Amazing Guitarist Tony Melendez

Have you heard about Tony Melendez? Neither do I until a good friend of mine FT Fun emailed me a video clip featuring an incredible guitarist singing "Let It Be", strumming guitar with his feet. I was so moved by Tony, who was born without arms as his mother took Thalidomide while pregnant causing him the disability.

Tony began to learn guitar at the age of 16. His friends told him that it was impossible for him to play guitar without his arms. He succeeded with steel-like determination. As a lousy guitar player, I know that it is not easy playing guitar, more so without both arms.

On September 15, 1987, Tony sang "Never be the same" while playing guitar with his feet in a special performance for Pope John Paul II. The Pope was visibily moved by Tony's performance, he embraced Tony and told him that, "My wish for you is that you continue to give hope to others and continue in what you are doing", which had inspired Tony. Since then, he tours as a full time musician, delivering what the Pope called " a gift of hope".

Friends, take a look at the video clip, listen to this amazing guy singing "let it be" and playing guitar with his feet, so calmly as though whatever misfortune or bad luck that fall on him he would just take it as it is. When you are down for whatever reasons, you can't be worst than Tony who was born without arms, so why not just let it be.

A bumper crop but low price

Since my younger days I know that a farmer would not be a rich man even though he works very hard to raise up whatever he plants. Simple, you may have a bountiful harvest but the price of your produce may not be good depending on demands and other unforseeable factors. My father was a padi farmer cultivating a few acres of padi in Arau, Perlis way back in the sixties and seventies and becoming a fishmonger in the eighties as it was difficult to earn a living planting padi. Sometime, the whole padi field could be flooded just before harvest rendering huge damages and alas, wasted effort for the past 3,4 months with a dismal return. Such is a life of a padi farmer.

Knowing the difficulty and hardship of those people raising their families by farming, naturally I would not want to associate myself with anything to do with farming as I grow up. But then I went to university studying plant breeding and ended up working as an oil palm agronomist since 1995. I remember I attended an interview with IOI Corporation way back in 1995 when the human resource manager Mr. T.M.B Krishnan asked me can I work in a plantation with a doubtful-look as I was thin and skinny at that point in time. I told him I was raised up in a padi planting family in a small kampung and he nodded instantly seemingly agreeing that a young man coming from a padi planting family should have no problem working in an estate.

Of late many smallholders crying foul as they are unable to sell their oil palm fruits to the millers as the millers limiting their intake due to poor CPO price. Despite the bumper crops, some smallholders are desperately seeing their crops rotting on the trees as the price was too low for them to make a decent profit should they harvest. The cost of production for smallholders is always on the higher side as compared to plantation companies as they need to pay higher harvesting and transportation cost. Smallholders normally depend on FFB collectors to buy their fruits as they do not have transport to deliver their crops directly to the mills.

Time changes, technology advances, but the hardship and grievances of farmers seem uncontainable.

Lousy move by PLUS to reduce toll rate after midnight

I wonder how many people will stay right up till mid night or waking up early so that they could exist the highway before 7am just to enjoy the 10% offer given by PLUS. This is the lousiest offer I have ever come across for years. I suppose PLUS is doing it half heartedly for the sake of their corporate social responsibility where not many people will benefit from it. Only Mat Rempit stand to benefit from this offer as they are nocturnal who are active at night as opposed to the diurnal human lifestyle. But then again, Mat Rempit will not normally pay tolls.

PLUS said that mid-night till 7am is the off-peak hours. Of course it is off-peak as most of us will be asleep during that periods. And I wonder how effective is this programme to distribute traffic volume so as to improve traffic flow. The Work Minister hailed PLUS for its " historic move", as he thought that it would bring relief to millions of highway users. Historic offer indeed, but the lousiest one. And our Work Minister is anticipating people will wake up early to enjoy the sickening 10% discount and start to work longer hours to increase productivity. Good luck, Malaysians, me included.

Crude oil, oh crude oil

I was in Padang, Indonesia the whole last week. While working in an remote area in Pangian, there were nothing to do at night except for TV watching. In Indonesia you can get a big parabola that can receive almost all TV channels around the world. Such is a way of life in a vast country like Indonesia, no matter rich or poor, the house surely has a big parabola for their TV watching. All these channels come for free, unlike in Malaysia you have to pay Astro to watch other more interesting channels apart from what available for free.

We followed Bloomberg closely every night seeing crude oil going up and down. When crude oil was down, Dow Jones was down and the next day KLCI will follow suit. This friend of mine that I was staying with throughout my visit in Pangian is an active investor, so naturally he keep close track on the performance of share markets and also derivatives. When crude oil breached the US58 a barrel mark, my friend was very anxious, because according to him, crude palm oil will follow suit and there gone our bonus and increment for this year.

I joked with him that we were in such a paradox, when the crude oil prices go skyrocketing, everyone complained aloud, fearing for high inflation and what not. When the crude oil going down and down, we are also complaining, fearing for recession and low palm oil price and what not. I then asked him to switch to Fashion TV ( a French channel) that were showing a fashion show by the name of Mid-Night Hot. The show was show casting the sexy, voluptuous and half-naked models featuring with the latest lingerie. We watched until our eyes almost dropping and our saliva coming out.

Taffic police going after errant motorists

Be careful folks, the traffic police will be knocking on your doors in a nationwide crackdown for traffic offenders who failed to pay their summons. The police call it Ops Warta VII. They do it every year so that the errant motorists will pay their summons. The police may even go to your office to arrest you.

Traffic summons especially those of speeding are very common for motorists. Not that I'm driving like Lewis Hamilton on the roads but still I have received many speeding tickets over the past few years. The highest record was two years ago when I got the summons worth a total of RM1500. Painful experience isn't it, but what to do, it is hard to keep a constant speed below 110 km/hour on the highway especially if you are rushing for meeting or sort.

But if the police can send so many traffic police to look out for the errant motorists, why not they spend more time to patrol crime prone areas in Penang, PJ, KL, JB so that criminal activities can be prevented. If you flip through newspapers everyday, all sort of crime will scare you to hell. Gang rape, mat rempit robbing people at the petrol station, break-ins, assassinations by hired killers, bank robbing, what else? Simple, the IGP will wash his hands by saying that they are under staff. Well, I suppose it is easier to go after the traffic offenders than nailing down the more sophisticated criminals that would exhaust their investigating skills.