MAGICK RIVER

The Banality of Corporate Evil: Bill Gates & Monsanto

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 06:22:00 +0000

Regardless of who forms the next government... LYNAS MUST GO! WE THE PEOPLE OF MALAYSIA SAY SO!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:59:00 +0000

I wholeheartedly salute all those who have persevered in the citizens' campaign against the proposed Lynas rare earth refinery in Gebeng, near Kuantan - especially Fuziah Salleh (who first raised the issue in parliament), Tan Bun Teet (chairman of Save Malaysia Stop Lynas) and Bang Seet Ping (organizing secretary of Himpunan Hijau 2.0). On 26 February 2012, lend your support and make your stand. Lynas knows it cannot operate in a hostile environment but is stubbornly pushing on with the project because it has already invested untold amounts of money, greasing certain people's palms to fast-track their lethal and ruinous project (which was granted an unprecedented 12-year tax holiday by the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry!)

Lynas wants to dump wastes on island off Pahang
Koh Jun Lin | Malaysiakini
10:38AM Jan 27, 2012

Australian company Lynas Corporation, which intends to open its rare earth materials refining plant in Gebeng, near Kuantan, soon, wants radioactive solid wastes from the plant to be dumped on an uninhabited island off the coast of Pahang.

Alternatively, the wastes may be disposed off in an area where there is no development, said Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh, who has been campaigning against the rare earth plant.

These proposals are contained in Lynas’ waste management plans, which were on public display until yesterday, said Fuziah (left), who is a PKR vice-president.

“They say that they have not identified the location of the Permanent Disposal Facility (PDF), but they are considering a few options.

One option is an island off the coast of Pahang that is uninhabited,” she said when contacted.

The PDF is intended for the plant’s solid waste stream, which is classified as radioactive wastes.

The other two waste streams also contain radioactive materials, but have not been classified as radioactive and Lynas intends to recycle and commercialise these.

However, Fuziah said, the location of the island has not been determined because the idea “is still being considered.”

‘Radioactive materials can leach into the sea’

Voicing her strong opposition to the proposal, Fauziah yesterday handed over a written submission to the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) in Kuantan.

“This must never be allowed as the materials from the PDF can leach into the sea,” her submission states.

“Considering that radionuclides have a half-life of 14 billion years, it is feared that the leachate will harm marine life a few hundred years down the road.”

As for the alternative, she told Malaysiakini, “Basically, it will have to be in the jungle. But you don’t even know... there will come a day when the future generations want to develop that land”.

The government, Fuziah added, should follow the examples of other countries, where waste disposal facilities are the responsibility of the state. This especially so, because Lynas only plans to be in Malaysia for about 20 years.

Outspoken Kuantan MP and PKR vice-president Fuziah Salleh has been spearheading
the campaign to stop Lynas before anyone even heard about this sneaky project

Press conference in Kuantan on 26 January 2012 after handing over a 4-page joint memorandum
by the Stop Lynas Coalition and Save Malaysia Stop Lynas to the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB)
and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Industry (MOSTI)

Song of the Dragon (revisited)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Adapted from an essay by Antares, published in Journal One, October 1996,
and later included as a chapter in Tanah Tujuh ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos...

TWO DAYS AFTER the monstrous calamity at Pos Dipang on 29 August 1996, when almost an entire Orang Asli village was demolished by a tidal wave of mud and dead trees, a dramatic black-and-white photograph appeared in the Sunday Star.

It showed the “dragon's trail of destruction” down one slope of the Kinjang Range - like a huge rip in the fabric of reality exposing the raw elemental underside of nature. An awesome sight, not exactly beautiful, but inspiring speechless awe, and reminding us of the two faces of cosmic forces - the malefic as well as the benign.

The Orang Asli village of Pos Dipang was wiped out by a gigantic mudslide on 29 August 1996

Those who survived the murderous mudslide later murmured that the naga (dragon) must have been very angry. But what exactly do the Orang Asli mean when they speak of the dragon's wrath?

“YOU ought to know,” said the editor of a monthly magazine to which I had been contributing, when I dropped in on their office soon after the Pos Dipang disaster, “you've lived with Orang Asli for quite a few years.”

I thought it over for a moment. “It isn't so easy to explain these ideas in rational terms,” I began. “One has to have a fundamental connection with the pre-industrial mythologizing mind; you need to intuit your way around these “dreamtime” spaces. I happen to be very sympathetic to mythic awareness myself - but nowadays you don't find too many people with the necessary experience or exposure to thinking-feeling through free association. Our modern education system trains minds to analyze rather than synthesize, to criticize rather than empathize. It would probably come across as ancient superstition or new age nonsense.”

“I still think you're the right person to make an attempt,” the editor said with persuasive earnesty. I had to grin. Was this just her way of nudging me away from my metaphysical musings and coming back down to earth? I told her I'd give the question of dragons some thought, and left it at that. (It didn't strike me at the time that, by some strange coincidence, the company that published the magazine was called Nagamedia - and the managing editor happened to be called Ty Fong, which sounds remarkably like Typhon, another name for the Great World Snake!)

Typhon, the largest monster in Greek mythology, was perhaps inspired by
a planetary cataclysm that destroyed entire civilizations

Spontaneous painting by Alex Grey
at the 2011 Rainbow Serpent Festival
in Australia

The problem is: most of us were raised in an intellectual environment defined by linear semantic conventions and encouraged by “career” demands to specialize further and further - until all our knowledge has become fragmentary and compartmentalized. To be able to see beyond the veil of the visible, one needs to temporarily renounce intellectual materialism and embrace the mystical-poetical-spiritual essence of gnostic re-cognition.

You won't come anywhere near an understanding of the invisible cosmic forces underlying geophysical upheavals simply by analyzing mud samples in the laboratory. Even if only as an exercise, you still need to look at phenomena through the metaphoric monitor-screen of myth - just as you can only experience the full effect of 3D movies by wearing 3D spectacles.

The more thought I gave it, the more complex the subject became. There were so many overlapping dimensions around the subject of dragons, serpents, snakes - and rainbows. Yes, rainbows somehow belong in this extended family of archetypal symbols. Take for instance this highly evocative quote:

The rainbow as a snake is a recurrent image among many ethnic groups and nations. The Pomo and Kato tribes of California consider it to be an aquatic, horned snake that provokes floods and earthquakes. The rainbow is also identified as a water snake among the people of South America. The natives of the Amazon believe it represents a bridge between the Earth and the temples of the royal kingdom of heaven. (Alberto Ruz Buenfil, Rainbow Nation Without Borders)

I was pleased to find a compact but erudite “dragon” entry in the Britannica's Micropaedia which opened with this intriguing comment:

The belief in these creatures [dragons] apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles [dinosaurs]. In Greece the word drakon, from which the English word was derived, was used originally for any large serpent, and the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed, remained essentially a snake.

Dragons. No matter where you travel on the surface of this planet, you will encounter a dragon or serpent or rainbow myth in some form. In China and Japan the emperors were said to have descended from the Dragon gods who came from the sky.

Kukulcan, Mayan version of the
Plumed Serpent

In Central America the most revered deific figure is called Kukulcan by the Maya and Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs; he is represented as a Plumed Serpent, and has been linked to the Peruvian legends of Viracocha. (Thoth, a major Egyptian god, is also associated with the Serpent - as was his father, the Sumerian progenitor god Enki.) It's worth noting that the national emblem of Mexico is an eagle with a snake in its claws.

In India the Nagas are described as a race of demigods who emerged from the bottom of the sea and brought civilization to the aboriginal tribes. Yogis depict the Life Force, kundalini, as a serpent uncoiling up the spine when aroused. At the crown, the serpent reveals itself as the seven-headed cobra, symbol of mastery over the illusory realms of matter.

The Celts and Picts of pre-Norman Britain called their kings Dragons - Pendragon (meaning the Great Dragon) being the symbol of the Supreme Ruler of the British Isles. Uther Pendragon and his famous son Arthur were the last known historical personages to bear this exalted rank. And to this very day in Britain there are numerous Pendragon Societies dedicated to the resurgence of the Pendragon lineage, which they hope to see regain the throne of “New Jerusalem” from the usurpers, the secular House of Windsor. This momentous event will be heralded by the reappearance of the bardic archdruid Merlin (note the combination of Dragon/serpent and Merlin/hawk: Earth and Sky!)

Vindicta Pendragon

However, the dragon/serpent motif acquired a totally negative connotation when the Hebrews invaded Canaan and enforced exclusive worship of their fiercely patriarchal god Yahweh. From this violent overthrow of the goddess-worshiping cultures associated with the Earth-loving serpent, grew the image of the dragon as an emblem of Evil, of the torrid temptations of carnal Nature.

In Europe, owing to the Judeo-Christian prejudice against the Earth-Mother-Goddess-Serpent aboriginal archetype, the dragon has been portrayed as the enemy: Nemesis, agent of Satan, Lucifer's earthly form, the Worm of Hades. Statues and paintings abound that show the Archangel Michael, and later St. George, slaying the dragon of pagan beliefs.

Unfortunately the same arid, patriarchal bias infected Islamic ideology, forcing goddess-worshipers to go underground, so to speak, and seek initiation into the ancient mysteries through dervish dancing and the private study of sacred geometry (wherein the feminine principle could be secretly revered in the form of arches, domes and spheres).

The accumulated effects of belligerent parochialism over the past five thousand years has also resulted in certain built-in behavioral traits amongst explorers, researchers, and academicians - a tendency to be invasive, divisive, possessive, and exploitative - which might explain why the proliferation of scientific and technology-using societies seems to have always been at the expense of Mother Nature.

Obviously, there is no simple straightforward way to discuss what the Dragon means to the Orang Asli - and to every tribal culture indigenous to planet Earth. The amount of available information on this mythical creature is actually quite staggering when one begins to research the subject seriously. Here's a random sample of interesting data involving the dragon/snake/rainbow motif:

• The dragon signifies royalty in a great diversity of cultures around the planet. In China and pre-Norman Britain, it was the national emblem (appearing in Wales as the griffin); while in Japan it was believed that the Emperor was descended from a race of flying dragons. Taoists regarded the dragon as one of the most important deified forces of nature.

• In Babylonian mythology the dragon Tiamat symbolized the watery goddess of Primordial Chaos, later subjugated by Marduk, a masculine deity of Law & Order & Civilization. Zecharia Sitchin, author of the controversial Earth Chronicles, has a radical interpretation of this myth. According to Sitchin, the ancients called all the planets “gods” - and “Marduk” was an invading celestial body, wandering in space after being flung off its original orbit by some stellar explosion. Marduk's satellites smashed into Tiamat, which broke in half from the impact, leaving a trail of icy debris that now forms the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The remaining portion of Tiamat was flung into a new orbit between Mars and Venus, where it became known as Ki or Ge or Gaia or Earth. Marduk, known to the Sumerians as Nibiru or the Planet of the Crossing, constitutes the twelfth planet in our solar system (including the Sun and Moon). Sitchin asserts that Nibiru is the home of the Sky Gods who created the human race. Those with access to arcane knowledge support this notion - but add that the Nibiruans couldn't have done it without a little help from the Sirians, their mentors!

• The feminine principle was revered by the Ophites whose sacred symbol was the Cosmic Snake coiled round the World Egg. This image also recurs in Egyptian and Greek mythology as the worm Ouroboros, the serpent swallowing its own tail - a powerful symbol of eternally regenerative cycles. Joseph Campbell, the pre-eminent mythical scholar, puts it succinctly in a famous televised conversation with journalist Bill Moyers: “The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols. Sometimes the serpent is represented as a circle eating its own tail. That's an image of life. Life sheds one generation after another, to be born again. The serpent represents immortal energy and consciousness engaged in the field of time, constantly throwing off death and being born again. There is something tremendously terrifying about life when you look at it that way. And so the serpent carries in itself the sense of both the fascination and the terror of life.”

