I’m getting a little anxious right now. I’m just not feeling the love. I’m not feeling the solidarity. I cannot “Walk With Us“. I think there’s something wrong with me. I trawled through the news sites and the socio-pundekpunditry blogs. I feel the peer pressure to unite even if I’m just a “junior blogger”, and not even one of them retiree bloggers that Mr. Ooi asserts are those “who command the powerful good old English — ingredients for articulate communicators …“. But I cannot.
All I feel is the hypocrisy. All is see is that the Walk With Us guys are “penembak curi” and that Mr. Ooi, esq. has not only refused to vilify them for being snipers, but is actually pointing people to that blog. I see the mealy-mouth, wishy-washy reasoning being accepted as self-evident truth. Giving analysis on prejudice and subjudice … peh! A conspiracy under every rock, stone and arse … peh! Oi dudes! You think you so smart, come out and play lah. You got so big cojones to analyse this, analyse that, but no cojones to say who you are. Peh!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not “walking with” the Riong Four and NSTP. Nor am I for the two defendants. I just think that since the plaintiffs seem to think that they have been aggrieved in some way — exactly what way, though, has not been made public — then within the law, they have every right to seek redress. And the defendants have every right to defend themselves. Making the assumption that we live in a civil society (granted, not all Malaysians believe that), then this is only right and proper. If the law is being used this way, then we should let it run its course. If the law gets subverted in any way, then we fight.
I get uncomfortable with the whole Bloggers Unite!, Walk With Us thing because sometimes it seems to run too close to looking like mob mentality.
I sometimes get the feeling that the same people who think that the PM and his government are populated by people who dig holes in the ground to bury their heads in are doing the same thing themselves.
Okay, just about everyone who reads blogs, including moist buggers like me know that Jeff and Rocky are being sued by the NSTP and the Riong Four. There’s even a blog to garner support for the two dudes, called Walk With Us.
I would just like to say: Walk With Who? If don’t want, can or not?
Brian: Please, please, please listen! I’ve got one or two things to say. The Crowd: Tell us! Tell us both of them! Brian: Look, you’ve got it all wrong! You don’t NEED to follow ME, You don’t NEED to follow ANYBODY! You’ve got to think for your selves! You’re ALL individuals! The Crowd: Yes! We’re all individuals! Brian: You’re all different! The Crowd: Yes, we ARE all different! Man in crowd: I’m not… The Crowd: Sch!
Over the weekend, while skimming the blogs, I took a visit to SiPM, the blog of the cyber virtual political party (maya) of Malaysia. I thought that their 20th Jan entry, written by mamak Mydeen was particularly good. And therein lies the problem. It was the sort of post that makes reading blogs worthwhile, because you reckon you actually learn a thing or two, and yet, I had this hang up because I have absolutely no idea who these cyber virtual people are.
I mean, see Malik Imtiaz’s entry on his blog today. He explained rather well his point of view regarding defamation suits and “the crucial role that blogging plays in socio-political Malaysia and in nation building efforts”. Take Marina Mahathir’s 19th January post, Bloggers Fight Back! and the comments therein (which included mamak Mydeen’s). Good discussions, well thought out (to the extent that off-the-cuff comments can be). The common thing about those blogs and their bloggers are that we know exactly who they are. It brings a greater level of trust and credibility … no, it doesn’t actually. Not exactly trust and credibility. I think respect is a better word because we can appreciate that they’re sticking their necks out. With that respect, we have a tendency to accord more credibility to their posts, unless it’s that crazy nutter, Amir Hafizi who can and do write some side splittingly funny posts.
So, back to SiPM. I like their entries (not that that means much) but I just bloody wish that they’re not anonymous. This is because we need to have more intelligent commentary by people that we can identify with. The whole “healthy blogosphere” bollocks would be much healthier that way. So that, within the Internet there are also checks and balances. So that, for example, when the likes of Jeff Ooi occasionally behave like a pompous, preening, self-promoting prick, there’d be others to bring him back down to earth to continue whatever good work he’d been doing. Or when the Machai flers (who seem to have anonymously given up) talk out of their bottoms more than usual, they can get the crap shoved up again.
I get the fact that SiPM can be satire, parody, ekcetera. However, satire and parody don’t necessarily have to be anonymous. Btw, I suspect that the degrees of separation between me and the SiPM lords and ladies is less than six.
