Visit my blog at
http://daddyparentingtips.blogspot.com/Its a pleasure to write while I post photos. Just realized graffiti is spelt with two Fs. This photo album was an idea of a friend from USA who was visiting and was looking for graffiti locations around Japan. So I thought this should be a good album to keep while I am travelling. Will be updating more photos as I spot more graffiti. And I am putting a link at
http://www.graffiti.org/index/world.html which would bring some traffic here. My previous website (
http://www.geocities.com/philchlee) has traffic of 44,000 hits as of 17 Dec 2006. One of the heavy traffic site is a research paper I published in an IEEE conference which is heavily referenced in universities on the topic of clinical decision support systems. Sometimes, I even get emails from students overseas requesting for my full thesis document - which I allow them to download for USD$50. Some small money to make and it feels good when your work is appreciated. Haven't really thought of moving to a new domain name, else I can work on getting more advertising revenue making full use of the traffic.
What is the motive behind graffiti? The lack of places to express oneself? I truly hope that Malaysia would slowly open up to encourage more free speech and free expression of thought and opinion. A climate of fear is contributed by repressive laws such as the Internal Security Act that detains without trial, Official Secrets Act that does not promote a transparent government and the Sedition Act and Printing Presses and Publication Act that curbs free speech on "sensitive matters". I have been following a new blog by a lawyer who boldly speaks out on the various issues facing the country. Please spend some time to read an exposition of Article 153 on the special position of the Bumiputera in Malaysia as well as the relevance of the NEP policy. Brilliantly written to give an objective view based on understanding of the Malaysian Constitution which forms the basis of how things should be run in Malaysia versus the many indoctrination that Malaysians are subjected to think otherwise (
http://malikimtiaz.blogspot.com/). I also get my regular entertainment on gossips and rumours leaked out by public servants in the Malaysian government at
http://malaysia-today.net. This is a site that is run by a bold activist who have been called up by the special branch police countless times but still courageously maintains the site to ensure Malaysians have an avenue to voice out their grouses even on sensitive matters. I guess blogs have been the graffiti of the 21st century. But soon, human society would evolve to provide more platforms for free speech or would these platforms be merely providing the government an opportunity to control the platforms? We shall see how we can progress to bring more minds together for better or for good. We may see more chaos when different personalities and individuals come together with varying opinions through the different lifestyles they hold on dearly. This speaks for the need of tolerance, patience and the desire to want to understand varying perspectives in a world that is converging globally sooner than we think.
Feel free to leave a comment here or at my personal website guestbook on the issue of free speech in Malaysia or other parts of the world.
Visit my blog at
http://daddyparentingtips.blogspot.com/
