The Possum Bistro

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One by one, they crept out of the woodwork. Some scurrying, some crawling at a lackadaisical pace, oblivious to the sheer activity around them. Ears popped, tails grew, busts expanded, colours exploded - the metamorphosis had begun, and Halloween was here.

Walking around campus on Oct 31, I had already noticed that students here are seriously into the whole festive spirit of Halloween, decked in superhero costumes that tend to exagerrate rather than accentuate existing figures; or witch hats and wizard capes; or another random monstrosity from one of many forgettable horror flicks churned out every year. Occasionally, the mainstays - Scream masks, Frankenstein - would surface, lending to the timelessness of their appeal.

Fred picked us up from Rieber Hall at around 3pm, taking an alternative route to his house that took about 2 full hours just to beat the horrendous traffic that Los Angeles is so well-known for. The freeways were beginning to pack tightly by mid-afternoon, though the weather was more forgiving this Friday as clouds had peppered the sky since Thursday afternoon. It was amazing to think that drivers in LA could acclimatise somehow to the claustrophobic pressures of being stuck in traffic for a good 2-3 hours on a daily basis without having the urge to take public transportation, which also underscores how inaccessible and inefficient the system is here.

Arriving at Fred and Rose's house, the familiar sight of their humble abode simply washed off the tensions generated from one hectic week at campus. Upon the steps of the front porch, we heard the comforting, staccato (yes, Preeya, I got it right this time) barks and pit-pattering of paws on the parquet flooring as Chi-chi scurried forth to greet us. He is such an adorable dog, and I never thought I'd ever find myself being acquainted or comfortable with an animal around me, since I've never been one to keep a pet.


Which marks one of several firsts in California: my first time that I've had a chihuahua sit on my lap, cuddled comfortably as he lets me stroke his back, behind his ears, ruffling his skin around his neck. Chi-chi has definitely earned his place in the hearts of us three, and Fred joked that the only thing we could remember when we returned to Singapore would be Chi-chi - we were literally showering so much attention on the little one!

While waiting for Rose to prepare her baby back ribs, oxtail and saffron rice, we headed out into the neighbourhood to preview the decorations that others had laboriously set up.

As you can see, the pumpkin makes for a good bolster of sorts.

Be wary of the seductively beautiful...

...for evil lurks closely behind.

Obviously, some undertaker tried to scrimp on the six-feet-under prerequistite.

We also had, in order to please our constituencies, take some time out for campaigning. The difference between us and political action committees (PACs) that are behind the Obama and McCain campaigns? We are self-funded (so no special interests linked to Washington - score one point), self-staffed (Preeya and Kaixian are members of my group, Preeya and I are members of Kaixian's group, Kaixian and I are members of Preeya's group), and self-absorbed.

The Republican...

...the cynical Democrat...

...and the disgruntled Independent!

The girls' best attempt at looking kawaii!

Fred had bought these sheikh robes from Egypt, and Rose simply insisted that I wear them just in the festive spirit of Halloween, along with the girls on one end of the room egging me on. In any case, I did not convincingly look like either Saudi royalty or the rich owner of Chelsea.

This was Michael's first Halloween, so it definitely was special - even more so that his first and our first Halloween experience would coincide! His inexperience was evident when he said "trick or treat!", and then proceeded to walk past the front door, into the house before stopping midway and standing there, wondering what to do next.

Peter Pan just kept his globular eyes trained on my D60.

And to top it off, Rose had noticed that I had mentioned that I love crossaints the other day, so she actually made them herself for us to bring back to our apartments to eat the following morning! Her oxtail was just fantastic, seriously - the faint wisp of red wine diffusing as one chewed through the succulent, soft meat off the bones of oxtail was irresistable. Couple that with delicious baby back ribs that were glistening off the oven rack, and fragrant saffron rice that reminded us of the type that we usually have back home - we truly are grateful to have Fred and Rose take care of us here, and we thank both of them deeply for everything they have done so far to make our stay in California so much more memorable.

On the campus front, we've been able to handle the workload rather efficiently so far, even though I must admit that somehow psychologically, it was indeed rather taxing at one point in time. And her voice penetrated the negativity that was beginning to surround my vision at that time, like a sunbeam piercing ruthlessly through, evaporating the darkness and showing me what I was actually capable of. She reminded me of who I am, why I am here, and that led me to recover from that brief and unsavoury encounter with something that I have always vowed never to become.

To her, I dedicate this entry, just like every other entry before - for each letter that I scribe, I feel the inspiring power of her words run through the course of my veins, into my fingers as they fly across the keyboard, surging with purpose. I feel the tenderness of her voice permeating the harshness of the static generated by the travelling of sound waves across continents as they are filtered through numerous channels and devices; and as it arrives, it electrifies even with its gentle embrace.

I cannot find words to display my gratitude, and so I endeavour with every inch of effort I can exert from my mind, body and soul to keep her safe, because to see her hurt would render my heart asunder; to let her keep me safe, because I trust her as I have never trusted anyone before; to devote to her my heart, because we deserve each other.

Stepping out of campus is such an exhilarating feeling, and it is acquiring an addictive element to it each weekend that we spend on campus grounds. This was to be the last outing that Fred and Rose could take us on before they left for their journey to Egypt, and we were just anticipating as to what we would see in Malibu.

Fred and Rose stopped by this Jewish franchise diner, and the first thought that popped into my mind was that classic scene from Pulp Fiction, when John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson are talking in the diner with the red plush cushions, and a hold-up happens!

I just ordered a simple cappuchino, just like Preeya and Kaixian did. It was frothy - just like it should be - and certainly welcome on a lazy Saturday morning, in a classic American diner.

Arriving at the Hindu temple at Malibu, we felt a certain sense of propriety descend upon the place, and I found myself even more conscious of the fact that I had to be respectful of the sanctity of the temple, the practices, the people visiting, the devotees offering their prayers, the priests offering blessings. Employing self-perception theory, I believe that I must have felt compelled to behave more sensitively to the situation because this place represented a metaphor for something close to home, something "untouched" by the less-than-savoury aspects of life in California.

Santa Monica was indeed pretty, yet it offered no glimpses of the crazy waves that California is well-known for. That was until our feet touched the sands of Malibu Beach, where we were greeted on a chilly day to crashing waves, thick-skinned surfers in their Speedos or Spandex, and frigid waters that actually sent Preeya into hysterical yelps. I, on the other hand, was just too happy to be able to feel the warm, soft sand at my feet as I dug them in, and the smell of the sea rushing up with every crescendo. It felt as if no matter where I ventured, the beach would find me.

Fred drove us to a diner near the beach, one that he had been talking about for quite a while. Neptune's Net reminded Kaixian and I of the fish-and-chips eateries right beside the harbours of Australia, especially Fremantle where smoked sardines and chilli mussels were accompanied by a cool glass of Semillon Sauvignon Blanc or two. We were just estatic to be able to taste seafood again, and we became acquainted with something delicious called crabcakes.

I have to learn how to make crabcakes. Surely you must agree!

Truth be told, Malibu's coastline accommodation is a sheer work of disfigured trash posing as uninspired architecture. Not only does the exterior look like it could be used for the next Hollywood movie involving Communist-era Eastern European buildings, the accessibility problem (houses right next to the Pacific Coast Highway) and terrible location with regard to sound pollution lead us to scratch our heads and wonder why anyone could even want to live near the beach.

Back to Santa Monica and the pier with the amusement park. I initially imagined that this was exactly where Ryan and Marissa of The O.C. had taken that ferris wheel ride, but apparently this wasn't it.

Just a few observations that are worth mentioning, before the kookiness of this place called California start compelling me to address the stirring dissonance within my mind that some individuals can't possibly be that irritating.

Dinner at Rieber was superb by any standards - if there were any to begin with - tonight, for we were treated (at a cost of US$8.25) to dory fish with tangy sauce and spaghetti with meatballs. We probably were the most passionate patrons of the fish counter as we went back for unabashed seconds, thirds and fourths. One must understand that seafood here is as common as any Hollywood-made Chinese movie with a villian not played by Jet Li.

Even the tomato basil soup didn't raise suspicions of culinary skill, and that earned Rieber a decisive three points to take them to a comfortable second place in the rankings. While De Neve clearly held her ground this week with the ever-dependable pasta, the name-changing chicken slabs and lasagna, Covell did not manage to capture any points as of yet due to a rather non-tantalising menu all week. Hedrick played it safe with his two-trick pony of a sushi bar this week, leaving them at a cosy second place.

The dessert - chocolate brownie - probably clinched it for Preeya tonight, for she completely embraced her unusual, oh-my-gawd-this-is-sooo-good side for about a good thirty seconds before the plate was licked clean.

Friday is approaching, and with it the much-awaited weekend. Tomorrow is Anatomy's night, and I just can't wait to kick back and enjoy, after what has seemed to be a rather hectic week.

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert have been informing me of the latest campaign gaffes by Palin, McCain and company, and it's only three weeks to the elections! I'm thrilled at the fact that we're right smack in the centre of the malestrom of American politics as the nation decides its own future - kind of, if one could wish away the ingrained doctrines, fossilised special interest group linkages, bureaucratic legacies and organisational constraints of administrations past.

Aside from the obvious cynicism that Jon and Steven have never failed to remind us of every single weeknight as we gingerly tread towards Indecision 2008, I'm nevertheless anticipating the outcome of this sometimes-ugly contest between two men of entirely different styles and personalities. Why? So that America need not watch the mud-slinging tactics and sometimes downright vicious personal attacks being made against the candidates that have perpetuated and exacerbated prejudice and partisanship - which will, if left untreated, render American faultlines even clearer than before. As a pundit had remarked, the person who seeks victory must remind himself that he cannot pursue it simply at any cost: he will have to heal the rift that he sought to exploit to galvanise his core support groups when he assumes the presidency.

Three weeks separate the American public between the old era of profilgate spending, callous foreign policy and devastating economic problems, and the new era of hope and change - or so they all seem to think. Ironically, a man expected to play it safe in the wake of the exit of one of Britain's most prolific prime ministers has emerged as the trumpeted agent of change: Gordon Brown, finally showing some promise that he may be able to step out of Blair's shadow.

On November 4, someone will triumph. Long after November 4, we will then know whether the American people or the age-old partisanship of Washington has triumphed.

Five weeks separate that momentous day in American politics and the end of the quarter, and time shall expediently be spent.

A solitary week of anticipation, possibly wandering through the bright lights of glitzy casinos and mesmerising razzle-and-dazzle spectacles at the Bellagio and the MGM, before another week of pure, innocent delight with Disney's beloved and timeless creations of decades past.

And it will have arrived - the shrinking freeways and boulevards, the towering palm trees reduced to dandelions far down beneath, slicing the clouds with precision and purpose; the dry air permeating, the occasional grunt and creaking of chairs as bodies shift in search of temporary comfort before the next ache sets in, and the dim luminescence of yellow illuminating the lone reader as she lackadaisically pores through the pages while others lie around her in peaceful slumber.

