Screenshots

6/6

Just had the appointment with Dr Azhar this morning, the fourth day after the eye surgery.

Vision on the operated eye has improved from 6/60 on Tuesday to 6/6 today. I am extremely delighted.

Now, I need to await for brightness to resume to perfection, to discern dark grey from black.

I must say I am pleasantly surprised that the doctor has implanted a tinted lens to protect my cornea. It should have been Paul Newman blue, hah?

Will Rice rise? Will Rais rise?

Can Malaysia join the league of (world pariahs) Myanmar and Zimbabwe and Sudan to thumb its noses at international opinion?

In Singapore, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice rejected Malaysia's claim that the Anwar case is an internal affair.She said:

"The United States doesn't recognise this very firm barrier that it is simply internal affairs when a case of this kind comes up, but we are going to continue to work with Malaysia."'

She urged Malaysia to be transparent and follow the rule of law in dealing with the sodomy accusation against Anwar.

Will Malaysia take it lying down, admitted that Malaysia depended on the US market for a large portion of its exports?

Earlier this month, Malaysia accused the US of meddling in its domestic affairs when a State Department spokesman made similar comments on Anwar's case.

Both the Home Minister and Wisma Putra tried to explain. Have you edited a CCTV recording before?

Quote of the Day

I am not sure if he is trying to hang himself but this is from RPK:

“This time I am going for broke. This time I am prepared to go to jail for a long, long time just to make sure that Najib is not going to become Prime Minister of Malaysia in June 2010.

This time, I am going for broke. Yes, I know I am headed for a fall, but I am going to bring Najib down with me."

Apparently, according to Malaysian Insider and Rocky's Bru, RPK wrote in his blog yesterday that he had made a video recording of a “confession” from a man who claimed to be present when DPM Najib Razak allegedly met a former volunteer in Anwar Ibrahim's office "to discuss how to 'fix' Anwar on the sodomy allegation"..

Assuming Najib is fixing Anwar, and RPK is to fix Najib... so, who is to fix this country?

Inflation... A 27-year high

The Abdullah Administration scored a new record for Malaysia.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for June spiked to a 27-year high of 7.7%. Should we declare a national holiday to celebrate a No Buy Day?

For comparison, this figure is slightly more than double the May CPI of 3.8%, The Star reports, quoting figures from the Statistscs Department..

The 7.7% is also the highest since April 1981, during the time when Dr Mahathir first took over as the PM. Then the CPI was recorded at 10.8%.

And hold on, your financial woes ain't over yet. Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad said the inflation would probably remain at 7.7% for July because the impact of increase in the electricity tariff will kick in this month..

The culprit? The government blamed the substantial rise in the price of petrol and diesel -- announced by the Government itself beginning June 5 -- as the main reason for the surge. Another hindsight and another knee-jerk?

Voila. To Joe Public, it just means the ringgit is shrinking further as buying power contracts immensely.

I'd better get offline. My eyes hurt and migraine is setting in.

Jeff on BLOG, RTM1

Barring any political glitches, I will guest on Blog, the weekly live broadcast on RTM1, at 8.40pm this Sunday, July 27.

I will speak off-the-cuff in Bahasa Malaysia. Stay tuned.

Jeff Sparrow Ver3.01

Finally, long over due, I had my left eye operated yesterday. I decided to go back to the same ophthalmologist, Dr Azhar Zainudin of Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital, to finish it off once and for all. I have great confidence in him and his team.

Forcing a smile... Picture taken on Sony-Ericsson 800

I had the right eye done on December 17 last year. A mishap happened after the stitches were removed one month later, and I am still bearing the aftermath though recovery is steadily slow. To make it worse, preparation for the Penang Campaign during GE2008, and subsequently the immense workload after capturing the state, had delayed the second-eye operation for some time. Due to jarring difference in myopia, I have had the inconvenience of wearing a single contact contact lens for the last seven months.

This time, it was done using laser, hence less traumatic. However, due to the swollen cornea, I have still yet to reclaim full vision, and today's eye test was very bad, 6/60.

So, it will be quite a while before I could view the entire micro-surgery procedure that was captured on video.

