The Fatal Curse of Tempurungism (reprise)

They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop and this is especially evident in the case of Malaysian bureaucracy in general and the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli in particular.

I have resided in and around Kampung Pertak since 1992. During this period I have witnessed how the Orang Asli Affairs Department favors diabolical initiatives that strengthen their psychological and political control over the Orang Asli - while creating opportunities for stuffing their own pockets.

Whether it be logging concessions, dam projects, turning ancestral lands into leasehold lots, or tarring roads that lead nowhere (except to environmental degradation), the JHEOA invariably finds a sneaky way to corrupt, oppress, intimidate, exploit and ultimately devour the Orang Asli.

Sagong Tasi of the Temuan tribe wins a landmark lawsuit (courtesy of Suaram)

The JHEOA ought to have been dismantled and abolished 20 years ago, following the surrender of the Malayan Communist Party in 1989. Instead, it became a tool to assimilate the Orang Asli into mainstream Malay culture - by pressuring them to embrace Islam and systematically pillaging their ancestral lands under the guise of kemajuan or “progress.”

Recently there has been talk of the JHEOA being “corporatized” into the Perbadanan Orang Asli (Orang Asli Corporation) using the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) as a model. Blurring the boundary between business and politics facilitates hanky-panky on a massive scale. As we have seen in the case of FELDA, feudal-style top-down management by aristocrat-politicians results in the ignorant peasantry being robbed totally blind without their knowledge. In most cases the public only finds out when it’s already too late because the thefts occur in remote rural areas.

Photo: Colin Nicholas/COAC

This, of course, has been UMNO’s modus operandi since the era of Mahathir and Daim. Leveraging on an atavistic appeal to bangsa and ugama to promote the fascistic notion of Ketuanan Melayu, UMNO warlords have siphoned off a great deal more than 30% of the nation’s wealth since the nefarious NEP was launched in 1970.

The JHEOA – like so many government agencies – has long served the UMNO agenda instead of the Orang Asli’s genuine interests. That’s nothing new. What has become alarmingly obvious is that they no longer bother concealing their narrow self-interests and their deeply ingrained racism.

Photo: Antares

During the Ulu Selangor by-election that ran from April 17-25, 2010, the JHEOA openly stage-managed the Barisan Nasional campaign in Orang Asli communities throughout the region. In one or two villages the Orang Asli batin (headman) called the police to prevent Pakatan Rakyat campaigners from entering their settlements.

In Kg Pertak the JHEOA facilitated the entry and encampment of dozens of UMNO campaign workers recruited from various ethno-fascist groups like Pekida and Perkasa. They were annoyed to find Pakatan Rakyat insignia proudly displayed in a couple of houses. What irked them even more was that a bunch of pro-Rakyat bloggers were comfortably embedded in Kg Pertak’s “diplomatic enclave.”

The JHEOA/UMNO faction reportedly handed RM7,000 in cash to one of the village security officers with instructions to distribute it amongst 70 registered voters as incentives to vote BN. I later heard complaints that the money never left the security officer’s pockets. This is how UMNO corrupts the Orang Asli via the JHEOA – by dragging them into the politics of greed, betrayal, and xenophobia.

Photo: Max Koh

On the eve of the by-election, the UMNO contingent instructed a few young Orang Asli to set up a roadblock at the entrance to the village. Later a skirmish broke out and one of the pro-Rakyat bloggers was assaulted by a Pekida thug. When the police arrived on the scene 30 minutes later, the UMNO thugs were nowhere to be seen. This small outbreak of violence was reported in Malaysiakini the next morning. In terms of negative publicity, JHEOA/UMNO came out with a black eye and began plotting revenge.

Xenophobia can also be called tempurungism – a regressive psychomental condition akin to acute jingoitis that commonly afflicts those who have never left the provincial and parochial confines of a monolingual, monocultural matrix. Those suffering from xenophobia have great difficulty accepting people with different linguistic and cultural imprints as close friends or family. They tend to label others as pendatang (immigrants), orang asing (outsiders), or Mat Salleh (Caucasians).

Working through a couple of Orang Asli agents, the JHEOA reactivated its xenophobic agenda by pressuring Asli families who had rented out their houses to “outsiders” to evict their tenants. The Asli were given to understand that the houses they were living in was government property – when in truth it was the dam developer that built the houses.

