PERDANA ONLINE

Huffington Post – Lincoln’s Signature

Izyan Mohamad — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 07:20:22 +0000

*Image from apples4theteacher.com

February 2, 2012 | By Howard Kissel

How much can a piece of paper be worth?

Quite a lot, if it has Abraham Lincoln’s signature on it. The actual value of the over-sized sheet of paper that went on display Wednesday at the New-York Historical Society has not been disclosed. That, after all, would be vulgar. And vulgarity has always been the bane of the Historical Society.

The sheet of paper in question is a handwritten copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, signed by President Lincoln. David Rubenstein, head of the Carlyle Group, recently acquired the document and has lent it to the museum, where it will be on display until April 1.

For Rubenstein, a collector of historical treasures (including one of the 17 known copies of the Magna Carta), the Thirteenth Amendment marks a crucial turning point in American history. He explained its significance Wednesday noon to a group of New York City schoolchildren, in the eighth and eleventh grades at three New York schools, I.S. 259, the Kipp Academy and the Notre Dame Academy.

Rubenstein was introduced by the president of the Historical Society, Louise Mirrer, who quoted historian David McCullough that we are living through “an epidemic of historical illiteracy.” She went on to say that “history has the power to change lives,” citing particularly “the indelible thrill of living history by examining original documents.”

Rubenstein began by quoting “the most famous sentence in history, written by a 33-year-old in Philadelphia” more than two centuries ago: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The statement, he said, contained two fatal flaws. The word men excluded women and it meant specifically white men.

“We fought a Civil War over that.”

On Jan. 1, 1863, he pointed out, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the states that had seceded from the Union (and were thus no longer under his jurisdiction.) Nor did the Proclamation cover the Border States. It was not until January 1865, when the Senate finally ratified the 13th Amendment and the Civil War was close to being won by the North, that the slaves were actually freed.

“The president is not required to sign amendments,” Rubenstein noted. “But Lincoln considered it an important document, which is why he signed his full name rather than just A.Lincoln. It is a symbol of our country finally getting rid of one of the fatal flaws in the founding documents.”

One of the students asked Rubenstein if the document would have been worth as much if it had been signed by Andrew Johnson, who became president when Lincoln was assassinated.

Rubenstein answered that Lincoln was one of the most important men in history and has probably had more books written about him than anyone except Jesus Christ. As a result, he said, “I’m happy to have paid a higher price than I would have if it had been signed by Andrew Johnson.”

After the presentation the students went downstairs to the new DiMenna Children’s History Museum. The walls on the staircase leading to the basement have important historical dates leading one back to 1600, before the arrival of Europeans, when, as the murals depict, the island of Manhattan was wild forest.

The new children’s museum, part of the Historical Society’s recent $65 million renovation, uses interactive exhibits to bring history to life.

In one exhibit you select an election year. The computer screen shows you a gallery of photographs and asks which people could vote. Since the year I chose was 1852 I knew that none of the women could vote. Nor could the African-Americans. But nor could one of the white men I clicked on. He was not eligible because he didn’t own property.

In another exhibit one can follow the life of Margrieta von Varick, who emigrated to Brooklyn in the late 17th century. She had been born in Holland but had grown up in Malaysia. She had a store in her house, selling items she had acquired in traveling to the New World from Malaysia. The exhibit shows the extent of her worldly travels, which spanned four continents.

When she died an acquaintance made an inventory of the items that were left — giving us a detailed glimpse into life in New York 300 years ago.

Another exhibit outlines the life of James McCune Smith, the first African-American to become a doctor. His mother had been a slave and when he was born, in 1813, New York still had slavery. His superior intelligence was noted early on and the community paid for him to go to medical school in Scotland — African Americans were not accepted in American medical schools.

He returned to New York and opened a pharmacy. He became an abolitionist and a good friend of Frederick Douglass, a statue of whom now stands outside the 77th Street entrance to the Historical Society. (Lincoln greets visitors on Central Park West.)

The new emphasis on children is, one hopes, an antidote for McCullough’s “epidemic of historical illiteracy.” I encountered this epidemic recently when I was in the hospital. I was chatting with a nurse who lamented the fact he did not have a college degree. I noted that a college degree no longer implied that the possessor knew anything, citing a statistic from many years ago, that an appalling percentage of Harvard graduates could not identify the time frame of the Civil War.

I asked if he knew when it took place.

“1500?” he replied.

I wish I could remember his name so I could urge him to visit the Historical Society’s children’s museum. The exhibits are so well designed even an aged person like myself found them instructive and entertaining.

For someone who has known the Historical Society for nearly four decades the changes are quite startling. In the ’70s, the museum might almost have been described as a well kept secret, except for every few years when it put items from its collection of the original Audubon drawings on display.

The museum had a kind of stodginess that jibed with its being the oldest museum in the city.The New-York Historical Society was founded in 1804. The hyphen was part of the original title. Back then it signified that New York was an adjective modifying Historical Society. Few today are so fussy about punctuation. But fussiness was also part of the institution’s identity.

Its founder was John Pintard, who was alarmed back in 1804 at how rapidly the city was changing — and destroying its past, a lament that has echoed down the centuries. In the ’70s the museum was still governed by families with names that personified Olde New York.

Like the old families in Edith Wharton novels, who had dignity and taste but less and less money, the museum was becoming down at the heels by the ’90s. In the new century a change of management was receptive to new money. The airiness of the design of the renovated museum suggests the fresh air that now fills the place.

