Dunces under the Light

Yes, it is a Sunday.

It is the time to be on low gear. Time to destress and not be so strung up serious. Time for a little laugh. Time to laid back a bit.

OK. Here is how we talk of serious issues and yet could remain laid back. The power of humour and sarcasm.

With the legendary Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse dancing to the tune of "Dancing in the Dark" in the musical classic movie, "Band Wagon" for a laid back Sunday as background, we present you "Dunces under the Light."

Where do we start?

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Why not with an issue we already touched? The Felda listing issue here.

Tan Sri Razali Ismail's press conference on Thursday turned out as we expected it. It was about Razali trying hard to be important ...

GWGF, Gempak lantik konsultan

KUALA LUMPUR 15 Dis. – Pengerusi Gabungan Wawasan Generasi Felda (GWGF), Tan Sri Rozali Ismail menafikan beliau salah seorang individu yang cuba mensabotaj usaha penyenaraian Felda Global Ventures Holdings (FGVH) ke Bursa Malaysia.

Kata Rozali, beliau tidak mempunyai sebarang kepentingan, termasuk untuk memegang jawatan Pengerusi Felda Holdings ekoran dakwaan sabotaj berkenaan.

He denied trying to derail the listing excercise effort of the Prime Minister but yet was in political speak saying we will consider upon consultant's finding. Is he saying they will act on consultant recommendation? Or is it a round about way of saying he is not supporting the listing?

Sebaliknya, kata beliau, tindakan GWGF dan penubuhan sebuah entiti baharu iaitu Gabungan Peneroka Generasi Wawasan Felda Kebangsaan (Gempak) untuk mendapatkan pandangan peneroka berhubung penyenaraian itu bertujuan menjaga kepentingan serta hak 112,635 peneroka di seluruh negara.

“Kami juga akan mendapatkan khidmat konsultan bebas dari dalam dan luar negara mengenai cadangan penyenaraian FGVH sebelum boleh mengatakan kami menyokong atau tidak penyenaraian itu.

“Saya tidak kata setuju dan tidak juga kata tidak setuju,” katanya pada sidang akhbar khas mengenai pandangan GWGF dan Gempak mengenai penyenaraian itu di sini, hari ini.

Terdahulu, Rozali menandatangani memorandum persefahaman (MoU) penubuhan Gempak dengan Pengerusi Jawatankuasa Perunding Peneroka Kebangsaan (JKPP), Samsudin Othman yang menyaksikan Samsudin dilantik sebagai Presiden Gempak dan Rozali bertindak sebagai timbalannya.

Baru-baru ini, beberapa pihak mendakwa, terdapat usaha sabotaj yang dilakukan oleh individu tertentu dalam Felda bagi menggagalkan usaha penyenaraian FGVH ke Bursa Malaysia.

Kepada satu soalan, kata Rozali, tindakan GWGF dan Gempak mendapatkan maklumat penyenaraian itu daripada Felda Holdings serta FGVH, melantik konsultan dan menyebarkan maklumat itu kepada para peneroka bukan bermakna mereka membelakangi cadangan itu yang diumumkan oleh Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak pada pembentangan Bajet 2012, baru-baru ini.

“Cuma kita mahu tahu dan perhalusi keputusan itu, macam mana yang disebut ‘durian runtuh’, libatkan aset yang mana kerana mungkin ada penambahbaikan yang boleh kita lakukan dan harap ia membantu semua pihak,” katanya. - Utusan Malaysia, 16/12/11

One hire a consultant to tell give strength to the claim of already knowing the time on one's watch. Or one hire a consultant to get time one is unable to tell.

Is Razali saying he and his fellow second generation Felda settlers - claimed able to climb every mountain and achieve feats unbecoming of man - does not know or understand what is happening?

Didn't Razali listed his company 10 years before Felda plan to do their's?

Razali and his fellow second generation Felda should be our first "Dunce under the Light." Problem is Razali thinks others are dunces too.

No Tan Sri, others can see you are up to no good ...

Hasrat GWGF dipersoal

KUALA LUMPUR 16 Dis. - Hasrat Gabungan Wawasan Generasi Felda (GWGF) yang mahu mendapatkan khidmat konsultan bebas dari dalam dan luar negara berhubung cadangan penyenaraian Felda Global Ventures Holding (FGVH) ke Bursa Malaysia dipersoalkan kerana seolah-olah mempertikaikan keputusan kerajaan.

Setiausaha Gabungan NGO Malaysia (GNM), Mohd. Jurit Ramli berkata, hasrat itu juga menggambarkan seolah-olah GWGF tidak yakin keputusan yang diumumkan sendiri oleh Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak yang bakal memberi keuntungan kepada warga peneroka.

''Pada saya hasrat itu adalah sesuatu yang memalukan kerana pihak tersebut seperti tidak percaya kepada kemampuan dan pandangan daripada pakar-pakar tempatan dalam mencadangkan penyenaraian FGVH itu," katanya kepada Utusan Malaysia di sini, hari ini.

Beliau berkata demikian sebagai mengulas kenyataan Pengerusi GWGF, Tan Sri Rozali Ismail berhubung perkara tersebut sebelum boleh menyatakan sokongan atau sebaliknya.

Menurut Mohd. Jurit, Rozali juga sepatutnya meletakkan jawatan dalam GWGF sekiranya beliau tidak yakin dengan penyenaraian FGVH ke Bursa Malaysia.

Apatah lagi, kata beliau, kredibiliti Rozali dalam isu itu juga boleh dipertikaikan meskipun beliau menafikan salah seorang individu yang cuba mensabotaj usaha penyenaraian tersebut.

''Kita tidak pasti apa maksud atau agenda sebenar Rozali sehingga mahu pihak luar campur tangan dalam isu ini," katanya.

