Can we kill cancer before it kills us?
According to literature, the first documented cases of cancer came from the Egyptian civilization. Egyptians are also credited for capturing time in their clepsydra, the hourglass predecessor. But like time that floated timeless before water clocks, so did cancer…firm in their presence way before the first human inhaled the first breath.
It’s almost like darkness without which light cannot exist. Same with our human body. Or so it seems. Normal and abnormal, physiology and pathology, sequence and mutation…they all walk hand in hand, one outsmarting the other. Cancer thus, as a subsequence of genetic or epigenetic alterations was always waiting to happen from the very moment a gene was created.
Thus to call cancer a disease is under-respecting the beast that hides beneath the veneer. This is not diabetes that can be blood tested. This is not high blood pressure that can be numbered. We are dealing with a happening that is at once subtle and coarse. We are dealing with the stealthiest of the snakes that does not give a hint to the air before the final fatal flaunt.
Chasing my Malay language dreams forever The Member of Parliament for Titiwangsa, Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani Like most of us, I dream. My dream of my malay language are vivid, rich in colour and detail. They fill in gaps in my workaday life we are so mesmerised by the difference that we become indifferent to our Malay … Read more
A vibrant Parliament is considered the hallmark of a democracy. Its rebuke then certainly provides some food for thought, especially when it comes from someone closely associated with the working of the government Malaysian Parliamentarians “very lazy” and advocated that they be made more “transparent, accountable and hard working”
There is a lack of intellectual discussion among , one other word that rightly describes rowdy and rude MPs conduct in Parliament, apart from obstructionism, is “rudeness”. Whether it is senior leaders of the party or ordinary spokespeople, the common trait that all of them possess is uncouth aggression, calling others names, disallowing them from speaking, disrupting proceedings, booing ministers….The only thing left now for the party to descend to the bottommost pits is getting physical. may want to keep two consequences of this style in mind. First, and most important would imagine, it does not win them additional voters. All that it does is make those already supporting it swing further in support. voters – most of whom are not as aggressive – watch with disgust and anger it is worth examining the performance of Parliament itself. Unlike most paid working groups, there are no clearly spelt out for members of parliament, but data put together from a few sources shows that our Parliamentarians have quite a checkered performance if you analyse parameters such as attendance, legislation or adherence to poll promises.
Let’s take attendance at the workplace, to begin with. Both houses of the parliament haven’t functioned for 100 % of their scheduled hours in any session If anything, Parliamentarians may do good to restore people’s faith by injecting a dose of accountability. How exactly can this be done remains a complex question.
Annual audits of MPs performance and the right to recall elected representatives (withdraw their representation if they fail to perform). The Malaysian Voter campaign urges citizens to look at MPs To-do list, pick up the phone and demand accountability from them on their promises. There would be many more such suggestions out there.
do spare a thought for them. In this country, the common man should be the real VIP, and if such a privilege is indeed to be provided, can there be anyone better than those who have been elected by the common man himself? If sundry Rosmah and others who are installed at various posts can enjoy this privilege, why shouldn’t those who represent us in Parliament? Sound logic!
Till some mechanism is evolved, we’ll simply have to wait for elections to give our score-points.In this country, the common man should be the real VIP, and if such a privilege is indeed to be provided, can there be anyone better than those who have been elected by the common man himself? If sundry babus and others who are installed at various posts can enjoy this privilege, why shouldn’t those who represent us in Parliament? Sound logic! have no idea where this fetish for VIP status began with Najib’s beloved2 class first lady Rosmah , but it seems to afflict almost everyone. Those who have made it in life, those who want to make it in life and those who want to bask in borrowed/reflected glory, the desire to be a VIP is all-pervasive. If you have to stand in a queue to get your work done, then you are not important enough. You must be someone, or know someone who can help you jump the queue. Even better, if you can do things conspicuously, that is, the rest of the poor souls who are miserable in the queue should know that you are important enough and have been made to jump the queue. To blame it on the mindset of the wannabe VIPs alone would be wrong, for the common man too suffers from the same, medieval mindset, where the only way you think that a person is important is if he can bend rules and still go scot-free, and perhaps thumb his nose at the law as well.
The fact is that whether we like it or not, the general mindset is that of a ruler and his subjects. We elect our MPs and MLAs to rule, never to govern. We elect them to put them on a pedestal that is out of reach of the common people. We want them to be rulers like the kings and the queens, or at least as important courtiers, who are lesser evils, but VIPs nevertheless.
It is our mindset that equates power with importance and with respect. If you are unable to flout rules, if you are questioned by the ‘long arm of law’, you are a nobody, not even a wannabe. To blame the poor members of Parliament for asking for a red light on their cars is just rewards for our mindset.
Having said that, however, we can see a slow but certain change in the mindset creeping in. Some VIPs are getting the wind (like Khanduri), but the MPs, it seems, are yet to get the wind. Hope they realise it soon. I’d be happier if they learn it the hard way.
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