MAGICK RIVER

Jonathan Zap, Interdimensional Traveler

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:14:00 +0000

"Interdimensional Passport" ~ collage by Jonathan Zap (1990s)

Cosmic Orgasmologists: Alex Grey and Jonathan Zap

THE INTERDIMENSIONAL TRAVELER'S CODEX
by Jonathan Zap

At all costs, the interdimensional traveler must never surrender multi-incarnate identity and essence to the Babylon Matrix, or any other such matrix. Since so many readers are most familiar with the hideous strength of the Babylon Matrix, we will give it particular emphasis in this Codex.

From a thousand thousand angles, the dark magnetisms of the Babylon Matrix would love to pull travelers into the wrong ends of telescopes. Essentially, the Babylon Matrix has a tunneling effect that can easily shrink your incarnation until it is like a twisty wormhole burrowing into the festering tissues of a rotten apple. When you choose the wormhole over the rabbit hole your incarnation shrivels and descends like the slow intestinal twisting of an endless, monotonous colonoscopy, winding its way down the wrong end of a telescope.

The Babylon Matrix seeks to remake you in its own image. It would like to play you out as a tragicomic retread, the six billionth remake of Honey, I Shrunk the Interdimensional Traveler.

Teal People are funkier than Real People (photo: Jonathan Zap)

The Babylon Matrix churns out remakes by shrink-wrapping hominids into stock characters. It would love for you to be a frat boy, a homeboy, a drama queen, a geek, a couch potato, a yuppie, a workaholic, a celebrity, a celebrity stalker and so forth. Surrender to its shrinking rays and you might find yourself living out your incarnation as one of these diminutive caricatures, a skin job with a limited shelf life.

In the Eighties, in the early hours of a smoggy and overcast Monday morning on the Cross Bronx Expressway, I first saw what would become a ubiquitous bumper sticker. It read, “I owe, I owe, so off to work I go.” It was as if the veil had pulled back right there on the Cross Bronx Expressway, and something I wasn’t supposed to see, one of the underlying black magical spells, actual source code of the Babylon Matrix, suddenly became visible in the manifest realm.

"Parallel Journeys" ~ collage by Jonathan Zap

What potency such spells of darkling magic have! A spellbound victim, laboring under the power of malign enchantment, discovers the spell, the actual contract the devil made him sign in blood, and yet cannot break from it. There it is, the devil’s contract, turning slowly in the spinner rack of a convenience store, rendered word for word onto self-adhesive vinyl. The victim purchases this perfect copy of the spell that rules him and attaches it to the bumper of his car where he sees it every day, and yet he never awakens from its power.

"Interdimensional Traveler" - collage by Jonathan Zap

An interdimensional traveler must never surrender to such spells! These spells are swirling around us like sheets of self-adhesive shrink-wrap spun by a tornado. The tornado is a dark and smoky twister. Spinning within the twister are newspaper headlines, faces, fragments of video, sound bytes of neurotic conversations, glossy magazine torsos---a swirling shrapnel of sticky cultural memes. Lose your footing and the twister rips you out of Oz, out of agrarian Kansas, out of all the infinite places you could be, and shrinks you into an anxious meat puppet, stuck in traffic, worried about being late for the florescent-lit cubicle, unpaid bills and debts stinging like pale scorpions at your shrunken kernel-like mind animated by coffee with non-dairy creamer, kept afloat by serotonin specific reuptake inhibitors and propelled by spell-induced fears.

Is there an engine driving the twister that eludes us, adding invisibly to its torque and stickiness? The interdimensional traveler will at least keep that an open question. He knows that there are other worlds than these, and who can account for all the forces that interpenetrate the Babylon Matrix?

Certainly there is no ambiguity about the existence of the agents of the twister, the enforcers and minor black magicians of the Babylon Matrix. They are all around us, uttering their obvious and yet potent and insidious spells from school yards, televisions, street corners, classrooms, boardrooms and bedrooms, from the thousand thousand blind alleys of the Babylon Matrix.

Jonathan Zap earns his stripes as an intrepid explorer of ontological rabbit-holes

The interdimensional traveler must not step through the wrong ends of telescopes! The interdimensional traveler must not let anxious voices, inner or outer, hurry them down narrowing corridors. The interdimensional traveler must not step onto the conveyor belts of degrading and dreary timelines!

God as the Ultimate Narcissist (self-portrait by Jonathan Zap)

Some foolish interdimensional travelers will perceive these injunctions through the exciting, intoxicating and scintillating distortion fields of the archetype of the eternal youth. These archetype-possessed travelers will see the injunctions of what not to do as an infinite license to indulge, and though they emulate Peter Pan on steroids, they end up as flabby Peter Pans with kidney damage, divorcing the Babylon Matrix only to marry flaccid Never Never Lands where obese lost boys play video games in their mothers’ basements. The path of the interdimensional traveler is not a license to indulge, it is a space that opens when the imagination of the eternal youth and the impeccability of the Warrior meld. It is a path that demands prodigious will and discipline. If you try to follow the path of the interdimensional traveler without will and discipline, you will end up as a pathetic lost boy of some sort, sucking weakly at the soured edges of the Babylon Matrix, caught in a grey limbo where embittered contempt for the realm of shrink-wrapped, spell-driven drones melds with a parasitic dependence on the fruits of drone labor.

Mr Zap getting his crown chakra refurbished

Portals open for the traveler on a mission of compassion who is aligned with his true will. Different portals may open for a dark traveler possessed of and by a dark will. Still another set of portals open for the young fool traveler who may, for example, step through the wrong end of a kaleidoscope. Certain intentions beckon certain matrices, for better and for worse.

Interdimensional by Herban Mama

An interdimensional traveler must be a Warrior, must have a moral purpose, and must be aware of all the shrinking rays that press upon us. The price of freedom for the interdimensional traveler is eternal vigilance about the sticky enchantments that would like to bind us to the Babylon Matrix and turn individualized travelers into hordes of automatons and hungry ghosts. To step across the event horizon you need to molt the many layers of malign enchantment encasing your soul.

Go then, there are other worlds than these...

[GET COMPLETELY ZAPPED @ ZAPORACLE!]

8 NOVEMBER 2009 ~ A POWERFUL DAY!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Hunab Ku by Star Root, wife of Star Sparks who rejoined his ancestors 15 March 1999

Swedish microbiologist turned student of the Mayan calendar, Carl Johan Calleman, says: "We are now approaching the sixth night of the Galactic Wave Movement, the eighth of the nine levels, which will begin on November 8, 2009. If my understanding of the Mayan calendar is correct we will in this coming night be witnessing the most significant transformation of consciousness ever in the history of mankind. What is exciting about this is that I feel that a relatively clear picture of how a new world is going to be born is now finally becoming evident. On the other hand, what is also becoming increasingly clear is that this birth is likely to become very demanding..."

Today also marks the birthday of my soulsister Arwinda Hurip, the White Witch from Solo, Java, whom I have known for 30 years. This beautiful portrait of her was taken by me in Bali, July 1981. We were then both in our prime. Sigh.

I shall never forget the tremendous surge of PURE JOY that shot through the nation's neural circuitry on 7 November 2008. That was the day I awoke to find a text message on my phone with two powerful words: RPK FREED. Shah Alam high court judge Datuk Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad had ruled that Raja Petra Kamarudin's arrest and detention under the ISA was mala fide and procedurally flawed. He added that the then home minister, Syed Hamid Albar, had abused his powers in using Section 8 of the Internal Security Act, which places enormous power in the hands of the home minister and therefore must be resorted to only in extreme situations where an indisputable threat to the nation exists. One bald man on testosteronal overdrive and his homegrown news portal spilling the beans on shenanigans in high places cannot possibly be labeled a threat to the nation - only to the political careers of those he has exposed.

The very next day, my dog Lulu gave birth to ONE puppy. I waited for more to arrive... but none did. In honor of RPK's release from Kamunting, I decided to name the solitary pup Roger Putra. Or Roger Reginald Putra aka Phatty Boy. With unlimited access to all ten of his mother's tits (well, okay, the top two nipples on a bitch are merely ornamental, if you insist on being pedantic), Roger grew up like any Ten-Tit-Tot would: chubby, pushy and utterly spoilt. Today we celebrated his first birthday with a small butter cake. Look at him, the ingrate. Can't be bothered to even look at it. Just like my little boy Ahau. Every year he can't be bothered to attend his own birthday party....

All right, good boy, Feichai-face! At least he got up to admire his 1PhattyBoy butter cake. It must have been his first taste of cake because he at first refused the big slice I offered him (his father the cake-loving Dog of Dogs, Mr Wong, was only too happy to accept it). But when he saw the other canines slurping up the icing, he decided to try some too... and was instantly hooked! Woof woof woof! Happy First Burpday, Darling Phatty Boy!

WHY DOGS BITE PEOPLE (CONT'D)....

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:32:00 +0000

SOME PEOPLE DESERVE TO BE BITTEN - THAT'S WHY!

[Contributed by my daughter Belle]

CAN WE BEFRIEND THE ELEMENTS? (reprise)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:46:00 +0000

After a close encounter with the BN media circus yesterday morning, I realized we are actually dealing with an alien species - or former humans who have been implanted and bodysnatched by renegade reptilians - hence the massive communication gap that makes it virtually impossible for us to ever take the concept of government seriously... at least not if it thinks and behaves like BN. This essay first published on 9 December 2008 deserves revisiting...

THOSE EIGHT WORDS struck me like a sledgehammer when I first encountered them while reading a rather ponderous and nebulous work by the well-known astrologer, shamanic oracle and publisher, Barbara Hand Clow, who says her Cherokee grandfather taught her to listen to the elements and attune her psyche to the earth. After his death the young Barbara was subject to the severe traumas of growing up in a dysfunctional American family and experienced recurring contact with what she later identified as Pleiadian entities. At university Barbara majored in Jungian psychology and began delving into astrology and cosmomythology. In 1974 she married Gerald Cudahy Clow and together they established Bear & Company as a highly successful publishing house for cutting-edge, "New Age" authors.

But coming back to those eight words that had so much impact on me. Let's deconstruct and decompress that "Isaiah" quote:

Monotheism is the defining feature of the Abrahamic religions which are at most 4,000 years old (since the patriarch Abraham supposedly lived in the era between 2,000 and 1,500 BCE). Hindus believe the Kali yuga or Age of Darkness began at midnight on 23 January 3,102 BCE. In effect, the advent of the Abrahamic era (dare I say error?) occurred approximately a thousand years into the Age of Darkness when all divine revelations were subject to severe distortion and refraction. Interestingly, scholars of the Mayan calendar report that in 3,113 BCE the Earth began traversing a 5,000-year beam of density emanating from the Galactic Core, during which humans would become more individualized and egocentric. This densification and dimming of human consciousness is supposed to terminate between 28 October 2011 and 21 December 2012.

Most astronomers concur that the Solar System is approximately 4.6 billion years old, as estimated by the radiometric dating of meteorites. The Earth, according to consensus scientific opinion, was probably formed shortly afterwards. Some point at the figure 4.56 billion years as the age of our planet. Paleoanthropologists can't quite agree as to exactly when Homo sapiens may have begun to appear on Earth, but the general time frame ranges between 400,000 to 160,000 years. Let's say Homo faber (tool-using hominids) began multiplying around 250,000 years ago. Though the concept of a single Almighty Creator God has been around for approximately 4,000 years, the word "monotheism" was introduced into the English language by the Neoplatonist philosopher, Henry More, only in 1660 - less than 350 years ago.

