamy was completely innocent in the entire affair. He was embroiled in some business with some dangerous individuals.

People who aren't afraid of public execution as long as the message is delivered clearly, vividly.

The question now becomes, what is the message?

Stray Thoughts
One of the most senior members of The Star, A. Asohan, whose work I have acquainted myself with since his In Tech days has been awarded a column in the Sunday Star.

I have no hard feelings that he used the phrase above in bold as the name of his column. After all, Stray isn't a patented word.

However, it does make me wonder whether or not I should request a trademark for my blog's name when I move it away from Blogger.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Lovely.

New words: Headland, Ineluctable, Martinet, Bunco, Gumshoe, Kindling, Ingenue, Simper, Dint, Palaver.

Scandalous? Indeed.

But the study here isn't really about Chua Soi Lek, but the nation as a whole, and why it matters.

The people have Judged

Sex scandals are nothing new. If one were to look back further, a mistress was even considered a symbol of success.

The concubines of Chinese Emperors certainly weren't cheap.

And if our so-called Muslim leaders were to reflect on the Ottoman empire, I am sure they would find no solace in picking upon a man who kept a measly one.

Let's not kid ourselves here.

This is but a private matter gone public. To lose one of our better leaders in such fashion is simply wasteful.

Let's do a quick recap on other crimes that surely deserve or exceed the same measure of public disgust.

Wasteful Spending
Right, so what happened to all those government departments implicated in the Auditor General's sweep? A few low-level, mid-level executives questioned and sacked?

Imagine gallons and gallons of liquid gold spent on such essentials as:
  • Screwdrivers,
  • Digital cameras,
  • Computers,
  • Pencils, and my personal favourite
  • Car jacks.
Illegal Logging
After the rape of Nanjing, our leaders probably decided to up the ante and stage:

The Rape of Lojing.

An entire mountain range was given the greatest haircut in Malaysia (Malaysian Book of Records) when a few state government officials decided to sell all the trees to loggers and plant, ostentatiously, ferns.

Yes. Those itsy-bitsy-teeny-greenish-weeds that kids (both human and animal) step-on on their way to the local municipal playground.

The White House
Not suggesting someone would go so far as to build a replica of the symbol of American democracy in Malaysia. Only going so far as to suggest flagrant flaunting of wealth and power.

So what happened to the politician who steamrollered his way to a new house and a satay restaurant sans official approval?

Apart from the now familiar official denial of any wrongdoing ("The architect did it!"), the man with a face thicker than the length of the Great Wall of China decided to invite a few dozen orphan to stay over at his new dig for one night.

Only thing he lost was his eatery, not is job.

Hmm...

Have Sex, Will Tell
This article is in no way meant to defend the good doctor from further jibes. What he did was wrong, if one subscribes to the Koran and Old Testament.

Secular-wise, he broke the unspoken laws of social propriety. Malaysian laws of social propriety.

But when left with two obvious choices, to keep quiet and his job, or to speak and get out, Dr Chua did the unthinkable.

He admitted his mistake, and left government.

That is a remarkable thing, considering Barisan Nasional could just as easily preserve his job by withholding comment anyway.

Alternative Future
Imagine this.
  1. If Dr Chua kept his flap shut and asked press aides to deny everything,
  2. and Badawi spoke of the lack of evidence,
  3. and the press were directed to the greater issue of our floundering education system, flood mitigation tactics, the Royal Commission, and other more pressing issues,
  4. Dr Chua Soi Lek would remain Health Minister.
Politics Screws the Bold
He had no charisma, but Dr Chua was a reassuring figure.

In a country that officially denies the existence of gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals, bisexuals and any other word ending with -sexual, he pushed for the use of condoms; the distribution of condoms.

Whatever his fallacies, it would be prudent to note: Dr Chua's mistake did not cost the nation taxpayer money, or taxpayer time (though we all know that's not really high up on any agenda here).

I don't believe the same fingers now pointed at him can claim the same.