Adding insult to injury: impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women living under discriminatory Muslim family laws

The COVID-19 pandemic bodyslammed pretty much everyone on every continent, including the frozen wasteland of Antarctica. Women are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 global seismic shift on all fronts; be it economic, health, safety, and general well-being. 

Musawah's study shows how Muslim women subject to discriminatory Muslim family law has to deal with greater stresses. Many conservative Muslims claim that Islam has been a boon for women; but it seems that this truism may be true in 7th century Arabia, but not the Muslim world in 21st century. 

Let's Love Everyone, and Let Allah Sort It Out

If you are born a Muslim in Malaysia, chances are you grew up being told that homosexuality is evil and gay people should be punished/killed/fixed. That indoctrination starts as early as seven years old and if you're lucky, stops when you are seventeen. 

Yup, I'm talking about the religious study classes that are mandatory for all Muslim children who attend government schools.

I was no different, and what's worse, I grew up in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS epidemic. I was a precocious reader, material-wise, and had begun devouring the broadsheet by the time I was nine years old. So imagine being told that the people of Lot is evil, and lo and behold! They are dying in the most terrible ways all over the world.

I went to an all-girls school so statistically speaking at least 1 out of 10 of my friends is gay. There was a transwoman in my parents' social circles; but everyone seemed to accept her as a woman although there may have been sniggers about whether a woman's wudhu is invalided after shaking hands with her.

As the majority, it behooves us to be aware of the lived experience of the minorities, which include those of the LGBTQIA community. Understanding can only create empathy and acceptance, unless you are a pathological sociopath. As said by Mahatma Gandhi, “A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” 

Comfortable echo chamber

I'm listening to Jeff Buckley's Grace for the 8th or maybe 12th time today. For some reason, his eponymous hit never really hit my radar as a teen except for his cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

The chords of the opening trills are distinctive of songs written and produced in the 90's. His varying octaves flowed effortlessly as he sketched a tale of farewell. His enunciation leaves much to be desired, but there's no mistaking the visceral passion that passes on through the vibrating sound waves.

How magical it is that sound can still touch your soul even after the emanator is long dead and gone.

Grace's melody triggered reminiscence of my teenage years. It was a time when I lived comfortably inside my head, with no urges to spill my latest thoughts and ideas across social media. I never even had a proper diary. I sometimes wonder why I'm compulsively sharing ideas and information as I do now, when I once was quite happy keeping them all to myself.

My head is a comfortable echo chamber that filtered intense emotions through books and music. It is powerful protective mechanism; perhaps one of the reasons I have been accused of being dispassionate and untouched by base emotions. The echo chamber made distancing myself from things that can hurt me reflexive.

But this comfortable echo chamber has another side effect: it made me more empathetic.

It's hard to hold on a good grudge when you can pretty much put yourself in your antagonists' shoes and understand that their lashing out at you isn't personal but rather driven by feelings of rage, impotency and fear caused by someone or something else.

I'll still look on it as a blessing.

"Grace"
by Jeff Buckley

There's the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away
Well it's my time coming, I'm not afraid to die
My fading voice sings of love,
But she cries to the clicking of time
Of time

Wait in the fire...

And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Oh drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow
Oh my love
And the rain is falling and i believe
My time has come
It reminds me of the pain
I might leave
Leave behind

Wait in the fire...

And I feel them drown my name
So easy to know and forget with this kiss
I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow

First posted on Cowbird.

Sisyphean on a Titanic scale

“The only mode of attack is to deal with a heavy decrease in the production of plastics, as opposed to dealing with them after they’ve already been created,” she tells the group. “Your consumer behaviors do not matter. Not on the scale of the problem ... It’s the cessation of production that will make the big-scale changes.” 




*sigh*

Stolen from here.

Marked intimacy when killing your enemy

Long ago in Borneo, you can only tattoo your hands if you have successfully completed a ngayau (headhunting) expedition. You need to get up close and personal with your enemy, breathe in his last breath, and feel the sprinkle of his hot blood as you severed his head to take home before raising your phalanges to be inked.

Marked warrior(1)

More than just a trophy, the severed head is a talisman against evil to protect your longhouse and its occupants against enemies and disasters. The heads are placed at the highest points in the house, to have a vantage view of all within. And during feast days, the heads are brought down, cleansed and smoked in a ritual as old as mountains, accompanied by the chantings of wizened wise women.

Hands of a master weaver(2)

It takes a great deal more skill and power to kill your enemies with a bladed weapon. A will of steel to steady your hands when needed. A dying art of war immortalised in museums and books, little more than ink and paint on paper. The heart of the tribe is now transformed.

The West are better killers, of course. With their phosphorus bombs, high calibre projectiles, cluster munitions, and drones. Now they can kill aseptically from thousands of miles away, viewing death from high tech lenses, spewing bullets and explosives like a child with a PlayStation in the den. Never feeling the gut-wrenching fear of dealing with your enemies face to face, not caring of their names or faces, armed combatant or otherwise.

