Answering the difficult questions
This kind of news always makes me wonder what to believe.
Is it more ludicrous to believe that there is a god that allows these sorts of tragedies to take place just to make us need him more, or that this 17-year old boy will not face an afterlife of eternal torture for what he’s done because there IS nothing after death?
I have a very inquisitive almost-seven-year-old and Lokes and I have a philosophy of telling her the truth in a way we are sure she understands for a child her age. She’s asked about babies, death, religion. Each time, we’d hesitate, saying, “Give me a minute to find a way to explain this very important thing to you.” Ultimately, we’d only answer her question in a very limited, compartmentalized manner.
When she was about five, she asked what happened when people died. We told her that we buried them or turned them to ash, but they lived on in our hearts as memories. She was a little sad about that because she was thinking about her grandparents (they’re still alive and well but she was in a contemplative mood).
When she asked about babies, I answered, “Something called a sperm from daddy and an egg in Mommy, when they are put together, makes a baby that grows in Mommy’s tummy.” Her answer was, and is always, “Oh.” And she’d walk off to ruminate. She never asked how the sperm would get there.
One day, she asked if everyone was Christian, because she was reading a picture bible someone had bought for her a long time ago. We never stopped her because to us, it’s still knowledge. I told her that people have different beliefs how things work in the world, and that Mommy and Daddy believe in science. She was happy with that answer, being somewhat of a science geek herself.
I wonder what I’d say if she asked why that boy shot all those kids (children these days are very observant and I won’t be surprised if someone from school starts talking about it). Frankly, I’d be stumped. I can’t say he was nuts because he may very well just be evil. Is evil a kind of mental disease? Psychologists have been debating this for centuries.
What would you say if your child asked you about why bad things happen to kids? What would you say if she or he asked what happens when this bad person takes his own life?
Technorati Tags: German gunman, school shootings, German shooting
10 things I’ve learnt in life so far
Inspired by Stefan Sagmeister’s TEDtalk, I have decided to make this post on things I’ve learnt in life so far:
1. Fair or not, beauty has its uses. The need and want for symmetry in our lives make us both human and terrible beings.
2. It is better to love someone more than they love you because you will always be the better person.
3. It is far better to forgive but not forget, than to forget but never forgive.
4. Exercise every day of your life. There is nothing better than fresh air coursing through your veins, sweat and muscular pain.
5. Nothing you do will change your children but they will change you.
6. Some people are really not meant to be parents. It is sad they often find out too late.
7. Education is only for perception because people and corporations are too busy to learn to trust you the old-fashioned way – through comradeship.
8. Learning to unplug is perhaps the biggest challenge mankind will have to undertake in the future.
9. Perfect pancakes do not need PAM on a Teflon-coated saucepan.
10. It is possible to trust an idiot and not know it.
Technorati Tags: TEDtalks, life lessons
I am dealing with it
Pain has a sweet odor about it
I think of that moment
that pang
and I taste saccharine
like a fake sick
sweet
My heart, my chest really
a bruise forming
sick
thumping, slowly
beating pumping
holy shit it hurts
Someone pass me
another round of rum
Summer hols are here!
Where I come from, people hide in coffee shops and air-conditioned malls in the day, making snide remarks about crazy Gwailos lying in the nude on rooftops and front yards in the sweltering heat, searing their skins thin to a leathery texture.
Two years in Seattle is enough to turn even the most UV-phobic Malaysian into the most ardent of sunscreen-slathering, fancy eyeware-wearing sun worshippers (which not even seven days in 95F Florida could re-scare into a closet).
We’re ready, Summer. Come out and play!
Vaccination as a Social Responsibility
A few days ago, KUOW’s Ross Reynolds was discussing vaccinations.
Basically, there have were some recent outbreaks of measles and naturally, the media milked it. Reynolds called for comments and naturally, pro-vaccination AND anti-vaccination people (moms mostly) responded. There was even a doctor present and everything.
