Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Dean Johns on Khir Toyo & the Tooth Fairy

Reproduced as a community service from Malaysiakini for non-subscribers...
By Dean Johns
Malaysiakini | Dec 15, 2010 | 12:04pm

I wonder how many Malaysians are still gullible enough to fall for BN's latest fairy tale, that the prosecution of erstwhile dentist and former Selangor Menteri Besar, Mohd Khir Toyo (left), is a sign that the BN regime is serious about combating high-level corruption in its ranks.

Especially in light of the fact that the authorities have shown themselves so utterly toothless in countless former and current cases ranging from Mahathir Mohamad's bailout of his son Mirzan's failed shipping line, through the misallocation of approval permits (APs) by Rafidah Aziz, the Maika Holdings and Telekom shares affairs involving Samy Vellu, and current suspicions surrounding the obscene affluence of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

And that's just a very small sample of the blatant selectivity of the BN government's crime- and grime-fighting activities.

In fact the nation's chief law-enforcer himself, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail, actually personifies this grossly iniquitous situation, having been promoted to his current position in reward for services rendered in the prosecution of Anwar Ibrahim on his first trumped-up sodomy charge.

Abdul Gani (left) and Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein are both apparently content to preside over a system of 'justice' that condones execution-style shootings of unarmed and even underage 'suspects', the faking of 'accidents' or 'suicides' by unfortunates in police and MACC custody, and the fabrication of 'evidence' against critics and opponents of the BN gang.

But when it comes to the investigation and prosecution of rich or politically-connected criminals, or investigating murder suspects among themselves and their supporters, they're quite astonishingly incompetent.

So it's no wonder that Khir appeared so relaxed and all toothy smiles when he was arrested and charged, and that Gani Petail came across as so utterly unconvincing when discussing the matter with the media.

For example, while it emerged that Khir is simply accused of buying two plots of land for his mansion at a suspiciously steep discount, not for the massive corruption that must have enabled him to afford the land in the first place and the magnificent mansion he subsequently built on it, Gani Petail claimed that the investigation had been so slow because of its complexity.

And then he appeared to be confused, or else deliberately confusing, about whether the case was being conducted under the criminal code or the MACC Act, thus calling into question what the possible penalty could involve state seizure of the property in the unlikely event that Toyo is found guilty.

"You have to go back to the basis of it, how the matter was transacted, (getting) witnesses, recording of witness statements, getting everything clear...especially since this happened some time ago...we cannot have a flimsy investigation," he was quoted as explaining.

Perhaps recalling the disgraceful parade of suborned and perjured witnesses back in the days of his involvement in the notorious trials of Anwar Ibrahim ten years ago, he also stressed that the prosecution would apply "the full force of the law" to prevent tampering with witnesses in the Khir (left) case.

Despite such sanctimonious assurances, many Malaysians saw this case as the wayang kulit performance or sandiwara that it so evidently is, staged specifically to restore some of BN's tattered credibility in advance of a forthcoming general election.

Fable and fiction

Prime Minister Najib Razak (right) responded to these allegations with his customary far-fetched fictions, like the old fable that "the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)...is an independent body."

He then went on to claim that the issue of corruption had long been politicised by the opposition, adding that "they want to imply that we're not serious, or that we want to cover up, or that we practise selective prosecution and so on."

As Joe Fernandez recently wrote in Malaysiakini about such lack of seriousness, determination to cover up, and practise of selective prosecution, BN's "time-honoured tradition" in these regards "can be seen from the fact that the number of MACC files opened this year alone, an incredible 700-odd, involves only some RM6 million in bribes."

This is an absolute disgrace to any organisation claiming to be anti-corruption in a country where billions are routinely looted every year by its misleaders and their cronies. And a massive rebuke to any prime minister who has the presumption to claim that the corruption over which he presides is "politicised" by critics of his misgovernment.

Recently he went even further than "politicised," demonising those alleging that Felda is bankrupt as "traitors to the nation."

"Who says Felda is bankrupt? There's no such thing," he fulminated, before going on to lamely claim that "the management said not to mention it (the amount), but Felda has a lot of money in its savings...(and) it's safe."

