Wardrobe malfunction

If I do a survey on what people usually wear to college, I’d bet my favourite Levi’s that I’d get jeans and t-shirt as the answer. Now the classic combination has been challenged.

Why? It’s because somebody woke up one morning and decided that jeans is deemed an indecent exposure of the body and induces sexual attraction amongst students.

Now I know why I had trouble doing that Psychology exam- the person sitting next to me was wearing jeans. I sensed that he was oozing with sexuality, even from half a metre away. And I thought I just needed to spend more time in bed. Errr... Freudian slip, I mean in class.

Anyway, it’s not what you wear, it’s how you wear it. Even baju kurung can be sexy, depending on how you carry it.

If one is caught wearing jeans, (s)he can be expelled without inquiry and blacklisted. I don’t even consider it a crime, unless you consider the fashion faux pas some people commit (nobody should see your crack, we’re having trouble focusing already), so the punishment is shocking.

I feel that my rights are violated here.

We’re old enough to have sex, consume alcohol and vote, but we’re not old enough to decide what to wear? How ridiculous does that sound? It’s just a pair of pants! I thought we’re over with uniforms. Last I checked, I didn’t sign up for the military.

So we’re not allowed to wear jeans, then let me think of a few alternatives. How about fitted trousers, skirts and shorts? Shorts for the boys, definitely. How about the tops? Tank tops and fitted t-shirts, as the weather is oh-so-hot.

You don’t expect us to wear slacks and shirts, do you? Well, if you do, then let me remind you. IACT is a so-called creative college, so what we wear is part of who we are, it’s how we express ourselves.

Wait, don’t tell me. Skirts, shorts, tank tops and t-shirts will be banned too? Great. Before you know it, we won’t have anything to wear to college. Then we’ll really have trouble focusing in class.

Kids in Icy Business

by Anis Azyan

Dressed in an orange and light blue outfit, Abhihkirtthega dances to the song Bole Chudiyan from a Bollywood box-office hit, Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham. Her mother, Shobarani, is watching nearby.

Abhih’s coach, Surayu Ismail, plays the song again when it ends and Abhih starts her routine for the umpteenth time. Occasionally, Surayu calls out “Abhih, move your shoulders!”

It seems like a normal dance practice, except Abhih is only six years old and she will be performing her dance moves on ice. Abhih is training for the upcoming Skate Asia 2008, Asia’s largest figure skating competition.

Figure skating is a growing sport in Malaysia. Parents are sending their children from as young as three years old to the skating rink. In a country like ours where it never snows, the fact that the competition is held here is an indication that young Malaysians are embracing figure skating.

This is the third time Malaysia is hosting the competition, the last being in 2000. Skaters represent their rink, not their country. Instead of technical criteria, skaters will be judged on their skills.

Held in Sunway Pyramid Ice, the country’s only skating rink in Sunway Pyramid, the competition will attract 1000 people- skaters, coaches and their entourage. Malaysia will be represented by 153 participants, the youngest being three-year old Ionna Su. For pictures of Ionna Su, click here.

What is it about the sport that causes people to flock to the skating rink, especially on weekends? Head Coach of Sunway Pyramid Ice, Harry Janto Leo, 29, says “It builds character, people can express what’s inside through performances.”

Skating also helps build good body posture and acts as a great workout. “You actually sweat, unless you just stand there,” he says with a boyish grin.

Shobarani, 31, agrees that skating is a form of expression. She says Abhih is a bit shy, but “with skating, she can express herself.”

But what do kids think of skating?

“Yeah Abhih, your coach always scolds you, why do you like skating?” teases the bubbly Surayu, 25, when Abhih keeps quiet when I ask her.

The camaraderie is evident. A smile emerges out of the girl. “I like it because it’s fun. It’s fun when I’m on the ice.”

Kavitha Guanasambartham, 10, says she likes skating “because it’s fun and enjoyable”.

But it’s not always fun for these children, as they have to juggle between school and practice. Kavitha who has been skating for over a year, will take part in six events in the competition. Some of the songs she will be performing to are SOS by Rihanna, a scene from Disney’s Ice Princess movie, a song from Kisna-an Indian movie, and Genie in the Bottle by Christina Aguilera.

It is about 1 p.m. when I start talking to Kavitha, and seconds later, her mother comes to fetch her.

“She has to go to school,” the mother explains.

As a coach, Surayu faces challenges, especially with the competition coming up. A lot of research on music and choreography is involved, as each student has a different song.

“I have a student who wants to do a Hawaiian dance, another wants to be a genie, and one wants to do something from Cats. And Abhih is doing Bollywood.”

According to Surayu, children are easier to train, because “they have no fear”. In skating, being fearless is an advantage as falling is part of the parcel. And when you fall, you will always have a witness.

But, kids will always be kids.

“After a while, they get restless. They get easily distracted when their friends are around, so sometimes I let them play for a while.”

Because there is not much media coverage on skating as a sport, they have no sponsors. This is hard for the parents, as they have to bear all the cost, and skating comes with a price.

