Month: August 2024

GOING GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

I am about to take my final voyage, a great leap in the dark. – Philosopher Thomas Hobbes

The military has sought to glorify it, poets and lovers have romanticised it, and science has attempted to explain it. 

But it’s out there, the unmentionable that remains forever inexplicable. It’s the ultimate final frontier, a debt we are all owed. And it is an enduring irony that its cause is birth itself. 

We are, of course, talking of death. 

It has been described in myriad fashion, the best of which must surely belong to the French. They described an orgasm as la petite mort (the little death). The expression describes the weakening or loss of consciousness following climax. 

If that’s how it goes, methinks everyone will be for it. 

Woody Allen thought the same way. “Sex is like death,” agreed the American film-maker, “only after death, you don’t feel like a pizza.”

You could tell US actor George Gobel took his hard luck stories to the limit: “I’m the kind of guy who’ll have nothing all my life and then they’ll discover oil while they’re digging my grave.” 

Malaysian politicians should take note of Benjamin Franklin’s advice: “Death takes no bribes.” Actor Frank Dane must have seriously disliked politicians because he  thought the death of any politician should be listed under ‘Public Improvements.”

Ruminating on people who’d passed away, actor Bill Murray mused: “A few decades ago, we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Hope, no Cash and no Jobs; please don’t let Kevin Bacon die!” 

The strangest final words by anyone have to belong to Australian pilot Frederick Valentich. In 1978, he reported to Air Traffic Control he was “being pursued” by a purported Unidentified Flying Object. His last words sounded scared: “It is hovering, and it is not an aircraft.”

Neither Valentich nor his plane were ever found.

The American author William Saroyan was quizzical on his deathbed: “Everybody has to die but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.”  

Terry Keith, the founding member of the band Chicago didn’t know it was to be his last words when he reassured his girlfriend about the gun he was cleaning; “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded.” 

Apparently, you should also never say never. Consider the English statesman Lord Palmerston who felt outraged after his doctor said his heart was so weak he could go anytime: “Die? My dear Doctor, that’s the last thing I shall do.” 

It was the last thing he did. 

Scriptwriter Stan Laurel’s bark could never be effected: “If anyone cries at my funeral, I’ll never speak to him again.”  

I’m not sure who said this, but it sure conveys a whole host of emotions. “I want to die like my grandfather, peacefully in his sleep, not like the other screaming and panicked passengers in his car.” 

Oscar Wilde was witty right to the end. His last words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. Either they go or I do.” 

Surprisingly, so was convicted murderer James French, albeit in macabre fashion. While being led to the electric chair, the convict yelled out to the assembled press: “Hey fellas. I’ve got a headline for your paper tomorrow. “French Fries!”

Peter Pan called it the “next, great adventure.” But what has fascinated mankind throughout the ages is its ineffable mystery: the knowledge that must lie out there. 

Why would Steve Jobs have muttered what he did when he was about to pass? Ministering to him as he lay on his deathbed, Jobs’ sister distinctly heard her brother breathe: “Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.”

I wonder what he realised.

ENDS

TRUST BUT VERIFY

Going to war over religion is basically just killing people over who has the better imaginary friend – comedian Richard Jeri 

I studied history in high school and took the story of the Malacca Sultanate for granted. That included the Sultan’s four brave hulubalang (warriors) led by the redoubtable Hang Tuah. 

In my adulthood, all sorts of new theories have emerged. For starters, it was posited the four were Chinese sent by the then-Emperor to protect the Princess: then it was said they were eunuchs, the better not to be tempted by the fair Princess during the long voyage to Malacca. Finally, Khoo Kay Kim, an Emeritus Professor of History no less, dismissed all these theories as bunk and stated the four were myths, nothing more and nothing less.

That is to say they only exist in the minds of wishful-thinking, kris-wielding, slogan chanting, right-to-discriminate-believing, and card-carrying members of the United Malays National Organisation. 

That’s belief for you. One day, you’re brought up to trust George Washington never told a lie; the next you’re grown up, exposed to Donald Trump and the belief gets finessed to Farmer George never lied, stole or cheated unnecessarily.

Richard Dawkins is a militant atheist. The author of The God Delusion gets annoyed or impatient with the “deluded” people who believe in an omnipotent,  omnipresent and omniscient Power, a Creator, if you like. He thinks that’s moronic and, what’s more, believes it with the certitude of a Flat Earther. 

To say Mr Dawkins is dogmatic is to understate things considerably. To him, an absurdity would be a belief or a finding that is manifestly at odds with his opinion. He’s more in the mould of Sam Goldwyn: “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

When interviewed by Piers Morgan on British television and asked what he thought was waiting for us post-death, he replied famously: “Blind, pitiless indifference.”

In short, nothing. 

He was talking about the unknowable so he secretly must have hoped, when his time came, that the Lord would do nothing to disturb his disbelief.  