How long, I wonder, does Najib fancy he can fool the Malaysian people with the fairytales his spin-doctors dream-up to try and forestall his Humpty-Dumpty-style fall? How long can he strut around in his emperor's new clothes before the overwhelming majority of Malaysians see him for once and for all as naked Razak?

How much longer can he get away with playing Ali Baba to the 40,000 or 400,000 or however many thieves of BN?

How much longer can he persevere with his ploy of presenting himself as the hero of "1Malaysia" while simultaneously sponsoring Perkasa as the Big Bad Wolf huffing and puffing and threatening to blow the piggies' houses down?

The recent proposal by Perkasa's president, the odious, toadious Ibrahim Ali (right), to set up a museum commemorating the riots of May 1969 would be enough to get any opposition figure arrested and jailed under the ISA.

But this racist ratbag is apparently BN's special, untouchable Ugly Duckling, and thus free to swan around in parliament and in public stirring-up as much strife as he likes on the government's behalf.

Just as Khir Toyo's surprising wealth will be found to have reached him legitimately via some magical agency like the Tooth Fairy, or if you prefer the Fairy Gigi, and thus the giggle will once again be on the BN-plagued Malaysian people.


DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections Mad about Malaysia and Even Madder about Malaysia.


Monday, December 13, 2010

THE INTERFACE by John Kaminski

Relax! This is only science fiction. It couldn’t possibly be true. Or could it?
THE INTERFACE
History from the future about the present

“Creativity is divine memory where we remember ideas from the future.” ~ Plato

By John Kaminski

Concerning the events of January 5, 2014:

The Vanderloopers turned out to be itinerants in the galactic sense, in that they hopped from place to place much like happy Mexicans, only their hopping was up and down the timescale across the entire spectrum of universes. They liked Earth for the sex, of course, and also going to the dog track, for reasons I never understood, and so hung out in various times and places, ancient Persia long ago and even at the North Pole in the far future, when there were plenty of condos there.

I only got a glimpse of their true form once, in San Francisco, when they were transiting from one identity to another. They were long thin strips of bright light, four to twelve feet high but only a foot or two wide, almost like a single match out of a matchbook, and not unlike those Gumby figures, but without features, only varying and pulsating hues of clouds of light subtly coursing like muted TV
weather maps all over their slowly undulating surfaces.

Amongst all the strange beings I was encountering during that time of my life — naguals tracking blue scouts, channelers commenting on temporal politics from their imagined galactic perspective (the archon Hatonn is still hitting for high average after 20 years), and all sorts of people twisting legends of commonality into lucrative New Age pastimes — I didn’t pay that much attention to the Vanderloopers. But I was cordial to them; they were beautiful in human form, very polite and relaxed. I never guessed how important they would be to those of us who remained.

Today (2014) our world has changed completely. All the dire predictions about 2012 turned out be true in a far worse sense than any of us could have possibly imagined. My Pleiadian friend The Boopster had it right all those years ago. I remained skeptical for about a decade, and then the consiliences started to hit me. It was the Photon Belt. And in 2012, it made the sun explode and vaporized the Earth. But many people were ready for this, once the news got out that while the corporeality of the human species was to be obliterated beyond recognition, the actual essence of life contained in its astral and etheric fields remained for a short period of time, as it does in the bardo, and a kind of life continues, and it’s operable if you get the instructions.


And so it came to be that all those who had put their knowledge and beliefs into metaphrand technology retained a safe harbor in which their spirits could operate inside their metaphrands. These solid spirits coalesced in the vaporous etheric footprint that was the fading shadow of the rubble of Earth, now swathed in the poisonous volcanic ash that finally removed the poisoners of the planet from its surface, and in the disorienting maelstrom of fog actually we finally learned to operate our metaphrands, then linked in league with each other, and formed an ectoplasmic organism that could very easily manipulate physical matter, which mastery of the metaphrand requires.

Trouble is, we were floating in outer space, all feeling like we’d been through the biggest car wreck ever — which it was — it took awhile to get oriented, and later, coordinated. But once we did we found we had the instantaneous synchronicity of a flock of birds.

And I haven’t mentioned what is appearing to be the best part. It’s really nice here, and warm, since the shifting of galactic influences made Our Sun burp in the most momentous way, and caused it to expand its searing heart out beyond the orbit of Mars, barbecuing everything closer to it. So it’s warm here, warmer than it has ever been. And it’s nice.

