Read this in the papers Dec 16. This is so, so sad:

NST columnist Johan Jaafar thinks Malaysia needs an Oprah to make readers out of us. According to recent findings, 48% of Malaysians do not even read a book a year.

In the US, Seattle beat 69 competitors to emerge as “America’s Most Literate City.” The reason apparently is due to a strong library system (one central library and 24 branches) in the city and King County, and an abundance of independent bookstores. Report here.

'nuff said.

"Lewis regarded Plato as a pagan whose insights prefigured Christian beliefs in some respects. In the Chronicles, Lewis explored pre-Christian paganism, the idea of a natural affinity with a biblical worldview, what he called the anima naturaliter Christiana. Certainly, Lewis’s success as a contemporary writer reveals that such faith can strike a deep chord around the world today. Much of this success came from his assuming a natural affinity between our ordinary humanity and Christian belief. Lewis wrote during an age of modernism, and he was a lifelong antimodernist. This led him to an imaginative defense of Christian faith that stands in the tradition of a spirituality that is increasingly attractive to contemporary readers. Lewis’s exploration of paganism depends upon a distinction between Christian and pagan spirituality. Christian spirituality has to struggle long and hard to be consistent with orthodox theology. This didactic element is usually integrated successfully into Lewis’s storytelling: many children read the Chronicles without being aware of their strong Christian themes." Colin Duriez (A Field Guide to Narnia)

Caught the much-anticipated Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I think it has kept faith with legions of Lewis fans who wonder what Hollywood will do with a classic long associated with its christian themes. The thing is to see it as a movie - without preconceived notions, and not to pick out allegorical connections. (In any case, Lewis himself admitted that he did not consciously set out to construct an allegorical world but an alternative one). On that score I thought LWW the movie succeeded admirably, breathing life into a slim volume (okay it's one of 7, and it gets better along the way) that fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien publicly pooh-poohed as flawed (Tolkien hated allegory).

I must say the creative license that director Andrew Adamson took actually added to the experience, giving it an additional heft. The CGI is seamless, but that's to be expected as nothing short of the LOTR benchmark will do. I got misty-eyed several times, but I do have a few issues with this otherwise wonderful screen translation:

The battle scene was, sadly, lame - to quote a viewer in the back-row - and that's not because I am making unfair comparisons with LOTR. Considering that the story is set in a world locked in a war nearing apocalyptic proportion, the battles lack the necessary intensity. The sense that a world hung in the balance ought to be grimmer in tone. I suppose the lack of blood and gore has to do with keeping the movie within its G rating more than a lack of imagination.

Of course I also wonder if it would hurt to depict some kind of training for the Pevensie children. Their transformation from children to warriors would perhaps be more believable (although not in the book). I mean the director cheated with an offscreen knife throw by little Lucy which got the audience laughing - whether because it was increduluous or because Lucy did better than her sister's Susan's archery, I can't say.

And the music by Harry Gregson-Williams. It could have been so much better. Music gives wings to movies and LWW did not feature a memorable score (not least an infectious one) to lift it higher. Gregson-Williams is no novice and collaborated with Admason previously on Shrek, so what gives? Maybe I need to listen to it some more. Again, unfair perhaps, but listen to Howard Shore's dramatic composition for LOTR or even John Williams Star Wars epics and you know what I mean.  So, yes, LWW was a great adventure and engrossing family fare. In spite of some of missteps, it nevertheless merits a 4 out of 5 stars.

What can I say? See the movie. And of course, read the book.

Took a slow drive up north to Penang over the weekend for Cheong Heng and Guik Choon’s 25^th Anniversary dinner. Mum came along. The evening, which was a reunion of sorts, kicked off with a rousing sing-along of Great Is Thy Faithfulness, a hymn that is also a personal favourite.It was good meeting up with old friends as well.

We were treated to a brief power-point flashback to the years gone by, in black and white mostly, when our hair was thicker, our eyes brighter. 25 years is a long time in our throwaway society and I know the couple have had their ups and downs. But God has been good to them. So it was great seeing them celebrate their journey this far, growing old together, their two children at their side. Cheong Heng and Guik Choon renewed their vows, while John Coltrane played.  I think there is no finer tribute than that paid to the couple by their son Zach who gave a word of thanks and said that seeing his parents now, he wants what they have. Wish I have photos right now - hope to upload some if and when I get them soon.

We stayed in Penang for a couple more days after the dinner. Cheong Heng told us about a Tsunami Beach Café, a beachfront seafood restaurant operated by local fisher folk who lost their homes in last year's tragedy. But what a bummer – they close on Mondays, and we quickly rerouted our little dinner party to a quaint nyonya joint in the city. Good food, good conversation with my wife Sook Ching’s friends whom we had not seen in a while.

Decided to take the ferry to the mainland on the way home, the sun beating down, and gulls in the sky. Couldn’t help feeling a little nostalgic thinking how such a ride was so much a thrill when I was knee high.

Visited Alor Star to say hello to the in-laws. Drove by our old house. It was part of a row of wooden terrace houses that has amazingly remained almost unchanged all these years.Somewhere deep within the recesses of  my memory, something clicked and I instinctively I  pointed to No. 22B and piped up: "There, that's our house." We lived there until I was 5 or 6 I think, until a massive blaze reduced adjacent rows to cinders, and Dad said it was time to move . How do you explain a thing like this, remembering the house number so far removed in time and space?

I get nervous with all the hype over
preschool. California’s initiative in pushing for the Preschool for All Act, if successful,
could help make Universal Preschool a reality. The fact that advocates are
talking about compulsory preschool for 4-year olds as if it would solve social
ills and correct educational deficits, is disturbing.

