Dilemma

Real life situation told by my friend.

A mother of 2 came to see my friend to seek advice. The worst had happened to her family. Her son has been sexually abusing her daughter. Her husband, also the father of the children, refused to turn the boy to the police as he is the only son and he doesnt want to lose his only son.

What made it worst is that, the son is only 15 years and the daughter is only 8 years old.

The parents were afraid to send the girl for a medical checkup because under S27 of Childs Act 2001, a medical officer or medical practitioner has a duty to inform a protector (e.g. Department of Social Welfare) if he believes that the child has been sexually abused. S27 and its subsections are as follow:
Duty of medical officer or medical practitioner
27. (1)If a medical officer or a registered medical practitioner believes on reasonable grounds that a child he is examining or treating is physically or emotionally injured as a result of being ill-treated,neglected,abandoned or exposed,or is sexually abused, he shall immediately inform a Protector.
(2)Any medical officer or registered medical practitioner who fails to comply with subsection (1)commits an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to both.
(3)If the registered medical practitioner referred to in subsection (1)is a medical officer,he may take the child referred to in that subsection into temporary custody until such time as the temporary custody of the child is assumed by a Protector or police officer.

KL Magistrate Court..you might end up here if you decide to commit a crime in KL.
What would you do if you are in that family’s situation?
Turning the son in would seem like everybody’s answer. He’s only 15 hence by right he should be detained in a centre which is separated from the adult criminals. Unfortunately, this doesnt happen all the time.
I quote a senior counsel, “The only sickness that prison can cure is heterosexuality”. A young boy like him would no doubt serve as a sex slave for a building full of men. Retribution? No no, the boy should burn in hell not sodomized on Earth.

Upcoming Events for the month of July!

AFTERGLOW PRESENTS BAXX @ FORUM, HARTAMAS FRI.08.JULY.2005

For PRESALE tickets, email/sms Christina 1)name 2)mobile 3)email addy (for database) @ 012.622.7856.
or call Big Ben @ 012 3030 622
Reminder
This Sunday – GLOW 2!

Once again, an event fully dedicated to hard music and Melbourne Shuffle. No alcohol will be served though 😀
DETAILS:
Date : 3rd July 2005 [Sunday]
Venue : FORUM, Hartamas
Time : 2:00pm – 12 midnight
Tickets : RM40.00 door / RM35.00 presale
Ticket Bookings & Enquiries, Contact Info :
Rolling Eye Records Sdn Bhd
Contact Person: DJ XiLe
0123750502 (Mobile)
03 6203 1644 (tel)
03 6203 1744 (fax)
xile@rollingeye.com
More details @ http://www.rollingeye.com/glow_News.htm

Green?

What is this?

I found this insect sticking to my car window few days ago. It looks poisonous. No idea what is it.
That reminds me of an incident I had couple of years back…
I was lying on the bed, reading a comic with a packet of dried squids on the floor.
My eyes began to feel heavy and hence I fell asleep….
Minutes later..I woke up to resume my comic and proceeded to grab another dried squid.
*munch.. mmmm… O_O!!!
\(*O*)/!!!!
*PTUI PTUI!!!
ARGGHH!!!! SMELLY ANTS IN MY MOUTH!!!!!

Mr & Mrs. Teh

Congratulation to Uncle Maverick and Aunty Jetski!


They finally got married. Their wedding kick starts the wedding marathon that we will go through on our lives. Soon one by one, our friends will get married.

Uncle Maverick is one of Malaysia’s most veteran and well known DJ. He broke the Guinness Book of Record’s longest non stop DJ’ing 2 years ago.


Uncle Maverick


Maverick & Jessie

The wedding was held at Spring Valley restaurant in Mid Valley. Even though our invitation card says that the dinner will start a 6PM, most of the people came about 7 something. Pfft. Malaysians.
Many of us speculated that techno music or hard trance will be played during his wedding. Unfortunately, there were none. More than half of the restaurant was filled with middle aged relatives of Maverick and Jessie. However, they played a track specially mixed by Maverick for his wedding. Soon we’ll see Maverick’s Wedding – OST (Sound Track) in pasar malam.


Lynnzter, Sharon & Sui Lin

The food was great even though no shark fin was served. Although Maverick is an angler, he does not eat shark fins. Apparently his hobby is to catch fish and let them off after that.


