Friday - International Book Fair
Not interesting, very commercial & very Malay.
| Bonobos- Make Love not War
According to an article on Radio National Australia -wheras chimps will rip apart unknown chimps - apparently when 2 groups of Bonobos meet they just have sex, in everyway and between the sexes/ages etc etc (although their actual sex only last 15 seconds, and though sex is common they are not at it all the time)
| Sat - World Press Freedom Day
Sonia opens the gig
The Comeback Kings Comedy Group
| A 2 day festival at the Central Market links : Community Radio, cijmalaysia.org Sat- Readings, then a video about Indigenous people being messed around by the authorities, cos the maps of where they live are states secret. (Eventually they got GPS to map the land themselves and get compensation when new roads encroach on their land.) Also a racial awareness video. -then a concert afterwards featuring famous radicals.
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| Learnt some interesting things about Malaysian media
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I didn't know before about the differences between Malaysia and normal countries. I already knew newspapers need an annual licence. So newspapers tend to self censor cos they are in fear of offending politicians and losing their licence.
1. almost all newspapers are actually directly owned by political parties anyway e.g. The Star is MCA
2. There are so few newspapers ..No local papers so 25 papers as against 1000+ in UK
Although free press principles are important, the Malaysian media is not so bad nor in Free countries is it that good. A lot of stories get buried here, but it's not as bad as North Korea; they are not always praising the government.
In the UK media is pretty crap even with all the freedoms. They don't tow the government line, but there is a whole heap of deficiencies : dumming down, sensationalism, ,lack perspective on reality, looking to other newspapers in choosing stories so they all have the same main stories and are London-centric. They tend to be up themselves reporting stories about themselves all the time etc etc. And they serve other pressures such as commercial; no local paper is going to have an article criticising house buying as they are full of house ads etc. And Murdoch gives his business friends a smooth ride.
| It's a pity that there were few people
mostly activists and not the general public .. Rafiques song - Merdeka or Ignorance is bliss sums the normal persons feeling "just shut up and enjoy your life"
I can't help thinking it would be better for CIJ to set up a stall at a more mainstream event like a peace/green/multicultural/fringe/progressive festival/fair.
I thought The focus was a bit too much we have a problem in Malaysia, not enough on why freedom and less secrets is good in general for all societies.
Isn't there a Journalists Union video giving a basic explanation of what WPFD is all about and the important issues ? This would have been good playing in the exhibition room or as a warm up to the concerts.
| Respect for politicians , but not dead peoples families
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Just after that I went to Merdeka there was a Fireman's day ..as part of the display there were pictures of severed bodies etc..something that is not illegal in the UK, but almost certainly be self censored out of respect for the dead person and their relatives. Contrast this with Malaysian thinking which is you should not offend the living politicians/authorities feelings by criticising them.
| Foreign Interference ?
A lot of progressive projects in Malaysia seem to be funded by a German Charity KAF and Komas (some clips to watch) funding freedomfilmfest
It's good to see someone is helping to improving people lives, by bringing modern ideas like women's rights, racial awareness. If funding doesn't come from inside Malaysia it has to come from outside.
Interesting film is coming out about : 50,000 trans-gender people in And
| Is Malaysiakini independent ?
Who owns it ? Not Soros Before opposition tried to tar Malaysiakini as being financed by their enemy George Soros. Seems there's little truth in that argument ; now 65% is subscription is 29 % Dutch foundation. Sometime ago Soros gave bits of money to foundations which gave some funding to Malaysiakini, but if you added it all up it's a fraction of a percent so it's definitely not controlled by Soros. Editorial control seems to be in hands of the 2 founders one of which is a respected pioneering journalist. It's not an anti-government machine, though for me it's not interesting enough to bother subscribing. Most important stories emerge elsewhere on the internet on BBC etc
| Alternative media Up themselves & out of touch ?
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One thing with these alternative news sources like Malaysiakini and bloggers and authorities efforts to censor them is that just like when we wrote webzines at uni in 1986 this battle is fascinating for those directly involved and inevitably a lot of the stories are about themselves .. The police raided last night, today we go to court blah blah blah
But it's boring for the univolved public. Also it becomes a big timewasting game. It distracts the journalists from doing their jobs like exposing village chemical leaks, and distracts government resources ftom more constructive things
| Edward De Bono
Speaking on BBCWS Business he said "in Iraq if you set a pullout date and then if there is a week without killings, you bring it forward, if there is a week with killings you push it back"
So if the badboys kill they are not heroes
Sounds so obvious, and that fact that it hasn't been done already seems to indicate things run deeper.. I wouldn't like to second guess. And at second glance it has it's downfalls if one faction is losing it won't want the Americans to leave so might cause more killings.
| Sleep more to slim
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- sleeping more, reduces appetite so helps lose weight.
