Conspiracy Theories, the modern way of rumour mongering (gossiping)!

I am particularly fascinated with conspiracy theories, who would not be? Not so much as to find the 'truth out there' like Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in X-files, but I am just intrigued by how people managed to justify their every action and statement with appropriate rationalisation which actually made sense and people believing. The internet is a fertile hunting ground to this end, and the numbers increase exponentially as I speak (type)!
Some of the theories that caught my fancy are depicted here, in no particular order of importance...

• The moon landing is a hoax! A hot topic which has been discussed at length is the lunar landing. Many argue that televised lading footage was actually filmed in a studio in Arizona! They go on to say that the Star-Spangled Banner (US flag) is actually 'flying' in an atmosphere-less lunar atmosphere! Apparently, a whiff of wind passed through the ajar studio door during shooting. And the hard believers go on to insist on Buzz Aldrin to swear on the Bible, which he refused, further proving their point. And why were there no lunar landings after Apollo 11?
• JFK was assassinated by CIA! The defeat at 'Bay of Pig' and the reluctance of the President to go to war in Vietnam was good enough a reason for CIA and the war lobbyists to assassinate Kennedy. Various inquiries have agreed that 4 shot were heard; too fast a pace to be shot from the alleged weapon. They also decided that 2 gunmen were needed, taking into consideration the location of the shooting and injury. There is a dispute in the nature of the injury to the President. The alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, is just a fall guy!
• Achtung! Adolf Hitler never committed suicide or died. His body was never found. He allegedly got an amnesty to be extradited to Argentina to resume a new identity!
• Imagine! John Lennon was not shot by a deranged fan, Mark Chapman. He was just a pawn in a game controlled by the CIA as Lennon had struck a wrong nerve among the proponents of Vietnam War with his anti-war sentiments.
• Elvis is Alive! Right, Elvis may have left the building, but he never left the world. After leading a lonely decadent life binging on peanut butter sandwiches and burgers and turning into a balloon, decided to lead a fresh new life away from the neon lights of Las Vegas. He supposedly faked his own life. Besides the multiple Elvis' sightings, conspiracy theorists insist that the tombstone at his grave is not the King's. His middle name is misspelt (or is it?); Aaron instead of Aron. Elvis actually had a not so famous handicapped twin brother who lies there.  
• England Rose wither...Lady Diana's accident is planned murder! The coroner's report says that the Lady's death was due to drunk driving. The theorists, on the other hand, accuse the British Royal family to order M15 to execute her murder! Witness mention of a flash of light in the tunnel which blinded the driver before the accident. Three times the permitted limit level of alcohol was found in the driver's blood, but this is disputed on its method of detection. Diana is said to be carrying her lover Dodi Fayed's child. The royalty could not accept a non-Christian potential heir to the throne of Windsor castle, herein lays the motive. Screening for pregnancy hormones (BetaHCG) proved negative, however. Her NGO work on anti-landmines was getting a lot of clouts which seem to upset the superpowers. Today, everybody is happy; the two-timing wife is no more in the wrong light, no adverse publicity in the British tabloids, her two-timing husband is happily flaunting his ugly mistress in public.
• 9-11 Twin Tower Massacre is staged by Mossad!  Activities in airlines shares showed a lot of activities days before the tragedy. 300,000 Jewish workers were informed not to go to work on the tragic day. Many experts have questioned the pattern of destruction of the building. Many have come forward with information of demolition work carried in the vicinity days before the event. Theory of superimposition of plane visual on TV was also told. Unprovoked auto-destruction of a third building, not immediately adjacent but within the vicinity, is said to happen due to structural damage but actually allegedly contained sensitive CIA files on 9-11.
• Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq! To justify his march into a sovereign country, Bush hoodwinked the world on the existence of WMD. Bush just helped to stir a hornet's nest, and Iraq is now in disarray. It is all about the petroleum line, stupid! The only WMD around is vehicles in Malaysia with number plates starting with alphabets WMD!
• Aliens rule the world! True, the British royal family are aliens to England. They are actually immigrants from Germany. That we know. There is a wild story that many world leaders are actually alien reptiles in human clothing. And we are talking from the time of Roosevelt to now.