What the JHEOA had done in 2004 was to cheat the Orang Asli of their ancestral hunting grounds by issuing them 99-year leases instead of formally gazetting the whole area as a permanent Orang Asli Reserve (as promised in 1965). The Orang Asli have never seen a land grant in their life – nor have their ancestors. They don’t understand what a 99-year lease means – but they do know they have very little power over their own destinies as long as the JHEOA exists as an extension of UMNO.

[First posted 2 August 2010]

ENFEEBLED EGOS & NEIGHBORS FROM HELL (revisited)

FOR 27 YEARS I have dwelled in a physical location that most closely resembles my idea of paradise, At least until the past 9 years, more specifically the past few months.

What happened 9 years ago? Let's just say the village got Umnofied and Jakimized. (For those unfamiliar with these terms, Umno is a codename for racial bigotry and jingoism, while Jakim is a state-sponsored agency charged with Talibanizing the entire country).

About 4 years ago (though it often feels like the torture has been going on forever), our Orang Asli neighbor across the street brought home a karaoke machine - a heavy-duty one like those you find in huge Chinese restaurants. The whole family was delighted, even though not one of them can sing. Simply put, an overpowering whiff of hell was suddenly inserted into my humble hologram of heaven on earth.

To me there is nothing sadder than the sound of really bad music. And believe me, these neighbors from hell suffer from the most atrocious musical taste I have ever encountered.

Bad enough the kind of music they like, but the brain-numbing volume at which they habitually play it, totally oblivious of distortion and atrocious pitch, and the hours they are at it - you have to live here to believe it. One night, for example, the drunken party began very late - or very early - around 3am. At 7am the noise was still going strong. As I write this at 3:30pm the terrible music plays on and on and on, though at a slightly reduced volume (since everyone is presumably awake and there's no satisfaction to be had preventing them from sleep). Well, it's enough to make anyone contemplate migrating.

Have we spoken nicely to the neighbors about the noise pollution? Of course we have, repeatedly. The only response we ever get is an Orcish claim of territorial privilege ("Ini kampung kami, you balik!" This is our village, you go back where you came from!) True, there are many occasions when my nextdoor neighbor Mary or I are driven to such a degree of unmitigated fury we find ourselves yelling at them. "Jangan bising!" (Stop the racket!)

Occasionally the musical torment is augmented by hysterical high-pitched laughter. That's when I find myself shouting, "Monyet!" (Monkeys!) Mary has called the police. They were too lazy to investigate and suggested she lodge a formal report at the station. Mary was convinced the police might decide to arrest her instead - perhaps for insulting local customs or interfering with the Orang Asli's right to free speech.

Incidentally, the noisy neighbor's name is Atan son of Sen - but I bet he signs his name S. Atan. And to think, when I first arrived he was a tiny tot of 12 or 13 running around starkers and looking cute... 

Whatever happened to these once shy and gentle forest-dwellers? Blame it on electrification and the seriously stupefying effects of TV. Alcoholism, glue-sniffing, and the suspected abuse of crystal meth doesn't help either.

We may compare this diabolical manifestation of unmitigated lack of civility or consideration for others with the noise pollution experienced by many who have the misfortune to live near mosques.

It's essentially the same loutish expression of territorial privilege and entitlement common to provincial folk unaccustomed to cultural plurality. Apparently this sort of downright obtuseness and utter insensitivity occurs not only in Malaysia but wherever colonies of Muslim migrants are found.

While looking for images of mosque loudspeakers and karaoke machines, I stumbled on a blogpost by a Mumbai resident named Uma ranting about noise pollution from her neighborhood mosque.

Just as my Orang Asli neighbors from hell have made us feel like miserable intolerant killjoys for objecting to their delight in merrymaking and terrible music, those who insist on broadcasting their religious piety through massive loudspeakers must believe they are doing all their neighbors a great favor by invoking upon them Allah's abundant blessings.

Truth is, they are merely exposing themselves as evolutionary throwbacks - completely lacking in the complex neural circuitry without which internal feedback loops cannot develop, making them react to any and all (perceived) criticism with xenophobic aggression and hostility, instead of learning new behaviors and different survival strategies. Unable or unwilling to adapt to changing circumstances, the only foreseeable fate for such sorry specimens of humanity appears to be ultimate extinction.

I'm certainly disinclined to relocate to a different neighborhood on their account... but I just might consider migrating off-planet if the opportunity presents itself.

Jacques the French Terrorist in Kuala Lumpur...

