Most people feel that we all deserve a pat on our back for helping Tee Hui Yi, our media's latest poster girl, to pull through the toughest time in her life. Congratulate us, 'cos we're all moral human beings who have now come forward, more aware of the plight of those awaiting organ donations, thanks to our brave little Hui Yi.
Think about it: isn't it just the coincidence that when a sweet little innocent girl enters hospital on the brink of death is saved by the good doctors at IJN (Institut Jantung Negara) - and they deserve kudos all around on their work - the number of organ donors who have pledged to a noble cause suddenly increases exponentially?
So unto you all I say this: hypocrites. That applies to the lot of you.
All this while we have been nothing more than chemicals; reactive more than proactive. We wait for something big and disastrous to happen before we start taking real steps to rectify matters. Need to be reminded how? Just remember two names: Canny Ong and Nurin Jazleen.
Oh, I'm sure before that there were a whole bunch of you trying to sound the alarm; need for greater awareness, more security, better lighting, etc. Good work to those of you who did bother to try, thanks for being socially aware (and I mean it). But still? No one bothered to listen, or even do anything. As a result, we have the media having a field day going about sensationalizing the rape and murder of two innocent souls.
Then we have the traditional response from the government: pledges to improve the situation, calls for the guilty to be apprehended and punished for their heinous crimes, and chills down the collective spines of the public as the gruesome and horrific details begin to emerge.
And don't tell me it's what the government's supposed to do. Where was all this fiery talk and promises before the even happened? And let's not even talk about the other issues: tired bus drivers, tilting lamp posts, little potholes, to name a few.
The government holds the responsibility of ensuring the safety of people within this country. We may not be going to war anytime soon, and perhaps we're not as likely to be bombed to kingdom come by idiot religious extremists, but the longer this attitude keeps up, the more people are going to suffer and/or die. Does it then count as sacrificing oneself for a noble cause, if that's the only way the government is provoked into responding promptly to any pressing issue?
- saintmaverick -
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;;13th May Incident: The Truth At Last
5 mad rant(s) » Add your own! RANDTed: stmaverick at 12:53:00 PMWhen I was a student in secondary school, I always wondered about the May 13 riots that happened nearly 40 years ago in Malaysia. My history textbook barely devoted even a paragraph to this issue.History classes taught students about historical bias. But to know that such misdeeds have been done to hide the bloodiest day in our history? Unthinkable!
Among other things, it only states that:
- the violence was triggered by the Chinese-dominated opposition supporters’ provocation in celebrating their electoral victory which saw the ruling Alliance Party suffer a major setback;
- racial tensions that arose due to economic disparity between the major races also contributed to the riots;
- the riots were the basis for the formation of the National Operations Council (which most Malaysian students would know - if they remember at all - as MAGERAN, or Majlis Gerakan Negara) under Tun Abdul Razak, and;
- this led to the formulation of the New Economic Policy, which aimed to uplift the economic standards of the Malays (and is still in place today).
Not-so-recently, Dr Kua Kia Soong released a book unveiling the truth behind the infamous May 13th riots. His book, May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969, is the result of three months of research at the Public Records Office in London to study records and declassified documents on the riots.
The book also debunks some of the myths behind the darkest period in our country's history and paints a different, shocking picture into the reasons behind its occurrence.
[...] the May 13 incident was a coup d’etat against the Tunku [the Prime Minister at the time] by the then emergent Malay state capitalists - backed by the police and army - to seize control of the reign of power from the old aristocrats to implement the new Malay agenda. [...]
[...] A secret document from the British cabinet office featured in the book showed that barely a week after the riots broke out, the Central Intelligence Agency had figured out what Tun Razak was planning - “to formalise Malay dominance, sideline the Chinese and shelve the Tunku”. [...]
[...] The role of the security forces in the May 13 bloodshed was also questioned in Kua’s findings. “Even at that time, people in the diplomatic core (were wondering) how come the day the riot broke out, Razak met with the chiefs of the police and army but they did not do anything,” he said. [...] “They are one of the most effective in putting down the communist insurrection [which was] a far, far more difficult operation than putting down riot, but they could not put down (such riot [sic]) in 1969 for days, for weeks," [...]