• Everybody wants to rule the world! Many races have been linked with this accusation, especially the Jews, though The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and their Jewish lobby in the US Senate. Hitler justified his act of genocide to this end. The Baha'is at one point or another have been accused of being agents of the British and Russians. The Armenians are said to have corroborated with Nazis in the Holocaust.
• Area 51 holds alien artefacts! Many theories revolve around this strip of desert land in Nevada USA. It is officially reported to be a USAF base, but stories about crash-landed alien aircraft, time travel experiments, teleportation, weather control, exotic weapons and extraterrestrial meetings have been churned again and again.
• Coup de tat! Many regimes and dictators have been placed and displaced at the fancy of US, to maintain their interest and hegemony in specific regions. This would include Chile, Haiti, Philippines, Venezuela, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq and many more. Anywhere any leader falls or is killed, the Americans are there with the smoking gun!
• Itching for a fight! Even though the Americans had prior knowledge of the Japanese attack and their success in breaking into the Japanese intelligence code, they lost tamely in Pearl Harbour on a Sunday morning attack. That is because the US just wanted to have a reason to be dragged into World War 2.
• A dream shattered! Great Nobel Prize winner, pastor, heart-wrenching orator Martin Luther King Jr. is said to have been assassinated by the CIA as he was getting too comfortable for their taste. Also in their hit-list were Malcolm X and Michael Jackson? And Chandra Bose too by the British colonial masters?  
• Paul is dead! In the late 60's there was a mega-theory that the second most influential member of the Beatles, Paul McCartney was dead! They said that if you were to play a particular song on the turntable backwards, the message would be clear - Paul is dead. There were cryptic lyrics in that song to support that like I carried him on my shoulder, I buried Paul, etc. On the cover of the album, Paul was supposed to have posed with his back facing the camera. A bad omen, apparently and it goes on and on. 
• I shot the electric car! In 1914, the fastest electric vehicle was moving at 65 mph! What happened? Why did not these cars pick up steam? The oil barons and cartels were there to suppress this technology to prosper themselves. Now that the Zephyr, the solar airplane, had 82 hours of continuous flight, we will wait and see just how far it will go before it is literally shot down.
• Licence to be shot at: KAL 007! KAL 007 has nothing to do with the spy with the same code, but it was a civilian plane mercilessly gunned down by Russian fighter planes in 1983 over prohibited waters in the Sea of Japan. Many unanswered questions were left dangling on the shooting and the simultaneous presence of an American fighter plane nearby.
• I want to live forever! Advancements in medical sciences allegedly increase longevity, so they say. As the medical industry is a multi-billion industry, there is a dire, pressing need to keep the industry going by suppressing herbal and traditional remedies. There is lethargy in the breakthrough in the treatment of endemic diseases of the under-developed world of dengue, tuberculosis, leprosy and malaria as there is no profit to be made here. Just to get the industry going, the cure for common chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, hypertension is still wanting. Did you notice how fast the cut-off levels of cholesterol seem to get lower and lower when treatment needs to be started? 
• HIV & Afro-Americans: Louis Farrakhan of Nations of Islam claim there is a bigger agenda among the powers that be to bring down the Blacks in the USA. Hence, the Government vaccinated blacks with Hepatitis B tainted with the HIV virus to eradicate Afro-Americans. He conveniently omitted their lifestyles.  
• Kaboom Mushroom Cloud! Did you know that the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami was not the act of God? It was the effect of underwater nuclear underwater testing gone awry. So was the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2006. To clear their conscience, a significant fat donation was given to the victims.
• Shhh!!!  Many secret societies have been founded around the world with dubious motives. (At least it is not known to everyone else.) These societies have only agenda on their mind - world domination. Examples of organisations include Freemasons, Skull & Bones society (Yale fraternity) and Men-in-Black (MIB). Ask Dan Brown, he will tell you loads of these pacts and their hidden agendas and Ron Howard will make a movie out of it. 
• Subliminal mind control! Ever since J.L. Baird invented the idiot box (TV), it is a common pre-conception that it can be a tool to control our mind. True, our likes and dislikes are monitored. That is how show rating is given. Now with the advent of the internet, people have all lost their privacy and are at the liberty of Big Brother. Even movies would have subtle advertising cues if one were to discern the frame behind the main character!