POSTSCRIPT: The karaoke machine finally packed it in, loudspeakers blown from daily abuse. But our relief was shortlived. A few months later another neighbor across the road, inspired by his drinking buddy, also decided to install a powerful karaoke system in his house. Luckily, he rarely plays music at night, only in the pre-dawn hours (when I'm so tired I could sleep through an earthquake).

The politics of xenophobia (or the short happy life of a dog named Senget)...

This is the tale of an odd-looking little dog I rescued from the street early in 2010...

I saw this rat-like creature running on spindly legs after a motorbike. A few moments later it was chasing a 4-wheel drive in the opposite direction. It must have got separated from its siblings and mother, I thought. So I picked the critter up and took him out of harm's way, intending to investigate where he came from and return him to his family.

Prudence, one of the Magick River bitches, had just given birth to eight healthy pups - actually seven, as she slept on one of them overnight and the poor thing suffocated. The spindly-legged mutt was about the same size as Prudence's own pups even though his features looked more mature. Prudence herself had been rescued a year earlier from Kuala Kubu Bharu where I'd spotted her with a noose around her neck, being dragged along the road by a fireman. I stopped and asked why he was using a noose on a puppy and he explained that the dog was pissing inside the fire station, so he had to drag her as far away as possible before releasing her. The noose on a stick was improvised so he could handle the mutt without touching her.


Two of my dogs had recently been murdered by some drunken Orang Asli, so I decided to adopt this street urchin who looked like a Prudence to me. Roger was delighted to welcome her into the menagerie and treated her like a princess, constantly grooming her. Anyway, as it turned out, Roger didn't get to deflower Prudence. Mary's macho dog Baggins got in first.

And now, Prudence had her full quota of eight pups again. After rejecting the newcomer initially, she relented and allowed him to join the other pups whenever they suckled. A few days later the foundling appeared sufficiently well-fed, so I took him over to a neighbor's house where a few spindly-legged pups had been spotted. It was obvious that the runaway had been part of that litter. However, the neighbor vehemently denied that the pup belonged to her. Looking at the four other pups under her house, it was impossible not to conclude they were from the same mother. Yet, this woman was telling me an outright lie without flinching.

Sad to say, there are lots of people who tell lies as a matter of course. It's a survival mechanism young children acquire to avoid punishment or deflect responsibility. Those who become compulsive liars often believe their own lies, once the tendency becomes ingrained in the chromosomes. Hence we have to deal with entire communities of congenital liars who assume everybody else also lies, and that's it's perfectly okay to lie. When their own tribal chiefs are in the habit of lying their way out of tight spots, honesty becomes an extremely rare commodity. But I digress.

After asking around and getting no satisfactory leads, it became obvious that we were stuck with the little foundling. He adapted fast to his new reality and soon charmed his way into Mary's heart and onto her veranda and furniture. She named him Senget ("slanting" in Malay) because he had a habit of looking at people with one ear up and the other down.


While Senget was happily romping with the other pups, the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (now renamed Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli or JAKOA, in line with Barisan Nasional's policy of sneakily acquiring control of all Orang Asli Reserve Lands) was working overtime doing what they do best...

In April 2010 JAKOA had been busy campaigning on behalf of the Barisan Nasional (anyone who feels government agencies should be politically neutral might wish to consider migrating - unless we succeed in forcibly removing these deadbeats from the catbird seat they've occupied for 60 years through an electoral force majeure). They had arranged for Umno members and pro-Umno NGOs to encamp themselves for nearly a whole week in Pertak Village just prior to the 25 April by-election.

During the campaign period JAKOA was acutely irked by the fact that a couple of houses at the far end of the village were proudly displaying Pakatan Rakyat insignia.

Traditionally, all Orang Asli communities could be counted upon to vote Barisan Nasional - they really were given no choice, since JAKOA officials physically escort them to their voting booths - and pay them a cash incentive in two instalments - one before casting their ballot, another afterwards, provided they voted "correctly."

The Batin or Headman of Pertak Village was incensed that this time around the Barisan Nasional had totally bypassed him and handed at least RM7,000 to one of the junior village officials under the JAKOA's tutelage. The money was supposed to be distributed amongst 70 registered voters to reward their voting for the political status quo. There could have been an extra RM1,000 to buy his personal loyalty and support. However, the guy decided to keep mum and pocket all the cash - and that's what infuriated the Headman, not the fact that serious corruption was involved. RM100 can buy quite a few bottles of unbranded whiskey.

