Patrick Teoh In Wrecks

I have just covered Neil Labute's one-man show called Wrecks starring Patrick Teoh at KLPac just now. Was quite excited to meet him in person as my mother and her friend met him back in Ipoh sometime ago.

Told him about myself and about my mother and he gave me a name card which may be beneficial for mum to make a date with him and her friend.

Somehow, I managed to get to figure out everything he was rambling at the fourth wall with a nice twist that is a debate among viewers of the show. The secret four phrase line.

Unfortunately, I do not have a picture to take as my camera just ran out of battery since last night when I was taking pictures at the family gathering at Cameron Highlands - which I will be covering in a few days time as I am to sort through the pictures taken.

Most of the outline of the show is at Rentakini.

They Will Try Again

I remembered once the title post was one of the taglines used in Terminator 2. In the film's context, it was referring to Skynet trying one more time to rig the game between humans and machines by sending another Terminator back to assassinate young John Connor.

Let's picture if Abdullah Badawi's government is akin to Skynet, knowing that they are losing public support, they will try anything to stay in power, from rigging elections, planting moles into certain departments, doing this and that, and all sorts of unimaginable things much to the chagrin of the country-loving citizens.

I am wondering whether if the people are misled by the statement issued from the national palace by saying that the King regretted of the rally. Some people who could see through the veil like Raja Petra is convinced that this was an attempt by palace people, acting as eyes of the Government attempting to create another impression of rally failure by having that statement out by some high ranking castle men inside there.

Let's examine NST's article. The article was published at 1.45 p.m yesterday. How about Malaysiakini? It was published at 1.34 p.m. Within 12.15 p.m. to 2.45 p.m, the Malays would take a longer time off to perform their Friday prayers. So, within that time, the King must have probably gone to the National Mosque to perform Friday prayers with some of His citizens.

Just who is this Datuk Pengelola Bijaya Diraja thing? A housekeeper?

Raja Petra knows the palace protocol more than any normal citizen do. The truth is:

1. BERSIH has notified the King in advance that they want to hand the memo.
2. The King asks in reply who are the six representatives that will send the memo.
3. And just to make sure that it's not just six, 40000 came along. This gives the clear meaning to the King that the memo is written by the 40000 people as well. In addition, it gives a clear signal that the people are serious and would like to have an audience with His Majesty.

According to the castle rules, only the Keeper of the Ruler Seals can make an announcement. If you recall in Hari Raya, it's only him and no one else that makes the announcement. Now, do you see something suspicious about that Datuk Pengelola person sending a message out? Do you think that it is somewhat coincide with the ACA circumventing the IGP's standing orders? The bottom line right now is that the government is trying from another angle to say that they do not need to have further reforms to the electoral system. They are trying to say that the King has turned down the petition. But are those words directly from the King himself. We all would want to hear his words first before deciding whether it's true or not.

The fear right now is that people may be misled by what the statement is all about. So, it will take a hard effort to inform the people that they need to understand a certain set of royal protocols. By understanding that, at least, people will notice that there is somewhat an inconsistency in that statement.

My friend once admitted that he never reads The Star because of some things being blacked out. Sure, the Star is an MCA mouthpiece. In the past few weeks, anything related to MCA has to be said out in the paper. They had to stay under the UMNO imposed rules. If they keep saying this, then the MCA is not doing the job they are entrusted to do: protect the interest of the Chinese. And it ends with just kotow to the master. Like an under dog....yuck.

Judicial Crisis Scoreline: People 2 Government 0

Two up for the people.

Just at around 7 p.m, Abdullah Badawi has relented to public pressure to establish a Royal Commission to investigate into the Lingam tape scandal. This was following a unison voice from the Haidar panel recommending the same thing. It would have been better if Bedol said it earlier rather than waiting for close to two months to say the same thing!

A check on the newspapers indicate that Bernama and Malaysiakini are the only papers that has the article on confirmation of establishment of the commission.

Now, is Lim Kit Siang getting his dream team? The dream team of Sultan Azlan Shah, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah and N.H Chan?

I hope so. When I talked about the Lingam tape scandal to certain friends, they all concur that because of the judiciary rot, foreigners would rather ply their trade in Singapore and elsewhere than Malaysia. Simple, each trial's been rigged and politically pressured.

A immediate pressure to buckle up after last week's Bersih rally? Yep...the government is fearful of people's confidence plunging down and they are starting to realize about it.

Is the Mainstream Media Sulking?

I am wondering whether following the anger and mob reaction by the government and some quarters of over the Bersih rally last Saturday, the spin-doctors have instructed the mainstream media under the control of the BN-component parties to write the post about the so-called another Bersih rally at the Batu Buruk.

Well, for those who fight for press freedom and those who believe that the country is in turmoil would say that Bersih has accomplished its Saturday objective. But those in the Bolehland ruling elite are cursing under their breaths over their latest defeat against the people.

So childish and sulking over the defeat that they, the spin-doctors have instructed the newspapers to show this articles in the papers.

NST: No Show at Batu Buruk
The Star: Planned Assembly Fails to Materialize

I supposed that ZAM was embarrassed over the fact that the international community was shocked to hear his remarks over the live Al-Jazeera interview following Bersih rally. Still being humiliated, he and the 4th floor boys decided to mislead the people again with the news article above. But, the question is, were they mislead by others and boasted their thing by having their underlings to write that in the paper? I guess it's a taste of their own medicine for trying to mislead the public over the Bersih rally matter.

A check on the Bersih site has no indication that there was an assembly at Batu Buruk. A check at Anwar Ibrahim's blog reviews that there was no agenda at Batu Buruk, but at Mecca.

All in the end, according to Malaysiakini is that the Malaysian Human Rights commission decided to launch a public inquiry against the incident in September.

The bottom line? The spin-doctors of the AAB administration are sulking over the defeat at the Rally. I supposed that they lost badly instead of expecting a win as what the Son-In-Law wanted. When the PM said, "Saya pantang dicabar!" last Friday, all he got was "Rakyat Pantang Dicabar!" on Saturday.

Not One Step Backwards!

In late July 1942, Joseph Stalin had seen enough of Russia losing land to the German invaders who had launched the blitzkrieg operation called Barbarossa to push the army deeper into Russia. The number one factor behind the advancement of the Germans was due to the retreat and defeatist attitude of the Russian soldiers. Finally on 28 July, he signed the secret order #227. The order was famously known as the "Not One Step Backwards" order. All soldiers who are part of the Stalingrad defense noticed a truncated version of the order signed by Stalin:

It’s time to stop the retreat. Not a single step back! This shall be our slogan from now on.