As I was leaving I noticed that there is now a restaurant on the main floor, an elegant Italian place called Caffe Storico. I couldn’t resist. I had a bresaola panini and, for desert, an amaretto semifreddo with heirloom squash confit — both delicious and quite unimaginable 40 years ago. The sunlit restaurant, which has dishes from the museum’s antique collection on its walls, faces the south facade of the American Natural History Museum, that is, the landmarked side.

I was surrounded by people who would have to be described as chic. In Edith Wharton’s time this might not have been considered a good thing. But I believe she’s dead. Assuming that the diners have actually spent time in the museum (you can enter the restaurant without paying the museum admission fee), they can dress as chic-ly as they wish. That a museum once musty is now fashionable can only bode well.

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The Independent – Robert Fisk: This is not about ‘bad apples’. This is the horror of war

Izyan Mohamad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:12:48 +0000

*Photo from boiserealestatesoup.com

January 13, 2012 | By Robert Fisk

How many other abuses took place off camera? How many Hadithas? How many My Lais

So now it’s snapshots of US Marines pissing on the Afghan dead. Better, I suppose, than the US soldiers pictured beside the innocent Afghan teenager they fragged back in March of last year. Or the female guard posing with the dead Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib. Not to mention Haditha or the murder videos taken by US troops in the field – the grenading of an old shepherd by an Iraqi highway comes to mind – or My Lai or the massacre of refugees by US forces in Korea or the murder of Malayan villagers by British troops. Or the Bloody Sunday massacre of 14 Catholics by British troops in Derry in 1972. And please note, I have not even mentioned the name of Baha Mousa.

The US Marines’ response to the pissing pictures was oh so typical. These men were not abiding by the “core values” of the Marines, we were informed. Same old story. A “rogue” unit, a few “bad apples”, rotten eggs. Maybe.

But if there is one game of pissing on the dead, how many others happened without pictures? How many other shepherds got fragged in Iraq? How many other Hadithas have there been? There were plenty of other My Lais.

As laptop filmography gets better, so it all comes slopping out, the rapes and slaughter – and yes, by the Taliban the stoning of young women for supposed sexual misconduct in Afghanistan; by al-Qa’ida, executions and throat-cuttings in Iraq.

And no – the Americans are not the Nazis, the Brits are not the French Paras of 1960 Algeria (but surely we’re not comparing the French paras to the Nazis). The Canadians handed prisoners over to Afghan thugs for brutal questioning but the Canadians are not like Saddam’s secret police – and, I suppose, the Taliban are not Stalin’s NKVD or Putin’s KGB (before he became a statesman). And you can’t compare – surely – the Soviet invaders of Afghanistan in 1979 with Genghis Khan.

So let’s take a little guessing game. A British Sunday paper reveals shocking revelations of torture and cigarette burning, of physical brutality where prisoners must be hospitalised for a week, of possible electric torture. The French in Algeria? Saddam’s mukhabarat? Nope. It’s The Sunday Times Insight Team’s report of 7 May 1972; the victims, of course, IRA suspects in Belfast. A “rogue” unit? A “few bad apples”? I doubt it.

When the Gloucestershire Regiment went on a rampage near Divis flats, smashing every window in the street the day before they were due to leave Belfast, the line was changed. They had been under “enormous strain” – but weren’t these the “Glorious Gloucesters” of Imjin River fame? And the killer Paras of Derry – weren’t these the same Paras of Arnhem Bridge?

And so we go on. Yes, British troops murdered SS prisoners after Normandy – just as the Red Army did in the Second World War and the Americans. And all this gets a bit dull, doesn’t it?

Dresden was worse than the Blitz – but who started it? Hiroshima was worse than Pearl Harbour (ditto). The Canadians bayoneted German prisoners in the First World War – but the Germans really did committed atrocities in Belgium in 1914. And what about Waterloo? What did we do with the heaps of French dead? Why, we honoured them by shipping their corpses off to Lincolnshire and using them as manure on the fields of East Anglia.

If war were not about the total failure of the human spirit, there would be something grotesquely funny about the American reaction to the pissing pictures.

For note, it was not the killing of these men that worried the Marine Corps in the US – it was the pissing. Nothing wrong in killing amid the “core values” of the Marine Corps; you just shouldn’t urinate on the corpses. And even more to the point: YOU MUSTN’T DO IT ON CAMERA! Too late. It comes to this. Armies are horrible creatures and soldiers do wicked things but when we accept all these lies about “bad apples” and the exceptionalism of crime in war – “there may have been some excesses” is the usual dictator-speak – we are accepting war and going along with the dishonesty of it and we are making it more possible and easier and the killings and rapes more excusable and more frequent.

And how should armies react? With one word: guilty.

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Malay Mail – Elyas: Much work needed for 2020

Izyan Mohamad — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:24:54 +0000

*Photo from paradigmaberani.blogspot.com

Former KL Mayor speaks his mind on his memoirs, his ideas and why we don’t need an FT ministry

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2012 | by Haresh Deol

KUALA LUMPUR: Once the icon of Kuala Lumpur. Tan Sri Elyas Omar had his fair share of fans and critics as he played the role of the city’s third datuk bandar (lord mayor) for more than a decade. It was on this very day, 31 years ago, that he assumed the hot seat until he left office in 1992.

Born on Nov 16, 1936, this former Penang Free School student is well-known among city dwellers and has carved a name in the sports scene, sitting as president of the Badminton Assoociation of Malaysia, the KL Football Association and vice presidnet of the FA of Malaysia in the 80s and 90s.

Elyas was instrumental in beautifying the city via the KL Orchid Park, KL Bird Park, Bandar Tun Razak Park and Permaisuri Lake Gardens. He planned the integration of KL’s transportation system and the construction of the National Sports Complex in Bukit Jalil well ahead of the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

He was, however, embroiled in a controversy for failing to adhere to Treasury regulations after purchasing 23 Volvo cars for City Hall. Taking full responsibility, he relinquished his position on Sept 17, 1992.