Nowadays, who earns their tattooed phalanges honestly? Are there still any?


Note: Cross-posted from my social media account.
(1) https://steemit.com/art/@allaboutarts/the-uniqueness-and-meaning-of-the-dayak-tattoos
(2) https://dayakwithgoldenhair.wordpress.com/2013/08/17/the-tattooed-man-is-the-perfect-and-sacred-man/

Breaking Up is Easier than Breaking a Habit

Every new year (be it the Islamic or Gregorian calendar), I'd tell myself to cut my electronic umbilical cord AKA the smartphone.

Or at least, put it far enough away from me during off times so I'd be more productive -- write more, make inroads in my avalanching to-be-read pile, finish embroidering my kebaya ...

Alas, I still fail. I'd manage maybe 2 or 3 days, and then I fall off the wagon again. The phone is also where I keep track of my email - work and personal - so even when silenced, I still reach for it every so often.

Watching this is pretty sobering, I must say.



Freakin' scary.  Especially since I'm in the middle of reading Nicholas Carr's The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brain.

I can feel my brain being rewired.

Frankly, I have no idea how I'm going to wean myself off of the phone. I am a reading junkie; my phone plays a HUGE role in feeding my habit. I use it for reading my e-books and it's where I keep my Kobo account. Heck, I'm reading Carr's book on my smart phone, small screen notwithstanding.

It's ever harder to put the device far away when so much of our social interactions - be it family or friends or professional relationships - is controlled by that rectangle of silicon and circuits.

By making itself indispensable, the smart phone controls our lives beyond what we should be comfortable with. With the Internet of Things, one day we may not even have to carry the smart phone anymore; it may be grafted under our skin, with retinal implant to display the screen. Forget being afraid of Big Brother's surveillance; we already take Big Brother everywhere we go on purpose and eagerly.

If you wanna know more, read this and let me know if it made your hair raise as it did mine.

"I could make you feel 22 again."

Ah, to be that young and foolish again. Maybe not.

Especially if you are Monica Lewinsky



The scandal broke out when I was in 2nd year in uni (yes, I'm that old. Shut up.). At that point in time, I was perplexed about the magnitude of the scandal. So a public leader couldn't keep his willy zipped up. So what? It's not news.

But apparently, the story of a dirty old man seducing young women in his (Oval) Office was so bloody news worthy, it nearly eclipsed other horrible news.

You know, stuff like NATO's failure in the former Yugoslavia, the economic melt down that toppled Asian economic tigers from their perches, the fall of Suharto, the genocides that kept breaking out with heart-breaking regularity around the globe, and so very many, many more.

I didn't read the scandal online because the Internet was in its infancy in my personal sphere. But her pictures were in the newspapers daily, with minute-to-minute revelations of the Starr Report.

As always, the man got away with a nod and a wink, while the woman was tarred and feathered all the way out of town. That was exactly what happened here, and instead of a three-day-wonder, it became a six ring circus that dragged on for months.

I have always felt sorry for Ms. Lewinsky. She suffered the humiliations of the damned just because another woman wanted to prove that Bill Clinton was a horn dog (duh!).

The constant barrage of the scandal on all news media made it ever easier to snigger at her for being "the other woman", for possessing loose morals, for seducing the "innocent boss", for being foolish enough to dally with a married man and the moralistic, self-righteously judgmental list goes on and on.

It also made it easy to forget that this slut / whore / tart / insert-invective-of-choice is a real person with feelings, who made mistakes in judgement (like your decision to buy that pleather skirt, thinking that you can stuff your fat ass into it once you lost that 20 lbs.), who have family and friends who are smeared by the scandal (her parents did a terrible job raising her, dontchathink?), and most importantly, a person whose life was irrevocably ruined.

Despite all that, she did triumph. She survived a calamitous loss of privacy and personal reputation never before seen in the history of the world, and still made something out of her life. She used her experience to examine how the Internet and social media has morphed bullying into a new monster that no one really knew how to deal with.

I love her take home message in this video: Have compassion for yourself.

And have compassion for others.

So think about this the next time you click the "Share" button. The next time you helped to viral a picture or a story. You don't have the context in which the story happened nor can you be sure that what was posted was truly something true.

Because you could also be a guilty party to a mega bullying event and be completely oblivious about it.

Opening doorways to wonder and tragedy

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was not an easy book to read. I'm used to books that are more action oriented rather than introspective; the shift took some getting used to. The dilemma faced by the fifteen year old protagonist was diametrically different from my halcyon days of the same age; but some things still resonate.

Kafka is a fifteen year old boy who ran away from home to keep himself from fulfilling a terrible prophecy. Nakata was a man who lost himself at the cusp of adolescence and was rendered mentally differently abled as a result. I still don't understand why Kafka's narrative was in the present tense and Nakata's in the past, but I think that has something to do with the different trajectory of their journey.

