MPH Warehouse Sale 2011

I paid a visit to the warehouse downstairs from the office today. I had no idea the place was big. And stacked with books and other printed stuff.

For the next few days, some of those books will be sold. Yes, it's that warehouse sale.

Piles and piles of books. They're in shelves, in boxes, stacked on top of wooden palettes and arranged on tables. Unfortunately the setup's a bit here-and-there, so finding what you want can be a bit tough.

But it's a chance to buy the books you didn't want to or couldn't buy last year or the year before that - or the year before the year before that.

Yes, it's kind of like BookXcess, only a bit bigger, warmer and dustier. With a bit less comfort and even less parking space. It's not called a warehouse sale for nothing.

But there are books. Lots of them. A whole section is just lined with young adult novels. A whole palette piled with the Game of Thrones series and box sets. If anyone's still interested, I think there's one palette stacked with Dr M's memoir, going for RM70 each.

I got myself a couple of Agatha Christies, as well as a Terry Pratchett I used to read repeatedly, along with The Truth. Appointment with Death was going for RM15 instead of RM29.90.

No Jane Austen for me. I'm not prepared.

For those too lazy to click on the link:

MPH Distributors @ Bangunan TH,
No 5, Jalan Bersatu,
Section 13/4, Petaling Jaya
Call 03-7958 1688 for directions

Hours: 8am to 7pm

The sale starts tomorrow and ends on the 18th (Sunday).

Ten Years Ago Today...

...I was getting off the bus at the Taman Tun Dr Ismail bus stop, just after the traffic lights. My workplace was just a couple of minutes away by foot. That's the only detail I remember with clarity.

I'm not sure anymore whether it was the 11th or the 12th.

The front page of The Star looked different. It was spread out over two pages, and on it was the image of one of the burning New York World Trade Center towers.

I was still at my first job in IT. I was, at the time, based in the unfortunately named Plaza IBM.

I don't remember how many bomb threat alerts we received, but I'm sure there was at least one. I recall my colleagues streaming out of the building, some getting into their cars one day.

Did I stay behind on that occasion? I can't be certain. But I do remember the petulant voice on the other end of the line, chastising my department for not having someone on standby to take phone calls in case of emergencies - and I don't mean bomb threats.

The days afterwards just passed by. CNN kept replaying footage of the burning, then collapsing WTC Towers for days. The enormity of the event and its aftermath took a while to sink in. A very long while.

But the Islamic terrorism thing hit a lot closer to home with the Bali bombings in... 2002? And was I in a Jakarta food court, eating rice with beef in pepper sauce when the TV played footage of the incident, or was it some other date? Or was it all a dream?

I should've started blogging when the writing bug started twitching. I had lots to write about when I started travelling to Indonesia to work, but I can't accurately place names, addresses and events within the time frame anymore.

I remember seeing pictures of what appear to be Palestinians, cheering the collapse of the WTC. Many Arab governments, I was sure, could barely contain their glee. Iran didn't seem to bother.

Lessons were learnt, all right. Mostly the wrong ones. And it didn't take ten years to prove that bloodshed has done little to advance the misguided causes of everyone involved. But some still try. It's all so absurd.

The world will eventually tire of the fighting. Whomever will be chosen to lead will one day be ushering a war-weary generation into a peaceful but faraway age. This bunch with us right now won't cut it. And it'll be a long while before the fires burning right now will die.

...Ten years. Feels like last year. I've switched jobs twice since then. Plaza IBM is now Plaza VADS. I hardly hear about IBM these days; it's all Google, Twitter, Facebook and Apple now.

Those days get hazier by the day, retreating into the far corners of my mind. I suppose it's because I didn't experience it first-hand: the explosions, the fires and smoke, the falling debris and the ensuing chaos.

It's just as well. There's no point in "remembering 9/11" anyway.

Not anymore.

Moore Trouble Ahead

When I first read Stupid White Men, I thought, well, this is refreshing. But my interest in Michael Moore cooled somewhat after flipping through some of his subsequent books.

I stopped reading Counterpunch years ago because of similar feelings, though Moore's leftist Kool-Aid is less toxic; haven't they heard about the chill pill?

