The Star Singing A Different Tune

I read with interest Helen's latest posting about Wong Chun Wai's  ‘GE13: Don’t ignore the Chinese voice’ piece and I couldn't help giggling over it.

Talk about playing both sides, this is a classic case study of how you handle the situation after your horse lost the race.

As I don't read The Star, not even their online version, I didn't really pick up The Star's about turn as I don't really care to know what The Star have to impart.

Thanks to Helen, I get to see The Star's hedging game, of maintaining some link to the incumbent through a few pieces, but largely giving free reign to the "educated urbanites" within their ranks to express themselves openly.

Now that their horse didn't win, they immediately go into damage control.

I think when Wong Chun Wai wrote about the over confidence of the urban Chinese voters of their ability to topple BN, he was expressing The Star's own confidence of that outcome too, because The Star is the voice of these "educated urbanites".

This is truly the case of believing their own spin, and reinforcing that belief among the blinkered believers within their own circle in what I would normally term as "syok sendiri".

Now they realise, too late I would think, that they really needed the "uneducated" rural Malays and Bumiputras after all  to win Putrajaya.

So they are going to continue the resentment momentum among the "educated urbanites" through the 505 rallies, playing the blame game to the hilt in the social media, and at the same time advocating reconciliation and moderation through their unofficial spokespeople.

Clearly an active accomplice in the build up of the Chinese Tsunami or what they prefer to call the Urban Tsunami nowadays, The Star is now in turn about mode too, all out playing the "we are all Malaysians" music, something you would never hear them playing with such vigor prior to May 5th.

The fact is, the Chinese have revealed themselves.  The Malays have taken note.  And The Star is singing 1Malaysia.

A Helping Post

I am sure most people who visit BigCat are probably readers of Helen's blog too, but I am putting this link here as a show of support for her efforts to expose the goings-on of Si Bintang Gunting Dalam Lipatan and The Evangelista Connection.

HARAP BOLEH TOLONG

SEBARKAN!

.
Dear readers and fellow bloggers,

Please help to dissemminate this story.

The more people there are talking about these developments, the more difficult it will be for ‘them’ to Shoot the Messenger by targetting any single individual who is doing the expose on The Star.

There is a smear campaign being carried out against critics of the Jerusubang Star-DAP nexus with malicious lies being spread (by I’d presume those trying to cover their exposed arses.)

Do go to her place for the whole story though.

I have stopped reading The Star quite a while back, both online and print versions, after I noticed the weird slant of their reporting way back in 2011.

It was a while ago, so I can't point to the exact story that got my notice, so yes, that got me started to scrutinising all their pieces and concluded that it is not as neutral as people make it out to be.

A bit difficult to avoid reading it online as it has greater readership than the alternatives, but I managed to do so, just as I have quite successfully managed to avoid reading Malaysiakini and Malaysian Insider.

I wish NST news desk would buck up though, taking on a more down to earth style that can relate to the masses, with less of the highbrow topics that we ordinary people can't be bothered with, and more of the day-to-day language that we don't need a dictionary and a thesaurus to understand.

I think that's the difference between The Star (which is a tabloid-sized classifieds pretending to be intellectual fodder) and the NST (an old school broadsheet trying to be sexier by sizing-down to tabloid size).

It is a case of the Malaysian English readership mental state (or maybe Malaysians as a whole, really, considering the success of Harian Metro) being reduced to a point that even university lecturers prefer the classifieds tabloid as it is easier for them to comprehend.

The NST need to understand that if you want to address the masses, you must relate to the masses.  You don't have to become the English version of Harian Metro to get the circulation numbers up, but please loosen up a bit and use simpler, street-smart language.

Simple does not equate bad, you know, just easier to understand and will reach a larger audience.

My Opinion of the Foreign Press

I have been doing a bit of reading at Land Destroyer Report (LD).  I was led there by the Tony Cartalucci pieces which had been enjoying highlights in a number of local blogs, for example this one I caught at Alizul's.  These reports are not really pro-BN, but more of highlighting USA foreign policy and imperialism to protect its interests against other powers throughout the globe.

