Down the torch

First the Tibetans reportedly destroyed Chinese property, albeit in their own land. Of course China had to respond to this lawless behaviour by sending in the police and the army to restore order and round up the trouble-makers. But world sympathy was with the Tibetans because the Chinese were seen as foreign occupiers and therefore had no business in Tibet. In fact, the Tibetans even have a government in exile in India, allegedly led by the Dalai Lama, who has been feted wherever he has gone, except in China and countries allied to China. So it is no surprise that Tibetans and their sympathizers are making use of the Olympic Torch Relay to demonstrate their opposition to Chinese occupation of their land.

Nobody can deny these demonstrations in a free society, not in London, not in Paris, not even in San Francisco. But I draw the line when these people attempt to seize the torch and extinguish it. Whatever the symbolism of the torch relay, or how it started or who started it and for what purpose, it has become a part of the Olympic games. In fact, the torch relay has been copied by many regional games. As such, a disruption of the relay is a disruption to the games - a direct provocation and challenge to the organisers of the Beijing Olympics and its worldwide participants and supporters. I daresay that, if ask, many in this group of people would agree with the Tibetans that their homeland should be free of occupation. But I also believe that they are opposed to any disruption of the games. So while the demonstrators have scored minor victories, such as extinguishing the torch in Paris, not once but 3 times, they may have lost the support of many. They have certainly lost mine.

It would have been enough to demonstrate along the torch relay route. Make noise if they want to. Tape up their mouths if they choose to. Show their placards to put across their message.  The world's press would report these to the world and the point would have been made. But by physically disrupting the relay and engaging in physical violence, now that is something that cannot be condoned, whatever one's grievance. There is talk that the entire torch relay be scrapped. If so, that may be a victory for Tibet, but sadly, they may have won the battle but would likely have lost the war. 

Truth or dare

One should never respond to a criticism by proving the point of the criticism. Yet this is the very thing that some party/parties did when they threatened harm to the staff of LiveLeak.com 'of a serious nature'. LiveLeak.com, if you don't already know it, was where Geert Wilders, the Member of the Dutch Parliament had his 15-minute 'Fitna' video shown originally. In Fitna, Mr Wilders attempted to show the worst side of radical Islam, quoting from the Koran, showing scenes of the Prophet Mohammad cartoon that angered so many Muslims around the world, and recounting terrorist acts from 911 to the Madrid train bombings to many reports of violence and hate speeches made by radical Islamic clerics and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Christians, Jews, the US and probably everyone else except themselves.

LiveLeak.com has since pulled the video from their website, but not before it was copied and can now be found freely available in several privately hosted website as well as Youtube.com. The video has even been translated to English from the original Dutch (which made sense as much of the major events that are shown in the video happened in English-speaking countries). What struck me as I watched the video was how much of the material were assembled from real events and newspaper reports. In other words, it is not fiction at all. Perhaps some may take issue with the Koranic verses quoted, that perhaps they were quoted out of context to bring out the worst interpretation possible to the texts. As I am not familiar with the Koran, I cannot decide one way or the other. But enough people have formed an opinion for them to leave messages on the internet in support of Wilder's message in Fitna.

Of course, this is not the politically correct view and national governments, including the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki Moon, have condemned the message of the video as spreading hatred. Why should hatred be countered with hatred? Should we kill to avenge another killing? I cannot say so one way or another. But in the interest of balance and allowing people to decide for themselves, the video should be made available. Hiding it would only perpetuate the suspicion that parties on both sides have for each other. Truly, the Islamic radicals have done themselves a dis-service - or are they admitting to what is shown in Fitna?

Sans Bus

I take my hat off to Mdm Chow Mei-ching, aka Mrs Ma Ying-jeou. She is a legal advisor at a bank (that means she is a trained lawyer), and get this, she takes a bus to work! I think we should all take a leaf out of her! And she still took the bus to work AFTER her husband won the Taiwan Presidential elections! Amazing lady, I'd say. How refreshing to know that she is not affected nor puffed up by power and prestige. Come May this year, she will be the First Lady, and she intends to keep on working, with the support of her President-husband and many in Taiwan. Unfortunately she has had to forego her habit of taking public transport because of the paparazzi, who are following her on the bus, and causing everybody much inconvenience.

