sultans of swing...eh?

Royal immunity should be reinstated

The Regent of Negri Sembilan, Tunku Naquiyuddin ibni Tuanku Ja’afar has called for the royal immunity to be reinstated so that the constitutional monarchy can be restored to its full sovereignty.

He said if the Ruler were to exercise his duties in a fair, just and impartial manner in protecting the Federal Constitution, his sovereignty needed to be duly protected as well.

“This full immunity from civil and criminal proceedings should be reconsidered so that he is on par with other constitutional monarchs around the world,” he said in his royal luncheon address on “The Role of the Constitutional Monarchy in 21st Century Malaysia” in here on Wednesday.

He said it was ironic that judges were immune in the performance of their judicial functions but Rulers were not.

“Royal immunity has been lost for 15 years. It needs to be reclaimed and reinstated so that the constitutional monarchy can be restored its full sovereignty so as to play a more fitting role in the 21st century as the guardian of the Federal Constitution so that the endeavour to safeguard the interests of all communities, to promote peace, prosperity, economic security and good governance can surely be fulfilled.

“Immunity is quite essential. Take the situation where we have a hung Parliament, the Ruler comes in to decide on a Prime Minister from one side of a political party and imagine if the other side of the political party opposes it and takes the Ruler to court,” he said.

Tunku Naquiyuddin said the loss of immunity was perhaps the single biggest setback to the institution of the Rulers.

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Hmm...oh? Hmm...eh? Hmm...so?

On par with other constitutional monarchs of the world?
Hmm...Tonga? Swaziland? Liechtenstein?
Hmm...Daulat Tuanku.
Tunku...eh?

Dire Straits - Sultans Of Swing

You get a shiver in the dark
It's rainin' in the park but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowing Dixie double four time
You feel alright when you hear the music ring

And now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
Comin' in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places
But the horns, they're blowing that sound
Way on down south, way on down south in London town

You check out Guitar George he knows all the chords
But it's strictly rhythm he doesn't wanna make it cry or sing
A standard note guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

And Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene
He's got a daytime job, he's doin' alright
He can play the honky tonk like anything
Savin' it up for Friday night
With the Sultans... with the Sultans of Swing

And a crowd of young boys, they're foolin' around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don't give a damn about any trumpet playin' band
It ain't what they call rock and roll
And the Sultans... yeah the Sultans played Creole... creole

And then the man, he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings
"Goodnight, now it's time to go home"
And he makes it fast with one more thing
"We are the Sultans... We are the Sultans of Swing"

once bitten...eh?

Once bitten, is more than fucking enough. And dengue sucks big time.

11 pints of them drips, more than a few panadols, almost a pint of me blood being sucked for them platelet analysis. 15 litres of 100plus. And RM1,650.00 for the 4 days and 3 nights I spent at Puteri Specialist. And them student nurses! They could get to you sometimes. Was cool. They are just that, students. You wouldn't want them after surgery though. Gimme them mama misi anytime.

To that blood sucking bitch of an aedes mozzie, I hope you rot before you get preggie. Bitch!

tuan tanah kedaung...eh?

Zaid not going to apologise for Ketuanan Melayu statement
By IAN McINTYRE

Former de facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim has hit back at three Umno supreme council members for asking him to apologise over remarks that he made about Ketuanan Melayu(Malay supremacy).

Stressing that he would never apologise, Zaid said it was because he loved his Malay race that he recommended open competition be allowed to ensure the race could compete with others in a globalised age.

“I am not surprised by the reaction of some Umno leaders especially since they have an ongoing party election,” he said in a statement on Monday.

“I am a village boy from a poor family, not an aristocrat or royalty. I want to see the Malays succeed in economy and education.”

Zaid said he was not questioning the special rights of Malays as enshrined in the Constitution.

He said the new model that he recommended was based on openness to ensure young Malays closed ranks and cooperated not only with other races in the country but also foreigners.

He named Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Syed Albar, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassin and Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib as the three supreme council members.

Zaid had pointed out recently that the Malay supremacy concept had failed and distracted from the real issues confronting the country.

He said on Monday that he hoped Malays could differentiate between leaders who thought of their interests from those who only used the name of Malays for political mileage.

He said the concept of Malay supremacy had a negative element that was racist and implied that they only wanted to become masters without knowing how to struggle or be responsible.

He added it was not a clear reflection of the race and such an image weakened them.
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I could blame him for saying he didn't want anything to do with the ketuanan mantra because he had made it. He had arrived. He's a tuan now.

Unfortunately it's really THE bitter pill to swollow, regardless of what or who made Zaid said what he said.

How we had supported that mantra.
How the ordinary and poor Malays had actually benefitted from that mantra.
How our so-called leaders and cronies had actually benefitted from their mantra.
How we had alienated ourselves from reality, from other Malaysians.
How we had been the butt of jokes. How we had been ridiculed.
How we had been taken for a ride.

Ketuanan?

Tuan Tanah Kedaung.

Image plagiarised from Bizarro.

yesterday...eh?

