Saturday, November 22, 2008

Aneurysm, Anwarism

This is what happens when I awaken at an absurd hour. My thought processes goes doozy. This is the result:

An aneurysm(or aneurism) is a localized, blood-filled dilation (balloon-like bulge) of a blood vessel caused by disease or weakening of the vessel wall.

An Anwarism is a localised, hope-filled dilation of Malaysian emotions caused by the disease of corruption or weakening of the wall of indifferent government.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is also Anwariztic aneurysm - an aneurystic condition leading to severe headaches induced by excessively hopeful aspirations birthed out of sheer desperation upon assessing the hopelessness of apathy and corruption caused by inept and inefficient government.

This is what happens in sleep-deprived conditions - verbose and convoluted explanations of hypothetical situations which may come to pass.

walla said...

Clear and fertile mind, this blogger.

Of late, there has been a rash of problems. You get the sense that the honeymoon is over for Malaysia. We have had half a century of it. It is time to face the music for years of neglecting to do all the right things and neglecting to do all things right. Generations to come will be paying the price.

There are no short-cuts to success. Although one can be excused for thinking it might have worked with projects like the MSC. If it had had another two years of global propulsion on e-markets, it might have taken off and reached sufficient critical mass for the reactor to self-sustain. But the same reason why the dot-com era dropped down the cliff - trying to find e-shortcuts - was also the same reason projects which avoided more temperate approaches to real success factors had inevitably failed.

KLIA, for instance, has been needing an annual infusion of a billion ringgit to stay above water. That's an air-port. And now that they have recognized it was under-estimation of the demand for LCCT1, the plan is to build LCCT2 - but in another State. The inconvenience that will be caused to travelers trying to connect flights between airlines served on two different hubs will be colossal, let alone the duplication of resources with the attendant lock-in's of additional costs. Even the trouble-prone luggage transfer. Why not just re-engineering KLIA to fit all flights? One suspects it has to do with branding and face. But how do these sync with what is happening in the global aviation industry, now squeezing the last kopek out of every cost item?

There is a scramble to have projects but the overriding concern is political leverage, not project viability. Once you have political clout inserted into business decisions, it doesn't take much stretch of imagination for things to spiral downwards - square pegs in round holes, next, then artificial price pegging, such as for the marble tiles of KLIA.

The game has become political expediency, not business imperative.

The honeymoon is over because the nation cannot afford to do things like this anymore.

The government may still try to put up a brave and cheery front but people can do their own maths - higher-income folks will for instance be paying higher taxes if they take up the reduced EPF option; did Treasury realize this enough to be professional enough to tell people in advance?

You know the honeymoon is over when people play hide-and-seek with one another. I hide x so that you won't give me trouble with y. When it is just to avoid trouble that becomes the main impetus to progress, no progress from that will last because the process avoids real things that must be done. It becomes just shadow-boxing for form against chasing substance.

A nation at 51 is like a man at 51. Look at the number. It's like an S next to an I. The pair of flexibility of method combined to the maintenance of principle. Method and principle. The nation at fifty one is like the man at fifty one faced with the dilemma of keeping his principles in the face of many options, some of them stretching the meaning of flexibility to the edge. Yet lessons have been learnt elsewhere, for the man at fifty one would have known what the men at eighty have learnt. No one is left to be an island in the big vast ocean. And the first lesson learnt is that short-cut methods only lead to ephemeral achievements which will ultimately return inflated costs. Gorge now, blocked artery later.

We are too small a country to pomp ourselves into believing tomorrow is another day. Each tomorrow has increasingly become yesterday's hopes dashed against the moldy walls of today.

Everyone already knows all the things that one must have to change mind-sets, adopt the right approaches, do the right things, embrace the progressive philosophies, raise the bars and standards that will challenge all to put in their best together to steer this nation onto the path long lost. We have lost the plot, the path and the pathos.

A small observation. You land at HKIA and head straight for the nearest smoking room. Lighting one, you see the airport officer enter. He's taking five. But the call comes in on his walkie-talkie. He takes the call, listens hard, furrows his brows, and barks a few questions: 'Are you telling me you're satisfied with these KPIs?! What are you going to do about it? Move it; i want that done now...etc etc'.

Not aneuryism, not anwarism. Just plain actionism.

Pat said...

Brilliant, my good man. Simply brilliant!

Pat

de minimis said...

Hi mws

Nice work :)

walla

Fertility has 2 possibilities:
a. reproduction - a useful way to maintain the species.
b. manure - starts badly but with a useful ending.
:D

pat

with your constant positive comments, I may just start to excel :)

Anonymous said...

Voila Walla,
What a precise analysis of the state of the nation viewed from the precipice.
Do continue your good work.

farting toucan