“Tinjauan KOSMO! kelmarin mendapati, animasi seks yang lebih popular dengan panggilan Anime dijual secara berleluasa dengan harga RM15 sekeping”

Hello? Anime does not stand for “animasi seks” (pornographic animation).

For the uninitiated, Japanese comic books are known as manga while Japanese animated movies/series are known as anime. Any form of media such as photos, books, magazines, videos or websites may contain pornographic elements. However, that does not mean that all movies are pornographic, or all magazines are pornographic. Likewise, not all anime contain pornographic material. In fact, anime with porn elements in it is known as hentai.

KOSMO dear, please get your facts straight before making such sweeping statements and insulting tons of anime fans out there. What an outrage!

Let’s take a look at what the various student representatives have said in the article:

Seks boleh dipelajari tetapi ia perlu pengawasan.
- Ungku Zarith Sofiah Ungku Ibrahim (MPP UIA)

Anime ini hiburan yang berunsur negatif di sebalik permainan. Ia perlu dikekang.
- Mohamad Fauzan Mokhtar (Yang Dipertua MPP UPM)

Ini tak patut berlaku, ia mencemarkan budaya kita.
- Afidah Abu Talib (Jaksa Kolej Ungku Omar UKM)

Jangan biarkan ia terus digilai oleh belia, buruk akibatnya nanti.
- Mohammad Azhar Abdul Razak (Yang Dipertua MPP UiTM)

Saya pernah lihat dalam bentuk komik. walaupun kartun, ia tak elok.
- Melati Rosli (Jawatankuasa Perwakilan Kolej Melati, UiTM)

Anime boleh mewujudkan masalah sosial, ia tidak sepatutnya dibiarkan ada di pasaran.
- Chua Hock Kuan (Naib Yang Dipertua MPP UM)

Ungku, so do you mean sex can be learnt from watching anime? And that it’s alright if learnt in moderation?

Fauzan, anime is NOT a game.

Melati, naughty, naughty. So you’ve read hentai manga?

Chua, not you too? From UM? What an embarassment!

Some links on this issue

• CURRENT HOT TOPIC : ANIME = PORN?!?!?! blame KOSMO!
• KOSMOS MUST DIE!, Err wait, typo…minus the “s”
• Lowyat.NET: WTF!? Kosmo’s Report

The flood waters are not going down. Though the news on radio happily announced that the floods in Kedah are receding, it is a misconception. Some areas may be drying up, but in other areas, the water level is simply rising. I think the water is just moving from one place to another. Though it hasn’t been raining for the past 2 days, the flood waters have still been rising. So now that the raining has resumed, I forsee a very wet Christmas.

Where is all the water coming from? Some people claim that the dams in Thailand are leaking and that the water is being channeled here. Now that our dams are also filled to its brim, the water is being released into our rivers; thus causing the flood.

Anyway, Deb has some pictures on her blog about her flooded housing area. Click HERE to read about it.

After returning from last minute Christmas shopping, I found myself smack in the middle of what-was-a-road-now-turned-river. These shots were taken through the windscreen of my car.

I reached home to see news reports about the massive floods on all 4 channels of TV. Many homes were submerged and many lost what little assets they had. The situation was just devastating. However, the happiest ones were the kids, who were shown swimming and playing with the flood waters. Ah…the simple minded days of childhood.

The water supply here was cut since last night. I thought it was really ironic that there’s simply tons of water flowing outside, but none inside. Someone later told me that it was due to the flooded water treatment plants which were forced to be shut down, thus rendering us with no piped water. Good thing there’s still electricity and Streamyx here…hehe.

Sigh…what a mess…

Flood situation worsened in Kedah

News Update by Sira Habibu and Manjit Kaur of The Star

ALOR STAR: More than 7,000 people were evacuated from four districts last night as the flood situation worsened in Kedah.

This bring the total number of people moved to higher ground to more than 10,000 since floods hit Kedah on Saturday.

The situation in Langkawi was, however, improving while in Alor Star, the water level remained at between one and 1.5m.

The floods are back. Along with it brings memories of those days when I was still a little girl. Once a year, during the monsoon season, our school would be flooded. The first place to be submerged was the school canteen, followed by the classrooms. We would all gleefully remove our socks and shoes so that we could start playing and wading through the muddy waters with our bare feet.

I vividly remember the rows of benches aligned as to make a path enabling us to buy our food from the stalls in the canteen during recess time. Some naughty ones would try to push each other off the bench into the water, causing quite a havoc. Not to forget the fun of spotting and catching the numerous tadpoles swimming around.

After learning about the many parasites and bacteria that would have been present in those muddy waters, I hereby understand why my dad would scold me whenever I came home with muddy clothes, socks and shoes after playing at the newfound “waterpark”. I used to think he was such a killjoy. After all, everyone was having fun, why couldn’t I?

Anyway, mini floods may have been fun during childhood days, but severe floods are no big joke. People actually die due to floods, homes are actually damaged and destroyed, and people are actually homeless and stranded. Apart from that, my small town was actually jammed up due to the diversion of traffic from the flooded areas.

I sincerely hope that the flood waters will recede soon…