• Amazonian natives revere the Anaconda - guardian spirit of their sacred river. Like the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia, they perceive the snake/dragon as a celestial as well as terrestrial phenomenon. On earth the Anaconda lives as a giant freshwater python that guards the physical flow of life-energy-water. In the fourth-dimensional or astral zones, the Anaconda is magnified in scale into mythic proportions: a wind-raising, fire-belching, earth-shaking Elemental Force that could destroy all animal and human life if angered beyond certain established limits.

• I once heard an Orang Asli mother tell her child to avert her eyes whenever there was a vivid rainbow in the sky. She believed it was created by the Orang Halus (elves) as part of their sacred rituals, and that the rainbow was actually the invisible people's processional pathway to the heavenly realms. This is an idea echoed by many Native American tribes, who view the rainbow as symbolic of a dimension where Spirit and Matter are harmoniously wed.

The Temuan have great reverence for all hills and mountains and the rivers and streams that water them. In their creation stories, the dragon or naga plays a key role in preparing the Earth for human habitation. Fire Nagas are “technical supervisors” of events like the Big Bang wherein suns and planets are created. Water Nagas work with Nagas of the Air to cool down and mould the newborn world.

Quetzalcoatl-Kukulcan
by Genzoman

There are tales of an Aeon of Celestial Fire, followed by the Aeon of Great Cold and an Aeon of Universal Flood. When the waters finally receded, the Temuan's earliest ancestors were found clinging to a gaharu or eaglewood tree resting atop Gunung Raja (the Royal Mountain). The landscape that evolved around Gunung Raja is therefore keramat - conforming to a heavenly blueprint and lovingly guarded by their ancestral spirits. Every rock and boulder, every tree and shrub, every spring and tributary is a familiar aspect of their dreamscape which is animated by spirits fine and coarse. The physical world, which is really a shadow of the higher realms, is where humanity dwells, till such time as we prove ourselves worthy of permanent residence on Pulau Buah (the Isle of Fruits) - in other words, Paradise. Guardian spirits like the ular and naga (snake and dragon) are also being tested. They too can evolve to the higher worlds (there are seven levels on Tanah Tujuh, the living cosmos that is planet Earth). If the Naga's dwelling place in the upper reaches of the river is desecrated, it will get very angry and leave in a great huff, thundering and thrashing its tail on its way to the sea where it becomes a naga laut (nautical dragon). That's why it is dangerous to infuriate the Nagas - and every high mountain has its own Naga.

The Orang Asli also believe that they were placed on Earth as Guardians of the Rainforest. “If Tuhan (God) sees that the Orang Asli are no longer serving their sacred purpose,” said Utat, “the whole world will be turned upside down and humanity will perish. Those of us who have been true to our duties will find ourselves naked on Pulau Buah (in other words, stripped of earthly flesh and restored to the spiritual realms).”

Nadi Pak Empok told me he dreamt of the Naga once, back in 1990. The Naga asked him to visit a particular spot along the river three times in three weeks - but Nadi was too afraid to obey. One evening, he happened to be passing near the spot on his way home, when he was startled by a roaring noise -”like a helicopter landing on top of you.” Nadi hid behind a rock and nervously looked around. Suddenly the river exploded into shiny golden scales as a gigantic Naga raised its mighty antlered head from the water. It seemed to hang in the air for an eternity before diving back into the river and disappearing. Nadi's legs went limp and he had to recuperate for an hour before he could get up and walk home with a troubled heart. The headman of his village in Pertak had allowed loggers into the area, and the Penunggu (guardian spirit) was issuing the Temuan a warning through Nadi.

• Hermes Trismegistos, whom the Greeks revered as the patron deity of science, philosophy and the healing arts, is usually shown carrying a caduceus - a winged staff with two snakes entwined along its length. This Hermetic wand of magickal power was chosen by the followers of Hippocrates as their guild emblem. Even today, the medical profession is symbolized by the caduceus of Hermes (an incarnation of Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and general wizardry).

• In Bali the highest aspect of divinity is known as Tintya (inspired by the dancing form of Shiva-Natarajah). Tintya is often depicted in sacred paintings as an agile, elvish figure on a chakra (wheel of cosmic energy) - flanked by two dragons (one green, the other red) representing the ida and pingala - or the positive and negative poles of the planet's electromagnetic field.

Now, this is truly significant. The green and the red, the positive and the negative, the yang and the yin, the male and the female, electricity and magnetism.... herein lies the most important clue to the grand mystery of the Dragon's Song.

Rainbow tube torus: shape of
the Earth's electromagnetic field

WHOLE SYSTEMS THINKER R. Buckminster Fuller was fond of teleologizing - which means, essentially, to derive elegant general principles from observing natural phenomena. When he declared that Unity was “plural at minimum two,” he had truly put his finger on the paradox of integrity as a complementary: radiation and gravity, outwardness and inwardness, convexity and concavity, electricity and magnetism, maleness and femaleness. However, Fuller was at pains to point out that complementary opposites were never intended to be in static 50-50 balance.

Indeed the laws of dynamic flux require that the Golden Mean be set at what is called the “phi ratio” - which has been approximated at 1.6180339 - a number that goes on forever. (The phi ratio is a sort of “golden mean proportion” or Fibonacci spiral formula that underlies all organic structures. It can be found in the relative bone-lengths of animal skeletons; in the design of plants; in the geometry of crystal formations; even entire constellations and galaxies.) This mysterious phi ratio determines that interactions between the “feminine” force of gravity and the “masculine” force of radiation are never “perfectly” symmetrical. Indeed the built-in asymmetry between bi-polar forces ensures that “true balance” is endlessly sought, so that yang and yin can intertransform, each into the other ad infinitum, ensuring thereby that the “status quo” never stays static for too long.

It would appear that Buckminster Fuller was restating in 20th century terminology what ancient wisdom was already fully cognizant of in mythic language. The serpent lays the egg that translates into the binary code of “I” and “0”: lingam and yoni, phallus and vulva. Line and curve, electricity and magnetism. Radiation (i.e. differentiation, dissipation, and disintegration) and Gravity (i.e. cohesion, compassion, and unconditional love). All phenomena in the waveform universe can be described by this classic Fullerism: Unity is plural at minimum two. (Fuller later revised this to “unity is plural at minimum sixfold” but let’s not get into multidimensionality at this juncture!)

How does this relate to geophysical upheavals, nightmarish distortions of the electromagnetic field that can annihilate whole cities in an instant? Flashfloods, earth tremors, tsunamis, landslides, volcanic eruptions, periodic shifts of tectonic plates, axial polarities, and visionary paradigms? Petulant dragons with whiplash tails? Waveform deformities, wormholes that can suck entire star systems into the antimatter universe? Where does myth end and science fantasy begin?

WHAT HAS BEEN dismissed as “fantasy” is in truth the Unseen beyond the Seen - electromagnetic quirks occurring above and below the range of human sensory perception. Do you regard the Earth as a living Goddess, the Abode of Beauty, a sacred sanctuary, a temple, a home? Or do you dismiss her as a dead hunk of rock, covered with psychedelic lichen and acrawl with contentious lice?

Do you have serious difficulty sensing the intimate intercorrelations between dragons, snakes, rainbows - and power spots, psychic centres, inter-dimensional portals, planetary chakras? In acupuncture, the physical body is perceived as a dense configuration of energy patternings emanating from subtle constellations of perfect principles. It is the meeting place of Spirit and Matter, a vibrant multidimensional field of vital possibilities.

Practitioners of acupuncture familiarize themselves with detailed mappings of the human bioenergetic hologram form - which can be manipulated in terms of flow with conductive needles inserted at particular internodes - just as the planet's etheric body can be adjusted geomantically with crystals, dolmens, monoliths, stone circles, obelisks, and pyramids. Geomancy - the study of geodetic flowlines, the movement of wind and water (fengshui) - entails a thorough knowledge of major and minor “dragons' paths” or leylines.

Ancient power spots like Machu Picchu, Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, Iona, Uluru, Sacsahuaman, Teotihuacan, Tiahuanacu, Giza, Avebury, Chichén Itzá, Mount Ararat, Gunung Agung, Mount Shasta, Mount Fuji, Mount Meru, Gunung Raja and other earth-sun-moon-star temples were invariably sited at strategic intersections of dragons' paths.

Men-an-tol (Martin Gray)

Among indigenous tribes, all shamanic rituals are actually “geomantic” in function: realignments of chakras on individual and collective levels, etheric manipulations of weather conditions through the devas of wind, water and geomagnetic harmony, healing through invocation of the Earth's compassionate gravitational field, the Mother Goddess Force. (Drunvalo Melchizedek - alchemist, hermeticist and founder of the Flower of Life “portable” mystery school - informs us that there are at least 83,000 sacred sites guarded by indigenous tribes, strategically located around the Earth.)

Why have we forgotten this invaluable heritage? How did industrial societies fall so far from a wholesome, organic relationship with natural forces, with the electromagnetic Dream Body of the Earth Goddess? Any civilization that was aware of the cosmic patterns of energy flow would certainly not be committing covert genocide against its aboriginal tribes, and overt ecocide against Mother Earth, on the horrendous scale we see all around us.

The answer lies in the written records of what we call history: in the last 5,000 years or so since the sudden advent and swift adoption of alphanumeric symbols, oral traditions have been supplanted by the scriptural text, the Book. Although written language has proven to be an efficient tool for mass communication (and mind control), it has also propelled us towards more precise but narrower modes of perception and thinking. What we gained in specificity, we lost in the ability to apprehend generalities. We ended up not seeing the forest for the trees, and then seeing only the “merchantable biomass.” Business-as-usual is no way to experience and reconnect with the cosmomythological context that forms an eternal background to our frenzied preoccupation with clock time.

Which explains why the Chief Minister of Perak wasted no time in denying that logging had anything to do with the Pos Dipang catastrophe. He reasoned that since there was no sign of recent clear-felling on the hillslopes (“They stopped logging ten years ago!”), the blame must fall on the rain. It's all the weather's fault, in other words. But are we looking to blame anyone? We're on this planet to learn certain codes of ethics and aesthetics. Not to consume ourselves in puerile games of economics, politics, and ideological oneupmanship.

But let's be honest about it. A 360-year-old hardwood has a root system that could easily reach a depth of 120 feet; add the intricate root intertwinings with neighboring trees, and you can assume a subterranean spread of half-an-acre. If you chainsaw a jungle giant off at the stump, the root system remains firm for at least three or four years, then it may start withering and rotting for another five or six years before a mighty downpour washes it all down, together with a massive portion of the hillslope. Multiply this effect by 3,000 trees - and you get the Pos Dipang scenario. Don't blame it on the rain... or the terrain! Blame it, if you must, on the scarcity conditioning and competitiveness (read FEAR & GREED) that has made us blind to the beauty, the divinity, and the truth of the Seen - as well as the Unseen realms.

INANNA REDEEMS ANNUNAKI BLOODLINE!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:11:00 +0000

Zecharia Sitchin (11 July 1920 ~ 9 October 2010)

Review of V. Susan Ferguson's Inanna Returns and Inanna Hyper-Luminal for Amazon.com

Having read most of Zecharia Sitchin's paradigm-shifting studies of Mesopotamian civilization and the Sumerian cuneiform tablets, I was absolutely delighted to find that Ms Ferguson had picked up where Sitchin left off and transferred the Annunaki saga to the much more fluid medium of the novel. By allowing herself the use of reactivated genetic memories (though some will insist it all issues from "an overheated imagination") Ms Ferguson can boldly tell the story from Inanna's own viewpoint - and what a marvelously illuminating epic it proves to be!

And why not - since it is essentially OUR story too. Once we accept Sitchin's well-argued conclusion that the human (Adamic) race is the genetic creation of Enki and Ninti, it is inevitable that discovering who our real parents are must constitute some sort of climax and denouement in the True History of the Human Race and the ongoing soap opera spinoffs it has spawned.