We need to protect every strongpoint, every meter of Soviet soil stubbornly, till the last droplet of blood, grab every piece of our soil and defend it as long as it is possible. Our Motherland is going through hard times. We have to stop, and then throw back and destroy the enemy, whatever it might cost us. The Germans are not as strong as the panic-mongers say. They are stretching their strength to the limit. To withstand their blow now means to ensure victory in the future.

All those who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the Motherland and will exterminated on sight. To fulfill this order means to defend our country, to save our Motherland, to destroy and overcome the hated enemy.

This is the call of our Motherland!

The order calls for the inclusion of a penal battalion that largely forms of criminals who are serving sentences in prison that being drafted into the military during the war OR those who had judged to have disobeyed military orders. The order is brutal : if you are seen by the immediate commanding officer (commissar) running backwards, you will be shot on the spot. If they managed to advance and survive the barrage after a certain period, there will be mark called ATONED in BLOOD stamped in their military records.

I'm not trying to refer to the Russian history and compare it with Saturday's rally. That will be a talk for someday soon. But the interesting of the title phrase is that there are some ministers of the Bolehland are showing a half-past six and one step backwards attitude. What I mean is that they still have the thinking of the past, those in the 70s or so. We are now in the new millennium whereby there are new things coming up, new technologies that can be used for good use. Unfortunately, there are some people who has the mindset of the past which can be a bad thing if those past principles are used in administering Malaysia.

I can tell you that the newspapers, mainstream media articles by certain minsters do exhibit the attitude being one-step backwards. It's just two days after the November 10 Yellow Wave Rally that is deemed illegal by the government. And now there are many Cabinet Ministers including Abdullah Badawi are criticizing for the rally as being involving the royals in it. I got word from an unknown source that the memorandum was copied 8 times and given to the other rulers of the Malay Rulers council.

Malaysiakini says that the response was pretty weak and unconvincing. Clearly, the ministers are running out of excuses to say about the rally. Seems that they are wavering as they feared that the public, although only 50000 turned against them, demanding a clear resolution and answer from their questions. But they chose to ignore it, thinking it is a farce. But then the challenge has been laid out to them. Whether they like it or not, they will have to answer or risk the King's displeasure, soon.

When I read the observer's view of the Rally in these past few days, I came to realize that what was reported at Al-Jazeera is indeed a non-partisan and accurate account of the truth. But our Dis-Information Minister, the Mamak of Merbok chose to criticize Al-Jazeera as if like being Chuck Austen and accused them of misleading the international community although it was certified true by many witness accounts. However, it is the local community that got mislead by your directive to the mainstream media. You even try to issue an official warning to Al-Jazeera.... for being correct. The interview was broadcast once. The second segment was censored on his orders, that's what Tony told us at the dinner in Bangsar. ZAM's been on the warpath with bloggers. He doesn't even know a single thing about blogging. So...we can say he's one step backwards of the people.

After some time of silence, de facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz, El Balachi started to make noise as to gain publicity. Calling people as short circuit. I remembered BAR president Ambriga Sreenevasan saying that if people rally, it means that there's something is wrong. The cops who sided with the crooked ones are the ones responsible in making the ruckus. If the Law Minister receives criticism and much correction from the other law experts who have better knowledge than him, it means that he isn't fit to run the show of law. You can also say that Nazri circumvented or Nazri is one-step-backwards or whatever.

I got appalled by certain quarters at the past week's UMNO assembly particularly when a young energetic woman by the name of Noraini Ahmad made a repeated statement of the Wee saga and the bloggers. I wonder whether if we, new generation people who tend to know more of information technology and better awareness. Then what about Badaruddin who criticized Karpal? Again, he made another mistake of the Airasia stewardess. Nobody now seems to be bothered of the meticulous dressing but they do wear proper clothing as long as it is for work, for play, for functions, but not because of the religious issue thing. Do you find it outrageous to wear a long dress that covers body parts even though common sense tells you to wear loose and t-shirts if we are to go for physical exercises?

Well, I'll leave it to certain women like Marina and Nuraina (thanks for the past) to handle the women side of the problem.

The bottom line is that these people in those issues that I've highlighted (ministers and politicians) are classic examples of people who have the half-past six mindset and they seem to be taking one-step backwards. Well, the thing is that these people are fitted into our very own penal batallion. If there is combat scenario like in Stalingrad, and these people adopt that kind of mindset and retreat backwords, that means that they can be shot on sight by commissars.

Previous Readings:

1. Rally Aftermath
2. The Yellow Revolution Part II
3. The Yellow Revolution Part I
4. I'll Play Taffer at You!
5. Long on Brutality, Short on Foresight
6. Big Mistake, Kiddo!

Rally Aftermath

In the aftermath of the rally, we had a blogger gathering back in Bangsar. Basically, it is nothing more of discussing the events that happened to other fellow bloggers when we were separated from the long queue.

See, Anu (Galadriel) and Ancient Mariner had their accounts, but they were together with Shar. Rocky was with Stephen and former MP Wee Choo Keong (interestingly, he mistaken me as SK Thew). Of course there are accounts from Haris, Sheih (Kickdafella) and Liz. Tony's account, as of this time I think it's partially finished.

Eric, who was with me, playing the young covering a sick old man, had constantly trying to talk about showing the *fuck* at ZAM, as we are getting too excited to hear what he would say later on. True to his word, that fella hit back at Al-Jazeera.

Tikus but Nat had their accounts included as well. Sadly, Bernard could not join us as he was in Penang for something.

We had a long drink and food at Bangsar. But we were waiting for the next day news.

Sure, Abdullah Badawi suddenly musters up the courage to speak from Penampang, about getting the royals in involving in politics. I suppose that there is a desperation to turn to them when all else fails, as what Anwar was saying in the evening news.

Jeff's account fills up the missing gaps that were not included in our blogs. I must take credit for his additional info in filling the blanks. Malaysiakini also clarified the final number of people arrested - 29 instead of 245. The numbers 4000 and 245 were deliberately said by IGP Musa Hassan as to show the readers outside Kuala Lumpur the bad image of the demonstration.

But the one that insults me and the bloggers most is about the Mamak of Merbok, Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin. Since becoming Abdullah Badawi's gatekeeper of information, the latest mistake made by ZAM is that the ordered total blackout of coverage for the English mainstream media. Instead of reporting the coverage, the Star and NST could only report of traffic jams and road blocks into the city. No photos of the rally were allowed and they could only show it at page 8 of the papers.