What does anthropocentrism mean? It is the belief that humans must be considered at the center of, and above any other aspect of, reality. Monotheistic religions posit that God granted Man "dominion over Nature" - in other words, human considerations take precedence over the rest of the ecosystem. Ultimately, this leads to the dangerous viewpoint that making money is the single most important human activity on earth and that hills exist just so wealthy folks may build luxury apartments from which to gaze upon the urban sprawl below. We have seen the catastrophic results of such egotistical and myopic thinking. Stringent legislation and stricter enforcement won't solve the problem in the long run - but a radical shift in consciousness and perspective most certainly will.

Alchemy (from the Arabic Al-kimia) postulates that the Matter Universe consists of four elements - Fire, Earth, Air, and Water - and that these elements are present on the micro- as well as the macrocosmic levels. Indeed, our physical bodies are a blend of these very elements. Fire represents vitality, spirit, intellect; Earth the mineral compounds that constitute our blood and bones and fleshly tissue; Air the breath that oxygenates and cleanses our lifeblood, separating us from death; and Water (which forms 60-80 per cent of our bodies), symbolizing our emotional tides, influenced by the electromagnetic interaction of the Moon's gravitational field with that of the Earth.

When I relocated from Kuala Lumpur in early 1992 to the verdant hills of Pertak, Ulu Selangor, I soon became acutely aware of the close proximity of all four elements in my ecstatically beautiful riverine environment. Just sitting on a 500-million-year-old granite rock aglitter with embedded quartzite, feeling the hot sun on my skin, the fragrant breeze in my hair, soothed by the neverending riversong of crystalline life-sustaining waters - I felt for the first time in my life completely and absolutely at home.

It's exquisitely therapeutic to find your analytical mind suddenly and spontaneously falling silent while all your senses come alive. You begin to grasp the notion of Zen, of being totally in the here and now. In this serene state of receptivity, your body begins to pick up impressions long forgotten or usually unnoticed in the hurly-burly of urban existence. The rock you're resting on begins to tell you stories in its own distinctive mineral voice. And you begin to perceive the holographic, fractal nature of form itself - wherein the rock you're connected with in turn connects you with the entire spectrum of mineral consciousness.

Gradually, it dawns on you that the compressed experience of spacetime imposed on us by routinely accepted constraints of modern living is no more than an ephemeral veneer of insensitivity, of a societally sanctioned sensory shutdown. Our natural state is to be in constant awe and wonderment at the glorious epiphanies that abound all around us.

When indigenous cultures connect with the elements through their shamans, they do so in a spirit of friendly cooperation. The very idea of combating the forces of nature would strike them as foolish and futile. How can one possibly defeat the wind or vanquish the ocean waves? On the other hand, by understanding these majestic forces and respectfully working with them, one is able to harness their might for one's own purposes. Wind and wave and solar power could free us forever from the stranglehold of voracious corporations that trade in toxic fossil fuels. Do we truly believe we can suck dry the oil reserves with impunity? Have we never considered the possibility that these subterranean and suboceanic pockets of petroleum actually serve as hydraulic shock absorbers, preventing the tectonic plates from scraping together with results disastrous to dwellers on the earth's surface?

The element Air embodies the idea of interconnectivity, communication, communion. When we consciously share breath with another, we synchronize our heartbeats and merge our energy fields. We experience a melding on the soul level, a fusion of destinies. Interesting how in our figures of speech, air features prominently as a metaphor. For instance, Malays speak of khabar angin (gossip, rumors) just as Italians call gossipers venticelli (little winds). Those with noble hearts are considered "fragrant" (wangi in Malay) while others with malicious intent are described as "stinkers" (busuk). The nose obviously knows better then the brain!

Where integrity reigns and people are naturally inclined to speaking truthfully, atmospheric pollution is a virtual impossibility. If you live in an asphyxiating hellhole where pedestrians scurry around wearing gasmasks, car windows are constantly closed with the aircon going full blast, while outside the air is almost unbreathable from carbon monoxide fumes - it's a clear sign that lying has become a national pastime.

When 100-million-year-old hardwood forests are clearfelled and set on fire by oil palm companies, you can be sure that a great many untruths are being circulated about the sustainability of monoculture cash crop plantations and the illusory profits to be made from a nearsighted biofuel campaign. Indeed, some of the biggest logging concerns and oil palm corporations have ministers as major shareholders - and that explains why the annually recurring haze just won't go away. How does it feel to choke and gag on your own lies?

Water is the Vital Essence of Life, it's chi or prana in liquid form. Moistness is an indication of fertility, sensual ripeness, warmth of feeling; and dryness suggests sterility, barrenness, humorlessness, sexual apathy. In effect, water is the element that signifies our emotional flux. The tragic situation in Malaysia wherein anxiety about water shortages is used to justify the construction of unnecessary dams even as flash floods recur with debilitating frequency reveals the unhealthy state of the nation's emotional life. Floodwaters are murky, polluted and often accompanied by waterborne diseases. What does this indicate about the kind of emotions we are expressing... or not? Are we being governed through fear rather than love?

Monotheism and the Abrahamic religions are patriarchal by definition, since these belief systems involve worship of a male deity, a Heavenly Father or Lord. A bit of research into the early history of the monotheistic religions associated with Yahweh reveals that there was a systematic excision of pre-existing Goddess emblems by a misogynistic male priesthood.

Why was the Sacred Feminine suppressed? Look at your left and right brains. The left is regarded as the logical, male brain where abstract symbols are linearly processed into alphanumeric codes - in effect, language. The right is usually associated with intuitive functions such as spatial and temporal navigation and the processing of non-verbal sensory data - in short, the "female" brain. Male children are trained to suppress their emotions while females can cry since they are "the weaker sex." Patriarchal societies are largely warlike and male children are required as cannon fodder for military campaigns. We can't be sending sissies to the battlefield, can we?

Progress is measured in physical terms, never metaphysical. Development is infrastructural, rarely cultural. Science and technology are to be encouraged; arts and humanities are best suited to girls... and effeminate boys (would you like to see your only son become a ballet dancer and move around with the arty-farty gay crowd?) Homophobic, testosteronally propelled national aspirations will neither tolerate the ambiguity of poetry nor the nature mystic's recognition of the aliveness of the elements...

But, alas, only the poet, the mystic, and the true lover in each of us can access and befriend the elements, and restore balance and harmony to the land. Legislative measures and political rhetoric demanding a scientific and technological solution is, at best, the band-aid approach to serious environmental injury. How can we avoid wholesale eco-apocalypse - if we're too goddamn arrogant to apologize to Mother Nature for constantly trying to make a quick buck by flogging off her vital organs as commodities in the marketplace? If you were a magnificent old-growth rainforest, would you appreciate being gangbanged and chainsaw-massacred by loudmouthed louts who call you ugly names like "merchantable biomass"?

"Mum... dad... I wanna join the MACC!"

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:21:00 +0000

This ticket stub carries some pleasurable memories for me. That's why I have immortalized it here on my blog. I first stumbled on the intriguing poster below on Patrick Teoh's Niamah blog...

What phenomenal inspiration, I thought, to present three stand-up comedians - all Chinese, of course - as the Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians. I was determined to catch the show, even visited TicketCharge to try and book online... but was put off by the fact that TicketCharge charges an additional RM12 as a "service fee." That's way too much, I thought. I mean, if I were booking a RM375 ticket to see Beyonce, I wouldn't blink an eye at a RM12 service fee. Nobody minds paying up to RM5 extra for the convenience of booking a theater ticket online - but RM12? That's 33% of the ticket price! What if I were buying TWO tickets? RM24 could easily buy a very fine dinner for two...

Fast-forward to 24 October. I get to Jaya One around 8:20PM and, after asking a couple of people, manage to locate PJ Live Arts. As I stand in line at the ticket office, I notice a poster for MACC 1st EGM that has "Sold Out" scrawled over it in black marker. True enough, it was a full house - not even one seat left! But a girl named Lulu was really helpful. She told me to hang around till just before 9PM - in case somebody cancelled out. Just then I bumped into Patrick Teoh and his lovely wife Min Chan with heartthrob actor/director/playwright Gavin Yap in tow. They were downing some beers and awaiting the arrival of more friends. We had a quick chat and then I headed back to the ticket office where more friends were assembled - including a few prominent bloggers I had never met in person (Nathaniel Tan and Khoo Kay Peng to name but two). They were waiting around for cancellations too.

But as it turned out there was only ONE cancellation... and since I was alone I got it! I wasn't going to miss MACC 1st EGM after all :-)

The President, Vice-President, Treasurer, Secretary and Supreme Advisor of the Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians is a mutant Malaysian Chinese multi-tasker named Douglas Lim (left). I first heard of him when my daughter was assistant director on a successful sitcom called Kopitiam. She told me supporting actor Douglas Lim was incredibly talented but I must admit I was more keen to be introduced to Joanna Bessey, the star of the series. Back then at only 18, Douglas Lim looked rather nerdy - but it was undeniable that he was a natural-born actor, singer and comedian with tremendous promise.

Well, that promise has been totally fulfilled. Douglas Lim at 32 is a world-class act. I never would have believed a Chinaman could do stand-up comedy the way Douglas does it. Back in the mid-1980s my friend Thor Kah Hoong gave it a shot and he did pretty okay - but I still preferred Chris Rush, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, even Robin Williams. Thor was simply too cerebral, too cynical, too dry (and too skinny) and for my taste.

Along came the irresistible Jit Murad and the inimitable Harith Iskandar, followed by the untoppable Alan Pereira and Indi Nadarajah (of Comedy Court fame). Amazing talents - but not Chinese mah, that's why so funny. Before long, Patrick Teoh and Nell Ng joined the luminous cast of The Instant Cafe Theatre and both proved to be extreme hoots on stage and always entertaining - but while Patrick and Nell are fantastic comedians, they don't actually do stand-up stuff. Riveting pub entertainer Rafique Rashid acquired a loyal following as a singing stand-up comedian whose specialty was "Weird Al" Yankovic-style spoof songs - but his only claim to Chineseness was his predilection for Chinese girls with nice legs. And then, of course, there's the supercool Afdlin Shauki - but also not Chinese, so not counted.

Well, I tell you, this fella Douglas Lim can hold his own on the same stage with all the great names in stand-up comedy - including, possibly, the late great George Carlin. You know why? Because if you can do stand-up comedy with a typical Chinaman accent and not make everybody cringe... you've got to be absolutely fantastic!

Watch Douglas Lim in action, expressing the frustration some of us must feel because we happen to be born yellow instead of black...

Stand-up comedy is perhaps the most challenging form of performance. Apart from your voice, your brain, and your own body - all you've got is a microphone. No fake mustache, no funny hat. The ones who make it in this incredibly challenging medium must also be equipped with brains that can process data at a million times average speed. In short, unless you qualify as a Grade A mutant genius, don't even bother auditioning as a stand-up comedian.

I wish I could upload a few more clips of Douglas doing his thang. But they don't exist on YouTube yet. The kind of rapid-fire multi-layered humor he trades in can't really be transcribed as text because one has to see his face and watch his moves. Suffice to say, Douglas Lim found a new fan in me that night.

The MACC 1st EGM poster featured two other board members of the Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians: Phoon Chi Ho (listed as an "intern") and Kuah Jenhan ("sacked - pending appeal"). Phoon had to cancel out at the last minute because he was down with chicken pox. That put the onus on 22-year-old Jenhan (left) to work doubly hard since it was now a two-man rather than a three-man show. I'm happy to report that Jenhan's performance was truly outstanding, no doubt because he picked the best sifu (guru) in the business - Douglas Lim, whose masterful tutelage Jenhan acknowledged more than once during his routine.

