Memaparkan catatan dengan label General. Papar semua catatan
Memaparkan catatan dengan label General. Papar semua catatan
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Sabtu, Julai 25, 2009
Here are a few tips for high-rise dwellers taken from the Malaysian Volunteer Fire & Rescue Association’s website www.mvfra.org:
Ways to keep your condo safe
* Never keep rubbish in the hallway. Make sure it is stored properly and collected regularly.
* Don’t put items in the trash chute that are too big and may get stuck. Things caught in the chute can easily turn a fire in the basement into a fire on your floor.
* Be careful not to overload electrical circuits. Short circuits are the cause of many fires.
* Cook with care. Keep baking soda handy to smother stove fires.
* Never smoke in bed and make sure that there are no smouldering butts when you empty ashtrays.
* Test smoke detectors regularly and replace batteries when needed
* Make sure that your apartment door is tight-fitting and complies with the fire code.
* Inspect your exit stair doors. They must be self-closing, able to snap shut and unlock from both sides. If they don’t meet this standard, report it to your condo management or the fire department.
If the fire is in your apartment
* Get everyone out. Stay low as you go out. Close, but don’t lock, all doors in the apartment as you leave.
* Alert others on the floor by knocking on doors. Activate the fire alarm if there is one.
* Go down the nearest stairs, holding the railing. DO NOT USE THE LIFTS.
* Call the fire department from a floor below the fire or when you are safely out of your unit.
If the fire is NOT in your apartment
* Priority should be given to residents in the immediate and upper floors above the affected unit. Let them evacuate first before lower floor residents evacuate. The escape route may not be able to accommodate everyone evacuating at the same time.
Planning ahead can save your life
Things to know:
* The layout of your floor.
* The location of fire alarm boxes.
* Where your apartment/grille key is located.
Things to do:
* Keep flashlights ready and in a handy place.
* Install and maintain smoke detectors.
* Practise fire drills with your family.
Ways to keep your condo safe
* Never keep rubbish in the hallway. Make sure it is stored properly and collected regularly.
* Don’t put items in the trash chute that are too big and may get stuck. Things caught in the chute can easily turn a fire in the basement into a fire on your floor.
* Be careful not to overload electrical circuits. Short circuits are the cause of many fires.
* Cook with care. Keep baking soda handy to smother stove fires.
* Never smoke in bed and make sure that there are no smouldering butts when you empty ashtrays.
* Test smoke detectors regularly and replace batteries when needed
* Make sure that your apartment door is tight-fitting and complies with the fire code.
* Inspect your exit stair doors. They must be self-closing, able to snap shut and unlock from both sides. If they don’t meet this standard, report it to your condo management or the fire department.
If the fire is in your apartment
* Get everyone out. Stay low as you go out. Close, but don’t lock, all doors in the apartment as you leave.
* Alert others on the floor by knocking on doors. Activate the fire alarm if there is one.
* Go down the nearest stairs, holding the railing. DO NOT USE THE LIFTS.
* Call the fire department from a floor below the fire or when you are safely out of your unit.
If the fire is NOT in your apartment
* Priority should be given to residents in the immediate and upper floors above the affected unit. Let them evacuate first before lower floor residents evacuate. The escape route may not be able to accommodate everyone evacuating at the same time.
Planning ahead can save your life
Things to know:
* The layout of your floor.
* The location of fire alarm boxes.
* Where your apartment/grille key is located.
Things to do:
* Keep flashlights ready and in a handy place.
* Install and maintain smoke detectors.
* Practise fire drills with your family.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Sabtu, Julai 18, 2009
BY DATUK ZAKARIA BAHARI
Secretary-general of the Transport Ministry
Having police and JPJ officials at every corner is not the answer. We, as road users, must attain the basic civic characteristic of self-regulating our behaviour and not breaking the law, especially when we think we can get away with it.
An express bus driver with multiple summonses drives some 60 passengers to Kulim, Kedah. He breaks all speed limits, as if there is no tomorrow, and crashes, killing the weak and dependent. The driver survives. Who is at fault here?
The driver, who concealed his summonses from his employer? The employer, who did not regularly check on the status of its drivers? Or the lapsed enforcement?
Careless enforcement kills!
There are no two ways about it. Enforcement is a deterrent to those who intend to defy the law. It provides security to others who abide by it. The ultimate question in enforcement is – where and with whom does the buck stop?
In the case of express buses, the buck stops with the employer.
But take the case of Mat Rempit for example. Speeding and dangerous stunts have become their unwelcome trademark. Most do not even have a valid licence and others have expired licences. Menacing the streets, they have simply rejected the law and decided to ensure disturbance even during weekends. Causing trouble and being a nuisance, they victimise innocent road users.
It is in such instances that if enforcement is not effective, public safety and security will be compromised, and severely, too. But within this enforcement, too, lies the larger debate of social and parental responsibility towards these youths who menace our roads.
Have we, as a responsible and progressive society, done all we can to eradicate the core of this menace?
On our part, the challenge is to ensure continuous and consistent enforcement efforts, never relenting and being firm in implementation.
The Road Transport Department (JPJ) enforces the road transport laws in Malaysia. Among others, the JPJ is responsible for the regulation of motor vehicles and traffic on roads.
The success of our enforcement is dependent on our ability to deter road users from potentially being and causing a danger to the safety and security of other members of the public. We have often been criticised for being lackadaisical and sloppy in our enforcement, relenting to onsite settlement of “boleh bincang” and the excruciating queues at JPJ transaction counters.
Today, you can transact with the JPJ from your bedroom outside office hours.
We are online for all key services. But like all institutions, the ultimate challenge, and no doubt strength, is in its people and their quality.
The JPJ recently launched its Integrity Plan with the sole aim of enhancing the quality of its most valuable asset, human capital. This plan includes programmes to provide effective public service delivery through human capital integrity development. With regards to enforcement, this plan underlines three major thrusts, underpinned by professionalism, transparency and competency.
The quality of road transport enforcement and policing is imperative to the JPJ.
If we achieve the intended quality in our personnel, our enforcement benefits equally – in essence, making our roads safe.
To achieve this, we realise that the basic tenet of round-the-clock enforcement is key.
JPJ’s enforcement can no longer be an “8-to-5” affair. We can no longer be content with “knee-jerk reactions” to rising issues. With over 16 million registered vehicles plying our roads, omnipresence in enforcement is tantamount to road safety.
Within this, too, lies the responsibilities of the public. The idea that, “There aren’t any policemen or JPJ officers around, so it’s time to jump the red light. After all, I am the only one waiting at this junction”, needs to stop.
We must attain the basic civic characteristic of self-regulating our behaviour. In the case of the traffic lights, we must inculcate the behaviour of, “A law is still law. I don’t mind losing some seconds as long as I arrive home safely.”
The JPJ has initiated 24-hour enforcement since 2007, which places visibility of enforcement as a priority. By being ubiquitous, you increase the Perception Of Being Caught (POBC) among our road users.
POBC is a term coined by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety and Research (Miros) to study the behaviour of road users to enforcement. In this instance, the behavioural response is to the “perception of enforcement being conducted”.
POBC is now popular in measuring the success of enforcement operations among enforcing authorities. For instance, during Ops Sikap held during festive seasons, POBC levels are up to nearly 40% from the normal 25% level.
Ultimately, enforcement efforts need to “close the loop”.
We must reduce road deaths and deter delinquents and touts from flaunting openly.
Today, we undertake daily enforcement to examine both drivers and buses at 22 terminals nationwide. Approximately 589 express buses are inspected daily before they begin their journey. We are bent on eradicating touts cheating the public at KLIA, LCCT and Puduraya.
Between August 2008 and May this year, we caught and charged 112 touts. Taxis are another area of concern. As of May 25, a total of 4,242 errant cabbies were issued summonses and 71 taxis were seized for various offences.
The success gauge is when the public knows they have nothing to fear as our roads and public transport are being monitored effectively.
This said, in the final analysis, the responsibility of enforcement lies with all of us. It lies in our characters as individuals, whether we beat the traffic lights or wait for them to turn green.
Secretary-general of the Transport Ministry
Having police and JPJ officials at every corner is not the answer. We, as road users, must attain the basic civic characteristic of self-regulating our behaviour and not breaking the law, especially when we think we can get away with it.
An express bus driver with multiple summonses drives some 60 passengers to Kulim, Kedah. He breaks all speed limits, as if there is no tomorrow, and crashes, killing the weak and dependent. The driver survives. Who is at fault here?
The driver, who concealed his summonses from his employer? The employer, who did not regularly check on the status of its drivers? Or the lapsed enforcement?
Careless enforcement kills!
There are no two ways about it. Enforcement is a deterrent to those who intend to defy the law. It provides security to others who abide by it. The ultimate question in enforcement is – where and with whom does the buck stop?
In the case of express buses, the buck stops with the employer.
But take the case of Mat Rempit for example. Speeding and dangerous stunts have become their unwelcome trademark. Most do not even have a valid licence and others have expired licences. Menacing the streets, they have simply rejected the law and decided to ensure disturbance even during weekends. Causing trouble and being a nuisance, they victimise innocent road users.
It is in such instances that if enforcement is not effective, public safety and security will be compromised, and severely, too. But within this enforcement, too, lies the larger debate of social and parental responsibility towards these youths who menace our roads.
Have we, as a responsible and progressive society, done all we can to eradicate the core of this menace?
On our part, the challenge is to ensure continuous and consistent enforcement efforts, never relenting and being firm in implementation.
The Road Transport Department (JPJ) enforces the road transport laws in Malaysia. Among others, the JPJ is responsible for the regulation of motor vehicles and traffic on roads.
The success of our enforcement is dependent on our ability to deter road users from potentially being and causing a danger to the safety and security of other members of the public. We have often been criticised for being lackadaisical and sloppy in our enforcement, relenting to onsite settlement of “boleh bincang” and the excruciating queues at JPJ transaction counters.
Today, you can transact with the JPJ from your bedroom outside office hours.
We are online for all key services. But like all institutions, the ultimate challenge, and no doubt strength, is in its people and their quality.
The JPJ recently launched its Integrity Plan with the sole aim of enhancing the quality of its most valuable asset, human capital. This plan includes programmes to provide effective public service delivery through human capital integrity development. With regards to enforcement, this plan underlines three major thrusts, underpinned by professionalism, transparency and competency.
The quality of road transport enforcement and policing is imperative to the JPJ.
If we achieve the intended quality in our personnel, our enforcement benefits equally – in essence, making our roads safe.
To achieve this, we realise that the basic tenet of round-the-clock enforcement is key.
JPJ’s enforcement can no longer be an “8-to-5” affair. We can no longer be content with “knee-jerk reactions” to rising issues. With over 16 million registered vehicles plying our roads, omnipresence in enforcement is tantamount to road safety.
Within this, too, lies the responsibilities of the public. The idea that, “There aren’t any policemen or JPJ officers around, so it’s time to jump the red light. After all, I am the only one waiting at this junction”, needs to stop.
We must attain the basic civic characteristic of self-regulating our behaviour. In the case of the traffic lights, we must inculcate the behaviour of, “A law is still law. I don’t mind losing some seconds as long as I arrive home safely.”
The JPJ has initiated 24-hour enforcement since 2007, which places visibility of enforcement as a priority. By being ubiquitous, you increase the Perception Of Being Caught (POBC) among our road users.
POBC is a term coined by the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety and Research (Miros) to study the behaviour of road users to enforcement. In this instance, the behavioural response is to the “perception of enforcement being conducted”.
POBC is now popular in measuring the success of enforcement operations among enforcing authorities. For instance, during Ops Sikap held during festive seasons, POBC levels are up to nearly 40% from the normal 25% level.
Ultimately, enforcement efforts need to “close the loop”.
We must reduce road deaths and deter delinquents and touts from flaunting openly.
Today, we undertake daily enforcement to examine both drivers and buses at 22 terminals nationwide. Approximately 589 express buses are inspected daily before they begin their journey. We are bent on eradicating touts cheating the public at KLIA, LCCT and Puduraya.
Between August 2008 and May this year, we caught and charged 112 touts. Taxis are another area of concern. As of May 25, a total of 4,242 errant cabbies were issued summonses and 71 taxis were seized for various offences.
The success gauge is when the public knows they have nothing to fear as our roads and public transport are being monitored effectively.
This said, in the final analysis, the responsibility of enforcement lies with all of us. It lies in our characters as individuals, whether we beat the traffic lights or wait for them to turn green.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Isnin, Julai 13, 2009
By DATUK R SEGARAJAH
Secretary-General of the Human Resources Ministry
While lucrative jobs may be getting scarce for average Malaysians, it seems strange that they would turn up their noses at a chance to get training and placement, with an allowance, to boot.
Why is it that Sukardi, a youth from a village in Sumatra, can traverse the breadth of the island and cross the Straits of Malacca to seek employment in Malaysia, whereas the Malaysian youth cocooned in the safety of say, Shah Alam, provided with training to meet new challenges, and given a monthly allowance and a guaranteed job, prefers to remain unemployed, awaiting that elusive ideal job that may never come.
It is true that Malaysia has not been spared the consequences of the global economic slowdown, given its position as one of the world’s leading exporters of manufactured products.
The global decline in the demand for manufactured products has hit Malaysian exporters hard, with its rippling effect on Malaysian workers, particularly those engaged in the manufacturing sector.
As of July 7, 2009, statistics compiled by the Human Resources Ministry, showed a cumulative figure of 38,732 workers retrenched, due to the prevailing economic crisis.
Of this figure, 29,712 were permanently terminated while 9,020 accepted voluntary termination from their employment. In addition, 40,662 workers suffered pay-cuts and 4,112 workers were temporarily laid-off.
Given these circumstances, you would expect that these workers would be clamouring for new employment opportunities as soon as possible to enable them maintain their current standard of living.
The Government, in its determined effort to remain resilient and face the onslaught of spiralling unemployment figures, has been proactive, seizing this negative economic climate as an opportunity to re-skill the affected workforce.
A hefty sum of RM650mil has been allocated under both the Economic Stimulus Packages to enable the ministry to undertake various training and placement programmes to not only reduce unemployment but also to provide employment opportunities for Malaysians.
The Train and Place programmes that target youths, unemployed graduates and retrenched workers, are aimed at equipping participants with skills that will increase their employability to meet the challenges of the new economy.
The costs incurred for the duration of the three-to-six-month training is borne by the Government.
In addition, throughout the training period, trainees receive monthly allowances that range from RM500 to RM800 from the Government and are guaranteed job placements upon completion of their training.
A Community Employment Support Services (CESS) programme has been established primarily to provide counselling services as well as to meet the other needs of job seekers.
