The Internet Makes You Stupid
So prophesied the wise people at Something Awful, a piece of advice, obviously not heeded by the Malaysian public at large, for when have we ever listened to good advice. And that's why we continue to celebrate such things as condensed milk, Mawi, and Ops Sikap every Syawal.
As all of us will very well know, or not know at all, many quarters, more than four quarters in fact, which is a logical paradox, have claimed and been rejoicing like dirty old men who just pinched Jessica Alba's butt, that the New Body of Dirty Water between Malaysia and Sumatra Times Groupie Edit, Brendan of the Prairie, has decided to let the people have what they deserve - crap newsmanship.
For before he came along, NST was filled with page one stories of Mahathir, Dr Mahathir. Strangely enough, NST was criticised for that then, as they are for NOT filling the cover with the KarTun nowadays. Go figure.
The face of Mahathir, disseminated across the Straits, until 2003.
Crap newsmanship, ladies, gentlemen and politicians, has been what Malaysians have been crying out for every since Brendan came into the position of Executioner of Edited News at Malaysia's No.1 newspaper for schools. And finally, the good Agen Singapura who is actually a Malaysian unlike Rocky of the Rocky not Creamy and Smooth like Starbucks Bru, has decided to stop taking abuse for no reason whatsoever. Mad, isn't he? Free abuse, and he's turning it down.
A kind of brew that is also quite chunky, yesterday. However, no plagiarism is involved, ever.
The oft-cited reason, is that he stepped down amidst controvery and disgrace, amidst claims of plagiarism, vandalism, hooliganism and patriotism. Amidst the crime of doing his job, working his butt off and making other people look bad.
The chief amongst his accusers, is Jeffdas Iscarooit, himself, who for so long pissed blood on KarTun Drama Mahathir's regime only now to berpeluk-peluk with the Commoner and Malaysian Citizen, because Iscarooit too believes himself a Commoner and Malaysian Citizen, unlike the rest of us, who are not Commoners and Malaysian Citizens apparently, who he refuses to even salam or give a high five.
Ooi has been going around his circle of friends, cronies, supposed mistresses and his readersheep of kindergarden students who haven't learned to think for themselves, yelling "Plagiarism!" like the boy who cried "Wu Liao! Wolves, man!"
According to his learned self, Brendan plagiarised from famed but totally overrated Detroit Free Press and Massage columnist Mitch Albom, in his editorial piece How Dearly We Miss June 6.
This resulted in a rabbling mass of uneducated, railings against the Groupie Edit. Here were a bunch of people pretending they knew what was going on about, simultaneously claiming that they know Mitch Albom, yet at the same time that 'people' didn't and Brendan should have cited the source, so as to not confuse the 'people' as to who originally came up with the idea - also known as a literary device, you lamebrains. Professor of Lasvicious Literary Linguistics, Littel Birdanathan had this to say, "It seems somewhat strange to me that whether a piece is considered plagiarism or not depends on whether the people are literate enough to have read the supposed piece from which it plagiarised. Meaning, if your readership are a bunch of people who can't tell a book from a doorstop, it's plagiarism, as decided by the illiterates. Ironic and paradoxical, if you ask me."
LOL, today.
Asking Brendan to cite his source? Is there no sense of mystery left in our good nation, which came up with such wonderful myths and legends as Hang Tuah just like they're gonna hang Hussein? Or the titillating tale of Mahsuri, who flowed white blood upon penetration.
So, perhaps, they'd prefer a country where we explained all our little subtleties. For people to conscientiously ask, "geddit?" at the end of the joke and then explain it away anyway.
I'm sure Ooi is an expert on this, a man who constantly assumes (rightly, of course) that his readers are idiots and proceeds to explain everything step-by-step, making us wonder why he didn't just give us the straightforward story, instead of using dumb analogies and French words which he then proceeds to explain and link online dictionaries to.
Disgusted by Ooi's analogy, half a century ago.
Later on, Ooi put two and two together and got 5. You know, because that's how his readers add their sums too in their maths workbooks. With the NST then announcing Brendan's resignation, Ooi conveniently linked the two together so that he could disgrace a man who, well, had nothing to do with him in the first place. I guess this is some sort of hobby for Ooi, you know, bad poetry, bad writing and bad logic.
Of course, anyone with half a brain would be able to see how if Brendan was only leaving NST at the end of the year, NST could've postponed the announcement until later, letting the entire half-arsed plagiarism idea disappear first if they actually felt the plagiarism was a factor at all. But expecting Ooi and his posse to have half a brain, is like expecting Malaysians to stop ogling at roadside accidents.