They say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a good start for a cleaner Taiwan. I hope that the first couple-designates will continue to live a humble life and set an example for the people.

Phishy Fishing

A story just broke that the makers of the G-Archiver software are unethical, and in my view, represents all that is wrong about the misuse of technology. According to this story, reported in Codinghorror.com website, and picked up by Zdnet, using the G-Archiver software, which purportedly backs up Gmail e-mail onto one's computers, one's Gmail account and password are silently sent to the Gmail e-mail account of one John Terry (jterry79@gmail.com).  John has been identified as the rogue programmer employed by G-Archiver. It has has reacted to this news by pulling the code from its website and replacing it with a new one - sans the rogue codes. This is all well and good, but who would want to trust G-Archiver anymore when its control process is so lax as to allow rogue codes to be inserted into its commercial products. If it can happen once, it can happen again. Probably the safest thing to do is to stay away from this software and its makers.

This is shocking and it shows once again that you can't trust anyone on the Internet. The horrifying thing is that many of us spend so much of our waking hours on the Internet. Its like going swimming in a pool of crud, and before we know it, a thousand and one germs and viruses are sticking to us, some of which we ingest willingly. The lesson to learn is not to stop swimming, but to take protective gear along with you. Some of these protective gear will cost money, like firewalls and anti-virus software, but they are essential if you spend a lot of time on the Internet. But probably the most important protective gear you should put on is a healthy doze of skepticism and paranoia (remember - "only the paranoid survive" - Andrew Grove) - and this comes free. Its up to you. Don't just sign up for anything and everything that is offered to you free of charge on the Internet. And if your curiosity gets the better of you and you just can't help signing up, use a temporary throwaway e-mail account instead of your regular e-mail. Where can you find these throwaway e-mails. Try these: 10 Minute Mail,  Mailinator, Disposable e-mail, etc. Whichever of these or any other service you sign up for, make sure you don't have to give your regular e-mail during the signup process, unless you are very sure of the service you are signing up for.

Hopefully, we can continue to surf without catching all those germs and viruses and those rougue programmers.

Image source: morgueFile.com.  Author: Clara Natoli

Hungry for cash?

Well, how hungry are you? Or greedy? Or delusional? For a moment of delusion, I almost fell into a trap. There is this organisation operating on the web going around offering to put paid advertisements on your website. How does it all start?

They first send you e-mail that reads:
----quote---
We have reviewed your blogger.com blog on behalf of one of our
clients that would be interested in placing advertising with you.

Client profile :

DoingFine (http://doingfine.org)
New project (<1 month old)
Theme A forum dedicated to those things that came out right and worked out fine.
----unquote----

What it doesn't say is which blog it is referring to. You see, I've got several blogs under Blogger, each with varying frequency of updates and visitation activity.

Next, the client website, doingfine.org site, is really nothing but a couple of forums. It is not selling anything, publishing anything substantial. Why would it be interested in driving traffic to it?

The e-mail goes on to say:
----quote----
This would be a weekly, monthly or yearly arrangement. In either case
we will require a one time, one day (24 hours) free placement in order
to test the quality and quantity of traffic your website can actually
provide*. Within this interval, we will make a final determination,
based on the traffic volume, quality, and your asking price. Should
we find your terms acceptable, this trial day will count towards the
agreed interval.

Kindly let us know if you would be interested, which arrangement best
suits your editorial needs, and what rates you would like to charge.
We prefer using PayPal but may be able to accomodate alternative
payment methods.
----unquote----

Fair enough. I wouldn't expect anyone to hand over cash when they haven't got the goods. But how much to ask for? Nevermind if this all look suspicious. Money talks. I googled for the answer. Varying amounts were suggested. But the most sensible advice was to ask for an offer. I did that. The very next day (these guys work fast!), I received further communications to this effect:

----quote----
We've created a button for you, please review it here :

(some URL ending with a gif link that contains string of unintelligible characters)

We feel it goes well with the general look and feel of your blog. Please
link it to

(again, a url link to a php program code)
----unquote----

This begins to look like a scam, but I ignored it. I clicked on the url, but it wasn't meaning. They also provide html code to put on my website/blog. I did that but upon publishing the html codes were stripped out, so the html code couldn't display any icon link. I got suspicious - finally - and did the smart thing - I google 'Polimedia Advertising' and 'doingfine.org' and found out that this is likely a scam of sorts.