What impressed me most was the sheer sophistication of the material presented at MACC 1st EGM. Douglas and Jenhan effortlessly negotiated the squiggly boundary between heavyweight cutting-edge political satire and lighthearted pop trivia and kept the audience rolling in the aisles without a moment's letup.

The audience, about 75% Chinese I'd venture, left the theatre feeling it's actually quite okay to be born yellow instead of black or white. That's really no mean feat - to make being Chinese look funky, funny, sexy and lovable all at once!

Douglas and Jenham fully earned the standing ovation they received that memorable Saturday night.

Get Ready For Galactic Alignment!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:55:00 +0000

Recorded July 2009

The Final Mayan Calendar steps to 2012:
8 November 2009 – beginning of the 6th Night

By Carl Johan Calleman

Before going into the specifics of the upcoming sixth night, November 8, 2009 – November 2, 2010, of the Galactic Wave Movement (or Underworld) I feel I should clarify some of my basic points of departure for understanding the Mayan calendar, since the various ideas that are currently proposed for this vary significantly. There are for instance those that believe that the end date of the Mayan calendar only marks the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new. On my own part I however think that we are approaching something much more profound than just a point in a cycle that again will be repeated. The only Mayan inscription from ancient times, the Tortuguero monument, which describes the end of their calendar says that nine cosmic forces will then manifest. Empirically, there is also overwhelming evidence from modern research that we are approaching a point in time when nine evolutionary levels (so called Underworlds) of the cosmic plan are simultaneously going to be completed. This would imply that we are approaching not another cycle or another shift, but the end to all shifts, which have been driving evolution since the beginning of the universe. Such an end to all shifts could conceivably provide the basis for a harmonious eternal peace on Earth.

What is about to transpire now is in other words not something that has ever happened before in the history of the universe. Maybe this impending change, partially unknown, causes the widespread denial that I feel dominate many people at the current moment. Rather than facing a great change in our socioeconomic relationships (since any change in human consciousness also implies a change in our relationships) many prefer to fantasize about some physical or astronomical event, that purportedly is going to happen on December 21, 2012. In reality the Mayan calendar is however not about something that will happen on a singular date, but a description of a divine plan for the evolution of humankind where quantum shifts between calendrical energies bring about shifts in consciousness. Thus, human consciousness will continue to be transformed step by step in accordance with this plan until we come to the real end date of the process of creation, October 28, 2011. At this date the highest quantum state of the universe will be attained (13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13.13 13 Ahau) when the shifts disrupting the harmony will come to an end. Obviously, we are not there yet.

In this plan for the evolution of consciousness we are now approaching the sixth night of the Galactic Wave Movement, the eighth of the nine levels, which will begin on November 8, 2009. If my understanding of the Mayan calendar is correct we will in this coming night be witnessing the most significant transformation of consciousness ever in the history of mankind. What is exciting about this is that I feel that a relatively clear picture of how a new world is going to be born is now finally becoming evident. On the other hand, what is also becoming increasingly clear is that this birth is likely to become very demanding. For this reason it becomes all the more important to understand how some of the difficulties ahead actually serve the delivery of this new world even though it may not always seem that they do so in the moment. If people can gain a realistic understanding of how this new world will be born they may be able to keep a hope for the future, which is based on something more than mere wishful thinking. Unfortunately, much confusion reigns about the Mayan calendar and many that present themselves as experts on this deny the ancient Mayan knowledge that there are nine cosmic forces that are about to manifest, and that it is these, and nothing else, that explains why a new world will be born.

Thus, what will happen in the time ahead cannot be understood from the sixth night of the Galactic Underworld alone. The overlapping of the cycles preparing for the ninth, and highest, level in the cosmic evolution scheme; the Universal Wave Movement (see Figure below) with the energy of this sixth night will then also need to be taken into consideration. Because of this overlapping, and the speed-up of time associated especially with the latter Wave Movement, not only do I think that the upcoming period will be unusually intense, but also energetically quite complex.

Click to enlarge

At the time of this writing (October 31, 2009, 1 Ben) we are towards the end of the sixth day, the period of flowering in the process from seed to mature fruit in the Galactic Wave Movement, which precedes the sixth night. As I predicted in an earlier article it would now to some economists seem that the “global economic recession” (or the worst of it) is already over. There are however certain things currently going on in the world that belies this and are more in line with the prediction I made in an article in May of a further economic downturn, especially expressed in a fall in the value of the US dollar, to take place around the time that the sixth night begins. While several sources now predict a dollar fall it is important to note that mine was made a relatively long time ago and if it proves to be correct shows that what is happening in the economy is part of a divine plan charted by the Mayan calendar.

My prediction of a further economic downturn was based on the observation that nights, at least in the second part of an evolutionary Wave Movement, usually mean at the very least a slowdown of economic growth. An indication of such an impending downturn at this upcoming night is for instance that there has been a rush for gold, which for the first time passed the magical limit of USD 1000/troy ounce. Moreover, an index of insider trading shows that people knowledgeable about the actual basis for valuing US stock tend to think of this as highly overvalued. Most importantly, increasingly higher voices are now raised in almost all corners of the world for the replacement of the petrodollar system and thus also of the use of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. These various indices thus do not indicate that the “recession” is over, but if anything that an intensification of the economic decline, especially in the indebted West, is imminent. It seems that investors are escaping assets in the form of paper or digit values, which is exactly what we would expect from this late phase of the Galactic Wave Movement, when a shift in consciousness amounting to a shift from abstract to concrete economic values is taking place. Thus, while many will say that the changes are a result of a conspiracy, for instance against the US, the point to realize is that if that were the case they would not have been predictable from the Mayan calendar.

I believe that what is happening in the world’s economy is something much more profound and fundamental than a temporary recession and is a direct consequence of the particular transformation of consciousness that the Galactic Wave Movement is bringing. As I explain in my new book The Purposeful Universe, consciousness is primarily a relationship to the Tree of Life, which exists on many different levels of the cosmos and causes synchronized shifts on these different levels. What this means is that the shifts in consciousness that give new directions to our lives will also directly affect the world and society at large and how we relate to this. A shift in consciousness is hence not something that only happens in our heads, but is simultaneously also expressed in changes in our relationships. Our economic relationships are thus also subject to shifts in consciousness and the evolution of this. We should then expect an even further escape from abstract values as the sixth night begins, a shift that may be expected to especially severely hit the western economies of the United States and the United Kingdom, which remain the financial centers of the world and control much of its banking activities. At the present time these nations, and especially the United States, are so indebted that there really is no need to present an explanation as to why there would be another downturn in its economy. All that is needed for this is something to trigger what is going to happen anyway one way or another. While many things may trigger such a downturn, and the media will place all the emphasis on this trigger, the deeper reasons for a downturn is best understood from the Mayan calendar. From a Mayan calendar perspective the ongoing decline in economic growth reflects a stepwise adaptation to the end of the economic cycles that will be associated with the Mayan end date (or beginning date of a new world if you like).

If the downturn of the economy is part of a process creating the conditions for the birth of a new world a relevant question to ask is how deep it is going to be. Even if it seems clear that the value of paper money, and especially the US dollar, will be hit, it is still somewhat of an open question how far-reaching the consequences of this will be. I think this can only be understood from a study of what might be the nature of the new world to be born. When it comes to understanding this it seems however that there are actually no ancient Mayan sources to consult. The Mayan sources only say that Nine cosmic forces are going to manifest as the calendar comes to an end, but there is no ancient inscription, which talks about what will follow upon this. Because of this dearth of material I suggest that we turn to sources from the large Abrahamic religions such as the Bible or the Quran, which do say something on the matter. If we combine these with our understanding from the Mayan calendar I feel we may gain some idea of what is to come. I believe everything that has been happening in this time plan has been subordinated to the delivery of this new world.

Hence, the Quran says this in Surah 82:17-19: “And what will explain to thee what the Day of Judgment is? Again, what will explain to thee what the Day of Judgment is? (It will be) the Day when no soul shall have power (to do) aught for another: For the command, that Day, will be (wholly) with Allah.” I believe this disappearance of dominance may refer to the Universal Underworld, which brings a consciousness of oneness and transparency to our whole beings and all of our past actions. If we take this seriously it would imply that all chains to people dominating others would need to be broken. The last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation 21:4-5 also describes a new world to be born: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” This would seem to imply that all chains to the past would need to be broken for the new world to be born. Taken together it would seem that as pre-requisites for the birth of a new earth we would need to free ourselves from the chains to the past as well as from chains to other people.

Loom of Maya

To some these changes may look so great that it might even be more comfortable to fantasize that the world would come to an end than to go through all of the necessary changes that would more or less turn our world upside down. Certainly, there is also a tremendous amount of people in power, who do not want to see such a transformation towards equality and harmony coming about. These quotes may however give us a hint about where the economic downturn may be leading us and how deep it will be. Will money for instance completely disappear? I think the answer to this is that money will disappear to the extent that it no longer chains the world to the past. In practice, this probably means that all thinking about profitable investing etc is somewhat beside the point, since the emerging new world is not likely to be a growth economy based on the drive for accumulation of abstract values. More likely, the new world is going to be one based on sharing and care-taking of all members of society as the unity consciousness of the Universal Wave Movement, presumably after much turmoil, eventually is established.

Read the full article here.

Who is Carl Johan Calleman and why is he so obsessed with the Mayan Calendar?

HEY GUYS, BE NICE TO MY FRIEND NOW!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:09:00 +0000

Bernard Khoo aka Zorro and I

Got an SMS this evening that pissed me off. My buddy Bernard is being harassed by Najib's Nazi Regime. The cops have called him in for questioning over something he ranted about in his popular blog. This sort of shit is never good news. I doubt anything will emerge from Zorro's 3PM appointment at the Commercial Crimes Department (near the Bank Negara KTM stop) - but the fact that the regime is on the rampage again augurs ill for the truth-loving.

Zorro speaks truth to Power. And it appears that Power doesn't want to hear; in fact, wants Zorro to shut up. Or at least tone down his rage against the nightmare of a nation in the clutches of terminal dementia. You've got to be demented if you can endure Pink Lips's 1Malaysia crap - or you may have grown up in the era of Vision 2020 and Malaysia Boleh and are therefore immune to official spin.

One thing Umno hasn't learned: if a very large number of people detest you, switching to a different brand of shampoo won't improve your chances of re-election. Even a complete wardrobe change won't save your skin.

The only real option is to apologize, retire to the wings, and let another management team take over. A genuine show of humility, remorse and the beginnings of wisdom should make it easier for us to forgive you and refrain from coming down hard on you.

Ten years playing the role of Loyal Opposition will do wonders for your soul. People may even start liking you again.

Meanwhile, let's not stand for heavy-handed tactics to inject fear into the blogosphere. If you care for freedom and justice, show your moral support for Zorro by turning up at the Commercial Crimes Department at 3PM, 4 November 2009.

Why Robber Barons Love Building Dams...

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:19:00 +0000

The accursed Bakun Dam (brainchild of Mahathir and Daim) is doomed to fail.

Imagine we’re gathered in some holy place. An architectural wonder. Like St Paul’s Cathedral in Rome or the St Sophia Mosque in Instanbul. Or perhaps the Gateway of the Sun in Peru or the Giza Pyramid Complex in Egypt. And we’re here to knock this whole place down and build a megamall right here because it would make better economic sense.

Let's have Wal-Mart and McDonald's at this popular tourist location.

Imagine the tremendous outcry against such an outrage. We’re talking about demolishing a cultural and spiritual artifact – a monument to a whole religious tradition. We’re talking about trading in our prophets for profits. Absolutely unthinkable, right?

