Everybody's fine!

The friendly neighbourhood illegal DVD pedlar who converses with difficulty in disjointed conversational Malay is an honest film critique and reviewer. Although all his recommendations may not be your cup of tea, (you can give a go to his suggestions of movies related to wrestling, aimless pyrotechnic display type of action drama and gruesome blood splashing type of teen Friday 13th horror), his knowledge on relatively unknown title from independent production houses are worth a gamble. The service also comes with a replacement if there were any defect in print, not up to the viewer's liking.
Two of his recommendations that captured my heart were 'Gran Torino' and 'Everybody's Fine'. Unlike their counterparts in India where thespians of yesteryears refuse to age but don primary roles with liberal help from make-up artists and well fitting toupee, these two legends who graced the above two movies wore roles befitting their age.

In 'Gran Torino', Clint Eastwood sheds in tough mono-syllabled cowboy and order defying Dirty Harry role to act as disgruntled and white supremacy condoning Korean War veteran widower whose neighbourhood is slowly but infiltrated by Asian and Blacks. He has issues with his children, the pastor and his new Mao (a tribe from Burma) neighbours. Many things happened and he reluctantly but eventually gets close to the people next door. His prized collection was a 1972 American Gran Torino which he personally assembled when he was still employed is the title of the movie.

After watching Robert De Niro in plethora of swashbuckling daredevil roles from a surviving Russian roulette soldier in 'Deer Hunter' to hard talking gangster movies from 'Godfather' and 'Untouchables' to a boxer in 'Raging Bull' to tough cop in 'Ronin' to a convict in the remake of "Cape Fear', we see a down to earth mellowed down De Niro in "Everybody's Fine'. Here, he assumes the role of a retired blue-collar worker who is a widower and feels that his children are ignoring him, now that his wife is not around. After they cancel their visit to the family home, he decides to visit them instead. He starts a trans-American cross-country trip as he is medically unfit to fly. One by one he discovers that his children are not really high achievers as he thought they were. This, he realises after much melodrama, and the take-home message is that as long as everyone is happy, everyone is fine! 

P.D.E.?

No, your eyesight is not playing tricks on you. No, the word PDA is not misspelt. No, this is not about the dinosaur of a gizmo called PDA (personal digital assistant). Who needs PDA when you can BlackBerry, Blue Berry or even Strawberries? And it is not about public display of affections (Y-generation lingo). No, PDA is not patent ductus arteriosus, either! PDE denotes public display of emotions - an abbreviation I coined just to make heads turn.

Whilst browsing through the channels of TV (it is a guy's thing that ladies would not comprehend, what would we do without remote controls?), I come across many cable news channels showing the rescue efforts at full force in Japan at an orderly and 'cultured' manner. People are struggling with thirst and hunger but have so much trust and confidence in authorities that they just do as they are told. Some of them have their houses swept away by the wave of a tsunami and some with missing relatives whose whereabouts are unknown, but they take everything at a stride at a time. Yes, sorrow and uncertainty are written all over their faces, but faith and hope are evident as well. There is crying, yes but never did I see anyone wailing and anyone showing emotional display at the camera. Unlike the mayhem in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in US of A, there is no looting!

This is a far cry from I am used to see on Makkal TV which showcases daily occurrences and mishaps faced by the poor Indians in the state of Tamil Naidu. Makkal TV (as the name denotes 'People's TV') highlights social issues around Southern India. Almost on a daily basis, we are exposed to extreme public display of emotions by victims of floods, loss of loved ones or robbery. There would be ladies with unkempt uncombed hair wailing away on the top of their voices, heaving their chests and with repetitive hands and head movements as if they are having an epileptic seizure or crying for attention orchestrated nicely in front of the rolling camera. This kind of behaviour is not pathognomonic of people of Dravidian descent only for this pandemonium can also be seen in footages coming from the Middle East. In fact, in affluent Chinese families, the culture encourages paid mourners who would stop their lament once their time is up. I once saw a Cantonese movie where mourners repeatedly wailed more when more money was offered to them!