Initially we were famished. Sow and Ben were holding their chopsticks like they were about to go to war. However, the food disappeared in a very slow rate. We thought that it will be gone within seconds.


Ben, Sow & I

Sharon, Ivan, Kelynn, Lynnzter, Sow, Ben, Kei Shi, Sui Lin and I sat on the same table (table no 23). Cris, Florence and Doreen sat on the next table due to lack of space. Everyone was well dressed for this event.


Kelynn, Ivan & Keishi


Table no 23 + next table 😀

After couple of dishes, we had a short champagne tower thingie. Then we proceeded with the traditional ‘yamseng’ screams. As a tradition, the groom has to walk to each table to drink. Together with it, the traditional yamseng scream will be performed. Although we were slightly outnumbered by other tables, we had one of the loudest screams. Maverick had couple of right hand men to support him i.e. to drink for him.

Ben: During my wedding, I’ll get Sow, Melvin and Umeng to be my right hand man. But I’m afraid that they will all die one by one before the night ends!


Maverick lasted through the night. He kissed all of us on the cheek before we left.

I remember last time during one of my friends’ wedding, many people had to carry him back to the car at the end of the night. I think he was drowning his sorrows cause he had to marry his girlfriend after she got pregnant.

Many congratulations to Uncle Maverick and Aunty Jetski aka Mr. and Mrs. Teh. Hope you guys will have babies soon. Loads of them of course!

Hang Tou Pat Ming..

Yesterday, while performing my legal aid duty @ Criminal Magistrate Court, we had this slightly built tall Chinese guy. My partner for the day, Sue Yin interviewed him in the lockup.

Since she knows how to speak Chinese as well, I left her alone to interview the client. Suddenly, she called for me.

Sue Yin: I don’t understand what is he saying.
Me: What are you charged for?
Guy: Hang tou pat Ming.. (I think he said that in Chinese)
Me: What is that???
He nodded his head… and said..
Guy: Mmm..i went to the stairs and took off my pants…
Me&Sue Yin: OOOOHHH…FLASHER!!!

Poor guy was too embarrassed to explain it to Sue Yin.

He seems like a normal person. But what he did was sick. Apparently, according to the brief facts, he stripped naked and climbed a staircase at an apartment. He flashed at a lady who was cooking @ her kitchen. She immediately screamed out loud.
The husband of the lady immediately chased after him and so did the apartment residents. He was caught in no time.

Under S294(a) of the Malaysian Penal Code, the imprisonment sentence may extend to 3 months. For that offence, Mr. Flasher was sentenced to 1 month imprisonment.

I almost laughed out loud when the brief facts were read out. The lawyer next to me was laughing as well. So did the interpreter who was reading the charge out loud. LOL

One of my colleagues told us of one her previous experience. It was couple of years ago, she was walking alone around Taylor’s College in PJ. Suddenly, a man in a blue Wira (Malaysian Car) stopped next to her.. The driver stopped and said to colleague, “Mau tengok? (you want to see?).

Colleague: NoOOOOOO
Driver: Mau Tengok?? (you want to see??)
Colleague: NO!

The Indian driver didn’t care. He took off his pants and started flashing off his thing. Apparently this guy is infamous for flashing around that college area. His Blue Wira used to lurk there to pray on girls. I wonder if he’s still there. Girls, please feel free to smash his car or stomp his balls whenever he flashes again.

Kelawar Man?