Age has caught up, but Elyas remains his witty self despite being wheelchairbound for the past eight months due to a spinal problem.

The Malay Mail senior journalist HARESH DEOL caught up with the man as he spoke about the difficulty of pleasing ministers, developing Kampung Baru to the construction of an “underground city” ahead of the Federal Territories Day celebration today.

The Malay Mail (TMM): Good afternoon, sir. How’s your back?

Elyas Omar (EO): I suffered a slipped disc, sometime ago, but was still able to walk. I could feel some pain and discomfort, and it worsened as there was a problem with a nerve in my spinal cord, and this later affected my legs. I try to use a walking aid (points to a pair of forearm crutches) but my kneecaps are giving me problems as well. It’s part and parcel of aging. (smiles)

WHEELCHAIR-BOUND: Elyas Omar suffered a slipped disc some time ago — Pic: RAZAK GHAZALI

TMM: Let’s start with your days as the Lord mayor. Do you think things are different today compared to your days as mayor?

EO: I was both the secretary-general of the Federal Territory Ministry, as it was known then, and the mayor. I held two positions with one salary until then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad, abolished the ministry. I was lucky Tun wanted me to deal directly with him as it made my job easier. Although, legally, the mayor has ultimate powers over city council matters, it is difficult when there is a minister directly above you. Now, they have brought back the FT Ministry (the current Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing Ministry).

TMM: Is it safe to say our current mayor, Datuk Seri Ahmad Fuad Ismail, does not enjoy the “freedom” you have had? What do you think of Ahmad Fuad?

EO: He is good. But now, we have too many people wanting to have a say. Life is difficult for a mayor. I had to deal with ministers, so I can truly understand his problem. Tun Mahathir saw the problem and he quickly did something about it, abolishing the (FT) ministry.

TMM: But the FT Ministry isn’t the only problem. We now have opposition leaders in various constituencies in KL.

EO: I don’t think that’s a problem. When I was mayor, Batu and Cheras were under the Opposition, but City Hall came under the federal government, so there were no major issues. If I could do it, I suppose the other mayors are able to do it, too.

TMM: What about calls to initiate local council elections?

EO: I’ll write about that in my book.

TMM: A book? Let’s leave that for later. Do you believe KL is ready for 2020?

EO: Yes, but subject to several factors. A lot of work has got to be done and we are pressed for time.

Firstly, we must know what we are doing. Secondly, there should already be an eight-year plan in place, with an annual review of those plans. It will be a pressure cooker plan, but KL can be transformed into a city just like New York or Tokyo.

I had, during my time, pushed for a network of walkways in the city. Also, I was a strong advocate of setting up a network of underground walkways sandwiched by stalls or malls under the city. I wanted to build an underground city in KL. I visited cities in the USA and Japan. During one of my visits to Nagoya (Japan), I couldn’t find any shops as there was so much open space and the shops were underground instead! The Japanese and Westerners go underground to escape the cold weather, especially during winter. We could use the same concept, too, with the underground city fully air conditioned so we can escape the heat above.

It didn’t materialise during my time, but I’m glad the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) has launched a pedestrian walkway (from KLCC to Bukit Bintang) recently. I hope to see more of such walkways because walking is healthy.

TMM: But wouldn’t there be lots of land acquisition issues when building an underground city?

EO: I don’t see it as a problem. We either buy the land from the owners or embark on a long-term lease. After all, it is the underground that is going to be developed. I’m sure the legalities can be sorted out between the owners and the government.

An underground city would also promote a comprehensive transport plan and the construction of a non-stop rail line connecting major areas. The city will be a safer place to live in. Women don’t want to walk alone in a tunnel at night. I remember a lot of people were mugged in the short tunnel connecting the old railway station and Masjid Negara. If you have a walkway brightly lit and busy, crime will be reduced.

TMM: There seems to be a fixation on constructing new buildings in the city despite low occupancy rates. What’s your take?

EO: There shouldn’t be anymore buildings in KL. Full stop! I think we have far too many buildings and it is repetitive — same type of malls, same type of office blocks. We need more open spaces, more football fields and basketball courts. Even big cities like New York and Hong Kong have open spaces. Why not KL? We don’t even have a rugby stadium or cricket oval in KL!

We don’t need to increase the quantity of people in KL. We need to increase the quality of life. Instead of tearing down old buildings for new skyscrapers, why don’t we build underground instead, with parks and gardens above to beautify the city. Recreational facilities will naturally keep youths off the streets. Families can spend quality time together.

TMM: Do you think the PM’s recent pledge to spend over RM1 billion to turn KL into a top-notch city will help?

EO: RM1 billion is not enough, but it is a good start. Najib has started the ball rolling, but we need more than that, for sure. We need to make KL into a topnotch city as it is still not onpar with other major cities in the world.

TMM: What are your views on Kampung Baru’s proposed development?

EO: Kampung Baru must be developed! Of course, with the consensus of the landowners as the development must benefit the landowners. It must be done by the government and not an individual company.

As far as I know, the people in Kampung Baru want development. During my time as mayor, folks in Kampung Baru were asking why there isn’t any development in the area. Even if we don’t develop all 250 acres, we can develop at least 50, and that would be good enough. We must remember there are many immigrants living in the area now as tenants. The matter must be handled wisely and there must be a proper strategy. I know what the strategy is, but I’m not going to tell you! (laughs)

TMM: You helped to build cities abroad. Who have you worked with?

