…you know, take your kids to the nearest playground and probably half of the equipment will be lying on the ground, broken or vandalised.

This is why panic-stricken Malaysians — who are certain that Lynas Corp over in Pahang is actually peopled with evildoers doing something akin to importing pure radioactive uranium in paper bags with a view to giving us all cancer — insist on calling in overseas experts to check it all out.

Malaysian experts supplied the government and the media and the locals with all the information needed about rare earths, which is what Lynas is actually interested in, but…

…we can’t rely on local experts, you see. Locals are either incompetent, corrupt or liars. After all Malaysia has a maintenance problem, right?

This is why Malaysians would NEVER dream of:

• Flying on MAS…
• Flying on AirAsia…
• Having an operation in a Malaysian hospital…
• Going to a Malaysian-trained doctor…
• Letting a Malaysian architect design their house or their office buildings…
• Allowing a Malaysian laboratory to check if they have dengue…
• Allowing Malaysian engineers anywhere near anything like an oilrig or a gas pipeline or a bridge…
• Having a nuclear reactor running and operating in Bandar Baru Bangi for the past 28 years…

I could go on and on, but do I really need to say more?

And here’s the ultimate irony. Who are the experts the Malaysian Government is calling in, in order to please the panicked folk out there who don’t have any technical background and haven’t a clue what rare earths are?

People from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. Yep, the same place that had a Malaysian — in the person of my husband — as a Deputy Director-General for over six years, in charge of — get this, technical assistance and cooperation.

That’s right, the International Atomic Energy Agency trusted a Malaysian, but Malaysians don’t trust their own.

Good news. The authorities have taken action on the Great Hornbill killing. I salute them.

“An army officer and three of his subordinates who slaughtered a great pied hornbill and posed with the dead bird have been suspended from duties,” says The Star.

According to the newspaper, the Defence Minister said they would also be charged under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. The soldiers are apparently maintaining that the bird had been shot by a hunter.
“The bird fell to the ground and upon seeing the dying bird, they slaughtered it,” the Minister told reporters, adding that although the army personnel were not the ones who shot the hornbill, they should have tried to save it.

Hmm. I suspect the soldiers have done some quick thinking to mitigate the trouble they were in, but not to worry. The main thing is that this never happens again – that our armed forces realise that “totally protected” species means just that. And THEY are part of the protection.

Remember fellas – 30,000 RM fine and a jail term. Is it really worth the risk? And it’s YOUR heritage you so wilfully destroy.

Coming in at No. 10:

I’ve scored another Aurealis Award shortlisting! That makes my sixth. I think I shall give up the idea of ever winning as I doubt it will ever happen; it’s much more fun to collect lots of “finalist” logos.
You can see the whole finalist list here. For the Best Fantasy Novel of 2010, Stormlord Rising is up against a book by previous multiple winner, Juliet Marillier.
And against a novel that has been nominated for TWO chances at an Aurealis, by Trent Jamieson.
And against a superb novel by Tansy Rayner Roberts which I absolutely loved and wouldn’t mind losing out to.
And the fifth is by someone I’d never heard of — but I sure have now. I rather think this is the first time a novel that has been so far entirely self-published has been listed for an Aurealis, so that’s lots of kudos to Andrea K. Host for a start. Congratulations to everyone!

So one way or another I reckon I won’t win this time either — but who cares? I’m collecting those logos! Thanks to all the organisers and judges. I love you guys.

At Number 9:
Was sitting in my lounge room for half an hour putting the hooks back in washed curtains and counted the wild birds I could hear: Asian Koel, Yellow-vented Bulbul, Oriental Magpie Robin, Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker, White-vented Myna, Common Tailorbird and Red Junglefowl. Seven species in my garden in half an hour. Made a difference to a tedious job. (Ok, so the junglefowl is technically on the slope on the other side of my back fence…)

 At number 8:

Hey they finally activated our smart card for the satellite TV decoder!! It only took 5 weeks. Or was it 6? I kid you not. It was so long, I can’t even remember how long. So we now have TV again after…um…maybe 5 or 6 years. Can’t say it worried me over much, but hubby was missing the news…

At Number 5:

My husband sent me an email with the subject line: “SexVideo”.  He’s never done that before, so I scrambled to open it…..but alas, no video clip attached. Just news of more politician shenanigans that everyone is getting heartily sick of here. Sigh.