 These types of stories indeed make excellent party conversation pieces, but after some time people will shun you thinking that you are either a paranoid schizophrenic or party-popper! Malaysian politics is filled with  conspiracy theories. Our leaders will categorically deny everything and even ridicule the idea. Rakyat will talk all about it in the coffee shops and cyberspace, just to be proven correct in the newspapers months later!
We just have accepted all these happenings in our life. Just take it like the curry leaves in your banana leave rice. The curry leaves (conspiracy theories) are essential in giving that extra oomph to your favourite mutton curry (life), but it also comes in the way when you sink your teeth into your juicy meat!

Liar! Liar!Pants on fire!

Infidel princess

Very distant cousin

Pinochet and Chilean guard

Kamikaze at Pearl Harbour

Dream realised 40 years later!

Fly away...Zephyr

British Tabloids

Turning his back on Beatles

Aaron? Aron? What's the difference?

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  Little Hitlers in Argentina?

  

  KAL 007

  

  Lunar hoax?

  

  Alien leaders amongst us

  
  

Changed the world we live

JFK shortly before the assassination

Netaji

Mushroom cloud

Jewish agenda

Dean John's Article

Here is a sample of dean john's article. just like the others, as usual, will be talking about the birds and the bees and then finally go to bn bashing mode. something like the theme in old tv3 local sitcom 'pi mai pi mai tang tu'! have fun... an oldie but a goldie...Written in conjunction with valentines' day 2010.

http://deanjohns.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/heres-to-the-birds-and-the-beast/

FEBRUARY 11, 2010...1:15 AM

Here’s to the birds and the beast.
I must confess I’ve always felt somewhat half-hearted about celebrating St Valentine’s Day. Nothing against love or romance, you understand. It’s just that the whole thing seems a tad suspect. Like one of those fake anniversaries people keep inventing – Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and the more recent Secretary’s Day, for example – ostensibly in all sincerity, but actually for the purpose of stimulating us suckers into orgies of spending.

So this year I decided to settle the question for once and for all, beginning with a check on whether there was ever a saint named Valentine. An early Christian florist, perhaps, torn to pieces by a mob of women enraged by his refusal to divulge the names of guys who’d sent them bunches of flowers with anonymous love-notes attached.

And yes, or so my trusty encyclopaedia informs me, there was a Saint Valentine, or even very possibly two of the same name. Both of them Christians put to death during third–century Roman religious persecutions, and both sharing the official Feast Day of February l4.

But – now for the bad news – neither of the two St Valentines is known to have ever said or done anything to warrant the association of his name with a hearts-and-flowers love-fest.

Or, for that matter, with the event in l929 that linked February l4 as strongly with killing as with kissing, the shooting in Chicago of seven associates of George “Bugs” Moran by Al Capone hitmen in what is remembered in the annals of crime as The St Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Which brings me to a thought to which love has tended to blind us: the fact that, for countless living organisms on this planet, every St Valentine’s Day is a massacre. Forests of trees are felled to produce paper for soppy cards. Whole crops of cocoa beans plucked for processing into heart-shaped chocolates. Flowers beheaded by the ton to make bouquets. Whole schools of fish, herds of livestock and who knows how many hectares of vegetables slaughtered, sliced, diced and turned into candle-lit dinners. Millions of bees worked to death to produce all that candlewax. Gargantuan quantities of grapes crushed to make the reds, whites and bubblies required to render the occasion utterly intoxicating. And let’s not forget the latest generation of casualties, those streams of hapless electrons – not living things, I grant you, but neverthelessmoving – that get shot, beamed and streamed into virtual oblivion by the senders of romantic emails and SMS messages.