This particular site is interesting to me, not because it also features Nile Bowie as a regular contributor, but because it is one of the few foreign-based sites where we can actually find articles not hostile to or biased against the present Malaysian government.

I happen to be friendly with a number of grassroots BN members on the ground, and I know their frustration at how those foreign press never really care to write about BN's perspective, always painting them in the darker shades as opposed to the "haloistic" (okay, so it is probably a new word) pictures they like to paint of Anwar Ibrahim and the Pakatan.

To most of these foreigners, Anwar Ibrahim is the truest saviour of Malaysia, the righter of all wrongs, the holiest of all crusaders who are up against the wholly corrupt, cruelly evil, and apartheid-practicing racist 3.5 million strong Umno, who forces all the BN coalition members to totally suppress by evil means the rest of the Malaysian population.

According to them, this dastardly act of continuous suppression of the majority has been going on for decades.

The wicked Umno/BN regime has been ably assisted by the hordes of corrupt civil servants who bribe each other in isolation of the totally innocent and repressed largely Chinese business community.

The police who are extremely violent trigger happy sadists who kill and torture because they enjoy killing and torturing all those innocent criminals and joyriders are also responsible for being the killing dogs of the evil Umno/BN regime.

They apparently believe that Malaysian army and other government agencies must be all Banglas and Indos as no self-respecting Malaysian of any ethnicity would vote for the totally immoral Umno/BN regime as it is their postal ballots that have been used extensively throughout the country to ensure Umno/BN's continuing reign of terror for eons.

And all those Chinese students who got government scholarships to study abroad and locally are actually Malays masquerading as Chinese to fool the public, and the repressive private sector that discriminate against non-Chinese applicants are just a ploy by the Umno/BN minions in the private sector to create an impression that the Chinese control the Malaysian private sector.

That was why those Chinese students kept to themselves here, as well as abroad (I know because I studied in the UK and the USA), because in reality they were Umno/BN operatives because if they weren't, there would be no way they would have gotten those scholarships from the racist Umno/BN government and its running dog, the corrupt Civil Services.

And from their latest reports of Malaysian 13th General Election, it seems that they also believed the Pakatan claims that the 13th General Election  was fully fraudulent and totally rigged, that the only votes BN got were from Banglas and Indos who were given multiple ICs to vote several times in different locations, with detergents being used to remove indelible ink stains that enable them to cast ballots several times.

In the mean time, they must have also believed that all the Pakatan polling station observers, who were party members appointed to be observers by their very own parties, were all asleep on the job for not protesting all these irregularities probably because they must be moles planted by the nefarious Umno/BN regime.

Or they must be members who were paid by the vile Umno/BN to keep quiet about any irregularities they saw or the thousands of Banglas and Indos who were thronging the polling stations with fake ICs and washed away ink stains.

Okay, so that was a rather long-winded venting on my part, but I really can't abide these so called professional foreign "journalists" who write for so called respectable news agencies who would actually buy all that crap unless they are really stupid or really lazy or have a different agenda altogether.

Seriously folks, anyone who actually have some kind of grey matter who have been here, talked to a number of people from all walks of life, and not too lazy to do some personal research throughout Malaysia other than talking to some Opposition "educated urbanites" would not have written some of that trash we read in the foreign press lately.

That's why I enjoy reading the likes of Bowie and Cartalucci, despite not writing in-depth about Malaysian politics itself, they give me a different and fresh perspective of the possibilities.

Musings: Health and Strength

 I had an asthma attack for no apparent reason these last couple of days and have been trying really hard to maintain a normal functioning day yesterday with the minimum of medication.  It wasn't really particularly bad, but the wheezing got worse when I tried to move around a little bit.

There must have been something in the air, that caused an allergic reaction, certainly not something I ate, as I have been very careful about my food intake, lately.  I really have to find that something, and remove it from my environment.

That's the thing about food allergies that can become a matter of life and death.  I had required hospitalisation several times when I first came back to Malaysia for eating things that I wasn't supposed to.  Shellfish, beef, most types of preserved fish, and of course belacan.

