My Anthem

Friday, March 21, 2014

Seeing the Speck in Thy Neighbour's Eye


This writer YL CHONG, Desiderata, has bumped into an NST columnist named Azmi Anshar, a few times only in the past five years, mainly at Bloggers' events to which I was invited (I guess because I organised four annual outings called BUM 2009 to 2011…) I observed him as a speaker once, did not engage him much at tea breaks, but religiously follow his weekly columns in the New Straits Times on Friday because I enjoy his verbosity and pomposity and sometimes, rightful use of BIG words. No many journalists can achieve that -- rightful use of BIG words, I add.  We all can be verbose and pompose as even empty vessels can memorise such atrocities if they possess a dick (short for dictionary if you appreciate short words as many bloggers do!)

 

Today's rare article is my para-by-para rebuttal to Azmi Anshar's regular lambasts of Datuk Seri ANWAR IBRAHIM BECAUSE IT IS ONE OF THOSE RARE OCCASSIONS Desi is impelled to add a two-sen worth of defence of my party leader (Yes, I am a PKR card-carrying member and don't apologise ofr it.) So please bear with me with Azmi's writing in normal BLACK and Desi's in RED. Maybe he can raed into it that Desi has Commie blood in him -- I would only admit to being a diehard SOCIALIST, but if UMNO-rights would label socialists like what they did to Dr Syed Husin Ali as "communist", who is Desi to disagree?

 

 Seeing The Speck in thy Neighbour's Eye

 

 From the heading, Azmi shows he is a maestro mind reader in concluding that "Anwar is peeved" by MH370's vanishing into thin air coinciding close-- just one day after -- to his latest conviction by the Appeal Court on his sodomy charge. What has stolen the thunder, to my insider information, was the appeal court hearing was originally scheduled for April 2014 but the case was moved indecently and hastily forward in order to shut the door on Anwar from filing his nomination for the Kajang by-election the following Tuesday!

 

Has the UMNO controlled newspapers been not running down Anwar at every opportunity? Watch the TV3 news bulletins and read the Utusan Malaysian daily -- they indeed have been weasling on every Anwar's "weak" points and paint hims as the man behind every Government's fault and misstep, and the man selfish enough to engineer the downhill spiral that Malaysia is sliding into the past decade.

 

 Is Anwar's action disgenuous? No, it is in fact his political nemesis that is UMNO, whose machinations aided by propagandists such as Azmi Anshar, that had shown how "cold-blooded" it was in trying the country's FORMER DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER a second time on sodomy charges. Cold-blooded that the UMNO leaders always proclaimed Malaysia is an Islamic country, but in its merciless pursuit of the former DPM and drag his name and tha of his entire family down the drain a second time on what many Malaysians know were politically-motivated trumped up charges -- not an iota of Muslim humanity on a fellow Muslim? His only sin is Anwar is aspiring to become the next Prime Minister!

 

 

So this bomoh act was engineered by Anwar and his creative henchmen -- including maybe Desi, if only an UMNO towkay was willing to pay me 20million!?

If UMNO could not leverage on a UK-based tabloid famed for sensationalsing the news -- like Utusan -- how could Anwar with his sodomy conviction just making him a potential guest for five years in the BN jail? This rebuts as well  the next two paras by Azmi Okay!

The incompetence from Kajang by-election winner-to-be Wan Azizah is kinde compared with what the foreign media like Wall Street Journal and CNN have been descibing Malaysia's handing of MH370 issue -- INCOM PETENCVE at the very highest level. Example -- the MH 370 had turned around within an hour after ytaking off from Kuala Lumpur airport but it was only on DAYT 4 the Vietnamese authorities (pissed off by then! were thus informed. They spent three precious days souring the South China Asea in vain and trulu a classic waste of time and effort, bvecase the military officers who saw the "blips" on tgheir radar were of the opiniuon the flight later confirmed to be MH370 was "not hostile"… so how did Acting TRansport Minister know it was not hostile if the military did not scramble their jets as SOP to ask te unidentified plane to "identify itself"? Tis para also covers the next four paras in my most esteemed fellow journalist Azmi's article.

 

Amanpour of CNN did not raise the "right" perspective? By the Daily Mail? Anwar and Amanpour have basic knowledge as to the status of that UK tabloid, like what we thinking Malaysians know of Utusan and TV3, so how was Annar's histrionics, and by association, Amanpour's too, a pertinent point in the "theatre" as Azmi described it? Azmi's next para --Amanpour "could have"… -- Hey, Azmi, don't teach a seasoned anchor newsperson like Amnpour how to do her work can?

