Making The World A Better Place

I’ve taken to my friends, I started to live their lives.

It ought not to be a bad thing. Borne of a need to counter the instability of archiworld, I shared their tranquility, absorbing their energy and their environment, celebrate their success and integrating their woes as part of my whole. I heed the troubles of a socialite, then bath in the warmth of a young family, then indulge in the glory of a class winner. In between, the momentary void occupied by the necessities, by the workload, and by the commute between scenarios.

It comes down to a personal reflection, an understanding of how it came to be now, and who defines what is me. I am not a necessity, nor am I a product of education. I therefore concluded that I am everyone. Cheesy as it is, my life is defined by what is done to me. In a way it all makes sense, because the concept of life is not meant to be understood in a nutshell. Think of it as a tree, which consist of the simplest organics and a complex functional at the same time. To think of it as a shade, but it meant to harvest the sun and heat. To think of its motif, which compose a harmonious form, but every leaf wages war with another, in a struggle for survival, even on the same stem. The giver of life and yet the lifeless, the mother of all paradox and father of all irony. Life in itself no longer defines, to me, self preservation. It doesn’t define me. It defines us. Think you, who as are reading this article, imprint my words in your memory, and allow me to rob you of time. I am now integral to your life, and I define a small part of you. And in turn, you are a small part of every other environment you contact. You are defining as I am defined by the lives of another.

To make my own destiny, it would be ignorant to define myself. If we all reach out to another, if we all go out and make them their lives, 3 billion full circles and 6 billion lives is defined simultaneously. And the world is, in that fraction of a time, a unit life, an organism whole, a tree.

And someone will come make my life so much better.

It’s a crime to be educated

Foreword: We’re not back, we never left. Funk if we care you noticed.

 

So last night I attended, after a considerable amount of persuasion, a charity CNY dinner hosted by the ruling party of our area in town.

There’s plenty of good reasons to not want to attend one of these. The program, for a start, was always gonna consist of a couple of B grade dance routines perfomed by retirees, lots of horrible karaokees and certainly lots of very boring and repulsively idealistic speeches by politicians. The Bronx Snuff Circus would have been more entertaining.

To add to that, I’ve been working with the local government for a bit, and it wasn’t that ideal a thought to be in the company of the same people who spends most of the day arguing with you. Nevertheless, out of good humor I went.

It would have been just another boring politically induced dinner had it not been a speech made by a prominent local politician. Mind you, my describing this particular fellow as prominent was only reflective of his publicity campaigns, for he was not a popular man by achievements.

Barely after his possesion of the microphone he started berating at, and I quote, “today’s foreign educated youths, who had been away studying so long they are no longer aware of the true picture of our progress, and therefore ignorant of our achievements”. People like me, I suppose.

First of all, generalizing today’s youth as the dominant opposition is pure prejudice. I’ve known enough to believe that support for the opposition, or to be politically correct, the abject perception against the current government, is evenly distributed amongst all age groups. Our youths, with considerably higher skills at viral publicity and an ignorance against advance diplomacy, are merely more outspoken than their older counterparts.

Therefore, I do understand, to a certain extent, why politicians are frustrated at the inability to reach out to the younger voters of today, especially during pre-election campaigning. What I don’t understand is why this particular politician failed to thread the more sensitized line to protagonize his younger constituents, and opted to satirize their opinions, insult their intelligence, and worse of all, reprimand them for their ability and their attempts at gaining higher level education.

What exactly is the motif for doing so? There are times when a politician has to insult in an attempt to gain a bigger and more favorable audience. But in this case, I can’t fathom his targeted audience. Had he done his research, he would have noted that foreign educated youths are not exclusively anti-govt. I bear testimony to this, having being part of the overseas Malaysian student politics, I’ve witnessed multifold attempts at incepting pro-government virtues by fellow students. I’m a person of no party preference; my own political views are defined so subjectively I doubt I will ever vote with my own believes. Yet I salute these people, who were able to reject the more popular direction in favour of their own principles. Their attempts, it seemed, were in vain, they fought for a man who never believed in them.

In all fairness, he defined two types of foreign educated students, and in his mind we belong to either and no else. The first saw a traffic jam in town and wailed about our lack of road infrastructure. The second observed the same but thought ‘mmmmm this means Malaysia is progressing, the people are prospering and thus buying more cars, and hence the amount of traffic on the road is increasing’. In other words, we are either only mildly ignorant, or punch blind ignorant.

