Saturday 4 June 2011

Not everything is ever all that it seems

Morally immoral action
Morality and moral superiority can be a rather standoffish quality when the bearer imagines a 'holier than thou' attitude.

A majority of people in society thankfully hold morality at high esteem and expect similar values from whomsoever they happen to come across. All people after all judge another by their own moral standards.

It is a rather petty person, in my opinion, who demeans another for not meeting the said self-imposed grade.

In my experience people who look down upon another person in moral superiority for a deemed fault or discrepancy generally does so to overcompensate for guilt-ridden moral failings of their own.

I fear the 'holier than thou' individual who outwardly exudes a high religious standing and propagates those values a bit too much. It's people like these who usually hide behind a curtain of deceit or sick moral depravity (i.e. perversion). I reserve that there are people who don't have this dual standard, but then those sort of people also generally keep their moral standards to themselves and rarely, if ever, use it to judge others.

Ask anyone if he or she would steal, I guarantee no one will answer the question in the affirmative, even though they might do otherwise in reality. Most everyone knows what the moral thing to do is, so it is duty to agree.

A Talatism truth is that there is a all-encompassing balance between sound and action within each person - the more vocal of morals the less practicing and vice versa.

In that line, non-secular states project a heightened sense of morality because the morally bankrupt politicians and institutions mollycoddle the general population with false moral values.

And as if to prove the point, there have been reports that the Malaysian police have allegedly chained up and marked (i.e. branded) the bodies of 30 foreign women, detained for prostitution.

Malaysian lawyers, politicians and activists have criticised the police for their actions.

It appears that when the police carried out a late night raid on a high-end nightclub in the northern state of Penang last Thursday, they arrested 29 women from China and one from Vietnam, along with eight Malaysian men.

What's more, a local newspaper reported that police officers went undercover at the club for a week before the raid. How wonderful of them to take so much time and effort to gather information for a raid; one wonders whether they have same sincerity and involvement when they raid, say, a smuggler's den.

Newspapers carried images of the women bound up with a long chain and marked with either a tick or an X on their chest and forehead. What is significant is that the women were just suspects and had not even been charged.

Aljazeera, which carried the report as well, on its website reported:

“Police have defended their actions, saying the markings served as a way to identify the women.

“Ayub Yaakob, Penang police chief, told the New Straits Times that the situation was chaotic, with the suspects trying to escape.

“He said police were forced to mark the women after some donned new clothes to try and blend in with other female patrons of the club.

“He also said the women had wrecked many marriages and that police had received numerous complaints from wives of men who sought their services.”

I think one Malaysian opposition lawmaker said it best when she criticised that the police had used “such dehumanising tactics as a show of power and moral superiority over their detainees.”

QED.

Friday 3 June 2011

Assumptions gone wild...

I saw this news clip on NBC news.

Absolutely bizarre and pregnant with assumptions!

The news item is about a California woman caught by neighbours wheeling her garbage can with human remains sticking out! The police were called in and she is being charged for murder.


Don't want to wait for the video download? Just read below (my comments are in parenthesis and in RED):

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Calif. woman seen pushing body parts in trash can
51-year-old arrested on suspicion of murder (you think?!)

ONTARIO, Calif. — California authorities say a San Bernardino woman was arrested for investigation of murder after she was seen pushing a trash can with body parts inside.

Police arrested 51-year-old Carmen Montenegro Sunday night in an Ontario neighborhood.
"Human remains could be seen and she had evidence on her that seemed to be consistent that she was involved with disposal of the body," detective Jeff Crittenden told KTLA-TV. (That detective proves to be one smart cookie! I wonder what gave it away?)

According to the San Bernardino County Sun, the contents of the trash can contained the partial remains of an unidentified man. Officials declined to say which body parts were present or missing (somebody has the job of putting the body together!).

Montenegro reportedly walked the trash can 200 yards along a sidewalk — from a home she may have lived in — until her arrest.

"I personally didn't see it. I just know that it is something you would not normally see in the middle of the daytime," Crittenden said. (I guess the woman didn't have a guilty conscience; but neither are we in a position to assume she had really thought things through – I'd imagine that even if she had managed to successfully put the 'garbage' out for collection, can it be safely assumed that the garbage man would not notice the human appendages sticking out?)

Investigators spent Monday excavating the property outside the home where the body is believed to have come from. A detective says they found what may be bodily fluids in part of the yard.