Wait til you hear what happened with the Vanderloopers. They came back and saw us in our savaged states, astral and etheric bodies flailing around in the void with no heart to attach to — right after the planet had been flamed into an instantaneous cinder, nobody felt a thing. If it wasn’t for them, we never would have made it.

The Vanderloopers turned out to be the Varatners, who were from a star system we only have a number for (NGC 7000).


When we were trying to coalesce into a group after the catastrophe (our astral and etheric fires only last about a month or so without regeneration, accomplished by attaching to the Sun), the shadowmasters — as we had come to call ourselves, because we could operate in the after death state known as the bardo — were arguing about what our purpose should be in this curious and unfamiliar state of affairs. But we were all in agreement that wherever we were, it was such a terrific place that we shouldn’t be in a hurry to do anything rash. Even though we had no sense organs, it seemed warm, slightly sweaty, and ever so fragrant, intoxicatingly so.

That’s when the Vanderloopers suddenly popped out right in front of us, Veronica and Voorhees Vanderlooper who I used to hang out with at the pool, flashy German tourists when I saw them. Only they were in their Gumby matchbook attire, tall and slim and graceful, undulating slightly as if swaying in an unseen wind. Behind them was the most terrifying thing of all, the endless blackness of the universe.

“Why are you still here?” they asked coldly, without words.

“Because we are meant to be alive,” I responded, adding hastily, “And we have a gift to give you, and everyone we meet.”

Voorhees, 12 feet tall, chuckled contemptuously. His wife, about 4 feet, was more polite. “What are you DOING here?”

I stammered: “We have lost our bodies and our planet through our own stupidity, and what you see before you are the bedraggled remnants of what remains of us, a tangled mess of desires and recrimination, as yet, however, unfulfilled in our wish to be alive again, to be free of this guilt and this shame of having destroyed what has only nurtured us and loved us. But before I complain any longer, let me ask you, Mr. and Mrs. V: Are you all right? Do you need our help, for we would eagerly give it. And if not, are you here to hurt us, and do we need to protect ourselves?

They replied, seemingly in unison, but again, without words.

“Explain what you’re doing here, Jack, or we’re going to treat you like just another bunch of lunchmeat planetoids, and never give it another thought.

“Do you have a purpose here, I mean, floating around in space like this? Are you not certain of where you have to go.”

We shadowmasters looked at each other, gulped, and I turned around to face the Vanderloopers.

“We are the remnants of race that never overcame its own fear. Our task is to reestablish ourselves as a corporeal species, after first obtaining some piece of land that might be congenial to our objective. My guess is that Enceladus, the small moon of Saturn, is our ancestral home from the future, and it is there we should go further away from this heat and try to evolve more sensibly than we have in the past.


“In our past, we have bribed ourselves into oblivion by trying to buy something that is not now nor has even been for sale — which is eternal life. This destroyed us, a neverending parade of fear and terror, that was deliberately provoked, all constructed for the acquisition of something that could never be obtained. Our lives are so good that we would never trade them for any jewel in existence, and yet we have tossed them away over things we thought we important that really were generated by our own cowardice and small-mindedness.

“We would never accept that all life is one thing, a whole cloth, because we measured our lives in terms of the things that others convinced us to buy, rather than deciding what it was we wanted and who we are on our own. So it was the deception of others that really bounced back and killed all of us, a planet run down by a fast buck.”

The Vanderloopers turned to face other, their surfaces radiating a rapid sequence of red and purple flashes. They quickly entwined in a double wrap, then returned to their original positions, facing us.

“Do you not understand that the universe needs a reason to let you live, that there must be some beneficial aspect to your species to prevent you from going extinct? You will have a hard time explaining to us that anything you can do will be worthwhile. What could you possibly do atone for all your fellow Earth species you have killed, including your own?”

I cleared my throat, nervously.

“We knew, but in our fear, we ignored it. ‘The guy with the most toys wins’ was the favorite saying on the late great Planet Earth. But not one person who ever said that reached the end without regretting he said it, for in the piling up of toys everyone misses the real beauty of passing through this life, and that is the real lesson we are here to learn.”

