Go Broke

Multiple times and you're not dead
Retards and multitude of stupidity dominating brains
Go broke, go broke, go broke
You shall live in peace

Cards for cash and cash for cards
Go around the globe make the trades
Go broke, go broke, go broke
You shall live in peace

Peace, peace, peace
peace, peace, peace
You shall live in peace

-- syamsulhasran

in the face of chaos

among the brigands and faulty machines
stood myself with soulless bodies
grappling with joy, yet are we in grieve
they know better, but not me

we march among the faulty smell
wondering and wandering
we march together to heaven or hell
nobody knows what's the ending

good deed, good deed
'tis hard to come by
easy for me to say I did
alas, I'm not that high

--syamsulhasran

Tempias Sang Cakrawala

Titisan embun entah dari mana
Menghias pagi yang ku idam-idamkan
Setelah sekian lama
Hidup di bumi indah pertiwi
Nian ku nikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

Gerlap gemerlapan
Bintang-bintang yang menerawang
Entah ke mana
Seakan panggil-memanggil
Seakan lambai-melambai
Kepada bumi kepada insan
Yang sedang asyik menikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

Kutitipkan senyuman
Kepada engkau, sayap-sayap malam
Segulung harapan, pekerti insan
Tujulah ke gunung kandung seroja
Agar mereka semua
Bersyukur lewat menikmati
Tempias Sang Cakrawala

-- syamsul hasran.

Apartment - good and bad

I like living in an apartment. I like it more than living on a landed property.
Here's what I found the good and the bad about living in an apt:

Good:
1. Cheap to rent (or buy)
2. Small and easy to clean up
3. A lot of people to say hi and make friends
4. Living at a higher level is great. The wind is cool

Bad:
1. No land to grow plants.
2. Your car/vehicle is downstairs so you can't see it.
3. Risk to fall over is there. Esp for the height fright freak.
4. Relatively noisier since a lot more people are around.

The biggest problem for me is no (1), I can't grow many plants. My orchid plants are dying and no longer have their beautiful blooming orchids coming out of it easily. I tend to forget to water it and they couldn't get the rain (maybe a little sprinkle but that's it).

This is a bad thing.

Deflating Racism - let's do our part.

To deflate Racism is to destroy the environment that stimulate racism

I've posted these points on ReCom , but I've extracted only the points:

1. Racism is a subset of "asabiyah" (I forgot what's in English). "Asabiyah" is a human's tendency to get together and group due to something that they share - language, traits, belief, anything.

2. We're all humans, we do possess this "asabiyah".

3. Therefore, we're all racist.

4. Racism cannot be destroyed, however, the degree could be deflated.

5. To deflate racism is to reduce the environment that stimulate racism

6. Malaysian environment stimulate racism. For example, employing same race, NEP, racial politics, establishment of sekolah (jenis) kebangsaan, media prima's TV8 (Chinese) and TV9 (Malay) and etc. These are the element that has racism in them.

7. An effective way to deflate racism is to start from within - Chinese from Chinese, Malay from Malay, Indian from Indian. Very much like how Nelson Mandela destroyed apartheid by favoring none of the skin color, including black. That way he deflate racism among blacks. And not only that, he managed a score of white supporters along the way.

9. For the Chinese, to deflate racism among the Chinese can be effectively achieved from the Chinese themselves.

10. As a corollary, For the Malays, to deflate racism among the Malays can be effectively achieved by the Malays.

At the very least, play our part not to display "For Chinese only", "For Malay only" advertisement. But don't limit yourself unnecessarily. The worst thing is to do nothing.

Let's do our part.

Charlie Wilson's War

I was eating at the stall down at my apartment, and saw this movie on Astro. It was already in the middle of the story, but I decided to watch it and finish it off.

It was Tom Hanks as "Charlie" and Julia Roberts as "Joanne" so it must be a damn good movie to begin with. And yes, it was telling a history-making story, about the Afghan-Soviet war in the late 1980s.

It shows how the United States was funding the war via CIA. It portrays Charlie's personal war against the Soviets.

Joanna sort of "seduced" him and showed him around, meeting Pakistan's leader, convincing him that he has to go through the process and get the funding to help the Afghan fight back the Soviets invaders.

He did. And he did it in a big way. With initial funding of USD5 mil, it went to more than USD200 mil.

Although the movie portrayed the Afghan war as Charlie's personal war, I don't personally think that it's that simple.

I don't think we should attribute this war to Charlie alone. No doubt he is the main character in the event, but the fact that there was a Cold War could explain much interplay between characters that resulting into the winning of Afghan against the Soviet.