He should have been prudent like Bob Hope’s reason for doing benefits for all religions: “I’d hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality.” 

When it comes to the crunch, however, God is alive and well. So long as there are wars anyway. Why do you think there are sayings like, “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

When it comes down to it, the debate could be much ado about nothing. Or, as Woody Allen put it: “To you, I’m an atheist; to God, I’m the Loyal Opposition.” 

Donald Trump hated any opposition, but he especially hated the liberals. They sometimes felt unworthy of their possessions, but he firmly believed he deserved everything he’d stolen. 

He also thought Thomas Carlyle – “A lie cannot live” – was a wimp: he clearly didn’t know how to lie with aplomb. 

Finally, like Dorothy Parker, he didn’t care what was written about him as long as it wasn’t true.   

If he’s not careful, the Donald’s economic use of the truth could follow him to posterity.

It actually happened to one lawyer: his wife must have wanted the world to know his true nature because his tombstone gave it away.

Sleep Master John Gill; By lies when alive, this attorney did thrive, And now that he’s dead, he lies still.

ENDS

ALWAYS TAKE THE WEATHER WITH YOU 

The world is full of strange phenomena that cannot be explained by the laws of science or logic. Hadi Awang is only one example

It’s cool this morning. In fact, the Kiara hills outside our apartment are cloaked in mist. 

OK, Siri says it’s a 28-degree morning and accounting for winds, a person accustomed to daily 32-degree swelters might consider it a chilly day.  

On mornings like this back when I was working, I used to wish it was a holiday. It’s grounded in science too: bodies in motion tend to remain in motion while bodies at rest – on a cool morning no less – tend to remain in bed. 

OK, I digress but if you think I’m exaggerating about the chill, three days of this weather in Singapore is, officially, “sweater weather,” ergo  the prudent make a beeline towards Uniqlo where long lines of palm-blowing shoppers have already gathered.

My daughter, Raisa, wishes Malaysia was cooler. 

Although born and bred here, she’s been living in Europe for over a decade, and it shows. Beads of sweat pop out on her forehead the minute she steps outside KL’s airport. It necessitates a mighty effort from the car’s air conditioning to reach a sufficiently Artic equilibrium to satisfy her. 

But she snaps back quickly and is acclimatised in no time at all. I suppose we all possess it to some degree. 

Example: Singapore is far more humid than Malaysia on account of it being an island, but we rarely sweat even when we walk. That’s unlike most tourists who sweat profusely and very obviously. 

In fairness, they might enjoy it. They would if they were, say, from Alaska where, because of climate change, the winters have become so cold even the polar bears are holding out for fur coats.

It’s interesting to observe things from another perspective. The English husband of my cousin visited our place the first time he visited Malaysia. A downpour ensued and he seemed fascinated by its severity. 

Then he walked into the deluge, and I was surprised to see him grinning, “It’s warm,” he said, delighted. He had the same reaction when he plunged into the sea off Langkawi. 

An American friend who’s been in Malaysia for over forty years once told me that he could no longer abide the cold, and he couldn’t think of living anywhere else. I knew exactly what he meant, and I share his sentiments.

I was in my 30s when I first went abroad for higher studies. It can get very frigid in New York, but it wasn’t so much the cold that bothered me.  It was the limited light.

Trudging to classes in the cold and dark at 4 in the afternoon is a grim prospect at the best of times. One suspects that man, like all life about him, not only needs the sun, he craves the sun. 

And yet, he is admirable because he has a tremendous ability to adapt. Consider the person who lives happily in Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun, but where entire months go by in darkness.   

My daughter says she prefers the cold of Amsterdam.  So does my brother who lives in an even colder place, Connecticut. After Hurricane Sandy lashed America’s northeast, he sent me photos of his backyard. The snow had piled up to the top of his garage. 

Shiver Me Timbers! 

Now we might say we don’t want that but I remember most of my US classmates either gave me pitying looks or looked aghast when I said we had no seasons in Malaysia.  

They need the changes. “If (the weather) didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation here,” noted journalist Frank ‘Kim’ Hubbard by way of explanation.

It’s as good a reason as any.

ENDS

GOING BY THE BOOK 

For those of you who don’t know, Jeffrey Dahmer was the complete psychopath. Like Hannibal Lecter, he often dined on his victims. 

He was finally murdered by a fellow inmate in a US prison, which you might say was his just desserts. But if he ever wrote a book, it would probably be titled The Body Shop. 

OK, I made that up, but the following books are the real thing.  

David Benatar must have been a real misanthrope because he sounds like he really dreads life. His book is titled Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence. Avery Monson seems equally miserable because his is titled All My Friends Are Dead.

Meanwhile, Yoga Pants, Minivans and Selfies might give Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance a run for its money where book titles coming out of left field are concerned. 

And what would the Vatican have made of Christopher’s Moore’s Lamb?

According to the book’s sub-title, it’s the Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. It’s a wry, often moving, take on Jesus’s lost years. It went on to become a serious best seller. 

