Brother Lawrenec Dead at 91 - He will Be Missed and Remembered by all Johanians!

Cheer cheer and courage display

All ye Johannians join in the lay

Send a volley of cheer on high

Shake down the thunder from the sky

What though the odds be great or small

Dear ol' St John's will win over all

While her loyal sons are marching

Onward to Victory

St John's!!

Those are the lyrics of the St. John’s school song that brother Lawrence Spitzig wrote all those years ago which is still being sung until today. Brother Lawrence was a director twice at St John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur, once from 1955 till 1961 and once from 1979 till 1983, a great contributor to education in Malaysia and a kind and generous human being who put all else before himself. He was conferred a Datukship by the King this year for his dedication and achievements to education in Malaysia over the last six decades. He died yesterday at Assunta Hospital, Petaling Jaya, aged 91.

Ask any Johanian who Brother Lawrence is and if they don’t know then they’re probably lying that they’re a Johanian. I come from a family of Johanians. I was a Johanian, my brother was a Johanian, my dad taught in St. John’s and my grand uncle was a former director of St. John’s. We all knew, loved and respected Brother Lawrence for who he was and what he achieved for the school.

I had the great opportunity to have met Brother Lawrence Spitzig when I was a student at St. John’s Institution and when he was still working at the school. In the later years during his retirement I still met up with Brother Lawrence through my grand uncle, also a Brother at St. John’s. I remember my grand uncle always telling me how Brother Lawrence always loved the cookies and chocolates we bought for the Brothers. Simple things like cookies and chocolates made their day. When I had the chance to personally speak with Brother Lawrence, he was always so excited to tell me about his work with the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak. I recall my amazement with his energy and enthusiasm to the cause while he was well into his late 80s. But then I think that’s what made Brother Lawrence tick, his love for helping others.

For those interested, there will be a funeral service for Brother Lawrence at SJI Cathedral tomorrow at 10.00am. Cheers Brother Lawrence, you will be missed and remembered by all Johanians forever! Fide Et Labore!

Climate Change - Who Cares What the Rest of the World are Doing, We Should Act Now

I don’t profess to be overly knowledgeable about the goings on and off about our environmental policies or the proposed ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) where industries are taxed for polluting the environment but what I do know are useless politicians when I see them.

The government have put up an ETS that has been blocked in the parliament by the opposition Liberal party who claim that industries like the coal industry will lose thousands of jobs because of this. Call me a fool but I thought we were going away from dirty industries and into cleaner green industries like solar and wind power industries? Why are we trying to protect the coal industries? They should be slowly fading away as we try to set up policies to encourage investments and job creation into cleaner industries. I’m sure the coal industry will be able to survive. It’s just a fact of life that certain industries fade away and new ones are created. It’s been happening over time and it will continue to happen till the time of our great great great grand children, there’s no denying this fact. The government will now have to wait another 3 months to propose an amended bill to the parliament.

The Liberal party also question why Australia which emit slightly above 1% of the world’s pollution has to come up with an ETS now that would supposedly put Australian jobs at risk when the US, China, India and other major polluters have not committed to any set reduction in their CO2 emissions. Any attempt to reduce CO2 emissions on Australia’s part would be futile and irresponsible to Australia’s economy if the rest of the world do not play ball. The government have countered by saying Australia being one of the largest polluters in the world per capita needs to show leadership and lead from the front in an issue where everybody is waiting to see what the others are doing first before committing to anything.

While on the surface the Liberal party’s stand on this issue sounds right and the government’s ETS may need a little more work to get right, it is better than dragging our feet and doing nothing at all which is what the Libs are doing and we can only come up with one conclusion and that is, they are climate change sceptics who would do anything to not to deal with the real issues of climate change as they don’t believe it is real enough to ‘jeopardise’ Australian jobs. The Liberal party firstly need to be united as a party and acknowledge that climate change is indeed real and not pussy foot around the issue. For the survival of the generations after us, we need to act and we need to act now. Australia should lead and lead from the front if necessary. If you believe in Global warming, what difference does it make if you pass the bill now or later? What difference does it make what the rest of the world does, if you believe that Global warming is real and we do the right thing to cut our pollution. Is the Liberal party saying that if the rest of the world does not cut emissions as much as Australia would like it to, then it would follow suit or stretch out negotiations further? It’s under these circumstances and under these kinds of leadership that nothing gets done and important issues never get resolved.

The world has no choice but to do the right thing. John Howard paid the ultimate price by losing his job and his electorate with his reluctance to believe that climate change was real until the end when it was already too late. Australia should not wait but to act now and act decisively. Does the Liberal party even know how many real jobs would be lost and how many real jobs would be created with the introduction of this ETS? It’s easy to say that jobs would be lost but where are the details? On the flip side, what are the consequences of not acting? What are they waiting for? If we are to have cleaner energy, the coal industry will need to be cut down in size sooner or later anyway, so why not sooner? I’m afraid the plethora of excuses spewing out from the mouths of the Liberal party members on this issue are unpalatable and hopefully they will pay the ultimate price once again when Kevin Rudd calls for a double dissolution election, get his ETS through and render the Libs useless and send them into the political wilderness until a time when they can learn to be more useful.

