BUM 2009: Interesting, fun ...

I was initially reluctant to go but finally relented.

Not because Tun M was the surprise speaker. How do one resist the persuasion of Desiderata and Rocky? I was even willing to depart RM60 for registration fee knowing I can't eat the lamb dinner awaiting in th eevening. Wonder if I could request a refund of lamb chop from Desi, my ex-DAP and now PKR blog friend, when I get around to visit him in Seremban.

Somewhat disappointed that lot of the old faces from the early blog explosion of 2006/07 were not there. I don't know.

Is it the increasing animosity from increasing partisanship on blogosphere? Or, many early bloggers are too busy since they are now wakil rakyat or prima donna bloggers? Organiser did not givethe prima donnas the stage maybe. I know one can't be contacted.

Perhaps, it was more the Man U vs Arsenal game at 7:45 pm.

Ah ... BUM 2007 was a pleasant gathering. It doesn't matter what your political persuasion or activism call is, but we meet, we chat, we laugh and we drink. Mine was coke. That was the first event where we put faces to nic names.

This year is no different. I finally got it right who is Maverick of blog Cakap Tak Serupa Bikin whose been on my blogroll from time immemorial.

I got to meet Helen Ang of the Centre of Policy Initiative, who wrote an excellent piece on a recent issue involving me, Big Dog and Sakmongkol. What happen to Sak? I thought he was going to come. Now he is being "anonymous" ...

Forgot to ask Helen, if she is the blogger AllofHelen of blog My All.

Coincidently I recognised her as one of those picked up in Ipoh on May 7th. As Dato A Kadir Jasin expressed surprise, one would have not have guess someone so polite and feminine can get picked up for wearing black.

As far as the content part of the event, most spoken were nothing new.

For the first part, The Media – Civil Society’s Perspectives, lawyer Phillip Koh gave an interesting reflection for bloggers to ponder from someone outside. He raised a lot of pertinent intellectual and philosophical issues on the impact of Internet and blogging towards society.

Will follow up with Desi or Mav for a copy of his paper. Hope it could be downloaded from CPI's website.

Dr KJ John, a columnist for Malaysiakini.com was repeating the subject of estate of powers and in his usual style, putting his own twist of terminology. Art Harun of blog Articulations was sounding like an overenthusistic young lawyer just got out of law school. I forgot who was the other speaker.

The next session was in Bahasa Melayu entitled "Bagaimanakah Media Baru boleh menggalakkan pemikiran kritis masyarakat?"

Dato Kadir Jasin had reservation. He observe the public is increasingly partisan in thinking and could not see views for what it is. Bloggers and commentators tend to only agree with what they want to agree and violently disagree becasue it is not what they want to hear and not the strength of argument pout forth.

Fathi Aris Omar of Malaysiakini and unupdated blog Patah Balek shared the same view. He felt the blogs is too loaded with expression of opinions rather than dissemination of informations and analysis that captured pertinent issues and made with proper methodology.

The others - Faisal Mustafa, blogger of Faisal Mustafa Online, and former Editor of Suara Keadilan and Sdr Fahri Azzat of blog Loyar Burok - were rambling the obvious.

As for Tun Mahathir, I have heard most of what he said yesterday in a Forum at PLF last year. In fact, he organised the first Blogger forum. Read here, here, here, and here.

He was in jovial mood, and telling 'naughty jokes'. Thats his style of loosening the crowd and lightening the Q&A session. Nevertheless, the Q&A was interesting as he answered all those "hostile" questions from bloggers.

The highlight yesterday must be his lengthy answer to a question from Dr Jeya of the blog The Phoenix Foundation on what broke the camel's back that led him to be openly critical of Tun Abdullah.

It was revealed that the cancellation of Aluminium plant in Bakun, double tracking and electrification from JB to Padang Besar, and Proton "sales" was not. The one that broke that camel's back was the cancellation of the scenic bridge in Johor Baru.

After his event, I said hi to YB Jeff Ooi, YB Nik Nazmi, Steven Gan and some others for I had to leave for something more important to society. Yes, off course. It was Man U vs Arsenal game.

On my way, I bump into an encounter between pro-UMNO bloggers, Parpukari and Gomo and pro-PKR bloggers, Perisik Rakyat and Mat Saman Kati, Perak Express.

Sorry folks, if you were expecting a brawl with blood all over the premise it didn't happen. In fact, they were so cordial and friendly and even exchanging handphone numbers. Perhaps they would stop leaving nasty comments on each others' blog after this since they personally know each other now.

Read Shamsul Yunos for his live update here and video of event here.

* Updated: 8:00 pm