[ note: Susan Loone has made available a comprehensive summary about the riots from Dr Kua's book ]
History classes taught students about historical bias. The tales of old would be told by those with power and wealth, rewritten as they saw fit. Even King Xerxes alluded to this in the movie '300':
There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned. Every Greek historian and every scribe shall have their eyes put out and their tongues cut from their mouths while uttering the very name of Sparta or Leonidas will be punishable by death. The world will never know you existed at all!
But to know that such misdeeds have been done to hide the bloodiest day in our history? Unthinkable! At the worst it would have only remained a conspiracy theory, a rumour, nothing more. Now the evidence shows otherwise.
Now the government has moved into 'damage control' mode, unwittingly providing the book with free publicity:
Ministry seizes controversial May 13 bookBut a press statement by SUARAM indicates the government might not have been officially involved at all:
May 15, 07 8:56pm
The Internal Security Ministry confiscated 10 copies a controversial book with new claims on the May 13 racial riots from a major bookstore in the Midvalley shopping centre today. According to the publishers of ‘May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riots of 1969′, a team of ministry officers visited the MPH bookstore this afternoon. The officers advised the popular bookstore not to sell the book as it may be banned.
According to a letter issued by the ministry officers to the bookstore, the books were confiscated from the shelves for suspicion of being an “undesirable publication” based on Section 7 of the Printing Press and Publications Act 1984.
The act empowers the minister to ban any publication which is “prejudicial to or likely to be prejudicial to public order, morality, security, the relationship with any foreign country or government, or which is likely to alarm public opinion”.[ courtesy of MalaysiaKini ]
We have been informed by our distributor that ten (10) copies of SUARAM’s latest publication titled, “May 13: Declassified Documents on the Malaysian Riot of 1969″ by Dr. Kua Kia Soong, were taken from MPH Midvalley yesterday afternoon by officers from the Ministry of Internal Security.
The reason given by these officers led by Ahmad Faisal Arshad was that the book had contravened the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. We were further informed that these officers had advised the bookshop not to sell or display the book.
It must stressed that there are no orders coming from the Ministry of Internal Security pertaining to this book. Further, the book contravenes no part of the said Act. We consider the actions of Ahmad Faisal Arshad and his team to be arbitrary and illegal.
SUARAM views the seizure of those ten (10) books as illegal, and demands that KDN pays for the ten books or return these books to the bookshop within 7 days; failing which, we will instruct our legal counsels to take action.
Now three senators from the Dewan Negara are calling for this book to be banned, while Deputy Internal Security Minister Fu Ah Kiow states that the ministry will look into the book's contents and take action soon.
But Dr Kua has this to say about the possibility of his book being banned:
“In the age of the Internet, what does banning a book mean? We can put it on the Web, you can’t do anything.”
Bravo, Dr Kua! :)
It now remains to be seen how this new controversy will develop. The question is, about the youth who were never there during the bloodshed and violence, will they even bother to know about this?
~verus rara avis~
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;;As someone who has contemplated suicide countless times, I'd like to share my 2 cents on this issue. Imho, people who kill themselves for minor matters (getting dumped, etc.) are somewhat unreasonable. I wouldn't condemn them so quickly though. The worst part a suicidal person experiences is being unable to make those around him understand.
It's all a matter of perspective. What you consider trivial might mean the world to me, and vice versa.
Imagine losing or not being to achieve that something that meant to you so much. Even though you've tried so hard, so often, putting everything to it but to no avail. Or getting stuck in a situation that beyond fixing. Others may see you as an individual who's got something going for yourself, but really, when you're in that kind of situation, nothing else matters.