The book have talking cats, hidden forests, and a sense of lyrical magic that intertwines through the whole story; a sense of foreshadowing, a glimmer of innocence and unexplained resonance with the psyche. A very interesting examination of Japanese culture past and present, as well as a snapshot in a moment that is neither modern nor obsolete.

This is not a book to be read and discarded; but one to be poured over and contemplated. I really had to resist the resistance to scribble on the margins just so I could keep track of what's in my head.

View all my reviews

B ... is for Books

 This post is about RAAAAAGGGGGEEEE.

There is a lot of swearing.

You have been warned.

Are you a lover?

Yes, Valentine's Day was two weeks ago. But watch this anyway.




Love isn't just between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman or a man and a man. Love is not always about romance and happily (n)ever after. Love is more than lust-fueled gropes and short-lived euphoria.

Love is ... ah, it's too complicated.

Easier to talk about what is NOT LOVE. Abuse is not love. Terror is not love. Non-consensual acts are not love. Harming and hurting is not love. Indifference is not love.

So what is love for you?

Water, water everywhere ...

... nor any drop to drink.

(The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

I got the opportunity to attend a Toastmasters competition on Tuesday at the Women's Institute of Management Toastmaster Chapter. It was a lovely evening, watching the competitors pitting their wits and skills to speak spontaneously on a variety of topics.

 Competitor 1, Mr T, who is generous with advice and smiles.

 Mr. S, the main man for the event.

 Mr G, who is a fount of amusing tales.

 My pal, Ms. M, who invited me and won the Table Topics competition.

The Table Topic of the competition was "A Day without Water". All the competitors came up with their own tales of dehydration that were hilarious and yet thought provoking. As I listened to them wax lyrical for seven minutes, it made me think a little deeper about our relationship with water; more specifically, running water.

We take water for granted. We turn on the tap and we expect the life giving liquid to gush forth. We expect the water to be clean, safe and harbour no nasty critters. Oh, it also gotta be clear and odourless and tasteless, unlike what the reporters for the Sochi Winter Olympics encountered. Woe betide SYABAS and its ilk should there be unscheduled (and even scheduled) water interruption.

We forget that in many parts of the world (including our own backyard!), clean water supply is an enviable luxury. There are still pockets within our own nation where there are no tap water available. My father's kampung and my paternal aunt's house in Jeram had no piped water before the 1990s. We had to draw water from the communal well for bathing, going to the toilet (if you are lucky there are outhouses which you flush by dumping a pail of water into the toilet, otherwise it's the bushes for you. Try to avoid prickly ones or plants that can cause rashes.), cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry. Having ice cold baths in broad daylight where anyone getting to the main road is sure to get an eyeful breeds a certain je ne sais quois that I have no problem bathing in public in nothing but a scanty sarong.

The communal well was surrounded by a concrete platform that was wet and covered in moss and was slippery as hell when you are wearing the de rigeur selipar Jepun. Unlike the pretty wells illustrated in fairy tale books, these have NO RETAINING WALL AROUND THE WELL. If you are unlucky, you could slip and fall into it with barely a splash. Many times when we return home, my Mum would have to make several visits to the masseuse; her back and shoulders were strained by carrying water. The communal well was replaced by the communal water pump in the late 80s and by the early 90s, there are piped water supply. However, if you ask me to pick between having electricity versus piped water supply, I think you know which one I will pick, regardless of my Internet addiction.

We forget that millions of women and girls trek for miles daily to get water for their household use and even for watering their crops from rivers, water holes and groundwater pumps. Some places like Cambodia and India have a severe arsenic groundwater contamination, rendering their water supply unsafe. Drought stricken places in the US and Australia (among others) have problem meeting the demand for water and have to impose water restriction. In Chile, they have to harvest water from mist and fog because water supply is so limited.


When water supply is at a premium, basic sanitation is also compromised. The developed countries have measures to address this but for many places still lagging behind in infrastructure development. Poor sanitation is a major contributor of deaths in developing countries, particularly for infants and children. The governments' inability to provide for such basic infrastructure has led to some drastic measures being taken. For instance, in India, the groom who cannot provide proper latrine facilities will not get a bride.

Be grateful that you can flush.

Water is deemed as a basic right for all mankind. This idea sounds grand on paper but it gets screwed up when national boundaries and politicians get involved. How many people are aware that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more about water and land than about religion? Tension and skirmishes have occured in Africa, South America, and Asia over control of this precious resource. It is expected that the adverse effects of climate change on water supply could lead to greater conflicts among nations.

Managing water as a sustainable resource is imperative and should be the focus of all. Sadly, it is evident that care for water supply is often sacrificed in the face of greed. Our thirst for fossil fuel has damaged our water supply. Poorly constructed agriculture and fishing policies have choked one of the largest inland sea (okay, lake) in the world. Indiscriminate dumping of toxic wastes into the water supply, overconsumption of groundwater that drastically affects the water table, destruction of water catchment areas, and many more, continues on merrily despite so-called stringent regulations and laws. Enforcement appears to be lackadaisical and punishments for transgressions seem to be little more than a mild slap on the wrist and this appears to be the trend the world over.