Now: imagine you’re living in a small house you built yourself, beside a clear stream in a beautiful, forested river valley. Your ancestors have lived here for a hundred generations. According to your folklore, the landscape is the living flesh of divine progenitors whose essence condensed to form familiar features - like the mountains, the rivers, the rocks and the trees - and who are integral aspects of a Great Spirit inhabiting all forms, a unity in astonishing diversity. To you, the fact that the land is sacred – endowed with meaning, significance, and intrinsic spiritual value – is so obvious, no one needs to put it into words.

Imagine we’re here to log this magnificent forest, blow up the hills, dig up the rocks, turn a green sanctuary into a giant construction site, seriously pollute the water basin, cause massive erosion in a water catchment area, and dam up one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the country. Why? Because economic growth demands greater water consumption - and water supply is a growth industry. And because we have been grossly insensitive in the way we use and manage our water resources.

Sungai Luit by Doreen Ong

A CLASH OF PERSPECTIVES

We are born into cultural perspectives that become imperceptible to us - until we find ourselves outside of them. Like fish that never wonder what water is, we grow up with assumptions about reality we rarely question. For instance, we rarely question the need for governments... or armies... or landlords... or caste systems (whether hereditary or monetary).

When we hear the word “development” we assume we know what it means. We experience the flow of time as linear, just as the world looks flat to a lowlander. When conversing with people from a different cultural and linguistic background, we assume they aren’t as clever as ourselves – because they’re not very fluent in our language.

When urbanites encounter country folk, they unconsciously assume an air of superiority. Surely our sophisticated way of life is far better than theirs! Surely they’re better off becoming more like us (no way they could ever become just like us, of course, since we have too far a headstart on them!)

Civilization creates art, it’s true, but art creates artifice and artificiality. Industrial man sees the wilderness as a vast resource that can be converted into private wealth. Recklessly, ruthlessly, we go about building our national aspirations by tearing down our natural heritage.

Morally, this is no different than a cannibal eyeing an infant as a delicious and convenient source of protein. The wilderness, like a baby, has only beauty and innocence as its defences. When Darwinian notions of “survival of the fittest” form the basis of modern society, the total extermination of entire species becomes justified in terms of Them or Us.

CONVERT OR DESTROY THE SAVAGES!

Unfortunately, some of us don’t truly appreciate anything until it’s gone forever. Hardwoods can be converted into hard cash. Ignorant savages can be converted into consumers, taxpayers, mindless believers, obedient slaves of the System.

Filthy heathens have no souls and feel no pain - unlike us civilized God-fearing folks.

Some of us have tried to warn the others about the folly of such shortsighted behavior – and the dangerous consequences lurking ahead. For the most part we have been ignored.

The Earth fights back by getting feverish. When her flesh is torn apart by man’s rapacious machines, she shudders and quakes and sweats profusely, releasing a deluge of mysterious plagues upon us.

The Earth coughs and we realize we're living on the back of a gigantic whale.

At the fountain of knowledge, we drank too thirstily, only to become drunk with a false sense of power. We thought we could manipulate the masses with fear and greed. But the fear and greed enslaved us instead. Now we find ourselves powerless to alter our destructive course. We’re on the fast track and can’t stop the mindless runaway train of economic growth. Our materialistic definition of growth has limited us to the physical world, and excluded us from the limitless realm of the metaphysical. This growth has now taken on the form of a cancer that is about to kill us all – unless we redirect our attention to growth in mental and spiritual terms.

Cash crops bring fast bucks - and fast bucks is what drives "progress."

For a start, we can apologize for the hideous damage we have inflicted on the wilderness and indigenous ways of life. Then we could focus our efforts on helping the wounds heal. Only in a quest for renewed wholeness can we find our collective way home. And only through the heart can we know the universal love that redeems tragedy and transforms it into a higher truth.

Damnation is the fate of those who would turn the Earth into a living hell where everything is measured in terms of buy and sell. Our salvation can only come from regaining our lost innocence and restoring the beauty of our wildernesses.

We don’t really have a choice: win-win or lose-lose are the only options left.

[Written in June 2001 in response to the Selangor Dam project; but still topical in view of all the destructive dams currently under construction, or under consideration.]

The Most Obnoxious Cop In KL?

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Ladies and Gentlemen, watch these videos and you'll agree that Brickfields OCPD Asst Comm Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul Khalid fully deserves the 2009 Award for "The Most Obnoxious Cop in KL"...

Here he is, the delightfully obnoxious Wan Bari Wan Khalid, interrupting Tian Chua's speech during Nurul Izzah's fund-raising dinner at Taman Sri Sentosa on 31 October 2009. A special halloween treat for horror movie fans!

Flashback to 8 May 2009...

For the second straight night the Brickfields police have arrested people who gathered to show support for activist Wong Chin Huat, arrested under the Sedition Act on Wednesday.

In a repeat of last night's shameful demonstration of police aggression, 14 people were arrested again today for allegedly participating in an illegal assembly. About two hours later, six others were also taken in, including lawyers who had come to assist those arrested earlier.

The 14 - nine men and five women - included PKR Youth movement exco member Ginnie Lim, KLSCAH Youth chief Ng Chong Soon, journalist Teh Yi Keong, PKR party worker Chua Yee Ling and several student activists.

The arrested lawyers were Fadiah, Syuhaini Safwan, Puspawati Rosman, Ravinder Singh and Murnie Hidayah Anuar. They are all from the Bar Council's legal aid centre.

All six were arrested for illegal gathering.

Camera: Amirrudin Abdullah
Editor: Lydia Azizan

If I were the homo minister, I'd either promote this psychopath to IGP and turn the whole country into Abu Ghraib... or hang my head in shame and resign.

LIGHTNING GOT MY MODEM... AGAIN!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:56:00 +0000

Well, it's a Sunday and the only place in Kuala Kubu Bharu where I might have picked up a new modem is the cybercafe I use whenever my phone line is down. Unfortunately they don't sell any basic modems. No way I'll fork out RM200+ for a Level One modem with built-in wireless router. So I'll just have to wait till the Kedai Telekom opens tomorrow to sort it out. Meanwhile, read all about the mysteries of lightning here.

Is this the sultry-voiced 18-year-old folksinger I met so many years ago?

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:37:00 +0000

Anna Salleh belts it out at No Black Tie (September 2002)

Portrait of a torch singer

Anna used to be in a Sydney-based a cappella group

Jazz is her passion now (photos by Antares)

I was introduced to Anna Salleh in 1983 by her proud father, the larger-than-life bilingual poet, columnist, actor and playwright Salleh Ben Joned (pictured left). Having just bought myself a guitar a couple of years earlier, I was bowled over when Anna picked up hers and played me a couple of her own songs.

You could say I was immediately smitten by her uninhibited spirit, her strong melodious voice, and her Eurasian good looks (her mother Ariel is Australian, married her father while he was doing his Masters in English literature in Tasmania).

Lat's classic portrait of Salleh Ben Joned as a bohemian poet

But, dammit, she had just turned 18. I was only 33 then but it did seem like a huge age gap (how silly of me to even think it!). At the time I was still part of a nuclear family with two lovely daughters aged 14 and 12; and, besides, the thought of having Salleh Ben Joned as a father-in-law lent the whole prospect a somewhat surreal, if not entirely absurd, dimension, much as I love the man. Anna mentioned, as if in telepathic response to an unspoken question, that she was dating a muso named Peter, who was into folk.

Anna and I kept in sporadic contact over the years. Peter and she were part of a commune called Magic Mountain, mostly populated by artists, musicians, organic farmers, assorted oddballs, maverick scientists, and visionaries. Perhaps it was Anna's description of life at Magic Mountain that inspired my establishing the Magick River community nine years later.

My first trip to Australia was in 1991 as a guest of the Department of Foreign Affairs who sponsored a 23-day tour of five cities. I had a fantastic time meeting musicians, filmmakers, theatre activists. mystics and high-tech shamans. During my brief stay in Sydney, Anna dropped in at my tiny hotel and we had a long, leisurely natter. At the time she was part of a professional a cappella group. She was also struggling to obtain her degree in some esoteric branch of biology, while holding down a rather mundane day job, I forget what. And she was still mesmerizingly beautiful. Indeed, I thought Anna had improved with age. Take a look at these videos recorded a few weeks ago at No Black Tie...

Black Orpheus (Luiz Bonfá and Antonio Maria) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

Semalam di Malaya (Saiful Bahri) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

Summer Samba/So Nice (Marcos Valle/Norman Gimbel) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

What a smashing diva, don't you think? Anna's back in Sydney at her day job writing and producing features for ABC Science Online - but she says she plans to spend a lot more time in Malaysia exploring her roots. I think that's an absolutely fabulous idea, Anna!

Say, how about one more number from the delectable Anna Salleh, folks? And if you still haven't had enough, check out her YouTube channel.

So Danco Samba (Vinícius de Moraes/Antonio Carlos Jobim) performed by Anna Salleh (guitar/vocals) and friends (Xiong on guitar; Badar (R) and Toninho (L) on percussion; Wan Azfarezal on bass) live @ Kuala Lumpur's, 'No Black Tie' (12 October 2009).

Abducted, raped, robbed, tortured & C4ed

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:23:00 +0000

These are indeed extremely troubled times. I don't recall any other era in Malaysian politics when the situation felt so hopelessly mired in a morass of moral murk - apart from the May 13 period, and just before Mahathir launched his cynical Ops Lalang on 27 October 1987, effectively turning Malaysia into a rogue police state.

More and more I find myself struck dumb, numb and speechless by the sheer audacity of those who cling desperately to power. The vicious cruelty and sheer wickedness that have insidiously crept into the national psyche and taken possession of our collective soul, holding ransom our public conscience, our sense of decency and justice.

The horror stories wafting like the stench of putrefaction from our refugee camps.

Human beings routinely and arbitrarily forced to endure hellish conditions - even painful and meaningless death - when their only crime is to be driven by economic necessity to find employment as domestic help in a foreign country seemingly inhabited by wannabe tinpot despots.

There is no way we can escape the conclusion: a land where even a market vendor displays such ruthless tyranny and inexcusable cruelty must have had a long history of raksasa rule. What are raksasa? Wikipedia defines raksasa as "supernatural humanoids who tend toward evil. Powerful warriors, they resort to the use of magic and illusion when unsuccessful with conventional weapons."

Magic and illusion, otherwise known as voodoo and media spin.

I'm at a complete loss for words, seeing what has become of our once promising nation, and utterly appalled by the fact that - going by the percentage of pro-BN comments left on blogs and news portals - some 50% of the population remain blind to the evil nature of the power structure they prop up with their ethnocentric ego insecurities. Below are some snippets gathered from news portals and forwarded emails that amply demonstrate that "peace and stability" are unsustainable and illusory in the absence of justice and freedom...

HANG THE POLICE FIRST by Raja Petra Kamarudin

Take a walk back into history. Look at how the USSR held on to power. Look at how the Shah of Iran held on to power. Look at how Saddam held on to power. Look at how Marcos held on to power. Look at how Sukarno and then Suharto held on to power. Look at the last 5,000 years of the recorded history of mankind and look at how any of the regimes held on to power. And you will discover one common denominator. And that common denominator is a violent police force that serves the regime in any way that is required, legal or otherwise.

And that is the situation in Malaysia today.

WARNING TO THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT

To those who walk in the corridors of power, I wish to inform you that I know you are beating up my son in the Sungai Buloh Prison. Every day he is being subjected to beatings to force him to withdraw his not guilty plea and to plead guilty to the various charges he is facing. I also know he is being subjected to these daily beatings to force him to withdraw his not guilty plea and instead plead guilty because there is no evidence against him and the charges are merely trumped-up charges.