Now I must avoid belacan at all costs, because even a little bit of that stuff would immediately within minutes create problems for me.  Same thing with the fish sauce normally used in Thai cooking.  Just a tiny bit would land me in hospital.  I don't care much for not being able to eat Thai food, but I do feel a bit annoyed having to avoid belacan as that is used so extensively in Malay cuisine, that avoiding it is almost like avoiding my Malay heritage.

To make matters worse, I am also photo-sensitive, so I have to slap on sunscreen every time I leave the house, which makes me look a bit sickly pale in the process.  I wish I could acquire that beautiful and glowing brown skin that people who spend time outdoors usually have, but alas, spending time outdoors without sunscreen would just give me severe sunburn.

And that is something I don't get, Asians' obsession with acquiring pale white skin.  I would seriously switch to a different channel whenever a skin-lightening product advertisement comes up on TV as I strongly believe such ads give all the wrong impression of what is beautiful and what is not.  

Girl, it doesn't matter if you have dark skin, as long as it is glowing with health, you don't need to lighten it.  

Eat well, exercise regularly, drink lots of plain water, utilise your brain fully, always think positive and when all else fails, have faith in the Almighty.  For me that's the key to health and strength, which are far more resilient than external shallow interpretation of feminine beauty that will fade with age.

When Reason Doesn't Work

I like the new Home Minister, the new IGP and his new Deputy.  I hope they can do something about that bunch of poor losers throwing tantrums all over the place non-stop because they can't get everything their way.

It seems that Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi is making his presence felt immediately after his appointment as Home Minister and I agree with eddy, we need someone like him to tell it like it is.  That's one kick-ass Home Minister.

They have issues with our political system that has been in practice for yonks, our constitution that is the foundation of our nationhood, our national language that is supposed to unite us as a nation, and our flag, the symbol of our national pride.

They want to UBAH everything.

I would tell these idiotic protestors, rather than change everything to suit their selfish interests, why not just go migrate elsewhere, but I am sure no country would take them in, or give them PR status, let alone citizenship, because they have nothing of value to contribute, so we are stuck with them idiots.

And they knew this, that's why they are still here finding all kinds of excuses to stay on, all the while acting up like the mentally stunted juveniles that they are.

What surprises me, however, is the moronic behaviour of the urban masses who actually waste their time to listen to a bunch of immature, irrational and unreasonable geriatrics who just won't retire with grace as befitting their age.

These self-styled "educated urbanites" may be educated, but they don't seem to be particularly intelligent nor mentally discerning.

It amazes me that they seem to actually believe all that hype, that they are the clever, educated, enlightened ones, and all those who don't agree with their herd's high-class creeds of what is right and wrong are low-class, uneducated, rural bumpkins which they superciliously termed as Dumno.

You people, the so-called educated urbanites, you realise of course that as far as these politico agitators are concerned, all of you only equate to VOTES during elections and MOB POWER during street demonstrations and rallies.  

You are just making up the numbers, you know - 10,000, 50,000, 1,000,000 - the mob, the herd, rampaging in a stadium, through the streets, no different from the cattle runs still being carried out in some parts of the world.

And if you die in the stampede, your death will be politicised til kingdom come, but they don't really care that you died, just glad they have yet something else to blame on Umno/BN.

These unpatriotic mental midgets do not deserve our respect nor are they worthy of our time as they are real self-absorbed jerks, who think that the world revolves around them and them only.

To them everything is about their kind of politics and they keep dragging everything and everyone into their spinning web of lies and half-truths, where their opinions overrule everyone else's.

It is okay if they don't have meaningful lives, but the rest of us do, and we want to move on without them clogging up the streets, noisy as hell, terrorising the internet with their belligerence that have severely limited my interest in reading up on local current issues.

Selfish jerks, the whole lot of them.  I wish the news agencies would just ignore them and just not pay any attention to any of their egotistical and self-aggrandizing statements, or in more simple terms ... "terlebih perasan".

To our guys enforcing our laws and keeping order, there is no point in trying to reason with these morons if they simply won't see reason.