What a bad mistake it is for withholding information to the public. A warning: they are no longer being kept in dark anymore as the level of awareness has gone better than ever. More people are getting aware of what is happening in Malaysia. You better quit asshole! Again, if the one thing that ticks you off is Malaysiakini, the reason it happens is because that the mainstream media is never given free rein and control to cover things properly. Just a small thing and an excuse of security means total blackout for them. Shall I repeat the word Malaysiakini again?

Finally, the clear copy of the Al-Jazeera's Hamish McDonald's report of yesterday's rally:

Next: Not One Step Backwards!

Previous Readings:

• The Yellow Revolution Part II
• The Yellow Revolution Part I
• I'll Play Taffer at You!
• Long on Brutality, Short on Foresight
• Big Mistake, Kiddo!

The Yellow Revolution Part II

I wasn't sure of going down to town for a rally once I got a call that the appointment with a friend got cancelled. At noon, the skies around the city look dark, and I knew it's going to rain heavy. I also knew that the police are trying to stop cars coming to town from various directions so I decided not to drive my car yesterday. I thought of wearing my yellow stripe shirt but I decided against it because of the police paranoia that seems to stop anyone that wears yellow.

At the main road in Jalan Pahang, there are a number of skittles on the side of the road, meaning that the police was waiting to pounce on cars coming from the east coast. After a meal, I took a bus to Chow Kit and I started walking from that point all the way to Central Market.



I had a walk all the way from this starting point, passing through Maju Junction and then Sogo. I noticed that there were policemen lining up at the main entrance of the complex. They anticipated that this would be one of the four rally points for them in event that the Merdeka Square would be sealed off by the police.


I kept walking until I passed Coliseum and at the end of the road, the road got sealed off. If you look at the background, the FRUs and many police trucks were there as to bring the people that they arrested into the truck back to the police stations. I tried crossing to Petaling Street from the Masjid Jamek LRT station.


An FRU red truck was already in deployment with later that some people of the BERSIH coalition attempting to break through the lines. From the small lane at Burger King, a big group of PAS Youth people emerged from there. There were lawyers at the background as well. They would play an observer role, ready to help those who might be arrested by the police.


There, I met Tony and Ancient Mariner. At the mosque, the PAS Bersih guys are getting ready to be motivated by some figurehead, in preparation for a march out against the police. Later we were joined by Haris and Eric (I Am Malaysian).

The rain was quite heavy and another round of thunder and lightning was expected. If there is raining during the march, it means that the police would be cooling down.

According to Confucianism, the King is symbolized as an avatar of God on earth. And the signs of thunder above serves the warning against the police. Mencius, who lived B.C. 372-289, and devoted himself to the task of spreading and consolidating the Confucian teachings, made no attempt to lead back the Chinese people towards their early beliefs in a personal God and in a spiritual world beyond the ken of mortals. He observes in a general way that "those who obey God are saved, while those who rebel against Him perish. Those came are loyal to the country and the king, and in that Mencius context means they can be saved, while whoever attempts to kill or torture can be punished (perished). Coincidence?

Mencius said, "He who uses force as a pretense of Humaneness is the de-facto strongman among the princes. But such a strongman must have a large state in order to be effective. The man who uses his virtue to practice Humaneness is the true king. To be a real king you don't need an especially large territory. T'ang did it with only seventy li and King Wen did it with only one hundred li. When you use your power to force people into submission, they will never submit with their hearts; it is only because they don't have enough strength to resist. When people submit to virtue, they are happy from the bottom of their hearts, and they submit sincerely, the way the seventy disciples submitted to Confucius." (2A3, tr. Muller)

We were at the Bar council office. Rather than waiting for rain to die down, we dashed to Central Market via the back lane. We met Liz for a moment before going for a drink.

This was while we were waiting for Anu (Galadriel)



We got word from Tony that the entourage was leaving earlier than expected. So Anu came on time and we went back to the Bar Council office. Two roles of FRU were in standby. We could not get a closer view of what was happening in front. I had to be ready in case things go violent. With an umbrella in hand, I had to play taking care of the sick man thing and Eric had to play the sick man. :)


Rather than getting stuck in the blockade, we took another route, the path across Petaling Street along the river bank.


So we walked all the way through the palace, and we took some shots along the way. I ended up at the divider going to Mid Valley. There were Special Branch people on top of the high ground, so we didn't take any photos of them.


The king's representative came out and everyone shouted Hail to the King (Daulat Tuanku). Then there some speech by PAS head Abdul Hadi Awang, following by the lead representative Anwar Ibrahim. When Anwar showed up, the FRU stepped aside to let him move to the gate. Coming through the way I came with Eric, Wan Azizah showed up, and the words Reformasi were ringing out loud among the PKR supporters. No sooner than a few minutes we started moving back, we knew that memorandum has been handed and the organizers called for peaceful dispersion. It finished sooner than expected, not even before 4.30 p.m.


I've seen no less than 3 helicopters circling around the city. The lowest position the chopper went was as low as the Lee Rubber Building at Jalan Tun Perak.


While on the way, we told some of them to go as the memo has been handed over. We met Nat and Polytikus. We wanted to meet Rocky at Central Market but we finally found out that he was at the National Mosque. Then we got word from Shah that the meeting point will be at BSC center.

We were deliberating the turnover showing up, and Anu hit the right estimation of 50000. I thought was 70000. But somehow it's about 25 to 10 times more than the number of UMNO members at the general assembly. Malaysiakini said that the turnover was close to 50000. And it was said that BERSIH had hoodwinked the police of location.


Here's an interesting note: Stephen and Rocky were the only ones at the empty Merdeka Square!

But then, the fracas was only done by certain cells of the police as there is a splinter cell wars that divides the police. The Special Branch are the ones that will sit above the fence. Some who are helping people out peacefully are the ones who support the CCID department while the others picked the crooked side. Credit to them for helping us out.

While the Mamak of Merbok is in active denial mode over the Al-Jazeera, you can be sure that he is lying out because he has no balls to acknowledge the truth. The whole blogger lot is likely to write the criticism of the Mamak idiot. He can shove the mainstream media and his statements back to his throat.


Coming later: Comparing Russian Revolution with this and Dinner after Rally

Previous posting: Part 1
Next: Rally Aftermath
Additional pictures can be viewed at my Flickr gallery. See the side bar of my blog page.