One woman, who was clearly of the “I’m not giving my money to another cheatin’, lyin’ pharmaceutical!” camp, emailed in and blamed the measles outbreak on poor nutrition and bad parenting. What was surprising was that the doctor had diplomatically agreed with some of her points, “particularly about nutrition contributing to the overall health of a child”. If I hadn’t been driving, I would’ve picked up the phone…and called my husband in a middle of a meeting to bitch about how some women just have arses for brains.
I’m sure someone somewhere has made this argument already, but there is such a thing called “herd immunity“, which essentially makes getting vaccinated a social responsibility.
The article linked here says it best – doing what’s factually good for our kids, and doing what we emotionally feel is good for our kids, can be two very different things. While a majority of us vaccinate, there are those who are skittish or just think they know better. And yet, everybody stays relatively safe, say, from smallpox, all because of herd immunity.
Now I’ve met a few “Earth Mama” types who say they’ve done all the research and think that immunization is just big business trying to wheedle money out of us poor, ignorant bastards, using the media to pump us full of fear and BS (pardon the pun). Now I’m a big breastfeeding supporter but breast milk does NOT prevent chicken pox.
Honestly? I find it hard to believe that you’ve read 20 million pages of medical data and probably two thousand combined years of research by scientists who all conclude that vaccination is the way to go.
And sure, it might provoke a violent reaction from one out of 30,000 kids and I’m sorry if that turns out to be yours, but you know what, those odds are better than the one out of 1000 where your kid contracts Hep A from eating contaminated crayfish and dying (yes, I’m pulling those numbers out of my roomy arse, but they sound rhetorically right).
Sometimes, it doesn’t even work, but nothing’s perfect. As long as my child doesn’t grow an extra toe from it, I’m good.
Let’s say your son grows up to become a Doctor Without Borders (a path you’d most likely encourage him to take, because why wouldn’t he? You would’ve brought him up to be all nobley and non-profity) and ends up somewhere in Nicaragua where he contracts, I dunno, mumps?
As his face swells up to unrecognizable proportions, you can barely make out the words coming out of his mouth because of the flies swarming over his drool-streaked chin, his one good eye peering questioningly at you over the webcam:
“Why wum? Why deen you wad-nate me?” (Translation: Why mom? Why didn’t you vaccinate me, you sanctimonious idiot?”)
My point is, get over yourself. It’s one thing to have your child get vaccinated and then watch with alarm as he sleeps 12 hours straight (now that’s a reaction), and another to not be able to watch your kid squirm and cry through another shot.
It’s one thing to be genuinely concerned over unnecessary vaccinations made by ONE company because your gut tells you it smacks of capitalistic maneuvering, and another to be throwing ALL pharmaceuticals selling vaccines together as if capitalism itself should be outlawed just because you can’t watch your kid squirm and cry through another shot.
And if your kid is enjoying better health, it’s not because you fed him better or are a better parent. It’s because my children are vaccinated – as are 200 million others.
So the next time you feel like criticizing the very people who are keeping your vaccine-free kid from contracting a life-threatening disease, think.
Think of Nicaragua and mumps.
ps. No offence to Nicaraguans. I pulled that out of my fat arse too.
Technorati Tags: vaccination, parenting, immunization
What’s in a name?
My name is Jennifer Tai, and I am a Malaysian Chinese. Malaysia is a moderate Muslim country, which means its official religion is Islam.
However, I am not a Muslim. I grew up in a small town named Ipoh, and I attended a Methodist Church for a number of years. There are no laws against being a Christian, or a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or anything else you want to be – unless you’re a native Malay, in which case you’re automatically Muslim. So, there’s relative freedom of religion in my country.
Malaysia claims to be a secular state, and for the everyday Malaysian living in the more urban areas, the country and its laws do feel secular, which means non-Muslims do not walk around in headscarves and are not subject to Sya’ria laws.