DESI: May Desi conclude by advising UMNO hacks to not abuse their news medium to treat thgeir readers as if their readers are still in kindergarten. It is precislely our UMNO national leaders that have been so used to treating the Malaysian public thus that now exposed to the glare of international publicity, most of them have their backsides based on incomptency exposed. Pray for MH370, and hopefully no more recurrence of such tragfic fates, but Desi is not optimistic with a bunch of clowns amon our socalled national leadership.

 

POSTSCRIPT:

 

Folowing is that Azmi's piece for reference.

 

 

 

 

(1) Anwar peeved that MH370 has stolen his thunder

By Azmi Anshar


0 0Google + 0 00 comments


 DISINGENUOUS: He is shamelessly exploiting crisis to look victimised

DATUK Seri Anwar Ibrahim is eagerly weaselling his way into the MH370 quan- dary by creating and inviting multiple pretentious scenarios that every causal effect from the aircraft's disappearance must be of his fault, its perception engineered of course by Umno.

Azmi shows he is a maestro mind reader inconcluding that "Anwar is peeved" by MH370 coinciding close to his latest conviction by the Appeal Court on his sodomy on Saiful just the day beforte the tragic disappearance of the MAS flight with purported 239 passengers aboard.

This is disingenuous, the PKR de facto and opposition leader's projection of himself to be the cold-blooded MH370 transgressor by government machinations.

Is Anwar's action disgenuous? No, it is just the other party --UMNO/BN whose machinations whad shown how "cold-blooded" it was in trying the country's FORMER DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER a second time on sodomy charges. Cold-blooded that the UMNO leaders always proclaimed Malaysia is an Islamic country, but in its merciless pursuit of the former DPM and drag his name and tha of his entire family down the drain a second time on what many Malaysians know were politically-motivated trumped up charges -- not an iota of Muslim humanity on a fellow Muslim? His only sin is Anwar is aspiring to become the next Prime Minister!

 

There is a Malay expression for Anwar's hissy fit: perasan or its rough English equivalent, vainglorious but that's understating his myriad schizophrenic-like behaviour in the past, of creating situations best associated to a personality disorder or a character flaw.

 

Vainglorious? Myriad schizophrenic? Personality disorder?

I wouldn't venture in commnting on Azmi's bold adventurism into doctor's' terrain

(I was once described by one RPK's diehard supporter as having gone haywire and I needed to see him or a psychiatrist --Zorro masked or unmasked, you reading me? -- with such people hitting below the belt, I deem it below my dignity to engage them.)

A revolting consequence in a protracted crisis such as Flight MH370's astonishing disappearance is how charlatans, opportunists and narcissists weasel their way into public consciousness, either for shameless self-promotion or to stage-manage -- Machiavellian style -- the myopic and the gullible.

Who is charlatan, opportunist, or narcissist, Machiavellian, myopic and gullible? What about the Government leaders and their top government and GLC who had been guilty of dereliction of duty that led to a systemic breakdown and yet their blinkered supporters still sing their sonbgs of cheer-leading. Digressing a little: DCA chief said five passengers checked in for MH370 on March 8 but did not boardborad and they luggage was offloaded. The IGP completely refuted that this case of "five" passengers who had checked in but failed to board was totally false. It didn't happen -- so which has cocked up? BUT AZMI and his cohorts did not ingenuously follow up on this huge CONTRADICTION?)

The conscientious have rightly rebuked this shady presence but that hasn't stopped pretenders from parachuting into the fray, hoping that their timing synchronises with the recovery of MH370, a repulsive short-cut making light the hard work of tirelessly committed people who have been at it since March 8.

One such toadying into the MH370 crisis is the charlatans masquerading as shamans on a "magic carpet", two coconuts and wooden binoculars boldly claiming that they can narrow in on the whereabouts of the plane.

 

So this bomoh act was engineered by Anwar and his creative henchmen -- including maybe Desi, if only an UMNO towkay was willing to pay me 20million!?

Then The Mail on Sunday published the sensational revelation that MH370 pilot Capt Zaharie Mat Shah was a fanatical Anwarista, insinuating that he sabotaged his own aircraft because he was thoroughly upset at Anwar's sodomy conviction by the Court of Appeal.

If UMNO could not leverage on a UK-based tabloid famed for sensationalsing the news -- like Utusan -- how could Anwar with his sodomy conviction just making him a potential guest for five years in the BN jail? This rebuts as well  the next three paras by Azmi Okay!

Anwar responded by rubbishing the report, charging that Umno was behind the perception of pilot liability. If this was true, then Umno has mojo so powerful that they could design The Mail to do their bidding!