Right now the world seems to be split into two camps: those who adamantly refuse to accept any new input that threatens established creation/evolution theories, and those who instinctively recognize that the sudden manifestation - nay, the spontaneous eruption - of such a massive body of recently rediscovered or remembered racial memory must mean SOMETHING!

What it all means to ME is simply this: I am essentially my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's great-great-great (to the 7777th degree)-grandson. And who's this Great Progenitor God who donated his Cosmic Sperm to our Genesis? Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like y'all to meet a Very Special Progenitor God... Mr Erwin Enki!

And let's not forget he had a lot of help from the remarkable and infinitely fecund First Scientific Officer on Colony Earth, the divinely sexy... Ms Ninti aka Nancy Ninhursag! Kidding aside, I cannot thank Susan Ferguson enough for offering us her INANNA books. They are divinely inspired keys to the gentle unlocking of our own Rip Van Winkled Elohim DNA - the bits of us that remember our angelic, starry origins. And also our earthy, primate DNA - the bits of us that know how much pleasure and what a privilege it is to be incarnate in biological form.

As if that wasn't big enough a favor, Ms Ferguson has written her INANNA books with such an easygoing literary flair and vibrancy, she actually makes it FUN to delve into the depths of our own secret origins and destiny. Don't be fooled by her chatty, almost flippant, narrative tone; she knows her deep gnosis, yup, this Goddess Incarnate has certainly paid her humanoid dues.

[21 February 2000]

Planet Earth is a Buddha Factory...

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:01:00 +0000

Xandi Hoesch aka Puma Woman meditating in a Buddha factory in Krabi, Thailand (photo: Antares)

Buddhahood simply means to be awake, enlightened, derobotized and rehumanized. In other words, to be fully conscious.

Planet Earth is actually a Buddha Factory. That's why so many varieties of souls choose to incarnate here - to plunge into physical embodiment and experience the bewildering world of forms, where pain and sorrow are as likely as pleasure and joy to befall you.

Think of Earth as a giant sieve for evolving souls. We arrive as coarse lumps of condensed matter... and depart refined as conscious humans. No doubt, it often takes many, many incarnations to complete the refinement process. But what are a few lifetimes in the cosmic context of eternity?

[This beautiful image was taken sometime in 1987 when my beloved Puma Woman and I were holidaying in Krabi, Thailand. In those days, it hadn't yet exploded into a tourist town and there was only a tiny handful of guesthouses. We rented a motorbike and explored the vicinity, doing a bit of rock climbing and checking out the awesome limestone outcrops. On the outskirts of town we spotted a Buddha factory... and that's how this memorable portrait came about. I didn't notice until afterwards that Xandi had tied her hair in a topknot just like all the Buddha statues! Scanned from a fading 8R print (luckily I had it laminated or nothing would have been left after 25 years) this portrait adorned my High Hut for many years and survived a massive mudslide in October 1999.]

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Kuai Le, Kong Hee Fatt Choy!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:23:00 +0000

A Comment on Reptile Loathing (Dragon Year Special)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:22:00 +0000

From my personal perspective, what David Icke and John F. Winston report about reptilians running the show is pretty much indisputable. However, those of us who remember our Id/Enki lineage feel it's unfair to lump all reptoid entities in the same Fear and Loathing category. I've seen myself turn into a lizard-like entity several times in my life, and there are moments when I find myself amazed at how cold and unfeeling I can be.

I surmised, then, that we aren't just reptiles or mammals or Grey-hybrids or humans or cetaceans or whatever - most of us are a COMPLEX BLEND OF MULTIPLE GENETIC LINEAGES. That's what makes this planet such an incredible bio-lab and nursery of new life forms - her allowance for MULTI-DIMENSIONAL, INTER-SPECIAL VARIETY.

I've always felt great empathy for the Serpent in the Garden of Eden story. When I learned that another manifestation of Solar Christ Consciousness was actually called the "Plumed Serpent" Quetzalcoatl (or Kukulcan to the Maya), imagine how vindicated I felt. A long time ago an Indian astrologer told me I was protected by Nagas and would be safe wherever there were snakes.

Now this interchangeability of Dragon and Snake symbolism is of deep interest. The Orang Asli tell me the Snake is the 3D projection of the 4D Dragon (not in these words, of course, but they said, "The dragon is not of this world of flesh and blood." They believed that Snake Guardians that had served their time at sacred interdimensional portals eventually graduate to full Dragonhood.)

Naturally, whenever I hear talk of "slaying the Dragon (of Carnal Desire)" and references to the Evil Legions of the Draco Constellation, I'm a bit miffed. The worse Snake/Dragon Fearers/Haters are Christians - those who are closely descended from Enlil's bloodline. Remember Enlil's family emblem is the Eagle - and in Mexico, you find an Eagle clutching a Serpent in its claws on the national flag, symbolizing the Spanish Catholic colonization of the native Aztec-Maya cultures.

The bad blood between Enlilites & Enkiites has devolved down the aeons into Serpent-loathing and a general dislike of Reptiles.

During peak experiences when I've felt completely reintegrated and attuned to all life, I've always been a dynamic fusion of Eagle and Serpent. Hence, the Plumed Serpent. I feel that Reptile-loathing leads nowhere but to a bland and sterile world view where any quality diametrically opposed to our own programming is regarded as "Shaitan" (Satan, Nemesis, Enemy) and rejected outright.

In September 1996 I wrote an essay titled Song of the Dragon - a study of the interchangeability of Snake, Dragon, and Rainbow symbols in folk mythology. A "channeled" passage came through which I later edited out, because I felt the magazine's readership wouldn't be able to relate to the material. Luckily, I saved that paragraph in my archives. Now is as good a time as any to retrieve it as a contribution to this very stimulating discussion:

The Dragon is part of Earth's evolutionary program. For Intellect to function under harsh climatic conditions, one requirement is protective armoring. We were stranded in the constellation Draco after the First War in Heaven, when one third of the Archangelic Host decided to volunteer for a dangerous and unprecedented experiment in the Use of Free Will.

Slowly we mutated (or stepped down our sub-atomic frequencies) into dense physical forms based on the most rudimentary principles: Input/Output - with a hole at either end of a semi flexible tube, which results in your basic worm-snake-fish-bird-mammal metamorphic sequence.

In the early stages we were mere strands of living protein, bacilli. Once we graduated to proper Wormhood, we were well on our way to full-fledged Serpenthood and, eventually, we attained archetypal Dragonhood. We grew into a very large family called the Reptiles and our survival program was eat-or-be-eaten. Over great geological ages, we acquired strategy and sophistication.

We began projecting our individualized Wills into other parts of the Galaxy and became a source of disharmony.

During the Second War in Heaven (when Hell literally broke loose!), the Elohim made an attempt to eradicate us from the Matter Universe. They did not entirely succeed, for we became a survival program hardwired into every life form on Earth. Your scientific researchers call this the hypothalamus or Reptilian brain - and even the most "denatured" Sirian-Nibiruan-Simian genetic lineage has Dragon Blood at its deepest molecular levels.

There is no way you can eliminate the Serpent without destroying your own survival instinct. The limbic or mammal brain developed when the experience of death led to emotional trauma and fear of loss. As metaphorical thinking evolved, the neocortex grew and self-awareness appeared. The "fourth brain" can be described as "bionic" or cybernetic, incorporating artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. Your "World Wide Web" is an early manifestation of this phenomenon.

In terms of the Earth's mineral memory banks and her magnetic fields, we of the Dragon lineage have a very vital role to play. We have been here since the earliest phases of starseeding, and our evolutionary destiny is intimately linked with that of Gaia.

On the 4th dimensional level our hologram forms are perceived by those with active pineal glands as various phenomena, e.g., rainbow serpents, sundogs, aurora effects, UFO activity, and so on. We are pure energy beings, beyond archaic notions of Good and Evil, converting electricity into magnetism and vice versa.

[This was the second post when I began blogging in December 2006]

23 January 2012 ~ Year of the Yang Water Dragon!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:08:00 +0000

My daughter, the Dragon Rider

Chinese Water Dragons make excellent pets!

WATER DRAGONS AT PLAY...

Water Dragons playing with a vortex

Haku, the water dragon in Spirited Away who visited Earth as a boy

Thanking all of the Ancient of Days

DRAGON LINEAGE

for their excellent service

on this planet across the aeons

and blessing them all

with

Eternal Freedom, Joy & Wisdom!

Now let's wish those foolish self-destructive Earth humans the same :-)

The Beautiful New World ~ A Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:21:00 +0000

On December 31, 2011, I woke in the middle of the night with the message in this video. When I posted this message two days later on a Facebook group, I was invited by Pearl Lee-Ora Landsman to use it as the basis for a worldwide visualization/meditation/prayer event that she had in mind - thus, I went ahead and created this video to help spread the message and to promote this event.

Since that time, however, having experienced the overwhelmingly beautiful outpouring of love that this video has generated in just one week, I have come to realize that this vision -- the common vision that we share -- is all about love, unity, and the truth of the heart. Therefore, if you resonate with this video, and you feel an inner pull to unite with others in celebration of our similarities and in acceptance of our differences, please know that we respectfully invite you to come and join the many, many beautiful hearts and minds that have already begun to assemble at the sacred meeting place we have co-created in Facebook Groups called "The Beautiful New World"

You will not be disappointed, we promise. Truly, there is something uniquely loving and inspirational going on in our little corner of the internet that is unlike any gathering you have ever attended. In fact, it has become wondrously apparent that The Beautiful New World has already begun.

For those of you who are drawn to participate in the January 21st visualization/meditation/prayer event, Hester Aira has set up a Facebook Event Page here. There you will find information about Pearl's suggested visualization. And, you can confirm your intent to participate so that we will know how many hearts will be uniting in common purpose that day.

Love to you all,

Mathew, Pearl and Hester

Divide-and-Rule ~ It's All About the $$$!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

Believe it or not, I sat through the entire 2-hour recording of this forum convened by Hindraf and the KL Chinese Assembly Hall Civil Rights Committee. It's taken us more than 42 years since 13 May 1969 to arrive at a point where the once-taboo topic of institutionalized racial inequality as embodied in Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution can be publicly discussed. Most certainly an important step in the right direction!

Public Forum on Institutionalized Racism in Malaysia
by HINDRAF and KL Chinese Assembly Hall Civil Rights Committee

Forum venue: Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, KL
Date: 17 January 2012 at 7.30 pm.

The speakers were:
1) Mr N. Ganesan - National Advisor to Hindraf

2) Dr Kua Kia Soong - Director of Suaram

3) Assoc. Prof. Dr Azmi Sharom - Law Lecturer and Activist

Chaired by: Dr Lim Teck Ghee - Director, Centre for Policy Initiatives

Malaysia is plagued by a subtle, pervasive and increasingly aggressive form of racism. What started as a defensive affirmative action program has now degeneratied into an aggressive form of institutionalized racism. This is sapping the potential of Malaysian society. The future on this trajectory is disastrous for all Malaysians. It will bring ruin to all of us.

The political, legal and administrative structures of our country - the anchors and sources of this institutionalization need to be fundamentally revamped. For this to happen, the public view of what is truly happening must become sharper. This is not an easy task - given the resources at hand for the beneficiaries of this racist system.

Public opinion must first be aligned with this developing reality, before any change can happen.

This video was presented by the Green Party of Malaysia.

Steve Bhaerman on the Heart of Darkness

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:32:00 +0000

Heartland Security and the Heart of Darkness
By Steve Bhaerman

"The more the world crises come to a head, the greater the need for Humanity to come to a heart." ~ Swami Beyondananda

I was having dinner with a friend the other night, and he was reflecting on a reunion he had recently with fellow (and gal) participants in a well-known self-help seminar they all took some 30 years ago. He found these folks to be largely successful, intelligent, compassionate, and committed to a world of peace, justice and sustainability. And yet -

And yet, he told me, they hadn't a clue about what it would really take to have what Bucky Fuller called "a world that works for everyone." Why? Because their own belief in the "goodness of human nature" blinds them to our just-as-prevalent "inhuman nature" - to the evils humans are capable of perpetrating, and the even greater evils enabled by "good" people who refuse to look "the heart of darkness" squarely in the face, consequently allowing the dark forces to proceed unchecked.

