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).