Furthermore, I know he is being threatened with six additional charges to the ones he is already facing and he is being beaten up to force him to plead guilty to these charges as well. My son has informed me he can no longer stand these daily beatings and he wants to plead guilty to the charges. I have advised him to do so although we both realise that this means he will be spending at least ten years or so in jail.

My son is aware he is being subjected to this torture to induce me to surface and he is prepared to plead guilty and spend ten years in jail if that means it will save me from the powers-that-be.

Raja Petra Kamarudin

ONLY IN MALAYSIA!
Posted on ArtisProActiv, 28 Oct 2009:

Unbelievable! All within a week...

Unbelievable #1 - Tian Chua sentenced to jail because judge was convinced cop who admitted punching Tian Chua told the truth about his biting.

Unbelievable #2 - Lingam case dropped because no evidence of judicial interference notwithstanding the Royal Commission findings.

Unbelievable #3 - Anwar Ibrahim's case against Tun Dr Mahathir thrown out because filing was not in Bahasa.

Unbelievable #4 - Gobind Singh Deo's challenge against suspension denied because court has no jurisdiction although the opposite was said in the Perak fiasco.

Unbelievable #5 - Local pathologists completely overlooked body injuries that point to homicide as revealed by Thai forensic expert Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand.

Unbelievable #6 - At Najib's instigation Ong Tee Keat and failed porn star Chua Soi Lek shake hands suddenly after months of bitter fighting.

Unbelievable #7 - Loss of over RM 1.4 billion in Rawang-Ipoh double-tracking project.

Unbelievable #8 - Mara paid RM84,640 for two units of Acer notebooks plus millions for other overpriced computer equipment.

Unbelievable #9 - Government guarantees failed Prasarana bonds of over RM 7 billion.

PERAK TURNED INTO A BARBARIC STATE
Friday, 30 October 2009 11:44

BN must make up its mind once and for all. Does it still want to put up the pretence that Malaysia is a democracy? If it does, should it continue to bombard our senses with such disgusting scenes and bare to the world the ugly truth of what Malaysia truly is?

By Kim Quek

After the nonsensical assembly sitting in Perak on Oct 28, Barisan Nasional should deeply reflect whether it is worthwhile to prolong its farcical rule in the Silver State.

To say the least, the session was a complete wash out.

First, police control and intervention inside and outside the assembly was so heavy and so overpowering that it has completely destroyed the image of our legislature as an independent and the highest institution in our system of government.

Second, the slipshod manner with which BN’s budget motion was rushed through makes us wonder whether the budget was legally approved.

Let us start with the budget approval.

BN’s Mentri Besar Zambry Kadir started his budget speech at 1120 hrs, and thirty minutes later, he had not only completed his speech, but had moved his budget motion through three readings, each time approved by the BN assemblymen present, under vocal protests from Pakatan assemblymen. There was no debate and no one seemed to have heard any detailed figures – if figures were read out then, these were not carried in many newspapers the next day anyway. Pakatan assemblymen walked off the assembly immediately after the approval of the third reading.

A budget proposal is a statement of revenues and expenditures as well as major policies that encompass the entire government which is made up of many departments. So, it is normally a lengthy speech, followed by debates that take place during each of the first, second and third readings. It is hence a real marvel how the assembly could have compressed such elaborate process of proposal, deliberation and decision in all the three stages in the short interval of half an hour.

Through such shotgun approval, the voices of the people who speak through their representatives are muted. Isn’t this a mockery of our democratic process and betrayal of the trust of the people?

Was the budget legally approved?

On top of that is the questionable legality of Ganesan’s position as speaker. His election as speaker on May 7 was deemed a fake, as the assembly session on that day was so chaotic and violent that it was not possible to conduct any business except the delivery of the opening speech by the Regent. Compounding this now is Ganesan’s breach of the Perak Constitution Article 36 A (5) which stipulates that a speaker must relinquish his private practice immediately or in any case not later than three months after his appointment, failing which he shall be disqualified. So, even if Ganesan’s appointment on May 7 was legal (which is not at all the case), he was already disqualified on Aug 7.

With an illegal speaker presiding in the assembly, can any business be conducted legally, least of all the all important agenda of the state budget approval?

No doubt, BN may be least worried about matters of illegality, confident of its iron-grip on the entire government machinery to serve its parochial interests. After all, isn’t BN Mentri Besar Zambry, who was appointed while incumbent Mentri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin was still serving, also illegal if the courts have been upholding the constitution? Isn’t the entire state cabinet, which was selected by Zambry, also illegal?

But can BN afford the massive loss of popular support every time the police manhandle and bully elected representatives from the opposing camp or judges dishing out blatantly unconstitutional rulings?

Barbaric police intervention

According to PR assemblymen, the scuffle was violent and turned into a fist fight as some in the group of 28 attempted to protect Sivakumar from being harassed. Simpang Pulai assemblyman Chan Ming Kai was dragged on the floor when two policemen grabbed on to both of his hands and tried to pull him away. (The Malaysian Insider, 29 Oct 2009; image from Malaysiani.tv)

Take the ridiculous scenario of the Perak assembly of Oct 28. The entire assembly compound was turned into a virtual war zone, with the entrance being protected by the kind of barbed wire seen only in war time. Hundreds of policemen and riot squad who had been milling inside and outside the building manned the five checkpoints stretching from the gate to the door of the assembly hall. Pakatan assemblymen complained of harassment every inch of their way to the last check point where they were subjected to the humiliation of a body search and metal scan and their personal effects of hand phones, laptops, cameras. etc., being forcibly removed before they entered the hall.

On his way to the assembly hall, Speaker Sivakumar was lured to an area not visible to reporters and the public where he was pounced upon by scores of police personnel who forcibly disrobed him. In the melee, he was punched and strangulated with an arm lock, and his colleagues roughed up for trying to protect him.

Image from Malaysiakini.tv

Pray, where in the world can you see such barbaric acts? Not even in the pariah state of Zimbabwe!

The picture inside the assembly hall is not any prettier. Scores of police personnel were there to man the entire assembly, with twenty of them forming a protective wall in front of the BN speaker Ganesan. And video cameras were transmitting live the activities of Pakatan assemblymen to the state police headquarters and the national headquarters at Bukit Aman, according to a Malaysiakini report.

Now, isn’t this the ultimate humiliation and insult to the highest and the most sanctimonious institution of a democracy, with the police contemptuously treating our Pakatan law makers as a bunch of criminals?

BN must make up its mind once and for all. Does it still want to put up the pretence that Malaysia is a democracy? If it does, should it continue to bombard our senses with such disgusting scenes and bare to the world the ugly truth of what Malaysia truly is?

"1MALAYSIA... 2PERAK... 3KATAK!"

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:29:00 +0000

From Malaysiakini: 10.55am - Police have chased off about 80 supporters outside the building, back behind the security tape. The supporters obliged, but are taunting the cops, with some shouting: "1 Malaysia, 2 Perak, 3 Katak!"

RESPECT must be earned. It cannot be bought or demanded at gunpoint. Surely, the former Lord President and present Sultan of Perak knows this simple truth. If so, why does he not enlighten his friend, the Umno crime minister, Dato Seri Najib Razak (aka Pink Lips) about the responsibilities of true leadership?

Is the Sultan of Perak the victim of BN blackmail, as this controversial report in Malaysia Today suggests? Allow me to quote a couple of paragraphs:

Nazrin’s succession to the Perak throne depends on the goodwill of the federal government. But only if the state government is a Barisan Nasional government will there be this goodwill. If Pakatan Rakyat remains the state government, then expect Nazrin to pay the price when his time comes to succeed his father.

Furthermore, the Sultan and his family has asked for a lot of things from the Pakatan Rakyat state government, all of which they rejected. Umno will ensure that the Sultan and his family get whatever they want if Barisan Nasional takes over as the Perak state government.

If there is any truth to what Raja Petra Kamarudin has written, this nation is indeed in dire straits. It would mean that the symbols of highest authority in the land - the Sultans who serve as defenders and upholders of Islam - are as corruptibly human as you and I; and some may actually be no better than the third-rate hoodlums who have infiltrated Umno over the decades and taken complete control of the country's once abundant resources.

My personal take on the contentious issue of royalty is very straightforward. Since a very tender age I have been aware that some people I meet are naturally endowed with a certain quality I choose to call "noble" (as opposed to "base"). They make a point of upholding essential values such as honesty, compassion, generosity and wisdom; and they constantly endeavor to attain an inclusive and comprehensive perspective on the world around them.

These naturally noble souls have long outgrown narrow definitions of ethnicity and their allegiance is always to truth - not rigid religious dogma. They would never go along with a political ideology as patently false, petty-minded and self-serving as "Ketuanan Melayu." Indeed, they would be fully conscious that the word "Tuan" is a contraction of "Tuhan" (or "Lord" in English); and if anyone addressed them as such, they would instinctively flinch. Pretending to be superior to others is a silly child's game, unbefitting of any mature and intelligent soul.

Of course, the world is full of examples of idiots, pretenders and usurpers who have fallen into the trap of believing themselves superior. To reinforce their grand delusion, they invariably acquire the trappings of obscene wealth and become overly fond of pomp and circumstance. These souls are at best immature; at worst a parasitic infection of the human psyche.

By playing along with their foolish game, we are equally responsible for all the injustices and imbalances we constantly complain about. Only by consciously reclaiming our dignity, sovereignty and power as divinely inspired individuals can we free ourselves of this deleterious scam that has been inflicted on the inhabitants of this edenic planet since the advent of the "creator gods" who colonized the Earth many eons ago and whose "blueblooded" descendants persist in perpetuating this great hoax.

Are we still trapped in the limited worldview of a bunch of cannibals cowering before the arrival of White Gods in flying machines who sometimes bear gifts of colorful trinkets and firewater - and at other times rape our women and massacre us with their death-dealing weaponry?

Those are events that occurred many millennia ago, although the inertia of the ancient past continues to hold sway over our traditional hierarchies. We need not be ashamed that our ancestors were awed and shocked by the so-called gods' display of military might (thunderbolt-hurling deities can be very scary). In this day and age, despite the apparent might of the plutocrats and their puerile secret societies, we have the option of uninstalling dysfunctional software and upgrading our operating systems, so that we can step boldly towards the fulfilment of our glorious destiny as free and fearless kings and queens (and princes and princesses) of our own personal domains.

[Images courtesy of The Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini, The New Straits Times and Google]

RPK ON THE ARCHAIC SEDITION ACT AS A WEAPON OF CRASS DESTRUCTION

Published on Malaysia Today 28 October 2009

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:55:00 +0000

Asia Sentinel | Monday, 26 October 2009

It's best to be connected to the ruling national coalition

On July 16, according to the testimony of a Thai pathologist, Teoh Beng Hock, a 29-year-old aide to an opposition politician, was probably beaten during a marathon questioning session, sodomized, strangled unconscious, dragged to a window of the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission in Kuala Lumpur and thrown to his death.

The country's law enforcement establishment maintains that Teoh committed suicide by leaping from the MACC building after the inquiry was concluded into irregularities in his boss's accounts. But it is far from the first "suicide" in custody and what happened to Teoh happens all too frequently when the luckless collide with the powerful in Malaysia. His real killers are unlikely ever to be identified. As many as 350 people have died in custody since 1990. The privileged are rarely brought to trial.

The most infamous recent case before Teoh's is that of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a 28 year-old Mongolian translator who was murdered in 2006 by two bodyguards of then-Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. Altantuya had been jilted by Najib's best friend, Abdul Razak Baginda, and was demanding money from him.