The Yellow Revolution Part I

The Bersih Rally was concluded successfully with the memorandum handing over to the King at around 4,15 p.m, earlier than expected. However it was not without several incidents. Among notable incidents were:

1. 245 people were arrested, 23 were released as of 7.30 p.m, as confirmed by Azmi Sharom. Later, all were released after recording statements.
2. There was raining twice, just at noon and around 2.15 p.m.
3. Confirmed that the total turnover is around 50000, as what Anu (Galadriel) had expected.
4. Roadblock from routes to town, with complete roadblock at PJ (Armada Hotel).
5. There were rumors that the King had called on the military to protect the people who is in the rally. The rumors were deemed false as it was a deliberate intention of a person intending to start confusion among the supporters.

According to Malaysiakini, some journalists, including an Al-Jazeera journalist were attacked by the riot police for failure to disperse. According to Tony, the Al-Jazeera journalist was blinded by the tear gas attacked. Footage of the video from Al-Jazeera stopped after that point.

Some pictures of the clashing with police at the rally at Jalan Tun Perak (pics by Al-Jazeera):

Further Reading:

1. Rain, chemicals and tear gas at Masjid Jamek
2. Paint It Yellow
3. Memorandum to the King
4. Malaysian Petitioners Defy Police
5. RPK: Scenes of 10 November 2007

And you're saying?

The Al-Jazeera news article was by far the complete, non-partisan view of the rally. But then, the main stream media channel like TV3, RTM2 and etc were showing news that were totally contrast to what was seen live on location. So you can say that what the main stream media is saying is a lie and intends to mislead the people.

Bernama has misled the people thinking that only 4000 came, which is the actual number of police personal deployed throughout the city. In actual fact, it is at 50000.

We all knew that the Mamak of Merbok is likely to say something in response to today's rally and he did say something in response to the Al-Jazeera journalist being attacked by tear gas. This was recorded on Al-Jazeera but the idiot seems to dismiss the thing as a farce.

As for that man, he can shove the mainstream media back to his throat, asshole. It seems that people are not believing as what the government intends them to be. It will be sometime before the truth of the wrongdoing by the BN hits out the fan to the people. At the UMNO assembly, he claimed that not many people would show up but instead it's half-true with 50000 turned up. So, was he who told the mainstream that only 4000 showed up? How pathetic!

Someone asked where is Abdullah Badawi when today happened? He just disappeared. Period.
So, it means that he has NO BALLS to face the people in addressing this situation. Remember what he said before, "Work not for me, but work with me?" Well, this is against his principal. Where has Najib gone where this thing happened? Back in Pekan. So, the only cabinet minister that speaks up for today's rally was none other than the Mamak of Merbok. What about Nazri? He has remained silent since his last interview with the NST.

So, in summary:

1. The police is intimidating everyone of not coming for the show.
2. The government is afraid of such change happening soon.
3. Bernama and the mainstream media is misleading the people outside Kuala Lumpur with its account contrasting to the true account. This means that the trust in the media might wane soon enough...
4. We found out that the police force is divided. The approval of performing the security watch, deployment, dispersement paperwork and etc is done by the CCID, Commercial Crime Department. There is a splinter cell war between CCID and CID. Special Branch is caught in the middle. So, they are now siding with CCID, which seems to be right on just ensuring proper order of the show rather than go gung-ho and brutal as order by the other cell.
5. The government has scored an own goal!

Continue reading Part II of the account:

I'll Play Taffer at You!

So, it seems that Abdullah Badawi is somewhat gone up to fever pitch with a wavering threat against those who would be coming down for tomorrow's rally at Merdeka Square.

They say that the police is mounting roadblocks monitoring cars coming from Rawang, Seremban, and even the Karak Highway. They are threatening to stop and question any car coming to Kuala Lumpur. But I was in town, and I don't see any police trying to stop me and my car while on the way. I wonder if that's actually and empty threat and intimidation by the police?

The way the police acts has clearly violated Article 10 of the Consitituition which every citizen in Malaysia is entitled to. But then, don't they know that the king, the Agong is involved in this situation being at the end of the march? Have they all forgotten the second principle of Rukunegara? Kesetiaan Kepada Raja dan Negara?

The reason why the rally will be conducted is not because they want to, but they had to, forced to. It is like being put into the last resort. Clearly they have said that they had appealed to the government to do so but they were ignored, turned away by Abdullah Badawi and his cronies. If everything has been denied, while you are a worker, what else can you do except to hold a rally and report to the king that the government has failed to do what they should do to the people? I've already said many times that the police has long in brutality but short on foresight. The actions today indicate that they are cannon fodders for UMNO and they are not independent as what we perceive of them.

At the assembly today, Abdullah went fever pitch and gone CAPITAL LETTERS on some occasions, according to the Sun. The immortal phrase line in the article? "I will not be challenged!" The English saying, "Be careful what you wish for" seems appropriate for him as he might think himself being on the omnipotent position means there is no fall. Someday, he will. Picture this: will he for an unknown occasion he ended up like the fall of Tsar Nicholas II?

The reply, based on quotes in the Malaysiakini article and the Sun clearly gives the clear impression and implies that:

• 1. Abdullah Badawi has failed to fulfill his promise despite having many chances in his duty as PM as dictated in the 2004 General Election Manifesto. Corruption and crime rate still remains high and racial tensions still remain at high.
• 2. Abdullah Badawi is afraid to come out and face the truth of the current state of social affairs in Malaysia and prepared to correct his mistakes. Instead he cowers behind and gets the cannon fodder to do his work of suppressing the people. I wonder whether if this contradicts with one of the statements, the rally is against the law and the people.
  
• 3. Abdullah Badawi is not what it seems of people looking at him as Mr. Clean.
• 4. Abdullah Badawi is unwilling to face the problems that a leader expects in his power base.
• 5. Abdullah Badawi is running out of leadership ideas after all have been expended on expensive lavish projects. The ECER is one of the last bullets in his arsenal.

..and many mistakes that I can't seem to recall.

Simply put that Abdullah Badawi has made too many mistakes that cannot be tolerated anymore by country-loving citizens, those real patriots, not the ultra-nationalists. Mistakes that should have been corrected at first sign of danger but instead was ignored totally. Instead of admitting your mistake, he blamed the opposition as part of the tactic to overthrow or sway people confidence towards them. It is the one step backwards mentality of certain leaders in the country that the people had no confidence of. Someday, arrogance can be punished.

The real problem in the country's progress lies in certain policies deemed as third-world mentality rules by those who have achieved high level of awareness and those well educated to understand the rules in the current context. Many leaders have failed to see this in long term. So, if they can remove some things that are meant to fix those in the old days, the better it will be in long term.