It’s enough to bring a whole new dimension of meaning to the term “fatal attraction”. And all for what? So that should we get lucky, what with the flowers, chocolates, dinners, mood lighting, romantic sentiments and all, untold squillions of sperm will perish in the ensuing excitement.

If like me you’ve started to think by now that St Valentine’s Day sounds to be pretty much for the birds, you’re absolutely right. Because it’s actually with our feathered friends, or so some historians believe, that the whole thing actually started.

About mid-February, apparently, after the long, cold Northern-Hemisphere winter, all the birds start to feel spring in the air and take to pairing-off, necking, billing, cooing, building nests and so on. In other words, it’s on or around February l4 that, as the old English proverb so succinctly puts it, “birds of a feather flock together”.

Many centuries ago, it seems, humans took a gander at all this amorous avian activity and started thinking it might also be good for the goose. “If birds of a feather can do it”, people of medieval times must have reasoned, “we might as well have some flocking fun too.”

But even in those rude, unsophisticated times it probably wasn’t considered polite to come right out and invite respectable chicks out for a night of flocking around. So ye olde pubic-relations consultants gave the occasion a more soulful and spiritual image by naming it for the Saint(s) whose anniversary it happened to be.

All of which accounts for the fact that, to this day, but only on February l4, it’s considered perfectly proper to ask any flockable person of an appropriate gender to be your “Valentine”.

This year, however, February 14 is an even more special date than usual. A celebration of not just the birds and the bees, but also of the beast, as it happens to be the first day of the Year of the Tiger.

The Metal or Golden Tiger, in fact, according to one of the Chinese horoscope sites I googled by way of research for this column. “This fearless and fiery fighter,” the site declares, “is revered by the ancient Chinese as the sign that wards off the three main disasters of a household: fire, thieves and ghosts.”


The “thieves and ghosts” part of the message immediately put me in mind of the Malaysian Barisan Nasional regime’s kleptocratic activities and its haunting by the shades of Altantuya Shaariibuu, Teoh Boon Hock and countless others who have died in its agencies’ custody.

But then I read on and discovered that “on New Year’s Day itself, it is beneficial to celebrate, to be happy, to have smiling faces, and to refrain from scowling, quarrelling or criticising anyone.”

For the sake of any reader who happens to peruse this column on February 14 itself, therefore, as well as for my own celestial safety, I’d better steer clear of critical political comment and confine myself to the appropriate seasonal greetings.

So here’s wishing everyone save the beastly BN government and its cronies a hearty Gong Xi Fa Cai for the New Year of the Tiger. And to all you love-birds out there, despite ‘religious’ groups in Malaysia that are panting to spoil the fun, here’s to a flocking fabulous St Valentine’s Day.

Mad about myself?

Narcissus gazing at his own reflection

There I was minding my own business without disturbing anybody, quietly typing my two sens worth of worthless opinions which was not going to change the destiny of mankind but to provide light comic relief to my die-hard followers. Sometimes I do wonder if they are smiling (?laughing) with or at me!
Anyway, after last StarMag's column in the Sunday Star newspaper, my family members have unanimously decided that my appropriate place is in the loony bin. They have collectively diagnosed me to suffer from NPDS (Narcissistic Personality Disorder Syndrome). Sufferers of this disorder are said to be self-absorbed individuals who think very highly of themselves, put themselves on a self-made pedestal and forever think of themselves as being better than others and find gratification and satisfaction by other's praises.

That is the problem, isn't it? There is a thin line between ingenuity and lunacy. Some professions survive because of narcissistic attributes -  movie industry, beauty pageant, maybe law too! Modern society has also encouraged its young by praising their effort even if it is the most horrendous painting or singing. Blind criticism is discouraged as it retards imagination and the development of inner potentials. The child who has been thinking very highly of himself, not knowing where he actually stands because grading and placing is class is taboo (so old school). So, in a way, society actually encourages narcissism. On top of that, Western society encourages individualism. Everybody is talking about 'my right', 'my life', 'my wish', unlike the traditional Eastern cultures that were set to continue the status quo, to serve and care for the elders and society at large.

