Tuesday, November 13, 2007

I (still) like watching people....

Since moving to the Dungun, I've missed a lot of things that I used to spend with when I was in Bangi and KL. One of these moments was like sitting or standing in a train and watching the other strangers (commuters) around- when you have no book to read. You can see all types of people spending their daily routine commute from/to their home and workplace. Some of them exercise their fingers by keep on SMSing all the way until they reach the destination. Most of them fall asleep. But some part of this journey also can turn to be some exercises for your heart, falling in love with the stranger. Simple, when you find somebody that when your eyes meet her, your heart starts to wish something. And waiting for the next station , who will reach first... love at the first sight and not more than 45 minutes (considering the length of time spent in the train). Believe me , it will make your journey seems faster . - This message is under controlled by the association of the united husbands for the sensitive wives.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Globalisation ala Americans

Globalisation that so much linked with the borderless world, where all the transactions and movements have no limits has changed the international relation. Americans, especially the neocon, has made this globalisation (read capitalism) as a new tool to expand their foreign policies in order to protect their national interest. These words from Kristol need to be pondered.

"AND THEN, of course, there is foreign policy, the area of American politics where neoconservatism has recently been the focus of media attention. This is surprising since there is no set of neoconservative beliefs concerning foreign policy, only a set of attitudes derived from historical experience. (The favorite neoconservative text on foreign affairs, thanks to professors Leo Strauss of Chicago and Donald Kagan of Yale, is Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War.) These attitudes can be summarized in the following "theses" (as a Marxist would say): First, patriotism is a natural and healthy sentiment and should be encouraged by both private and public institutions. Precisely because we are a nation of immigrants, this is a powerful American sentiment. Second, world government is a terrible idea since it can lead to world tyranny. International institutions that point to an ultimate world government should be regarded with the deepest suspicion. Third, statesmen should, above all, have the ability to distinguish friends from enemies. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the history of the Cold War revealed. The number of intelligent men who could not count the Soviet Union as an enemy, even though this was its own self-definition, was absolutely astonishing.

Finally, for a great power, the "national interest" is not a geographical term, except for fairly prosaic matters like trade and environmental regulation. A smaller nation might appropriately feel that its national interest begins and ends at its borders, so that its foreign policy is almost always in a defensive mode. A larger nation has more extensive interests. And large nations, whose identity is ideological, like the Soviet Union of yesteryear and the United States of today, inevitably have ideological interests in addition to more material concerns. Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces, external or internal. That is why it was in our national interest to come to the defense of France and Britain in World War II. That is why we feel it necessary to defend Israel today, when its survival is threatened. No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary."

Excerpted from 'The Neoconservative Persuasion : What it was, and what it is.' By Irving Kristol, From the August 25, 2003 issue 08/25/2003, Volume 008, Issue 47

The way we see the world...

It was my freshman year when I started to do a part time job at one of the country's leading pharmacies. On that moment, I thought I was an independent student who can earn some pocket money and at the same time struggling to get the degree. Yes, I earn what I've searched for but I've lost what I've supposed to grab at the garden of virtue and knowledge.

"Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry," Morrie said. "People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they're are running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house and the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running." ( Tuesday with Morrie, p 136)