TR EMERITUS

Written by Darkness of the Brotherhood, Guest Columnist :Why do some scholars take a bad turn? To paraphrase in direct terms: how did it **** up? Does it have something to do with the venality of online games – I mean, it makes sense right! When you consider to get to the seventh level of war craft one has to vaporize at least ten thousands aliens and a few penguins – I am sure that’s bound to have a scouring effect on ones character. Nope, I don’t buy into that straight line logic; anymore than I believe all women drivers are bad motorist because of late auto manufacturers seem to be provisioning cup holders. Fact of the matter is; the reason why some scholars screw up isn’t so different from how many of us and even big juggernaut firms manage to egg it up – you’ve be surprise how remarkably democratic and class blind the laws of cocking up really is. And it matter little whether you’re running a juggernaut fortune 500 firm or just trying to trying to chalk up the years to finish your miserable scholarship bond or even if you’re an average Joe like me, who is basically just trying his level best to get the best deal in life – the rules of success and failure apply just the same irrespective of class, color or creed. So that’s the first myth out of the window; the low down is we all compete under one and the same sun. Having said that do you notice the folk who usually take it the hardest are those who are really smart? If you don’t believe me just cast your mind back to your averagely miserable campus days; who were the ones who usually landed all the hot chicks? Was it Mr Ace-all-the-grades or the bad boy? And just in case you think that’s another one of my crack brained theories; erase it from your mind; there’s even anecdotal evidence supporting the contention smarties have it rough and tough. Yes, according to Dr. Alex Benzer, a Cambridge and Harvard-educated hypnotherapist who had a piece in the Huffington Post last week called "Why The Smartest People Have The Toughest Time Dating." There you go proof. But why is that so? Well if you really want to understand why the dice is loaded against smarties; it just boils down to one theory; they aren’t that smart to begin with – that’s to say when we use the word “smart.” Its conceivable, we may be just applying a very narrow band of intelligence that bears little or no relations with the whole idea of using ones brain to carve out competitive advantage in life. And what we should all consider is whether the whole idea of smart hasn’t been somehow scripted, packaged and sold to everyone of us since the day we are born – we are all told for instance – good grades = the good life. As a consequence most of us aspire to be scholars. But what are we really producing? Well if you consider that the word smart is synonymous with specialization – and specialization is just another word for focusing on one area of your life till it squeezes out everything in between and the middle to roughly the diameter of a pin head – then I don’t think that’s a very smart way to go through life; I am not saying everyone that gets good grades and manages to land a scholarship is narrow minded; but I don’t believe that’s necessarily the best way to build a better human being – besides there is more to life; then getting a string of A’s or making they the mythical tape line whenever one decides to take to sports. My feel is there has to be a cost associated with being so focused in one area of interest that it excludes everything else. And this bears out only too clearly when you speak to really smart people; they can tell you everything you want to know about lets say what happens if you throw a golf ball into a black hole; but the downside is when lets say they cornered in alley by a bunch of gay militant bikers bent on spot of free ass – they have absolutely no street wisdom how to talk or fight their way out of it – in short, they’re pretty lousy survivors. Bear in mind; this is just my theory; based on my personal observations – smart people in my opinion have to be myopic people; they tend to get fixated on one point; they suffer from severe tunnel vision and it matters little whether its an object of interest in their research field or getting by in life; and if you really look through the life and times of smart people; they all have one thing in common; most of them don’t even make it past 40; they just seem to burn out and drop dead for some strange reason – again it matters little whether they are really smart