The missing human factor

Sully (2016)
Director: Clint Eastwood

This movie is quite relevant in this time and age. The democratisation of access to information and freedom to verbalise has reached such a height that everyone with half a brain is a warrior, at least in cyberspace. With the luxury of an obscene amount of information that their disposal assisted by the ease of artificial intelligence (which, knowledge-wise, coincidentally is as much as its inventor), turns every armchair critic into a seeker of the Truth and a self-appointed Robin Hood of the oppressed.

Heroes are born every day, but most of them remain unknown to us all. They appear out of thin air at the necessary time, do things beyond their expected capacity and disappear as quickly as the manifest. Sadly, many a time, their genuine intentions are questioned and put under the spotlight for scrutiny. Too much trust is placed on computer simulations. The human factors like empathy and compassion which had brought mankind through so many obstacles throughout their civilisation are swept under the carpet. We tend to think that artificial intelligence (AI) can replace Man. We forget that there is a reason why AI is labelled artificial in the first place.

This film is another of Eastwood's offerings to celebrate the deed of an ordinary man, based on a true story. Captain Sullenberger is an experienced pilot of American Airlines. Soon after lift-off from La Guardia airport of New York, both his aircraft engines failed after an encounter with a skein of geese. Despite orders from the control towers to redirect the plane to other airports, the good Captain made the calculated judgement to land the plane on the Hudson River instead. Even though all his 155 occupants escaped injury, the aircraft was a write-off. At the internal enquiry, he was questioned along the line of pilot error for the 'accident' for landing in the river rather than the airports as directed. Computer simulations concurred that damage to the vessel could have been averted if he had followed orders.

In this modern world where every modality of treatment, technology or device is assessed through comparative experiments and randomised double-blind studies, we forget the human element that is linked to the outcome of any endeavour. Lately, the scientific community has also realised that reproducibility is many findings in what is considered as hallmark studies strangely cannot be replicated! Experience plays a pivotal in decision making. Not all world-changing moments can be decided from cookbooks.

The early silver screen moghuls

Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (Documentary; 1998)



 The main driving point of this documentary is that the American Dream that Hollywood is trying to propagate is no American invention. It is the message brought in by a few Jewish immigrants who escaped the pogroms in the shtetls (Jewish village) of Eastern Europe. They invented Hollywood and owned the six leading studios in Hollywood in the 1920s. The message that they try to disseminate are their own experiences; Harry Warner and his three brothers who brought sound to the motion pictures; Samuel Goldwyn @ Goldfische, the biggest of the independent producers;  Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal Studios; Louis B. Mayer, founder of MGM; Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount; and William Fox of 20th Century Fox. They all came from an area within a 500-mile radius area in Europe, between Poland, Hungary and Russia. They end up living in Los Angeles within a 15-mile vicinity.

After leaving the tyranny of persecution and discrimination against the sin of being born Jew, they left their homeland in the heart of Europe to seek newer pastures in the New World. Here, the ghost of their past re-surfaced. The American public was not welcoming of their Jewish newcomers. They were ostracised and were discriminated against in fields of banking, business and education. Growing up in the ghettos, these enterprising people persevered. They moved to West Coast with their risk-taking attitude to reinvent themselves. Within a generation, as the joke went, they progressed from “from Poland to polo in one generation,”!

Outwardly these re-invented American exude a nationalist persona. They promote allegiance to the American flag and to whatever the founding fathers stand for. Deep within themselves and their household, they stick steadfastly to their religious beliefs. In their movies, they portray images that behind in their villages. The suffering of the little people is seen as the pilgrims hunted by Native American bandits, a robust maternal character out to defend the family, the looting, the burning in the early Westerns are all reminiscence of their past lives. At the same time, the films try to create a new American society which is more democratic, where blacks, Jews and Gentiles are treated as equal. In real life then, that was far from reality.

The story of the golden era tried very hard to fit Jews in the American society. The process of assimilation had begun. Interracial marriages were depicted as acceptable norms. Came World War 2, these silver screen Moghuls paid their national service. They infused patriotic values in their stories to keep the fighting spirits high.  Washington was working hand-in-glove towards this end. Making movies about Russia, who were their allies, was acceptable. The first generation had become a power to reckon with and could walk shoulder to shoulder with the WASPs (wealthy White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), finally.


The dreams of these moguls fell apart soon after WW2. They were accused of thinly disguising communists values in their presentations. The witchhunt for un-American activities had begun through the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC). Some say that the outsiders (as the WASP always considered them to be) never really recovered from this blow. Actors and directors lost their jobs. Others lost the zest to fight.