At Number 2:

That’s the top of the palm tree near the righthand archway. It’s base was to the left behind those pots.

A palm tree crashed across our driveway and took what looks to be half the garden with it. Sigh.

At Number 1:
 I still have not broadband connection. Of course, it’s all my fault.
I forgot to pay the bill. 
 It’s been paid now, but reconnection takes time. Dail up is soooooooooooooo slooooooooooow.

At Number 0.

The occupied nest.

The tailorbirds had nest and young wiped out. Not sure why. I heard the female alarming hysterically, went to see what was happened to find the nest was torn apart or had fallen to pieces. There was no sign of the young. There were cats around, alas.
Later on the male kept coming to the area with food, looking for them. Sob.

The only photo of bird at the nest. The dark bits.

This is what was left of the inside of the nest: 3″ across, after it had fallen into a flower pot. The white bits are kapok from a nearby tree.

Yep, we’ve done it again.

Let’s get one thing straight (no pun intended there, my friends) — put in the simplest of general terms, people are born with their sexuality/gender identity. It’s NOT a choice. If you believe it is a sin to practice what nature is telling you is natural, then by all means, don’t YOU indulge. THAT is your choice.

But to treat other people with disdain and hatred because of the way they were born is the most disgusting of all behaviours. Even worse is to throw them in jail. If you think their behaviour is sinful, then take heart with the idea that they will be punished by God. If they are not hurting anyone else by being what they were made to be, what the hell business is it of yours? Let God deal with it!

When I first came to Malaysia, I was impressed by the tolerance with which trans people were regarded in a pretty conservative society. Unfortunately, there are people who think tolerance is horrendous, acceptance even worse, and as for not bothering to notice because we are all human — well that’s totally beyond their ability to comprehend.

So what piece of stupidity is Malaysia up to now? Read this, extract below.

Malaysians who tune in to popular stations hear edited versions of “Born This Way” that use indecipherable garble to replace the lyrics: “No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track, baby.”

AMP Radio Networks, Malaysia’s top private radio operator, said the precaution was due to government restrictions against songs that might violate “good taste or decency or (are) offensive to public feeling.”

“The particular lyrics in ‘Born This Way’ may be considered as offensive when viewed against Malaysia’s social and religious observances,”  the company said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The issue of being gay, lesbian or (bisexual) is still considered as a ‘taboo’ by general Malaysians.”

I guess that the radio stations are running scared because they think they’ll be fined. So what do they do? Blur the words of a Lady Gaga song that is preaching tolerance and acceptance. Because in Malaysian we officially don’t believe in those things apparently.

Me? Well I think that censorship of this kind “violates good taste or decency” and such tasteless censorship is deeply offensive to my feelings as a member of the public who has good LBGT friends.

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Photo: Me and my 2 fellow trainers and the participants after giving a training session up at Fraser’s Hill for beginning birdwatching — as part of the tourism project I’ve been working on for the past three years.

Watching the Tailorbird nest… you can see the inside lining in this shot. I don’t go near it now, as the birds are taking it in turns to sit on the eggs.

 The nest was really blown around in the wind during a thunderstorm yesterday – our trip switch was tripped twice by lightning in the space of an hour! – but the bird remains quite snug in its leafy cover.

In other news: husband returned from a weeklong trip to Christchurch New Zealand, escaping the earthquake by two days.

I have been doing the proofs for the Voyager first pages of Stormlord’s Exile.

I had a pair of resident Oriental Honey Buzzards calling for almost half an hour as they circled the house. Possibly, they are nesting in the golf course that is not far over our back fence. And a cuckoo was going berserk in the garden this morning, so some of the small passerines should be watchful when they come to nest… Not absolutely sure what species the cuckoo was, but I think it might possibly be the Banded Bay. I have heard the Plaintive Cuckoo in our garden, but not for a long time.

Oh, and I saw a male Orange-headed Thrush up at Fraser’s Hill, which was a nice sighting. Very attractive migrant.