Growing impatient, Veronica Vanderlooper interrupted.

“It could easily have been that humans were the pinnacle of materialization in the universe, more beautiful and capable even than the brightest quasar. But instead they chose to lie about the whole thing, insisting they knew what cannot be known by single organisms, and created a self-hating cancer — fear of death — that consumed them. Already the scars of human stupidity are found on other planets and moons near you. Thanks for the warning. The universe has heeded it.”


And with that, the Vanderloopers turned around and disappeared into outer space.

But they kept coming back, with hundreds of their friends, and taught us the basics of individual and group motility in the noncorporeal state, which fit perfectly with the metaphrand technology we had invented to take advantage of precisely this mode of transportation. The metaphrand was actually a detachable probe we conceived of, where we could put all our best things and detox our personalities from those destructive God poisons that have antagonized us all these years, become the soul we always hoped to be, and, if the technology we had basically mastered were developed into a hard science, it meant that we could go anywhere and do anything forever.

So the Varatners, who seemed so kind but utterly without emotion, kept quizzing us on what we were going to do if we were given a second chance. Finally, I couldn’t take their badgering anymore, and let loose a torrent of emotional invective. It seemed funny to me to be saying it, to be defending the human race after it had completely destroyed itself, but what was even funnier was to pretend I had an ego when I didn’t even have a body anymore. Somehow the two things just don’t go together.

“Dear Varatners,” I began, marveling at my own sudden ability to do just what they did, and speak without words. “Thank you for your thoughtful guidance, and bringing some degree of calm to our frazzled state. It’s nice to know that there are others out here in the universe who share our desire to nurture life and help others. As a civilization we never learned that to help others is really the only way to nourish ourselves. And that in large part accounts for where we are at this very moment, and this sorry predicament we have brought upon ourselves.

“Though we might never be able to communicate this to our living brothers and sisters, we nevertheless have learned that the secret of life is to finally realize that we are never alone, that we never have been alone.


“All other species on Earth realized that except us. And because we had the power of thought but not the knowing of universal love, we killed them all, all the while thinking we were making our lives better. All that life, sympathetic, understanding life, that gets everything it needs from the environment it is born into, was all
there to help us learn, about ourselves, and about everything else.

“And now we learn of you, sublime Varatners, who somehow derive nourishment from giving, and travel the universes in search of perfect conditions, in which you somehow improve the situation anyway. How bold of you! What a perfect flower of an idea is your existence.”

“Now that we have learned, all that remains to do is act. And such we will do.

“We understand that the animal that became man, because of the condition of being in the universe, was hardwired to all things, both now and for as long as the universes lived. He lost the connection to that ability by believing that he died, and inventing all sorts of amulets and formulas to convince himself that he didn’t, which only took him further away from the truth.

“Now we know it was the human destiny to become the finest, most admired beings in the universe, known for their trustworthiness, their reliable fidelity, and their open-armed compassion.

“And Earth, as a consequence, would have become a jewel among the heavenly bodies (which of course it was, the most beautiful of all the places in the universe), known as a refuge for the diseased and disheartened, who were inevitably cured by that magic potion known as the sun and the rain, known as the place where you could always get an aspirin or a decent meal when you needed it, no matter how bad a shape you were in.

“This is what humans will make our new Earth, wherever and whenever it is — a beacon of hope for all the universe to see, and a refuge for all who refuse to lie about their predicament. And all guided by one principle! To make laughter reign beyond the sun for as long as the future shall be!”

Veronica’s pulsing surface gently rippled with hues of lavender and gold, and tiny glittering silver stars orbited around what you would have called her head if it wasn’t rectangular, Veronica leaned over to me and giggled: “That’s the way it already is, silly.” And at exactly that moment, seemingly from as far away as the stars but as close as your own nose, the music began to play. But so much more than music.


It’s as if we WERE sound, and the music that began so softly and majestically, with all the beauty of Vivaldi, Debussy, Brahms, and Elgar all rolled into one, but so much more than that; words can never describe music. This was like a cool lava flow in a steam bath seeping through our porous surfaces, and we were riding on the solar wind like beautiful birds.

