On the grave, about once a year, placed by grieving lovers, mothers, siblings, friends.

If this is not proof enough that gun control is essential, if Virginia Tech and Columbine hasn’t convinced us by this time that laws shouldn’t allow guns to be placed in the hands of students, I don’t quite know what will. Universities should be safe learning spaces, not places where you have to fear that your classmate is going to go ballistic anytime soon.

 Originally posted on Sayoni Speak

On a boring bus-ride home, I was just musing that last week was the week to die.

I am not being morbid, really – at that time on TVMobile, the un-switch-off-able source of entertainment that subjects you to the terrible soap operas whether you want it or not, they were splashing news about Suharto’s death. Not that no one saw it coming, because I’ll bet you they were working on the eulogy and the news-report the minute Suharto was committed to the hospital.

And of course, a week ago, Heath Ledger was found dead on the floor of his SoHo of a drug overdose. Heath Ledger, as we all know, was the handsome hunk who played the gay cowboy on Brokeback Mountain, and did a wonderful job of it. While his young and sudden death is tragic, it is not something I particularly cared about, Brokeback or no Brokeback, until this.

Fred Phelps and his merry gang of fundamentalists from the Westboro Baptist Church have decided that the best way to get themselves splashed all over the news is to protest poor Ledger’s funeral – just because he played a gay cowboy. This is the group that got themselves famous by protesting the funerals of random dead (and straight) soldiers, because they believed they were killed because God was angry with America for “supporting homosexuals”.

Okay, after reading that last sentence again, suddenly protesting Heath’s funeral doesn’t seem so far-fetched a thing to do, compared to what they have already done. At the risk of plagiarising Grey’s Anatomy… Seriously? Seriously?! How does protesting at funerals help further your cause anywhere? Even if you believe that Heath was wrong in his support of homosexuals, which you are absolutely free to believe in, protesting funerals is just wrong.

Suharto’s death elicited mixed reactions from people. While it is not nice to speak ill of the dead, the fact remains that Suharto’s regime was rife with human rights violations, despite whatever MM Lee said about him. I still don’t have much sympathy for him, dead or alive, and definitely do not agree with whatever he did. But that does not mean I would protest at his funeral. Evil, neutral or good – the family and friends deserve that space to grieve over the dead – because ultimately, we are all human. Suharo might have been a [insert expletif], but he is not inhuman, and deserves to die with dignity. His family, whether they were party to his politics or not, deserves the funeral to let go of him, with dignity and respect.

So why is it that poor Heath’s funeral is going to be violated by sign-carrying fundamentalists?

This woman, Penny Wong is seriously kick-ass. Malaysian-born, Asian, female, lesbian and appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Climate Change for Australia.

I wonder if there are any barriers she hasn’t kicked down yet.

All you Australian dykes (I know I should have at least one reading my blog), quick, send her love letters.

Addendum: I’ve been informed she is half-Caucasian, half-Asian, not Asian as I originally stated. Not that it makes much of a difference.

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.