The Disappearing Act: The Impossible Case of MH370 (Mudlark, 2021) by Florence de Changy, Book Review

I checked the internet, how much can I quote from a book without permission? The answer is various from which sources and publications. On average, less than 300 words is safe, I estimate. Let me take the risk, assume ignorance, and quote this book at length without giving the gist and juice of the book that we - reasonable Malaysians and perhaps the majority of informed people in the world - don't already know: "The key to a successful disappearance is diversion: grab the audience's attention and make them look elsewhere while you execute your sleight of hand. If MH370's 'disappearance' is indeed a sleight of hand on a massive scale, there has been a fantastic simultaneous effort of diversion, and seemingly more than one.

"The world's media has been complicit in the affair, mostly passively, by not questioning enough, and occasionally actively, by spreading unchecked, erroneous, or false information. Public opinion is not and is not supposed to be, that gullible. Everyone knows the MH370 story does not add up. Everyone knows a Boeing 777, possibly the safest plane in the history of civil aviation does not disappear without a trace in one of the most politically sensitive regions of the planet. So rather than being incredible, the official narrative is simply not credible. Yet the idea that we are being blatantly cheated by the governments we are supposed to trust is so uncomfortable and so problematic that, for the sake of our mental comfort, we choose to look elsewhere and welcome any alternative explanation, including one that makes no sense and falsely accuses a decent man of being a mass murderer" (Taken from Epilogue: The Disappearing Act, page 345-346)

To quote Ms. Changy again and as she always said in all of her interviews [check YouTube] sometimes casually, sometimes frustrate, "To me, claiming that Flight MH370 could have disappeared sounded like an insult to human intelligence." I agree wholeheartedly by underlining this phrase in the book with a 1.5mm black ink pen! Reading this book near Malaysia's 15th General Election is adding to my already lack of truth in the government. By the way, I enjoy reading Ms. Changy's 400+ pages of investigative journalism and gripping account of one of the most profound mysteries of the 21st century (although the word 'mystery' is unnecessary because there are people who knew!). I like that she provided as many facts as possible (of course, sometimes I questioned her sources), outline the incident well, explain some alternative scenarios, when into the testimonies of the families of missing passengers, interviewed interesting people, and quite a vast knowledge on current political situations, military arrangements and some aviation technical lingo (which I have to admit my limited comprehension in this area).

As any journalist would do, as much as she wanted to be objective, she is not without personal biases and interpretations. Read this book not with an open mind but with a critical mind. Focus on the obvious and always ask good and right questions. This is one of the lessons I learned from Ms. Changy. Because only with good and right questions we can get answers. Although, with MH370, it may take some time. As my favorite childhood TV series, The X-Files tagline says, "The truth is out there." Buy this book!

#ServeToLead #LeadersAreReaders #TheDisappearingAct #MH370 #FlorenceDeChangy #CurrentAffair #LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain

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THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

How Many Books Do Malaysians Read In a Year?

Sad Truth. How many books do Malaysians read in a year? I asked 1 of my colleagues and 2 of my friends and their answers were very optimistic... Well, we all guessed wrong. I thought it will be 5 books per year... but... I wonder, 14 years later, how many books do Malaysians read, kan?

*Sources:

#1 Pandian, A. (2000). A study on readership behavior among multi-ethnic, multi-lingual Malaysian students. A paper presented at the seventh International Literacy and Education Research Network (LERN) Conference on Learning, RMIT University, Melbourne, 5-9 July 2000.

#2 http://www.christopherteh.com/…/07/malaysians-reading-habit/

I kid you not!

#LetsMakeReadingCoolAgain

Blog: https://www.richardangelus.me/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/richard_angelus/

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

John C. Maxwell on Leadership #25 Good Leaders Are Good Navigators

Is Jack Sparrow a good leader-navigator?

Nearly anyone can steer the ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course. Before leaders take their people on a journey, they become navigators and go through a process in order to give the trip the best chance of being a success:

Navigators Draw on Past Experience: Most natural leaders are activists. They tend to look forward – not backward – make decisions, and move on. But for leaders to become good navigators, they need to take time to reflect and learn from their experiences.