And then there were the colors. As the surfaces of the Varatners rippled and pulsed with surging colors, so the sky began to do that. Again, suddenly we WERE the colors, radiant carnelian streaks splaying across of field of golden clouds flecked with purple and green colorbursts, all pulsing with the beat of divine music from an orchestra so large it dwarfed the stars.

Randy, in his gaudy lime green metaphrand, leaned back, took another hit off his imaginary spliff, and said, of course, without words: “Dude, how can people be sweating out death when it’s like this!?”

Sofia, intently eyeing Veronica’s wavy geometrics, whispered to me: “I think I saw a corporate logo on one of those Varatners.” And Bruce, sitting in the saddle of one of his horses in a meadow of his memory that was now the whole cosmos, sized up the contours of what appeared to be a growing wraith in a far off mist, fast closing in. “I just don’t think these are the type of people who would shoot anyone. Probably is something we could learn from them.”

Out of the mist that now engulfed us, all sparkling and twinkling with increasingly visible strips of bright light, began to appear Varatners by the millions, filling our field of vision with their spectral brilliance with a light never seen so bright that infused our ectoplasmic entities with a warmth we had never known. And not just
Varatners, but all sorts of colored beings, glittering and... the stars were singing, welcoming us into galactic consciousness. It gets difficult to try and record ecstasy past this point, but as we listened intently to the hypnotic music and soothingly sublime colors, we began to discern vague lyrics in the music. Though it sounded somewhat like one of those whale chants, the words we discerned, which played over and over, were...

“... all I have is you... all I have is you... all I have is you...”


This is what the universe has always sung to us, only precious few of us have ever heard it.

On December 21, 2012, Our Sun exploded — as the Maya said it would — but it did not self destruct. Instead, it grew to almost twice its size, as if it was about to burst, which it was. The aura of intense heat and radiation expanded, killing all nonheatbearing organisms to a distance of out beyond the orbit of Mars. But as that section of our solar system was utterly fried and most life died, the outer planets began to blossom, and all sorts of new life forms found new expression in the suddenly warmer weather. But there were no humans there to discover and greet them. Humans, in their ontological pain, had driven themselves right out of the organic realm back into the conceptual realm of potential, where they had come from all those eons ago, having failed in their million year long bid to act real.

Amid the sublime experience of sound that put peace in our hearts and color that put fire in our veins, the metaphrand fleet headed out toward Enceladus to begin the long process of reincorporealization. The Vanderloopers waved goodbye and wished us well.

“May the glory of creation enfold you in the loving arms of its eternity,” said Voorhees warmly.

And off on the music we rode, carrying our intrepid songs of life into the darkness we had made for ourselves.


The purpose of this tale is to point out that the music we heard after the lights went out on Planet Earth, that music that is really only the normal conversation of that ecstatic place known as the wider universe, that communicates to us knowledge that we need but have never heard, and gives us courage to hear something we have heard but ignored — that you are absolutely nothing without who you love.

That is precisely what powers eternity. All you are, and all you have, was given to you by others. The inevitability of that gift returning is what makes the universe run.

But the big news for you and the purpose of this dispatch is to mention that this music that has guided us for so long which we remain deaf to was beginning to be heard by large numbers of people, for the first time in human history, in the month of December in the year 2010.

[For Michael Bradley, fellow time traveler]

John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida preaching the message that no problem in the world can be authentically addressed without first analyzing tangents caused by Jewish perfidy, which has subverted and diminished every aspect of human endeavor throughout history. Support for his work is wholly derived from people who can understand what he’s saying and know what it means, and now would be a good time to send some to 250 N. McCall Rd. #2, Englewood FL 34223 USA . All of the writer’s Internet works can be found at http://johnkaminski.info/

Friday, December 10, 2010

Meanwhile, back at Magick River...


It's been a bit wet for the past few weeks. This is how the forest looks after a storm. 
Can you hear the roar of the river?

Roger Reginald Putra in his usual Lion King pose.

The Bamboo Palace on a sunny afternoon (pic by Meesh)


Village kids Koi and Kuku pretending to be savages. One day they painted 
their hands bright blue. What's that all about, I asked. "We are Na'vi!" they solemnly declared.

Atamuna or Atan for short - cute but incorrigibly mischievous!