The establishment of CESS complements the ministry’s strategic plan in realising the Decent Work Agenda, which accords persistent focus on employment and employability for Malaysians.
Counselling officers have been deployed to 80 Labour Department offices and 26 ministry training institutes throughout the nation.
In addition to that, as of July 7, 2009, a total of 11 job placement programmes at state level and 78 mini job fairs at district level had been organised in the country.
These programmes are aimed at bringing the employment services closer to job-seekers in order to facilitate placement directly to suitable places of employment.
In line with the Government’s aspiration of branding JobsMalaysia as a major employment hub which caters for both the private and public sectors, it serves as a platform for all employers to inform the public of job vacancies and recruit those who meet their requirements.
As at July 7, 2009, out of 30,513 retrenched local workers, 11,325 workers have been re-employed through various mechanisms provided by the ministry.
Job-seekers, you are urged to register with JobsMalaysia to be selected for the training and job-matching services.
Despite the softening of the Malaysian economy, jobs are still aplenty in certain economic sectors.
Malaysian job seekers, especially those retrenched, should be willing to have a positive outlook about acquiring new skills through various courses under the Train and Place Programme being implemented by the ministry through 162 training providers currently approved.
Such training would provide them the opportunity to secure new skill sets, thus widening their prospect for better employment and employability.
However, to date, only 9,098 have signed up in the past two months for the programmes.
The slow response to the Train and Place programmes is indeed puzzling as there appears to be no reasonable justification to explain why Malaysian job-seekers, who are either unemployed or retrenched, do not take up the challenge to go for training and accept alternative employment, especially when training facilities are available at their doorstep and job opportunities, maybe only a hop, step and a jump away.
Have we as a nation grown so complacent?
Secretary-General of the Human Resources Ministry
While lucrative jobs may be getting scarce for average Malaysians, it seems strange that they would turn up their noses at a chance to get training and placement, with an allowance, to boot.
Why is it that Sukardi, a youth from a village in Sumatra, can traverse the breadth of the island and cross the Straits of Malacca to seek employment in Malaysia, whereas the Malaysian youth cocooned in the safety of say, Shah Alam, provided with training to meet new challenges, and given a monthly allowance and a guaranteed job, prefers to remain unemployed, awaiting that elusive ideal job that may never come.
It is true that Malaysia has not been spared the consequences of the global economic slowdown, given its position as one of the world’s leading exporters of manufactured products.
The global decline in the demand for manufactured products has hit Malaysian exporters hard, with its rippling effect on Malaysian workers, particularly those engaged in the manufacturing sector.
As of July 7, 2009, statistics compiled by the Human Resources Ministry, showed a cumulative figure of 38,732 workers retrenched, due to the prevailing economic crisis.
Of this figure, 29,712 were permanently terminated while 9,020 accepted voluntary termination from their employment. In addition, 40,662 workers suffered pay-cuts and 4,112 workers were temporarily laid-off.
Given these circumstances, you would expect that these workers would be clamouring for new employment opportunities as soon as possible to enable them maintain their current standard of living.
The Government, in its determined effort to remain resilient and face the onslaught of spiralling unemployment figures, has been proactive, seizing this negative economic climate as an opportunity to re-skill the affected workforce.
A hefty sum of RM650mil has been allocated under both the Economic Stimulus Packages to enable the ministry to undertake various training and placement programmes to not only reduce unemployment but also to provide employment opportunities for Malaysians.
The Train and Place programmes that target youths, unemployed graduates and retrenched workers, are aimed at equipping participants with skills that will increase their employability to meet the challenges of the new economy.
The costs incurred for the duration of the three-to-six-month training is borne by the Government.
In addition, throughout the training period, trainees receive monthly allowances that range from RM500 to RM800 from the Government and are guaranteed job placements upon completion of their training.
A Community Employment Support Services (CESS) programme has been established primarily to provide counselling services as well as to meet the other needs of job seekers.
The establishment of CESS complements the ministry’s strategic plan in realising the Decent Work Agenda, which accords persistent focus on employment and employability for Malaysians.
Counselling officers have been deployed to 80 Labour Department offices and 26 ministry training institutes throughout the nation.
In addition to that, as of July 7, 2009, a total of 11 job placement programmes at state level and 78 mini job fairs at district level had been organised in the country.
These programmes are aimed at bringing the employment services closer to job-seekers in order to facilitate placement directly to suitable places of employment.
In line with the Government’s aspiration of branding JobsMalaysia as a major employment hub which caters for both the private and public sectors, it serves as a platform for all employers to inform the public of job vacancies and recruit those who meet their requirements.
As at July 7, 2009, out of 30,513 retrenched local workers, 11,325 workers have been re-employed through various mechanisms provided by the ministry.
Job-seekers, you are urged to register with JobsMalaysia to be selected for the training and job-matching services.
Despite the softening of the Malaysian economy, jobs are still aplenty in certain economic sectors.
Malaysian job seekers, especially those retrenched, should be willing to have a positive outlook about acquiring new skills through various courses under the Train and Place Programme being implemented by the ministry through 162 training providers currently approved.
Such training would provide them the opportunity to secure new skill sets, thus widening their prospect for better employment and employability.
However, to date, only 9,098 have signed up in the past two months for the programmes.
The slow response to the Train and Place programmes is indeed puzzling as there appears to be no reasonable justification to explain why Malaysian job-seekers, who are either unemployed or retrenched, do not take up the challenge to go for training and accept alternative employment, especially when training facilities are available at their doorstep and job opportunities, maybe only a hop, step and a jump away.
Have we as a nation grown so complacent?
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Jumaat, Julai 03, 2009
By KEITH JONATHAN DEUNTZER
In a democracy system, the rights to criticize government without interference regarded as fundamental principal of freedom of speech and this is jurisdictions use by bloggers to fully utilize the new media due to less censorship.
Political Blogs are unique in the sense that they do not fall under a collective umbrella of some media tycoons or political influence such as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch or our country’s political pressures. Each blog represents the voice of an individual with no queen in the hive acting as central command. The existence of Internet has turned it into a political force by itself.
June Tan and Zawawi Ibrahim (2008) assert that, Blogs have two potential roles to play in democratization.The first is to facilitate the civil liberties of society as a whole and second is to help in framing the discourse and setting the agenda for public policy-making. Those marginalized by the mainstream media have also taken to blogging as it offers them an unprecedented avenue to be heard.
Raja Petra Kamaruddin, administrator of widely-read web portal Malaysia-Today, state that his website thrived on information disclosed by informants within the ruling party because of political rivalry and infighting. Meanwhile Jeff Ooi confirms that he gets “insider” scoops from people within media organizations that they “cannot publish”.
According to University Malaya Media Department lecturer, Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah, his research shows that 70% of the recent general election results were influence by information in political blogs.
Prominent socio-political bloggers, Ahiruddin Attan claimed the blogs ability to influence the people’s minds depends on the bloggers credibility.
In 1998, when Internet penetration is still low in Malaysia, there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers against 8 million registered voters.Today ten years later, there are almost 16 million Internet subscribers against 12 million registered voters.
Recent official statistics of Internet World Stats, show that Malaysia currently has 15,868,000 Internet subscribes. Over the last ten years, the number of registered voters increased only 50%, meanwhile in that same period, the number of Internet subscribers increased 328.9%. Today, the Internet penetration reaches 62.8% of the Malaysian population. Thus, Malaysia has more Internet subscribers than it has voters.
That figures indicates that there is a need to have a critical thinking to deal with the modern media. Koh Lay Chin, writing for NST Online attests that, the Internet movement is now a player in Malaysian politics, and those who refuse to believe that may have to rethink their views. Political party who abandon the critical role of political blogs will suffer a heavy defeat in the upcoming general elections as proven in the 8 Mac 2008 Malaysia General Election.
Heralded as ‘’Political Tsunami’’, the four BN-controlled states of Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor and 10 of 11 Parliament constituencies in Kuala Lumpur fell into the hands of Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance), consisting alliance forged between the opposition parties: PKR, DAP and PAS. Knowing that the mainstream media will not give them too much space, the opposition coalitions fully utilize the Internet to reach their audience.
Former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself, commenting on the BN loss in the online war in the recent general election said, “We didn’t think it was important. It was a serious misjudgment…We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television were important but young people were looking at test messages and blogs’’, and concluded by admitting that the influence of new media “was painful’’.
Shabery Cheek, former Information Minister recognizes the rise of blogs as a global social trend and that “people will still seek alternative news” regardless of how free the mainstream media is from government control. He admits that bloggers play a role by being “the most direct and simple channel for people to voice their opinion’’.
In a democracy system, the rights to criticize government without interference regarded as fundamental principal of freedom of speech and this is jurisdictions use by bloggers to fully utilize the new media due to less censorship.
Political Blogs are unique in the sense that they do not fall under a collective umbrella of some media tycoons or political influence such as Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch or our country’s political pressures. Each blog represents the voice of an individual with no queen in the hive acting as central command. The existence of Internet has turned it into a political force by itself.
June Tan and Zawawi Ibrahim (2008) assert that, Blogs have two potential roles to play in democratization.The first is to facilitate the civil liberties of society as a whole and second is to help in framing the discourse and setting the agenda for public policy-making. Those marginalized by the mainstream media have also taken to blogging as it offers them an unprecedented avenue to be heard.
Raja Petra Kamaruddin, administrator of widely-read web portal Malaysia-Today, state that his website thrived on information disclosed by informants within the ruling party because of political rivalry and infighting. Meanwhile Jeff Ooi confirms that he gets “insider” scoops from people within media organizations that they “cannot publish”.
According to University Malaya Media Department lecturer, Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah, his research shows that 70% of the recent general election results were influence by information in political blogs.
Prominent socio-political bloggers, Ahiruddin Attan claimed the blogs ability to influence the people’s minds depends on the bloggers credibility.
In 1998, when Internet penetration is still low in Malaysia, there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers against 8 million registered voters.Today ten years later, there are almost 16 million Internet subscribers against 12 million registered voters.
Recent official statistics of Internet World Stats, show that Malaysia currently has 15,868,000 Internet subscribes. Over the last ten years, the number of registered voters increased only 50%, meanwhile in that same period, the number of Internet subscribers increased 328.9%. Today, the Internet penetration reaches 62.8% of the Malaysian population. Thus, Malaysia has more Internet subscribers than it has voters.
That figures indicates that there is a need to have a critical thinking to deal with the modern media. Koh Lay Chin, writing for NST Online attests that, the Internet movement is now a player in Malaysian politics, and those who refuse to believe that may have to rethink their views. Political party who abandon the critical role of political blogs will suffer a heavy defeat in the upcoming general elections as proven in the 8 Mac 2008 Malaysia General Election.
Heralded as ‘’Political Tsunami’’, the four BN-controlled states of Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor and 10 of 11 Parliament constituencies in Kuala Lumpur fell into the hands of Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance), consisting alliance forged between the opposition parties: PKR, DAP and PAS. Knowing that the mainstream media will not give them too much space, the opposition coalitions fully utilize the Internet to reach their audience.
Former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself, commenting on the BN loss in the online war in the recent general election said, “We didn’t think it was important. It was a serious misjudgment…We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television were important but young people were looking at test messages and blogs’’, and concluded by admitting that the influence of new media “was painful’’.
Shabery Cheek, former Information Minister recognizes the rise of blogs as a global social trend and that “people will still seek alternative news” regardless of how free the mainstream media is from government control. He admits that bloggers play a role by being “the most direct and simple channel for people to voice their opinion’’.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Ahad, Jun 28, 2009
By A.ASOHAN
Digital News Editor at The Star
twitter.com/Asohan
Journalists today are increasingly finding it hard to draw a line between their personal and professional personas.
Some of the greatest changes wrought by technology in recent years have been in the field of media, specifically journalism.
We’re not just talking about the mushrooming of alternate sources of news, from independent news portals and socio-political blogs to participatory and citizen journalism, but how even traditional, mainstream journalists have changed the way they work.
They are finding that they’re now more “vulnerable”. The distance between journalists and their readers has shrunk or disappeared completely. While some readily embrace the added advantage of being able to engage directly with their readers, others find it hard to respond to curt, often harsh and sometimes downright unfair criticism.
If we’re being overwhelmed, we journalists only have ourselves to blame. These are not sudden, overnight changes – they have been nibbling away at the wall separating producer and consumer for more than a decade now.
Pundits and observers like US-based Dan Gillmor (dangillmor.com) and Malaysia’s own Oon Yeoh (oonyeoh.squarespace.com) were writing about this even as far back as the 1990s.
Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury News technology columnist, was among the first journalists to see how blogging was going to change his profession; he embraced the new channel with such enthusiasm that he became an inspiration to many others.
But even blogging was just another new technology nibbling away at the wall. The older, more humble e-mail had already effected some changes with the journalists who recognised its value before blogging became a buzzword. Writers who published their e-mail addresses would be inundated with relatively immediate feedback, from “Gr8! I agree” to “u suck”.
(In case you’re wondering, it’s StarMag policy to publish a general e-mail address for feedback to its columns because the editor wants to keep abreast of such feedback too.)
I remember at one stage when I was editor of In.Tech, The Star’s technology pull-out, in the late 1990s to early 2000s, about half my working day could be taken up by reading and responding to readers’ comments. It was demanding, enervating and also very rewarding. Readers came up with great ideas for issues we could tackle, and we would also adopt some of their suggestions for new regular features. When we couldn’t, I would have to explain why.
Sure, there were the “u suck” critics, but the constructive ones were key in getting us to do a better job.
When blogging took off a few years ago (and not only in March last year, as some think), not many journalists took the plunge. The ones who did so were generally in the “safer” beats such as technology, where you only faced personal attacks if you made the mistake of getting involved in the religious war between Mac OS and Windows users.
There were bloggers who covered socio-political issues, but they were mostly non-journalists, or former journalists.
Those who jumped on the bandwagon had to face immediate reactions to anything they wrote. Some developed the thick skin needed to survive, others quietly dropped out, while the rare few recognised that the game had changed yet again.
Just as important as the blog post were the comments that followed it. You write something, a reader adds to it, another responds to that reader, and so on. There was an exponential increase in content, or as Gillmor used to describe it, journalism as a conversation.
However, it is true that it has only been in the last couple of years that these “nibbly” changes have gathered into a critical mass. Large swathes of the wall have just crumbled. These days, even stick-in-the-mud traditional journalists find that they have to adopt new media technologies and techniques to remain relevant. There’s just no going back.
Already we’ve seen, in the past few months, how “microblogging” via Twitter.com has just changed the landscape yet again.
Politicians on both sides of the landscape (both in terms of political affiliation and age) such as DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin are sending real-time updates from Parliament. News sites such as The Star Online (thestar.com.my) and our competitors have journalists on Twitter so that they can send blow-by-blow accounts from the field.