No matter what is the outcome of the rally tomorrow, Abdullah Badawi will still end up in the losing situation. If everyone is aware of how brutal the police and you all in the government act at the end of tomorrow, expect to see many condemnations by international observers, thousands of court cases and perhaps the government will have to spend a lot of money to compensate the victims of potential brutality. He will end up like another Than Shwe, by attempting to suppress what people are entitled to.

If things go worst, they will end up paying tax payer's money back to the people in long term as damages and compensation because they start first beating people. They had guns and all those batons, gas grenades, while those who come for the rally had nothing at all. So if the government tries do the violent thing, people will have to disobey, using the Civil Disobedience principle. If this thing reaches international media from Al-Jazeera, CNN, and BBC via someone unknown, then we are likely to see our faces in the whole wide world and Malaysia will become a laughing stock because of the government.

There is little time left for Abdullah Badawi to correct his mistakes, and he has to do it now, starting with election reforms and the judicial crisis. If he decides to call election while this has not been solved, you might seeing a repeat of the 1999 elections, thankfully it's not going to be in this year, but somewhere in March. But the results is likely to follow the 1999 results.

If the police think that they are somewhat having a distinct advantage because of their equipment, you better be prepared to be sued in court and prepared to have all the money out to compensate the people if you are found responsible for the brutality. You can call me a taffer for such believes, but I am not partisan of any side. This is a two-sided view story.


For me? Well, I'll be having an appointment somewhere else, but in spirit, I'll bring a blackjack and some moss arrows. I'll hit them and the City Watch behind to set the truth free for everyone!

Long on Brutality, Short on Foresight

I can have a good guess that the police will do everything under the orders of the UMNO thugs to stop this Saturday's rally from going on. I wondered whether is it really because of the fear of the cronies on the above that prompted them to act. What good is a policeman if he is ordered to behave like a terrorist?

Malaysiakini and Bernama reported that IGP Musa Hassan has shot off a warning and threat of arrest to anybody including the public if found to be at the place. As of a few hours ago, there were roadblocks placed around Gombak, Jalan Pahang, Jalan Kuching and roads from the east coast leading towards the capital, as the police will anticipate tons of opposition followers from the east coast, especially the PAS people will be coming down in readiness for Saturday's march.

In most occasions nowadays, the police seems to foment troubles instead of ensuring order and security to the nation. Crime rate still remains at high, and there are cases of splinter cell wars between the CID and CCID, Special Branch is accused of starting the ruckus at Batu Buruk. The police reputation has taken another severe setback, resulting in tarnish of public relations, when they were judged responsible for the abuse of ISA detainee Malik Hussain and this has resulted the government having to pay $2.5 million in damages to Malik. What more are they going to push for what they know that they cannot win?

According to some reports, some 4000 police personnel will be deployed around Merdeka Square ready to pounce on anybody. Now the question is, suppose if there is a total of 100 thousand people against 4000 policemen, how are they going to arrest all of them, unless if they have the balls to shoot every innocent unarmed person including women and children on the street. Like the march of Lawyers in September, the FRU and the police are likely to come with those big trucks, shields, batons, and those tear gas, water hoses ready.... The police think they are able to repeat the formula in stopping the Indian forum but what if things turn the other way round? Should the police decides to make things personal by hitting an unarmed person who has nothing to hide, this means it's a grudge of the citizens against the police for they are provoked and threatened of their lives. And that means massive damages. Do they really want a April 1992 LA Riots here, K.L style?

Let's face it, the RFS index is at 124 compared to 92 in 2006. What more can it be worse with such brutality taken into consideration. The police are just like the gangs fighting for the Five Corners of New York from the 19th century until to the late 70s. They are short of foresight but long on brutality. Don't forget that each police personnel are citizens of Malaysia too, not robots. They too have the right to take part in a general election. If they are not aware of the current situation now, including the judiciary crisis, why do they call themselves policemen if they don't use their common sense and their conscience to wake themselves up from the slumber and ignorance? You see, they should let them go, because if they do not do so, a greater comes in the form of hegemony by iron-fist, politicians who may strip us the freedom as Malaysians in the not so distant future. It might not be now, it will happen someday though. This is the foresight that sadly the policemen did not take into account.

I would like the authorities to step into the shoes of being a normal Malaysian citizen being in that scenario as to understand the other perspective of being a part of the assembly. This sad thing here is that many accusations are made from one side of view, without looking at the other, just as what Puteri UMNO does now, repeating the Wee saga and seeing from only one side.

I will repeat again, no more. This week marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. And we are likely to see the Yellow Revolution this Saturday. If the people particularly those who could not make it on that day realize how brutal the police are, then this is likely a sign that the support of BN is likely to erode badly, considering how they are done. There are some who has to do the job of telling world what is happening here. Unless, the King, being the Supreme Military Commander of Malaysia decides to overrule the police and let the soldiers help the country-loving citizens in marching peacefully...something that I wish it would be tomorrow.

I also would like readers here to take a look at some video clips on Youtube of Warren Beatty's Russian Revolution epic, Reds which has the similar context to what is likely to be expected this Saturday. As for me, I am unlikely to attend this due to an appointment elsewhere, but my spirit will be together with this march - unless by stroke of luck I am available.

After all, it's time for citizens to learn how powerful you are in deciding the government of choice.

Big Mistake, Kiddo!

The march for fair and clean elections has received a severe setback as according to Malaysiakini and Bernama the police with advisement from the Internal Security Ministry has rejected a permit to hold this Saturday's rally and retaliated with the threat to arrest whoever is at the square participating in this illegal assembly.

It seems that the rejection is definitely part of the pressure by some senior politicians to block the move, fearing that it will cause panic and concern to the ruling government. So, it seems that Bedol Napoleon and his cronies are panic over the fact that it can undo their intentions of a Zero Opposition target. And this do imply that the police are their cannon fodder and number two, there is guilt in them that they wish to hide by preventing such assembly. Another thing is that I find that is unfair for them to hold an assembly whenever they wish but not to the others who do want to hold a non-violent assembly.

However, the organizers have received news that the King is interested in attending to this matter, and unless His Majesty steps in personally to instruct the police to give them time to do so, there will be likely a huge number of arrests and perhaps a repeat of the Batu Burok incident instigated by Special Branch.

A very bad mistake made by government and the police. This is indeed the lesser of the two evils as the greater evil lies in letting the corrupt and the hypocrite rig the elections and do the same thing that plunges Malaysia into an irredeemable abyss.