The American Association of Patriots has actually come out with How to Talk to Your Cat About Gun Safety, while Judy Sheindlin seems embittered about something: Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever. 

673126 – presumably his inmate number – is recruiting with How to Be a Drug Dealer, while Robert Rankin has the interestingly-titled Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls. Rankin has also got the killer Nostradamus Ate My Hamster and the sinisterly-named The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse.

Meanwhile, Paul Photenhauer seems to have a fixation with sperm. His two books are, respectively, Natural Harvest (a collection of semen-based recipes) and Semenology: A Semen Bartender’s Handbook. 

It may be best to avoid his parties. 

Ann Druffel has some practical advice – How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction – while Marilyn Schwartz stresses the importance of a girl’s choice of sorority – A Southern Belle Primer: Why Princess Margaret Will Never Be a Kappa. Kappa, Gamma.  

Dr Stephen Larkin PhD has some surprisingly risqué advice: Beat Your Way to the Top – Masturbation as a Technique for Business Success.  

David Sedaris must have had Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind when he wrote Me Talk Pretty One Day. 

And no, it wasn’t Donald Trump who wrote Anyone Can Be Cool…But Awesome Takes Practice. It was Lorraine Peterson.

Apparently, anyone can do it. Goblin-proofing One’s Chicken Coop and Gnome-proofing Your Garden are both books by Reginald Berkeley. 

B Koz has a thing about being masculine. His books include The Manly Art of Knitting and 50 Ways to Use Feminine Hygiene Products in a Manly Manner. 

Theo Lorenz clearly has issues. Consider his Unicorns Are Jerks. 

Two women seem to have a thing about balls. One, Melissa Haynes, also has a death wish – Learning to Play With a Lion’s Testicles. The other, Mary Pierce thinks castration is the way forward – Goodbye Testicles.

Matthew Inman has some tips for pet owners in How To Tell If Your Cat is Plotting To Kill You, while psychiatrist Michael Bennett claims to have the answer to all problems – F@ck Feelings: One Shrink’s Practical Advice for Managing All Life’s Impossible Problems. 

And there you have it. 

ENDS

SCHOOLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUNDS 

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance – Bok’s Law, a spin-off of Murphy’s. 

“What would you like Normie?”

Norm Peterson: “A reason to live. Give me another beer.”

As the wise- cracking, multi-chinned character in the 1980s American situation- comedy Cheers, Norman Peterson had few peers when it came to beer. 

One man’s beer is, alas, another man’s fear. And in the case of the Islamic Party of Malaysia, or Pas in Malay, it’s more like downright revulsion. Talk of a gale over ale. Now, even fund-raising for a Chinese school has become an issue!  

OK, it has to be conceded that it wasn’t presented in the best light. PAS got hot and bothered over a picture of a deputy minister accepting a RM3 million mock cheque displaying a beer logo at a fund-raising event for a Chinese school.  

So it wasn’t Time for a Tiger. But a donation is a donation. And education is an expensive business. That’s why there are sayings like “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” 

Vernacular schools in Malaysia – Mandarin and Tamil language schools – aren’t wholly funded by the government but receive grants that match the money they raise by themselves. 

In addition, there are, at least, 82 “independent” Chinese secondary schools that must raise funds wholly by themselves. 

That they have done so, since independence in 1957, is a testament to the importance the Chinese community places on education. 

Nor are these schools short on basic infrastructure. Indeed, many of them are cleaner and better equipped than their government counterparts. 

Which is why Chinese vernacular schools have developed a reputation for scholastic excellence, especially in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects. It’s also why almost 20% of its present-day students aren’t Chinese. 

All these presupposes a pipeline of serious funding that isn’t allowed to run dry. And all donations are welcome, apparently. 

Over 10 years ago, I did a story about one such pipeline that assembled guilds and some of the country’s biggest tycoons. The money it raised would go into a trust that would flow in perpetuity towards vernacular education. 

I was invited to the dinner to celebrate its successful launch. The guests included some of the biggest magnates in the country including people from the gaming and entertainment industry. 

And why not? Education is increasingly getting expensive. The Islamic Party should note that 15% of national sports – from facilities and coaches to athletes and training – is funded by betting company Sports Toto, a legacy from its deal with the government after it was privatised in 1984.

Will Pas, or anyone else, make a song and dance about that?  It’s for a good cause and it’s not that different from a church where all donations are gratefully accepted without question. In fact, there is a Hebrew proverb that goes “a rich man has no need of character.” 

All this questioning over a brewery’s donation is a waste of time, a fuss over nothing, and a tempest in a tankard. It’s like Norman wandering into Cheers and being confronted by the bartender’s question. 

Woody: Can I pour you a beer Mr Peterson?

Norm: A little early isn’t it, Woody?

Woody: “For a beer?”  

Norm: “No, for stupid questions.” 

ENDS