In War, all loses!

Water Diviner (2014)
I remember that the Gallipoli campaign was one which carried a high mortality but somehow almost all involved in it came out heroes, or at least they were made to think. The Australians and New Zealanders began their nationalistic pride here as a nation and still commemorate their landing through ANZAC day and glorify their dead in their monuments. The Sikhs are proud to have died valiantly defending the Queen and their colonial masters. The Turks held their heads high to have successfully kept the Allied Forces at bay. It was also the ground in which a certain soldier who later modernised Turkey - Kamal Ataturk. As Sun Tze said many years earlier, "In war, they are no winners, only losers."
Even Winston Churchill whose strategy fell flat here, leading to meaningless deaths here, blossomed to lead the nation to fight another world war to come out smelling of roses and be immortalised as a true statesman.

Recently, the star of this movie, Russell Crowe gave an incisive interview to an Australian TV. He reiterated that Gallipoli is not an event to be proud of but a graveyard to many Turks and Australians who had no quarrel between each other. After all, the Empire attacked a sovereign nation. Of course, the veterans are not going to take that lying down.

The film is 2014 directorial debut for Russell Crowe who also assumes the role of a farmer father who goes in search of his 3 soldier sons who went missing in action in Gallipoli in 1915. The farmer soon discovers that his loss is not unique and they are others in his same predicament, on the enemy side. He soon discover another culture and friends along the way. War does no good to anybody.

21st Indian Battery Guard. Photograph taken in 1915 

by Sergeant Charles Alexander Masters while on active

service with the Australian Imperial Force in Gallipoli.

Of frills and thrills...

Wanting to stay away from hassle and bustle of modern living, I managed to escape for a short getaway! As it was a last minute after thought, I had to settle for a regular ticket from a regular airline as all the tickets from the no-frill ones were either taken up or the their websites were too darn user un-friendly! Guess everyone wanted to fly away to greener pastures just because everyone can fly.

As it had been a mighty long time since I flew in a national airline, it was an eye opener on what most people have been missing.

Somehow, from the time of its inception, a journey on a plane has been associated with bourgeois living. People got dressed to the nines. Fair maiden fall all over and bend over backwards to serve the passengers. Servings on flight had to be first class and exquisite and comfort is of paramount importance. All that changed with young punks who came out thinking out of the box and forever changed the experience amongst the clouds. "We make it cheap for you", they said. "You pay for what you want." Preferred seating, extra leg space, express check-in, personalised notification, insurance, food on-flight etcetera were only charged upon request. Luckily, emergency life saving equipment were not charged, or were they?

After being ushered into our seats with salutations of 'Ayubowan', we were left to enjoy the comforts of air travel interrupted periodically by the in-flights announcements of take off and safety precautions. We were spared of having to give the pathetic look at the equally bored air stewardesses on most flights with their acrobatic manoeuvres on life safety tips in case of a crash. Anyway, most people watch it out of pity than really curious to know! All public service announcements were screened on our personalised monitors.

After a short stop for food, we were left to meddle with our flight electronic devices before our arrival without much hassle. No confusion over pre-booked meals, shortage of meals, passengers ordering at last minute, requesting for menu, requesting for unheard dish, selling of duty-free items and passengers treating the flight attendants as their personal maids! Not everyone wants to fly like that! Or is that what happens when everyone can fly? I rather not be thrilled by no-frills next time!

Still judging by the outer cover

The distributor told me that whatever is said, people still judge the book by its cover, hence emphasising the need for a captivating eye-catching cover. Once the book cover caught the eyes, only then would the potential buyer make an attempt to browse through between its covers! Like the Malay proverb says, 'from the eyes to the heart' and 'what you do not know, you do not fall for' - 'dari mata terus ke hati', 'tak kenal maka tak cinta'.

In real life too, things are not much different. Sometimes, we are fooled by external appearances. A person can dressed in the nines in tandem with the latest in haute culture cities of world equally spankingly manicured, pedicured and groomed smelling like a rose garden. The enchantment stops short once the person open the gab, enough to give anybody  a heart attack! No, not because of their putrefying halitosis but the illiteracy and nincompoopery that they exude. Well, on the other hand, the most brilliant of mankind may be simply dressed. One who has the gift of the gab may have more things to hide than his mental inefficiencies just like a hottie who revealed too much has more than her flesh to cover!

It is all too easy to profess that beauty is in the inside and external captivation is skin deep, but how many of us are not guilty of stereotyping, profiling and judging the book by its cover?

