PSD, what a blunder?

In the olden days, boys and girls were somehow forced to face the reality of life at very young age. Those born in the 70s, 60s or earlier will tell you how difficult life was then, especially those growing up in poor families from kampong areas where even basic amenities were so lacking.

Even our former Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir growing up as a kampong boy selling kuih to lessen the burden of his family and most of my friends went straight to help their parents in the paddy fields or vegetable farms right after school. In those days when machinery was so lacking and expensive, the more family members mean more labour and that’s probably why in those days, it was so normal to see big family, mine included as my grand mom gave birth to 8 children.

Because of harsh circumstances, boys and girls became mature faster as they learned to face reality of life early. Nowadays that we are living in a modern world, albeit a materialistic one, children are often spoilt and more so because of living standard has improved significantly and the parents of present day can afford to provide a better living condition including education to their children.

Time may have past but despite of the vast improvement in living conditions, boys and girls of present days can’t avoid facing the hard reality of life when they receive their examination results and have to make important decisions which may affect their entire life. Those student passing their examination with flying colour will naturally hoping for a scholarship to pursue their dreams in the best university oversea but so often, they have to come to the reality of life; the best may not be necessary getting the best.

It is ridiculous to see so many excellent students not getting the PSD scholarships to pursue their dream courses in the best universities locally or oversea, and these are the best of the best talents who are going to gear the country forward for the greater height!!! But very unfortunately, these young talents were taught a hard lesson at such a young age; the best is not necessary getting the best.

The fact is, if the government is not nurturing the best of talents that we have, most likely, some other countries like Singapore will be too happy to do it. It was pointed out by a United Nation report that 57% of the Singapore’s professional talent came from Malaysia, and the government is talking about brain drain, thinking of asking the Malaysian working abroad to come back and serve the country by offering them better incentives and what not?

警察老兄，加油, hoooi!

看惯了CSI，以为任何案件在警方抽丝剥茧后必能水落石出，最后将犯人绳之以法。但毕竟戏里都是虚构的人，事，物。警探再神通广大也不过是编剧们的集体幻想塑造的人物，案情再复杂也总会留点蛛丝马迹让戏迷揣测之遗，搜索枯肠的把谜题一一解开，到最后恍然大悟。所以说犯罪现场调查类型的戏剧离现实世界是有点遥远。

不然我们的警察老兄也不会对干了超过二十宗的淋潑腐蝕性液體的狂徒束手无策。这狂徒必定是精神病患者，不然谁会干这种损人不利己的事。就算是犯罪分子都有其目标或目的，或是为财或是为色，像这种只向妇女小孩潑腐蝕性液體的狂徒，肯定是精神有问题。这狂徒也可能在向警方挑战，寻找警匪对峙的快感。警方必须尽快把犯罪者逮捕，不然在KL一代的妇孺将受其所害，过着人心惶惶的日子。

有时经过路障看着警察荷枪实弹，威风八面的检查来往的车辆时，不禁有点感叹，要是警察能以那种虎虎生威的态度，追根究底的精神来对付罪犯，这社会肯定太平得多。

Subsidy & Opium

It looks like the price of Ron 95 is surely going up coming next month as the Prime Minister has cautioned the public on the escalating subsidy which is a big burden to the government right now in the light of steep increase in cruel oil prices. The PM opined that subsidies should be removed gradually; likening it to opium and such comment is surely going to hurt the lower income group.

If subsidy is something like opium, which is too addictive to be getting rid of once you have tasted it, then very unfortunately, only lower income groups or another word, poor people are those over dependence on this bad habit. You don’t have to go far, just look into your company as a miniature of this so-called One Malaysia, how many of them are not bothered by the increase of petrol? Off hand I can tell you, only a few of them like your GM or Senior Managers which are provided with company vehicles along with it petrol allowances and 80% or more of the rest of the employees are going to be badly affected especially those people who are exempted for income tax owing to lower income bracket.

Those earning below a thousand are surely feeling the heat as they also need transportation to go to work and also their normal activities. Not forgetting, if the petrol or diesel are not subsided, then you can see some of the companies operating public transports especially buses will close shop very fast. And as it was reported a few days ago, a few public transport companies have to stop their bus services to a few remote areas in Negeri Sembilan due to low passenger volume causing them to lose money.

Similarly, if you see on a national scale, only small amount of people are not affected by fuel price hike simply due to their high positions in both government or private sectors but most of the normal households will certainly face an upheaval should household expenditures increase in tandem with increase in fuel prices.

If the government is burdened by the subsidy reported to cost billions and billions, why are they not look into billions and billions lost in the forms of white-elephant projects, corruptions, mismanagement and so many other non-sense. Remember the Melaka Monorial which has ground to a halt merely after 2 month of it grand launch owing to a host of problem. Perwaja steel, crooked bridge, straight bridge, PKFZ, and so many countless white elephants are also burdening the tax payers to say the least.

