Coffee Talk

 I may be in a completely different league from John McCain, but I can certainly identify with his frustration with the media’s bias in his bid for that top job. 

In fact, most people with some years in the corporate world will understand: only those select few get noticed, and they get all the pats on the back and the promotions! It is as if the rest of the employees never tried hard enough.  Goodness knows if they even exist in the eyes of the management. 

It is not how intelligent, reliable, hardworking, capable or diligent - or even good-looking for that matter - those blue-eyed boys, or gals, are.  Some of them don’t even speak properly, for goodness sake.  It’s something else, presence perhaps?  But don’t ask me.  I was never one of them. 

At least, McCain is not at a loss like the rest of us are.  He knows what to do to garner media exposure, and he has enjoyed his fair share of attention from it.  It’s probably only a matter of fine-tuning those tactics to steal the thunder back from the media darling that Barack Obama is today.

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 UNESCO conferring the ancient Preah Vihear temple as World Heritage Site, and the exploitation of it by Thai protestors as another reason for Thai PM Sundaravej to step down, are only triggers to the armed military standoff between Thailand and Cambodia. 

The true cause of the spat is the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) ruling in 1962 that, while the temple itself belongs to Cambodia, the entrance to the site and the land on which it sits belong to Thailand.  The ownership of yet another 5 sq km of surrounding land remains ambiguous. 

You see, the ICJ makes a practice of playing the nice guy. 

Recently (May ’08), in settling a dispute between Malaysia and Singapore, the ICJ ruled that the tiny islet of Pedra Blanca belongs to Singapore, with the adjacent Middle Rocks assigned to Malaysia.  It stayed out of making a decision for the tiniest rock among the cluster, the South Ledge, saying instead that it belongs to whoever owns the territorial waters the South Ledge sits in. 

What is this?  Here they are, looking up to an authority to resolve an issue, and there, the Court of Justice has just created a new can of worms – perhaps not one immediately, the neighbors are currently basking in harmonious relationship - but goodness knows what little it takes to trigger a confrontation.   

It is tempting to please everyone, but that serves little towards a lasting resolution, as is evident in the case between Thailand and Cambodia now.

The role of an authority like the ICJ is to dish out just, practical and permanent verdicts, and facilitate the closure of issues.

Granted the issues can tricky and complicated, we don’t necessarily appreciate the depth and the delicacy of the considerations that have to be pondered.  But hey, aren’t these all the reasons why cases are referred to the ICJ in the first place?

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 The Israeli cabinet may have approved it, but still, the Germany brokered swap of 5 live Israeli-held Lebanese prisoners for 2 dead Israeli soldiers is outright inequitable. 

Samir Kantar, a vicious Lebanese militant among the 5 released, gloats in victory.  

He is not done yet.  “We swear by God… to continue on your path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that God bestowed on you”, he vowed. 

How ironic is that.  He acknowledges it is God who has bestowed, yet by the same breath, he swears by God to continue waging war against the Jewish state. 

He ought to sort out his thoughts.   

Perhaps then, he and his company of militants may come to realize the pointlessness of their struggles – their violence, really - and resort to peaceful means instead.

Read ref article here

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 Five years on, with troop loss in excess of 4000, John McCain’s reference to the Iraq war as ‘a proving ground for the tactics needed to beat back a resurgent Taleban’ comes across to me as rather tactless. (^*see below ) 

Think of those who have lost their sons, husbands or fathers.  If they had finally come to terms with the losses, with the consolation that they were sacrificed for a worthy cause, they now have to struggle instead that their loved ones were in fact victims in an experiment. 

As for the Iraqi folks, they may appreciate the coalition’s anchoring presence while they rebuild, but I am not sure how they feel about being used as a proving ground for an ulterior motive.

(* ref article)

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 The rate at which the world human population increases is not a new concern – it has been around for ages.   

Overcrowding strains the planet as man competes for wood, metals, water, clean air, land and food, ie crops and livestock.  Crops and livestock in turn compete with man for some of the other resources. 

It’s hard to pin down what a sustainable population is, especially since the needs and wants of humans evolve with time. 

