Categories
Pop culture

[2809] Mickey, thank you for Star Wars

The Phantom Menace came out at the cinemas in 1999. I greeted it with such enthusiastic fanaticism — I went to the movies thrice — that I ignored its flaws for years until my cinematic taste became more sophisticated than that of a geeky teenager.

Perhaps I am still suffering from the same affliction 16 years on. Nothing stopped me from waiting for December to arrive excitedly. There I was in the theater for The Force Awakens, a grown man at risk of tearing up as John William’s dramatic masterpiece blared out of the Dolby’s speaker and yellow-lettered paragraphs crawled across the screen slowly.

Watching the latest Star Wars installment felt like meeting an old friend. ”Chewie, we’re home,” said Han Solo as he entered the Millennium Falcon. I smiled as wide as I could.

By the time the credit rolled, I was absolutely sure my latest appreciation for Star Wars would not have an expiry date. I love Episode VII even as Mickey Mouse erases my teenage years spent reading about Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade, the Rogue Squadron and the Corellian life into the dustbin.

The story flows well, the acting is not awkward and the jokes are tastefully delivered. It is certainly done cleverer than anything a character called Jar Jar Binks could muster. ”I know how to run. I don’t need you to hold my hand,” barks Rey at Finn as both escape from the Stormtroopers. The best comic relief comes when onboard the Millennium Falcon, Finn conspires with the droid BB-8 to impress Rey which then leads to a hilarious scene of thumb-up exchange.

Nevertheless, several aspects bother me. I do appreciate the various references made to the original trilogy. These references help made The Force Awakens memorable, especially for the fans. But at times, it is too much.

Surely we do not need yet another Death Star and surely there are other plot devices and machines to wage terror. Yet, here comes the Starkiller Base. Director J. J. Abrams and his team pre-empted this criticism into the movie by having a minor character telling the Rebellion Alliance command — now the Resistance — that the Starkiller Base was significantly bigger than the previous two Death Stars. This is a case of imagination running short.

But when The Force Awakens should have copied the originals, it does not do so. The briefing for the Starkiller Base attack scene feels rushed. It gives the appearance that figuring out the weaknesses of a killing machine of that magnitude is easy. The scene lacks the deliberation that took place on Yavin 4 during A New Hope or in one of the Rebel cruisers in The Return of the Jedi.

Worse, despite not being a Death Star, the superweapon’s weakness is very much the same as its predecessor. And oh, do not forget to disable the deflector shield too. My mind wandered to the Forest Moon of Endor for a split second before I jerked it back down to Earth.

I see a parallel here between Star Trek: Into the Darkness and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. J. J. Abrams directed both of them. That 2013 Star Trek was the reimagining older version with Khan screaming all the way from 1982. This Star Wars is the stories of Tantooine, Hoth and Endor combined. Since the next Star Wars will be directed by somebody else, I hope more originality will be in order, hopefully without the disaster of the prequel trilogy.

But I do not hate the composite nature of The Force Awakens. I am just dissatisfied with the Death Star-like weapon.

Indeed, as I have mentioned earlier, I love this movie. There are various things I would like to mention but I will not lest this turns into an incoherent rambling of a fanboy, if it is not already. Despite its defects The Force Awakens makes a great addition to the Star Wars universe.

Of course, Star Wars in turn is part of the Disney universe now.

When the news first broke Disney that had bought the rights to Star Wars, a little part of me died. Posters of Death Star with Mickey’s large round ears started to pop-up all over the internet. With the prequel trilogy the way it was, there were fears Star Wars would turn into something that Star Trek fans could trivialize. I myself made snarky remarks, ruing the end of Star Wars.

But the end did not come and instead, Disney did to Star Wars what it did to Marvel and it feels great.

And so, Mickey, I am sorry for doubting you.

And thank you for not sending Darth Vader to force choke me for my lack of faith.

