World Cup 2010: All abuzz about a plastic annoyance named Vuvuzela

Technorati tags: Humor, World Cup 2010, Vuvuzela, Parodies

If there’s one feature that has set the 2010 World Cup tournament apart from its predecessors, it has to be the overwhelming stadium noise, largely due to a colored plastic horn called the Vuvuzela. This, by far, has been the noisiest world cup, bar none.

A single vuvuzela, reportedly, has an average sound pressure of 127 dB. If that doesn’t mean much to you, the sound a lawnmower makes is around 90 dB. This, apparently, makes the vuvuzela even louder than a car horn (which on average produces 100 dB worth of sound).

Now, multiply that by 30,000 – Walski’s guesstimation of the average attendance – and you can very well imagine the magnitude of noise we’re talking about. If you need earplugs for a Formula 1 outing, or a Nine Inch Nails concert, you’ll probably need two for a typical South Africa 2010 World Cup match.

Subsequent World Cup tournaments, after South Africa 2010, will probably feel like they’re being played in libraries. Unless the Brazilians can come up with something louder and more annoying, in time for 2014.

For the home audience, the overwhelming cacophony of vuvuzelas translates to the continuous buzzing not unlike a large swarm of bees. Not exactly damaging to your sense of hearing, but definitely annoying. Especially to this one very prominent home viewer.

But it’s not all bad news – some other netizens have put the annoying vuvuzela to good use, just to prove a point.
(the vuvezala meets Twilight, Middle Earth, and more, in the full post)

Frankly, Walski is quite ambivalent about the Twilight film franchise. He’s actually watched the first two films in the saga – the second one, New Moon, on a flight recently. So, for the sake of completeness, he’ll most likely watch Eclipse as well, though that said, Walski won’t really go too far out of his way, nor is he like waiting with bated breath for its release on June 30th. He’s a sucker for any film that features vampires. Bonus, if there are werewolves thrown in.

And because he’s not read the Stephanie Meyer book series (nor does he have any pressing desire to), who knows – there may even be zombies in the upcoming films, which would make them just perfect. Better still, if there are vuvuzelas involved.

But back to the tapered piece of annoying plastic that has so succinctly characterized the 2010 World Cup – what if the vuvuzela had existed during the other world cup that South Africa has hosted – the 1995 Rugby World Cup? It would have surely changed the atmosphere in the stadium. And undoubtedly, this film would’ve been different, too.

You have to love these viral parodies. But there is one vuvuzela movie parody that Walski’s saved for last. One parody to rule them all…

As a bonus, The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela comes with a music video – Taking the Hobbits to Isengard.

Walski has an idea of using the annoying vuvuzela in a parody of his own. He’s not sure if anyone else has thought about it, but he reckons that the thought may have crossed the minds of some people.

He’ll keep mum about this idea – for now. Suffice it to say that if it does come to fruition, you folks will be the first to know…

Click here for the full post......

Poll Position: Your World Cup 2010 Predictions

Technorati tags: Football, World Cup 2010, Poll Position, Opinion Poll, Prediction

Walski has to admit that he’s not been updating this blog as regularly as he’d like to. In fact, myAsylum has been the diametrical opposite of Ibrahim “Froggy” Ali, whom we seem to be hearing from almost every other day.

The reason for Walski’s lack of activity is the very focus of our recently-concluded poll: the 2010 FIFA World Cup tournament, currently being held in South Africa, the first time football’s ultimate challenge has been held in the African continent.

In any case, the group stage of the World Cup 2010 has just concluded early this morning (Malaysian Standard Time, GMT/UTC +8), and so Walski thought this would be as good a time as any to splash the results of the recent myAsylum poll, which has closed to coincide with the end of the group stage.

Predictions, by the way, that are still plausible. Apart, of course, from North Korea, who were in Group H (with Brasil), and who were quite convincingly knocked out. Unless, of course, you want to believe what the DPRK Press Man has been tweeting.

According to him, North Korea is still pretty much in the running, and that FIFA is investigating their qualification status (via Twitter). Any facts to the contrary are, therefore, nothing but imperialist Western propaganda.

It wouldn’t surprise Walski one iota if it turns out that the 4% came from the DPRK Press Man himself…
(poll result plus Group Result analyses, and more, in the full post)

But kidding aside, it’s interesting how you voted in the poll, and of the 7 countries you voted for, 6 actually graduated to the Round of 16, which is a great result. From here, the Winner of Group A will meet the Runner-Up of Group B, and Runner-Up of A will meet Winner of B, and so forth for the other C/D, E/F and G/H group pairings.

