Penang Hokkien Podcast Promo

Miku John, the host of the unique, informative and addictive Penang Hokkien Podcast has started an awareness campaign to promote the show. If you speak or understand Penang-style Hokkien, you might want to give the podcast a try. It's a seriously funny, no-holds barred kinda show which makes it all that much more interesting. So here's my contribution to the awareness campaign.

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Keywords: Penang Malaysia Hokkien Penang Hokkien PenangHokkien Miku John podcast John Ong Ongline awareness campaign promotion campaign promo awareness

Flagrant Use Of Public Funds

(click to enlarge)

I was left fuming at the very sight of these two full-page advertisements; the one on the left was published in yesterday's The Star and the right one in today's copy. Although I do not hail from Selangor or currently live in the state and would be in anyway affected by such flagrant use of public funds, as a responsible citizen, I find it unfathomable that public funds are wasted in such manner.

You and I know for a fact that full-page coloured advertisements are not cheap and runs into the thousands of ringgit and this is only for ONE page, for ONE day, for ONE newspaper. Here, we have TWO advertisements and let's not get into how many newspapers they were advertised in! That would amount to a lot of money considering the advertisements' sole purpose is just to "kiss ass" however hard they try to tell us it isn't.

To be fair, Selangor is not the only state to do this and I've seen similar advertisements by the Malacca and Kedah state governments but Selangor is a repeat offender, and a frequent one at that. It is stated at the bottom that the greetings come from "The Government and People of the State of Selangor Darul Ehsan". Come on, do you really think the people of Selangor actually welcome such advertisements? Do you really think that the advertisements actually came from them except maybe for the money used to pay for these advertisements which were irresponsibly taken from public funds?

Maybe the Menteri Besar and the members of his government were generous and courteous enough to dig into their own pockets to pay for these meaningless advertisements but I really doubt it. Even if they did, wouldn't the money have been more well spent if donated to a worthy cause like Hospice to aid them in providing palliative care for those in need or the Malaysian AIDS Council to spread awareness of this deadly disease or even provide scholarships for the needy? Ask anyone on the streets and the answer you will get is that they would prefer the money to be spent more wisely on better public amenities rather than being wasted on such advertisements.

The public sector is not the only one guilty of spending crazy money on wasteful and meaningless things. The private sector is equally irresponsible when it comes to spending money for such meaningless trivialties. When our Prime Minister came to office, he declared that all these wasteful pleasantries were not needed and must come to an immediate stop. My question is, has it stopped or has it in fact gotten worse? I do not recall so many of such advertisements in the past especially by the state governments. Remember the message of condolences that flooded the newspapers when the First Lady passed away? I'm sure she would have preferred the money used for those advertisements donated to cancer research, breast cancer awareness or promoting the batik industry, no? She would definitely not have agreed to such wasteful deeds which is akin to burning money.

It is unbecoming of these public servants spending our hard-earned money in such manner and then tell us we need to pay more through increased taxes so they can continue in their irresponsible ways. We sincerely do not appreciate you showing your "sincerest appreciation" this way. It is time to speak up, people of Selangor. It is time to speak up, Malaysians. Enough is enough.

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• Burning Money

Keywords: Selangor Malaysia public funds wastage advertisement

Would You Bury Your Garden Waste?

The lengths I would go to for the environment...



Yes, that's a large hole in an unused corner of my lawn with garden waste that would fill something like ten black garbage bags. This is after the ten bags or so from last week and another few the week before that we discarded in black garbage bags. Yup, that's how much garden waste my lawn can produce. Finally, the garden is in pristine condition but we are just totally exhausted! I would do anything for a Balinese massage.