Barisan Nasional won this by-election (by hook and by crook) and that's when JAKOA began plotting to pull out as many thorns from its side as possible. They filed a report to Selangor JAKOA complaining that "outsiders" were influencing the Orang Asli against the government. Some of these "outsiders" had actually embedded themselves within Pertak Village by renting a few empty houses from Orang Asli families.

I got wind of this (and a rather stinky wind it was too) when a Special Branch officer called me, politely inviting me to have a friendly chat with him and his colleagues. From this I learnt that JAKOA had been unhappy about the presence of large numbers of "outsiders" in what they continue to view as their fiefdom. Apart from the anti-BN campaigners during the by-election, they also disapproved of the constant stream of "Mat Sallehs" arriving and departing from Magick River.


JAKOA were referring specifically to the Love Bus, who represent all the positive human qualities they themselves desperately lack. The Love Bus phenomenon is, in effect, part of the manifestation of Heaven on Earth - and this really scares all those who have been programmed to serve as mindless agents of Hell on Earth (any reality where you can get thrown in jail for 20 years for eating pussy, sucking dick, or lubricating your butthole- and risk getting caned for knocking back a couple of beers or getting clobbered to death in police custody for being dark-skinned - is undoubtedly Hell on Earth).

That's right. It's really all about marking one's territory and protecting one's own culture from deleterious western influences, isn't it? Every redneck rabble-rouser knows how to scare his rustic audiences into fearing the pendatang (immigrant) bogeyman. What JAKOA has been systematically doing over the last 60 and specifically over the last 30 years is to encourage the new generation of Orang Asli to think and feel and react like pathologically insecure and aggressively territorial Umno Malays.

The embracing Islam bit is difficult to pull off as no Orang Asli will ever give up eating the flesh of recently killed wild boar. Nor are the menfolk likely to become teetotalers. Indeed, alcoholism has taken a turn for the worse since one of the villagers began selling cheap plonk at RM3 a bottle. In the old days, they had to go all the way to town (8 miles away) to replenish their supply. Now they can score another round of brain-pickling brew just by staggering a few yards up the road.

This is the generation of Orang Asli that grew up being entertained by TV3 and RTM instead of listening in rapture to grandmother and grandfather's stories. All the young ones now own cellphones and motorbikes; a few drive secondhand Proton Wiras, Nissans, and even Pajeros (if they happen to have worked in JAKOA and acquired the art of pocketing commissions from loggers and developers).

Long story short, JAKOA instigated a small cabal of Orang Asli in their mid-30s into putting pressure on my brother-in-law Ali to terminate the rental agreement that had existed since 2003 with friends from KL who appreciated access to an idyllic weekend retreat. They also browbeat another family into not accepting rent from a Canadian musician who had been using one of the houses as a Southeast Asian base for a couple of years. The families were informed that these houses belonged to the government - and the Orang Asli required clearance from JAKOA if they wished to sublease their homes to anybody. Complete crap, of course, since the Orang Asli have been issued 99-year leases on their homes and they are at liberty to sublease any houses they don't actually occupy.

Anoora Chapek with Colette Paterson, who was part of the Love Bus

The upshot of this sudden surge of xenophobia and unfriendliness towards orang asing (literally, "aliens") was that the house next to mine was handed over by the JAKOA to Wati - a single mother who reportedly converted to Islam a few years ago. I've known this woman since she was 13 years old and she has always been friendly and sweet-natured. However, she met an Orang Asli guy named Man from a different village about a year ago and he moved in with her. They now have several kids and two houses in the same village. I didn't know Man was a Muslim convert till I saw his wife and even their young daughters wearing hijabs.

Within hours of becoming our neighbors, Man began to cause ill feeling. Every time any of our dogs barked at him, he would confront them with maximum aggression rather than attempt to befriend them. Orang Asli are used to dogs. They have kept dogs for thousands of years. Surely they know that dogs react to body language. If they show no fear and send out friendly vibes, the mutts will immediately regard them as persona grata. Whipping out a can of insect spray and blasting the vile poison in the dogs' faces is certainly no way to establish good relations with one's new neighbors.

One morning I heard a loud yelping and as I went out to investigate I saw Senget running away with an intensely traumatized look on his face. Man was holding a catapult, his face contorted by unmitigated hate.