In yesterday’s Malaysiakini.com, there was a call from the PAS Youth chief Salahuddin Ayub to the EC chief, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman to swear in the National Mosque that elections here are clean and fair. Leaving aside the reason for the swearing, what exactly did the PAS youth chief expect to happen should Abdul Rashid actually take him up on the “challenge”?
Say that the EC chief actually goes there and swears on the holy book in front of the Imam (and doubtless, an army of PAS ulamas), that the elections are indeed clean and fair. Say that everyone, apart from him, are convinced that he’s lying. Will he be struck by lightning? Will he dissolve and disappear like vampires who got staked by Buffy? Will he turn into a blubbering imbecile?
This is going to be the year! Yes it will, yes it will.
This year, video will rule the internet, and ultimately destroy it. It’s been coming for quite a while now, what with everyone and his gay pet chihuahua downloading blurred, camcorder captures of newly released movies or watching hot off the oven TV shows before they hit our shores via P2P applications.
The ISPs throttled the P2P ports, paid millions to Cisco and the likes for traffic-shaping technology, and it was like peeing in the ocean. Other than showing what pricks they are, nothing much was achieved.
Then there is the blogger revolution. No, I don’t mean ‘blogger’ as in someone who blogs. I mean the real deal, mate. Almost everyone and his cam whoring inner-self has a blog, and punditry lost it’s credibility in a sea of bad english, and even worse sense of logic. The international links were heating up, and actually getting bloody best effort speed wasn’t something you get on a good day, but on a day so good it just doesn’t happen, to borrow a phrase from Bob Cringely.
Now the hottest thing is YouTube, and boy it’s not likely to frakking cool down anytime soon. From videos with a political message, people trying to prove you don’t explode when drinking Pepsi and downing a menthos (or is it the other way around?), bandwidth hungry and hosted overseas, the international links will fry.
That notwithstanding, how can a 34Mb backhaul possibly serve approximately 2500 households all subscribed to a 1Mb package? If only 35 households hit streaming video on YouTube, sucking of 700kb (best effort speed, bud), everyone else will be screaming bloody murder as they wait for their blog entry about the lousy internet to be uploaded on to Blogger, without much success. Man, even a 155Mb backhaul will bite the dust.
It’s all about video now. IPTV, free music videos of Gwen Stefani pretending to have tits, and Mariah Carey pretending to be young, will flood the internet. This is over and above the ever trustworthy and always there, pornography. Net Nanny be damned, MILFs are the flavour mate, and none of these sites are hosted here.
Video man. Wait for it to bust the internet and finally give us proof positive that the ISPs have been bluffing, and our over-reliance on content hosted on foreign shores to really screw us over.
Selamat petang, saudara dan saudari. Hari ni di mentera.org, kita nak perkenalkan satu seksyen baru yang dikenali sebagai seksyen Tanya Pokcik. Dalam seksyen ni, sesapa yang berminat, bolehlah mengajukan soalan-soalan kepada Pokcik Seman yang kita bawakan khas dari Kampung Petai Dalam, Grik. Pokcik Seman merupakan seorang bijak pandai cendekiawan terbilang dan banyak pengalaman dalam mengharungi hidup sehari (dan Pokcik Seman jugak murah, kira kat mentera.org ni tak payah bayar dia banyak-banyak). Cukuplah buat masa ni sesi pengenalan Pokcik Seman. Untuk lebih lanjut latar belakang Pokcik, kita akan ceritakan lagi di hari-hari yang lain.
Untuk merasmikan seksyen Tanya Pokcik ni, kita ada satu soalan dari pembaca setia kita, En. Abd. Halim,
“Pokcik, saya Halim dari Lot 2741, Jalan PJS 10/18, Seksyen 18, Bandar Utama, 48226 PJ ingin menanyakan Pokcik tentang masa yang terbaik untuk bertolak dari rumah saya ke Putrajaya untuk hadir diri di satu mesyuarat pada pukul 10 pagi. Mesyuarat tersebut akan diadakan di Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam. Terima kasih terdahulu atas kesudian Pokcik membaca dan menjawab soalan saya.”
Terima kasih, En. Halim atas soalan tadi. Berikut adalah jawapan Pokcik:
“En. Halim, Pokcik ni tak la pandai sangat jalan-jalan kat Putrajaya tu. Maklumlah, Pokcik duduk kat Grik. Bukannya dekat ngan Putrajaya tu. Tapi, kalau Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam, JPA, tu, kalau tak silap Pokcik lah, dekat Parcel C. Kalau camtu, memandangkan mesyuarat tu pukul 10 pagi, Pokcik nasihatkan kamu keluar rumah dalam pukul 6.30 pagi. Ini supaya kamu boleh sampai sana dalam pukul 7.30 pagi. Maklumlah, kadang-kadang tu sesak lalu lintas dekat nak keluar tol NKVE dari Damansara, ye tak? Jadik, sejam nak sampai dari rumah kamu ke Parcel C, kira betul la tu.