Categories
History & heritage Politics & government Society

[2808] Us during the Decadence

The Musee d’Orsay sits by the Seine in Paris. On one of the museum walls is hung a large painting by Thomas Couture. Named Romans during the Decadence, the work demands anybody passing by it to stop, decipher and contemplate Couture’s message for a minute or two.

Decadence has statues representing the better Roman spirit standing tall and looking down disapprovingly on contemporary Roman elites engaging in debauchery of various kinds. Among the living there is a boy being utterly disinterested in the immorality of his older peers. On the opposite side, two travelers stand shocked discovering the state of the Romans.

Wikipedia. Thomas Couture's The Romans during the Decadence

The Empire was on the decline and Couture captured the idea thoroughly. The painter used sex and wine to represent vices of the world but the symbols signify something bigger than excessive human pleasure. Truly, it represents corruption at its widest meaning, something relevant everywhere for all times.

Painted in 1847, Couture was not thinking about the Romans. Far from it, he wanted to depict the moral bankruptcy of another society, one which he belonged to, the French. He was utterly critical of the depravity of the ruling class then. He had the right to do so. France of the 1840s was corrupt to the bones.

At the centre of it all were the July Monarchy and its supporters. Among the worst of scandals was a corruption case involving a government minister Jean-Baptise Teste, and a military-businessman Amédée Despans-Cubières.

Desirous of a business concession, Despans-Cubières bribed Teste with ninety-four thousand francs to secure the necessary contract.

The secret ties went on for years but they were caught eventually. Despans-Cubières was allowed to retire from the military. Teste meanwhile was imprisoned in Prison du Luxembourg. Yet, the prison was more a palace than anything else. Today, it is called the Palais de Luxembourg and houses the French Senate.

Separate but concurrent to the grand corruption was a murder case involving a nobleman. Charles de Choiseul-Praslin was thought to have murdered his wife. The scandal captured the wild imagination of the French masses already unhappy with the overly luxurious life of the upper class. Unable to withstand pressure from the trial, he committed suicide.

Yet, in a society where trust was thin, rumors had it the suicide was faked to save the accused. The chattering masses were convinced the authorities had allowed him to leave France for England.

The two cases came to a head in 1847 but it was only the last among many the government experienced throughout its reign. But the people finally had enough. A year later, the February Revolution erupted and ended the monarchy.

From the corrupt ashes rose the Second French Republic.

Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malay Mail on December 1 2015.

Categories
Economics Society

[2807] Break-up the Bumiputra category into finer details

Race politics dominates Malaysia and our deplorable politics have us Malaysians as Bumiputras, Chinese, Indians and others.

At the center of it all is Malay politics. Yet, public statistics on Malay welfare are imprecise. This is true for household income and expenditure surveys conducted and published by the Department of Statistics. The surveys are the most comprehensive snapshots we have on the welfare of Malaysian households.

It is imprecise because the best we have to describe Malay welfare are not Malay statistics, but Bumiputra statistics.

The way the statistics is presented (or even measured) strengthens the flawed notion that the Bumiputras are Malays. Yet, we know the Bumiputras comprise not just the Malays but also the Orang Aslis in the Peninsula, and the Borneo natives.

Foreigners in particular are guilty of this but more unforgivably, so do the locals. When ethno-nationalist Malays want to back their point with hard data for instance, they would go to the household surveys and cite the Bumiputra figures as proofs, casually suggesting all Bumiputras are Malays with no hesitation as if there is nothing wrong with the statistics.

Our contemporary politics also means the recognition is not merely a pedantic concern. Sarawak parties especially are becoming increasingly important nationally, possibly convincing the federal government to spend more money there.

How can this be relevant? For example, I would like to know change in welfare of those Borneo native households as federal spending increases. It is not enough to claim they would do better because of the spending. We need data and it is certainly not enough with the Bumiputra net cast so widely.

So, as far as the category Bumiputra is concerned, I think it should be broken into its finer components to allow us to see exactly the state of various groups’ welfare.

