They Don’t Make Men of God like they Used To.

 

I had a very particular spiritual upbringing. When I was around five, mum moved me in with Lee, my first stepfather. The highlight that Lee, who is now 92, remembers, was the fact that I cried when looking at an icon of Jesus that he had in his house and then found peace and slept soundly in his “Budha Room.” Mahayana Buddhism under my American stepfather was what you’d call the “family faith” and I ended up being brought into the faith under the “Tibetan name” of “Karma Kunzang Tashi” (hence, my sister and I used to play adventures of Humphry and Tashi).

Whilst I am officially Buddhist, I tend to frame things in a Christian context. The reason is simple. I went to school in England and the subject I was good at was Christian theology. Whilst the subject is inevitably academic, one cannot escape thinking spiritually. There is no way you can look at the gospels and not be spiritually affected by what is clearly a divine message.

Then, as I went out to earn my own keep, I ended up being blessed by Jains (the company that sustained my freelance career being what was then Polaris Software Labs, now Intellect Design Area, which is owned and run by a Mr. Jain) and Muslims (my biggest achievement being working for the Saudi Embassy back in 2006). In this part of my life, I found that the two wisest comments on humanity’s relationship with the Almighty came from Muslims (a Haji Taxi driver and one of the drivers at the Saudi event).

Being blessed by people of so many faiths has made me realise several things. The most of these comes from the fact that a faith is lived by the people who practice it and the fact that faith is very personal, where one chooses a faith based on certain truths that one gets from that particular faith.

I’ve also realized that when it comes to faith, too many of us are obsessed by the appearance of it. You get people who become obsessed with doing all the rituals and reading up on every letter in the sacred text. They will fight tooth and nail to ensure the rest of us are bound by their following of the text. Yet, when it comes to the practice of the teaching, they fail miserably.

In Singapore, the best example that comes to mind is the family Thio, lead by Mama Professor Thio Su Mien and her daughter Professor Thio Li-ann. Both mother and daughter have devoted their very powerful intellect to fighting every piece of legislation that appears to be “Gay friendly.” Thanks to them, Singapore took far longer to lift colonial era legislation against consensual homosexual sex than far more conservative and Asian societies like India and Taiwan. Yet, when it came to the downtrodden like the Indian and Bangladeshi workers living in what is effectively “slave” wages or the increasingly number of visible old folks pushing around cardboard to earn enough for a cup of coffee whilst sleeping outdoors, the mother and daughter team have been noticeably silent. Let’s face it, Christ had a lot more to say on the downtrodden than he did about homosexuals.

 Humans have a way of interpreting the message even in ways that go against the very essence of faith. Think of how the Christian Zionist lobby in America have ensured that every politician understands that not doing as Israel says is a sure-fire way to lose votes or how Buddhist in Myanmar have backed the slaughter of Rohingya Muslims. These are just some examples of everyday abuses of faith, used to divide humanity in the most ungodlike manner.

So, this is the tragedy of the passing of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known as Pope Francis on 21 April 2025. The Pope as with all his predecessors, was a figure of global prominence (Being the only religious leader recognized as a Head of State under international law) and he used that position to speak out for the very people Christ spoke for.

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-death-peace-legacy-appeals.html

 

 Sure, Pope Francis had his faults. One of the criticisms against him was that he was good at starting things but not good at finishing them. Call it a case of “trusting God,” when things called for man to push them through.

However, if you look at things on the balance, Pope Francis, was undoubtedly what you’d call a necessary force of good. This is especially true when you consider the crop of global leaders in the world compensating by going to war against the very people that Christ spoke for – namely “the least, the last and the lost.”

This was a Pope who was not just a leader of the Catholic Church. He was the model of what global figures should do. Whilst his predecessor, Benedict XVI made his name with some controversial remarks about Islam, Francis made it a point to reach out to other faiths. You could say it was a realization that it wasn’t the name or practice of the faith but how one related to the Almighty that mattered.

Pope Francis was also a gem of a religious leader in that he didn’t preach “mumbo-jumbo.” He actually accepted science as being part of God’s work. During Covid, he did what any sensible octogenarian would do in the middle of a pandemic – he actually listened to the science, wore a mask in public and didn’t push for mass sermons when social distancing was being advised by the medical community. Pope Francis didn’t go on Twitter wars with Greta Thunburg and actually gave support to her message. Here was a man of God who understood that God gave one brains and expected them to be used for the betterment of mankind.