Mr. Politics, where are your statistics? Where are your research? You tale of increasing prosperity, in-forcing the idea that we suffer because we are all too rich for our own good. Isn’t that an admission to your ignorance in attending the poor? You berate us youths, while we paid and took time to sit in your dinner, gracing your event. We shall ignore the possibility of his lack of knowledge in the demographics of the night’s attendants. There probably was two foreign educated youth attendees that night, or a thousand, but it wouldn’t matter, because this man knew me on a personal basis. In fact, mid-speech he looked directly at me as if to be assured of my attention. Here is a man we call a leader, who has a good few decades of lessons in diplomacy, yet forgo good votes because he refused to acknowledge the incoming generation of responsible citizens that is us.

And he’s not alone. The state election is long overdue. By schedule we should have our electoral results round about today. The delay, by rational deduction, is brought about by the government’s need to be rid of us ignorant youths who will soon depart to our respective institutions out of town, which in turn makes it easier for them to bribe their way through the predominantly illiterate local natives.

You see and read about the brain drain Malaysia is experiencing. You hear politicians screaming about these ignorant and irresponsible generation and their lack of patriotism. And yet they managed to underestimate the gravity of the overall scene. Those that remained are only yet to find a way to leave, the intelligent community left because they had to make a rational decision based on their instinct for survival. It’s not a drain, it’s a mass exodus.

As for Mr. Politics here, he will continue to make speeches like these in the coming weeks leading to the election sometime when we’re all away. And by hook or by crook we know he will win. And when we all lost faith in the system and left for good, and he sits down amongst a crowd of jealous-ridden illiterates celebrating his so-called victory, the hypocrite with an Australian degree will have to settle the differences with, himself.

After-sales service

This has been grinding my gears for some time now and I’m almost about to get an embolism over it. It’s the dreaded case of poor after sales service which I’m pretty sure has afflicted everyone in the universe (yes, beings which might lurk in the nether regions of the milky way are included) at least once in their lives. It’s like the zit which suddenly appears on the eve of a hot date or realising you’re out of rubber just as you’re about to bed the catch of the day. There used to be a time when companies made everything solid enough to withstand even nuclear strikes. And in the event lets say your fridge does get reduced to molten slag during a nuclear strike you could take the remains of it, your receipt and warranty to the shop and they would give you one which should withstand a nuclear strike with no hassle at all. The problem is these companies soon ran out of business as everything they sold was neigh-indestructible and they only manage to sell an appliance once every lets say 100 years when something within their mechanical wonder finally gives way. So the companies which have survived till this day have stuck to a tried and true method of survival. Making and selling things which fall apart within a number of years (or in some cases every other day). So we now come to the point of after-sales service. For those of you who play Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer online in Australis you will realise that there is an ever-increasing amount of hackers. Now a hacker is someone who downloads a line of code which enables it (hackers are subhuman beings like terrorists who only deserve one outcome in life, a violent, messy, drawn out and truncated death) to see and shoot you through walls with impunity and is able to track multiple targets and score mortal hits on all of them without missing a single shot. Simply put a hacker is a penisless piece of subhuman scum spawned from an equally revolting and disgusting pair of subhuman creatures who only deserve a long drawn out and utterly painful demise. These vile creatures have literally destroyed what is a decent first person shooter (FPS) game for possibly millions. But more importantly it has destroyed the game for me. Had I known this was what awaited me a few months after buying this game I would have spent the money on something more productive. Like fertiliser. Or a meat cleaver. Now there is a system which lets you report these hackers, but it’s as useful as England at the World Cup. Utterly hopeless. Now the more persistent claimant would then proceed to e-mail the makers of this game and inform them of the plight that the gaming community is facing. In this case however it’s useless. This problem has been going on for a very long time now but still nothing has been done. So now every single time you go play the game in multiplayer you’re sure to at least meet one hacker who’ll ruin your game. At the rate things are going there’s only one solution left to those of us who still retain the use of our penises and not rely on cheats to win games. Get a knife, saw our cocks off and join the subhuman bastards. If you can’t beat em’, join em’.

Australia

In a week we’ll forget Kevin Rudd.

I’m pretty used to seeing the white haired bumbler onscreen, wising with such gusto and creativity, and such generous amount of bush beating and words twisting, it does make wonder why he was never offered Broadway. The national papers, in reflection of the vainglorious attitude of Aussies, reported, in great depth, that Rudd spends more time answering a scripted question than any other MPs  who managed to stay awake. In other news, there seems to be some sort of leak in the Gulf somewhere near Mexico. Or Somalia. Or India.