And that’s about it. Nothing really exciting. Sometimes life is best with the small pleasures and an absence of excitement and adventure.

My husband and I were swapping stories in the car…harking back to our primary school days.

I lived on a farm and we had our own dairy cow, so if there was one thing I had plenty of when growing up, it was fresh unpasturised milk and cream and fresh home-made butter. Yet when I got to school, we were given one third of a bottle of milk to drink under some government scheme or another. I loved my milk cold and with the full cream skimmed off the top. At school it was pasturised, disgustingly warm (having been transported in crates on the open back of a truck), and topped with a glob of cream in the neck of the bottle. I loathed it, but refusing to drink it was not an option.

Post World War Two, after the defeat of the Japanese in Malaya, the returning British* were understandably concerned about the nutrition of the half-starved population, especially its children. So twice a week each child had to bring from home a cigarette tin, which would then be filled with powdered Klim Milk to take home.**

Anyway, boys will be boys, and those kids at the Bukit Beringin school in Malacca (hardly more than an open platform of cement with an terracotta tiled roof at the time) were no angels. On the way home from school, husband used to put a whole lot of powdered milk in his mouth to blow at his pals when they weren’t expecting it.

If he needed school supplies – a new pencil, for example – he’d take an egg from the henhouse on the way to school slip it into his pocket, and swop it for what he wanted at the shop along the way. Of course, if there was a bit if roughhousing on the way to school with his friends, you can imagine what happened to the egg. And he had to sit all day with that mess congealing in his shorts…

Ok, so husband has the best “when I was a kid” stories…

Malaysia is many things. A multi-racial country of modern highways and skyscrapers and modern education, where there are more women in university than men, where our top banker is a woman, where women are vice-chancellors (presidents) of universities.  I go to the local government clinic once every 3 months and see whoever the doctor is on duty – and in all the years I’ve been going there, the different doctors have always been  young Muslim women, competent, friendly and thorough.

You’d think paedophilia would not be legal in a country like that. And it isn’t…for non-Muslims. For Muslims, however, it’s fine, as long as the child’s parents and some other man or other, from some religious department or other, says it’s ok. (I wonder what training he has in recognising the physical and emotional well-being of a child. None, I’d say, judging from this article.)

Let’s get one thing straight. A 23-year-old male school teacher* is an adult. A man.
A 14-year-old school girl is not an adult. She’s not a woman, even if she has started her menses. She’s still a child. She looks up to adults. Her religion and her culture tell her to obey her elders, especially her parents. She is gullible and vulnerable.

A 23 year old man who marries her – an educated man, not some illiterate fellow whose society is still steeped in the 19th century idea that children should be working at 12 and married at 14 – is purely and simply a paedophile.

And in this country, he can legally use a child for his sexual gratification. And parents who promote such a match are beyond comprehension.

Shame.

From the paper:.

I am home again.
I know, because I had to catch a frog in the kitchen last night and release it outside, because I was woken up by the mosque this morning, because there are bulbuls in the garden and house geckos on the ceiling.

We flew out from Launceston, and here are some of the photos from the wetland centre just out of town there, where we managed to get our Tasmanian birdlist up over the 100 mark with the addition of the Purple Swamphen and the Reed Warbler. Heard the grassbird, but didn’t see it, alas. Black Swans were nesting all over the place!

This is a lovely area, manned by volunteers. I tried, years ago, to get authorities in Malaysia interested in doing something similar in my own area where we had a lovely swampy place. I once counted 21 bird species in half an hour without moving myself from one spot. And that was just birds. There was other wildlife – tortoises, butterflies, lizards and so on. It is a housing estate now, sans park of course.

The whole of Kuala Lumpur with its millions of people in the greater metropolitan area – once surrounded by swamp parkland teeming with life – has nothing like this. Launceston, with its tiny population, can do better than a huge rich metropolis like Kuala Lumpur. Here we have roads and hoardings, noise and pollution and much ugliness instead.

Wildlife and biodiversity has no value here unless it brings in money. And swamps are seen as ugly, full of dangerous things like mosquitoes and snakes.

…just for the heck of it.

Orchids, obviously.

And the next post is from Melbourne.

I wonder how I can be noramlyed this time?