So much more should be said of the Pope’s passing. So much more needs to be done in seeing that we have more spiritual leaders like this Pope. In light of the host of charlatans getting into power around the world, humanity needs to learn to recognize real men of God if we really are to have a future.   

 

“President Trump and the Americans tell the world that if I slap you in in the face, don't slap me back.” – Victor Gao, Vice President of Center for China and Globalization

 

It’s pretty hard to escape the news on the current “trade war” between the USA and China these days. Turning to a news channel inevitably means listening to some little bitch whine about how its wrong to “retaliate” and I end up becoming more and more convinced these days that the problem with life in general is that we’ve brought up our kids to be “anti-violent.”

It's not that I am a proponent of violence and its important to teach our kids the importance of solving things through other means. However, I do believe its important to let our kids, especially our little boys get into a fist fight or two and being able to throw a punch should be on the curriculum for every little boy on the planet.

My reason for saying all of that is simple. As anyone who has been a fight knows, everyone gets hurt. Violence may sometimes be necessary. However, as anyone who has been in a fist fight will testify, everyone gets hurt. This is true, even when you’re physically more imposing (says someone who wants had to contend with a violent ex who was significantly smaller). If you throw a punch, you got to expect the other guy to throw one back. If he or she doesn’t, you’ll need to watch your back because the other fellow will undoubtedly have people willing to deliver payback.

So, every time you listen to a Trump Administration whine about how this and that country is retaliating, you can’t help but get the idea that this is an administration run by whiney b***** who never threw a real punch before and are totally stunned when other people hit back. This point was brought home by Victor Gao, Vice President of the Centre for China and Globalization, when he said that it was not logical to slap people and then expect them not to slap back:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DId5uZ-OUsz/

 

While the USA is the proverbial African Bull Elephant in the proverbial jungle and most likely to win (based on size being a decider in fights), its very clear that vast segments of the American population will get hurt and the American economy will not go unscathed. China, the other elephant, may be smaller but it has certain strengths and it has not been afraid to use them.

One can only pray that this trade war doesn’t blow into another kind of war. One also has to lament the fact that “trade war” was and continues to be a celebration of stupidity and incompetence of the highest order. America has, ever since the end of the Second World War, been the global leader because it’s been a creator of greater prosperity and fairness in the world. That’s now gone. Thanks to the talk about forcefully taking over Canada and Greenland (part of Denmark, which is an EU State), traditional allies like Canada and the EU have found a very reasonable alternative in the shape of China, which in most circumstances, doesn’t have a reputation of playing fair in trade. Its now no longer a case of the USA against China, but the USA against every major economy.

Then, there’s the fact that tariffs are a tool that was once used in the 1930s. As that great voice of Lefty Ideals, Ronald Regan, pointed out – tariffs are one of the best ways to screw yourself:

https://bsky.app/profile/brettolmsted.bsky.social/post/3llwdt2xwm224

 

 

Mr. Regan, who, after his death became a “icon” of the “Liberal Left” through his free-market policies and shrinking of government, explained that the problem with keeping foreign competition out of the market was that is enabled local monopolies to screw consumers with overpriced and inferior goods:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEtSN-dV6q0

 

 So, even if the USA emerges “victorious” in the current trade war, it will end up screwing itself royally as local monopolies rise up and screw over the American consumer.

All of this could have been avoided if Mr. Trump really understood what makes America great, namely its openness to the world and its amazing capability to develop brain power. Think about it this way, seven out of ten of the world’s top universities are American. Whatever America doesn’t make, it makes up for in what it educates, designs and innovates. Sure, China sells more goods to America but can American universities are filled with students from China, dying for prestige of having an American degree. American students are not rushing to spend their student days in China, unless you’re talking about those of exchange courses to learn Mandarin.

American power and prosperity has grown in conjunction with the growth of “rivals.” The America of today is richer than in the 1940s, an era where Germany and Japan barely made a dent in anything.

This is something Mr. Trump and his gang of whiney b****** don’t understand. They have managed to toss out years of goodwill and ironically, they have handed it over to China. Whatever they win out of this trade war will be cheap compared to what they could have had if only they focused on what made America so great – creating the future, something which China seems to have understood.

Was Decency Enough?