The classic example, of course, are the "good Germans" who went along with Nazism because they couldn't believe their leaders were capable of exterminating an entire race of people. My wife Trudy, who was born in Germany, returned to visit as a teenager. When she asked her relatives if they knew about the death camps, the response was, "We were told that was American propaganda, and we believed it because frankly, the prospect of it being true was too horrible to contemplate."

Not even the Jewish community in pre-war Germany was willing to face what the Nazi government was capable of doing. Despite the shattering of illusion that happened on kristallnacht, many Jews continued with "business as usual" until they were rounded up.

Confronting Not-Seeism

Now fast forward from Nazi Germany to Not-See America, where we have a mass media that purposely protects us from seeing the gunk on the "underside of our karma" - and diverts our unspoken despair to focus on the lowly criminal, conveniently side-stepping the highly criminal. As the Irony Curtain shows signs of fraying, we are getting glimpses at the disturbing patterns of abusive power - the most recent being the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, which legalizes indefinite detention of American citizens.

However, the letter I just received in response to my most recent posting, On Thrive and Thrival, posits a far darker prospect. By way of introduction, I attended a conference over 15 years ago that I immediately termed "the Paranoids Conference," because of some of the outlandish reports and theories. So dark and unspeakable were some of the things I heard there, I simply had no "place" to put them. One of the presenters was a woman who told of being a combination "human tape recorder and sex slave" for U.S. military intelligence. She said she was "programmed" to commit suicide at 30, but somehow evaded that part of the program. I had to face two conflicting questions: How is something like this possible? ... and ... Why would she make up such a story?

Then last year, a friend who I've known well for more than a dozen years confided some things about her own childhood. She was raised in a military family back in the 1960s, and as young children she and her brother would go off to "swimming lessons" with lots of other young military children. She now believes these were part of mind-control experiments conducted during that period. Later - when she and her brother were approaching puberty - they were instructed to go down to the basement of their home. Doing what her father instructed, she was to lay face down on the basement floor, wearing a short dress. Her brother was also there, face down. In walked a high-ranking military officer, who "chose" her brother, ostensibly for sexual gratification, but spared her. The brother later took his own life.

Is this real? Is this some movie fantasy augmented by a vivid imagination? What do we do with this information? And why should we do anything with it, particularly if we see no way to do anything about it?

As you read the letter below, here is the "take away" I hope you will take away. We CANNOT heal the body politic or approach the kind of world we know is possible without "truth and reconciliation." Truth is required, because without truth there is no trust. The primary reason for the Truth and Reconciliation program conducted in South Africa in the 1990s was to establish a common, trustworthy story ... so that future trust could be built. The "reconciliation" part reflects the evolutionary understanding that for most collective "crimes," reconciliation is more helpful than punishment. It allows us to collectively own our species' darkest tendencies, and to identify "sociopathogens" not just as "bad" individuals but as persistent institutionalized behaviors enabled by our silence.

The Heart of Darkness and the Light of Love

There is no "heartland security" without our facing the heart of darkness and the "heartless minds" that have stepped into the moral vacuum left when science and religion went their separate ways. As I have said many times, because we Americans have been divided into two rival cultural and political "tribes," we haven't until now been able to gather around the virtues and values we have in common and establish a moral "bottom line" as a foundation for our collective behavior.

So ... is there a way to "metabolize" these toxins in the body politic, so that we can indeed emerge to a healthy new order? I am reminded of something called the "3 A's" that I've seen from a number of different sources: Awareness, Acknowledgment and Acceptance. These simple three steps may hold the key to the spiritual / political transformation that is necessary for our species to graduate from surviving to thriving. But here is something very important. These three steps must not merely be intellectual understandings, but involve heartfelt experience. It requires "staying in the room" as we become aware of these perpetrations, acknowledge our entire system's compliance with them, and then accept that (and here is the challenge) these horrors are part of our species' learning process called "evolution."

That is, provided we learn from them. The joke is, history repeats itself because we keep flunking it and have to take it over. As soon as our species collectively gets the "lesson," future lessons in this regard are unnecessary, and we can move on to greater expressions of our human potential. And the "organ" best suited for transmuting the "residoodoo" created by thousands of years of rule by the lowest common dominator? The heart. Only through the presence of the light of love - characterized by Plato as "truth, beauty and goodness" - can we establish a field that can "overgrow" this past dysfunction, and create a new standard for relating to one another and the whole of Creation.

May 2012 be a year of truth, and may we gather enough love to face the music ... and dance together.

A Reader's Response to "On Thrive and Thrival"

Dear Steve, I hope you personally get to see this email. I've subscribed to your emails for quite a while now, because I am a person who is deeply spiritual (from the cradle up pretty much) AND because I have seen the writing on the wall in the USA and the world for a long time... my own wake up call was delving into 3 months of missing time from my USAF days in 1980, and a subsequent long trek down a very deep rabbit hole. Finally circumstances in the world compelled me to go public with this, even though I dug my heels in for many years and just wanted to live a "normal" - whatever that used to mean - life. But today, none of us can hope to live a normal life of liberty and pursuit of happiness if we do not act with conscience and discernment.

I have watched through many many years a gradual convergence between what spiritual teachers and personal growth gurus of the world impart, and the "conspiracy theory" factions, as what has been happening on our world becomes harder and harder to ignore. For a long time, it seemed that the love & light, law of attraction folks were going to try and ignore the darker elements of what is happening on our world, I suspect out of fear of acknowledging the dark because it might undermine their intention-law of attraction process. How does one reconcile the dark with the light. I'm doing my best to reconcile the two in a book I'm writing that will be out in a couple of months.

I completely applaud Foster and Kimberly Gamble for the film they have created and especially for touching on the UFO material. It is just the very beginning of a vindication and validation for me of information I've had to carry around since I had hypnosis in 1994 to retrieve some chunks of my lost memories - of being taken out in the middle of the night while in the USAF, instructed to try and track extraterrestrial or back-engineered ET space craft, then later brutally worked over with drugs and sexual assault to get me to bury the memories through inducing trauma. I am far from being the only one this has happened to also.

Imagine what it is for people like me to see the disasters of the Gulf oil spill and the Fukushima nuclear "accident" visit such devastation on the people who live in the path of the destruction and to KNOW, down in my very bones, that such disasters never had to happen. That so much human and animal suffering never had to occur because free, clean energy is possible - if only the oil cartels and those who have commandeered so much economic power had not kept it secret and killed or harassed those who came up with such energy systems themselves. Yet they have, and We the People keep paying the price for their secret attempts to keep us all under their control. Thrive's commentary on the elite of this world being parasites on the larger host population of all of us regular folks is spot on.

David Icke

As to David Icke, I respect people's right to disagree with him on certain points. Yet, he was a groundbreaker on shadow governments and the New World Order long before it was in any way socially acceptable. He has relentlessly kept at it and now much of what he warned us about is established fact. He has done exhaustive and extensive research into his topics and they deserve serious attention and cross-checking by fearless and unbiased others. I know he discusses reptilians, and I do not doubt what he has to say, though I don't put too much of my focused attention on it. My philosophy is to keep a weather eye on what's wrong on Planet Earth, while keeping the majority of my attention on what I want to create in the world through love. And never to turn away from any disturbing information out of my own fear, but to face my fears and move through them, otherwise what I would like to envision, intend and create in this world will be undermined by that fear.

My own experience with reptilians: While investigating my 3 months of missing time, driven to find some answers, and before having my own hypnosis, I attended a lecture by another reptilian researcher, John Rhodes. Much of it was fascinating, but I just could not buy the reptilian idea - I walked out thinking this guy had watched too much scifi. Then, much later, my own hypnosis yielded up 2 reptilian encounters, minor ones, but there. One was passing a laboratory where a reptilian being was overseeing two other researchers, and one on a flying saucer. Under hypnosis, seeing them took my breath away, and it was hard to get it back. They looked terrifying to me.

Being of a scientific inclination, I have researched and cross-checked and correlated my memories with other information and testimony over many years to try and understand what I re-experienced under hypnosis. This includes working to understand the political and social context in which such things could even occur - which led me to the same places that Foster and Kimberly Gamble have reached and put into their film Thrive. I know that some people regard hypnosis with suspicion. That's fine. But when the information together with my own experiences is checked and cross-checked and correlated - volumes of it - lead to the same place, and some people remember without hypnosis, then you have to give it serious consideration at the very least. I now conclude that reptilians exist. I respect Mr. Icke's research and knowledge on this subject while reserving the right to my own conclusions based in my own experiences and study.

Jacque Fresco's Utopia Town

UFO secrecy is free energy secrecy. Free energy secrecy is directly related to severely curtailing the freedom of people like you and me and the general population, because if people had free energy, the cost of producing goods and services and transporting them would fall to next to nothing and the economic empire that exists on a foundation of oil would collapse. People would then be truly free, to live, to breathe, to create, to love and build connection rather than be indoctrinated to divide and conquer each other. Greed would be unnecessary in a world where such freedom existed. As visionary and futurist Jacque Fresco of the Venus Project teaches, the environment shapes the people who live in it... how could people be shaped in a world where abundance is so plentiful that everyone thrives? What place would greed have in such a world? None. Greed and hoarding is only necessary when some want to control everyone and everything else.

I hope you see this message, and while it would be nice to get a response, none is required if you are too busy. I'm busy too, finishing my book! Stay well, stay joyful no matter what, and my deep gratitude and blessings to you for having the courage to see what is happening in the world and address it in your wonderful and unique way.

Very Warmly!
Niara Terela Isley

UNCLE ANT'S AGONY & ECSTASY COLUMN #4

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 06:08:00 +0000

Technical Tips for Bi-Lingual Teenage Playwrights

Jay, 17, is writing a play. He's got a few technical questions for Uncle Ant.

1. Is it ok for me to incorporate other languages in the script? There are just some things which cannot be said in proper English, won’t have the “mood”. Some things in Mandarin, we just can't find an English substitute. (English is my second language, I'm Chinese-ed.)

There are no hard and fast rules about incorporating a mix of languages in your script, Jay. Certain things cannot be taught, only learnt, and one of these things is a sharp artistic instinct that tells you what works and what doesn't. Experiment all you want. Read what you've written aloud and see how it sounds. Rework till it sounds just right. Bear in mind that if you insert too many Mandarin expressions, the non-Mandarin speakers in your audience may feel left out. Insert in such a way that the meaning can be inferred from the action. If you're not 100% comfortable writing in English, why not write a Mandarin play instead? If it's any good, someone else can translate it into English later.

2. How do you know why a person is acting in a certain way? I don’t know why the parents in my play are behaving like this. I think the father doesn’t want a confrontation with the mother, but she’s nagging him ... pushing his patience. Don’t know why the mother’s a nag tho. Do playwrights talk to their parents before writing such plays or what?

"Family Dynamics" by Elizabeth Seaver

You're not being very clear here, Jay. Playwrights are free to talk to their parents to glean some insight - but I'd say the main thing is to keenly observe the psychodynamics of family interactions and then stylize them into recognizable form. Just as an artist will study a landscape or figure intently - and then compress the data by extracting the ESSENCE and translating it into a few masterful strokes on canvas or paper. All art is founded on acute observation of the life around you.

3. Must it have a “positive message”, “nilai-nilai murni” or whatever?

The last thing you want is to deliberately include any kind of "message" whether positive or negative. Rather, just tell the story and allow the audience to draw their own conclusions.

That's where the "art" comes in. The artist's job is to select details from "real life" to be expressed in an artistic medium, whether as prose or poetry, painting or sketch, musical composition, dance movement or dramatic scene. The skill of the artist consists of his or her ability to evoke a range of emotional and aesthetic responses from the audience - whether amusement or indignation or anxiety or vicarious pain or pleasure.

