No fake news!

Credit: pbs.org

We were told in our history lessons that the American Civil War stemmed from the noble intentions of the Union States to end slavery in North America whilst the Southern States opposed as they were of an agrarian society of which cotton and sugar plantations were labour intensive. Well, that is just part of the story. As in any back story to an event in history, there is always money involved.

The Southern States traded cotton to Europe and the rest of the world. They got their other supplies from Europe and the Northern States. The South found imports from Europe to be cheaper than from their counterparts in the North. To protect the local industries, the Union, mostly comprising the Northern states, started imposing a levy on the European imports.

This incurred the wrath of Europe who stopped purchasing American cotton. The South felt bullied. Resentment was brewing.

Meanwhile, in the European continent, the French, the British and the Germans were apprehensive of a stable booming economy in the other side of the Atlantic. After defeating the Spanish and sending their armada packing from the Caribbean, the Americans decreed the Monroe doctrine which dictated that any attack on Northern or Southern American continent by a foreign force would be considered as an invasion on American soil and the Americans would retaliate. This kept their enemies at bay. The enemies thought a divided America would make their task easier. Hence, the wounded foreign powers had all the reasons to instigate hatred between brothers.

In fact, during the Civil War, the French conquered Mexico to put up a puppet leader in Maximilian, who had a cordial relationship with the Confederate States. At that time too, the British tried to checkmate the Americans by placing troops in Canada. Russia, who had a bone to pick with the French-German-British alliance for attempting to break some Balkan and Scandinavian states away from the Tsar kingdom, placed their battleships in America to threaten the potential invaders.

Lincoln, who was no sympathiser of the African slaves' course and had superiority feeling of the white race over the coloured, just wanted to stop slavery and send them all back to Africa. The problem is that the Southerners had invested a lot of money into acquiring slaves. Losing them immediately would be disastrous. The slave owners actually planned to make slaves freemen over time. Making them free would mean that they were paid for their work. Slaves were getting lazy already.

Credit: mycivilwar.com

The threat of the Southern states to leave the Union was the reason the Americans went to war.

War was good for business, especially for the bankers. Financiers from the European continent moved in to support both sides of the Marcus-Dixon line. From then, money dictated the progression of the course of the war. Many new monetary policies were devised to finance the war. Fiat money was printed and legitimised by legislation. National banking system and war bonds were sold to fund the war. The losing party is the general public. They lost their life earnings. Northerners who demonstrated and opposed the war were shot and killed by the Union soldiers. Imagine, shooting your own people to save slaves!

Lincoln made enemies on both sides of the divide; the Southerners for losing, the Northerner businessmen who wanted to make a more significant killing from the South. It seems that John Wilkes Booth was a member of an organisation that wanted to take over America to establish a military government!

The Elixir of Life?

The Shape of Water (2017)

Okay, this movie is a sci-fi romance flick which won an Oscar. It is modelled after 'The Beauty and The Beast', about a young cleaner-lady falling in love with mysterious scaly water-creature in captivity, initially captured in South America. There seems to exist more mystery behind the story of this mute orphan who lost her vocal powers probably after a neck injury. She spends a long time in her bath and gets an attraction to this creature. She spots the reptilian being in the laboratory, as he is being tortured.

The story goes predictably as she and her band of misfits try to kidnap him from the science facility. They discover each other and live happily ever after. Of course, it is made more interesting than that. The setting is 1960 Baltimore, in a government lab. It boasts of colourful characters, all with flaws in them. The mute protagonist, her colleague who has been through multiple poor judgements in relationships, a talented but unsuccessful painter as her neighbour and the nasty head of the facility who is a family man, but a dangerous boss, who would stop at nothing to prevent his prized scientific specimen from going missing. Amidst all this, there is a scientist who empathises with the sea creature but is also a Russian agent.

What fascinated me more was the title of the film. The 'Shape of Water' reminded me most of the character of water of having the memory of the things that they have come in contact. Scientists recently discovered that water droplets from different sources show different appearances when they are visualised under dark ground microscopy. When the same water is exposed to other objects, (e.g. a flower) the water clusters of molecules change appearance. Again when another flower is dropped in it, yet another shape takes form. This is labelled as the 'face of water'.