On a side note, since this side note fits the title, you will need to learn to hate the surveillance cameras installed around the city and perhaps in municipal cities later on, as these cameras can be used to put you into trouble over top driving offenses. IMHO, I have no objection to the latter four, but not on speeding. Because the constraints and exceptions are not mentioned definitely. For instance, does this apply to those who have to go to work everyday in the morning? I'm sure that it is manually observed and control, right? Secondly, there is a Chinese saying: Speed defines the winner. If you are fast enough provided you're able to control your vehicle well, you can save time, and can concentrate on doing other things. It will be more appropriate if the speed limit in every stretch of the road is increased by another 10 km/h. This was suggested many times but was ignored many times.

This week marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, which at the same time is the start of the UMNO General Assembly. On the 10th, it's the BERSIH march for fair elections.

If the might of people surpasses the number of government hypocrites and the police, this means that the people had won the battle in the quest to clean the judiciary crisis and the call for clean and fair elections. The police might not be able to contain or even detain despite the warning of illegal participation the expected turnover of 100000 this Saturday.

Anyone who had seen this Warren Beatty Russian Revolution epic Reds can notice in this scene, the march bearing a similar resemblance and outcome of what could be expected
this Saturday.

ZAM Goes Ape at Assembly

Two days ago, I got a very amusing comment from a guy who visited my recent post called 'Government Paranoia'

Samy Vellu, can you please explain to Zainuddin Maidin in his native tongue?

Of course the native tongue means Tamil.

At the third day of the UMNO assembly, somebody whispered the word Malaysiakini and the Mamak of Merbok got his head rolling. He got aped and started bashing at in his speech to the audience, other UMNO members of branding Malaysiakini as something gossip, false, lies and whatever names that he wishes. In short, his paranoia went up by another level. He started his somewhat bashing with one of the phrases: You people are nonsense!

In the field of football, such antics is enough to warrant him a red card.

The role of an Information Minister is not an easy job and requires one to have a good foresight of the direction of information that should be presented to the public. The public is no longer shoved to the direction of former minister Mohamad Rahmat and is now in the new Millennium, not at 1970s. Whatever he does shows that he's fit somewhere else but not on this capacity. One question. Are we able to guess and see how the new generation, those born in the 90's think, believe and behave? If we spend some time with them, we would able to have a guessing of what they do and think - something that is missed out.

True to be told, ZAM has the mindset that hearkens back to the 70s where Internet did not exist yet. As mentioned many times before what he says promotes free publicity to the urban people and on recent events such as the blogger wars, the upcoming BERSIH rally and the calling of alternative media as not authoritative. Like some people at yesterday's session, they are quite a chauvinist and lack the real foresight and perception to see the truth that cries out. Solution presents itself.

Addendum by ZAM: Accept the Malay leadership

Again, that's another wrong point. Leadership is jointly made, not by one person. No race is an island. No man is an island.

So, supposed if people and everyone spread one magic word like Malaysiakini around, will he likely to repeat the same thing in the assembly. I won't know right now, but the more often it is done, (well some consider those who would do it as a repeating offender) well, he would blow his top more often. Someone pick the ball from here!

AMNO Dirty Tricks Against The Public

Today was day 2 of the annual UMNO general assembly held at PWTC in Kuala Lumpur. The official opening was scheduled to be open by AAB tomorrow morning.

First of all, a light note. It seems that the Kerisman, Hishamuddin Hussein has made a serious clarification of why he waved the Malay dagger at last year's edition of the assembly. According to him, he waved because to show the Malay culture and to show that they are capable of protecting the minority Malaysian community. However, most opposition party people still think it's a stunt and the Kerisman being not sincere.

The next interesting part of Kerisman's speech is the acknowledgment that bloggers like us play an important part in nation building, which something that cannot be denied. This statement is indeed a stark contrast of what was said by the Son-In-Law of bloggers as monkeys. But he did stop short of saying the entire thing and warned of the limit, which the Puteri division (Young Women) division is saying a contrasting opinion against him, and sharing the same sentiment as ZAM. Another reference to the second part of Hisham's speech is seen here at Malaysiakini.

Now, here's the bad. With the knowledge that BERSIH will be holding a march to the palace this Saturday, there has been several signs that UMNO is attempting to sabotage the march with the deliberate purpose of playing dirty in elections, which is part of the Zero Opposition target initiated by the Son-In-Law. In bullet points:

Image by Mob

1. The BERSIH website has been hacked for the second time this morning by supposedly UMNO cybertroopers (Azalina's thug) with the sole malice intention specified above. Unlike the yellow page, this one said the site was down, but gave a number.

2. It seems that UMNO is not sincere enough even though they have offered assurances that they mean no insult to the non-Malays. But while we can tolerate, they themselves cannot tolerate of our criticism against them. The perfect example fitting that statement is that the young women division is starting to adopt the mob-mentality attitude and emulating certain guys like Nazri Aziz. For instance, besides the blogger issue, they still find that Wee case and the aftermath still unacceptable, despite the fact that they are indeed to blame for the troubles and problems in Malaysia. Next, in the aftermath of the Nurin murder case, they also followed suite of Nazri saying negligent parents should be charged, something that drew flak from many parents and certain human rights watch dogs.

3. Gombak youth division chief Ismail Ahmad has told the opposition and people who do not like their policies to leave for Singapore. Hello, we are all in Malaysia. Remember one part of Negaraku - Tanah Tumpahnya Darahku - I had shed blood in my birthplace...and you want to tell people to leave. This may imply it is likely what is to be seen in the 2057 agenda. By right, many feel that the policies that are in the country, some are inappropriate and will need to be changed in order to progress better. But our friend Ismail Ahmad is a guy that is short of foresight and perception.

4. The Son-In-Law wants to have the organizers of the Saturday march stopped and arrested. This simple statement simply implies that they want to play dirty. He bellowed a challenge: don't be monkeys at the street (blogger reference) but challenge at the election ring. However, Malaysiakini reports that the Agong has expressed his interest in meeting with the seven heads of the memorandum delegation, which could be an own goal scored by UMNO. Just yesterday, his crony, Kalimullah Hassan is attempting to repeat the success of gagging people from putting the connection of him and S-I-L as defamation. Wake up. Kalimullah is wasting NST shareholders money endlessly for the trial.

Also, according to Article 40(2) of the Constitution, the King has the right to withhold the request by the Prime Minister to dissolve the parliament if the period is premature, that is before 5 years is up. In the past, the King consents to the PM's request in such scenarios but he was not bound that he must do it. In fact AAB has misintepreted the notion that the King has to approve his choice of Chief Justice after Ahmad Fairuz. Of course no one can go above the king!