Now what made me think that my blog was any good anyway for anybody to pay a single cent towards it? Only Google has pennies to throw my way. Sigh....

People abuse Power

I just cannot understand the Philippines. It seems that every year when it comes time to celebrate the occasion when the citizens toppled Ferdinand Marcos from power - the so-called 'People Power' Revolution - they look to topple every sitting leader ever since, except for General Ramos. This time, they gathered to call for the resignation of President Gloria Arroyo for alleged corruption. Well, I don't know if the corruption charges have any basis, but that is for a Court of Law to decide, is it not? You know, lawyers, public prosecutors, defence lawyers, plaintives, defendants, judges, due process, the Justice department, etc.? If is there nothing of the sort in this country, or is the justice system cowered into inaction by 'People Power'?

This rule of the mob is really unbecoming of a duly constituted democracy with a law and constitution. Worst - former leaders such as Corazon Acquino are active participants in this madness. Fortunately, this time around, the military and the Catholic Church very sensibly stayed away from these agitations.

I suppose there are festering social inequity in this country that has not been adequately addressed. But this is so in many other countries, is it not? Corruption? Malaysia and Indonesia are reportedly rife with it. Yet these countries do not demonstrate as regularly on a specific occasion and call it 'People Power'. Impeaching a sitting President is no small matter. It basically means that you are trying to revoke the collective will of the people that elected the President in the first place. Has 'People Power' no respect for the people? You can only impeach the President when you have proved beyond a shadow of doubt his/her alleged guilt. This has not been done at all. It is now basically based on hearsay and bald accusations, however strong that may be. Justice is being turned on its head. Guilty unless proven otherwise. What kind of country is this, anyway?

Come on, dear Filipinos, respect the rule of law even as you demand 'justice'.

Free Burma

In Memoriam

September 11, or 911, has been etched into the psyche of many since that day when two Boeing 747 jets full of passengers deliberately crashed into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. I rose up that morning to prepare to go to work. As was my custom then, I switched on CNN and let it run while I busied myself getting ready, but there was nothing more busy then than what was appearing on my TV screen that morning.

Over and over, the news replayed the scenes where 2 planes, one after another, drove straight into the World Trade Center buildings, causing them to eventually collapse like a deck of cards, carrying everyone in the buildings with them, including the firemen who had entered the building earlier to rescue people from the towering infernos . My mother, who lived with me then, also witness the scenes, but she seemed nonchalant, as if these things happen all the time. You can't blame her. In her time, she has lived through the Second World War and seen more destruction and brutality and on a much wider scale and intensity than what was showing on TV that day.

Nevertheless, this latest drama was incredulous, it was terrible, it was shocking, and the enormity of the tragedy was yet unfolding though the actual incident had taken place 6 hours earlier half way across the world from where I lived. At work that day, I heard the first people mouthing '911' as if there was no other way to refer to the horror of the incident except through a coded reference. The Chinese media used the same numbers (jiu yao yao) to refer to the incident. I imagine that every other language on earth, including Arabic, used those same numbers.

On this day, 11th September, 2007, six years to the day that that tragedy occurred, we remember the over 3000 innocent people who died in the Towers, we remember the heroism of the firemen who died in the line of duty and we remember the reporters weeping while they reported on the incident near ground zero - it was heart-wrenching to watch these same reporters overcome with grief and yet having to bring the news of the terrible tragedy to the rest of the shocked world.

Of the men and organisations that perpetrated this atrocity, we remember them as we remember people like Hitler, nay, infinitely worst than Hitler. It would not be far from the truth if we remember them as we think of what Satan looked like. Ironically, their action was done in the name of their Islamic God. People of the west in the last 20 years or so had begun to be enamoured of the Islamic religion. Droves were abandoning their age-old religions and converting over to it. After 911, it was timeout and re-evaluation. I would like to think that this has nothing to do with Islam, but somehow, over the last six years, the association has stuck because the terrorists keep on invoking the name of their Islamic God while the moderates among them stand by quietly as if in acquiecense.