Climbing all over Pierrick, erstwhile manager of the Bamboo Palace 
and the last member of the Love Bus to leave...


Pierrick became part of the landscape after he arrived in April. 
He finally packed his stuff and left for Cambodia at the end of November...


... but he might return pretty soon to clear up some unfinished business! 
That's Tiphaine next to Pierrick. A fairy princess he found in Batu Arang, of all places...



Flashback to April 2010 when Pierrick arrived at Magick River 
to meet Love Bus buddies Moses and Mitch.


After 4 years away, Arakah returns to Magick River with a new look and a new name.

Sexy tree spotted by Marissa Giannake

My internet was down from midnight, 30 November, till around noon on 9 December. I did consider drafting a heavy-duty essay to upload from the cybercafe... but life and love got in the way... sorry! Maybe it's just as well I didn't force myself to address some of the murky issues oozing out of the political sewers. Others like Dean Johns and Mariam Mokhtar are already doing so diligently and eloquently - and I feel no compulsion to go over the same old ground.

However, I must say something about the utterly messed-up situation in Malaysia - and the US government's outrageous attempt to silence WikiLeaks by arresting site founder Julian Assange on absurd rape charges - reminiscent of the ludicrous sodomy trials of Anwar Ibrahim.

Murder can never be justified as a means to any end. What WikiLeaks has achieved with its bold disclosure of the absolute barbarity and monstrosity of the US-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq is that there can no longer be the slightest shred of doubt that Anglo-American Imperialism is so out-of-sync with humanity's spiritual evolution it has turned into a putrefying corpse whose reek can be smelt throughout the universe. There can be no more business-as-usual justification for the cynical spin and diabolical misbehavior so many have exposed but nobody has better documented than WikiLeaks.

The New World Order agenda must be resisted and derailed by the majority of awakening humans - or we shall be consigning ourselves, our children and grandchildren to Hell - literally!

Similarly, we in Malaysia must resolve right now to vote Barisan Najis out of power in the upcoming elections. We have no other option - believe me, folks. Murder has become the modus operandi of Najib Razak's desperate regime - murder, not only of human individuals but also of all possibility of democratic government ever arising in this country.

Zero tolerance for tyrannical leaders with blood on their hands! 
Let that be our battlecry for 2011!



Friday, November 26, 2010

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Do we really want to march to Putrajaya?

Heart-shaped cloud over Putrajaya. Was it Photoshopped? (Pic by Saeed Salem)
I've been to Putrajaya total of three times. The first time out of sheer diabolical curiosity. I was on the highway and spotted the Putrajaya exit; decided to make a brief detour just to see for myself what the hoo-ha was about. I parked in front of the PM's office and noticed the Egyptian-style obelisk outside his window. I couldn't believe the rococo lampposts and idly wondered how many there were and how much each cost (after mark-up).

The place was utterly soulless. A monumentally overpriced concrete façade. Like a colossal movie set for very boring and unimaginative epics involving millions of demure concubines and uncomplaining slaves. Only an evil emperor with massive delusions of grandeur (or terminal ego insecurity) could have conceived such an anachronistic monstrosity - and the man who launched the Putrajaya project was indeed an evil emperor wannabe, albeit of pathetically mediocre caliber. Unsurprisingly he left us with a cumbersome and morally diseased mediocracy to dismantle.

The second visit was with my ethnic fusion group Akar Umbi. We were invited for a gig in Putrajaya in conjunction with something or other. We even overnighted in a local hotel there. Luckily, the presence of giggling Orang Asli neutralized the robot city vibes of Putrajaya. It wasn't too bad an experience and we even got paid for our efforts.

Last week I went to Putrajaya to assist my friends with their application for a visa extension. Our visit to the Immigration Department turned out to be rather surreal and decidedly unpleasant. My friends were only given two weeks when they re-entered Malaysia after a trip to Singapore. However, the immigration officer at Tuas reassured them they could apply for an extension at the nearest immigration office and led them to believe it was a routine procedure.


Well, it was hardly routine. We were made to wait nearly 5 hours, only to be told the application for an extension was rejected. No reason given. But judging by the smug unfriendly tone in which the betempurunged and betudunged immigration officer pronounced that my friends had to leave the country, it was only too clear that our immigration policy discriminates against citizens of certain countries, in this case, China. If we had been treated with courtesy and not made to wait fruitlessly for hours, not getting an extension would have been much easier to accept.