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• To Burn Or Not To Burn

Keywords: bury lawn garden waste environment burn rubbish

Dear Mr President

by Pink (featuring Indigo Girls)


"Dear Mr President" music video by Rosie O'Donnell

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

This is one very insightful song that hits all the right chords. The lyrics are simple, direct and effective, catchy even. The collage of pictures that makes up the video matches the song very well. Like I've said in a previous post, many (if not all) of Pink's songs are somewhat thought-provoking especially those from her latest album, I'm Not Dead. I was first introduced to this song through this blog entry and have been constantly listening to it ever since. Not only does it have a calming effect on me, it also somehow inspires me (which explains the sudden surge of blog entries in the past few days :P). Although I was seriously occupied with work, I was still in the mood to finish up those posts while listening to the song being looped over and over again. If you were overwhelmed by the amount of posts, I apologise but got mood-mah! :P

I think I'll just shut-up now and let the song speak for itself.

Keywords: Dear Mr President Pink Rosie O'Donnell Indigo Girls I'm Not Dead music video lyrics youtube

To Burn Or Not To Burn

It was World Environment Day a few days back and I think it is the right time for me to write about this topic which I promised sometime back. How should we dispose our garden waste responsibly?


[SOURCE: UNEP]

My house has a relatively large garden with lots of plants, so you can imagine the amount of dead leaves, grass, branches and all my lawn can produce after a short while. Many, many, many years ago, we just burned them all at a corner which produced very fertile soil for our gardening needs (apart from the smog it also created during the burning process :P) but since the advent of the yearly haze problem graciously gifted by our neighbours Indonesia, we have stopped open burning. Instead, we put them all in plastic bags and dispose them off with our other organic waste. More often than not, it would take up to three or more of those large black plastic bags to fill up the leaves and all!

My neighbours however have not followed suit and continue to burn them in the open, causing much uncomfortness (is that a word?) to our eyes and lungs. Let's not forget the contribution of dust and smoke particles to the air which causes haze and pose a hazard to our health. How about greenhouse emissions? I believe there's also a ban on open burning in place which warrants a fine if caught. On the flip-side, we have the plastic bags in which the garden waste is stored for disposal. These plastic bags will end up at landfills and aren't biodegradable. Plastic takes up a very long time to degrade, too long in fact. So, the supposedly environmentally-friendly solution to open burning doesn't seem to be that environmentally-friendly anymore!


The Penang haze of August 2005

Of course we could dig a hole in our garden and bury all the garden waste since they are easily biodegradeable but how many people will want to spoil their beautiful and expensive gardens by digging a huge hole to bury their garden waste? The compost option seems to be the best available one at the moment but has it taken off here? I am willing to forgo the black plastic bags but when the Penang Municipal Council workers come to collect the garden waste which aren't put in plastic bags or tied up properly (in the case of branches etc.), they will make a big fuss about it, might not even bother to collect the garden waste, scold or curse you if you're unlucky and sometimes even demand for payment (which goes straight to their pockets)! When they collect the garden waste in black plastic bags, will they sort and dispose the plastic bags properly, and compost the garden waste or will they just dump everything at the landfill and be done with it? I'm not quite sure about the Penang Municipal Council's stand on this issue.

Of course there is the gunny sack option but it is very hard to find one these days since they have been replaced by their more durable plastic counterparts. Furthermore, even if you are successful in finding one, it will cost you a bomb and seriously put you off. I doubt you've seen a gunny sack race in recent years, have you? I seriously want to do my part in helping to save the environment but is that avenue open for me?


$$$
[SOURCE: University of Oregon]

I guess it all boils down to choosing the lesser of two evils since the composting idea has not exactly taken off yet. On one hand, you are putting your health at risk and damaging the environment now with open burning. On the other hand, you are putting the environment and your health at risk in the future when you dispose your garden waste in plastic bags. I'm definitely not keen on open burning and probably will stick to the plastic bag option but I will give composting a try. In my case, it might not be practical considering the garden waste my lawn produces is considerably a lot but who knows it might turn out great. If viable I might even consider collecting garden waste from my neighbours (maybe for a nominal fee for my effort) and consider selling off the compost as fertilizer. ;)

So which option will you choose? To burn or not to burn? That is the question.

Related article:

• Would You Bury Your Garden Waste?

Keywords: World Environment Day lawn garden waste plastic haze open burning biodegradable bury burn rubbish compost fertilizer environment