"Why did you shoot the dog?" I asked and he gestured towards a small tree he had just planted in the front garden. "The dog was disturbing the plant," he muttered. Well, there was no plant in that spot the day before, so how would any of the dogs know to avoid running into the tiny tree? He could have put a low fence around the seedling to protect it, which is what anyone with a functional brain would do. I shook my head in utter disbelief that this guy could be so dumb. It seemed as if he was going out of his way to be a hostile neighbor. This had never happened in the village in all the years I had lived here.

A few hours later my wife announced that Senget had died. I found him rigid beneath a clump of banana trees. His tiny body was already in an advanced state of rigor mortis. We found no visible wounds on his body, so Man must have aimed for his head and released the stone from his catapult with such unrestrained violence the dog suffered brain hemorrhage and collapsed. Senget was buried just before dusk. I felt angry and sad that he had been so cruelly punished for doing what any young dog would do. We discussed the possibility that Senget might have been a nature spirit in a dog's body. When Mary saw Man walk past the next day, she asked if he knew he had killed our dog, and he just turned his head away without answering. He has avoided looking us in the eye since. His wife informed me she had scolded him for being such an unthinking hothead.

Not much good that did. In the following weeks Man persisted in antagonizing my mutts by coming home tipsy late at night; waking me up with his bushcutter on a Sunday morning, and conspicuously leaving a tiny clump of grass uncut just because it was growing a couple of feet on our side of the garden; and, saddest of all, advertising his poor choice of role models by sporting a Barisan Nasional T-shirt. [As fate would have it, our Neighbor from Hell was forced to move out less than a year later - after he attempted to rape my wife's 11-year-old niece.]

All this negative energy that has been injected into what used to be a fairly contented and peaceful village can be felt throughout the entire country. The insidious pall of dark energy became a tangible sense of evil in early 2009, when an innocent 20-year-old named A. Kugan was pummeled to death in police custody and the entire government went into overdrive to cover up the atrocity. Nothing has been resolved.

Within weeks a popularly elected state government in Perak was toppled by utterly devious means (with royal connivance); and on April 3rd, a pink-lipped crime minister and his ruthlessly ambitious wife were foisted upon us by 191 Umno division chiefs (again with royal acquiescence). Three months after that, a 30-year-old political secretary named Teoh Beng Hock was found dead outside the Selangor headquarters of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission after a totally unjustifiable late-night interrogation over a RM2,400 accounting discrepancy. Nearly eight years later, nothing has been resolved either. The MACC officers who "interrogated" Beng Hock to death weren't even sacked. Indeed, their leader was transferred to another state and promoted!

Indeed, if you consider the unfortunate turn of events that have befallen this country since 20 October 2006, you're likely to conclude that the ghost of a brutally murdered Mongolian woman will not rest until she sees justice done - and that won't happen till all the thieves and murderers are removed from public office- and all the bigots too.

Thanks for the fond memories, dear Senget.

[First published in September 2010, reposted 4 August 2013]

In Loving Memory of Mr Vertical Eyebrows...

Roger Reginald Putra (7 Nov 2008 ~ 14 Dec 2010)

Father & Son: Mr Wong & Roger Putra

Roger was more than just a dog, much more than a member of the family - he was like a second son to Anoora and me. His father, the illustrious Mr Wong Beng Oi, was a greatly beloved part of our lives for more than 10 years. Mr Wong enjoyed an enormously happy life with us and died of old age in August 2010.

Roger was his genetic legacy, the only pup in the second litter born of a beautiful young bitch with Doberman pedigree who mysteriously appeared at our doorstep one morning and decided to stay. The name "Lulu" just came to me, so that's what I decided to call her.

Roger's beautiful mum, Lulu

At that time it didn't occur to me that Mr Wong's mum had also been named Lulu - Lulu Yap, to be precise, and her mother was a minute but majestic full-blooded Spitz known at various times as Curly-Wurly, Mrs Curlington-Wurlington, and Madam Wu. In short, Roger Reginald Putra was the great-grandson of Madam Wu - one of the original Magick River canine corps, left behind by her previous owners, Mavis and Clifford, when they migrated to Australia in 1990.

Roger Putra was named in honor of my friend Raja Petra (better known as RPK the Blogger King) who was miraculously freed from ISA detention on 7 November 2008. Even as we rejoiced at the good news, we discovered that Lulu had given birth to a solitary roly-poly pup who looked pretty much like Mr Wong. Initially I couldn't choose between Reggie or Roger, so Reginald was included as a middle name, adding a touch of class. Occasionally, Roger was referred to as the Ten-Tit-Tot because he had no siblings with whom to compete for his mother's milk. As a result he quickly became also known as Fatty Boy.

