Peguatkuasaan lemah - yeah..! blame it on the pony express

An internet poll conducted by an independent website Care2 has some very interesting results in their basket full of non-profit polls and quizzes.

In their: Who's to blame for the health problems faced by smokers in this country? (CLOSED) the Poll Results gathered from 1,184 respondents are as follow:

39% Equally to blame

18% Smokers completely to blame

17% Smokers mostly to blame

16% Tobacco companies mostly to blame

10% Tobacco companies completely to blame

Care2.com claims that they are the largest online community for people to make a difference in healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare

Of course, online poll results are not validated proof of anything, but it definitely gives us an idea of what some people, denizens to be precise, think of the problem we are facing and in this matter with regards to prevalence of tobacco usage.

However, no matter hard we try to prove ourselves with these polls and surveys, focusing our blame on individuals or certain groups is as good as washing our hands by pointing fingers and this IMO won't solve anything.

The more finger we point at others, the more fingers will point back to us.

This is what I think Utusan has done in their 3 day long special report.

Utusan says it's the problem with enforcement and that the weaknesses in enforcing the rules and regulations makes the perpetrators puff everywhere they like until all the "smoke gets to your eyes."

Well what about early education. Yeah...school education -- the whole system, the one that has gotten 'us' from worse to rotten -- the root of the matter. Not that anybody is to be relinquished of any blame on this matter, but somebody has do something. At least I'm doing my bit here... haa... I'm relieved!

You can read the final Utusan report (day 3) by clicking on the pics above.

p/s If you're wondering what the "blame it on the pony express" in the title of this entry means -- it's a song title by Johnny Johnson & His Bandwagon. Check it out here

The "Stop Smoking Campaign" that goes up in smoke

Utusan Malaysia today dedicated their editorial and also one whole page to the news about the various government efforts to help treat smokers to kick or reduce their bad habit.

Unfortunately all these efforts have become futile. Much time and money have been spent towards treating these hardcore smokers but alas only a few survived the treatment and were able to leave smoking for good.

Yesterday (18 Jan 2010), Utusan also published an almost complete page in an effort to explain to the rakyat that it is not their fault the campaign failed, and that the smokers themselves were to be blame for their negative attitude towards the "Stop Smoking Clinic" and for being 'egoistic' or 'the ego smokers' as Utusan termed them.


Click on the pics above to read the selected reports or better still read the whole context of the special report in the hard-copy itself.

Today I am also dedicating this page towards the effort (or the vain effort rather) done by the various government agencies towards the "Stop Smoking Campaign" with various names and strategies being conducted nationwide throughout the years.

I am not going to opine further, you readers be the judge whether what we have done is suffice or just as the title of this entry says -- all the effort, time and money has just literally "gone up in smoke..."

USM won but no coverage on printed MSM

As of 11.30 this morning I have checked or scanned through most of the local print newspaper. Not one mainstream media covered USM's opening premier league game against Pos Malaysia.

Why?

A journalism student told me, it's just the Premier League, not the Super League, so no big deal!

Yesterday, I read Kosmo (click pic above) which enthusiastically reports that the USM stadium was ready to accommodate 5,000 spectators. It also gave a very assuring heading - Warga Kampus gegar stadium USM.

But today when I browsed the internet to see all the 'gegaran' - they were not there. It was just all hype. The 5,000 expected spectators - was it a sincere projection or an unjust miscalculation?

There was also no coverage on the Star-online (not even on www.usm.my)!

The only coverage I can get hold of is from Buletin Notes. You can read it here. Thanks to Muhamad Sidek Karim, who happens to be the Pegawai Pentadbir Pasukan for the write-up.

Muhamad Sidek gave an estimation of 3,000 spectators, but I doubt it.

By the way, USM won by a narrow margin - 'nasib baik gol last minute...', somebody commented on Muhamad Sidek's posting.

Another blogger, Rizman Suzaidi Zafri Ali commented about the poor marketing strategies done by USM FC in handling ticket sales. You can read his comments here.

Anyway, thanks to the scorer, Mohamad Baser Mohamad Napae who scored the winning goal, 10 minutes before the final whistle. If not, many people will be awaken today with a bad dream.

Suspicious Activity?

I come across this warning when I tried to sign in my blogger account this morning. Hmmm... very fishy!. Who (or what) on earth would want to break into this blog and for what reason I wouldn't know. This blog is just a personal or a supposedly community blog, nothing provocative or controversial.

Meanwhile I have changed the password to something strength-ty (password strength).

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>We've detected suspicious activity on your Google Account. Please create a new password to continue using your account.

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>New password:

>Password strength:

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This new semester (2010), six more issues of Berita Kampus will be out. The first issue (BK7) will hit the stand on 18 January 2010. It will again report on local and current issues and hopefully something more robust as this is the final semester for the budding reporters and journalist wannabes. This group of students, totaling 44 are also USM's 40th batch of Journalism students. I sincerely Hope they will give some bigger punch to the news and reports on Berita Kampus this time around.

Meanwhile, there is an initiative by an academic member of the school to post selected news and entries from the hard copy of Berita Kampus onto a blog. As from now, I have yet to receive news of the supposed blog. I will direct a link when the blog is up.

Good luck to all BK journalists and the new blog.