The reason why I’m blogging about this is to share with my American friends that there is NOTHING to fear about Islam. ABSOLUTELY ZERO. I am a non-Muslim who grew up, lived among Muslims all my life and I am still alive. I was not converted. I’ve never been oppressed. I ate pork and consumed alcohol and partied like it was 1999 (I did). I may not agree with a lot of the things the administration of the day has implemented, but that has nothing to with Islam, just dirty politics.
NPR reported today that 10 per cent of Americans think Barack Obama is a really a Muslim even though he isn’t, just because of his middle name, Hussein. To this 10 per cent, here’s what I have to say: There must be billions of Chinese in America and around the world who have English or American first names, whether or not they’re Christians. You don’t see people questioning my right to the name “Jennifer” when I’m not 1. English or 2. a Christian.
I remember, in college, having met two Chinese Christian brothers whose parents named them Shamsuddin and Jeffri (that’s how the Malay version of Jeffrey is spelt). These are typically Muslim names but Sham and Jeff were not Muslims. It was just the way the parents embraced being Malaysians.
So, in summary:
IT’S JUST A NAME FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Malaysia, Islam
My Sister’s Keeper, now in real life
Thanks for Twittering this, MomLogic.
My knowledge of this is only as far as Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper, which is a fair supposition of what happens when the harvester and harvestee grow up and the cancer is still not cured. My experience of having to make these decisions is zero. I pray, sometimes, to a Christian God, and live a mostly culturally Christian life, but am on the path towards believing that faith is really just healing and growing and moving towards the realisation that our purpose may just only be to see how far the human civilization can go before premature annihilation having wasted away our planet and 85 million years of evolution.
So here’s my take:
I have no problems whatsoever about asking EXISTING children to help a sibling with matching organs or cells. The choice of either putting one child in danger, to make him or her suffer for his/her terminally ill sibling, or letting the latter die, is no choice at all.
However, to MAKE a baby for the purpose of harvesting stem cells to save another? I think it’s realistic to assume that stem cells as a cure is not 100%, and that is the real tragedy. Here, the choice is not whether or not you should save your dying child, but to resist from continually harvesting from your healthy one throughout his or her life should the stem cells not work and the cancer returns.
Are we as parents ready to make that choice? Or should we even get to choose when that healthy “saviour child” is no longer a baby with an umbilical cord full of precious stem cells, not just a sum of genetically compatible materials, but a person, who will grow up, who won’t go away even after our sick child is healed.
A person who will for the rest of his/her life be expected to stick around UNTIL that happens.
A person, whose purpose, undeniably becomes nil when that mission is accomplished. To know that the very reason for your existence is no more.
There is not enough therapy in the world to help a person through that.
We’re always saying that because we’ve never had to face these choices, that we are not in a position to judge, or even to comment. And yet, millions of people everyday dutifully sit in jury boxes everywhere, putting themselves in various difficult positions to make some very difficult decisions. This is because, despite our differences, we all live by the same laws and the same rules. Like it or not, we do not suffer only the consequences of our own actions, but that of others as well.
Now imagine making a person whose sole purpose in life IS to suffer these consequences.
Sadly, this cannot afford to be a “I’ll cross the bridge when I come to it” decision. Theological concerns notwithstanding, this is a question of a most basic human right – the right to life, liberty and security of person.
And for that, the decision is already made.
Technorati Tags: embryonic stem cells, Jodi Picoult, My Sisters Keeper, parenting, stem cell research
Forget China babies – here, take a man!
Before coming here, I’d thought the whole China Baby thing was a few celebs adopting kids blown out of proportion (saw it on Sex and the City). Having lived here for two years, I can vouch that it’s not. Just here in Seattle, American families with Chinese or Asian babies are everywhere; at the playground, in my Moms group, at the mall, the library, the gym.