Perhaps we should start saving water and drink beer instead.

*sigh*

Losing My Religion - And Finding My Faith

Based on the writing prompt: What I Learned from Someone*

Sparked by ear candy

The year was 1991. The American rock band REM released a single that shot them to superstardom, Michael Stipe’s crooning of being left in the spotlight andlosing his religion has emphatically propelled the band out of obscurity. Personally, I preferred the Nina Persson’s version; her sweet, slightly raspy voice lent a different piquancy to the lyrics and melody. Tori Amos, mad musical genius that she is, deconstructed the song and reinterpreted it into something very different.

(more after the break)

What is truer than truth?

Title stolen from Isabel Allende in this video.

The following two videos underscore how story telling goes beyond mere entertainment. In the ancient days of my motherland, we have the penglipur lara, the storyteller, who travel from village to village, sharing stories, news and relating historical myths of the ancient kings. Their stories gave wings to the imagination of the ordinary folks and their arrival was much anticipated.

Technology and globalisation have changed the way stories are narrated. The penglipur lara may be dead for hundreds of years, but his stories continue to be told in different media. This is the power of stories: it evolves, are adapted and become incorporated into another narrative. In a way, stories are immortalised beyond the lives of the tellers.

But have we ever examined the origins of the stories we consume? Who delivered them? What was their intention? Were their sources right? What inspired them?

Herein lies the danger of the single story narrative.



I will admit to being guilty of the same thing. You tend to swallow what was told to you, especially as children. I am sure that many of us grew up with all kinds of stories about the "other" people. People who don't look like us, don't behave or pray (if they pray!) like we do, don't think like we do. Some of it is relatively harmless (or not); like mothers of the old admonishing wayward children to behave or "The benggali* will come and catch you!"

The more malevolent were like, "If you have to choose between killing a snake and a (insert ethnic/religious group of suspicion), it is better to kill the ethnic/religious person." This is about dehumanising the other person, making them alien and difficult to identify with. It would also make it easier to denigrate them, and to look down on them.

I am struck by her words about how the people in power made the definitive story and this could be used to dispossess the people, hijacking their history and culture. When a story is repeated over and over again, somehow it gained the veneer of truth and became accepted as a fact. This is some particularly profound for me, as my ethnic group is often painted as lazy, lacking initiative and always looking for a shortcut to solve problems. This perspective of our former colonial masters was countered by the eminent humanities scholar Syed Hussein Alatas in his book The Myth of the Lazy Native (which I will admit to having yet to read). But this idea of Malays being lackadaisical, etc has been so tightly woven in the nation's narrative, that it is difficult to disentangle. And like a self-fulfilling prophecy, we make it come true.

Like Ms. Adichie, the stories I write in my head (and occasionally pen down) often feature people from other countries because I have been steeped in American and Western culture, thanks to a steady diet of books, music, television and films.

*shame-faced*

While Ms. Adichie felt that Asian and African and South American and other non-white writers should be working towards developing narratives that is a contrast from the Western world view, Ms. Shafak felt that the manifestation of identity need not be utterly personal, so one could write from the viewpoint of people who is not oneself. 



To her, the most important thing is that the story need to be informative and well researched, written to evoke emotions and perhaps, create connections and empathy. One must not be limited to one's nationality, gender and sexuality. It is a very liberating thought, but I do believe that one should be free to tell the stories that speaks to one. However, it does seem that white authors get more leeway than non-white authors, who are expected to write only about their own culture and experiences.


Ninot Aziz, a celebrated Malaysian author, is reviving the hikayat, the folk tales and legends of  the Nusantara. Although the stories are sourced from Malay folk tales, she believes that the cosmopolitan nature of the stories transcends any cultural dichotomy and will speak to us regardless of our background.

Her book, Hikayat - From the Ancient Malay Kingdoms is up for the Anugerah Buku Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia - RTM. Please vote for her here. The author name is Ninot Aziz and the ISBN number of the book is 978-967-61-2540-80.

Here's to more excellent stories coming out of Malaysia!

* corruption of the word Bengali (someone from the state of Bengal in India). Usually the Sikh or other Bengal ethnic man who wore a turban and was an itinerant merchant of cloth and other household items during the pre and post Independent Malaya.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

The truth?

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,Video Archive

*rubs chin thoughtfully*

Did this guy just destroy your Madonna/whore illusion about women?

*chortle*

Flogging ...

... a Dead Horse? Revisiting the Question of Intellectual Decline in Muslim Societies.

I bet some who saw the headline thought that this would be a post about some kinky activities or primitive punishment exerted on criminals in days of yore. Sorry to disappoint you but that was the title of the talk I attended today at the IAIS, given by Prof. Syed Nomanul Haq, a Senior Visiting Professor at ISTAC.

Prof. Haq was a wonderfully engaging speaker who did not perpetrate the dreaded Death by Power Point by avoiding the use of multimedia altogether.