Anticipating it requires purely an exercise at visualisation.

Anticipating that we will be holding each other again - that demands of me more than simple imagination. It is not merely visual - it is intense, electrifying, energising. And it keeps me going even though its demands are relentless, because I know for certain she has been holding up strongly against its demands as well, and that assures me that it is worth every ounce of effort.

Soon, my dearest.

Even China doesn't have lanterns hanging from street to street all the time.

Sun Yat Sen's memorial sculpture - apparently, the Chinese community in LA just celebrated its 70th anniversary, which spans close to perhaps two or three generations of Chinese Americans. A common topic of conversation among us these days is how detached the current youth of Chinese Americans is from their root culture and heritage. Everything about them save their physical appearance shouts "American", and if parents do not consciously provide their children with cultural education and knowledge about traditional customs and practices, these future generations will only cling onto the American variant.

Furthermore, given the ascendance, proliferation and popularisation of American culture, it seems unlikely that Asian-Americans would resist the temptation to associate themselves with a dominant culture that allows them to circumvent their minority status and maintain more inclusive relationships with native-born Americans. Yet we believe that retaining one's heritage and assimilating into a foreign one are not mutually exclusive goals, for we as cosmopolitan individuals in an increasingly globalised world should be able to feel proud of being members of one culture and ambassadors of another. Only then can cultural diversity, and not cultural uniformity, be entrenched.

Then we realise for ourselves how blessed we are to be in Singapore, to be able to speak our mother tongue, to discover an identity for ourselves that encompasses more than just being part of a nation-state. Nationalism is a construct, and while some may argue that ethnicity may be as well, the traditions and customs that we practise in Singapore, including the language that we speak - all these aspects reinforce an identity that we can fall back on for comfort and familiarity. And it is such a loss that Asian Americans who shun their original identity just to blend in.

We also managed to visit one of the largest Buddhist temples in LA and offer our prayers. Kaixian was extremely contented after the visit, and Preeya is looking forward to visiting the Hindu temple in Malibu. Just being able to find spiritual comfort in religion, especially in a foreign land, is highly reassuring. I felt there and then the true essence of what they call "transcending boundaries" - finding deep resonance with one's religion no matter where one may reside.

Drove over to Beverly Hills, home of the rich and the famous, the scandal-ridden and the tabloid-hoggers.

Beverly Hills is pretty and posh, but there's really nothing too fantastic about it. To me, it's like deconstructing the Paragon on Orchard Road and placing the boutiques side-by-side on the road such that it stretches from Far East to Cineleisure. Not impressed.


The La Brea tar pits, where one can witness the bubbling of methane and carbon dioxide from below, emitted from the decomposition of fossils millions of years ago. Animals wandered too close to the pits and then became stuck; predators saw the animals who were stuck and wandered too close and then they became stuck, and so on.

Plus we were walking along the pavement when we bypassed a couple walking their dogs. The man was a tad pudgy but of considerable height and build, greyish hair and a greyish beard. I jokingly remarked to Preeya and Kaixian that the man reminded me of William Petersen from CSI, or Grissom.

It was him.

Then the gasping begun with the girls, to which I was rather nonchalant about, me not being an ardent fan of CSI, though there was that tinge of star-struck-ness tingling somewhere in my gut.

A fulfilling and reassuring weekend spent, and we're satisfied indeed.

Two weeks have gone by, with six more to go for the presidential election on November 4. After that, another five before I meet up with Mingwei and Joyce for Disneyland in Anaheim. Then after that, I'm home-bound - to my family, my dear friends.

And of course, to her warm and soft embrace, for which I crave and yearn every single moment that I am here.

Tempura udon - a life-saver in the land of high-cholesterol, calorie-clogged burgers, fries, steaks and tacos. Preeya can almost see the angels descending and the spotlight shining down on earth.

We decided to visit Downtown LA today, and although we didn't cover as much as I initially wanted to, at least we managed to see the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the interior of which seemed to be of a temporarily high priority for one of us as she had to visit the bathroom urgently.

The Japanese American museum was closed today - what a shame, because I'm positively sure it would have fascinated them. Still, I'm insistent that they come back another day to view the exhibits, because it's important that people know about this so that they can learn from the mistakes of the past and realise for themselves the fragility of security and liberty.

Of course, the major highlight of our expedition today was Little Tokyo, where we plunged into a smorgasbord of Japanese cuisine and culture, beginning with steaming bowls of udon, donburi and ramen. The miso soup was surprisingly mild, just like the Japanese would have done it.

This is a clear example of how NOT to do fusion food.

Though the ladies apparently love it!

The transportation system in LA is, to put it succintly enough so as to avoid mischaracterisation, crap. Some areas are entirely inaccessible by rail, and so the bus is the only method of public transportation. Even worse, convenience stores stocking food items may be plentiful, but those stocking essential household items such as those found in IKEA or IMM are located at some remote corner of the sprawling metropolis, forcing us to have to walk for blocks before we could finally find a place to purchase my bed linen.

I've already moved into my new campus apartment, and settled in with my other roommates, Satoru and Diego. They have been extremely accommodating and pleasant, so I foresee that my stay here till December 12th will not be too troublesome. Cooking might be a problem because there are no utensils, so we might have to buy them, though it hardly makes sense to purchase them since I will only be here in LA till December. As for meals, the Bruin (that's what they call UCLA-affiliated material) outlets and the Westwood Village eateries are pretty decent, so I'm not too worried.

First week in Los Angeles, thirteen more to go. We're headed for Universal Studios soon, with Chinatown and dim sum this weekend, and San Fran the week after. Busy, we will be; but busying ourselves shall keep us preoccupied and not too focused on counting down to the time we fly back home.

For I miss her more than ever, and to miss her even more would be seemingly unbearable. Yet I shall bear it, for she is worth every sensation of aching.

No, this is not a commercial for the car, which has nothing to do with MOCA. It just looks well-positioned.

Venturing into Little Tokyo in Downtown LA, the Japanese American Museum caught my attention and so I went in, pleasantly discovering that there was free admission. Once I managed to find the exhibits inside the building, I realised that there was a lot of material regarding the internment of Japanese Americans during and after the Second World War, after Japanese forces had infamously bombed Pearl Harbour.

Much of the material was presented in an unbiased manner, given that they rightfully revealed the injustices and prejudicial attitudes displayed by members of the US government under Roosevelt and later Eisenhower, two men whose decisions eventually led to the order to discriminate against Japanese American communities in America by relocating them, seizing their assets, holding them in detention without trial and so on.

The most insidious aspect of the entire event was the fact that the government had approved the construction of so-called detention centres and holding areas to house these Japanese Americans indefinitely - convenient euphemisms for concentration camps. While the museum clearly showed that most of the Japanese Americans housed in the camps managed to live life rather normally by engaging in activities, games and work to keep themselves occupied, the fact that they had to contend with nasty conditions (since the workmanship of the building infrastructure was sloppy) such as the dust from the desert, or the icy winds that slipped through the cracks in the building floors and walls made it unnecessarily uncomfortable.

Even more unconscionably, the internment of these Japanese Americans was plainly persecution at work, since the government did not seem to have any intention to discern between the guilty and the innocent. Instead, they opted for a catch-and-ask-questions-later approach, imprisoning people and assuming their loyalty was to the Japanese emperor and therefore indicative of their willingness to die for him in the war against America.

What terrified me as I walked around the exhibits was not the fact that the Japanese Americans actually managed to keep their lives despite being in concentration camps, but that they were made to think that they might never return to their homes, their property, their families and lead the lives they sought to make for themselves when they ventured to America, the supposed land of freedom. While apologists for the decision to intern these Japanese Americans may say that concentration camps run by Americans would never have degenerated into those run by Nazi Germany, that argument can be demolished simply by identifying its hindsight bias. If Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were allowed to happen in the recent decade, then why not in the 1940s and 1950s, when media coverage was so much less, when people questioned less of government and allowed it greater scope for freedom to do whatever it wanted in the name of security?

The Japanese Americans who endured the experience tried to sound positive by saying that while they knew how precious freedom was in the world (and that they had found it in America), they were paying quite a price for it as they became the target of discrimination. As the museum exhibits mentioned, this incident would reveal just how fragile freedom actually was - that the rights of American citizens could be so frivolously and callously discarded on grounds of such primordial attributes such as race, religion and ethnicity.

I left the museum feeling absolutely disgusted by the fact that Japanese Americans who signed up for the US Army to fight the war against Nazi Germany and its Axis partners had to live with the fact that while they were putting their lives on the line for America, somewhere else their families were being housed in a concentration camp, enduring the indignity of it all. How brave they must have been, but they should not have been forced to take such an insult.

Anyone who still believes that freedom as an ideal can somehow be innate, or fundamentally ingrained in society or the individual, is a fool. There will always be people willing to subject freedom to its knees for the sake of their own objectives, and it is in society's interest and responsibility of citizens that they do not allow their passions to dictate their actions and persecute the convenient scapegoats. Freedom is a highly-valued concept, but the American administration and those who harboured intentions to discriminate all Japanese Americans simply on the basis of their nationality certainly failed to display their courage to uphold the very ideal they said they were fighting for.

Met up with Preeya and Kaixian in UCLA itself, and also with a German student, Paul, and a Chilean student, Gunther (who has a German name only because his parents wanted to continue reflecting the German blood in him, passed down by his great-grandfather - though he doesn't have a German accent). We headed for our first stop: the place immortalised by Savage Garden's song - Santa Monica!


Look at the vast expanse between the shore and the pier!


I'm speechless - Santa Monica takes the cake for being just gorgeously peaceful, untouched, vast and beautiful. Even the beachfront property has that coastal Mediterranean feel to it! Though it's nothing compared to the Interlaken scenery in Switzerland, the beaches here are incomparable to anywhere else, except maybe Thailand.

Venice Beach is also extremely pretty, though the tourist-infested walkways do turn me off quite a bit. They actually have people who sell drugs here openly, while I suspect that anyone selling what they call "incense" is really using euphemisms. Preeya bought an Obama tee, while Kaixian and I couldn't seem to find any McCain/Palin ones.

That's Royce Hall, if I'm not mistaken. UCLA is very much like NUS in a sense that you will have killer calves by the end of the quarter. The number of steps and the distance between buildings means that you'll be huffing and puffing all the way from one class to the next. I already foresee sprinting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I'll be hoping to do Usain Bolt proud.

More star-spotting today as I manage to catch the amazing Vanessa Williams - discovered that she was the first black Miss America! And of course, I have her music album of years ago, and I absolutely adore Wihelmina Slater-Meade in all her diabolical glory.

Before Rotten Tomatoes came along, I regarded this man's word as the gospel truth in terms of what movies were actually worth my time. Roger Ebert, you still have my respect, and always will.

The hills are alive with the sound of music...Julie Andrews, sing! Sing for me! (two fully intended allusions to two different musicals, if you can spot them)

The just-as-important purpose of this shot is also showcasing the Hollywood sign at the back, not just our faces.