Although numerous witnesses and evidence connected Najib to the affair, he was never questioned or put on the witness stand, nor was his chief of staff, Musa Safri, who Baginda said in a cautioned statement he approached about getting Altantuya to cease her harassment. His two bodyguards were convicted of the murder although one, in his confession, said the two men were to be paid RM100,000 to kill her. The court never asked who would pay the money. The confession wasn't allowed in court. Baginda was acquitted without having to put on a defense and promptly left the country and Najib was eventually named Prime Minister.

Such questionable cases go back to at least the early 1980s when Sultan Mahmud Iskandar of Johor (left) was dubbed the "killer king" by the British tabloids after he shot a trespasser to death on his property. He also reportedly assaulted and killed a golf caddy who was said to have laughed when the sultan missed a golf stroke and he maimed the caddy's brother. He later was alleged to have assaulted and injured a hockey coach, kicking off a constitutional crisis that led to former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's removal of legal immunity from prosecution for all of Malaysia's nine sultans, although Iskandar was never either arrested or jailed.

There are plenty more. In 1988 an attractive young woman named Mustakizah Jaafar, who owned a video rental business in Malacca, was found hacked to death by unknown assailants. Mustakizah reportedly was pregnant at the time of her death. She was believed to be having an affair with Megat Junid Megat Ayob (right), the onetime UMNO deputy home affairs minister, who died in January 2008 of cancer.

No one was ever charged with Mutakizah's murder. The widespread gossip about Megat Junid's connection with Mustakizah didn't do his political career any harm. He was ultimately named Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister in 1997 although he lost his parliamentary seat two years later and retired from politics.

[Read the whole sad and sordid story here.]

RPK ON MALAYSIA'S BLOATED CIVIL SERVICE

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:50:00 +0000

We have a bloated civil service. More than a million civil servants (including the diplomatic service, security agencies, etc.) against a working population of 10 million people is just too much. That comes to about 13% or so.

Then there is the ‘evaporation rate’, which is again very high. From the Auditor-General’s report every year we know that there is a very high ‘evaporation rate’. So, from the RM200 billion we spend we only get about RM150 billion worth in return. RM50 billion just ‘evaporates’ into thin air.

This is the crux of the whole issue. RM200 billion means nothing if only RM30 billion goes to the people because of the high running cost and evaporation rate.

RAJA PETRA KAMARUDIN
23 October 2009

[Cartoon by Antares from THE BUDGET ~ How the Government is Spending OUR Money by Teh Chi-Chang, published by REFSA (Research for Social Advancement)]

You've blown the budget. Now read the book (only RM20 mah!)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:27:00 +0000

BUDGET 2010 will be released today, or so I'm told (yawn). Well, for someone like me who has never paid any attention to economics, it's just a load of dead boring gobbledygook. At this juncture a stale joke comes to mind...

How can you tell when the prime minister is lying?" That's right... when you see his pink lips moving.

But I'm really excited to hear that Teh Chi-Chang's new book on the Malaysian Budget will be out sometime this week. I've read parts of the draft and I think Teh has brilliantly achieved his objective of demystifying the subject for the layman.

The book is titled: The Budget - How the Government is spending OUR money.

I think we ought to make it our business to find out exactly how Barisan Nasional has been squandering the nation's wealth.

Another reason I'm promoting Teh's book is that I provided the illustrations, and it's always pleasurable to see one's work in print.

Priced at only RM20, Teh's book will soon be on the shelves of your favorite bookshop. Or you can order it online here. If that doesn't work for you, or you would like to negotiate a bulk purchase, please contact Teh via budgetbook@chichang.net - and I'm sure you'll get a really good deal!

Here are some advance notices from folks in the know:

“An excellent guide … so intelligently put together” - Tunku Abdul Aziz

"Simple language backed with solid statistics" = Prof. Rajah Rasiah of Universiti Malaya

"A straightforward, incisive approach to this normally dry subject" - Yeo Yang Poh, past president of the Malaysian Bar Council

Chi-Chang has given me the green light to publish a sneak preview of a few juicy excerpts from his book...
“Budget Day” is a very special day in our parliamentary calendar. It is the one day in a year that Parliament sits on a Friday. The eyes of the nation are focused on the Finance Minister as he delivers his Budget speech that Friday afternoon, which is broadcast ‘live’ by the major television and radio stations.

That speech is more theatre than substance. It is an opportunity to highlight government successes and provides populist sound-bites which government backbenchers can thump the tables in support of. There is often something for nearly everybody, and newspapers the next day tend to be full of complimentary comments along the lines of: “goodies for the rakyat”... “it’s a people’s budget”... “it’s people-friendly”... “it’s a growth budget”....

Income disparity among the bumiputras is the highest among the three major ethnic groups. Government policy has been focused on reducing the bumiputra income gap with the other ethnic groups. Hence, we have quotas and various bumiputra-only or bumiputra-preferred practices. The above data suggests the government should also be looking at how it implements its policies among bumiputras. It would appear that already-rich bumiputras are reaping the greatest benefits from the pro-bumiputra policies. This runs counter to the intention of raising the lot of disadvantaged bumiputras.

Should the CEO also be the CFO?

The two most powerful positions in corporate management are of chief executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO). The CEO is the boss and sets overall direction. The CFO controls the purse-strings. Quite often good CEOs and CFOs will disagree. CEOs by nature and expectation have to seek new growth opportunities to expand corporate profits. They would tend to emphasise the rewards over the risks. CFOs are entrusted with financial stewardship. And when it comes to stewardship, being conservative and risk-averse are the preferred traits.

So, that’s how it works in the corporate world. No reasonable board of directors would countenance the CEO also holding the CFO position. There is just too much at stake to have one person holding the two most senior positions.

That’s also how it’s supposed to work in government. The prime minister leads and the finance minister tells him what the government can afford. Perhaps the most celebrated such pair in recent history was telegenic British prime minister Tony Blair and dour Chancellor Gordon Brown. Over here in Malaysia though, no eyebrows are raised that the prime minister is also the finance minister. This practice began during prime minister Mahathir’s tenure, was continued by Abdullah Badawi, and now Najib has continued the practice.

This might explain the deteriorating state of government finances. By 2009, we would have run 12 consecutive years of budget deficits.Subsidies – literally burning cash

RM34bn was spent on subsidies in 2008. Subsidies are meant to help the poor. And yet, nearly 400,000 Malaysian households or about 2 million Malaysians still live in poverty.

RM34bn is equal to RM85,000 for each poor Malaysian household – sufficient to lift them well above the poverty line. In fact, it is sufficient to propel them to the middle-class!

So where did the money go? Mostly to fuel. Quite literally burnt to little effect.

Government must help the most disadvantaged and poorest in society. Subsidies are one method. However, something is clearly wrong given that there are still so many poor Malaysians in our midst despite the tens of billions being spent on subsidies.

Our subsidy policies actually benefit the rich more than the poor. For example, cheap petrol benefits the rich man driving a fuel-guzzling Porsche Cayenne far more than the average Malaysian in his Perodua Myvi. Similarly, cheap electricity helps the ex-Menteri Besar living in his multi-million ringgit beautifully-lit mansion far more than
the poor family in a squatter home.

Teh Chi-Chang, 38, holds a first-class honours Bachelors’ degree from the University of Warwick, a Masters from the University of Cambridge and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He spent 14 years in the rat-race and was looking forward to spending more time with family and personal interests - until Tony Pua of the Democratic Action Party persuaded him to enlist in public service.

Chi-Chang looks forward to good, clean government in Malaysia which will enable him to then focus on his real ambitions, which are to produce a definitive English-language text on the art of tai-chi and to play the guitar like Julian Mokhtar. His corporate sector experience includes management, investment appraisal and corporate finance. He has headed Malaysia equity investment research teams as well as contributed to top-rated teams covering utilities and media companies regionally. Chi-Chang can be contacted via his blog, Analyst at Large.

Just received word that The Budget - How the Government is Spending OUR Money will be officially launched at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, Jalan Maharajalela, Kuala Lumpur at 8:00PM on 26 October 2009 - in conjunction with a public forum on Budget 2010. Panelists for the forum will include:

* Lim Guan Eng, Penang Chief Minister
* Tony Pua, MP for Petaling Jaya Utara
* Charles Santiago, MP for Klang
* Liew Chin Tong, MP for Bukit Bendera
* Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, MP for Kuala Selangor
* William Leong, MP for Selayang

All are welcome and attendance is free. Another book titled BUDGET STRATEGIES FOR ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION (published by the DAP Economic Bureau) will also be launched at this forum. Both books will be available at a special discount!

A Blast of Good Vibes from Paul Hawken

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:55:00 +0000

The Unforgettable Commencement Address
by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.

Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

“... the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.”

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

“YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING.”

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

“Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.”

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

“We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible.

[Thanks to blogger Michelle Yoon for alerting me to this blast of good vibes from Paul Hawken, whose name I fondly recall from reading his marvelous account, The Magic of Findhorn, published in 1975.]

Dean Johns is 1 Helluva Funny Guy!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:02:00 +0000

1 picture tells the story

By Dean Johns | Malaysiakini Oct 21, 09 | 10:35am

If ever there was a picture worth 1,000 or 10,000 or any other number of words, it was the humongous number 1 on the stage at last week's Umno general assembly.

The party's leaders, supporters and propagandists clearly intended and perceived it as a towering symbol of pride in their sense of unity and supremacy.

But to those of us who inhabit the real world, that monumental illuminated numeral was a glowing declaration of Umno's megalomanic determination to dominate Malaysia by means of Barisan Nasional.

And the tilted BN 'balance' or 'scales' logo was a reminder, as if we needed one, of how heavily and one-sidedly the nation's institutions are weighted in Umno/BN's favour.

The speeches that I've read spoke volumes too.

Not in their actual words, which were as platitudinous, self-serving, conflicted, confused and confusing as we've come to expect from Umno orators, but in what they omitted to say about issues that everybody knows cry out to be addressed.

PM and Umno President Najib Abdul Razak, for example, proclaimed that the party aimed to reform itself into a "progressive, dynamic and responsive" party, whatever such mush might mean, and later urged its members to "move away from the negative culture of money politics so we could become a clean and respected party."

No mention of the fact that BN won the recent Bagan Pinang by election with a candidate mired in money politics, and that presumably other Umno office-holders, including himself, are beneficiaries of the party's traditional money-politics culture that he claims to so eager to reform.

Later in his 70-minute speech, "Uphold tradition, and fostering change", Najib attempted to push his patently false 1Malaysia proposition by portraying Umno as a a party for all. "Umno must not be seen as representing certain people, the party must be seen as an inclusive party which puts the people's interests at the forefront, and not oneself," he said.

Hang together or hang separately

This flies in the face of the self-evident fact that, as Najib said elsewhere in his speech, Umno is "the Malay nationalist party", forever ferociously advocating and defending Malay rights to special privileges and advantages over Malaysians of other races.

Nevertheless, he pressed on with his myth of inclusiveness, claiming that Umno is and will remain "centrist", and is "neither a leftist nor a right-wing party".

I must confess I've never thought about Umno in terms of what political "wing" it seems to be on.

But now that Najib's raised the issue, I realise that, given my perception that Umno has seldom, if ever, shown signs of running the country right, I'd categorise it as not so much left-wing or right-wing as wrong-wing.

But Najib, apparently undaunted by such criticism and opposition, and even by setbacks like the 1969 general election, the Coalition's near loss of which provoked the May 13 riots, and BN's wake-up call in the 2008 electoral 'tsunami', remains supremely confident.

"If we remain united, work towards our common goal and put in the effort, we will climb the highest mountain and go down the deepest ravine and swim the deepest ocean. We shall overcome the odds," he said.

Calls by Najib and other Umno figures for unity always put me in mind of Benjamin Franklin's warning to his co-signatories of America's Declaration of Independence that their British rulers saw as treasonous: "Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Doing whatever to maintain power

Because Umno/BN is arguably fast running out of rope and living in fear of retribution too.

