RIFLE RANGE BOY

An old friend once (GVGL) -a precocious individual who enjoyed intellectual discourse and appreciates songs by Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman- told me that I will soon be like a hermit on mountain - keeping all to myself and finding joy in recluse. My son thinks I am on the way there. With very few friends to go by, hardly receiving courtesy non-work related calls on my phone, indulging in a non team sport like running, working long hours alone and lately with the listening to myriads of podcast downloadable free from my iPhone, I will reach there in no time! Hey, but I am enjoying it! The iTunes has indeed opened a new can of worms that a omnivore like me find hard to resist. The more you indulge, like a bull in a china shop, you can go berserk! If never in this life time can you step foot in the lecture halls of Yale, Stanford or Oxford, the least you can do listen to podcasts of their distinguished lecturers. I am sure we all can go to these varsity as tourists as 'now ever...

I should be king, you old man! We came here first, you pendatang! I am the fairer sex, despite my hue! And I am left with this miserable fish! I told you to keep the feet off my territory, as the First Amendment says! I will get you if that is the last thing I do! Who is the idiot who stepped my petite toe? I told you that chick is mine! I am home alone again while my guy goes gallivanting! Huh, caught you red handed (footed)! And you told me it is over between you and the tramp! Ugh! Tasteless! I told you not to fly. Cis, bedebah, berani kau? Nah, ambillah habuan kau! What miserable life? Feeding these bottomless pits! (Saapaatu Raman - சாப்பாட்டு ராமன்  )

At one time in my early life (RRF, early teens), I was drawn into the Bhajan group (Hindu religious group) which introduced us to the likes of Sai Baba, Swami Sivanada and Swami Shantanand and the basic teachings of Hinduism. At a time when achieving academic excellence was the only agenda in our lives to uproot ourselves from the perpetual sorrows of our household, he were hoping for divine guidance and assistance to peel open our third Eye of Wisdom. In our simpleton minds,  we assumed that education which would lead us to easy wealth accumulation which in turn would be the panacea of all our worries in life. If only life was that simple! In a world filled with deceit and forgery, one sometimes wonders why when it comes to matters pertaining to God, humans always transform to exhibit the best of their inborn excellent primitive virtues. This was evident from photos from Banda Acheh after the tsunami - only the mosque standing up tall midst ruins of homes and...

Before the era of globalization and the seamless, borderless world of the 21st century reared its ugly head, as far as Malaysia and Indonesia were concerned, there were, and there are, no borders between these two countries. In the pre-Independence years, people's movement between nations had no boundaries. Some people had 2 lives and 2 families. This was instrumental in many Malay screen and music legends like Maria Menado, Aziz Sataar, Asiah and even P.Ramlee's father! Fast forward to the future, you still see many Indonesians in Malaysia with 2 lives, 2 families and many passports (just in case one is blacklisted). Even our earlier race-based Malayan politicians (and present ones) had plans up their sleeves to naturalize Indonesians to the Malayan Malay headcount to show dominance! When the Cobbold Commission went on their mission to carve off a slice of the Malay archipelago to form a new country, General Sukarno and his countrymen went up in arms. They believe ...

November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. In the mid 70s MGR in his endeavour to win mileage in his political career, unashamedly used a line from John F Kennedy's inauguration speech (Ask what your country has done for you but what you have done for your country!) a verse in a song in one of his propaganda movies, "Naan En Piranthen'(' நான் ஏன் பிறந்தேன் '). The History Channel recently screened episodes on the ever famous unofficial royal family of America - the Kennedys. Such an honour does not come cheap, as seen in the series. It had a curse associated with it. The first episode started with a scene on the eve of the 1960 American elections, and the story is told in series of flashback interposed with 'present' (i.e. 1960) unfolding of events. It is an enjoyable 7 part series on the events pre-dating and tribulations following the appointment of JFK's presidential throne till ...

So it is that time of the year again! It is time for me to exhibit my filial piety by visiting my old folks in Penang. Hey, wait a minute! There is a run there too. Yeah, my as well run the run while I do the do - 2 birds; one stone for the killing. Getting a good night's rest was already a challenge before the real challenge started. We had all passed the stage of going to bed at 9pm but had to, as the race started from 2am. One guy actually suggested doing a MJ-Murray Conrad combo cocktail of propofol! Luckily, common sense prevailed - as if propofol was lying around at our disposal. So, the next best thing to do was counting sheep. Unfortunately being the meticulous shepherd that I am, I just could not complete stabling the sheep as they were just too many. Before I knew it, it was time to get up and I did not even need the alarm. No thanks to the location of the hotel. Despite being housed on the 11th floor, I could still hear crystal clear announcements on the ...

