NaNoWriMo 2009 Status

As at 15.11.2009, 33,614 words completed, covering 54 pages and 16,386 more words to go…

2012 & 4 Yugas

(Image source: www.world-mysteries.com)

In my earlier post on 2012, it was stated that the Hindus believed that there will be a golden year within Kali Yuga. But what is Kali Yuga anyway.

From About Hinduism:-

According to Hindu scriptures, all mortal beings are destined to pass through four great epochs in every cycle of creation and destruction.

The four great epochs in Hinduism are: Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapar Yuga and Kali Yuga. Satya Yug or the Age of Truth is said to last for four thousand divine years, Treta Yuga for three thousand, Dwapara Yug for two thousand and Kali Yuga will last for one thousand divine Years that equals to 432,000 earthly years.

Throughout these four yugas, Lord Vishnu is said to incarnate ten times in ten different avatars. During the Age of Truth (Satya Yuga), human beings were spiritually most advanced and had great psychic powers. In the Treta Yuga people still remained righteous and adhered to moral ways of life. Lord Rama of the fabled Ramayana lived in Treta Yuga.

In the Dwapara Yuga, men had lost all knowledge of the intelligence and bliss bodies. Lord Krishna was born in this age. The present Kali Yuga is the most degenerated of the Hindu epochs.

Another theory explains these epochs of time on the basis of the degree of loss of righteousness in the world. It says, during Satya Yuga only truth prevailed (Sanskrit Satya = truth), Treta lost ¼ truth, Dwapar lost ½ truth and Kali is left with only ¼ truth. Evil and dishonesty has replaced truth in the last three ages or yugs.

Wikipedia on the other hand reports:-

Kali Yuga is the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas described in the Indian scriptures. The other ages are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga and Dvapara Yuga.

According to the Surya Siddhanta, an astronomical treatise that forms the basis of all Hindu and Buddhist calendars, Kali Yuga began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar, or 23 January 3102 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar

Veda Online explains in details what happens during Kali Yuga:-

Hindu astrologers have calculated this to have been 2:27 a.m. on February 18, 3102 BC. This took place some 36 years after Lord Krsna spoke Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna.

The scriptures like SB 12.2 teach that during the 432,000 year age of Kali, humanity deteriorates and falls into barbarism. Humans begin to kill animals for food. They fall under the spell of intoxication. They lose all sexual restraint. Families break up. Women and children are abused and abandoned.

The saints and sages of ancient India describe the people of this age as greedy, ill-behaved, and merciless. In this age, says Srimad-Bhagavatam, merely possessing wealth is considered a sign of good birth, proper behaviour, and fine qualities. Law and justice are determined by one’s prestige and power

Severe droughts and plagues are everywhere. Slovenliness, illness, hunger and fear spread. Nations are continually at war with one another.

The men of Kali-yuga seek only money. Only the richest have power. People without money are their slaves.

Now the question arises – when does Kali Yuga ends? There seems to be many different interpretation of the end on different websites. Wikipedia simply mentions it as “When flowers will be begot within flowers, and fruits within fruits, then will the Yuga come to an end. And the clouds will pour rain unseasonably when the end of the Yuga approaches”

Interestingly it is also mentioned that “since only 5,000 years is past from the beginning of Kali-yuga, there is still 427,000 left for the end of Kali yuga. Even the Kali-yuga is not the end. After the end of Kali-yuga, again Satya yuga starts”

The last statement is interesting since we take into account the predicted golden years that may start in 2012, then it may be true that there is another 427,000 years to go before the end of Kali Yuga. And the golden years within Kali Yuga is expected to last for 10,000 years.

2012 will be an interesting year if all the ancient predications falls in place.

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Why We Pray?

DIY Chef Part 2

(Cooked chicken cocktail with fried eggs and good dose of Maggi sauce)

Lately we have been finding harder to get by without having a good dose of vegetables – going for the ‘big job’ has not been as smooth as it used to be.

Unlike Malaysia where vegetables are abundant, in Iran, there is nothing much other than plain onion (to be eaten with a thin slice of bread) or salad (a mixture of minced carrot, cucumbers and salad leaves). No doubt that the Persian diet consists of a lot of yoghurts and yoghurt drinks which is good for digestions (although it takes some time to acquire the plain yoghurt taste) but nothing beats having a good dose of green vegetables.

