Rigel Kent

English laws, apparently, love fairness. Which sounds nice in theory, but in practice is a bit silly: Everyone gets treated the same. No priority lounges, no special privileges. Just the cold, relentless hand of the law, judging you like a very serious referee who does not like fun. . . . then Nila Pahlawan told several tales: the marriage of Raja Iskandar إسكندر to the daughter of Raja Kida Hindi, and the descent of Raja Suran into the sea, et cetera. Mpu ꦩ꧀ꦥꦸ and Malini मालिनी asked what proofs they could produce of the truth of this relation. “Ladies," said Nila Pahlawan, “this crown is an evidence of descent from Raja Iskandar. If any farther evidence is wanting, consider the phenomenon which you have seen on your rice-grounds in coming hither." Then the girls were rejoiced, and invited them to their house, whither they proceeded, he of the centre being mounted on...

. . . Kita punya anak kita punya suka, orang apa peduli bodoh atau pandai, tetapi jikalau hendak beri gaji pada kita, bolehlah anak-anak kita pergi sekolah . . . Report of a visiting teacher 1 3 June 1883, Selangor Secretariat File 892/83 . . . Jikalau tokoh-tokoh UMNO betul sayang, kasihi rakyat jelata, mari kita bertanding, menunjuk siapa yang ada rancangan atau dasar asasi yang boleh meninggikan kehidupan orang-orang Melayu dan bumiputera lain . . . Lee Kuan Yew 27 May 1965, Malaysian Parliament, 74 days before Separation Those of you reading this book all have one marketable asset in common, a knowledge of the English language. If you are earning a living this asset probably adds at least $300 a year to your income. Most of you did not acquire this source of income in the ordinary process of growing up. It was the result of an investment by your father and probably a large...

By misreading the Lotus Sutra, Chen De'an 陳德安 (b. 538, d. 597), a Tiantai 天台 patriarch, became the first Buddhist scholar-priest to assign a numerical measure (3,000 years) to the rarity of the blooming of udumbara flower 優曇華 , though this figure was probably intended to be rhetorical rather than literal. Mr. Chen De'an (b. 538, d. 597) was apparently no Chakravartin, and, unsurprisingly, no biologist. Many years ago, C. N. Parkinson, the first Raffles Professor of History at the University of Malaya, warned us that: the void created by the failure to communicate is soon filled with poison, drivel and misrepresentation. And true enough, the pictorial gap left by Lotus Sutra is now, for the past 30 years, filled by the Internet with a gallery of pale insect eggs masquerading as mystical blossoms. If we assume that the authors of the Lotus Sutra...