However, his films Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko were interesting and entertaining. You can't say that Moore doesn't know how to push his audience's buttons. At times I feel like he's that cartoon character standing in front of a shiny electronics panel bent on pushing every button, flicking every switch and turning every knob or dial until something finally breaks.

With the exception of Mike's Election Guide which I reviewed in my previous job, I never bothered with his other books. After a while, they all sound the same. At least he's consistent.

Then the Guardian published this excerpt from his upcoming book, Here Comes Trouble, just in time for the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Perhaps no other title aptly describes the memoir about America's most hated man, who panned his president when the nation was at war.

Given his uncanny button-pushing talents, the backlash was tremendous. He'd been verbally, digitally and physically assaulted; his property trespassed; and a whole lot more. It got to a point where he had to hire bodyguards, most of whom were former soldiers and SEALs - a bit ironic, considering his circumstances.

Then came the day someone was arrested for allegedly plotting to blow up Moore's house. Moore despaired over this for a time.

For me, it was the final straw. I broke down. My wife was already in her own state of despair over the loss of the life we used to have. I asked myself again: what had I done to deserve this? Made a movie? A movie led someone to want to blow up my home? What happened to writing a letter to the editor?

Yeah, why don't they write letters to the editor anymore? After all, not everybody is comfortable with the idea of parading and stepping on cow heads, burning churches, or throwing rubber snakes and newspapers into a possibly illegal bonfire.

That wannabe Guy Fawkes' plan was almost as sickening as former Fox News rabble-rouser Glenn Beck announcing his "urge" to kill Moore (and it seems, getting away with it), and Fox's Sean Hannity hosting a trespasser of Moore's house.

Are these are the kinds of freedoms that Dubya Bush said the "terr'ists" hate, the kinds that should be defended by toppling governments who don't like you - by force?

A decade after 9/11, Moore must feel vindicated. He'd been, at least, right about the Iraq war. But I find the closing anecdote in that Guardian extract a bit incredible.

As I do this over-the-top blurb on the book on the web site:

Moore is his own meta-Forrest Gump, at one moment he's an 11-year-old boy stuck on a Senate elevator with Bobby Kennedy, and the next moment he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with a dazed and confused Ronald Reagan. Changing planes in Vienna, he escapes death at the hands of the terrorist Abu Nidal.

In search one day for a bag of potato chips, he ends up eliminating racial discrimination in private clubs across America. He founded his first underground newspaper in the fourth grade. He refused to be on the CBS Evening News with Walter Kronkite at 16. And he became the youngest elected official in the country at age 18 by enlisting an "army of local stoners" as his campaign staff.

All of this makes for great fiction — but every one of these stories is true and from the life of one Michael Moore who became an iconic voice for progressives everywhere. But before Michael Moore became the Oscar-winning filmmaker and all-round thorn-in-the-side of corporate and rightwing America, he was the guy who had an uncanny knack for just showing up where history was being made.

Trouble, says Moore, is coming to you on 13 September. I might keep an eye out for it. With button-pushers like him, however, I'd do the pinch-of-salt thing because what he dishes out can be hard to swallow.

Big and Black

This morning, I replied thus to a colleague's e-mail:

Received it. It is heavy. It is black. It smells good. It's very long. It's interesting.

Make the phone call.

Though I could be talking about the Old Spice Guy, it's actually this:

Big, black, heavy, smells good and very long - Neal
Stephenson's latest, Reamde

Sorry to disappoint. I'm not like... that.

Won't be reviewing it for the papers, after all. They found someone else to do it. I get to keep my copy, though, so expect to see my own take on the book ... whenever.

More new books are coming out of MPH Publishing. Updates soon.

Another Stupid CSS Experiment

Whatever possessed me to go and drag these home with me during the long, long weekend?

Boredom and bravado, mostly. Never a good combination.

The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer
Lucy Weston
Gallery Books (2011)
304 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4391-9033-3

The Facebook Effect
David Kirkpatrick
Virgin Books (2010)
374 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-7535-2275-2

State of Wonder
Ann Patchett
HarperCollins (2011)
353 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-06-207471-3

A Decade of Hope
Dennis Smith, with Deirdre Smith
Viking (2011)
356 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-670-02293-9

Columbus
Laurence Bergreen
Viking (2011)
417 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-670-02301-1


So yes, I'm trying a different way of presenting this. For the sake of symmetry, I've omitted the subtitles. It's always the heavy non-fiction books that have the longest subtitles, isn't it?