Just round them sheep up and ship them off to an island somewhere off-Sabah, as near to Southern Philippines as possible, equipped with the minimum of tools, so they can create the kind of government they wish.  

Having to deal with real pirates and terrorists may make them appreciate Malaysia, since reason won't.

Anwar Ibrahim can become the President of a whole island, let's just name it The Republic of Bananas, and they can have political sermons every other day, "KO Umno" prayer sessions during political rallies every evening, and orgies on those days they aren't having religious sermons for all I care.

My new term resolution post-GE13, is to keep my cool in the face of stupidities of the political kind.

Castaway

I am taking time off from work at the moment, taking it easy away from the office.  Where I am now, internet access is lousy, or it could be because I am now using Celcom Broadband service.

It is not the best there is, and I must say that I dread calling up the Celcom Call Centre.  There is nothing I hate more than being put on hold forever with the most annoying recorded messages and finally being told by the same recorded voice that all their service reps were busy before being cut off, has to be the greatest torture of all times.

I am convinced Celcom Call Centre must be the lousiest call centre service in the entire universe.  I hate having to call Celcom Call Centre, hence after two severe nightmarish calls which ended up being told "All our services personnel are busy" and was cut off, I have never called them ever again.

Anyways, being cut off from practically everything once a while is good.  I know that the Menteris Besar of Selangor and Johor are being sworn in today, the new cabinet will be announced tomorrow and we'll be getting a new IGP too.  I am far keener to see how our police force will perform under the new leadership than who will be the new federal ministers.

I doubt there would be much change to the way Selangor is run, so I can't be bothered really.  All I can say is, that Azmin is really as hard up to become the Selangor Menteri Besar as Anwar is to become the Prime Minister of Malaysia.  Two of a kind, really.

Johor is getting a new Menteri Besar, and I bet there will be huge changes happening in Kota Iskandar in the next few months.  I am not going to comment on that either as I think the Johor Civil Service will also be undergoing some major reshuffle to accommodate the new administrative style.

I do have some friends in Kota Iskandar, and I do hear all the stories of the "over excited youngsters", but since I have no interest whatsoever in the subject, I am not going to waste time on it.  Different people have different ways of running things, so changes are expected.  The key would be the magnitude of changes and the resulting outcome.

So that is as much as I am going to comment on it.  Besides, politics are beginning to bore me as things are getting too repetitive and there is nothing particularly new to analyse.

Since internet access is crappy here, I may not be writing as often as before in the next couple of weeks, and will not be very active in the comments section.  Beside, having a life means I have less to gripe about, other than Celcom Call Centre that is.

So it is good, I think, to slow down for a while and focus on more important things such as being healthy physically, emotionally and mentally.

PS:  And after reading rockybru, apanama, hantulaut and freddie, all I can say is - this uncle has become unhinged and those who heed his call to go to the streets need their heads examined.

Being Low Class

I find it particularly interesting that people are strangely selective when it comes to defining things.  I posted an excerpt of my post-election conversation with a friend, something perfectly normal, that described more or less what we had been thinking, and there was no name calling involved at all.

The Opposition types accused me of being racist in that posting, I was more or less told to grow up and to move on, and some diverted it to somehow make it into an Umno treachery against Ghani and a Ghani treachery against the Malays.

But the majority of the comments reflected that Mimi and I were not alone.

For the past months ever since I started writing here regularly, I have been called the most degrading things, insulted in so many personal ways, with comments that are full of incoherent hatred against Umno/BN without a single statement from the Opposition types that showed any kind of restraint or maturity.

And yet, with the continuous attacks, unabated even after the conclusion of GE13, isn't it really strange that people like me are not expected to be affected by the continuous heapings of scorn and derision, most of it personal in nature?

I especially couldn't stand the snide remarks being made against government servants, the police, and the country, some disguised as jokes.  It was seriously unfunny to me.  It wasn't just the politicians that they hated, it was everyone associated with the government.  They also saw nothing wrong with their degrading remarks about the Malays, the Indians and especially the Mamaks.