Surayu lays down the overall cost-costume (RM250), classes (RM1500) and brand new skates for a beginner (RM800). In total, it can cost up to RM2550 for a child.

But it’s not all about the kids. As she points out “I also have a mum in her 40’s taking classes. It’s never too late.”

Harry, who is also Assistant Competition Director for Skate Asia 2008, explains that now Pyramid Ice has about 500 students. They have a promotion every school holiday to encourage people to take up figure skating.

“It’s also a family activity. I like it when I see the parents come together with the children,” says Surayu.

We have quantity, but what about quality?

Malaysian skaters definitely have what it takes to compete internationally. “I believe our skaters have potential. For example, in Shenzhen in 2006 (Skate Asia 2006), our skaters came out third,” says Harry.

Skating definitely has a bright future in the hands of these children. While their peers are glued to Hannah Montanna, kids like Abhih and Kavitha are skating their way to success. In the meantime, they’re not afraid to fall.


- The video below shows a girl practicing her routine for Skate Asia 2008.

Comic-Con: And the Winner is...

By Rebecca Winters Keegan



TIME.com shows the results of Comic Con, pop-culture marathon run by fans.


Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Hugh Jackman, who made a surprise appearance to promote upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He understands that Comic-Con is itself a performance. Jackman leaped off the stage, ran across the floor to shake the hand of Wolverine's creator and thanked the crowd.


Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Carla Gugino. Actresses are so marginalized at Comic-Con, there's no point in having a lead category. But Gugino contributed information at the Watchmen panel, discussing Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre's tragic character arc.


Best Vehicle: Attack-mode KITT. This Mustang on steroids designed for NBC's new Knight Rider boasts Lamborghini doors, a top speed of 377 m.p.h. and, most importantly, turbo-boost.


Most Popular Costume: The Joker. Guys with red lipstick-smeared smiles and purple dinner jackets were as plentiful at Comic-Con this year as those perennials, the Storm Troopers.


Most Enthusiastic Fans: The Twihards, devout readers of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, were the loudest and proudest, starting a Twilight chant while they waited, shrieking anytime a cast member, Meyer or director Catherine Hardwicke said anything.

For more pictures, click here.

Best Gimmick: City of Ember train. The folks at Fox Walden found a way around the competition while promoting City of Ember. They chartered a train and packed it with journalists and bloggers who got a look at some footage, cool props and art, and lots of one-on-one time with director Gil Kenan and other filmmakers.


Panel Most Likely to Yield a Drinking Game: Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The folks at Lucasfilm showed clips from the animated movie and animated show. The footage looked cool enough, but the moderator's and panelists' constant references to George Lucas' brilliance inspired eye-rolling and forced Gatorade sipping from fans.


Biggest Omission: Star Trek. Director J.J. Abrams said he has footage of Star Trek ready to show, but the only thing fans got was a poster. Paramount, the studio releasing Star Trek, was a no-show in the panels.


Most Tenuous Link to Comic Books: The Office. NBC had a panel and booth for The Office, which, while certainly a show with an alpha fan base, isn't really genre fare.


Best Party: EW and the Sci Fi Channel's bash on the roof of the Hotel Solamar. There were cast members from Heroes, Twilight, Lost and Battlestar Galactica.


Most Missed: Alan Moore. The Hollywood-averse Watchmen creator wants no part of the big-screen adaptation of his graphic novel, but the movie's attention has won Moore new fans. Opening night of the Con, comic-book vendors had stacks of the book on their tables. By Saturday, there wasn't a copy of Watchmen to be found.



(447 words)

Many Happy Returns?

Michael Griffin’s a birthday wish for NASA, which he runs: "An understanding that not everything that is worthwhile can be justified in terms of immediate dollars and cents on the balance sheet." An artful reply, and America’s space agency did not survive 50 years without being artful.

NASA was thrown together after Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, and received impetus by the flight of the first cosmonaut in 1961. Then president John Kennedy responded by saying that an American should go to the moon by the end of the decade. Within five years, NASA had access to three-quarters of 1% of America's GDP.

Dr Griffin said of that period that "the moon race was more than exploration for its own sake; it was considered a real-life test of the viability of our open society—a vindication of the very concept of freedom." Although an exaggeration, he is right- there was something heroic about the project.

It changed humanity's view of itself by broadcasting pictures of the Earth as a frail blue dot hanging in a hostile void over an unchanging lunar desert, demonstrating that not everything that is worthwhile can be justified in terms of money.

It might have been better for NASA's reputation if it had closed down at that point. NASA has survived through a space-shuttle programme far more expensive than the rockets it was supposed to replace, through the construction of an orbiting space station, though it has produced little of scientific value—and also, through a programme of unmanned scientific space probes that have pushed back the frontiers of human understanding.

Dr Griffin may be the administrator with the boldest vision since the early 1970s. He is trying to realize George Bush's almost casual announcement that America should return to the moon, and then go on to Mars. Though it will be expensive, it might bring the "manned" and "unmanned" parts of the organisation together.