Most suicidal people don't wake up, feel horrible and suddenly decide,"Hey, life isn't as pretty as I thought it'd be, so I'll just kill myself." It takes a slow spiral down till you hit the abyss. Everything suffocates. During my Dark Ages (2005), I felt as though there were invisible walls that kept closing in on me all the time. Waking up in the middle night, experiencing panic attacks alone. It gets so bad that you see suicide options wherever you go. Like walking by the road and thinking,"I could jump right in front of that fast Proton." Or,"Look, there's a kitchen knife..."
The worst part a suicidal person experiences is being unable to make those around him understand. Some dismiss suicidals as weak-minded, but it takes a lot of guts to decide to end your life and actually do it (this doesn't mean I condone suicide). They are considered paranoid. Yet in that very depressed state of mind, everything seems dire. The suicidal descends even more, unable to communicate his fears to his worried family and friends; the friends cannot understand why the suicide case cannot see another angle to his predicament and avoid discussing it with him. It's a vicious circle.
Still, I'd say that the best way is to hang on. Somehow, the so-very-big problem will, with time, lessen. Maybe, just maybe, there might even be a solution. I can confidently say so because I did the same, and I've never regretted it.
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;;Maybe, just maybe, you're not worth it.
3 mad rant(s) » Add your own! RANDTed: Siti 'Afifah at 9:26:00 PMSu - i - cide.Some might tell us, tell me to be compassionate with these people, victims of this horrible thought but it's hard to sympathise with these people when they have something going on for them compared to others.
Are you suicidal? Am I?
A guy from my block tried to jump off the 9th storey last Sunday. A friend told me all about it and when I heard it....I laughed.
Now, forgive my insensitivity. I laughed because I thought he was foolish. I don't know what bothered him but if he tried to take his own life because of something as silly as getting dumped, then he is the biggest dumbass to ever grace the face of the earth.
I don't get it. Why do this thought even cross people's mind? Why do they do it? Stress? Maybe but it's still not a solid excuse. In fact, nothing is.
Some might tell us, tell me to be compassionate with these people, victims of this horrible thought but it's hard to sympathise with these people when they have something going on for them compared to others. At least they have a life.
Fine, their lives might not be as blessed as one might hope for but at least they have a chance to make it right, to turn it around. There are probably a million other people out there trying to survive, doing their best to live knowing that they have the slimmest of chance to actually achieve it but we don't see them jumping off a cliff now do we?!
Part of me do empathise with him but another part - a major part - of me thinks he's stupid, silly, idiotic for giving up. I sympathise with his family for having to go through the terror of this whole mess but I don't pity him, I just can't.
Maybe he thought life is a friggin' bed of roses and when reality finally hit him, he cracked. If he can't take that, maybe he will need all the luck that he can get to ever get on with the rest of his nearly wasted life...
[Sorry if this entry offended anyone. It's just something I feel strongly about.]
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;;Since Comrade is quite a fan of this series of short stories I wrote, I'm just announcing it here for him - and anyone else who's interested - that the third sequel is up! *grins*“In times like these, father,” the officer whispered as the pastor’s eyes bulged with rage, “I wonder where your Almighty God is.”
By the by, the pull-quote highlights a section from They Came: Part III.
What is the series all about? Well, here's the introduction:
What would a nation be without law and order? Lost, confused, anarchic - the words differ, but the general consensus is the same. There would be no escape for anyone from the carnage and chaos that would inevitably come to grip the country in which they live.
In this mini-series of inter-connected episodes, a tale of courage, honour, and strength is upheld. People fighting for the beliefs and things they hold dear; values that matter even more in the face of mounting adversity, when everything threatens to tear your lives apart.
Read the story of the people who were affected the most - on the day They Came.
For the first two parts:
Do comment on any of the three! I want to hear what you have to say! I'll work on the fourth one next time round when I've the time, alright?
Thanks, all!
~verus rara avis~
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;;
The tragic image of 13-year-old Omayra Sanchez trapped in debris caused by a mudslide following the eruption of a volcano in Colombia in 1985. Red Cross rescue workers had apparently repeatedly appealed to the government for a pump to lower the water level and for other help to free the girl. Finally rescuers gave up and spent their remaining time with her, comforting her and praying with her. She died of exposure after about 60 hours.
