M Bakri Musa

The per-capita income of the Klang Valley is a mere fraction of America’s Silicon Valley, but one would not know that from visiting the respective shopping malls.

At any time there are more (in absolute as well as relative numbers) Mercedes Benzes and other late model luxury cars in the parking lot of the Mega Mall in Klang Valley than at Stanford Shopping Center. And judging from the crowd, the purveyors of luxury goods at Mega Mall do a roaring business compared to their counterparts in the US.

It is disheartening to note that while world leaders from Gordon Brown to Barack Obama are consumed with the evolving global economic crisis - the worse since the Great Depression - Malaysian leaders are obsessed with such trivialities as whether yoga would undermine our faith in Islam, and on such silly issues as Malay special privileges.

On Tuesday November 4th, 2008, America became, in the words of comedian Jon Stewart, more of a "show" nation and less of a "tell" one. In electing Barack Obama, America shows the world that it is now closer to being that "more perfect Union," to quote the preamble to its constitution.

Nations are like people; it matters not where you have been, more important is where you are headed.

The continuing furore over a college dropout’s allegation that he had been sodomised reveals the malicious mindset and perverted priorities of the Abdullah administration.