I personally enjoyed the description “Orchestrated Question Time”, a tongue in cheek description that evidently transcend more than just the literal meaning.

It seems, sadly, that more is never better. Bumbler was bumped, just this morning, because ironically (with reference to his predecessor) everyone thinks he’s losing his marbles. The Emission trading scheme, the asylum seeker issues and, the cake topping mining supertax sealed the fate of the man.

Poor man was in tears. He might as well have flipped a bird.

You see, the crying Rudd and the “Most Popular PM” Rudd was, and hold your breath for this one, the same person. Breathe. The man who apologized to the Forgotten Generation, who made a communist smile, who for once of no resemblance to short balding shadows of Bush that snorts when he does, regardless of deliberation; who , by some magic voodoo powder, preserved the Australian economy while the rest of the world stuck a straw up their genitals and drank; was indeed the same man who had to remind people how he stuffed up their life. It seems Kevin the bad bad boy is really sorry.

But I’m intrigued to ask: what had he done wrong? Why crucify a man who made a million mistakes, only because he gained a million faith? Rudd is being punished not because he’d done a bad job, but because everyone expects him to do an excellent job. And he failed. He did good, it just ain’t enough.

On the opposite end of the scale, Gillard, Ms. “New Face” Madame seems to have done nothing wrong so far. And you can tell by the really nice photos they placed on the papers, all smiling and brimming and next to ugly, ugly Rudd.  Even the cartoons are drawn nicely.

But what had she done right? How was it that the woman who was nothing but a poster just a month ago, now hailed the new Australian hope? The knightess in shining aluminium, or is that just another tongue in cheek from the papers?

Was it not a year ago the same hypocrite of a paper portrayed Bumbler as this cute old Bieber lookalike who’s loved, and will be for a long time, by the same hypocrite of a nation? I blame the Time God, who as much as counted down Rudd’s time, gave chance to the mediation of thoughts.

These days, with the existence of this thing called time, anything can happen indeed. We may wake up tomorrow to find North Korea a smoldering wreck, and a  bespectacled elf standing amongst rubble mouthing “Oops”. Or Ghana winning the Cup because the other teams contracted Pox. Not chicken Pox, Cow Pox. Or mass hysteria. Or cancer.

Or we wake up to find that the presses at Herald Sun were stolen, the editor had cow pox, the delivery men had cancer, and for the first time in history, the majority of the nation is forced to make judgment solely based on facts, with brains, or whatever left of them, and not spoon fed the hypocritical views expressed by people who are paid to write just the thing everyone wants to hear.

I’m not suggesting that Rudd had a chance. I’m suggesting that he should be given one. Rudd could have flipped a bird 2 years back, and the media would have hailed the incoming greeting style that is reflective of the vainglorious nation that is Australia. Or he could have accidentally  flipped a bird this morning as he fell from the podium, and the media orchestra a Shakespearean interpretation of Aristotle’s Politika that would have earned Broadway. Rudd would have even scored a new job.

Australian politics, it seems, is dictated by the media. Which in a way is a good thing, because, like it or not, we all want a bit of drama in our boring life. And Bumbler was boring as hell. Jazz only brought him this far, techno’s on the way in. With luck, Gillard could learn to shuffle. Or not. Who cares, maybe we’ll all like her because she’s got three cats, or she had sex with Putin. Or she managed to answer a parliamentary question in record time.

Take your pick, make it fast. Because, in a week we need to forget Kevin Rudd.

SA.

Religious Satire

Now, I mean no disrespect and have no intention of offending anyone with the content of this post. This is just something which I have recently realised and have found rather amusing. When a Christian tries to convert someone to their faith they usually use scare tactics like “Oh, people who are not Christian go to hell when they die.” and rubbish like that. But Muslims on the other hand tell you that when you die you will achieve paradise, and their idea of paradise is getting 72 virgins. Now which deal sounds better to you?

The Great Misconception

Hi, my name is B and I am here today to present to u my point of view on a fairly contentious topic. But before I do, please read the following disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: If you are easily offended by religious discussions that tend to go beyond the usually accepted social doctrine, now is the time for u to leave. I am not here to incite religious hatred. I am only here to express my point of view. If you feel strongly against wat I am abt to type, I apologise but it is my point of view and mine alone. Thank you.

