Can-nosed bovine

Way before the political crisis in Perak unfolded, I read an artical written by Max Lucado titled "Hard Hearted". As the political situation deteriorate further with all its high dramas, I can't help but keep thinking of the article; particularly about the part on the can-nosed cow. I reproduced below the whole article:


Hard Hearted by Max Lucado

“Hardhearted people are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him, They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.” (Eph. 4:17-19)

A hard heart ruins, no only your life, but the lives of your family members. As an example, Jesus identified the hard heart as the wrecking ball of a marriage. When asked about divorce, Jesus said, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because our hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” (Matt. 19:8) When one or both people in a marriage stop trusting God to save it, they sign its death certificate. They reject the very one who can help them.

My executive assistant, Karen Hill, saw the result of such stubbornness in a pasture. A cow stuck her nose into a paint can and couldn’t shake it off. Can-nosed cows can’t breathe very well, and they can’t drink or eat at all. Both the cow and her calf were in danger. A serious bovine bind.

Karen’s family set out to help. But when the cow saw the rescuers coming, she set out for pasture. They pursued, but the cow escaped. They chased that cow for three days! Each time the posse drew near, the cow ran. Finally, using pickup trucks and ropes, they cornered and de-canned the cow.

Seen any can-nosed people lately? Malnourished souls? Dehydrated hearts? People who can’t take a deep breath? All because they stuck their noses where they shouldn’t, and when God came to help, they ran away.

When billions of us imitate the cow, chaos erupts. Nations of bull-headed people ducking God and bumping into each other. We scamper, starve, and struggle.
Can-nosed craziness. Isn’t this the world we see? This is the world God sees.
Yet, this is the world God loves. For God so loved the world: This hard-hearted, stiff-necked world. We stick our noses where we shouldn’t; still, he pursues us. We run from the very one who can help, but he doesn’t give up. He loves. He pursues. He persists. And, every so often, a heart starts to soften.
Let yours be one of them.

When my daughters were small, they liked to play with Play Doh. They formed figures out of the soft clay. If they forgot to place the lid on the can, the substance hardened. When it did, they brought it to me. My hands were bigger. My fingers stronger. I could mold the stony stuff into putty.

Is your heart hard? Take it to your Father. You’re only a prayer away from tenderness. You live in a hard world, but you don’t have to live with a hard heart.

I think the politicians in Perak is really like the cow that stuck her nose into the empty paint can. They keep on running away when an opportunity came by for them to settle the political impasse. If Najib is smart and far sighted enough, he should dissolve the state assembly and call for fresh mandate from the people in Perak. He may be a skillful politician and finally wriggle his way out of the crisis while still holding on to power in Perak but the people in Perak may not be so forgiving come next election time. In this age of internet, peoples memory are prolonged much longer than before. Just a few clicks on the keyboard will refresh the memories. The patience of the rakyat is really running shorter by the day.

All I can say is that, if the can-nosed Najib and his goons in Perak refused to decan their noses, then they will certainly be starved to death politically.


ALL THE BEST TO ALL OUR CAN-NOSED POLITICIANS!!!!

WIFI on public buses in Penang?

I came across this piece of news in The Star (online) this afternoon and makes me ponder for awhile.




Published: Wednesday May 13, 2009 MYT 1:56:00 PM


Free WiFi on Rapid Penang buses

GEORGE TOWN: Rapid Penang Sdn Bhd will be providing free WiFi access to its passengers, the first bus company in the country to do so, beginning with a three-month trial on two buses.

Its chief executive officer Azhar Ahmad said the company was installing the facility in two buses: The first plies the route between Balik Pulau and the Bayan Lepas International Airport, and the second on the Teluk Bahang-Batu Feringgi-Weld Key route.

He said use of the WiFi facility would be free and that the buses would have special stickers for easy identification by passengers.

“After three months, if response from passengers is good, we’ll have the facility installed in stages in all of our 180 buses, and also the additional 200 buses which will be delivered to us by the end of the year,” he told a press conference here Wednesday.

Azhar said the facility was provided to enable passengers to surf the Internet in the bus before arriving at their destinations. -- Bernama

Wifi on the buses is great but I think the basics must be there before other facilities, no matter how beneficial, can be fully enjoyed by the commuters. Just take a good look at our public transport system in Penang. Can anyone say that it is reliable? The buses often do not keep to schedule. They are all the time overcrowded especially at peak hours. The frequency of trips is not good enough for the public to find it convenient and beneficial to use. Most of the buses are just not clean enough for comfort. And the attitude of the bus drivers?....a lot of room for improvement.

Oh, come on, En Azhar, improve the basic facilities first before going into things like WIFI on the buses. I think the commuter will be very much more appreciative if the basics are improved rather that providing something that cannot be enjoyed. Do you seriously think the commuters will really make use of the WIFI facilities? Maybe some will if the ride is more reliable and comfortable. But for now, lets improve the basics first.

Absurd Story?

I was browsing the May issue of Astro View and the article "The Mozart of Madras" caught my attention. It is about A.R. Rahman who was actually born A.S. Dileep Kumar in 1966 and converted to Sufism after his critically ill sister was miraculously healed with prayer from a Sufi dervish saint. A.R. Rahman is a very talented composer. His works have been featured in more than 100 movies. One of the latest is Slumdog Millionaire.




Curious to know more about Sufism I did a Google search and found it on Wikipedia. After going through the article I click on the link to one of the Sufi saint Nasrudin (or Nasreddin). As I was browsing the write-up about this saint, the artice "Whom Do You Trust" caught my eye.




Whom do you trust
A neighbour comes to the gate of Mulla Nasreddin's yard. The Mulla goes out to meet him outside.
"Would you mind, Mulla," the neighbour asks, "lending me your donkey today? I have some goods to transport to the next town."
The Mulla doesn't feel inclined to lend out the animal to that particular man, however; so, not to seem rude, he answers:
"I'm sorry, but I've already lent him to somebody else."
Suddenly the donkey can be heard braying loudly behind the wall of the yard.
"You lied to me, Mulla!" the neighbour exclaims. "There it is behind that wall!"
"What do you mean?" the Mulla replies indignantly. "Whom would you rather believe, a donkey or your Mulla?"




After reading the story I was thinking how absurd the story is and wondering about the moral of it. I still do not know the real moral or intention or spiritual truth of this story in the context of Sufism but then it dawn on me that the situation described in the story is real. It exist even today in our modern society.




It reminds me of someone I know personally for many years. He is a well respected man in society. He runs a drug rehabilitation center on a voluntarily basis. Many drug addicts have gone through his programme and came out becoming someone who is contributing to the betterment of society. But sad to say, success and self ego has got the better of him. He slowly began to get involved in questionable activities. Everytime a former resident of the center revealed something about him that is not good, some people who are brave enough to question his will get this reply: "Who do you want to believe? A former drug addict or your trusted spiritual leader?" He never gave a strait answer to the question posed to him. When you query him further, he would say "Why are you so stupid as to listen to the drug addict?"



After some thinking, the story is not so absurd anymore.