Mushroom cloud in peacetime?

Like clockwork, not even dust had settled after the Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit Myanmar; numerous announcements have emerged over the new social media outlets of well-meaning organisations offering services to collect donations for its victims. 

We have had all these so many times before. The earliest of these must surely be the Great Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which measured 9.1. The world saw a plethora of bodies going hyperdrive, bending backwards, trying to extract money from the well-meaning but unassumingly naive public. The collection, it seemed, was quite overwhelming. Ten years down the line, a documentary was made about the towns hit by the tsunami. It revealed that only one pledged housing project saw living daylight amongst all the broken promises; that too by the personal effort by an individual, the world-famous singer Ricky Martin.

The same thing happened in Haiti following its devastating 2010 hurricane. The Clinton Foundation jumped in to help its victims and help the island nation get back on its feet. Ten years after the storm, an assessment revealed no sustained improvement to its infrastructure. The only viable projects that seem to have been successfully developed were those that benefited the Foundation and the local cronies.

The latest donation drive to hit the nation is to help the victims of the recent Putra Heights gas pipe explosion. Even though footage coming out of the disaster area is scary, so far, no deaths have been reported; only property damage and bodily injuries have been reported. 

A third-person account provides scant information about the event. Firstly, very few Malaysians knew that we had a methane gas pipe gridline running under or near our houses. We had thought this only happened in Western countries. The line was apparently for industrial purposes. 

As in the case of MH370, the head does not know what the tail is doing. At least, that is the impression I get listening to the official press release of the committee appointed to investigate the disaster. The appointees of the sc-called panel expert to investigate the mishap remain opaque. Their representative does not exude brilliance or confidence that every rock will be turned to reveal the truth. I wonder if the services of academics were called for to get to the root of the explosion. Maybe everyone in power wants the whole fiasco to remain an unsolvable enigma so that none of their shenanigans in cutting corners does not come into the open.   The pressmen at the press meet were no better. Forget investigative journalism; they did not even ask the right questions. Instead of hurling difficult questions at the officious, they squawk random and meaningless questions that a primary student would squeal just to please his teacher.

One netizen pointed out that a leading political party started a donation drive to help the victims. Unfortunately, he also noticed that the given account was that of the political party, not a dedicated account set up for relief.

There are many examples of charity foundation abuse. A charity in the UK started during COVID-19 by the relatives of a 90-something war veteran who wanted to record his progress in recovering from a hip fracture. People were smitten by this nonagenarian, and they donated to his Captain Tom Foundation in droves. Soon, its assets became enormous, so enormous that unnecessary maintenance started showing up in its accounts. The veteran also wrote an autobiography, the proceeds of which went into charity but were taken out for personal use. Long story short, the old man died, The Captain Tom Foundation was investigated, and his daughter Hannah and her husband, who initially helped to establish the charity, were found to have benefitted from its mismanagement and blurring of private and charitable interests. The foundation is now defunct.

A mushroom cloud in peacetime

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Not quite a flight by night!

The House of the Rising Tikam.
A ruin of many a poor boy.

It was 1972, and we were excited to be back in school. Unlike the previous years, our Standard Three class was in the afternoon session. But like the year before that, we also had a fierce-looking master as our class teacher. It was just the second day into the schooling year. Formal teaching had not started, and everyone was so excited about seeing each other after the long end-of-year break.

As in the previous year too, OBK seems to be the most popular student in the class. Like ants to sugar, everyone was pulled to his table between lessons. The loud conversations and the exclamatory remarks naturally drew me to OBK's corner. I was wondering what tall story was he up to this time.

There he was, collecting coins and returning the balance. Naturally, I was drawn in, curious in wanting to know what all that money translation was about. In between pocketing the money and answering to his 'clients', OBK briefly explained his proposal. He was to issue a piece of paper bearing his name and a promise. If one were to keep that paper till the beginning of the next school year, he could claim his dues. A piece worth 10 cents and would be worth 30 the following year. Wow, 200% returns!

His offer was being snapped up like hotcakes. The proposal appeared too simple. Just by tucking a piece of paper into my wallet and leaving it to rot would earn money. That sounded like a good deal. I paid my 10 cents and patted myself for being smart.

Time flew. Standard Three passed us by. Mr Beh, our class-master, proved to be a tyrant after all. He thought he was imparting wisdom to his students with his secret weapon of pinching the inner thigh, pulling the side-burns and public stripping of students. 

1973 came without much hoopla. I was excited thinking of the thirty cents that I was due to get, counting all the days for school to start. 

All the remunerations' joy came down to zilch when all of us arrived at school on that day. OBK was no more to be found. Maybe he may come the next day, we thought. Nothing. And the next day. And the next day. He had apparently changed school, away to another state. That was it. The promise of a 'windfall', by our own standards, came tumbling down. 

To this day, we were left wondering. Did he plan such an elaborate plan knowing quite well that he and his family were moving? Was it just a scam to get quick cash to finance whatever he was up to? 

Anyway, an experience like this in School of Hard Knocks built our mantle in dealing with the challenges in life as we eased ourselves into adulthood. Parents never knew about it. We just let it be and moved on with life. Smarter!

Come to think of it, Jho Low's modus operandi smells much like OBK's - promise the moons and the stars to clients whilst JL and MO1 have a whale of a time.

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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As long as there are suckers!

American Greed Season 4 (2010)

After immersing myself in murders and death with Hitchcock and Tarantino, I decided to dwell on another of man's favourite desires—greed. I managed to watch the whole fourth season, 12 episodes of American Greed.

It is the same story again and again. As long as there are suckers, they will always be cheaters. This is just one season I watched; imagine what will be shown in the 8 seasons! Looks like the whole of America is sprawling with cheats and conmen. Everywhere you see, people are so gullible. It is always the same modus operandi, the end point is always money.

The gullible victims are not just mere laymen. In one episode, we even see Bill Clinton introducing a so-called philanthropist, Raffaello Follieri, who had pledged half a million dollars for a vaccination project in South America. Follieri even hooked up with actress Anne Hathaway. He turned out to be a fraud and a dropout from Italy who failed in many business ventures till he finally used his alleged Vatican connections to buy abandoned churches for a song in the US.

 Then there was a story of 2 ladies who pick up homeless men in different parts of the country, buy insurance policies and eventually kill them off to collect their insurance money. A pair of sisters supplying nuts and bolts to the Army started to fleece the US Armed Forces of millions of dollars when they realised a loophole in postage charges in the system. A devout Jew who had a passion for women and gambling is also shown to cheat people of their hard-earned money. Members of the medical and pharmaceutical industries were no angels either. A dermatologist convinced people to undergo unnecessary treatment, and Pfizer is shown to be involved in unethical practices of giving loads of goodies to doctors to promote Bextra, a painkiller.

Men will never learn. These types of cheats and cheating are bound to continue despite advancements in security features and awareness of the general public.