EO: I was appointed by the government of Senegal to help build new townships. I am currently dealing with a government in the Middle East to help build new townships. It is still in the early stages, so I don’t want to dwell too much into it for now.

TMM: Has anyone in the country consulted your expertise?

EO: No comment. (smiles)

TMM: You mentioned a book earlier. Have you started writing?

EO: I am starting my memoirs. It’s in the early stages now and I hope to complete it in the next two years

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NYT – European Leaders Agree to New Budget Discipline Measures

Izyan Mohamad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 05:53:08 +0000

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Brussels

January 30, 2012 | By STEPHEN CASTLE and JAMES KANTER

BRUSSELS — All but two European Union countries agreed Monday to new and tougher measures to enforce budget discipline in the euro zone, but the bloc still showed few signs of producing a comprehensive solution for the sovereign debt crisis or a credible plan to revive fragile economies across Europe’s weakened Mediterranean tier.

The meeting of 27 European Union heads of state and government here in Brussels was aimed at completing the text of a so-called fiscal compact for the 17 nations relying on or intending to join the euro zone — with only Britain and the Czech Republic opting not to adopt the measures.

After a meeting lasting seven hours, the leaders also issued a declaration calling for a new push to restart growth and combat joblessness across the Continent.

But a number of politicians and analysts said the pledge by the European leaders to create new jobs was mostly empty, and others complained that the proposed rules to keep deficits under control contained little to actually help nations with high borrowing costs.

The summit declaration also skirted the continuing problems in Greece, where a second bailout is being held up by the inability of the government in Athens to complete a deal with private holders of Greek bonds over the losses they should accept.

Until Athens and its private-sector creditors can agree on a $132 billion writedown on Greek government debt, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union are not prepared to sign off on a further bailout. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said the Greek situation would not be addressed until after representatives of Greece’s so-called troika of creditors — the European Union, the I.M.F. and the European Central Bank — report back on their investigation into what will be needed for Greece to manage its finances on its own.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, told a news conference at the end of the summit that there would be a “definitive agreement” on the private sector’s involvement in reducing Greek debt in coming days. After Monday night’s summit meeting, informal talks continued between the Greek prime minister, Lucas Papademos, and European officials.

Despite the various other problems to deal with, an agreement on the fiscal compact could clear the way for Germany to accept stronger efforts by the European Central Bank to support ailing countries and a more comprehensive bailout fund aimed at protecting Italy and Spain against the risk of default.

“It is an important step forward to a stability union,” Mrs. Merkel told reporters. “For those looking at the union and the euro from the outside, it is a very important to show this commitment.” Britain, which clashed openly with France and Germany last month over the pact, did not give any ground Monday and was joined by the Czech Republic, which also elected to stay outside.

“We are not signing this treaty,” David Cameron, the British prime minister, said. “We are not ratifying it. And it places no obligations” on the United Kingdom, he said.

He added: “Our national interest is that these countries get on and sort out the mess that is the euro.”

Mr. Sarkozy sounded philosophical about the Britons’ intransigence. “There are different degrees of integration and everyone is free to choose where they stand,” he said.

While European leaders agreed to bring a permanent bailout fund into existence earlier than previously foreseen, they postponed any final decisions on its ultimate size and how it will be financed. The International Monetary Fund has been pressing Europe to commit enough money to provide a credible backstop that would insure that Italy and Spain could pay their bills and continue to finance their debts.

Germany backed away from a suggestion that it wanted the government in Athens to cede temporarily control over tax and spending decisions to a new, all-powerful, budget commissioner before it can secure further bailouts. Italy won its battle to restrict the scope of the fiscal compact, which calls for making it easier to impose sanctions against countries that break European Union budget rules. The text said the compact would make it harder to block sanctions against countries that exceed annual deficit targets but that the same tough system would not apply to nations with excessive overall debt, like Italy.

The compact will come into force in those nations that agree to its terms once 12 euro zone nations have ratified it. That would prevent the project being held up if one or two nations hold referendums on the deal.

Still, impatience with the German focus on belt-tightening loomed large over the summit meeting.

“You don’t have to be an economics professor to know that if you have zero growth you are not going to sort things out,” said Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament. Critics of austerity point to Greece, which is being strangled by a vicious cycle of deficit cutting, declining tax revenues and more budget cutting, while making little if any progress on its overall budget deficit.

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the centrist liberal and democrat group, and a former prime minister of Belgium, took a similar stand.

“The new agreement consolidates fiscal discipline but omits completely to address the other side of the coin — that of solidarity and investment that will create jobs and growth,” Mr. Verhofstadt said. “E.U. leaders should act instead of producing more paper.”

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Collect Space – Documenting Discovery: NASA, archivists work to record space shuttles’ history

Izyan Mohamad — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:41:45 +0000

Panoramic image map of space shuttle Discovery in the Vehicle Assembly Building from the Shuttle Recordation website. (NASA)

January 30, 2012 — While the Smithsonian gets ready to receive the retired space shuttle Discovery for display this spring, NASA, together with archivists spread across four states, is preparing to preserve the historic orbiter and its sister ships digitally and on paper.

The agency’s efforts, called “Space Shuttle Recordation,” recently became public through a new NASA website.

“Recordation is a term generally used in the context of Historic American Building Surveys or Historic American Engineering Records,” NASA’s federal preservation officer Jennifer Groman told collectSPACE in an e-mail. “We at NASA have adopted the term for a broader purpose to cover the documentation efforts we are conducting as part of a memorandum of agreement with several state historic preservation officers and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation for our Section 106 compliance under the National Historic Preservation Act.”

Section 106 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties. In this case, it is NASA’s decision to transfer the shuttles to museums for public display.