For now, I can't read, can't drive, and have to strain the other eye to put up this blog. Listen to lots of cable TV though as I can't see much..

This is Jeff Sparrow, Ver1.0, Ver2.0, and Ver3.0. Touch wood, no more sequel.

Jeff Sparrow Ver1.0... December 17, 2007, Tun Hussein Onn Eye Hospital.

Take care of your eyes. They are the window to your soul. I am just seeking a second chance to remedy the early onsetting of cataract, thanks to modern technology.

Secret of The Secret

'The Secret is out', screamed a Screenshots headline on June 22. It received furrowed brows from the readers.

Actually, it was a teaser after I received a review copy of the latest LG smart phone, KF750 code-named Secret. It's the third model in the LG Black Label series after the Chocolate and Shine, which were runaway successes in the high-end mobile phone segment, remarkably in the immensely competitive European market.

The horrifying secret I heard from the grapevine was that Mr TY Ko, CEO and Managing Director of LG Electronics (M) Sdn Bhd, had one day drawn up a fork, in front of his colleagues, to scratch the glass screen of the phone just to test the believability of the marketing messages -- Scratch-proof tempered glass built on a carbon fibre body.

The Secret stood the test, somewhat and somehow.

After almost one month of using the review copy, which was given to me during the CommunicAsia 2008 in Singapore, there's somewhat more secrets to unveil about this 3rd Black Label from LG.

The Asian Launch of LG Secret... by Jae Bae (L2), LG Executive Vice President for Overseas Sales & Marketing Division, and Boh H. Choi (L3), head of LG Mobile Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA) Business Team at CommunicAsia 2008

First and foremost, it's a four-band HSDPA phone that comes with the hallmark of LG Viewty -- that slim 5-megapixel camera -- plus the auto-rotating display that iPhone once boasted of.

However, LG Secret has an added function called the Touch Media which gives refreshing UI (User Interface) experience to mobile games, music, photos, documents (stripped down Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and FM radios. Expect LG to give more of this Touch Media in its new launches.

The other outstanding feature is the Auto Luminance Contro, Itl adjusts the screen’s lighting according to ambient brightness to ensure screen clarity at all times. It also saves battery power besides being less straining on the eyes.

Meantime, go over to the special LG Secret website to find out why this smart phone really packed a deal of awe and wow with a pricetag of SRP RM1,999,00.

Win an LG Secret!

Now, you too can win a copy of LG Secret if you care to reveal your own secret to the world, and put it in taste and very much in your own creative style.

Expose your secret -- anything from your wildest experience, most embarrassing moments, concealed admiration for someone, to the best kept mother of all secrets -- and send an 'I HAVE A SECRET LG' email to ihaveasecretlg@gmail.com today.

Do it in a 'Style That Lasts'. The best entry may win a brand new LG Secret!

COMING UP... I have been reviewing a copy of consumer-grade LCD TV, the LG30 series while I am still awaiting for a complementing set of the LG Home Theatre System for a full appraisal of user experience. More to tell soon.

Penang & Terengganu... A tale of two states

The new Penang state government defied convention by slashing the total number of honorific award recipients from 1,272 in 2007 to 497 this year. Terengganu does it a step further.

No award will be conferred in conjunction with the Sultan of Terengganu’s birthday this year. No reason was given.

Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin, who is the reigning Yang DiPertuan Agong, celebrates his 46th birthday today.

It is believed that this 'No Award' birthday is a first for any state in the country.

New Mercs

BY THE WAY, state exco members and senior officers in Terengganu started using their new Mercedes-Benz E200 Kompressor cars today.

The oil-rich state bought 14 of the luxury cars for RM3.43 million to replace the Proton Perdana V6 Executive cars that had been purchased in 2004.

In comparison, during the first weeks of new governance, the present Penang state government has decided to cancel the orders of new official cars for exco members placed by the previous administration.

More Rashomon

Another character appears in the Malaysian Rashomon within 24 hours after my last blog entry.

Yesterday, Hospital Kuala Lumpur director Dr Zaininah Mohd Zain came up in support of a New Straits Times story of unnamed source by stating that at no time was Anwar Ibrahim stripped naked when undergoing his medical examination related to alleged sodomy.

