Book Review - Genesis II

Genesis II

Posted in Multiply.com in Jan 9, '06 5:13 PM

Category:	Books
Genre:	Mystery & Thrillers
Author:	Paul Adam

What would you get if you crossed an Avian Flu virus with a scientifically modified potato which is loaded with Glycoalkaloid poison contamination? People, chickens, farm animals and bees die mysteriously and suddenly from a seemingly “harmless flu” and got doctors, scientists and investigators bewildered, confused and scrambling.

What would you get when a Biotech Company growing GM (genetically modified) crops who are interested only in their bottom line and ready to cover up failures and accidents, are in cahoots with a corrupted minister of agriculture and are ready to protect their self interests at all costs? Professional people with some conscience who stand for the truth die or disappear under mysterious circumstances or get unwelcome visitors in the middle of the night.

Also consider the following observations in the story:
“A government – not just the politicians but the whole apparatus of government – that rules for the common good... For the benefit of the many….preserve and guarantee our liberties. It’s a nice idea, but I don’t believe in it. It doesn’t exist… The whole point of government is power. If we go along with it , if we don’t fight it, then yes, you could say we have a benign state. But the minute you raise an objection or question what they’re doing then their true colours emerge and they’ll try to crush you. They’re terrified of opposition, of anyone finding out what they’re up to. If we’re on to something they want kept hidden, do you think they won’t try to stop us revealing it?”

Or consider the passage with a goverment minister’s tongue-in-cheek views like, “The first rule ministerial office was ensuring you were out of range when the shit hit the fan”.

Paul Adam spins a convincing tale that reflects the current headlines with all the above intrigues thrown in. And like all current headlines this story does not end happily ever after. Too bad.

Movie Review - North Country

North Country

Posted in Multiply.com on Jan 9, '06 9:18 PM

Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

Warner Bros. Pictures presents:
Inspired by a true story, North Country follows Josey’s journey on a road that will take her farther than she ever imagined, ultimately inspiring countless others, and leading to the nation’s first-ever class action lawsuit for sexual harassment.
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Charlize Theron stars as a divorced and jobless young mother, Josey Aimes who returned to her hometown of Northern Minnesota to work in an only available job at an iron mine to support her two kids. In this male-dominated work environment, she soon discovered that her few female colleagues were constantly being sexually harassed by the male workers. She spoke to her boss about the situation. When she herself fell victim to the same treatment, she again brought up the complaint.

All this brought no action to improve the situation. Instead it worsened as word got around. She found herself fighting an uphill battle alone, as out of fear of victimization, her colleagues distanced themselves from her. Meanwhile, her teenage son became rebellious. Her dad who was an employee of the mine himself, refused to help her as he saw her as a wanton and rebellious young woman who brought shame to the family. Her only solace was her mother. Fortunately, she found a sympathetic lawyer friend who hailed from New York, and whose only reason to help her was “It was never done before”, and together they brought on a class action against the mine’s management.

The scenes of the movie switched constantly from the present courtroom drama to the past when she was fooling around in high school and to her workplace at the mines, and gradually built up to an interesting climax as each of the characters are established.

Not as highly acclaimed or as brashly dramatic as Julia Robert’s “Erin Brockovich”, but just as good.

Book Review - Red for Rachel

Red for Rachel

posted in Multiply.com on Jan 28, '06 10:00 PM

Category:	Books
Genre:	Mystery & Thrillers
Author:	Frank Lean

David Cunane’s dad wanted him to join the police force as it seemed to be the tradition in the family. But David had different ideas and ideals. He ran a one-man private investigation service with his current girl-friend as secretary/receptionist/personal assistant all rolled into one, in a section of Manchester city which was rapidly sinking into social deterioration. He specialized in hypermarket employee thefts and CBT cases, until the day a banker hired him to look for his missing daughter. That job took him into the city’s seamy underworld of gangsters, drug pushers, money launderers who took on corrupt police officers as bed-fellows, where problems were commonly settled by the use of knives and guns and other physical threats.