After all, is it not ironic that for all the centrality of Malay politics, statistics on Malay welfare is not available on its own? We can know the income of the median Chinese and Indian households but we cannot know the median for Malay families. To belabor the point, what we know instead are Bumiputra statistics, which are at best a proxy to the state of the Malays. And we know it is a proxy because we know the Malays make-up the majority within the group. How big a majority? Interesting question, is it not?

And we also know how mean and median behave mathematically. Change in population will change both easily.

I have a lingering suspicion that the Malays are doing better than the reported Bumiputra average/median. My suspicion is based on the fact most Malays live in the Peninsula while the statistics show the Peninsula as a geographic group does better than the Malaysian Borneo (even when certain states such as Kelantan can do worse than Sarawak). The only way to conclusively address the suspicion is to look at the Bumiputra components cleverer than what we have been doing so far.

At the very least, regardless of my suspicion, improvement in reported welfare statistics with the Bumiputra category split into its constitutions can lead to better public debates and better policies. Without the split, we are forever condemned to debate from imprecise premises.

Categories
Conflict & disaster Photography Society

[2806] Do not blame the innocent refugees

This was back in 2011 in Paris. I was there at the height of the Arab Spring and also interestingly, during the emergence of French far-right parties in mainstream politics.

20110129Paris

I do not have much or anything new to say. It is late here in Kuala Lumpur, six or seven hours ahead of Paris. Yet, I still want to express my opinion that we should not discriminate or blame the innocent refugees for the horrible acts committed today in Paris by a group of Islamist terrorists.

I am angry at the attack and I am sure a lot of others do, especially in Paris. The senseless killing is outrageous whatever the excuse. But I am also angry at the mistrust the attack is creating everywhere.

I am disgusted reading responses from right-wingers who somehow think the refugees from Syria and elsewhere from the Arab world as causing of the Paris attack. The right-wing xenophobic policy recommendation is to stop the refugees from coming in.

But as many have highlighted, these refugees are running away from the same barbaric Islamic State which attacked the civilians in Paris today. These refugees are civilians too and they are as much a victim as Parisians.

The right way is to direct the anger towards the Islamic State, and not at the innocents who just happen to share, nominally if I might add, the same religion at the attackers.

Categories
Economics WDYT

[2805] Guess the Malaysian 3Q15 GDP growth

Growth in 2Q15 was bad but we know it due to the GST with all the front-loading spending.

The question now is, was the GST largely the one exerting negative pressure on growth?

In a very superficial way, growth should rebound in 3Q15 if the answer to the question is in the affirmative because it suggests consumption would return to normal.

If not, we should see worse growth in the last quarter, and possibly bigger trouble ahead.

Things are quite confusing for me at the moment because of the GST as well as due to low energy prices. Inflation has stopped being a useful proxy to demand and is out of wack. It is driven by cost factor and not really demand. I have not figured out how to handle this yet but things might only stabilize April next year, assuming energy prices remain at about current levels.

There are signs something bigger than GST is at work. The service sector is not doing too well. We know this from official 3Q15 statistics. Service growth was mostly pulled down by the finance sector, but retail growth also moderated. I am also hearing many anecdotes of personal hardship with greater frequency than usual. Some of my friends run businesses and they are not doing great either. I usually would dismiss anecdotes but I dare not do it this time around. There are just too many of them.

But there are good news. Industrial production did well, and so did construction and exports.

Net exports should give a big boost to the GDP, cushioning any expected slowdown in the domestic economy. I do not know how long the export strength will last, but for 3Q15, it looks like we had the two engine-model back. The weak ringgit might have a contributing factor, but I think it is a bit too soon to pass judgment about currency and competitiveness despite the temptation to claim so.

But, yea, the only reason I write this post is to do this poll:

How fast did the Malaysian economy grow in 3Q15 from a year ago?

  • 3.0% or slower (17%, 2 Votes)
  • 3.1%-4.0% (8%, 1 Votes)
  • 4.1%-4.5% (42%, 5 Votes)
  • 4.6%-5.0% (33%, 4 Votes)
  • 5.1%-5.5% (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Faster than 5.5% (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 12

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The official GDP figures will be released midday tomorrow.