I suppose when societies evolve and affluence sets in, behaviours change. In Japan, the citizen has unshakable belief that the Japanese leaders will do all in their means to do what is best possible for their people. This is just like how the subject stood behind with undivided loyalty behind Emperor Hirohito and his war strategies during World War II!

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All's well, as usual

Our hearts feel for the Japanese victims of the tsunami in Fukushima. May tranquillity be restored in the shortest possible time. I am not here to tell them 'serves you right for the atrocities you created in Nanking and Malaya in the 30s and WW2. That is another time and at another generation. Let bygones be bygones.

What I am mainly perplexed is that when the news of the 8.9 Richter scale quake was announced by our radio, within the same breath, in the next sentence, the newscaster mentioned that all Malaysian students in Japan. Then over the next few days, slowly like the peeling of the onion skin, one by one all the problems unveil. After being hit by the earthquake, tsunami and now fear of radiation exposure, the issues unfold. It has revealed that 2,100 Government-sponsored students in Japan are uncounted for. Interesting.

This seems to a standard answer of officials for any malady. During the Egypt debacle, he heard the same. This was also echoed during the haze episode in 1998. First, when API readings were low, the public was reassured and not to panic. Then when the API continued climbing, suddenly the API readings become official Government secret.

The same formula is also applied when toll charges are increased or when the price of essential items like sugar, cooking oil and petrol escalates. The standard answer is it would not pose a burden to the poor!

Bareno Run 2011 - Run run away!

dripping faucet!

What has a bathroom and kitchen fittings company (Bareno) has in common with running? Well, their water faucets stop running water effectively! And long distance leaves a trail of dripping sweat! I suppose that why they have been organising a medium scale running race (5,10,21km) around Bukit Jalil for at least for the past 2 years.
This time around, I was left to run on my own (anyway nobody else can run for me!). I was deserted by my running buddies. Suresh is still nursing his foot injury that  he sustained during the LSD run in Putrajaya, while the rest of the gang is gearing up for big kahuna in mid April at the Energizer Run in Putrajaya where the F1 circuit is part of the track.
Like the old cowboy adage would say 'A man got to do what a man got to do', I got up at 4.15am and got all geared up to face the enemy, i.e. 'the naysayer and negativity within me'. The race started on time at 5.30am as scheduled. It took us from Bukit Jalil Stadium past TPM and Astro towards the PLUS NSE. We then turned into KESAS highway back into the stadium complex area and turned off past IMU and raced straight into the Taman Overseas Union and Taman Gembira area. This was the tricky part of the trail. There were many hills that we had to climb all along the MEX highway. When I surveyed the area by car, it did not appear so hilly. That is the problem. In the comfort of our automobiles, everything seems a breeze. Only  when we start walking/running do we realise that walking on our roads is not a walk in the park! By the time we came back to IMU area, 14km had been covered. At the IMU junction, we met the 5km runners turning off together with towards Taman Esplanade. It felt good seeing novices panting and struggling to keep pace. The 21km'ers just swift past them like how the leading Ferraris and Red Bulls drive past the lowly HRT and Lotus in the dying laps of the F1 race!
After Taman Esplanade, we turned left past Bukit Jalil Country Club and pretty soon it was the finishing line. It feels good to finish the 21km run in 2h11m and 119th position in the Men Veteran category. A Sunday well spent, now what can I do the rest of the day?  

P.S. Suresh, I think at our age hitting a sub-2hr mark seems like a Herculean task, not many can acheive. (At least not me). Now, I leave it to you, bro! 

CSI - Completely Stupid Idiots!