Rachel Elsworth was the nineteen year old missing college girl who got dragged into the quagmire by the boyfriend, Andrew Thwaite who moonlighted as a DJ in a club owned by Mike Dyer. Mike outwardly wanted no part of the drug trade, but he was nevertheless in it his up to neck. Thus when Andrew Thwaite turned up with his throat slit, Mike was viewed as the main suspect. Along came other players like African, Sese Manteh who masqueraded as a church/community/youth leader and used his influence to lead youths into becoming users and eventually pushers. He was backed by a bunch of shady property developers whose operating methods were totally out of the book.

The more David dug the more dirt he found which led him into deeper and more dangerous situations. He had to depend on his quick thinking, street survival skills and plain luck to keep breathing. Fortunately, he had a network of friendly cops, a journalist, neighbors and his ex-police officer father to depend on.

A fast-paced and realistic tale which keeps one turning the pages until the very end.

Book Review - Working Wounded

Working Wounded

Mar 4, '06 8:55 PM for everyone

Category:	Books
Genre:	Nonfiction
Author:	Bob Rosner

"Advice that adds Insight to Injury”

Something happened that rarely happened to me. I fell in love with this book at first sight. I was walking through the rows and rows of bookracks in Popular and as usual ended up at the discounts bin. My roving eyes found this one and I picked it up and flipped through its pages. Lo, I refused to put it back! At RM22.90 for a small 300-odd page book in hard-cover, I didn’t feel it burning a hole in my pocket as I paid for it. Most other things that I bought on impulse did, and the burning sensation lasted until I walked away from the counter.

So after going through it from cover to cover, here’s the gist of what goes on inside:

You’ve landed your first job, started on a career and raring to go full blast. But hey! Be prepared. The workplace is fraught with dangers. Before long you’re in the thick of it, and filled with bullet holes and wondering what you did in your last life to deserve all this.

But fret not. Everyone who’s done a little job at any workplace, anyone who’s gone “where angels fearfully tread’ or anyone who’s gone into business for himself, has to go through the baptism by fire. Whether you do your job or you don’t, you’re occasionally in the line of fire, between bosses, boss and you, boss and colleagues, departments and rival colleagues.

So, here in this book is the wit and wisdom of someone who’s been through most of it, who came out alive and laughing, and on top of it, all the way to the bank! But he does give us something to chew over and laugh at (without spilling any crumbs on your lap).

To quote the foreword on the front jacket:
“Does your job feel like you’re going up the down escalator? Does your boss remind you of Darth Vader? Is your future as dim as a 25-watt bulb?
If your answers are “yes,” welcome to the ranks of the Working Wounded. Here is a manual that will make you laugh while it makes you think. Its message is simple but powerful: Don’t moan over your battle scars. Rise above them.”

In spite of the tongue-in-cheek narratives, Bob Rosner did put in a great deal of work into the book. He did so with a lot of help from a long list of people whom he acknowledged at the end of the book (just as humorously) as he likened it to the “Academy Awards when some obscure winner drones on and on thanking the really little people (…and thanks to the people who washed my costumes…)”. He shows you how to deal realistically with:
Co-workers
Your boss
Your employees
Missing a promotion
Getting out (of your current job)
Making a sale (everyone has to do some selling)
Stress
Dealing with new technology
Losing your job (or about to) and
Being out on your own

Knowing I’ve been through most of these experiences (the bullet scars are still there); I think that this book is worth every cent of it in terms of the lessons it teaches, not just for those starting out but also those who find themselves in the thick of the battle, but wish they were doing something else. For me, I had a good laugh, for these were some of the tricks of survival that I had used to stay alive.

Book review - Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

Mar 27, '06 11:42 AM

Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Arthur Golden

I can't quite understand why Arthur Golden started the tale as told by Sayuri as an autobiography, then went and deflate us in the epilogue with the statement that the character was a figment of his imagination. Yet, I would believe, perhaps, he intends to be as truthful as possible, in much the same way as he maintains to be the basic characteristics of his main character, to tell it like it is. Also, whether wittingly or not, he seems to give away the fact that Sayuri's descriptions of public life, the city, landscape, buildings and other various subjects in a rather 'masculine' nature, rather than from the point of view of a poor, uneducated orphan girl who was only trained later to be a good entertainer and whose major preoccupation was to put others at ease.