4. The main character comes across as rather reluctant to talk esp when he’s intimidated ... either he’s sullen and rebellious, or he’s too scared cos he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. So the people who’re talking to him at the time read like they’re doing a monologue. Is that ok, or should I write out that he’s refusing to respond, then let the person go on talking?

This is a basic technical problem which can be easily solved by inserting in brackets what the protagonist (main character) is thinking or feeling as the other characters are speaking. For example: [Protagonist shuffles around impatiently, not really listening, looking for a chance to escape the lecture.] These are playwright's notes addressed to the actor as a suggested response, e.g., [Protagonist maintains a false smile throughout, nodding every so often in feigned agreement.]

5. As I go on exploring the story, more characters appear. This started out as a simple 20 minute play for the inter-school English drama comp with only 4 characters, and it was mainly based in the main characters' home and there're a couple of scenes with extras acting as students going home from school. Now the school's involved too ... which means teachers, classmates ... and it's more complicated. One (or one and a half) hours sounds like a looooong time. Is is ok to have a few more characters? How many should a play have? Agak agak ...

A general rule of thumb: the more characters you introduce to a play, the more complicated the task of keeping them all credible and interacting smoothly. So if you're a novice playwright, best not to be overly ambitious and start writing a play with dozens of characters. Build up your confidence and skill by starting with just a few key characters. If it's your maiden play, it's okay to make it a short one - sort of a one-acter. There's no need to tackle a full-length production until you acquire some experience in the craft. Why put in a lot of useless padding just to fill out a 90-minute time slot when you're better off aiming for a really tight-paced 40-minute play?

6. When I wrote this play, it came out in patches ... How do I connect the dots?

You mean the patches? Use thread. Stories are like threads, and the playwright sews various lives together like a quiltwork using certain themes. If the scenes are isolated moments and don't require any form of linear flow to connect them, then a simple device to hold them - just as you use a basket to keep an assortment of beads or shells - will suffice. It could be a musical or lighting effect signalling the end of one scene and the start of another; or a multimedia interlude, or even the voice of an unseen narrator. Use your imagination!

If you mean the dots, use a pencil – and then ink over the lines when you’ve got a clear picture of what you want to convey. Good luck, Jay!

Anwar Ibrahim on the Spirit of Liberty (reprise)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:22:00 +0000

[First posted 23 November 2009 and more relevant than ever!]

Anwar: We need substantive change

Terence Netto
November 22, 2009
1:25pm

Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim told a Pakatan Rakyat seminar yesterday on the two-party system that Malaysia must move from the forms of representation to the substance of democratic experience to give validity to the nation's founding constitution.

Speaking to several score leaders from PKR, PAS and DAP, the component parties of Pakatan, at the seminar in Kuala Lumpur organised to infuse them with a sense of mission, Anwar held that the country's democratic beginnings were not sustained because of servile subscription to certain shibboleths.

One was that its racial diversity was potentially explosive and the other was that the need for rapid economic progress was touted as incompatible with democracy.

pic courtesy of penangtalk.com

"Our diverse ethnic make-up, rather than an asset, was treated as a powder keg that could be ignited by the slightest spark," he said.

He said this manipulated fear of the country's social fragility was compounded by the perception that "economic development was not compatible with the freedoms that have been established in other democratic nations."

He said delusive beliefs led politicians to give free rein to "greed and avarice and not what Vaclav Havel (right) described as a heightened responsibility for the moral state of society."

Havel was the Czech playwright who figured prominently in his country's break with its communist past in 1989 and became president shortly afterwards, a modern epitome of Plato's ideal of the 'philosopher-king' that held philosophers as best equipped to rule a country because of their passion for truth and justice.

Of course, these notions are scoffed at by the hardnosed, realist school of leaders who think of politics as offering success only to those skilled at deploying the wiles of a fox and the strength of a lion.

That period is over

Anwar said the period was over when the notion held sway that Asians had a cultural predisposition to such values as social order, deferred gratification, and respect for hierarchy, in preference to the cacophony of democratic dissent.

He said this was the pet theory of a cadre of Asian authoritarians whose influence had waned. In any case their theory has been deflated by Asian intellectuals like Nobel laureate Amartya Sen (left) who has cogently argued that there was nothing intrinsically Asian about a preference for social conformity over democratic individualism.

Sen posited the contrary view that freedom and democracy are vital factors in wealth creation and social advancement in Asian societies.

Once again Anwar aired his opinion that while the Western world had established strong institutions of democracy, they held no monopoly on its underlying principles.

He reiterated that the theories of liberal democracy's progenitor John Locke were adumbrated by the principles laid down in Prophet Muhammad's Last Sermon, to wit, the sanctity of contracts and property rights, racial equality and women's rights.

These principles were upheld as the higher objectives of Islamic Law by the Andalusian legal scholar, al-Shatibi, in his treatise, maqasid al-Sharia, which sanctify the preservation of religion, life, family and wealth.

Anwar again claimed that the philosophic antecedents of the Enlightenment principles of Locke and Montesquieu that seeded the flowering of democratic government in the West could be found in the the Last sermon and the maqasid al-Sharia.

He said there was a discontinuity between Malaysia's beginnings as a constitutional democracy and its subsequent experience as a nation as its rulers deviated from the original spirit of the Constitution.

"The upshot is that Malaysia's experience as a pseudo democracy has been an utter disaster. A nation blessed with vast wealth and a people with the ability to learn and excel have been left in the lurch by decades of failed policies. Hope in a brighter future has been snuffed out by the blunt instrument of state power and the cancer of corruption," claimed Anwar.

Pakatan has a special responsibility

He said the impetus given to the two-party system by the results of the general elections of March 8, 2008, would be lost if the main values of the democratic societies are not fortified. These were liberty, social pluralism and political constitutionalism.

"The intent of these values and the institutions that mediate the relationship between the citizen and the government is to guard against the exercise of tyranny," he said.

Anwar said an independent and free judiciary, a free press and a legislature that applied moral precepts to its output, are vital to the mediation of the relationship between government and the citizen.

He proposed the concept of democracy articulated by the political scientist Ian Shapiro - that it is "an ideology of opposition as much as it is one of government" - as an animating principle for the two-party system.

"Yet we would be in a state of self-deception, however, if we pinned the hopes for healthy democracies on just one of its attributes," said Anwar.

He said free and fair elections in which all parties are allowed to compete on a level playing field and unobstructed governance by those elected by voters were the other attributes of a vibrant two-party system.

Anwar said all these features were envisaged by the country's founding constitution but the sum of subsequent deviations – 700 amendments to be sure – eventuated in the contorted construct Malaysians are faced with today.

He said the Pakatan coalition had a special responsibility to nurture the new consciousness that has emerged in Malaysian society after March 8, 2008, to "retrieve, revive and reinvigorate the spirit of liberty, individualism, humanism and tolerance" that was the underlying spirit of the founding constitution.

[Read the complete transcript of Anwar's excellent speech here.]

UNCLE ANT'S AGONY & ECSTASY COLUMN #3

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:08:00 +0000

Dear Uncle Ant, I'm a lazy sod so I'm posting my questions about the Malaysian arts scene here [on the kakiseni.com readers' feedback page].

1. What is Malaysian Culture?

2. What is Malaysian Arts?

3. What is Malaysian Heritage?

4. Are these compatible with tourism?

Dear Lazy Sod,

Talk about lazy questions, yours are in the same category as: Who Am I? What Am I Doing Here? What Does It Mean To Be Human? If I Find The Answers Will People Pay Top Money To Hear Them?

But our excitable editor is correct when he declares that Uncle Ant can answer any and all questions (if he feels like it, that is). Be warned, folks, that you may find the answers to Lazy Sod's questions totally unfunny - because our lack of Culture is certainly no laughing matter. Okay, folks... fasten your seat belts... now for some straight answers to Lazy Sod's 100 million ringgit questions!

Many years ago (28, to be precise) I wrote an article for a newspaper in which I compared "culture" to weaving a fine carpet - that is to say, "culture" means diddly-squat to someone who's sleeping on cardboard cartons under a flyover, or who lives in a leaky zinc-roofed shanty in the slums. But along with material gains and creature comforts comes a nice big house in the suburbs - and a professionally laid parquet or marble floor just waiting for a tasteful carpet to make home look a little cosier. Now that's what "culture" represents to most folks who have evolved beyond basic survival: a few original paintings on the walls, a Rhythm-In-Bronze CD playing in the background, and a selection of director-playwrights, soon-to-be-published novelists, or (ahem) theatre reviewers on your birthday party guest list.

In other words, being “cultured” essentially implies that one has developed an aesthetic sensibility or “good taste” – a prerequisite to acquiring even the rudiments of an ethical sense, without which we cannot govern ourselves and therefore will be governed by others on pain of punishment or through brute force. Can you imagine what life in the social matrix might be like if everyone - including candidates for the police force and the civil service - was exposed from infancy to good (read, uncensored) literature, music, films, theatre, paintings and sculptures?

How about the traditional culture you might find in, say, a Kelantanese fishing village, or a rice-growing community in Kedah, or a remote longhouse in Sarawak? Doesn't that qualify as "culture"? Well, folks, that's where culture begins. Man does not live on rice and tapioca alone. After a hearty meal, we want to relax with a couple of drinks and maybe hear someone with a stirring voice and a string instrument sing about the good old days, or watch the belles of the village do a fertility dance.

So there's pop culture and haute culture to consider. For instance, would you consider it a cultural experience to hang out at a karaoke lounge with your contractor buddies, 4 bottles of Martell, and 5 GROs (that’s Guest Relations Officer, for the uninitiated)? Well, in Korea and Japan, that's part of the Business Culture - nobody does actual business in boardrooms. And among affluent youth everywhere, culture means Friday night at Zouk with the gang and a good supply of "headshaking" pills. A few years ago, youth culture would have meant a spot of spontaneous breakdancing – and today some fierce skateboarding or rollerblading - outside some mall. In short, let's not get too precious over our definition of Culture.

But what is MALAYSIAN culture, you ask?

Huh? Is there such an animal? I know we have Melayu culture - you know, all the fun stuff banned by PAS, inspired by the Ramayana and whatnot - kite-flying, top-spinning, gong-beating, ketupat-steaming. We also have Chinese culture, especially around the Lunar New Year, you know, tong-tong-chang and red stuff all over the streets. And we have Indian culture - especially in conjunction with Hindu festivals when painted cement gods adorned with multicolored lights are dragged through the streets in their chariots, and folks in trance pierce their cheeks with stainless steel skewers, and lots of coconuts get smashed. Funky, vel vel. But as playwright Huzir Sulaiman astutely remarked in Notes on Life & Love & Painting:

It angers me when after hundreds of years of importing aspects of other people’s culture some politician in a 4,000-ringgit Italian suit complains about Western values and such-and-such a thing is not from our culture. Our culture is everybody else’s culture. We’ve never had our own. Deal with it and grow up.

Should we bother mentioning the OFFICIAL CULTURE designed and promoted by our tireless bureaucrats - you know, the candle, umbrella, and banana leaf dancers and the stylized silat choreography performed mainly for 65-year-old tourists? Well, that's really just a bowl of wax fruit sitting on the table as some sort of kitsch decoration (hey, don't attempt to eat the stuff, you'll gag and puke!). I wouldn't call THAT culture - but a definitive symptom of the acute lack thereof.

And yet... I can point to a few cultural icons and hold their work up as exquisitely representative of MALAYSIAN culture: the ever popular “Latok” Lat, for a start. And there’s my old friend Salleh Ben Joned the bilingual poet and essayist whose work transcends sterile notions of ethnicity while drawing heavily on ethnic elements. These are forerunners of a younger generation exemplified by the likes of Jit Murad, Huzir Sulaiman, Jo Kukathas and the Instant Café Theatre. What do they have in common? A balanced cosmopolitan sensibility that aesthethically merges the “native” and the “foreign” within their own psyches, putting a spicy spin on the rich stew (or should I say curry?) of derivative cultural elements that define being Malaysian.