But as history shows to us, in later years, the kids who survive on the Afghan land are the very people who retaliate back against the U.S. Why?

Or is it? Who's behind this.

Another Charlie?

Suratkhabar Lama!

"Suratkhabar Lama!"
Memekakkan telinga
Di kala pagi buta
Mengganggu jiran tetangga

"Sao Kao Po Chi!"
Mencari rezeki
Demi sesuap nasi
Gigih memandu lori
Ke sana ke mari

"Paper Lama!"
Sedang ku lena di buai mimpi
Kala terbit mentari
Dan khayalan ku lantas terhenti
Bingkas aku ke kamar mandi

Conspire

Conspire
Let you go by my side
Don't expect any guide and tide
Just hold it and you know you're right

Desire
Let it go, don't let it loose
For you to lose if you forgot to choose
Which is for you, which is for your mind

Don't mind
Don't mind to choose, don't mind to liberate
Define the limit, set your will free
And you will be free

Life

Eat,
Work,
Shit,
Sleep,
Pray

And you'll be dead soon

Dumb

I think I'm dumb
So as you are
Thought we're cool
Don't go to school
We got some coins
Waste them away
We are all dumb
We have a life

Go to the moon
Not coming back
Fly with the broom
Forgot the spell
Found some trees
Don't like the smell
I think I'm dumb
So as you are

Got limbs
Overslept
Big deal
Go on
Faster
Move on
Quickly
Right on.

I think I'm dumb (12x)
So as you are

Change

There's this saying that the only thing constant is "change" itself.

Sounds cliche, but do you agree?

How about Plank constant? Gravity of 9.81 ms(2) ?. Yes, this might get changed if you're somewhere else in the universe. Time and space are our friends. Wherever, whenever, you'll be experiencing something else.

Since change happens at any point of space and time, change will always occur relatively. And because we're either moving in time or space, or both, change will always happen. Since change will always happen at any point, change itself is the constant.

Then you'll go - "wait a second. This make no sense".
This is like saying changes in, say, variable "x", is itself a constant. But "x" doesn't have any absolute value.! You can't possibly say that it's a constant.

OK, let me tell you this - do you agree that the gravity constant g is only constant on the planet earth? So how can you claim that it is a constant when we can define another g that refers to gravity on the moon? Which has a different value?

The thing is, you can't have a real constant. You can only have a constant relative to some reference point. We don't have any real constant because the universe itself is changing.

To say that the only constant is "change" can be confusing at best, but what essentially the message is that - things around us are changing, whether we ourselves make any effort to change or not.

What's the lesson? Change, or be changed.

Corruption

When Pak Lah just became our new Prime Minister in 2003, I was out in California. I remember I was watching CNN and saw the ceremony. I even recorded it on my video cam this historical ceremony that marked the end of Tun Mahathir's era as the only Prime Minister that I've ever known since I was a kid.

Until Pak Lah came. And there's a high hope that he's gonna, not corrupt. And not only him, everyone would be. And that he would lead Malaysia into a nation of relatively cleaner country in terms of corruption.

But is he failing? Did he leave a legacy of not being corrupt? What kind of corruption? Money, moral? Health? Economics? Toxic? What?

Before going even further with our discussion with Pak Lah, what's the definition of Corruption? Corruption can be anything you want to define to be that "bad" thing involving money. But if that's your definition, I afraid you're limiting yourself. We should be aware that the word "corrupt" can be associated with anything "bad". So in my simple definition, "corrupt" simply "bad". A "moral corruption" means immoral.

But let's talk about "money corrupt". Do you think Pak Lah fails to lead Malaysia to a cleaner Malaysia in terms of "monetary" corruption? Here's my thought:

1. Malaysia is nowhere near to be less corrupt than during Mahathir's era. I'm lazy to dig the statistic but you should be aware by now.

2. Pak Lah in a way did a good PR on corruption, but not a good job at execution. He tried though.

3. Our political system was designed with a corruption culture.


My point is this: If you want to "benteras" corruption, you have to have "cultural" revolution.
I heard a lot of people that they hate Malaysian attitude, but it's not about attitude, it's about culture.

The culture of bribing is so common that people are expected to do it. Everyone. Businessman, politicians, civil servants, general population.

It's something you can't avoid. If you until now manage to avoid any form of corruption (not even a single sen of "duit kopi") I congratulate you and you should spread this culture to the greater population.

If you have done some form of corruption, however small, you're still corrupt, and that's very culturally Malaysian.

