Something Frivolous

Here's the rule: Bold the things you've done & post on your blog!

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii and danced on a lava cliff with the roar of the Pacific below.
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch - crochet, knitting (does friendship band macrame count?), writing
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables - silver beets, with great success, but i hated eating them at the time
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill to avoid taking the kids to school
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb well, i fed one once
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse in a bucket of water when i was really small, also Halley's comet!
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run in softball and rounders, NOt baseball :(
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language I was halfway thru Italian before I forgot it
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied when I was working hardest for it, ironically
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David Both the original and the copy which stands in the original's original place
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight Somewhere near Margaret River after a "gig" by the band I was in
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted not painted, but illustrated in charcoal
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie insert casting couch joke here
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class Tai Chi :)
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching=
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt not a great result
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper I was 17 or 18
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous outside of Malaysia? Daniel Webb and Torvill & Dean
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one - other than grandparents, none, fortunately
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Dumbing down for the masses?

Imagine you're the brightest kid in the class. Imagine you are forced to learn as slowly as the other kids - who aren't stupid, it's just that you know more and learn faster.

Imagine you're a smarter businessperson than most. Imagine that, instead of being able to surge ahead, you are held back because you're the wrong age, the wrong sex, the wrong race.

Now imagine you're urbanised. You live in a metropolis where people are survivors. It's all about money, politics, status and individualism. Then imagine that you can't read books that people of the world read, you can't live the life of the standard of other world cities, and you can't even listen to the music the world listens to.

Why? Because your leaders make you live the life of the people outside of the city - the rural masses.
Why? Because they hold the vote.
But do they really care? Do the people living on the outskirts of the city, the outskirts of the federal state, living their good lives trying to raise their children as good people - do they really care if you hear "Mazel Tov" in a pop song that they probably don't care too much about anyway?

Well, apparently they do. Or at least, your leaders believe they do.

Personally, I think most people are busy trying to get on with their lives and care more about their neighbours and the business of their own lives than those of the city folk.

I bring this up because today I was watching my satellite television, and on the TV version of the very same radio station I mentioned in my previous post regarding above said song, that same song was played, totally uncensored!

The reason obviously being that fewer people around Malaysia have this satellite service (about 3million) than listen to their radio station (which is free ad available to all the population of Malaysia who choose to listen to it).

Satellite Tv subscribers are mostly urban - and if they can afford it in rural areas, well I suppose it's natural for our patronising establishment to assume that they can "handle" less censorship. The masses out there though, might not be able to handle it when they discover that "Mazel Tov" and "L'Chaim" or "laheim" are jewish words for congratulations and cheers to life, right? I mean, that's why they censored those words, correct? Because they are jewish words, not because they mean what they mean.

Problem is, urbanites have to listen to a bastardised song for the sake of the PERCEIVED sensitivities of the mass voters.

If we're not careful, we'll be getting bullsh*t solutions to serious problems being fed to us all because of the PERCEIVED need to dumb down for the masses. Oh, hang on, that's already happening!

Sad thing is, these are all perceived needs. Truth is, those mass voters are smart enough to know when they are being taken for a ride. They have access to uncensored news and tv - via satellite tv, internet and word of mouth. They cannot be treated that way for much longer, even if they seem to be unretaliatory.

They may not react much to it now, but they will when it hits their front door and they have livelihoods and security to protect. You will see it manifest in disillusionment which may result in anything from protest voting, to a depressed socio-economy. If you lose the faith of your own people, you're leading a hollow empire that will sooner crumble than sustain you.

I worry most for the health of the society. When kids are getting put off by the actions of their parents and leaders, that rift between generations is hard to mend. And much as I disagree with fixed traditionalism and antiquated notions, The older generation has much to teach the younger about community, respect, faith and love.

But what young person will learn from someone who disgusts them? They will pave their own way, and if we're not careful, it will lack the soul and depth that proper care and nurturing engenders.

Wake up Malaysia! Your "parents" no longer see you as a way to safeguard their future - they only care for their present.

Not only anti-semitic, but anti-postive vibes...

Since writing this this morning, I realised how incomplete my thought were, so I decided to elaborate a little. New additional material has been added in italics.

I was in the car not half an hour ago when the Black Eyed Peas' song "I got a feeling (That Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night)" came on, on a very popular, if not the number one English language commercial radio station.

They scrambled the phrase "Mazel Tov". I couldn't believe my ears. So I listened for the next time that phrase was sung, and found that they had muted it from the song, and also the word that comes after, "L'Chaim" which Fergie sings.