composers; artist, scientist or even businessmen – it all reads like the curse of the Pharoah’s. One reason why some of them seem to go down the dodo hall of fame is because being smart may not be the best way to get ahead in life; I mean if you look carefully at the animal kingdom – the most resilient species aren’t specialist like Koala bears who can only climb upside down and munch only on Eucalyptus leafs or Russian Sturgeons who only seem to be so manja (spoilt) they can only spawn when the temp hovers between the narrow band of 21.5 – 22 °C in the Caspian Sea. Survivors are generalist par excellence; like rats and roaches; they can survive any where; in the case of roaches; the more you spray them; they just develop more immunity and come back twice as strong - all you're really doing when you try to kill them is create the ultimate pest – my point is they are very versatile creatures – they don’t cling to fixed assumptions like the smart losers. And one reason why the generalist wins is because he cannot afford to live in his make belief world of no regrets; generalist as the term implies have to always to pop up their heads like a periscope and take a sweep of the bigger picture. They learn to get by with plenty of duct tape, rubber band and super glue – since things never go their way most of the time; they just need to adapt, improvise and overcome and that could just as well be not having the right paper qualifications or like me graduating from a tin pot university that no one has ever heard of before – and in some cases they even get marginalized, discriminated and looked down on – but that doesn’t kill them off; it just makes them stronger; but elites can’t do that. For one they’ve all bought into a shitty master plan where they're told they’re infallible and the best in the world – and soon even the best of them get caught up in the gyre of mythologizing their existence, ratio and being – and when you buy into that shitty plan where failure is no longer an option - that's simply trouble. Because in real life shit happens whether you like it or not, airplanes drop from skies; your ipod doesnt synch and even your girlfriend may decide to open her legs for another man or show her bush to the whole world in the internet - that's life man ; so you better get used to it. The problem with elites is they cant roll with the punches and get up and fight again; that's what happens when one becomes terminally fixated - things just have to work out their way, one way and our way; if it doesn't they just pull the pin on the grenade and say bye bye. In short elites dont take failure very well – they rather do themselves in then to admit that they have failed – it matters little whether what they once egged up happens to be running a business, relationships, career or the whole idea of being a man  – THEY RATHER DIE THAN ADMIT FAILURE. In short, they no longer possess the ability to see the world in the right scale and perspective – that probably means their judgment has become so warped, its worthless. You could just as well take this kernel of an idea and just superimpose on lets say the question of why big firms go bust; you could even use it to explain stuff – like why do firms fail? Sure you can say it's poor execution – bad planning, poor design, sloppy handling or just plain lousy market intelligence – but at the end of the day, if you really boil it down to one sentence it just comes down to – having a lousy perspective. Somewhere amid the medley of making money they got carried away with not 100 or even 10 or 5 ideas that got them into a hole – but usually, they got so fixated on only one idea – could well be putting all their chips on one market niche like banking; or maybe deciding to spend hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars to build a vehicle that can just run on fuel cells like the Segway. In game theory; we call this the all or nothing game and it’s not so different from walking into a casino and putting all your chips on one number. The long and short of it; that's no way to win unless you consider dying in the speed a light some way to get ahead in life. It always pays to remember life is valuable only because it can be lived in so many ways; it’s so versatile –   – makes far more sense to buy into an idea of a multi-tool Swiss knife that has everything from box cutters to a cork opener; may even be slightly clumsy as we all know Swiss knifes don’t seem to do any of the things they are supposed to do very well; may not even get you the first prize when it comes to a book shelve race - but that could just be what separates a real winner from the losers – the all rounder, that is. Only losers kill themselves. Darkness 2008  Read More →