Instead, Ooi chose to ignore what everyone already knew, that since last year, Brendan had already been seeking to leave his cosy position of being fucked left, right and centre everyday (could be doggy-style, too) by the supposedly righteous opposition to government oppression. Guess Ooi has too short a memory or his Little Birds just aren't as good as my Earthworms.
The surgeon-general warns you reading Screenshots regularly is harmful to your health, if you do it daily.
But never mind that, instead, whenever two things happen in quick succession they must and inescapably be linked. This makes no sense, like how Ooi wants to say NO to monopoly of Chinese media by having no updates of Screenshots for three days. Yes, sure, so that when people are avoiding Chinese newspapers, they also have no Screenshots to read. That really solves the problem.
I think instead, he should be thankful to monopolies, because they have given him such a holiday more than once.
Incurring the ire of Jeff Ooi, every time it announces its gajillion dollar profits.
But going by Ooi's logic, I think we have more to be worried about than some editor somewhere supposedly plagiarising. I think we should rally together to close down Screenshots. Look, on Oct 12, Ooi gave us this banal discourse on democracy which he, of course, didn't plagiarise from some library book somewhere, stating that,
A true parliamentary democracy should have all the governments at the federal, state and municipal levels elected by the constituents through public voting.
On the same day, it was reported that there can be no democracy in Iraq in the near future. Surely, those two events must be linked. They happened ON THE SAME DAY!
Also, "U can't shut people up,", screamed another Ooi headline last month, which must've resulted in the alleged gag order on NST staff concerning the BBC's report on Brendan's departure which NST threatens to sue BBC for.
A GAG ORDER, I tell you, by a company on its staff concerning a matter which might go to court! How can a company do such a thing! Protecting itself in a possible lawsuit! That's not democratic, that's not civilised! I don't think Ooi will ever issue a gag order on himself if he were to be taken to court. No, he'll continue to spout off nonsense everyday!
What is the BBC ruckus all about? Well, their Malaysian correspondent, Jonathan Kent, who mainly covers the pub beat and whose close sources include deadbeats like has-been writers and bloggers (yes, this is scintillating journalism at its best), decided that whatever Ooi and his Bot Army must be saying is true. Because they're anti-government, and anti-government = truth. Nevermind that he works for the government-funded BBC.
In his story, he wrote,
The New Straits Times is owned by the political party of the prime minister.
Malaysia's broadcasters and newspapers are closely controlled by the government and no mention of the scandal has appeared in print.
However, the government has promised not to censor the internet and it appears that Malaysia's online watchdogs have claimed their first major scalp.
Well, if NST does sue then they will be suing the BBC, which is funded by the government of the prime minister, isn't it? Ignoring the patently anti-Malaysian tone of the next paragraph, the last para seems to intimate a bunch of Malaysian bloggers celebrating over the 'difference' they have made. Yes, the difference a football team also makes when it steps onto the pitch, kicks off, and scores a goal! Except that there are no opponents playing against them. Fun, isn't it?
Nobody's gonna stop her, literally, now.
This claim of plagiarism was also supported by one Sharon Bakar, who shares her name with a mad Israeli premier and also an incendiary word in Malay. Guess that makes her somewhat qualified to speak on the matter. Just like Kent, she too used her psychic British powers to figure out what these damn Asians were thinking. She wrote,
it is quite clearly plagiarism. brendon.(Brendan?) took the framework of an article written by someone else and used it to support his own article.
if the article he had taken had been known to the wider malaysian public and if he had used it as a basis for a humourous or ironic piece which built in some sense on the original article, that would not have been plagiarism. [...] brendon just took and hoped no-one would notice. and perhaps the worst crime of all - the original piece is powerful and eloquent, while brendon's prose is laboured and earth-bound.
She self-defined plagiarism, then decided what was Brendan's intentions and then made a critique of his writing, all in one fell swoop. If indeed, it was true that Brendan lifted so much of Albom's work, then why is his piece "laboured and earth-bound"? Just because he's Indian and not Caucasian? Isn't it a bit racist to use the terms laboured and earth-bound in reference to Brendan?
But forget all that, "Sharon is a British who has lived in Malaysia for more than 20 years. She writes on books for a number of publications and teaches creative writing," insists Ooi, making her a "foreigner who knows Malaysia". Why a 'creative writing expert' who 'knows Malaysia' is a qualified spokesperson on a matter or 'journalism' is beyond me, unless Ooi is sayin that journalism is creative writing. Oh, wait...