The worst part of the Opposition propaganda machinery is their total rejection of differing opinions and values, a totalitarian ideology, feeding off emotions and perceptions, as opposed to logic and reasoning, one that will resort to name-calling and diversionary hate-filled rantings if met with resistance it couldn't neutralise.

It reflects a shared worldview that is fueled by their high opinion of themselves, while differing opinions and values are not worthy of their respect, hence, game for abuse and derision.  Whereas they expect everyone to give them complete, unrestrained freedom to express themselves however they wish to vent their hatred and anger, they will not tolerate anyone else to have differing views and opinions.

These bullies are supposed to be the educated middle-class urbanites, and yet they displayed a complete lack of breeding, devoid of rational consideration for others and severely in need of self-reflection.

 I find them and their types distasteful in the extreme, that I am glad I have been labelled by them as low class (can't help but wonder if there is an inferred uneducated kampung bumpkin in that label too), because I would hate to be considered in the same class as them, middle-class urbanites.

Besides, I have greater affinity with the kampung folks in rural Johor, the much derided supposedly uneducated non-urbanites, than I have had with many of my so-called middle-class acquaintances that I used to hang out with.

The Opposition Pact share two things in common, extremism and a single common enemy.  They used whatever means to destroy this common enemy.  Whatever differences they might have are no longer important.  It is a commonality based on hatred for Umno, the object of their destructive effort all these while, everything else is considered collateral damage.

Hence, it is most ironic that post-GE13, Umno within BN became stronger, with the Bumiputra rallying around BN, in the face of the Pakatan onslaught that have practically decimated BN's non-Bumiputra coalition members.

Post-election

I had a long leisurely lunch with a friend today and we had a chat about life in general.  We had Nasi Ayam Penyet in Gelang Patah, at one of the row of warungs near the KFC outlet.  Of course  we couldn't avoid talking about the recent General Election.

Me: So who did you vote for?
Mimi: BN of course.
Me: Shahrir and Adam?
Mimi: Yes.
Me: I thought you said that you don't like Shahrir?
Mimi: That was personal.  When you cast your vote, we must see the big picture.  Who did you vote for?
Me: Undi itu rahsia.
Mimi: Eleh .. come on, who did you vote for?
Me: Ghani and Ah Chy
Mimi: Both lost huh?
Me: Yep
Mimi: Do you see the Chinese the same now as before?
Me: Nope.  You?
Mimi: Me neither.  I read in Annie's blog about how Ghani was treated by his Chinese so-called friends.  Their betrayal of Ghani was complete.  Nowadays I always wonder what the Chinese really think about me behind their smiles.  You?
Me: Yeah .. I looked at the auntie who delivered the paper this morning and was sure she voted Kit Siang.  I must have stared, because someone told me to quit staring at her as she was obviously fidgeting with discomfort.  Yep, somehow all Chinese look like DAP CT to me.
Mimi: CT?  Aren't you going overboard? I thought your Granny was Chinese?
Me: Cyber Terrorist la.  Besides, Hong Kong Chinese are different from Malaysian Chinese.
Mimi: You still going to buy that bag from Michelle?
Me: Nah .. I told her I am not in the mood to waste money on yet another over-priced bag.  I am going to look for a Malay girl to give my business to.
Mimi: Fat chance of finding one who would cater for your kind of taste in handbags.
Me: All the better for it.  At least I can start saving some money then.  Hey, how come your chicken piece is bigger than mine?
Mimi: Nasib-nasib la, you want equal sized chicken pieces, go to McD.
Me: I am boycotting McD too ...

Enough!

Added Note:
All political stupidity is barred in this particular thread.  I have zero tolerance with bangangness at the moment, and any comment deemed to be below my tolerance threshold will be spiked.  I exercise my right to treat all Pakatan-inspired moronic one-liner trolling as spam.
End.

I can't believe that people are still at it with their political propaganda crap and rumor mongering.

Apparently the chronic chronicles are at it again as reported by Annie here.  And then there are the people who got drenched last night, (or was it the previous night - I am not interested enough to keep track), protesting the outcome of the election.

Wei ... idiots, accept things la, move on, can or not?