Interesting talk by Wikipedia founder of Wikipedia- philosophy is not to control/regulate people, but do to give them freedom to change what they want, if they vandalise it's easy to fix, but most people are OK
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Sun - World Press Freedom Day 2
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Peter and Markiza opening the gig
Cartoonist Zunar from Malaysiakini was talking about his work
Interesting to hear that Malaysiakini is banned from Government as well as Umno press conferences.
Interesting play of Malaysian history warts and all by a young Indian family group. Finished with a death metal band trying to prove they are not evil.
| Mark Twain's low opion of reporters
Just read the story :How I edited an Agricultural paper. - He writes about collecting turnips from the trees, oysters growing in the soil. Of course the real editor comes back furious, "you don't know anything about agriculture !". Twain replies, but that's normal I am expert in newspapers it's normal : the book reviewers never wrote a book, finance reporters never run a business etc "the less a man knows the bigger his salary", along the lines of those that can do it, they do it, those that can't report on it.
| Censored, but irresponsible the Yellow Post
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It might be difficult for normal Joe's to publish a newspaper, but I see Telecom Malaysia have their own weekly free newspaper. I would guess that they have a team selling advertising for Yellow Pages (currently being sold for a knockdown price, probably to someone's mates) and it ties in nicely to put a bit of newspaper advertising on the same bill, or maybe they just give away free ads when they screw up in another way.
So they have all these rules and self censorship and the first story I see is totally irresponsible and unethical anyway. The story is about school girls prostituting themselves. They interview a local man who admits he slapped the girls and customers in the face and now goes round in a vigilante group armed with sticks. I can see people reading this and copying it.
Surely an ethical reporter should have pointed out that law enforcement is the job of the police and that although the girls action is not nice members of the public who arm themselves and assault people themselves are commiting a much bigger crime especially since they are adults assaulting minors.The reporter doesn't mention if he reported the assaults to the police or even consulted them. Indeed the only source for the story seems to be a vigilante. Well if that's all he needs to corroborate a story I guess he'll print a story about the drug crazed sex orgies that take place every night in the centre of Putrajaya, cos I met a man in a bar once who told me that's what happens... so it must be true !
I see another paper getting around licensing by only being monthly, being imported and handed out in the street free is the Falung Gong mouthpiece the Epoch Times. Apparently it can be stopped at the border due to Chinese government pressure.
| Scientist doubts blaming manmade CO2
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Professor Bob Carter
(Marine Geophysical Laboratory
James Cook University) on ABC Radio National spoke out against the assumption that nature is in balance and the increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to humans. He said natures production is so huge compared to that human, that human CO2 is actually within the natural variability My Climate Change pages
When I checked the numbers it seemed accepted that natural CO2 is at least 1000 times humans. So a 0.1% deviation, between natures absorption and emmission would be bigger than total human production.
| My Error Volcanoes don't produce more than man, usually
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I found a mistake in one of my key arguments : that Volcanoes throw off 80 times more CO2 than humans. When I checked my figures I found I had made an error in converting teragrams to tonnes cos there are a million grammes in a tonnes. So instead of volcano production being 80 times more than human; human is 100 times more than volcanoes . They are both estimates of course, but it seems safe to say man produces much more volcanoes in a average year. However this estimate doesn't include
CO2 from under sea vents etc and when there is a super volcano eruption like Krakatoa then it produces more than humans in a year. Still on average the magnitude of CO2 seems to be smaller than humans at todays levels.
Still more than 98 percent of all CO2 in the atmosphere is produced by
sources other than by man. For example, CO2 is produced by forest fires,
volcanoes, fermentation and animal and plant respiration.
..www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=35979&page=3
Total upper level CO2 is 2.97 × 1012tonnes =2970 10 power9tonnes
annual from volcanos 130 to 230 teragrams =10power12 g=10power6 Tonnes
or 0.13 to 0.23 10power 9 tonnes
man made emmission is 24 10power 9 tonnes
| "The Carbon Train" - CO2 panic is a gravy train
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ABC's Counterpoint prog has an interesting look at the otherside of CC debate in it's weekly "The Carbon Train" section , about the people who realise CO2 panic can be good for their gravy train. my cartoon
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