Group A, which featured former champs France, saw the biggest upset in the tournament to-date, when France failed to make it to the second round. Despite having a group of talented players, the team under coach Raymond Domenech simply could not gel together, and could only manage a draw (with Uruguay) and two losses (to Mexico and hosts South Africa).

This once international football powerhouse only managed to score one goal in the three group games. Adding insult to injury, Nicholas Anelka, was sent home just before their final group game against South Africa, as a result of a falling out with the coach.

Hosts South Africa, despite not making it past the group stages, didn’t go down easily, managing a win (against France in their final group match), a draw (against Mexico in the opening match), and a loss to Uruguay. And as far as the African representation situation went, they were not alone – out of the four countries to represent the continent, only Ghana made it past the group stage.

Group A – Winner: Uruguay, Runner-Up: Mexico

One of the only two teams that ended the first stage with all 9 points came from Group B – Argentina, whom 11% of you picked to win the tournament. The Argentines topped the group, winning all three matches, while South Korea emerged as runner-up.

Co-hosts for the 2002 World Cup, the Koreans proved to be no pushovers, in a group whose runner-up was decided only once all the final group games were done and dusted. Although they did lose to Argentina, they managed to beat Greece, and drew with Nigeria, finishing the group stage with 4 points. Unfortunately, they lost to Uruguay in the first knockout stage game, which saw the Asian team down by a goal during most of the match, equalizing in 68th minute, but eventually losing the game when Uruguay scored the winning goal in the 80th minute.

Group B – Winner: Argentina, Runner-Up: Korea Republic

For most Malaysians, England, in Group C, is perhaps the most familiar team, because of the large following that the Barclays Premier League has in the country. Walski reckons that because of this familiarity, 11% of you picked England to emerge champions.

That has to be the only plausible explanation, as they were not at all impressive, only managing two draws in their first two matches (against the USA and Algeria), and literally squeaked through to the knock-out stage by beating Slovenia 1-0 in the final group game.

The other team from this group that made it into the poll was USA, picked by 4% of the respondents. USA topped Group C, equal on points and goal difference with England, but because USA scored a goal before England in the group stage, they topped the table.

Group C – Winner: USA, Runner-Up: England

When Germany opened their Group D foray with a resounding 4 – 0 win over Australia, many thought that the 2006 host would simply stroll through the group stage. Well, not quite – they were beaten in the second game 0 – 1 by Serbia, and barely edged Ghana a goal to nil in their third game. Two wins, however, secured them top spot in the group.

Ghana, which was the group runner-up, only managed a win, a draw and a loss, to finish with a better goal difference above Australia, who had the same number of points. As it turns out, Ghana became the only African nation to survive the group stage.

Poll-wise, Germany was favored highest amongst the 7 teams chosen – 29% of you felt that the three-time world champions would lift the trophy at the end of this year’s tournament.

Group D – Winner: Germany, Runner-Up: Ghana

The other Asian team to make it past the group stage came from Group E. Japan were impressive – two wins, over Cameroon in their opener and Denmark in the third match, and making the Netherlands Oranjemen struggle in one goal in Japan’s loss. It could be that Japan were an underestimated team – Walski recalls what the radio pundits thought before the last group game with Denmark, that the Danes would surely triumph over them. Not to be. Japan trounced Denmark 3 – 1 in the final group match.

Another African disappointment was from this group – Cameroon, who lost all three group games, and finishing last in Group E.

Team Netherlands did well in the group stage, winning all three games (the only other team apart from Argentina to do so).

Group E – Winner: Netherlands, Runner-Up: Japan

The biggest disappointment of the tournament had to be  Group F, where defending World Cup holders Italy was placed. Walski is not sure how much money punters lost betting on the Italians, but they ended up finishing last in their group, after only managing two draws (against Paraguay and New Zealand). That said, the dismal performance by the defending champs was not totally surprising, being that the squad fielded had the highest average age out of all 32 teams.

Almost everyone Walski spoke with thought New Zealand would be World Cup 2010’s sacrificial lamb. But the Kiwi All-Whites did much better than most people, even expert pundits, thought they would, ending the group stage unbeaten. Of course, they didn’t win either. But they can definitely go back home with their heads held high, especially after managing to score against Italy in a 1 – 1 draw.

In the end, it was Paraguay and Slovakia that made it past the group stage, in that order, with Paraguay winning one, and drawing two. Yes, Group F was that kind of group – not exactly the most exciting games to watch, apart from Slovakia’s 3 – 2 win over Italy (who to be fair, came very close – but a case of too little, too late). That, and watching New Zealand keep everyone else to a draw. But you’d really have had to be a die-hard football fan to watch all the games in this group. Walski will be the first to admit that he only watched 2 out of the 6 Group F games.