Photo credits: Frank Fournier (pictured below)
Click here to read about Frank's story of Omayra. May you rest in peace Omayra.
~multum in parvo~
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;;
This picture really captures the tragedy of Beslan. An innocent child's life snatched away by evil humans that show contempt to the sanctity of life. May you all rest in peace, victims of a tragedy. Photo credits: Yuri Kozyrev, Time Magazine.
I dedicate this picture to our Bohemian who loves this kind of pictures. May you be cured of writer's block and be prevented from losing your passion.
~multum in parvo~
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;;
Listen to the UN watch representative's condemnation.
Syria, Iran, Sudan, Russia and China condemned Israel because it's USA's proxy. These criminal governments maybe except Syria orchestrate far worse crimes than Israel. Why don't I see these countries condemned at the UN Human rights commission? The OIC is another hypocritic organisation. Why don't they condemn the Arab racists, murderers and rapists of Sudan? Why no condemnation of Muslim on Muslim killing in Iraq? Why no censure against the pseudo civil war in Gaza? Hypocrites!!
~multum in parvo~
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;;Courtesy of StampAndShout.com:
From The Star Online "Attacks kill 112 Shi'ite Pilgrims in Iraq" and Iraq Body Count (as of 1200 hours; 7th March, 2007):
Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq: 60,689 on average
...for our children's sake, say NO to war!
~verus rara avis~
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;;Comfort Women - Denial by The Arrogant Japs
3 mad rant(s) » Add your own! RANDTed: Albert at 8:39:00 AMThe recent denialof evidence that women were forced to become sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is truly sickening. His statements proves the ultra-nationalistic arrogance of the majority of Japanese. Shinzo is a big disgrace as are most Japanese.
Now let us go into the issue of comfort women itself. Who were the comfort women? They are simply the sex slaves who served in the Imperial Japanese army during their wars (mostly World War II). The majority of the women were from Korea and China. Others came from the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, and other Japanese-occupied countries and regions. I hate all wretched Japanese who deny their war crimes. Those who deny those horrendous crime must suffer painful death and burn in the fires of hell for eternity with all those bastard soldiers, generals, minister and the cursed dead bloody emperor.
At the beginning of the Imperial Japanese wars prostitutes were sought to service Japanese soldiers in order to increase the morale and ultimately the military effectiveness of Japanese soldiers. These prostitutes were found through middlemen who put advertisements all over the Japanese empire. However, these sources of sex workers started to dry up after some time. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also resisted further issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes, feeling it tarnished the image of the Japanese Empire.
The military then started acquiring common women especially from Korea and occupied China through kidnapping, trickery and fraud. These girls were to endure serial rapes and gang-rapes by up to 40 men a day while the Japanese prostitutes managed them. As the war progressed the situation worsened as locals leaders (especially in China) were forced to acquire sex slaves for the Japanese. Imagine sending your neighbourhood girls to a hell of rape. Japanese soldiers also carried out the "Three Alls Policy", which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians as another source of their sex slaves. I call upon the PLA to inflict this acts upon you. You bloody yellow monkeys will be crushed by we yellow dragons. Yellow hairless gorilla gang-rapist really deserved to be bombed by the Marines.
Comfort women lived in a world of sexual hell. Japanese soldiers routinely beat and tortured these girls. Being raped by countless men a day many girls sustained genital injuries.You bloody damn sub-human bastards even deny the Nanjing Massacre. See what happens if the PLA perpetrate the Rape of Tokyo in the Third Sino-Japanese War. Death to the yellow devils from Japan. May you be damned for eternity.
Yasuji Kaneko. He's gonna burn in hell.Yasuji Kaneko's words.
"They cried out, but it didn't matter to us whether the women lived or died," Kaneko said in an interview at his Tokyo home. "We were the Emperor's soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance."
