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Things are getting busier at school, pretty impossible to post some thoughtful stuff for some time now. But I’m back and with some pictures from the old collection.
The theme is Marine this time, well largely anyway. This is from a visit to Aquaria in KLCC last year. I must say it is freaking expensive and for RM28 (non-Malaysians pay more) I thought the offered fare was kinda disappointing. I had an eyeful of some huge Arapaimas(and more) at Zoo Negara for a fraction of the price.
Here are some pics from the the two visits. Enjoy, folks!
This is a busy lionfish, refused to stay still and strike a pose for moi! Hence the blur effect : (
Nice view through the circular glass, granted. But the picture below was kinda warmer I thought.
See what I mean? Looks wholesome doesn’t it?
What’s a visit to Aquaria without a shot of good ol’ Sharky Shark. Thanks to the late Peter Benchley’s seminal work and Steven Spielberg’s larger than life representation on celluloid, Sharky has got a bad rep for decades now. But lemme tell you this. Far more people died in the hands of a certain Texan hick of a president than in the jaws of these efficient predators.
This is a Nautilus. Until I visited Aquaria, I had always thought that Nautilus is the name of Captain Nemo’s ship and that’s it. You know Captain Nemo right? Ok, I don’t need to explain further. Now I know Nautilus is actually a cephalopod. Add that to the knowledge that author Jules Verne (whose creation was the Nautilus and Captain Nemo, among others) was an ardent naturalist who often displayed his attention to scientific accuracy in his novels. It makes complete sense to me now.
So yes, I did learn something new. And I got acquainted with the cute guy below. Check him out, basking in his reptilian glory.
This reminded me of Malaysian musician Amir Yusoff. No, this is not how he looks, Amir is a hunk of a guy, with some mean dreadlocks, a mean voice and he’s a dab hand at playing the guitar too. Just that its a well known fact that the guy keeps two pet iguanas. About 2 to three years ago, I met him and asked about his reptilian pets. He said he still had them and they were fine.
This was taken at Zoo Negara. Couldn’t at first determine whether its a tortoise or turtle. I do believe now that its a tortoise. I’ve never seen a tortoise like this though. It looks like its shell was stepped on by an elephant and its bent and twisted all over. Seriously though, I would appreciate it if any of you could enlighten me on the name of this species.
This is one of the largest, if not THE largest species of freshwater fish in the world, the Arapaima Gigas. The few that I saw at the freshwater aquarium at Zoo Negara. This species is native to the wild and rich Amazon river that snakes through Peru and Brazil in South America.
A source of income for poor Peruvian fishermen, the Arapaima or Pirarucu as it is known in South Americawas hunted down in earnest until it figured in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It moves rather gently and seems a docile fish, but it measured almost 10-feet-long so, if I am in the vicinity of these giants, I’d steer clear. A whip of that giant tail could floor you easy. Remember, that stingray that killed Steve Irwin was a docile creature too.
The thing is, many of us humans forget that the most gentle of creatures can turn dangerous if it senses a threat. Hell, try taking a kitten away from its mom. I used to have claw marks from such encounters.
This makes for a brilliant read, and a brutally honest assessment of Tony Blair’s blind support of Bush’s “war on terror”. A long, hard fall of the Prime Minister who was once a symbol of Cool Brittania.
The following article appeared in The Guardian UK.
It is not only God who will be Blair’s judge on Iraq
Avi Shlaim
Monday May 14, 2007
The GuardianTony Blair’s opposition to an immediate ceasefire in the Lebanon war last summer precipitated his downfall. Now that he has announced the date of his departure from Downing Street, his entire Middle East record needs to be placed under an uncompromising lens.
Blair came to office with no experience of, and virtually no interest in, foreign affairs, and ended by taking this country to war five times. Blair boasts that his foreign policy was guided by the doctrine of liberal interventionism. But the war in Iraq is the antithesis of liberal intervention. It is an illegal, immoral and unnecessary war, a war undertaken on a false prospectus and without sanction from the UN.
Blair’s entire record in the Middle East is one of catastrophic failure. He used to portray Britain as a bridge between the two sides of the Atlantic. By siding with America against Europe on Iraq, however, he helped to destroy the bridge. Preserving the special relationship with America was the be all and end all of Blair’s foreign policy. He presumably supported the Bush administration over Iraq in the hope of exercising influence on its policy. Yet there is no evidence that he exercised influence on any significant policy issue. His support for the neoconservative agenda on Iraq was uncritical and unconditional.
Blair failed to understand that America’s really special relationship is with Israel, not Britain. Every time that George Bush had to choose between Blair and Ariel Sharon, he chose the latter. Blair’s special relationship with Bush was a one-way street: Blair made all the concessions and got nothing tangible in return.
