PEACE

I am not a MCA member, I am not a politician. I am not a supporter or detractor of OTK or CSL; I am a pursuer of the spirit of truth, justice and integrity like many other Malaysians.

I prepare to vote whoever qualifies the above values in the coming GE by listening to my heart regardless of whatever gilded rhetoric.

Public figures should behave and adhere to certain level of acceptable etiquette and observe probity at all time as they serve as a role model and value of the society and community.

It is sad to see someone who endeavors to erect proper social value to face opposition from inside of his own political party; the issue of expulsion of CSL or the enigmatic RM10 million is just another political expedient for the typical public hatred MCA power struggle.  

As an outsider, whether it will be the end of MCA is irrelevant to me. As a Malaysian Chinese, it is the end of the value of righteousness and integrity that is pathetic to me.

I have two children age 11 and 12 respectively, who go to same school near home. I will send them to school every morning, and every time when I help them with their school bags in and out of the car, I cannot help but feel the impulse to curse the school (beg your pardon) for its inconsideration for forcing so much weight load of books into the school bag, besides the tones of homework which has taken up all the available time to enjoy and experience their deserving healthy and wholesome childhood.

The American Physical Therapy Association recommended that we should keep the load at 10 percent to 15 percent or less of the child’s bodyweight, as anything more than that might put children at increased risk for musculoskeletal injuries. My children school bags are easily exceeding two folds of what is recommended.

I remember parents have complained about the overweight school bag to the school once, but the indifferent answer from the school came with a ‘supplementary caveat’ that if parents cannot come out with the solutions for good to solve their very complaints they intend to raise, please stop raising any.

Of course, we do understand teachers have schedules and syllabi to catch up and comply with. In addition, unlike those well funded schools, our school cannot afford to have the individual lockers to keep their books in school.

But what about the addition exercise books that school ‘suggested’ to buy and then incorporated them into their proper lessons in class for the reason that it will save time from copying questions for exercise and homework.

I would suggest teachers to print the exercise and homework and charge the students at a nominal fee. By doing this, students only need to carry 10 pieces of paper of exercise or homework in lieu of carrying 10 exercise books. Students can then file the paper exercise into a separate file back home.

It may mean extra workload for teachers to do the printing and loss of commission earned by the sale persons and whatnot.

Someone may worry about the copyright issue but this can be solved by using pool questions and exercises provided by teachers nationwide and education ministry. I believe in no time the publishers who want to survive will then come out with exercises in individual papers which can be compiled with the ready punched holes and its beautiful folder.

The workable solution is here, will there be any ‘educational will’ by the educators to make the necessary changes for the poor students? The answer is obvious deep down in their heart.

Whenever my children heard me grumbling about the heavy bags that they needed to carry, they would say simultaneously,” dad, it is okay, it is not heavy.”

I seem to have two children who never complain anything about school or they are already trained to accept whatever cut-and-dried arrangement by the school.

It is very hard to find a good teacher, an understatement many would disagree with me especially those in teaching profession.

It is even harder and quite impossible to find one who is willing and voluntary to give private tuition for free to those who did not do well in their examination.

Right after the result of the recent Malay paper examination, Madam Sin told the class that she would hold a special private tuition class in her house for those who did not do well in their examination paper. It is going to be free but she reminded jokingly to those eligible candidates to bring some food for her as she maybe too busy to cook at home after the tuition class.

The class cheered but some lamented graciously that in hindsight they shouldn’t have scored that high mark which resulted them to fall out from the list of eligible ones.

This is a simple gesture of a kind-hearted teacher who sincerely wants to help the students even though she may sacrifice her time to do her house work as a wife and to guide her children as a mother at home.

Madam Sin is one very dedicated and altruistic teacher who illuminates hope in our education system and mercenary society.

According to Darwin’s Law of Natural Selection, one living organism must be able to pass its offspring successfully and continuously for it to thrive and place its footing on Earth. If we trace the natural history of this new strain Influenza A H1N1 virus, it is astonishing to find out how fast the virus mutates and adapts itself. In the original country of outbreak in Mexico, we got many deaths reported from the infected victims initially.

It might look how almighty the virus was but in actual fact once the infected victims died the chain of transmission and thus the propagation of virus stopped there. A dead person, who soon be buried or cremated, is far less likely to spread the ‘offspring’ of the deadly virus than a not-so-healthy but mobile living beings.