A cheery Biden, a towering Obama, a stumpy McCain and a glamorous Palin. I seriously want a Palin tee.

Kaixian mentioned something that struck me as true: while Americans may not be any nicer than Europeans, and though European culture may be more attractive overall, the one thing that differentiates the former from the latter is that at least in LA, we don't feel as though we stand out so much because of the amazing diversity of this place! We blend in easily and thus we don't feel as though we are observing on the outside, and thus we can at least get some perspective on how Americans interact with one another.

Then two more arrived. Initially, it seemed that these two might prove a much-needed counterweight to the first two, but when one of them was caught dolling herself up while on her bed, these expectations just crumbled.

Then one more arrived just this afternoon. At least she doesn't seem to be the sort to lay her undergarments around, though this can only be affirmed in the days to come.

Being the only guy in a 6-person mixed dorm room at the hostel is no joke. I'd like to apologise beforehand about airing the dirty laundry of these fellow roommates, but their habits are getting on my nerves. They leave their dropped hair (the result of obsessive-compulsive combing and primping) all over the basin and charge their electrical appliances in the bathroom (have they heard that water is an extremely good conductor of electricity? I believe that fact was established decades ago). However, I think I can endure this till this Sunday, when I move into my campus apartment at UCLA.

Which reminds me of my dad's hastiness at requesting for an all-male dorm room while we were staying in Berlin - I had thought it was because he was uncomfortable with the presence of scantily-clad girls prancing around in boy shorts. After witnessing one guy in bed with one of the girls (fully-clothed), I can see that sloppiness is further promoted by the presence of the other sex. This morning, I found another guy in the same bed with the girl. Different guy, butt-naked, same girl. No comment.


All hostel-related laundry aside, I decided to visit Downtown LA today, making my way to El Pueblo, the historic site of Mexican culture in Los Angeles. The facade of most of the preserved buildings was really attractive and authentic, reminding me of the buildings that I had been gawking at in Europe, especially in the stone villages near the Swiss town of Locarno. While it was extremely tourist-oriented (which blocked the view of the buildings), I still managed to get a sense of the natural friendliness and activity of the Latino community in LA.


The burrito for lunch was simply too huge to fully consume! I must learn to order less next time. Passing by authentic Mexican restaurants and spotting a glass whose rim was salted in the corner of my eye, I couldn't help but scan the prices of the margaritas being sold - the costs were enough to deter me for now. Plus the fact that it's always better to enjoy drinks with the right company!


Some serious walking was done today as I managed to see almost all the prominent buildings in Downtown, including the famous Walt Disney Theatre (which provided the backdrop for the latest Volkswagen Touran commercial by Seal and Heidi), home of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. How much I wish she were here with me to enjoy a concert by the orchestra together - that I can see her listen to one of the world's greatest Philharmonic bands is reward in itself.


The cathedral here looks extremely polished and modern, drawing controversy the way Singaporeans get stirred up and bothered by mega-rich churches such as City Harvest, which tend to spend a lot of money to construct ever-grander megaplexes to house their followers during mass. However, this particular cathedral actually also doubles as a memorial for the victims of the Rwandan genocide, promoting peace and reconciliation between the victimised and the perpetrators, the Hutus and the Tutsis, their history and the present - because the future of Rwanda and its citizens depends on how successful rehabilitation and reconcilation on a national and regional scale are.


I just don't get contemporary art - visiting the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) was such a bewilderingly frustrating experience because I couldn't get any idea as to why the artist even made their pieces to be put on display. I fully support the proliferation of ideas, that they should not be forced to conform to distinct prerequisites before they are considered for galleries (like SAM does), but I just can't help but think that there is a very fine line between self-obsession and true talent, and only one warrants admiration and praise and even justifies pride or arrogance by the artist. The other one just deserves to be canned.

Yet there were a select few that indeed seemed intriguing by themselves without delving into too convoluted a message.

This picture I found it just hilarious - the birth of the O.K.


Hence, in my personal opinion, classical art renders that line clearer to see, while contemporary art strives to blur that line and leave it all to subjectivity.

I mean, this could be art.

The L.A. Times building that stands impressively in marble.

This building might seem rather random and perhaps a pretentious attempt at architecture, but those open windows of this office building are actually slanted at different angles depending on the outside temperature! The panels will constantly reorientate themselves in order to save energy.

Ronald Reagan - the actor who became one of America's greatest presidents in modern history. After reading d' Souza's book, how could I not pay homage to the Great Communicator? Funnily enough, I'm thinking about the Great Orator Obama himself as I type this, and I wonder whether the latter has the substance to stand head-to-head with Reagan, especially when Obama is so concerned about managing his public image instead of talking about his policy plans.

Best band ever. Period.

Igor Stravinsky - his Rite of Spring that she introduced me to certainly struck a raw nerve within me, unsettling and disturbing, even for a moment.

The second day beckons as I stroll down Sunset Boulevard - the sprawling metropolis with its buildings spaced generously far apart certainly infuses a laid-back feeling to the entire place. Perhaps this is more European-esque urban planning than anything else, though the main difference is that European cities have curved streets, while LA is obsessively grid-like.

Taking someone's advice, I visited the Amoeba Music store and was taken aback by the amount of vintage material they have over there - from vinyl records to cassette tapes, used CDs sold at low prices to memorabilia of bands old and new, this is literally the treasure trove for music lovers of any genre, though they have a giant section for rock (their classification of certain artistes under rock is suspect). Next to the store is the CNN building.


One of LA's mega-malls on Hollywood Boulevard, replete with Bugis-like fountains, restaurants, eateries, boutique shops (Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren, Victoria's Secret) and pretentious architecture...

...as evinced by this elephant perched on a pedestal etched with what seems like hieroglyphics - deliberate fusion of Hindu and Egyptian influences, or a hijacking of exotic cultures for pure attention-grabbing purposes? You decide.

Took a guided tour of Sid Grauman's Chinese Theatre (which was occupied the day before by the premiere of Eagle Eye) and was shown the interior: the largest wide-screen theatre in the United States today. Apparently, Sid Grauman imported Shanghainese lanterns, marble (for the octagonal pillars), wax figures dating back decades ago among other eclectic items. I was just irked by the need to play cheesy Oriental instrumental pieces outside the temple, with the toilet signs in English but in Oriental font - while attempting to be respectful (perhaps?) of Chinese culture, is rather corny and phony.

Robin Williams' slab right outside the Chinese theatre, with his famous "Carpe Diem" quote from Dead Poets' Society inscribed there. Among other luminaries that grace the slabs outside the theatre: from Marilyn Monroe to Samuel L. Jackson, James Dean to Brad Pitt. I managed to spot Michael Caine's (he was the butler in the recent Batman movies, among other films) and Christopher Walken's slabs!

Of course, how could I miss Harrison Ford's piece?

Even the three young starlets of Harry Potter fame grace Grauman's theatre front, displaying the contemporary aspect of this exhibition. Some selected members of the cast of Ocean's Thirteen also managed to get their palms in the concrete: Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Sandra Bullock - my very first favourite female actress, capturing my attention in Speed and While You Were Sleeping, then in the hilarious Miss Congeniality with all that snorting and gangliness. And of course, The Lake House with Keanu Reeves. She hasn't lost her touch at all, and she still has that quirky yet graceful disposition about her all these years that we find so comfortingly familiar. Timeless, she is.

This technique is known as shadow-posturing (as I have termed it), something I've found to be rather useful as it is difficult to take pictures of myself with the Nikon D60.

Visited one of LA's contemporary art exhibitions located just around the corner from the hostel, and came across this exhibit, which reminded me so much of the sculptures I saw in Oslo, Norway!

Until it turned rather grotesque with the little men spearing the big man with toothpicks. Another even featured two adults (a couple) holding the baby between them with just their teeth - looks a lot like cannibalism. Disturbing!

Saying farewell - even temporarily - was always going to be tough, but it had to be done somehow.

Transit in Narita, Tokyo - my first time stepping foot on Japanese soil!

Where packaging and presentation are highly valued - look at the mini-pastries!

Finally, Los Angeles! The palm trees dot the landscape ubiquitously, lending the city a laid-back, vast landscape with yawning spaces and the absence of any claustrophobic feeling, unlike metropolitan cities like New York, Tokyo and Singapore.

Of course, the grid-like structure of LA that is so famous: I actually mistook the houses for parked cars from the plane's view from above, since they were so neatly arranged! Boulevards stretch for miles - if you think Champs Elysees is long, LA's roads seem to be incomparably limitless as they stretch into the horizon.

Union Station - impressive architecture both on the outside and the inside.

Spotted the famous Hollywood sign as I was strolling down Hollywood Boulevard towards my hostel.
Kodak Theatre - the staging venue for some of the past American Idol finales!

The very first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that made me stop and stare: the one and only Ella Fitzgerald!

And her incomparable counterpart, Louis Armstrong.

The great Houdini. Enough said.

The Heroes craze continues with the much-anticipated third volume, Villians.




The media positioning for the best shots of the stars before they arrive...




Shia returning to the red carpet - can you spot him?

Jimmy Kimmel filming his live talk show with this cooking segment being held outside the recording theatre.

Will you vote for the revolutionary or the rebel?

Overview

The American presidential campaign seemed to be leaning in favour of Sen. Barack Obama after the thunderous reception given by Democratic Party luminaries and supporters at the convention in Denver. Sen. John McCain's thrust as the Republican maverick that dared to defy the establishment's strong positions on key issues was threatening to fall flat in the face of Obamania and its seductively simple mantra of "change". Yet McCain's shock selection of Governor Sarah Palin has - at the very least - reinjected buzz about the Republican ticket, an infusion of energy that has suggested that the Republicans may have the potential to challenge Obama's monopoly on talk about "change".

Why Palin?

Gender as a variable provides the opportunity for McCain to make an extremely cynical and calculated political move. Out of the five candidates that McCain was considering (Pawlenty, Romney, Lieberman, Palin and Tom Ridge) for his running mate, Palin was the only female. Obviously, McCain is counting on those Clinton supporters to spurn Obama and vote for him instead, given that Obama had chosen Joseph Biden as his running mate, failing to even seriously consider Hillary.

Fundamentally, the Republican machinery is banking on the after-effects of the Democrats' own efforts in playing up the fact that a woman may actually become president. The precedent of a woman being able to generate so much political momentum and interest that the prospect of a female president actually became possible was set by an ambitious Hillary Clinton on her campaign trail, and she almost made history before Obama blitzed past her. Picking Palin also serves to resurrect painful divisions within the Democratic ranks as pro-Clinton supporters continue to be reminded of exactly how close Hillary was to becoming the party nominee, and her speech at the convention may be characterised as "noble", or even martyr-esque. Embittered Hillary supporters may decide to back Palin if their paramount objective is to see women's issues being addressed. A cursory glance at McCain, Obama and Biden reveals the simple conclusion: women's issues are nowhere near the top of their agenda.