For pictures of Mars and more, click here.

At the moment, about a third of the agency's budget is spent on unmanned science- on missions to planets, vital observations of the Earth, and examination of the sun and scanning of the universe.

The remaining budget is consumed by manned space flight—the shuttle and the space station. NASA often refers to this as "space exploration" but actually, both are barely out of the atmosphere. The real exploration of space is being done by the unmanned missions.

The result is a tension between the "manned" and "unmanned" sides of the organisation. Many scientists reckon a lot more useful stuff could be done in space if the manned budget were spent on robot probes. Dr Griffin, however, says that without the human-exploration side, the science side would be "a mere shadow of itself today". The implication is that without the fluffier but politically appealing bits of human space exploration, space science would not do so well.

To keep the scientists on side, manned spaceflight should be justified to taxpayers in its own right—not in terms of money, but for its inspirational value. Historically, that is questionable. The voyages of discovery to America, commonly compared to spaceflight, were entirely about money.

Nevertheless, it is an argument that keeps the dollars coming, for Americans seem reluctant to abandon their manned space programme. To replace the shuttle, there will be new rockets and a new type of spaceship. There will also be a moon lander, and eventually a mission to Mars. NASA, then, may get to relive its youth after all, but may find that the reality of youthful experience has moved on.

NASA was defined by the competition with its Soviet counterpart. But things have changed since the 1960s. A lot of people other than national agencies want to join, and NASA is under pressure to do something it is bad at- collaborating.

Take the case of Richard Garriott, a successful games designer who is flying to the space station in October as a private tourist. Initially, NASA was sniffy about the whole idea of space tourism. Mr Garriott also hopes to do some commercially valuable experiments when he is in orbit. Just the sort of application, it might be thought, that should be encouraged.

Such collaborations are a way forward. Google's chief executive exhorted NASA to engage more with the outside world by creating "open systems" that others can build on. Google would like to start collecting its own data for its planetary-visualisation projects.

That, perhaps, is a more subtle threat than NASA realises. For Google's virtual planets are a symptom of the changing nature of vicarious experience. If Google can eventually be able to bring the illusion not just of not just being on the moon, but of actually having had them, then paying for real manned Mars missions might seem an awful waste of money.

(797 words)

The Search for Elusive Holy Grail of HIV Vaccine…Continues

The quest for HIV vaccine has suffered yet another major setback. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) scrapped a U.S. human trial dubbed PAVE 100, to test a HIV vaccine, saying that more research was needed before the vaccine could be tested on humans.

Following the decision to halt the trial of HIV vaccine candidate MRKAd5 or V520, dubbed STEP last September, researchers were doubtful about the future of the PAVE 100 trial. V520 altered the immune system, facilitating infection, rather than providing immunity against the HIV and failed to reduce viral load of the patients in the STEP trial.

The experimental vaccine to be tested in the PAVE 100 trial would also have used an adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) vector that is similar, though not identical, to the Ad5 vector used in the failed STEP trial.

However, the NIAID has not given up entirely on the PAVE 100 trial. It believes the vaccine is scientifically intriguing and sufficiently different from previously tested HIV vaccines. The NIAID is considering testing the experimental vaccine in a smaller, more focused clinical study. It will entertain a proposal for an alternative study with one specific goal: to determine if the vaccine regimen significantly lowers viral load.

With none of the clinical trials for HIV vaccine yielding positive results, some scientists and HIV research advocacy groups have been calling for the U.S government to suspend funds for testing existing experimental vaccines and re-allocate resources into effective, proven HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and treatment strategies.

The recent failures in HIV vaccine development clearly indicate that it still requires fundamental research to understand the basic biology of the AIDS virus and its effects on the human immune system.

Turbine Time

AMERICA must pursue alternative energy sources by making a huge investment in wind-power infrastructure.

The country could build enough wind farms to provide 20% of the nation's electricity by 2030. Achieving this goal is by building wind farms throughout the windy corridor from Texas to the Dakotas. It would cost $1.2 trillion to build and connect them to places where the power is most needed.

Although a staggering expenditure, it would free up American natural gas, which now generates 22% of the country's electricity, to be used for motor vehicles. If all Americans switch to natural gas vehicles, then the country could stop importing so much oil.

The industry would create jobs and revitalise rural America. In 1999, wind power capacity in Texas was just 180 megawatts. Today it leads the nation with almost 5,000. The economic impact will be $315m this year. Wind has brought more than 1,000 new jobs to the area.

This boomlet has made an impression on Texans. Wind power accounts for 3% of the state's electricity, compared with 1% nationwide. But the tax credit that has been driving its growth is about to expire, and there is the question of the creaking grid. The state is mulling a plan that would enable the transmission of 17,000 additional megawatts at a cost of $6.4 billion.

Building wind power capacity will be a difficult task, but there is an emerging agreement in Texas that it is worth the trouble.

