My humble thoughts for today:

1. Britney Spears, a mum-to-be at the age of 23, still seems like a little girl who doesn't know what or who she wants to be. From heralded sweet young thing to 'can't-give-her-the-time-of-day' trashy vamp, she's not unlike some other little girls I know who have no direction of where they want to go.

2. According to a Minister in the Prime Minister's department, bibles in Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are banned. Really? But I grew up learning worship songs in Malay. And sometimes we recite the Lord's prayer in Malay. And well... alright, I would still rather read the bible in English... but I'm thinking of Margaret Ebon, the Kadazan-Dusun guide we had during Odac's Trusmadi-Kinabalu expedition in Sabah. She told me she was a Christian, but she spoke to me in Malay, just like every other Kadazan-Dusun I met. I remember her English being simple and enough to get by, and I respect - enough to keep up her faith. I'm sure she'd appreciate a Malay bible, in line with the religious tolerances of our country.

3. They want to change the name of George Town to what??? A Seberang Jaya state assemblyman has called for my mother's hometown to be renamed Bandar Datuk Abdullah Fatim to rid it of it's colonial past. Besides, the name 'George Town' is hardly used by the locals and is only used in official government documents and geography textbooks (where? I don't recall learning much about George Town at all. Actually I learnt more about it in history than in geography!). A USM Humanities Lecturer Prof. Dr Muhammad Hj Salleh (is this the same MHS whose poems we used to study in Eng. Lit?) probably thinking that the state government is as usual being too rash about this sort of trivial things they love to do, and asked that a study be done to find a more befitting name for our beloved historic state (well, I love it more for its food than it's history) like Tanjung or Tanjung Penegri as the locals call it. But please, please, pleeease... can we not change Gurney Drive to Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee Drive and Macallister Road to Jalan Arumugampillai?