6 years on, these Islamic terrorists are still alive and bombing. 6 years on, the moderate and the faithful among the mighty Islamic faith have done little to effectively dent the extreme elements among them. 6 years on, we still have to take off our shoes in some airports, not because we need to walk on holy ground, but to show that we are not terrorists. 6 years on, countries still put up a security wall rivaling the Great Wall of China whenever any event involving 'Westerners' are staged. 6 years on, cities from London to Madrid to Islamabad still suffer aftershocks of 911.

We would like the 3000 odd people to rest in peace, but, sadly, the world continues its war on terror.

Power and Immunity

It has been reported that Hyundai Motor's Chairman, Mr Chung Mong-Koo, will not be doing jail time even though he was convicted by the 3-judge Seoul High Court for embezzlement because he was deemed too important to the Korean economy. Apparently, Mr Chung is a very hands-on CEO at Hyundai Motor, reputedly the world's 6th largest, in more ways than one (wink-wink). The court reckoned his doing time in jail (he was sentenced to 3 years) would do more harm to the economy and that therefore, he shouldn't be kept in the slammer.

I have never heard a more ridiculous argument from the bench. The less-than-learned judge said, "I am also a citizen of the Republic of Korea...I was unwilling to engage in a gamble that would put the (nation's economy) at risk." Did Judge Lee Jae-hong just deify Mr Chung? In the days when Korea had emperors, this statement, if it referred to the emperor, would have been accepted without question. But in democratic Korea where even its Presidents have been sued and thrown out ever so often?

There is a lesson to be learnt here. If you want to succeed in life and gain immunity from the law, don't do politics. Instead, set up a business and gain influence as much as possible. As far as South Korea goes, that's your ticket to doing whatever you want. The law will always stand on your side, never mind if you are crooked and rotten to the core.

The law in South Korea has sunk to a new low.

The Great Al Qaeda Bluff

It would appear that Osama bin Laden is either too dead or too tired to make a new video. Al Qaeda just pushed out a Osama video to remind the whole that the dead and tired old man is still very much alive. If he were alive, he would have made a new video. In this day and age, it isn't difficult nor expensive to make a video at all, unless the subject of the video wants to pretend he is alive on video when he is actually dead. Now that's a miracle that Osama has yet to perform.

Al Qaeda should stop doing this because its credibility - i.e. its inability - in making a video of a really live and kicking Osama is rapidly receding. While the US and probably Britain take these videos seriously, for the rest of the whole, it is one old tired bluff.

Bug off, Al Qaeda.

Truth be told

Japan's just-resigned Defence Minister may have committed a gaffe in Japan, but in the rest of Asia, we cannot agree more with him. He said that the US could not be blamed for dropping the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of World War II.

Whatever the Japanese's feelings about the massive destruction and deaths on and in these two cities, there was greater grief and suffering by the people in rest of Asia in those war years. My parents lost the best years of their lives running away from the Japan Imperial Army and living in the countryside planting and eating tapioca. What Mr Kyuma said may or may not be correct. But he is not far from the truth that the war in the Far East and the Pacific would have gone on for much longer had it not been for the fortuitous dropping of those bombs on the two cities. Correspondingly, my parents would have had to endure much longer the oppression of the Japanese regime in this part of the world. The bombs immediately deflated the arrogance and ruthlessness of the Japanese war regime then and inadvertently led to Japan instituting and maintaining a pacifist stance ever since.

Were it not for this pacifist stance and the strong but benign support of the US after the war, Japan would not have recovered so fast and become so successful in leading the industrial world today.

The US celebrates its Independence Day today. Let Asia, including Japan, be reminded once again of VJ day and the probable role that the two bombs that the US unleashed had in it.

Mr Kyuma, thank you for reminding the world about the truth.

Legend of the undead

No, I am not referring to vampires. But it does seem like Osama bin Laden is becoming an undead species - though perhaps not a vampire.

More than 5 years have passed since the world saw credible pictures/videos of him alive. Since then, all claims of his still being alive have been backed by Al Qaeda who claim that they have had communications with him. These 'evidence' have turned out to be fiction at best, deception at worst. Now, a chief of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia, Mr Mansoor Dadullahsaid, has said that he received a letter of condolence from OBL over his brother, Mullah Dadullah's martyrdoom at the hands of US-led forces recently.