The book naturally brings out the story much more clearly and in much finer details in comparison to the movie. It is written in the first person description of life in pre-war Japan when Feudalism was still in existence, the abject poverty, the sufferings of ordinary citizens of a nation at war and life after a humiliating defeat. While reading the book you can stop and reflect on the images Sayuri tries to describe to get the facts right, whereas the movie just moves on and we tend to miss some of the major facts and lose track of the some of the issues thus ending up with the wrong impressions of the main characters in the plot.

In spite of the fact that the story is pretty interesting and contains much historical facts, I still can't get over the idea that she could reflect on life and its idiosyncrasies in such a philosophical way that is simply beyond a geisha's mentality even though she may be one extraordinary woman.

Still, I would give a high credit to Arthur Golden for a great tale with a wonderful plot and great setting.

Book Review - Tuedays with Morrie (reposted from Multiply.com)

Since I can no longer keep my blog in Multiply.com, I'll be moving more items from there before the deadline in December 2012.  Here's the 1st of my book reviews.

Tuesdays with Morrie

-Mitch Albom

"The tension of opposites – life is a series of pulls back and forth.  You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else" 

You must be wondering why I am writing this book review in this blog page rather than the review box.  I am fully aware, that's why.  For me, this book is like the book of life.  Like the scriptures which instructs you on living.  I can't put a value on it, because I think it's priceless.  I can't rate it because there are not enough available stars in the review page to justify this book.  It says a lot about life, about love, about living and life's real meanings and then about dying, within its two hundred odd pages. 

Pretty small book, but it packs a wallop big enough for me to go back through it again to review the finer points, trying to remember those words which are so common-place, yet we by-pass them all the time while we go through our daily lives chasing after the wrong things.  We simply, through ignorance,  or choose to ignore those things that really matter in life, and we keep wondering why we can't contain our greed for more; the better jobs, better looks, higher positions, newer cars, the bigger houses... We try to maintain our looks to remain young even as age catches up on us, which is rather futile as in the end it doesn't really matter.  And who knows when is The End?  It could be tomorrow...

This book says a great lot about dying.  In fact, it's mostly about dying.  "Death ends a life, not a relationship".

It explains in story form, why most of us are leading unfulfilled, meaningless lives although outwardly, we are rich, successful, active in community, sports, etc.  There are so many truisms scattered throughout this little book and since they're not listed as in "10-golden-rules" style you'll have to read it through to find them....

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Now, then...you're confused or am I amnesic?  I wrote the first part of this review right after I finished reading the book.  So, don't blame me for being so absorbed that I was thinking like Professor Morrie Schwartz (he's a dying man anyway).  But then, as Professor in Sociology, Morrie was a very good teacher.  This story is written by his favorite student who, years after leaving the college and having gone through the rat race, suddenly find himself being drawn back into the life of his former teacher.  Eventually, he submitted himself to return for a final lesson which turned his life around and gave it a whole new meaning. 

I tend to get very involved in such life-related arguments.  But 24 hours later after all that "illusion's" worn off, I'm back to my old self again.  Now that I'm back in reality, I'm seeing life from both sides again.  I'm back to my practical self.  So now I can rate this book as top of the reading list for anyone with a zest for life.  Hence, I've decided to put this write-up in its rightful place – the reviews page. 

From me, this is my point of view to keep life in its eternal cycle:  Pursue your dreams but stay in touch with all those who make your life and dreams possible.  And remember those golden rules.  They're not there just to make others happy; they're there to set equilibrium to your life as well, without which you're like a ship without a rudder, sailing without a destination.

Sixty and Going Strong

A very wise Chinese philosophy of life and wealth.

 

Sixty and Going Strong

(Translated from the original in Chinese below)

“There are 1000-year old trees in the mountain, but not many 100 year-old people”

At the most, you live until 100 years old (only 1 in 100,000).