 

Yesterday, Malaysia lost its first Prime Minister in the post-Mahathir era, Mr. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who was affectionately known as “Pak Lah.” Mr. Badawai was 85 and been suffering from ill health when he passed. The tributes are now pouring in, and just about everyone is remembering Mr. Badawai is a decent man, something which Malaysia’s recent crop of politicians are not known for.

Mr. Badwai was what you’d call, as different as you could get from his predecessor, Dr. Mohammad Mahathir. Like his contemporary in Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, Dr. Mahathir was a strong personality, who seemed to make every achievement of the nation about him and his efforts. While Dr. Mahathir did preside over an era of prosperity, he did get a little too fond of being in the hot seat. This was visibly seen by his abrupt jailing of this then mentee, Mr. Anwar Ibrahim (now Malaysia’s Prime Minister), which started what was probably the most interesting political drama in the region.

Mr. Badawi was very different. He made it clear that he was going to run things on a more consensual basis:

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2025/04/14/work-with-me-not-for-me-how-pak-lahs-humble-approach-shaped-malaysias-economic-and-human-capital-landscape/173079

 

 He was as good as his word. He restored parliament’s ability to hold the executive to account and became known as the “Human Capital Development” Prime Minister. The aim was simple, growing Malaysia’s human capital to be a source of wealth.

He became, for the time that he was in office, a man respected for his decency. As the English, Malaysia-based fraud examiner, Mr. Nigel Morris-Cotterill describes the Badawi era as “What Malaysia could and should become.”

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7317733313794707456/

 

 Datuk Vinod Shekar, the CEO of Malaysia’s Petra Group states that Mr. Badawi put “country above himself” and explained that Mr. Badawi made decisions that could have shortened him political career but made them anyway:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7317744981450854401/

 

 Even when he left power, Mr. Badawai remained accessible. As former Bernama correspondent, Tengku Noor Shamsiah TengkuAbdullah recalls, he remained dedicated to national development:

https://www.weekly-echo.com/he-listened-he-led-he-inspired-tun-abdullahs-enduring-legacy/

 

 So, everyone seems to agree that Mr. Badawai was a very decent and dignified leader. He was the perfect foil to his predecessor and his decency and honesty stood out when compared to his successor, who took raiding the coffers to a new level.

While everyone is remembering Mr. Badawi’s legacy, there’s one uncomfortable truth. Mr. Badwai’s time in office was remarkably short. He was in office for a mere six-years, which pales in comparison to the 22-years plus of Dr. Mahathir’s first stint and the nine years of his successor, Najib Razak.

Why would a nation give such a decent man less time in office when it gave his predecessor and successor more?

The sad truth is that decency and power usually don’t mix well. People in positions of power must resort to “compromise” and at times do things that are the opposite of “decent.” In Mr. Badawi’s case, his decency as a person worked against him.

Let’s start with the obvious, “doing the right thing,” upsets the status quo, which inevitably means hurting the interest of people who are inevitably supposed to be on your side. Then, there’s the fact that in parliamentary democracies, political parties have a way of removing leaders that might look like they’ll cost them an election. Think of how the UK’s Conservative party dumped Margaret Thatcher in the 1990s, even though she led them to three election victories.

Given that Malaysia at the time had no credible opposition to speak of, most of Badawi’s issues were internal. Trying to lead Malaysia away from its corruption issues meant that he upset forces in his own party. So, when he lost seats, those forces led a coup against him and he was replaced by his deputy, who promptly led an administration so corrupt that a once disorganized opposition united and kicked the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition out of power for the first time since independence.

In a way, Mr. Badawi was like another character – Manmohan Singh, India’s last non-BJP Prime Minister, who was a decent man who didn’t know how to deal with unscrupulous people on “his side.” Like Mr. Singh in India, Mr. Badawi took responsibility for the failures of his administration, though unlike Mr. Singh, Mr. Badawi had the good fortune of being succeeded by someone corrupt, which made him look saintly by comparison.

If you read Nicolo Machiavelli, you’ll notice that the main thread is that power is a “dirty game.” One must be prepared to use it ruthlessly. However, one also needs leaders of good character. As the Dalai Lama argued, it’s more important to have a national leader of good character than a hermit. Finding that balance in a national leader is something no political system has perfected but its something all nations need to keep working at.

Health or Wealth – Exclusive or Part and Parcel?