Itu untuk mesyuarat pukul 10 pagi. Kalau mesyuarat kamu pukul 9 pagi, Pokcik cadangkan supaya sampai sana pukul 7.30 pagi. Kalau mesyuarat tu pukul 8.30, 10.30, 11 ataupon 12 dan semua waktu di antaranya, Pokcik cadangkan supaya sampai sana pukul 7.30 pagi jugak. Pendek kata, kalau ada mesyuarat sebelah pagi kat mana-mana jabatan atau kementerian kat Parcel C tu, kena sampai kat sana pukul 7.30 pagi. Kenapa, kamu tanya? Sebab takde parking kalau sampai lambat.
Kalau ada mesyuarat sebelah petang pulak, haa … kena sampai sana pukul 12.45 tengahari. Sebab orang keluar makan, jadik ada la lobang satu dua nak selit kereta kamu tu.
Itu untuk Parcel C. Sebab Pokcik tengah syok jawap ni, biar Pokcik citer untuk parcel yang lain-lain sekali. Kalau Parcel D, mesyuarat sebelah pagi, kalau kamu tak pandai, kena sampai pukul 7.30 jugak. Kalau kamu pandai, memang ada lobang nak cilok kat belah bawah belah kanan. Masa kamu masuk kat Parcel D tu, toleh belah kanan dan kamu akan nampak banyak bas-bas gomen. Haa … kat situ boleh parking. Belah petang pon sama la jugak.
Kalau pegi Parcel E, yang ni leceh sikit. Jadi, Pokcik rasa sampai sana pukul 7.30 paling afdhal le. Kat sana tu, kalau pandai banyak lobang. Celah antara E6 ngan E7 tu boleh, kenkadang. Tapi kalau susah, pukul 7.30 pagi le.
Ada dua parcel lagi yang kita mungkin boleh pegi, iaitu Parcel B dan Parcel A (opis PM). Kat Parcel B tu banyak jugak agensi kerajaan macam MAMPU dan EPU, dan jugak pejabat pos, ATM Maybank dan CIMB. Tapi mungkin agensi yang nak di pegi tu Biro Pengaduan Awam sebab kamu nak komplen pasal susah nak parking kat Putrajaya. Haa … untuk parcel ni, parking senang sebab disediakan tempat untuk pelawat kat luar. Tapi kenkadang penuh jugak sebab orang pegi temuduga amende entah kat sana. Masa ada temuduga tu, kenkadang punya penuh rakyat jelata pegi kat Parcel B sampai melimpah parking ke Dataran Putra. Dan jugak, kita boleh nampak rakyat kita picnic, tebar tikar kat kawasan rumput sekeliling tempat parking tu. Kira meriahlah, walaupun takde tempat nak letak kereta.
Akhir sekali, Parcel A. Yang ni, memang boleh gerenti ada parking, sebab memang tak ramai orang biasa pegi jumpa PM dengan geng-geng dia. Orang besor-besor ramai le, tapi diaorang tu ada drebar dan parking kat dalam. Tapi orang biasa macam kita, kalau mesyuarat pukul 10, kena sampai pukul 9.30 paling lewat, sebab lepas parking kereta, kena masuk rumah kecik bagi IC. Lepas tu kena jalan naik turun lalu dua lagi kawalan keselamatan baru sampai ke bangunan opis PM. Itu baru kat Presinct 1. Kat Presinct 2, Pokcik nak citer pasal parki….”
Begitulah jawapan Pokcik Seman kepada En. Abd. Halim dari Seksyen 18, Bandar Utama. Pokcik kata kat saya, sebenarnya banyak lagi dia nak jawab sebab tu tak habis lagi tu! Dia sampai nak cerita parking kat Perbendaharaan, Akauntan Negara, Jabatan Pendaftaran, Istana Keadilan Palace of Justice, dan yang lain-lain tu lah. Tapi dah boring saya tulis untuk dia. Lain kali je lah ye?
Sebagai penutup kata, kalau ada soalan-soalan lain nak tanya Pokcik, silalah. Jangan le malu.