Crude oil, for example, had out of the blue become a necessity in the past century.  This phenomenon coincided with an unprecedented tsunami of technological advancements.  Innovations spawn opportunities and material wealth.  The standard of living has in general improved significantly, and so too, man’s expectations and excesses. 

Together with surging population (6 billion today, going 9 billion), these tightly coupled developments bring about expanding cities, re-designation of land use, and land grabbing.  These in turn lead to deforestation. 

US-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) has raised the flag on deforestation.  Andy White, a co-author of a report the RRI issued yesterday, said of the situation, “It will mean more deforestation, more conflict, more carbon emissions, more climate change and less prosperity to everyone.” 

He summarizes the situation in its entirety.  Note how he must add the part about prosperity, as if to make sure you and I pay the situation the attention it deserves. 

Though to his point, what good will all the prosperity we accumulate do for our children if the planet should give way irreversibly under strain?

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 What do guilt, innocence and justice really mean?   

The current debate in Singapore results from the reversal of an April 2007 conviction of schoolteacher William Ding for molesting his male students. 

Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah’s basis for acquitting Ding a year later in April 2008 was that the alleged victims’ accounts and evidence were inconsistent and contradictory.   

The Attorney-General’s Chamber’s position on Rajah’s judgment, however, is that “as long as a reasonable doubt remains, the accused is entitled to be acquitted…” - meaning Rajah is right - BUT, it also added that “not being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that A is guilty does not mean that he is innocent.  He may be guilty in fact, but innocent in law because the evidence was not there.”   

Coming from the AGC, it has far reaching implications.  Think of what it means to justified parties - past, present and future.  All an acquittal means then, is that they get away with punishment? 

Try standing in the truly innocents’ shoes.  Imagine how mentally and emotionally painful such a view is to them.  First, they had to deal with the tremendous anguish of having been wrongfully accused. And then, after all the bruising court battles, they are not necessarily innocent. 

Perhaps that’s precisely what the Cantonese proverb “Washing with water does not rid the spot” means. 

So, I have to agree with Rajah’s rebuttal of the AGC.  “ It is not helpful for suggestions to be subsequently raised about the accused’s ‘factual guilt’ once he has been acquitted.  To do so would be to undermine the court’s finding of not guilty and would stand the presumption of innocence on its head, replacing it with an insidious and open-ended suspicion of guilt that an accused person would be hard-pressed ever to shed, even upon vindication in a court of law.” 

Most of us support the Yellow Ribbon Project.  We agree it is good to give the convicted a second chance in life.  Why can’t we also extend the same sincere act of love to those who have been acquitted?  All it takes is simply not treating them with suspicion. 

(Read also the post on limitations of money. I discussed how money can’t buy the best things in life, innocence being one of them.  The message is to treasure innocence while you enjoy it.  You’d never know – all it takes is for some baseless ill intended rumor to spread.  And we all know how easily that can be achieved.)

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  Diamonds, they say, are forever. 

A recent innovation adds new meaning to this perception.  Grieving survivors of departed loved ones can now compress the ashes into diamonds. 

The question, however, is what exactly are they, the survivors, to do with these diamonds?  String them around their necks? Or set them in rings?  

Imagine them going round their social circles, flashing the carats. “This is my so-and-so. Doesn’t he look beautiful on my manicured finger? 

That’s morbid.  It’s a tad disrespectful, too. 

It’s not as if the stones are technically what used to be their loved ones.  Diamonds are glorified carbon.  That means that potassium and calcium in the ashes, which were the bones, would first have to be removed in the process. 

And where does the carbon come from?  Probably from the dead persons’ flesh and organs.

Oh, I forgot.  There are the wooden caskets, too.

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 Two needy Indonesian men were convicted in Singapore last week for selling their kidneys.  (^*link to article below) 

The sentences coincided with India’s announcement of pending amendments to her Transplantation of Human Organ Act.  In future, foreign transplant patients will have to source for donors in their own country, with proof that the donor is a relative. (^**link to article below) 

In an unrelated story, a 19-year old student in Minnesota made a mockery of the land of the free by offering his vote for sale on eBay. (^***link to article below) 

These stories, or rather the backgrounds to these stories - the wealthy but desperate seeking a new lease of life, and a man attempting to sell away his freedom of choice (of government) - remind us that really, there are limits to what money can buy.   

