[571] Of Ampang, haze and 2008 election

I ran a short errand to Ampang with my mother earlier today. Heh, I’m not sure anymore whether Ampang is part of Kuala Lumpur or Selangor. Whatever it is, I brought my handy camera with me and took the liberty to shoot some photos of Ampang.

From the top of Ampang Point, the view was hardly unexpectable. It was the paramount of a green’s dystopia. Dry, arid, dusty, acrid. There was nothing much to be seen even with a thorough scan of Ampang. The sight was distasteful as well as despicable.

Tried zooming around here and there but the smog made any effort useless.

It’s depressing to know that even Los Angeles has better air quality than Kuala Lumpur currently. I’ve been to Los Angeles and I hate it. And all this is making an overrated Ann Arbor suddenly underrated. I really miss the sweet smell of green grasses, the soft summer wind, the clear blue sky. Can’t believe everything, from the flow of Huron to the whispering of the leaves in the arboretum, all that was merely two months ago.

Hell, I’d rather be stuck in a snowstorm during an average winter instead of inhaling Indonesian armpits. I simply can’t believe that I’m right in the middle of a huge environmental catastrophe. Yeah, climate change does affect us all but that comes at a snail pace. This Indonesian smog charges at lightspeed. I’m overwhelmed and angry. Angst might be the right word to describe me right now.

News has it that DAP is organizing a protest there at 1100 local time. I’m going to the Indonesian embassy tomorrow. If I had command a battalion of army, I’d have gone to Jakarta.

For the moment, I know one thing – whoever has not a plan to curb haze in their manifestos for the 2008 election, I’ll be giving them a firm middle finger at the ballot. Sadly however, judging how Malaysian parties write their manifestos, I’d probably won’t be voting at all.