In response to Dr Zaininah's statement, Anwar insisted that there were specific instructions that doctors had followed including an "examination of private parts front and back" and that he refused only to have his nude photo and DNA sample taken. Quote Malaysian Insider:

"If ministers want to fitnah (slander), they should not ask their officers to do it for them," he said when addressing the denial of his undressing by the hospital's director. [...]

Indeed, recent developments have allowed him to add in one-liners (in his ceramahs) such as "instead of managing the economy, they're managing people's private parts."

The plot thickens before the picture, in cinematographic terms, fades to black.

Stripped and measured... Another Rashomon

Rashomon is a situation borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's famous film where truth can be alleged in many variations depending on the perspectives of the respective truth-brokers.

In the latest example, Anwar disclosed yesterday that during his medical examination at the KL Hospital, he was stripped naked, had his whole body examined including his private parts measured.

In today's papers, for example, people from the government, notably the Home Affairs Minister who helped Malaysia lose Batu Puteh, started to make statements that suggest Anwar was not cooperating with the police investigations into the alleged sodomy claim made against him. So, the stage is set.

Now, back to the original question: Was Anwar stripped naked? Did he have his whole body examined including his private parts measured?

Never mind the effect is as good as quoting from an anonymous blog, interestingly, the New Straits Times today found it fit to use an unnamed source to rebut Anwar's version of truth.

Let me excerpt today's NST:

Anwar also spoke of his embarrassment at being ordered to strip naked and "measured" when he was taken to the hospital.

"I was stripped naked and had my private parts examined. They also measured the parts," he said.

He said he refused to have photographs taken "as that could end up on YouTube (the free video streaming website)".

The allegation that he was stripped naked, however, was denied by hospital authorities who also claimed he was not "measured".

A hospital official said all those brought in for rape of sodomy cases were given due respect and examined in a professional manner in keeping with the code of medical conduct.

"At all times, due respect is given to ensure that the patient's decency is not violated," the official told the New Straits Times.

Now, enters the third version. This is from Anwar's lawyer and the MP for Subang, R Sivarasa, and I quote Malaysiakini:

"That statement is false," said R Sivarasa in a press conference today, referring to a New Straits Times report which quoted hospital authorities as denying that Anwar was stripped naked and measured.

And again, Sivarasa was quoted as saying in another Malaysiakini story:

"I’m not sure if it’s entirely within journalistic ethics. You quote an unnamed source, hospital authorities say that this did not happen, and we’re saying that’s a false statement.

"He was stripped naked, he was measured, for the record," he said.

A reprise of the 1998 debacle?

Importantly, Sivarasa also said that the police were not addressing a prime issue pertaining to Anwar's concerns about the possibility of his DNA sample being fabricated and manipulated. The lawyer quoted the 1998 episode:

"In 1998-1999 trials, Anwar experienced the phenomenon of fabrication of DNA evidence. We had SAC Rodwan illegally removing DNA samples from forensic custody. In cross-examination of the prosecution's witnesses it was exposed that DNA taken from blood samples was planted on the infamous mattress," said Sivarasa.

"When confronted with this fact the prosecution amended its charge and persuaded the judge, Augustine Paul, to expunge the entire DNA evidence from the record, preventing Anwar's lawyers from responding."

Which is the real truth, you may ask? Rashomon again.

If you had watched the 1950 Kurosawa film several times, like me, you would have been impressed with the ending scene. The last shot closes on the woodcutter (who wasn't really a saint as he had stolen the dagger that killed the samurai) walking home with the baby. Pan up, and the rain has stopped and the clouds have opened revealing the sun in contrast to the beginning where it was downcast.

And you turned off the DVD, fulfilled that deceptions and lies shake even a priest's faith in humanity. But there's, after all, hope to start things anew for everyone once down-trodden.

The plot thickens. But it's good to read Sivarasa's statement in full to get a firm context. It's not that difficult to single out the lies and liars, this time.

Continue reading "Stripped and measured... Another Rashomon" »