Your next question is grammatically unsound and I have every right not to answer it. Nonetheless I’d define “Malaysian arts” as any form of cultural expression practised by anyone born in or residing long-term in Malaysia. (Now some of you, like our nose... I mean nit-picking editor, may be wondering why I described your question - What is Malaysian Arts? - as “grammatically unsound.” Arts is plural and your question addresses a singular issue. How would you define ‘Malaysian Arts’? Now that’s grammatically sound!)

What is Malaysian Heritage? Another grammatically shaky poser, Lazy Sod! But let’s not be too pedantic. Here’s a partial list of what I consider to be our Malaysian Heritage: ancient rainforests, aboriginal peoples, Cristao-speaking Portuguese Eurasians, the Stadthuys (you know, those stodgy red buildings in Malacca), written English and spoken Manglish, Ionic columns, guided democracy, cinema subtitles in 3 languages, Chinese satay sellers and Malay chee cheong fun stalls, not to mention Hakka-speaking Tamils in Kuala Kubu Bharu.

As for your final question: YES, of course, EVERYTHING is compatible with tourism - we need the foreign currency. In any case, your question comes too late: Tourism is now a separate ministry from Culture, Arts and Heritage. During the Mahathir Era, Arts and Culture were subsumed by Tourism, and artists were seen as entertainers, Guest Relations Officers, and court jesters. Before that, the arts were perceived as a means of keeping hormonally-charged youngsters out of trouble and so we had the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.

Let’s be grateful for small mercies. I feel the new Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage could be a healthy sign. At least it promises to revive the traditional arts suppressed by fundamentalists in Terengganu – and it may well lead to DBKL being relieved of its censorship duties on humanitarian grounds (poor, overworked City Hall already has enough on its hands, maintaining its fleet of lifeboats in anticipation of the next flash flood).

Arrogance and the Art of Political Shadow Boxing

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:39:00 +0000

This post was inspired by a journalist friend who left the following comment on my Facebook wall: "I've met [Anwar Ibrahim] in person and he looked right through me, although I had to personally escort him. He makes my skin crawl. A couple of reporters I know who have interviewed him also say that this kind of arrogance was pretty normal even when he was DPM."

At 19 I met a fortune teller who read my palms and told me I will never have a boss. And that has held true my entire life. I don't regard anybody or any spirit as my "superior."

All political leaders, including Anwar Ibrahim, must ultimately bow to the rakyat as their boss. Others may bow before some concept of God or Devil. I don't.

In effect, other people's arrogance is just a joke to me. Arrogance, I know, is only a front - a form of ego armoring required for warfare. Just as Muhammad Ali used arrogance and conceit as a psychological weapon to inject apprehension and anxiety into his opponents, every successful politician learns to talk big and scare his adversaries. In the animal kingdom, puffer fish and peacocks inflate various parts of their anatomy to scare off rivals and attract potential mates.

Anwar Ibrahim addresses a rapt audience at Kelana Jaya Stadium (photo: TV Smith)

Anwar is good at that - and he is used to being in the limelight. Every rockstar knows what it's like to have thousands clamoring for you to appear on stage - it's addictive and scary at the same time. It takes a special kind of temperament to thrive under those high-pressure circumstances. Anwar has got it in abundance - he has trained himself all his life to become a political icon.

Have you ever had to escort Mahathir or Najib anywhere? Would they have looked right through you too... or looked straight into your eyes and noticed what a beautiful human being you are and suggested you add them on Facebook? The point I'm making is simply this: in a primitive culture where politics holds sway and policemen obey only those they deem their superiors, we desperately require regime change.

Anas Zubedy,
corporate wunderkind

If you remove Anwar Ibrahim from the equation at this juncture, what you're asking for is that the status quo remain unchanged. Look at the ego conflicts amongst activists and opinion makers - people like RPK. Haris Ibrahim, Ambiga Sreenevasan, Lim Chee Wee, Art Harun, Azmi Sharom, Malik Imtiaz... and let's toss in a few from the murky side, like Anas Zubedy, Chandra Muzaffar, Ezam Mohd Nor. Do you honestly think the ship of state will sail smoothly on course if it was left to a committee of debaters, public masturbators and would-be emancipators?

Until there are enough enlightened souls in our midst - ones who have internalized God and no longer regard external authority as real or legitimate - we will need some sort of political structure. And the best one I have seen thus far is the Pakatan Rakyat coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim.

I'm seriously tired of apparently intelligent people putting the brakes on the change by misapplyng their skepticism at what is, to me, a critical juncture in our political evolution. So, who do you wish to see in Anwar's place? I'm really interested to know....

UNCLE ANT’S AGONY & ECSTASY COLUMN #2

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:08:00 +0000

Girlfriend Dumps You For Actor?

Agony Ant! My girlfriend leave me for an actor! Summore he only new actor but act damm big shot!! We go for the cars party and sudenly he comes and talk to her… the hole time I stands there he smile at me ONE time and never looks at me after dat… he make the stupid jokes about this actors and that actors….. he is more bitch than the American Idol guy! One week after dat she break up with me! What so special about actors all the girls go GAGA?? How can I win her back? Do I must learn to be more bitch? – Dump in Damansara

Dear DID – I'm not surprised she dumped ya, bud. If you talk the way you write, she would have felt embarrassed to be seen and heard with you in classy circles. Enter an articulate “new actor” with a deep, plummy voice. Hmmm. I suggest you seriously upgrade your English, bud. Anyway, I detect a note of disappointment that the actor only smiled at you “ONE time.” Would you have dumped your girlfriend for him? Be honest now.

Hey, bud, look on the bright side (I'm fond of saying)… she's now hanging out with the actor… but how do you know it isn't just a platonic fling? After all, not all male actors are interested in girls that way. (Bud, I know how it feels to be dumped. My last girlfriend left me for a full-on psychotic. Mildly neurotic wasn't rough enough a ride for her.)

If she can dump you once, she’ll dump you a dozen times – so why bother?

Dear Agony Ant,

What a timely column! I have some questions for you. I know the DBKL’s list of guidelines for approval of scripts is quite demoralising and oppressive. But what's with the silence at the theatres this year? Are there not creative ways to get around these guidelines? Are our playwrights just not creative enough or are they on a strike? – John

Beats me, John. This lull you report – don’t forget 2004 has barely begun (in fact, Baha’is and Druids mark the start of the new Solar Year as March 21) – could be due to shockwaves from the recent smash hit, Election Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Voter. Patrick Teoh and Edwin R. Sumun were illuminating as Poda and Puke. Takes a while to recover from a plot as obvious as that.

But let’s look on the bright side. Fewer shows means theatregoers end up with more cash to spend on other things, like fashion accessories. Good time to invest in lifestyle products and services. Besides, playwrights are like durian trees. They don't fruit all year round. I bet they’re scratching their heads and crotches right now in front of their computers, looking for ‘creative ways to get around those guidelines.’ Give them a break, John. They deserve it.

Dear Agoniser: Your answer to Patrick Teoh's question on ‘Are theatre people elitists?’ was fascinating, but too long, dude, too long. Can you summarise? Personally, I think musicians are even more elitists. The classical guys won’t hang with the pop guys, the pop guys won’t hang with the underground rock guys, and the underground rock guys just hate the world. What gives? – Pop Goes The Weasel

First of all, Pop, I don't answer to the name, ‘Dude.’

In any case, better too long than too short, I always say.

You want a summary? Absolutely. Yup, that’s it.

As far as I’m concerned, musicians are people too – and people can ‘hang’ with whoever they want, it’s really none of our business who they consort with and who they don’t.

Now I can see why your last name is Dweezil!

5 April 2004

ANWAR: A MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY DESTINY (update)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:07:00 +0000

It never ceases to amaze me when perfectly intelligent folk keep parroting unoriginal notions acquired from coffeeshop gossip and loose talk over a few beers. How many times have I been told by those supposedly in the know that “Anwar can’t be trusted. He’s a chameleon.”

Dammit… look at that bunch of utter nincompoops strutting around the corridors of power today: anal-retentive Umno stereotypes like Najib Razak, Muhyiddin Yassin, Hishammuddin Hussein, Zahid Hamidi, Noh Omar, Mukhriz Mahathir… DO YOU TRUST THESE CREATURES? They can’t even speak in public without sounding like robots or reading from scripts! Anwar is human and passionate and you can sense a burning intelligence in his eyes.

Okay, back in the mid-1970s when I first read about this hotheaded leader of ABIM (Muslim Youth Movement), I went ho-hum. Back then Anwar Ibrahim was your archetypal ethnocentric nationalist sporting the mujahideen goatee - but at least he was outspoken on issues affecting the rural poor, and that got him into jail. Seeing his leadership potential, Mahathir persuaded Anwar to join Umno and got him spewing forth the expected foam about bangsa and ugama. I confess that in 1989 I actually did a caricature of him and labeled it "Anal Ibrim" little suspecting that within a decade Anwar would be plagued by that very word. And I'm still troubled by a rumor I once heard, naming Anwar Ibrahim as the minister who came up with the wicked idea to convert the dysfunctional Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (Orang Asli Affairs Department) into a tool for converting the Orang Asli to Islam and assimilating them into the Malay mainstream.

Well, I don't know if there's any truth to that accusation - but even if it were true, that was back in 1990, and the man has suffered six years in prison for that reprehensible gaffe. You could say Anwar has paid all his karmic dues. Let's delete Anwar's slightly murky past when he was Umno deputy president and Dr M's hand-picked protégé, and take a closer look at what happened around the time of the currency depreciation in mid-1997. A bunch of young Turks in Umno were pushing Anwar to the forefront as a potential heir to the throne, goading him to attack Mahathir on the corruption front, the old man's weak underbelly. The Mamak didn't like that one bit - and neither did his former finance minister, Daim Zainuddin. Anwar was given the option to hand in his resignation - or face extreme vilification and political damnation.

Anwar, unlike other DPMs, refused to yield to Mahathir’s awesome might and megalomaniacal ego. Anwar fought back when he could have cut his losses by taking up a diplomatic or academic post abroad, returning quietly to the Umno fold a few years later like Musa Hitam.

On September 2nd, 1998, Anwar Ibrahim underwent a radical transformation from Umno bigwig to political renegade - he literally took on the mantle of a messianic cult hero when Malaysia urgently required one. I’ve watched him closely since his sacking and subsequent arrest - and he has performed impeccably as a spiritual warrior and icon of righteous resistance. Over six years of incarceration Anwar maintained his dignity, focus, perseverance and humanity - and that’s when the beautiful, strong women in his life rose to the occasion.

No man who has seen his wife and daughter go through so much on his behalf would ever behave like a male chauvinist pig; he would have a healthy respect for the feminine principle. This is what I see in Anwar and that is why I have publicly hailed him as Malaysia’s best hope at this critical juncture in our political evolution.

Anwar has every quality that marks him as a man of extraordinary destiny. I trust him as much as I trust myself - and because I fear him not, I would walk up to him and tell him to his face if ever I felt he was turning into a tyrant. As a former victim of Dr M's tyranny, Anwar would never want to go down that ignominious road.

In 2001 while overnighting at a friend's house, I flipped through a copy of Anwar Ibrahim's Asian Renaissance I found in his library. Anwar came across as somebody I could imagine having a damn good conversation with on a one-to-one basis. But what most impressed me and turned my views around on politicians in general and Anwar in particular - was the bibliography at the end of the book which listed - among a broad spectrum of classics including the sublime poetry of Rabindranath Tagore - the Tao Te Ching. Now, anybody who can claim to have read that supreme masterpiece in pithy, organic wisdom is welcome in my household anytime. And if he decides to run for high political office, I'd put my money on him. These are no ordinary times we are living in. Successfully navigating the uncharted political seas immediately ahead calls for an extraordinary helmsman - one who has survived the worst storms!

[Here's an inspiring perspective on Anwar Ibrahim by Charles R. Avila that was uploaded today on Din Merican's blog.]

