Surviving in the Cat World

Two days ago, we finally made the decision to adopt Sammy formally into the family.

He is now practically THE house cat, more so than Seman who comes home only when he is hungry or when he needs a comfortable place to sleep in peace.

The ultra cool Seman tolerates him, even allowing him to sleep on the living room ottoman and the dining table, although Seman never entertained his tentative licks of friendship.

He never tries to compete with Seman, always giving way to him, and will only eat after Seman has had his fill at the food bowl.

That kind of easy relationship that he has with Seman, the first stray that we adopted because he was just the coolest kitty ever, is the main reason that we decided to adopt him.

When Sammy first began to come regularly for meals, we found out from a neighbor that he was originally one of four kittens that was born into a young family two blocks down the road.

However, as the family grew, with a new baby and a less than attentive new "bibik", the kittens grew up to be neglected adolescents.

Sammy also had the misfortune to be the runt of the litter, so he lost out to his brothers; being the last to eat, and constantly chased out of the brothers' territories, be it under the cars, under the porch or other comfy nooks and crannies for cool afternoon naps.

Eventually he was abandoned by his family to the mercies of the neighborhood cats and the ferocious Persian foursome from next door; Shifu the beautiful brown tabby, Blackie the orange-eyed gang leader, Night the chubby enforcer and dainty Cutie Pie who depends upon her brothers to ensure the neighborhood is safe for her. (These are of course not their real names as given by their owner).

He became another semi-longhair stray, spending most of his time with backlane strays who were mostly similarly abandoned by their families, waiting on the mercies of the neighborhood samaritans for scraps of food and napping at the edges of the group for safety against bullies.

Then one day, all the backlane strays disappeared, but Sammy was still there furtively hiding under Yaya's plants.

He scratched on our kitchen door one wet morning, drenched, hungry and pathetic looking, begging to be let in, so Yaya took him in, toweled him dry and fed him off Seman's bowl.


Now he hardly ever leave the house, his only activities are either sleeping or eating or begging to be petted.

My only worry now is whether we can afford to keep him fed as he seems to have a huge appetite.

Scary Shadows

Everyone is getting all excited about the hudud implementation in Kelantan.

Like an anonymous commenter in my previous post noted, what's the fuss?

Firstly, it will only be in Kelantan.

Secondly, it is only for Muslims.

Thirdly, Kelantan is overwhelmingly Malay and Muslim.

Fourthly, it was done through democratic processes, i.e. tabled and voted in.

Fifthly, the people residing in Kelantan are not the ones getting all excited, in fact they have voted in PAS every time on the promise of hudud implementation.

The majority of Kelantan voters wanted hudud to be implemented for the past couple of decades.

They wanted it so bad that they have been putting up with what I would consider as unacceptable socioeconomic non-development for all these years, their youngsters going elsewhere to look for employment, but going back to Kelantan without fail for every GE to make sure PAS are voted in every time.

Even if Umno and PKR reps were to vote against the bill, they would not be able to block it; all they would have achieved is to lose their seats in the next election because the people they represent in the Dewan wanted them to say yes to hudud.

It is their democratic right to want to be subjected to hudud.

Democratically speaking, what right do we have to deny them from implementing their version of Syariah laws?

You don't like it, don't enter Kelantan.

You don't want your states to make similar amendments, you just make sure you select your representatives who will not vote for it in the Dewan.

Simple, kan?

Why are non-Muslims all agitated over some laws being amended in Kelantan?

Why are some Muslims all out against it to the extent of ridiculing and insulting their fellow Muslims over it?

Can't you people see that in a democratically elected representation system that we practice in this country, the majority in the Dewan wins?

No matter how loud and obnoxious the minority is, the majority gets to decide what kind of laws they want.

And so you don't share the majority values or beliefs, does that make it right to force your values and beliefs on them?

Do democracy, justice and freedom only prevail when they serve your interests, values and belief system, no matter if the majority do not share those values?

What kind of arrogance and conceit drive some people to make presumptuous and derogatory statements about other people's character, simply because they hold different views?

I have written this in some form before this, although not necessarily in this blog, that the level of education is not a measure of a person's intellect, neither is it an indication of wisdom attained.

Sometimes, too much education simply leads to arrogance, pretensions and self-importance.

Hudud

Someone asked me about why Umno Kelantan supported the Hudud enactment in Kelantan and why I have not posted something about it, everyone else did.

I was like, eh?

First and foremost, how would I know about the motivations of Umno Kelantan?  I am not even Umno whatever ...

Secondly, I am not everyone else.

My position on Hudud, or laws of any kind, is simply to leave the matter to experts in that particular field.

However, since I am already on the subject, might as well put down my thoughts here - just my own personal thoughts as someone who is totally unlettered and quite ignorant about the laws.

To me, as a Muslim, of course I accept being subjected to Islamic laws.

However, I can also see why non-Muslims may not like being subjected to Islamic laws.

Why should they be subjected to something that is not of their faith?

But the thing is, we need laws in order to maintain peace and order, so why not Islamic laws?

Why are we willing to be governed by the present laws, but not Islamic laws?

Maybe the punishment is deemed harsh by non-Muslim standards, but wouldn't that make greater deterrent for would-be offenders?

If the threat of punishment do not deter them from the deed, then the offenders deserve the punishment if caught and convicted.