I must confess that it feels slightly odd to see so many Chinese babies (mainly girls) being adopted. Sometimes, the parents themselves look a little discomfited sitting next to me with their children, as though they’d taken one of my kids by mistake. I then try to put myself in their position, wondering how they’d look at me if I was walking around with a blue-eyed blonde baby. They’d probably think I’m the nanny.
Apparently, China babies are not the only ones up for grabs these days. The young men are as well. Payback for all those years of getting rid of unwanted daughters, eh?
Someone give these men eHarmony accounts!
Mean girls
Along with the rest of connected America, I was swept away by the shock of what happened to the Victoria Lindsay, the 16-year old cheerleader (although she claims to be 18 on her Myspace) who was beaten up by six other girls, an event which was videoed for the intention of web release.
Like every mother of every little girl out there, I shed a few superficial tears, imagining how I would react if my daughter was the one who’d been beaten up. And then I imagined how I would react if my daughter was the one doing the beating up.
I must say that I never would’ve had to think about such things if we were back home. Then again, we would’ve had other things to think about.
About a week ago, Raeven had a brief encounter with a female bully at the playground. The girl had “terrorised” Raeven with some aggressive words and gestures into leaving a part of the play structure she’d been playing with. Raeven simply ran away. The girl followed her for a while but Rae avoided her until she was left alone. And through all this, I’d played the role of the neutral (albeit nervous) parent, allowing Rae to go through all the steps of the non-confrontational Anti-Bully Action Plan we had in place.
- Use words like “Stop” and “No.
- Walk away if he/she does not stop.
- Get a grown-up if he/she follows you.
While Victoria Lindsay is hardly a kid anymore, I could not help but notice that she’d employed the same exact “action plan”. She did not retaliate and tried to walk away.
What happens when you’re cornered by more than one bully?
What about six? Eight?
“That’s why our girls need to learn self defense,” quips Lokes. Really? How the heck does one defend oneself against eight aggressors (when one is not Steven Seagal)?
Coincidentally, I’d just finished reading Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes, a story about a lifetime of bullying that culminated into a school massacre. I remember making a mental note to put the title into the “must-read” list for the girls when they get older.
When one raises sons, one fully expects broken ribs, fat lips and black eyes somewhat regularly. In some cultures, it’s even considered a rite of passage to be bullied and beaten up once in one’s lifetime. If Victoria Lindsay was a jock, what happened to her would’ve been pretty standard locker-room (and not New York Times) fare. For daughters? Not so much.
It is such a scary world out there, a world filled with people who do not play by the same rules. What then?
Technorati Tags: Victoria Lindsay, bullying, Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes
In which I try to figure out veganism
Ethical veganism. To the die-hard omnivore, these two words inspire serious smirkage or shakes of head in barely restrained resignation to yet another ‘new age’ idea whose profundity escapes mainly because there’s none. To an average meat-eater who doesn’t really care either way, it is a over-encroaching ideal that is not unlike, say, Christianity, for the very presence of a vegan brings forth tiny ripples of uncertainty and guilt even as one chomps down on a chicken wing.
“Ugh. Something died for you to live. I hope it was worth it,” may be the gist of a quizzically cocked eyebrow or an upturned lip.
Like it or not, veganism is becoming more common these days for a number of reasons: animal rights, pursuit of physical purity, trying to be ’special’ in an increasingly jaded, and jading, world. Having lived here in the Northwest the last two years, I’ve met more than a handful of vegans who are actually very nice people. However, I don’t really know since we’ve never shared a meal together. I suspect none of us wish to offend, which is why we stay away from food, or any discussion of it. Needless to say, these are not people I know very well.
The truth is veganism unnerves me, just as any sort of extremism does. As purists – and I don’t have a fondness for purists, except maybe for the Apostrophe Brigade -which I lump together with fundamentalists, literalists, the French, I think these groups of people interpret things too strictly, allowing very little room for change despite an ever-changing world. Now vigilantes on a quest to reign in an errant apostrophe, trying to keep an ancient language going, I can get on board with. At the very least, they provide a degree of entertainment. However, when you take a lifestyle choice so far you actually kill another person – your own child, for example? Now that’s just silly.