That the public finds them unethical reveals that deep down inside, people do recognize that certain things are simply not commodities that can be exchanged with money. 

In fact, the best things in life are always free, although ironically, they can be costly. 

Love, for example.  And friendship.  If a price tag is involved, that relationship is probably one anybody can do without.  On the other hand, relationships demand commitment.  That, many miscalculate, is an opportunity cost to the pursuit of their career, or their other indulgences.  Or money. 

It’s the same with health.  Again, while health is free to a person who is well, it requires that he lived a certain lifestyle that may be contrary to his preferred routine. 

Freedom, peace of mind, a good night’s sleep and innocence are all examples of the best things in life that money cannot buy.   

In this modern day, we are constantly bombarded with the latest and greatest possessions the various media insist we must own.  Layer upon layer, these messages bury away man’s instincts about what truly are invaluable. 

It serves us well to pause, list, count, and enjoy these blessings - especially those we did not pay for with money.  Political stability?  Clean air?  How about the absence of pain or discomfort? 

For it takes only one unexpected turn of events to rob a person of one such blessing, and only then does he realize how very dearly he misses what he had always used to have.  But sadly by then, no amount of money may ever redeem that blessing again. 

^*  http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080703/tap-singapore-organs-c3bb44c.html

^** http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20080705/814/tnl-to-curb-organ-trade-health-ministry_1.html

^***http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/us/05vote.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Tags: thoughts, religion and philosophy, Spititual Reflection // Add Comment »

 Is Schapelle Corby serving time in Bali’s prison, or is the Bali prison serving her? 

She had a field day yesterday, indulging in what many of us would deem as luxury.  Most notably, a spa session.  At a resort!   

How delightful. 

She also shopped for clothes, and had her hair done.  Are they organizing a ball in the prison, or what? 

It seems she is depressed in prison.  But come on, who wouldn’t be?    

If the prescription is massage therapy, there is no lack of traditional masseurs in Bali who can deliver equally effective treatments without Corby leaving the prison compounds. 

But the retail therapy is pushing it too far. 

Here they are, the ordinary Indonesians toiling to make ends meet, and there she is splurging on goodness-knows-whose money, when she should be reflecting on her transgression of trafficking 4.1kg of marijuana.   

In neighboring Singapore and Malaysia, Corby would have gone to the gallows!  

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 In an initiative to contain further damage to the environment, prefectures and cities across Japan^* are calling for 24-hr convenience stores to voluntarily shorten their operating hours (link to article below ^**). 

Which is noble, except that C02 emissions by the always-open stores are but mole hills compared to the mountains that are the glitzy lightings and neon signs that adorn every building and street to entertain the multitudes of Japanese who stay up into the wee hours of the nights. 

Which is increasingly the phenomenon these days.  Cities everywhere else competing to be ‘most attractive’ and ‘most livable’, are sprucing up night activities and night sceneries in their efforts.  Think casinos, a.k.a Integrated Resorts, sprouting all across Asia.  Hong Kong - which until recently prided itself as ‘the city that never sleeps’ - is going to have to dream up new unique ‘selling’ features in retaliation. 

Which brings me to the point about how we the human race have ‘evolved’ to associate joy, entertainment and the suitability of an environment for living, with crowd and brilliant lightings.   

Which makes us not unlike insects, thereby taking us a step back. 

It makes me wonder how our parents and their parents had lived through all their years with so little to keep them amused.

If our authorities would pause and go back to the drawing board, perhaps they could navigate lifestyles and reverse the trend.  Hopefully, the future generations will also live enjoyable lives by their definitions, and still be friendly to the environment. 

Footnotes:

^*Japan sees itself as a champion of the environment, especially where CO2 emission is concern.   

^**Read report here: http://www.japancorp.net/Article.asp?Art_ID=18752

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