Group F – Winner: Paraguay, Runner-Up: Slovakia

Group G – on paper, the toughest group in the tournament, dubbed the Group of Death – was perhaps one of the more interesting groups to watch. Not only did this group have Brazil, who have appeared in the World Cup tournament more times than any other nation, but it also had a little known-about North Korea.

Truth be told, Walski for a while did have this offbeat fantasy of seeing North and South Korea in the finals. Possible on paper, but not in reality, as the North Koreans lost all three of their group matches, including a 0 – 7 drubbing to Portugal. Interestingly enough, back home in Kim Jong-Il Land, Korea DPR’s opening game against Brazil (arguably their best performance) was delay-telecast, while their loss to Portugal was shown live. Despite their almost impossible chances of getting past the group stage, 4% of the poll respondents thought North Korea would eventually bring the cup home to the Supreme Leader.

Brazil, in our poll, was favored by 18% of the respondents to be the 2010 champions. For that to happen, though, the five-time champion would have to perform much better than they did during the group stage. But Walski’s been told that the team, coached by the legendary Dunga, can very well make it through to the very end. Dunga’s coaching style has been described to Walski as being “pragmatic”, with the gas pedal not down to the metal too early on. We’ll soon see – Brazil will have their group of 16 match early Tuesday morning (Malaysia time) against Chile.

Football pundits and prognosticators, prior to the start of the tournament, thought that Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) would be the most promising African team, and the team to beat from the continent. That turned out not to be, as they ended up finishing third behind Portugal. But if Portugal had lost in their game against Brazil, then Ivory Coast would have needed to win by a margin of at least 8 goals against North Korea in the final match, which they did win, but only by 2 – 1.

Portugal, the other favorite from Group G, came away from the group stage with the highest scoring win in the tournament to-date with their annihilation of North Korea in their second game, after starting off with a less-than-impressive 0 – 0 draw with Côte d'Ivoire. But the final group game against Brazil, which ended with a scoreless draw, you couldn’t fault anyone for thinking that it was a game for nothing much to fight for except who would top the group. This was really apparent in the last 10 minutes or so, when neither Brazil nor Portugal seemed interested in playing, being content instead to play with the Jabulani.

In the end, Brazil topped the group table, with Portugal in second place. All things considered, this was the preferred outcome anyway, avoiding a Brazil/Spain match-up in the Round of 16.

Group G – Winner: Brazil, Runner-Up: Portugal

Last, but not least, we have Group H, where Walski’s personal pick, Spain, eventually finished the group stage tops in the group. But it wasn’t an easy path to get there, after disappointingly losing their opening match to Switzerland. Apart from Walski, 25% of the poll respondents picked the Spaniards to emerge champions.

But Spain did come back in much better form for the remaining two games, beating Honduras 2 – 0, and runner-up Chile 2 – 1 in the final game. Even though Spain accumulated the same number of points as Chile, the Spaniards had a better goal difference, which put them on top. Walski was a tad afraid that Spain would emerge group runner up, which would’ve meant meeting Brazil in the Group of 16.

Many other Liverpool FC fans probably picked Spain to win the tournament, due to the fact that star striker Fernando Torres was part of the line-up, plus the inclusion of a few other current and former Liverpool players in the squad. But whether or not they can progress into the Quarter Finals is another question. What Walski has seen so far would indicate that they have not been playing to their full potential. Or so he hopes. Spain will have to take the game to geographical neighbors Portugal when they meet in the late game on June 29 (2:30am on June 30, Malaysia Time).

Chile, the runner-up in Group H, have the daunting task of meeting Brazil in their Group of 16 match, where historical statistics are clearly not on the side of the South Americans.

Honduras met Switzerland in the final group game, which was played purely for the sake of sportmanship, since both teams couldn’t have improved their position in the group table, no matter what the outcome of their meeting would have been. As it turned out, their meeting ended up with a scoreless draw.

Group H – Winner: Spain, Runner-Up: Chile

~ ~ ~ o O o ~ ~ ~

The first two games in the Round of 16 have, in fact, just ended last night and early this morning. Uruguay, who topped Group A beat Korea Republic (South Korea), runner-up for Group B. Uruguay became the first team to qualify for the Quarter Finals, in a thrilling match where it ended Uruguay 2 – Korea Republic 1. The second game saw Ghana beating USA 2 – 1, with the game going into extra time. Ghana started the goal account early in the game, with USA equalizing in the 62nd minute through a Landon Donovan penalty. But Ghana prevailed after scoring the winning goal, very early in the extra period, through a 93rd minute goal by Asamoah Gyan. The USA, it seems, literally ran out of steam, having produced last-minute comebacks earlier in the tournament.