One thing Al Qaeda seem to be doing well is to perpetuate the myth that OBL is still alive. Given his penchant for showmanship (while he was alive), OBL seems to be uncharacteristically quiet for more than 5 years now. He can't speak for himself anymore - he appears in worn videos and he sends greeting cards and furtive messages from time to time. But he doesn't appear in person.

Conclusion: OBL is as dead as the stone in the mountains of Afghanistan. His memory, though, still lives strongly, continuing to bring a threat over mankind.

Oppression of the law

This is a sad day for justice. First, we learn that the highest Civil Court in Thailand today - the 9-member Constitutional Tribunal - has ruled that the political party set up by Thaksin Shinawatra - Thai Rak Thai (TRT) - has violated election laws and henceforth will be de-registered. On the other hand, Thailand's oldest political party, the Democrat Party has been absolved of any wrong doing although it was implicated in a case for which the TRT was found guilty.

Go figure.

Second, Malaysia's highest Civilian Court just ruled that they do not have jurisdiction over the case of a Christian convert (from Islam), one Lina Joy, who petitioned the same court to have the religion recorded on her Indentity Card to be amended to Christian from its current Islam. Why is this important? Well, if the record on her IC is not changed, she cannot marry a non-Muslim. She is in effect bound never to be married, and never be able to bear a child, so long as she remains under the jurisdiction of the Malaysian Courts, where the Shariah reigns supreme. The land's highest Civil Court has just abdicated its responsibility to uphold justice and freedom for all Malaysians, whether Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikhs, etc. by refusing to be drawn into any matter that has anything to do with the state religion, Islam. It is basically saying that it is incompetent of dealing with any matters that involves Islam, even when that matter involves people who are not Muslims.

Malaysian Muslims and Thailand's current political masters may feel vindicated, but they have merely made use of the highest Court in the land to rubber-stamp their oppressive behaviour. Truly, there is no justice, but only power. Power to oppress, power to sway, power to corrupt, power to silence, This is because the law has abdicated its responsibility to right wrongs.

This is a sad day in Thailand and Malaysia. The Law should hang its head in shame.

See:
Straits Times - Thai Security Clampdown
France 24 - Thaksin's party to be disbanded

VT

VT
Letters that spell
Doom
Grief
Pain
Anger
Loss
Madness
Taken ahead of time
In their prime
Promises lost
Forever
Never to be realized
Questions unanswered
Unanswerable
Pain excruciating
Anger unbridled
Will Madness never cease
In this mad mad mad world?
It won't be the last
Though the grief
and the loss
will last
an eternity

Expletive as language

The other day, a student used the 'shit' word on stage in front of over 200 parents and teachers. She didn't mean to offend anymore, nor was she berating at anyone. She was relating a conversation that she had had with her friends who were studying in another school. It was a paraphrase of this conversation and the 'shit' word seem to come out naturally. I don't know what the parents thought as this came out of the mouth of one of the school's top students. The teachers must have squirmed in their seats, feeling uncomfortable, not knowing what the parents thought of the way that they nurtured their best students. President George W Bush, a fervent Christian, was himself caught uttering this word unwares when referring to the conflict in the Middle East some months ago.

The 'shit' word is becoming rather common, much as the f**k word has in movies. But in movies, and elsewhere, the f**k word remains an expletive whereas the 'shit' word is increasingly used as a word to express emphasis, sometimes frustration and often almost as a sort of exclamation that the word 'damn' is used. This is not my opinion only. Wynrub wrote a book analysing expletives and the way and purpose expletives are used in society today. She concluded that some expletives are no longer used in the derogatory / foul connotation, but more to express valid emotions in conversations. Going by this recent experience of mine, I cannot agree more with her. Language evolves over time. This has been true from time inmemorial. So therefore, language standards shift, albeit inperceptibly. The next wave of change will surely come from the almost universal use of SMS language. In this case, the change might take on a leap instead of a quiet shift. Therefore those who still clinge on to a standard will be fighting a losing battle.

In any case, a person can speak and use the language's 'standard', but will switch to a more informal version in informal settings. The fact that a person speaks a non-standard form does not necessarily mean that he/she doesn't know the standard form and use it in an appropriate setting. One of the most unnatural and difficult things about carrying on in a standardised language is the frustration of getting your ideas across in quicker. So it is natural and necessary to revert to a local form. That way, people tend to identify with you more easily because they speak the same dialect as you, including using newly non-expletives expletives.