Well, this was done because obviously someone up top thinks we would be condoning pro-Israel sentiment by having people a) hear the words, b) sing them, and c) possibly understand them. I say pro-Israel as opposed to pro-Jewish, because they can hardly be censoring those particular words for the reason that they are Jewish, as they have happy, positive connotations, and are not particularly Jewish in nature except for the fact that they are in Yiddish.

Firstly, I would guess that many people do not know what it means, even if they might have known it was a Jewish phrase. Secondly, what could these Jewish phrases possibly do to convert people from fun-loving, radio-listening people who just like the tune, into raving pro-Israelite militants ready to take over the political and social consciousness of our unwitting melayu muslim malaysians?

Mazel Tov means "good luck" or "congratulations". They say it at weddings, when they eat, when someone is being given blessings or has achieved some sort of religious milestone. It's like "syabas" for goodness sake. And "L'Chaim" means "to life", and I guess you could equate it to "cheers".

I would like to know if other radio stations are doing it too, which is weird, since it has been playing uncensored for months now - hah! you've been duped all this time! - or is it just this commercial station that pre-empts a government intervention?

I'd also like to know if they got permission to do so from the record company, and if they did, was it a management decision, or were the Black Eyed PEas themselves in on the decision to allow this to happen? Because if BEP were aware of this action and allowed it, then their whole persona as all-inclusive, forward, party kinda guys is kinda called into question. Basically, if this were true, they would rather compromise their propounded beliefs for the sake of being able to continue playing the song in Malaysia for money - unlike, say, Steven Spielberg who decided that he would not cut Schindler's List for arbitrary censorship rules, for the sake of collecting box office returns in Malaysia.

I suspect they are unaware of it, or may even have been pushed into allowing it by the record execs. For shame!!

I think someone upstairs decided that a point must be made, and it may have started from honourable intentions, i.e. "we do not condone Israeli occupation of Palestine" (an honourable sentiment, I wholeheartedly believe).

However, in true Malaysian fashion, we completely balls up the real issue by taking petty steps in an attempt to control. "...therefore we will censor a party song by an American band in order to make a real effort to show our rejection of Israeli war and political games, and really (dis)educate the Malaysian people about the difference between race and politics and power and money".

This is why we seem anti-Semitic. I think the average MAlaysian hasn't even any idea what a real Jewish person is like. And yet there's this fear in their consciousness that has come about from misinformation and of course, presumption and bigotry. The truth is, we're anti-Israel-occupation-of-Gaza etc. Here comes the big difference: ISRAEL'S OCCUPATION OF GAZA HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE JEWISH RACE. IT IS ALL ABOUT POWER, SMALL-MINDEDNESS, CRUELTY, HISTORY AND OH, SO MUCH MORE - and you have only to look in our own back yard to find that people like that, behaviour like that, can be found anywhere, perpetrated by people from any race.

So get real, we're not going to implode morally if we hear Jewish words in a song!!


For real though, how many of you believe that hearing "congrats" or "cheers" in Yiddish means that you are pro-Israel?

Yeeeeessshhh!!!!


The stupidity of it all, I just wanna lie down and cry.

C

Maaf Zahir Batin

Selamat Hari Raya everyone, and please be careful on the roads!

Lovey, C

Oh, be ashamed!

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. " Khalil Gibran.


There, he said it. The spirit.

This is the essence of ourselves that makes up our souls in the light of God. People liken religion to faith - but they are two different things.

There has been a lot happening these last few days in Malaysia which makes me question my choice to live here. Firstly, to live in Peninsular Malaysia, which seems to be rife with racial tension and bigotry to an extent I was not aware of in Sabah, where I am from. Perhaps that is because I only spent my childhood there before leaving for schooling, and was therefore unaware of the politics of race. I do remember, it didn't matter what religion or race my friends were. No one cared.

However, my most recent visits back home have brought to light the phenomenon of the "malayification" of Sabah culture. I don't mean Islamization, because many of my people (kadazan dusuns) have converted to Islam in the past, including some members of my family. I mean the incidence of the permeation of the malay culture into the kadazan way of life. I'm not saying it's good or bad, just observing a fact and preparing to comment on a related phenomenon.

Having knowledge of this happening in the remote state of Sabah, lets me see what is going on here on the Peninsular, particularly in KL, in a different light. The latest outrageous incident involving a cowhead and protests against the relocation of an Indian temple from one suburb to another, has left most of us disgusted, especially since the perpetrators supposedly represent the Muslim Malays of Malaysia.