We have noticed that some of the shops here do sell vegetables but it is not easy to cook them as we do not have other ingredients to go along with the vegetables. I guess this is why the vegetables in the Persian diet in restaurants consist nothing but fresh salads (perhaps we did not ask about this).

On other days, we eat a lot of fruits namely red apples but we soon get tired of eating just apples. Another alternative is of course, to take in high fibre tablets which does the ‘job’ the same.

When it comes to cooking our self, other than cooking the good old Maggi Mee, we managed to cook eggs (another easy one to do), sausages, nuggets, chicken and vegetables (Chinese style). Buying processed meat can be tricky here. What looks like processed chicken meat can turn out to processed red meat.

(Boiling is one good way to de-ice the meat and ensure the inside is cooked well)

Recently I just found out that ‘Chicken Cocktail’ is really made of chicken so it has been my ‘main’ choice when looking for items to cook at home – DIY style. It comes handy to just boil it and added the sliced chicken cocktails into the pot and has it together with instant noodles or fry it until it is well done and have it with scramble eggs.

Talking about eggs, we have been shopping around and found onions in one of the shops, so now we can also cook onion with eggs (instead of just plain eggs). Yesterday we found fresh gingers but we have to determine how best to cook something with ginger in it (we are goggling for easy ideas).

(To be continued)

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Movie Review: The Lost City

If one is surprised with Joaquin Phoenix singing and playing guitar in “Walk the Line”, one will get more surprised to note that Andy Garcia is also music director for his movie “The Lost City”

(Poster of the movie – source: www.newsletter.overdrive.com)

The Plot

Read the details of the plot here

(The closing scene of the movie where Andy manages to escape to America and opens his own night club)

Storyline

It was reported that it took almost 16 years for this story, written by a Cuban novelist and it deals with Cuba before and after the revolution and the aftermath of it when Fidel Castro takes over the Cuban administration.

The movie was produced, acted, directed and music composed by Andy Garcia and the story gave some glimpses on the old Cuba and the new one after the revolution. Andy Garcia ends up giving up his love life and also his night club in Cuba when his love life becomes a pro-revolution supporter and his night club is deemed to be part of the imperialism. Andy ends up fleeing to the United States to start his life all over again

The storyline is not without its criticism. Humberto Fontova of Newsmax reported:-

The film’s offences are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such nonsense? And just where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the effrontery to portray such things? The man obviously doesn’t know his place.

And just where did Garcia get this preposterous notion of pre-Castro Cuba as a relatively prosperous but politically troubled place, they ask. All the Cubans he portrays seem middle class. Where in his movie is the tsunami of stooped and starving peasants that carried Fidel and Che into Havana on its crest, they ask.

Where are all those diseased and illiterate labourers and peasants my professors, Dan Rather, CNN and Oliver Stone told me about, ask the critics

Whilst the criticism may be valid but if one looks at the story from the rich and middle class point of view, it seems like that they had more to lose when Fidel Castro came in power. Andy for example, loses his key member of his band and later loses the night club itself. When he is leaving the country, his father watch is taken away by Fidel’s comrades.

(Che Guevara and his pro Fidel Castro revolution comrades emerging from the woods and confronts one of Andy’s younger brother, Ricardo)

Acting

Andy Garcia who is a night club owner is caught between his younger brothers who are keen on a revolution to overthrown the Cuba’s president and dictator, Fulgencio Batista’s and his father who wishes to do the same through democratic ways. Things get worse as Cuba leans towards revolution and Garcia loses his brothers – one dies after a failed attempt to assassinate the President and taking over of the palace and another who leaves the family to be become a Communist fanatic. Andy is the focus of the movie and on how he deals with the problems affecting his night club, his family and the country.

(Ricardo heart-broken when his uncle dies in front of him and leaves the funeral after crying on the coffin)

Another character that excels in the movie is Andy’s brother, Ricardo who turns a fanatic Communist. The character was well played by Enrique Murciano (who by the way is a Cuba descent).

One of the more touching moment that Enrique truly excels is when Ricardo goes to see his uncle who is landowner of a large tobacco plantation. He firmly informs that the land is now belongs to the revolution. His uncle gets angry and gets a heart attack and dies. Ricardo goes to his uncle’s funeral and cries. He then heads back to the uncle’s plantation and shoots himself in the head.

Another interesting character in the movie is simply known as “The Comedian’ played by Bill Murray. Bill Murray has one the best lines to say in this movie, often in form of sugar coated criticism. Watch out for the line where Bill Murray says that he likes the beginning more than the ending and he gives interesting reasons for it.