But this format also involves a lot of inline CSS code, which is quite messy when incorporated into normal posts. Maybe I should add new CSS definitions for this format into the blog template....

20/10/2014  I've abandoned this idea; too complicated. And I've also stopped publishing items from my reading list, which is probably longer than both my arms by now. But the CSS code might be useful for something else.

Not Quite Paradise

Overall, pleased with this, as I'd taken several days to draft and finalise it.

The title for this post was the original title of the piece; who knows why it was changed. Nor was the standfirst, shown below, used for the final versions. Perhaps I'm not obliged to provide either, but from my brief stint in journalism, both can be hard to come up with.

The review copy was not the one the bookstore wanted to promote, but the hardcover movie-poster version which you can buy online.

---

Tale of human courage

From above, the hidden valley seemed like the Garden of Eden. Then the plane went down...

first published in The Star, 28 August 2011


Once upon a time, the US media went nuts over the abduction and eventual rescue of one Private Jessica Lynch in Iraq in 2003. But hers was not the only dramatic one of a female soldier in American history.

Professor of journalism Mitchell Zuckoff was doing some research when he stumbled upon an article about a rescue operation that took place towards the end of World War II. He eventually came back to it, did some reading and leg work and put it all into a book.

Zuckoff's Lost In Shangri-la: A True Story Of Survival, Adventure, And The Most Incredible Rescue Mission Of World War II – breathe, soldier, breathe! – also features a female member of the US Armed Forces. Corporal Margaret Hastings of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) was part of the Far East Air Service Command (shortened to "Fee-Ask") based in Hollandia in the Dutch half of New Guinea (the island is now split into West Papua and Papua New Guinea). But the circumstances from which she needed rescue were quite different from Lynch's situation.

On May 13, 1945, Hastings and over 20 crew members and passengers boarded the Gremlin Special, a C-47 transport plane, for a sightseeing tour of a remote jungle valley surrounded by mountains. Colonel Ray Elsmore, also based in Hollandia, supposedly discovered this valley which was later dubbed "Shangri-La" by two war correspondents, George Lait and Harry Patterson. Sightseeing tours of Shangri-La, inhabited by supposedly savage, spear-wielding Stone Age tribes, became a treat for those stationed at Fee-Ask.

At that time, the only way into Shangri-La was by plane, which was a risky undertaking. Mists often hid nasty surprises for unwary or inexperienced pilots. On the day of the crash, Zuckoff writes, such a pilot may have been at the helm of the Gremlin Special. Of the passengers and crew, which included nine members of Hastings' WAC unit, only three would ultimately survive: First Lieutenant John McCollom, Tech Sergeant Kenneth Decker, and Hastings.

Though meant to be a journalistic record, this book feels a bit like a documentary or film. A series of events come together to form a credible historical narrative of not just the rescue and the profile of the key figures, but also of the natives, the valley and those who were there before, and the war raging around them.

Among other things, we learn of C. Earl Walter Jr and his Filipino-American paratroopers who were sent to rescue the three. We discover that Colonel Elsmore was not the first to discover Shangri-La, now called the Baliem Valley. We observe breathlessly as the daring rescue plan unfolds. We look on in horror as a drunk rogue filmmaker parachutes out of a plane. We are also given a glimpse of the lives and cultures of the Papuan natives, who are more than what the reporters say they are.

And as more and more Yankees and their allies pour into the valley, a whiff of danger arises as the natives' regional leader feels threatened by the foreign presence and begins plotting....

Just as it was in the tale of Jessica Lynch, Margaret Hastings is very much the heroine and pivotal figure here, even though other key figures are given more or less equal time. The book starts and ends with Hastings. She was even crowned "Queen of Shangri-La" by the press then, a title she would come to loathe. Another edition of this book, Lost In Shangri-la: Escape From Another World, is done up with a movie poster of a cover (pictured here) that rubs that fact in.

One could perhaps sigh at the author's apparent sexing up of a dramatic rescue operation by centring the whole thing on the attractive female survivor. But Zuckoff keeps the narrative chaste by sticking to the historical and journalistic aspects of the rescue. And there's lots of history, with bits of anthropology and anecdotal accounts. However, some attempts at philosophising, like how the act of war is more crucial to the natives' way of life than ours, sound laboured.

