LID - It's Good for a Chat!

I can't see the difference between good bloggers and good media scribes anymore. After a wonderful commentary and analysis of the LID gathering in Langkawi where "presidents, prime ministers and kings (meet) in shirt sleeves and open collar" to discuss eradication of poverty, Rehman Rashid sums it up: "..it's good, from time to time, to get together for a chat." (NST August 10).

The tongue-in-cheek bloggers couldn't do better when it comes to being cynical ( about Bahasa, NEP, the National Anthem etc),
But, they have a very important point to raise, as do the silver-tongued media scribes. People become cynical when oft-repeated, big national dos produce little benefit to them. ( Of course they tend to forget the good they do to the tourist industry and to the image of the nation!).

Johan Jaafar in a very interesting and informed article on 'difficult (film directors and) writers' described Rehman Rashid as " a fellow scribe (who) goes into auto cruise illuminating the pages of this newspaper with such virtuousity that it's more than just an audacious spray paint job on the language canvass." Wow. Compare that to Charles Dicken in the opening sentence of Pickwick Papers: " The first ray of light which illumines the gloom and converts into dazzling brilliancy the obscurity which surrounds the Pickwick Club..." or this anonymous piece: " On one particular occasion when the solar luminary had hidden it effulgence beneath the occident, there came within my purview an expeditions son of Neptune." Words vary but the message remains the same, like Einstein's constant...

The LID is certainly more than a get together for a chat. If a blogger has said that he might get into serious trouble, just because he or she cannot go "into auto cruise illuminating..the language canvass." He or she will write in bloggerland lingo with a lot of "chapchai" ingredients, (w)rap massage, and photos, to express an opinion and get the heat out of his or her chest! Isn't that as ego-satisfying and therapeutic as writing for the print media? In many ways the difficult or "obscure" writers have just as many things to pour out as subtle and innocously as possible. People don't get angry over things they don't understand but often misunderstood simple act done in good faith.

So, to those concerned with "policing" cyberspace. Please don't be confused into thinking that the silver-tongued scribes, both plain and obscure, do not resort to obfuscation and obscurantism to get a bitter message through. The plain and simple expression of uneasiness among men-in-the-street, and bloggers in cyberspace, is a good window to the heart of Malaysia.
Of course, I could be wrong....