(242 words)

Dara Torres, Demystified

By Amanda Schaffer

At age 41, Olympian Dara Torres swims faster than she did 20 years ago. Her middle-age miracle recognition also comes with the suspicion that she is involved with drugs. She may not have failed a drug test and has volunteered for extra testing, but that can't prove definitively that she is clean because of the limitations of the tests.

Torres herself has talked of two "secrets" to her success. First, she takes amino acid supplements developed by German swimmer Mark Warnecke. Second, Torres says she relies on a training technique called "resistance stretching." The stretching and the supplements probably help her performance, but neither is likely to work in the ways—or to the extent—claimed.

Torres touted Warnecke's product- amino acid supplements- saying that it helped her gain muscle and helped with a speedy recovery. On his Website, Warnecke does not list all the ingredients and their proportions. Among other amino acids mentioned, he does name arginine, which helps increase blood circulation, which "significantly reduces regeneration time" of muscles.

A journal of sports nutrition points out that during resistance exercise—when muscles contract against external pressure—a small net breakdown in muscle takes place. Quick replenishment with amino acids can boost protein synthesis, helping to increase muscle repair and growth. The essential amino acids, which the body can't synthesize on its own, appear to play a major role in stimulating this process.

But most of the amino acids mentioned by Warnecke are not in the essential group. It's not clear why taking his supplements would improve muscle repair or boost muscle mass and strength. Meanwhile, consuming protein may be just as effective as taking amino acids, and combining either amino acids or protein with carbs is probably even better for boosting muscle protein synthesis. All in all, amino acid supplements sound at best like a pretty minor factor in Torres' success.

The basic idea to her second secret, resistance stretching is to contract a muscle while lengthening or stretching it. Two trainers "mash" or massage her body with their feet, then begin a series of resistance stretches that look like "a cross between a yoga class, a massage, and a Cirque du Soleil performance," as written in the New York Times Magazine. Over the course of two weeks, in 1999, it transformed Torres "from being an alternate on the relay team to the fastest swimmer in America."

In combination with other training, Torres' approach is likely to have some benefits. Mainly, stretching muscles against resistance may boost their strength through a greater range of motion. That is, it may allow people to generate more force with a muscle that's in a lengthened position. Some evidence also suggests that stretching muscles against resistance may help prevent injuries or facilitate recovery from them.

But there are trade-offs. Making a muscle stronger when it's in a lengthened position may mean making it weaker when it's in a shortened one. In addition, it's not necessarily good for swimmers to increase their range of motion too much, especially in their shoulders. The bottom line is that resistance stretching may improve a swimmer's performance. But as Torres' trainer concedes, there are currently no controlled studies that demonstrate this, and it's hard to see how this technique could really be her record-breaking bullet.

The mystery is not why Torres might try resistance stretching. It's why she promotes it to reporters and advertises it in a video, despite not getting paid to appear in it. Perhaps Torres simply wanted to share about a technique she believes is helping her. But the more she talks about her acclaimed secrets to success, the more one wonders about the secrets she may be hiding.

(614 words)

F1: Coulthard quits

SILVERSTONE: David Coulthard announced at his home race on Thursday, July 3 that this year will be his last season competing in Formula One.

Coulthard stated his retirement ahead of the British Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing driver said, "I would like to announce today my decision to retire from racing in formula one at the end of this season. I will remain actively involved in the sport as a consultant to Red Bull Racing focusing on testing and development of the cars."

At 37, the oldest driver said his decision to retire "was taken earlier in the year and is based on a desire to stop while I am still competitive and enjoying the immense challenge that grand prix driving represents. I also have the desire to look for new challenges within the sport.

The Scot made his debut at the Spanish Grand Prix with Williams in 1994. He joined Mclaren two years later.

He has won 13 grands prix to date. The last was five years ago in Australia with McLaren. Click here to see more of Coulthard's career.

Just Friends?

Can a Platonic Relationship Turn Passionate? And if It Could, Would You Want It To?
By Julia Feldmeier

My best guy friend is sitting across from me as I type this, playing footsie with me under the table. We've been friends for 10 years, since college, and we've grown closer with age. We can talk for hours about things big and small; we can also sit comfortably in silence. He makes me laugh, always, but has sincere words when I need a lift.

It's the perfect relationship. Except, of course, for when we split ways and I go home, try to mentally decode the meaning of footsie and then turn to my roommate or my sister or anyone who'll listen and say, "UGH! WE'RE SO PERFECT TOGETHER, WHY AREN'T WE DATING?!" And other sane things like that.

Pop culture abounds with examples of friends who've navigated (or attempted to navigate) the path to romance. Think "Friends," in which Monica and Chandler get together. And "Little Women," when Laurie longs for childhood pal Jo March. Or, most famously, "When Harry Met Sally . . .," which explores the muddy waters of sexual tension to determine if, in fact, men and women can be friends.

-The lead is an anecdote about the writer and her best guy friend. At first, one might think the article is about the writer.

So let's start with that controversial question: Can men and women be friends? I mean, can they really be just friends? Okay, yeah. Yes. And yet:

- The nut graph clearly states what the story is about.