It could've been written with a bit more dramatic flair, but judging from the extensive bibliography, one supposes that the author may have been worn out by all the research he'd done – look at all those notes at the back!

Then again, perhaps not. Poignant, gritty, engaging and occasionally comic, Lost In Shangri-La can stand on its own as a compelling tale of human courage, camaraderie and survival without any embellishment.

---

Lost in Shangri-La

A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II

Mitchell Zuckoff
Harper (2011)
Non-fiction
384 pages
ISBN: 978-0-06-209358-5

Too Much Information

Now that this review is out, here's a bit more information.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa was formerly known as the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Congo-Léopoldville, Congo-Kinshasa and Zaire (1971-1997).

It's not to be confused with the Republic of the Congo aka the Congo Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Little Congo or simply the Congo, another state in Central Africa.

So, there is no "Zaire and the Democratic Republic of Congo". At present, there is, however, a "Republic of the Congo" and "Democratic Republic of the Congo".

I got confused. My bad.

---

Too much info

first published in The Star, 26 August 2011


What an iPad of a book, I thought, as I ran my hands over the cover that was tastefully done in white, black and red. And just like a real iPad, you will either get sick of it after a short while or be lost in it for hours, maybe days.

The Information is James Gleick's attempt to enlighten the masses about the subject of "information": its history, theories, and how technology that bloomed in the last 50 years has redefined our relationship with information.

Gleick kicks things off with the story of early forms of texting, which includes fire signals and African talking drums. While highlighting the latter we are introduced to Kele, a Bantu language spoken in parts of Zaire and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Inflections in speech can give the same Kele word or phrase different meanings, resulting in comical and potentially tragic consequences. For instance, one can end up saying "he boiled his mother-in-law" instead of "he watched the riverbank". Several revelations arise from this: language is complex; such complexities can form a basis for some kind of encryption; and it seems that mothers-in-law are hated everywhere.

The book explores other aspects of information, such as communication (telegraph and telecommunications), processing (19th century English mathematician and mechanical engineer Charles Babbage's difference engine, transistors and logic circuits), encryption (WWII's famed Enigma machine), and finally, "the flood" (social networks and Wikipedia).

The book gets harder to read as one goes along, however. Some parts are like a textbook or encyclopaedia, with diagrams, math equations, foreign words and special symbols. All that, plus the dry tone and inaccessible language clutter up and bog down what would have been an interesting book that might explain and contextualise, among other things, phenomena such as Fox "News", LOLcats, and Charlie Sheen. Digging up such gems, however, is like going through a mile of Google search results. One wonders if this is actually the sequel to Gleick's previous book, Chaos.

Those with the determination, patience and stamina to wade through the entire book will likely be rewarded with a clearer understanding of what we read, why we seek it, why we read some things more than others, and why we have that urge to "spread the word".

Some points to ponder: Our hunger for information can lead to an information hangover and apathy, so how do we sate the hunger while avoiding the side-effects? If DNA code is "information", does that make us "living machines", and gene-based treatments a form of programming?

For me, "information" connotes something that's shiny, intriguing and that invites exploration, but the task of unravelling the complex relationships between us and the information we produce and consume is much, much harder.

Though I feel Gleick has done his utmost to do this, I also fear he has been too successful. The Information may help us understand the origins of information and our ties to it, but it may also end up a victim of its author's apparent success – a book that's too smart for the casual reader, afflicted by some of the problems it highlights and tries to explain.

---

The Information

James Gleick
Fourth Estate
526 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-00-742311-8

Calling For Weird Things

Jen Campbell, who blogs at This is Not the Six-word Novel, is calling booksellers all over for weird things they've heard their customers say for her book, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops.

What began as a single post about said topic eventually grew into a series. Weeks ago, Campbell accumulated enough weird things for a book. The latest edition will be published in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Later on, Campbell opened up contributions from several Commonwealth countries, including the aforementioned ones. What she got was so enjoyable, she decided to lengthen the list and include weird things from booksellers worldwide.

"If you have a bookshop in space, you may enter too. Extra kudos to you," she adds.