The cold unhelpful treatment we received at the Jabatan Imigresen in Putrajaya merely confirmed what all of us have known all along: that BN slogans like "Performance Now" and "People First" are just a huge load of Najis (absolute crap, for the uninitiated).

Ironically, my friends had been seriously considering investing in Malaysia and making it their second home. Now I'm not so sure they would want to live in a such a rabidly and crudely racist country - even though all the Malaysians they have encountered - outside Putrajaya - have been very friendly and hospitable.

This foul-tasting encounter with post-Mahathir bureaucracy has prompted me to question the wisdom of wanting to take over Putrajaya - an architectural abomination which carries the reek of an accursed kingdom, something only a reptilian warlord like Sauron could relish.

Every structure in Putrajaya is designed to dwarf and diminish the common man and exalt the abstract notion of financial and political clout. It flatters the megalomaniacal ego and sneers at the whole idea of the soul. The architecture of Putrajaya insults all notions of human warmth and peremptorily dismisses the idea of democracy. Instead, we are browbeaten into submission to whomsoever operates the machinery of government from within those imposing stone fortresses.

If Pakatan Rakyat succeeds against all odds at vanquishing the Barisan Najis, the new federal government ought to seriously reconsider moving into Putrajaya. I'm convinced that just occupying those cold unfeeling premises will swiftly turn the newly elected government into an ugly replica of the old guard. Very bad fengshui, in other words.

Hard to imagine putting on the clothes of a moral leper - and not getting infected almost immediately.



Putrajaya is the concrete and glass manifestation of Mahathir's megalomania - which is really no different than that of Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. In an earlier age, Mahathir could have been Atilla the Hun or Genghis Khan. These would-be world-conquerors are essentially cut from the same crude cloth. They have no time for the simple and the wholesome. They curl their lips and snarl in contempt at those who show compassion, forgiveness and mercy. They are prepared to do whatever it takes to seize earthly power and hold on to it with a vice-like grip. Their egos crave abject adoration from their disciples and followers - a sure sign that these personality types are descended from fallen angels and false gods.

Only false gods enjoy being feared by those who worship and unquestioningly serve them. The corrupt Umno priesthood established by Mahathir to serve his unholy ambition are the ones who typically work in ideological think-tanks and indoctrination agencies like Biro Tatanegara (National Civics Bureau). Just as Hitler's Third Reich was founded on a perverted sense of racial pride and prejudice, Mahathir built on Abdul Razak Hussein's Ketuanan Melayu agenda and infected two generations of Umno Malays with the dangerously divisive notion of racial supremacy.


Imitation of false gods is what prompts potentates to construct monuments and palaces to their own vainglory. In Malay the word raja (king) constitutes the root of the word for government - kerajaan. This suggests that government officials represent the rulers.

Instead of serving the public, the bureaucracy believes its primary purpose is to serve the symbols of Malay power, the sultans. That's only in theory, of course. In practice, most bureaucrats are programmed to serve their political masters, while helping themselves to the goodies at every opportunity. The upshot of this unhealthy practice is that we invariably end up with a tin can of overfed maggots in public office and greedy, grasping, dragons of debauchery in the palaces.


Which means the common people, the rakyat, don't really feature at all in the power equation - except as a source of revenue and labor. This may have been the prevailing pattern in which power has been misused for millennia - but this sort of top-down hierarchy is no longer viable and should have become extinct along with the belief that the Earth is flat.


Oppressive and authoritarian misrule is the primary cause of mediocrity. The docile, obedient, unimaginative and uncreative get promoted to positions of authority while "cultural creatives" - the innovators, mavericks and real talents - get sidelined or persecuted till they go into voluntary exile.

I hope the next government of Malaysia takes very careful note.


Sensational News: They Have Arrived!





THE 2011 COLLECTION
OF SUPERCOOL SHADES
BY GUCCI



[Courtesy of Demetrious Addonis]


Admit it. This was much easier on your eyes than a glistening gob of spit aimed at bad government.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Stuart Wilde on the Mastery of Money