Toothless Nark Puggsin

I pity Thailand nowadays. Its military leaders do not seem to be able to get anything right. I do not doubt their sincerity in getting Thailand back on track, economically and socially. Only, there are 'professional protesters' standing by, ready to stage protests once an unpopular decision is made, like that of the appointment of Mr Somkid, once the No. 2 in the Thaksin government, to a senior government position.

The threat of protest forced the government and Mr Somkid to back down. Now I wonder why these protesters (read: PAD) are not the government instead? They seem to wield veto power over government decisions. But of course we know that there are talkers and there are doers. Unfortunately, in Thailand today, the talkers hold sway. And so long as this is so, the government, military or otherwise, cannot expect to do much. The No. 1 task is to keep these people's mouth shut. In fact, if not for these protesters, Thailand wouldn't be in the state it is in today. OK, so the Thaksin government is seen to be corrupt, but the situation hadn't degenerated to one of dictatorship. The constitutional process of government change through elections should have been taken instead of mass protests. You say that Thaksin's control is so strong that it is impossible to unseat him through the polls? But is a military coup an appropriate answer? I doubt many will say it is. Mass protests only presents half the answer, it is silent on the other half when the doing needs to be done.

My only regret over the entire episode is that I cannot visit Thailand nowadays without thinking twice. Vietnam looks to be a more attractive destination, business and holiday-wise. Heck, even Burma seem more peaceful.

Image source: http://www.chiangmai-chiangrai.com/

Decaffeinated

I was very frustrated yesterday morning when I tried to go to my normal 'haunts' on the net for my shot of caffeine. Yahoo.com just wasn't responding and I thought my 5-year-old Notebook PC was ready to give up the ghost. I thought I'd jog its heart a bit by shutting down the bugger and restarting it. You see, I am used to sending it into hibernation from day to day, because it takes sooo long to startup otherwise. The age is showing. Nope, it didn't work. I tried live.com, almost always reliable and quick. But this time around, it was more dead than alive. Something must really be wrong. Maybe my Internet Service provider screwed up this time, although it has been very reliable so far.

It was the same on my office computer, which boasts more muscle and a thicker pipe. Yahoo just took ages to get to, although I did get to it - eventually. Only it was sooo slow, and my Yahoo Messenger just didn't want to wake up. But almost every other site was jammed - including live.com. Well, when the darn thing won't work, it won't work. The office eventually informed everyone that the internet access was down and very likely due to something on a national scale. I didn't realise how 'national' it was until I got home yesterday evening and found out how the undersea fibre optic cable carrying the bulk of internet traffic in and around Asia was damaged by the 7.1 Richter scale earthquake off southern Taiwan.

Ah well, there was a silver lining in this. I started on and almost completed something that I had put off for ages yesterday. Yes, you guessed it, the internet wasn't necessary for it. How often our time is frittered away by our incessant surfing nowadays.

Today, I am back at broadband speeds again, as if nothing had happened. The good people must have diverted the internet traffic overnight and so we can get our daily shot of caffeine again.

There must be a lesson somewhere in all of this.

Image source: http://www.csh.rit.edu/~cyke/pics/no_to_decaf.gif

A cry of wolf

One of the saddest thing between the Palestinians and the Israelis is their seeming inability to broker a lasting peace. A while ago, there had been hope that one could be reached - and from a surprising quarter. Ariel Sharon, erstwhile hawk, who now lies on the brink of death due to a massive stroke, quit some of the occupied lands in favour of the fledgeling Palestian state in exchange for peace. But it would seem that not all in Palestine wants peace. This was demonstrated by the Hamas, an erstwhile terrorist organisation, coming to power. But this is, after all, politics.

But the landscape has recently been covered in blood again when the Israelis retaliated againsts terrorists both in Gaza and Lebanon, who, without provocation, killed and kidnapped some Israeli soldiers at the borders. Some may say that Israel's reaction was disproportionate to the crime, but that is for history to decide. What I find ludicrous is that the Palestinian Hamas is now calling for the elimination of Israel ('erase Israel') after 18 of its people were killed by the Israelis. I will not go into the details of this except to say that this situation has been stoked by the Hamas' decision to kidnap the Israeli soldiers in the first place. Now if the Palestinians and Hamas in particular are not willing to reflect on its actions but can only think, like Ahmadinejab of Iran, to wipe Israel off the map, then there is no hope.

