Month: June 2024

GROWING OLD, HIS WAY 

He is so old, when he asks for a three-minute egg, they ask for the money up-front. – Comedian George Burns

In two weeks, Dr Mahathir Mohamad will be 99. 

Imagine that!

It was Woody Allen who proffered this advice: “You can live to a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to a hundred.” 

But one doubts it when it comes to the old man. He doesn’t look as if he’s given up anything he likes. The man continues to give interviews, he still rides horses, and, deep down, he probably still hankers to be premier if only because he knows there’s no one better. 

Don’t forget we’re talking about a man who went through his teenage years when the Dead Sea only had a minor cold. 

Dr Mahathir himself ascribes it to good genes albeit by way of a cryptic one liner: “You have to choose your parents carefully.” 

In the process, he’s junked most of the beliefs he once seemed to hold dear. 

In 1994, I attended a closed-door dialogue with the leadership, then Dr M and Anwar Ibrahim. The audience were all non-Malays from all over the country and we were encouraged to ask anything we liked. 

I asked Dr M this question which, on hindsight, appears dreadfully ironic, given the circumstances of the last thirty years. 

At the time, Dr M was famed for his so-called Vision 2020 which aimed for “a single race, free and equal under the Malaysian sun”. It seemed to imply that by 2020, there would be no more discrimination for or against anyone, that all Malaysians would be “equal”.  

So, I asked the question. “What guarantees do we, the non-Malays, have that your successor, whoever he is, will have the same allegiance to 2020 as you do? I ask this only because it’s likely you won’t be around when that time comes.” 

Now you know what Henry Ford meant when he scoffed at history being mostly “bunk.” 

At the time, however, Mahathir agreed that there were no guarantees but went on to extol Anwar Ibrahim, asserting that he was his successor who would push 2020 through. Indeed, the then-premier said Anwar reminded him of “my younger self.” 

Talk of “tempting fate.” 

Less than five years later, Anwar would be sacked and, later, jailed. Dr M, himself, would step down as premier in 2004 when he was 77. 

Incredibly, he came back as PM in 2018 when he was in his early 90s. He returned, however promising to hand over power to a now-pardoned Anwar. 

He also admitted that he’d never believed in Vision 2020 but never thought he’d live to see the day either. 

No one talks about Vision 2020 anymore and Anwar Ibrahim never succeeded Dr M. 

But he did become premier much to the old man’s chagrin. And he still is, despite the best efforts of many quarters including guess-who. 

It’s been a surreal turn of events, where the reality has turned out to be stranger than fiction. 

But the grand old man of politics continues to make statements, mostly about how everyone who’s succeeded him has always been found wanting.

In fact, the older he gets, the better Dr M realises he was. 

ENDS

LAUGHTER’S THE BEST MEDICINE  

The worst time to get a heart attack is during a game of charades – US comedian Dmitri Martin 

Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”? – Comedian George Carlin 

There used to be a billionaire banker who thought he would prolong his life by literally moving into a private hospital. He figured he’d be safer if he were surrounded by doctors and nurses , all alertly waiting to spring into action if he so  much as winced, coughed, or sneezed.   

Did he live longer? 

I suppose so, if you can call safely easing one’s way into dementia an extension of life. 

The supreme irony of life is that no one gets out alive.  And compos-mentis 

nonagenarians like Dr Mahathir – a pimply youth at the time of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address – are what the author Malcolm Gladwell  calls “outliers” –  those statistical rarities that time, genetics and fate, throw up occasionally.  

Well before our 80s, most of us will stop sinning, altogether. We will become, as writer Aldous Huxley observed, “the only completely consistent people.” 

It is ironic that death and taxes remain life’s only certainties. But we’ve come a long way: infant mortality used to be as high as 25% back in the 19th Century but in the last century or so, average life expectancies have exceeded 72 years. 

That’s amazing given the ruthless opposition out there.  There are diseases, syndromes, afflictions, conditions, illnesses, infections,  ailments and maladies, all heading for us but for the Grace of God and better diets.  

There are viruses, bacteria, worms, pathogens, and assorted unspeakable horrors lurking out there, intent on infecting us but for the Grace of God,  and Alexander Fleming.

If that were not enough there are treasonable genes within our bodies, waiting for some trigger to begin running amok, mutating into auto-immune diseases, sarcomas, lymphomas, dyscrasias, blastomas and other terrifying unpronounceables designed to wreck a  human body. 

There is more.  There are things that we think are horrific: there are psychoses, mental illnesses, schizophrenia, anxieties, phobias, insanity, obsessions, exaggerated fears, and something called a neurosis which is, apparently, a secret you didn’t know you were keeping. 