"All friendships, even same-sex ones, have ambiguous and changing boundaries," says Linda Sapadin, a clinical psychologist and author of "Now I Get It! Totally Sensational Advice for Living and Loving" (Outskirts Press, 2006). "You may think somebody's a best friend, and they just consider you a casual friend. How it's perceived is not always the same."

In other words: Your perspective can shift. Suddenly you see a friend as desirable, but he or she still sees you as only a friend. Which leaves you with two choices, Sapadin says: You can try to change it to a romantic relationship. Or you can learn to live with it so that there's flirtatious banter -- footsie, anyone? -- but nothing else.

-The background of the situation.

It's sexual attraction without acting on it. And the primary reason many of us don't act is fear: the worry that if our friend rebuffs us or the move from platonic to romantic fails, the friendship is irrecoverable.

- The cause.

Such was the outcome for Amy Ewen. She and her co-worker Peter were close friends -- the kind who prompt others to say, "Oh, you guys should be dating." But they never did until just before Peter left to spend a year traveling in Asia, when they enjoyed a whirlwind romance. The day after Peter departed, he sent Ewen a dozen roses.

"I was so happy, but it was really bittersweet because he was leaving," Ewen says. Her expectations were realistic, she says (she wasn't expecting them to stay together long distance), but they split with the assumption that there would be something on the other side: a continuation of their friendship.

Ewen, inspired by Peter, left her job to travel, too. When she returned after five months in New Zealand, where she'd met someone else, Peter was back as well, and she wanted to reconnect with him as a friend. He never returned her phone calls.

When she finally ran into him one evening in Adams Morgan, he was standoffish. He shook her hand as though they were business acquaintances and then blurted out that he wasn't in love with her.

"I was remembering how things were when we were good friends," Ewen says. "He thought I was thinking about being his girlfriend. It's sort of a shame, because we got along so well."

It is a shame, right? That things can't just go back to the way they were. But there's a comfort to friendship that often gets destroyed when romantic feelings are raised, an awkwardness that accompanies the transition into, and out of, these feelings.

- The impact.

"It feels very uncomfortable when somebody likes you more than you like them," says Ellen Sue Stern, a relationship expert and author of numerous advice books. Hence, she says, making the transition is "always a risk. You should be really sure you want to take that risk before you make that move."

* * *

Another quirk of dating a friend is that you know them well -- the opposite of romances in fairy tales. This prince, he's not a stranger. As for Cinderella? Forget the glass slipper. You've watched her clip her toenails.

Kathy Werking, author of "We're Just Good Friends: Women and Men in Nonromantic Relationships" (Guilford Press, 1997), interviewed dozens of opposite-sex friends when researching her book. Many reported that, when looking for a romantic partner, they sought someone with an air of mystery.

-Action of contrary forces.

"There's a lot of fantasy involved when we meet someone," Werking says. "We create a fantasy about what our lives will be together and what this person is all about. It's not as exciting to be around a person who knows you thoroughly."

When you're single and meet someone new, you size them up to determine whether they're datable.

"At a certain point in life, you already have your friends," says Greg Behrendt, author of "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys" (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2004). "So you're not looking for friends. You're generally looking for something more serious."

-The scope.

Call it a superficial calculation, but it's nonetheless deliberate. Friend romance, by contrast, seems almost Freudian.

Take Lynne and Kwame DeRoché, for instance. The Herndon couple, who celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary in April, say that when they met, they never considered each other as anything but a buddy. An office confidante.

Then came the slip. They were talking on the phone one weekend, planning to meet up that evening, when Lynne concluded the call by saying, "Okay, love ya. Bye."

Love ya?

Kwame didn't skip a beat. "Love you, too. Bye."

Neither acted on those words until a happy hour three months later when, fueled by booze and perhaps pent-up emotion, Lynne kissed him. That act wasn't so much a matter of crossing the boundary between friendship and romance; it was more a matter of erasing it.

"Everything that had happened before that was us dating," Kwame says. "We'd basically been dating for six months and didn't know it."

* * *

Alcohol, of course, can be a powerful agent when it comes to guiding friendships into sexual encounters. But unless both parties are ready to make the mental switch, the romance ends with the hangover.

Falls Church residents Melissa and Rob Floyd were friends for three years in the most platonic sense. She used his washer and dryer; he cooked for her; she cut his hair. He had a girlfriend, and she thought of him as nothing more than a good friend.

By 1998, both were single. Melissa was living abroad but returned home to celebrate New Year's Eve, and arranged for herself and Rob to stay overnight at the party house. Cut to the scene with Melissa standing at the top of the stairs, open bottle of champagne in hand, saying, "Well, we can't let this go to waste," before turning to head toward the bedroom, with Rob following. (Such is his memory of the event, at least.)

This is the Hollywood part where we edit in fireworks and mood music. And yet, nothing.

Turns out, when it comes to friendship-turned-romance, timing and context are key.