Only shallow, naive people and people with an agenda that does not include peace with Israel in the first place will believe in the Hamas' latest cry of wolf. And all this time, they place the blame squarely on Israel's shoulders.

Mothers will continue to weep for their slain sons, brothers and husbands, sons will lose their fathers and mothers on BOTH sides.

Image source: http://www2.aya.yale.edu/

Veil of separation

I am reminded of the cowboys and indian movies that I used to watch on Saturday afternoons way back in the 1970s. Besides the Red Indians, a town was often terrorised by 'Cowboy' robbers who almost always masked their faces using a handkerchief or something similiar. They looked sinister and everyone except the town sherriff was afraid of them. The Red Indians never did rob banks. Instead, they tend to go for the throat.

Well, ok, much of this is fantasy and a slur and typecasting of certain types of people. If was unfair to cast Red Indians as always the evil aggressors and the 'white men' as whiter than angels. But the men and women with the covered faces robbing banks and shooting indiscriminately in the air and at people stuck. Which is why when I see people with covered faces, that sinister imagery comes to mind.

Some Muslim women veil themselves in public today. The veil hides everything except the eyes. Like the masked cowboys, they look sinister. I know that putting a veil over oneself is a very personal and religious thing, but when one lives in a community consisting of different people with different faiths and beliefs, you cannot blame anyone for saying that he wishes these women would lose their veils. That is what Jack Straw, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Salman Rushdie wished. I support them. If I read it correctly, even the Koran does not insist on the veil. So people who veil themselves are not so much following a religious injunction as much as they are submitting to an arbitrary human craving or rule imposed by certain people. At its worst, this is akin to slavery. Now, is such slavish behaviour something to be proud of, even in religious context?

It is sad that in the modern world today, in an age of universal suffrage where men and women have equal rights, duties and responsibilities, there are women who still go around publicly asserting their submissiveness. Now I am not saying that this is wrong per se, but that if you want to indulge in submissive behaviour, then do it at home and not on the streets and certainly not when you need to see your MP.

Otherwise, what message are they sending to the rest of the community? That they are separate, holier than thou, mightier in spirituality, or what? All of which reminds me that some time ago, the Singapore Education Ministry disallowed all Primary school students, particularly those from Muslim families, from wearing the tudung or headscarf within school compounds. The government's justification then was that it doesn't want a separate identity to be established within the school system, which might become divisive over time. What Mr Straw, Mr Blair, Mr Rushdie and Mr Brown have said echo this same position espoused by the Government in Singapore as early as 2002.

Orphans forever

Among the entertainment fraternity, Angelina Jolie did it first. Now Madonna is doing a me-too. Angelina has two adopted orphaned children - one a Cambodian and another an Ethiopian. She subsequently gave birth to a daughter with Brad Pitt, her current husband. So her family is now a veritable United Nations of sorts. Angelina is herself of Czech and English descent. Will blood become thicker than water in the years to come? Only time will tell.

Madonna has only just started the adoption circus. Her attempt to adopt a hardly orphaned child - the child's father is still very alive and kicking but who practically gave his child away - had faced difficulties but the Malawi High Court, in a travesty of common sense, has granted adoption custody to the singer. One wonders if there is not some under-the-table shananigan going on here. Well, lets be frank about this and call a spade a spade. This has been a highly sophisticated and legalised kid-napping.

Madonna's natural children are said to have taken to their new step brother. For now, that is. Will they grow up to love their coloured step brother and will the mother love all of them equally? Again, only time will tell. Then we will know if blood does not count.

Suffice to say that this type of 'doing good' is highly selective and benefits only a few - one to be exact. Can't these incredibly rich people see beyond one child to help more? They don't have to adopt everyone, just give them the wherewithal to grow up in a peaceful environment where they can be educated to lift themselves out of the vicious cycle of poverty - on their own and among their own peoples and within their own country. For after all, when a person grows up, they would want to know where they came from, and who their own people are. I would hate to think that 'orphans' transplanted out of their natural homes will remain orphans from their own people, culture and history - all the rest of their lives.

Image Source: http://www.cbc.ca/