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Conspiracy theorists' galore

Social Engineering, Agenda 21 & Transhumanism - The Secret Manipulation of Humanity

(2014, You-tube; David Icke)

Recently, I was introduced (not in person) to this erudite, fast-talking, fearless critic of modern civilisation. He can be said to be one of the doomsday prophets who predicts a very bleak future for mankind. He foresees a future where Man would not be a thinking individual but rather one whose reasoning power is numbed, thanks to the subversive actions of alien lifeforms and their representatives on Earth, the descendant of the Rothschilds and many other leading members of the society including the ones in the Fabian society. 

In this 2 and a half hour presentation, the speaker tirelessly covers many ranges of topics that he has been trying to do a summary of all the things that he has been trying to theorise all these years. First, he suggests that human beings many centuries ago had full use of their brain, living blissfully long lives in harmony. An alien race, the Archons, who landed here changed all that. These visitors infused their 'reptilian' DNA into Man. This breed of hybrids lives amongst us, mainly in positions of power, controlling us. The examples of these are the monarchs and Rothschilds. They rule by proxy; the leaders of the most powerful nations and members of elite groups. The Jews are not pictured as the bad guys.

Interbreeding between the God and human have been mentioned in many ancient and serpent symbolism are surprisingly represented in so many cultures, from Africa, Orient, India, Nordics to the Americas.

The alien race controls the human race via their centre located in the matrix of the Moon. Their mission is to numb our inner eye to dampen the ability to receive wisdom and inner realisation. They plan to depopulate the planet. Their many ways towards this end include the denudation of its forests, inclusion of toxins into our bodies via vaccines, fluorination of water, genetic modification of our foods and creation of unnecessary wars.

They are infiltrating our bodies via microchips, monitoring our every move through surveillance and facial recognition techniques as well making us zombies through our addiction to our handheld digital devices.

These reptilian visitors would not rest until they change our world akin to their anarchic 'Archon world'

There is hope yet for mankind. People have to realise these agendas. An awakening is needed to combat this annihilation. Anyway, cracks are appearing in their work. Many of their nefarious works are slowly being exposed. We need to transform our reality by changing our reality to truth and love, to be who we really are.

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What is Love?

Echoes of Silence (1994)
Author: Chuah Guat Eng

It is long overdue, but it is never late than never. For many years, Malaysians have been writing novels in the English Language. Sadly, their following is few and far between. Through my association with a group of up and coming writers and with the power of social media, it has come to light on the treasure troves of writings of Malaysian writers in the lingua franca left by our colonial masters. I am not just referring to authors to the likes of Tan Twan Eng, Rani Manicka and K.S. Maniam. Do you know that periodically Malaysians do hit the headlines for the right reasons, literary awards being one?

Guat Eng is hailed in the local literary circle as a 'Godmother' of sorts. She has been an active participant in the writing scene and was in the advertising field. In this story, which is set around the early years of Malaya, though the World War Two, we are ushered into a fictional world of how Malaya used to be and a peculiar case of intergenerational murders!

The author talks about many things in this book; politics, race, nation building, interracial tensions, commercialisation and so forth. What interests me, however, is the part where she asks 'what is love'? Does it have to be expressed by physical contact and overt demonstration of passion? Is public display of affection a mere construct of the modern era or a Western influence? Many choose to show love not through words but by their actions. One can say so much by saying nothing at all whilst others best stay mum as they do more damage when they open their mouths!

http://www.viweb.mysite.com/vilit_guat-eng.htm

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What happened to all the knowledge?

Shanti Stupa at Dhaulagiri

India has always struck to everyone as the land of mysticism. In its area lies the secret of its many centuries of civilisation and the many forgotten treasures and wisdom of yesteryear. Everyone goes there, in his full view, is yet another splendour of a previously well advanced enlightened with advancement in engineering, sciences, mathematics and ethics so sophisticated that is beyond compare. Some of the things that we see are just mind-boggling. Some of the tales narrated to us are beyond belief, wanting of rational scientific explanation.

At the turn of last year, I had the opportunity to gaze at a fraction of these wonders during a short trip to Odiya. Besides Emperor Asoka and his Kalinga Kingdom which is often mentioned in our textbooks, this tropical climate state is also well known for two other mammoth structures with its logic-defying features.