"Generally, sparks happen when they're supposed to," Behrendt says. "Can you come back and meet somebody and they're in a different place? Sure. But now you've met a different person."

For Melissa and Rob, the timing wasn't right until a few months later. She was still living abroad and he often traveled overseas for work, so they decided to meet in Turkey for a vacation.

There, driving down hairpin roads rimmed with goats and donkeys, "we were essentially completely alone, completely relaxed," Rob says. "It environmentally allowed us to realize and think about what we meant to each other and what a life together could be."

"I like to think I grew up in that heartbeat," Melissa says of that trip. "He was a really good friend and someone who probably knew me better than almost anyone at that time. I think I just realized that's what I wanted: I wanted that person who knew me so well and loved me because of that."

"Plus," she says, "he's cute."

* * *

The right timing often is paired with the maturity to understand the difference between what makes friends compatible and what makes romantic partners compatible. When Melissa and Rob reconvened after Turkey, each came armed with a list of things to discuss, both small (her cat, his goatee) and big (did they want kids, and where would they live?).

These kinds of talks, so pragmatic and seemingly unromantic, are imperative to saving a relationship.

"The friend definition is very different from how we define our romantic relationships," Werking says. "We have different expectations. Flaws that are okay in a friendship may not be okay in a romantic relationship."

But if the flaws are benign and the spark is there, well, that's a great place to be. After all, Stern says, "the healthiest relationships are those that are maximum safety and maximum passion." Friendship: safety. Romance: passion.

-The future.

Which brings me back to my footsie friend. Passion -- as much as I like to think it's there, hidden in his subconscious -- is missing.

There was a short period after a drunken confession of my feelings when it seemed as though he was thinking about it, this notion of us. He was flirtier, looking at me differently. I looked at him differently, too -- in a way that made me freak out. Was this seriously someone I could see myself being intimate with?

And then things snapped back to normal, back to being really good friends, with me thinking, still, that we'd make the perfect couple. Perhaps that's just the nature of our friendship, the unalterable dynamic between us.

Anyway, he's dating someone now and seems happy, so as his friend, I'm okay with that. Besides, I've got someone new to like. He's a great guy -- and I know that because, alas, we're friends.

-The conclusion is a bit too long, but it ties with the lead.

- Taken from washingtonpost.com, the story is an explanatory piece, as in explains if two people of the opposite sex can mantain a platonic relationship.

Brothers for Life

By MELENA RYZIK

JOSH PECK had been missing his crew. On television, the actor, 21, usually rolls with Drake Bell, his co-star on the popular Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh.” (Mr. Peck’s MySpace page asserts that they are friends in real life.) In his new movie, “The Wackness,” Mr. Peck plays a loner who deals pot to his therapist, Ben Kingsley.

-That was the lead, which was about his roles in his TV series and his new movie. The article does not focus on his career, although it is mentioned later.


But in his life off screen, Mr. Peck, a native New Yorker, hangs with the same boys he did in high school. On a recent trip from Los Angeles, where he now lives, Mr. Peck picked up Henry Glovinsky, 21, and Cameron Bowen, 19.

-This first sentence in the above paragraph tells what the story is about in one sentence. That was the nut graph.


“If it weren’t for the sex,” Mr. Peck said, “they could be my life partners.”

O.K., he was probably exaggerating a bit about the bromance. The guys know one another from the Professional Performing Arts School.

“It’s like the ghetto version of LaGuardia High School,” Mr. Peck said, referring to the institution immortalized by “Fame.”

“We had gangs,” Mr. Bowen added. “But it was more like the Sharks and the Jets. We used jazz hands.”

They wasted no time hitting their old haunts, like Washington Square Park, where they got taken in chess, and the New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe restaurant in Chinatown, where another friend, who speaks Cantonese, had introduced them to the soup dumplings. Mr. Peck sent him a text message to be on call to help with the menu, but they managed to order five sets of soup dumplings on their own.

“Awesome, we circumvented Jeremy,” Mr. Peck said. “He’s going to be so proud of us.”

In charisma, energy and speech, Mr. Peck seems like a quintessential overgrown New York City kid. He was raised by a single mother — his moms, as he inevitably refers to her — in Hell’s Kitchen, “right next to Mr. Biggs with the chicken wings and the dope karaoke,” he said. By middle school, he was doing stand-up at clubs, but couldn’t parlay his husky charm into television ads. “They didn’t want chubby little kids to do commercials for Oreos,” he said. His role on “Drake & Josh,” about stepbrothers, came at 15; now it’s mostly his voice that’s husky. In “The Wackness” (opening July 3), which is set in New York in 1994 and which received an audience award this year at Sundance, he has his first semi-nude scene.

- That paragraph was about the guy's background.


But back to the bros.

“You were huge into Pokémon,” Mr. Peck said to Mr. Bowen. “One of my first memories of meeting Cameron was when he showed me his extensive Pokémon collection.”

“I was like a smoker, buying two packs a day,” Mr. Bowen said. They argued about their geek cred.