I can take some bitching after the election, but can we just quit with the politics right about now and focus on nation-building instead?

If you must make noise, be a responsible Opposition and start working on the possible alternatives and development propositions to counter all the alleged wrongs being implemented la.  Or are you even capable of thinking beyond all that gossipy stuff?

I don't give a xxxx for any of that democracy crap they keep spouting as their very actions have proven that they know nuts about democracy.

They wanted indelible ink to be used, the EC accommodated, then they went about making a big drama about it .. only one word to describe it .. Bangang.

Democracy have died konon ... do they have any credibility to even talk about democracy?  How do they practice democracy within their own parties?  Talk only, sendiri punya party elections tonggang langgang.

Nepotism la pulak ... do they even know what nepotism really mean?  When multiple family dynasties are alive and kicking healthily within all three Pakatan parties?  Clowns la the lot of them .. especially the moronic followers who comically parrot their leaders without realising how stupid they sound.

Rampant corruption in the gomen la konon ... as if gomen officers bribe each other within the confines of inter-departmental transactions without involvement from the well-off middle-income public and business community.  As if "entertaining" clients in the private sector is not a form of institutionalised corruption ..

Why are business dealings between suppliers and local agents in the private sector called "sales commission" and a similar thing for sales in the public sector is called "corruption"?  You mean computer salesmen selling to government department are not entitled to earn their commissions from the product distributor, but can  have their commission when they secure sales from,  say, a bank?

And those of you spreading allegations, rumors and lies as if these are facts, don't you people have better things to do like having a life or earning an honest living instead of spending every waking hour spouting political crap and propaganda?

Are you people simply incapable of contributing anything positive to the country and society?  Or are you only good at insinuating, spinning, twisting lies and half-truths?

There are other things in life, people ...  go and get one.

R&R

While I prefer to analyse things from all perspectives, I do not believe that anyone with any political awareness would truly be non-partisan.  It is not a matter of taking sides, it is simply a matter of choosing the policies, ideologies, and practices that you are most compatible with, no matter how neutral one wants to be.  

I detest people who use intimidation to impose their opinions and values on others, denigrating those who do not share their views.  Some even go to the extent of dictating how others should think and what people should write in their own private blogs.  Then there are those ABU-type vigilantes who actually commited physical harm on innocent people and public properties because they were lied to by their cult leaders and incited by corrupt agitators about foreigners and phantom voters.

I am perfectly capable of accepting dissenting views and opinion, but I abhor the hypocrisy of people who shout about accountability and transparency, and yet put the blame for everything that is wrong in their lives on everyone and everything else other than their own selfish selves, while whispers of shenanigans are being covered up at all costs with gag orders, media boycott, MS Word typos, and MS Excel errors.

Why are we still unable to see them for what they are?  Why do we elect these mental and emotional juveniles as our representatives?  We are not selecting entertaining clowns in a television reality show, you know, we are selecting lawmakers.

These are the people who have been elected to be our lawmakers, but in reality some of them don't even respect the laws of the land by being involved in acts that defy the laws.  My god, many lawyers in this country are themselves law breakers.  

Are we as a people totally irrational, illogical, unable to understand that elections are not just about politics of ideologies?  Why are we as a people still unable to choose our path with our heads instead of our emotions?  Why have we not developed our ability to think beyond the obvious and assess any information or issue with clear minds?  Why do we still entertain wild and baseless allegations and relate them as facts?

These past few weeks have really tired me out and I am really disappointed with some of the choices that was made this time around, so I am taking some time off to recharge.  I am not even sure whether I have the energy to write about heavy sopo stuff anymore.

My interest in politics is waning, and I am thinking of finding other hobbies to occupy my interest and write about.  Political observations as a hobby is simply too tiring to keep up on a long term basis and at the moment I'd rather play computer games than write about it.  Or even think about it.

Since I am taking time off from writing anything remotely related to politics for at least the next 4 weeks, I am taking in suggestions of what to write about, preferably something light and entertaining.  If there are no suggestion, I may write about gardening.  Or maybe sewing.  Or fashion.  Or not write at all.