It’s concise (with a 140-character limit), in-your-face, and immediate, with no editorial filters.
And, not surprisingly, when people engage with people, communities are formed. When The Star reporter Yeng Ai Chun, covering the High Court case a few weeks ago that determined who was the rightful mentri besar of Perak, “tweeted” that she had been kicked out of the courtroom, she got a tsunami of responses on twitter.com (twitter.com/aichunstar), some of which expressed concern for her welfare, while others wondered whether if it was because she was tweeting from the courtroom.
Journalists have finally been given a human face.
Public relations consultant and industry pundit David Lian writes in his blog, davidlian.com, that “when journalists Twitter, you’d realise that journalists are real people who have feelings, opinions, and ethics. Most importantly, they are right there, on location.”
He referred to The Star Deputy Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan (twitter.com/saiwanstar), whose tweets may range from news updates and his views to his long wait at a local hospital. (If you follow me on Twitter, at twitter.com/Asohan, you’ll get some breaking news, but will also have to deal with bad geek jokes, Star Trek, and anything else I’m in the mood to tweet.)
Other micro-blogging journos may pepper their Twitter account with everything from a breaking news item to what is being served as refreshments at a press conference. They are not merely professionals any more; they’ve become brands as well.
Twitter is so much the current “next big thing” that Time magazine dedicated it’s June 15 cover story to it, leading one US wag to comment that you know something has reached the mainstream when Time puts it on the cover. The issue was so much in demand that the copy I left on my desk at work one evening was nicked.
Expect this phenomenon to be examined deeply over the next few months, leading to interesting articles like Twitter vs CNN (tinyurl.com/m8gfys) and whole conferences dedicated to it ... at least, until the next big thing.
(StarMag, by the way, featured Twitter.com and tweeting in its May 3 cover story, A little bird told me, Insight.)
We journalists will all be struggling to understand and harness this new technology, which is why Julie Posetti’s Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter (tinyurl.com/llrw5w) is extremely timely.
While journalists have embraced micro-blogging, media organisations may find it harder to do so. Even a blog can be controlled to certain extent, because a journalist blogger can be asked to change his post. More importantly, he has time to consider what he’s going to publish and whether it would be acceptable to the media organisation that employs him.
You don’t have that luxury with tweets. It’s about journalists telling you like it is, as it is happening. And what they think about it. There’s no time to consider editorial stances or policies. It will be interesting to see how Malaysian media organisations deal with this new reality.
Digital News Editor at The Star
twitter.com/Asohan
Journalists today are increasingly finding it hard to draw a line between their personal and professional personas.
Some of the greatest changes wrought by technology in recent years have been in the field of media, specifically journalism.
We’re not just talking about the mushrooming of alternate sources of news, from independent news portals and socio-political blogs to participatory and citizen journalism, but how even traditional, mainstream journalists have changed the way they work.
They are finding that they’re now more “vulnerable”. The distance between journalists and their readers has shrunk or disappeared completely. While some readily embrace the added advantage of being able to engage directly with their readers, others find it hard to respond to curt, often harsh and sometimes downright unfair criticism.
If we’re being overwhelmed, we journalists only have ourselves to blame. These are not sudden, overnight changes – they have been nibbling away at the wall separating producer and consumer for more than a decade now.
Pundits and observers like US-based Dan Gillmor (dangillmor.com) and Malaysia’s own Oon Yeoh (oonyeoh.squarespace.com) were writing about this even as far back as the 1990s.
Gillmor, the former San Jose Mercury News technology columnist, was among the first journalists to see how blogging was going to change his profession; he embraced the new channel with such enthusiasm that he became an inspiration to many others.
But even blogging was just another new technology nibbling away at the wall. The older, more humble e-mail had already effected some changes with the journalists who recognised its value before blogging became a buzzword. Writers who published their e-mail addresses would be inundated with relatively immediate feedback, from “Gr8! I agree” to “u suck”.
(In case you’re wondering, it’s StarMag policy to publish a general e-mail address for feedback to its columns because the editor wants to keep abreast of such feedback too.)
I remember at one stage when I was editor of In.Tech, The Star’s technology pull-out, in the late 1990s to early 2000s, about half my working day could be taken up by reading and responding to readers’ comments. It was demanding, enervating and also very rewarding. Readers came up with great ideas for issues we could tackle, and we would also adopt some of their suggestions for new regular features. When we couldn’t, I would have to explain why.
Sure, there were the “u suck” critics, but the constructive ones were key in getting us to do a better job.
When blogging took off a few years ago (and not only in March last year, as some think), not many journalists took the plunge. The ones who did so were generally in the “safer” beats such as technology, where you only faced personal attacks if you made the mistake of getting involved in the religious war between Mac OS and Windows users.
There were bloggers who covered socio-political issues, but they were mostly non-journalists, or former journalists.
Those who jumped on the bandwagon had to face immediate reactions to anything they wrote. Some developed the thick skin needed to survive, others quietly dropped out, while the rare few recognised that the game had changed yet again.
Just as important as the blog post were the comments that followed it. You write something, a reader adds to it, another responds to that reader, and so on. There was an exponential increase in content, or as Gillmor used to describe it, journalism as a conversation.
However, it is true that it has only been in the last couple of years that these “nibbly” changes have gathered into a critical mass. Large swathes of the wall have just crumbled. These days, even stick-in-the-mud traditional journalists find that they have to adopt new media technologies and techniques to remain relevant. There’s just no going back.
Already we’ve seen, in the past few months, how “microblogging” via Twitter.com has just changed the landscape yet again.
Politicians on both sides of the landscape (both in terms of political affiliation and age) such as DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin are sending real-time updates from Parliament. News sites such as The Star Online (thestar.com.my) and our competitors have journalists on Twitter so that they can send blow-by-blow accounts from the field.
It’s concise (with a 140-character limit), in-your-face, and immediate, with no editorial filters.
And, not surprisingly, when people engage with people, communities are formed. When The Star reporter Yeng Ai Chun, covering the High Court case a few weeks ago that determined who was the rightful mentri besar of Perak, “tweeted” that she had been kicked out of the courtroom, she got a tsunami of responses on twitter.com (twitter.com/aichunstar), some of which expressed concern for her welfare, while others wondered whether if it was because she was tweeting from the courtroom.
Journalists have finally been given a human face.
Public relations consultant and industry pundit David Lian writes in his blog, davidlian.com, that “when journalists Twitter, you’d realise that journalists are real people who have feelings, opinions, and ethics. Most importantly, they are right there, on location.”
He referred to The Star Deputy Executive Editor Wong Sai Wan (twitter.com/saiwanstar), whose tweets may range from news updates and his views to his long wait at a local hospital. (If you follow me on Twitter, at twitter.com/Asohan, you’ll get some breaking news, but will also have to deal with bad geek jokes, Star Trek, and anything else I’m in the mood to tweet.)
Other micro-blogging journos may pepper their Twitter account with everything from a breaking news item to what is being served as refreshments at a press conference. They are not merely professionals any more; they’ve become brands as well.
Twitter is so much the current “next big thing” that Time magazine dedicated it’s June 15 cover story to it, leading one US wag to comment that you know something has reached the mainstream when Time puts it on the cover. The issue was so much in demand that the copy I left on my desk at work one evening was nicked.
Expect this phenomenon to be examined deeply over the next few months, leading to interesting articles like Twitter vs CNN (tinyurl.com/m8gfys) and whole conferences dedicated to it ... at least, until the next big thing.
(StarMag, by the way, featured Twitter.com and tweeting in its May 3 cover story, A little bird told me, Insight.)
We journalists will all be struggling to understand and harness this new technology, which is why Julie Posetti’s Rules of Engagement for Journalists on Twitter (tinyurl.com/llrw5w) is extremely timely.
While journalists have embraced micro-blogging, media organisations may find it harder to do so. Even a blog can be controlled to certain extent, because a journalist blogger can be asked to change his post. More importantly, he has time to consider what he’s going to publish and whether it would be acceptable to the media organisation that employs him.
You don’t have that luxury with tweets. It’s about journalists telling you like it is, as it is happening. And what they think about it. There’s no time to consider editorial stances or policies. It will be interesting to see how Malaysian media organisations deal with this new reality.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Sabtu, Jun 20, 2009
By JOLEEN LUNJEW
It’s not hocus-pocus or spiritual — it’s science.
Feng shui has been around for a long time, but I’ve always been a bit of a sceptic. I mean, how can you change your life by moving furniture around? Or improve your fortune by purchasing ornaments for the house?
Total hogwash.
So when I was asked to speak to a feng shui master, I was dubious, to say the least. But feng shui master Joe Choo was far from what I had expected.
I had the image of an elderly Chinese lady dressed in traditional costume in mind. Instead, I was greeted by a young and trendy 35-year-old. It made me chuckle inside. The stereotypes people come up with sometimes are amazing!
Choo had a delightful personality and began our session by dispelling the myths about her practice.
“Contrary to popular belief, feng shui is all about science — geomancy to be exact. It has nothing to do with the spiritual world, superstition, mysticism or religion,” said Choo, who is president of the Malaysian Institute of Geomancy Sciences (MINGS), an organisation that promotes knowledge of ancient feng shui studies based on science.
MINGS emphasises geomancy, a simple yet profound idea about energy forces or qi in the cosmos, whereby earth and humans interact with one another.
For centuries, the Chinese have practised feng shui, the Malays Tajul Muluk Ilmu Ramal, and the Indians the ancient science of Vastu Shastra. These look into the effects of the environment on our lives, and how the effects can be harmonised.
“Feng shui is a serious profession. If you look back to ancient times in China, the emperor was the only one allowed to receive the benefits of feng shui. The practice was not attainable by common people,” said Choo
“The feng shui masters who provided weather forecasts and determined auspicious dates for ceremonies were only one step lower than the Prime Minister.
“During the revolution, the last emperor burnt all the books because he didn’t want the scholars to go against his crumbling dynasty. These scholars ran away, taking their knowledge with them. Unfortunately, most of the scholars didn’t pass their full knowledge to their disciples, keeping about 20% to themselves.
“What we learn today is diminished. Commercialisation of feng shui has resulted in the promotion of chimes, statues and ornaments.
“If you study the old text, there was never any encouragement to place objects to enhance the energy of a place. Energy can only exist in living, growing things such as crystals, plants or fish. The ornaments, chimes and statues are not alive, so how can they enhance energy?” asked Choo.
The ancient text Choo was referring to was the I-Ching or Book of Changes written by Fu Hxi 5,000 years ago. I-Ching studies the idea of change — changes in the life span of man, of earth and the cosmos in a continuum of cycles.
It explores the sources of cosmic, earthly and human energies. It postulates that the union between yin and yang gave rise to the five elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal.
Choo explained that each of us are born under one of these five elements and that our lives are governed by the forces of these elements.
She said I was a fire person, and as such, required lots of water elements to keep me balanced.
Based on my date of birth, Choo determined the directions that were good for me, which are north, east, southeast and south. She used a Chinese compass (the copper needle points south instead of north) to determine the direction and detect energy.
“The needle will shake or point to the north if it detects a strong presence of unusual energy activity. I had a case where I visited a client who kept having dreams of a recently deceased family member. The compass detected the presence of unusual energy activity at his house.
“I have no doubt that spirits exist but I try not to mix feng shui with the supernatural. Most of the time, the shaking needle is because of electromagnetic fields caused by computers or electrical equipment,” explained Choo.
She went around my home with the Chinese compass to determine the exact spots that were good for me. She told me to place certain crystals at these spots to enhance and harmonise energy, which in turn would bring me better luck, wealth and love.
“You can get the crystals from any crystal shop, and they don’t have to be expensive. The crystals will work as long as they are genuine,” said Choo.
Fortunately, I knew someone who made jewellery using semi-precious stones and, yes, the small crystals were not expensive, being roughly RM10 each.
It is common practice for developers and private owners to apply feng shui in residential and commercial projects. Even Hong Kong’s Disneyland made several changes after consulting a feng shui specialist. Besides feng shui consultation in residential and commercials projects, Choo provides life-profiling services that read your life chart based on your date of birth.
Life-profiling charts your life from the day you were born till you die.
“Feng shui is one arm, and life-profiling is another. It is good to know both to make your life better. Life profiling is again all about science. The readings are based on statistics that have been compiled for centuries. If an individual is born under certain elements, his or her life will most likely turn out a certain way.
If you have a twin, your twin will most likely have the same life. What makes a difference would be the business the person is in and where the person goes from the place of birth. The readings are 99.9% accurate, provided the date and time given are correct,” said Choo.
Choo cautions that an individual shouldn’t be governed by feng shui as the practice is only meant to enhance your life, not change your luck.
“You learn about your life chart so that you can optimise opportunities and recognise potentials. Many feng shui masters say that they can change your luck. Do ask them if it has changed theirs? Some even say they can give you 4D numbers. If they can, why don’t they use it for themselves?”
Choo shares that there are no sure ways of telling if a feng shui master is the real deal or not but there are a few checks you can do before consulting one.
“Enquire into their background of study and practice. Find out who they learnt from. Their lineage should link somehow to the original feng shui masters.
“Ask around for their track record. Who are their clients? What kind of cases have they handled and what’s the success rate? Recommendations from trusted sources and friends are good too as word of mouth is a very powerful testimony.
“Finally, real feng shui masters should only give feng shui consultation and shouldn’t push you into purchasing items from them. They should also be able to give you reasonable explanations and not just say that their knowledge is a ‘secret from Heaven’,” said Choo.
I’m not sure if I believe everything my life chart says because I always thought that you could change your future by charting your own destiny, but I see no harm in heeding Choo’s advice with the placement of crystals.
The way I look at it is if it doesn’t inconvenience you and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, why not? The power of the mind is extremely strong, after all, so some positive vibes in my life could only do good.
MINGS at www.mingsweb.org
It’s not hocus-pocus or spiritual — it’s science.
Feng shui has been around for a long time, but I’ve always been a bit of a sceptic. I mean, how can you change your life by moving furniture around? Or improve your fortune by purchasing ornaments for the house?
Total hogwash.
So when I was asked to speak to a feng shui master, I was dubious, to say the least. But feng shui master Joe Choo was far from what I had expected.
I had the image of an elderly Chinese lady dressed in traditional costume in mind. Instead, I was greeted by a young and trendy 35-year-old. It made me chuckle inside. The stereotypes people come up with sometimes are amazing!
Choo had a delightful personality and began our session by dispelling the myths about her practice.
“Contrary to popular belief, feng shui is all about science — geomancy to be exact. It has nothing to do with the spiritual world, superstition, mysticism or religion,” said Choo, who is president of the Malaysian Institute of Geomancy Sciences (MINGS), an organisation that promotes knowledge of ancient feng shui studies based on science.