Anyway, modern medicine is known to create diseases that are non-existent. Oh, you are 80 and you don't have a good sex life - you must be having erectile dysfunction, then you will need Viagra. Oh, you are 70 and your knees ache, the synovial fluids must have reduced - you need Viatril-S. Oh, you are 60 and you have wrinkles - you need Botox. Oh, you are 50 and you have been eating like a pig all your life and your belly is hanging like an apron - you need a tummy tuck. And have you noticed how the recommended cholesterol levels at which medications are instituted have reduced over the years and the big drug companies are laughing all the way to the bank?

And how the medical (especially psychologists) have labelled certain defence mechanisms at various professions - e.g. murderers sublimate to be surgeons, robbers become bank tellers, sexual perverts become gynaecologists, people who find it hard to communicate with fellow humans become animal rights activists!

And do not forget how anyone who opposes the Kremlin is labelled as schizophrenic in the iron curtain days.

Well, anyone can say what they want. Don't worry die-hard followers, the hits will keep on rolling....like the number of new diseases that they are going to come up with!
    

Memories of RRF: Tuitionsss (Tuition Asses)

As parents, most people would not want to gamble with their children's future. They rather follow the weather bitten path followed by many, herd mentality you could say, but the logic is the majority cannot be wrong. History has shown again and again that the odd snowball who was frowned upon had changed the world we live in. A classic case of this would the quiet Jewish boy who failed his math and science tests who subsequently received the Nobel prize in Physics with his theory of relativity (A. Einstein). And the daydreaming Malay boy at the back of the class in Penang Free School who was forever humming songs to himself and was thought to be off his balance eventually turned out to carve his name eternally in the Malaysian movie and music industry (P. Ramlee).