5. Segamat UMNO exco Member Johari Ismail has filed a police report against Abdullah Badawi that three pages of last year's minutes of meeting at the UMNO Supreme Council meeting were withheld as it contains a plot by AAB to stop ex-PM Mahathir from contesting the Kubang Pasu seat at the General Assembly. The secretariat Hussainy Hashim was personally instructed by AAB to withheld the portion despite a warning from previous secretary -general Rais Yatim over the offence of withholding information.

In the online community, we are paying more attention to the statements by the Youth division, the Young Women division and of course the Son-In-Law's fight against clean election. Because if we don't do anything against the greater evil, they will play bad like what we are facing now. Price hikes, corruption, crime rates, you name it....!

The online people has to do more in fighting the blog war front and winning it.

Asia Internet Congress Summary

At the end of this month, there will be an Asia Internet Congress to be held in Singapore from 28 to 30 of November.

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In this three day course, you will be given the opportunity of starting a business from scratch with the first day solely concentrating of finding your market niche, starting up a website and the art of driving traffic to your website.

On the next two days, you will get to meet and learn the tips and tricks of the top eight market netpreneurs of the world. The list goes as:

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4) Sean Roach
5) Donna Fox
6) Nathan Anderson - the Guru of SEO, who teaches marketers in optimizing their web pages for optimized searching!
7) Joel Christopher - The master of List Building formerly a therapist

and finally....

8) Fabian Lim - The CEO of Asian Internet Academy. Personally trained more than 1,400 graduates in his popular Internet Marketing Bootcamp. Specialises in Pay-Per-Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Web Analytics, Online Campaign Management and Affliate Marketing Strategy.

Each of these speakers are personally selected and evaluated by Fabian himself to ensure that everyone gets to understand and benefit from their quality of their presentation. And to make things interesting, each of these speakers will go round the participants to help you...you the participant of the seminar to adopt their methodologies into your business based on the marketing model that you choose.

This Asia Internet Congress 2007 is only available for these three days only. And there is a limit of maximum number of people of attending so sign up for a seat today!

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Race Factor or Illegal Land?

In this past week, Selangor Chief Minister, Dr. Khir Toyo is one subject that is vilified by the non-Muslims of the state. Yes, last week, the Shah Alam Municipal Council, perhaps under his jurisdiction and direction demolished an old Hindu temple in the state itself, despite protests from the Indian community over the excuse of the site being on the unapproved land.

The actions of the municipal council has drew anger from the community and even the Indian cabinet ministers themselves including Samy Vellu over the fact that nobody even Khir Toyo would not bother listening to their pleas before proceeding with the demolition work. I'm sure this means that they have no respect for the Malaysian minority community. Two weeks ago, a question has been raised over why municipal councils imposed the bumi quota over number houses to be allocated to them in each housing estate, that is not stated in law. Why would municipal councils do that?

If people are not happy, there would be a fracas, in which 14 people got remanded. But then the argument of illegal land seems legit, and the timing of the MIC stepping in shows that they are not sincere and not really showing their true intentions of representing the Indian community. All in all, they are just the same as the MCA, enjoying money and privileges, while the big community suffered. Beatings were reported on the day and the municipal council is blamed for the ruckus started. It's just like the police supposed to safeguard the welfare of all only to foment ways to create trouble out with the ordinary.

Image by Mob

Lawyers are not spared from the beatings. And now the MBSA will paying for it with damages of up to $100 million as they and the police are being sued by them. Then, as to show how Khir is vilified, they (MIC) decided not to throw a state Deepavali open house, only to retract it later on finding it is too harsh over one decision as what Malaysiakini says.

Some say that Khir Toyo boasted that Selangor was the first state in Malaysia to have a pork free zone. No more pig farms to beat river pollution. No exporting of pork to other states. The latter statement seems to show the sentiment of disrespect for the Chinese. Maybe it's because Singapore generates a high demand for pork, I supposed. But then, maybe logically it's a temporary reprieve until a centralized facility is built. Then again, building one facility has its own cons: just like a computer network, the risk of site down is high if all data is centralized into one machine. Maybe not, for we have forgotten about the east coast states. What about there?

Khir wasn't the only one that is vilified. Last week, Malacca CM, Mohd. Ali Rustam got into the spat with the PPP over the allocation of seats. There was famous remark. And then UMNO didn't bother to go deeper over his remark and found him nothing wrong. Four months ago, he got into the spat with pig farmers with demands to reduce output of pigs maximum in the state only to agree to the 48000 with the intervention of the MCA.

Updates:

I came to notice that many of commentators here have clarified and updated some info regarding the incident above as of this time. First, thanks for the feedback. Secondly, I've made some revisions of taking the last piece of portion out to get things to the point.

Well, let's pay more attention to the potential election matter as we, citizens, have the right to say who is fit to run the state or the nation. If you do not like how things are in Malaysia right now, then don't vote for the incumbents!

Government Paranoia

Next Saturday is the march of for clean and transparent elections with the handing of memorandum to the King. Everybody is expected to wear yellow as to show solidarity and respect to the king, who is the figurehead and the symbol of the nation as enshrined in the Constitution.

The march is expected to draw about 10 to 100 thousand people marching comprising of NGOs, opposition parties and concerned citizens, and even lawyers, yes who wanted Malaysia to be a more better place.

The police and the government indeed do have a wrong perception about the awareness of the event. First thing they perceived is opposition parties and illegal assembly, which means - of their insistence of having to apply for the permit, so to speak according to this Malaysiakini article. The thing is no BN-component parties were invited for the show. How ironic it is.

But the thing is that the people are showing support to the AGONG! Does that mean that by applying the permit, the police are deliberately holding the king back because the king is interested in meeting his loyal subjects that shows pure love of Malaysia? Is this idea politically motivated, meaning that they think that it's the opposition ploy and would do anything to stop that thing, just as similar to the Batu Buruk incident? Is this all about elections? Is this thing likely creates fear of putting the BN's objective of Zero Opposition in elections into waste?

In Thailand, thousands of citizens, dressed in yellow shirts, flocked to the hospital where King Bhumibol was undergoing treatment as to show support and vigil for recovery for their king. It is something that is acceptable without permit because the king is a symbol of the nation that everybody should be loyal to. In Malaysia, they are showing loyalty but why can't the police or the government understand this? There has been true things that the Executive is in collision with the Conference of Rulers. Their proposals of choice of judicial heads were rejected by the Rulers. From what most actual true reports say, the government is not interested in fixing the judiciary crisis that seen in most people.

We are now seeing a paranoid Information Ministry and certain government divisions that seems to suppress what is the truth and going after those who knew the truth. Just as in the film Brazil, the government is going after the wrongful ones with no remorse or regrets. Just to sweep the problems one side away. Another battle between the government and bloggers is underway where ZAM is pointing out about the BERSIH march as rumors and something to brainwash citizens to going against them.