Track record

Palin's experience as a governor, while too limited to extrapolate and predict how well she would do if elected into office, is by no means impressive. She had quit the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in January 2004 that she had chaired from 2003 to 2004 over what she had termed the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members, following up with formal complaints against the state Republican chairman that eventually ended up with the latter resigning and paying a record US$12,000 fine for conflict-of-interest issues. She was the one who stopped the "Bridge to Nowhere", but lest someone accuse me of oversimplifying the issue, let us review the facts.

She had seemingly understood the Alaskan voters' pain at others calling their place "nowhere" when she was running for governor, which has exposed her to charges of hypocrisy as she has found it useful to adopt the "Bridge to Nowhere" slogan as proof of her courage to stand up against special interests and politicians seeking to profit from earmarks. The state, however, kept the money originally earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge, something Palin had conveniently failed to point out while delivering her first speech as presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Yet while people are focusing so much on the fact that she basically flip-flopped on the very issue she rode on to become elected as a governor, the more salient point to be made here is less obvious to the general public: she dared to stand up against profiteering politicians and bureaucrats. Alaskans are nursing their injured pride that Palin has betrayed a cause she once called her own, that Palin looks reluctant to return and defend the interests of the state she is supposed to be serving.

Yet one main reason why politicians can still get away with corruption is because they can count on their constituencies to think narrowly and lobby in terms of protecting their own "interests" against other states for a share of the national budget. What clearly evades Palin's detractors is that she has braved criticism and stigmatisation from her colleagues in the establishment, risking even support from her own political base in Alaska to make a point: special interests can become deceptively conflated with "state interests", and you may find yourself defending the wrong one. She dared to separate the two at this instance, while others only sought to preserve their share of the spoils.

Obama

For Obama, the challenge is to keep the media spotlight trained onto him while the Republicans attempt to stir things up with Palin's shock nomination. He knows that it is extremely important to keep the momentum from the Denver convention going so as to consolidate his support early to prevent Clinton voters from seceding to the Republican camp. The recent controversy surrounding Palin's pregnant daughter has cast doubt on the quality of McCain's vetting procedures, but Obama has warned that reporters should "back off these kinds of stories".

While it is certainly commendable that Obama has forcefully spoken up about the limits of the media and the unsavoury politicisation of family matters, his remark also comes at a time when news is trickling through the cracks, concerning his half-brother George, who lives on US$1 a month in Nairobi. Andrew Breitbart was one of the very few who carried the story in the American media, and the abject lack of willingness of other journalists to shed more light on the issue has convinced me that the media is consciously intending to portray Obama as one who can do no wrong. Their justification for painting such a pretty picture: America needs a revolution in politics, and only Obama can do it. Ever watched "Man of the Year"?

People will criticise that I am judging Obama as to why he has not extended a helping hand to his own half-brother in Nairobi, because to do so would be involving his family members. Yet isn't that the way Americans operate in terms of picking their candidates? Obama's charismatic appeal is considerably boosted by his image as a family man, and Michelle Obama's speech at the convention clearly displayed the Obama political machinery's intentions to paint that portrait of the man of the moment. Is Obama afraid that Palin's portrait may be painted as favourable despite the controversy surrounding her now, and thus contribute to a more intimate understanding of the woman?

That Palin returned to her job only three days after giving birth to her special-needs child may be spun as her not getting her priorities right. How can you expect Palin to govern the country if she doesn't even know how to take care of her own family? Yet the fact that she has steadfastly practised what she has been preaching about pro-life not only speaks of her strong convictions, but also that she is human like everyone else.

Agent of change

My point is this: regardless of how much either side is going to spin it (and I don't think I need to tell you that they won't miss a single opportunity to do so), any amount of publicity for Palin will only help in painting a more intimate portrait of her. She fits nicely with McCain's "maverick" status, adding to the cohesiveness of the campaign message that these two will not hesitate to challenge the status quo and risk going against public opinion or confronting demagoguery within their own party.

She has yet to be tested as to whether she can stand up against the system of patronage and corruption that has plagued American politics as effectively as she has done in her own state, but her track record shows that at least she has the potential to usher perhaps what Obama promises to be a new era of fresh politics. It may only be a perception, but in American politics, perception is everything. Obama knows it, and that will keep him on his toes now that Palin has arrived.

In Obama's own rhetoric, she stands for "change".

A faded picture to remember him by, that which does not do the Great Communicator justice, but which is what he would have wanted.

To be perfectly honest, I do not know much about the American presidency and its occupants, and regrettably enough there are only a select few modules at my university that actually focus on the U.S. as a sole topic. Having being born only half a decade before the spectacular implosion of the Soviet Union, as a kid then I did not have strong recollections of Bush Senior the 41st, even though the Gulf War was raging during that period. And if those people - who sought to demonise Bill Clinton and characterise the entirety of his presidency as a sham and unworthy of praise - wanted to achieve such a simplistic stereotype that could be packaged and sold for easy consumption via the media, then it must be admitted on my part that the only thing I remember about the Clinton presidency was the Lewinsky scandal and the calls for impeachment that clamoured and tolled as frequently as the church bells.

The sheer torrent of publicity and media time dedicated to the entire affair served as an introductory look into the especial characteristics of American politics: the GOP stumbling and grasping around in the darkness, unable to live up to the unmatcheable legacy of Reagan's two consecutive terms from 1980-1988, disappointed by Newt Gingrich's inability to match rhetoric with tangible action, concerned about the polarisation and extremism of the positions that the right had to take up; Clinton seemed to be focusing on economics (having been attributed with the quote "It's the economy, stupid") but failing miserably at foreign policy. Yet the most glaring attribute of American politics at that time was the degree of emphasis placed on personality, particularly the character of the presidential nominee.

It should not be surprising at all that Americans focus more on personality than true substance these days, given the history of presidents that have graced the stage at one time or another. Sheer intellectual strength, meticulousness to detail, expertise in wheel-dealing are no longer primary attributes or even dependable signs of great things to come, or telling in any way of the effectiveness of the president in carrying out his proposed agenda. Nixon and Carter were seen as men of intellect, yet their presidencies were marred by Watergate and the Iranian hostage crisis respectively. The latter has even dedicated much of his time and effort in the years after his presidency to resolving the Middle East crisis, having penned a book (Peace, Not Apartheid) that has been on the receiving end of salvoes - Carter is deemed to have committed the sin of suggesting that moral equivalence exists between the Israelis and the murderous suicide bombers in Palestine and the Gaza Strip. Having left behind an inglorious imprint upon the annals of history, Carter seeks to erase the memory of the American public of him as a misguided, weak and indecisive leader, and in place of that the perception of Carter as a rational, tough negotiator. Only history will tell whether he can redeem himself, or that he has rediscovered that misguidedness that characterised his term.

Having polished off Dinesh D' Souza's biography of Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary Man Became An Extraordinary Leader only hours ago on the cold marble floor of my apartment, I was struck by many aspects of his effort at recounting the events that characterised Reagan's presidency, but more crucially how Reagan himself had responded so uncharacteristically to each of those problems. Reagan seemed to be determined to shape events as they unfolded, and not let those crises run him ragged. Of course, that determination to achieve what he had espoused as his agenda empowered a man that was underestimated for the most part of his presidency to end a war, nudge a superpower towards implosion, perpetuate the circumstances favourable to the spread of democracy and freedom, and launch America into an age of prosperity that was lost to them during the 1970s and the early 1980s. By all expectations imposed upon him by others, Reagan surpassed them, much to his critics' chagrin.

Reagan's managerial style was inscrutable and an enigma to the intellectual establishment at that time, and perhaps even more so today as Americans attempt to search for that similar concoction of determination, personality and capability in their next president. Many pundits, political scientists and historians are extremely reluctant to accord any credit to Reagan's own talents in terms of managing the most challenging and toughest job in the country, in sidestepping the bureaucratic infighting and internecine warfare within Congress and the halls of the White House, in being able to eke out a better deal through negotiations than any policy-maker ever could hope to achieve. Case in point: Gorbachev, whom Reagan himself ignored all conventional "wisdom" at that time - that the Soviet Union was a monolithic structure that was inpenetrable, immutable and that its leaders were equally uncompromising - and sought to establish rapport with. Eventually, Reagan managed beyond all expectations to convince the Soviet Union to agree to mutual nuclear arms reductions and eventually roll back its own commitments in Central and Eastern Europe, among other places in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Reading about Reagan, his remarks and quotes, and his moral principles reminded me of Ayn Rand's own philosophy, laid bare in Atlas Shrugged. Reagan believed that most Americans were better off when he left the presidency than when he first stepped into the White House, and that was due not to the economic policies that he had pushed through Congress, but to the hard work and determination of the American people to earn their own living with their bare hands. Criticisms of the Reagan era are resonant even today - because they are the same arguments employed by those who seek to reward need above talent: it was an age of materialism, the corruption of moral values, the widening rich-poor gap, the erasure of welfare programs that betrays the uncaring, elitist mindset of the administration. Individualism was castigated as a sin in American society, a psyche that was the corollary of capitalism and its elevation of self-interest as the prime motivation of men. One must remember that in the 1980s, the liberals and intellectuals tended to err on the side of caution - since being labelled as an unconventional thinker still carries with it the stigma - by perceiving the Soviet Union as healthy and everlasting, since it had already done so for the past three decades. This establishment also tended to view the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as an indicator of the empire's growing confidence and ambition in its ideology, its style of governance and way of life that it sought to project overseas. What they failed to consider - or consciously ignored - was that the invasion revealed the insecurity being felt by the Kremlin, or the nomenklatura, at home, and thus the invasion would deflect attention of its internal critics to external conflict. A tried-and-tested trick by nations throughout history, it initially seems puzzling as to why the liberals would not have spotted it and thus sided with Reagan's analysis.

The air of enchantment with communism then, the hope that communism with a human face would surface and thereby deal a crushing blow to advocates of capitalism and the American way of life - these were kept alive throughout the decade preceding the Soviet Union's demise by the liberals as they sought to discredit the material wealth and prosperity generated by Reagan's economic policies, which the latter had adopted in sheer disregard of Keynesian and supply-side recommendations. Author Kevin Phillips called the 1980s a "second Glided Age". It seems unsurprising that the further one is from Russia, the lesser the degree of discreditation of communism. Central and Eastern European satellite states such as Romania and Hungary had already experienced communism firsthand and thus its peoples were intimately apprised of the fallacies of that ideology as it was distorted from theory into practice. It was distorted because that was the only way it could work in reality, and Reagan understood that as well as Ayn Rand and Friedrich Hayek did. Further off in Western Europe, Communist parties managed to cling onto some scrap of legitimacy as Eurocommunism continued to have a grip on the intellectual establishment there. Thus, the liberals in America across the Atlantic would certainly be much less convinced of the ugly truth about communism. And so they advanced their argument that communism would offer a more humane way of life, a more socially responsible mechanism of wealth distribution than capitalist systems ever would accommodate.

