Foong Speaks Her Mind

While almost every Malaysian is complaining and griping over the recent hike in petrol prices (yours truly included ), about 500 men and women went cycling naked in Mexico City in a ‘Save your planet, use a bicycle campaign’.

According to this piece of news by Reuters, the naked cyclists rode through the streets of Mexico’s capital last weekend in a bid to demand some respect from the drivers in the city. It seems that the city is choked with about 4 million vehicles.

One of them, Alejandro Hernandez stood in his birthday suit and said that they decided to go au natural to see if this way, the drivers will see the cyclists and not run over any more of them.

“Being naked means we aren’t invisible,” he reportedly said.

Hmmm…I don’t know about this. Won’t the naked cyclists just be drawing attention to protruding bits and pieces, perky jugs and droopy nuts and whatnots than getting their message across?

Well, a not so adroit driver may just crash into some of them while ogling at a group of passing ‘headlights’..err..women. What then? The whole purpose of the exercise will be for naught.

Anyway, it seemed that the Mexicans aren’t so easily distracted as nobody was injured in the incident, not even from seat burn from sitting on the hard seat of the bicycles without any..err..barrier. I wonder how the men did it?

But, I have to say that they are creative if nothing else. This feat at least got them some limelight since Reuters wrote about it. Too bad, if any anti-petrol hike groups decide to do it here they will probably be arrested for indecent exposure but not before the authorities have their fill of ogling any passing mammary glands regardless of shape and sizes.

After doing some navel gazing and pondering over this whole petrol hike thing, I have finally decided that it may just be a good thing after all. (The petrol hike, not the cycling naked thing, you perv) Just think. There are people willing to cycle around nude in protest against cars to save the environment. While here, we are intend on continuing to use our cars, burn more petrol and pollute more.

Perhaps it is time that we think that this measure is a way for us to cut down petrol use and save the environment. Cycling is a good way to go from one place to another for short distances but I hardly see people cycling anymore except little children at playgrounds or the fellas at La Tour de France and of course the enterprising assemblyman Teh Yee Cheu who is now cycling to China.

So, why spend hundreds on gym memberships to cycle on a stationary bike when you can do it on the road and get from one place to another?

Well, I am going to look for a bicycle now and the first thing I’m going to do is….

Learn to cycle…. (what to do lar, I have overprotective parents who felt it is not becoming for a girl to be cycling around so I never had a bicycle before in my life!)

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In view of the recent hike in petrol prices and the following outcry by all and sundry, the government, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to be exact, finally announced that they will introduce four measures to ease the burden of the people.

One of these measures is to improve public transportation. Now, did that ring a bell somewhere? Oh, yeah. The big fat liar said this same thing back in 2006. Remember the RM4.4bil which was supposedly set aside to improve public transportation for the people?

Err…where is it? What improvement? Sure, we now have RapidPenang but it is far from being a complete public transportation system for Penangites. What about the other states? I hardly think that there was much improvements generally. Then there is the withdrawal of subsidy for RapidKL.

So, let me get this straight. They will use the money saved from reducing the petrol subsidy to improve public transportation and this does not include subsidising RapidKL. Maybe I am mistaken, RapidKL must not have been a form of public transportation.

Also, where are the measures to ensure there are proper and complete public transportation in place?

Does anyone find it in any way convenient to get to work or school just by relying on public transportation?

Where are the complete public bus systems, MRT / LRT and taxies that do not cut our throats?

And what the heck is CVLB doing anyway? Why are taxies allowed to charge sky high for short distances (especially in Penang) without any concrete actions being taken?

So, sure, I am ‘really, really confident‘ that the government is going to improve on the public transportation with the money saved from cutting the petrol subsidy. Yeah, they are really BIG on keeping their words and fulfilling their promises.

Aren’t our government simply great? (sarcasm, people..sarcasm…)

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The moment I saw this type of news, the first thing that pop into mind is the endless possibilities for abuse where the cash will end up in pockets of only ‘certain people’.

I saw this piece of news over in Malaysiakini:

Ahead of an official announcement on the proposed lifting of fuel subsidies by Prime Minister Ahmad Abdullah Badawi, several measures were leaked out after a morning briefing with mainstream media organisations.

According to NST Online, which quoted a source from the cabinet committee on inflation which met yesterday, the government is likely to unveil the following measures:

• Direct cash payments to motorcyclists and small-car owners when the price of petrol goes up. The payments are expected to be made through postal orders.
• Tenaga Nasional to be allowed to increase electricity tariffs, with the exception of Sabah and Sarawak.
• No increase for LPG cooking gas and NGV for taxis.
• Gas subsidy to power industrial sector to be gradually reduced.
• Extra tax on independent power producers (IPPs) and palm oil millers

If the NST’s source is true, the fact that the cash, to be paid to motorcyclists and small car owners, will be sent through postal order is really suspicious and full of possibilities for certain people to fatten up their bank accounts.

We all know transparency is not in BN’s vocabulary so how will we know for sure that the money will be going to the right people and not back to the BN cronies?

Also, how are they going to identify the motorcyclists and small car owners who really could not afford the increased petrol prices? In these times, there are plenty of people with second cars or even third and fourth cars, one for each family member and some are small cars too. Are they eligible too?

This whole idea reeks real bad and I do hope it is merely inaccurate reporting by NST or a misheard information from an unreliable source.

Let’s not even go into the increase in electricity tariff.

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