Relationship blues

Yes, we know teen girls obsess about boys — but there are limits to how much of that our columnist can take, she discovers!

I UNEARTHED my Sex And The City (SATC) DVDs last week and have been watching the series from season one, an episode or two before bedtime or when I feel in need of a laugh (re-runs of The X-Files were really getting me down).

I started watching SATC in my 20s and at the time I could sort of relate to the women in the show – not to Carrie Bradshaw’s shoe addiction, but to the dating misadventures experienced by the character on her journey to finding a man to spend the rest of her life with.\

I’m 45 now and find that I no longer relate to Carrie, or any of the other characters. There is an episode at the start of the second season in which Miranda Hobbes, Carrie’s sensible lawyer friend, loses her temper because her friends only seem to talk about men. She says, “Why do four smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends? It’s Iike seventh grade with bank accounts. What about us? What we think, we feel, we know... Does it always have to be about them?”

My thoughts exactly and this is also why I remembered being less than charmed by the final season of SATC – because there they were, still obsessed about finding “The one” and not dying alone (yes, even Miranda).

I mean, there is nothing wrong with wanting to share your life with one special person, but I don’t like how the series and its characters behave as though that life would mean less without that person. Are they saying that, if, for whatever reason, you end up single, it means you are incomplete? That’s really not the message I want to pass on to my daughter.

The thing is, although SATC is a series for adults because of its very adult content, Candace Bushnell, the writer of the book Sex And The City (on which the telly show is based) now has a young adult book series called The Carrie Diaries and it’s also being turned into a TV series.

Now, I don’t know what Carrie Bradshaw was like when she was a teenager, but I’m willing to bet that she was even more flaky than her 30-something SATC self.

I have not read the books (there are two so far), but the synopses on Amazon.com describe Carrie as a small town girl, the eldest of three sisters who live with their widower dad (I wonder what happens to him and the younger sisters – fans of SATC don’t ever get to meet any of Carrie’s relatives. In fact, the four main characters all appear to be orphans).

In The Carrie Diaries (the first book in the series), Carrie is a high school senior with three close girlfriends, one of whom is a gay guy, and a tall, dark and handsome admirer called Sebastian Kydd who sounds like an adolescent Mr Big (who Carrie marries in the TV series).

According to the School Library Journal review featured on the book’s Amazon page, “Carrie keeps letting boys run rampant over her”, which sounds very like the SATC Carrie we all know and long to smack because, really, why does a woman who supposedly attended the prestigious Ivy League Brown University (so it is revealed in The Carrie Diaries) behave like she was dropped repeatedly on her head as an infant and then force-fed crack until puberty?

You can excuse such idiocy (allowing men to treat you like dirt) in a teenager, but not in an adult. Still, I don’t think I’ll get myself copies of The Carrie Diaries and Summer And The City (the second book in the series). I know that teenage girls spend a lot of time obsessing about boys and relationships, and it’s natural and all that, but I think I’d rather read YA books with heroines who, while they might think a lot about boys, don’t behave like utter morons.

In fact, I’m a little tired of reading YA books in which relationships and sex are central to the plot.

I don’t mind one book of that sort for every half a dozen or so I read, but I think I’m due for a period of total abstinence from ink-and-paper sex and boy-related angst.

Everything in moderation, right? I can laugh at Bella Swan’s Edward-addiction in the Twilight Saga and I wouldn’t object to any young woman I care about reading the books, but I also want them to read books about teenagers who have more than sex and the opposite sex on the brain; who have so many interesting things to consider, places to go to, people to see that sex is just a tiny distraction, an amusing diversion, not an all-consuming passion. A tall order? Look out for the list on The Places You Will Go page on Facebook and post your recommendations too.

In the meantime, Happy Reading!

Tots to Teens By DAPHNE LEE-

> Daphne Lee reads to wonder and wander, be amazed and amused, horrified and heartened and inspired and comforted. She wishes more people will try it too. Send e-mails to star2@thestar.com.my and check out her blog at daphne.blogs.com/books.

To teach or to manage?

The Education Ministry should come up with guidelines that strictly define the role of teachers who are assigned to carry out administrative tasks and those who teach.

HAVE teachers not enough to teach that they are crying out to be “allowed to teach”? Or, have teachers been so drawn away from their teaching duty that they are pleading hard to “get (back) to teach”? Sadly, it is the latter that is of concern.