The mutation is evident from the switch of high mortality rate among the healthy young adult at the beginning of the outbreak in Mexico, to the few reported cases of death mainly confined to those complicated by concomitant illnesses worldwide. The swiftness and smartness of its mutation is unprecedented. The SARS’s virus pales in this context.

It may soon infect whole human race. By that time those infected will have natural antibody to ward off the virus from infecting the host again. It may give another incentive for the ‘friendly’ but spooky virus to mutate again. This time, it may decide to make itself friendlier to other animals but more deadly to human, at the expense of human lives.

Simply put, it may become easily transmitted among other animals like birds, but deadly to human once human gets infected; something like the new deadly bird flu but in this case human-to-human transmission may be expedited because it has already learnt the way of transmission and it may be fine for the virus to wipe out human this time around as its main target is in animals.

This fear is echoed by the Indonesian health authority recently when two new cases of Influenza A H1N1 were reported in Indonesia, where bird flu has already claimed many lives.

Are we fast enough to avert the calamity? Or are we still keeping ourselves busy with whether we should name it Swine Flu or Influenza A H1N1?

Let’s rustle up some aggressive steps to prevent the continuous spread of the virus into our country by limiting the movement of people from the endemic countries. I will not surprise this would have long implemented by the developed countries if the developing countries are the one which are severely affected and endemic.

Cost efficiency is the key to success in business. In a simple explanation, if one company can reduce the cost of its products or services below par of its competitors; this will translate into lower selling price with the same if not better in quality. Eventually, this company will do better in term of sales. This is the basic survival rule in business.

In a broader sense, if one listed company is able to increase its cost efficiency and competitiveness. It will be able to save money for the very same products or services provided and that will increase the margin of the company and making room for more flexible and competitive selling price. Then the company will make more money, which means the shareholders will be benefited from the dividend yield. The end users are equally benefited from the lower cost of their products and services. Effectively our money is made more valuable and that will bring down the inflation rate.

We are talking about globalization nowadays. It is not making sense at all if any company still ignoring competition from its peers.

Corruption is one of the major reasons behind the sky-rocking production cost in a company with irresponsible and unscrupulous management team. It is very easy to bring up the production cost by adding up the irrelevant expenses that only benefited the few members of the management. At this junction, we realize the importance of having a responsible and transparent management team for a particular company. This responsibility to scrutinize the listed companies falls on the securities commission of Bursa Malaysia.

I cannot stop but to overstress that every listed companies must be scrutinized as every cent they spent or earned is relevant and related to us as shareholders. One can even extent his or hers imagination that the same phenomena applied to a particular government. If one government can provide a peaceful and safe living condition, why cannot the others? If one government can effectively cut down rate of corruption, why cannot the others? And the list goes on.

The questions are: Who will scrutinize the government? And is he powerful enough to effectively carrying his duty of scrutinizing the empowered government? The answers are obvious; we must have strong, constructive and relevant opposition parties. It is hard to vote for an eligible and good government but it is thousand times harder to be able to have an opposition party of that quality taking consideration into the resources available.

In a nutshell, we really do not have much choice as ordinary citizens who have no interest in politics but are concerned about the present and the future. Democracy has brought about hope and future to the mankind with the election that it promised every few years. Human, at the uppermost in the hierarchy of animal world, evolve naturally to manipulate democracy delicately and intriguingly that may make democracy becomes irrelevant one day.

I read the news of restriction of teacher giving private tuition with reservation and empathy. It is a well-known fact that teachers are loaded with all rounded pressures from students, parents, fellow colleagues and school authority. With the high inflation and costly living standard of the urban life, teachers can hardly earn enough to feed themselves besides having to spare some money for their family especially the aging parents. I have seen and heard many of the teachers actually ended up became patients of psychiatrists. I guessed the educational department should be aware of this phenomenon but yet they still adopt many unpopular and unorthodox rulings that may pressurize the teachers. Penalty imposed on failed completion of teaching record book, erratic rural posting and this restriction ruling on private tuition are not helping teacher to attain their much needed serenity of their mind. It is my fervent hope that the educationist to be more compassionate and practical before iron out any constructive yet not destructive measures against our noble teachers.

It kept me pondering after encountered one live show of snatch theft when one teenage with his helmet dashed across the road risking his life. What struck my mind was this energetic and youthful snatch thief could be the “failed product” of our educational system.