Under it memorandum of agreement, NASA is developing a historical narrative of the development and design of the Space Transportation System, more commonly known as the space shuttle.

“The recordation package will include measured drawings developed by the National Park Service and contractors based on laser technology, large format photographs, oral histories, videos and a bibliography,” Groman said.

According to its website, the recordation effort is paying special emphasis to the changes to the orbiters that were ordered in the wake of the two shuttle accidents. Shuttle Challenger was lost 73 seconds into its launch on Jan. 28, 1986 and Columbia was lost 16 minutes from it landing on Feb. 1, 2003.

Discovery, which returned the fleet to flight after both of the tragedies, has been identified by NASA as the “shuttle of record,” which means it has been and will be the orbiter most extensively documented and researched.

Uploading the shuttle

Over the past two years, NASA has partnered with state historic preservation offices in Alabama, California, Florida and Texas, as well as the National Park Service, to carry out its recordation effort.

“NASA has had team member representatives from every center that have been involved with the development and preparations of the orbiters,” Groman said. “Additionally, different NASA personnel and contractors located across the country have contributed photos of the preparations and last flights of each orbiter, conducted oral histories, and developed the recordation package.”

Now those multimedia materials are beginning to be made available online for public use.

“The Space Shuttle Recordation website was kicked off in December of 2011,” Groman said. “We are still awaiting delivery of different recordation products that will be made available on our website as they are completed, such as the final versions of the narrative, photos and measured drawings.”

A copy of the materials will also be held by the Library of Congress.

Among the recordation features already online are nearly 60 panoramic images, or 360-degree movies, of Discovery from both exterior vantage points and inside its crew cabinand payload bay.

A historical narrative, which Groman expects to be “fairly thick in hard copy,” will be posted online this summer.

Downloading Discovery

As the virtual space shuttle Discovery debuts on NASA’s recordation website, the real orbiter is in the final stages of being readied for display at the Smithsonian.

The National Air and Space Museum stated last week that Discovery would arrive at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC on April 17 and then be transferred to its annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center located adjacent to the airport two days later.

Flown from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on top of a modified Boeing 747 airliner, Discovery will be the first of NASA’s retired space shuttles to go on public display.

The dates for Discovery’s delivery are weather contingent. Additional related activities, such as a possible flyover of Washington, DC, are still being finalized.

Discovery will take the place of the test orbiter Enterprise, which will similarly be moved to New York City’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum within a week of Discovery’s arrival.

Discovery’s sister ships, Endeavour and Atlantis, will be delivered to their display homes in California and Florida later this year and in early 2013.

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NST – Finding peace and a home

Izyan Mohamad — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:34:58 +0000

Stupka (first row, fourth from right in black sweater) with the other volunteers during training. With them are Malaysians who were engaged as trainers

January 27, 2012 | By kasmiah@nstp.com.my

JOHN Stupka came to Malaysia with only one thought in his mind — volunteer his services under the Peace Corps programme. Once the two-year contract is over, he would go back to his hometown in Ohio, the United States. However, the plan was derailed as 45 years after he stepped foot in this country, he is still here.

Malaysia, to him, is home. He has lived here for so long that he says he wants to spend the rest of his life here.

When he joined the Peace Corps in 1966, Stupka, 71, thought it would be an adventure since he loves to travel. At that time, he was teaching art at a private high school.
And, he admitted that joining the Peace Corps was another way to avoid being drafted into the army. At that time, the US was involved in the Vietnam War and many young men were either being drafted or volunteered to join the armed forces. However, if a person was accepted into the Peace Corps, he would be deferred from being drafted.

“Initially, I thought I would never be accepted into the Peace Corps. I thought the programme didn’t require someone with an art degree from University of Ohio. I thought it accepted business students from Harvard or Yale. But I told myself, why not?”

Months later, he got a call to go for a medical examination at an army base. Once he passed that, he received a letter asking him to report for training at Caltech University in California.
“At the training centre, I was told that I am going to Malaysia if I am accepted into the programme. At that time, I did not know anything about Malaysia. Nobody I knew even knew where it was. I was given a list of books and references and went to library to get them.

UNKNOWN TERRITORY

“From reading, I found out a little bit about the country. I was a bit concerned when I found that Malaysia is close to Vietnam. I knew of Vietnam, but had no idea about of Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand.”
To help volunteers understand more about the country, the Malaysian government sent volunteers to help with the training. Their roles included teaching volunteers about language and culture. Stupka and 17 volunteers trained for three months, mainly in industrial art.

“It was strenuous and we were told that even if we completed training, we may not be accepted. We had to go through many exercises as well as talk to a psychologist. The worst part was having your peers judge whether you are suitable for the programme. But I made it and made my way to Malaysia.”

At that time, Malaysia wanted to set up vocational programmes in secondary schools and industrial art teachers were in demand. With aid from the Canadian Colombo Plan and teachers from the US, the programme in Malaysia was kick-started.

There were 245 TESL (Teaching English as Second Language) teachers in Stupka’s batch. They were volunteers to teach English in elementary schools, especially in rural areas.

With his background in art and construction, Stupka was asked to teach industrial art at the new Maktab Perguruan Teknik in Cheras, when he arrived in Kuala Lumpur in November, 1967.
“I was nervous and felt that it was a bit overwhelming. I had just graduated and I was supposed to be a student, not a teacher. However, it was also an exciting opportunity.”

STAYING ON

In 1969, Stupka’s contract with Peace Corps ended as under the programme volunteers were required to only spend two years abroad. However, the Malaysian government asked him if he could stay for one more year since it could not find a replacement.