Recently one of my neighbours near my work place, a dentist, was robbed by machete wielding 'patients' who came in broad daylight on the pretence of improving their oral health!
The robbers had the audacity to come a day before the incident on the pretext of wanting urgent dental care. As his appointment was full and the dental clinic was packed, the 'patient' and his 'chaperone' made an appointment to be the last patient on the following day.
Like eternally obliging patients, they returned the following day. The 'patient' filled in his particulars for registration, bold enough to display his identification card (?fake). As he sat on the dentist's chair, like clockwork, both he and his accomplice brandished their parang (machete) to the dentist and staff respectively. All these happened under intense monitoring of close circuit monitoring facilities and excellent alarm system. I suppose all these come to naught when someone puts a knife at your throat! So, my friend, told them to just leave them unharmed but take the days' collection which they gladly took and said 'Thank you very much'.
Shaken, stirred and downtrodden, he went down to the mini police booth that was collectively suggested and put up by the residents' association to boost security in the ever expanding 'Taman' to make a police report so that the man with the badge can apprehend the son-of-a-gun.
After finishing his dutiful duties of a moral citizen, the dentist waited for the man in blue to show up at scene of crime the following day. He cancelled all appointments for the day and gave his staff a few days off. And he waited and waited the whole day in vain for the police to show up to possibly pick up some forensic evidence before it was contaminated. He was not expecting Columbo, Inspector Poirot or CSI to turn up. They could at least send a police constable to collect the CCTV recordings and take some finger prints. Alas, no one turned up. Upon contacting the station, he was told that they were too busy handling other 'bigger' cases!
Thanks a lot. How can ordinary citizens sleep in peace knowing that their eye closure could their last and their hard earned savings of a life time may just vanish in a jiffy and nobody (I mean nobody) can do anything about it. Guess, we all must bring the justice of the Wild Wild West to our urban living, that every man has a right to protect his property at whatever cost, even it means carry firearms and killing another man to care for his belongings.
We are all just putting various sophisticated gizmos to get us the feel of security and comfort that we are safe. In actual we are just as vulnerable as a snail without a shell to wriggle into. Just like the residents, thinking that they will be safe and protected with a police station in their precinct, what they get instead are only parking tickets for double parking their cars near the bank!

When the going is good...

Gaddafi son's LSE thesis 'written by Libyan academic'
College sets up inquiry into Saif Gaddafi's PhD and the £1.5m donation he later made
By Jonathan OwenSunday, 6 March 2011

• 
  EXTRA LARGELARGENORMAL

LSE PRESS OFFICE

The LSE's director, Howard Davies, has resigned. David Held will feature in the inquiry

