I take back whatever praise posts I have given them in the past. Of recently their service is going downhill. Ever since they forgot to renew my domain in July, causing my site to be down the grand total of 4 days, the site now is terribly slow, and goes down at least a few hours each day. When I confronted them, asking whats going on, they say its my fault!

Thanks for your information, we understand that the server recent down time have caused you a lot of inconvenience here. After we have monitor the server for in these few days, we suspect that your web site the-reflector.com consumes a lot of CPU resources in this shared server, the high CPU Usage of your web site has affected our shared server performance and lead to the exhausted of system resources of server.

You suspect one of your application may lead to the server busy here. This is because there are a lot of event log file we capture from our server show your heavy server resources. Sometime we also can see that your web site take out a lot of resources in the task manager

What? You have a problem with your server and its my fault? I have not installed anything new for the last 2 months, no new plugins, and in fact the number of hits on my blog as fallen because the blog is always down, and they say its my fault? That does it! I am not renewing my services next year. I am moving to somewhere else. Ladies and Gentlement, whatever you do, DON’T USE Webserver.com.my. Terrible service. Terrible support. And no responsibility whatsoever. Sigh. Such crappy service!

Is it really that big a deal? I don’t mean to take anything away from RIYO MORI, who is as beautiful as beautiful can be, nor do I want to take anything away from Japan, a nation filled with many beautiful people, who I am sure is rejoicing. But what value is Miss Universe to the world at large? People have told me that they do allot of charity work, giving money to Aids Patients and creating awareness. Surely that is all good and positive right?

Well, you don’t really need to have a beauty pageant, which to me, is a purely superficial competition to create Aids awareness and to do charity work. You don’t really need to portray to a million young girls out there that you have to look super thin, and have a figure like this, and have a face like this then you are beautiful.

Then people will argue that its not all beauty, there is also the Interview contest and talent contest. Some of the women are future doctors, lawyers and all sorts of smarts in them. Do you just hate them because they are beautiful? Well, no. Do you only love them because they are beautiful? I mean, yes they are smart, but they are not given the title because of their brains. Don’t kid yourself. I mean, look who are the judges.

This years judges are :- NBC’s “Heroes” James Kyson Lee, NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” briefcase model Lindsay Clubine, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, rocker Dave Navarro, World and Olympic figure skating champion Michelle Kwan, fashion designer Marc Bouwer, Novela Star Mauricio Islas, “Project Runway” judge and Elle magazine fashion director Nina Garcia, and former Miss Universes Dayanara Torres (1993) and Christiane Martel (1953).

I don’t see any body who is not in the Entertainment and Fashion business. “Its all a marketing strategy”, I heard one person once say. “The sponsors of the prizes want to break into new contries, and based on that, they chose a winner. Thats why Miss India won a few times, they wanted to break into the Indian Market”, the conspiracy theorist went. Possible. I mean look at the prizes she won.

Prices this year are :- Official Miss UNIVERSE Mikimoto pearl tiara; 2 Year Scholarship from The NY Film Academy in NYC; custom designed wardrobe by Tadashi; National and International multi-media advertising campaign and a complete denim wardrobe from YMI Jeanswear; Swimsuit wardrobe from BSC Swimwear Thailand; Shoe wardrobe from Nina; A Ritmo Mundo Jumbo Jet Mystery Dial time piece; Year-long supply of hair care products and tools from Farouk Systems; Membership to Gravity Fitness and papering at John Barrett Salon; Fashion Portfolio by leading fashion photographer Fadil Berisha; Consultation with stylist Billie Causieestko; New York City apartment for the year of her reign including living expenses; professional representation by the Miss Universe Organization and Trump Model Management; and a personal appearance wardrobe.

Wow. I wonder how much money that is. Could it be say enough money to buy AIDS medicine for 1000 African children for 1 year?

I am a realist though. Big businesses want more money, and how do they make the money, by creating awareness. You make allot more money by saying Miss Universe uses your hair products then by giving money to African AIDS Children.

I just wonder how much of the money from Miss Universe pageant actually gets to the needy and how much of it goes back into the sponsors pocket.

Bottom line is this la :- “No Women, beautiful or not, should be considered an object”. And doing it in the name of Charity, seems a little suspect to me at best.