Mohd. Jurit menambah, GWGF tidak sepatutnya terikut-ikut dengan rentak pembangkang yang kehilangan arah mengenai penyenaraian FGVH kerana menyedari warga peneroka akan mendapat keuntungan besar dan setia kepada kerajaan.

''Sepatutnya Rozali dan GWGF menyokong penuh dan turut membantu supaya usaha penyenaraian itu boleh disegerakan kerana ia jelas memberi keuntungan kepada warga peneroka," katanya. - Utusan Malaysia 17/12/11

We haven't given a professional answer yet.

Many seemed to comment without knowledge of the background information and are not keeping up with issues on Felda, ANAK attack, etc.

Didn't loafer Mazlan Alimin and his ANAK and unfortunately the settlers bought into their demand to distribute Felda plantation lands to second generation settlers?

Listing exercise will not effect what the settlers already have.

This is additional benefit. Discuss that.

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Secondly, this news title yesterday taken many a back. As one read further, it is more shocking.

What is Minister of Education cum Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin thinkng to appoint Tan Sri Tony Fernandez, Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar and Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar on the panel to review education?

OK OK ... before Tan Sri begin his usual lengthy and winded explanation, we know he wish to get industry feedback. Industries kept bitching about our education system not producing the graduate that they want.

Answer this: Does our industry really know what they want?

There are thousands of departments, degrees, and courses created to fulfill industry needs but the industry do not put writing to their words and claims. Beyond excuse of English competency, which is petty and temporary, they don't support the local education by employing products of our education system that they gave their wishlist.

And God forbid, now they are asking such characters to review the education system ...

Fernandes and Azman among seven selected to review education system

The Star
Saturday December 17, 2011

PETALING JAYA: A new panel to review the country’s education system has been formed with AirAsia Group boss Tan Sri Tony Fernandes and Khazanah Nasional Bhd managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar among its seven panellists.

Appointed by Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the panel will be headed by Albukhary Internatio­nal University president Tan Sri Dr Dzulkifli Abdul Razak.

Fernandes, who praised the panel members as “game changers” from the public and private sector, said the panel would look into ways to cultivate a new education system which would build “global Malaysians”.

He said students needed an environment where creativity could flow freely and experimentation was encouraged.

“Education is beyond academics. It is art, culture, drama, sports, leadership, idea and thought generation,” he said yesterday, adding that students needed to possess strong character to survive in today’s era of globalisation.

Allow me to add, Tony F.

Education is also about good manners, respecting elders and traditions including institutions, and speaking the truth, not marketing hype.

It was never about academic only.

It is about building characters. It is about imbuing humanity (insan) and civilisation with the right values, conscience and integrity to make good the academic training, knowledge and creativity imparted on them for all of mankind.

The question now: Are they the right people to review our education system?

Tony F build his air Asia by insidiously plundering Malaysia Airlines in co-hort with incompetent Bina Fikir-led Khazanah Nasional, crooked politicians and greedy corporate man in the background.

His Air Asia will bring this country and (perhaps the region) into a financial ruin in the status Pan El of the early 1980s.

The Bina Fikir chap we are talking is Azman Mokhtar himself and Dato Rashdan "Danny geek" Yusof.

Both of them are incompetent analyst and accountant-book keeper, respectively. They are wiseguys and smooth talkers who really are unable to see the woods from the leaves and others can't see and acknowledge that they had left behind their trails of failures.

Read Jebat Must Die current ongoing series on why Azman Mokhtar must go.

However, we lent them some grey matter. They are smart enough to sell their valueless plagiarist consultant company, Binafikir to Maybank under Tan Sri Amir Sham Aziz. Now Dato Abdul Wahid Omar has no choice but swallow them. All within Tan Sri Nor Mohd Yakcop stable of crooked merry men.

Azman has his own set of idiotic educational program initiative under Khazanah that was not thought through, poorly executed, and waste on resources. As usual with any Khazanah initiatives other than downsizing and butchering companies, it failed.

Finally, what good is having Zarinah Anwar, the woman who covers for the husband to abuse her position as Chairperson of Securities Commission.

Sure hope Muhyiddin didn't pick her for her Johor pedigree. Johorean can be subtly parochial and proud. Her father, Anwar was involved together with Dato Onn Jaafar in the formation of UMNO. One wonders with her having a sister like Zainah Anwar, if there are still nationalism in their heart.

Aisay ... so long la enquiry on E&O. Why can smell rotten fish?

Other panel members include Securities Commission Malaysia chairman Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, Sunway Group chairman Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia vice-chancellor Prof Tan Sri Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin and Tokoh Guru 2011 recipient Datuk Professor Dr Ab Rahim Selamat.

The panel will report its findings to Muhyiddin but no specific deadline has been set for it to complete its task.

Much as Muhyiddin should be called the "Dunce under the Light", let me tell you something.

As early this year, supremo consultant arranger cum commission agent, Omar Ong "Rasputin" and Ethos Consulting had arranged McKinsey & Co. to undertake a study of the education system. Not the Ministry of Education but Omar, Ethos and Pemandu that arranged it.

One wonders how the Mckinsey Matrix and 7S corporate strategy framework be applied to the education system. Omar Ong Rasputin probably see the common factor ... money.

Additional money can do wonders for the RM15 million new condo for this newly turned bachelor. He divorced his wife, daughter to former IKIM Chairman and Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Tan Sri Ismail Ibrahim.

So to share the inaugral "Dunce under the Light", one has to include Omar Ong Rasputin and the many who swear by his name and taken by his so-called genius.

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There are many others "Dunces under the Light" this week actually. But let's start with these two issues for a start.

Otherwise, too many will be sent to detention after class. :)