Yogis and religious practitioners over the years have been telling about the unique qualities of water, the elixir of life. It is the only substance in all three states on Earth in its natural - solid, liquid and gaseous forms. It is also the most potent solvent in the world, comprising more than 2/3 of our bodies and the world we live in. Interestingly, it has one of the highest surface tensions that allows creepy crawlies to walk on it and to enable water to be pumped up by capillary action high up xylem of a tree of metres high.

Water which is stagnant gives different vibes as compared to a fast-moving one. This must have been the basis for storage of water in particular earthen or metallic containers before consumption. Water chanted with verses of specific frequencies has medicinal and healing qualities. No wonder water plays such a vital role in cultural and religious rituals.

Water memory is the purported ability of water to retain a memory of substances previously dissolved in it even after an arbitrary number of serial dilutions. ... Water memory defies conventional scientific understanding of physical chemistry knowledge and is not accepted by the scientific community. [Wiki]

https://truththeory.com/2017/01/14/german-scientists-discover-water-memory/ 

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Is this what we want?

The Podcast

Something which must have been thought of as a novel intention has not materialised to such. The idea of steering the genesis of a country from scratch in the mould of the Islamic Constitution must have excited many who were hellbent on enforcing God's laws and justice on Earth.  Sadly, 70 years after its establishment, what we see is chaos, killings, vengeance, violence and lawlessness. The head does not know what the team is doing. The tail is working autonomously at a spinal level, and the puppet of the administration is controlled by invisible but invincible strings of which nobody has any clue.

Recently, BBC World Service completed a 10-part weekly podcast series which was an investigative journalism piece by a senior correspondence, Owen Bennett Jones, on the assassination of Pakistani's 2007 Prime Minister in waiting, Benazir Bhutto. Jones had had many intimate one-on-one interviews with Bhutto and her family before and after the murder.

With a fine tooth comb, he meticulously examined interviews, footages surrounding the assassination and the multiple prior failed attempts, telephone interception recordings and transcripts of dialogues as well as reports from intelligence officers. There was even a United Nations-led investigation surrounding Bhutto's slaying. Despite the thorough scrutiny, the whole probe proved to be an exercise in futility. Conflicting hearsays from ISI team, the ruling junta and the informants just gave a tailspin to the entire imbroglio. Despite clear-cut evidence of the suspected person responsible for the killing, nobody dares to pursue the matter, fearing their own physical or political survival. People who are allegedly dead turn up alive over the border in just a couple of days. And many individuals involved in this high profile case also turned up in body bags. Each arm of the administration seems to be clueless or apathetic about the actions of the other. Perhaps, each of them is suspicious of other. The police give a picture of either incompetence or helplessness.

At the end of the day, the people responsible for her death in an apparent suicide bombing by a fifteen-year-old madrasah student is still at large. The suspects include the former President Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani Army, the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence), Pakistani Taliban, Al Queda and even Benazir Bhutto's husband, Azil Zardari, for he later became the party leader!

The rule of law in this country is best described as fractured. It is a lesson for countries around the region. We, in Malaysia, should be apprehensive about the movement of many of their citizens seamlessly into and out of our country at will. Furthermore, many of our girls are charmed by their close to Bollywood charm and fall flat at their pheromonic appeal. Our country will be their new base for their nefarious activities and to spread their pervasive ideologies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42409374

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No sacrifice?

The partially completed Kek Lok Si
temple in Penang in 1905. It holds
the dark secret of a melancholic
monk with self-inflicted wounds
after his tireless endeavours to
rebuild the temple was sabotaged
and bad-mouthed. In its annals
too, woven are the intriguing
narrations of the selfless services
of a young Dr Wu Lien Teh
who nursed him back to health.