“It must be a generational divide,” Mr. Peck told Mr. Bowen, “that you like ‘Lord of the Rings’ and we like ‘Star Wars.’ ”

After dinner, they walked to Soho Billiards for a few games.

“This is going to be nail-biting,” Mr. Glovinsky said.

“As long as one of us beats Cameron,” Mr. Peck replied.

Mr. Glovinsky: “God forbid, a ‘Lord of the Rings’ fan.”

Mr. Peck: “Come on, let’s do this for Mordor.”

Mr. Glovinsky beat them both. “How do we make it cool that I just lost?” Mr. Peck said.

-That was all the main body.

-Abrupt ending, there is no conclusion. I didn't expect the story to end just like that.

I had a hard time finding the scope of the issue, and it didn't say the cause either. The impact are on him and his two friends, but it doesn't elaborate on how they are affected. There are no action of the contrary forces and it doesn't say anything about the future.

This is a narrative piece, it tells about Josh Peck and his relationship with his friends. I think the eassy is too short, the dialogue doesn't really add information, although it does add colour to the article.

Anwar accused of sodomy

Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, 23, caused a stir in the political scene. He lodged a police report on Saturday against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, saying that he had been sexually assulted and sodomised by the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor.

In his blog, Anwar said that the report lodged against him was a "complete fabrication" to damage his political career. The Star reported that in a press conference, his wife, Datin Seri Azizah said the move "is a second conspiracy, a political murder that has been committed against my husband." Anwar has filed a suit gainst Saiful for lodging a malicious report and defaming him.

Azizah, who is PKR president, also released four pictures of the accuser with three Cabinet ministers and one taken at the Depty Prime Minister's office. To find out who the prominent ministers are and more pictures of Saiful, click here.

Following the report, Anwar took refuge at the Turkish Embassy on the invitation of its ambassador to Malaysia, Barlas Ozener. He said he has recived many death threats since the general election on March 8. However, he left the embassy at 6.45 on Monday.

Saiful was Anwar's aide during the general elections. He was also a student leader at Universiti Tenaga Nasional for 2006/2007. He is said to be a mole placed in Anwar's camp "to arrest the movement of the Malaysian people towards freedom, democracy and justice."

They all deny involvement in murder case

Prime Minster Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, his son-in-law, and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib are all denying allegations made by Raja Petra Kamarudin in his statutory declaration.

Najib dismissed that his wife was involved in the murder of Mongolian translator, Altantuya Shaaribuu.

Najib said the allegations that his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, was there at the crime scene as “total lies, fabrication and total garbage”.

He said Rosmah has given her statement to the police. “I welcome the police investigation and I hope they would be concluded soon,” he said when asked by reporters.

Najib also said the declaration was a “desperate and pathetic attempt to taint my political image.”

Meanwhile, Abdullah was reported saying that he did not receive any reports from Military Intelligence regarding the case. Khairy Jamaluddin also denied having received any reports from any party about the murder case.

“I told the police that I have never received any military intelligence report on the murder of Altantuya from the Prime Minister or from any other quarters. Nor have I received any other report from anyone about the murder.

“I don’t have, I’ve not kept any such report and I don’t know anything about the murder,” he told the press.

On June 18, Raja Petra filed a statutory declaration at High Court that he was reliably informed on the presence of three other people at the scene of the crime. They were Rosmah, acting colonel Aziz Buyong who is ‘a C4 expert’ and his wife, only known as Norhayati, who is said to be Rosmah’s aide de camp.

Raja Petra also claimed that Abdullah has received a report from the Military Intelligence about this, then the Prime Minister handed the report to his son-in-law for safe-keeping.

Altantuya’s was reportedly blown to pieces after she was shot dead. Policemen Cif Inspektor Azilah Hadri and Korperal Sirul Azhar Umar, both who are from the Special Action Force, are charged with committing the murder. Political analysis Abdul Razak Baginda is accused of abetting them.

French President says goodbye, policeman commits suicide

ISRAEL- The French President Nicolas Sarkozy received a different kind of goodbye as he was about to leave Israel- a possible suicide by a policeman.

After a gunshot was heard at the tarmac of the airport, President Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni were rushed off into their airplane by security guards. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres were also quickly escorted out of the area.

The Israeli leaders were saying goodbye to the French President on his plane, when the shot was fired. At least two female soldiers fainted when they heard the shot.

Investigation are still under way, according to Israeli officials. However, the local media speculated that it was actually a suicide by a policeman who was 200 yards away from Sarkozy.

At least two Israeli soldiers suffered minor injuries in this incident.

What the government should do

The fuel hike announced by the government evoked reaction from the people. Everyone had (and still has) something to say. One thing for sure, the rakyat are not happy. We’re angry. We want information. Some even resort to street protests to voice out their dissatisfaction.

The Star reported that ‘A large group of opposition party supporters from PAS and PKR gathered in front of the Kampung Baru mosque after Friday prayers to protest the recent fuel price hike.’

With that, here are a few things the government should do to assuage public anger.