Not for offences against some foreign power, like America's founding fathers were party to, but for 52 years of crimes and injustices committed against the Malaysian people.

Mongolian people too, recalling the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, but let's keep it to locals for now.

What Najib and his ilk are terrified of is the fact that, just as any sign of good governanace over the past 52 years is to the credit of Umno/BN, every bad administrative decision or act is also by definition their fault.

And they're haunted by half a century of crimes and misdemeanours that they have committed or condoned, from rampant corruption, the mismanagement and embezzlement of public funds and the perversion of public institutions like the press, judiciary and electoral commission, to the susected murder by the police and MACC of 'suspects' in their custody.

And there's mounting evidence that the people, Malay and non-Malay alike, are increasingly at one in their disgust at this disgraceful record, and in their eagerness to see the guilty thrown out of office and brought to justice.

Hence the calls to the forces of Umno/BN to "remain united" towards the "common goal" of saving their necks, be it by daring feats involving mountains, ravines and oceans or less athletic activities like bending the judiciary to their bidding and employing the police as their enforcers.

For all Najib's talk about the "reform" since he succeeded the somnolent Badawi as prime minister, he's yet to put so much as a sen of his money where his mouth is. Quite the opposite, in fact.

As human rights watchdog Suaram has reported on his 200th day in office (and, coincidentally, the 3rd anniversary of the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu), he's shown a "blatant disgregard" for human rights, and permitted "serious violations" including continued use of emergency laws, racial and religious intolerance, crackdowns on peaceful assemblies and protests, continued curbs on media freedom, attacks on alternative media, and abuses by law-enforcement agencies.

I could go on and on giving instances of Umno/BN's clear determination to do business as usual despite all its rhetoric about reform.

But that's enough words for me for now, and in any case you get the picture.

The big, blue 1 with Malaysia down below and the crooked BN scales in the middle on stage at the general assembly didn't, as we were supposed to believe, mean one Malaysia for all Malaysians.

It meant that Umno/BN stands united, as always, to say and do whatever it takes to retain enough popular support to continue the only activity for which its leaders, members and cronies have ever shown any appetite or aptitude: looking after number 1.

3 Years Since Tuya Was Cruelly Murdered...

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:34:00 +0000

IN MEMORIAM

Altantuya Shaariibuu (6 May 1978 - 20 October 2006)

IS JUSTICE DEAD IN MALAYSIA?

TAKES A KING TO EXPOSE A KING!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:12:00 +0000

I've been away from the computer all day and only just got around to checking out the news portals. I was alerted to a very significant post filed by Raja Petra Kamarudin on Malaysia Today at 4:23am this morning, in which he speaks plainly about royal excesses and how they ultimately bring down the moral tone of the entire nation while fostering a virulent culture of corruption, hypocrisy and tyranny.

RPK specifically targets the Perak royal house in this instance, naming names and listing in detail their transgressions against the rakyat.

It's obvious that the feudal era is long past its sell-by date. Only a benighted handful continue to believe in the divine right of kings to behave as they will - regardless of the rights and wrongs of their actions and how their misbehavior ultimately burdens the citizens and increases the level of darkness and disease in the realm.

A small but powerful cabal of politically connected players in Umno - taking their cue from master manipulator Mahathir Mohamad - have learnt how to get the monarchs to do their bidding - and in so doing, have effectively tainted what might once have been a revered and dignified institution.

Chinese pictographs are sophisticated symbols with multidimensional meanings. Take the pictogram for wang or king (left): three horizontal strokes connected by a single vertical stroke. The bottom line depicts ti, the earth; the middle line is ren, humanity; and the topmost line is tien, heaven. The single vertical axis serves as a pillar that separates heaven from earth while holding them together and uniting them, in order that humanity may flourish. Therein lies the essential meaning of kingship. If the axis is bent or infirm, heaven and earth will be out of alignment and the kingdom will collapse in disarray.

Most traditional monarchies have long been disconnected from their mystical and spiritual origins - either through excessive inbreeding, inauspicious crossbreeding, or through usurpation of the ancient quasi-divine Anunnaki bloodlines by atavistic primate DNA.

In the last few thousand years of imperialistic wars, brutal massacres and general mayhem, most of the authentic bearers of the original "golden thread" prime genetic (characterized by its high content of monoatomic gold, the elixir of longevity and immortality) have gone underground or mixed genes with the plebeians.

Like all mythical heroes - from Ankhenaton to Odysseus to Yeshua to Aragorn of Arathorn and Princess Leia - bona fide royalty will be found either in mufti or self-imposed exile.

Well, in Malaysia, one of the few truly royal personages I have encountered happens to be Raja Petra Kamarudin - who, of course, is currently in self-imposed exile. The arrogant, corrupt and evil regime he has been battling for more than 11 years would certainly love to toss RPK into the darkest dungeon and throw away the key.

Read RPK's powerful post here and you will immediately understand why. Thanks again, Pete, for fulfilling your royal destiny with such magnificent courage and forthrightness.

The Pakistani Spectator Interview 25/6/08

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:15:00 +0000

I chanced upon this post dated 26 June 2008 and was tickled by how quickly one forgets all the little events that happen in the course of a year. Indeed, I keep telling people time has become so compressed every month now seems like a year, and each year feels like a whole decade. Upon re-reading this interview with The Pakistani Spectator from 16 months ago, I decided it was still interesting and deserves to be revisited...

Photo by Suzanne Lee

The Pakistani Spectator • June 25th, 2008

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

I was born to a middle-class family in a small town called Batu Pahat. Began working at age 20 in advertising, became a Creative Director at 23, quit at 27 to become a freelance audiovisual producer and creative consultant, and soon devoted my energies entirely to theatre, music and writing. I was introduced to the Internet at 48 and immediately embraced the delightful possibilities of digital tech. Relocated from Kuala Lumpur to a forest reserve in 1992 to found an alternative community called Magick River. Soon became involved with an Orang Asli (aboriginal) community and environmental issues. Launched the Magick River website. A dam was built in the area in 2002 and the village went on the power grid - but it took another four years to get broadband access. One of the first things I did was to start the Magick River blog in December 2006.

Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

Like any other craft, writing improves with experience and regular practice. However, mastering the technical aspects of writing is hardly the most important issue. What’s truly meaningful to me is the process of developing clarity of thought - and simplicity and elegance of expression.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

Soon after I initiated the Magick River blog I realized the importance of building a readership. There were so many new things to learn: getting listed with Technorati and other blog directories, promoting the blog among friends, adding widgets and generally tweaking the blog template so that it would reflect my personality. For the first year I was happy to get approximately 300 hits a day but after the March 8th 2008 elections I began to focus more on Malaysian politics and that boosted traffic to nearly 12,000 hits a day for certain blogposts. That was a real thrill for me - like somebody earning thousands suddenly receiving a cheque for millions!

What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?

I make it a point to read other blogposts pinged on Petaling Street (Malaysia’s blog aggregator) and often leave comments here and there. This encourages random visitors to my own blog who then leave comments and this is how the blog network grows. Once in a while there is sufficient resonance to begin emailing other bloggers and befriending them beyond the blogosphere.

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?

The phenomenal growth of digital and microchip tech has made notebooks, palmtops, Blackberries, camera and video cellphones commonplace. At any given moment at any given place there will be somebody equipped to record an image or video footage or transmit a text message almost instantly. In effect, this is the era of citizen reporters whose enthusiasm for spreading info and news within overlapping networks makes it impossible for totalitarian control and suppression of information. For the first time since the Athenian experiment in democracy nearly 30 centuries ago, decentralized power is beginning to supersede the outgoing patriarchal, feudal, top-down forms of political power. I relish the fact that I am now able to live far from the madding crowd and yet - with affordable equipment like a laptop and digital videocam - I can become an autonomous multimedia production unit with satellite access to the rest of the planet. The proverbial Voice in the Wilderness can now be heard in the traditional centers of economic and cultural power, regardless of latitude or longitude. From my idyllic village in the Malaysian rainforest, I can broadcast my thoughts to people in London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Beijing, Ulan Bator... and, of course, Rawalpindi!

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

Certainly, and increasingly so. In the early days of the Internet, there was a greater divide between Actual and Virtual Reality. People would spend hours at their computers conversing with absent beings - and then take a break and connect with friends “in real life.” However, the line between actual and virtual appears to be blurring as we switch comfortably from chatting face-to-face to facebook chat or an SMS exchange. Indeed, the new digital interconnectivity makes it possible for an enterprising individual to organize a real-time street event using only a social networking tool like facebook.

What do you think sets Your site apart from others?

I go for substance, not style - and generally offer well-crafted blogposts with strong visual appeal. The subject matter I blog about is eclectic and ranges from musical and literary topics to hardcore politics and metaphysics, with a generous dose of humor and whimsicality.

If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?

My ability to empathize with, understand and love whatever and whoever I encounter. This has the effect of generating an attractive, rather than a repulsive, energy field - which helps in everything one does.

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

It would take too much time and effort to scour my memory banks for interesting anecdotes - and in the end such experiences tend to be intensely personal and not something to be discussed out of context.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for - what would your top 3 choices be?

Machu Picchu, Egypt, and Central America.

What is your favorite book and why?

No particular favorite as such but I was profoundly inspired by The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology by José Argüelles (Bear & Co, 1986). The galactic scope of the book’s vision was a great relief to somebody like me who tends to feel claustrophobic when confronting petty and mundane issues.

What’s the first thing you notice about a person (whether you know them or not)?

Their energy field - whether it’s dormant or radiant.

Is there anyone from your past that once told you you couldn’t write?

Fortunately, no.

How can bloggers benefit from blogs financially?

I know bloggers who earn heaps by managing a dozen blogs all targeted at attracting traffic and generating income from advertising. But this isn’t my reason for blogging and my flirtation with Google Adsense has been shortlived. Nevertheless, the friendship and goodwill my blog has earned occasionally translates into financial support from those who have found inspiration from researching my blog archives (there are quite a few who spend as many as 9-12 hours browsing my blog on a single visit!)

Is it true that whoever has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?

Time is our most precious resource and it’s up to each of us how we utilize it. The majority of humans are still trapped in the old paradigm of trading their time for wages. I happen to be among the privileged who enjoys the freedom to use my time as I please. Since I resigned from my last full-time job in 1977, I have somehow managed to sustain myself and my family fairly comfortably without having to take on tasks that are unpleasant or ethically dubious.

What are your thoughts on corporate blogs and what do you think the biggest advantages and disadvantages are?

I avoid corporate blogs like the plague! Only individuals have something worthwhile to say. Corporations only have an image to sell.

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world friendlier and less hostile?

When you’ve been blogging for a while you get exposed to a wide spectrum of opinions and temperaments - from the most refined to the coarsest of the coarse. This has the effect of acclimatizing you to shocking rudeness and even the most bizarre and grotesque prejudices. After a few heated exchanges on forums or via blog comments, you learn not to take things too personally - not to get wound up by a bunch of pixels on the screen. I’m sure this greatly helps in making bloggers more accepting and tolerant of different viewpoints. Bloggers learn to insult each other in a playful manner - without wanting to translate the aggro into violent behavior “in real life.” The only way to a peaceful world may be to allow humans to slug it out virtually with their conflicting opinions ;-)

Who are your top five favourite bloggers?

Crankster of Crankshaft; Lulu of What A Lulu; Walski of MyAsylum; Art Harun of ARTiculations ; and myself, of course :-)

Is there one observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?