APPENDIX A

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Malaysia Today

At 2.30pm on Wednesday, 25 June 2008, Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) II Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof met Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in room 619 of the Concorde Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Prior to this secret meeting, Rodwan and Saiful spoke on the phone at least eight (8) times.

Three days later, at 2.00pm on 28 June 2008, Saiful went to see Dr Mohamed Osman Abdul Hamid of the Hospital Pusrawi to ‘complain’ that he had been sodomised by ‘a very important person’ and that he wished to lodge a police report. The doctor, however, found no traces or evidence that he had been sodomised and suggested, for purposes of the police report, that Saiful go to a government hospital.

Who is Rodwan, other than the fact that he works for the IGP and is known as the police chief’s bagman and go-between with the organised crime syndicate that controls all the drugs, prostitution, loan-sharking and gambling rackets? Well, read the following archived reports to get a better understanding of this scumbag and slime-ball named Rodwan. Maybe then you can understand why he met Saiful in a hotel room three days before the sodomy allegation against Anwar Ibrahim exploded.

APPENDIX B

This comment was posted 30 July 2008 on Susan Loone’s blog:

Susan,

I would like to write the following statement in the name of GOD whom I believe.

I am a government doctor in the rank of consultant working in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). I know personally the doctors who examined Saiful on that day - 28 June 2008.

The so-called medical report mentioned in the NST is a fabrication or imagination by the UMNO paper. There is no such medical report submitted to the polis yet.

When examining Saiful, the specialist could not find any signs of Saiful being sodomised. Saiful was very cheerful, unlike real sodomised patients who will usually be very sad and disturbed.

Saiful was subsequently admitted to the ward and observed for a day. He was completely well in the ward and not emotionally disturbed.

Please let RPK know of this.

Thanks.

[First posted 30 July 2008]

UNCLE ANT’S AGONY & ECSTASY COLUMN #1

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:01:00 +0000

In early 2004 when the arts portal kakiseni.com had the infamous Pang Khee Teik as editor, we experimented briefly with an "artistic agony aunt" column that only ran for a few months before it fizzled out for lack of interest. Rummaging through my files, I found these obscure documents I felt were worth re-issuing for posterity.

The very first person to send a question to Uncle Ant's Agony & Ecstasy column happened to be the ever-popular actor/author/raconteur & restaurateur Patrick Teoh....

So much has been said about Malaysian English language theatre. Elitist... Incestuous... Self serving... Must not be entertaining or it will not be theatre... etc., etc. So my question is this: Which should fuel whom ah?

Stratford fuels West End? Broadway fuels 'serious' theatre? These theatre baargers talk too much and do too little. Sometimes I wish that they would just shut up and do their thing, whatever that may be, and let the paying public decide if they want more or not. Let's stop or at least pull back a little on this "hey we want to make you think, make a difference in your life and your community, etc, blablablahhhhhhhhhhhh"...

I buy a ticket, and they are getting really expensive these days, so make it fun for me first lah. Then if I get something out of it that will make a diff in my life OK that's a nice bonus. If not so what lah? Nowadays, first first already WAH must think about this and that, much fight with authorities, issues, issues issues... Wah theatre damn difficult to enjoy lah... let's buy ticket go to Tanjung Golden Village cinema lah.

I hope I am making some sense to you, my old friend. if not just delete this email and relegate me to that bunch of wankers above and I shall not bother you again lah :-)

Pax,
Patrick Teoh

AGONY ANT says...

Congratulations, Patrick, for being the very first to pose an "arty" question to Uncle Ant's all-new Agony Column on kakiseni.com! Can't think of a better way to kick this off than with the funny-serious question you raise - which actually opens up a complex of issues to which no straightforward answer could possibly apply.

First of all, it prompts us to return to the foundation of all artistic endeavor and see if we can learn anything by excavating there. But let's keep our search focused on theatre so this doesn't degenerate into a wordy tome.

Theatre has long been represented by a pair of masks - comic and tragic - showing the two sides of human experience, the light and the heavy. The mask as a symbol of personality goes back to prehistoric times when tribal shamans would trance out by donning a mask and robes while channeling an animal totem or the spirit of a powerful ancestor. This magical ritual was usually to bless a hunting expedition with success, or rescue a soul from the astral realms and return it safely to its physical vehicle, thereby curing any illness afllicting it. In Athens, theatre served as social catharsis as well as moral education - with masked players personifying various attributes and tendencies like nobility, loyalty, courage, jealousy, greed, cruelty and deceit.

In general, tragedies were favored by the ruling elite who found solace in watching their own tragic flaws depicted on stage and were thus able to assuage their guilt a little and discharge a few sentimental tears (even tyrants enjoy a good cry, as exemplified by Hitler's S.S. officers who reportedly shed copious sentimental tears while listening to Wagnerian opera - after sending trainloads of unfortunates to the death camps).

Comedies were often a form of stress relief for the masses who could enjoy a public snicker or two at the foibles of the upper classes without having to risk their skins by openly rebelling against the power structure. Satire was, in effect, an important safety valve promoting social stability without actually threatening the status quo.

Nevertheless, theatre certainly contributed to radical shifts in the mass consciousness by triggering perceptual change from within, on the ethical and aesthetical levels. Those who desire to maintain tight control of public opinion are understandably wary of the potentially subversive power of artistic expression. Indeed, almost all major shifts in the mass psyche can be said to have been precipitated by specific literary and theatrical works.

Scene from Tristan & Isolde

How about the visual arts? Well, they do inevitably exert their aesthetic influence, but they have traditionally been addressed more to the privileged classes than to the masses (cartoons and photography are interesting exceptions that warrant a whole separate study, which we won't delve into here).

So where does "entertainment" feature in all this? A play doesn't necessarily have to be funny to be entertaining. Any story told with great skill is entertaining in that it effectively engages the audience's attention. Millions enjoy following soap series on the boob tube in a multitude of languages and dialects. Tragic romances like Tristan und Isolde - the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story - have enchanted audiences for generations. In effect, it doesn't matter whether the subject matter is light or heavy - what's important is that the tale be masterfully told.

There's nothing more deadly than a good joke badly told. A heart-wrenching tragedy, artistically rendered, can be life-affirming and uplifting. In short, giving theatre audiences their money's worth has little to do with actual content - but everything to do with the degree of skill, the intensity of commitment, the level of passion the performers manage to inject into the overall effort.

While those in theatre are often accused of being there to gratify their enormous egos, the same can be said about every other human endeavor - including warmongering and empire-building. Perhaps it's our deeply-ingrained need to seize some species of immortality, spawned from an awareness of our pathetic mortality and vulnerability in the face of life's vicissitudes.

Returning to Patrick's question about whether our theatre scene is "elitist, incestuous, self-serving, etc"... of course it is, old chum! Elitism vs Populism is an age-old issue. Elitism assumes that the hoi polloi is a dumb ass that needs to be thrown a stack of hay once in while (or at least a loaf of bread and a few circuses).

Bread and circuses: another bad review

Populism believes the public is a dumb ass only because elites have rigged the game to keep it forever so. Each of us conducts within our own psyches a neverending argument between the Elitist and the Populist. The Elitist in us knows we are far superior to Most People. The Populist feels it's our sacred duty to disseminate our gifts and insights as far and wide as possible, in the hope that Most People will ultimately benefit - and, even if they don't, at least they'll be forking out hard-earned money to keep us in the business of having fun.

The true Populist is shamelessly vulgar and watches only wrestling videos, 'Survivor' and late-night product promos - dismissing everything else as "one big self-indulgent wank." The true Populist came into his or her own during Mao's Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals and artists had a real rough time. I don't believe I've ever met a true Populist and I pray I never will!

Incest is how it all began and incest is how it all ends. Remember when there were only a handful of families on the planet - and they were all related? Brother-sister marriage was common practice amongst the ancient royals. Why, they learnt it from the gods among whom incest was not only prevalent, it was perfectly normal.

Since theatre people the world over are a great big fraternity (and sorority) - and since all of us are evolving into soul-brothers and sisters (or water-siblings if you prefer Robert A. Heinlein's terminology as presented in his seminal work of speculative anthropology, Stranger in a Strange Land)... how can any of us have any fun if we don't practise incest? Just answer me that, Bro.

Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the
Dominican Republic in the 1930s

If you argue that incest breeds stupidity... hey, do you think a smart species would go about destroying its own ecosystem and expending most of its energy on perpetual warfare? Maybe it's high time we invited a new crop of ETs to come and revitalize our Gene Pool?

Self-serving? Hey, show me someone who claims to be serving the "common good" or "public interest" - and I'll show you a politician or a creepy civil servant who just wants to get on the censorship board so he gets to see all the naughty bits everybody else can't. Never trust anyone who isn't serving his or her own interests, Patrick. They all grow up and become dictators and dickheads.

Which brings us to the possibility of ENLIGHTENED self-interest, wherein we finally realize that our lives are all interconnected and interwoven in time and space - and that by guiltlessly fulfilling our own ego needs, we are actually playing a unique role in evolution. There's nothing more inspiring than a self-fulfilled individual, free to do his or her own thing, and in the process turning others on and firing synapses they never even knew existed.

As for your remark that theatre tickets are “getting really expensive” – it’s all part of the yuppism that began in the mid-1980s. Remember when a cup of kopi-O cost only 50 cents (that was before the day of the sen)? Now you pay at least RM5 at the Coffee Bean (and it’s not even the tasty local stuff but some fancy imported variety that makes you think you’re in Europe). I couldn’t afford to see a single play if I didn’t get comps as a reviewer – yet I still see full houses at some productions, even the ones with RM100 tickets or more! Obviously there’s a new middle class that can afford a night or two out every week. They constitute the main support of English language theatre in KL and Penang.

Theatre is generally priced for the comfortable middle class no matter where you live. But now that we have affordable digital technology, there’s no reason why every major production can’t be professionally shot on high-grade digital video and packaged as DVDs and VCDs which can be sold at pirate prices so those who can’t afford the luxury of a live performance can at least enjoy good theatre at home. Indeed, it’s about time we introduced a cultural channel on TV that features televised plays, interviews with interesting personalities, intelligent discussions on current issues, documentaries on inspiring writers, actors, dancers, sculptors, composers, and so on.

To sum it all up, I'd say that despite the odds theatre is alive and well in Malaysia and has actually come quite a long way. There is only one stumbling block as far as I can see: it's the "katak di bawah tempurung" (tempurungism, I call it) patriarchal-provincial mindset - the same that produced the Inquisition and the Taliban - still prevalent amongst our bureaucrats. The sort of bungling interference that has put City Hall in the limelight recently can be viewed as a sign that our theatre scene is gaining influence, maturity and power - and therefore poses a threat to the status quo which must be nipped in the bud (not pinched in the butt). This presents us all with an opportunity to seriously question why City Hall has been charged with issuing entertainment licences - why do I need a licence to be entertaining? It's absolute crap.

Anyone know a professional abolitionist who can help abolish all primitive, irrelevant and suppressive laws? Methinks only an abolitionist can deal with those perverted abortionists of art that lurk in the corridors of officialdom.

Agony Ant
25 Feb 2004

Silly Jokes Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 11:07:00 +0000

When An Insect Falls Into A Mug Of Beer...

Englishman - Throws his mug away and walks out.

Scotsman - Takes the insect out and drinks the beer.

American - Threatens to sue the pub. Gets an extra beer on the house. Then he takes the insect out and drinks both beers. Later he writes a bestselling book: "Who Says There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Beer?")

Singaporean - Observes the American and apes him.

Italian - Calls the waiter over and knees him in the groin. The worried manager agrees to serve him 5 free beers a day if he will just drink them peacefully and stop molesting the barmaid.

Chinese - Eats the insect and throws the beer away.

Indian - Sells beer to the American and insect to the Chinese and gets a new mug of beer.

Pakistani - Accuses the Indian of throwing an insect into his beer. Relates the issue to Kashmir. Asks the Chinese for military aid. Takes a loan from the American to buy one more mug of beer.