MINGS emphasises geomancy, a simple yet profound idea about energy forces or qi in the cosmos, whereby earth and humans interact with one another.
For centuries, the Chinese have practised feng shui, the Malays Tajul Muluk Ilmu Ramal, and the Indians the ancient science of Vastu Shastra. These look into the effects of the environment on our lives, and how the effects can be harmonised.
“Feng shui is a serious profession. If you look back to ancient times in China, the emperor was the only one allowed to receive the benefits of feng shui. The practice was not attainable by common people,” said Choo
“The feng shui masters who provided weather forecasts and determined auspicious dates for ceremonies were only one step lower than the Prime Minister.
“During the revolution, the last emperor burnt all the books because he didn’t want the scholars to go against his crumbling dynasty. These scholars ran away, taking their knowledge with them. Unfortunately, most of the scholars didn’t pass their full knowledge to their disciples, keeping about 20% to themselves.
“What we learn today is diminished. Commercialisation of feng shui has resulted in the promotion of chimes, statues and ornaments.
“If you study the old text, there was never any encouragement to place objects to enhance the energy of a place. Energy can only exist in living, growing things such as crystals, plants or fish. The ornaments, chimes and statues are not alive, so how can they enhance energy?” asked Choo.
The ancient text Choo was referring to was the I-Ching or Book of Changes written by Fu Hxi 5,000 years ago. I-Ching studies the idea of change — changes in the life span of man, of earth and the cosmos in a continuum of cycles.
It explores the sources of cosmic, earthly and human energies. It postulates that the union between yin and yang gave rise to the five elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal.
Choo explained that each of us are born under one of these five elements and that our lives are governed by the forces of these elements.
She said I was a fire person, and as such, required lots of water elements to keep me balanced.
Based on my date of birth, Choo determined the directions that were good for me, which are north, east, southeast and south. She used a Chinese compass (the copper needle points south instead of north) to determine the direction and detect energy.
“The needle will shake or point to the north if it detects a strong presence of unusual energy activity. I had a case where I visited a client who kept having dreams of a recently deceased family member. The compass detected the presence of unusual energy activity at his house.
“I have no doubt that spirits exist but I try not to mix feng shui with the supernatural. Most of the time, the shaking needle is because of electromagnetic fields caused by computers or electrical equipment,” explained Choo.
She went around my home with the Chinese compass to determine the exact spots that were good for me. She told me to place certain crystals at these spots to enhance and harmonise energy, which in turn would bring me better luck, wealth and love.
“You can get the crystals from any crystal shop, and they don’t have to be expensive. The crystals will work as long as they are genuine,” said Choo.
Fortunately, I knew someone who made jewellery using semi-precious stones and, yes, the small crystals were not expensive, being roughly RM10 each.
It is common practice for developers and private owners to apply feng shui in residential and commercial projects. Even Hong Kong’s Disneyland made several changes after consulting a feng shui specialist. Besides feng shui consultation in residential and commercials projects, Choo provides life-profiling services that read your life chart based on your date of birth.
Life-profiling charts your life from the day you were born till you die.
“Feng shui is one arm, and life-profiling is another. It is good to know both to make your life better. Life profiling is again all about science. The readings are based on statistics that have been compiled for centuries. If an individual is born under certain elements, his or her life will most likely turn out a certain way.
If you have a twin, your twin will most likely have the same life. What makes a difference would be the business the person is in and where the person goes from the place of birth. The readings are 99.9% accurate, provided the date and time given are correct,” said Choo.
Choo cautions that an individual shouldn’t be governed by feng shui as the practice is only meant to enhance your life, not change your luck.
“You learn about your life chart so that you can optimise opportunities and recognise potentials. Many feng shui masters say that they can change your luck. Do ask them if it has changed theirs? Some even say they can give you 4D numbers. If they can, why don’t they use it for themselves?”
Choo shares that there are no sure ways of telling if a feng shui master is the real deal or not but there are a few checks you can do before consulting one.
“Enquire into their background of study and practice. Find out who they learnt from. Their lineage should link somehow to the original feng shui masters.
“Ask around for their track record. Who are their clients? What kind of cases have they handled and what’s the success rate? Recommendations from trusted sources and friends are good too as word of mouth is a very powerful testimony.
“Finally, real feng shui masters should only give feng shui consultation and shouldn’t push you into purchasing items from them. They should also be able to give you reasonable explanations and not just say that their knowledge is a ‘secret from Heaven’,” said Choo.
I’m not sure if I believe everything my life chart says because I always thought that you could change your future by charting your own destiny, but I see no harm in heeding Choo’s advice with the placement of crystals.
The way I look at it is if it doesn’t inconvenience you and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, why not? The power of the mind is extremely strong, after all, so some positive vibes in my life could only do good.
MINGS at www.mingsweb.org
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, Jun 16, 2009
Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams - and, more so, sleep - are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotions.
According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.
Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."
Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."
REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."
That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.
The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.
In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.
Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.
If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "
At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.
The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"
- TIME
According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.
Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."
Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."
REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."
That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.
The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.
In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.
Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.
If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "
At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.
The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"
- TIME
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Khamis, Jun 11, 2009
DIPLOMATICALLY SPEAKING
By DENNIS IGNATIUS
Datuk Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service. He has served in Britain, China, the United States, Chile and Argentina. He retired as High Commissioner for Malaysia to Canada in June 2008.
It’s about time Wisma Putra took stock of the malaise inflicting the ministry in order to forge ahead in safeguarding and promoting our national interests abroad.
Wisma Putra has been getting some attention in the local press; unfortunately, it is mostly negative. Some of the comments have been petty while others raise important questions. Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman’s statement that he is open to criticism is a good beginning.
The trouble is we have been on autopilot for too long. We tend to nostalgically look back to the days of the great men of Wisma Putra like Tan Sri Zainal Sulong, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, Datuk Bertie Talalla, Tan Sri Lim Teik Choon and the likes, but do little to prepare the next generation of great ambassadors.
However, the unhappy state of affairs in Wisma Putra must not be seen in isolation. If anything, it is emblematic of a wider malaise.
Take the low level of English language proficiency in the ministry. It is indeed a serious problem but why blame Wisma Putra for the failure of our education system to turn out graduates with at least a decent standard of English? Wisma Putra also does not have complete control over the recruitment process. There is fierce competition among ministries for those who are considered good; the mediocre and the inept are distributed indifferently throughout the civil service. Again, don’t blame Wisma Putra if there are mediocre officers; it has to make do with what it gets.
And then there is the system of promotions, which is in shambles. Despite the emphasis on performance, seniority still rules, and riles. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a fair and equitable system of accurately assessing performance, so personalities come into play.
There is a reluctance too within Wisma Putra, and the entire civil service system for that matter, to penalise the non-performers or those who have been guilty of serious misconduct.
Worse still, good officers (and there are many) are often not given recognition and avenues for advancement. Many talented and capable officers end up frustrated and disillusioned. The bureaucracy has a way of smothering enthusiasm and stifling creativity.
As well, an emphasis on ethnic preferences also means we are not always able to put the best person forward. Good officers languish for years in inconsequential assignments as a result.
Our Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Sidek Hassan, one of the best we have had so far, has taken some bold initiatives to overcome these problems but it is an uphill battle to change the culture of the civil service. I hope he stays long enough to effect the kind of change the civil service needs.
Over the years, there has also been a breakdown in consensus regarding the role of our ambassadors. It used to be that the ambassador was invested with the authority to manage the overall relationship in the country he was accredited to. He was not expected to be an expert in everything (there were specialists and advisors for that); his role was to provide leadership to our overall representation and speak authoritatively on behalf of the government.
This is no longer the case. In-fighting among ministries, often rooted in rivalry amongst ministers themselves, has seriously weakened our representation abroad.
At times, our ambassadors are deliberately kept out of the loop because of petty inter-agency rivalries. And some of these agencies are poor performers as well, even though they have much bigger operational allocations. It is really hurting our effectiveness.
So yes, we need more effective and well rounded ambassadors but we also need to overhaul the very way we do business at home and abroad.
Given the present malaise at Wisma Putra, it is tempting to appoint politicians and officers from other ministries to helm our diplomatic missions. While they undoubtedly bring certain strengths to the job, they lack the exposure, experience and training to be truly effective ambassadors.
For that reason, most countries have learned that there is no substitute for a professional foreign service.
If Wisma Putra is to continue as the premier agency entrusted with safeguarding and promoting our national interests abroad, there has to be a major overhaul, organisationally as well as conceptually. The creation of a separate foreign service, distinct from the rest of the civil service, might have to be considered. There is too much at stake for half-measures.
Hopefully, our Foreign Minister will provide the leadership that is urgently needed to overhaul the ministry and inspire our officers to greatness again. The fact that this task now falls to a politician is itself a reflection of how much the civil service has changed but that is another story.
The upcoming heads of mission conference this month might provide the occasion to spark real discussion and debate on how to make Wisma Putra synonymous with all that is best and great about Malaysia. It is an opportunity that must not be missed.
By DENNIS IGNATIUS
Datuk Dennis Ignatius is a 36-year veteran of the Malaysian foreign service. He has served in Britain, China, the United States, Chile and Argentina. He retired as High Commissioner for Malaysia to Canada in June 2008.
It’s about time Wisma Putra took stock of the malaise inflicting the ministry in order to forge ahead in safeguarding and promoting our national interests abroad.
Wisma Putra has been getting some attention in the local press; unfortunately, it is mostly negative. Some of the comments have been petty while others raise important questions. Foreign Minister Datuk Anifah Aman’s statement that he is open to criticism is a good beginning.
The trouble is we have been on autopilot for too long. We tend to nostalgically look back to the days of the great men of Wisma Putra like Tan Sri Zainal Sulong, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, Datuk Bertie Talalla, Tan Sri Lim Teik Choon and the likes, but do little to prepare the next generation of great ambassadors.
However, the unhappy state of affairs in Wisma Putra must not be seen in isolation. If anything, it is emblematic of a wider malaise.
Take the low level of English language proficiency in the ministry. It is indeed a serious problem but why blame Wisma Putra for the failure of our education system to turn out graduates with at least a decent standard of English? Wisma Putra also does not have complete control over the recruitment process. There is fierce competition among ministries for those who are considered good; the mediocre and the inept are distributed indifferently throughout the civil service. Again, don’t blame Wisma Putra if there are mediocre officers; it has to make do with what it gets.
And then there is the system of promotions, which is in shambles. Despite the emphasis on performance, seniority still rules, and riles. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a fair and equitable system of accurately assessing performance, so personalities come into play.
There is a reluctance too within Wisma Putra, and the entire civil service system for that matter, to penalise the non-performers or those who have been guilty of serious misconduct.
Worse still, good officers (and there are many) are often not given recognition and avenues for advancement. Many talented and capable officers end up frustrated and disillusioned. The bureaucracy has a way of smothering enthusiasm and stifling creativity.
As well, an emphasis on ethnic preferences also means we are not always able to put the best person forward. Good officers languish for years in inconsequential assignments as a result.
Our Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Sidek Hassan, one of the best we have had so far, has taken some bold initiatives to overcome these problems but it is an uphill battle to change the culture of the civil service. I hope he stays long enough to effect the kind of change the civil service needs.
Over the years, there has also been a breakdown in consensus regarding the role of our ambassadors. It used to be that the ambassador was invested with the authority to manage the overall relationship in the country he was accredited to. He was not expected to be an expert in everything (there were specialists and advisors for that); his role was to provide leadership to our overall representation and speak authoritatively on behalf of the government.
This is no longer the case. In-fighting among ministries, often rooted in rivalry amongst ministers themselves, has seriously weakened our representation abroad.
At times, our ambassadors are deliberately kept out of the loop because of petty inter-agency rivalries. And some of these agencies are poor performers as well, even though they have much bigger operational allocations. It is really hurting our effectiveness.
So yes, we need more effective and well rounded ambassadors but we also need to overhaul the very way we do business at home and abroad.
Given the present malaise at Wisma Putra, it is tempting to appoint politicians and officers from other ministries to helm our diplomatic missions. While they undoubtedly bring certain strengths to the job, they lack the exposure, experience and training to be truly effective ambassadors.
For that reason, most countries have learned that there is no substitute for a professional foreign service.
If Wisma Putra is to continue as the premier agency entrusted with safeguarding and promoting our national interests abroad, there has to be a major overhaul, organisationally as well as conceptually. The creation of a separate foreign service, distinct from the rest of the civil service, might have to be considered. There is too much at stake for half-measures.
Hopefully, our Foreign Minister will provide the leadership that is urgently needed to overhaul the ministry and inspire our officers to greatness again. The fact that this task now falls to a politician is itself a reflection of how much the civil service has changed but that is another story.
The upcoming heads of mission conference this month might provide the occasion to spark real discussion and debate on how to make Wisma Putra synonymous with all that is best and great about Malaysia. It is an opportunity that must not be missed.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Khamis, Jun 11, 2009
By AZMI SHAROM
The Arabs have a really nice way of saying hello, by just wishing someone ‘peace’.
So, there I was, surfing the Net, looking for something to distract me from work. During the breaks from playing “Flight of the Hamsters”, I chanced upon an article regarding Barack Hussein Obama’s speech in Cairo.
I had heard bits and pieces of the speech on the telly and my feeling was it’s all fine and dandy, but he did skirt around some issues; and unless and until the words are translated into action, it was little more than a feel good PR exercise.
No, the online article I read was not an in-depth analysis of the speech, it was about how a whole bunch of Americans headed for their computers to search what Assalamualaikum meant.
Their president had used the greeting in his speech and they were probably in a tizzy wondering whether their boss man had declared a new-found faith in Islam.
“Gosh, Billy Bob Joe, did he say somethin’ in Ay-rab?”
I can imagine their relief when they found out it only meant “peace be upon you”.
I’m sure there were a lot of Budweiser bottles being clinked together in celebration that Obama was not the closet Muslim that the redneck right wingers were saying he was during the election campaign.
This led me to thinking.
When I was a little boy, the usual greeting that people gave each other in formal events was usually “Selamat pagi/tengahari/petang/malam” or “Good morning/afternoon/evening”.
Over the years, the Arabic Assalamualaikum started to be used more and more often. Then it developed to Assalamualaikum warahmadullah wabarakathu. Then there was a further development of a little doa (prayer) before the whole thing.
I suppose it was yet another facet of the growing Islamisation/Arabisation of the country. Well, you know, whatever.
Eventually, I started to use the greeting, too. That’s not to say I was becoming any holier (although for many Muslims there are religious connotations to the greeting), it’s just that I like it; in the same way that I like to wear blue jeans and T-shirts. We borrow from other cultures all the time, and the Arabs, in my book, came up with a really nice way of saying hello.