Stupka decided to accept the offer. He felt that he was making a difference. He — and other Peace Corps volunteers — were starting something new and were excited to see the progress. “To be truthful, I could not wait to go home the first year I was here. But then slowly I made more friends, I was accepted into the community. I began to to understand the whole fabric of Malaysia more.

“Of course at that time, it was also a personal ego trip. I was proud that somebody noticed what I was doing. I had responsibilities here that I would not have had in the US unless I went through many chains of command.
When his contract ended in 1971, he was given an option of having a ticket to fly home or money. He decided to take the cash and look for the cheapest return ticket he could find.

“I was thinking of coming back to Malaysia. Not as a Peace Corps volunteer but doing something else. At that time, there was no time limit on the ticket, we could use it anytime we wanted to. So I kept my options open.”
When he went back to the US in 1971, Stupka said he felt lost. He did not have a job and felt that he did not have anything in common with his friends and family. He had a cultural shock and began to realise that everything around him did not change while he had changed a lot.

HOME, NO LONGER

“The food was boring. My relatives and friends were so caught up with their own problems. Only my grandparents who raised me were interested to know what I did in Malaysia.

“Also the situation in the US at that time was not good. People were protesting the Vietnam War and it was stressful. Everyone was only concerned about the war. I was feeling more depressed.”
Stupka’s dreams of going back to Malaysia came true when he received an offer to become Peace Corps coordinator in the country. Under the new training module volunteers trained for three months in the respective countries where they were sent to.

Stupka was regarded as the right person to come up with training module in Malaysia. He jumped at the chance of doing something that he liked in a place that he felt was home. His job as the coordinator lasted four years.
In 1978, when his contract ended, he found out about an opening in International School Kuala Lumpur. Without hesitation, he decided to apply for it. With a Master’s in Arts, he was offered a position as an arts teacher.

GROWING UP WITH THE NATION

Stupka has seen the best and worst of Malaysia through the years. He was here during the May 13, 1969 racial riots and had witnessed “horrible” things which he refused to talk about. He was here during the financial crisis and says Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad handled it well. Every race in Malaysia strives to strengthen their relationship with each other.

“I was here when I was in my 20s. I grew up with the nation. I saw how the people and government handled crisis after crisis and overcame them. I have seen so many positive developments. I have also seen the developments in Malaysia due to Peace Corps activities. I have never yet met anyone who say bad things about the Peace Corps.”

Now, he plans to retire as a teacher when he reaches 75. Maybe with more time on his hands, he will be able to travel again. While he goes back to Ohio every two years to visit his mother, he wants to experience autumn and spring again.
“This is my home now. I told my mother that I will die here.”
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The Star – Myths, prejudice and history

Izyan Mohamad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:51:21 +0000

*image from oxygen.org.au

Question Times by P.GUNASEGARAM

It is next to impossible to make history objective, but we must give it L a damn good shot.

LEGEND is a lie that has attained the dignity of age. – HL Mencken The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. – Mark Twain

Remember Jalan Birch in Kuala Lumpur, near the Merdeka Stadium? It’s been called Jalan Maharajalela for many years now, Birch becoming a victim of a programme of Malaysianisation of road names.

But Birch also became a victim of Malaysianisation of history – from hero, he became a villain, and his killer, yes, Maharajalela, became a hero in the flash of a road sign change.

Few things can so poignantly illustrate the change in historical perspective as a country changes.

JWW Birch was a British resident (adviser to the Sultan) in Perak in the 19th century. The British used a system of residents to control most Malayan states. A local called Dato Maharajalela assassinated Birch.

Although the reasons why he did this are obscure, Maharajalela is now hailed as a nationalist who opposed colonialism and died in the process – he and his accomplice were hanged.

Hence his elevation to hero status and Birch’s relegation to villain, a representative of an occupying force.

I remember my early history textbooks post-independence put Maha ra jalela in bad light until years later when the historical perspective began to shift.

We studied in our history books that Sir Francis Light was the founder of Penang which is ridiculous from a Malayan/Malaysian perspective because Malayans must have known the existence of Penang long before it was “founded” by Light. To this day, Wikipedia states that Light founded Penang. How confounding is that.

When the British “founded” places, it meant they then established a system of governance with rules of law. There is a court system and a police force. Prior to their “founding” there was no such legal system among the locals.

Then, there was Sir Stamford Raffles who similarly was said to have “founded” Singapore conveniently and erroneously erasing the arrival earlier to that place by a prince from Palembang, Sang Nila Utama, some 500 years earlier.

It seems like even Singaporeans believe their history started with Raffles. I was at a performance put up by Singaporean MBA students in 1991 which started off the history of the country from the time Raffles “founded” it in 1819. How unfortunate! It was with great amusement that I read many years ago of a stunt pulled by an American (Red) Indian.

After arriving in Italy via a commercial flight, he promptly announced that he had founded Italy.

And what right did he have to make that outrageous claim? The same that Christopher Columbus, an Italian who sailed on behalf of the Spanish monarchs, had when he proudly claimed that he had discovered the Americas (at that time Columbus thought it was the East Indies) in 1492, a land already in habited by millions of others.

Now, Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim has controversially raised lots of heckles and temperatures by saying that Malay warriors such as Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat were mere legends – myths invented by fertile minds for the amusement of others, much like the Greek gods.

He is, however, a renowned historian with no political ideology, racial or national axe to grind.

To his critics he has this to say: “If you don’t agree with me, bring out the sources to show I am wrong. You cannot simply say you don’t agree. I am saying that these things were not true because no reliable sources confirmed they existed.”

That is a clear indication as to how we should go about clarifying history.

History must be based on facts. It must seek to recreate – without any ideological, national, racial or any other bias – what happened to who, what, when, where, why and how, the journalistic five W’s and one H.