Let us be clear: nobody coerced The Mail to make that unlikely report, no pro-government or Umno blogger or mainstream media outfit had the heart to make the insinuation although they knew of the connection between Zaharie and Anwar.

In fact, it's fair to say that had the Daily Mail been under Umno's guile, that sensational report would have been aborted, knowing the unwanted riff raff and consequence it would have attracted.

For the narcissist-exhibitionist-opportunist in Anwar, media publicity, especially in a platform as high profiled as CNN or a court appearance, is his natural fix, regardless if the story is true or false, or real or imagined as long as he gets to pontificate on his bully pulpit.

 

Isn't the UMNO leaders guilty of this charge --in the dailies Utusan and NST and TV3 broiadcast,  they have been hounding Anwar for the past five years and not leeting go even after the BN won back the federal government by default -- mainly the gerrymander and a compliant Election Commission.

In Malaysian political history, there has never been a political animal as feral as Anwar, hounding over and turning any issue in hopes that it is linked to him or if it is not, linked it to him any way.

"Feral" Azmi, please elucidate Desi and less informaed NST readers how this trait coaul link the issues to his (Anwar's) advantage?

Regrettably, MH370's misfortune was unwittingly yoked to him, first when PKR president Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail demeaned Malaysia's search-and-rescue efforts by comparing their competence to the shamans to bolster her bid to win the Kajang by-election, by now totally obscured by the crisis.

The incompetence from Kajang by-election winner-to-be Wan Azizah is kinde compared with what the foreign media like Wall Street Journal and CNN have been descibing Malaysia's handing of MH370 issue -- INCOM PETENCVE at the very highest level. Example -- the MH 370 had turned around within an hour after ytaking off from Kuala Lumpur airport but it was only on DAYT 4 the Viewtnamese authorites were thus informed. They spent three precious days souring the South China Asea in vain and trulu a classic waste of time and effort, bvecase the military officers who saw the "blips" on tgheir radar were of the opiniuon the flight later confirmed to be MH370 was "not hostile"… so how did Acting TRansport Minister know it was not hostile if the military did not scramble their jets as SOP to ask te unidentified plane to "identify itself"? Tis para also covers the next four paras in my most esteemed fellow journalist Azmi's article.

Then as if on cue, Anwar lobbed the nonsense that the government brought the shamans to make the country look stupid.

The Mail's guesswork galvanised Anwar in ways only he can fathom and manipulate, first by dismissing claims he wasn't familiar with Zaharie but there came the usual obsequious turnaround he is famous for after publicly admitting that Zaharie was indeed related to his son's in-laws.

And on cue again: a series of interviews with the foreign media, capped by that opportune conversation with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, where he singularly blamed the government for every MH370 misstep while he was heroic in the acquisition of the radar that should have spotted MH370's trajectory.

Anwar is actually peeved that MH370 had unwittingly stolen his thunder to the point that other than his social media platforms, there was practically little or no news about his exploits, which was grating because the publicity hound in Anwar is hyperventilating.

Amanpour of CNN did not raise the "right" perspective? By the Daily Mail? Anwar and Amanpour have basic knowledge as to the status of that UK tabloid, like what we thinking Malaysians know of Utusan and TV3, so how was Annar's histrionics, and by association, Amanpour's too, a pertinent point in the "theatre" as Azmi described it? Azmi's next para --Amanpour "could have"… -- Hey, Azmi, don't teach a seasoned anchor newsperson like Amnpour how to do her work can?

Finally a little breathing air, courtesy of Amanpour but she failed to raise the right perspective that it was the Daily Mail which ignited Anwar's histrionics of a one-man theatre act and not the government.

Amanpour could have also asked about why pro-Anwar social media outlets outrageously blamed the government for engineering MH370's disappearance to bury his much-needed publicity to recast his sodomy conviction.

The government did not start the fire and neither did it finger Zaharie as a culprit but Anwar skillfully exploited the melee triggered by the Daily Mail and then reproducing and recasting the rumpus to be all about him so that he can gleefully accuse himself to be the "patsy" in every conceivable plotting and scheming.


 

 

 

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Thursday, March 13, 2014

WHO COCKED UP? IGP or DCA Chief?

Desi has beeen constantly reading various news media -- both local and foreign, print and online -- for updates on the missing MAS flight MH370. I have restrained myself from writing any comments in this blog, UNTIL THE FOLLOWING PRICKED MY COONSCIENCE AND I MUST PUT ON REORD A GLASRING GULF OF CREDIBILITY...

ONE BIG COCK-UP I must comment on involved the CONTRARIAN accounts given by the head of DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AVIATION in his press appearance on 
March 10. The DCA chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, announced that five people checked into the flight but did not board it, and so their baggage was offloaded from the plane before it took off.