shall we have our own Batman in Malaysia?
As we celebrate the launching of the new Batman movie, deputy News editor of the Sun pondered whether or not Malaysia needs her own Batman :-
Kuala Lumpur and Gotham: Apathy’s comparative study
by Terence Fernandez
THE fictional city of Gotham is one of violence, poverty and corruption.
Crime is at an upward spiral, the homeless and needy are walled into dinghy back alleys by skyscrapers which are only half occupied.
Graft and selective red-tape run the administrative system, from the judge’s chambers to the district attorney’s office and from the mayor’s office to the police department.
Filth is the order of the day as maintenance is a privilege not a right,thus restricted to wealthy suburbs, home to the powers-that-be.
The citizens of Gotham are content to leave things as they are, because really, how can you make things better when you know that you are up against the whole system?
The very people who swore to protect and serve you, are, well, Protecting and serving themselves and a select few!
In fact, art may very well imitate life if you come from a city as troubled as Gotham.
So, if you live and work in Kuala Lumpur, you might be able to relate to the ills plaguing the home of the Dark Knight.
One wouldn’t call Kuala Lumpur a cesspool, but crime, poverty and Corruption have become entrenched.
Petty thefts, armed robberies, murders and rapes are as common as Lolex watches in Petaling Street, where you can also find society’s discards – drug addicts, prostitutes and vagrants.
Just a quick dash across the five-star glitz of Jalan Bukit Bintang, will bring you to the seedy world of Jalan Alor where the steamboat stalls and buah salak hawkers complement the businesses of pirated VCD peddlers, drug pushers and pimps, where a good meal follows a quickie and a quick fix.
The swanky streets of Bangsar and Jalan Tun Razak are squeaky clean. Drive there at anytime of the day, even at night, and you are bound to see the roads being swept or even washed, and garbage collected.
But it’s not the same story in places like Kampung Baru and Sentul Pasar, where numerous appeals for proper municipal services and regular police patrols go unheeded.
On the 27th floor of City Hall, the mayor and his officers are looking Over the plans for another highrise building in the city. The mayor is Wondering why one would need another skyscraper when 30% of office space in the city is still vacant.
But, it is not his call. There goes another green lung. And there goes another crony, laughing all the way to the bank!
In Putrajaya, the prime minister sighs after reading reports of allegations of top policemen involved in protecting a wanted man and ponders on his uphill task of ridding the system of graft.
The impunity in which the city and country’s administrators and protectors operate, sometimes borders on the ironic, comical even.
For instance on Thursday, after opening a seminar on environment conservation, Federal Territory Minister Tan Sri Isa Samad announces that the government may have to allow hillslope development in Kuala Lumpur, as land is becoming scarce. After preaching about the need for environmental awareness, he tells a press conference that the Federal Territory side of the Bukit Gasing Forest Reserve will be developed.
If there ever was such a thing as saying the right thing at the right platform, this certainly was not it!
But, Malaysians being the pathetic creatures we are, will raise an eyebrow a la The Rock, reminisce about Highland Towers and Bukit Antarabangsa,shrug our shoulders and move on with our lives. Vultures have made their way into government agencies to make millionaires of a few.
Political appointments ensure that resources meant for the people are siphoned to the privileged and well-connected.
Little is ever done in the best interest of the taxpayers, although this is exactly what they will say in justifying the need for another mall or highrise building or de-gazetting a public park.
Three rapid transit systems for a city of 1.2 million makes one wonder just why one system would not suffice.
Then it dawns on you that by having multiple services, at least three parties will be happy. Who cares if these systems are not linked by efficient feeder services?
People will get used to it! Malaysians only know how to complain but they will never do anything about it. The Malaysian culture of never questioning authority will sooner or later bring the country to its knees.
It seems that as long as people have a roof over their heads and food on the table, they fear to rock the boat.
Unlike in Gotham, where you have someone prancing around in a bat suit trying to make things right again, in the real world, we lack people with that kind of desire to fight injustice.
No one is suggesting having vigilantes dressed up as oversized flying rodents, scouring our alleys and dangling corrupt politicians and officials by their ankles from the top of the Twin Towers (although many would relish the thought) but the calls for justice and fair play must be concerted efforts by everyone.
People have to stop taking the cow dung fed to us by self-serving parties and start demanding fairplay and justice. It is time those in power become answerable to those who put them there and pay their salaries – taxpayers and voters.
The only ones who would need masks are those who have something to hide – and you see them almost everyday, wearing one face at public rallies,on election rounds; and another face behind closed doors with their cronies and political masters, plotting how to rape, plunder and steal the country’s resources and the people’s trust.
Malaysians should wake up to what’s happening and realise that things can be so much better if the right people are put in the right positions.
To be content is to be dead.
No one is asking you to take to the streets. Your weapons are the courts, the media and the ballot box. It is time to put those who thrive on people’s apathy out of business.

P.S. What will Malaysia Batman be known as “Orang Kelawar” or “Kelawar man”?
NOTE: The article was published in the Sun on 17 June 2005 and the Copyright of the poster above belongs to the creator of Batman and the movie company.