Otherwise it remains a myth and legend.

Just as in the case of Hang Tuah, one should seek to ascertain whether Maharajalela was indeed a hero by trying to establish, based on facts, his motives for killing Birch.

Otherwise it becomes a mere speculation and interpretation which is not history.

We are a relatively young country and yes, we would need to rewrite history from the perspective of Malaysia and Malaysians. No, Light had not founded Penang and Raffles, Singapore.

There may be many questions we can’t answer but we must make an effort to find them. And we need a proper system of archiving so that future generations know things the way they were.

History in school must not be a tool for nation building or used for any other agenda but to paint a true picture, as far as that is possible given all our collective prejudices, of Malaysia and of the world.

It needs to have balance, fairness and most of all truth about everyone’s contribution to nation building.

It must not seek to aggrandise one race or religion at the expense of others.

It must have enough of a mix of subject matter to ensure Malaysians have sufficient appreciation of Malaysia and how it has come to be where it is as well as an unbiased understanding of the state of the world. Anything else and it would become poor propaganda instead.

The best way towards this is to have a curriculum drawn up by historians and true educationists and to put in place a rigorous means of verification if we need to change history or at least what we learn of it.

You can interpret history but you must not rewrite it without factual basis.

It is next to impossible to make it objective but we must give it a damn good shot nevertheless, if we are not to live in and perpetuate a lie.

Independent consultant and writer P Gunasegaram (t.p.guna@gmail.com) says we need an accurate history before we learn anything from it

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The Star – Corruption scandal shakes Vatican as internal letters leaked

Izyan Mohamad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:17:19 +0000

January 26, 2012 | By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican was shaken by a corruption scandal on Thursday after an Italian television investigation said a former top official had been transferred against his will after complaining about irregularities in awarding contracts.

Pope Benedict XVI (R) speaks to judges to mark the start of the judiciary year of the Sacra Rota at the Vatican January 21, 2012. REUTERS/Osservatore Romano

The show “The Untouchables” on the respected private television network La 7 on Wednesday night showed what it said were several letters that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was then deputy-governor of Vatican City, sent to superiors, including Pope Benedict, in 2011 about the corruption.

The Vatican issued a statement on Thursday criticising the “methods” used in the journalistic investigation. But it confirmed that the letters were authentic by expressing “sadness over the publication of reserved documents.”

As deputy governor of the Vatican City for two years from 2009 to 2011, Vigano was the number two official in a department responsible for maintaining the tiny city-state’s gardens, buildings, streets, museums and other infrastructure.

Vigano, currently the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington, said in the letters that when he took the job in 2009 he discovered a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to outside companies at inflated prices.

In one letter, Vigano tells the pope of a smear campaign against him (Vigano) by other Vatican officials who wanted him transferred because they were upset that he had taken drastic steps to save the Vatican money by cleaning up its procedures.

“Holy Father, my transfer right now would provoke much disorientation and discouragement in those who have believed it was possible to clean up so many situations of corruption and abuse of power that have been rooted in the management of so many departments,” Vigano wrote to the pope on March 27, 2011.

In another letter to the pope on April 4, 2011, Vigano says he discovered the management of some Vatican City investments was entrusted to two funds managed by a committee of Italian bankers “who looked after their own interests more than ours.”

LOSS OF $2.5 MILLION, 550,000 EURO NATIVITY SCENE

Vigano says in the same letter that in one single financial transaction in December, 2009, “they made us lose two and a half million dollars.”

The programme interviewed a man it identified as a member of the bankers’ committee who said Vigano had developed a reputation as a “ballbreaker” among companies that had contracts with the Vatican, because of his insistence on transparency and competition.

The man’s face was blurred on the transmission and his voice was distorted in order to conceal his identity.

In one of the letters to the pope, Vigano said Vatican-employed maintenance workers were demoralised because “work was always given to the same companies at costs at least double compared to those charged outside the Vatican.”

For example, when Vigano discovered that the cost of the Vatican’s larger than life nativity scene in St Peter’s Square was 550,000 euros in 2009, he chopped 200,000 euros off the cost for the next Christmas, the programme said.

Even though, Vigano’s cost-cutting and transparency campaign helped turned Vatican City’s budget from deficit to surplus during his tenure, in 2011 unsigned articles criticising him as inefficient appeared in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.

On March 22, 2011, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone informed Vigano that he was being removed from his position, even though it was to have lasted until 2014.

Five days later he wrote to Bertone complaining that he was left “dumbfounded” by the ouster and because Bertone’s motives for his removal were identical to those published in an anonymous article published against him in Il Giornale that month.

In early April, Vigano went over Bertone’s head again and wrote directly to the pope, telling him that he had worked hard to “eliminate corruption, private interests and dysfunction that are widespread in various departments.”

He also tells the pope in the same letter that “no-one should be surprised about the press campaign against me” because he tried to root out corruption and had made enemies.

Despite his appeals to the pope that a transfer, even if it meant a promotion, “would be a defeat difficult for me to accept,” Vigano was named ambassador to Washington in October of last year after the sudden death of the previous envoy to the United States.

In its statement, the Vatican said the journalistic investigation had treated complicated subjects in a “partial and banal way” and could take steps to defend the “honour of morally upright people” who loyally serve the Church.

The statement said that today’s administration was a continuation of the “correct and transparent management that inspired Monsignor Vigano.”

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Malay Mail – When you did not say what they thought you said

Izyan Mohamad — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:55:59 +0000

*Image from personal-petpeeves.blogspot.com

January 19, 2012

TO be immortal is to be misquoted. Repeatedly, and often at length. It is to have words stuffed into your mouth by total strangers. It is to be parodied and caricatured and have your face shoved onto T-shirts and your name bandied about and slapped on street signs.

