Zurairi A. Rahman has published an article calling out the extraordinarily stupid and self-serving decisions (my words, Zurairi is much more of a gentleman in prose) of including religious teachings and propaganda into the education system exactly where it does not belong — science.

I blame the encroachment of religion into non-religious studies, especially science. If you are a parent, do take some time to go through the syllabus of high school biology supplied by the Ministry of Education. Despite dedicating a chapter for Variation, one section of the chapter suggested the teacher “conduct a sketch to show respect for all God’s creation”, and espouses “being thankful to God” as one of the scientific and noble values to be learnt through the curriculum.

It is a nicely written summary of the problem, all of which I find myself in agreement with. Of course, seeing as he is an editor for Unscientific Malaysia of which I am a woefully infrequent contributor of articles — this is more of a surprise because it was published on a platform with a wider readership with very real chances of offending religious people.

Folks, I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary,

See my baby there;

She's stretched out on a long, white table,

She's so sweet, so cold, so fair.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,

Wherever she may be,

She will search this wide world over,

But she'll never find another sweet man like me.

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches,

Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat,

Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain,

So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat.

An' give me six crap shooting pall bearers,

Let a chorus girl sing me a song.

Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head

So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along.

Folks, now that you have heard my story,

Say, boy, hand me another shot of that booze;

If anyone should ask you,

Tell 'em I've got those St. James Infirmary blues.

Lyrics sourced from sing365.com.

After some haggling, I have managed to convince a potential donor to part with RM 1200 to see me bald and deprived of facial hair, but also to work towards progressively more humiliating / rewarding outcomes.

• RM1200 — I will shave my head. (1200/1200 I will go bald!)
• RM2000 — I will perform a leg wax. (50/800 Only buys a hair.)
• RM3000 — I will upload a video of the process of the leg wax. (0/3000 In your dreams)

As usual, payments can be made by cheque (payable to ‘SPCA KK’ and mailed to SPCA KK, P.O. Box 17338, 88873 Kota Kinabalu Sabah Malaysia), or by fund-transfer to the Maybank account number 560072005581 (under ‘SPCA Kota Kinabalu’) and also by cash if you are able to attend the awareness events. All donations made to SPCA-KK are tax-deductible.

After donating, fire off an email to donate@spcakk.org with your donation amount and somewhere in your message “for Rewarp”.

If you would like to suggest further humiliations that would be appropriate for the tiered-punishment system I gave above, sound off in the comments, and if the damage is only temporary and non-life threatening, I may add it to the list.

Update 1: You may now keep track of donations by bookmarking this post.

Infatuation with Jesus produces the exact effect.

I had a rather troublesome day today having wasted half of the day because of a misunderstanding in an interview I scheduled to attend. Fortunately, my potential-temporary-future-employer was most understanding.

Unfortunately, I had the misfortune of having accidentally lent my phone to a homophobic Jesus lover in the interim. The sort so engrossed in the religion, he doesn’t even bother apologising for his hatred of the GLBT community, giving his opinions unsolicited while borrowing my phone when his prepaid credits had run dry.

I gave the usual interest in opening a dialogue initially when the topic began with him giving an euphoric description of why I must be Christian because the apocalypse will arrive in 2020.

My efforts in quoting from the rather embarrassingly extensive collection of immoral fables and laws in the Bible such as disproportionate punishment for looking in the wrong direction and teaching fathers the ethical ways of selling their daughters produced a rather disappointing statement.

They needed those laws because they were fucking everything. That’s why there are gay people.

I admit, those were not his exact sentence which was a dull euphemism in Chinese.

I acknowledged his poor grasp of ethics by putting on my shades, and asked pointedly, crudely, coldly: “Do you agree to the hatred on GLBTs?”

He applied in the affirmative.

My response: “Then we have nothing left to discuss.”

And walked away from the comfortable stone bench where I was waiting for a bus, to a standing position somewhere farther away.

He followed me to say goodbye, and asked me whether I was a heterosexual, with further speech annoyingly sprinkled with how much older he was compared to me (one year to be exact, and uttered with authority) and further admonishments to convert to Christianity.

I ignored him with grunts and started reading Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (the surest sign to everyone who knows me that I no longer register the noises coming out of your mouth) until he left to sleep on a bench. He did say some other stuff, but I won’t bore you with the details.

Guy who annoyed me with Jesus love after this evil atheist helped you with his mobile phone without question, this is for you.

It is unfortunate that I did not own a card membership for Borders, which would have provided some discounts. Which leads into the issue I have with filling forms.

I do not support being labelled as anything but Malaysian. Specifically Malaysian. Precisely Malaysian.

Unfortunately, many of the forms in this perpetually-intentionally-racially-segregated country requires one to fill in information that classifies one by ethnicity.

I do not understand the necessity of this segregation. It makes no sense to do so on a form for a bank loan (as if a bank manager likeliness to loan you money is scaled to the amount of melanin), let alone one applying for membership at a bookshop!

Inspired by a passing remark in an article I can’t recall at present, I have now decided that unless prohibited by law, I shall be ticking “Others” in the “Race” field and writing down “HUMAN”.

Technically, scientifically, and legally, I believe I am in the right. Since it is true that I am a human, Homo sapiens sapiens, and that “Race” can also be interpreted as species.

So after my purchases today, I did exactly that in my application form for a Borders membership card. I will reveal the outcome of my experiment when I get the card, if they get back to me.

Sign this petition to help us free a man incarcerated for merely speaking his mind — while showing the world that in this country there is a sizable population of good people willing to act on their conscience.

A true testament to the spirit of using lies to tell the truth (to paraphrase Neil Gaiman), this is one podcast you will regret not listening to should you know someone recommended it to you, but never bothered listening anyway, although you know of its true value, because the friend recommending it to you has spent a good part of his productive life listening to bullshit for entertainment. Much like a friend of mine who only realised House was the superior medical drama a good three years after counter recommending Grey’s Anatomy to me.

If you are too bored with the usual manner world politics, giant middle fingers, and wangs are presented, please increase the burden of their donation-dependent servers here.

I will cut a deal with you.

I will shave off my beard, moustache, and hair if through my efforts, you help raise RM 20,000 by the end of February 2012 for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — Kota Kinabalu.

Before and after photographic evidence to be provided on this blog after the goal has been met.

You tax deductible donations can be sent via

• a cheque payable to SPCA-KK;
• bank transfer to the Maybank account 560072005581;
• or directly to donation boxes (although there is no way to verify your donation if you do that since it all becomes a thick ball of timey-wimey goodness).

Verify your intention to get me to shave through your donations by adding “Donating to see Rewarp bald” at the end of your donation amount verification message to donate@spcakk.org.

Final note, this only counts if my individual actions raise RM 20,000. Not if the amount I raise plus those of the others in the video reaches RM 20,000.

Update: Following poor reception, I have rewritten the deal, which can be read here.

I have much to express but more often, now that I have become more proactive, find it harder still to sit down and ruminate to the world at large about what I think about anything.

Perhaps for the coming year, it would be best to be inspired by Neil Gaiman’s new year message not written for Chinese New Year.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.