At least she's hotter than Sharon, any damn day of the week, man.
But wait a minute, is it just me, or has Malaysia simply regressed 50 years in a couple of days? Are we going back to listening to what a couple of British hacks have to say? I thought that these bloggers and whatnot were pro-Malaysia? Real patriots? Or is the definition of Malaysia "British Colony" still?
But my dear friends, have a think about all this, and I shall be back with more, on how of all people Ooi and his main Bumiputera Brother, Rocky, should be the last people to accuse anyone of plagiarism. In the meantime, feel free to use any of the literary devices that I have myself lifted, in your own writing, be they journalistic, creative or erotic (send me a sample though).
As all of us will very well know, or not know at all, many quarters, more than four quarters in fact, which is a logical paradox, have claimed and been rejoicing like dirty old men who just pinched Jessica Alba's butt, that the New Body of Dirty Water between Malaysia and Sumatra Times Groupie Edit, Brendan of the Prairie, has decided to let the people have what they deserve - crap newsmanship.
For before he came along, NST was filled with page one stories of Mahathir, Dr Mahathir. Strangely enough, NST was criticised for that then, as they are for NOT filling the cover with the KarTun nowadays. Go figure.
The face of Mahathir, disseminated across the Straits, until 2003.
Crap newsmanship, ladies, gentlemen and politicians, has been what Malaysians have been crying out for every since Brendan came into the position of Executioner of Edited News at Malaysia's No.1 newspaper for schools. And finally, the good Agen Singapura who is actually a Malaysian unlike Rocky of the Rocky not Creamy and Smooth like Starbucks Bru, has decided to stop taking abuse for no reason whatsoever. Mad, isn't he? Free abuse, and he's turning it down.
A kind of brew that is also quite chunky, yesterday. However, no plagiarism is involved, ever.
The oft-cited reason, is that he stepped down amidst controvery and disgrace, amidst claims of plagiarism, vandalism, hooliganism and patriotism. Amidst the crime of doing his job, working his butt off and making other people look bad.
The chief amongst his accusers, is Jeffdas Iscarooit, himself, who for so long pissed blood on KarTun Drama Mahathir's regime only now to berpeluk-peluk with the Commoner and Malaysian Citizen, because Iscarooit too believes himself a Commoner and Malaysian Citizen, unlike the rest of us, who are not Commoners and Malaysian Citizens apparently, who he refuses to even salam or give a high five.
Ooi has been going around his circle of friends, cronies, supposed mistresses and his readersheep of kindergarden students who haven't learned to think for themselves, yelling "Plagiarism!" like the boy who cried "Wu Liao! Wolves, man!"
According to his learned self, Brendan plagiarised from famed but totally overrated Detroit Free Press and Massage columnist Mitch Albom, in his editorial piece How Dearly We Miss June 6.
This resulted in a rabbling mass of uneducated, railings against the Groupie Edit. Here were a bunch of people pretending they knew what was going on about, simultaneously claiming that they know Mitch Albom, yet at the same time that 'people' didn't and Brendan should have cited the source, so as to not confuse the 'people' as to who originally came up with the idea - also known as a literary device, you lamebrains. Professor of Lasvicious Literary Linguistics, Littel Birdanathan had this to say, "It seems somewhat strange to me that whether a piece is considered plagiarism or not depends on whether the people are literate enough to have read the supposed piece from which it plagiarised. Meaning, if your readership are a bunch of people who can't tell a book from a doorstop, it's plagiarism, as decided by the illiterates. Ironic and paradoxical, if you ask me."
LOL, today.
Asking Brendan to cite his source? Is there no sense of mystery left in our good nation, which came up with such wonderful myths and legends as Hang Tuah just like they're gonna hang Hussein? Or the titillating tale of Mahsuri, who flowed white blood upon penetration.
So, perhaps, they'd prefer a country where we explained all our little subtleties. For people to conscientiously ask, "geddit?" at the end of the joke and then explain it away anyway.
I'm sure Ooi is an expert on this, a man who constantly assumes (rightly, of course) that his readers are idiots and proceeds to explain everything step-by-step, making us wonder why he didn't just give us the straightforward story, instead of using dumb analogies and French words which he then proceeds to explain and link online dictionaries to.
Disgusted by Ooi's analogy, half a century ago.