We’ll know in a few days time who else will advance to the quarter finals, but it does look like the eventual champion may just be from one of the 5 remaining teams you polled for.

Spain, if you were to ask Walski, but only if they survive their meeting with Portugal…

Click here for the full post......

Announcement: Change to Commenting Policy

Technorati tags: Comment Spam, Commenting Policy, CAPTCHA, Bots

Walski reckons that this had to happen sooner of later. And it’s not the fault of myAsylum’s regular readership either. No, blame the comment bots that have been visiting since sometime early this year, in January.

By and large, these have been comments leaving dynamic URLs to naughty chat sites, left by so-called ‘users’ with names such as 于珊, 家弘, and the like, complete with Blogger profile pages, and even blogs associated with them.

Since Walski’s blogging activity has tremendously slowed down of late, it appears the only comments have been coming from these types of spammers. It’s one thing if these sites are interesting ones (and no, he doesn’t have anything against non-harmful porn sites) – but they aren’t. And frankly, a total waste of bandwidth.

So here’s a necessary policy change: while Walski has been considering instituting Comment Moderation for a while now, before he takes that step, what he’ll do for the time being is to institute Word Verification before a comment can go through.

Sorry for the inconvenience, but since the spammers don’t link to any porn or adult site interesting enough by Walski’s standards, these spam comments are simply a waste of space.
(myAsylum Commenting Policy explained, and more, in the full post)

And while we’re on the subject of Commenting Policy, Walski might as well expand a little bit more on the “policy” this blog enforces:

• Almost anything goes – this is the Fundamental Principle. Walski, for one, is against censorship, and therefore is very tolerant when it comes to comments left on this blog.
• Comments must be relevant – preferably to the post being commented on, but not necessarily. There have been off-topic links left in the comments, but to relevant issues at the time. These will be left unscathed. The uninteresting pay-to-naughty-chat type of sites, however, does not pass the relevancy litmus test.
• Dissent is allowed, even encouraged – you don’t agree with what Walski writes? Fine – it’s your right to dissent. But if possible, do keep it civil and intelligent. That said, unintelligent and unnecessarily hostile dissent will be subject to ridicule – consider this a notice.

And that's about it for Commenting Policy. As a self-professed liberal, the commenting policy is just that – liberal.

That said – spam may be tolerated, for a time. 6 months is long enough, Walski thinks, and it’s time to do something about it.

He’s decided not to institute moderation straight away, because word verification usually gets rid of the bots, although not always, and not always 100%. Besides, the word verification technique Blogger uses is of the classic CAPTCHA EZ-Gimpy variety, and supposedly there is technology to overcome this.

Comment Moderation, however, requires more work on Walski’s part, and quite frankly he’d like to avoid that, if possible.

So, let’s see how the CAPTCHA filtering method works for a while. If the uninteresting linkage spam still persists, then it’s probably being done by some idiot behind the keyboard with nothing better to do (and probably getting paid for it), or some really super-intelligent bot.

For now, he will settle on the CAPTCHA method, and see how well that works. Again, sorry for the inconvenience, but Walski’s only human, and his patience does have its limits…

Click here for the full post......

One Cup to Unite them All

Technorati tags: Football, World Cup 2010, South Africa, Opinion Poll

It’s been often said that nothing unites people of different backgrounds and ideologies more than sports.

But out of all the sporting events, nothing unites the world more than football – or soccer, to differentiate it from the numerous types of sport with the moniker ‘football’.

And perhaps the most important event in the world of football is the World Cup – the pinnacle of world football competition, culminating in the finals, held once every four years.

Well, the four year cycle is here once again, and this time, South Africa plays host to the tournament, the first time ever that the finals have been held in the African continent.

This time around, the continent is well represented, with six nations vying for the ultimate football trophy: Algeria, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and of course, hosts South Africa.

As with previous finals, the one this time around sees eight groups of four national teams from the four corners of the world. No different from previous finals, Europe is the most-represented continent, with thirteen national teams (Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, defending champions Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland).

Asia/Australasia is represented by five teams: Japan, the two Koreas (Democratic People’s Republic [North] and South), and the two Australasian nations of Australia and New Zealand.

The Americas is represented by Honduras, Mexico and the United States of America (North & Central America), and the South American states of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Thirty two teams, with one single common objective – to be the world’s best in football.
(the tournament so far, prediction poll, and more, in the full post)

So far, four games have been played, covering Groups A and B. And from what Walski has seen so far, the tournament should be a good one this time around, promising some surprises and disappointments.