Alas, I'm a deskbound editor who's dream job (one of several) is to run a book nook one day. And there aren't a lot of indie booksellers in this country; fewer still, I think, have the knack for remembering the weird things their customers say.

Anyway, please send in your best "Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops" to weirdthingsuk[at]gmail[dot]com.

Set the conversation out in a chat window format as seen in these posts.

Please include your name, contact number, and the name and location of your bookshop (bookshop name, address, city, country).

Submissions should be sent to the said e-mail address before 30 September this year.

Non-booksellers can help spread the word about this call for submissions. Check Campbell's blog for more information.

I wonder if the bookstore people will bring it over here...

Rise Of The "Raviews"

Today, let me introduce a made-up word: "raview". This portmanteau of "rave" and "review" is the only way to describe the US$5 "reviews" that might be offered by a web site mentioned in the New York Times.

They are everywhere. They are, it seems, cheap. And they are virtually indistinguishable from "truthful" reviews.

A related article offers some tips on spotting potential fake reviews, listing such indicators as: constant focus on reviewer and companions, lots of "I", "me" and "my", and direct mentions of lodgings and cities. Also, look out for adverb and verb overload. If a review sounds overly positive, it smells fishy.

A sample of some very effusive reviews on TripAdvisor.com.
Under those guidelines, they'd be fishier than Fulton Street,
even if they're genuine and truthful.

This concerns me somewhat, because similar issues plague book reviews too. As well as food reviews, movie reviews, anything reviews. This also shed more light on why a former boss insisted on limiting the use of "I", "me" and "my" in my more "serious" pieces. "Raviews" do seem to be talking more about the "raviewer" than the product.

Arguably, "raviews" of such things as books, food and movies are possible, because, well, there's no accounting for taste. Over time, a reviewer's experiences will change the person, leading to a possible re-evaluation of his earlier opinions.

By the way, does this look "raview-ish"? ...Perhaps, but that's the general vibe I had when I went through the pages.

"Raviews" of travel destinations are harder, I think, and not just because of the writer. Places change. Service standards fluctuate. Last month's travellers to a place may encounter a different atmosphere than today's.

Still, US$5 per "raview" is a short sell for the kind of mental anguish, however minimal, that I'm sure the "raviewer" goes through. Times must be really hard nowadays.

Now that these possible signs of a fake review are out in the open, will it change the way reviews are written? Possibly. For one, writers may probably have to adopt more neutral voices, even if they were genuinely blown away by their experiences. And who wants to read dry, boring travel stuff?

But things will change. They are talking about ways to separate the chaff from the wheat; "raviews", after all, are essentially spam and a waste of server space, in lieu of their effect on a product's marketability and a ratings site as a fair arbiter of taste.

At least, as fair as could be in the face of the constant deluge of information and opinion brought about by the Internet.

Seashore Searching

Certain events that took place in the past two weeks drove me to search Youtube for an old song. "Forever", sung by Japanese actor Takashi Sorimachi and Richie Sambora, was the opening theme for the 1997 Japanese drama series Beach Boys.

The only nice poster pic of the 1997 Japanese drama
series Beach Boys I could find

Yes, I guess it was a long time ago.

Walking on the beach, 17-year-old Makoto Izumi (played by Ryoko Hirosue) finds a message in a bottle which ends with, "We are the beach boys." It was never clear who wrote the message, but I suppose the bottle was just a set piece that led to the serendipitous encounter that would follow later.

I.e., the arrival of the "beach boys" into her life.

Former competition swimmer and deadbeat Hiromi Sakurai (Sorimachi) is kicked out of his girlfriend's house. Around the same time, high-flying salaryman Kaito Suzuki (Yutaka Takenouchi) is escaping from troubles at his workplace. These two meet and end up at the same place: a small bed-and-breakfast by the beach, where Makoto lives with her granddad.

Hiromi and Kaito couldn't be any more different. Sorimachi essentially plays a more laid-back, easygoing and less edgier version of his GTO persona; Kaito is all business and straitlaced. Their first meeting couldn't have been worse: while pushing Hiromi's jalopy, they end up chasing the car downhill and plunged into the ocean.