Speaking sans PowerPoint is an idiosyncrasy common among social scientists; those of the hard sciences persuasion would be appalled at the idea of crippling their delivery with a lack of figures, graphs and pictures of disemboweled laboratory animals. Nonetheless, Prof. Haq did a good job of engaging the audience with his ideas by sheer force of personality.

He exhorted the idea that intellectualism died with Al-Ghazali's pronouncement that the scientific approach is inadequate is a gross fallacy. According to Prof. Haq, Al Ghazali was actually an exponent of rationality, going so far as to say that scientific discovery trumps a hadith or scripture; that the hadith or scripture that contravenes science or maths to be interpreted allegorically. He also moaned about the lack of Muslim physicians in 11th century Persia. 

These are not the actions or thoughts of a thinker who denigrates science. Therefore he is unlikely to be responsible for Muslim intellectuals to stop sourcing new knowledge. However, Al-Ghazali may have been misinterpreted as his original writings may be inaccessible to modern readers who have to rely upon translations and interpretations of other scholars on his work.

Yes, those scholars have no ulterior motives to misinterpret him in such a way.

And yes, I'm being facetious.

Prof. Haq felt that the problems with the Muslim world could be laid at the feet of the systematic disenfranchisement due to lack of educational reform. When the society is hobbled with the inability to process, much less generate information to solve day-to-day problems, there is no wonder why many Muslim apologists are forever looking back at the so-called Islamic "Golden Age" with nostalgia. They reiterate that a civilisation that taught Galileo and Copernicus all that they know and debunking Galen's humors is a civilisation to be reckoned with.

Yup. About 800 years ago, mate. And we now have medical imaging and use quantum physics to compute dizzying array of numbers and take pictures of galaxies that died millions of years ago in space.

When you embrace theological perversion that shuts out half of the society from participating in nation building and socioeconomic progress (the burqa, the harem, the Taliban's campaign against Malala Yousefzai to name a few), then you should not wonder why the rest of the world is outpacing you. Blaming the Jews and the Illuminati can only go so far. But then again, if you reject the use of logic and rational thinking when evaluating situations and evidence, perhaps believing in an omnipresent organisation that is out to get you is not a big stretch of the imagination. 

 And you would believe this too.

The question and answer session was nice; Prof. Haq did not shy away from hard questions that challenged the views that he presented today. He countered the idea of Islamisation of knowledge: there are no secular and religious knowledge. ALL KNOWLEDGE is Islamic, so calculus, theoretical physics, biochemistry, political science etc are all 'ilm usul ad deen (normatively called usuluddin or knowledge of the way of life). 

Prof. Haq also expressed that there is no profit in discussing whether the Shiite are outpacing the Sunnis in terms of knowledge acquisition; we should accept that as Muslims, regardless of the school of thought you embrace, we should accept each other at face value. Yay to pluralism WITHIN Islam!

Sadly, I didn't quite get his response to the query regarding how the conditional denial of decline of the Islamic civilisation is a denial of the problems faced by the Muslim world. 

Basically, my take home message from the talk and discussion was that we must encourage OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN. We should revolutionise the education system to give children an opportunity to learn everything that they could learn: from languages (beyond the national language and English) to maths, the various branches of science, as well as logic and articulation skills. We should also enrich our culture to encourage life long learning, not limiting ourselves because of age and how the new knowledge is not relevant to our work.

We must stop encouraging one field of knowledge at the expense of another. This is seen at the university level where many humanities departments are getting less funding in order to expand the technical and engineering laboratories. Soft and hard sciences have their place in this world and must be encouraged to grow and prosper.

It is only with educational opportunities that we can open minds to ideas that bring hearts to righteousness in order to fulfill our roles as the vicegerent of this Earth. However, this does not mean that you should stuff your kids' extra classes to the gills, but rather inculcate a love of learning so that they will create opportunities to learn beyond merely what is taught in school.

At least, you should hope to do so.

The perils of modern life

I live in a country where hundreds and even thousands of people die (or got maimed) every year from road accidents. Most are motorcyclists, but a good bit are also pedestrians, drivers, and passengers in public vehicles. If you want the figures, go ahead and Google it. It's very depressing.

The numbers say that most of the fatal traffic accidents are caused by human error. This does not mean the non-fatal ones are not caused by human error. It's just that no one died so no one really cared about the causes of the accident, except for the insurance adjusters. Human error usually means the operator of the vehicle had catastrophic misjudgment(s). For example, overtaking dangerously, driving on the emergency lane and hitting a stationary vehicle, taking perilous curves at unsuitable speeds, inadequate vehicle maintenance making it prone for accidents,  the list goes on. One of the major factors is loss of attention while driving, which could be because the guy slept at 4 am watching a footie match and fell into microsleep behind the wheel, or was using the mobile phone, or trying to grab the mobile phone that fell below the seat and so on.