[If you are unaware of this incident, about 50 Malays, including children, marched a severed cowhead up to a government building, stamped and spat on it and denounced the move of the Indian temple into their part of the suburbs. (If you are not aware, this is a sacrilegious act against Hinduism) The general public were later to discover that a) the 150 year old temple had preceded the suburb's existence by about 130 years, b) the temple had been meant for relocation for over 20 years and it had been long past due and c) it was being relocated to an industrial area at least 200 metres from the nearest residency. The protesters at the time, and at later forums of discussion (hah!) claimed the temple would disrupt their community life, and encourage more crime. Hindusim encouraging more crime? How easily this shows the ignorance at large here.]

To me, this is not about religion at all. If those protesters, and the silent observing community as well, have any clue about the Hindu religion, and yes, even any clue about the Muslim religion, they would know that the location of the temple is not the issue at all.

This is about race.

This is about those Malay men and women working themselves up into a rage because they do not want strangers in their own back yard.

I tell you though, if this was a church with a predominantly white congregation, this would be a totally different story. I say this because the root of this racial tension is really about self-esteem. If you as a race (and I do not speak about all individuals of one race, I speak of this particular group representing an existing faction of their race) feel threatened in your tiny world, who do you pick on except those you have decided in your mind are weaker than you? Who else except those you look down upon? Nobody wants to say it, especially not those of us who are intellectually aware of the subtexts in this drama, and are reluctant to point out the ugly truth for fear of upsetting the victims further. I say pointing it out is acknowledging the victim's unfair treatment and highlighting the cowardice of their bullies.

And if you have this problem of self-esteem, you do not insult those you feel inferior to. Now I've said it. Despite the rhetoric of anti-western sentiment, we are all living the extremely western ideal of capitalism. And, like it or not, this country owes a debt to its colonisers because they left behind a system which we have never replaced, and we have used it to try to compete with other western giants on a global scale. If you do not agree with that, then let's look at another world force that apparently we positively adore: the Arabs. Why, KL practically licks the ground in preparation of their vacation season, and we let in some of the rudest, most boorish tourists and allow them to trample loudly all over the place. They're perfect: they're Muslims who spend.

People, open your eyes. If a woman kills her friends' reputations with slanderous gossip, her Jubah doesn't make her a perfect Muslim. If a man insists that it is more important to not be tempted by food during the fasting month, than it is to be tempted by bribery, sex or malicious intentions, he is a hypocritical Muslim for only caring for outward shows of faith. If a man wears a skull cap, but beats his wife at home in between his five prayer routine, he is not a good Muslim. If a woman teaches her child that he cannot speak to one kind of race because they don't eat the same way they do, she is already denying Allah's decree of tolerance and the seeking of knowledge. If a man teaches his daughter that she must fast or else, but them subjects her to humiliation whether it is verbal or sexual, he is not a good Muslim. These are all hypocrites who twist and use their sacrosanct religion to honour their own base desires and urges to control others, and create little mini-mes in their image. I say this is ungodly and the worst of sins, because it is an act against the decrees of God.

It is the goodness, the actions and the honourable intent of a person that makes them a good Muslim - and not what they wear on their heads, or what they say out loud in the name of God.

So, all those protesters and their eventual supporters who were marching in the name of their religion were simply using it as a way of expressing their closed-minded, bigoted, intolerant, un-Islamic - and I truly believe un-Malay - prejudices. If you were until now, undecided about what happened a week ago, I hope that you will actively seek out more knowledge about what you may have simply accepted as truth because someone told you so. Being mindful, thoughtful and considerate - how much closer to God's tenets could you get if you are constantly applying yourself to knowing the truth?

I simply pray that people do not allow their emotions to rule their thoughts in these matters.

On another note, what is it with the authorities sitting back on this whole issue and feebly calling for calm, and then swooping down and arresting another group who attended a candlelight vigil promoting the peaceful resolution of this very issue?

How can anyone not see that this is a political stance with a racial slant? They fear upsetting a few angry Malays more than they fear the consequences of abusing civilians' rights under the conventions they have signed on a world scale.

I am sickened to the core.

I feel abandoned morally by my leaders and am heartsick that this is the future my children face. Who is to say, that because they have a famous father, or because their mother was not malay, or because they speak english as a first language, they will not be ostracised themselves, despite the fact that they are beautiful souls with not a shred of evil in them? I don't want that for them, never.

Do you want that for your children? I hope to God it doesn't stay this way.

Bitter and unhappy,
C

A Time to Reflect

Selamat Berpuasa to those who are fasting. Interesting that this fantastic article should come out now, when I have been thinking long and hard on the value people put on fasting in this country (my opinions of that I have gone into many a time before).

Go here to check it out.

And remember that ultimately, we must answer to God - and not to our neighbour, our family or our community.

Have compassion!

Lovey, C