I know this is one very extreme and remote case (or perhaps the third case in four years?) but bear with me.
As an experiment, let us consider the case for veganism from a very simplistic viewpoint, in that I’m a lay person who knows as much about veganism as, say, quantum physics. I’m interested in neither, and therefore would not be inclined to research very deeply into either subject (not voluntarily anyway – who has the time?). But if someone were to stop me on the street, vegan bible in hand, and asked me if I’ll consider switching over to the light side, i.e. a meat- and animal-product-free diet for the sake of those poor animals, I would very likely blink, swallow and perhaps elicit a girlish giggle. Here’s why:
1. What if 80% of the world turned vegan? Will all the former slaughterhouses and chicken and pig farms be turned into fields and fields of soy and corn and wheat and herbs and whatever else vegans like, grown organically from, I don’t know, human waste since vegans can’t use any animal bi-products? What will this mean for our environment? Will there be a surplus of chickens because of all the eggs they lay? Where will all the uneaten animals go? Will growing soy make more efficient use of land than rearing livestock? What will having more vegetation do to the health of the environment? I don’t know. Nobody knows.
2. What if all the slaughterhouses and animals-bred-for-consumption industry go bust? And hunting resumes as the the only way one can get meat? Will the work of vegans be considered done, and they can, once again, ‘regress’ to their omnivoric state because hunting (ironically) is more ‘ethical’ (prey having a fair chance of escape)? After all, omnivores other than human beings hunt (carnivores being excepted since they will die if they don’t eat what they’re born to eat). Bears, chickens, flies, pigs – if they can eat meat, why can’t humans (if we don’t breed but hunt)? Something does not compute here.
3. If most of the world cannot turn fully (or mostly) vegan, for the sake of balance, will the world be a better place if half of us ate meat, and half of us did not? If so, do vegans, in some perverse equilibrium, need meat-eaters?
4. Is turning vegan about living longer or saving animals? If we live forever and the animals all get saved, wouldn’t the world be overpopulated?
5. Whatever happened to good old vegetarianism?
As a Malaysian Chinese, I grew up among Muslims who don’t eat pork, vegetarian Hindus, Buddhists and Catholics who occasionally abstain from meat, and believers of the deity Kuan Yin who don’t eat beef, so meat-abstinence is not a foreign concept to me. However, never have I (nor my parents) ever been made to feel as though I’m living a life of sin when I enjoy a chicken drumstick or a beef rendang. And yet, when I am faced with someone who declares him or herself to be a vegan, I am a little unnerved because all of a sudden, here’s someone who may be offended if I brought a meatloaf to a potluck, or is judging me to be something of a serial killer or mass murderer because I made an egg salad. I can’t even eat or cook without feeling the weight of the animal kingdom on my shoulders. That takes ‘you are what you eat’ to a whole new level.
And this is why I say veganism is not unlike Christianity. The whole “something (or someone) died for you to live” message just introduces so much guilt that it does not inspire a lot of good feelings. It’s simply too judgmental.
I wrote a post a few months back about how Rae recoiled at the fact that ham was made from pig. Some of the comments were a little…pointed, to say the least. These days, she still doesn’t like ham, but is so far still enjoying pork in its original form. Do I think it’s wise to talk to her about the meat industry at this age? No. She is just not mentally developed enough to handle it. If she decides, one day, that she wants to become a vegetarian for religious reasons? Fine. If she decides that she will not eat meat or animal by-products because it’s cruel, I will remind her that she’s very lucky to be able to make that choice. Lots of people (say, people who can’t even afford to eat, much less eat vegan) don’t. And as such, what she must resist doing is to judge meat-eaters just because they choose not to believe that abstinence is NOT the only sign of humanity, and it is NOT the only solution to humanity’s salvation.
