masterwordsmith-unplugged

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Trite as it may sound, it is a fine example of his effort to provide the nation with emotional leadership in a dour time. And oh, how Malaysians need leadership in so many areas today.



With all the atrocious statements being spewed out of the mouths of morons, injustice in so many areas, all we really have to fear is an unconscious or blind refusal to understand the scheme of things and to use that information to our benefit. As we well know, fear attracts fear. Anger produces more anger while love begets love. During such trying and challenging circumstances such as what we currently see in Malaysia, we need true leaders who display excellent marks of leadership to draw us out of the quandary, depression and sense of hopelessness but do we see that happening?

John Naisbitt said, "The new leader is a facilitator, not an order giver."

What we need are leaders who can show us:

• responsibility, accountability and reliability in what they say and do
• that they knowing the latest facts of the situation such as understanding goals, objectives and directives
• that they are capable of delegation and administration of people and other resources of both the state and the nation
• that they can playing the political game and emerge winners instead of losers
• that they know when to zip up and when to speak

Leadership is an art that needs a certain style and ineffable qualities that set people from others to justify them being in that select position. Without the necessity of ordinary citizens voicing their discontent, our political leaders should have an intuitive manner and a clear conscience to know that what they are doing is good not just for themselves or their party, but for the collective good of the nation.

It is truly very saddening to see what is happening in our midst. We see one faction vs another, one party versus another and then they retaliate and launch another onslaught as one plot is revealed after another and the many plots being unraveled thicken and breed sub-plots. Gosh! When will the season of madness end? Have people no sense of decency?

I believe many leaders should go to a quiet place and do serious soul-searching and ask themselves whether they are playing wholesome roles as leaders. Are they true to their calling to lead the people who elected them? Or are they leading us down the path of destruction while they attain self-glorification?

Some soul searching questions that leaders should ask themselves are listed below. In fact, we should ask our leaders these questions too, bearing in mind the element of accountability, since we are the ones who elected them to office.

1. Do our leaders display the mark of personal integrity as leaders whom we can HONESTLY trust and admire?

2. Do our leaders display personal courage and have the guts to stand up to bullies and negative forces for what is good and right, to protect the rakyat?



3. Are our leaders consistent when talking from a podium and when talking at the grass root level?

4. Can our leaders intelligently and responsibly debate issues of concern to the rakyat with intellectual rigor, honestly and consistently with arguments and reasons to support their premises? Do they prepare themselves for Parliament and do they keep tabs on what is happening in their constituency?

5. Can we see mental strength and stamina in our leaders and do they have the ability to bounce back from every challenge with more resolve to work even harder and wiser for better results?

6. Do our leaders crack under pressure?

7. Do our leaders maintain their personal dignity and teamwork when under trying circumstances?

8. When in battle, do our leaders exude a calm and sound demeanour to direct energies and people in the right direction?

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Of late, news reports highlighted how migrant workers are responsible for soaring crime rates and social problems. Some argue that migrant workers are responsible for soaring crime rates and social problems. Yet, some leaders take offense when others swing into action to solve these problems. It seems that scapegoating is used as and when it can offer political mileage. Then there is the disturbing incident where one made derogatory remarks that smack of racist stereotyping about two segments of our Malaysian populace. Is scapegoating a fair practice that we can condone?



Scapegoating is a hostile social and psychological method to shame a particular group because they want to shift the blame and responsibility away from themselves and refocus it towards a target person or group. In this way, they hope to project angry feelings and feelings of hostility, via inappropriate accusation, towards others.

So why are they doing this? They wrongly target and persecute the target group who receive misplaced vilification, blame and criticism. What will happen is that this group will suffer rejection from the same group that the perpetrator seeks to influence.

In the end - the animosity between the migrant workers and those who assimilated into Malaysian society eons ago will increase, much to the delight of the scapegoaters who need the migrant workers for their hidden agenda!

Scapegoating has a wide range of objectives that can be targeted at individuals or groups but one thing is for sure - distortion of reality/fact is always a feature.

As netizens, what can we do? We need to develop an understanding of current affairs, not just on the surface, but at a much deeper level as well. We have to always question and see beyond what they are trying to tell us....

I believe what actually happens is that the guilty ones use scapegoating to transfer feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering from themselves because of their own shame and guilt for not doing the right thing (because they may not be capable of it or because they just don't care. In this way, they try to cope with their feelings of guilt and displaces the citizens' attention on the inefficiency of those concerned to combat the problem via projective identification. In short, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target. This can only happen if their audience is foolish enough to accept their fallacious claims!

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The world`s first fully computerized airliner was ready for its maiden flight without pilots or crew. The plane taxied to the loading area automatically, its doors opened automatically, the steps came out automatically. The passengers boarded the plane and took their seats. The steps retreated automatically, the doors closed, and the airplane taxied toward the runway.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," a computer voice intoned.