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now and I seem to see a rather large hole in the “72 virgins” theory that terrorists and suicide bombers adhere to. The first part of this theory being: How can they be entirely sure that the 72 virgins that they have been promised in paradise are all women?

Nowhere does it say that it would be 72 WOMEN. The wording used clearly states “VIRGINS” so that could be open to debate. From common knowledge, we are aware that the term VIRGIN applies to both men and women. But to the terrorists and suicide bombers, they fail to see this truth and instead tend to take things at face value and presume that these VIRGINS are women alone. To me, this seems to be a fairly damning error on their part and it could also be the prelude to some kind of divine joke played upon these unsuspecting hardliners. If so, its really gonna be ownage on a much higher level.

The second part of this theory is: So if it could be proven that the VIRGINS are all women, wat proof is there that these women are all young? I mean, surely the term WOMEN can’t be misconstrued as to mean only young ladies rite? This is another point to ponder. If these suicide bombers were to reach “paradise” only to realise that the VIRGINS they were promised were not young women but rather old spinsters, how would they react? This scenario smacks of another divine joke as well in my opinion.

And finally the third theory, and this I believe to be the most important one: What if, the VIRGINS that were promised to em in “paradise” turned out to be the victims of their suicide attacks? What if these VIRGINS actually turned out to be the very people that the suicide bombers has sough to eliminate due to their intense hatred of them? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate form of retribution?

Think of it this way: A religion is formed on the basis of belief and the virtues which it espouses. I am not gonna knock Islam just because of its faults as each and every other religion on the planet has its own faults. But I just can’t wrap my head around the idea that a religion can be perverted by a few hardliners into a political and at best semi-religious agenda. You do not see any other religion issuing a kill order when someone speaks out. You do not see any other religion emphasising that women are second class citizens. You do not see any other religion condoning and EVEN outright encouraging sodomy and rape. But I stress once again, this is not an article designed to fuel religious hatred. This is just my point of view.

I am a catholic. And even though I know that I am not deserving to have a point of view on such a topic, its just something that needs to be said. Christianity is not perfect. We have had our fair share of bloodshed in the Middle Ages in terms of the Crusades and other related battles and even I feel that we have erred greatly. But we are trying to make amends for the sins of the past by trying to espouse peace.

As many of you would be aware, the word Islam means “submission”. The submission to God(or Allah) and His will. And to the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of Muslims adhere to this belief and practise their faith with a great sense of satisfaction and pride. There is nothing wrong with that, for we as Christians do the same.

But just as Islam has its hardliners, Christianity does have its own hardliners as well. As much as both religions try to say that they are different from each other, lets face it: We have alot in common.

If not for these hardliners, both religions would be better off. Both religions would be able to co-exist in harmony without worrying about racial tensions or religious differences. If a society is built around the idea of religious freedom, then it must be enforced constantly. Everyone is entitled to believe wat they choose to believe. Nothing more, nothing less.

My message to the hardliners out there, both Christian and Muslim, is this: If we, as Christians, Muslims and various other faiths, can live in harmony with one other in most parts of the word, WHY CAN’T YOU DO THE SAME?

Billions of people can’t be wrong. It is the minority of troublemakers that need to realise that wat they are fighting for is not wat the majority of us want.

Only when we realise this and acknowledge our mistakes will the world be a much safer place to live in.

PS: I hope that my article has not caused you any pain or anger for I stress again that it is my opinion and mine alone. This is how I see the situation and I admit that it might be a bit biased. But this is how I feel. If you feel differently, I invite you to comment on this post on how you feel. I assure you that I will do my best to answer your queries. Please do not hate. Integrate. =D

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

B

Things to say

This will in all honesty be possibly the worst introductory post ever, because quite frankly I have no idea what to write. This blog was created with the intention of combining the views of many and sharing them with quite possibly the world. As of yet I have no idea how to do that but it’ll come to me sooner or later, I hope. Now what exactly is straight talk? Well it’s simply the no-nonsense views of a group of amateur writer’s (part-time of course) where we say it like how it’s meant to be, or at least how we think it should be. It should be noted that the views here can be contradictory to what we truly believe in, because even I have no idea what that is. Now I know this is all rather confusing but that’s the way it is when someone is both a realist and an idealist. But that’s how life and humanity is isn’t it? A perfect example of contradictions. So there you have it, a rather crap introduction with as little substance as the liquor bottle of a drunk. But don’t worry, we’ll try to make the future posts a much more bearable read.