If that is all it takes, I’ll turn vegan this very minute.
Won’t wear clean second-hand clothes? You may be racist. And how that has something to do with Senator Craig.
I read with interest this latest study by some Canadians about how ‘interpersonal disgust’ (as opposed to ‘core disgust’) indicates that you may hold some right-wing authoritarian beliefs.
While I don’t put much stock in statistics about psychology and human behaviour, I find these studies fascinating (and great conversation starters), more so since these may very well be theories one might’ve cooked up sitting at the can with nothing good to read. It’s marvellous what a little alone time can do.
It all ties up, doesn’t it? Most people I know who won’t wear clean second-hand clothes or walk into Value Village are a tad racist (as opposed to raging haute-coutured Nazis) because really, what valid reason is there to despise good fashion you can buy at a fraction of the original price? Absolutely none whatsoever.
In a weird tangent, this brings to mind today’s news about Idaho Senator Larry Craig recanting his guilty plea on charges of misdemeanour stemming from complaints of lewd conduct in a men’s room at the Minneapolis airport.
As I listened to what he allegedly did in the men’s room (the Senator apparently responded to an undercover cop’s foot-tapping under the toilet stalls which was apparently homosexual code for wanting to have sex) via news reports and an interview with the reporter who broke the story, I could not help but wonder: Had the senator and his wife been caught having sex in that bathroom, would they have been subjected to the same ridicule and shame? Would the papers be so adamant at crucifying the man?
I think not. Doesn’t have the same zing to it, does it?
Yes, I get it. I get that he’s been extremely anti-gay, ultra conservative, and to have duped his public into believeing he’s straight-laced and goody-goody when he’s been having hot gay sex in public toilets, well shame on him. But as I understand it, the man has been in public service since the 80s. And that he’s been re-elected three times, which means he’s done his job pretty well. Plus we’re not his wife and family. So apart from putting on a squeaky clean image, just what kind of earth-shattering professional betrayal has the man committed to deserve this kind of bloodthirsty upheaval?
Is it because it’s just so…disgusting? Eww, we’ve elected a dirty gay man. And is he wearing skeevy seconds? Double eww!
Seriously, this preoccupation with government officials and/or celebrities and their covert gay sex lives has got to stop. And you know what? You gay people are partly to blame. What is it with all the sex? Any time homosexual makes headlines, it’s someone famous or important being humiliatingly outted for doing something naughty with someone somewhere. If the gay community is ever to gain some dignity in the next 50 years, it’s to stop helping newspapers write stories about just how much sex you guys are having, where you’re having it, and with whom.
ps. Here’s some good toilet reading for a change: Reason and the Yuck Factor.
pss. Guess what? Today (Aug 30) KUOW’s The Conversation talked about what’s fair game when it comes to a politician’s private life. I’d wanted to call in but was too chicken to. Some very good points were raised, in that while most people believe that a politician’s private life should remain private, the moment he crosses the line and does something illegal, he crosses the line from private to public. This is hypocrisy and double standards aside. You can listen to KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio online.
Nat speaks
Nathaniel Tan, the blogger who was incarcerated for four days under the OSA, has written an entry regarding his ordeal.
Read it and weep. I did.
Excerpting:
Entirely by a stroke of luck, a lawyer at the magistrate’s court was able to assist me in contacting my lawyer, R Sivarasa. Had said lawyer not been present, I may have not been given the opportunity to be represented by counsel during my hearing, and my remand order may have been for fourteen days instead of for four.
Even after my lawyer arrived, the police made every possible effort to block me from consulting with my lawyers, denying me extremely basic human rights connected to judicial due process. This even included repeatedly trying to spy and eavesdrop on the conversations I was attempting to have with my lawyers.
Reading this, I can already hear many Malaysians going, “Aiya, he should already know that if he say things like this on his blog he will kena OSA. Why he still do? He deserved it!”