If the Islamic values that define what is considered an offence differs from that of non-Muslims, then that's where they should only apply to Muslims.

However, I don't see that offences such as murder would be an issue as even now the death penalty applies.

Here's a thought, if only Muslims are subjected to the Hudud implementation, Malaysia will eventually reach a stage where criminals will only be non-Muslims as Muslim criminals would either be deterred by the harsh punishments, or decommissioned early from the crime career path once caught and punished with either death, amputation or bankruptcy.

Muslim criminals will not decide to become apostates to avoid the laws because that would be certain death under Hudud.

Criminal profiling would become much easier for the police, and we can address the question of crowding in prisons as incarceration of Muslim offenders would be less likely, either they are dead or handicapped or bankrupt.

Wouldn't that be a positive thing?

One more thing, can we just do away with incarceration as punishment - just prohibitive fines, amputations and death?

Our cost of maintaining law and order as well as the upkeep of criminals in prisons would be lower.

Simple Life

I have just sent off the kids and their mummy to the airport to take an early morning flight to their "kampung".

It will only be for 5 days and I will have to pick them up again from the airport on Sunday afternoon.

At the moment I am all alone at home with the two kitties, Sammy and Seman, both sleeping in their unique ways, Sammy curled up in his corner of the living room while Seman is stretched out on Al's bed.

Before leaving this morning, Yaya reminded me to clean the water containers at the back, just in case we need to store clean water again.

She's worried that we may be faced with another round of unplanned water disruption or even water rationing now that the water agreement between Selangor and Federal government had been rescinded by the MB.

We are also planning to ensure that we have sufficient water storage facilities at all our other residences so we won't have any problems should we face water supply disruption at any one of the houses.

I am not sure what is the actual reason for the cancellation of water agreement signed by the previous administration, as the reasons given were too wishy washy to be believable, but I hope that they could quickly address the water supply issue so that we won't have to go through water rationing again.

I have promised to give room for the new MB to show what he is capable of, but after 6 months, he has not shown much results other than public posturing and political grandstanding.

He should also quickly do something about that collapsed flyover to Taman Sains Selangor 2 near Cyberjaya - it has been like that ever since I can remember.

And the condition of the main roads are still horribly pot-holey and dangerous to smaller vehicles like my Proton Saga or Yaya's Viva.

In some places, you just can't avoid the potholes, they are like all over the road.

I always worry about losing a wheel or something when I'm running errands, even simple things such as going for groceries or sending and picking up the boys to and from school.

I can honestly say that, I'll be more than happy to have him as the MB as long as he can provide these three things - decent roads, uninterrupted water supply, acceptable waste management operation.

I am even willing to let him off with the unacceptable dengue statistics if he would just provide those three things.

Maybe getting Selangor people to be concerned with living in a clean and healthy environment to reduce dengue cases is simply impossible, but at least we should have decent roads in order to move about safely and despite Malaysians' littering habit, at least we should not have uncollected rotting trash by the roadside.

 With the current state of Umno and BN in Selangor, I am certain that this state will continue to be governed by Pakatan after the next GE, so I really, really hope that Pakatan will just get their act together and focus on the governing part as opposed to the politicking part.

Living Quietly

I haven't posted anything in a while.

Several reasons for that.

Firstly, there just seem to be nothing new to comment about, politically speaking; I hate repeating myself, so I wont.

Secondly, my priorities, professionally speaking, have changed and I am no longer invested in what is happening with current issues.

Thirdly, real life is getting interesting and I intent to spend more time to make the most of it.

Truthfully, I am seriously considering locking down on this blog space because I do not have anything considered remotely SOPO in my interesting stuff list at the moment.

I am finding it difficult to even get motivated to form an opinion about current issues, let alone write about them.

Let's see, I have already commented about PR1MA, the 1MDB thing to me was not something I should comment on seeing that, technically, based on confirmed data, I don't really see anything wrong with it, pro-BN bloggers trying to get rid of Najib - hahahaha ...I think they should really examine their own reasons for doing so.

The external debt thing ... I think Economics Malaysia did an excellent explanation.

GST ... I can only say that we should have implemented that a long time ago.

Now, what else is there to write about?

Rafizi with his dumbass opinions and allegations on a range of issues of which he has no knowledge of?  Pfft ... my nephews' opinions on why "Phineas and Ferb" is more interesting than "Star Wars Rebels" are far more intelligent.

PAS troubles?  Heh ... them lot invited trouble when they got themselves involved with Anwar and his politics, now they are reaping the rewards of that association - total destruction of their own political ideals from within.

PAS should have learned from what happened to Umno when Tun Mahathir brought in Anwar Ibrahim - it still has not recovered from that association.

Anwar's wife and daughters' non-stop allegations against the government?  I really think that was rather "tak cerdik" of them, but if they wanted to make sure more people get more curious and wanting to know in greater detail about the case, that's their choice, although Nurul Izzah's attempt at being a drama queen with her speech in parliament recently was a comically pathetic effort.

DS Rosmah's extravagant ways?  Heh, TKC thoroughbreds have put up with all kinds of mockery and put-downs since we were eleven, and being a true TKC gal, she understands that the best way to handle haters is by ignoring them and just doing our own thing.

I mean, why waste our time explaining when they won't give us the benefit of the doubt, see our point of view or even listen to what we have to say about what they are griping about?