It is to be taken out of context. It is to trend on Twitter for hours before everyone realises you didn’t say what they thought you said. It is to show up in Chevy commercials for no reason at all.

When you are immortal, people sit down with you on imaginary panels and try to conjure up your thoughts on contemporary issues. They draw inept pastel portraits of you.

“The words of a dead man are modified in the guts of the living,” W.H. Auden wrote on the death of Yeats.

These days, everyone says a great deal, but not much of it is memorable. Twitter exists, words writ in hot water. We have to shout to be heard above the tumult, and it is difficult to shout beautifully. In a peculiar way we are more dependent on the Great Sayers than we ever were.

Like Twain and Lincoln, other behemoths of American letters, Dr Martin Luther King Jr is always a first recourse for quotation, everywhere from cynical name-dropping in SAT essays — “In the immortal words of Dr King” — to showing up to add vital grace to political speech.

We misquote because we love. We misquote because we have stopped memorising things. Moments before our speeches, we can’t, as Dr King could, unearth vast stores of biblical and literary treasures from the rich storehouses of our memories.

We misquote because we have the vague idea that at some point, someone said something great, and the first thing that came up when we Googled it seemed about right.

Do important people still say beautiful things? Barack Obama did, once, at the Democratic convention. But dozens of subsequent speeches blur and run together.

Dr King has made headlines most recently for a series of high-profile misquotations. When you’re taken out of context on your own monument, this seems a bit much — as my colleague Rachel Manteuffel noted.

“Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter,” mutated, in the carver’s hands, to “I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness.”

This was the misquotation for which everyone else was blamed — there was not enough room on the marble, or the committee approved something else, or — a whole concatenation of finger-pointing.

Now it might be changed, though not soon enough. Still, misquotation is a form of flattery. We seek King out for words because he was one of the rare people privileged to say and do great things. Few can manage one of the two.

Besides, one of the conditions of a statue is abiding the pigeons. The only thing worse than being misquoted is not being quoted at all, to misquote Oscar Wilde. — The Washington Post

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The Sun – Disclosure of assets and ethical leadership

Izyan Mohamad — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:29:40 +0000

*Image from scoop.it

January 26, 2012 | By

Natalie Shobana Ambrose

“ROTTEN Parliament” was the name given to British parliamentary elects after more than half the MPs were found guilty of over-claiming expenses. Some appealed stating that they did nothing wrong and that what they did was within the legal parameters of the system. In other words, the system allowed it. However not only was the system abused, the system was flawed and these politicians took advantage of it. Voters were disgusted by MPs flipping houses to avoid paying capital gains tax; one even had the audacity to use taxpayers money to pay for a duck house. The outcome – many lost their seats in the following elections. Sound familiar?

There has been a strong call for people in public office to disclose assets, an appeal that has been long heard around the world and is now being echoed on our shores. More and more countries have adopted ethics and anti-corruption laws requiring full disclosure of assets by public officials, some taking it further requiring that spouses and dependent children do the same. Many a time such disclosure is not made public but instead made to a public agency.

Compulsory disclosure of assets is a means to curb corruption and in the past has exposed unjust enrichment by people in public office. In many instances, such practice has curbed corruption levels (perceived and real), attracted foreign direct investment and improved public confidence in the government. In a loosely tied conclusion, not only is this form of transparency lauded and desired by the people, it also counters weakening public trust in the government and improves the economy. Yet there is opposition in our country to full disclosure of assets even after multiple cases of gross misuse of public funds have been exposed in abundance.

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Ethical leadership means accountability and when in public office, one is automatically subject to public scrutiny and rightly so. If a substantial chunk of my salary is paid to Caesar, don’t I have a right to know how it is spent? Especially when children and spouses of people in public office seem have inflated bank accounts and outlandish salaries.

All this is abuse – abuse of power, abuse of people’s trust and abuse of public funds – and in the current economic climate it becomes something hard to forgive or justify. One can declare innocence and present counter arguments, but the people are not looking for leaders who work an already flawed system. They look for ethical leaders who will stand clean against a flawed system, expose its weaknesses and say I will not abuse it, even though I can. Yet our politicians hide behind absurd excuses such as disclosure being “dangerous”. What about the danger of running the country bankrupt by corrupt practices and risking becoming a rotten parliament?

We seem to like going against the flow – not in a good way. While two Supreme Court magistrates in the Philippines disclosed their statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SLAN) to the public earlier this month, some of our politicians seem vehemently against the practice. Even royal families in Europe are declaring assets, yet we are still debating whether to be transparent or not. In Japan, public officials are required to declare gifts that excess 5,000 yen (RM205), while in the US post Watergate, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 requires high-level employees of all three branches of federal government to declare assets. And who can forget India’s anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare’s hunger strike demanding strong anti-corruption legislation?

The rest of the world is heading in a direction that counts. Why aren’t we? Our evasion of such practices strongly alludes to gross negligence and a determination to hide corrupt practices.

This against the grain mentality translates across other serious issues too. While ministers across the border are taking pay cuts, we are increasing the salaries of top public officials. Can a monthly salary of 60-80 thousand be justified when a large chunk of society earns a small fraction of that sum in a year? Imagine what the pension burden will be if salaries are this inflated. Clearly the system is flawed and sadly many are taking advantage of it.

Today’s informed society does not take kindly to injustices, abuse and corruption. Maybe their displeasure won’t be broad-cast on the streets but if politicians fail to change, they risk being changed.

Natalie believes that full disclosure of assets in private equates to non-disclosure. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

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