American policy towards the Middle East was doomed to failure from the start, and the end result has been to saddle Britain with a share of the responsibility for this failure. The premise behind American policy was that Iraq was the main issue in Middle East politics and that regime change in Baghdad would weaken the Palestinians and force them to accept a settlement on Israel’s terms. The road to Jerusalem, it was argued, went through Baghdad. This premise was wrong. Iraq was a non-issue; it did not pose a threat to any of its neighbours, and certainly not to America or Britain. The real issue was Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and America’s support for Israel in its savage colonial war against the Palestinian people.
When seeking the approval of the Commons for the war, Blair pledged that after Iraq was disarmed, he and his American friends would seek a solution to the Palestine problem. He has utterly failed to deliver on this promise.
True, Blair was the driving force behind the “road map” that envisaged the emergence of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of 2005. But Sharon wrecked the road map. In return for the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Sharon exacted a written American agreement to Israel’s retention of the major settlement blocs on the West Bank. Blair publicly endorsed the nefarious Sharon-Bush pact. This was the most egregious British betrayal of the Palestinians since the Balfour declaration of 1917.
Blair and Bush have also betrayed the Iraqi people. To begin with, there was much brave rhetoric about bringing democracy to Iraq and turning it into a model for the rest of the Arab world. But the rhetoric was empty. The neoconservatives who drove American policy were interested in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and in nothing else.
The allied invasion of Iraq was not an isolated episode but part of the so-called global war on terror. But the overthrow of the Ba’ath regime in Iraq only exacerbated the problem of terrorism. The invasion of Iraq has given a powerful boost to al-Qaida and its confederates by damaging Britain’s reputation and radicalising its young Muslims. The London bombs may not have been a direct result of the Iraq war - but they are indisputably a part of the blowback.
What we have in Iraq today is chronic instability, an incipient civil war, endemic violence and anarchy, an upsurge of terrorist activity of every kind, and a national insurgency to which the allies have no answer. The neocons did not bother to plan for postwar reconstruction. Occupation was accompanied by devastation and destruction on a massive scale and a civilian death toll estimated by one source at 655,000.
The allies pride themselves on having brought democracy to the Iraqi people, but they have failed in the primary duty of any government: to provide security for the civilian population. The upshot is that America and its pillion passenger in the “war against terror” are now embroiled in a vicious, protracted and unwinnable conflict.
Blair has the audacity to say that God will be his judge over the Iraq war. This is a curious attitude for a democratic politician to adopt. History will surely pass a harsh judgment on Blair. He has the worst record on the Middle East of any British prime minister in the past century, infinitely worse than that of Anthony Eden, who at least had the decency to accept responsibility for the Suez debacle.
· Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, so said American philospher George Santayana.
When the horrible incidents on May 13, 1969 happened, I wasn’t even born yet. The first time I heard about it was at school, from my math teacher on a particularly friendly day. He came and sat among us while we were waiting for afternoon class and started talking about how important tolerance was to community harmony.
I started reading and asking about it since that day. Dad gave one-sentence reply, mom didn’t know much more. I was 11 then. Since then I’ve read a lot and heard some chilling accounts from those who were in Kuala Lumpur during the worst peacetime bloodbath in Malaysia’s short history.
Some of these oral accounts were decidedly partisan. Others were blatantly racist. The neutral accounts largely came from some older people who lived through the communal riots. These were sobering accounts of how the murderous mob mentality can wreak so much terror and grief. There were also stories of hope, where racial differences did not compromise humanity.
Official statistics say 196 people died, though many say the real death toll was higher. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I just hope that 38 years down the line, we as a nation and a community has learnt our lessons. That this harmony and tolerance were just surface values, was a fact that came horribly alive during the Kampung Medan episode.
Our country turns 50 this year. Maybe it is time to explore politics and governance away from communal divides, maybe it is time to say goodbye to race-based parties, maybe it is time for a change. Maybe it is time we as Malaysians reject the politics of fear.
May the victims of the senseless May 13 carnage rest in peace.
P.S SUARAM apparently has published a book on May 13. I gotta go find it.
There is some bad news and bad news. Bad news for guys, guys and girls. Did I say guys twice? I meant guys and gays. Listen up all of you. In this era of unbridled sex and promiscuity, I’d like to believe that only the threat of a horrible, prolonged disease can stop people from screwing around.
Here’s an impetus for all of you to abstain and if you can’t, just be sure of your partner. I reproduce excerpts.
People who have had more than five oral-sex partners in their lifetime are 250% more likely to have throat cancer than those who do not have oral sex, a new study suggests.
The researchers believe this is because oral sex may transmit human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus implicated in the majority of cervical cancers.
The new findings should encourage people to consistently use condoms during oral sex as this could protect against HPV, the team says. Other experts say that the results provide more reason for men to receive the new HPV vaccine.