I mean, how cool it is to wish someone “peace”?
Not “Good morning” when it could have been a really crappy morning.
Not “How are you?” when the answer will always be “I’m fine” regardless of whether I just discovered that I have piles the size of walnuts.
And “Selamat pagi” sounds like I’m being asked to go on some military mission. “Safe morning, Private, I hope you don’t get your legs blown off.”
In this context “I wish you peace” is really nice. And when said earnestly, is utopian even.
However, over the last few years, I have stopped using it when I speak in public. The reason is we in Malaysia have managed to contort something so sweet into yet another symbol of our continued obsession with dividing ourselves.
I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s never just “Assalamualaikum”, it is almost always “Assalamualaikum dan selamat sejahtera”.
Even when we greet each other, it is as a divided people. “Hey for you Muslims out there; I wish you all peace. And for everyone else; I wish you well being, man”!
Why do we do this?
No, that is the wrong question.
I know why we do this. For the Muslims, it is because they feel the greeting is exclusive to them.
For non-Muslims, they probably feel the greeting is yet another way of forcing Islamisation onto the populace and thus it is better to have something else just for them.
The question therefore should be “how did we come to this?”
When did exclusivity become such a norm that we experience it without even noticing its divisive power?
When did suspicion become so ingrained that the harmless becomes a symbol of oppression?
For me, much of the divisiveness in our society can be traced to many policy and legislative sources. However, we have a bigger battle on our hands and that is the changing of our very own attitudes towards one another.
It will be useful, of course, if we governed ourselves with as little prejudice as possible, but even if the laws and policies were changed it would matter little if our hearts and minds have not.
It is a tiny thing, I know, but for now at least, in my own pathetic attempt at ensuring I am Malaysian first, I shall continue to use “Good morning” and “Selamat pagi”; even though your piles are making it hard for you to sit down and the most dangerous thing you will be doing all day is boiling the water for your coffee.
The Arabs have a really nice way of saying hello, by just wishing someone ‘peace’.
So, there I was, surfing the Net, looking for something to distract me from work. During the breaks from playing “Flight of the Hamsters”, I chanced upon an article regarding Barack Hussein Obama’s speech in Cairo.
I had heard bits and pieces of the speech on the telly and my feeling was it’s all fine and dandy, but he did skirt around some issues; and unless and until the words are translated into action, it was little more than a feel good PR exercise.
No, the online article I read was not an in-depth analysis of the speech, it was about how a whole bunch of Americans headed for their computers to search what Assalamualaikum meant.
Their president had used the greeting in his speech and they were probably in a tizzy wondering whether their boss man had declared a new-found faith in Islam.
“Gosh, Billy Bob Joe, did he say somethin’ in Ay-rab?”
I can imagine their relief when they found out it only meant “peace be upon you”.
I’m sure there were a lot of Budweiser bottles being clinked together in celebration that Obama was not the closet Muslim that the redneck right wingers were saying he was during the election campaign.
This led me to thinking.
When I was a little boy, the usual greeting that people gave each other in formal events was usually “Selamat pagi/tengahari/petang/malam” or “Good morning/afternoon/evening”.
Over the years, the Arabic Assalamualaikum started to be used more and more often. Then it developed to Assalamualaikum warahmadullah wabarakathu. Then there was a further development of a little doa (prayer) before the whole thing.
I suppose it was yet another facet of the growing Islamisation/Arabisation of the country. Well, you know, whatever.
Eventually, I started to use the greeting, too. That’s not to say I was becoming any holier (although for many Muslims there are religious connotations to the greeting), it’s just that I like it; in the same way that I like to wear blue jeans and T-shirts. We borrow from other cultures all the time, and the Arabs, in my book, came up with a really nice way of saying hello.
I mean, how cool it is to wish someone “peace”?
Not “Good morning” when it could have been a really crappy morning.
Not “How are you?” when the answer will always be “I’m fine” regardless of whether I just discovered that I have piles the size of walnuts.
And “Selamat pagi” sounds like I’m being asked to go on some military mission. “Safe morning, Private, I hope you don’t get your legs blown off.”
In this context “I wish you peace” is really nice. And when said earnestly, is utopian even.
However, over the last few years, I have stopped using it when I speak in public. The reason is we in Malaysia have managed to contort something so sweet into yet another symbol of our continued obsession with dividing ourselves.
I’m sure you’ve noticed, it’s never just “Assalamualaikum”, it is almost always “Assalamualaikum dan selamat sejahtera”.
Even when we greet each other, it is as a divided people. “Hey for you Muslims out there; I wish you all peace. And for everyone else; I wish you well being, man”!
Why do we do this?
No, that is the wrong question.
I know why we do this. For the Muslims, it is because they feel the greeting is exclusive to them.
For non-Muslims, they probably feel the greeting is yet another way of forcing Islamisation onto the populace and thus it is better to have something else just for them.
The question therefore should be “how did we come to this?”
When did exclusivity become such a norm that we experience it without even noticing its divisive power?
When did suspicion become so ingrained that the harmless becomes a symbol of oppression?
For me, much of the divisiveness in our society can be traced to many policy and legislative sources. However, we have a bigger battle on our hands and that is the changing of our very own attitudes towards one another.
It will be useful, of course, if we governed ourselves with as little prejudice as possible, but even if the laws and policies were changed it would matter little if our hearts and minds have not.
It is a tiny thing, I know, but for now at least, in my own pathetic attempt at ensuring I am Malaysian first, I shall continue to use “Good morning” and “Selamat pagi”; even though your piles are making it hard for you to sit down and the most dangerous thing you will be doing all day is boiling the water for your coffee.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, Jun 02, 2009
The Internet, particularly blogs, could be useful for making the truth known, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.
He said knowledge that could be accessed through the Internet was limitless, but like all things, its acquisition could be for good or evil.
“The blogs for example can be used to demonise people, scare them and create panic. The SMS (Short Message Service) can be used for similar purposes.
“But we know how useful they can be for making the truth known and for individuals to air their views and feelings freely,” he said in his speech at the launch of OSDC.MY and Open Source Industry Global Linkage here yesterday.
Dr Mahathir also expressed amazement at how whimsical and creative technology inventors could come up with names like Foxie, Ubuntu, GNU, Perl, Ruby, Phyton and Fedora.
“It’s amazing how they are able to relate to the mundane and the ordinary,” he said.
Citing the development of the telephone, Dr Mahathir said that the speed of progress in the information age was “mind-boggling”.
“I was told by some people a long time ago that when we use the Internet, whatever you do or write would be recorded in some far away places. There is no secrecy.
“Since the Government is using a lot of the Internet, it is frightening to think that some foreign persons would know all our so-called confidential records and correspondence,” he said.
- THE STAR
He said knowledge that could be accessed through the Internet was limitless, but like all things, its acquisition could be for good or evil.
“The blogs for example can be used to demonise people, scare them and create panic. The SMS (Short Message Service) can be used for similar purposes.
“But we know how useful they can be for making the truth known and for individuals to air their views and feelings freely,” he said in his speech at the launch of OSDC.MY and Open Source Industry Global Linkage here yesterday.
Dr Mahathir also expressed amazement at how whimsical and creative technology inventors could come up with names like Foxie, Ubuntu, GNU, Perl, Ruby, Phyton and Fedora.
“It’s amazing how they are able to relate to the mundane and the ordinary,” he said.
Citing the development of the telephone, Dr Mahathir said that the speed of progress in the information age was “mind-boggling”.
“I was told by some people a long time ago that when we use the Internet, whatever you do or write would be recorded in some far away places. There is no secrecy.
“Since the Government is using a lot of the Internet, it is frightening to think that some foreign persons would know all our so-called confidential records and correspondence,” he said.
- THE STAR
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Ahad, Mei 10, 2009
By DINA ZAMAN
MOTHER’S DAY is around the corner, and in June it’ll be Father’s Day. While we will appreciate the day with our parents and families, I do think we should also applaud a special kind of parent: the Single Parent.
There are many reasons for single parenthood: things just don’t work out, the death of a spouse, a divorce or an errant husband/wife who’s gone missing.
Life as a single parent can be fulfilling and yet challenging. I’m not one, but many of my friends are, and the dynamics of our friendships and relationships are different.
Nothing to complain about – if anything, I salute my single mum and dad friends, because I do not think I would have that strength, humour and courage – and yes, the sensibilities – to be one.
And I have learned one thing about children. They are very resilient.
If meeting up with friends before meant a bunch of single men and women enjoying a night out, or a bunch of friends and their partners having a private dinner in a nice restaurant, these days meeting up means children will be part of the group.
My single parent friends are always apologetic: “The maid’s gone, may I bring ... if it’s not too much trouble?”
As someone who has hosted friends’ pets in her home (don’t ask, long story), having my friends’ children over is a treat.
“You don’t have Astro, Aunty Dina?”
“I don’t watch TV.”
“Your house has no lift, Aunty Dina!”
“I’m poor.”
“Aunty Dina! What kind of apartment is this! No DVD, no Astro, no lift!”
You can’t swear or make sexual innuendoes as children pick up these things fast. (“Eee, Mummy, Uncle said that word! Hahaha!”)
And you learn one thing too: being a single parent can be the best job in the world but also frustrating. Having to deal with a former spouse’s new wife/husband. Fighting over alimony. Messed-up schedules that keep clashing with holidays and work. Still wanting to kill the ex-husband/wife. Two screaming kids wanting toys but not being able to afford it.
While the single mothers have their share of woes, the single father friends I have will encounter, and fret over, such stressful situations as shopping ... for young women’s undergarments.
Text messages asking us girls: “Er, does standing in front of the ladies’ lingerie department while the daughter, er, tries on stuff make me look like a dirty old man?”
Or: “Aaaaaaaaa, Dina, I am confused! Why can’t bras just come in Small, Medium and Large?!”
I don’t even ask how they deal with menstruation or sanitary pads.
Dating single parents or dating for single parents can be ... also interesting. It’s a conundrum that can give anyone a migraine. Even a one hour coffee catch-up can be stressful.
Who’s going to look after my child? Will the date accept me as a single dad/mum?
Yes, even men go through all this hysteria. Even in this day and age, there are parents who want their sons and daughters to date and marry singletons without baggage.
The stigma of being a single parent is worse for women. Sometimes dating one can spring a surprise. Thinking it’ll be a lovely dinner and get-to-know-you-session, you may find a seven-year-old staring curiously at you.
The kid has come on the date. What do you do? You can’t do anything. This is it: you date a single dad, you have to accommodate.
Single parents looking to settling down again can be rabid, too. I’ve been on a date or two and barely survived the interrogation.
Will you make a good mother?
I don’t know, I’ve never been a mother. I’ve had cats though. Does that count?
If things work out between us, can you be a stepmother to my five children?
Aiyo, you got so many ah?
It’s just a first date. Can’t one just have dinner first?
The professional who is a single parent is a walk in the park compared with those who come from underprivileged backgrounds. The drug addict father whose wife has died. The poor single mother with eight children and not a job in sight. The widowed father who has to cope with a failing business and wild children.
Money does help, and when you don’t have it, you get desperate and feel hopeless.
Having met them in the course of duty, I can only wonder how they keep a family and themselves together. Poverty adds to the stigma of single parenthood.
Happy Parents’ Day, my friends. And of course your children. Pat yourselves on the back because you truly deserve it.
Here’s to more cupcakes, soapsuds, tears and laughter. And lastly, may good love come to you. The gang craves for a wedding or two.
MOTHER’S DAY is around the corner, and in June it’ll be Father’s Day. While we will appreciate the day with our parents and families, I do think we should also applaud a special kind of parent: the Single Parent.
There are many reasons for single parenthood: things just don’t work out, the death of a spouse, a divorce or an errant husband/wife who’s gone missing.
Life as a single parent can be fulfilling and yet challenging. I’m not one, but many of my friends are, and the dynamics of our friendships and relationships are different.
Nothing to complain about – if anything, I salute my single mum and dad friends, because I do not think I would have that strength, humour and courage – and yes, the sensibilities – to be one.
And I have learned one thing about children. They are very resilient.
If meeting up with friends before meant a bunch of single men and women enjoying a night out, or a bunch of friends and their partners having a private dinner in a nice restaurant, these days meeting up means children will be part of the group.
My single parent friends are always apologetic: “The maid’s gone, may I bring ... if it’s not too much trouble?”
As someone who has hosted friends’ pets in her home (don’t ask, long story), having my friends’ children over is a treat.
“You don’t have Astro, Aunty Dina?”
“I don’t watch TV.”
“Your house has no lift, Aunty Dina!”
“I’m poor.”
“Aunty Dina! What kind of apartment is this! No DVD, no Astro, no lift!”
You can’t swear or make sexual innuendoes as children pick up these things fast. (“Eee, Mummy, Uncle said that word! Hahaha!”)
And you learn one thing too: being a single parent can be the best job in the world but also frustrating. Having to deal with a former spouse’s new wife/husband. Fighting over alimony. Messed-up schedules that keep clashing with holidays and work. Still wanting to kill the ex-husband/wife. Two screaming kids wanting toys but not being able to afford it.
While the single mothers have their share of woes, the single father friends I have will encounter, and fret over, such stressful situations as shopping ... for young women’s undergarments.
Text messages asking us girls: “Er, does standing in front of the ladies’ lingerie department while the daughter, er, tries on stuff make me look like a dirty old man?”
Or: “Aaaaaaaaa, Dina, I am confused! Why can’t bras just come in Small, Medium and Large?!”
I don’t even ask how they deal with menstruation or sanitary pads.
Dating single parents or dating for single parents can be ... also interesting. It’s a conundrum that can give anyone a migraine. Even a one hour coffee catch-up can be stressful.
Who’s going to look after my child? Will the date accept me as a single dad/mum?
Yes, even men go through all this hysteria. Even in this day and age, there are parents who want their sons and daughters to date and marry singletons without baggage.
The stigma of being a single parent is worse for women. Sometimes dating one can spring a surprise. Thinking it’ll be a lovely dinner and get-to-know-you-session, you may find a seven-year-old staring curiously at you.
The kid has come on the date. What do you do? You can’t do anything. This is it: you date a single dad, you have to accommodate.
Single parents looking to settling down again can be rabid, too. I’ve been on a date or two and barely survived the interrogation.
Will you make a good mother?
I don’t know, I’ve never been a mother. I’ve had cats though. Does that count?
If things work out between us, can you be a stepmother to my five children?
Aiyo, you got so many ah?
It’s just a first date. Can’t one just have dinner first?
The professional who is a single parent is a walk in the park compared with those who come from underprivileged backgrounds. The drug addict father whose wife has died. The poor single mother with eight children and not a job in sight. The widowed father who has to cope with a failing business and wild children.
