The Iconic Photo of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Power vacuum fuels vicious drug war

By Karl Penhaul
CNN

Editor's note: This article contains profanity that some may find offensive. This is part one of a three part series showing different aspects of life inside Colombia's drug gangs.


A gang member sniffs in a cloud of cocaine dust as he cuts the drug with other substances.

MEDELLIN, Colombia (CNN) -- A young man with tattoos covering one arm rolls hundreds of marijuana joints in the half-light of a shack, perched on a hillside in a Medellin slum.... click to read more...

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.
I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."
So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.
But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.
Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.
Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.
I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.
But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.
Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.
And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.
No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

A recap

My one month trip back to Msia turned out to be one full of surprises. My internship didn't start untill the end of my 2nd week home and it only lasted for 2 days. A visit to a doctor turned out to be a surgery and a 7-day hospital stay. In between that, I hosted 3 couchsurfers and one girl we met in Zouk. Ryan's from Hong Kong, Colin's from Sarawak, Jeff is from Kelantan and Felicia is from KL. They reached Ipoh at about 3 am [Sunday], then we went to get supper at a mamak, chilled for a while, drank some Southern Comfort, and then Ryan wanted to catch the sunrise. So we drove up to Gopeng, had breakfast and went white water rafting. It was all totally unexpected! We had lunch then came back to Ipoh. Rested till about 6 p.m., went to have dinner/Guinness Draught at MP. We got our supply of booze and headed back to Gopeng for a full night of drinking and smoking some legal herb... good times.

The next day, we spent some time dry abseilling, singing along to songs like "Belaian Jiwa", "I'm yours" and "Hotel California" while the staffs at the resort strummed the guitar... before leaving, we took some great shots at the waterfall. We had an amazing and cheap dinner [our first meal of the day] at Lawan Kuda. We've been drinking beer since we woke up, and had more beer during dinner. Jeff and Felicia took the bus back to KL while Ryan and Colin headed up to Thailand and got there at 11:30 p.m., and spent the night on the beach in Songkla. Tomorrow's a big day - the surgery.

My hospital visit was a pleasant one. The surgery went well, the food was great, the nurses were kind, I had my own TV with StarMovies on 24/7 and my MacBook[I was on FaceBook almost every minute of the day... for 7 days!! lol] and my mum brought me a huge stack of movies.

After getting discharged from the hospital, I decided to just take it easy and rest at home for the day. The next day however, for the entire week I spent every night drinking at bars like Krave, Barbeza and Barroom. Yeah, every evening/night. It was rather exhausting I gotta admit. But it felt good spending time with some of my friends... reminds me of my worry-free days. It reminded me again why I left my life in the U.S. and spent 30 hours traveling halfway across the world, twice!! You guys know who you are and you know I'd always have you guys in my heart no matter where I am and what I do or how long it will be until we get to hang out and be crazy again.

During my last week in Malaysia, I spent that Monday in Penang with Sneha, Matt, and the rest of the group.... 10 of us.. on an impromptu trip... we took the boat out to an island.. fooled around... had fresh coconut and mangosteen!!! yumm..!!! I don't think we get mangosteens here in the U.S. I guess we all didn't feel like leaving but we had to. Mat had a 10 p.m. bus to Singapore. Sneha sped 140km/hr all the way back and we were 5 minutes late. I think his mum was pretty pissed, so was everyone else in the bus... oh well!

The next day, Sneha and I went to Pangkor for a 2-day reunion trip. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. There were 9 of us, from the same highschool. I knew some of them since I was 13, some even before that. I haven't seen most of them since we graduated high school. It's been 4 years and to add to that, we're extremely different from each other, from our personalities, background, college experiences... I'm glad to say it turned out quite well. It was good to see them again, regardless of our differences back in high school. We made a pact to have a reunion again, 4 years from now, in Europe!!

We came back on Wednesday night and I met up with Sze-Ryn, one of my best friends and I haven't seen her in about 2 years!! I had so much to talk to her about... I wanted to know all about her life in Dublin and I wanted her to know all about my life in the U.S. But things got a lil awkward, not that I mind the presence of her friend, but it did change the way things turned out. Anyways, we went out for drinks... and more drinks... and let's just say it was an interesting night.

Thursday was really just more drinking and packing!! Oh, and I met up with some of the girls from my Ballet class.. and I haven't seen them in more than a decade!!! isn't that crazy? They're all over the world now.. one is married in the U.S., one is in London, one is in Scotland, one is at a university in KL... crazy how time flew...

My parents and I left for KL on Friday. My mum and I went shopping at The Garden and someone unexpected met up with us. I was so sure Kee Loon would have so much fun shopping with us! lol..