The PM should actually liken the corruption to opium and with a more efficient, clean and well managed government, perhaps there will be more fund for the government to stabilize the prices of petroleum products and to avoid increasing inflation.

茉莉开不了花

艾未未当下的处境是中国内外的人权份子最为关注的事。中方扣留了他之后，封锁了所有消息，外界对艾未未的人身安全及所在一无所知。人权份子普遍认为中方借题发挥，假借涉嫌經濟犯罪之名扣留艾未未。艾未未不过是一个为民主奋斗的艺术家，虽然颇颇诋毁中共，但实质上也没有凝聚对抗力量的能耐。

但自从茉莉花革命在北非如同野火燎原一般一发不可收拾，中方便采取严密的安保措施，疲於奔命的逮捕異議人士和驅散示威者。有六四的前车之鑒，中方雷历风行的手段也属无可厚非，但会不会引出更大的民间反弹也是一个关键。在突尼西亞茉莉花革命爆發後，中国政府开始加強對國內互聯網的監控和管理，更向各地網民發出警示不能通過互聯網傳送茉莉花革命信息。在中方进行鎮壓后，欧美国家紛紛譴責中國以暴力对付示威者和記者。当然中国政府也一如往常的否定欧美国家的指责，并称公安只是維護公共秩序和公共安全。中國大陸至今没有发生大规模的抗议活动，或许是因为中方已成功逮捕了大部分的異議份子，以致茉莉开不了花。

人权，是中国最为敏感同时也是必须正视的课题。中国实行经济开放后接续而来的贫富差距将是一个潜在的动乱因子。数千年的中华历史见证了历代王朝的兴衰都缘由腐败的政府导致民不聊生，最后官逼民反。茉莉开不开花，不在于有多少个艾未未，纯粹是当政者能否解决民生问题。而所谓的民生，并非缔造福布斯中國富豪榜，而是减少贫富之间的差距，让国民能共享国家的繁荣昌盛。

School bullying

Bullying can happen almost everywhere as long as human beings interact with each other. But when it happens in school, it warrants us to look into it more seriously as the school is a place designed to teach the pupils not only academically but also to shape them up with good discipline and acceptable standard of morality.

If from young the students are learning how to bully their classmates or school mates, you can imagine what are they going to be when they are adults. Perhaps that is why there are more and more mat rempits, gangsters and criminals around, as these people have been learning the tricks of abusing others who are weaker than them in the school.

There is an imbalance of power everywhere, in society, in workplace, in government or even in school. And too bad that those which are weaker in terms of power, be it social power, financial power or merely physical power always become the victims of the bullying. Perhaps Charles Darwin is right to have used that famous phrase “Survival of the fittest” in his interpretation of evolution of species on this planet. But then again, fittest in the context of survival doesn’t not necessary means physical strength or otherwise, this planet will be ruled by dinosaurs.

Sometimes even the teachers also become the victims of bullying and you can see how the younger generation nowadays have become so rude and lack of respect for their peers or teachers. The so-called bullies or bad students could be those coming from broken families and actually lacking love and care from their own families and thus, how could we expect them to behave if their parents are those with gangster’s behaviour or mentality?

If the schools are out of resources to educate those exceptionally bad or hopeless students, the least they could do is to protect those victims with prompt and appropriate actions so that the weaker ones are not emotionally disturbed and become too afraid to go to school. Otherwise, there will be more and more school dropouts and it is not in any way benefiting anyone.

So difficult to hunt down the acid splasher?

It takes almost 10 years for US to hunt down Osama. It was never an easy task even though the US military is regarded as the most advanced in the world considering it is not only the largest in term of personnel but also constituting approximately 43% of the world military expenditures, not to mention their highly sophisticated weapons, equipments and intelligent networking. But it takes them a good 10 years to locate and kill Osama, the mastermind of 911 attacks, who was initially believed to be hiding in caves in Afghanistan but later found to be living in a big mansion in Pakistan.

Nobody can blame the US military anyway, considering how wide the world it. A moving target in the wild is always hard to hunt. But now our police personnel is finding it so hard to hunt down a serial acid splasher who is believed to be responsible for more than 20 attacks on women and children in KL areas. I guess to arrest the bloody psychotic acid splasher which could be a mentally distorted person should not be that difficult as compared with locating the most dangerous terrorist in the world, as the bloody coward is only striking in KL areas.

The acid splasher is extremely dangerous person and should be arrested as soon as possible before someone is killed. The police have more reason to arrest him fast as he is only targeting women and children, which in the way showing that he could be mentally disturbed and therefore could even doing something beyond our imagination and causing serious injuries to others.

If the police are so short-handed, perhaps they could seek help from their counterpart from the traffic department as very frequently you can see the traffic police busy conducting road blocks to issue summons to traffic offenders. Or maybe this is not a priority to them as they are still busying raiding massage parlours here and there.