Money does help, and when you don’t have it, you get desperate and feel hopeless.
Having met them in the course of duty, I can only wonder how they keep a family and themselves together. Poverty adds to the stigma of single parenthood.
Happy Parents’ Day, my friends. And of course your children. Pat yourselves on the back because you truly deserve it.
Here’s to more cupcakes, soapsuds, tears and laughter. And lastly, may good love come to you. The gang craves for a wedding or two.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Jumaat, Mei 01, 2009
The Information, Communications and Culture Ministry is organising a 1Malaysia song writing competition based on the “People First, Performance Concept” mooted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
The Information Department, in a statement yesterday, said the competition was open to all professional and amateur Malaysian song composers.
“The objective is to popularise patriotic songs among Malaysians, showcase talents in this genre besides instilling the spirit of patriotism among the people,” the statement said.
The songs, presented in CD format with accompaniment of at least one musical instrument or piano score, must be an original composition and should not exceed two minutes.
A hard copy of the lyrics must also be submitted. The forms for submission can be downloaded from the following websites www.moi.gov.my or www.orkestrartm.my
Queries can be directed to RTM’s Music Division at 6032288 7853. Closing date is June 15.
- BERNAMA
The Information Department, in a statement yesterday, said the competition was open to all professional and amateur Malaysian song composers.
“The objective is to popularise patriotic songs among Malaysians, showcase talents in this genre besides instilling the spirit of patriotism among the people,” the statement said.
The songs, presented in CD format with accompaniment of at least one musical instrument or piano score, must be an original composition and should not exceed two minutes.
A hard copy of the lyrics must also be submitted. The forms for submission can be downloaded from the following websites www.moi.gov.my or www.orkestrartm.my
Queries can be directed to RTM’s Music Division at 6032288 7853. Closing date is June 15.
- BERNAMA
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Khamis, April 30, 2009
By AZIZ HASSAN
A simple question no doubt but which answer you agree with depends on how you evaluate things in life. Is the Astro pay-to-view television a luxury or a necessity that should not be denied the poor?
In the books of the Welfare Services Department it's a luxury someone on aid from it should not be having. In fact the department goes a step further by including free TV in its list of "cannot haves". Understandably some people disagree and are unhappy that the department has stopped its financial aid to those in need all because of a TV set or what appears on its screen.
The latter have a surprise sympathiser in Pahang Mentri Besar Adnan Yaakob who thinks that not being allowed to watch Astro equates to not being allowed to watch TV. By Adnan's reckoning this is rubbish thinking. You may or may not agree with him. I don't but what I do agree with is Adnan's thinking that the minimum monthly financial aid to those in need should be a minimum RM500. To try and get this going Adnan said he was going to write to the prime minister.
To give someone RM150 or RM200 a month in aid is simply ridiculous -- and we are talking year 2009 here.
Back to TV. According to Wikipedia, Astro, which was launched in 1996, had 2.4 million subscribers by June last year and that meant 43% of total TV sets in Malaysia. By now the number of subscribers should be at least 2.5 million. Considering that the packages can be as low as RM37.95 per month and as high as RM75.95 plus everything else you have to pay, would you say Astro is a luxury or a necessity?
Looking at the penetration so far and the start-up cost required of a subscriber, I would say it's a semi-luxury a person receiving aid will have a lot of explaining to do if he is to continue to be assisted. That or he should be satisfied with free TV like TV3, TV9, TV7, 8TV and TV1 and 2. Enough channels to keep company those in aid who have to stay at home due to physical handicaps. Unless of course that person can show proof that his Astro is being financed by friends or relatives. Which means that the department should look at this issue on a case-by-case basis.
The thing about people is that not everyone's honest, especially when it concerns money. I mean look at some of the squatter houses -- cars and yes Astro TV. Talk to them whenever there's a price increase for something and they all cry foul to ask how the government could allow this to happen to the "under-class" like them.
I knew of an operator of an eating place who lived as a squatter but rented out her low-cost flat. When I was in ITM Shah Alam (now UiTM) 30 plus years ago, some of the kids who could afford cars and motorcycles were happily receiving scholarships! Those who knew them said many were children of the rich, particularly from the east coast, who qualified for the aid because they simply under-declared their parents' income.
But it's been a week of free (positive) publicity for Astro...
http://azizhassan.blogspot.com
A simple question no doubt but which answer you agree with depends on how you evaluate things in life. Is the Astro pay-to-view television a luxury or a necessity that should not be denied the poor?
In the books of the Welfare Services Department it's a luxury someone on aid from it should not be having. In fact the department goes a step further by including free TV in its list of "cannot haves". Understandably some people disagree and are unhappy that the department has stopped its financial aid to those in need all because of a TV set or what appears on its screen.
The latter have a surprise sympathiser in Pahang Mentri Besar Adnan Yaakob who thinks that not being allowed to watch Astro equates to not being allowed to watch TV. By Adnan's reckoning this is rubbish thinking. You may or may not agree with him. I don't but what I do agree with is Adnan's thinking that the minimum monthly financial aid to those in need should be a minimum RM500. To try and get this going Adnan said he was going to write to the prime minister.
To give someone RM150 or RM200 a month in aid is simply ridiculous -- and we are talking year 2009 here.
Back to TV. According to Wikipedia, Astro, which was launched in 1996, had 2.4 million subscribers by June last year and that meant 43% of total TV sets in Malaysia. By now the number of subscribers should be at least 2.5 million. Considering that the packages can be as low as RM37.95 per month and as high as RM75.95 plus everything else you have to pay, would you say Astro is a luxury or a necessity?
Looking at the penetration so far and the start-up cost required of a subscriber, I would say it's a semi-luxury a person receiving aid will have a lot of explaining to do if he is to continue to be assisted. That or he should be satisfied with free TV like TV3, TV9, TV7, 8TV and TV1 and 2. Enough channels to keep company those in aid who have to stay at home due to physical handicaps. Unless of course that person can show proof that his Astro is being financed by friends or relatives. Which means that the department should look at this issue on a case-by-case basis.
The thing about people is that not everyone's honest, especially when it concerns money. I mean look at some of the squatter houses -- cars and yes Astro TV. Talk to them whenever there's a price increase for something and they all cry foul to ask how the government could allow this to happen to the "under-class" like them.
I knew of an operator of an eating place who lived as a squatter but rented out her low-cost flat. When I was in ITM Shah Alam (now UiTM) 30 plus years ago, some of the kids who could afford cars and motorcycles were happily receiving scholarships! Those who knew them said many were children of the rich, particularly from the east coast, who qualified for the aid because they simply under-declared their parents' income.
But it's been a week of free (positive) publicity for Astro...
http://azizhassan.blogspot.com
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Rabu, April 29, 2009
By MARINA MAHATHIR
Being religious means having honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues that come with it. The Quran underscores that to be just is what being a faithful adherent is all about. And justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.
Symbols , as we know, can be potent. One of those that many set great store by is the tudung, meant to signify religious identity and piety.
Presumably that identity comes also with religious quality, that is, you expect that anyone who wears it to display a certain level of behaviour and integrity.
The other day I had an experience that taught me never to expect too much from symbols. As I was about to pay for some coffee, I noticed the young female cashier had rung up a more expensive price than that quoted on the menu on the wall.
Fully expecting there to be a legitimate reason, I asked her why. To my shock, the look on her face spelt guilt and she hastily changed the price of my coffee.
It may well be that she was told by her management to add a little something to each bill because I don’t see how she could have personally benefited from it. But the point is that if one takes on religious symbols such as the tudung, one therefore needs to ensure that it means something.
Dishonesty is not one of them.
Which goes back to that old argument about form and substance in religion in this country.
It is perhaps unfortunate that Islam is the religion that most lends itself to public symbolism, mostly through dress. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the focus has entirely rested on women’s dress and not anything else.
So while we may take on the tudung as one step towards heaven, we don’t insist that it carries more weight than that, that is we expect honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues to come with it.
The question will always be, does a dishonest person who wears a tudung or a kepiah have a better chance of going to heaven than one who doesn’t?
And if the answer is yes, then we have something seriously wrong with our value system that prizes the outward rather than the internal, the form over the substance.
One of the major themes of Islam is justice.
Over and over again, the Quran underscores that to be just is always what to be a faithful adherent is all about.
In Surah An-Nisa, Verse 35, God says: “O ye who believe! Be ye staunch in justice, witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or (your) parents or (your) kindred, whether (the case be of) a rich man or a poor man, for Allah is nearer unto both (than ye are). So follow not passion lest ye lapse (from truth) and if ye lapse or fall away, then lo! Allah is ever Informed of what ye do.”
It says nothing about whom one has to be just to, except that they be those who deserve it. Certainly justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.
Thus, I welcome the announcement that minor-aged children of people who convert will be brought up in the original religion that their parents were when they got married.
This is to stop the sort of vindictive men who try to inflict as much as misery as they can on women they no longer love by trying to take away their children in any way they can.
Unfortunately, the state has only helped to support this vindictiveness by mostly refusing to decide on what is just.
But as they say, the proof of good intentions will always be in the pudding. These announcements must translate into fact.
Already the negative noises are out, alleging doom if certain processes are supposedly not followed. Forgotten is the fact that those processes may not be necessarily just.
Almost all these voices are, interestingly enough, male.
These are the same people who insist that a woman’s primary role is to be a mother. Of course, if her husband converts to Islam and takes away her children, her mothering role becomes nullified.
He suddenly becomes the martyred single father, even though he created the situation in the first place and can easily find another woman to tend to his brood.
Meanwhile, the mother remains married to the father of the children she is forcibly separated from and cannot move on.
And this is what people call the Islamic thing to do?
I hope the Cabinet cracks the whip on these issues once and for all. No doubt this will require Parliamentary approval and that will take time.
But so much misery has been caused by these injustices and what suffers most is the image of Islam as a religion that upholds justice and equality. It is not possible to be unjust and call oneself a Muslim. Unless all we care about is the form and never the substance.
Being religious means having honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues that come with it. The Quran underscores that to be just is what being a faithful adherent is all about. And justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.
Symbols , as we know, can be potent. One of those that many set great store by is the tudung, meant to signify religious identity and piety.
Presumably that identity comes also with religious quality, that is, you expect that anyone who wears it to display a certain level of behaviour and integrity.
The other day I had an experience that taught me never to expect too much from symbols. As I was about to pay for some coffee, I noticed the young female cashier had rung up a more expensive price than that quoted on the menu on the wall.
Fully expecting there to be a legitimate reason, I asked her why. To my shock, the look on her face spelt guilt and she hastily changed the price of my coffee.
It may well be that she was told by her management to add a little something to each bill because I don’t see how she could have personally benefited from it. But the point is that if one takes on religious symbols such as the tudung, one therefore needs to ensure that it means something.
Dishonesty is not one of them.
Which goes back to that old argument about form and substance in religion in this country.
It is perhaps unfortunate that Islam is the religion that most lends itself to public symbolism, mostly through dress. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the focus has entirely rested on women’s dress and not anything else.
So while we may take on the tudung as one step towards heaven, we don’t insist that it carries more weight than that, that is we expect honesty, integrity, sincerity and many other virtues to come with it.
The question will always be, does a dishonest person who wears a tudung or a kepiah have a better chance of going to heaven than one who doesn’t?
And if the answer is yes, then we have something seriously wrong with our value system that prizes the outward rather than the internal, the form over the substance.
One of the major themes of Islam is justice.
Over and over again, the Quran underscores that to be just is always what to be a faithful adherent is all about.
In Surah An-Nisa, Verse 35, God says: “O ye who believe! Be ye staunch in justice, witnesses for Allah, even though it be against yourselves or (your) parents or (your) kindred, whether (the case be of) a rich man or a poor man, for Allah is nearer unto both (than ye are). So follow not passion lest ye lapse (from truth) and if ye lapse or fall away, then lo! Allah is ever Informed of what ye do.”
It says nothing about whom one has to be just to, except that they be those who deserve it. Certainly justice is not limited to only those of the same faith.
Thus, I welcome the announcement that minor-aged children of people who convert will be brought up in the original religion that their parents were when they got married.
This is to stop the sort of vindictive men who try to inflict as much as misery as they can on women they no longer love by trying to take away their children in any way they can.
Unfortunately, the state has only helped to support this vindictiveness by mostly refusing to decide on what is just.
But as they say, the proof of good intentions will always be in the pudding. These announcements must translate into fact.
Already the negative noises are out, alleging doom if certain processes are supposedly not followed. Forgotten is the fact that those processes may not be necessarily just.
Almost all these voices are, interestingly enough, male.
These are the same people who insist that a woman’s primary role is to be a mother. Of course, if her husband converts to Islam and takes away her children, her mothering role becomes nullified.
He suddenly becomes the martyred single father, even though he created the situation in the first place and can easily find another woman to tend to his brood.
Meanwhile, the mother remains married to the father of the children she is forcibly separated from and cannot move on.
And this is what people call the Islamic thing to do?
I hope the Cabinet cracks the whip on these issues once and for all. No doubt this will require Parliamentary approval and that will take time.
But so much misery has been caused by these injustices and what suffers most is the image of Islam as a religion that upholds justice and equality. It is not possible to be unjust and call oneself a Muslim. Unless all we care about is the form and never the substance.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Khamis, April 23, 2009
By DINA ZAMAN
Money is the root of all evil, so says the old adage, and it’s still being played out in today’s materialistic society.
“Dina?”
“Pedia?”
“Apasal la, kita orang Melayu ni dah hancur?”
“Mana la saya tahu. Saya ni bukan tukang tilik.”
ARSHAD the electrician and I had been trying to sort out the wiring of the apartment. He’s like a cab driver; he knows everything and everyone, but he’s funny as hell.
He always has an opinion – from food to marriage to ghosts and politics – and he’s very reasonable, budget wise.
He hopped off the chair and waved a pen at me.
“I think, kan,” he said as he munched on an energy bar I had given him, “I think kan, pasal kan, kita dah lupa darat. Kita fikir duit, duit, duit, duit. And kita tak nak susah.”
He told me about the kids he watched over in his neighbourhood. There was this young boy who had magical feet. He could be the next Maradona.
So Arshad told his parents to develop the boy’s talent, get him out of the ghetto where they lived, and he could be Malaysia’s David Beckham.
The parents told him to shut up, the boy was not his son, and besides, it was better he worked at odd jobs to make money for the family. What talent? Kicking a ball is a talent?
These days, Arshad told me, parents were just lazy. They gave their kids handphones, let them play out way into the night, let them wander around, just so they would not inconvenience their parents.
Even though these parents were working class, they would rather give the kids money so as not to be bothered. Money can do wonders, even make them disappear for a while. Why bother moulding a kid into a star?
