Two Countries and a Blog

 

I was looking up the Pedra Banca for International Law, and I came across this and this. I think it has already made its rounds in the bloggosphere, but I must have missed it. I am ashamed to admit I have not been following the Pedra Banca issue in the papers with the interest every law student should possess. Mostly because I hate reading ST, and secondly because of exams. I didn’t even get the mountain reference in the MrBrown show because of that.

Anyway, the links are about how the Malaysian government used a photo taken from a blog [of all things!] to justify their case for PB, and how it possibly might be a complete bogus. Looking at the blog and reading Simplyjean’s entry, I have to concur. The original blog was set up very recently [which is rather suspicious] and talks exclusively about lighthouses, in every one of its (very few) posts. Now, I have seen some very strange websites and blogs, but a blog about lighthouses, if it is for real, takes the cake. At least, couldn’t they [whoever THEY are] bribe an existing blogger to put up this photo? You could bribe Kenny Sia, that would at least make it appear a lot more credible [sorry Kenny... not saying you are corrupt, just that you are famous and the only Malaysian blogger I know of].

Okay, back to mugging the rest of International Law.

Wedding in the Family

My second eldest cousin is getting married soon, right about the time I’ll be in India. It is my understanding that this wedding is somewhat controversial, not so much because it is a love marriage – that particular trail was blazed by her brother and even a generation earlier by one of our aunts, and of course my mother. It is because no one approves of the groom very much. But what cares love of the opinion of other people, even if it has been said that the groom is ugly, economically unreliable and unrealistic? [Not my own words or opinion, by the way - I don't even know the dude.]

Everyone in the extended family [except maybe her mother], however, supports this as her own decision and wishes her good luck. I have to quote my father on this, when he made a hilarious and oh-so-true remark that it was “better to let the kids find their own partner, because then they couldn’t blame the parents for a failed marriage.”

My parents dropped the inter-caste marriage bomb more than 20 years ago on their family, and my eldest cousin dropped the inter-racial one [and he will be dropping the now-divorced-with-a-girlfriend bomb in a few weeks too]. I am hoping that by the time all my cousins are married and already caused their own scandals, me marrying a woman won’t seem so outrageous. Unless one of my cousins come out first [now THAT would be interesting].