According to the reports, police believe the man's remains were dug up from the backyard of the home. Upon searching the property, Crittenden told the Sun that authorities found a hole dug in the lawn.

Residents of the neighbourhood told the Sun that the home is owned by a relative of Montenegro's. According to reports, Montenegro has lived in the residence on and off for at least 15 years.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The story leaves one almost speechless, and the mind boggles with assumptions about the motives behind the alleged crime.

Thursday 2 June 2011

Assumptions can be a pain (in the leg)

Jumping to conclusions...
Things are never as bad as they are perceived to be... and very seldom are they ever worse. Yet time and time again I have found myself postponing the unavoidable in the glitched assumption that the eventual encounter will be a bad (rather, emotionally painful) experience.

It never is as bad as the levels my imagination takes it to. On second thought, it never is 'bad.' Period.

Assumptions are like in-built reflex actions masquerading as base survival instinct; it has really little value in the whole scope of things. In my opinion assumptions feed on the relative insecurity and gnawing self-doubts of individuals. The more confident a person the less assumptions he invariably makes – or perhaps the less he allows assumptions to take control of subsequent actions.

That is all well and good, but very few people (if hardly any at all) never assume – its like not being able to help but judge taste by aroma or looks alone.

Simply put, people assume to prepare themselves for what they imagine they should expect (when particularly what they imagine is not real) – it's like the shock of choosing to experience without assumption first could prove fatal.

Of course some assumptions – like judging the speed of an approaching car as one crosses the road – are vital and can actually prove fatal if misjudged and then followed by an incorrect decision. Rule of thumb is that if you have to assume and err, err on the side of caution.

That said, while it is safer to assume that an encounter with the business end of a speeding bus could be severely detrimental to one's health, the same assumption does not extend to an encounter with a person (no matter how belligerent in appearance), yet at times our reluctance seems to reflect that very expectation.

Of course one should never completely discount just keeping to oneself and not getting involved – after all no blame on someone who has not played a part. But then neither has anyone ever won the lottery by not getting involved.

Then again getting involved may not always be a conscious choice, often times lady fate has a hand and gets you involved...

Just read about the story of a Florida woman who broke her leg when a 60-75 lb jumping sturgeon landed on the airboat she was travelling on as it taxied to the boat ramp and hit her. You can be sure she didn't want to get involved with that show-off fish.

According to experts, apparently the sturgeons jump out of the water (with all intentions of landing straight back in) as either a sign of communication or dominance. Ironically the poor fish neither failed to communicate its intention clearly (although it was able to slid back into the water after the impact) nor demonstrate its dominance (or lack thereof, unless you count its dominance over the woman's femur bone).

Which brings me back to my original point about assumptions, contrary to increasing assumptions following the incident, sturgeons don't 'attack' people.

Allen Martin, a biologist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, explained in a statement “these fish are in no way attacking when they jump. They are simply doing what they have been doing for millions of years: jumping. They aren't targeting the boaters."

Go figure... another glitched assumption.

Tuesday 31 May 2011

Fate is what we make it

It is believed by some that there is Kismet or Karma at the core of every event. Some things are just meant to be and one is supposed to accept the consequences as simply fate.

Of course there is always the 'comfort' of believing that what will be, will be and that one has little choice in the matter. It's like believing that we have no real power to choose our fate - a rather fatalistic and 'off hand' approach to living in my opinion.

Granted 'living on the crossroads' is a matter of commenting on life and the idiocy of options that life offers at times, however, it is never a signal of surrender to accept things as they come.

Two incidents, I think, cement the idea that we are all masters of our destiny and can readily defy labels that others (or circumstance) choose to impose on us.

The first is the news from Harare that a Zimbabwean man had won the coveted 'Mr. Ugly' title in a weekend pageant. The man had upstaged 15 other hopefuls (six of whom later dropped out on account of 'cold feet') contesting for the crown in what the Herald newspaper of Zimbabwe cited as “tightly contested.”

Not so Ugly really: Mr Ugly Austin Mbewe (centre) poses for a photo with Second Runner-up Chitova Chezhira (left) and First Runner-Up Kudakwashe Chiramba. Image from Bulawayo24 site.
What was refreshing in my mind was that the man, Austin Mbewe, 30, was quoted in the papers that he felt “honoured by this victory. I have been a subject of ridicule from society since childhood and the world has seen that there is a beautiful side to my ugliness.”

The pageant had the blessings of the National Arts Council and the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and the judges were women.