Reagan understood that the Soviet system was unsustainable due to the fact that the centralisation of economics will inevitably lead to the centralisation of politics. A totalitarianistic hand on where, to whom and how much resources will be allocated necessitates value judgements based on arbitrary whims of individuals, encouraging them to reward special interests and disregard efficiency as the main criteria for profit. A system that rewards a bum as much as it rewards a labourer is bound to destroy any form of incentive to innovate or work. Once common men and women realise that rewards are being distributed according to need rather than success, and begin to corrupt their own standards of morality - by seeking to demonstrate one's neediness as more extreme than the next - in order to survive, one can be certain that the path to self-destruction has been paved.

These people who leech are only counting upon the moral rectitude of their fellow countrymen who are unable to tolerate this corruption, and will continue to work even harder to maintain their material wealth because that is the only channel through which these virtuous men and women know they can live: through sheer hard work and determination. Their wealth is the tangible manifestation of the capability of the human intellect, and these individuals only seek to honour it because it enriches the individual, not society. Their motive is to persuade and inspire others to follow their example, to recognise that material wealth is a goal worthy of pursuit, and that to live for oneself means to utilise one's faculties fully in order to enrich oneself. Have we not heard enough about the charge made by liberals that wealth is a sin? That one should be shamed into giving away the wealth that one produced by his or her own hands to the faceless mass that is called society? We, the men of the mind, should live to serve those who are incapable or are unwilling to put their minds and arms to work? We, who have created wealth do not need it as much as others, and thus shall henceforth allow others - who have never exerted a muscle - to enjoy the fruits of our labour?

If so, then men of commonsense should cease to labour for the undeserving. In order to avoid such a dastardly conclusion for men to reach, Reagan decided to adopt measures that curbed the paternalistic tendencies of big government by abolishing welfare policies. One of the most profound yet simple utterances can be found in the book, "The best social program is a job." Only two lines down, another priceless quote expounded that the purpose of welfare "should be to eliminate...the need for its own existence." The success of welfare programs, Reagan remarked, should be measured by the degree to which it encouraged self-reliance. This was reminiscent of the theory of decommodification espoused by Gosta Esping-Andersen - he argues that individuals in a market economy are commodified, their talents are marketed and sold like goods. Decommodification is the weaning of the dependence of the individual off the market, and the degree to which it occurs is contingent on how much freedom the individual enjoys in choosing whether to have a job or not, such that his living standards, well-being and potential job prospects are not being threatened. Thus, even if a company's executive accedes to demands from his workers for a four-day week, yet implicitly threatens to fire those who accept the deal, then it does not constitute decommodification. While Esping-Andersen's theory is one-sided in a sense that it only measures self-reliance from the market, Reagan's principle of self-reliance from welfare programs seems to encapsulate the balance necessary to preserve time-honoured traditions of hard work and perseverance that are at the core of American values.

The concept of Great Society was touched upon in the book, and D' Souza mentioned that Reagan, though unopposed to helping the disadvantaged and poor, was extremely reluctant to utilise government as a tool to be wielded by intellectuals "to organise society" as they deem fit. Perhaps it struck Reagan as hard as it did to me that adoption of such a plan would only result in the expansion of bureaucratic apparatus, and government programmes are extremely difficult to abolish once established due to the "public choice" theory. It is telling that while the American people have the power to directly elect their representatives in Congress, the general consensus of recent years is that the government simply does not listen enough to the public. The problem of legitimacy of rule is evident. Reagan had asked the American public to decide whether some intellectual in a faraway land should govern them, or that the government should trust the people to govern themselves. This type of rhetoric is strikingly similar to the current malaise plaguing the European project - just substitute the intellectual with the Eurocrat, and the public with the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, the Italians and so on.

I can only attribute this to the increasing degree to which elected politicians find themselves influenced by special interest and lobby groups with which they share links of patronage. Political candidates spend so much money campaigning, drawing donors of sometimes dubious backgrounds to sponsor them, then when elected are subjected to subtle forms of blackmail. kurt over at his site has explored the various links that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has accumulated so far, and it is not pretty. No wonder political apathy is setting in, and if those pundits would acknowledge the truth about Obama and ask tough questions about his connections, Americans would be even more cynical about the manner in which politics is being played out. Yet they are so desperate for Obama's entrance and his promise for change that it is blinding them to these charges. Denial and selectivism dominate mainstream media such that once again, pundits are encouraging false, heightened expectations that Obama is only too happy to promise to live up to. The public will believe what they want to believe, and a few years down the road will discover for themselves the flaws of their judgement - except that they will not blame themselves but Obama himself. The pundits, trust me, will be the first to lead the dolchstosselegende.

The American public has lost faith in the capability of intellectuals to organise society as they deem fit, and perhaps we should not be looking at who is to be blamed, but what is to be blamed. The problem is systemic rather than specifically attributable to certain individuals as though they are more likely to be corruptible than others. The system of patronage extends its far-reaching tentacles and dominates proceedings, forcing those operating within it to play by its rules of wheeling and dealing, and summarily ejects those unwilling to accept them. Certainly, there are instances of individuals who vow to play by their own rules, stick to their principles - such as Obama is marketing himself to be - and usher in a political revolution like Reagan did. Yet there are a significant number of politicians who pride themselves upon their sheer ability to wheel and deal, and they know that their connections can prove very valuable to those who have the clout to sign off on pork-laden bills, among other concessions. Loyalty is a tradeable commodity within the system, and most find it politically expedient to engage in it. The end result is that elected representatives pay much more attention to these clusters of "intellectuals" than their constituencies, and society's resources are organised for their own benefit.

Reagan revolutionised American politics by forcing the Democratic Party to reform itself, by infusing and re-energising the GOP with optimism and pride. Under Reagan, the Republicans successfully remodelled themselves as the party of patriotism, restoring the pride of the military and allowing Americans to regain their faith in their nation at a time when communism and the Soviet Union's domination of the world seemed inevitable. The age of prosperity that emerged under the presidency at that time also convinced the public that the Republicans were sincere and also capable of getting the nation out of the economic rut while keeping government small.

"Compassionate conservatism" - a term mostly used in recent years by liberals to criticise Bush after he had adopted it as one of his guiding principles - can be traced back to Reagan's own philosophical understanding that coincided so neatly with Hayek's and Rand's own liberal ideas about government and liberty, infused with the man's own unique style of governance that never made any American doubt his sincerity and steadfastness. Doug Wead had co-authored the book The Courage of a Conservative with Reagan's Secretary of Interior James G. Watt in 1982, and in it he dedicated five chapters to the theme of compassionate conservatism.

Revolutionising a system is inherently tougher than revolutionising a party, but in America where the two-party system exists both count for one and the same. Now the Democratic establishment is fundamentally as out-of-touch, misguided and uninspired as the Republicans, except that the former is being buoyed by the charismatic power of Obama alone. Anyone who considers personality a reliable indicator of substance, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, is a fool, or more likely, an intellectual happily playing the part of a fool. Bush's effect on the Democrats has been to earn the GOP exponentially more critics in the eight-year period that he has been governing since his entry. The critiques have only become more damning, more despondent, more ready to discredit everything that he has done, and ultimately quicker to spell the end of Republican rule.

Yet D' Souza, only one of a few to acknowledge Reagan's impact on domestic politics, recognised it and penned his thoughts down in 1997 - eight long years after the Great Communicator himself had humbly stepped down from the presidency. Will Bush's legacy be posthumously recognised as having a revolutionary effect as well? I shall seek an answer in the second part.

The third part of this series focuses on the operations of Shell and the lexicon of lessons to be learned from its interactions with the government and the citizen.

In the second part of this series of articles, I had expounded upon the fallacious assumption - dressed up as the corollary of pure rational thought - that consumers would prefer free, unfettered competition between energy alternatives and the current oil/gas options. Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer laid out the truth of the matter to those who still are unable to recognise for themselves the sheer profitability of oil - the price of which has continued to climb to $140 and above as we speak - over alternative energy arrangements [emphases added]:

If one day a renewable proves to be a true competitor of oil and gas we would be prepared to invest a considerable amount in it. We do not want to be a small player because we would eventually lose out. But large investments are only worthwhile if the price/performance ratio vis-à-vis the market is sound. Renewables are still too expensive and there is really no point investing in large-scale production of something that is too expensive for consumers.

We are and will remain an ordinary company and so we have to meet all the normal business criteria. We’re not taking part in a popularity contest.

Thus, simple logic amounting to lower profitability may be adequate to explain Shell's decision to pull out of London Array, the biggest offshore wind farm in the world. Only days after recording first-quarter profits of four billion pounds, the announcement that Shell would no longer partake in investment in the project had arrived as a particularly rude shock to those who have been envisioning the possibility of cleaner, greener energy alternatives to cope with the rising oil price. Of course, the first salvoes were directed at Shell for being "dishonest" and "irresponsible". No surprise there. Yet one must delve deeper, beyond the surface arguments, to understand why such accusations were made.

No, I am not an apologist for oil companies, and neither am I a boisterous proponent of Shell's apparently green credentials. Still, I truly wonder in what way Shell was being "dishonest" - has it ever vowed as a private company to be primarily responsible for the successful transition of preferences of a distant country's citizens from oil to wind energy? Since when has it been logical to blame a multinational company for betraying promises that were conjured up by the British public? Note that if the British public were actually consulted in the decision to allow Shell to operate in Britain, then the British public would have a legitimate stake in Shell's operations in the country and demand that Shell honour its commitments: to provide an affordable and consistent supply of oil to match domestic demand. Even so, I doubt that one of those commitments would have encompassed sustainability or green energy.

"Irresponsible" to whom? Shell's decison-making process has to be understood through the eyes of its management, which has to be primarily to its shareholders. As van der Veer remarked, Shell has no intention of participating in a popularity contest, because it recognises the sheer fickle nature of public opinion that fluctuates between extremes as it is readily manipulated by communications structures controlled by the media, lobby groups and the government. Public opinion tends to alter or calibrate the standards with which it judges how effectively or favourably government, private companies or other institutions operate - most likely, how well that entity serves the individual's own interest or the interests of an institution he or she works in. Yes, we have talked about companies such as Chevron and BP noticing the increasing willingness of consumers to reward more environmentally-friendly companies by preferring them over their competitors. Yet if oil prices continue to exact punishing effects on people and their lifelihoods, the public may decide to fall back on old criteria: which oil company can provide cheap and accessible oil to fulfil short-term needs and sustain current living standards and patterns of consumption in the First World. There is an even greater possibility for Third World publics to forsake green options due to their relatively impoverished status. How does one worry about the future when one's immediate chances of survival are threatened?