 

I’m a late convert to the idea of staying fit. Prior to ex-wife number two nagging me about being fat and the doctors telling me that my blood sugar was at a rate where I could expect to pop a variety of pills for the rest of my life, I never really thought of getting fit. If anything, I saw gyms as a place where the wets hung out and while working out in the park looked good in a “Rocky IV” way, the idea of getting out there and doing it, was never as appealing as watching someone else do it.

However, whatever my early reservations towards exercise were, I had to get started and as I have been on this path of adding physical activity in my later years, I’ve noticed that adding physical activity in your daily life is not just about the physical. Its kind of a mental and spiritual exercise too.

As you exercise daily, you’ll notice things too. With the exception of the usual “gym bros,” you’ll start noticing that everyone else around you, particularly in the professional middle class setting, tends to look rather pasty.

There’s a reason for that and its cultural. We’re essentially trained to look for “comfort” in all that we do. Hence, modern PMET jobs involving sitting at a desk on a daily basis looking at screen. The more you sit at your desk, the better. Whatever I may have said about sitting, the reality is that if there’s a choice between sitting in a nice air conditioned or centrally heated office and being in the hot sun of icy cold, only the insane would chose the latter. Then, there’s what happens after a day in the office. Who wants to “sweet” in a gym when you can meet your mates for a pint or two at the pub.

We, in the professional middle-class, are literally programed to think of “comfort” as our life’s ambition. A good deal of middle-class professionals has separated the concept of “wealth” and “exercise.” I think of my godson, who is a good-looking young man, whose ambition is to get a “pot belly,” or to look “prosperous.” I’m reminded of a Teddy Bear who worked in the office for a spell. Upon the urging of his then girlfriend, now wife, I told him to lose weight and that it was uncool for the rest of us to worry he’d go into cardiac arrest every time he walked more than five meters. His reply was that he was going to focus on building his career and his wealth before worrying about his health.  

One only has to look at a conversation between Bobby Saputra, Asia’s favourite internet character, and his dad to see how wealth and health are considered very separate things, that are almost mutually exclusive:

https://www.tiktok.com/@supercoolben10/video/7441176214657568022

 

 This mentality doesn’t get better with age. By the time people reach “my” age (50), there’s a prevailing attitude that intense exercise is what you leave to the young folk and Tai Chi is what you do in the park and so “middle age” doesn’t do any exercise.

I disagree with this outlook. From what I’ve been reading and binge watching, staying healthy and relatively fit is what you call the best insurance for old age. A middle-aged man who maintains muscle mass becomes and old man who does not need nursing care. Let’s face it, health insurance premiums go up as you age as do hospital cost. So, the best way to ensure you don’t go broke in old age thanks to medical costs.

I guess since I’m not exactly a well to do Middle Aged man, I have a hard time making this case. The common gripe people will have is that since I can’t afford a car or hot house, I got to talk about fitness.

Thankfully, I met someone who is from a very well rich family and we managed to find common ground in the fact that we believe in fitness, particularly as you get older.

Meeting her enforced an observation that there is a correlation between physical and professional fitness. Just look at the richest people in the world. There isn’t a fat slob amongst them. Even Donald Trump, the most prominent fat slob in the world, was fairly trim.

There’s a reason for that, which is the qualities needed to succeed professionally are more often than not, the same qualities need to get fit. At the most basic level, both activities require the ability to delay gratification and the discipline to keep going month after month without seeing any results. Fit people tend to have better abilities to withstand the stress, which comes with the high powered and paying jobs. Even on the most superficial level, fit people tend to look like people you have confidence in dealing with.

As this Instagram post points out – the very successful treat their physical fitness part of their daily routine rather than as a luxury.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DH8siL6AYPz/?hl=en

 

  Again, let’s go back to the topic of hospital cost. Yes, rich people can afford better health care than poor people. However, rich people also know that even if they can afford the best treatment, being sick will costs them business opportunities. So, they work at avoiding going to hospital. Hence, you have a situation where the rich eat better food and work out, whereas the poor eat junk. One only has to think of Christiano Ronaldo who drinks water and the 1,000 ilbs sisters who drink 12 cans of soda a day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIAFe7zaCRU

 

 

 The point is simple. People who want to succeed professionally are also people who look after their well-being, physically and mentally. Being healthy is not exclusive to being rich. If anything its an essential part of getting to the top.