The Case of the late TBH

I know that an independent inquest has been going on for months but honestly I no longer know what it is to achieve. Perhaps I am so sceptical to the point of not believing that justice is ever going to reach beyond the grave of this poor man who will never get to hold his newborn.

I may be wrong but from all the legal dramas and CSI I have seen, I am not convinced that this man has voluntarily jumped off a building simply because he was being "investigated" for a few thousand ringgit. Mind you, he has not been convicted of anything yet. On top of that, he was due to get married and he is going to be a father!

Therefore I read with interest when I realised that the famed Dr. Pornthip (I remember her from National Geographic) has been invited to give her opinions. To her credit, she has conducted over 10,000 autopsies in her career. It is most astounding that she was able to conclude there is 80% probability that TBH was murdered simply by reading the reports and looking at the photographs. Just imagine what else she could have concluded and told us if only she had the opportunity to conduct a post mortem on the late TBH.

I read with amusement another commentator's remark on Dr. Pornthip's testimony:-

by drrafick
4. What does this testimony means? To some it may means that TBH was murdered by MACC officers. To me it means a lot more. It means that the entire system which consists of the MACC, Police, the doctors (from Klang and UHKL), and officers in Putrajaya is now on trial.

The Yacoubian Building... by Alaa Al Aswany

Just by reading the prologue, I was won over immediately. It has been a very long time since I read a good book. Each page that I read, I pored on each word very slowly in case I miss any of it. Every word is so important and crucial to this great literary work and I just wanted to drink it in. (Unlike some other books which you can speed read and still get the gist of what is happening).

What inspired the writer to write this book, he wrote it exactly how he was inspired in the first place. One day while walking through downtown Cairo, he saw a building which was in the process of being torn down. The buidling was being dissected and was to be torn down in sections. The walls of the building had been stripped bare and he could see into the different apartments and the various personal effects which were left behind by the previous tenants.

Al Aswany wrote about the inhabitants of Yacoubian Building which represented the different segments of the Egyptian society. As I am no expert of modern day Egypt, I suspect the building itself was symbolic in its representation of Egypt. Yacoubian Building which by the way a real landmark in Egypt, was fictitiously dressed up in the book. The writer talked about the building in its heyday in all its glory as it was inspired by French architecture just like most buildings were in the 19th century. Prominent people used to live in this apartments but as time passed, the building begun to lose its shine and deteriorated. On top of the roof, there were individual rooms which were allocated to each apartment owner for use as storage (think parking lot). However it now had been sublet to poor families which used the tiny store rooms as their homes.

The book talks about corruption, social changes and religion, among many other things. It is something most of us could identify with, despite our differences. The one thing I found most striking about this book is the order among chaos.

The Scare Tactic

I have not read up much on the subject of bringing up children but I am quite sure most experts warn against scaring children into submission.

Most of you while growing up would be familiar with "bad people will come and catch you" or sometimes the police would come catch you too depending on your locality, and in the past some politically incorrect terms were used too.

This I remember from my childhood and I think it is quite funny. "Police come catch you and put you into prison, and you will have to eat curry rice." I am not quite sure how scary curry rice is supposed to be. Maybe as a kid, you wouldn't like spicy food or the prospect of eating rice with only curry gravy is quite pitiful.

The issue that I am faced with today is whether I too should employ a scare tactic. Honestly, as much as I would like to adopt all the idealistic approaches of raising children but being in the state that I am in today; WHATEVER that works to keep my boy from harm, who cares.

I have been telling Eddie there is a dinosaur outside the house and I always accompany that statement with a roar. It worked for about a week. This morning he ventured out when I was not looking and realised for himself that of course there isn't one. It is very tiring to have to consistently outsmart your children.

CNY Flight Added!!!!! brought to you by Fireflyz

I have been checking the website daily to see if any miracle has been performed, regardless whether there is news announcement or not. Neither did Fireflyz wrote back to acknowledge receipts of my countless emails. For Hari Raya this year, the flights were added only a month before Raya. Today has been a busy day for me and I only managed to go online this evening at about 8pm.

To my delight, I saw the added flights to Ipoh during CNY period!!! My heart rate increased, I was told off for running down and up the stairs (fetching credit cards) and heart beat even faster as I needed to do 2 lots of booking since there are varying departure dates. What if the other ticket sold out while I am still processing the one for Sig.Ot???

I am so pleased that I have managed to secure the flights eventhough I can't help but to wonder whether the tickets would have been cheaper earlier today as ours cost RM 700+ per person. Nevermind, point is we will get to be with our family for CNY which means alot to me. For that price, I don't mind at all if it means I don't have to sit on the bus for 8 hours or 3 hours from KLIA excluding the CNY jam factor.

Moral of the story is, never give up. Be creative. I am not sure if those emails I have drafted for my friends to send from their emails worked, but I am so pleassseeeed that WE ARE GOING HOME FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!! Thank you also to my dear friends who have wished me well.

CNY Flight Sold Out!!!

Oh what a bummer, it appears that I have left it way too late. All flights to Ipoh have been sold out for the CNY holidays. I have written to Fireflyz in hope that they will add a couple or more flights to enable more than 80 people to fly back for CNY!

If you haven't got anything better to do, please do write to fireflyz and ask them to add flights from Singapore to Ipoh next February. You could attention your email to Eddy Leong, MD and send it to contactus@fireflyz.com.my

Help send poe and family home. If you've got kids, do feel sorry for me as I will have to travel with a toddler for 8 hours on a bus, as opposed to 1 hour on the plane!