So Desi reiterates this FACT:
DCA chief said there were FIVE passengers who CHECKED IN for MH370 BUT DID NOT BOARD THE FLIGHT. He added that the baggage of the five passengers were then all off-loaded. (IF I HAD BEEN PRESENT as a newsman, I would have requested the spokesman for the identities of the five plus the number of luggage items off-loaded, perhaps the information to be given at the next press briefing...BUT SUQSEQUENT DAYS' NEWS REPORTS DID NOT HAVE ANY FOLLOW-UP ON THIS ANGLE -- IS OUR LOCAL MEDIA NOT UP TO THEIR DUTIES? Desi's THINKING ALLOWED, OK!)

On the following day at a  press briefing  March 11, the INSPECTOR-GENERAL OF POLICE Khalid Abu Bakar  in no uncertain terms said THERE WAS NO SUCH INCIDENT OF FIVE PASSENGERS HAVING CHECKED IN BUT DID NOT BOARD THE PLANE! So this is FACT: COMPLETE DENIAL BY THE IGP OF THE DCA Chief's narraive just the day before.

SO WHO IS TELLING A LIE?

Such a glaring contradiction between two accounts within a span of two days, coming from no less than the chiefs of the two respective fields of expertise representing the Malaysian government.

My first instinct as a former newsman is to accept the truth of the first account. One does not simply cook up a story of five passengers who checked in for MH370 and not borading the plane but having their baggage removed. These are fact-based events NOT EASILY CONCOCTED involing an international event which has now attracted all the media of the world focusede on Malaysia. Desi is more ionclined to believe the earlier account.

And such foreign media like CNN, AlJazeera and CCTV are not going to accept what is spoken by Malaysian high officials as THE GOSPEL TRUTH. When two hight officials gave CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS, the second narrative raises a lot of questions as to WHY THE FIRST NARRATIVE WAS OFFICIATED STATED, not less than by the head of DCA!

This IS NOT a speculative report -- its is what I term THINKING ALLOWED like what a reporter's mind should be doing in the normal course of things, if the reporter is worth two sen of what he/she writes. If there were a forum like an evening Q&A discussion by experts following the two conflicting accounts, surely one of the experts wouldforward a conclusion that SOMEONE IS TELLING A LIE.

Now Desi's question is: Is the DCA chief or is it the IGP who told the Malaysian people and all the foreign listeners a LIE?


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From the MALAYSIAN INSIDER TODAY:

Malaysia

Malaysian officials are either poor communicators or just incompetent, says expert


BY LEE SHI-IAN
March 13, 2014
The credibility of Malaysia's leaders took a further battering today when CNN reported that a top American transport official had described local officials as being either “poor communicators or at worst, plain incompetent.”
Former National Transportation Safety Board managing director Peter Goelz said this was the worst he had ever seen in disaster management.
"There has been misinformation and corrections from Malaysian authorities on the whereabouts of MH370," Goelz told CNN.

"Did passengers check in but not board the aircraft? How did the two men use the stolen passports to board the aircraft?"
"Is the wreckage of MH370 near the last location where their radar was detected?" Goelz asked.
"At best, Malaysian officials have thus far been poor communicators;at worst, they are incompetent," he said
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers, dropped off the radar at 1.20am on Saturday.
Despite a massive 12-nation search and rescue operation, there have been no clues as to the whereabouts of MH370.
"There is a reason for this. As you know, every time there is an accident, especially an international one like this, there is chaos during the first 24 to 36 hours," Goelz said.
"That is why there is a treaty which everyone has signed, including the Malaysians."
"The treaty explains the necessary steps and measures which are carried out to handle an investigation of this magnitude," Goelz told CNN.
"It also explains how to involve other countries which have a vested interest, how to control rumours and release factual information."
Goelz said to this day, Malaysia has not followed the treaty, hence the contradicting information being released by various quarters.
Goelz is the latest to take Putrajaya to task over the way the crisis is being managed.
Acclaimed American journalist who specialises in South East Asia affairs, Thomas Fuller, writing in The New York Times today, said the lack of coordination between Malaysian agencies and the conflicting updates on the worldwide search for the jet only shows how the country's leaders were just reacting to growing criticism of the way the situation is handled, rather than having a firm grasp of things.
"But worldwide bafflement at the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has challenged the country’s paternalistic political culture and exposed its coddled leaders to the withering judgments of critics from around the world," he said.
That authoritarian trait, according to critics, is now reflected in Malaysia's management of the mysterious disappearance of MH370, which went missing last Saturday shortly after taking off Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing. – March 13, 2014.