Gripevine

 D-day is upon us. The day we have been waiting years for. At one point, we even began to wonder when exactly it would be! As Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak dallied and delayed calling for the dissolution of Parliament. In fact many of us thought it would have been in 2012. Ah......but Najib is full of surprises. He does not want to go down in history as another Pak Lah......whose unofficial slogan is "Tidur lar.." So he smacked his pinky lips and schemed. He had to make the rakyat go all gushy and warm. How? $$$$$.......!!!! So he unleashed upon the nation the 'Politics of Goodies' He became our all year round father Christmas. Now stop for a minute and imagine Najib as Kris Kringle. Cannot? Haram....? OK never mind. Basically Najib and his gang of strategist I imagine, left no sector of society out in their quest to dole out the goodies and secure the votes. Even the ones who didn't need it. Are Petronas staff poor? Will that one RM1,...

This post was supposed to be written and published by August 31, but work dictated otherwise, while most of you were probably enjoying the start of the long weekend yesterday, yours truly was slogging it out at the office, furiously uploading photo after photo of Merdeka Day celebrations, and scrolling the newswires for stories on how the nation celebrated our 55th Independence Day - That in short is the stuff we newspaper people get up to on all the siesta/public holidays. Being exhausted as I was, I did entertain the thought of saving this post for next year, but then the thought occurred to me, that things might be a lil' different then. The last elections brought a lot of changes, and I think many of us are expecting more changes to follow, once our esteemed Prime Minister decides to dissolve Parliament and call for elections. So......the best time to write this post would be now I dare say. The contents of this posting is a result of years and years of observing the ...

A conversation between two women in their mid 50s Madam X: So how have you been keeping? Not seen you in ages! Madam Y: I'm fine, sorry I could not find the time to catch up until now, been busy, what with work and all..... Madam X: Working?? Why so old ready still must work....? At our age, we should be resting. Let the children support us. Madam Y: Well the children do their part, but I enjoy keeping busy and active. Don't see myself quitting anytime soon! Madam X: Wow really? Do they still accept people our age at the workplace? I'm glad to say there are many men and women in their 50s and above in the Malaysian workplace today. However ageism is also rife, not just in the workplace, but in society at large. And the ones guilty of this are younger Malaysians - the ones who should be more modern in their views, but who sadly are not! At one of my previous workplaces, some colleagues were hiring for their department, and going through resumes, it was ...

Early this month, tongues were wagging as to a certain piece of news. But this time it was not the bedroom scandals of politicians or the ownership of the word "God" that got people talking. Actually the news in question was rather positive, and should have warmed our hearts, but it didn't! As good as this finding looks in terms of public relations, the reality is far different for most of us, and this is why we will not be popping champagne anytime soon. Snatch thefts, snatch thefts, snatch thefts!! Many people have lost their lives to this rampant crime.  Public transportation is not safe. Remember those taxi rapes? And those are just the reported cases. Malaysian cab drivers have also been known to rob their passengers! Things are definitely not looking good for us in this sector. Rape by those in authority - Students have been molested and raped by teachers, National Service instructors and college lecturers. The acid splasher - has the dude ...

Erykah Badu will not be the last international artist to be the object of controversy or have a concert cancelled at the eleventh hour. As long as hypocrisy prevails among certain sections of society and the government, this is bound to happen again. We are always neck to neck in competition with Singapore over many things, but one thing we can never wrest from them - is being the centre for performing arts and culture in Southeast Asia. The kind of restrictions imposed on artiste coming to perform here is ridiculous at best - don't take off your shirt, don't lie on the stage, no short dresses, nothing skimpy........with all these conditions, one would think ours is a squeaky clean society. Gwen played the good girl and decided to comply. But that is not the case. If it were, then fair enough, we wouldn't want the "rakyat" traumatised by the sight of a bare chest glistening with sweat or a woman's naked thighs on public display which would be oh so...

The other day my mum who was reading news alerts on her mobile asked me, "Hei have you heard about this festival - ' Seksualiti Merdeka '......?" And I was like: "Seksualiti what....??" Then I promptly googled it and oh then I knew! My first reaction? I was mighty impressed that we actually have such a festival here and wondered how come I never knew about it before this. I'm sure a lot of you out there are hearing about Seksualiti Merdeka for the first time too. But imagine this guys, if the powers that be didn't go all frothy at the mouth and decide to ban it, would the majority of us even know about this annual sexuality rights festival that has been around since 2008? Now not only city folks know all about Seksualiti Merdeka, even those in Baling......where is that again? Are up in arms about this event which they fear will encourage more gayness in society......well people will always delude themselves silly if they want to. So what...

Do you know that many individuals in the Twitter universe have brought about great change by the power of a single tweet? Considering that a tweet cannot exceed 140 characters, that's pretty awesome stuff! To highlight the stories of these folks and to inspire others to do the same, Twitter on Tuesday (November 1) launched Twitter Stories - A site for Twitter users to share their experiences of how their one tweet brought about meaningful change. Each month Twitter will share a new collection of stories. Here's a snapshot of a few stories from the first series: stories.twitter.com A Life Saved One man tweeted - "Sh*t I need a kidney". In just a few days, 19 people responded and a match was eventually found. The Power of Marketing  How Japanese fishermen use Twitter to sell their catch even before returning to shore. Public Transportation Woes Frustrated about the lack of information on trains, Ravi Pina created a system for commuters to get a...

This southern lass shall no longer complain the next time she has to take the bus back to Johor. I never thought the day would come, but it has! Thanks to the new Terminal Bersepadu Selatan-Bandar Tasik Selatan (TBS-BTS). As far back as I can remember, Malaysian bus stations are smog choked rodent infested buildings with lots of seedy characters hanging around. As such the opening of TBS-BTS early this year, heralds a new era in the country's express bus transportation industry. In fact this RM570 million state-of-the-art complex is one of the best things to happen in this country, post-Mahathir era. Barring of course Islam Hadhari and that highly Utopian concept -1Malaysia.   For someone who has griped a fair bit about the state of public transportation in Malaysia, I have nothing but praise for the terminal operator - Maju TMAS (Terminal Management and Services). What's great about this new terminal: It operates like an airport There is a centralised ticketing syst...