The most vociferous discussion and feedback I ever got with any blogpost was on the burning topic of Malay Supremacy. Blogposts on the Altantuya murder case also tend to attract lots of attention.

What is your perception about Pakistan and its people?

The Pakistani people are beautiful, intelligent and capable - but, unfortunately, the masses appear to have been kept ignorant and easily misled through the exploitation of religious fervor by a succession of power-hungry politicians, mullahs and warlords. Sounds just like America, no? :-)

Have you ever become stunned by the uniqueness of any blogger?

Indeed I have. Raja Petra Kamarudin (popularly known as RPK) happens to be among the best informed when it comes to local politics. His access to the “corridors of power” (by virtue, perhaps, of his being a prince of the Selangor royal household), combined with his rebellious spirit and sharp intellect, makes his political blogposts pure dynamite. That’s why his newsblog, Malaysia Today, occasionally records 1.7 million hits a day.

What is the most striking difference between a developed country and a developing country?

Bread-and-butter issues tend to be less pronounced in a “developed” country where the majority are sufficiently comfortable to focus their attention on larger and broader ideas, particularly pertaining to questions of ethics and aesthetics. In so-called “developing countries” the emphasis tends to be on making money and building more visible infrastructure - therefore, abstract notions of justice, human rights, civil liberties, and cultural maturity become secondary… at least, until a sizeable educated middle class exists.

What is the future of blogging?

Personally, I’ll keep doing it till it gets boring. Then I’ll stop. Blogging has become such a global phenomenon because it gives the individual a sense of validity and value in a perplexingly complex world where traditional forms of socializing have become almost obsolete (in a congested city like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, for example, it takes so much effort to travel across town just to have coffee with a friend, so the answer is facebook chat and sending each other virtual drinks!)

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

Once I began blogging the activity seemed to gradually take over most of my waking hours in that even when not actually writing a blogpost, I’m gathering data and thinking of ways to repackage it for my blog! In other words, I am now a 58-year-old nerd. But, absent any more stimulating diversion, I’m quite happy to be exactly that. My “professional” life is fluid as I tend to venture into an assortment of activities, ranging from producing low-budget documentaries to giving talks on esoteric subjects and trying to get old manuscripts published!

What are your future plans?

I have never taken the future - or anything else - seriously. One step at a time, I take each day as it comes - and goes. In short, I prefer to live in the NOW. Of course, there are endless “projects” waiting to be actualized - for instance, releasing my musical output digitally (hours of music were recently rescued from analog oblivion) and clearing a space in my study for a digital recording studio. Man does not live on blogs alone!

Any Message you want to give to the readers of The Pakistani Spectator?

When your head begins to ache with confusion, just follow your heart - that’s the road to joy and freedom!

It's the festival of lights, rights and delights!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:22:00 +0000

May you be blessed with the spirit of Joy, Freedom and Love this Diwali!

BEHOLD... MACC's NEXT INCARNATION!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:43:00 +0000

The worst decision the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) ever made was to haul up Teoh Beng Hock for overnight interrogation. It has become patently clear that the MACC was being used as a weapon of mass destruction against the Pakatan Rakyat state government in Selangor - just as it was used to gain political leverage in Perak by setting up, arresting and charging two PKR state assemblymen with corruption.

The PKR duo were threatened with imprisonment, cajoled, and bought over as part of Najib Razak's devious coup against the elected Perak state assembly.

I seriously doubt MACC deputy director Hishamuddin Hashim's plan was to kill Teoh Beng Hock. He only wanted Teoh to sign a false confession that would incriminate his boss, DAP assemblyman for Seri Kembangan, Ean Yong Hian Wah.

Indeed, ever since the ACA was given extra powers and renamed the MACC in January 2009, it appears to have been assigned a new mission: to target and destroy Pakatan Rakyat leaders.

But, alas, the unforeseen does happen. Teoh may have proven to be a tougher nut to crack than anticipated. His interrogators could have pushed him past breaking point and this usually gentle young man might have turned aggressive on them. In the ensuing scuffle, frayed nerves and pent-up rage could have erupted out of control.

Rumors were rife in July that ousted mentri besar and Umno warlord Khir Toyo (right) had set his sights on 16 September 2009 as the target date for a vicious and violent Selangor power grab - a tit-for-tat response to Anwar Ibrahim's 916 attempt to wrest control of the federal government through defections last year).

Selangor is, after all, the richest and most developed state in Malaysia. Umno couldn't just watch idly while billions of ringgit fell under "enemy" control. Decisive, audacious action was called for. And that's what led to the untimely death - on the eve of his wedding - of an innocent 30-year-old political secretary named Teoh Beng Hock.

As to be expected, Hishamuddin Hashim and his henchmen at the MACC have been trying every trick in the book to wriggle out of the cold glare of negative publicity. Maggots are notoriously afraid of sunlight and feed only in the dark.

With the only-too-obvious collusion of the PDRM and almost every government agency involved, the MACC is likely to get off scot-free. Few of us have any faith left in the present Umno/BN regime. From the highest to the lowest ranks, they have shown themselves to be congenital deniers, liars and utter hypocrites - and arrogantly defiant ones at that!

But where innocent blood has been shed, there is always a heavy karmic price to pay. Even if the perverts and sadists at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission manage to escape Malaysian justice (which is as rarely sighted and whose existence is as widely disputed as Bigfoot), they certainly will not escape the consequences of their evil actions.

The poster below (which I found on Patrick Teoh's Niamah blog) is perhaps a sober intimation of the hideous punishment that awaits Hishamuddin Hashim and his MACC henchmen when they get transferred to their next assignment...

CLICK TO ENLARGE!

That's right, folks... MACC will henceforth be known as the Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians. Since nobody takes MACC seriously anyhow, they probably won't notice the difference.

RPK: TOO HOT TO HANDLE!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:29:00 +0000

In case you haven't viewed the latest instalment of RPK SPEAKS HIS MIND...

RPK talks about last year's detention under the ISA and the charges of sedition made against him for various articles that appeared in his Malaysia Today website. It's obvious that the former homo minister, Syed Hamid Albar, decided to sign a two-year detention order under Section 8 of the Internal Security Act to keep RPK locked away indefinitely in Kamunting because he was deemed a grave threat to Najib Razak's chances of becoming PM.

COMMON GROUND

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:55:00 +0000

Many decades ago I came to the conclusion that the day would soon arrive when humanity will be faced with imminent extinction - unless it has enough good sense to outgrow antiquated, anthropocentric belief systems and find common ground with all the other lifeforms with which we share the biosphere.

A cursory glance at news headlines over the past week (death toll rising from Sumatra earthquake, massive floods in India and the Philippines, destructive storms and mudslides in Southern California) has convinced me that that fateful day has indeed arrived. In fact, it probably arrived at least 10 years ago, but our so-called leaders were too busy plotting world domination to notice. And, even as I type this, many continue on the same tack.

Even with Barack Obama in the White House, it appears that not much has changed. There's still talk of increasing troop levels in Afghanistan - instead of finding a non-military win-win solution and declaring an immediate ceasefire. Some continue to threaten a nuclear attack on Iran. In effect, it's clear that the giant oil companies and international financiers still hold sway when it comes to deciding the political agenda. Why else are feisty Greenpeace volunteers climbing onto the roof of the British Parliament to draw global attention to climate change?

Closer to home, the component parties of Pakatan Rakyat are faced with a genuine dilemma: can they transcend their own party ideologies and infighting, and agree upon a few universal principles on which they can find common ground?

In other words, are we capable of stepping back from the petty issues clouding our vision and taking time out to contemplate the Big Picture; to once again see the beauty and majesty of the forest instead of squabbling over a few scrawny trees?

Some folks go ga-ga over puppies and treat their dogs as equal members of the family, to the extent of sharing a bed with their furry pets. Others recoil at the mere sight of a canine, believing that dogs are unclean and that if one comes into contact with canine saliva, it could ruin their prospects of going to heaven. Some exhibit an irrational fear of dogs, even when the mutt's tail is wagging. Strange, isn't it, that some folks actually believe being licked by a dog is a greater "sin" than behaving in a cruel and insensitive manner towards animals?

How can we possibly find common ground with people who think drinking beer or doing a bit of yoga or displaying some bare skin are far worse transgressions against their religion than accepting gross injustice and wholesale corruption?

If the water supply is poisoned, everybody gets sick or dies - regardlesss of whether they worship in a mosque or a church or a temple or are completely apathetic about the existence or non-existence of God. Similarly, if the air is severely polluted, EVERYBODY CHOKES - and it doesn't matter a whit if you've been celibate your whole life or earn your living as a prostitute.

In effect, environmental degradation impacts on everyone and everything across the entire spectrum of belief. Whether you're a corrupt and horny Umno minister or a rare Amazonian horned toad, ecosystemic health is one thing you can't afford to ignore.

I realize that certain religions teach their followers to disregard the physical world as merely illusory or, at best, ephemeral. Therefore, their attitude towards the ecosystem is: why bother if everything seems to be falling apart? The crucial thing is to be a staunch believer and have unshakeable faith that the devout will be translated into rapture on Judgment Day - or be resurrected from their graves and exalted in heaven.

There are certainly a few fundamentalist Christian sects that preach precisely this. In America they are called the Christian-Zionist rightwing and they are the ones who have been pushing their Armageddon agenda, in the hope that accelerating the advent of the Final Apocalypse will hasten the return of their savior, Jesus Christ.

Such a belief system borders on psychosis, but I'm pretty sure they constitute a very tiny minority. Those of us who consider ourselves sane must greatly outnumber these eschatological extremists.

How does one measure sanity? For a start, being able to appreciate beauty and enjoy the sensation of being alive puts one on firm ground. To be able to delight in all our senses; to savor the taste of fine cooking, the sensuous feel of rich satin, the aroma of burning grass, the splendor of a painted sky or a vivid rainbow, the haunting strains of a flute at twilight or a mellifluous voice raised in melodious song; these are the unmistakeable symptoms of sanity, the hallmarks of a living, conscious being endowed with a zest for life.

This is where we can all find common ground. Appreciation of nature's beauty and the simple joys of our incarnate existence in the physical world. The gamut of powerful emotions to be experienced and explored as we spin merrily around the Sun affords us access to the mystery of existence itself.

The Chinese place great premium on the quality of air and water. They call it fengshui (from the Chinese words for "wind" and "water"). With good fengshui, prosperity, good health and longevity follow as a matter of course.

Can you imagine, then, what follows upon our cavalier mistreatment of the living ecosystem that sustains us? When we pollute the air with vehicular emissions and factory fumes and poison the waters with industrial effluents, what are we creating for ourselves and for our progeny if not hell on earth?

Do we as a species have sufficient maturity and understanding to set aside trivial prejudice and inherited programming - and come together consciously and cooperatively to restore the health of our precious environment?

Do we have the political will to get our priorities right? In our obsession with facts and figures and pie charts, have we blinded ourselves to what is glaringly obvious to anyone who takes time out to sit atop a hill and gaze around in awe at nature's inherent magnificence?

It doesn't matter what color the skin you're born in happens to be; nor does it make a difference which direction you face when praying, or if you even pray at all. Country bumpkin or city slicker, you are an inextricable part of the whole complex spectrum of energetic interactions that synergetically constitute what we call "Life on Earth."

If you can stop in your tracks and integrate this simple truth... there's a damn good chance you will be able to find some common ground - not only with other humans that populate the planet, but also with the marvelous diversity of biological species that contribute to the neverending dance of life, death and rebirth.

Begin from there and we stand a pretty good chance of liberating ourselves from the tyranny of money and military might. By recalibrating our lives around the celebration of beauty and truth, we shall emerge triumphant from our cocoons of limited vision and experience the freedom and joy of life without end.