The opening match between hosts South Africa and Mexico (Group A) was a thrilling one, with South Africa drawing first blood when Siphiwe Tshabalala delivered a fantastic strike in the 55th minute. The game ended in a 1-1 draw, after Mexico managed to equalize late in the game during the 79th minute, via a goal by Rafael Marquez.

Another draw was to be the final result of the next Group A game between France and Uruguay, but a goalless one this time.

Day Two proved to be more exciting, with South Korea beating Greece 2-0 in Group B’s first match. Later, Argentina had to hang on tight to win over Nigeria 1-0 in the same group.

Group C’s first game, between USA and England is schedule to start at 2:30am (Malaysia Time), approximately one hour from the time of posting.

So, which team do you think will be victorious in the World Cup 2010 tournament? Walski has put together a poll, to ascertain your opinion. As of yesterday morning, it appears that the favorite to be crowned world champions is Spain.

Personally, Walski, too, is of the opinion that Spain will win. Despite what he thinks, however, he will also be watching Brazil, Argentina, and Englad quite closely. The latter, only because Walski follows the Barclay’s Premier League, and not because he thinks that England has a good chance.

So, what do you think? You can take the poll here, or by clicking on the image above. Alternatively, the poll is also displayed on the sidebar area to the right. The poll will be open until June 26th, the day after the last of the group matches is played. By then, it should be clearer which team stands a chance.

Incidentally, Walski has this crazy idea of a North Korea / South Korea finals, later in July. After today, we know that South Korea has a chance to go through, if they can maintain their performance. What’s left to be seen is how the North Korean team performs. Their first game is on June 15, when they meet Brazil – not a good start.

Any hare-brained ideas like the one Walski has? Leave a comment to tell him about them, and perhaps also about who you like in the tournament.

By the way, Walski has put together a list on Twitter aggregating tweets from about 25 World Cup news sources – http://twitter.com/walski69/wc2010 – do feel free to follow it. Also, Twitter has created a series of special event pages for World Cup 2010 – it essentially aggregates tweets about the tournament. Good stuff!

Walski hopes that the month-long tournament will go on without much tragedy, which had already struck, two weeks prior to the start of the matches, when singer Siphiwo Ntshebe – dubbed the 'Black Pavarotti' – died after battling acute bacterial meningitis. Again tragedy struck when after the World Cup opening concert when Zenani Mandela, granddaughter of former president Nelson Mandela, was killed in an accident, after the opening concert.

But so far, these tragedies aside, sad as they may be, have not put a damper on the tournament. And it is hoped that the next month will continue to be an exciting one for football fans around the world.

Granted, for Malaysia and most of Asia, the World Cup month is one that will be marked by lower productivity, late nights, thrills and heartache. For a football fan, however, the most important thing is to share the best football the planet can offer, with the rest of the world.

The World Cup is truly the one sport tournament that unites us all, no matter where we may be.

Click here for the full post......

Poll Position - IbrahimAli's in Zombieland

Technorati tags: Humor, Opinion Poll, Poll Position, Ibrahim Ali, Zombies

Remember the most recent poll here at myAsylum?

To refresh your short memory, it was a seemingly frivolous one, asking the question of what you thought would become of Perkasa’s Ibrahim Ali in the unlikely event of a zombie holocaust.

Well, the results are in, and after careful tabulation, the majority of you chose Lunch as the most likely outcome.

What you probably didn’t know is that all three choices were plausible. And the choices available were carefully crafted after long-ish consideration.

The zombie movie genre happens to be one of Walski’s favorites. Especially the ones that were made with dark humor overtones, for example, Shaun of the Dead, and more recently, Zombieland.

When creating polls, and relating them to zombies, politicians, or in this case, both, Rule #2 is to Disguise Plausibility.

And as silly as the choices may have seemed on the surface, Walski made sure that each choice had a plausibility factor… and there actually was more forethought to coming up with the 3 choices of outcomes than meets the eye. 
(obligatory movie mock-up poster, and more analysis, in the full post)

So, the most obvious choice – Lunch – was the one 63% of you chose. Obvious, because of what Ibrahim Ali has been championing in recent times – the perpetual protection of Malay “rights” vis-à-vis the Federal Constitution. In fact, there are no Malay rights per se, but special position of the Malays and indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak. Facts, however don’t stop Ibrahim Ali from championing his cause.