Maura Gillison at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, US, and colleagues collected blood and saliva samples from the throats of 100 patients diagnosed with cancers of the tonsils or back of the throat. The scientists also took samples from 200 healthy people for comparison.
By combining the blood and saliva samples with antibody molecules, Gillison’s team could tell whether a person had ever had an HPV infection.
So you wanna be careful there eh?
In the past few years as an amateur shutterbug, I have amassed a significant number of photos that I think deserve some online airing finally. Here I share some pictures that are not just beautiful on their own, but are powerful mnemonic triggers for me. They are not all taken at the same time, nor are they travelogue stuff. The only common denominator here is that all pictures here have something to do with water. I start with….
A view from the hill. Waves crashing into the rocks just after Teluk Nipah, on the western coast of Pangkor Island.
This was just before the hilly stretch above. The view drom the densely forested hill is breathtaking. They say that the rainforest of Pangkor could be as old as 4 million years. I am suitably humbled.
Waves crashing onto the beach in Teluk Nipah. I noticed the comparatively steep gradient of the beach. But the repetitive cadence of frothy waters swirling onto the beach regularly is to me a curiously soothing experience. Nothing like nature to soothe one’s nerves.
For the life of me, I can’t remember where is the geographical location of this picture above. The sky darkened and I could feel the first moist droplets of rain as I hurriedly took this picture during a pitstop at a petrol kiosk up north. Only after I downloaded the pictures did I see this gem. What looks like mangrove swamp here was just a flooded secondary forest.
View from the lighthouse in Tanjung Tuan, Malacca. The turquoise water and the delightful complement to the green hill made me take this picture. Tanjung Tuan maybe in Malacca, but for us, it is just the far end of Port Dickson. The lighthouse sits on a forest reserve that draws a lot of nature enthusiasts. Come April every year, this hill fills up with birdwatchers gathering for the annual Raptor Watch, armed with cameras and binoculars to catch the migratory birds flying south.
Another picture I snapped without thinking and went home to discover a mood shot. This was a cloudy afternoon view of the Semenyih dam in Selangor. Always had this fascination with dams. The drive here is a scenic one. You’d be surprised to find lovely rural charms and natural beauty of Malaysia’s rainforests, barely an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur.
Finally, this unique sight I nailed my interest. At a fishing village near Jalan Pantai, Port Dickson, I found these fish tails nailed to the wall. There was no one around except for a sleeping fat cat, so I couldn’t ask more about the types of fish nailed here. Would have made for interesting chat, this one. I’m going back someday…
Rocky of Rocky Bru says journalists should blog. Technically there is nothing stopping journalists from blogging. This is a medium of self-expression and it is really up to an individual to say what he wants to say and also face the reaction to what he says.
However I do have some conflicting thoughts about this.
Firstly, journalists write for a publication. When they are employed, they usually have to declare that they are writing for only the employer and no one else. Of course, initially this was because employers don’t want you to moonlight for a rival publisher or something like that. However, blogs are often personal opinions on all things under the sun. Furthermore, people write blogs not for commercial gain. Now how is that covered in the current scheme of things?
Secondly, when working journalists start blogging on stories they are covering/have covered, this whole issue of scoop arises too. Say you worked on a story. You feel strongly about it and wrote a fine piece that alas was spiked due to reasons like these:
a) Bad press for an advertiser.
b) Your editor feels it is not strong enough to play up.
c) The story is of the buka pekung variety that will result in a lot of political flak for the publication.
d) The story is of the type to get the newspaper/magazine shut down under the Printing Presses and Publications Act, people arrested under the Internal Security Act, Seditions Act or the Official Secrets Act.
So, can you talk/bitch/moan/rant about it in your blog? The average journalist in Malaysia would cease to be that, if he does it. So that’s it. Buang Kerja! So of course the local journalists will not do it. Idealism is fine but one has to eat too.
The reality is, the few ethical journalists in the country committed to the integrity of the profession will not remain journalists for long if they did this and the rest are simply glorified sentence-writers who don’t give a damn about being a watchdog for accountability and other high-fallutin’ principles.
For some high-minded hacks who believe the truth should be told (I am firmly one of them) despite the daily attempts at intra-editorial censorship, politicians to jaga hati and advertisers to suck up to, I wish them a lot of luck.
Seasoned journos know the rules of information dissemination, they read between the lines and give us readers the benefit of informed opinion without being condescending about it. If The Star’s Davin Arul or Kee Thuan Chye were to blog, for instance, I would be an ardent reader. Or S. Jayasankaran who sometime ago had a satirical column called Speakeasy in NST.
There is an interesting blog called The Unrepentant Journalist where a foreign (I think American from the tone and the content) journo actually writes what he/she feels on a whole lot of topics he/she feels strongly about. Just to underscore my points above, I must say that this journo blogs anonymously.