Truth will prevail….but it takes too long a time

I guess it is a right move for the President of US not releasing the photographs of Osama to silence the critics. Even with the release of the photographs, there will still be skepticisms as nowadays you really need a photography expert to determine the authenticity of the photos. The fact is, you would not see the most wanted terrorist walking alive on this earth again, and that is the assurance given by Obama.

The whole episode is ended so swiftly, perhaps it was too fast, deceiving some people to think that it was a ploy by US to boost the chances of Obama retaining his presidency in the 2012 election. But the fact is that sometimes, we need a fast ending to some issues which could be an emotional baggage to the people at large.

Put in simply, the sex video implicating the opposition leader is certainly dragged for far too long either intentionally or not. So much so that it make us sick of everyday reading seemingly never-ending scandalous news and nothing else.

Why you need people to swear at the mosque if it is technically possible to identify the person in the sex video?

The death of Osama

It is the nature of human to think differently or perceive things in different ways.

As the world cheers the death of Osama who was the mastermind of the 9-11 tragedy some ten years ago, there are worries that the extremists of al Qaeda may exert revenge and causing more unrests in some target areas. This is so quickly reflected as the stock markets in America and Europe surged and the cruel oil price dipped after the president of US announced that the American Navy SEAL have successfully hunt down Osama after his 10-year hideout.

As Pakistan is now facing immense pressure on whether the Pakistanis in any way sheltering Osama, the American is also facing the criticisms from Islamic countries that why was Osama not captured alive as he was reportedly unarmed during the assault. Even though the Navy SEAL was given the full authority to kill and the operation itself was a kill operation, it will certainly more acceptable if Osama was captured alive and put on trail. Now that he is dead, in the eyes of the al Qaeda extremists and their thousands and thousands of silent supporters, the unlawful killing of Osama will surely make him a martyr.

At the ending moment of the Guan Yunchang, the movie that I watched last weekend, General Cao Cao ordered the head of Guan Yunchang who was killed by Eastern Wu to be buried with full honours befitting that of a noble. Guan Yu was defeated and killed by Eastern Wu and his severed head was sent to Cao Cao by Sun Quan, the emperor of Wu hoping to sow discord between Shu Han, the Guan Yu’s camp and Cao Cao. Cao Cao was no ordinary fool, he performed proper funeral rites and buried Guan’s severed head with full honours and with so doing, reversing a potential eruption of war between Shu Han and Cao Wei.

When the monk who performed the funeral rites in the movie, was whispering on the influences of Guan even after his death, Cao Cao was the one smiling at the end as he had made full use of Guan’s death to his own advantage. I guess apart from some consolations to the family members of the 3000 plus victims killed in 9-11, Obama is the biggest beneficiary of the death of Osama as his approval rating surged almost instantly.

But can Osama’s death finally bring peace to this world? It depends on how you want to perceive then. There will be no end to terrorism if human are still having the mentality of one is more superior than the other either economically or in term of religions or simply for some funny reasons.

关云长 The lost bladesman

With the aging of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, Donnie Yen has become the undisputed choice for action movie blockbuster produced in Hong Kong or mainland China especially after his huge popularity and success gained through the Yip Man sequels. Having watched the two Yip Man sequels, one in 2008 and another in 2010, it is hard to say which one is better but the presence of Summo Hung in Yip Man 2 really makes a great difference as the fighting scene between Yen and Hung in Yip Man 2 is regarded by many as one of the most eye-catching and successful kung-fu fighting scene for action movies produced in Hong Kong.

A great character requires another comparable one to ignite excitements in a movie, just like without the Joker, Batman would not be so interesting to watch. But if a supposedly supporting character becomes too dominant then it may be potentially backfiring and dwarfing the main character. That is exactly what happened to The Lost Bladesman as Cao Cao played by Jiang Wen is so dominant that even the fast moving kung-fu fighting scenes of Donnie Yen slaying 6 generals crossing 5 passes (过五关斩六将) become relatively subdued.

No wonder many of the commentators from mainland China were debating hotly on whether the blockbuster should instead be named Cao Cao rather than Guan Yunchang. On the other hand, the adding of the love storyline involving Guan Yu and his sister-in-laws does not in any way enhancing his character but rather softening the character of Guan Yu which is an epitome of loyalty and righteousness.

When the director placed Donnie Yen in late Eastern Han dynasty of China, playing the character of the Guan Gong which is worshiped by many Chinese over the world, it is just like time transporting Yip Man from the early seventies into the ancient China, and sadly, this highly anticipated blockbuster no doubt filled with interesting fighting scenes but lack of the depth particularly on the character of Guan Yunchang. The story is fictional, I know, but the character is of great importance especially for those who are worshiping Guan Sheng Di Jun (關聖帝君).