Later that night, I met up with a couple of my closest friends and some of their friends as well at Republic. We had beer, shots, cocktails, and it went on... and on and on... untill about 3 am, we went to Ben's house to hang out.

I looked at the clock, "oh shit" it's 5.15 a.m. I'm supposed to be getting ready to leave to the airport. My dad's calling. I had to leave. It was surprisingly hard this time. Since I left for the U.S. 3 years ago, I've only been back once a year, 2 weeks at the shortest and 2 months at the longest. Goodbyes for me are not supposed to be hard anymore. And yet this time, it was emotional, even from the least expected person. I'll miss them, for sure, even more than before, perhaps because my life is even more uncertain now than ever before, now that I'm graduating, or maybe we realize we're all growing up, we're not who we were 4 years ago.

On the way to the airport, I got a phone call. One of my best friends got into some serious trouble. And I was helpless...

The 30-hour journey was rather uneventful. The food was great, so was the service. I slept a whole lot and watched tons of movies... again! =)

I reached at midnight, and went straight to my old house for the 4th of July party!! It was great to see Jenna again and to meet the new housemates. It's good to be back...

now back to reality...

graduating soon - check
homeless - check
unemployed - check
car is officially a junk - check
officially broke - check

Life is good! =)

Here is my article from my 2-day internship stint in Malaysia

Merona is nursing college’s Best Outgoing Student

In a Suburban Gangland, Young Lives Cut Short

Kudos to those who had the guts to tell their story and the reporter, Sarah Garland for taking the risk to document that and letting the world know.

THE phone rang at 4 p.m., just as Francisco Dueñas was leaving his house here on a tidy Long Island block with trimmed hedges. He had no time to talk. He was serving at a wedding reception that started in half an hour, and was already dressed in his tuxedo with the sleeves pulled down over his tattooed arms.

Francisco answered anyway. He recognized the number as belonging to El Niño, a 15-year-old nicknamed for his baby face whom Francisco had taken under his wing the year before, tutoring him in the rules of his gang, Salvadorans With Pride.

“They just stabbed Mikey on the handball court,” the boy said. He sounded panicked.

“Who did?” Francisco asked.

El Niño answered with a curse in Spanish: the slang they used to refer to their rival gang, Mara Salvatrucha.

Mikey — Michael Alguera — was also 15, the younger brother of a friend Francisco had known since middle school. Francisco, now 20, had played hundreds of handball games on the court between Hempstead High School and the Garden City golf course. He usually lost when he was matched up against Mikey, a handball whiz.

Drug test result "mix up" in Malaysia

posted in - General, - Palmdoc |

Recently a patient of mine was held in a police lock-up for alleged ingestion of illicit drugs. He happened to be at a pub at the wrong time when he as “picked up” and his urine test for opiates and THC (cannabis/marijuana) was allegedly positive. Well he happened to be taking DF118 at that time (a codeine analgesic) so we could write a medical report stating that the DF118 was responsible for the false positive opiate drug test. We could not explain the THC positive result and the police sergeant kept pressing the patient and the family on this issue. A bit of Googling (as an aside, I Googled using the mobile version, direct from my Treo 680, as I happened to be having lunch in a coffee shop when the call for help came in) showed up this page:
Medications & Substances Causing False Positives
Apparently even NSAIDs like ibuprofen (which can be bought over the counter) can cause a THC false positive test so I advised the family to double check carefully what other medicines he has been recently taking. The story had a happy ending though as the police cocked up and there was a “mix-up” in the urine sample. The unfortunate young man spent two days in a police lock-up although he was completely innocent!
I don’t know how much our police farce force are aware of the wide scope of false positive results in urine drug testing. I doubt they will even be convinced that there are legitimate medical uses of marijuana!

Drinking and driving in Malaysia

The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is measured by the content of alcohol in a person’s system. In Malaysia, the legal limit is 0.08 per cent which means 80mg per 100ml of blood.

Risks and real dangers that comes with the job...

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped seven months ago by the Taliban, escaped from a compound in Pakistan by jumping over a wall, the newspaper's website reported Saturday.

Rohde, 41, recounted to his wife shortly after gaining his freedom Friday night that he and interpreter Tahir Ludin escaped their captors in the North Waziristan region but that their driver, Asadullah Mangal, opted to remain behind.

Real-Life: Homeless to Harvard

"I have felt the anger at having to catch up in school . . . being bullied because they knew I was poor, different, and read too much," she wrote in her college essays. "I knew that if I wanted to become a smart, successful scholar, I should talk to other smart people."

Reporting from Iran