Navigators Examine the Conditions Before Making Commitments: Good navigators count the cost before making commitments for themselves and others. They examine not only measurable factors such as finances, resources, and talents, but also intangibles such as timing, morale, momentum, culture, and so on.

Navigators Listen to What Others Have to Say: No matter how good a leader you are, you yourself will not have all the answers. That’s why top-notch navigators gather information from many sources.

Navigators Make Sure Their Conclusions Represent Both Faith and Fact: Being able to navigate for others requires a leader to possess a positive attitude. You’ve got to have faith that you can take your people all the way. On the other hand, you also have to be able to see the facts realistically. If you don’t go in with your eyes wide open, you’re going to get blindsided.

[Taken from The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (1998) by John C. Maxwell]

Have you taken the time to chart the course

for the people you’re leading?

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Jesus left the Unbelievers Behind: Performing Miracle is Not the Way to Him (Mark 8:9-13)

“After Jesus had sent [the crowd] away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighted deeply and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.’ Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side”

(Mark 8:9-13, NIV).

Strange as it may seem, there were people in Jesus’ day – people who actually saw Him – who wanted more proof that He was the Son of God He claimed to be. Following Jesus’ miracle of feeding the four thousand as recorded in Mark 8:1-9, a group of Pharisees approached Him asking for “a sign from heaven” proving His deity. But Jesus knew that their request for sign was not to prove Him to be the Messiah or Christ, but rather “to test” or “to argue” with Him. They were still trying to find a flaw in Him in order to “kill Jesus” (Mark 3:6). The Pharisees were determined to ruin the ministry of Jesus. They are more eager to disapprove His claims than to be convinced. Perhaps, they thought that the Messiah’s coming was to be announced by some strange signs in the sky.

This text reminds me of how a friendly Ustaz tried to prove to me that Jesus is not the Son of God by pointing to me few verses in the Bible out of contexts. So I showed to him what; 1) Mark, the writer of the Gospel told us about who Jesus is, “the Messiah, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1); 2) John the Baptist said Jesus “the one who more powerful than I… he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (1:7-8); 3) The Holy Spirit pointed to Jesus when “the Spirit descending on him like a dove” (1:10); 4) God the Father proclaimed about Jesus from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (1:11); 5) The evil spirits feared Him and said, “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” (1:24); 6) A paralyzed man was healed both physically and spiritually because Jesus said “Son, your sins are forgiven” (2:5); 7) Jesus Himself claimed to be God when He said, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath” (2:28); 8) Again, the evil spirits cried out to Jesus, “You are the Son of God” (3:11); 9) The wind and the waves – nature – obeyed Jesus when He said, “Quiet! Be still!” (4:38); 10) One more time, the evil spirits begged Jesus and knees in front of Him, “Jesus, Son of the Most High God” (5:7); 11) Jairus’ daughter was dead, but when Jesus said “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (5:41), she resurrected to life!; 12) The miracle of feeding the five thousand (Mark 6) and four thousand (Mark 8), Jesus multiplied and created bread and fish out of nothing like God; and many more. Only from chapter 1 to chapter 8 there are 12 proofs of Jesus’ deity! “Ustaz,” I said, “Let me pay for the food.” He was so kind, he paid it in advance.

Jesus “sighted deeply” when He heard the sarcastic remarks of the Pharisees. One commentator writes, “No matter what Jesus might do, they would not accept it as sufficient evidence because they did not want to believe.” Not because there were not enough proofs (I only pointed 12 proofs here) or because the proofs were unclear, but people – the unbelievers – don’t want to believe. They choose to reject Jesus. If you also a not-yet-believer, pray for the Holy Spirit to open your heart and convince you of the reality of the divinity of Jesus, the Son of God. Don’t harden your heart! Don’t be like Voltaire who said, “Even if a miracle should be wrought in the open market place before a thousand sober witnesses, I would rather mistrust my senses than admit a miracle.” To this kind of people, Jesus simply replied, “Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.”