Teachers lament that they are not able to concentrate on their teaching because too many non-teaching activities and responsibilities are thrust upon them. There are the numerous analyses to do, reports to write, data to enter online, meetings, functions, seminars and workshops to attend. They also complain that they have co-curricular activities and games to manage and students to counsel.

Granted that some of these activities do have educational value that may indirectly contribute to classroom teaching effectiveness, teachers are not happy at the seemingly uncoordinated and inordinate manner by which they are called upon to be involved.

The contention is that much of the “paper work” teachers are required to do serve only the purposes of officials higher up. Teachers do not see any benefits to their charges at all.

With all these distractions, the committed teachers are worried sick that they may labour in vain in their classroom teaching; or they may themselves be burnt out. Others may already have thrown in the towel.

On the other hand, the less-than-responsible ones are enjoying the “outings” and “deviations” and unashamedly claiming that teaching is after all an “easy” life.

For the newly recruited teachers, this is indeed a confusing scenario!

There is indeed a case for the Ministry and education authorities to better coordinate and reassess the true needs of the paper work given to schools and expecting their feedback to be uploaded usually within short notice.

On the other hand, teachers must also recognise that some extracurricular activities are essential and therefore rightly become part of their duties.

Yet, with consent, approval and support from the authorities higher up, schools can do better. Here are my thoughts and suggestions.

A normal secondary day school with a student population of around 2,000 and running two sessions will have a principal, three senior assistants, an afternoon supervisor, four heads of academic departments, five student counsellors and a teaching staff of about 120.

This means that the school has 14 administrator-teachers, that is 12% of the staff.

Premier and other schools of acclaim may even have more academic and administrative staff. Smaller schools need no afternoon supervisors, have a proportionate number of counsellors whilst other positions are all intact.

These school administrators are called administrator-teachers because besides administering and managing their respective “office”, they are required to also teach some (10 to 14) periods a week. This may seem minimal as compared to a normal teacher’s load of 24 to 28 periods.

But, consider the minds of these administrator-teachers. Their first concern must be that they administer well the “office” they have been promoted and assigned to. They must also realise that what they do and decide now affect more than their own classes. They are helping to administer the whole school.

Their teaching periods may average two per day. But the timetable could be such that it is one period in the early half and the other period in the latter half of the day. Being conscientious and committed, they are teachers who want to perform well in their given tasks.

So, it is not just about going into classes for 40 minutes per period. There must also be necessary preparations to ensure that each lesson is enriching and benefiting to their charges.

Usually, they are torn between the demands of their administrative offices and the teaching needs of their classes. More often than not, our school structures and expectations being such, their administrative duties take precedence.

To accommodate, the more experienced administrator-teachers opt to teach “less important” subjects and classes.

This has resulted in their teaching becoming, much to their own chagrin, less than exemplary to their colleagues. Worse, there are some teachers who use the situation to justify their own lackadaisical demeanour.

This sad scenario begets the question: Why not allow administrator-teachers to be full-time administrators? They can then focus on the administrative tasks, take over the paper work now being assigned to teachers, “represent” teachers in many out-of-school activities and most importantly reduce the burden from teachers who are not “teaching-centric”.

After all, these administrator-teachers have to prove their administrative prowess rather than teaching for their next career move.

And, may I point out that former teachers who have taken on administrative positions in the ministry or the various education departments are not required to teach at all?

So why should teachers carrying out adminstrative work be expected to teach even if its just a few periods a week?

We really need a transformational change here. Would the Education Ministry allow schools to be administered by full-time administrators who were teachers before?

By LIONG KAM CHONG

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Who owns the South China Sea islets in the eyes of the world?

Hilary Clinton, US Secretary of State, made a very important statement on South China Sea area.

She stated on July 23, 2010 at the ASEAN meeting in Hanoi: "Legitimate claims to maritime space in the South China Sea should be derived SOLELY from legitimate claims to land features." Translation: Why China has claim over some islands/islets so far away from its homeland? Although Mrs. Clinton is a lawyer, she is wrong… based on international convention. There are many other important key considerations (historic claim, administration, etc). If “distance” is the ONLY measure of sovereignty, then US needs to give up Guam; UK needs to give up Falkland Island (to Argentina). And, many islets in the world need to find new owners.

Many people, including many journalists, in the world do not realize that historically, China’s claim on South China Sea islands started in the Ming Dynasty (1368), followed by Qing Dynasty (1644), followed by Republic of China (1911). Some people argue that it started even before Ming Dynasty. The current Beijing government just inherited the national map from Republic of China (in 1949). So this old claim started some 700 years ago and way before USA was born.