Overpopulation, Overconsumption - in pictures

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/gallery/2015/apr/01/over-population-over-consumption-in-pictures

Waves of humanity Sprawling Mexico City rolls across the landscape, displacing every scrap of natural habitat

‘If our species had started with just two people at the time of the earliest agricultural practices some 10,000 years ago, and increased by one percent per year, today humanity would be a solid ball of flesh many thousand light years in diameter, and expanding with a radial velocity that, neglecting relativity, would be many times faster than the speed of light.’ Gabor Zovanyi Photograph: Pablo Lopez Luz

Oil spill fire Aerial view of an oil fire following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico‘We must realise that not only does every area have a limited carrying capacity, but also that this carrying capacity is shrinking and the demand growing. Until this understanding becomes an intrinsic part of our thinking and wields a powerful influence on our formation of national and international policies we are scarcely likely to see in what direction our destiny lies.’ William Vogt Photograph: Daniel Beltra

Rectangular fields No room for nature, the entire landscape is devoted to crop production in China

‘Globalisation, which attempts to amalgamate every local, regional, and national economy into a single world system, requires homogenising locally adapted forms of agriculture, replacing them with an industrial system – centrally managed, pesticide-intensive, one-crop production for export – designed to deliver a narrow range of transportable foods to the world market.’ Helena Norberg-Hodge Photograph: Google Earth/2014 Digital Globe

Feedlot Industrial livestock production in Brazil

‘Despite the industry’s spin, concentrated animal feeding operations are not the only way to raise livestock and poultry. Thousands of farmers and ranchers integrate crop production, pastures, or forages with livestock and poultry to balance nutrients within their operations and minimise off-farm pollution through conservation practices and land management. Yet these sustainable producers, who must compete with factory farms for market share, receive comparatively little or no public funding for their sound management practices.’ Martha Noble Photograph: Peter Beltra

Clear-cut Industrial forestry degrading public lands, Willamette National Forest in Oregon

‘What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in, whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain future that is unfolding.’ Jim Robbins Photograph: Daniel Dancer 

Greenhouse grow greenhouse As far as the eye can see, greenhouses cover the landscape in Almeria, Spain

‘We are slaves in the sense that we depend for our daily survival upon an expand-or-expire agro-industrial empire – a crackpot machine – that the specialists cannot comprehend and the managers cannot manage. Which is, furthermore, devouring world resources at an exponential rate.’ Edward Abbey Photograph: Yann Arthus Bertrand


Hill-side slum: Slum-dwelling residents of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, face bleak living conditions in the western hemisphere’s poorest country
‘Squatters trade physical safety and public health for a few square meters of land and some security against eviction. They are the pioneer settlers of swamps, floodplains, volcano slopes, unstable hillsides, rubbish mountains, chemical dumps, railroad sidings, and desert fringes ... such sites are poverty’s niche in the ecology of the city, and very poor people have little choice but to live with disaster.’ Mike Davis Photograph: Google Earth/2014 Digital Globe


Cows and smoke Ground zero in the war on nature – cattle graze among the burning Amazon jungle in Brazil

‘Throughout history human exploitation of the earth has produced this progression: colonise-destroy-move on.’ Garrett Hardin Photograph: Daniel Beltra
South City Mall in Kolkata, India
Consumer culture spreads to the global south 

‘In the developing world, the problem of population is seen less as a matter of human numbers than of western over-consumption. Yet within the development community, the only solution to the problems of the developing world is to export the same unsustainable economic model fuelling the overconsumption of the West.’ Kavita Ramdas Photograph: Brett Cole

Trash wave Indonesian surfer Dede Surinaya catches a wave in a remote but garbage-covered bay on Java, Indonesia, the world’s most populated island
‘Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.’ Jacques-Yves Cousteau Photograph: Zak Noyle

Oil wells Depleting oil fields are yet another symptom of ecological overshoot as seen at the Kern River Oil Field in California

‘I don’t understand why when we destroy something created by man we call it vandalism, but when we destroy something created by nature we call it progress.’ Ed Begley, Jr. Photograph: Mark Gamba/Corbis

Dead bird On Midway Atoll, far from the centres of world commerce, an albatross, dead from ingesting too much plastic, decays on the beach – it is a common sight on the remote island

‘Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals – the same fate awaits them both; as one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath.’ Ecclesiastes 3:19 Photograph: Chris Jordan

British Columbia clear-cut Sometimes called the Brazil of the North, Canada has not been kind to its native forests as seen by clear-cut logging on Vancouver Island

‘Human domination over nature is quite simply an illusion, a passing dream by a naive species. It is an illusion that has cost us much, ensnared us in our own designs, given us a few boasts to make about our courage and genius, but all the same it is an illusion.’ Donald Worster Photograph: Garth Lentz

World War 4 would be fought with sticks!