Firstly, he was OSAed for allegedly possessing official secrets of which there is no proof.
If a man can be charged such flimsy claims, and was going to be tried without counsel, what makes you think you’re safe?
Nathaniel fought not only for his rights as a citizen to voice his concerns, but OURS.
You know what’s sad? That these very actions by the government help to condition widespread fear and apathy in Malaysians. With these tactics, they are sending us a message:
Look the other way.
Say nothing.
And tell your friends and family to do the same.
Free Nat now!
Nat is Malaysia’s first blogger to be arrested under Malaysia’s OSA.
Get your updates at Liz’s.
This is censorship of the Internet, plain and simple, which is in direct contravention of what Tun Mahathir promised eight years ago in the MSC Bill of Guarantees.
More importantly, where are his basic rights?
Do what you know is right, Malaysians.
Free Nat now.
SAHM vs FTWM: Who the fish cares?
Hasn’t this issue already been talked to death? Apparently not, since MSNBC’s Today Show is still milking it for all it’s worth.
Are women their own harshest critics? Do dogs bark? Horses neigh? Pigs wade in their own shit?
I’ve put my two cents in and I’ve even been on the other, unforgiving side of parents back home who hire maids half their age to take care of their kids but you know what?
It’s not a war unless you let it get to you. After all, what’s a little harmless competition? I get my jollies from regaling you with stories about what I do at two in the afternoon with my kids. You get yours from all the cash you get to wave in my face. I say we’re even.
Seriously, women take things far too seriously. Granted, I get my panties in a bunch over issues like breastfeeding and pimping my blog so other people don’t like being called a bad mother just because they prefer to earn a salary, or an idiot for giving up their careers, but really, need we go to war about it? Get all riled up and go on national TV about it? Write books about it?
Here’s why we care so damn much about other women who are opting in or out; it’s because we’re jealous. And we’re petty. And we care way too much what total strangers think about us. And we set impossible standards for ourselves, and expect everyone else, including ourselves, to live up to them. And when we – and they – don’t, we shake our heads and go to town with our sanctimonious opinions.
I say, who the hell cares? There is only one person who knows why I do what I do, and that’s me. Okay, there’s Lokes too, but men don’t really care about such things. They want a fight, they play sports. We women, we get catty.
I suppose it’s good entertainment, or else there won’t be shows like Desperate Housewives and Oprah and, well, The Today Show, if women knew how to mind their own business, and instead, focus on getting corporations to offer work-from-home alternatives to BOTH moms and dads so we can be home for our children. With all the technology we have today, you’d think that would be a cinch, quality of life and all that.
So stop whining already, sisters. Write to your boss, call your congressman or MP, blog about better work options so we can all make some money AND be with our kids more.
Make shit happen.
RIP, Shearwey
The night we came back from Winthrop, I read about Shearwey.
About how her mother allegedly left her next to her car, went to pay for parking, and that her daughter had disappeared in a mere ten minutes.
My first response was deep sorrow mixed with anger. After so many, MANY reports of kids being kidnapped even in surroundings much more secure than the side of a road, how can a mother leave her four-year old child untended even for two minutes, much less ten?
Was the parking meter across a monsoon drain that she had to climb down through to get to that she could not take her child with her?
Was it in such a treacherous, ‘mar fan’ (Cantonese for troublesome) route that taking her precious child was riskier than leaving her behind on the side of a busy street?
And at the same time, I felt loathe to judge the mother, for we are all imperfect. We slip, so many, MANY times. We scald our children’s mouths from food we forget or are too impatient to let cool. We tell ourselves, what’s one more hour of TV or computer? We sometimes even leave them in the car because taking them in and out of the carseat for a five-minute errand seems like too much trouble. We yell at our maids for letting our children fall off the swing or let trip over furniture when deep inside, we are really blaming ourselves for not being there.
We are human, after all.