That was probably the  realisation the billionaire-banker came to just before he checked himself into the hospital. 

When you finally fall sick, there is the question of choosing  your doctor.  Here you have to admire the sheer cynicism of the old Hindu proverb: “No physician is really good before he has killed at least one or two patients.”

Broadly speaking, however, there are only three rules to follow in choosing a physician:

  • Never choose a doctor whose office plants are dead;
  • Never use a plastic surgeon whose office is full of Picasso prints; and
  • Never, ever  make the doctor your heir.

As a general rule, there is also this old saying: beware the young doctor and the old barber.

Indeed, there are those who claim medicine is often overrated. You get a cold, you go to a doctor and feel better after a week, or you ignore the cold, continue with the beer, and you feel fine after seven days. 

That’s life, isn’t it? 

ENDS

SEE YOU IN COURT

To expect life to treat you good is as foolish as hoping the bull won’t charge you because you’re vegetarian – Comedian Roseanne Barr 

What price fame?

Not much if you are in Detroit, apparently. 

Alexander Morris plans to sue a local hospital for alleged misconduct. It may be an open and shut case: the hospital wants to remain open  but Alex wants to get enough damages to compel it to shut up shop.  

Alex knew he shouldn’t have gone to that particular hospital because he’d read the signs. There were two. One was near the Emergency area, where he’d headed, and it was gratuitous: “No matter where you go, there you are.”  

The other, on the way to the bathrooms,  was surreal: “Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.” 

Indeed, he was half-expecting Rod Serling to step out suddenly to intone: “You’re travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind….”

In real life, Alex Morris was the lead singer of the 1950s rhythm and blues band the Four Tops. It’s a famous group and even features in the city’s Motown Museum.  

Unfortunately, the hospital staff were pretty cynical. Nor did he look around 80 which is what he should have looked like if he’d been a founder member of the group.

In short, he wasn’t believed.

Nurse 1: “What’s your name and what’s the problem?”?

Morris (gasping): “I’m Alexander Morris, the lead singer of the Four Tops.”

Nurse 1: (rolls her eyes): Yes, and I’m Dolly Parton.”

Doctor 1: He could be nuts. Schizophrenia?  

Nurse 1: “You’re just jealous because the voices only talk to him.” 

In his suit, Morris claimed that he was placed under restraint with doctors even ordering him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. 

Incidentally he’d gone to hospital after suffering chest pains and shortness of breath. It’s not easy to prove you’re a famous singer when you can’t quite breathe.  

Indeed, it’s quite easy for those problems to be exacerbated in the face of cynicism, scepticism or disbelief. 

Did I mention the singer is black? 

An outraged Morris has filed a lawsuit last Monday against Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Warren, Detroit, alleging racial discrimination and other misconduct during an April 2023 visit for chest pain and breathing problems.

Hospital staff “wrongfully assumed he was mentally ill when he revealed his identity as a celebrity figure,” the lawsuit says.

The Four Tops started in the 1950s and had hits such as I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and It’s The Same Old Song. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.Morris is not an original member, but joined the group in 2019.

The lawsuit says a nurse finally believed Morris was in the Four Tops and the psychological exam was cancelled.

The hospital offered a US$25 gift card as an apology, but Morris, not unreasonably, refused to accept it.

Morris and the hospital will now have their fates decided by 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty. 

That is why a court of law in the United States is a place where a suit is pressed and one party may be taken to the cleaners. 

ENDS

IF WISHES WERE HORSES, PIGS WOULD FLY

Only in our dreams are we free; the rest of the time we need wages. –  English novelist Terry Pratchett

There is never enough time, unless you’re serving it. – Publisher Malcolm Forbes

The former Prime Minister who yearned to be called Bossku, but was Fearless, thought serving a prison sentence was no disgrace but was confoundedly inconvenient.

Fearless hadn’t served two years yet but had spent more time in court than Tommy Thomas. For one thing, he’d tried mightily to overturn his 12-year sentence but to no avail. For another, he still faced a slew of other charges, relating to more looting, for which he had to attend court.  

You don’t get to be what the foreign media calls the “world’s biggest kleptocrat” without consequences.

Despite that, the man seemed bent on ducking prison time. His lawyers are now insisting he be allowed to serve out his time at home. That’s what “house arrest” means.  

Why not, they argued craftily. It would solve prison over-crowding pretty much immediately. 

The rub, of course, is it makes a mockery of the criminal justice system and legitimises corruption. It’s not for nothing society invents phrases such as “crime does not pay.” 