Tak Nak Part 1

In line with our beloved PM’s vision of having a “smoke free” nation , but how serious is the government in realising this vision?
RM20 billion to treat tobacco-related diseases each year
written by Claudia Theophilus of Malaysiakini
Malaysia spends a staggering average of RM20 billion each year, almost tenfold the tax revenue collected from the tobacco industry, to treat tobacco-related diseases, a local anti-tobacco advocacy group said.
Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control (MCTC) president Prof Dr Syed Mohamed Al Junid said about RM4 billion alone is spent to treat lung cancer,heart disease and chronic obstructive airway disease, all classified as tobacco-related illnesses.
“The tobacco industry in Malaysia is only worth between RM1.9 billion and RM2.5 billion a year in taxes but there is reluctance to conduct full and effective enforcement,” he said when interviewed recently.”
“The reality of the government’s stand is in blatant disregard of established facts and figures provided by national and international medical and health organisations.”
Acknowledging that the main dilemma hinges on economic considerations, he said the government appears to be supporting the industry because it regurgitates excuses commonly used by tobacco companies to stop or delay any cigarette tax hike.
“The revenue gap is too wide and statistics show that the healthcare cost outstrips any economic gain from tobacco or corporate taxes.”
Citing an industry favourite about the further impoverishment of tobacco farmers if cigarette taxes are increased, Syed Mohamed said appropriate data would reveal the fallacy therein.
Recently, he said, a tobacco company used this argument to delay a tax hike on kiddy-packs (packs of 10s).
“The Health Ministry acquiesced, citing the same excuses.”
According to him, there are about 20,000 tobacco farmers in the country, contributing part of the industry’s needs. The rest are imported.
“The government’s excuse based on the tobacco industry’s story is far-fetched. To me, the relationship between a tax increase and its impact on tobacco farmers is very distant. It’s not a strong argument,” he said.
“You tell me, what have farmers got to do with kiddy-packs? Moreover, the government is attempting to diversify the tobacco farmers’ activity into cultivating kenaf plants instead.”
(Kenaf is a fiber crop that is increasingly being sought by the bedding,padding and paper pulp industries.)
Syed Mohamed said the government continued to entertain the tobacco industry due to established business links and practices.
“The tobacco companies here are well-established, well-linked. In fact,some government entities hold blue-chip stocks belonging to local tobacco giant British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd (BAT), hence the reluctance for strict enforcement.”
The Employees Provident Fund holds a 6.57 percent stake in BAT, a main board-listed company.
“This is only a short-term gain. There is a clear-cut case for the government to seriously cut down on tobacco and related products,” he added.
In an announcement of its first-quarter performance on April 27, BAT declared a lower pre-tax profit compared to the corresponding period last year despite a higher turnover of about RM894 million. Last year’s Q1 turnover was RM753 million.
BAT recorded a pre-tax profit of about RM235 million, down from RM277million previously.
It attributed the slight dip to “cost of debranding activities driven by regulation compliance and the price reduction of the value for money brands”.
The company which manufactures, imports and sells cigarettes, pipe tobaccos and cigars said it’s first-quarter drop in domestic volumes was due to “significant excise-led price increase” last year.
Last year BAT, which holds approximately 64 percent of the market share, posted a RM3.3 billion turnover with a after-tax profit of 1.1 billion.
Syed Mohamed, a health economics professor who consults on public health medicine at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, believes that the tobacco industry’s multi-billion ringgit average annual turnover helps to maintain a strong grip on the government’s economic sense.
“The current tax imposed on the retail price of cigarette is between 45 and 50 percent. It must be at least 65 percent in order to make smoking a very expensive habit.
“Furthermore, the tobacco industry has shifted its focus on emerging markets in developing countries especially in Asia due to the intense anti-tobacco lobby in the West,” he explained.
“In the post-1990s period, developed countries forced the industry to shift their focus to developing countries such as China, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia partly because these countries had weak regulatory framework.”
On the other hand, he said Singapore had very strong control over the media industry which, together with enforcement and health promotion, has achieved success in its tobacco-control efforts.
The MCTC has 28 organisations comprising professional bodies such as the Malaysian Environmental Health Association, non-governmental organisations and research institutes from public universities.
This article was originally published in Malaysiakini on 16 June 2005