Everyone wants to be a pundit nowadays. I guess the satisfaction of having your say to your hearts content, and having legions of adoring fans must do something for the soul. At least for those whose soul lacks any substance, as to find any small quantity satisfying.
Punditry used to be about having analytical skills, and articulating opinions in a manner where both sides of the coin are examined, and the positives were found wanting. It also used to be about exploring possible alternative actions that could have been taken in order to avoid the undesirable circumstance. To top it all off, it also used to be about inviting subject matter specialist to discuss possible fixes and solutions.
Now, in line with the integration of technology and the convergence of media, punditry is all in one and simplified as well. All that needs to be done is string together half truths or rumours, add a little spice and scream bloody murder. The more polite ones ask for answers, which essentially means all and sundry are obligated to be guilty until proven beyond a single doubt to be innocent.
Malaysians don’t like to pay more for anything, and regardless if it is right or wrong, would go for the cheapest route. As an example, the case of the pirated movies we buy from our friendly neighbourhood salesmen. So when the rates for tolls on certain highways are raised, we scream bloody murder. It’s good political capital.
However, drowned out in the noise is why we are protesting. If it is for the government to continue subsidising Malaysians to use tolled roads at a cheaper cost, then I don’t get what the protest is about. One one hand, Malaysians feel that subsidies seem to be bad, and that Malaysians should stop rent-seeking activities and be less reliant on welfare, but on the other hand when fuel subsidies are reduced, and toll rates go up, we feel it’s unfair.
However, if the message is that there is some mismanagement in terms of how the charges for toll is calculated, and the corporations are fleecing Malaysians for unfair profitability, then by all means, protest. But, please, protest at the offices of the toll operators, and not cause a bloody congestion at a shopping mall.
The chaps who allegedly profit unreasonably from this toll rise don’t seem to be to harshly inconvenienced by the protests. It was the management and visitors of the mall who had to put up with the mess, and how did they profit from the toll increase, per se?
I’m going to be slightly philosomythological for a moment here. The word might not actually exist, but then again it means something and suits this occasion. So I’m now declaring this word to be officially recognised by Mentera, so there.
Anyway, to this issue about Icarus and his flying. For those who might not be familiar with Greek mythology, Icarus and his father Daedalus were prisoners in a tower on an island called Crete by a king called Minos. They could not escape by sea, seeing that they have no boat, and every boat leaving Crete was searched carefully. So the two — more father than son actually — contrived to escape by air. So they made wings for themselves with feathers and wax. The story goes that they could fly with these wings, and proceeded to escape Crete and King Minos.
So Icarus, exuberant at being able to fly, flew too close to the sun, at which point — to cut a long story short — the heat melted the wax of his wing and the feathers wafted gently to the ocean, slightly longer than Icarus who had by then plunged to his death.
That’s mythology.
Now I am going to philosophise about this mythology — hence philosomythological — and connect it to something from the real world, where people take commercial airlines and wax themselves for other, more painful reasons.
Mainstream media going into blogging. Yes, that’s my real world issue. It’s not wrong, and frankly it’s a right. Bloggers are not a new strain of homo-sapien totally disconnected from the function of norms. It’s just a noun given to someone who does something, like a cyclist is a noun for a person who rides a bicycle, or tricycle and even a unicycle. They ride different things, in different ways but still… well, cycle.
So yes, newspapers can blog — in fact to progress, they MUST make headway in the internet — just like CEOs, politicians and semi-retired journalist blog. We blog. We are websiters, commenters, readers, and in some cases, losers.
You can’t go saying that so-and-so can’t do this or that. It’s like a cyclist going around saying that motorbikers cannot buy bicycles. Then pedestrians would start telling cyclists that they are hijacking the walking agenda by… walking. It gets ridiculous.
However, being in the business of publication and mass communication, one would expect that mainstream media companies and organisations related to them would want to do it better, having more experience in ‘flying’. So unlike Icarus, or us mere amateurs in the business of mass communications, one would expect them to build better wings.
Wings that can withstand the heat of the sun, or more to the point, stand up to the scrutiny of discerning readership. This is important, because at some point, the organisations would want to monetize. After all, the gauge of a successful business activity is how well you garner revenue, regardless if you later squander it on ‘growth’.
Moving into a new space, like Icarus flying away when his peers paddled away or walked, is invigorating. The hubris is exceptional. However, without good wings, you will fall. Flat on the face.