2001 Family Pix

Are you the parent who would take a gamble on your children's future by doing the extra-ordinary? Well, my parents did not and I dare not. Amma decided that education was the way forward out of the dungeon of RRF. This was 40 years before MIC realised this. (Just to quote the text of Najib's speech in a MIC award ceremony for UPSR students). I suppose they will be there just there as UPSR best students to hail MIC contribution to the Indian society of Malaysia. Most of them will be nowhere to be found after the PMR top students' list is out. By then it would not be MIC's problem anymore, is it not? They do not have a single Tamil secondary school.
It is also the same with the concept with home schooling concept. Just because everybody is saying that the quality of national schools at its lowest ebb, not at par to its former glory days and its southern neighbour and the rest of the developed world, that does not warrant us to jump the band wagon of home schooling of selling an arm or a leg to finance our children in the international schools! By resorting to home schooling, we (the parents) are actually taking it upon ourselves to develop our children academically, socially (developing inter and intra personal skills) and street smartness. In essence, we are taking a gamble on their future. What if it did not turn up as we planned? Are we going to have blood in our hands? I rather have others take the blame.
Coming to the topic at hand. Sending children for tuition seems to be a part and parcel of Malaysian education. Everybody is going for it, so go for it. Even the teachers who are not terribly forthcoming in school suddenly metamorphose into scholarly tutors in these tuition centres. Why not take the risk if so and so's kids improved by leaps and bounds after attending so and so's tuition centre?
That is what Amma must have thought when she sent us to all these tuition places back in RRF. My earliest recollection of attending tuition classes was when I was in about Std 4. The pressure was there for me to obtain good Std 5 public examinations results as it was a pre-requisite to attend PFS. So, there I was, sent to attend Mr Balakrishnan's classes in B block. Mr Bala's tuition class was packed as he was, to the local Indians, God's Avatar as he was the only secondary school teacher in midst of clerks and similar ranking staff. Like they say, in the kingdom of blind, one-eyed Jack is king. He could not be wrong! Actually his wife, a homemaker, is the one who did most of the teaching. I would describe her to be like a trigger happy gun swinging cowboy in a western movie, looking at the way happy swinging her wooden ruler at the students, among those in the receiving end were her two boys (Yoges and Vicky) who were not the brightest match in the box! She also had a toddler who was forever crying with thick mucus sliding down her nostrils and answering nature's call as she liked it. Special treatment would be given to his prized student, Saiful, the son of a top brass in FRU (Federal Reserve Unit) situated nearby. Mr Bala will personally be teaching him over at the table at the corner of the room whilst all the other low-lives will be trashing it on the linoleum paved floor. Being a born again to discover Christ, Mr Bala was active in pursuit of lost souls and shows them the way, the truth and the light. This probably took a lot of time off his tuition class. I have also witnessed having a beer or two at the B block coffee shop with fellow comrade Simon. I think he must have somehow be instrumental in our (sisters and I) attendance at a Sunday school which was conducted at B-1-22. I remember we were coerced to bring friends to the Sunday school. In return, we would receive small goodies and 'fish' stickers on the soft board against our name. There was an instant when it was story time. The teacher was telling a biblical tale about various sacrifices offered to God. I was a bit confused when God chose lamb over fruits, produce and live stock. We were told that the blood of the lamb is pure. And off she sang..., "There is pau (power, pow'r) pau, wonder working pau, in the blood...of the lamb..." I did enjoy the free biscuits and sweet tea offered there. After some time, Mr Bala was no longer the flavour of the season, somebody somewhere said that some other tuition teacher is better and there ended our stint at Mr. Bala's and we moved on in life.
Then there was a stint with Mr Louis Pious, a blind master (he was probably teaching blind students!). His daughter, Ruby, used to run a nursery at the Youth Club building, a debilitated wooden building sandwiched between Block E and the cemetery. Going to this centre (situated at G-0-23) was a pure exercise in futility, as the fellow attendees were goons and write offs. Mr Pious used to conduct oral spelling test by placing students to be seated in front of him. If one were to give the wrong answer, he would just swing his cane (rotan) at the direction of the sound (voice) of the answer. In spite of being not so bright, these kids were street smart. They would bend down, dodge their body and tilt their head to make their voices resonate from a different angle! Innocent bystanders like yours truly will be in the line of fire of wrath of Mr Pious and the path of his cane. We did not last there.
For a short duration, tuition was with Mr Sundram's daughter at D-4-22. Mr Sundram, Appa's contemporary, worked as a peon in a bank. Due to his problem with the bottle and debts, his Form 6 daughter had to rope in extra cash to make ends meet at the household. Our stint there did not last long either as Mr Sundram died and his daughter was given his job in the bank and she went up the ladder fast.
Then there was Cikgu Zakaria, a Bahasa Malaysia teacher in Jalan Thean Teik. Again we were there after strong recommendations by someone. We particularly enjoyed the long walk through the kampong road (a short cut) to the Cikgu's house. Here, I befriended a particular boy by the name Subramaniam who was a barber's son and would forever talk about Tamil movies in particular MGR's.
Ms Veni was another teacher we use to go, albeit a short time. Her mother, a Chinese by birth would talk fluent Tamil but in a very entertaining way. Her brother, Raja, is still in touch these days.

Children are the future?(Whitney Houston)
I wonder if Houston actually cared for her
kids when she was in and out of rehabs
fighting her drug habit and holding on to
what remained of her relationship with
hubby, Bobby Brown? 

As I went on to the higher forms, I guess I got too sexy for my clothes! Amma still convinced me to attend tuition. In Form 3, I was attending tuition with Mr Laxmanan in Youth Club. He was teaching English and Maths. It was more of a time to unwind there. My friends there were Ananthan, Aidid, Puva and another guy from PFS (in the back classes) who used to bring a dagger to class! Well, he will invariably sit with me, not the way around.
My verdict after attending all the above classes is that the actual learning that I did was in the school classroom when the teacher was teaching. In spite of this, my kids still attend tuition classes in selected subjects, to keep up with the Joneses and the 'kiasu' attitude that we a Malaysian have acquired over the years to survive in this land of plenty to those who try!     

An eye for an eye

Saudi judge weighs paralysis punishment

• From:AP 
• August 20, 2010 9:33pm

A SAUDI judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralysing him.

Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralysed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago. He asked a judge in northwestern Tabuk province to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law, his brother Khaled al-Mutairi told AP.

