Gripevine

A writer is not a minstrel or a street artist whom you can throw a few coins at for their skills or service. Don't get me wrong though, I'm in no way denigrating street performers here, many of them have great talent. But that is how it works, they strum some lovely tune, and the onlooker fishes out some spare change to show their appreciation. Ah but it does not work that way in the world of publishing! Though some people/organisations seem to think so. After 12 years in the industry, it amazes me how stingy people can be when it comes to paying writers and allocating an editorial budget. Many companies seem to be rather tight fisted when it comes to editorial expenses. They think they can run an editorial department on a shoestring budget and still produce a top notch publication. Don't believe me? Open any magazine, whether it's those sold at newsstands or circulated to a limited audience - the editorial staff working on the issue (not including the sales and ...

If you aspire to be a flight attendant with MAS or SIA, you must be young, svelte and pretty - or at the very least pleasing to the eye, coz it er.... soothes the nerves of travellers? Well I never quite understood the emphasis on looks in terms of being an air hostess. OK fine, perhaps it's because you have to walk up and down a narrow aisle in a tight kebaya, so you gotta be young, lithe and fit. But is one ever too old to be a writer and write good copy? Especially if a person is still in their 30s? The last time I checked, being in your 30s means being in your prime. So naturally I was surprised bordering aghast when I came across this job advertisement from JobStreet in my inbox sometime ago. In a nutshell Avon Cosmetics is looking for a copywriter between 23 to 35 years old. This is the first time I am seeing a job advertisement with an age limit. I'm 34 years old, should I apply? Even if the job was the right fit for my talents, I would give it a miss. Why?...

Have you ever been disgruntled over an unfair regulation or practise in your community or country? Felt that there was nothing much you could do about it? Don't have the time or the resources to pursue your grievances? Well there's now an easier way of being heard, garnering support for your cause and initiating the change that you want. Welcome to the era of internet petitions! It's been around for sometime now, and many folks in America and Europe have made good use of it. I'm not sure how well known this form of petitioning is in this part of the world. We could sure use more of this sort of advocacy to get our complacent third world bureaucrats off their cushy seats! How it Works A petition is posted on a website. Visitors to the website who read your petition and want to support it can add their email addresses and names. After enough signatures have been collected, the petition is then delivered to the subject of the petition via e-mail. There are several...

Barack Obama ain't the only one capable of ushering in the winds of change. Anyone can do it! Twenty two year old Molly Katchpole did just that when she made Bank of America remove a US$5 monthly debit card fee it was planning to charge its' customers. How did she do it? When Katchpole who works two part-time jobs in Washington D.C. heard about the yearly US$60 increase, she turned to Change.org - an online platform that enables people to initiate campaigns for social change. What she did: Wrote an open letter to Bank of America to withdraw the fee. The letter went viral. Closed her account with Bank of America. Cut up her debit card on camera. Moved her money to a community bank. After one month and 306,000 signatures later, Katchpole succeeded. Bank of America removed the charge on  November 1. Other top national banks have also scrapped plans for a similar fee. Katchpole's success is a sign of the times. Can you imagine any other era in whi...

This monkey apparently went to the rescue of a puppy during a pipeline explosion in Nanjing, China. The image was posted on Twitter. However reports have surfaced that the photo above has been circulating on the net since 2006. True or not true, animals have been known to watch out for each other and even nurture a cub from another species. Recently a neighbour of ours moved out. The sad thing is that he left his two dogs behind. A pair of cross-breed German Shepherd dogs. For a couple of days they wandered about the neighbourhood, a woman who lives a few doors away and my mum would feed them. Three days after they were left to fend for themselves, people from the Veterinary Services Department came to take them away. We don't live in a dog friendly neighbourhood. The thing is, though the official story is that dogs who are taken away are put to sleep - via injection. The unofficial story is far different. Most of these dogs who are abandoned and the many strays usual...

The face of journalism as we know it is changing. News organisations and governments no longer get to decide what we know and what we don't. Who or what brought about this emancipation? Technology in the form of smart gadgets and social media with its unprecedented reach. In fact we now live in an era where the power of independent journalism is giving established news organisations a run for their money. For one who was a reporter with such a media group, I say this is good news! I don't know how it is done in other countries. But here in Malaysia, if we are dealing with - The private scandal of a politician from the ruling party, something that makes an opposition politician look good, racially tinged issues and epidemics to quote a few, there is usually a certain amount of filtering that is done before the news reaches the public. It has been a few years since I left journalism, so I don't know to what extent things have changed. It must have, at least a little...

It was a big day for Bollywood yesterday, or for Bollywood fans at least when the reigning queen of Indian cinema Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was finally delivered of a baby girl. A big day and a big deal because speculation has been rife on when Ash would become a mum since she married Abhishek way back in 2007. Ash was admitted to the Seven Hills Hospital in Mumbai on Monday night. She went into labour at 4am on Wednesday and delivered about  six hours after. Ever since Ash got pregnant, all sorts of stories appeared in the Indian press with regards to the gender of her yet to be born child. Some said it would be twin girls, others said it would be a boy and had to be a boy because father in-law Amitabh Bachchan required a male heir to continue his family dynasty. There was even one strange story about her visiting a fertility clinic in Bangkok to sort of um.....ensure that the baby would be male. Well so much for all those stories! The baby is finally here and it is a gi...