'The masses' lulling themselves with the notion that their nation, at one time, did rule the world
spiritually, economically and epistemologically. Never mind if it just a 'has been' story. 
At least the past glory can be a nidus the spark for the future.

The river in Dhauli, now just a stream which just saw a flow of crimson tide following the massacre of Kalinga.

Dhauli is the place where Asoka, after all the killings of his siblings, enemies and army, was enlightened here when he saw a river, instead of having running water had a sea of sanguine effluent. This, together with a few pre-forewarned sign reformed him into a Buddhist and a man of peace. In this place stands a stupa built by a Japanese to commemorate that event.

Another structure that is quite jaw-dropping is the 12th century Sun Temple whose construction showcases the richness of Odiya architecture. The people, the Sun-worshippers (not the Californian type), considered the Sun as the reason for their existence. A temple was built to honour it. The architectural outlay is basically to calculate sun positions and to ascertain the time and the seasons.

























At a time when the sciences were rudimentary, and pieces of machinery were primitive, it is indeed perplexing that the people then could actually carve out a temple out of a monolith with such precision and accuracy. Suggestions of alien intervention in these feats cannot be discredited but deserve more merit. The public display of sculptures of couples engaged in various positions of acts of copulation suggests that the Indian society indeed used to be a more liberal society than they are now. What gave, I wonder?

Jagannath Puri [Credit: noisebreak.com]

Yet another temple that would blow your mind away is the Jagannathpuri temple in Puri. It has gained the status of being one of the four magnificent Hindu temples at the four corners of India that one has to visit in his lifetime to achieve Moksha; the others being Dwarka at the west, Rameswaram at the south and Badrinath in the north. Shrouded in many unexplainable mysteries, this Vishnu temple is a display of splendour of Odiyan architecture at its zenith. If you look around Jaganath Puri from any angle at any time of the day, there would not be a single shadow cast from the dome of the main building.

The other unexplained mystery surrounding the temple is the prasadam (divine offerings) cooking technique and its distribution. Science cannot explain why the contents of the top-most pot are found to cooked before the one below when a stack of seven earthen pots are cooked over a fire below. Every day, there is no wastage or shortage of day. Miraculously, the amount prepared is just enough to accommodate the number of devotees and visitors.

noisebreak.com

Unlike other temples, the deities here (Lord Krishna; Balabhadra, his older brother and Subhadra, his younger sister) are wooden ones that are changed every twelve years. It is modelled after the very first prototype where one of the three deities is unfinished as the maker died after a curse. When the King ordered the erection of the temple, the best craftsmen were summoned. The leading artist locked himself to start on his project with the condition that the doors should not be opened until he says so. Curiosity took the better part of the Queen who decided to peek. The artist died, and the King decided to keep the diety as it was. Till this date, the newer statues are made with the third diety with no hands. The urban legend about the craftsman soon dying after completing his project lives on.

Another unique ritual that is found in this temple is the changing of the flag at the top of the dome on a daily basis. For the past 1800 years, a priest with no protective gears or safety harness climbs the dome which is as tall as a 45-storey building to continue the tradition. Legend dictates that if this ritual is broken, the temple would be shut for the next 18 years.
http://noisebreak.com/science-power-lord-jagannath-10-mysteries-puris-jagannath-temple-still-unexplained/

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Gestures and salutations?

Credit: thenewsminute.com

It was a Saturday night, and I was sitting smack in the middle of a temple going late 40s and an early 50s group. They had earlier decided to let their hair down and to indulge in the intoxicating bright nocturnal lights of capitalism and its lure. As the night slithered away into the darkness, their topics of idle banter started becoming more philosophical. From Malaysian politics and the lethargic state of affairs in the country, they ventured into the wisdom of the Vedanta.

Somebody started talking about the symbolic gestures of deference amongst Hindus of touching or slightly signalling towards the feet of someone elder. It may a signal of deferring to the great soul that resides in the physical body of the one being touched. The soul has achieved so much, and the younger newbie submits humbly in awe.

There are some who refuse to touch the feet. They believe that everyone carries their sins and evil deeds of their past lives in the lowest part of the lower extremities. In other words, we drag our misdeeds all through our short existence on Earth. When the younger touches the toes of the elder, some of the younger's lousy karma apparently transfers to the older person. The elder, after accumulating so much of bad points in the current life, by just being alive, the last thing they want is more Karmic baggage.

Of course, others decline to be given such high salutations as they are not worthy.

There are no arguments when it comes to the reverence of the dead. Everyone is willing to transfer the black marks of their tainted pasts. The dead cannot refuse.

