I did mentioned much earlier as in Karak, so many were infected with Chikugunya. It’s a very painful disease where joints are affected and body weakness persists even after a few months. sometimes years.

Useless Health Minister. I would prefer previous Sex Health Minister over him.

He does not know nuts bout health at all. Putting him there is pathetic. MCA is going down the drain with him. People in Bentong and Karak is so Mad with him and next round …. BYE BYE.

Those who collects garbage, street cleaners and other public works personnel there are young, tidy, well groomed and professional in their work. You could tell by the way they operate their machines and the way they carry out their work. By looking at them, one can tell that they are paid well and have a good life working as a garbageman.

Unlike Malaysia, our garbageman here might not even be a local, most probably a foreigner, earning a meagre income that could barely buy three meals a day. Lives by the dumpsite, untidy, and does his job according to his given (or not given) resource.

Ever notice our garbage truck letting out streams after streams of sweet smelling juices as they prod along the roads??!! (Quite often isn’t it?)

Well, I don’t see that happening to garbage trucks in Spain for the six months I was there. Their public buses emits so much less fumes I just thought it’s surreal.

To summarize it: “THEY (government & local authorities) JUST DON’T CARE! As simple as that, whether you are paying cukai or not! Period. It’s all about the dough.

I have mentioned it before in this blog, that our filthy politicians and their filthy businessmen friends are plundering the country’s wealth.

Malaysia is a country where a human is not valued (very honest view). Malaysia is in the state it is in now because of her own doing with the government as the leading cause.

As all of us knows, one way to improve the quality of service in this country (or any country for that matter) is to improve its people.

And how do we improve its people? People will to need to have a certain level of living standard that could satisfy their personal and family needs. This is possible by getting a good salary. How can a person concentrate on giving his best service while his home is in shambles and is worrying over the next meal?

Let give me you an example, restaurants in Malaysia. We used to see locals working in Chinese, Indian and Malay restaurants, somehow, not long ago, they disappeared. The main reason is of course the low wages and the non-existent employee benefits.

So, there we have the start of the influx of foreign workers into our restaurants – Indians, Indonesians, Bangladeshis & etc. to do the “dirty & unglamorous job” of table waiting (waiter) / table cleaner / dish washer with a monthly salary of anywhere between RM450 to RM900. (10 years ago until now – the locals who are willing to do the job are asking between 1000 – 1800 per month and usually 1 month yearly bonus depending on the position, this is of course not accepted by local entrepreneurs even if they are making net profit of around half a million to few millions of ringgit annually).

The influx of foreigners coupled with the “tidak apa” attitude of Malaysians created a chain reaction that is detrimental to the growth of our country and the people, or more precisely the lower income bracket. These foreigners are NOT investing in local services provider when they get their salary, but locals do, thus stimulating our local market with more purchasing power.

From unhygienic food handling, food poisoning, diseases caused by foreigners who prepares food, bad service & etc., you name it…I am sure many of you agree but are less bringing it up because of troublesome, “tidak apa” attitude and many silly excuses. If we keep on like this, we will forever have this kind of sub standard restaurant preparing sub standard dirty food to us and our children. And it’s not going to stop and change for the better, a better and more sustainable way of doing things.

With the next two years (2009 & 2010) mooted as possible catastrophic times ahead, I sincerely feel at the moment change has come too late for Malaysia. With everything skyrocketing and essential items being more expensive, we might find ourselves even more vulnerable from external influences, or by what one senile leader always said, colonialism (this bugger is one who don’t understand history and the purpose of mankind). And this is self inflicted.

“The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes” – Lao Tzu

The above saying by the great sage Lao Tzu summarize why I said the government is the leading cause of all inefficiencies and slow growth of our people. (It carries many indications, not just taxes, authority might mean employer or the government)

If the levels below don’t advance, neither will the levels above. All will remain stagnant and lag behind the world and the need to progress in order to protect ourselves.

Coolies?? Which one? The origin of the word can be traced back to the 18th century. The Tamil ‘quli’, Hindi ‘quli’ or the Bengali ‘kuli’?? Or even the Urdu ‘kuli’? Or the Turkish ‘kole’ meaning slave? Whatever it means, in Malaysia if you leave your wife to do all the work, it is said you’re making her your coolie.