Translated by Tan Lee Chong, Chinese Correspondent (Original article by Fang Zhi Yuan and Lim Siow Kuan here) 2008年８月ｌ５日的TODAY报纸发表了一篇访问文章，李资政使用他的古典恐慌战术谏阻新加坡人去支持反对党： “他们说，啊，让我们拥有多党政治。让我们更换另外一个党，由它去负责组织政府。事情是否那么简单的呢？您投票选了一个三等级政府，而不是一等级政府，在三，四年之内整体经济将会衰退。我们便完蛋了”。 多数受过教育的年轻新加坡人反驳了他的见解是怪论，但是许多保守的中年选民害怕政治大变动会跟随着政府的更换，这可能对他们的生计带来损伤的冲击，于是他们被李资政的言词说服而继续支持人民行动党 (People's Action Party），虽然他们对该党没有一点同情。 美国和许多欧洲国家例如英国、法国和德国，每隔几年便更换他们的政府一次，而面对极少的障碍。他们的经济依然强壮和他们的社会大多数是和平与稳定的。 根据李资政，我们当然不可能与欧洲来对比自己，因它的民主有悠久的历史。我们位于一个动荡的地区，受到种族的、政治党派的、和敌对的政治的冲击和毁乱。新加坡不可能经得起改变现状，因为强大的反对派将分散人民行动党治理国家的注意力，并且政府更换后由无经验的舵手负责治国，将会吓走投资者和破坏国家经济。 李资政“智慧的”的言词有没有任何真理呢？ 即使李资政是一位深受尊重的国际政治家，我们不可能简单地相信他说的每一个词，而无需把这些言词详细地察视和分析。 因为新加坡立国44年以来，从未有过相当大的反对派或试过更换政府，我们必须借用我们最接近的北部邻居作为我们研究的模型。 新加坡和马来西亚继承了同一个英国式西敏寺（Westminister）议会系统。这两国分享了共同的遗产、文化和历史。实际上，两国在1963和1965年之间短暂地团结在马来西亚联盟之下。 象新加坡一样，马来西亚曾经由唯一政治个体Barisan Nasional所控制: 它赢取了自从1957年马国独立（Merdeka）以来所有的大选。这执政的联盟未曾有少于三分之二的多数国家议会席位，直到上次2008年竞选为止。在那年，马来西亚才有两个对立党派系统的诞生。 四个州包括工业化的Penang和Selangor二州沦为反对派Pakatan Rakyat所管治，这反对派是个多元化的派系由三个反对党组成，他们各有不同的政治思想体系而且没有管治经验，除了PAS是个例外，因它巳管治了Kelantan这个农村州超过二十年。 我们会预料一个包括非宗教党(DAP)和回教党(PAS)的联盟是潜在地不稳定的并且是分裂的。在这初生联盟之内，的确地，仍然存有长期酝酿的紧张，并且这紧张时不时威胁地引致党与党之间分开。 在这样紧张情况之下，如李资政一样的卑观者(pessimists)很容易地断定了这些反对州的死刑，如果我们严密地依从李资政的判断，这些反对州的经济，担上加斤地缺乏Barisan控制的联邦政府的财政支持，必将消退和“完蛋”。 在2008年3月的政治海啸之后一年，马来西亚反对派控制的几个州不仅没有倒塌(其中一个州 Perak由于反对党议员的背叛而沦为Barisan Nasional所控制)，他们反而被给于了一份新的生命力。 在Penang州，首要大臣林冠英（Lim Guan Eng）大致上保持了他的承诺，他根据能力、责任和透明度去管治这个海岛州。 外国直接投资在他的管治之下增加了，在2008成功吸引了投资总值一百零二亿马元(RM10.2 billion)，超过前一年的四十亿马元(RM4 billion) 。 林冠英也列出了以后几年他的治州计划，这包括免费WiFi服务、以合理的价格供应WiMax来提高民众通入互联网、铲除恶劣贫穷的计划、和一百马元(RM100)水费回扣授予十七万个家庭，来协助贫寒。 在Selangor州，五光十色的首长Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim，是Guthrie控股公司的前主管(CEO)和一个白手起家的百万富翁，他组织了一个高效率的管理班子，主要解除了贪污，使他大得人民欢心。 Selangor州去年吸引了一百一十亿马元(RM11 billion) 的外国直接投资，比2007年的大约五十亿马元(RM5 billion)要高出一倍。 根据Malaysiakini网站， Selangor州的10位行政议员，包括Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim在内，将在这个星期公布他们的财产。在新加坡，我们的领导人过分的自我称赞，但他们尚未向公众显露他们的薪金和财产。甚至公务员的薪金和奖金也是“机要保密的”。. 上任了一年，以上两个州领导人都承认他们的工作并不容易。面临联邦政府的敌对态度和公务员机关不习惯服务新的政治主管人，推行新的政策和加大政府事务的透明度都是艰巨的任务。 Penang和Selangor二州是美好的例子，向我们证明政府的更换并不会把外资吓跑。新的政治管理班子刻意去赢取人民的信任和信心，也将更加努力工作为外国投资者服务。 新加坡人不需要担心一个放荡的反对派政府会浪费我们的储备，因为我们储备的一个重要部分现在经己丢失了，正正因为我们国家议会中没有强大的反对党去检核执政党。 我们不可能给他们另外一个“受命权”（mandate）为他们的差错来掩飾和继续让他们当我们是无关痛痒的。现在是时候找个新的舵手去抢救我们这艘快速下沉的船。  Read More →

Outspoken DAP stalwart Karpal Singh is expected to be charged under the Sedition Act tomorrow in relation to his threat to sue the Perak ruler over the political crisis in the state. Contacted this evening, the veteran politician, who has since received a death threat, two live bullets, and mobbed by Umno Youth members since the crisis erupted, confirmed the matter. "I have been informed that I will be charged under the Sedition Act tomorrow. I was told that it is related to the Perak issue but there are no further details," said the renowned lawyer. Following Barisan Nasional's political coup in Perak in February, Karpal drew flak when he threatened to drag Sultan Azlan Shah to court for consenting to the installation of the new state government. He was then accused of disparaging the royal institution, leading several groups to stage protests against the DAP national chairperson. Soon after this, he received the handwritten death threat and bullets in the mail. However, Karpal remained defiant and even compared his stand on the issue with the aptly titled Bollywood blockbuster, 'Singh is King'. He also drew another volley of protest when he accused the 'celaka' (damn) Umno Youth of being responsible for the bullets and death threat, which the police have since ruled out. A group of angry Umno Youth supporters then mobbed the wheelchair-bound politician in the Parliament lobby, demanding for an apology. Earlier today, Karpal's son and Puchong MP Gobind Singh was suspended from Parliament for a year for linking incoming premier Najib Abdul Razak to the murder of Mongolian national Altantunya Shaariibuu during a heated parliamentary debate. Read rest of article on Malaysiakini EDITORS' NOTE: It appears that Datuk Najib Razak is exerting his clout quietly behind the scenes to prepare for the imminent takeover from Datuk Seri Abdullan Badawi. Will Malaysia return to Mahathirism? Who will be the real power behind the throne?  Read More →