To both Kenny and Sagaladoola. It boils down to this. Weather or not you a person thinks of himself as a Journalist or just a blogger, having a blog bears responsibility. It could be a post on your neighboors dog barking all night and keeping you awake, or it could about some religious leader dying, and you rejoicing over his death. You need to face the consequences of what you posted, you and you alone have to sleep at night with what you posted. I am no law expert, and I do not know if any laws are broken in this instance, but assuming no Malaysian laws are broken, we are left with Ethics. A journalist has to be one thing if anything, and that is truthful to the reality of the situation. If a person dies, he has to report the truth of the situation. What about decency. Who determines what is decent and what is not. In a newspaper, the editors have the final say after getting feedback from legal department and all other relevant parties whether or not its deemed suitable for publication. As a blogger, you and only you decide. There is allot of responsibility here. Like I have said before, NOBODY can judge what Kenny’s intentions. If he saw dollars, if he saw blog hits, if he saw news that he felt the urge to report, if he saw a life lost which could have been saved by a change in peoples perspective. Whatever. He decided and now he has to accept the feedback.

Kenny, if you can sleep at night, Ignore everybody, you did what you thought was right. Move on. If you can’t, take down the pictures, and apologize.

Sagaladoola, you have every right to blog what you want to, but I urge you to consider this. You may not have clarity of what exactly Kenny was going through when he saw the accident. Give him the benefit of the doubt.

My mom died in a Car accident. Would I want somebody to take pictures of her lying there dead, I think no. But I am personality attached to the situation. If a decent photo of my mom could save lives, making people think twice before they drive like they own the roads, I might not care. My mom is no longer with the living, how many more children would still have their moms by a little education? But thats just me.

Saglodoola wrote an interesting piece about the recent events at Kenny’s Sia blog. He was there at a scene of a gruesome accident, where somebody very young had died, and he blogged about it. The images may be disturbing, so if you want, click here. The criticism came however because of the photographs he took at the scene. People had argued that his pictures showed bad taste and he should not have posted the picture, much less taken them.

I struggle with this post. And I wonder, if It was me, instead of Kenny Sia, who witnessed this accident, would I have taken photos? I carry my camera almost everywhere, and even when I don’t, my handphone takes pretty decent pictures. I am always on the look out for great stories, as I am at the heart of me, a story teller.

I asked a few blogger friends, and even they gave me mixed responses. One said out loud, that he wouldn’t, as thats not what his blog is about. Another said, she wouldn’t but she didn’t think it was wrong, because you were a witness.

I think it boils down to this. Do you as a blogger consider yourself a Journalist. If you do, I believe as journalist you have to follow some guidelines. I found this and it really stuck my heart

Journalist Creed (source)

I believe in the profession of journalism.

I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.

I believe that clear thinking and clear statement, accuracy and fairness are fundamental to good journalism.

I believe that a journalist should write only what he holds in his heart to be true.

I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible.

I believe that no one should write as a journalist what he would not say as a gentleman; that bribery by one’s own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends.

I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service.

I believe that the journalism which succeeds best — and best deserves success — fears God and honors Man; is stoutly independent, unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power, constructive, tolerant but never careless, self-controlled, patient, always respectful of its readers but always unafraid, is quickly indignant at injustice; is unswayed by the appeal of privilege or the clamor of the mob; seeks to give every man a chance and, as far as law and honest wage and recognition of human brotherhood can make it so, an equal chance; is profoundly patriotic while sincerely promoting international good will and cementing world-comradeship; is a journalism of humanity, of and for today’s world.

As a journalist, one has to has to audit ones motives. Why are you writing about something. Are you posting something to increase your popularity, your blogs hits, to become famous, to express yourself, to educate, to inform, to give commentary on? Only Kenny knows why he blogged what he did, and I won’t pretend to know he reasons. I however read the post, and to me, he did no wrong, and we should not judge.

then it stands to reason that they don’t happen for a reason as well. There is a reason why things don’t happen in your life. And its not always a bad thing that a good thing doesn’t happen to you. Of recent I received new of something, and I was pretty upset by it, though I tried, hopefully successfully, to hide my heart brokenness. I mean, I don’t want to be bitter, and though I was truthfully happy for the individuals who had something happen to them, I was disturbed that I never get blessed by it.

You can’t help but wonder why “Not me?”. What don’t I have? or What have I not done? What do I lack? or What DO I have that prevents it from happening to me? Its not really your place to go and ask the people involve, and sometimes when your stupid enough to do so, you never really get a satisfying answer. Worse still, if the response given actually make you want to Prove that it should have been you. It doesn’t really work that way though does it.

What can be said? Where is there to be said? There is a reason, and sometimes its beyond what your mind can perceive. Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you,”declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I hold on to that.