This example, he stressed while gulping down a Milo Fuse which I had made, was the real root of the Malay Dilemma. Money.
It was not lack of religion or Malay values. It is all about money. Doesn’t matter how much or little you have, so long as you have it.
Kid passes an exam, you reward him RM50. You have no money to treat your kid, your kid may shoplift or become a GRO when an adult.
“Maybe it’s not about having money,” I said blearily. It was 7.45 in the morning. I had made the poor man come to sort out the wiring before I had to leave for work.
“Maybe it’s because the Malays have so little money that by acting that way it is as if they have money. Reverse and sadistic psychology. You know? Law of Attraction?”
“Ha? Law amende tu? No, no, no. Masalah orang Melayu adalah ... financial.”
I was flapping about in the apartment, worried sick I’d be late for work. This wiring thing had taken too long. And Arshad had to talk about the Malay Dilemma now.
“Dina. Kalau kita tak de duit, moral kita terbang!”
Sure we can have religious principles and adapt, but when you don’t have money and you see bangang people getting projects when they are so stupid, what’s morals. Hello money, come to me!
Arshad was enjoying himself.
By now I was fretting. I was going to be late for work.
“Look. You can’t say that about the Malays,” I said. What about the Chinese and Indians and everyone else who are in the same poop?
Ah-ha. The Chinese and Indians have their support system. They band and work together in their communities. They have their churches and temples.
You can say anything about them, but they help their people. Look at our masjids. They are monuments to worship, not a community.
“Apa nak jadi kita orang Melayu ni, Dina?”
I knew one thing: if I were late, I’d end up as kebab.
He looked at the energy bar I gave him. “Mmm. Best jugak biskut ni. Patut kau ni kurus. Orang breakfast makan nasi lemak, roti canai.”
Whatever, whatever, I said, as I hurried him and myself out of the apartment.
“Nanti I SMS Dina quote wiring, okay?”
“Okay! Ciao Arshad!”
“Ciao!”
And that was how I spent my Wednesday morning. Never knew electricity and the Malay Dilemma would have something in common.
Money is the root of all evil, so says the old adage, and it’s still being played out in today’s materialistic society.
“Dina?”
“Pedia?”
“Apasal la, kita orang Melayu ni dah hancur?”
“Mana la saya tahu. Saya ni bukan tukang tilik.”
ARSHAD the electrician and I had been trying to sort out the wiring of the apartment. He’s like a cab driver; he knows everything and everyone, but he’s funny as hell.
He always has an opinion – from food to marriage to ghosts and politics – and he’s very reasonable, budget wise.
He hopped off the chair and waved a pen at me.
“I think, kan,” he said as he munched on an energy bar I had given him, “I think kan, pasal kan, kita dah lupa darat. Kita fikir duit, duit, duit, duit. And kita tak nak susah.”
He told me about the kids he watched over in his neighbourhood. There was this young boy who had magical feet. He could be the next Maradona.
So Arshad told his parents to develop the boy’s talent, get him out of the ghetto where they lived, and he could be Malaysia’s David Beckham.
The parents told him to shut up, the boy was not his son, and besides, it was better he worked at odd jobs to make money for the family. What talent? Kicking a ball is a talent?
These days, Arshad told me, parents were just lazy. They gave their kids handphones, let them play out way into the night, let them wander around, just so they would not inconvenience their parents.
Even though these parents were working class, they would rather give the kids money so as not to be bothered. Money can do wonders, even make them disappear for a while. Why bother moulding a kid into a star?
This example, he stressed while gulping down a Milo Fuse which I had made, was the real root of the Malay Dilemma. Money.
It was not lack of religion or Malay values. It is all about money. Doesn’t matter how much or little you have, so long as you have it.
Kid passes an exam, you reward him RM50. You have no money to treat your kid, your kid may shoplift or become a GRO when an adult.
“Maybe it’s not about having money,” I said blearily. It was 7.45 in the morning. I had made the poor man come to sort out the wiring before I had to leave for work.
“Maybe it’s because the Malays have so little money that by acting that way it is as if they have money. Reverse and sadistic psychology. You know? Law of Attraction?”
“Ha? Law amende tu? No, no, no. Masalah orang Melayu adalah ... financial.”
I was flapping about in the apartment, worried sick I’d be late for work. This wiring thing had taken too long. And Arshad had to talk about the Malay Dilemma now.
“Dina. Kalau kita tak de duit, moral kita terbang!”
Sure we can have religious principles and adapt, but when you don’t have money and you see bangang people getting projects when they are so stupid, what’s morals. Hello money, come to me!
Arshad was enjoying himself.
By now I was fretting. I was going to be late for work.
“Look. You can’t say that about the Malays,” I said. What about the Chinese and Indians and everyone else who are in the same poop?
Ah-ha. The Chinese and Indians have their support system. They band and work together in their communities. They have their churches and temples.
You can say anything about them, but they help their people. Look at our masjids. They are monuments to worship, not a community.
“Apa nak jadi kita orang Melayu ni, Dina?”
I knew one thing: if I were late, I’d end up as kebab.
He looked at the energy bar I gave him. “Mmm. Best jugak biskut ni. Patut kau ni kurus. Orang breakfast makan nasi lemak, roti canai.”
Whatever, whatever, I said, as I hurried him and myself out of the apartment.
“Nanti I SMS Dina quote wiring, okay?”
“Okay! Ciao Arshad!”
“Ciao!”
And that was how I spent my Wednesday morning. Never knew electricity and the Malay Dilemma would have something in common.
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, April 21, 2009
ARTICLES OF LAW
By BHAG SINGH
Organised committees are regulated by the law or the participants themselves.
When does one hold one kind of meeting or another? In addition, are there limitations as to when such meetings may be convened and conducted? If so, are such conditions and limitations prescribed by law or otherwise complied with?
As stated in the Law of Meetings by Sir Sebag Shaw and Judge Dennis Smith, the word “meeting” is susceptible to many connotations, but in one of its more specific senses, it indicates an assembly of persons.
The same authors go on to say that “it may be fortuitous and casual or organised and contrived, and its objects may be as various as are the interests which are common to the generality of mankind. An assembly may forgather for the purpose of discussion or social intercourse, for entertainment, in order to indulge an aesthetic interest, to receive instruction, or to participate in the administration of public or private affairs”.
Of course, if any unlawful act is committed by any member of an assembly, he may be called to account for the consequences of that act. Thus when people assemble with some common object in view, their collective conduct should be regulated by rules extending beyond those which would affect each member.
Types of meetings
Generally all meetings can be divided into public meetings and private meetings. Public meetings are those which the public generally have access to. Such meetings will be concerned with matters of general interest.
Private meetings are those where people are admitted by virtue of some specific right or special capacity: for example, a meeting of shareholders in a company or the committee of a club.
It is in the context of this latter category that terms such as Annual General Meeting, Extra Ordinary General Meeting and Emergency General Meeting are used. Whether there is a requirement or need to hold them and whether a particular procedure must be followed depends on the nature of the organisation and the law by which it is governed.
In any organisation it is the members who elect the representatives from among themselves to manage the organisation. Such an elected group may be called the board, committee or governing council.
It follows that there needs to be in place a procedure for the members, who may be referred to as the general body, to be kept informed as well as to be able to indicate their approval or otherwise in respect of certain basic and fundamental matters.
AGM
It is in the light of this that such organisations will have an annual general meeting. In the case of companies formed under the Companies Act 1965, there is a statutory requirement to hold an annual general meeting once every calendar year and not more than 15 months after the holding of the last preceding annual general meeting.
If such a meeting cannot be held, the Registrar of Companies is empowered, on application made, to extend this period of time. A failure to hold the meeting as so provided would constitute an offence under the Act.
In the context of companies, what is generally required to be dealt with in an annual general meeting is the declaration of dividends, consideration of the accounts, balance sheets and report of directors and auditors, the election of directors in the place of those retiring, and the appointment and fixing of remuneration of auditors. This is referred to as ordinary business. Anything else is considered special business.
In the Societies Act 1966 which governs the set-up and operation of societies which are associations of seven or more persons, there is no such specific statutory requirement to hold an annual general meeting.
The Act merely sets the guidelines as to matters for which provisions must be made in the constitution or rules of the society. Thus in the case of societies, it is open to the members to state in their rules or constitution what is to be tabled at the annual general meeting.
On account of this, it may be said that the role and rational of the annual general meeting is to inform and discuss matters which are in a way routine matters and yet fundamental and necessary to be dealt with periodically.
Unlike companies, societies may hold their annual general meetings once in two or three years, if the constitution so permits. Some societies adopt a midway approach by electing office bearers for two- or three-year terms, and holding an annual general meeting every year to provide reports and present accounts for approval.
EOGM
Annual general meetings are held to discuss routine matters . To meet this requirement, an extra ordinary general meeting may in some cases be held immediately after the annual general meeting.
But whilst an annual general meeting, by the rules of the organisation must be held, an extra ordinary general meeting is held as and when necessary or not at all. Such a meeting could be called by the committee or at the request of a specified number of members. This is called requisitioning a “meeting”.
Anything could be special business in this regard. Thus the decision to purchase or sell property will be special business as well as decisions to propose a vote of no-confidence in the committee or to reverse a decision earlier made.
Finally, a provision could be made for an emergency general meeting. There is no legal definition of an emergency general meeting but it is sometimes provided for to be called at very short notice for some unusual or urgent matter. This being the case, the power to do so is vested in the committee or in the head of the organisation.
- THE STAR
By BHAG SINGH
Organised committees are regulated by the law or the participants themselves.
When does one hold one kind of meeting or another? In addition, are there limitations as to when such meetings may be convened and conducted? If so, are such conditions and limitations prescribed by law or otherwise complied with?
As stated in the Law of Meetings by Sir Sebag Shaw and Judge Dennis Smith, the word “meeting” is susceptible to many connotations, but in one of its more specific senses, it indicates an assembly of persons.
The same authors go on to say that “it may be fortuitous and casual or organised and contrived, and its objects may be as various as are the interests which are common to the generality of mankind. An assembly may forgather for the purpose of discussion or social intercourse, for entertainment, in order to indulge an aesthetic interest, to receive instruction, or to participate in the administration of public or private affairs”.
Of course, if any unlawful act is committed by any member of an assembly, he may be called to account for the consequences of that act. Thus when people assemble with some common object in view, their collective conduct should be regulated by rules extending beyond those which would affect each member.
Types of meetings
Generally all meetings can be divided into public meetings and private meetings. Public meetings are those which the public generally have access to. Such meetings will be concerned with matters of general interest.
Private meetings are those where people are admitted by virtue of some specific right or special capacity: for example, a meeting of shareholders in a company or the committee of a club.
It is in the context of this latter category that terms such as Annual General Meeting, Extra Ordinary General Meeting and Emergency General Meeting are used. Whether there is a requirement or need to hold them and whether a particular procedure must be followed depends on the nature of the organisation and the law by which it is governed.
In any organisation it is the members who elect the representatives from among themselves to manage the organisation. Such an elected group may be called the board, committee or governing council.
It follows that there needs to be in place a procedure for the members, who may be referred to as the general body, to be kept informed as well as to be able to indicate their approval or otherwise in respect of certain basic and fundamental matters.
AGM
It is in the light of this that such organisations will have an annual general meeting. In the case of companies formed under the Companies Act 1965, there is a statutory requirement to hold an annual general meeting once every calendar year and not more than 15 months after the holding of the last preceding annual general meeting.
If such a meeting cannot be held, the Registrar of Companies is empowered, on application made, to extend this period of time. A failure to hold the meeting as so provided would constitute an offence under the Act.
In the context of companies, what is generally required to be dealt with in an annual general meeting is the declaration of dividends, consideration of the accounts, balance sheets and report of directors and auditors, the election of directors in the place of those retiring, and the appointment and fixing of remuneration of auditors. This is referred to as ordinary business. Anything else is considered special business.
In the Societies Act 1966 which governs the set-up and operation of societies which are associations of seven or more persons, there is no such specific statutory requirement to hold an annual general meeting.
The Act merely sets the guidelines as to matters for which provisions must be made in the constitution or rules of the society. Thus in the case of societies, it is open to the members to state in their rules or constitution what is to be tabled at the annual general meeting.
On account of this, it may be said that the role and rational of the annual general meeting is to inform and discuss matters which are in a way routine matters and yet fundamental and necessary to be dealt with periodically.
Unlike companies, societies may hold their annual general meetings once in two or three years, if the constitution so permits. Some societies adopt a midway approach by electing office bearers for two- or three-year terms, and holding an annual general meeting every year to provide reports and present accounts for approval.
EOGM
Annual general meetings are held to discuss routine matters . To meet this requirement, an extra ordinary general meeting may in some cases be held immediately after the annual general meeting.
But whilst an annual general meeting, by the rules of the organisation must be held, an extra ordinary general meeting is held as and when necessary or not at all. Such a meeting could be called by the committee or at the request of a specified number of members. This is called requisitioning a “meeting”.
Anything could be special business in this regard. Thus the decision to purchase or sell property will be special business as well as decisions to propose a vote of no-confidence in the committee or to reverse a decision earlier made.
Finally, a provision could be made for an emergency general meeting. There is no legal definition of an emergency general meeting but it is sometimes provided for to be called at very short notice for some unusual or urgent matter. This being the case, the power to do so is vested in the committee or in the head of the organisation.
- THE STAR
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Selasa, April 21, 2009
By KARIM RASLAN
In more mature markets, the newspapers are the forum for debate and analysis, while the Internet is the news hub, churning out updates.
There are two competing forces at work in our public life and, as anticipated, the contest between these two world views will come to dominate the Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak administration’s approach to the media, and indeed the entire civil liberties agenda.
On the one hand there is the carefully-managed world of the mainstream media. This approach reaches back to a long-held conviction among the Malaysian political establishment that the media should serve and indeed promote “national interests”.
Needless to say, this is a top-down and elitist approach. Furthermore, it reveals an underlying distrust and/or disregard for public sentiment and popular opinion.
At its simplest, it’s just another way of saying “we must lead because the people know no better”.
However, this viewpoint has been challenged both by the revolutionary changes in information technology as well as the population’s higher levels of education and exposure.
For many, including myself, “developmental journalism” is a highly questionable idea since it leads us into an intellectual cul-de-sac, a media deadend – in short, an environment where we are forced to swallow wholesale ministerial statements.
It also returns us to the situation at the height of the Mahathir era when the public was forced to read between the lines to figure out what was really going on in our country.
Similarly, “responsible reporting” as interpreted by our leaders also leaves most readers unconvinced, irritated and yearning for more.
So what happens? Well it’s straight-forward enough.