The mobile phone is one of the most amazing addition to the modern life. It has revolutionised how we communicate, the speed at which information (truth and lies) spread, and the number of people who could get connected. The mobile phone had fueled the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. The mobile phone has helped expose uncomfortable truth about schoolroom bullying, indifferent citizens, rape in real time and much, much more.

This hyper connectivity feeds the pleasure centre in our brain, making us feel good when we get our fix, nail-bitingly anxious when we can't get a hit. Our mobile phones are so versatile: it is our umbilical cord to those we love (or want to talk to), entertainment centre, camera, computer and I am sure you can come up with more uses for your mobile phone. It's no wonder that we love it, have a relationship with it, and mourn when it is out of date (3 months from the date of purchase) and are ecstatic when we get the latest gadget with all the bells and whistles.

Like many, I will bet that when you leave your house, apart from your keys and wallet, you make sure that you have your mobile phone with you, right? Because it has gone beyond a luxury into a necessity of our modern life. We check our mobile assiduously while we are on dates, watching movies, at concerts/funerals/weddings/graduation, eating with our family and even while we are in the loo. We never stopped fondling our mobile phones even while we drive, no matter how our forebrain tells us that it is a dangerous and stupid thing to be doing.

I know it's a bit lengthy for a public service announcement. Nonetheless, it's still gripping and visceral, created by a film-maker well known for making arty films. I swiped the video from here.

That said, I don't know if it will stop me from texting/Whatsapping/e-mailing/playing Word Feud while driving.

Because accidents only happen to other people, right?

Right?

Jalan-jalan cari makan ...

... extreme polar edition.



I don't eat molluscs; but I suppose seal and whale meat day in and day out would get old during the long winter months. The  people of Kangiqsujuaq apparently laughs in the face of death racing against time to collect mussels for a change in their seasonal diet.

Thirty minutes is all they have to hack through the sea ice, grab the delicious mussels and get out. They risk drowning in the frigid Arctic water as the ocean rushes back with the rising tide or being crushed by the shifting polar sea ice.

Can you imagine dying just because you are beyond sick of what is available on the dining table? Malaysians pride our country as a some kind of food Mecca. No matter what your palate favour, you can find it here; cordon blu haute cuisine, weird meats and sago worms, whatever you want, really.

The reality of what was shown in the video above is something that many Malaysians cannot envision, except perhaps those who live in the rural areas or experience economic hardships. This disconnection about where food comes from is probably a contributing reason as to why Malaysians waste food. In the face of the many people who go without, are malnourished or have only one meal a day, do we think about food beyond what we want to eat?

Do we also think about the way the food we eat are sourced? We haggle over the price of fish and seafood, blithely ignoring the warnings of the devastation of over-fishing and the hardships faced by the fishermen to bring their catch to land. We think we are animal lovers, and yet we close a blind eye to inhumane farming practices and abuse of antibiotics and hormones on livestock that we consume. We take for granted the vegetables and fruits we enjoy year around that are grown under unsustainable conditions that also poison our water supply.

For all the ranting above, I am cynically aware of my own apathy about where my food comes from. Unless you are an activist type, reading or even knowing about the stuff outlined above remains nothing more than an academic exercise. I read Fast Food Nation and it still didn't stop me from eating at Mickey D (I reason that the supplier for the Mickey D here are either local or from developing countries that need the economic growth).

That said, I do think that we should be more grateful with and for everything that crosses our lips to enter our gullet. Honour the food that nourishes you; respect the hard work that got it on your plate (your own, the food producer and procurer and the person who cooked it for you) and enjoy it. Don't take it for granted.

Because you could be an Inuit who died because you are tired of eating seal and wanted to have some mussels instead.

Anthematic: Gone Away

My Brightest Diamond's Gone Away + Sherry Thomas book (any) = cry fest.

When you read, do you have a soundtrack that plays through your head? I do, especially if the story is truly engrossing and compelling.

This is why I love authors like Carrie Vaughn and Kim Harrison; they share the soundtrack to which they write the book du jour.

Fabulous way to discover new music, yo.

X marks the spot

Malaysians who are registered voters will be making X's and ticks on the sweet spot on the ballots to choose which joker gets to represent them at the state assembly as well as the national Parliament tomorrow.

 I don't know photoshop or I'd change the flag.

Things have gotten a bit tense with both sides going all out badmouthing the other party and praising their own (non existent) virtues, or as the Malays put it, masuk bakul angkat sendiri, (literal translation: getting into a basket and lifting it yourself. No, not in an elevator).

One side is promising transformation of the country into higher income nation and has put in place a number of policies to make this happen.  The other side accuses the incumbent of corruption, cronyism yada yada yada and is urging for CHANGE at any cost for whatsoever reason. Just give them a try. You know, like that outfit you liked at Debenhams. Except that you're gonna keep buying (and paying for it) for the next five years. According to them, if we don't like them, we can return them after the five years are over.

Right.

It is quite common to have a lot of mudslinging and accusations of money politic (face it; you'd do the same if you have the moola). There's really nothing new to that. Those who are intensely political (whether a member of a political party or no) are prone to grand pronouncement of the evil being/has been/will be perpetrated by the other side.