Later on, Ooi put two and two together and got 5. You know, because that's how his readers add their sums too in their maths workbooks. With the NST then announcing Brendan's resignation, Ooi conveniently linked the two together so that he could disgrace a man who, well, had nothing to do with him in the first place. I guess this is some sort of hobby for Ooi, you know, bad poetry, bad writing and bad logic.
Of course, anyone with half a brain would be able to see how if Brendan was only leaving NST at the end of the year, NST could've postponed the announcement until later, letting the entire half-arsed plagiarism idea disappear first if they actually felt the plagiarism was a factor at all. But expecting Ooi and his posse to have half a brain, is like expecting Malaysians to stop ogling at roadside accidents.
Instead, Ooi chose to ignore what everyone already knew, that since last year, Brendan had already been seeking to leave his cosy position of being fucked left, right and centre everyday (could be doggy-style, too) by the supposedly righteous opposition to government oppression. Guess Ooi has too short a memory or his Little Birds just aren't as good as my Earthworms.
The surgeon-general warns you reading Screenshots regularly is harmful to your health, if you do it daily.
But never mind that, instead, whenever two things happen in quick succession they must and inescapably be linked. This makes no sense, like how Ooi wants to say NO to monopoly of Chinese media by having no updates of Screenshots for three days. Yes, sure, so that when people are avoiding Chinese newspapers, they also have no Screenshots to read. That really solves the problem.
I think instead, he should be thankful to monopolies, because they have given him such a holiday more than once.
Incurring the ire of Jeff Ooi, every time it announces its gajillion dollar profits.
But going by Ooi's logic, I think we have more to be worried about than some editor somewhere supposedly plagiarising. I think we should rally together to close down Screenshots. Look, on Oct 12, Ooi gave us this banal discourse on democracy which he, of course, didn't plagiarise from some library book somewhere, stating that,
A true parliamentary democracy should have all the governments at the federal, state and municipal levels elected by the constituents through public voting.
On the same day, it was reported that there can be no democracy in Iraq in the near future. Surely, those two events must be linked. They happened ON THE SAME DAY!
Also, "U can't shut people up,", screamed another Ooi headline last month, which must've resulted in the alleged gag order on NST staff concerning the BBC's report on Brendan's departure which NST threatens to sue BBC for.
A GAG ORDER, I tell you, by a company on its staff concerning a matter which might go to court! How can a company do such a thing! Protecting itself in a possible lawsuit! That's not democratic, that's not civilised! I don't think Ooi will ever issue a gag order on himself if he were to be taken to court. No, he'll continue to spout off nonsense everyday!
What is the BBC ruckus all about? Well, their Malaysian correspondent, Jonathan Kent, who mainly covers the pub beat and whose close sources include deadbeats like has-been writers and bloggers (yes, this is scintillating journalism at its best), decided that whatever Ooi and his Bot Army must be saying is true. Because they're anti-government, and anti-government = truth. Nevermind that he works for the government-funded BBC.
In his story, he wrote,
The New Straits Times is owned by the political party of the prime minister.
Malaysia's broadcasters and newspapers are closely controlled by the government and no mention of the scandal has appeared in print.
However, the government has promised not to censor the internet and it appears that Malaysia's online watchdogs have claimed their first major scalp.
Well, if NST does sue then they will be suing the BBC, which is funded by the government of the prime minister, isn't it? Ignoring the patently anti-Malaysian tone of the next paragraph, the last para seems to intimate a bunch of Malaysian bloggers celebrating over the 'difference' they have made. Yes, the difference a football team also makes when it steps onto the pitch, kicks off, and scores a goal! Except that there are no opponents playing against them. Fun, isn't it?
Nobody's gonna stop her, literally, now.
This claim of plagiarism was also supported by one Sharon Bakar, who shares her name with a mad Israeli premier and also an incendiary word in Malay. Guess that makes her somewhat qualified to speak on the matter. Just like Kent, she too used her psychic British powers to figure out what these damn Asians were thinking. She wrote,
it is quite clearly plagiarism. brendon.(Brendan?) took the framework of an article written by someone else and used it to support his own article.
if the article he had taken had been known to the wider malaysian public and if he had used it as a basis for a humourous or ironic piece which built in some sense on the original article, that would not have been plagiarism. [...] brendon just took and hoped no-one would notice. and perhaps the worst crime of all - the original piece is powerful and eloquent, while brendon's prose is laboured and earth-bound.
She self-defined plagiarism, then decided what was Brendan's intentions and then made a critique of his writing, all in one fell swoop. If indeed, it was true that Brendan lifted so much of Albom's work, then why is his piece "laboured and earth-bound"? Just because he's Indian and not Caucasian? Isn't it a bit racist to use the terms laboured and earth-bound in reference to Brendan?