I like how Jesus responded. He simply won’t entertain the unbelievers (on the other hand, Jesus welcome even encourage truth-seekers who really want to know the truth), say “no” and “then he left them.” Cool! Jesus was not coming to earth to convince people to come to him by performing miracles; He can do much greater miracles! He came to invite people to come to Him in faith, and as a response to their faith, He performed great miracles. Do you doubt Jesus of the Bible because you haven’t seen a miracle? Do you require “a sign from heaven” to prove Himself to you personally before you believe? I believe in miracle. But the most accessible “miracles” of God are here for us to examine: the recorded miracles in the Old and New Testaments, the two thousand years of church history, and the witness of thousands upon thousands of true Christians around the world today (around you and from the Internet world). Don’t harden your heart! This is what Jesus said after His resurrection: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). Amen.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Our Wired Lives on Facebook Series: #1 The Whole World is Getting Connected.

Currently I’m reading Randi Zuckerberg’s book Dot Complicated: Untangled Our Wired Lives (Harper-Collins Publishers, 2013), she wrote:

“’Zuck’s Law,’ so-named for my dear brother, says that the amount of information we share in the world doubles every two years. In the time it takes you to read a single page of this book, another hundred hours of cat videos, hilarious skateboarding dogs, and many other, er, valuable pieces of content will have been uploaded to the web. Over a million tweets will have been shared. Some of them will actually be read. And over sixteen million pieces of content will have been posted on Facebook. That’s a lot of photos of people’s lunches.

        

    Of course, there are limits to this trend. At some point, people simply can’t handle any more information – there are only so many hilarious cat videos and cute baby pictures we can look at. But you get the idea. The scale of what’s being shared is almost beyond our comprehension. Here’s an incredible thought: according to a Digital Universe report published in December 2012 by the analyst firm IDC, there are more pieces of digital content in the world today than there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth. Wow….

            Today, we expect to be online all the time, and we expect to be reachable everywhere. We usually are.  A Morgan Stanley Internet Trends report shows that over 90 percent of people keep their mobile phones within three feet of them, twenty-four hours a day. A May 2012 Harris poll in the United States found that 53 percent of people regularly check their phones in the middle of the night after they’ve already gone to bed, and a surprising and slightly disturbing number of people check their phones while on toilet…

            This online-all-the-time mentality pervades every area of one lives. Two 2012 surveys, one from Yahoo! And the other from Gazelle, revealed the following eye-opening data:

§  25 percent of women would give up sex for a year to keep their tablets.

§  15 percent of all survey respondents would give up their cars to keep their tablets.

§  Nearly 15 percent of all survey respondents said they’d rather give up sex entirely than go for even a weekend without their iPhones.

A 2012 TeleNav survey asked people which of life’s “little pleasures” they would rather do without for a week, instead of parting with their phones:

§  70 percent would give up alcohol.

§  21 percent would give up their shoes.

§  28 percent of Apple product users would go without seeing their significant others; 23 percent of Android users agreed.

A recent study from McCann Truth Central claimed that 49 percent of married moms would give up their engagement rings before they would part with their mobile phones. And a 2012 study from Harris Interactive revealed that 40 percent of people would rather go to jail for the evening than give up their social media accounts.

So, this is the world we live in now. Technology is almost everywhere and has come to dominate our lives. So much so, in fact, that we’ve starting to see people yearning to be less connected and trying to implement rules, structure, and discipline in both their own and their families’ lives, to ensure that all this connectivity does not come at the expense of relationships, skill development, and manners.

      It’s going to become increasingly important to find that balance, because in the next decade we’re going to see something even more extraordinary. Everyone and everything will be connected. There will be no division anymore between online and offline.”

[Long excerpt from Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives by Randi Zuckerberg (Harper-Collins Publishers, 2013), page 60-63. Buy this book!]

Let technology supposed to help us, not lord it over us.

Let technology fill our lives with meaning, rather than fear.

Let technology empowered us, rather than overwhelmed us.

Let technology become tools of opportunity to glorify God in everything,

rather than promote insecurity.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.