It bleeds me heart reading some of them mails these past few days. Though a few are having a time of their life, clubbing the clubs and greens, some are having a torrid time at their workplace. Well, life is no bed of roses, mates. I asked an Italian cab driver I was fortunate enough to meet years ago in Preston(a suburb of Melbourne, that is), on why he left Italy, a developed country in Europe with a history that go back to them Romans to a new country that may not promise anything. He said and I quote: 'Life is a one way street without u-turns. We had our chances, our choices and once we had taken that chances and made that choices, just drive on and hope for the best.' I took mine when I came back from Melbourne. I just had to plough on, regardless. Luckily I had you guys. That is always a comforting thought.

Talking about this bitch of a life, I happened to come across two seemingly unrelated articles a few days after our boys night out(BNO). One article discussed about the politics in the UK and the other about the so-called midlife crisis. It dawn upon me that some of the points discussed are quite relevant to some, if not all of us, regardless of the fact that a few are eternally seventeen, at heart. Hahaha

I had once rambled about being nostalgic of the better past (and rightfully told the bitter truth by Chill). Fortunately, or unfortunately for that matter, I am not alone in having these feelings. In fact, almost all humans have been struck by sudden bouts of nostalgia, a repeated harking back to a better time in some indistinct, mythical past. The majority felt that yesterday will always be better than today. Things, it seems, can only get worse.

Nostalgia is as ancient as civilisation. From the very moment man had time to take a break from hunting mammoths to reflect on life, he concluded that the hunting used to be better in the good old days. Them Greeks at their heights were lamenting the demise of a golden era, when men were heroes and the world was more hospitable. Even them Beatles at their prime sang Yesterday.

In his book, The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook observes that although man’s lot has improves over time, he feels consistently worse. He is healthier, wealthier and happier, but convinced that he used to be healthier, wealthier and happier in the past. A sort of romantic primitivism with the belief that a Hang Tuah-like life – killing them Majapahit geeks for fun, screwing all the dayangs he could muster the energy, living off the land – was happier without the Blackberry and golf or Tesco and Pizza Hut.

As modern life becomes more uncertain and confusing, we will always yearn for a secure, imagined past. It is almost as if we looked backward with nostalgia because we could not look forward with much hope.

One dude at the recent BNO was quite worried about the impending midlife crisis as we are entering the forties, the decade often associated with worries about mortality, failed ambitions and sagging midriffs. Or affairs of the heart, for that particular dude, anyways. He, due to karma beyond him, was unwittingly thrown into the so-called midlife crisis, way beyond his time. Heehaw.

Despair do not, Yoda dudes. Scientists claimed this forties thang can be fun, a time for happiness. They have identified an emotional ‘growth spurt’ (not the one on Chill’s mind, though) that makes people more relaxed and easier for others to spend time with (This explains the infatuation that particular female had with that particular BNO dude). Them science geeks are calling this quality ‘agreeableness’ which grows dramatically between the late thirties and early fifties. These findings challenge the notions of a midlife crisis. Arguments persist though between suggestions that one being more in control at work and at ease in family and social lives and suggestions that it is a matter of declining testosterone levels in us. Some also suggest that humans are programmed by evolution to turn inward and protect material and emotional gains after their youthful exertions.

Stephen Joseph, a health psychologist at University of Nottingham(he was at Warwick University then) said that as people come through adversity in their lives, they can become more agreeable, more appreciative of friends and family and are more willing to take part in their community. Life used to be about the next step up the ladder, and getting there quicker than the next person, which caused stress and pressure. As one gets older, the maturity and experience of life enable him to cope better.

Kim Wilde, once an energetic singer of the 80’s, now a garden designer, said recently: ‘I don’t take myself seriously any more. Sometimes I just garden in my knickers just for the fun of it.’ How I wished I was there when she did that. In the 80’s, that is. Heehaw.

So dudes, while immersing in nostalgia might be fun and the forties could be not, at least for those who had not made it big like most of us, take heart. There is a vital distinction between memory and nostalgia. Memory is the link between past and present but nostalgia, by definition, disparages the present; it evokes a time no longer attainable, an idealised, romanticised past that was better, and now irretrievably gone. Nostalgia therefore comes freighted with disappointment, a look back in anger. A seductive and sentimental fib. A deliberate, self-comforting distortion of memory. So as long as our memories and faculties are intact, we should be fine.

Those facts aside, what would a BNO be without some nostalgic reminiscences, eh? It is an emotional comfort blanket to keep buddies warm together though most likely is just an illusion. It should be fun once a while as long as we do not succumb to the self-inflicted sadness caused by revisiting a bright imagined past that makes the present seem all the duller. Or we can just huddle together for warmth other during those chilly pre-dawn sessions at the Bayu beach.

And Chill, we may be sure of this: in years to come, grey and cranky, muttering wistfully over our Nescafe tariks, we will declare of this forties and midlife crisis thang: ‘We never had it so good.’

Image by Dave Nestler.