Roger's handsome brother Rupert,
murdered in May 2009

The background to how Roger abruptly vanished from our lives on the morning of 14 December 2010 has already been recorded in a blogpost dated 25 December 2010. Even after a whole year has elapsed, my heart feels heavy when I think about the utter meaningless of this sub-humanly brutal act of violence, directed against me via our beloved canine son. 

When Roger was barely 6 months old, his mother Lulu and elder brother Rupert had both been murdered on the same night by a bunch of drunken Orang Asli. This was perhaps the canine equivalent of the Kennedy family...

In Roger Putra's case, the prime suspect happens to be a social misfit in his early 50s named Uha Anak Penengah. However, I have yet to obtain incontrovertible proof that it was Uha who slashed Roger with his parang - and not any of 3 or 4 other middle-aged Temuan males, each of whom is perfectly capable of such a reprehensible act, having allowed their minds to be taken over in service of Umno's land-grab agenda via the JHEOA (recently incorporated as JAKOA or Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli) who view me as a subversive thorn in their side, because I stand in the way of their money-making and control-freak schemes.

It was no use reporting this heinous crime to the police (to whom dogs are haram and therefore better off dead or non-existent; in any case, the police have shown so little interest in the gruesome murder of a Mongolian beauty 5 years ago, why would they bother investigating the death of a dog?) And even if I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that Uha was the murderer, what else could I do except kill him? That wouldn't bring Roger Putra back to life - and I'd end up spending the rest of my days in prison. 

Roger Putra & Ayita: unmitigated beauty

Uha, like his father, suffered from warty skin and a surly, truculent disposition. He had had very little luck with the opposite sex. Five years ago Uha had tricked a girl from Pahang into marrying him, but she died mysteriously within a week. The day Roger Putra was murdered, he was accompanying a very beautiful Moroccan lady on her morning walk. The sight of such unmitigated beauty must have infuriated Uha. If he couldn't possess it, he would viciously and vicariously destroy it...

A humble offering to Roger's sweet memory

No, the only recourse was to acknowledge the abject misery and absolute pathology of Uha's existence - to empathize with his emptiness and pain, to understand that his soul was in a terribly dark place, and to envision his eventual enlightenment and liberation from the hellish horror of his own hateful life. Uha seemed to me the embodiment of hopeless frustration, self-loathing and envy; unable to imagine a happier destiny for himself, his inner rage and feelings of inadequacy were externalized as aggression, hostility and violence. Indeed, this is the root cause of  fanatical bigotry and xenophobia manifesting as militant jingoism - the very stuff that spawns ultra-rightwing, fascist mobs like Pekida and Perkasa.

It began raining as soon as I set off with Anoora and Ahau on a pilgrimage to the approximate spot where Roger Putra met his untimely death a year ago. Getting drenched despite our umbrellas, I found a small rock nestled between two rubber trees and placed some flowers and a candle upon it. A few sticks of incense and a couple of soggy crackers completed our humble offering. As I completed the simple ceremony, the rain abruptly stopped and a brilliant ray of sunlight flashed from the treetops. The three of us washed ourselves by a small waterfall on our way home. 

Beloved friend and canine son, Roger the irreplaceable

Losing Roger Putra has been the single most painful and tragic experience of my life - even more intense than returning home 40 years ago to discover my pet cockatoo had been stolen. At least I could hope that she would be kindly treated wherever she was. 

Roger Reginald Putra was the perfect embodiment of beauty, robust health, innocence, joie de vivre, and an irrepressible sense of adventure. The sight of him was enough to bring cheer and contentment to my heart. To think that anyone could possibly kill my beloved canine companion just to get at me encapsulated all the cruelty, violence, hate, and repressed sexuality that have kept humanity in the bondage of sadomasochism and armed conflict for countless generations - delaying, if not thwarting, the possibility of heaven on earth, instead of in the hereafter.

The (attempted) murder of joy

ARE WE GETTING ALONG... OR NOT?

FOR THE BIRDS

A Pixar short feature by Ralph Eggleston

THE DOG, THE CAT & THE RAT

If they can do it... why not we? Visit Barbara Marx Hubbard's Humanity Ascending site!

BONUS FEATURE:
Dustin Hoffman tells the story of "The Flea's Vacation"
on the Graham Norton show...