(Plenty of music and dance scenes in this movie – something that Andy could have reduced and be more focussed on the actual storyline)

Music

Andy Garcia is also the music director for the movie and whilst we are not treated to any cinematic, John Williams alike kind of music. However Andy does shines when it comes to Cuban music and the performance in the night club. Accompanying the music is a great mambo dance steps but in this movie, Andy does go overboard with the music and dance. It is nice to hear and see but not when revolution is just around the corner and there are far more important things to worry about.

Final say

The plus points: Unique storyline, the background, cast and cinematography

The negative points: Too little focus on Cuba’s historical events, too much musical / dance scenes

(Click here for other movie reviews)

Morally Wrong, Legally Clean

Remember the quote – “it looks like me, it sounds like me but it is not me” from a character called VK Lingam? Well, there are not limits to what Malaysian politicians can do to top such stupid statements.

(Morally wrong is ok not matter how serious it is! says the self appointed clown Minister in Parliament)

Malaysiakini reported the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz as saying that what VK Lingam did was “morally wrong but he was legally clean”.

Malaysian Insider then reported:-

Nazri also suggested that Lingam breached no laws as he might “have just acted to fix the appointment of judges as if he was brokering the appointment of senior judges to impress people”.

“I am not denying that it was Lingam in the tape. But I am also saying that there are a lot of conmen in this world. Who knows he might have just acted when he was calling the so-called judges to impress,” said Nazri in his ministerial winding-up speech on the 2010 Budget debate.

So, it looks like Nazri, who is well known for past acts of putting his foot in the mouth, have done it again.

With a simple sweeping statement, Nazri have cleared VK Lingam of any wrongdoing and at the same suggested that VK Lingam (whilst still calling him a conman) may have just acted to impress people. With people like Nazri around to make such statements, then why waste time and money on Royal Commissions and reports to police and MACC (who by the way had cleared the 2 characters of any wrongdoing) on the Lingam’s case, right?

Let’s reflect back to the words “morally wrong but legally clean”.

I still recall when I was in law school and we had to deal with the issue of morality and legality. It was an interesting topic with many possible conclusions. Sometimes what it seems to be morally wrong may not be legally wrong and vice-versa.

One interesting case study that our professor threw at us to study and argue was this case:-

In a case that raised far-reaching political and moral questions, two former East German border guards were convicted today of having shot and killed a fleeing refugee in February 1989.

The verdict set a legal precedent, establishing that officials from what was once the Communist state of East Germany could be punished for actions that were not only legal under East German law, but which were compulsory for them to carry out.

That was an interesting case indeed, and one was on the other end of the straw, if using Nazri’s words, “morally wrong but legally clean”. In this case, the border guards were only legally permitted to shot the fleeing refugee but they were also compelled to shot under strict orders.

The defendant accused of firing the fatal shots, 27-year-old Ingo Heinrich, told the court “at that time I was following the laws and commands of the German Democratic Republic.”

But the judge, Theodor Seidel, said as he pronounced the sentences, “Not everything that is legal is right.”

Mr. Heinrich was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on a charge of manslaughter. He was ruled to have fired the shot that killed 20-year-old Chris Gueffroy as Mr. Gueffroy dashed across the “death strip” that separated East and West Berlin.

If Nazri have been the judge in the court that day, he would have probably allowed the charged border guards to be let off free. After all, does all they did was morally wrong but legally clean?

Of course, such nonsense was not shared by the real judge on the day. Law students may argue for both cases – that in one case, one should not allow any issue of the morality or personal notion of justice to interfere with the strict reading of the law (this is following Nazri’s arguments). But on the other hand, isn’t the law of the country was formed on the basis of morality (for example the law against incest), justice and fairness?

Gary Gentile in the Advocates stated this:-

Law is a reflection of society’s code of morality.

The repercussions from the VK Lingam’s case has a far reaching impact. It is for one implies that appointment of judges can be manipulated by persons on the outside. Malaysian Insider further reports:-

Bukit Gelugor DAP MP Karpal Singh said what had transpired in the recording was tantamount to sedition as it had brought the country’s judiciary into disrepute and Lingam, he suggested, could be charged under the Sedition Act.

Even if the ‘conman’ as implied by Nazri, was just acting, it does bring a wrong impression on the judiciary as whole. Morally, it is wrong but so does legally.