WHEN THE TRUTH DOES NOT MATTER

I am worried nowadays at the state of affair of the Malaysian media in placing high value in the type of materials they print which are seditious and allegatory in nature. Allegations and rumors seem to make to the front page quite frequently lately regardless whether there are any truth in them. I supposed this is not new as bad news, scandals and conflicts are considered news and sell papers like hot cakes..like the saying " no news are good news", that is because most news in the papers are bad news!

The question is how far should this be allowed to go on without affecting the moral

responsibilities the news companies are supposed to have? Is profit and share price the ultimate goal?.. regardless of how the allegations and rumors affect the society and cause irreversable damages to this country....doesn't anyone care to investigate first to see if there is any truth to any allegations or rumors certain parties are spreading before sending for printing...or who gives a damn as long as the story is hot and can sell so lets put it in the front page! Where do we draw the line?

Funny, i just received an email spreading rumor on the petrol station strike across the country..so i should rush and fill my tank! I believe the same rumor was reported in some major local newspapers about this issue in Sabah and up north yesterday. I said to myself...f**k it,...so what, no petrol...i just cycle to work then! The thing is, the common man on the streets is as much to blame for being so gullible to even a hint of bad news from rumors and not using his brain to think for a while whether there is any truth in the rumors. What happen to us Malaysian? We are becoming so easily manipulated and conditioned by what we watch on tv and read in the papers that we just accept everything they throw our way as the truth? What happens to the logic and reason that are supposed to guide us to a civil society? Why are some people like to jump on the bandwagon with a herd mentality whenever an allegation and rumors spread?

The sad part about the whole thing is that when the dust settles down and the truths came out and proven that the allegations and rumors were not true, nobody cares about the damages, destroyed reputation to the affected individuals, broken families and most important to this country's image. They just flock to the next one created by another irresponsible person who could not care less of the effects on other people's lives as long as his/her agenda is achieved. If not properly controlled, it could create chaos, loss of confidence in the authority and eventually a state of anarchy! So, think before you say anything seditious!

MORE BAD NEWS

I opened up the paper today and saw more and more bad news..what is this world has turned into? The world in chaos...and Malaysia my beloved country, is coughing and about to have flu..the political scenario is getting worse. Today Sabah's political party dropped a bombshell by suggesting the vote of no confidence against PM, tomorrow God knows what else. This has not done the economy any favors, personnally i am at the losing end..my share value has dropped as the market jitters and KLCI drops more and more. My hard earned saving is slipping in value just like that...just because some politicians wanted to be in the limelight by raising controversy issues, and claimed he or she is championing the so called Rakyat's interests. The truth is not everybody enters politics for this noble reason. Some do it because to genuinely serve the Rakyat or do it as a result of frustration with the current government and feeling they could do a better job, some do it to be popular and respected, and self interests. Some of them will do anything just to make their political life is not dead and buried. The reality is it is easier to destroy something in existence than to create a new one. Some people are just very good in complaining while offer no idea for a better option. That is politics. To me, it easier to fix a problem with a faithful car than changing the car, which does not guarantee that it wont have any problems.

The issue of petrol price increase though also affecting my petrol cost per month, may be hard for most people to accept but was manipulated by certain parties resulting in a demonstration in front of KLCC. The joke is a lot of people think that Petronas has so much control over the street price of the petrol, the truth is Petronas is only one of many oil producing companies in the world, and at 400,000 barrels a day Petronas is not a major player. The ones that control the market price is the major future trading houses in United Kingdom and US. They trade everyday using a predicted future oil demand and prices, not to mention the political bad news like wars, change of government that popped up around the world especially in the oil producing region that can affect the price. Of course, had the current government done a better job doing promo on tv, radio and newspaper explaining the mechanism of fixing oil price, the man on the street will be less emotional and will not be easily manipulated.

The truth is we need politicians like we need lawyers, police force, civil servants, street hawkers, you and me....but we also need self control and think about the effect of our actions before we create something controversial that affects other people's lives...just to serve our narrow interests. I still want my beloved country Malaysia to be intact, the streets are safe to walk at night, and living standards is manageable....will i still have it tomorrow? I will wait and see...

ESCAPISM & MOVIES

I have been under a lot stress lately with what is going in my private life and of course my work which is so demanding. Add to that, living in Kuala Lumpur is my worst nightmare with traffic jams, potholes, road closures, bad drivers, neighbor's dog barking non-stop 24 hours a day and thousand of other things. Sometimes i wish i could just live in the jungle close to nature for a few weeks just to escape the whole thing, which is not possible unless i own the company.A lot of people in the city have their own ways to escape daily stress, some are healthy, but some are very subjective.

I like to escape my daily stress through watching movies. It is amazing that for a short two or three hours you can forget it all by being absorbed into the world of the movie you are watching. Of course it is a temporary escapism at a very affordable price, but it is worth it. For the duration, we forgot about our problems and focused on the characters' lives, some are make believe but some are familiar to our real world. At the end of the day, we realise that everybody has problems to deal with, we may learn some of the tricks in the movies to solve our real world problems, at a cost of the admisson ticket.

The latest movies i watched were Ironman and Narnia Prince Caspian. I have to say Ironman is the better of the two movies as the plot and characters were better developed than Narnia. Of course, i am bit biased as i had been reading Marvel comics since i was ten years old. The CGI in both movies was heavy with Ironman had the upperhand. Maybe i am still affected with the Transformer CGI affects and prefer the heavy action movies against fantasy type movies like Narnia. The problem is i was dissappointed with the character of Prince Caspian who seems weak and selfish, in his motive to lead the Narnians to rebel against his uncle. Handsome as he was, Prince Caspian was not as strong a leader as the movie title suggested.

Ironman on the other hand represents the struggle of good over evil in oneself for Tony Stark. He was successful, own a billion dollar company, a very good looking elligable bachelor, a genius in physics and science, a could have it all kind of character but decided to lose it all in order to do the right thing, that my friend takes a lot of gut which i respect in a man.

The Ironman movie also taught me one thing though, that your worse enemy could be the closest person to you without you knowing it. This seems to reflect to a certain degree what i am facing in the real world which caused me to have unnessesary stress lately. Funny, how movies reflect life. Unfortunately, we cannot swap our lives like we keep changing the movies we watch when we do not like it.