Fresh evidence emerged yesterday revealing how Saif Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader, plagiarised his PhD thesis at the London School of Economics. One Libyan academic drafted in to help Saif Gaddafi was later rewarded with an ambassador's posting to Europe. The new details came as a Tory MP called for the LSE's entire governing council to resign. The beleaguered institution also faced allegations that an academic had been pressured to admit a relative of an aide to President Bill Clinton to study there.
The LSE, widely criticised for the way it solicited funding from Libya, resulting in it being dubbed the "Libyan School of Economics", has launched an inquiry into the plagiarism and funding controversy.
Colonel Gaddafi's son enlisted Libyan academics to help ghost-write his thesis, according to Professor Abubakr Buera of Benghazi's Garyounis University. "I learnt that Saif gathered some PhD holders from Garyounis University in Benghazi, Libya, to help him write his doctoral dissertation. Among the people he consulted was a professor of economics who was a graduate from Germany. His name is Dr Menesi; what gives credibility to this allegation is that Dr Menesi, who was then retired, was brought back to active service as a government bank chairman in Libya, then governor to the Central Bank in Libya, then minister of finance, and finally Libya's ambassador to Austria.
Professor Buera described Saif Gaddafi as a "war criminal", and called for the LSE to strip him of his doctorate. "After Saif's stand and lies against the Libyan people, it should be no longer an honour for the LSE to keep him as one of its graduates; from now on, he is being looked down at by many Libyans as a war criminal," he said.
The Libyan embassy in Austria did not respond to requests for comment. The LSE said it has "no evidence" of the allegation.
The university has asked Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice, to carry out an inquiry into the circumstances in which Saif Gaddafi was awarded a doctorate in 2008, only to make a £1.5m donation to the university the following year. The inquiry followed the resignation of the LSE's director, Howard Davies, after revelations that, as well as the £1.5m donation from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation (GICDF), the LSE had also benefited from a £2.2m contract with Libya to train its civil servants. Robert Halfon, the Tory MP for Harlow, called for the LSE's entire governing council to resign. "It is the only way the LSE can restore its name," he said.
Among the people who will feature in the inquiry is Professor David Held, the co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance and one of Saif Gaddafi's mentors. He had argued in favour of the grant for his centre being accepted and was appointed a trustee of GICDF in June 2009, but was forced to quit several months later by the LSE's council over concerns of a potential conflict of interests. He denies any impropriety.
But questions about Professor Held were raised over claims that he pressured an admissions tutor to accept the niece of former Clinton aide Sydney Blumenthal on a master's course.
Erik Ringmar, a professor in international relations at Shanghai Jiaotong University, said: "I was David Held's colleague from 2001 until 2007. For the first two years we worked closely together as fellow members of the MSc in comparative politics." He described an incident in late 2002, when Professor Held "insisted I accept a student to our MSc programme who was a relative of Sidney Blumenthal, a Clinton crony. Unusually, I was sent an applicant's file not from the admissions office, as always was the case, but straight from the office of the LSE director – at that time Anthony Giddens. In the [applicant's] file was a handwritten note from 'Sid' to 'Tony,' making the case that accepting his niece to do a degree at the LSE would be a wonderful opportunity to 'continue to deepen our trans-Atlantic ties'."
Professor Ringmar claimed that Professor Held telephoned him and said: "You should consider it very carefully, just read the name again. It's Blumenthal, OK? That Blumenthal'."
He added: "In the end, I accepted her, although her grades were substantially lower than what we usually required. I'm not proud of this but I felt intimidated by all the pressure from Giddens, the LSE director, and from David Held. I was a mere lecturer at the time – and easily intimidated."
The LSE dismissed the claim as that of "a disgruntled member of staff who no longer works at LSE".

 The role of Middle Eastern regimes in British universities

From Saddam Hussein to Saif Gaddafi, there appears to be no shortage of would-be benefactors from questionable regimes keen to help British universities. Robin Simcox, a researcher at the Centre for Social Cohesion, which has studied the issue, said controversies were "inevitable". Here are some of the centre's findings:
Iran£10,000 – University of Durham (2009) joint books, conferences and research with the government.
£100,000 – University of St Andrews (2006) from a former high-ranking member of the regime.
£35,000 – School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) (1999) for two studentships.
Saudi Arabia£8m – University of Cambridge from Prince Alwaleed.
£8m - University of Edinburgh (2008) to establish the Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre.
£1m – Oxford's Middle East Centre (2001) from the King Abdul Aziz Foundation.
£20m – Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) (1997) from King Fahd.
£1m – SOAS (1995) from King Fahd to help establish the Centre for Islamic Studies.

The Malays have a saying, 'kalau nak paut pada pokok, pautlah pada ranting yang kuat' (if you are going to hold on to a tree, make sure you hold the branch which is strong). Just like that, when the going was good, everybody was happy, despots were giving away stashes of cash in returns for for honorary awards. The ivory towers prosper and jokers were glorified - All were happy... until the tide of change swept through without warning in the Arab world. Now everyone wants to wash their dirty hands off the mess they have got themselves into and want to come out smelling of roses before the next regime takes control and they would join cahoots with the victors.
This glorification of leaders has been going on for a long time - examples being our 1st lady getting the mother of the year award, our PM getting honorary doctorate, the King bestowed more alphabets to be added behind his already long name and the list goes on and on. Talking about Ph. D.'s, there are many our respected parliamentarians going around flashing their over the counter degrees without completing a single assignment and knowing a word of English!    

A rose by any other name...

An emotion by any other language, with the right acting, will still feel the same....
Watch and learn....