What is a sacrifice? Is it an overused word with its meaning taken for granted? A suicide bomber is making a sacrifice when he decides to blow himself to smithereens to make a statement or to martyr himself for the good of those who share the same belief as him? Is he not being selfish as his own remunerations that await him in the afterlife? Is he being selfless or selfish when he plunges the red button?

Is the symbolism of death on The Cross the ultimate sacrifice for the human race? Is it true altruism when able bodies with the spring of youth ahead of them give up their earthly pleasures to serve God and the downtrodden? Can volunteers who endanger themselves in the vein of Father Damien to care for lepers or Franciscan friars signify the pinnacle of human renouncement?

Are politicians or pop stars who clamour to be afront flashes of pixels to be seen giving and caring, spread more goodness to the world? 

Is it sacrifice when a hungry mother willingly serves the only remaining bowl of broth to her offspring knowing well that she can withstand hunger pangs better than her young? Or is the random kindness that one extends to a stranger, but then there is no sacrifice, is there? Should it be just second nature to help?

Should we just send another soul as a sacrificial lamb and claim that we had forgone something close to gain points? Some insist that living a simple life, forfeiting simple pleasures of life beget special considerations for Judgement Day.

Lt. Col. Arnaud Jean-Georges Beltrame (18 April 1973 – 24 March 2018)
killed by ISIS terrorists after having exchanged himself for a hostage. [Wiki]

Or is it in a selfless act of devoting one's life to an obviously bleak situation, knowing pretty well the outcome just because it is your job?

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You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!

The Darkest Hour (2017)

Neville Chamberlain's faux pas with appeasement policy forced him to resign after Hitler ran over Belgium and France. Churchill was chosen as the replacement Prime Minister when Viscount Halifax declined the offer as he felt that he was not ready. Churchill was the only Conservative member who garnered the support of the Opposition and had been warning the House on the dangers of Hitler's military might even before Chamberlain's Norway debacle.

The ghost of Gallipoli did not augur well for his military strategies as many were wary of his seemingly ambitious plans. King George VI, who later developed a cordial relationship with Churchill, had his reservations since his support of King Edward's liaison to Wallis Simpson and subsequent abdication of the throne.

On the home ground, Churchill had a supportive hand in his wife, Clementine, but had to fight his inner demons, the black dog, depression. The indecisiveness on whether to broker peace with Hitler through Mussolini or to fight on proved too overwhelming for this war-time Prime Minister.

He had to decide to rescue the stranded British soldiers and to face eminent German attack on British soil. The movie deals with how Churchill, with his political wrangling and oratory skills, convinced the country to 'fight on the beaches' till 'the loser chokes on his own blood'.

It is interesting to note that despite being sidelined after his snafu about the Germans, Chamberlain remained in the Cabinet as a vital playmaker of the Conservative Party. At the same time, he was slowly dying of cancer.

Historians scoff at the supposed fictionalised accounts of the scenes depicted in this film. After the appointment of Churchill to the post, Halifax and Chamberlain are seen considering to get a vote of no confidence to oust him. When Churchill was undecided on the possibility of initiating peace talks with the enemy, he is seen here to make an unprecedented trip on the Underground to get the popular viewpoint from the crowd.

Overall, this flick is an intense drama with some powerful lines and a stellar performance by the almost unrecognisable Gary Oldman.

Memorable lines

“We have a drunkard at the wheel,” “I wouldn’t let him borrow my bicycle,”

“You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth!”

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World politics is not so easy!

Black Panther (2017)

Congregations of all religions all over the world pray for peace on Earth. The preachers sell the idea that we are all of a single tribe and we should all live in harmony and pray 'Kum ba yah'. In reality, life is far from that.

Just like rain can be a boon to one set of society while it is abhorred by the other, doing good cannot be taken as a singular act. Sometimes, a leader has to make the unpopular step which he knows that it would benefit the nation in the end. Again, it is no easy task. Nobody has the crystal ball to show them the way. Sometimes the leaders have to bow to the pressures of the lobbyist who put them there in the first place. And least of all, a 'good' person who wants to do the best for everyone would fail miserably. 