Because of what he’s been championing – translating to the perpetual “protection” of everything and anything ‘Malay’ – and in the process, giving the impression that the world owes the Malays a living, Lunch became obvious because in a highly survival-competitive environment like a zombie holocaust, he simply wouldn’t be able to survive. Walski’s not entirely sure how fast Ibrahim Ali can run, but his guess is not very fast. Or at least fast enough to out-maneuver a horde of flesh-thirsty zombies.

When talking about the improbable combination of not-very-likable politicians and zombies, Rule #7 is the Obligatory Movie Mock-up Poster.

See post footnote for image credits

Okay, Walski’s done better ones in the past, admittedly, but he really didn’t want to spend too much time on this one. Nevertheless, Rule #7 must be observed.

So, what of the other choices?

23% of you chose Zombie as the likely outcome. This choice, to Walski, represents maintaining the status quo. Which, in a zombie holocaust translates to becoming a zombie. The majority.

Wanting to be a part of the majority happens to be a trait that many latter-day Malay nationalists seem to have. Having a majority voice, to them, translates to being given the right to see and do things their way, at the expense of minority voices.

Walski’s not entirely sure if you saw the choice of Zombie in this light, or not, but that’s the idea he had in putting it up there for your selection pleasure. Though, zombies in any kind of light aren’t exactly the most pleasant things to gaze your eyes on.

If you’ve watched Zombieland, you’ll recall the Bill Murray character (the actor playing himself), who only pretended to be a zombie, for the sake of survival, and boredom prevention. Similarly, that may be a case with Ibrahim Ali – he might just pretend to be a zombie.

Just like how he’s pretending to champion something beneficial in real life. Unless, of course, if you think that championing for people to remain stuck in a subsidy mentality paradigm, and believing the world owes you a living, is a good thing – then yeah, he’s doing a bang up job.

Finally, the seemingly unlikely choice of Survivor, which 14% of you saw fit to choose. Blogger friend Ktemoc was one of the first to choose this one, as he’d admitted to Walski. Wise man.

In real life, Ibrahim Ali is a political survivor, if you’re acquainted with his checkered career. The derogatory nickname of Katak (frog, in Bahasa Malaysia) is quite well deserved, being that he’s jumped from one political camp to another, and finally jumping into the realm of being an independent.

In zombieland, he’d quite likely survive, too, most likely by pretending to be a zombie, like Bill Murray did in the movie. He can be quite persuasive, it would seem. Ibrahim Ali that is, not Bill Murray.

Rule #25 when relating politicians to zombies: Never underestimate the power of a bad idea.

In real life, Ibrahim Ali has (somehow) managed to influence a seemingly large number of Malays to believe that they are in need of perpetual protection from the real world. And that the rest of the world has to accommodate their malaise.

Market economy? Bad for the Malays. Economic reform, so that Malaysia doesn’t one day become bankrupt? Bad for the Malays. Competition? Bad for the Malays.

Ibrahim Ali? Great for the Malays, in the same way a zombie holocaust would be beneficial to mankind. Go figure.

That being the case, how difficult could it then be to fool a horde of mindless zombies? Probably not very. For a while, at least, until some idiot survivor mistakes him for one of the undead, and whacks him off.

So you see, all three are plausible eventualities. Just like Walski told you earlier. And now you know why.

Walski’s borrowed image attribution footnote: Because he wanted to get this post out as soon as he could, Walski resorted to using images created by other people to put together the movie mock up poster. The background image was taken from the final furlong, adventures of a year three student, entitled “Zombie Dawn”. The image of Froggy King Ibrahim Ali was taken from here, but Walski believes it originated from Malaysiakini. And as far as the post title is concerned, it’s inspired by a film Walski recently watched – but he’s not telling you which one. Same with the rules bit (but different movie). Any guesses? 

Click here for the full post......

Eyeless in Gaza

Technorati tags: Gaza, Israel, Freedom Flotilla, Gaza Blockade

Outrage.

Few other words in the English language can better express how Walski, and much of the world, feels about the attack on the Freedom Flotilla by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Disturbing, too, though not surprising, is the jamming of communications by the Israelis, in order to prevent any on-site news and images from being heard and viewed by the rest of the world.

Fortunately, technology isn’t always 100% cooperative with those who wish to use it for the purposes of suppressing information. After all, being that we’re in Malaysia, we’re all too familiar with attempts at obfuscating information, aren’t we? 
(the events, the outrage, what you can do, and more, in the full post)

There are, of course, now conflicting reports over what actually happened. Wikipedia has a good compilation of events and background information, gathered from various sources. The Israeli forces version of the event say that they were defending themselves from activists armed with iron rods. Activists say that the IDF opened fire as soon as the forces boarded.

