8 Bags of Sugar and Flour

Image0288Eight bags of sugar and eight bags of flour were given out to each person. That’s how I ended up having a photo of these commodities. These were all stuff into large blue carrier bags bearing the handsome portrait of our current Prime Minister and the logo of Barisan Nasional.

The timing of these gifts is opportune, as Chinese New Year is just around the corner and the bags of flour and sugar will go a long way to making a ton of cookies and biscuits, just add eggs and butter. I wonder whose hair-brained scheme this is.

My family remarked that this election is really special. In past elections, we were not treated to so many gifts. Maybe in the villages and long-houses, gratuitous gifts were given to the people. But this time around, practically everyone gets something (I will use my RM250 book voucher to buy MP Jain’s Administrative Law).

Our cleaner commented that this is how elections are like in Indonesia – handouts after handouts. I wondered to myself if that was true, then our democracy is gradually regressing to that of known corrupt regimes in the past.

I feel sad for the BN because they have lost touch with the people. They do not realise that these handouts are not going to win them any votes but will only serve to insult those they wish to attract. Indians do not need bags of rice and the Chinese do not want flour and sugar.

What we need is good governance. With that, we would all be able to afford to buy bags of rice, flour and sugar. But more importantly, we would all have kept our personal dignity in not having to stoop to taking gifts of commodities. No one wants to live off handouts.

I do wish the BN the best though, for the coming GE13. I know that they’ll need it.

Amok Man Dead

There are stories about yet another Malaysian who died under police custody. One report claimed that he was beaten to death by by-standers while another report claimed that he randomly died of a heart-attack, with the police innocent of any battery.

Both accounts agree that the police gave chase to the amok man, subdued him and cuffed him. They also agreed that he died. Where the accounts differed was what happened to him after he was in cuffs. Both of these stories cannot be true.

However, the quote from the Kajang OCPD ACP gives the lie away: “But upon return, the Indian man was unconscious.”

The OCPD would have us believe that, after his police officers had the guy cuffed, they left him alone to go get the Land Rover and upon return, he was magically unconscious. Needless to say, I do not believe the story that all the police officers left the cuffed guy, who had run amok, alone on the street. I’m pretty sure that only one officer went to get the vehicle while the others stayed with the amok man.

But even if the police told the truth and that all the police officers had left the cuffed man alone to go fetch the vehicle and returned to find him already unconscious, the man still died under police custody and they are at least guilty of negligence. While I’m not a cop, I’m sure that it’s not SOP to leave a cuffed and dangerous man on his own.

Therefore, I wonder at the reasons why the OCPD ACP would give such a wonderful account of what happened. The only one that I can think of is that he realises how bad this thing looks. Whether the officers beat him up or left him on his own, the officers are guilty of something. So, the only thing he can claim is ignorance.

Now, if the angry crowd had beaten up the man who damaged their property, the fault is also on the officers who were there. They should have whisked the amok man away from the crowd immediately, or failing which, they should have taken control of the crowd and not let them turn into a mob.

I’m sick and tired of this ‘blameless’ culture that our men in blue have. They are to blame regardless of how he died as the amok man was already cuffed and under police custody. The cops have to learn to do their jobs responsibly. Otherwise, they must be made to pay a price.

PDRM has got a lot to answer for.

KPOP Secret #2

I’ve recently noticed that this Kpop group are not made up of a bunch of waifs! That in itself, deserves support. Women don’t need to be stick thin to be insanely attractive.

Plus this tune is beginning to stick in my head.

Regulating Busking

Busking for CHANGE
Busking for CHANGE (Photo credit: Ian Muttoo)

Today, it’s walking through the streets of KL in support of a cause. Tomorrow, it’s singing on the streets of KL about a cause.

According to a news report, our KL buskers are being asked by DBKL to get permits to perform.

I get the sense that DBKL is running out of things to do, what with protest rallies being allowed at Stadium Merdeka and the police protecting the sacred grass at Dataran Merdeka. Therefore, they need to do this to justify their existence.

While there is probably nothing illegal about what they are doing, but there is a very dangerous thing about their request to license street busking.

Personally, I am all for a smaller government, not big brother. Therefore, I do not like the idea of the government getting involved in determining whether someone is allowed to sing on the streets for money or otherwise.

It is one thing to consider them as petty traders, but it is quite another to say that:

We do not want just about anybody to perform and foreign nationals are not allowed to do so. And, the buskers must be above 18 years old,

I guess that DBKL wants to assert some form of quality control. What with Visit Malaysia Year 2014 coming up, we would surely want to put our best foot forward and ensure that only the best buskers are allowed to sing on the streets of KL.

In the same vein, DBKL must not want foreigners to sing because we want to showcase local talent only during VMY2014. We must not sully our dearest Manglish with foreign influences. Namewee would be proud.

And we must never waste young talent but must keep them in school to prevent them from engaging in any sort of creative pursuit, lest their young impressionable minds get filled with thoughts of rebellion.

Woe.

I can understand it if the buskers were singing on private property but if they are singing on public roads, I would put it as freedom of speech (singing in this case). DBKL should not curtail things by regulating busking. Our democratic space for expression is limited as it is.

Oh, I think that I know what this is about. DBKL must have noticed the amount of singing going on during protest rallies and thought that it would be a great idea to regulate it. The next time we have a rally at Stadium Merdeka, we would probably be barred from singing on the streets of KL.

Frak it. Just bring back local government elections and we’ll see how the rakyat feel about busking.

Traitorous Elections

If what is being reported on the Sabah RCI is true, then there is a real serious question about the integrity of our electoral roll. If they can magically create voters out of thin air, then the voting results are a farce.

What makes the revelations believable is that people do not seem to be denying the allegations but are busy trying to justify their actions and to clarify the legality of granting instant citizenship to deserving foreigners.

The right thing to do would be to clean up the electoral roll to purge it of all sorts of problems. It is going to be a mammoth task to do so but it is something that has to be done to restore any semblance of confidence to our elections.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy problem to solve – made worse by the fact that the next elections are so near.

If we are to go into the coming general elections knowing full well that our electoral roll is tainted, it is easy to lose heart and be thoroughly dejected. However, there are always alternative actions that can be taken to beat the odds.

However, my fear is what happens after the results are out. Will the rakyat be willing to accept the results of such tainted elections, whatever the results may be?

If the rakyat are unwilling to accept the results, I think that there will be a democracy crisis in our country. I shudder to think of the lengths that the rakyat would need to go to just to preserve what little democracy we have left.

I honestly don’t know what to think.

However, one thing is definite. Whatever the result, the moment the elections are over, the clean-up begins. We cannot wait for any political will to clean up the electoral roll. The rakyat must work to fix this shit.

The members of the EC must be replaced. The entire electoral roll must be struck off. A massive voter registration exercise must be performed to flush out all the undead and bipolars. Registration must be made compulsory by law.

Traitorous bastards!

Rights of the Dead

Piano Guys

Oh my goodness – this is their best video ever!