I'm sure most people would know this line from V For Vendetta: People should not be afraid of the governments...governments should be afraid of the people. To think in contrast of the truth shows that he is not ready to accept criticism from the people. To say that people should not join the gathering means that he wants to stop the truth from breaking out.

Lastly, we'll go through some of the excerpts from what the Mamak Man of Merbok is commenting about:

He said the rumours were spread by certain parties to get the public to join a large-scale demonstration ostensibly to support the Malay rulers.

“In certain blogs, the public has been asked to dress in yellow (for the programme),” he told reporters after meeting the ministry staff here.

He was referring to the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections gathering to be held at Dataran Merdeka on Nov 10 by non-governmental organisations and opposition parties.

Zainuddin said that although there was no boycott of the meeting, they kept spreading the rumours in the hope that the public would be taken in.

“This is a move to give the impression that there is a rift between the rulers and the executive to create suspicion that the country is in a crisis,” he added.

He said the demonstration resulted from the exposure of a video clip purportedly on a lawyer brokering judicial appointments with a senior judge.

He said even reports on the speech of the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, at the 14th Malaysian Law Conference in Kuala Lumpur on Monday had focused on his criticism of the judiciary but not that of the lawyers.

This clearly showed the leaning of certain media, he said, adding that they also published letters and comments from readers and lawyers which supported a restructuring of the judiciary, giving the impression that the judiciary was not independent and credible.

You are just like Nazri, asshole! This means that you are saying there is no judiciary crisis. Have you recalled what Ramli Yusoff was saying? Informants against the underworld were exposed by the ACA circumventing the Standing Orders of the IG! And you still never accept blogging unlike your Indonesian counterpart! Sultan Azlan Shah was once a Lord President who knows more of law compared to you, goblok. He knows better and the truth is right in front of everyone and you turned your eye around....

Zainuddin said these people, who had portrayed the Malay rulers as siding with them, believed that they had succeeded in confusing the public and planned a large-scale demonstration, claiming that it was to support the Malay rulers.

“The public must heed the police advice not to attend any unlawful meeting or gathering,” he added.

They should understand that the people behind the proposed demonstration were from opposition parties, which had lost the people's support, he said.

This spreading of false news was an obsolete strategy to get the people to demonstrate, he said.

If concerned citizens think that this is the truth that has to be told...go. If the police tries to block the permit, wrong. It is politically motivated. They are handing the memorandum to the Agong. This means that the people are serious in meeting the Agong and he should be allowed to meet them WITH NO restrictions. If the government is planning to stop this thing, it means further ranking drops in the Freedom of Speech Index. Don't forget we're at 124 of 169 this year!

“I believe the people are not easily taken in by this tactic, which will be used over and over again before the general election."

Wrong!

Latest Update:

In the morning, the site was hacked and a fake posting said that it was postponed indefinitely. That was a hoax and I just got an update and comment that the show will go on.

Birthday Boy

I got some text message greetings from some friends and mostly family members in the morning and the afternoon.

My schoolmate could not made it for dinner today, but I went to help him to solve a technical problem downtown. I spent about a few hours there while awaiting for Y.S and Cheryl to come to the restaurant. They showed up at 7.45 p.m. due to the bad traffic condition on the way to the city.

I deliberately chose TGI for I thought Cheryl would be interested in doing some window shopping there at a new shopping mall. She has not been there and I thought it would be sensible for him to go there.

We had some good food that includes fish and chips, baked chicken ala king rice and roast half ribs for food with some appetizers and some mud cakes for desert. The staff there did some work on people who celebrated their birthday today, of course including me.


Here it is:

That's me, Y.S and Cheryl



Deserts: Mudcake, free birthday cake, cookies and ice cream...woah...I couldn't finish it.

We're watching the Man Utd game vs Arsenal which ended 2-2. A very interesting clash, with most of the male staff at the restaurant are Arsenal supporters, while I cheered out when Man Utd scored the goals.

Something to celebrate about, nice and small group.

Some interesting notes: -> Celebrities linked to November 3:

1. Charles Bronson
2. Dolph Lundgren
3. Gary Ross (Writer, director of Seabiscuit)
4. Kate Capshaw (Steven Spielberg's current wife)
5. Lois Smith (Iris Hinneman, Minority Report)

Some Stardust for Birthday

My friend Simon tends to read the entire Sandman series written by acclaimed fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. I was told by my friend Edmund that Gaiman writes wonderfully in some of the books including Mirror Mask and Anansi Boys. The book which I picked up that I got hooked up with him is the book 1602 - voted the Quills Graphic Novel of 2006.

The second film adaptation of Gaiman to hit the screen is Stardust. I never read through the book but except to jump to the last part of the book. But it's the story of a out of luck guy who eventually finds that love is not bought but comes on its own. There has been some debate over the later part of the Harry Potter series where there is a serious debate of whether the love relationship between Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger was started out of Ron buying forher relationship. But thankfully, it was clarified at Deathly Hallows, but the debate was hot on this before the release of The Half-Blood Prince.

Let's go back to 1602 for a while. 1602 is a wonderful alternate universe placing Marvel characters in a different timeline. Stardust and 1602 has something in common, an entity, an object that serves the gateway to our world and the fantasy world. In the film, it's the small breach of the wall, in 1602, it's the anomaly of an object that brought Captain America to the past. They also share some similar things like an sky-ship, royalty figureheads, and magic that is seen in both books.

I may missed out the prologue of how Dunstan met Una but the segment that arguably cheered everybody was Septimus's men fighting against Captain Shakespeare (a nod to Bowfinger - shake the spear! ) While the circus music is blaring at the background, Captain Shakespeare was playing female transvestite and suddenly facing Septimus off guard. But I've anticipated how the story played out as in the book. Just as if Aragorn and Arwen ended up well until old age having children, yes they do have. Oops, I've spilled that out but the exposition of how Tristan and Yvaine ended up was simplified. In the book, Yvaine ends up as parallel as Arwen, except their origins.


There was something that I didn't understand. The film played in US in August but started playing here since yesterday. I wondered whether the distribution here is slow given of the audience demand here. In Europe, it played well solid. It didn't make much money but the story is well written and stayed true to the book's spirit. Gaiman recommended fellow novelist Jane Goldman to help Matthew Vaughan (Mr. Claudia Schiffer!) on adapting it as Gaiman was working on Beowulf.

Perhaps that was something to cheer for myself this weekend. You'll see in the next post later tonight or another 20 hours on!