Then, the topic went to the decorum of who can touch whom. It seems that mothers should not allow their pretty female offspring to reach the feet of holy men of blessings. It was just not done. A No-No. Period. A young girl with no blood relations to the recipient should not think of being blessed by an older unrelated man (especially there is no objection to conjugal desires!). And the crowd went blank on why a restriction should come about. That is when I put in my two cents worth of input.

There are groups of people who get pleasurable vibes by tactile stimulation of toes. In other words, they may have toe fetishism. Well, you do not want to display affection and arousal in public. What is more, if you are a holy man.

And I ask myself why I do not have friends! I should be asking why do they even friend me!

 P.S., Of course, everyone has their own version regarding the restrictions of young girls touching elders' feet. One is related to energy generated by the female gender. Their bodies exude so much energy doing multiple hormonal functions that they could do without additional energy. Others compared young ladies to Goddess Lakshmi that they cannot be made to show respect. Well, they sure do not respect women in domestic violence cases and in local laws that are overtly patriarchal and discriminatory against the fairer gender!

Ahalya falls at Rama's feet in gratitude for her liberation from Guatama's
curse. Note the Urdu/Persian script. Guatama, an elderly sage, cursed his
young two-timing wife Ahalya to be turned to stone. She was, of all people,
seduced by Lord Indra himself. Indra had tricked Ahalya by appearing in
the image of her husband. Ahalya, knowing of his deception, willingly just
played on.

A young man displays pranama to an elderly.

A procrastinator, Chirakari, salutes his father, Guatama for not carrying out his duties a son.
A furious Guatama had ordered his son to kill his mother. The ever over-thinking delayed his
action by weighing the merits and demerits of not executing his father's orders and the evil
of killing his own flesh. Procrastination proved useful as Guatama soon regretted his rash
decision and was glad that his son had indeed not killed his mother. Earlier, Guatama had discovered that his wife, Ahalya, Chirakari's mother, had wronged him.

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Disposable!

Pulsagari (North Korean; 1985)
Director: Shin Sang-ok

Although we have hardly heard of North Korea (NK)'s indulgement in the celluloid industry, The Supreme Leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Il before him, are movie buffs. The elder was so desperate to bring his country's movies to the international arena (and to make propaganda films) that Jong-Il kidnapped South Korea's famous film icons of the 60s, Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife Choi Eun-hee for this purpose.

In 1979, Choi went missing in Hong Kong. Shin was the prime suspect in her disappearance. In trying to investigate her vanishing, he was kidnapped by Kim's men and whisked off to NK. Here, Shin found Choi safe and sound. After series of torture and rehabilitation exercise, Shin decided that the best way to escape was to play ball. Both Choi and Shin soon became a feature in NK high society. He was coaxed to make about 7 movies, of which Pulsagari is one. A year later, in Vienna, both of them sought asylum. Pulsagari is basically a rip-off of Godzilla. Even though the backstory behind this sci-fi sounds more interesting than the flick, the storyline does carry some sobering thoughts.
It tells of an evil emperor who tortures his subjects. The already resources-depleted mountain dwelling community is harassed for taxes. When money became scarce, the King's generals demand their metal utensils, hoe, rakes, pots, pans and knife to be smelt to be made weapons. The villagers resisted. The head was imprisoned and tortured. Before dying, the leader moulded a figurine of a fabled monster named Pulsagari and breathed life into it.

Pulsagari was discovered by the villagers, and soon they realised that the cute little monster was very much alive and thrived on iron. It was just handy as it fast gobbled up all the enemies' arsenal. Pulsagari was a saviour who saved the villagers from the tyranny of the iron-fisted rulers. It became bigger with more iron-feed. When the war was over, and the foes were defeated, the villagers had a bigger problem in their hand. Pulsagari's ferocious appetite could not keep up with the availability of iron in the village. Ironically, the saviour became the demander. The only way to reach sanity was to just kill off Pulsagari!

The hidden message here is that in life everybody has a shelf-life. No one is indispensable. They are sent to be Earth to perform a specific pre-ordained mission. What that is, is anybody's guess. After that is done, we have to just fade away into the sunset rather than to be a burden to the soil that supports us. Funny, Kim did not see the moral staring in the face of its viewers. I guess the joke must be on him.

Hear a podcast of the experience of the South Koreans on the other side of the 38th parallel... On 'This American Life'.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/556/same-bed-different-dreams/act-one


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