The Malayan People's Independence Struggle by Kua Kia Soong. Yet another small nonfiction book from this prolific political scientist who did time in Kamunting. This time around an analysis of a possible alternative pathway our history would have taken if not for the governing circumstances and world ideology then. It is a very factual book with lots of recommendations for the country, which seem to suggest all the things that KKS has been fighting for most of his post DAP life. The gist that I digested after I read this book can be summarised as follows.... Malayans have already been unified before Merdeka, thanks to their fellow Asiatic aggressors in World War 2. First and second generation immigrants were already fighting for the country either as British stooge via the legalised Communist Party of Malaya or MPAJA. The Chinese in Malaya had a score to settle with the Japanese for the Nanjing massacre. When the Japs finally retreated, the Britishers returned denying...

McMasters' method of medical education was a deviation from the traditional medical studies norm that we usually hear of (at least in the 80s). In the old way, medical students were taught the pre-clinical subjects in the early years and were expected to integrate what they have learnt earlier in the clinical years at the tail end of their medical school and use them for the rest of their lives. The critics of this method argued that too much knowledge is learnt and wasted, not of clinical significance. In the USM model, this integration is done early via the problem-based approach of learning and their Holy Grail of community-centric teaching in the hope of producing community conscious physicians. It all sounds very novel and noble but in practice... The powers that be decided that to reach the ambition of the Government determined race-based upliftment of society, they congregated a motley crew of students with variable academic capabilities in the hope of churning out the mu...

This must be the mother of all conspiracy theories, a hush-hush top secret to the moon organized by the Department of Defense of USA in 1973 during the height of the Cold War! The producers, after laughing all the way to the bank grossing $25 million for a $5million capital, insist on authenticity of the fact citing facts from leaked secrets on the internet via www.lunartruth.com . Repeated attempts to reach this website proved futile, however. The thrust of this story is there was indeed another unmentioned manned lunar mission which nobody talks about. The story starts like in Apollo 13 where the good news comes in via phone during a family barbeque. Just that this time around it is top secret. So, the family members cannot rejoice! The movie is made in a semi documentary format like in 'Blair Witch project' with fuzzy, sometimes grainy print creating an authenticity to the 'leaked' project. Moonwalk! Midway through the movie, we find that the two US astronauts ...

Wow! Malaysia beat Australia 3-2 in extra time after being a goal down twice in the recently ended Sultan of Johor Cup junior hockey tournament. En route to the final clash, Malaysia in the early rounds lost to Australia initially. They went on to beat teams like South Korea, Pakistan and India with convincing margins. I am sure all the teams sent for the tournament must have been their second, third or fourth stringers. It still feels good though. Just like England's soccer team must be on cloud nine after beating Spain's B-team 1-0 in the friendlies yesterday. They must be thinking that they have won the World Cup especially after also winning the right to wear the poppy flower after the fiasco with FIFA recently. Back in 1975, when I was Standard 6, the most happening event of the year in Malaysia was our hosting of the Hockey World Cup. Heavyweights of those days, Pakistan, India, West Germany, Netherlands and others were there in this extravaganza. Our class master, Mr ...

We all have our foot in the mouth moments in our lives. One that comes to mind is an incident that happened some 20 years ago at a time when spaghetti was a carbohydrate filled meal (not an outdoor outfit) and visible bra-strap was dented modesty (not a fashion statement). And values were values... And this is after the time when subtle remarks like "Your Monday is longer than Sunday" were passed between girlfriends when their petticoat was visible. One Monday morning, the operating theatre staff were excited to welcome the newest addition to their army of married women. with their heckling and giggling. It was common knowledge that a colleague got married recently and had just returned from her widely publicized honeymoon. So, there I was, after finishing with my work, bumped into newly appointed Mrs X. She was sitting in a corner feeling distraught and retching away. Being the joker that I am, I joked, "Wow, just came back from honeymoon and you are having morning si...