Here in Malaysia,
the education ministry too harbours similar ambitions but infrastructure and
funding at this moment are major obstacles in the way. I’m glad for that. Some zealous
educators point to Head Start as evidence that preschool works. Wendy
McElroy sounds the alarm in an article in Foxnews titled, Will Universal
Preschool Give All Kids a Head Start? and points to new studies that show
otherwise:

McElroy also has this to say about government's dangerous presumption:

I understand there is a place for preschool,
but I certainly don’t see why the state should usurp the role of parents and
take over their kids at such an early age or at any age. Compulsory preschool! This then is the
bigger issue and it is utterly appaling to me. Is not the damage done to families by state-sponsored
schooling already self-evident?

"All that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

C.S. Lewis

Detractors sometimes accuse homeschoolers of abandoning convention for fear of losing out. Homeschooling parents want so badly for their kids to be No. 1 their competitive streak is symptomatic of an adult kiasu* mindset, so they say. They insist that these same parents have turned their homes into a hothouse and their children into trophies to show off.

Yet few parents, if any, expect nothing but the best from their children and that is not necessarily a bad impulse. I happen to believe that they are poor parents who do not encourage their children to aim higher or do better when they have the means and resource to do so. It is a great disservice when we are too easily pleased, delight in low expectations, and excuse mediocrity as spiritual contentment. No parent ought to stand for laziness, and neither does our heavenly Father.

But ambitious children may be shortchanged if we do not also teach them that capabilities or qualifications by themselves do not translate into more usefulness. The Bible records individuals whose ambitions were thwarted (by conflict, injustice or moral failure) although that did not stop God's will from being done. It goes against the grain of common understanding but Paul reminds us that the foolish, the weak and humble, remain God's favourite subjects to further His greater glory, for their boast would not lie in their abilities but God's enablement (1 Cor 1:27-31).
 
It pays therefore to remember that the desire to excel, like all other passions of the flesh, is similarly tainted by the Fall, making it a vehicle that either draws a person towards God or away from Him. Ambition becomes selfish when we define ourselves according to achievements instead of character, or when our sense of worth is tied to a pat on the back or a framed certificate on the wall. So Paul's letter to the Galatians warns against selfish ambition, which is another way of saying that neither ambition nor its attainment is to be sought as an end in itself (5:20).

John Sung (1901-44) on repenting of his backsliding threw his diplomas and awards (he had 3 academic degrees) into the sea and became one of the greatest evangelists China had ever known in the last century. Like Paul before him, he counted all his achievements as a liability compared to the greatness of knowing Jesus.

The lesson here is not that ambition or the pursuit of excellence are incompatible with being a Christian, but that they need to be redeemed and placed under the lordship of Christ if they are to mean anything. It starts with recognizing that we are no longer our own. We belong to our Creator; our gifts and potential are a trust whose use their Giver will hold us accountable. It's not that we have arrived - how well we run the race matters just as much. At the finishing line, the ultimate honour is hearing God say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

* local Hokkien dialect meaning,"afraid to lose"

The sorry saga
continues and I am trying to make sense of the verbiage we have been assaulted
with daily. I am not too confident about the outcome of the so-called
investigations since our track record of horrible lapses has little to assure us
otherwise. But I would love to be proven wrong. Too many sources to link, so
you’ll just have to take my word for it here:

• Prime Minister Pak Lah says there will be no cover-ups and an independent body will be set up immediately to investigate
  the recent case of a woman, believed to be a Chinese national, ordered to
  perform ear squats in the nude in a police lockup.
  

• Home Affairs Minister Datuk Azmi Khalid says, “The
  publication of such stories is not fair because it is as if we are
  profiling Chinese citizens who come to Malaysia.  The risk is that the number of tourists from China will fall and this will affect our tourism industry.”
  

• Policewoman in the video clip has been identified and has been
  said to be merely following standard procedure.
  

• Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Musa Hassan said
  that whoever took the video clip would be charged under the Penal Code
  with outraging the modesty of the woman or intruding.
  

• Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar defended the police,
  saying their action was in accordance with the rules and regulations: "I
  dare say everything was done following the rules," and challenged
  lawyers to sue the government or police if they did not agree.
  

• Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was quoted by The Star
  as saying that "strip-searching was not part of the procedures to
  examine those held under police custody."
  

• Deputy Inspector-General of Police Musa
  Hassan was quoted as saying that
  "it is the perpetrator behind the video clip whom we are after and
  not the policewoman, who was carrying out a routine check".
  

• Opposition party MP Teresa Kok who was landed the hot potato and went public gave a statement to the police
  and in her blog, writes ominously, “I must be careful...”

We are all careful,
Teresa, very, very careful - we've learnt our lesson well - and hence
our very polite but measured response. Contrast our rather docile
approach to the women of Kerala
on hearing  the Supreme Court decree that women can be taken into
police custody at night without the presence of women police constables.

A video clip captured on a mobile phone
creates an uproar across the nation. In the video a woman is seen stripping her
clothes off before a policewoman (in headscarf) who then asks the woman in
remand to do ear-squats in the nude. Comparisons with the infamous Abu Ghraib photos
came
to mind almost immediately and smug parliamentarians who had previously
denounced  US  complicity in the torture of terror suspects
are up in arms. The video clip has shocked the nation although anyone
who knows anything about what goes on in our own police lock-ups and
prisons are hardly
surprised. The cover-ups of the past and constant denials by the police
and
authorities now ring hollow in the face of video evidence made
public. Follow the story here, and here, and here. Opposition MP Teresa Kok who first broke the story writes about how she obtained the video in her own blog.

 I think I can relate to what the man is saying about   family priorities here: 

The other question however is, is family a luxury that only those with gazillions in their bank account can afford, or does it apply as much to the other guy down the street who holds down two jobs to make ends meet? I mean, how many people do you know who takes a year off work to be with the family....