Whoever voted a pauper into office? 

However, the vitriol appears to be magnified with social media. Facebook, Twitter, tumblr, blogs etc has made lobbing accusations, speculations, half truths and downright lies to muddle things up beyond all recognition downright effortless. What with the pictures and videos and innuendos and blatant statements, there is no peace in scrolling down my FB wall. I am not going to put up examples of the idiocy they keep spewing every ten minutes; I don't think keeping my blood on boil is good for my health.

I actually longed to see anything but those toxic sewage and would gratefully accept my married friends posting sweet nothings to their significant others or the mommies crowing that their precious child had scored all As/had bowel movement/won the Nobel prize. Mind you, these are things that often made me grit my teeth and want to do massive de-friending.

It's enough to make me want to run screaming into the night.

 I wish I could escape too.

Politicians have behaved as they always did since people discovered that they can screw up society beyond belief (and profiting from it!) by holding elections. After all, a dictator only needs to make sure the gulags in the most inhospitable of countryside are well supplied to house any and all dissidents; no popularity contests needed. Since Malaysia boasts a democratic process to populate the Parliament under the Constitutional Monarch (our beloved Yang Dipertuan Agong), we see the shenanigans amping up since the nomination day some three weeks ago.

Just change the flag in the background and this is applicable worldwide.

Both sides claim that they can do the best for the country. I am pretty partisan, don't get me wrong. But this post is not about preaching to the choir or trying to convert the infidels. I am just as cynical as many about what politicians can actually deliver. The crushing blow experienced during the 2008 election has made the incumbent work harder to satisfy the grassroots, sometimes doing ridiculous things that make even their hardcore supporters wince or even explode in outrage. Nonetheless, this isn't necessarily a bad thing; gone are the days they can put up a flag pole as a candidate and they'll get the votes. They have to amp up the game and do whatever possible to make sure that this time around they'll coax the voters to give them a comfortable majority.

Glad-handing once every four to five years. In between election, the elected official often vanishes into the aether.

I do believe that for our government to work well, we need a strong and decent Opposition. Sadly, that is not what we have. We have a loose "coalition" of three parties (actually five, but one got absorbed into the Big Brother's party and the remaining adik is being mercilessly bullied by the rest) which doesn't even share common goals or ideals. But hey, politics make for stranger bedfellows and all the best to those who believe in their earnest exhortations on how they are actually BFFs (who stab each other in the back on a regular basis) who are the best people to run Malaysia. They will give us free education! Lower the price of petrol (or gasoline to those who speak American)! Abolish toll roads! Vote us and you'll go to heaven!

Standard campaign promises. For some, the manifesto is not a promise.

And the BS goes on.

(Yeah, you can probably see which side I'm leaning on, hehehe).

What really got my goat is their rallying cry of "Ini kalilah!"; an abuse of the national language which does not endear them to me AT ALL. Kalau aku tanya "Baru turun tongkang ke?", marah pulak nanti...

It's definitely a chicken vs egg situation.

Anyhoo ... if you are a registered Malaysian voter, please understand that you are incredibly precious to the country. Not just your contribution to the country's economy, but also for ensuring that we elect the right person to lead the nation.

Remember, your vote counts. Unless you spoil it. 

You are spoilt for choice! You can choose from the incumbent coalition, the Opposition (in a few places, they actually fielded more than one candidate from different parties. I told you it's a loose coalition *rolls eyes*) and a whole slew of Independent candidates (most of whom are actually sulkers from either the incumbent or the Oppo; a few are genuine believers that they have a chance at winning).

Choose which ever your heart desires ...

Whichever party that wins, we must come back together as a nation. It is sad that politics have driven a wedge that separates us, but I have faith that Malaysians can see the bigger picture and put aside our differences to continue to make our country the best that it can be.

For that purpose, Anas Zubedy of the famed "Let us add value" advertisements (that rival Yasmin Ahmad's films on triggering tearful reactions) that appear in the newspapers during the National Day and Malaysia Day has initiated a campaign to heal this rift.

So please participate in this, and help us put the silliness of the elections behind us as quickly as possible. Let us make a conscious effort to not hold grudges, to stop reading and spreading poisonous materials that are put up on our FB walls, and to just keep on living our lives the way we always have (or at least aspire towards): with dignity, grace and kindness.

In the land of make believe ...

.... you're mine tonight
... although you are far away



I fell in love with Dusty Springfield thanks to Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation, one of the shiniest example of screwball romantic comedies in print. A woman forced to make soft porn in a small town and fell in love with the mayor who's fighting against an anti-pornography law? Classic. I love to belt along to Dusty (singing badly, I will admit) as I tool down the highway in my cute compact. But this post is more than just a rec of my favourite author and 60's singer, but an examination of how badly you can screw up your life if you are unable to get out of the land of make believe.