If you live until 90, you only have 30 years.

If you live until 80, you only have 20 years.

Because you don’t have many years to live, and you can’t bring along things when you go, you don’t have to be too thrifty. 

Spend the money that should be spent, enjoy what should be enjoyed, donate what you are able to donate, but don’t leave all  to your children or grandchildren, for you don’t want them to become “parasites”.

Don’t worry about what will happen after you are gone, because when you return to dust,  you will feel nothing about praises or criticisms.

Don’t worry too much about your children for “children will have their own destiny and find their own way. Don’t be your children’s slave”

Don’t expect too much from your children. Caring children, though caring, would be too busy with their jobs and commitments to render any help.

Uncaring children may fight over your assets even when you are still alive, and wish for your early demise so they can inherit your properties.

Your children take for granted that they are rightful heirs to your wealth; but you have no claims to their money.

60-year-olds like you, don’t trade in your health for wealth anymore;

Because your money may not be able to buy your health.

When to stop making money, and how much is enough (hundred thousands, million, ten million)? “Out of thousand hectares of good farm land, 

you can only consume three quarts (of rice) daily; out of a thousand of mansions, you only need eight square meters of space to rest at night”. 

So as long as you have enough food and enough money to spend, that is good enough.

So you should live happily. Every family has its own problems. Just do not compare with others for fame and social status and see whose children are doing better, etc. but challenge others for happiness, health and longevity.

Don’t worry about things that you can’t change because it doesn’t help and it may spoil your health.

You have to create your own well-being and find your own happiness;

As long as you are in good mood, think about happy things, do happy things daily and have fun in doing, then you will pass your time happily every day.

One day passes, you will lose one day;

One day passes with happiness, and then you gain one day.

In good spirit, sickness will cure; in good spirit, sickness will cure fast; in good spirit; sickness will never come.

With good mood, suitable amount of exercise, always in the sun, variety of foods, reasonable amount of vitamin 

and mineral intake, hopefully you will live another 20 or 30 years healthy life.

六十而不惑..

“山中也有千年樹，世上難逢百歲人。” 最大限度，你也只活到百多歲（十萬人中才有一個）。 能活到九十歲，只有三十年； 能活到八十歲，只有二十年。 因為剩下的日子不多，你臨走時什麼都帶不走，你不必太節省。  該花的錢要花，該享受的要享受，該捐助的要捐助；惟獨不能留這筆錢給兒孫，把他（她）變 成 “寄生蟲”! 。 不必對死後的事考慮太多，因為變成灰的你，對表揚與批評已無感覺。 不必對兒女的事考慮太多，“兒孫自有兒孫福，休為兒孫做馬牛”。 不要對兒女幻想太多，孝順的兒女有孝心，但工作太忙，幫不了你！ 不孝的兒女也許（在你活著時就搶奪）盼著你早死，好早日繼承你的財產。 你的錢財，兒女認為給他們是天經地義； 兒女的錢，卻不是你的錢，你想要卻十分困難。 六十歲的你，再也不要用健康去換取身外之物， 因為此時，你用金錢已未必能買到健康。 錢掙到何時、何數（十萬，百萬，千萬……）才算夠？“良田萬頃，日食三升 ；大廈千間，夜眠八尺”，夠吃夠用就行了。 你要愉快地活著，雖然家家都有一本難念的經，你不要再和別人比名利地位、兒孫如何有出息……等等，而要比誰活得更愉快、健康、長壽！ 你無力改變的事，就不必太操心，因為操心也無用，反而影響了自己的健康。 幸福靠自己努力創造，快樂要千方百計去尋找， 只要心境好，每天想愉快的事，做愉快的事，自己找樂趣，就能天天都過得高興。 過一天，少一天； 過一天，樂一天；樂一天，賺一天。 精神好，病能好；精神好，病早好；精神好，病不倒。 心情愉快，適當運動，常見陽光，食物多樣化， 保證多種維生素和微量元素的合理（適度而不超量）吸收，盼能健康地再活二、三十年。