Care should be taken, however, not to confuse ‘kuli’ with T*engku R*azaleigh.

Coolies?? Which one? The origin of the word can be traced back to the 18th century. The Tamil ‘quli’, Hindi ‘quli’ or the Bengali ‘kuli’?? Or even the Urdu ‘kuli’? Or the Turkish ‘kole’ meaning slave? Whatever it means, in Malaysia if you leave your wife to do all the work, it is said you’re making her your coolie.

Care should be taken, however, not to confuse ‘kuli’ with Tengku Razaleigh.

There’s this Civil & Environmental Engineering program in UPM…

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The A-Team

If the government can hire full time cleaners to keep some beaches clean, then they can also hire cleaners to keep open drains clean and free flowing.

Throughout the whole passage of M. Bakri Musa, I find that the above paragraph is the most impressive one. The world renown clean cities like Singapore and Kota Kinabalu would also find problems with Dengue outbreak. Therefore there may not be a high correlation between Dengue outbreak and the competency of civil engineers who are being employed by the Town Councils.

It is also questionable to compare Florida’s climate to that of Malaysia. As far as I know, the northern part of Florida is situated in the temperate zone. Most insects cannot survive during the winter in some densely populated cities in Florida like Pensacola, Tampa, Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Titusville, De Land, Sarasota, Sanford, Orlando, Bartow, Clearwater, and Dade City. The floridan cities which are said to have similar hot and humid climate like that of Malaysia may be Miami, West Palm Beach, Fort Myers, Fort Lauderdale, Naples, and Key West, which are situated at the southern part of Florida.

Even in the southern part of Florida, we will still find that the sea breeze may be too cold for insects like mosquitoes to proliferate and survive for a long period of time.

Instead of learning from Florida, it is much better for Malaysians to learn from our close neighbour, i.e. Singapore. The Singaporean Government has identified that the water-captured flower vases and flower pots are the major mosquito nursery beds. Therefore it is highly advisable for Malaysians to learn to add some salt into the water of the flower vases and sow some salt at the base of the flower pots. This idea looks very simple but it works well to control the proliferation of the mosquitoes in our living compounds.

No matter what, to maintain the environmental cleanliness and to eradicate all the water retention media in our living compound and workplace at individual’s initiative are the most important steps towards a safer living environment which is free from the threat of mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue, Chikungunya or Malaria.

OrangRojak, I share your view, especially since i was staying in various parts of Europe before coming back.

Since we are young, we re taught that anything that happens outside our house compound is not our problem. its the authorities problem. I didnt learn this from home, but in primary school.

Since my dad travels alot at work, we moved often, & at one time I was staying in a malay kampong, which I might say, never encountered any racial or religious issues. My friends will eat at my house or we will shelter at the surau when it rains, no problems at all.

We had some informal gotong royong, and the beauty of it is that when some one starts to gotong royong to clean up, all the neighbors follow with it, no questions asked, everyone cleaned up around the area. Then the wifes will bring us cakes & tea.

I miss this environment where all of us get along so well.

Anyway. I must agree that we cant rely on the authorities to do all the work, we should pitch in as well. But considering whats happening, many would prefer not to do their part even if they could, why:

1. They feel its not their job to clean outside their area.

2. They feel that they paid way too much for the Dewan/Majilis * to do the work. In fact they didnt do good job at all.

3. Its not safe outside. Many that I know will not risk being seen outside their home working, unaware of who is watching them.

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With the current issue in hand. The doctors can only treat & provide recommendations to patients.

And engineers can only identify & analyze situations when outbreaks happen with the feedback from the doctors or cdc.

To solve this problem effectively, We need a third party that is unbias to the docs & engineers & only focus on solving this problem.

Perhaps, They could:

1. Create a task force, Its all about PR, get a number Posted, email & web information to tackle the issues.

2. Get feedback from people. Im very sure when you ask someone, they will complain. Use this opportunity to identify the hotspots & send a team to test, analyze & fog the area.

3. Contact the people again & get their evaluations.

4. What would help is that they monitor this problem & liaise with the people without over promising them, there must be a time range to resolve the issue, And if it takes too long, someone must be accountable.

5. Perhaps it help some people, there could be a custom service to do this fogging coordinated by the majilis (i hope without corruption) to help those that are willing to pay for a better overall service.