Fantasies are one of the most amazing creative forces that shape human existence. Our lives are enriched by it; either we enjoy the escapism of our own day dreams or we enjoy the artistic output of other fantastic minds (Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, etc.). Fantasies can help us cope with traumatic events by providing a happy ending (that didn't happen) or softening the blow (the Nile ain't just a river). There are those who scoff at people who fantasises or daydreams, thinking that keeping your feet firmly on the ground is the only way to live. But hey, different strokes for different folks, aye? Being a killjoy ain't gonna make your virtuousness any more palatable when you shove 'em down other people's throats.

But there is a dark side to fantasies as well, they're not just unicorns and enchanted gardens. Some of us entertain thoughts and ideas that are contrary to normative values of the society we live in (not to mention stuff that would get you either stuffed into a straight jacket and drop-kicked into a maximum security prison). No matter how perverted or twisted your fantasies are, so long as they remain just that, fantasies that is, it shouldn't be a problem.

Or would it?

Armin Meiwes was born in the wrong country and time. If he were a native of Papua New Guinea prior to the 20th century, human meat would have been available on the menu to satisfy his palate (perhaps without the cordon bleu pretensions). Unlike many who would simply visit fetish sites to get their kicks, Herr Meiwes actually advertised for a human to be eaten and apparently had a few responses. Needless to say Herr Meiwes did not get away with consuming his victim; although the act was consensual (if someone doped to the gills with painkillers and liquor after chopping off his manly bits can give proper consent), Herr Meiwes is now serving a life sentence.

Recently we heard about Gilberto Valle, a police officer in New York who has been found guilty of "conspiracy to kidnap and illegal use of law enforcement computer databases to research potential targets," thanks to his cannibalism fantasy. He toyed with the idea of stalking, killing and eating his wife and a few women of his acquaintance. It wouldn't have been bad had he stopped there, but he was caught accessing law enforcement database to feed this fantasy. 

Surely this baby-faced dude couldn't want to roast and eat me?

The trial unearthed his gruesome porn habit and his chat and email records showed stalker-y tendencies that would make any sane woman shudder. Although none of his "victims" were actually harmed, but he is now considered to be a danger to society, thanks to evidence that his fantasies have bled into some actions in real life. No, he did not buy any duct tape or chloroform. But he took pictures of women of his acquaintance and shared it with like-minded cyber pals with ideas of what he would like to do to these women. His persistent queries over his wife's running route took on a sinister cast when it was discovered that he was preparing a menu featuring her as the main course.

So where do we draw the line between what we can safely fantasise and becoming a real threat to society? Minority Report, much?

If you fantasise too much, Tom Cruise will come and get you. A real horror for non Tom fans.

The revelation of child sexual abuse by the clergy and in orphanage or juvenile delinquent institutions the world over as well more reports daily about children sexually abused by their family members have gotten people up in arms and paranoid about child molesters. In the Western countries, there are sexual predators lists made available to the public and websites where you can check if you got sex offenders (particularly those who prey on children) in your neighbourhood.

Law enforcement take sexual predators of children very seriously. Many have a specific group working to identify and capture paedophiles. It is admirable and heartbreaking work as there are many children who are still injured despite their efforts. But should Lolita fantasists be penalised for their fantasy? Rachel Aviv reported the slippery slope that landed John, a military veteran unable to connect with women of his age who sought refuge in fantasising about sex with young girls, in prison.

His addiction to hardcore pornography featuring young girls being abused has led him to a sting operation that exposed him as a possible sexual offender. I found it disturbing that he could look at those pictures and get aroused, not seeing them as victims or empathising with their pain and trauma. Most child pornography are created illicitly by the abusers, unlike mainstream(?) porn featuring adults who consent (mostly) to the acts that are committed on celluloid (or digitised in these days). This dissociativeness is not unusual among hardcore porn consumers; the images are just pictures, not real people to them. Porn rewires your neural pathways for gratification; it keeps consumers going for greater kinkiness because they can no longer get off with plain vanilla sex.

Many would say that if the law enforcers did not entrap him, John is highly unlikely to act on his fantasies. After all, the man still knows right from wrong and is aware that his fetish is illegal. He had not abused any girls; most of his sexual encounters were with prostitutes.  But would his fantasies have just remained on his desktop computer and not getting him to purchase an airline ticket to a holiday destination that is known to offer child sex workers? We will never know.

It is a great leap from watching porn to actually committing the acts you watch, true. Just like millions who play Grand Theft Auto never go on shooting sprees. The Internet is a wonderful tool to connect with other people who share similar ideas and engage them in role-plays and fantasies. However, it is incredibly sad that a man who had served in the military, considered a competent man in his area of expertise but was so crippled by his poor social skills that he attempted to find a sense of belonging among such a dastardly community.

Therefore, when the fodder of your fantasy tends to be the kind that WILL land you in prison, you have to be extra careful about committing acts that can be construed as turning your fantasies into reality. Or you could be like John, behind bars for the better part of twelve years without even living out his fantasy.