Women were divided into three or four categories, depending on their length of service. The "freshest" women were the least likely to suffer from STDs and were placed in the highest category. Virgins were usually given to officers to have their hymen penetrated violently. As time went on, the comfort women were downgraded as the likelihood of their acquiring STDs became more certain. Any girl suspected of being pregnant underwent extremely crude abortions. more often than not killing the women through over-bleeding during surgical removals. Girls deemed too used or diseased they were abandoned, disposed as they were treated like sex objects (toys) to be thrown away when spoilt. During their retreat from the American forces the Japanese sometimes tried to hide their comfort women. They would stash these women in secret caves and blast the entrance, causing landslides that sealed the cave. Many women reported having their uterus's rot from the diseases acquired from being raped by thousands of men over several years, at times requiring surgical removal. A handful of ex-comfort women survive till this day.
Despite that the world knows the truth of these horrendous war crimes most Japanese refuse to acknowledge them out of outright contempt toward the world. Germans acknowledge the evils of the Third Reich while Japanese deny the war crimes of Imperial Japan. How wicked can the Japanese be? As of now an ongoing campaign to obtain an official apology from Japanese takes place.
Here is an excerpt story of a story about former comfort woman, Par Kumjoo found here.
Whether it was morning or night, once one soldier left, the next soldier came. Twenty men would come in one day...
-- We would try to talk each other out of committing suicide, but even with that, women still did. There were women who stole opium and took it. If they took a lot of it, they would vomit blood and die. There were people who died after gulping medicine whose name they didn't even know. There were also people who hanged themselves with their clothing when inside the toilet. Because there were people who tried to kill themselves even if they only had some string, we tried to hide string from each other...
-- Then, about six months after I was made a "military comfort woman," I told a colonel in the army, "Do you think we are your maids and your prostitutes? How can you be a human being after making us do such things? We came because we were told we were going to a factory, and we didn't come knowing we would be prostituted." I spat in his face.
-- From there, that soldier said, "It is the command of the army. The country's order is the Emperor's order. If you have something to say, you can say it to the Emperor." Then he beat me. I was in a coma for three days. Even when I regained consciousness, I couldn't move. Even now I feel pain from that time, and scars remain.
That's all for now. There are easter eggs written in wretched language somewhere in this post.
~multum in parvo~
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;;Today is
I cannot quite remember what exactly it was that I felt when we drove out to the vast desolate plains of
I had named the test site Trinity. In retrospect, it was blasphemous of me to suggest a place of destruction to be named as such. Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death. From it a quotation:
"As West and East
In all flat Maps—and I am one—are on,
So death doth touch the Resurrection."
That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, Donne opens,
"Batter my heart, three person'd God;—."
Beyond this, I have no clue whatever as to why I named it so.
The skies finally cleared at about
The passing of twenty minutes seemed like an eternity, a lifetime. I laugh now to think whose lifetime it was. Perhaps it was mine; that would explain my wasting away. The flash reached us first, illuminating our surroundings brighter than any sun can, swathing us with colors of purple, to green, and eventually to white before the roar of the shock wave hit us like a million-gun salute forty seconds later. The presence of the 12km-tall mushroom cloud was so immense, so loud, so bright, so hot – and it was so very hot, like being in an oven in that bunker ten miles away- that I felt like I was standing at the feet and mercy of a malevolent and omnipresent god.
If the radiance of a thousand suns
were to burst into the sky,
that would be like
the splendor of the Mighty One—
I am become Death, the shatterer of Worlds.
I am become death. I led this team, a team composed of the most brilliant physicists around that I had handpicked myself, into creating the most devastating weapon ever invented in the history of mankind, and in two weeks the world will witness the full extent of its powers. We will watch and shake and tremble at what we will do to this earth and at how we will change it.
At how I will change it.
The name on my badge says "J. R. Oppenheimer", but it will not mean a thing to those Japs. I am keeping this journal as proof that I once was famous, I once graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard in just three years, I once was the bright founder of modern theoretical physics; and I am keeping this journal as proof that as of today, July 16th 1945, I wish I never were any of the above.
They will know me as the man who made the A-bomb.
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;;