He said one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that it is possible to damage the spinal cord, but it added that the operation would have to be done at another more specialised facility.

Saudi newspapers reported that a second hospital in the capital Riyadh declined, saying it could not inflict such harm.

Administrative offices of two of the hospitals and the court in Tabuk were closed for the Saudi weekend beginning on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

A copy of the medical report from the King Khaled Hospital in Tabuk province obtained by the AP said the same injury al-Mutairi suffers from can be inflicted on his attacker using a nerve stimulant, and inducing the same injuries in the same locations. The report was dated six months ago.

Saudi Arabia enforces strict Islamic law and occasionally doles out punishments based on the ancient legal code of an eye-for-an-eye. However, King Abdullah has been trying to clamp down on extremist ideology, including unauthorised clerics issuing odd religious decrees.

The query by the court, among the most unusual and extreme to have been made public in the kingdom, highlights the delicate attempt in Saudi Arabia to balance a push to modernise the country with interpretations of religious traditions that critics say are out of sync with a modern society.

The Saudi newspaper Okaz identified the judge as Saoud bin Suleiman al-Youssef.

The brother said the judge asked at least two hospitals for a medical opinion on whether surgeons could render the attacker's spinal cord nonfunctional. He and Saudi newspaper reports did not identify the attacker

Khaled al-Mutairi, 27, said the assailant was sentenced to 14 months in prison for the attack that paralysed his younger brother, but he was released after seven months in an amnesty. He said the attacker then got a job as a school teacher .

"We are asking for our legal right under Islamic law," the brother said. "There is no better word than God's word - an eye for an eye."

Okaz reported that a leading hospital in Riyadh - King Faisal Specialist Hospital - responded that it could not do the operation. It quoted a letter from the hospital saying "inflicting such harm is not possible", apparently refusing on ethical grounds.

Islamic law applied in Saudi Arabia allows defendants to ask for a similar punishment for harms inflicted on them. Cutting off the hands of thieves, for example, is common.

Under the law, the victim can receive a blood money to settle the case.

Khaled al-Mutairi said his family is not interested in blood money, and would be ready to send the attacker abroad to perform the operation if it were not possible in the kingdom.

_____________________________________________________________________________

An eye for an eye will leave the will leave the whole world blind. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948).

Here, we have Muslim clergymen and professionals who are trying to re-brand Islam as a progressive religion keeping with the times. Pray listen to the radio interview on BFM with Dr Farouk Musa, President of Islamic Renaissance on the podcast below. 

BFM: The Concept of Ramadhan - Dr Farouk Musa

On the other hand, we have people from the revered religion proclaim 'an eye for an eye' as being dictum of God and justice must be carried out along that line. This is contrary to what a learned father of a nation, whom Einstein described that in year to come, it will hard to imagine that such a man actually walked on Earth, said, "An eye for an eye will only leave the whole blind."

The judges in a court case in Saudi Arabia (above) where an assailant who caused his victim to be paraplegic have passed judgement that the convict must be made paraplegic by medical intervention! This is in keeping with the eye for eye adage. 

Thankfully, none of the hospitals requested in Saudi Arabia have requested so far. Hopefully medical practitioner will adhere to first clinical teaching : First do no harm. All it takes is one medical renegade who thinks that he is God-sent to carry out His law on Earth to volunteer.

This is exactly the kind of adverse publicity that the religion does not need, now that the world is essentially divided into the believers and the kafirs. It will further increase aversion to the religion.

In midst of all these, I can only hear the babbling of Mr KSG with his Shakespearean quotation, 'To err is human, to forgive but divine.' All of us know that the common good is found in all religions. It is only us, human,who try to outdo each other by claiming superiority. I just hope that common sense will finally prevail in the land of the last Prophet of God.

Picturesque pictorial picks!

Thank you to all the shutterbugs, a rare of homo-sapiens who have the enviable ability to appreciate the beauty in everything that they see that others look without seeing, and help to demonstrate to the world what they have missed... Enjoy!

 

 

Dedicated to all photographers all over the world. You literally colour our lives. If not for you, we will only be using our rods, not cones. Thank you.