Thus, one should not foist the burden of blame and shame solely on Shell. Yes, it is detrimental to the credibility of Shell's claims of desiring to be more environmentally friendly, and it has certainly missed a golden opportunity to improve its PR position, as well as to gain profits from being one of the first to enter the market for supplying wind power in Britain. That is only one side of the story. Consider the rising costs of investment in constructing the necessary infrastructure for the wind farm, and that the rate of increase may eventually outpace the rate of increase of oil prices. Shell has tried to rope in other companies to share in this investment, logically to buffer against huge losses and spread the risk around:

Since Shell and its partners E.on and DONG Energy set up the joint venture five years ago, the costs of building offshore wind farms has jumped by roughly 50 per cent...Shell has already begun sounding out other companies, including Centrica, to see if they are interested in its stake. A spokesman for the British Wind Energy Association said Shell's move was a "hard-headed business decision. This is simply not as lucrative as oil and gas". Dr Paul Golby, head of E.on UK, claimed the project's economics were now "marginal at best".

Who else should share the burden? As a vindicated rebuff to proponents of less government, more individual freedom of agency to choose between alternatives without price-distorting mechanisms set up by government, a significant number of people in Britain are now pointing their fingers accusatorily at their own government:

Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman, believed Shell's decision "blows a huge hole" in the government's rhetoric about renewable energy.

Britain was already near the bottom of the European league table on green energy, and now a major investor had decided that other countries offered a better environment for wind power, he said. "If we are to meet our internationally agreed goals on renewable energy, the government needs a radical rethink ... Only yesterday the Brown government faced its biggest ever rebellion over its refusal to back new incentives for small-scale renewable generators. Now a flagship wind farm has been undermined by the withdrawal of a major international investor."

[...] The oil company was pursuing wind projects in the US rather than Britain due to the economies of scale and because planning permission was easier to obtain, a spokeswoman said.

Governments in liberal market economies such as those in Britain are considerably empowered to a greater degree than the federal government in the U.S., Germany or the regional authorities in Spain. Consider the two-party system, first-past-the-post electoral advantages that empowers the government in terms of centralisation of power; the unwritten constitution that allows the government much flexibility in refining its contents. The U.K. government has the capability to dictate the rules of operation for private companies within its territory, to introduce regulatory standards, taxes and subsidies to encourage capital coordination of demand and supply. While this capability has been considerably blunted by the multinational and transnational companies, compare the relative ease of introducing regulation to that in Germany.

The coordinated market economy of Germany greatly limits the agency of the federal government and Bundestag to approve new regulations and policies by enforcing institutional procedures that consult the various state governments and take into account their opinions. As such, the implementational and adaptational costs are distributed more equitably between local and federal governments in a reflection of the "pay-and-say" principle of multi-level governance: if you want us to foot the costs, we want to have a say in its negotiations as well. Thus, the central government is incentivised to craft policies that are agreeable with the green preferences of citizens living in these local provinces, ensuring that companies are motivated to adopt green practices and sustainable policies via taxes and subsidies. It retains the circumscribed arena of action of the state, since if inadequate incentives are given to these companies, the latter will pass on the cost increases to consumers, who will then likely punish their government.

What is thus needed in Britain to encourage multinational companies to invest in infrastructure on British soil is reform of its price mechanisms, as well as the willingness of government to own up to its responsibility to its citizens - of serving and protecting their interests:

[...] the government was also under attack from opponents who saw the move as a body-blow to UK renewable energy policies. They called for more incentives to encourage wind developments.

Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the south-east of England, said ministers should urgently reform their approach to clean power schemes and add so-called feed-in tariffs to its energy bill to encourage homeowners to join the fight against climate change. Under the tariffs, those generating electricity from renewable sources would be paid generously for any surplus power they feed to the grid.

Furthermore, Shell's greater willingness to invest in the U.S. rather than across the Atlantic serves as evidence that the company is willing to invest in renewables, but at its own pace. The state governments in the U.S. enjoy a special degree of autonomy compared to those in Germany, and several governments such as that in California have chosen to adopt large-scale reforms in order to kickstart similar reforms elsewhere. Shell Hydrogen LLC has recently opened California's first hydrogen refuelling station in West Los Angeles, which is a major advancement in terms of adopting green energy alternatives. Thus, we cannot simply discount Shell's motives for investing in renewables on the sole criteria of pace of transition. Another factor that we have observed in this case study also proves imperative in the final conclusion: government willingness to introduce incentives to absorb the costs of transition.

Presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama has sounded out his plans to levy a $15b tax on oil company profit, noting that it would be possible to retain the economic incentive of these companies to continue producing oil, given the huge profits being raked in thus far. While the economic viability of this proposal has yet to be criticised beyond the one-liner sound bites, one needs to consider the need to balance such taxes with appropriate subsidies to urge these companies to further invest in technology that would allow them to regain or sustain that level of profitability, as well as wean their dependency off oil as their sole source of profits. Treat it as advocating diversification to reduce the risk of huge economic losses should one find itself incapable of squeezing out production to meet current demand: Exxon-Mobil is already discovering for itself the consequences of such a narrow business approach.

More to come in part IV as we delve deeper into Total's operations in Myanmar, Sudan and China - three of the more inscrutable locales on earth, and whether it is possible to gain an understanding of how Total will function in Iraq when nobody's looking.

The second part of this series will continue to elaborate on the possible environmental impact - both potentially good or bad - of the operations of two of the big four oil companies now set to return to Iraq - BP and Exxon-Mobil.

Transparency and honesty are two major traits that the public seek to identify whenever they sniff out some smell of a contract being discussed between an external, usually transnational or multinational, company and their own government. With an active citizenry, coupled with a fairly democratic political culture of civil activism, the public can certainly act as the gatekeeper of the country's natural resources, safeguarding the sovereignty of its livelihood. The question that we have to ask is, given the history of these oil companies and the way they have been managed, is it likely that they will conduct their operations as judiciously and carefully overseas in Iraq as those in their home countries?

For BP, the Prudhoe Bay incident and the ensuing charges that accused the corporation of "greenwashing" - that is, attempting to paint itself as environmentally-friendly while maintaining environmentally-degrading practices - certainly contribute to the scepticism surrounding the recent PR revamp by BP, and these concerns are understandable. A cursory look into its history at Prudhoe Bay evinces a significant modicum of doubt as to whether BP truly has changed its principles of extracting oil sustainably and with minimum risk of leaving behind corrosive footprints on the fragile landscape of Alaska.

Firstly, the effects of oil spills at sea have been a familiar sight on primetime news, but these tangible consequences are only immediate and superficial. Consider the pollution and toxification of ice and snow, basically eroding the robustness of the food chain by rendering the natural habitat of birds, fishes, and micro-organisms extremely harzardous to live in (the oil spill also affected caribou herd grounds). This predictably forces these species to temporarily migrate elsewhere to search for substitute food, and therefore raise the concentration of predators in other areas. The same amount of food and rate of replenishment, coupled with an exponential increase in predators - however temporary - will upset the ecological balance of not only Alaskan territory but habitats outside of the U.S. as well.

Despoiling the landscape of Alaska for the sake of oil drilling continues unabated as the Bush administration vets proposal after proposal in what seems like a very short-sighted attempt to meet domestic consumption. If this is Bush's legacy, then it is a sorry one. Cynicism set aside, the lax government regulations are partly to blame for the lack of enforcement of operational standards in Alaska. Without any form of penalisation by the state, oil companies have even less motivation to clear up their messes. Obviously, pipeline bursts and leaks caused by corrosion and accidents (such as a hunter's missed shot) do cause huge losses for the oil companies involved, but one needs to reconsider the accompanying costs to the environment. These costs - as aforementioned - are long-term and take years to recoup. Oil spills may be easier to clear up than other environmental disasters that have lingering effects, but that doesn't imply for an instant that companies won't try to get away with avoiding the problem until it becomes too large to ignore, such as in Prudhoe Bay.

Taking a page out of Collapse, Jared Diamond's masterpiece, the devastation of Alaskan wildlife and their natural surroundings must have been difficult for the minute populations living in that area. True, there may only have been five people living at Prudhoe Bay in 2000 (according to a census), but these individuals choose to live there primarily because of the mostly untouched scenery of Alaskan territory, akin to the people living in Montana that Diamond interviewed for his book. Alaska, like Montana, is currently being mined for its raw materials, and the latter has had local community groups galvanising together to push for protection of the environment as exploitation and extraction processes continue. What Montana has in terms of grassroots support by its residents - farmers in their 50s and upwards, who choose to keep their unprofitable farmland due to their love of the way of life - and a few wealthy people (who have used their own funds to enforce barriers to limit the amount of environmental damage done by outsiders), Alaska cannot hope to have.

That is the blank cheque Washington has sought to claim from its most prized natural reserve. BP has thus far started the BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. programme, which seeks to fund educational efforts to educate Alaskan citizens about the potential that community action has in terms of saving their environment. While it is laudable indeed that BP is on the right path towards sustainable and comprehensive development, it remains to be seen whether this commitment is matched by BP management's own willingness to be transparent and own up to the true costs of disasters such as that in Prudhoe Bay - that is, funding the clean-up efforts that will certainly exceed the gross underestimations calculated before. The world is watching, and wondering if BP will avoid repeating the same mistakes in Iraq - or think it can get away with it again.

Similar doubts have been cast on Exxon-Mobil's response to the Valdez oil spill, an accident that has tarnished the reputation of the oil company due to several factors: one, the pace of the response in owning up to the actual cost of the oil spill, both short-term and long-term; two, the refusal to admit that environmental degradation will continue to despoil the Alaskan coast for a long time to come, exceeding the time period that Exxon is supposed to be liable for. What's even worse is the web of money trails linking Exxon-Mobil to various "dissuasion groups", which may be a more politically correct euphemism for lobbyist organisations posing as legitimate scientific groups preying on the general public's unquestioning attitude towards scientific institutions. Exxon-Mobil has allegedly been funding these groups as they churn out publications that advocate what seems like a simplistic formula of "less government, more trust in human nature".

To quote from one of these publications, the report on climate change states that all subsidies, taxes and basically price-distorting mechanisms in general should be entirely removed such that each technology (petrol-guzzling SUVs, incandescent light bulbs) is allowed to compete on a level playing field. Furthermore, without such "protectionist" measures existing, the impetus for entrepreneurship and innovation to produce new technologies that will more effectively address the needs of the people will be increased. While it may seem convincing that the advancement of technology is inevitable and will continue to generate better solutions to combat environmental degradation, even the underlying assumption that these technologies have created more benefits than costs is suspect. Also, this approach assumes too much: that people will have perfect knowledge and are able to discern for themselves which product is more environmentally-friendly; that people are willing to pay the extra monetary cost for a green product instead of resorting to cheaper, cruder, dirtier substitutes. If one is mired in poverty, which is a more rational, realistic option?