And Kaito loses his wallet to the sea.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no money, both of them became employees at the B&B - fertile ground for friendships between two unlikely bedfellows, set within a feel-good, often funny tale about life, priorities, finding one's dreams and, yes, friendship.

Then again, not so unlikely; in Hiromi and Kaito's names is the kanji for "sea", shown clearly in the opening. No guesswork for the audience, as far as the scriptwriters are concerned.

Back then, I was too young and perhaps too occupied with my own things to fully appreciate the message(s) behind the drama series. The idea of a simple life, working and living near the sea appealed to me, though, and not just because of where I was born. The opening theme stuck, too.

I guess it was that simplicity that I seem to yearn for now, so warm and familiar, it feels like... home. Just like the B&B was to "beach boys" Hiromi and Kaito.

But their idyll doesn't last long. Masaru Izumi, Makoto's grandpa and owner of the B&B goes missing one day, leading to the Beach Boys' parting of ways to find their own "ocean". And so it ends...

But bless Fuji TV for the special episode. Ah, the sight of them trying to start and then chasing Hiromi's car back into the ocean again when they returned to the seaside B&B was so damn cathartic.

And then, the sounds of the guitar as the opening theme played - an affirmation that, yes, they are and will always be "the beach boys".

I hold on to that song. When I hear it playing at the back of my mind at some point in my life, I will know that I have, at last, found my metaphorical B&B by the sea.

MPH Quill, MPH 105th Anniversary Issue

In this special issue of MPH Quill, some author interviews.

Cover of the 105th Anniversary issue of MPH Quill (left; don't ask)
and more Mysore magic and majesty

Eric Forbes speaks to MJ Hyland (How the Light Gets In) And Padma Viswanathan (The Toss of a Lemon) about their books, themselves and their writing lives.

Authors MJ Hyland (left) and Padma Viswanathan are featured in
the 105th Anniversary issue of MPH Quill

Also, an interview piece with first-time author Paul Callan, where he talks about himself and his debut novel, The Dulang Washer.

Paul Callan, author of The Dulang Washer

Other interesting bits include:

Wena Poon's (Lions in Winter, Alex y Robert) sojourn at the 2011 Hong Kong International Literary Festival, where she discovers the international reach of Malaysian and Singaporean women novelists.

Mary Schneider's piece on photographer Dr Ooi Cheng Ghee and his involvement in the coffeetable book Portraits of Penang: Little India, published by Areca Books.

More interesting bits about Mysore, India, courtesy of newspaper columnist and occasional travel writer Alexandra Wong.

Tom Sykes summary on some gwailo novelists' works set in Southeast Asia, and excerpts from A Subtle Degree of Restraint and Other Stories, as well as Looking Back: Monday Musings and Memories, an upcoming reprint of Tunku's original 1970s edition.

...And more!

Fasting Month Fracas

Many years back, I'd been eating something when two Malay boys walked past. It was the fasting month, so one of them went, "Oh dear, he's eating in front of me!"

Of course I was traumatised by that. I still remember it, even though it happened in the 80s. If you're reading this, Mohd Ishak, from Francis Light Primary School (1), Penang, mohon maaf.

To this day I feel a bit self-conscious when eating in public during that time of the year. I sometimes wonder what prompted that outburst. I don't think it was anger, though. I didn't get a dressing-down over it, nor was I beaten up.

But what would happen in school these days if someone made the same boo-boo I did?

Those days of Ramadhan past were dredged up by this report yesterday morning:

The Home Ministry has called up the Group Chief Editor of The Star for running buka puasa articles together with stories on non-halal restaurants.

Its deputy secretary-general (Security) Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohamad Radzi said the pictures and also promotion of non-halal restaurants were carried in the paper's Dining Out supplement, with "Ramadan delights" as its cover headline.

I shook my head and then rummaged the paper pile in the office for the "offending" supplement.

There, in all its glory at the top left corner of page four, a picture of a Chinese restaurant's "must try" Mongolian pork rib. Ah yes, I missed the ad on page two for Morganfield's "Sticky Bones", a sick, huge slab of what looks like barbecued pork ribs.

The next few pages were advertorials for a dim sum place, Morganfield's, the gastropub chain Library and a bistro-type place with a selection of "over 400 Old World and New World wines".