Tomoyuki Yamashita @ Tiger of Malaya
1885 -1946

His name rhymed with dog, so we call him one. Maybe because he tried to live up in the shadows of his brother who was a Valedictorian and school head prefect, Anjing-san wagged his tail around the teachers in the beginning of year for him to be thrown the bone of the unenviable post of class monitor. Our last three doggone years of primary school were filled by his tyranny.

Looking like General Yamashita of World War 2 infamy with his physique and hair cut, he fitted the role of a loyal bulldog very well. With his iron-fist style of leadership, he managed to instil morbid fear in our young fragile chicken hearts.
During the brief moments that the teacher would leave the class to run errands, Anjing-san would morph to the front ready to pounce as he jotted down names of 'trouble maker' students on the class board for the teacher to peruse.

He made it appear as if he had a special one to one divine relationship with the class teacher. Any word from him would get us all in trouble and only he had the 'get-out-of-jail' free card. Life went on dutifully. Our young impressionable and gullible minds were cowed into submission.
It only took one dissident to create a melee at the end of his seemingly endless brutal tenure. One day, the class teacher sneaked in at the back of the boisterous classroom to witness first hand Anjing-San 's iron-fisted fascist administration. Anjing-san got a earful which included pull of both ear pinnae and a rant. Only then did we realise that Anjing-san was mortal like us after all. We had unnecessarily lifted him up and placed in high on a pedestal.

Funny how after four decades, there are still people who think they have direct communication lines with the Forces above, be it administrative or divine. They interpret the circulars as they like to and insist that it is meant to be the way they say it is. Shirkers and non conformists are berated. Band of yeoman are cajoled to monitor that His alleged law is carried out on Earth as He would have wanted. Interestingly He is silent and has not showed any seal of approval or otherwise. Conveniently random same events are interpreted at will by believers and naysayers in any way that suit them.

History has shown us that challenges in life come in different and newer forms. In order for the human race to survive way into the future, as they have done in the past, they have to embrace the problems with newer ideologies and strategies. Living on past laurels and utilising middle age innovations to combat space age issues is a sure way of annihilation.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Albert Einstein US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

Same clown, new costume, same act?

Mizuno Sayonara 2

I have been very lethargic of late. Body started aching most of the time. Inertia was the prevalent pace of my life. The bed was inviting and the treadmill was taking a back seat. Everyday, there was a convenient reason  to postpone exercise for yet another day - work requirement, family commitment, general fear of burning out, convincing the body to slow down as the body was no more spring chicken as the inner demons kept on pounding.

I had to rejuvenate. I had to push that body. So, when the chips are down, the morale is rockbottom and life has no meaning, what do you do? Rebranding, of course.
Even though the subject is the same with the same squeaky joints and aged musculature, new zest had to be infused. The panacea of all miseries - capitalistic consumerism. I got myself a new pair of running shoes. Instead of the same design of running shoes, I decided to go for a slightly different one from the same familiar brand.

What I did is nothing earth-shattering! Businesses do it all the time.
The spanking alluringly striking pair of Mizuno shoes is not going infuse new energy into the lethargic mass of protoplasm but at least what it can do is somehow influence the spirit deep from the hippocampus and limbic system - A new pair to a new purpose and new targets!
Big departmental stores do it all the time. When the sales are down, when there is no purpose to shop or when the general public realise of the impending hard times ahead and decide to tighten their belts, the capitalistic businessmen attempt to lure them back to their premises. The same old products of last season are repackaged under the guise of 'Megasales'. The prices are purposely inflated to appear to slash it down again for an apparent bargain! And the helpless customers with herd mentality scramble down in droves so as not to miss out in that 'once in a lifetime crazy bargain'!

The manufacturers are also guilty of the same. Shoe manufacturers keep on churning their old design again and again under different names under the guise of improving product with the knowledge of new technology. Science obviously is not advancing so rapidly that it is possible to churn a revolutionary pair of trainers come every season!
It is all a mirage and we are all falling flat for it!

How far does privacy go?

Citizen Four (2014, Documentary)

Obviously this documentary got a load full of attention and accolades because of the controversy that it had managed to propagate. From an infotainment viewpoint, it did little to provide more than we already know. It showcased the behind-the-scene happenings surrounding Edward Snowden's first whistleblowing interview in Hong Kong back in 2013.
Snowden gives a low-down account of how the Government agencies tap information into our personal details and our daily activities more than it has to know.

At the end of the day, the biggest question remains where one draws the boundary between privacy (or freedom and liberty) and national security especially in the present day world security situation. Should the ruling class be in control as the general population is the dark of what is really required of life? That privacy is just a fallacy to hide one's devious schemes to create mischief? Or that the rulers have a paternalistic role to ensure in the long run?