As Walski has mentioned more than once in the past, there are n + 1 sides to every story, where n represents the number of parties involve. The + 1 is what actually happened. And in this case, we either will never know, or won’t for a long time.

Wikipedia also has a page about the Gaza Blockade itself, which you can peruse if you’re not very clear as to why the Freedom Flotilla embarked on their journey in the first place. Granted, what the IDF did, boarding and pretty much attacking the Mavi Marmara, is inexcusable, as far as Walski is concerned. Particularly since this took place in international waters. The outrage against Israel is understandable.

But why no outrage against Egypt? Particularly from Malaysians. Is it because Egypt is an Islamic country, and purportedly so are we?

Allow Walski to remind you of a couple of things:

1. Egypt is equally as complicit in the blockade of Gaza - for political reasons (the Wikipedia link about the blockade sort of explains why). In essence, Egypt does not recognize Hamas, which currently controls Gaza.
2. It’s not about religion – yes, many are of the opinion that it’s about the Jews/Zionists oppression of the Muslims, etc. In truth, the current mess in Gaza has more to do with politics and territory.

So, why no protest against Egypt, which now has changed its mind, and has given permission for aid to get into Gaza through the Rafah crossing. The same report also indicates that Israel has eased up on the blockade as well. One reason, perhaps is the intense international condemnation for the Mavi Mamara attack, and on the part of Egypt, its role in the blockade.

It is now known that the 12 Malaysians who were part of the flotilla are safe, and are probably in Jordan (if not on their way home), after being deported by Israel. That’s heartening to note. What is still disheartening to Walski is the fact that nine persons died, and many others injured. It outrages him.

What is also outrages is that Israel has thus far refused to release all the media materials related to the attack. All that has “officially” been released is the one minute, or so, footage of the Israeli forces rappelling aboard the vessel (via OpEd News). No one knows for sure, apart from accounts from the activists on board, what happened before and after the boarding.

That the IDF personnel were attacked during the boarding, there is no doubt. The videos officially released clearly show that. It’s the rest of the footage that the rest of the world is blind to.

“Eyeless”, so to speak, to the events that transpired aboard a vessel, part of a convoy of ships,  to deliver aid to Gaza, which has been described as a humanitarian disaster by at least a handful of worldwide aid organizations. The world, meanwhile, continues to be angry… Is there anything else that we, as individuals, can do?

Avaaz.org is an international online advocacy agency, and they have put together a petition for the UN to carry out a full investigation on the raid, and more importantly, to put an end to the blockade. The petition was put up online on June 1, with the aim of sending it in, once the number of signatories hit 200,000.

That number was achieved in less than 24 hours, and Avaaz has since delivered the first batch of petition signatories in. Just goes to show you how outraged the world at large is.

As of the time of posting, the number has already exceeded 334,500 signatures, with 400,000 being their next target milestone.

Another effort being undertaken by Gaza Freedom March is to invoke their Emergency Response Plan, calling for protests worldwide. The protest in KL is scheduled for this afternoon.

It’s also interesting to note (if one looks at the protest map on GFM’s site) that more than half of the registered protests are in cities across the United States, whose almost carte blanche attitude when it comes to Israel has frequently been scorned. Similarly, if one were to look at the signatures on the Avaaz petition, a large number are from those residing in the US.

We may no longer be blind to what’s going on in the world today, and in that sense, we’re no longer eyeless. Even to the events in Gaza, no matter how hard the attempts to suppress truth and information are. And with the knowledge of what’s going on comes rage. Which sometimes gets so bad, it’s almost blinding.

Let’s put that rage to good, productive use… not as a weapon of destruction, but as a tool towards a peaceful, final outcome – a nation for those who’ve waited far too long on the sidelines, formed without taking anything away from anyone else.

Walski’s obscure band reference post title footnote: Some of you music aficionados out there may recognize that the post title refers to a rather obscure British music group, Eyeless in Gaza, who in turn borrowed their name from an Aldous Huxley book of the same name. In turn, the title of the 1955 book, is taken from the writing of John Milton. A number of other articles and posts have been written using this uber cool phrase-name. And most, if not all, touch on what’s happening in Gaza. Walski just thought he needed to share this with you.

Click here for the full post......

Buddhas on parade

Technorati tags: Penang, Wesak Day, Parade, Travels

For many years now, Walski’s been hearing about the Wesak Day Parade in Penang. And for as many years, almost, he’s not managed to catch it, for one reason or another.

This time around, the Mrs & him took the opportunity to go, being that we were back on the island for the long weekend (the Mrs is from Penang, and she really missed her family).