The problem is, we get away with it most of the time. And then something like this happens. We grab our kids and hug them, thankful that this tragedy did on befall us the times we were remiss. And we all start by blaming the mother because we recognise the failure in each of us: The failure to be perfect for our children.
This morning, I read this.
Needless to say, much of my empathy dissipated.
And yet, how can it be true? How can a mother kill her own child? To what end? Did her boyfriend not want to marry her because she had a child? Was little Shearwey in the way? Or was it an accident?
Whatever the case, it is too late. Whatever the reasons, little Ying Ying is now dead. She will never go to kindergarten or sing in a concert. Receive another ang pow or visit the beach again. Learn how to read or write.
Whether she’d left her daughter on the side of the road, or participated directly in her own child’s demise, Jess Teh will have the rest of her life to deal with her loss.
And that is punishment enough.
Siti Aisya needs your help
Saw on Marina’s blog a sad piece of news regarding three-year old Siti Aisya, who has Fraser Syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes hidden eyes or webbing of fingers etc.
Originally from this post.
An excerpt:
Little Aisya went for surgery to create eyelids for her last December, using tissue from her lips. Unfortunately, the operation has backfired, because her eyelids have fused back together. Doctors have decided (this is according to Aisya’s mum) that there will be no more surgery for Aisya for another 2 years, as surgery is difficult for her young (and small) body and immune system. So it would be another two years before they re-attempt to create eyelids for her, and later, try and fit her with artificial eyeballs. That is the time when the family will need financial help the most.
Cash or cheque donations can go to her father
SHAHIDAN BIN YANG GHAZALI.
Mail to:
45, Persiaran Putra 5,
Bandar Baru Putra,
31400 Ipoh, Perak
MALAYSIA
Stay in your tempurung, katak!
(translation of title: “Stay in your coconut shell, frog!” This is a popular Malay saying to refer to someone who is poorly exposed).
For someone who’s all about travel, I would really like to know from which skanky tempurung did Tengku Adnan, Malaysia’s Tourism Minister, crawl out from.
Marina Mahathir’s Rantings blog linked an outrageous outburst by the Tengku in Sin Chew (a Malaysian Chinese paper) as blogged by Elizabeth Wong, a prominent Malaysian activist, who did a quick translate on the piece:
Bloggers are liars. They use all sort of ways to cheat others. From what I know, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.
“Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don’t like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have civil war.
“Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else.â€
He asked people not to believe bloggers and gamble away Malaysia’s future because 50 years of Merdeka (Independence) takes a lot to achieve it.
“We have to show to the people our positive attitude. If the world learns from us, there will peace and no civil war.
Are these leaders we’ve put in our government?
Never mind the flippant disregard for International Women’s Day or the doubtful accuracy of his little ‘factoid’ there that “80 per cent of unemployed bloggers are women”, and the clever little slur there of racial mass murder, but where on God’s green earth is his media training?
Do they give media training under the tempurung? They certainly have managed to elicit some covert intel on umemployed bloggers that nobody else has, that’s for sure.
Pop over to Liz’s entry for more links and a full commentary.
Get C in BM, join the force!
I was reading a report in TheStar.com.my today of how the govt is encouraging more non-Malays to join the police force today and it says here that “Those intending to join the police force as constables need not have a credit in the SPM Bahasa Melayu paper under a move to encourage more non-Malays to join the force….but will be given three years to obtain the credit, failing which they have to resign.”
Wait a minute. I thought this was about encouraging more non-Malays to join the force. Is lowering the BM language requirement encouragement enough? Oh, I have a C in BM. Yay, I can join the police force!
The thing is, the article reports that reasons why, for instance, young Chinese won’t join is because of the low pay and promotional prospects. I quote “Farn said that apart from the low remuneration, the authorities should also find out the real reasons for the poor response from non-Malay youths.”
So is not getting a C in BM one of the real reasons non-Malays are not joining the police force?! Pfff…