Malay - Considers himself under arrest and meekly follows the insect back to the Religious Affairs Department where he pays a hefty fine for consuming the forbidden Al-Kohol.

I'm Lost!

An American and his wife were driving in Canada and got lost. Finally they came into some city. They saw a gentleman on the sidewalk, so the gentleman pulled up to the curb, and the lady let down her window and asked: "Excuse me, sir. Where are we?"

The gentleman on the street replied, "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."

The lady rolled up the window, turned to her husband and said, "We really are lost. They don't even speak English here!"

POWERS OF OBSERVATION

An autopsy professor was giving an introductory lecture to a class of students. Standing over a corpse, he addressed the class. "There are two things you need to make a career in medical forensics. First, you must have no fear." Having said that, he shoved his finger up the corpse's anus and licked it. "Now you must do the same," he told the class.

After a couple of minutes of uneasy silence, the class did as instructed.

"Second," the professor continued, "you must have an acute sense of observation. For instance, how many of you noticed that I put my middle finger up this man's anus, but licked my index finger?"

Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they lay down in their tent for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend awake. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?" Holmes questioned.

Watson pondered for a minute. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe Saturn is in Leo. Logically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow."

"Is that all?" Holmes asked.

"Yes," Watson replied, "Why, am I missing something?"

Holmes was quiet for a moment, then spoke:

"Watson, you dickhead. Someone has stolen the fucking tent."

ASIAN JOKE

An Asian man walked into the currency exchange in New York with 2000 yen and walked out with $72.

The following week he walked in with 2000 yen and was handed $66. He asked the teller why he got less money than he received the previous week.

The lady answers, "Fluctuations."

The Asian man stormed out and, just before slamming the door, he turned around and said, "Fluc you Amelicans too!"

KERMIT AT THE BANK

A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack. So he says,"Ms Whack, I'd like to get a loan to buy a boat and go on a long vacation."

Patti looks at the frog in disbelief and asks how much he wants to borrow. The frog says $30,000. The teller asks his name and the frog says that his name is Kermit Jagger and that it's OK, he knows the bank manager.

Patti explains that $30,000 is a substantial amount of money and that he will need to secure some collateral against the loan. She asks if he has anything he can use as collateral.

The frog says, "Sure. I have this," and produces a tiny pink porcelain elephant, about half an inch tall. Bright pink and perfectly formed.

Very confused, Patti explains that she'll have to consult with the manager and disappears into a back office. She finds the manager and says: "There's a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000. And he wants to use this as collateral."

She holds up the tiny pink elephant. "I mean, what the heck is this?"

The bank manager looks back at her and says:

"It's a knick knack, Patti Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man's a Rolling Stone."

We urgently need a Malaysian version of this powerful video...

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 06:12:00 +0000

It's never too late to derobotize yourselves and rejoin humankind!

SIGN OF THE TIMES...

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Pirates & Parasites: Don't let them bring you down, folks! (reprise)

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

An old friend named Patrick with whom I recently reconnected after a long break sent me an email which concluded with the following sentiment:

Do you really think that this country will soon be rid of pirates and parasites? I think UMNO/BN is so entrenched that any alternative would be quashed before they get time to settle. I always say that this country has so much going for it, but it’s screwed up by politics. I should be careful with what I write for fear of getting a knock on the door by some unwelcome visitors...

It saddened me that Patrick is probably not the only one infected with this pessimistic view of the political situation. No doubt he thinks of it as "being realistic." The social circle within which Patrick moves is quite likely to share his cynicism as regards the possibility of genuine change. After all, they are mostly entrepreneurs, socialites, aristocrats and technocrats who have worked around the planet for decades as expatriates, getting paid in US dollars or euros. Whether they be based in Nigeria, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Burma, Dubai, Qatar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka or Thailand, they are unlikely to be affected by the squalid conditions on the ground. Should massive trouble erupt at any point, they have the wherewithal to swiftly airlift themselves to safety.

Since Patrick happens to be someone I genuinely like, he deserves a thoughtful, well-considered response rather than a flippant brush-off. So I'm going to share my formal reply to Patrick with all of you through this post.

Dear Patrick,

I can understand where you're coming from. In fact, most of my friends and relatives who have, through their own efforts and resources, attained a comfortable position in the food chain will probably echo your views on the apparent immutability of the status quo. And by "status quo" I refer not only to Malaysia but to all of humanity on this fair earth. You might as well have asked:

"Do you really think that this planet will soon be rid of pirates and parasites?"

And my response to that would be an unequivocal YES. The reason I can state this with absolute confidence is simply because I have spent the last 45 years monitoring the frequency shifts in the human psychosphere and the dramatic increase in Schumann Resonance of the planetary electromagnetic field. In plain language, the planet is a living cosmic organism and it is evolving along multidimensional Fibonacci spirals of expanding awareness, carrying along the morphogenetic fields of all lifeforms - mineral, vegetable, animal, human, and elemental - embedded within its being.

Between 1952 and 1979 the Schumann Resonance (SR) of the Earth was measured at 7.8 Hertz. It began to rise up the scale and is currently between 12 and 13 Hz. Cutting edge visionary scientists like Gregg Braden say they expect the SR to peak at 13 Hz between 2011 and 2013.

What will happen to the botanical and biological lifeforms on the planet's surface?

Some plant and animal species will vanish from the third dimension while a few new ones will spontaneously appear. As for humans, a great many will be unable to recalibrate and realign their energy fields; these will succumb and descend into various forms of psychosis and pathology. The news will be full of deadly epidemics and outbreaks of irrational violence camouflaged as interracial and interreligious conflict.

For millennia the warlords have ruled this planet and they will be resisting their own imminent extinction by attempting to drag millions of other lives with them as they go the way of the dinosaurs.

Those who have learnt to trust their heart wisdom will have little trouble accepting the incoming frequencies, thereby accelerating their own awakening on the cellular, molecular, atomic and nuclear levels. Within the next few months (that's right, I said months, not years, not decades), even as the 3D Matrix begins to get more and more unreal, the ones who can maintain their emotional equilibrium and trust completely in the Unknown will find life becoming simpler and more exquisite. They will consciously acknowledge their own integral roles in the evolutionary passion play that will take us from micro to macro perspectives, and gladly celebrate their initiation as galactic citizens.

Institutions that have enslaved the human imagination for untold generations will crumble like stale bread, even as their adherents become discombobulated and turn upon each other in desperation and panic. Armies will exhaust themselves and disintegrate through meaningless combat even as deserters begin to outnumber combatants.

Congenital liars, hypocrites and deceivers will end up their own victims. Those that persist in assigning blame and scapegoating others will find themselves devoid of a following. Empire builders will weep as grandiose monuments to their own megalomania are reduced to rubble.

The status quo is static - and reality is dynamic. In a dynamic universe, status has no value or significance. However, humble virtues such as compassion, empathy, humility, and goodwill towards others will become the only accepted currency.

Creativity rather than destructivity will regain the upper hand.

The planet has been ruled by criminal syndicates for countless millennia. This was only possible during the Kali yuga, which has just about run its course. Only inertia and long-ingrained habit are keeping oppressive social systems in apparent operation. Secret police, spy agencies, covert programs designed to keep power in the hands of a plutocratic elite will be exposed as more and more whistleblowers begin to break free from their indoctrination and implants.

Evil cannot withstand the light of publicity and will evaporate under the burning sun of an enlightened humanity.

As the democratization of human communities begins to spread like wildfire, centralized government and ancient power cabals will weaken and die. The Anunnaki bloodlines that constitute all monarchies will either transmute themselves into a force for universal good - or be forever terminated.

Don't worry about Umno. Or the Rockefeller-Rothschilds. From a macro perspective they are merely small-time street gangs that will soon become fascinating exhibits in cosmoanthropological museums. So fear them not.

Above all, FEAR NOT.

And love, love, love with a heart made whole.

All this and more will come to pass. I kid you not, my dear Patrick.

[First posted 3 March 2009]

Post-Mortem on Sodomy II ~ by M. Bakri Musa

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:32:00 +0000

Anwar interviewed after his acquittal on 9 January 2012 (The Malaysian Insider)

Hold The Accolades!
M. Bakri Musa

Zabidin Mohd Diah:
Malaysian justice on trial

Now that Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah has acquitted Anwar Ibrahim on his “Sodomy II” charge, there is no end of praise heaped upon the judge specifically and the system of justice generally. Prime Minister Najib was quick with his smug assertion that “neither politics nor politicians have any influence over the dispensation of justice.” Foreign governments too have been effusive with their praises. Some now brazenly call for Anwar Ibrahim to apologize for his earlier criticisms of the system.

Hold the accolades! This sordid trial reveals everything that is rotten with the Malaysian system of justice. This case should never have been prosecuted in the first place. That it was reflected the level or more precisely lack of professionalism on the part of these career prosecutors. As for the trial, there were many instances where the judge could have thrown the case out, as when the physical evidence was introduced. Now the learned judge used that as the reason for acquittal.

As for Anwar Ibrahim, he and his family are rightfully grateful for the verdict, but hold on to your apology. Forgiveness, yes, as he said recently; that is always praiseworthy. He rightly cautioned that one court decision does not a judicial spring make. Besides, there is still the monumental task ahead to clear up the mess, and not just in the system of justice. Najib’s much-ballyhooed “transformation” is a charade concocted by his exorbitantly-paid consultants.

Doing Away With Anwar

The decision to do away with Anwar was made a long time ago. In opting for this particular route, they had hoped that whatever the outcome Anwar would be irreparably damaged by the smear. How they misjudged! The public remains convinced that the charge was politically motivated, and crassly at that, right from the very beginning.

The tragedy here, apart from the agony and humiliation Anwar and his family had endured, is that a delayed-adolescent college flunkey desperate for his 15 minutes of fame was being exploited. They used the poor boy as a battering rod, pardon my metaphor, to do in Anwar.

There is only one possible redeeming value to Judge Zabidin continuing this trial in its squalid entirety, and that is to expose the pathetic lack of professionalism of not just the prosecuting team but also the other professionals involved. This included the police officers and crime investigators to the forensic scientists tasked with the crucial DNA analysis and the senior specialists who examined Anwar’s accuser.

Hospital Kuala Lumpur's
Dr S Jeyaindran: happy to
help his buddy, PM Najib

Consider those medical specialists. They failed in their duty to inform and educate the court; they owed the court their individual professional judgment, not a committee report. Unlike paid experts, those government doctors were not beholden to the accuser or accused, only to uphold the truth. If they had doubts they should so inform the court. Likewise those chemists; before they performed the DNA analyses they should be satisfied of the integrity of the specimens. If they were forced to perform tests on specimens of questionable integrity, they clearly should have informed the court of their doubts.

Those specialists were based at the General Hospital Kuala Lumpur, an apex institution in the government’s healthcare system; thus presumably they must be the best. They should also have known that this was a very high-profile case and that their performance would come under global scrutiny. It should have been an opportunity for them to showcase their talent and professionalism. Instead the judge singled out the inadequacy of the physical evidence, as reflected in their reports and testimonies, as the reason for acquittal.

[Read the full incisive essay here...]

901: a significant turning point in Malaysian history....

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:22:00 +0000

Anwar pledges to topple BN after acquittal
January 09, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 9 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today that “justice has been served” after his acquittal in a politically-charged sodomy trial and pledged to topple the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in the next elections.

“Thank God, justice has been served. I feel vindicated but we still have a struggle. We have to now focus on the general election,” he told reporters after the High Court here acquitted and discharged him of a charged of sodomising his former male aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in 2008.

Wan Azizah hugs her hubby Anwar Ibrahim immediately after the judge acquitted him
(photo tweeted by Nurul Izzah Anwar)

SAIFUL, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

noreply@blogger.com (Antares) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 01:09:00 +0000

WE'RE BEHIND YOU ALL THE WAY, BOY!

Hmmm... you DO have a nice plump rump!

[First posted 4 February 2010]