1. Improve public transport
Most people rely on private cars to get to their destinations. Now, more people are depending on public transport. Ever been on one? Not exactly a wonderful experience, was it? Memorable, but for the wrong reasons. Therefore, the savings from cutting the subsidies should go to enhancing our public transport.

2. Real price of petrol, real price of cars
If one expects the people to pay the full, real-world price of petrol – and I must say it is a perfectly reasonable expectation – then the rakyat expects, also reasonably, to buy cars at real-world prices, without the exorbitant taxes currently imposed.

I agree with the writer. The above was part of a comment on The Star’s Column, Contradictheory.

3. Reveal Petronas accounts
Don’t compare the petrol price with other countries in the region and say we’re the cheapest (after Brunei). That’s just not right. And we’re NOT stupid. Compare our prices with the other oil-producing countries.

Having said that, Petronas raked in millions of ringgit in revenue every year. Where’s all the money? Shouldn’t it be sufficient to cover the fuel subsidy? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see for this one.


People from all walks of life are affected by the fuel hike, especially the poor.

In Malaysia Today, Bank Islam Malaysia senior economist Azrul Azwar Ahmad Tajudin was reported saying

“For the poor, the recent fuel price hike comes as a double whammy of sort. For the past one year, they have been struggling to make ends meet with the rising food costs. Now they are hit once more with more expensive fuel while there is zero growth in their income.”

The ministers should not just in the air-conditioned offices and leave it to the people to cope with the changes. After all, it’s their job. They are the ones who should think of ways to help us. That’s why they were elected. It’s their responsibility.

Malay, Malaysian...what's the difference?

What does it mean to be a Malaysian? Does it matter what language you speak, what your skin colour is, or what race you are? Well, it matters a lot if you’re a Malay, because according to Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution, you are the one of the ‘chosen’ ones.

Before going any deeper into the subject, let’s get one thing straight. Who exactly is a Malay? I spent a fair amount of time on Google, and these are what makes a Malay.

- Malaysian citizen born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim
- Habitually speaks the Malay language
- Adheres to Malay customs
- Resides in Malaysia

If you have all the above, congrats! You’re a Malay, welcome aboard!

Now let’s check out what you get.

Article 153 explains the rights and privileges of the Malays (and the bumiputera). Among other things,

- quotas for entry into the civil service
- more opportunities for entry into public education
- higher chances of getting public scholarships
- allocation of extensive Malay land reservations

It started out when Malaya gained independence, the Malays were doubtful of the loyalty of non-Malays towards Malaya. Capiche? Therefore, in order for the non-Malays to be granted citizenship, the rights of the Malays had to be protected.

It is also considered as a social contract. One particular blogger uses a simple analogy to describe the situation- you can stay in my house, but any privilege to watch television should be given to me first, as I am the owner.

Maybe that was the right decision to be made during that time. But fast forward 50 years, some things have changed. It doesn’t help that some politicians make statements and decisions, in the name of the 'constitution'.

It might be time to look into the article, maybe some changes can be made for the benefit of all. I believe everyone deserves the right to receive education. How about the implementation of the regulations, are they effective? Heard of Ali Baba, anyone? Nope, it’s not Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves that I’m referring to here.

It is true that Article 153 protects the Malays, but maybe we don’t need that much protection? Or else when others are already running, we’re still trying to figure out how to crawl. What do you think?

where do we go from here?

Let’s get on the bandwagon and talk about petrol. After all, we don't want to be 'frogs under the coconut shell', now do we? So now the price of petrol has gone up. Waaay up. Yet, my allowance NEVER goes up. (Who’s with me here?) So how do we cope up with this? Where do we go from here?

Well, for starters, we might want to go slow.

Following the speed limit may not just save your life. It saves fuel and your money as well, says Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Suret Singh.
"As a general guide, travelling at 90kph is the optimum speed. The next time you travel home on the highway at 110kph, try driving at 90kmph. You'll notice the savings," he told reporters Friday at his office here.

I don’t drive at 110kph that often. Only when I feel like I’m going to be late. With that said, from now on, I’ll have to leave the house earlier to get to college. Let’s work backwards here. In order to get to college on time while driving at 90kph, I have to get up early. To get up early, I have to sleep early. Wouldn’t it be fair to ask for classes to end early, too?

(Either that or I’m going to be later than usual for class.)

I’m sure pretty soon, the prices of other things will sky-rocket. According to the Star, hawkers and other food operators will wait and see before raising prices.

The way I see it, they’re going to see what their competitors are doing, since no one wants to be the first to increase their price. So Pak Abu’s mamak stall will wait and see what Pak Mat does. When Pak Mat’s roti canai is up 20 sen, Pak Abu’s roti canai will either be the same price as Pak Mat’s or it will only go up 10 sen, but it will shrink half its usual size.

Pay extra 10 sen or be unfulfilled? Ahhh…the tough decisions we have to make in life.
But as Raja Petra puts it… life can’t revolve just around the price of petrol.