Screenshots: A penchant for bullet-shots

UPDATED VERSION. What would become of a man who shot himself in the foot and in the head? Is this a Malaysian pasttime?

Several Screenshots readers sent me PDF and JPG of a man who looks prone to displaying a penchant for bullet-shots. They asked me to discuss the subconscious mind or the psychoanalysis of the bullet-shot journalist. But I am no expert in these areas, so I could just present the screenshots the readers sent us.

August 2, 2006, theSun: Shooting in the feet

August 7, 2006, The Edge: Bullet through the head

In the final analysis, this famous bullet-shot journalist may be sending us the message that everyone, like him, has the license to pun.

Even if it was an admitted bad pun, you just let it stand, the journalist tells his readers in The Edge.

Perhaps, reader IImran, who was taken to task for "shooting a so-and-so (who has been criticising Dr Mahathir with acute bias) for good", can now have a respite.

In fact, if reader IImran, or any Screenshots readers for that matter, wanted to to come face-to-face with P.Gunasegaram, here is a chance in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, August 10.

PUBLIC FORUM

Strategic Information Research & Development Centre (SIRD), an independent publishing and research centre, will hold a public forum on the current political situation, titled, "Pak Lah vs. Dr Mahathir: Clash of Personalities or Crisis in Governance?"

Speakers on the panel are:

P. Gunasegaram (Group Executive Editor, The Edge )

Sivarasa Rasiah (lawyer, Vice President of KeADILan) and

Datuk a. Kadir Jasin (former Editor-in-Chief of NSTP )

The Moderator is James Wong Wing On of Malaysiakini, who is also a blogger.

Below are details of the public forum.

Date: 10th August 2006 (Thursday)
Time: 8:30 - 10:00 pm
Venue: Quality Hotel City Centre, Jalan Raja Laut, K.Lumpur

For more information and inquiries, please contact SIRD: sird@streamyx.com or tel: 03-79578342

For those from outstation, you may use this new service from Mycen.com.my called Mycen Location to find your way. Click here to get to Quality Hotel City Centre. (You need to have a Google Earth application residing in your PC/notebook.)

There is a good rapport among the three speakers and the Moderator.

Both P. Gunasegaram and Sivarasa were university mates at Universiti Malaya. In 2004, when Sivarasa stood as a parliamentary candidate against deputy minister Donald Lim Siang Chai in the PJ Selatan constituency, Gunasegaram wrote two articles, postured as analysis, within the short campaigning period. Sivarasa failed to unseat Lim.

On the other hand, Gunasegaram was A Kadir Jasin's colleague in NSTP, specifically at Malaysian Business and the now defunct Business Times, before the former resigned from Jalan Riong to become the head of research for Leong & Co., a smallish local stock brokerage, then.

Interestingly, Gunasegaram and Kadir Jasin are expected to take on opposing platforms at the public forum vis-a-vis the Abdullah vs.Mahathir polarised politics, while Sivarasa is the alternative.

Interesting too, Kadir Jasin has reacted to Gunasegaram's faulting this blogger and reader IImran over the "Shoot" issue. Kadir wrote in the journalist/blogger James Wong Wing On's blog yesterday:

If I were Guna, I won’t lose sleep. Alternatively he can stop writing.

To give it a stronger context, Kadir also said:

Guna is actually a nice guy. I worked with him for many years in the Business Times and Malaysian Business. But he has also been critical and forthright.

Surely he knows the risk of being critical. I am not sure if there is or was a genuine threat against his life. As a writer, I sometimes feel the same way too.

But what do we do? People know us. If they mean harm, they can easily do us harm. We have no bodyguards and we are everywhere.

But if we are critical but fair, I don’t think we have a lot to fear.

Incidentally, James Wong had earlier questioned where the reborn Mahathir critic Gunasegaram was when courageous journalists were criticising Mahathir during the aftermath of Operasi Lalang (1987-1988), and the persecution of Anwar Ibrahim (1998-2004).

Wong, who said he doesn't read the Tamil papers, had asked Gunsegaram to "shoot him down" if his assertions were wrong.

Obliquely commenting on this, someone at Jalan Riong invented the skin-colour issue yesterday. Download PDF here.