I hope people can live in peace as we become more civilized… in cooperation and prosperity. So it is a good thing the countries are proceeding to clearly settle on a “new” national boundary/interests arrangement (ownership, benefit sharing, etc) that the neighboring countries can accept… with or without USA help. In my view, the faster the better… so less feeling and fishermen will get hurt.

I understand, as the sole global power, USA has the responsibility to maintain peace and order where it concerns our interests. But we need to be an “honest broker” (to gain goodwill and other benefits), otherwise whatever we do is not sustainable. By starting the discussion on the South China Sea islands with such a BADLY ADVISED statement, Secretary Clinton is SOWING THE SEED of another big problem for America and the Sino-American relationship. 

“The earliest discovery by the Chinese people of the Nansha Islands can be traced back to as early as the Han Dynasty. Yang Fu of the East Han Dynasty (23-220 A.D.) made reference to the Nansha Islands in his book entitled Yiwu Zhi (Records of Rarities) , which reads: "Zhanghai qitou, shui qian er duo cishi"("There are islets, sand cays, reefs and banks in the South China Sea, the water there is shallow and filled with magnetic rocks or stones"). Chinese people then called the South China Sea Zhanghai and all the islands, reefs, shoals and isles in the South China Sea, including the Nansha and Xisha Islands, Qitou.”

There had been NO dispute over the sovereignty rights of China to the South China Sea and the numerous islands in it, by any other countries, for all those periods.

But, when the Western colonialists started invading and squatting all over Asia in the last 300 years, taking advantage of the declining power of the Qing Dynasty, they intentionally carved out various regions of land and sea as their “protected territories”. Then they forced the Manchu Court to sign many bogus “treaties” in which they claimed the Western “sovereignty rights” over these Chinese territories!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%E1%BA%A1ch_Long_V%C4%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands

Excerpt from the above link:

“In 1933, France reasserted its claims from 1887 to the Spratly and Paracel Islands on behalf of its then-colony Vietnam. It occupied a number of the Spratly Islands, including Itu Aba, built weather stations on two, and administered them as part of French Indochina. This occupation was protested by the Republic of China government because France admitted finding Chinese fishermen there when French war ships visited the nine islands. In 1935, the ROC government also announced a sovereignty claim on the Spratly Islands.”

On September 4th, 1958, the Government of the People’s Republic of China issued a declaration of the Chinese sea territories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%E1%BA%A1ch_Long_V%C4%A9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spratly_Islands

Excerpt from the above link:

“In 1933, France reasserted its claims from 1887 to the Spratly and Paracel Islands on behalf of its then-colony Vietnam. It occupied a number of the Spratly Islands, including Itu Aba, built weather stations on two, and administered them as part of French Indochina. This occupation was protested by the Republic of China government because France admitted finding Chinese fishermen there when French war ships visited the nine islands. In 1935, the ROC government also announced a sovereignty claim on the Spratly Islands.”

On September 4th, 1958, the Government of the People’s Republic of China issued a declaration of the Chinese sea territories.

http://news3.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/20...ent_705061.htm

Excerpt from the above link (that are translated to English):

“(1) This width of the territorial sea of the People's Republic of China is twelve national miles. This provision applies to all Territories of the People's Republic of China, including the mainland China and offshore islands, Taiwan (separated from the mainland and offshore islands by high seas) and its surrounding islands, the Penghu Archipelago, the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha islands (Paracells), the Zhongsha Islands, the Nansha Islands (Spratlys) and other islands belonging to China.”

(The Declaration by PRC, as clear from the above excerpt, specifically spells out the Xisha and Nansha islands, among other islands and sea boundaries.)

On September 14, 1958, ONLY 10 DAYS LATER, Vietnam Prime Minister at the time, Pham Van Dong, sent a cable to the Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the Vietnam government, expressing complete acknowledgment and support for China’s claims.

http://conghambannuoc.tripod.com/

Excerpt from the above link (that are translated to English):

“The Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam acknowledges and supports the Declaration on September 4th, 1958 by the Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on the PRC’s decision concerning China’s sea territories.”