I'm not saying that we're corrupt in every way. But we must destroy this sick culture in our society. It's true that we're not the worst country in terms of Corruption index (or whatever index you read and develop).

But if you want to be a rich and develop country, you have to be not corrupt - it's just as simple as being of opposite "bad".

In other words, be "good". Simple, isn't it? Yet it's hard to do.

Harmonica

I've bought harmonica last weekend and played simple songs yesterday. Who knows one day I can be as famous as Bob Dylan!.

Apart from that, I was experimenting with the famous "come as you are" riff.

Perak's political turmoil

There are a couple of things to note in Perak's political turmoil:

1. A state government was being taken over by BN from Pakatan Rakyat via MP crossover
2. The Sultan of Perak blessed the took over
3. The government was formed without a majority
4. There are a fair many people/rakyat disagree with all the above

I considered the following as "noises" that overshadow the real issue, although it's OK to argue about them (for different reason):

1. Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim was the one introduced this idea of crossover in this country. People blamed him for originating this issue. If you're the one who feels about that, you should blame Dato' Seri Najib in this case, not DSAI. You're right that DSAI is the one responsible in exposing the loophole, but it is our current government who really use it to take over the Perak's government.
2. Crossover is considered as immoral in Malaysia (by me, i don't know about you) and therefore, this should be banned (I don't care what other countries system are. I'm just talking about Malaysia). I don't want to argue on how BN was rumored to be "buying" the MPs. That's up to you to dig the news.
3. The royal family has interest in the BN to become the government. I heard this rumor, but I don't think this is part of the real issue.

Ignore these noises.

There's one significance in this turmoil that has my greatest interest:

The decision of the Sultan was questioned by the rakyat

From these events, here's my thought:

The power of the Ruler depends on the trust and respect from the people being ruled.
People has entrusted the Sultan to make the best decision in the interest of the rakyat, if the government fails to function.

The trust appear to be violated by granting BN to form a government without a majority in the State Assembly.

Since the government that has majority in this country will be of interest of the rakyat, Sultan's "titah" is not in favor of the people i.e people's interest are no longer being secured.

The act of the Sultan to interfere is a blessing, this is because our Federal government did nothing to secure the interest of Rakyat - to uphold the democracy.

However, the result is not what the people seems to be expecting.

Either the Sultan gains trust and respect from the people again by taking appropriate action (according the the interest of the people, which is the legitimate government with majority), or people would later question whether Royal Institution in this country really respect their trust.

The Malay sentiment is being played out by the media to ask the Malays not to question the Sultan no matter what. This I believe could command not small, but a lot of Malays to stick to Your Highness' decision and therefore, could help BN win a great deal of constituency if it happens that there's a statewide election.

I think we Malays forgot our own proverb:

"Raja adil Raja di sembah"
"Raja zalim Raja di sanggah".

If rakyat feels that their trust has been violated, don't you think this very proverb will guide the rakyat what to do?

Another flip side is that - does the Sultan act in the interest of the Malays? I don't have hard evidence so I won't offer any analysis here.

Slumdog Millionaire: The story of time

Today, I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I watched it on my PC on a newly-bought, cheapest (that I could find) Logitech speaker on my broken-but-recently-fixed Philips monitor. So there's no such thing as cinematic experience. But that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy the movie as a medium of expression.

There are many elements introduced in this movie, some old and some new. The one that interest me the most is the manipulation of "time".

Let's take a look at the plot of the movie:

- Introduction to characters - Jamal, Salim and Lathika.
The movie introduced Jamal first (the opening) and it deliberately confused the audience with the parallel play of two seemingly separate events, but share the same "character" of the situation. Here, it forced us to think that these two parallels are just (1) Jamal's reality and (2) his imagination. But it's not. The two scenes that are interwoven are:

(1) an event in the police station where he was questions and tortured (homocide) and
(2) where he was sitting at the chair as a contestant in "Who wants to be a Millionaire", listening to Kapoor's question "Is this your final answer?" and some such things.

Here, we're forced to think that the event in the police station is an "imaginary" event i.e what's going on inside Jamal's head when answering the questions in the "Who wants to be a Millionaire".

This is the first twist - these two events mentioned above are two separate, real events. (you have to watch the movie all the way to the end to discover this. Otherwise, why should you spend 2 hrs on that, right?).

During the openings, Jamal went over a series of reflections on his childhood days. This thus introduced Salim, his elder brother as his "protector", and Lathika, his childhood lover.