Here was definitely a man who would not stop to show the world the true nature of his beauty... even when the world around him believed that he had none to show.

The second story sprouted from a Newsweek feature in January that labeled the small city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, as No. 10 of America's 'dying' cities.

This time the whole city was in on the response through an epic single-shot video posting on youtube that ran for almost 10 minutes. The one-take video (see below) featured more than 3,000 people and included marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, and synchronised pyrotechnics that set bridges on fire. It culminated with a helicopter takeoff (and a message) that told the world (and particularly Newsweek) that this 'dying' city was very much alive.

The video was set to a live recording of Don McLean's "American Pie."



So powerful was the city's statement that Newsweek tried to distance itself from the insult, by posting a message on its Facebook page:

“To the Grand Rapids crowd:

“First off, we LOVE your YouTube LipDub. We're big fans, and are inspired by your love of the city you call home.

“But so you know what was up with the list you're responding to, we want you to know it was done by a website called mainstreet.com--not by Newsweek (it was unfortunately picked up on the Newsweek web site as part of a content sharing deal)--and it uses a methodology that our current editorial team doesn't endorse and wouldn't have employed. It certainly doesn't reflect our view of Grand Rapids.”

You gotta love it!

Taking the bull by the horns and putting things right is what its really all about – I guess we shouldn't feel compelled to take things as they come if we can't agree. It is matter of truth that WE can define our karma... and that karma (as we think it) has nothing to do with it.

But then you'd always have detractors claiming that it was all karma after all!

Monday 30 May 2011

It all starts with the first match

The hardest step to take is usually the first, after that most people get the hang of it very quickly.

This is true for virtue... as it is for vice.

In the beginning all things corrupt were once honest. And like a drop of black ink in a bucket of milk – once tainted there is never again pure purity. Yet people take to vice so much quicker than they do to virtue – in it for the short term gain rather than the long term benefit.

I once heard that the difference between Angel Cake and Devil Cake is in the taste. How many figured that the Devil cake tastes better? Its like we are programmed from a very early age to believe that what is really bad can actually feel really good.

Tomorrow is World No Tobacco Day - the big day for the anti-smoking lobby to drum its message over the rooftops and across the world. But ask a unrepentant smoker how easy is it to stop smoking and he'll probably say that “stopping is easy, its the staying off that's the hard part.”

In fact, millions and millions of smokers do stop smoking every day... at the end of their cigarette (and they do it as many as 20 or 40 times each day).

I think every smoker had a sense of foreboding before he (or she) first lit up and a sense of death at the first inhalation of the smoke (pouring soot into a pair of lungs would have that quite an affect on it). Yet many light up again after they have hacked and coughed their way through the first cigarette.

Some do it being mollycoddled with false sense of bravado and manhood, others to emulate a parent or role model – most continue to do so due to peer pressure or environment or popular notions (such as 'deep' men use cigarettes for silent contemplation, for example). In many countries growing a moustache incidentally is viewed as a sign of manhood - real men wear moustaches.

Same logic applies that tough guys smoke... or at least used to. Most of them are probably part of the WHO statistic that accounts for nearly 6 million deaths from tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke every year(the WHO actually counts one death every six seconds).

Another statistic claims that smoking cigarette shortens a life by 11 minutes (a statistic that I find bordering on purely speculative because it cannot really be trusted without proof of divine insight). Who makes this stuff up?! By that calculation a man who smokes 20 cigarettes a day reduces his lifespan by 5 days each month, or two months each year.

Yet medics claim that the lungs start to recover minutes after someone stops smoking and that the lung can recover completely with 2 years of first giving up. Ask a 80 year old smoker what he would do with two more years to live. If he hasn't given it up by then, he'd probably use the two extra years to smoke some more.

Not to belittle the WHO statistic, I think the information about deaths related to “tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke” also indirectly advocates that people caught in a room with a bunch of smokers ought to light up themselves because they are going to die anyway just by the exposure (talk about literally paying for the sins of the father! A bit too biblical, isn't it?)

Couple that with the fact that some studies indicate that second hand smoke is WORSE than smoking itself and you have a scenario that advocates smoking to save from suffering the greater risk from exposure.

In my view most smokers continue to be such even when confronted by the detriments of the vice solely because they can't help themselves... and because it feels soooooooo good. In other words they are weak and are shallow – far removed from the tough and contemplative image that they had hoped to project.

There are some battles you can't win in the end (after all no one gets out of this life alive) – giving up smoking might be a start.