19-JAN-2008
Celebrating Chinese New Year
The Chinese New Year is the biggest social occasion in the Chinese calendar and is celebrated all over Malaysia. Marking the first day of the first new moon, it is traditionally an occasion to settle old debts and begin the year with a clean slate. Many of Malaysia’s larger towns and cities host some kind of public festival which typically includes fireworks displays, cultural performances, food and drink stalls and traditional lion and dragon dances. This is an important family festival, and many celebrate the occasion with family, friends and loved ones and many children receive small gifts of “lucky money” from their relatives. In 2008, the Year of the Rat, Chinese New Year will be celebrated on February 7th. The above image is a shot of a group of Chinese acrobats (from China) performing in one of the shopping mall. Taking this opportunity to wish all my fellow friends who are celebrating this ocassion. And many thanks again to you guys for your continious support. I feel very bad not able to reciprocate as I am presently quite busy. I will be back, once situation settles down.
17 Jan 2008
Cyber Danger
Are the young at home on the internet protected from the dangers of the World Wide Web? Many of the youngsters sought internet as a place of `haven' to socialise. Is the WWW a safe place for us as adults also? No matter how easy it is to get access to the internet, we are always at risk of being a `cyber victim' be in the form of bully, intimidation, sexual harassment/abuse or even scams. Take for example of a recently reported scenario of a 17 year old boy who was taken advantaged of. He was challenged by a girl whom he had a crushed on to e-mail him a picture of himself nude. The boy did exactly that, one look at the picture, the girl freaked out and forwarded it to her closests gilrfriends who in turn forwarded to their friends. This is a generation that embraces technology eagerly, there are tools which allow better communication eg. webcam, forums, video sharing sites but these can also be misued. In Malaysia, 42% of users who go online are youths aged 24 and younger (based on the statistics by the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Malaysia in 2005 - taken from The Star 16/01/2008). It's our duty to highlight the safety issues to help young people to stay safe. A practical joke is no longer funny when it involves a human life at stake - suicide.
16-JAN-2008
Open Burning
When you burn trash outdoors, the potential cost to your health, your home, your neighbors and the environment far exceeds the cost of adequate collection services. Protect yourself, your family, your neighbors and your wallet by knowing the rules - what can you burn and where?
NB: Open burning is defined as "the burning of any matter in such a manner that products of combustion resulting from the burning are emitted directly into the ambient (surrounding outside) air without passing through an adequate stack, duct or chimney." Generally, anytime you light a fire outdoors, you are open burning.
12-JAN-2008
Missing
The Star Newspaper 12 January 2008:
It saddens my heart to hear more and more `Missing Children' cases being reported.