The International community has been overwhelmingly supporting China’s legitimate and inviolable sovereign on the sea territories claimed by China.

http://www.southchinasea.org/docs/In...20the%20Na.htm

“2. The International Civil Aviation Organization held its first conference on Asia-Pacific regional aviation in Manila of the Philippines on 27 October 1955. Sixteen countries or regions were represented at the conference, including South Viet Nam and the Taiwan authorities, apart from Australia, Canada, Chile, Dominica, Japan, the Laos, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and France. The Chief Representative of the Philippines served as Chairman of the conference and the Chief Representative of France its first Vice Chairman. It was agreed at the conference that the Dongsha, Xisha and Nansha Islands on the South China Sea were located at the communication hub of the Pacific and therefore the meteorological reports of these islands were vital to world civil aviation service. In this context, the conference adopted Resolution No. 24, asking China's Taiwan authorities to improve meteorological observation on the Nansha Islands, four times a day. When this resolution was put for voting, all the representatives, including those of the Philippines and the South Viet Nam, were for it. No representative at the conference made any objection to or reservation about it.”

It is evident from all above historic records, international treaties, and acknowledgment by ALL regional neighbor-countries, that China has the INDISPUTABLE lawful and legitimate sovereignty over the South China Sea and all the offshore islands on it.

US won't take sides in South China Sea dispute

Updated: 2012-05-02 12:24 By Zhao Shengnan (China Daily)

The United States said on Monday that it would not take sides in the Huangyan Island standoff between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea and reiterated support for a diplomatic resolution to the territorial dispute.

Washington does not take sides on competing sovereignty claims there, but has a national interest in maintaining freedom of navigation as well as peace and stability, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, after meeting top diplomatic and defense officials from the Philippines.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin attended the 2+2 dialogue with their US counterparts, Clinton and Leon Panetta, in Washington.

"The United States supports a collaborative diplomatic process by all those involved for resolving the various disputes that they encounter," Clinton said. "We oppose the threat or use of force by any party to advance its claims."

Gazmin alluded to tension with China over islands in the South China Sea as he called for the need to "intensify our mutual trust to uphold maritime security and the freedom of navigation".

"We should be able to work together to build a minimum, credible defense posture for the Philippines, especially in upholding maritime security," Gazmin said.

The Philippines and China have been embroiled in the Huangyan Island dispute, with both nations stationing vessels there for nearly three weeks to assert their sovereignty.

China on Monday highlighted remarks made by the Philippine president about de-escalating the tension over the island, urging the Philippines to "match its words with deeds" and return to the proper pathway of diplomatic solutions.

Speaking of the tension, Philippine President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III said he had issued instructions to his military, telling them not to intensify the issue.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin stressed that there is no change in China's stance of using diplomatic channels to peacefully resolve the issue, which was triggered when a Philippine warship harassed Chinese fishermen and raised concerns over China's sovereignty of the island.

The Philippine officials also stressed diplomacy when asked what aid they had requested from Washington, saying that Manila sought to bring the South China Sea issue to international legal bodies.

Clinton reaffirmed the US commitment to the 60-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines, calling the Philippines a country "at the heart" of the new US strategy toward the Asia-Pacific.

Washington would help improve the Philippines' "maritime presence and capabilities" with the transfer of a second high-endurance (coast guard) cutter this year, Panetta said.

The US emphasis on neutrality and a diplomatic resolution would encourage Manila to be more restrained on the Huangyan Island issue, said Fan Jishe, a US studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Washington doesn't want territorial disputes between its Asian allies and China to be obstacles to China-US relations," he said.

Xinhua and Reuters contributed to this story.

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Quantum Rainbow Photon Gun Unveiled

  Published by MIT

A photon gun capable of reliably producing single photons of different colours could become an important building block of a quantum internet

We've heard much about the possibility of a quantum internet which uses single photons to encode and send information protected by the emerging technology of quantum cryptography.

The main advantage is of such a system is perfect security, the kind of thing that governments, the military, banks and assorted other groups would pay handsomely to achieve.

One of the enabling technologies for a quantum internet is a reliable photon gun that can fire single photons on demand. That's not easy.

One of the significant weaknesses of current quantum cryptographic systems is the finite possibility that today's lasers emit photons in bunches rather than one at a time. When this happens, an eavesdropper can use these extra photons to extract information about the data being transmitted.

So there's no shortage of interest in developing photon guns that emit single photons and indeed various groups have made significant progress towards this.

Against this background, Michael Fortsch at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, and a few pals today say they've made a significant breakthrough. These guys reckon they've built a photon emitter with a range of properties that make it far more flexible, efficient and useful than any before--a kind of photon supergun.