Lost and Found - Search of Latika

Jamal, Salim, Lathika went around drifting away (their parents were killed in a religious clash) and was captured by a children exploiter (later revealed as Maman).

Jamal and Salim managed to escape , but on their way escaping, Salim decided that Lathika is better off in the hands of Maman. (why?). Jamal was mad at Salim.

They drifted around, but managed to make ends meet. After a while, Jamal urged Salim to rescue Lathika together.

OK, in search of Lathika, there are two stages:

First stage - Jamal and Salim went to Maman and rescue Lathika from Maman's headquarter. In this quest - Salim killed Maman (that's when Jamal rememberd and answer who invented revolver). Salim later took Lathika, and forced Jamal to leave. This is a hard blow for Jamal, who expected Salim's trust. After all, Lathika is Jamal's lover.

We're twisted again - Salim betrayed Jamal's trust.

Second stage - took Lathika from Salim. Salim apparently "gave" Lathika to Javed, another big time gangster in Mumbai.
Jamal pretend to be a cook/dishwasher, and ask Lathika to go with him out of Javed's house. Lathika refused.

Reversal of fortune - Jamal, who's a nobody and good for nothing, lost the only thing that he has - his lover Lathika.

Found Lathika, Salim's sacrifice and Jamal won the game

I don't want to elaborate this anymore. The plot is fairly typical in any Hindi movie where someone has to be shot dead to save another person.

If you ask me what's interesting about this movie, it's this - "time". As you can see, if I'm telling their stories, Jamal was actually at 3 places, relative to time:

(1) Sitting on the chair, on his way to win "who wants to be a Millionaire"
(2) At the police station, when was accused to be a cheater after his winning streak (they don't want the contestant to win the game, obviously).
(3) His life story - beginning from his childhood days, all the way to the time when he was sitting on the chair to win the game.

Typical Hollywood movie right? Not quite. The plot is typical, but the interplay of time is quite a character of this movie. It is the one that gave a powerful thrust, or rather - the most confusion to the audience. And the ultimate ending is does he win the game? (well, guess what, a hero has to win it. Otherwise, why should he be one?.)

The story was told in a back-and-forth manner (think of it as parallel processes), but converges at one event. It was a pretty interesting technique. This is a sort of "flashback" kind of movie, except that, the flashback was given a wonderful treatment in the sense that it has substance on the way the hero finishing his quest to become a millionaire to win back Lathika.

I've always amused at the concept of time. It could trick us in many ways.

Gender equality

I disagree on gender equality in general:

1. Men and Women are physically not the same
2. Nature works harmoniously with Men and Women as they are created.
3. The way the brain works (and everything else) are not the same
4. Analogous to Physics concept, Man is a different "polarity" than Woman.

However, I agree on equal opportunity. This idea however, transcends gender so I won't be covering here.

My point is that, we should regard gender difference as reality and work harmoniously with nature. Don't deny something real.

Therefore, the people who shouted about "Woman Rights" have to know what they're talking about. If they fight for equal opportunity with regard to gender, I agree on their cause. But if they fight beyond that scope, they're fighting a losing battle.

Valentine's Day is a rip-off

I have an opinion that I held for a long time, although sometimes I thought I've made some exceptions:

Valentine's Day is a rip-off

Think about this:

1. If you love someone, you should love him/her everyday. There must be something in that someone that you love. If you don't love him/her and you hope something magical will happen during Valentine's Day, think again.

2. You don't need a special day to express the love-feeling thing. You show it any day you want.

3. You are expected to spend a fair amount of money on something both you and your couple probably don't want to (such as, too expensive), but you have to because, guess what, it's a Valentine's Day.

4. Why can't I declare 15th Feb as Syamsul's Day. I mean, who's this "Valentine" guy anyway that we're supposed to celebrate.

5. I don't have much money to spend on a "special" occasion that has nothing to do with me, and my (future) couple. By the way, I'm still single.

6. Valentine's Day is a distorted reality created by capitalism.

OK, these are my reasons. I have nothing to celebrate during Valentine's Day. If the idea of Valentine's Day is to celebrate love, then I hereby declare everyday is a "Valentine's Day". This reduced the significance of Valentine's Day to absolute zero. Which is what it is supposed to be.
It should just vanish from this world.

War and Peace

I've spent the entire week (I took 1 week leave due to CNY) reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

I'm having a headache.

After thinking for hours lying on my bed last weekend, I've concluded that the chief thing that I've learned from this book is this:

The highest form of art, is science

This is coming from me. You can quote me on that.