Kuli : Why I shall not be accepting Zaid's offer

I would have been a BN man if what Kuli speaks of "exists", it was a good and noble ideology, it would have made the "perfect" Malaysia for all Malaysian.

Article below is from Malaysian Insider on Kuli's "Why I shall not be accepting Zaid's offer" :

Why I shall not be accepting Zaid’s offer

JULY 22 — I am honoured that Datuk Zaid Ibrahim should speak so highly of me, and consider me worthy of national leadership. He invites me to join PKR, and to dissociate myself from a party which he now finds fascist and racist.

I am under no illusions that Umno is bound for destruction on its present course. Neither do I hold unrealistic expectations about the possibility of reform when the rot has gone so deep.

I offered myself for the Umno presidency last year on an agenda of thorough-going reform. I proposed a complete democratisation of Umno by opening all positions to election by every ordinary member and abolishing quotas on candidacy. I said Umno must do this to be consistent with the principle of democratic governance demanded by the Federal Constitution. Every member’s vote must count, and every member must be free to offer himself for leadership. I was stopped by the quota system that I opposed.

I am the last person to entertain illusions about the ease of reforming Umno. The party that I joined half a century ago as an idealistic young man has indeed lost its soul. It has become corrupt, this corruption has weakened it, and as it grows weaker it is tempted more and more to fan racial feeling and abuse public institutions to maintain power. This is a death spiral.

I am aware of Umno’s weaknesses. I have not failed to point them out from a sense of loyalty to the cause for which Umno was formed in 1946, a cause which our present corruption betrays.

I am not in Umno because I “harbour hope of saving Umno” in its present incarnation. I remain because the cause for which Umno was formed, and the principles which guided its promotion, has not gone away just because we have lost our way 60 years later, and they need to be upheld.

The high principle of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Ismail, their devotion to nationbuilding, their incorruptibility, their sense of fair play and their devotion to duty, exemplified for me as a young man the meaning of this cause, and how it could be both Malay and Malaysian, nationalist and cosmopolitan, traditional and contemporary, at one and the same time.

The Malay cause was not premised on an eternal zero sum game between the native and the immigrant. We meant to build a nation united by a prosperous, confident and enlightened Malay community, not a permanent state of divide and rule by political lowlife. We meant to foster Malay leadership worthy of national leadership, and we looked to our common future as Malaysia rather than to our past as people accidentally brought together by colonial history.

So much is ideal. Yet it is important that we hold up ideals in today’s moral chaos. The future of our political system lies in a healthy, competitive democracy. If so, whether or not it looks realistic right now, we shall need a reformed incarnation of this nation’s most important political party. The Umno ideal which I embraced half a century ago has a role to play in the future we hope for.

A second reason I shall not be accepting Zaid’s kind offer is that things have deteriorated to the point that party affiliation is really not the issue anymore. The issue is how we are to save our country.

Our major public institutions and our political system have degenerated to the point that the public no longer trusts them. A democratic system of government cannot function below a certain threshhold of public confidence. The suspicious death of Teoh Beng Hock under the custody of a watchdog body reporting directly to a prime minister who has his own public confidence issues may have pushed us below that threshhold.

What we must do now goes beyond political parties. We need the rakyat to rise up to claim their institutions, and demand that our public institutions are answerable to them. We must wake up to our sovereignty as citizens, reclaim the constitution which constitutes us as a nation and guarantees our rights, and demand a comprehensively reformed government to restore public confidence. We must do this before it is too late.

End of article.

What do you think? It would have made everything so much better right?

Rosemary roast chicken

It's been sometime now since I cooked something for my family, my parents and myself. I used to do it quite often back then, almost every alternate weekends. It can be something simple like pancakes, my special omelets to roast chicken, pork, seafood chowder or even turkey! Due to my schedules lately, I will get too burned out and tired to do any cooking over the weekend.
Anyway, last Saturday, I decided I should do something as I have not cook for them for a while now. It was a last minute thing as well but with enough experience, it was not difficult to get all the "things" ready. My kids love the chicken, so decided to roast their favorite rosemary chicken, plus it was the easiest to do and fast.
I usually buy the chicken thighs(including the drumstick) instead of a whole chicken because then I don't have to carve the chicken, I will only use whole chicken when I have friends or my in-laws are here. But most of the time, I prefer thighs. I need a few spices and herbs, coriander seeds, black pepper and sea salt. For herbs, I need rosemary, I have been trying to grow them but they don't seem to do well, and they all die after a while. I also use Extra Virgin Olive oil moderately during the marinating process. I prefer a mortar to pound coriander and black pepper seeds, to me it works better that using a blender to chop them. Somehow, with the mortar, the seeds release their oil better, especially the coriander seeds, the whole kitchen is suddenly fragrant. Rub the spices(coriander and black pepper) and olive oil into the chicken, and if you have some Dixon mustard, add some(depending how tangy you want it), otherwise 5 spice will do as well but I like the mustard. Lastly, add salt to chicken and make sure you "massage" the salt into the chicken. These "massage" helps break down the fiber of the meat and the chicken will taste better.
Then before you cling wrap the chicken, bruise the rosemary a little to release the oil and just tossed it around with the chicken. Now you can cling wrap or zip lock up the chicken and let the juices marinate for at least 3 hours(the longer the better), in the fridge of course.
Cooking time is about 60 minutes, so plan ahead. Bring out your oven pan, oil the pan first with olive oil and put the thighs in with skin facing top. Pre-heat oven to 180C first and then bring it down to 150C and roast the chicken for 55 minutes, you can check the roasting time as it cooks as some people like the skin a little bit more burned, so it's up to individuals but the meat will be cooked through by 50th minutes. Just play the last couple of minutes on how brown you want the skin to be. After you have taken the pan out from the oven, let it rest for at least 10 minutes, covering the pan with a sheet of aluminum foil. As for the sauce, you can just use the juices from the pan or if you have some white wine, bring the pan over a fire and boil. Add some white wine in, let it boil again and reduce, add salt and pepper to taste before serving.
So, let's dig in........bon appetite!