Instead of being satisfied, most of us are prompted to reach for the ubiquitous Internet to verify and double-check what we’ve just read.
For example, while I am relieved to discover that frequent by-elections are a “frightful” waste of money, I’m also perplexed and troubled by the near-total absence of contrarian views.
In this respect I have to thank former prime minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad for demolishing the argument with his characteristic bluntness.
However, as a citizen and a reader, I expect the news media to give choices (the pros and cons) so that I can make up my own mind.
Increasingly, in more mature media markets such as Europe and America, the newspapers have become the forum for debate and analysis while the Internet has evolved into a news hub, churning out a stream of updates.
Which leads me very neatly to the crazy alternative to our mild-mannered and domesticated mainstream media, namely, the rambunctious and chaotic World Wide Web.
The Internet is democracy gone wild. It is unregulated and can, in certain instances, verge on the wholly insane.
Whatever the case, the user/consumer has to make his or her individual value judgments, hopefully discarding the feeble and ludicrous in favour of the genuine and sensible.
However, the “Wild Wild West” of news and views where fiction becomes fact and mere speculation the touchstone for the truth is strengthened by the continued government influence on the mainstream media.
Every so-called, discreet call to an editor from Putrajaya extracts a heavy toll on the public’s confidence in the mainstream media, sending people scurrying back to the Internet.
There is an important additional point to make here.
In the past people would have had to check the Internet on their desktop computers.
In physical terms it meant that we’d be unable to verify the news with alternative sources until we’d reached our desks and switched on our computers.
Now, with technology’s extraordinary advances, we can immediately counter-check what we read in the newspapers through our own WAP-enabled and/or Internet-ready hand-held devices.
Indeed, these devices are so heavily promoted that virtually all consumers know and want these products – such as Blackberries and iPhones. At the same time and for a lot of younger people the ritual of reading a newspaper in the morning has been supplanted by a quick scan through the media alerts and favourite websites.
Furthermore there’s an additional, interesting factoid about young voters.
It is estimated that the Internet penetration of Malaysian 18-21-year-olds is in the region of 70%-80%. This means that the vast majority of new and soon-to-be voters are highly familiar with alternatives to newspapers and TV.
Indeed, it’s arguable that for this sought-after section of the voting public, the alternative media may well have become the “mainstream”.
However, all is not lost and the alternative media still plays an important role in shaping and galvanising public opinion.
Indeed the growing fluency of Malaysians in various languages – most of us are bilingual if not tri- or quadri-lingual – means that what someone says in one language will be read across the nation within nanoseconds.
What does this mean? Well, as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin discovered to his chagrin, an interview in the Malay-language daily Utusan gets picked up, analysed and critiqued by Malaysians of all persuasions.
In short, there are no “racial and linguistic silos” left and Malaysian leaders have to come to terms with the increasing openness of the media landscape, especially if they wish to win middle-of-the-road, middle-class Malaysians or all races, most of whom feel uncomfortable with language that is disrespectful to one community or another.
Whatever happens in the tussle between the conflicting views about civil liberties, we have to thank information technology for breaking down the barriers between the rulers and the ruled.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you may sit in your palaces and official residences but rest assured we’re watching and judging your every moves on our computer screens, our iPhones, our Nokias and Blackberries.
Nothing escapes us – the people of Malaysia – and nothing is sacred.
- THE STAR
In more mature markets, the newspapers are the forum for debate and analysis, while the Internet is the news hub, churning out updates.
There are two competing forces at work in our public life and, as anticipated, the contest between these two world views will come to dominate the Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak administration’s approach to the media, and indeed the entire civil liberties agenda.
On the one hand there is the carefully-managed world of the mainstream media. This approach reaches back to a long-held conviction among the Malaysian political establishment that the media should serve and indeed promote “national interests”.
Needless to say, this is a top-down and elitist approach. Furthermore, it reveals an underlying distrust and/or disregard for public sentiment and popular opinion.
At its simplest, it’s just another way of saying “we must lead because the people know no better”.
However, this viewpoint has been challenged both by the revolutionary changes in information technology as well as the population’s higher levels of education and exposure.
For many, including myself, “developmental journalism” is a highly questionable idea since it leads us into an intellectual cul-de-sac, a media deadend – in short, an environment where we are forced to swallow wholesale ministerial statements.
It also returns us to the situation at the height of the Mahathir era when the public was forced to read between the lines to figure out what was really going on in our country.
Similarly, “responsible reporting” as interpreted by our leaders also leaves most readers unconvinced, irritated and yearning for more.
So what happens? Well it’s straight-forward enough.
Instead of being satisfied, most of us are prompted to reach for the ubiquitous Internet to verify and double-check what we’ve just read.
For example, while I am relieved to discover that frequent by-elections are a “frightful” waste of money, I’m also perplexed and troubled by the near-total absence of contrarian views.
In this respect I have to thank former prime minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad for demolishing the argument with his characteristic bluntness.
However, as a citizen and a reader, I expect the news media to give choices (the pros and cons) so that I can make up my own mind.
Increasingly, in more mature media markets such as Europe and America, the newspapers have become the forum for debate and analysis while the Internet has evolved into a news hub, churning out a stream of updates.
Which leads me very neatly to the crazy alternative to our mild-mannered and domesticated mainstream media, namely, the rambunctious and chaotic World Wide Web.
The Internet is democracy gone wild. It is unregulated and can, in certain instances, verge on the wholly insane.
Whatever the case, the user/consumer has to make his or her individual value judgments, hopefully discarding the feeble and ludicrous in favour of the genuine and sensible.
However, the “Wild Wild West” of news and views where fiction becomes fact and mere speculation the touchstone for the truth is strengthened by the continued government influence on the mainstream media.
Every so-called, discreet call to an editor from Putrajaya extracts a heavy toll on the public’s confidence in the mainstream media, sending people scurrying back to the Internet.
There is an important additional point to make here.
In the past people would have had to check the Internet on their desktop computers.
In physical terms it meant that we’d be unable to verify the news with alternative sources until we’d reached our desks and switched on our computers.
Now, with technology’s extraordinary advances, we can immediately counter-check what we read in the newspapers through our own WAP-enabled and/or Internet-ready hand-held devices.
Indeed, these devices are so heavily promoted that virtually all consumers know and want these products – such as Blackberries and iPhones. At the same time and for a lot of younger people the ritual of reading a newspaper in the morning has been supplanted by a quick scan through the media alerts and favourite websites.
Furthermore there’s an additional, interesting factoid about young voters.
It is estimated that the Internet penetration of Malaysian 18-21-year-olds is in the region of 70%-80%. This means that the vast majority of new and soon-to-be voters are highly familiar with alternatives to newspapers and TV.
Indeed, it’s arguable that for this sought-after section of the voting public, the alternative media may well have become the “mainstream”.
However, all is not lost and the alternative media still plays an important role in shaping and galvanising public opinion.
Indeed the growing fluency of Malaysians in various languages – most of us are bilingual if not tri- or quadri-lingual – means that what someone says in one language will be read across the nation within nanoseconds.
What does this mean? Well, as Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin discovered to his chagrin, an interview in the Malay-language daily Utusan gets picked up, analysed and critiqued by Malaysians of all persuasions.
In short, there are no “racial and linguistic silos” left and Malaysian leaders have to come to terms with the increasing openness of the media landscape, especially if they wish to win middle-of-the-road, middle-class Malaysians or all races, most of whom feel uncomfortable with language that is disrespectful to one community or another.
Whatever happens in the tussle between the conflicting views about civil liberties, we have to thank information technology for breaking down the barriers between the rulers and the ruled.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you may sit in your palaces and official residences but rest assured we’re watching and judging your every moves on our computer screens, our iPhones, our Nokias and Blackberries.
Nothing escapes us – the people of Malaysia – and nothing is sacred.
- THE STAR
by MOHD ADHA MOHD ZAIN (ADHA ZAIN)
Isnin, Mac 23, 2009
Be sure to read Scene 3 Quite interesting.
SCENE 1.
This is a new one.
People sure stay busy trying to cheat us, don't they?
A friend went to the local gym and placed his belongings in the locker.. After the workout and a shower, he came out, saw the locker open, and thought to himself, 'Funny, I thought I locked the locker.
Hmm, 'He dressed and just flipped the wallet to make sure all was in order.
Everything looked okay - all cards were in place.
A few weeks later his credit card bill came - a whooping bill of $14,000!
He called the credit card company and started yelling at them, saying that he did not make the transactions.
Customer care personnel verified that there was no Mistake in the system and asked if his card had been stolen.
'No,' he said, but then took out his wallet, pulled out the credit card, and yep - you guessed it - a switch had been made.
An expired similar credit card from the same bank was in the wallet.
The thief broke into his locker at the gym and switched cards.
Verdict: The credit card issuer said since he did not report the card missing earlier, he would have to pay the amount owed to them.
How much did he have to pay for items he did not buy?
$9,000! Why were there no calls made to verify the amount swiped?
Small amounts rarely trigger a 'warning bell' with some credit card companies.
It just so happens that all the small amounts added up to big one!
SCENE 2.
A man at a local restaurant paid for his meal with his credit card.
The bill for the meal came, he signed it,and the waitress folded the receipt and passed the credit card along.
Usually, he would just take it and place it in his wallet or pocket. Funny enough, though, he actually took a look at the card and, lo and behold, it was the expired card of another person.
He called the waitress and she looked perplexed.
She took it back, apologized, and hurried back to the counter under the watchful eye of the man.
All the waitress did while walking to the counter was wave the wrong expired card to the counter cashier, and the counter cashier immediately looked down and took out the real card.
No exchange of words --- nothing! She took it and came back to the man with an apology.
Verdict:
Make sure the credit cards in your wallet are yours.
Check the name on the card every time you sign for something and/or the card is taken away for even a short period of time.
Many people just take back the credit card without even looking at it, 'assuming' that it has to be theirs. FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, DEVELOP THE HABIT OF CHECKING YOUR CREDIT CARD EACH TIME IT IS RETURNED TO YOU AFTER A TRANSACTION!
SCENE 3:
Yesterday I went into a pizza restaurant to pick up an order that I had called in.
I paid by using my Visa Check Card which, of course, is linked directly to my checking account.
The young man behind the counter took my card, swiped it, then laid it on the counter as he waited for the approval, which is pretty standard procedure.
While he waited, he picked up his cell phone and started dialing.
I noticed the phone because it is the same model I have, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then I heard a click that sounded like my phone sounds when I take a picture.
He then gave me back my card but kept the phone in his hand as if he was still pressing buttons.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking: I wonder what he is taking a picture of, oblivious to what was really going on.
It then dawned on me: the only thing there was my credit card, so now I'm paying close attention to what he is doing.
He set his phone on the counter, leaving it open.
About five seconds later, I heard the chime that tells you that the picture has been saved.
Now I'm standing there struggling with the fact that this boy just took a picture of my credit card.
Yes, he played it off well, because had we not had the same kind of phone, I probably would never have known what happened.
Needless to say, I immediately canceled that card as I was walking out of the pizza parlor.
All I am saying is, be aware of your surroundings at all times.
Whenever you are using your credit card take caution and don't be careless.
Notice who is standing near you and what they are doing when you use your card.
Be aware of phones, because many have a camera phone these days.
FORWARD THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN THINK OF. LET'S GET THE WORD OUT! JUST BE AWARE
SCENE 1.
This is a new one.
People sure stay busy trying to cheat us, don't they?
A friend went to the local gym and placed his belongings in the locker.. After the workout and a shower, he came out, saw the locker open, and thought to himself, 'Funny, I thought I locked the locker.
Hmm, 'He dressed and just flipped the wallet to make sure all was in order.
Everything looked okay - all cards were in place.
A few weeks later his credit card bill came - a whooping bill of $14,000!
He called the credit card company and started yelling at them, saying that he did not make the transactions.
Customer care personnel verified that there was no Mistake in the system and asked if his card had been stolen.
'No,' he said, but then took out his wallet, pulled out the credit card, and yep - you guessed it - a switch had been made.
An expired similar credit card from the same bank was in the wallet.
The thief broke into his locker at the gym and switched cards.
Verdict: The credit card issuer said since he did not report the card missing earlier, he would have to pay the amount owed to them.
How much did he have to pay for items he did not buy?
$9,000! Why were there no calls made to verify the amount swiped?
Small amounts rarely trigger a 'warning bell' with some credit card companies.
It just so happens that all the small amounts added up to big one!
SCENE 2.
A man at a local restaurant paid for his meal with his credit card.
The bill for the meal came, he signed it,and the waitress folded the receipt and passed the credit card along.
Usually, he would just take it and place it in his wallet or pocket. Funny enough, though, he actually took a look at the card and, lo and behold, it was the expired card of another person.
He called the waitress and she looked perplexed.
She took it back, apologized, and hurried back to the counter under the watchful eye of the man.
All the waitress did while walking to the counter was wave the wrong expired card to the counter cashier, and the counter cashier immediately looked down and took out the real card.
No exchange of words --- nothing! She took it and came back to the man with an apology.
Verdict:
Make sure the credit cards in your wallet are yours.
Check the name on the card every time you sign for something and/or the card is taken away for even a short period of time.
Many people just take back the credit card without even looking at it, 'assuming' that it has to be theirs. FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, DEVELOP THE HABIT OF CHECKING YOUR CREDIT CARD EACH TIME IT IS RETURNED TO YOU AFTER A TRANSACTION!
SCENE 3:
Yesterday I went into a pizza restaurant to pick up an order that I had called in.
I paid by using my Visa Check Card which, of course, is linked directly to my checking account.
The young man behind the counter took my card, swiped it, then laid it on the counter as he waited for the approval, which is pretty standard procedure.
While he waited, he picked up his cell phone and started dialing.
I noticed the phone because it is the same model I have, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Then I heard a click that sounded like my phone sounds when I take a picture.
He then gave me back my card but kept the phone in his hand as if he was still pressing buttons.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking: I wonder what he is taking a picture of, oblivious to what was really going on.
It then dawned on me: the only thing there was my credit card, so now I'm paying close attention to what he is doing.
He set his phone on the counter, leaving it open.
About five seconds later, I heard the chime that tells you that the picture has been saved.
Now I'm standing there struggling with the fact that this boy just took a picture of my credit card.
Yes, he played it off well, because had we not had the same kind of phone, I probably would never have known what happened.
Needless to say, I immediately canceled that card as I was walking out of the pizza parlor.
All I am saying is, be aware of your surroundings at all times.
Whenever you are using your credit card take caution and don't be careless.
Notice who is standing near you and what they are doing when you use your card.
Be aware of phones, because many have a camera phone these days.
FORWARD THIS TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN THINK OF. LET'S GET THE WORD OUT! JUST BE AWARE
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