In the footsteps of Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible), Jason Bourne (Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity fame), Jack Ryan (Tom Clancy's hero), Jack Bauer (24) and of course the legendary unforgettable James Bond (martini, shaken but not stirred), I found another quick thinking, invincible, away from danger without a scratch type of a hero in the form of Jack Reacher in Tom Child's Gone Tomorrow. All hail Jack Reacher! I bet it will be made a movie soon. The last time I heard, Tom Cruise has been rumoured to be casted in the leading role. (Oh,no!) I just completed reading this book which I bought from my last holidays! It is just another thriller with an ala-John McClane (Die Hard) type of a hero who could get away from any situation with his thinking cap and nerdy type of knowledge of plethora of issues. Nerdy book worm, he is not. Reacher is an American ex-Special Forces army personnel with expert know-how on weapons, ammunition and combat. He appears to be a drifter now with n...

As long is everybody is happy - the men for heaven on earth at demand; the women for answering to God's self made decree (through men's scriptures) to satisfy men at a drop of a hat even on a camel back. (As mentioned in this mocking documentary!)

Thursday August 25, 2011 By YIP YOKE TENG teng@thestar.com.my Photos by LOW LAY PHON Naina Mohamed took out a black and white photograph kept carefully between the pages of his thick accounts book. The stall with a wooden rack fitted to the wall was neatly lined with toiletries, cigarette packs and books, much like how it is today. A young Indian boy manned the stall, sitting at the very location Naina sits every day. At first glance, the boy in the photograph looked like a young Naina but he was quick to point out that it was his father in the picture. If there is anyone who is most familiar with the day-to-day life in Jalan Sultan for the past decades, it is none other than Naina who mans his bookstand attached to the 83-year-old Hotel Lok Ann from Monday to Satur­day, and watched how the face of Jalan Sultan changed bit by bit.The bookstand has been there since 1955. Naina’s father took over the business from a friend and they had never left the spot since then. He narrated ...

Dr Steven Shafer, the Columbia University Anaesthesiology Professor, at Michael "Whacko" Jackson's trial on using propofol as a sleeping aid.... "'Yes' is not what a doctor says to a patient request that is not in their best interest." "We are in pharmacological never-never land here, something that was done to Michael Jackson and no one else in history to my knowledge," he told the jury. "...Dr Conrad Murray had acted like the pop star's obedient "employee" and not his doctor, who should have refused the star's requests for propofol." FG was once told by his part-time casual employer not to return to do locum work as the patients were unhappy with FG's refusal to administer a narcotic analgesic injection as outpatient to someone  for something trivial (a headache) when a oral  medication should suffice. The joke is on FG as the employer went on to prosper to become a local leader and was bestowed numerous ...

Back in PPSP, USM, we had a a few expatriate lectures who knew their subjects literally better than they knew the back of their hands - NBR- Anatomy; PC- Neurology; PKD- Pathology; DCA- Internal Medicine; Ed- Surgery; TS- O&G; ME, WA, LKC and many many more... Listening to VS Ramachandran just cascaded my mind into the psychedelic spiral staircase of time into my undergraduate days. V. S. Ramachandran, product of Madras' Stanley Medical College graduate and a post graduate from Cambridge is a Professor in Neurology in University of California, San Diego. Known by some as Marco Polo of neuroscience, he has been a recipient of multiple academic and honorary awards including Padma Bhushan from India. Listen and learn....There is a reference on him in Wikipedia .too. I just happened to stumble upon him through one of the many free TED talk podcasts found on Apple's i-Phone 4! N.B. Prof Ramachandran's grandfather was in the panel that drafted the Constitu...

Just the other day I saw two mean bad looking (not the opposite of good looking - like the lyrics of The Beatles' Come together - "Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see" but rather the one referred to in Jim Croce's Bad, Bad Leroy Brown - "The baddest man in the whole damned town, Badder than old King Kong,  And meaner than a junkyard dog"!)  - late teenager young men with a skeletal like physique with matching drainpipe slim jeans and tight ebony black t-shirts to attenuate their appearance, blondish streaks on their otherwise straight Oriental hair pasting away A5 sized stickers to their heart's content of their services on the road signage and road side pillars! Their services? Answer to you financial woes, call mobile ##! Or rather the start of your woes! Now, what should a law abiding country loving who loves himself more, do when public property is being defaced? Just pass through looking the other way  whistling to y...