"Welcome to the debut of the world`s first fully computerized airliner. Everything on this aircraft is run electronically. Just sit back and relax. Nothing can go wrong...nothing can go wrong...nothing can go wrong...."
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Pilot's eyesight!
An airline pilot with poor eyesight managed to pass his periodic vision exams by memorizing the eye charts beforehand.
One year, though, his doctor used a new chart that the pilot had never before seen. The pilot proceeded to recite the old chart and the doctor realized that he`d been suckered all these years. Then the doctor could not contain his curiosity. "How is it that someone with your eyesight can manage to pilot a plane at all? I mean, how for example do you taxi the plane out to the runway?"

"Well," said the pilot, "it`s really not very hard. All you have to do is follow the instructions of the ground controller over the radio. And besides, the landmarks have all become quite familiar to me over the years."
"I can understand that," replied the doctor. "But what about the take- off?"
"Again, a simple procedure. I just aim the plane down the runway, go to full throttle, pull back on the stick, and off we go!"
"But once you`re aloft?"
"Oh, everything`s fully automated these days. The flight computer knows our destination, and all I have to do is hit the auto-pilot and the plane pretty much flies itself."
"But I still don`t see how you land!"
"Oh, that`s the easiest part of all. All I do is use the airport`s radio beacon to get us on the proper glide path. Then I just throttle down and wait for the co-pilot to yell, `AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!`, then I will pull the nose up, and the plane lands just fine!"
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Extremely efficient!

Three engineers were in the bathroom standing at the urinals. The first engineer finished and walked over to the sink to wash his hands. He then proceeded to dry his hands very carefully. He used paper towel after paper towel and ensured that every single spot of water on his hands was dried.
Turning to the other two engineers, he said, `At Wipro, we are trained to be extremely thorough.`
The second engineer finished his task at the urinal and he proceeded to wash his hands. He used a single paper towel and made sure that he dried his hands using every available portion of the paper towel.
He turned and said, `At TCS, not only are we trained to be extremely thorough, but we are also trained to be extremely efficient.`
The third engineer finished and walked straight for the door, shouting over his shoulder, `At INFY we don`t pee on our hands.`
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You know you are an Internet Junkie when...

When asked to your address, your answer begins with http://
Instead of calling you to dinner, your spouse sends e-mail.
You chat with your fingers, not your mouth.
You use Netscape 4.72, and you check every week whether version 4.73 was released.
You know the difference between Java and Javascript.
Most of your friends have an @ in their names.
In order to watch CNN you move to www.cnn.com
On your business card the e-mail appears before the phone number.
You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com
You check your mail. It says "no new messages." So you check it again.
You can perfectly imitate the sound pattern of your modem connecting to your ISP.
You are told about a new program, and you are disappointed to find that it is a TV program.
You can think of nineteen keystroke symbols that are far more clever than :-).
You are told about a new program, and you are disappointed to find that it is a TV program.
Not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your network address faster than your postal one.
You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop to check your e-mail on the way back to bed.
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Top 10 Signs that You`ve Overdosed on The World Wide Web

Your opening line is: "So, what`s your homepage address?"
You see a beautiful sunset, and you half-expect to see "Enhanced for Netscape 4.0" on one of the clouds.
You are overcome with disbelief, anger, and finally depressed acceptance when you encounter a Webpage with no links.
You felt driven to consult the "Cool Page of the Day" on your wedding day.
Your bookmark takes 15 minutes to scroll from top to bottom.
You are driving on a dark and rainy night when you hydroplane on a puddle, sending your car careening towards the flimsy guardrail that separates you the precipice of a rocky cliff and certain death, and you desperately look for the "Back" button.
You visit "The Really Big Button That Doesn`t Do Anything" again and again and again.
Your dog has his own webpage.
So does your hamster.
When you read a magazine, you have an irresistible urge to click on the underlined passages.

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What computer acronyms really stand for:

ISDN - It Still Does Nothing
APPLE - Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
WWW - World Wide Wait
DOS - Defunct Operating System
IBM - I Blame Microsoft
MACINTOSH - Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
PENTIUM - Produces Erroneous Numbers Through Incorrect Understanding of Mathematics
AMIGA - A Merely Insignificant Game Addiction
MIPS - Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
WINDOWS - Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
MICROSOFT - Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
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Types of Girls

Hard Disk Girls:
She remembers everything, FOREVER.

RAM Girls:
She forgets about you, the moment you turn her off.

Windows Girls:
Everyone knows that she can't do a thing right, but no one can live without her.

Screensaver Girls:
She is good for nothing but at least she is fun!

Internet Girls:
Difficult to access.

Server Girls:
Always busy when you need her.

Multimedia Girls:
She makes horrible things look beautiful.

CD-ROM Girls:
She is always faster and faster.

Email Girls:
Every ten things she says, eight are nonsense.

Virus Girls:
Also known as "WIFE"; when you are not expecting her, she comes, installs herself and uses all your resources. If you try to uninstall her you will lose something, if you don't try to uninstall her you will lose everything.
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