Fearless and his chubby co-conspirator Felonious aka Jho Low stand accused of stealing over RM40 billion from the state’s coffers at a time when the former was the Prime Minister. Felonious is still at large – both literally and metaphorically – but is believed to be living off his ill-gotten gains in China. The country denies it, of course, but it would, wouldn’t it?   

It follows that what Fearless is requesting from the courts is permission to serve out the rest of his sentence in the comfort of his well-appointed house with its lush garden, pristine bathrooms and air-conditioned bedrooms. Add to that a well-stocked larder, a  resident chef, countless help, and a couple of discreet bodyguards and you get a whiff of Felonious’ current lifestyle in A Country That Denies His Existence. 

This is the conundrum the criminal is currently calling on the courts to consider. 

To call it unprecedented is to state the obvious. No Malaysian premier has ever been jailed before either but as Bangkok or Islamabad will testify, it’s been known to happen. 

There is, of course, the monumental problem of the non-existence of such a provision. Simply put, there is no such thing as “house arrest” in the Malaysian penal code and prison wardens do not operate from houses, at least not since 1957. Nor is it anywhere in the Federal Constitution or in the Pardons’ Act.  

Moreover, there are those remaining charges against Fearless. These aren’t minor either:  they address the alleged kleptocracy head on. 

What happens if those charges stick? 

Watching from the safety of his hideout, Felonious’ tubby ticker bled for his erstwhile comrade-in-harm. The rotund robber shuddered at the thought of the fare Fearless might be receiving in prison.

With a guilty pang, he realised his own larder bulged with nothing but the best, the finest Italian hams, the choicest Dutch cheeses, the sweetest Persian figs;  the stuff   gourmands drool over in dreams. 

He washed away a lingering residue of guilt with another goblet of ice-cold Krug and felt it could have been worse.  

It could have been him. 

ENDS

BORN WEIRD AND GOING DOWNHILL 

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life – Comedian George Carlin 

It was Mark Twain who perfectly summed up the art of living: “Let us so live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.”  

Now what do you think Kim Jong Un’s funeral director would feel?

One suspects sorry wouldn’t be the word. Exuberance would be closer the mark.

The man is officially known as Dear Leader and unofficially as His First Fatness. The Central Intelligence Agency, however, preferred Idiot Central.

It isn’t hard to see why. Under his careful, meticulous and painstaking watch, North Korea evolved from a poor, backward and isolated nation into an impoverished, primitive and even more remote country.  

But Fathead knew something that the whole world knew as well. North Korea had more nukes than it knew what to do with. It was also the only reason why the world had to listen when he was in Full Boast Mode.  

This happened frequently and for no apparent reason other than his deep, abiding and intense suspicion that Seoul was out to get him. 

To allay those fears, North Korea often carries out missile “drills”. On Thursday, for example, North Korea said it fired 18 short-range ballistic missiles during a drill as a demonstration of its willingness to launch a pre-emptive strike against South Korea’s “gangsters’ regime.”

Fathead himself, apparently,  guided the firing drill of 600mm “super-large” multiple rocket launchers, state news agency KCNA reported.

To underscore the threat, North Korea added that a tactical nuclear weapon could be fitted on to such missiles.

Idiot C urged readiness by the country’s nuclear force to carry out the mission of war deterrence as well as taking the initiative. 

The man’s capacity for invective and threatening bluster is amazing given Seoul’s restraint: it has long ago given up admonishing its northern neighbour, preferring instead to develop and become more prosperous.  

Even so, it allows US bases on its soil. Seoul has also made no secret that those US bases come with nuclear capacity. 

This is, of course, a legacy of history, of the Korean War of the 1950s.

One suspects, however, that it is Seoul’s prosperity that really gets Loony’s goat. 

South Korea is a First World country, a member of the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) with living standards to match. 

To put it in all its galling perspective, the South’s economy is 60 times larger than the one His Plumpness fashioned. Moreover, South Korea has succeeded in exporting its culture abroad, a feat unmatched by almost any other Asian nation. 

Seoul has thrived under various leaders while, starting with his grandfather’s rule, the people of North Korea have never feasted and, indeed, have frequently starved. 

Apparently, Fathead is just an average Joe who loves beer, cheeseburgers and US basketball. That’s according to US basketball legend Dennis Rodman who spent a week in Pyongyang at Fatso’s invitation. Rodman pronounced him a “cool” dude.

Perhaps the former Chicago Bulls’ star was lucky he didn’t catch His Rotundity in a foul temper. 

According to a report in South Korean media, Fatso once got so angry at a general that he had him shot by an anti-aircraft battery. 

Gives you the smithereens, I mean the shivers. 

ENDS