Normally, Walski doesn’t like travelling on long weekends, since that’s a guaranteed way to get stuck in traffic. This time around he made an exception.

And that decision was a good one – it was a rather impressive parade, with some beautiful and interesting floats. Snaking through north Georgetown, passing a number of Buddhist temples, the almost 7km long parade began and ended on Burma Road, across from the Buddhist Association building.

It started around 6pm on Friday, May 28, and ended around 3+ hours later. Walski, the Mrs, and our 2 nieces, pretty much followed the parade on foot, which became for him a nice evening walking-tour of Penang. Yes it was tiring, but well worth it – there’s no better way to see a place than on foot. Much better than by car, where you may miss the sights, sounds and smells you’d otherwise not have noticed.

And for Walski, the added advantage of following the parade was to be able to exercise his trusty Canon G7 camera – quite dated by today’s standards, but still able to take great shots when it feels like it. All of the pictures you see in this post were taken with the G7. Still, an SLR would’ve been better, but Walski makes the best with what he has for now. The SLR’s still on his wishlist, though.

While we’re on the subject of photos, Walski should pre-warn you that the remainder of the post is very photo-heavy, what with our broadband not really being that broad most of the time, and all.

That said, the parade could be summed up in two words – interesting and colorful. 
(route map, and loads more pictures, in the full post)

As mentioned earlier, the parade route took the floats and participants on a 7km trek, beginning and ending on Jalan Burma, passing by the more prominent Buddhist temples on the northern part of the island, including Wat Chayamangkalaram on Lorong Burma, home of the Reclining Buddha.

Click image for a larger view, or here for the route on Google Maps

According to The Star, there were a total of 22 floats, although Walski probably only managed to catch about 12 of those, since we were following the parade from the rear. As he mentioned earlier, the parade had a lot color.

And some pretty interesting floats – including one that was a reenactment of Buddha’s temptation while under the bodhi tree.

Walking just ahead of this reenactment, was little Siddharta, the boy prince who discovered the suffering of his people, outside the comfort and luxury of the palace he lived in. And boy, what an adorable kid they found to play the part!

One of the more unexpected floats, as far as Walski is concerned, was this one, which essentially was a live performing troupe atop a float. He reckons they were singing Buddhist devotional songs, but since they were singing in Mandarin, Walski couldn’t be absolutely certain.

To their credit, though, they performed pretty much throughout the 3-plus hours that the parade took, from start to finish (Walski caught them a few times along the way, and they were performing with gusto each time).

Water – a representation of purity in Buddhism – featured quite prominently in the parade. Throughout the almost 7km route, volunteers were handing out bottles of mineral water to those who participated. In a number of the floats, priests were splashing water, as a sign of blessing the devotees who patiently lined the streets.

In fact, a few of the floats had water features, including one that Walski thought was pretty cool visually.

And no, it’s not the middle finger that the little guy’s sticking up into the air… Admittedly, at a glance, that’s what Walski thought, too.

Speaking of little ones, the kiddies got a chance to participate as well…

… including being part of the smallest “float” in the entire parade.

Walski’s not very sure if this was counted as one of the twenty two floats participating, or not. Neither is he sure if these two were included in the count.

But all kidding aside… the parade wasn’t just participated by Penangites and Buddhist associations from around Penang – it had a little bit of an international flavor to it as well.

Not quite sure where this group originated from, but Walski reckons that some of them were Tibetan Buddhists. The orange cap is kind of a giveaway. Or he thinks so, anyway.

All in all though, what makes a float parade memorable, if not for impressive floats. Like this one – with all the lights on.

And this one – perhaps one of the most impressive – the Dragon Float. The lighting effects on the float did make it look as though it were levitating down the parade route (which, of course, it wasn’t).

On a lighter note, towards the end of the route, Walski would have thought that the parade would have ended just after the Penang Buddhist Association temple on Jalan Anson, at this place…

But that was not to be – the parade continued on for another kilometer or so, veering off Jalan Anson onto Jalan Macalister, before turning into Lorong Madras, then back onto Jalan Burma, where it ended approximately half a kilometer further down, back to the point where it started, three hours earlier.

Nirvana, as Walski understands it, is a state of being – the ultimate for a Buddhist – and not a coffeeshop, or any other physical place…

Walking with the 2010 Wesak Day Parade last Friday, along the streets of Penang, did bring back some memories from many years ago, when Walski was a member of his school’s marching band (he was a bagpiper, believe it or not), which participated in the 1978 and 1979 Pesta Pulau Pinang.

But that, dear readers, is another story, for another time…

Click here for the full post......