RIFLE RANGE BOY

Enough have been said about how great a leader he has been and how the nation is losing a pragmatic leader who led a state after a turmoil (May 13 racial riots and losing free port status) and help to put Penang on the semi-conductor map of the world . For heaven's sake this guy has been out of the limelight of politics for the past 20 years. I guess the citizens of the state of Penang, at least, are not sorely losing him. As usual people will say niceties, pay last respects, carry on with life and past leaders where they deserve to be - in the History books and let the future generation be judge on the past leaders' good and bad! The Man in the middle At least I can boldly say that I share two things in common with Dr Lim Chong Eu, i.e. Penang Free School is our alma mater and we spent some time in Edinburgh (of course at different times). Chong Eu studied in PFS in the late 1930s. He must have been an exemplary student who must have excelled both academically as well as e...

In conjunction with my 20th wedding anniversary recently, it is only appropriate to blog on wedding! Most of the time wedding reception dinner speeches are boring. Nobody, except maybe the bride and the groom actually pay attention to what the speaker has to say. I suppose that is why I distinctly remember what my brother-in-law spoke on the occasion, the beginning at least! He started his speech by saying that a wise man once said that a wedding is actually a public declaration of private intentions. Though deemed unpalatable to be spoken in public, this 'tongue-in-cheek' kind of dictum may not hold water anymore. Most young couples of the 21st century, have private intent on their mind first when casually meeting someone and like to get away as soon as it is over . Making a declaration, what more a public one, is the last thing on their minds! Wedding celebrations as it stays now remain a public declaration of private intentions by legitimizing private activities behi...

Tues, 30th Nov 1999. By Stephanie Sta Maria FMT INTERVIEW  PETALING JAYA: Tucked in a corner of the Arts Faculty in Universiti Malaya (UM) is a tiny office overrun by history books. Hardcovers, coffee table editions and paperbacks are either squeezed into bursting bookshelves or piled into tall towers around the room. Sheaves of papers lay in messy heaps, some in danger of toppling off a table that is already littered with stationery and a coffee cup. Professor Emeritus Dr Khoo Kay Kim sat behind this table, almost dwarfed by the surrounding disarray which he affectionately calls “organised chaos”. “I created this chaos... so I know where everything is,” he laughed as he swept an amused glance around the room. But even if he doesn't, there is always another place where he's guaranteed to find the information he seeks – in his mind. The 73-year-old Khoo knows Malaysian history like he lived each and every moment of it. A query on just about any historical event has him reeling ...

Running against the wind In the world of the uninitiated and non-runners, a run is a run. They are all the same- the same mile after mile of sweaty muscle power! There is a Malay proverb which says, 'Hanya jauhari yang mengenal manikam"  (loosely translated to mean only the jeweler can appreciate the rubies). The Penang Bridge run this weekend was testimony to the fact. The run, in my opinion, had a few 'firsts' of its kind. The marathon started at 2am, the half marathon at 3am and the 10km at 6am. This is the first time I had to run at a such unearthly hour - it is neither late night nor early morning. In fact, a precocious juvenile delinquent once told my now deceased uncle, when he was working as a counselor in a juvenile reform school, that the delinquent used to conduct his house breaking activities at 3 am because that is the time most people are in their deepest sleep. His bad luck, he was caught when a policeman was returning from a late assignment. This ...

At 65, still looking good in spite of the stresses in her life. I am sure, the best Christmas movie of all time would be none other than the 1946 production of  'It's a wonderful life' starring James Stewart and Donna Reed. It is a touching poignant film on how things that may seem trivial and irritant to us may actually alter the course of other peoples' life! A movie worth watching a few times! [See youtube snippet below of the beginning of the movie- Spoiler warning!] By now, the dust would have settled on the euphoric news of Suu Kyi's release from house arrest. I suppose it is never too late to write about the Myanmarese icon whose family (father - Founder of Modern Burma, mother was leader for some time and herself) has been the pillar in the political landscape of Myanmar. Again, I ask myself... What drives this petite multiple award winning Oxford graduate survive 20 years of house arrest without going insane or just giving up the struggle for justice...

Just the other day, one of followers (on the blog, of course - I am not a leader of some sort of ala-Waco kind of a cult!) sent me a link to a site where some people of Tamil ethnicity in Kuala Lumpur, were creating a scene trying to give a memorandum to the organizers at the launch of Little India in Brickfields. These people claim that Indians in Malaysia were ill-treated and the Indian Prime Minister should intervene. In the same vein, they were unhappy with the way their fellow Tamilians from Jaffna peninsular (in Sri Lanka) were treated by the Singalese government and that the Indian government did not intervene to right the wrong. On top of all these, they felt that Mr Manmohan Singh was not the most appropriate person to officiate the function and that 'Little India' should have been called 'Tamil City' instead this area was mainly developed by Tamils who migrated to Malaya. At the end of the day, the memorandum was just a uneventful storm in the tea cup. Obladi...

Call it writer's block, call it 'Busy, busy, busy', call it that the 'gripe whine' is getting smaller, call it 'LG- life is good', call it just plain lazy, whatever it is, the reality is that I have not been writing recently! As in previous years,  the crescendo of Deepavali celebrations will eventually wane down after watching Indian movies. This time the family watched 'Action Replayy' (Hindi) and 'Enthiran-The Robot'. So, I thought of writing a review of these two new releases. 'Action Replayy' is spelt correctly. Releasing a new movie is a big gamble. Many foreseen and unforeseen circumstances may interplay to decide its eventual fate at the box office. Sprouting of disgruntled junior writer accusing screenwriters of plagiarism (in the case of 'Enthiran'), publicity yearning politicians making inappropriate statements about movie (like about Sharukh Khan's 'My name is Khan') or even a freak monsoon storm may ...

By   Kee Thuan Chye   | Nov 11, 10 Malaysiakini COMMENT   “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” So said Samuel Johnson, the famous British man of letters. He is believed to have said that to condemn the false use of the term “patriotism”.  The same can be applied to Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. However, in the Malaysian context, it might be read as “When you want to malign some people, you call them unpatriotic”.  In Parliament recently, this minister said that among the reasons for the small number of Chinese and Indians joining the armed forces was their lack of patriotism. It was so sweeping, so unsupported by evidence, that it could amount to nothing more than a false claim. What was his real motive for saying what he said?  More than that, it is indeed false patriotism to say that if you don’t join the army, you are not patriotic. Nothing could be more ridiculous than that. It is the same kind of thinking that goes along the...