But forget all that, "Sharon is a British who has lived in Malaysia for more than 20 years. She writes on books for a number of publications and teaches creative writing," insists Ooi, making her a "foreigner who knows Malaysia". Why a 'creative writing expert' who 'knows Malaysia' is a qualified spokesperson on a matter or 'journalism' is beyond me, unless Ooi is sayin that journalism is creative writing. Oh, wait...
At least she's hotter than Sharon, any damn day of the week, man.
But wait a minute, is it just me, or has Malaysia simply regressed 50 years in a couple of days? Are we going back to listening to what a couple of British hacks have to say? I thought that these bloggers and whatnot were pro-Malaysia? Real patriots? Or is the definition of Malaysia "British Colony" still?
But my dear friends, have a think about all this, and I shall be back with more, on how of all people Ooi and his main Bumiputera Brother, Rocky, should be the last people to accuse anyone of plagiarism. In the meantime, feel free to use any of the literary devices that I have myself lifted, in your own writing, be they journalistic, creative or erotic (send me a sample though).
posted by Not Billy, Edward or Yorke at 01:29
10 Comments:
But then bro, Malaysian cyberspace is full of pretend patriots and their affiliates.
They use "rakyat" when they mean "me". They define the "wish of the people" as one blog and a bunch of commenters. These are the same pretend patiots who demand freedom yet willingly subjugate themselves to anything that has a foreign name.
Freedom of speech? It seems as if Malaysians on the internet define it as the right to fart as loudly as they want, wherever they want. Yes, most of the drivel that finds its way onto the internet come across as loud farts, accidental or otherwise.
On an somewhat related matter, I think the funniest conversation I have had the privilege of overhearing is Kadir Jasin chastising Kalimullah and then proceeding to explain how he was different from the latter. The only difference, really, was the paymaster.
jeff ooi is a motherducker.
Oh, KJ was different alright. It takes great skills and brains to destroy a 150 year old company in just a few years.
And the man spewed profanities so elegantly - his p**imaks, his speeches to editors in the joys of masturbation.
Kali has a long way to go to match KJ's skills.
dear citizens, your comments warm my heart. if only more rakyat were like you, i'd be out of a job.
OOi, AKJ and Rockybrewed are nothing without the NST they so lovingly despised. Imagine if this company goes down the drain: Ooi would be sitting by JPJ with a typewriter under a big red-yellow umbrella; roky would be not too far away trying to sell encyclopaedias and AKJ would be across the road peddling Tongkat Ali. OOi whacked both when they were at NST. Today, three of them are good friends. So much for fiendship. Thank god for Daft Oi.
'twas an opinion i expressed that got lifted and used and lifted and used far beyond what i could ever have imagined.
i did come back to the case later and argue it a bit more coherantly, but by that point i wasn't being jeffooied any more and the world passed on
i have more expertise in detecting plagiarism than you think. am an academic and have had to catch out naughty plagiarising undergrads on numerous occasions and have sat on exeter university panels to argue the fate of plagiarising students
(so sorry that i didn't include my full cv on my blog! didn't think it was necessary!)
i've also long taken an interest in literary plagiarism as you will see from past blog posts and written about it for Chrome
and although i'd have wished the comment just to have sat quietly on rocky's blog and not gone hurtling around the blogosphere to look as if i (alone) were summary executioner ... it clearly was plagiarism (of form, not content)and the guy should have said sorry to his readership
as i've said elsewhere, three words could have saved hi hide: "after mitch albom"
after all mitch albom is a caught out and much naughtier plagiariser too ... and his newspaper and public forgave him.
dear bibolubility,
your comment alone nullifies your own opinions as it shows that you have the discernment of a womaniser after twelve pints of beer.
hidup melayu! hidup cina! hidup india! hidup kehidupan!
bibolubility?
yeah? but it don't sound like i'm the one who's been drinking LOL
beebibobum,
of course not, you're already struggling for air as it is.
You realize of course, that you'll never be popular or make big bucks like Mr Ooi :) wow did he find out quickly who butters his bread :)
Also for some people in this country, anti-government is always true. I notice this happens mostly among rich people. I mean hey, the millions spend on the LRT and trains ARE are waste for them, because they drive everywhere, right ? :)
The rakyat thing gets me too. If you want to write in Malay, write in Malay. If you want to write in English, write in English. Sheesh.
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