I've been very busy lately... yeah the usual excuse for apathy.
I have however bought a PDA and below are things I wrote on the tiny machine. Now that I've gotten used to the thing, I guess I'll be writing more often. :)

In Penang again after ten years.
here for wife's cousin's wedding. last time here because friend interested in classmate 11 years ago. We stayed in same hotel - travel lodge. maybe even same room.
medan selera gone & replaced by reclaimed land & highway. important place: its where i had the worst satay in my life. Like tiny bits of meat dipped in sugar & grilled. the sauce was thin watery peanut flavored gruel. it was my point of reference for good satay: you can't know good until you've had bad satay. the walls are still there. the place is dead on weekends.
Interesting: a distinct lack of tomyam places as compared to kl and even kb. taste difference, i guess.



batu kurau from the ICC perspective.
they live in a biological commune surrounded by a bio-experiential community (gemeinschaft)
they have hierarchical leadership & they elect local boy.
foodwise, they are almost have self-sufficiency hence simpler need.
they have much pride in relations & their success in maintaining the relation.
they are intensely patriotic - serve in army with pride.
their decoration is indicative of experience not 'style' - big pots bought while serving in sabah & military banners & photos.
they have very defined sense of normalcy - much-studded boys & girls tend to jar their sensibilities but given time to meet the person they can easily see beyond it.

Pasar malam watch.
I'm intrigued by watches because these complicated little devices are really not like most other machines. Other machines, particularly measuring devices, work by interacting with the world because they measure objects, physical things. Watches measure a subjective concept; it really is quite possible to divide the day into 36 or 48 or 72 equal divisions instead of 24, we just made that decision somewhere in history. These horological wonders really work by simply working consistently.
There are some very expensive watches, then there are regular watches for mere mortals like me and, of course, there are the copies. Some of these copies, sold at night markets and such places, can range from virtually identical replicas to grossly substandard vaguely similar to original products.
It really is quite understandable why people buy these replicas however there is a point when the buying of cheap copies becomes absurd. Atthe night market earlier this evening, I found a rm 25 copy of my rm50 wristwatch. An rm 100 copy of a rm 20 000 Swisswatch is quite understandable but an rm 25 copy of an rm50 casio I bought from a watchshop on jalan besar kajang was mindblowing. more importantly, closer inspection on the revealed that it of much lesser quality than the original. one would not expect that a rm 50 watch to be that high in quality but to find its copy that is much lesser was very suprising indeed. however, to be fair this casio digital is really worth the money i paid for it. i usually wear it at night because it the only watch i have that can be read even after it has een in the dark for a while.
I was sorely tempted to buy it but decided against it because it seemed rather a sad thing to buy this particular replica. the rm 45 copy of an rm10000 swiass watch next to it however was rather tempting.

Equality between the sexes.
Asked Siti, magistrate, women & men over 50 are exempted from caning. I think this is illogical. If we accept that caning is a good way to go, then our implementation must be equitable and fair. If for nothing else, it is because the perpertrators themselves do not make any allowances for feminine 'frailty' when commiting the crime. on the contrary many rely on it.
Female offenders must not be spared the cane. They are capable of the same crimes as men, or worse. look at the abuse cases.The perpetrator's frailty is no excuse especially when it did not prevent them from committing the crime on the victim with no regard for the frailty of the victim.
Old men are not spared simply because they are old, if old men are not frail, how can we still justify exempting women from the cane. Women can do the crime, so can old men.Women are allegedly the weaker sex.
Weak' implies lesser crimes, the abuse cases are not lesser. Are we not demeaning the suffering of the victims when we allow lesser punishment? If a man burns a victims nipples off with an iron or tear a girl's lips with pliers, we gleefully cane him because we sympathizee with the victim but when a woman does it we say that the perpetrator does not deserve the canes. I find this sickening.
Exempting women doesn't make sense biologically because women have higher painthresholdd. The perpetrator took no account of that when they tortured and maimed, we are wrong to ignore that fact over a notion that women are the weaker sex. they may be weaker on average but being caned does not require strength it requires pain tolerance, that's two different things.Asking for equal punishment is not victimizing women, it is a recognition that women are indeed equal, although different in many ways. Some may jump or 'melenting' at the suggestion but i believe that this is because they are not thinking consistently and logically because if we accept the premise that women and men are equal then we would be compelled to allow corporeal punishment to women.
If we accept that they are equal but different, we would be compelled to replace caning with an equally intense punishment not exclusion from the additional punishment altogether.
If we accept that this punishment is to offer some solace to the victims of crimes, then why are we denying this solace to the victims of crimes perpetrated by women?
If we accept that caning is a deterrent, then excluding women from caning means that we are not deterring women who may commit crimes. If this true then society is partly to blame women commit crimes.
Finally, the question remains, do we accept that caning is a permissible form of punishment. that however is a different matter. For now, it is a fact that we have it, we can argue whether it should stay but while it is here, we must be responsible in using it. We must cane the women,it is the right thing to do.
if ...WHACK!! WHACK!! WHACK!!




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