The gun is a disc-shaped crystal of lithium niobate zapped with 582nm light from a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminium garnet (Nd:YAG) laser. Lithium niobate is a nonlinear material that causes single photons to spontaneously convert into photon pairs.

So the 582nm photons ricochet around inside the disc and eventually emerge either as unchanged 582nm photons or as a pair of entangled photons with about twice the wavelength (about 1060nm). This entangled pair don't have quite the same wavelength and so all three types of photon can be easily separated.

The 582 nm photons are ignored. Of the other pair, one is used to transmit information and the other is picked up by a detector to confirm that the other photon is ready form transmission.

So what's so special about this photon gun? First and most important is that the gun emits photons in pairs. That's significant because the detection of one photon is an unambiguous sign that another has also been emitted. It's like a time stamp that says a photon is on its way.

This so-called photon herald means that there can be no confusion over whether the gun is secretly leaking information to a potential eavesdropper.

This gun is also fast, emitting some 10 million pairs of photons per second per mW and also two orders of magnitude more efficient than other photon guns.

These guys can also change the wavelength of the photons the gun emits by heating or cooling the crystal and thereby changing its size. This rainbow of colours stretches over 100nm (OK, not quite a rainbow but you get the picture).

That's important because it means the gun can be tuned to various different atomic transitions allowing physicists and engineers to play with a variety of different atoms for quantum information storage.

All in all, an impressive feat and clearly an enabling step along the way to more powerful quantum information processing tools.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1204.3056: A Versatile Source of Single Photons for Quantum Information Processing

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MIA, Malaysian Institute of Accountants needs to change

World Bank report says it should improve its governance structure

PETALING JAYA: After a recent assessment of the accounting and auditing environment in Malaysia, the World Bank has concluded that there ought to be changes in how the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) is governed.

The report on the observance of standards and codes, released in February, noted among other things, that the institute's governance structure and lack of resources were “posing some challenges”.

The report focused on accounting and auditing standards and practices in corporate Malaysia, as well as the institutional framework that underpins the corporate financial reporting system.

“An independent review of the governance structure of the MIA should be conducted to provide recommendations for improving its structure and operations,” said the World Bank.

“In particular, these actions should address the structure and membership of the MIA council, and the streamlining of the investigation and disciplinary process.

“These changes should also facilitate the process of approving any increases in membership fees, as it appears that a lack of resources is impacting the MIA's ability to discharge effectively all its obligations.”

The report noted that the institute's governing body, its council, had 30 members, 10 of whom are elected. The rest are appointed by the Government.

“All the members of the investigation, disciplinary, and disciplinary appeals committees are required to be members of the council, which limits the volume of cases these committees are able to process,” said the World Bank.

The institute has already taken steps to address this. In an interview with StarBiz earlier this month, MIA president Datuk Mohamed Nasir Ahmad said the institute had submitted to the Government a draft of proposed amendments to the Accountants Act 1967.

Among the changes sought was that the MIA be allowed to create multiple sub-committees to deal with investigations, with the subcommittee members possibly coming from outside the council.

However, the World Bank report did not mention any dissatisfaction over the council's composition, although this has been a longstanding complaint among some MIA members.

In a statement sent to StarBiz, the Malaysian Accounting Firms Association (previously known as the Association Of Small & Medium Accounting Firms of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor) pointed out that although the MIA was “wholly supported by members subscriptions”, 20 of the council members were appointed by the Finance Minister on the advice of the Accountant-General, as provided under the Accountants Act.

“The MIA is probably the only members-only professional body in Malaysia, and possibly in any country, with such a majority of unelected members in council,” said the association.

“If at all any amendment to the Act is to be proposed, it should start with reinstating the rights of the members to govern themselves as professionals should.”

The association issued the statement in response to the StarBiz article on April 16 on the proposed amendments to the Act.

Mohamed Nasir said the MIA was also proposing that its council be given the authority to make or amend certain rules, instead of having to wait for a general meeting to approve new rules.

The association frets that this may enable the MIA to unilaterally increase its membership subscription rates.

It said: “To put that in context, members have rejected subscription increases sought in the last two AGMs due to unhappiness with the institute.”

The World Bank report alluded to the institute's previous attempts to seek a subscription hike.

“The MIA derives almost twice as much income from its professional development programmes than it collects from annual membership fees. The annual membership fees stand at RM250, and two recent attempts to increase annual fees were voted down,” said the bank.

By ERROL OH
errol@thestar.com.my