This Guy Can Really Teach Us Something

DUBLIN (May 12) - When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.
His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.Skip over this content

The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.
They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first.
A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets in an e-mail and the corrections began.
"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.
"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

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English,Such a Funny Language

I came across these quotes one day and I found them quite amusing.

• "It's a strange language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water".
• "If the English language made any sense, 'lackadaisical' would have something to do with a shotage of flowers".
• If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
• If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
• Its funny how ‘A Slim Chance’ and ‘A Fat Chance’ are the same.
• We are a strange lot to have noses that run and feet that smell.
• If people from Poland are called “Poles,” why aren’t people from Holland called “Holes?

After looking at all of these, it really makes me think about English. Why do have so many different terms that mean the same thing? Why do we set so many rules for the English Language, like the 'Subject-Verb Agreement' and the 'Direct/Indirect Speech' when the English language itself is so versatile, with new rules and changes being implemented frequently? It is wonderful yet queer. It is almost like brackish water in that vast sea of different languages. It is just so funny. Comment.

My Father's Most Memorable Read

As this task of 'interviewing your father or mother on their most memorable read' was assigned to all the Secondary 1s,I have decided to chalk up a few questions and have interviewed my father on his ever-so important book.

The Interview:
1.What is the most memorable book you have read?
Dad: Amongst my the decades of readings, the one by Harper Lee named “Kill a Mockingbird" has left a indelible impression on me. The themes and quotations have stayed relevant to me as I aged and I am glad I got this opportunity to share with you.

2. A summary of the story
Dad: The story setting is at the sleepy town of Maycomb located in Alabama against the backdrop of the Great Depression ( which for your understanding is liken the global economic recession we are having now with spreadwide jobless mire). The main character Scout Finch who lives with her brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus narrates the story herself in reflection of what she saw and experienced at that time and augmenting the narration with thoughts and personal experiences which blossom from the start of the book on naivety to youthful maturity. Her father being a prominent had provided a reasonably well-off life for them in comparison to the rest of society. Their out of school activities centered on trying to enact the character and chided at Boo Radley who lives in spooky house and has lived there for years without venturing out. Atticus , in observing their antics, time and again urged his children to see life from the another’s perspective before making judgements. Which true to his words, Boo Radley various acts of kindness climaxing with his act of saving Jem and Scout from Bob Ewell reversed the kids’ view of him entirely.To the anger of Maycomb’s racist community , Attitus agreed to defend a black man named Tom Robinson accused of raping a white woman ( daughter of Bob Ewell). Undeterred by racist backlash and threats to his family , Atticus determination for the search of the truth led to his battle against a white jury. Unfortunately , before he would bring the acquisition of Tom Robinson, Tom tormented by the injustice escaped from prison and was shot. Atticus was very disturded by this turn of events. In laying out the facts of the case, Atticus brought shame to Bob and his daughter with the community casting doubt about them, Bob resorted to revenge his humiliation by attacking Jem and Scout which ended in futile as he was stabbed by Boo who did it in saving the children. The story ends with a important realization by Scout as she begin to understand Boo and began to embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding and display that her experiences with hatred and prejudices wil not erase her faith in human goodness.

3. How did you come to know of this book?
Dad: This was the one of the literature books I used in secondary one.

4.Why is it so inspirational to you/why is it worth reading?
Dad: I was and remained inspired by the following quotation which has shaped my teenage years Quote: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view...until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
I found the book compassionate and deep moving and the intricate way of how the author took us the roots of human behavior – from innocence , love and kindness to the other end of the parameter of cruelty , hatred and pathos.

5.Lessons to be Learnt
Dad: The various themes of this book eg coexistence of good and evil , the belief in goodness of mankind , the presence of social inequity and most of all the resistance to pre-judge a person have not only integrated well into my moral ethics, and also embedded into the principles that I pass to my children.

So that concludes the interview on my father's most memorable read. Thank you, and I hope after this you are all encouraged to try out "To Kill a Mockingbird".

If only Happiness came as big as this...

Heh... My favourite equation:

Chocolate

=Bliss
=Happiness

=Sore Throat?

Haha, 2.5 kg of chocolate...whole lotta bliss, whole lotta happiness, one really agonising sore throat...

Who can really define Happiness? Is it that short-lived feeling when you enjoy yourself? Or is it the eternal joy you receive after death, regardless of your religion? Or as wikipedia put it : "Happiness is a state of mind or feeling such as contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have been taken to defining happiness and identifying its sources." Even internet encyclopaedia giants Wikipedia don't know where to nail the bullseye when it comes to happiness.

Maybe to you, happiness is what you receive from helping others, as the old Chinese saying goes?

I just pieced together some thoughts while on the bus home today. I saw this man giving up his seat to an elderly woman. It's quite funny how a gesture like that might seem so common but in reality barely anybody sums up the courage to do it. And of course, this form of courtesy brought about smiles, and naturally a smile from my face too.

It's funny how you find that you don't find happiness, happiness finds you.

Benjamin the Cynical Donkey

"Animalism. All animals are equal. Bah! All nonsense. Look at them. Just months ago they were ranting about 'Four legs good,two legs bad'. Now? 'Four legs good, two legs better!' So much for the rebellion, and equality! Pigs were not meant to stand on their hind legs. They were not meant to write. What more, not meant to communicate to human beings! This was all a bad idea in the first place. Old Major and his 'spectacular' vision. Blind, all of them! They couldn't see it; Old Major over-simplified and narrow-minded dream would have lead to their eventual demise! Look at those sickening pigs. Drinking heartily, gambling gleefully away, and yet they once spoke of 'No animal shall drink alcohol'. Sigh..their twisted lust for power has lead this farm into an bottomless pit of trouble. Expulsion took place. Animals were killed by other animals. Boxer's gone. What's next? Will these men and these vicious dogs slaughter us slowly, one by one? Would they rip out our throats, just like what the dogs had done to the naive and gullible 'traitors'? I dread the day that becomes reality, however it is imminent. After these power-struggles, these lies and deceits, these displays of corruption, anything is possible, how ever wrongful it is to the principals of the ridiculous maxim of 'All animals are equal'."