While this document seeks to emancipate poor peoples in Third World countries, the strategies involved seem to cater to Third World peoples with First World mindsets, capabilities and preferences. How prevalent that breed of thought is among the peoples of Africa, I do not pretend to know. Yet it seems that what the document advocates is a recipe for certain disaster: governments should protect individual property rights such that these individuals are better equipped to adapt to changing circumstances by choosing and adopting more effective technologies. Yet the word "effective" can be judged according to arbitrary standards, if you ask the slash-and-burn farmer in Indonesia. To adapt to a decrease in arable land due to intensified farming and shorter fallow time, the farmer uses the slash-and-burn method more frequently to increase the effectiveness of how well he can provide for his family. Does he consider whether it is more effective in mitigating the costs of his method while earning his income? The answer should be obvious.

While some indigenous populations have certainly devised ingenious, innovative methods of sustainable cultivation and extraction of natural, renewable resources from their environment (such as the Papua New Guineans documented by Diamond), we cannot assume that every individual will successfully devise similar strategies. More often than not, Third World societies aspiring to reach First World standards of consumption tend to reach standards of environmental impact per capita as well. Thus, if a particular resource is depleting at a rate greater than it is being renewed, individuals are likely to revert to selfish behaviour and attempt to exploit the resource faster to gain benefits. The mindset is a zero-sum one.

One should not go so far as to completely discredit the strategies suggested by such dissuasion groups, but their main stand is fatally flawed: they believe that we should devote most of our resources in simply adapting to changing circumstances, rather than devote a significant amount to actually mitigating these circumstances such that adaptational costs can be preempted or minimised in the future. While humans have proved extremely adaptable, one can sense that it is an essentially Herculean task to convince First World populations to willingly lower their living standards to adapt to the scenario whereby depleted resources require lowered rates of extraction - "Why should I compromise with a lower-grade vehicle when I've earned my SUV with my hard work?". Worse, how do you convince Third World populations to stop aspiring to First World standards of consumption - "Why should those rich people get to enjoy wealth and prosperity at the price of our welfare?". Eventually, these pseudo-scientific groups will be compelled to adopt the ends to justify the means: strengthening the state apparatus to enforce the equalisation of living standards.

Exxon-Mobil, like BP, has not convinced most of us that it is truly for tackling environmental degradation and its long-term costs. Are Shell and Total any better?

We'll find out in part III.

The Oil Ministry in Iraq is in the final stages of negotiations that would award no-bid contracts exclusively to the four oil companies that were evicted in the aftermath of the nationalisation projects of Saddam's time. BP, Exxon-Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and Total were all pioneer members of the IPC - then known as the Turkish Petroleum Company, TPC - in 1925. This succession of agreements would result in the return of these companies back into Iraq, with the aim of resuscitating the oil refineries that constituted the foundations of most of the fragile assumptions that planners of the Iraqi invasion rested their hopes upon. And as the price of oil continues to inch upwards unabated, debates are becoming ever more populated with oil-centric perspectives: will Iraqi oil finally begin to pay for the War on Terror itself; is this simply the beginning of an era of exploitation by the major oil companies to suck the remaining oil deposits dry while sustaining the world's energy consumption; is this what Halliburton failed to get away with, and now the money and contracts are simply landing into different hands of the same motive?

It is easy to be disillusioned at this turn of events - indeed, news articles and commentaries have been churned out as if waiting in the shadows for their five minutes of provocative fame, now unleashed and perfectly poised to capture the groundswell of disgruntlement sweeping through the public. Having watched George Clooney's Syriana only a few days ago, one can safely say that the argument of exploitative, profit-hungry oil companies colluding with power-hungry leaders, having gained the expressed support of higher-ups in the government through assassination ploys and foreign policy manoeuvring, has proven very effective and convincing such that most people would take it at face value and begin finger-pointing almost right away.

Before I begin, let me warn those who expect this to be another run-of-the-mill, convoluted, spittle-spewing tirade of hatred aiming at the discreditation and wholesale denigration of oil companies and their despicable motives of exploiting Third World countries dry: I do not see the need to pander to stereotypical ideas, and certainly I do not see the need to further add oil to the raging fire, for that would only strengthen the myths I seek to debunk.

First off, what struck me about the article in the Tribune was that the reportage was being framed almost exclusively to assuage the escalating fears of the general public - who have been increasingly feeling the pinch as oil prices head skywards - and the industries who depend on oil to run their operations. Thus, the main focus drilled home the important concern that was presumptively on everyone's minds: production, and the rate of expansion:

It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.

David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believed that Iraq's output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated.

Fyfe's organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq's output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about six million barrels per day, Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices.

A realist would most likely chide me for focusing on anything else. Production, after all, is what will save us from rocketing oil prices. As demand inexorably and inevitably rises, what is needed is to follow basic economics and increase supply exponentially in order to suppress prices and render oil affordable again. Short-term concerns saturate the colloquial conversations in road-side cafes, in waiting queues at the supermarket, at the workplace and at home. After all, why bother about the future when in the long-run, we'll all be dead, anyway? That was the nonchalant response of the realists in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, embracing the strategy of self-preservation to the extreme degree, so desperately wanting to earn the privilege of being the last to starve. We must be "realistic" and focus on existing needs to be resolved, the consequences of our actions can be resolved in the future. Why talk about principles when they are clearly outmoded and will no longer serve humans in their quest for survival?

Certain principles and code of values are what societies live by, and the most successful of civilisations emerge victorious if they manage to forge the best compromise of old and new principles to live by. Societies make decisions as to whether to cling on to tradition-honoured principles that their ancestors held, whether to abandon them as those codes of conduct have become counterproductive to adopt in light of changing circumstances, and whether to adopt new principles that allow humans to objectively conduct retrospective criticism of their past behaviour and make changes in how they live in order to increase the chances of success of survival by perhaps a few generations, if history is merciful.

The realists of Ayn Rand's novel seek to convince society that principles are simply too rigid to equip individuals with the necessary tools for survival in an age of declining production and affluence, that the time has come to renounce the very codes of conduct that created the wealth being enjoyed in the present. These malicious panic-mongerers seek to denounce profit as the main culprit of the world's problems of poverty, because private companies have taken all the money and hoarded it for themselves. They propose a vicious, purely perverse mechanism by which entrepreneurs, pioneers and inventors shall be penalised and punished for their attempts at maximising profit; instead, they will reward people on a basis of need. The principle of hard work, of relying on one's intellect and will to earn one's own living, is abolished for the sake of equality of ever-lowering standards of the physical, followed by the moral and spiritual.

You must be wondering what I'm getting at. Let me explain: firstly, there is one principle that has proven absolutely essential to humankind's survival and continued existence on this earth: sustainability of resources. Yet this principle is still being deprioritised in general reportage: production alone will not get us anywhere other than to buy us time. The way I see it, the $140 price of one oil barrel is indicative of a scenario that we would inevitably reach in a few years' time even if there wasn't any form of OPEC-induced limit on supply today. The limits placed on supply only served to illustrate what would surely happen in one or two decades from now, when technologies hit the wall and no more oil can be extracted from the ground, when deposits worldwide are sucked dry. We should be focusing on how to ease transition to alternative energy sources, weaning our dependence on oil. And yet people are worrying about production and whether it can match accelerating demand from many Third World countries, whose people are aspiring to First World living standards and environmental impact per capita.

Where is the talk of sustainability and consumption rates? The general assumption everyone is banking on is that while Iraq's oilfields are potentially capable of matching world demand, there will always be some oilfield elsewhere in the world that we can tap into in the future, when supply starts to stem again. Endure through the period of rising prices and eventually, we will be able to maintain our rate of consumption to sustain our lifestyle. That is, while most people do realise that once the oilfields are exhausted, they do not bother themselves with the difficult questions of what would happen to Iraq once their natural resources run low. Consumers will adopt the typical behaviour of shifting their attention - and purchasing power - to those new oilfields that can be exploited. After all, they are paying the money, so why would they care about how the oil is being extracted, and whether it is sustainable?

That mindset is the scourge that will contribute to the accelerated depletion of the world's remaining oil deposits. Lest it be forgotten, oil is considered a non-renewable resource: it takes thousands and millions of years for oil to be formed under the earth. We should review our rate of consumption and adopt new principles of living sustainably in order to ensure that future generations - our generation of sons, daughters, nephews and nieces - will not be crushed under the burden of having to suffer for the environmental degradation our generation wrought in our time.

Abandon the principle of treating consumption as the only measure of status, affluence and well-being: it is the most tangible, magnificent manner and testament of our capability, our intellect, our power to create; yet what good would it be if we could only hope to possess it for a lifetime, only to be painfully reminded of our past glory when we are starving and struggling? We can enhance our well-being by helping to preserve sustainable practices that will contribute to the ability of future generations to successfully cope with the costs of transition and adaptation. Creating ever-larger cars and complexes isn't going to be of much help except perhaps boost your own sense of ego when environmental degradation coupled with climate change impacts living standards in adverse ways. Our criteria for standard of living must shift to accommodate factors such as air and water quality, degree of sustainable development of local resources, degree of capability in mitigating the costs of emittances of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. In short, how well we can minimise the effects of harmful trends of consumption afflicted by our predecessors while moving forward in technological advancement and innovation. My best guess is that human progress will be measured by this yardstick in the decades to come.

One particular fact that many people seem to have conveniently ignored while accusing oil companies, amongst many offenders in big business, is that these private companies are responsible for their shareholders. One must be aghast at the need to remind people that private companies exist for the sake of profit, for otherwise what else could be the motive that drives men to innovate, to work hard? People talk as if these companies were obligated to respond solely to the needs of society. The starting point of negotiations with oil companies lies in the need to recognise that the company is responsible to its shareholders first and foremost, and then persuade them to adopt more socially responsible practices by promising to reward their reforms with profit. It does not help the existing debate by railing against big business, demonising every corporate outfit and profit-making entity as selfish, greedy and inhumane. Responsibility to society has to be cultivated. Even governments have to be taught that.

Should we be worried about corporate social responsibility in the case of the big four, soon to find themselves back in Iraqi oilfields? Have they been cultivating socially responsible practices to ensure that resources are being exploited sustainably? Have they been rewarded by the public for doing so, and has the public been discerning enough to actually care about such matters other than their right to consume?

The contracts, the two oil company officials said, are a continuation of work the companies had been conducting here to assist the Oil Ministry under two-year-old memorandums of understanding. The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.

A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts.

Having reviewed the environmental data charting the key indicators of each company's activities in terms of emissions, flaring, among others, all four companies seem to regard the issue of environmental impact very seriously. This is evinced by the general impression given by the company's presentation of its constant efforts to seek out alternative energy sources, address energy security in the future by improving on extraction methods, and attempting to minimise the impact on the landscape as it extracts the oil from ever-deeper basins underground. Shell uses the criteria of "External Perception of environmental performance" as a key indicator of how well it does in terms of social responsibility, noting that the gap between itself and the nearest competitor in terms of external publics' perceptions has only widened as of 2007. This is becoming increasingly common as companies now find it worth the time and investment to actually adopt environmentally-friendly practices. Innovating cleaner technologies and methods of extraction, processing and refining provides the incentive for companies to reap cost savings earlier than its competitors, thereby creating the impetus for these companies to jump on the bandwagon.