Kyle Sandilands a Crude Radio Shock Jock Who Needs to Dissappear!

For those unfamiliar, Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O are radio disc jokeys on Australian radio 2Day FM. Their audience comprise primarily of the teen audience. Now Kyle is also a judge on Australian idol and Jackie an entertainer who has hosted several other shows on Australian TV. The radio program they host is a vile, disgusting and crude show that panders to the sick minds of their audience who find amusing and entertaining every cruel and embarassing joke that befall the unknowing guests that appear on the show. Now to be fair, the audience is not really to blame as I remember way back when I was 17 myself and wouldn't mind having a chuckle or two at others misfortunes, but Kyle Sandilands, Jackie O and their producers at the radio station should know better. They have targeted a segment of the population who don't know better and have made up their content to suit the off taste, off limits mentality of the pimpled faced, testosterone filled teenagers of our society.

Gone are the days when arrogance, cruelty and laughing at others expense can be tolerated by modern society and the events of the recent past has taught us that being crude and vile for a laugh is just not on. A joke not only has to be funny but it cannot get out of hand by being overly offensive. Obviously, playing a funny sketch at the expense of dying kids is a definite no no, a mistake the Chaser's team learnt the hard way. The plug on their award winning comedy The Chaser's War on Everything has since been pulled by the TV station due to their distasteful sketch which created a furioous uproar amongst the community.

Just an example of the kind of nasty jokes Kyle and Jackie O's radio show plays on the airwaves is best described by a recent show. In the show, Kyle and Jackie O were to reunite a girl from Cambodia who lives in Australia with her niece who lives in the US. The auntie and niece have not seen each other since being separated while young after fleeing Cambodia's regime as refugees. After having flown 15 hours from the US to Australia, the girls were told of the 'catch' which was that the niece was to stand behind one of three doors and the auntie needed to pick the door the niece was standing behind, otherwise they would be sending the niece back to the US straight away, no meeting at all. Having heard this, the obvious anguish and anxiousness was plain for all to see which was what the radio hosts wanted to happen. When the auntie picked the wrong door, they told the pair that the niece would be sent home which left the girls crying with agonizing pain shown for the world or at least Kyle and Jacki O's audience to see. Kyle then went on to say that he would 'allow' them to see each other if they begged and the biggest grovel fest imaginable was bestowed upon King Kyle and he eventually 'granted' them a much deserved meeting. The sick and twisted part was that they had always intended for the girls to meet each other but the charade Kyle played to get the girls into a state of utter torment was just a cheap and vile exploitation of the girls to get a reaction which was deemed 'good entertaintment'.

The straw that broke the camel's back though was when Kyle and Jackie got a mother to question her 14 year old daughter who was hooked up to a lie detector about her sex life on their radio show. The mother was wrong in the first place to take part in this silly stunt but the events that followed took a turn for the worse when the girl admitted on live radio that she had been raped when she was 12. The mother knew about it and it was unforgivable for her to agree to such a degrading stunt, especially as there was obvious pain and shame felt by the daughter while on the air. Instead of pulling the plug on the horrendous skit, all Kyle could do was to say whether there were any other incidences apart from that one. Helloooo Kyle!! Where are your marbles? Is there not an iorta of decency in this trenchant vitriolic person for him not to ask himself if this was just not appropriate radio to be asking a 14 year old girl about her sex life and being raped? This girl was already showing signs of distress due to having to relive her traumatic rape while just a child and here is Kyle Sandilands trying to find out more about other incidences.

The 2Day FM came out soon after and apologised unreservedly but Kyle Sandilands refused to admit any wrongdoing. Not only was it wrong to do a show like that, there is also talk about a criminal element which child protection services and the police were looking into. Kyle Sandilands is an arrogant, opinionated and egotistical person to put it mildly. His favourite pastime is to be funny at other people's expense and makes no apologies for it. This can be seen during his frequent performances as a judge on Australian idol. He thinks he's funny but it's usually at other people's expense and the sad thing is a lot of people laugh and think he's funny. The events of recent days however, have made a lot of people think whether these kinds of jokes and in fact a person like Kyle is what society want in their living rooms and in their car radio's everyday. Kyle has found out the hard way and the answer unfortunately for him is "NO". Sponsors have pulled the plug on his radio show, he's been given a leave of absence on his own radio show and Australian Idol has sacked him as a judge. Well there you go Kyle, it doesn't pay to be nasty. I just hope that this would be the last we talk about Kyle Sandilands the repulsive and cruel broadcaster and hope he fades away into oblivion never to be seen or heard of again.

Read how Media Watch saw this: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2644599.htm