In an ideal world, a person would just shake one's head, chuckle and read the rest of the section, then move on to the funnies. One could, after that, calmly write a letter to the editor, because that would be the most rational thing to do. But this world is far from ideal, so things such as "tolerance", "understanding" and "rationality" don't always make an appearance.

Of late, The Star has been slipping up on occasion. Reshuffling hiccups? Maybe. Was it 2.30am when they finally closed it, all bone-tired and bleary-eyed? Plausible.

The whole thing's quite unfortunate. From the mix of ads I saw it looked as if they were trying to be impartial, maybe make the fasting month a little more special for everyone. Just like what Whole Foods is doing in the US.

Days earlier, the American supermarket chain faced a similar situation after they put up a Ramadhan promotion. Yes.

Not everyone appreciated it, though. A conservative blogger hurled bile over how "anti-Israel" Whole Foods was shilling "for jihadi interests".

(Some researchers claim that poison arrow frogs source ingredients for their lethal neurotoxins from by eating certain insects. Not sure I want to know what that blogger's been into.)

No guesses as to why some Americans aren't taking a shine to the company's initiative. So, let's hear what a food blogger has to say about Ramadhan:

"...it is an incredibly important holy month for Muslims. For us, it is a time of reflection — a time to develop compassion for those who live with hunger and thirst as a way of life, and to do something to help them. It’s a time to practice self-control and willpower in the face of numerous temptations; and to purify one’s self by taking time to focus on character and purpose.

Of course, some bad apples, like the obvious ones over in Syria, don't seem to be getting with that programme. Small wonder that Ramadhan, like so many other aspects of Islam, is tainted by the actions of an extremist few.

But wait, you say. Things roll differently in Malaysia. The majority of people here celebrate Ramadhan, and anything deemed offensive to them may have huge effects. So, someone might have complained about it for the sake of the public.

I will audaciously presume that "the public" here includes me.

Yes, I suppose that's how we've been taught. I for one, however, would be offended to have someone complain on my behalf about things that "offend" my sensibilities. Just as how some are offended by any suggestion that their spirituality during the holy month is fragile.

If I were, I'd rather do my own complaining because I'm so much better at it, and am capable of more measured responses.

Also, it's not as if all the establishments in that supplement were non-halal. One can still pick his or her way through the section to find more appropriate places to break fast. Recommendations not good enough? Bambu the paper with that letter I suggested you write, and maybe suggest some places you know have good buka puasa grub.

This isn't exactly new. I remember hearing (in 2007) about someone being offended by a food writer's article on roti babi in Penang a while back, simply because of the four-letter word. Incidentally, the article was published not long after the start of the fasting month then (13 September to 12 October).

So I guess it has been with us for a long while. This... anger, this hair-trigger tendency to get upset whenever our sensibilities are offended. Have we always been this way, or did things get even worse since my primary school days?

I believe that people take offence because they choose to take offence. So much ill feeling can be avoided if we ignored, rather than took, offence at certain things. There's plenty going on lately that's more worthy of our outrage, but that's not the point of this rant.

And no, I don't think non-Muslims at home need to be educated about Islam or Ramadhan. If there's anyone out there who needs that education, it's the Yankees who, judging from the Whole Foods thingy, aren't exactly the most informed people on this planet.

As Mohammed al-Rehaief learned, to his chagrin, when he visited Jessica Lynch's hometown of Palestine, West Virginia.

al-Rehaief was the Iraqi doctor who helped Lynch, a survivor of an ambush by insurgents. But when he called on her, she was, it seemed, too busy to see him. And it got better:

The failed visit ended on a somewhat farcical note when local townspeople offered the al-Rehaiefs a meal - of ham sandwiches and burgers - only to discover that they were fasting for Ramadhan and, in any case, being Muslim, did not eat ham.

How tragic-comic. Not even worth a cringe or facepalm.

In the spirit of the fasting month, why not a lawatan sambil mengajar to the US heartland and educate these benighted heathens about religion and Ramadhan? And maybe undo some of the damage done by Fox News supremo Roger Ailes and his ilk? Some of the noise coming out of that so-called "news channel" is categorically carcinogenic.

A much better cause than banning beer, gatecrashing charity dinners, burning web sites and chastising newspapers for what looks like a genuine slip-up.