Public interest in environmental issues has exponentially increased in recent years, and shareholders have noted the positive effects of adopting environmentally-friendly policies in the form of greater frequency of success in negotiating projects with foreign governments, less domestic protests and the willingness of consumers to identify socially responsible companies and patronise their products over their competitors. It is now profitable to be environmentally-friendly, which is why it is no surprise that BP, Total and Exxon-Mobil have placed so much emphasis on sustainable development, subjecting themselves to regulatory checks by independent bodies and reputation management by public opinion surveyors such as Ipsos MORI (Shell and BP are registered members). In this aspect, instead of the scenario whereby each oil company seeks to earn its green credentials by selecting regulatory bodies to observe and scrutinise its operations, the fact that two largest oil firms chose to challenge the other head-on by picking the same regulator proves that there is credibility in the claims made by these companies. Hopefully, this trend of challenging each other by offering to subject itself to scrutiny and transparency will continue to spread throughout the industry.

More in part II.

Once again, European governments, administrations, business groups, bureaucrats and everyone else with a stake in the future of the continent anticipated with bated breath the decision of their people with regard to the revised Lisbon Treaty. If one recalls correctly, this was the treaty that was rejected via referenda in two of the founding members of the EU: France and Holland. Negotiations have been conducted, endless nights spent discussing and ironing out the details, definitions and ambiguities of the document. And yet unease predominates, suspicions permeate and the outcome is as uncertain as before.

Ambiguity is a tricky issue: those who value it seek flexibility, the freedom to choose a country's path as it navigates its way through Europe's complex tapestry of economics, politics and culture. As negative inducements are still more persuasive than positive benefits - due to the recent memory of the Second World War and the deeply-embedded wariness held between peoples - these governments seek freedom from absolute conformity, in order to ensure that it does not promise to sacrifice or subjugate sovereignty to the supranational entity that is the EU. Bureaucrats attempting to sell the idea of the EU as a sui generis organisation necessary for the development of capabilities to resolve transnational issues such as migration, crime and environmental degradation tend to emphasise the respect accorded by the EU to the separate governments regarding the freedom to implement reforms only when they believe their country is ready for it.

Ambiguity to the common European man or woman is, however, profoundly scary. If power is defined arbitrarily by un-elected bureaucrats sitting in Brussels - so goes the stereotypical demonisation of the Eurocrats - then flexibility translates into the uncontrollable volition of these men to dictate policies and directives that the country must implement or face penalisation. Ambiguity allows those who sign off on policies to avoid responsibility or pass on the blame to someone else in the hierarchy, and nobody can truly be held accountable. That is what the individual voter fears, and thus he or she demands that every single detail be ironed out such that the limits of how much bargaining power the EU and the government have relative to each other are circumscribed in black and white, as in a written constitution of sorts. One can understand why if the EU pushes for reform in the agricultural sector in order to pressure France and other countries to meet the Common Agricultural Policy targets, the farmers will surely demand how much compensation they are going to get, what happens to their farms, what the government is going to do to help them cope with the transition, what safety nets are in place and so on.

Unfortunately, the human capacity for attention is really rather short. The fact that the revised Lisbon Treaty is still lengthy tends to put people off, and so a majority of Europeans do not bother going through the meticulously defined conditions and prerequisites listed in the document. As mentioned in the article, people who do have the leaflet - which summarises the main objectives of the Treaty - are not reading it either. Some express disdain for the Eurocrats, calling them "crooks" - not surprising considering the common sentiment shared by most people that the EU political elite are just too insulated from the everyday worries of the man on the street. Technicalities are too troublesome to go through for most, and even though the bureaucrats have given the people what they implicitly demanded - that is, more details, the people now feign ignorance, admit to their laziness and cling onto convenient but outdated stereotypes.

Who is to blame? That is the game to be played out in bureaucracies and administrations continent-wide as the Irish have rejected the treaty by a convincing margin. Eurocrats are scrambling for contingencies that will render the Treaty more palatable for the Europeans, combating the relentless tirade of media outlets that will once again succumb to the temptations of doom-saying and panic-mongering, foretelling the end of the European dream. It is an uphill task, to be sure, especially when the trend to punish the EU for the failures that governments cannot remedy within their own countries continues.

Lest it be forgotten amidst the placard-waving, rhetoric-spewing of enthusiastic government officials in liaison with the EU officials, the predilection of governments in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in times of domestic crises, was to absolve themselves of responsibility by pushing all the blame to the unseen, elite bureaucrats of the supranational entity. Unelected, devoid of accountability, out of touch with the masses and craving for a neo-imperial Europe to rule over - that stereotype was exploited, manipulated for easy consumption and disseminated through domestic media outlets among other communicative channels, and it stuck. It has stuck so well that right now, people hold the conviction that the benefits reaped during the past two decades have been solely the credit of their own governments or themselves, and not the EU.

Lost are the acknowledgement and the socialisational experience of vesting one's economic and political interests in the multiple processes of Europeanisation, and governments have to retrospectively consider the repercussions of what past administrations have done to damage the credibility of the EU, and thus attempt to reverse the slide towards simplification of ideological opposition to it. The EU itself, under pressure from its member states, has reformed itself via the various treaties to be more democratically accountable, thereby giving governments a stake in its development. Yet much more has to be done in rectifying the huge chasm between the citizens and the EU - governments seem to have adopted the role of disciplinarian rather than facilitator in fostering ties between the EU and the common European.

Of course, the disciplinarian function of governments involves them basically arguing along the lines of "We know better than you do", thereby seeking to persuade citizens to volitionally accept the EU and to trust the government on protecting the interests of the citizenry as a whole. Sure, governments have portrayed themselves as the most powerful guardian of interests, with sovereignty as its weapon of choice. Yet how many instances has it been that the very same sectors which require readjustment or revamping to suit EU prerequisites are being heavily protected, due to its multiple links within a web of patronage that supports the political elite? While the ideational appeal of a united Europe may truly be burgeoning, and that its values being promoted are edging towards greater confluence with the core values held by individual citizens in Europe, not all decision-making by governments and peoples is solely governed by the invisible forces of socialisation via inculcated norms and embedded principles. Most of it still boils down to the essence of cost-benefit analysis that measures how profitable it is to adhere to these norms.

But campaigners for a no vote mobilized under the efficient leadership of Declan Ganley, a businessman who argued that the treaty took power away from Ireland.

Ganley, who formed the group Libertas to campaign against the treaty, said that the vote would force the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, to renegotiate the treaty and secure a "better deal."

"We want a Europe that is more democratic, and that if there is to be a president and a foreign affairs minister, they should be elected," he said in an interview.

While the confluence of people's economic and political interests and those of the political elite is convenient, it is becoming less so as economic woes, accentuated by rising oil prices, are compelling citizens to raise their expectations of their governments in negotiating ever-increasing security and basically, protection from the efforts of newly admitted EU members to catch up to the core states in terms of First World living standards. However, extending security guarantees will only serve to increase insecurity for these new member states, and thereby poison perceptions of the EU in countries such as Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro, who still view Europe as a project worth investing their capital in. It is not a long-term solution to resolving the paranoia that people feel, having enjoyed a privileged status and unwilling to give it up to anyone else. It is also unlikely that it will be sustainable, given the democratisation of the EU's internal structures of decision-making and institutions such as the European Parliament, Council and Commission. These new members will be vociferously fighting against the efforts of older members to circumscribe the limited amount of resources available to the entire Union.

Hence, this competition between governments to out-bid one another in striking "better" deals with the EU will surely encourage the latter to accommodate these interests and result in widespread disillusionment with the supranational entity. What I propose is that European citizens should instead seek to establish parallel relationships with EU institutions, since they seem not to trust their own governments to protect their interests well enough. No rule in the legal systems throughout Europe has explicitly outlawed any attempt to bypass the government and communicate with the EU institutions. These ties may manifest themselves via either competitive regionalism - whereby the linkages between the sub-national regions and the EU are competing with links between the government and the EU (that is, attempting to circumvent) - or cooperative regionalism, which implies a complementary relationship between the EU, government and sub-national regions (the model put forth by Tanja Borzel).

In this scenario, citizens such as those in Ireland may create their own activist groups that seek to compete or coordinate their actions with already-existing pro-EU elements such as the major political parties and business groups, both of which inspire not faith but deep suspicions as to whether they value economic and political profit over the interests of citizens. These groups may then choose to organise themselves under a single grouping to enhance negotiating power and therefore seek to influence the decision-making processes within the EU institutions, thereby guaranteeing a stake in Europe's future. The EU must also convey the message that it is ready to open such alternative channels to citizens, thereby in a sense eroding the monopoly of negotiating power of governments. However, while this may seem unpalatable to governments in the short-term, they should realise that enhancing the complementarity and coherence of positions at which the people and the EU stand not only ensures that the democratic principle is being upheld vigorously (thus gaining ideational credibility for the EU in instilling its values), but also that the government can now count on the people to accept proposals and directives more easily, since they have already discussed and ironed out most of the contentious aspects. Lessened will be the fear and paranoia that exists today, tinged with the uncertainty that all that governments and business groups have worked for so long will be upset by one country, or one significant voting bloc.

Again, it must be stressed that this is easier said than done, since governments are liable to view benefits in the short-term, and value political expediency more than unforeseen, non-guaranteed long-term gains. They may view with utmost disdain efforts of the EU to erode the monopoly of bargaining power of governments even as they give citizens more say in the policies to be implemented. Less likely is the possibility that governments will allow any form of criticism aimed at their ability to protect the interests of the citizenry, because that is the essential raison d'etre of the state! Imagine what would happen if the government declared itself poorer at representing the people than the various interest groups existing at that time - that is plain irrationality that we should not realistically expect of governments.

Thus, we must keep in mind that these interest groups, aside from business ones, must be accommodated and persuaded by the EU of a stake in the future, one that does not exclusively cater only to those most agreeable with EU policies and directives, but also to those willing to challenge the viability and sustainability of those policies. Also, these measures aimed at democratisation of EU institutions should take into account the need to nurture the role of governments as facilitators, not disciplinarians, in the processes of Europeanisation. Lest it be mistaken, this transition is as hard for governments as it is for the peoples. Sovereignty of the government has been fiercely defended against the EU's seeming encroachment, yet the people do not seem to be convinced that this sovereignty is being exercised to effectively maximise their interests. The fact that the Irish still believe that their government can do the job of negotiating indicates that governments still do play a key role, and the public identify with it, thereby legitimising it. The Irish government and other pro-EU advocates should now seek to encourage the establishment of these groups on the street, negotiate with them alongside the EU, and therefore improve coherence of their position with respect to each other. The government should not squander this opportunity to prove itself as a worthy defender and negotiator of interests of the people to the people, as well as a trusted agent of facilitation to both the EU and its own domestic interest groups.