'Black Panther' is a full-length feature film of a black superhero and a king of a fictitious country in Africa named Wakanda. Long ago, a mysterious meteorite containing vibranium which had unique qualities hits this part of the world. Vibranium is useful to generate power, technology, Captain America's shield and even gives superhuman attributes when ingested with a particular herb. The secret of vibranium is guarded closely against the rest of the world. Mayhem ensues when foreigners put it up for sale in the black market, assisted by double-crossers within the clan.

T'Challa, the heir to the throne, the protagonist returns to claim his due. The life decisions that he has to make forms the basis of this somewhat different Marvel superhero film.

©variety.com

Along the story, I could not help but ask myself why with so much technology in Wakanda did the ordinary people live like Masai tribe people with bare belongings and simple lifestyles. Even though skyscrapers were visible, magnetic levitation trains speed through the countryside and Star War-like spacecraft swish through effortlessly through the country's airspace, the general public do not seem to exude modernity.

It may appear altruistic to share all your nation's wealth with the rest of the world. It may only be the right thing to treat everybody as part of the human race, to treat each other as brothers and sisters, in reality, it is really a wild world. Again and again, we have seen that it is human nature, maybe it is the selfish gene within us, that we want to possess everything. We always want to ensure we are not caught stranded hungry and cold. We want to be prepared.

For example, look at the USA. Even though it has the most significant stockpile of petroleum, it is more keen to create pandemonium in the rest of the world for others to sell their oil cheap!

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More than a pretty face!

Bombshell: The Story of Hedy Lamarr (2017, Documentary)

“Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” Hedy Lamarr. 

I bet you did not know that the image of Snow White that we have in our minds, thanks to Disney's classic cartoons, is based on the features of the then dubbed as the most beautiful woman of the world, Hedy Lamarr. Even Catwoman's representation is of hers. There was a time when every actress wanted to spot her similar hairstyle, centre-parted dark hair. Beneath the beauty that she possessed, there remained an inventive scientific mind waiting to create something new.

This Viennese daughter of a Jewish banker, Hedy Kiesler, was a free-spirited lass when at the spur of the moment acted in a dirty German film, 'Ektase' which bewildered her the rest of her adult and professional life. She married an arms merchant (to the Nazis and Mousillini) soon after her fame at Austrian movie set later. Things took a turn after Hitler and his Jewish-hating propaganda took centre stage. Her father, her idol, succumbed to a heart ailment. She staged an escape plan for herself. Swapping clothes with her maid and stitching her money and jewellery in her tunic, she made a dash out of Vienna on a bicycle.

Hedy Lamaar ©Pinterest

She landed in London where Louis B Meyer (of MGM) was scouting for talents. Contracted, she made her debut in a 1938 Hollywood film, Algiers. Struggling through the stereotype that the cinema world gave her as an exotic seductress and the ghost of Ektase, she had her ups and downs. Despite her gruelling schedule in Hollywood, in the nights, she worked in her small lab at home.

It was at this juncture that her full potential as an inventor came to fore. She is said to have given Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire inventor, the idea for a brand new design for the wings of his planes. During the heights of WW2, when most Hollywood actresses were content with making special appearances to entertain the US Army and to sell War Bonds, she and a composer-pianist, George Antheil, were busy inventing. When the Navy was paralysed by the German U-boats which could jam the Naval torpedoes, they came up with the idea of a 'frequency hopping' system which could bypass the German interference. They patented this invention, but the Navy was not keen to use this design for a non-military layperson.

Her beauty was also her gilded cage. Perhaps, the feminist she was and the intelligence that she possessed proved too overwhelming to many of her partners in her many (six) failed marriages. She is best remembered as Delilah in 1945 'Samson and Delilah'. Her mega production, The Loves of Three Queens, could not be distributed as no distributors wanted to take it.
Her later life was a sad one riddled with court cases, depression, drugs, plastic surgeries and more surgeries. She spent her last few years as a recluse.

Her 'frequency hopping system' is the basis of GPS, Blue Tooth, Wi-Fi and military satellite technologies. In the later years, she was given due recognition for her discovery.

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