And yet again..

In today’s papers, one of our ministers was quoted to have said, “Sex education should be included in the school curriculum as soon as possible. This would help to curb the rising cases of infanticide and abortions.”

Datuk SSS, guess what – sex education is already in the school curriculum; depending on which school you’re referring to. No, I didn't learn that 'safe' sex means using the condom. In the subject Fekah, I had learnt (in primary school mind you) that:

• Aurat perempuan yang telah baligh ialah seluruh tubuh badannya kecuali muka dan pergelangan tangan. Pakaian itu hendaklah menutup dada, tidak jarang, dan tidak juga ketat. Aurat lelaki yang telah baligh pula ialah di antara pusat dan lutut.
  
• Antara perempuan dan lelaki (yang bukan muhrim) hendaklah merendahkan pandangan (jangan selalu bertentang mata) dan tidak boleh berdua-duaan (kerana jika berdua-duaan maka yang pastinya pihak yang ketiga ialah syaitan).
  
• Bersentuhan kulit antara lelaki dan perempuan yang bukan muhrim adalah haram dan membatalkan wudhuk.
  
• Zina adalah haram dan merupakan dosa besar yang sangat dimurkai Allah. Hukum berzina adalah sebat 100 kali jika pesalah belum berkahwin, dan rejam sampai mati jika pesalah sudah berkahwin.
  
• Jima’ adalah ibadah am. Suami dan isteri dalam keadaan berjanabah dimestikan mandi wajib untuk mengangkat hadas besar.
  

Dan banyak lagi; wallahu’a’lam...

Have you heard the story of the boy who found rubbish in the river? Because he loved the river and hated to see it got polluted, he picked them up one by one but they keep coming from the upstream. The boy started to feel tired. Another boy arrived at the scene and said, “I’m going upstream to find out who’s throwing these rubbish into the river.” Perhaps the second boy will find the culprit and succeeded in stopping him. But what if a second irresponsible guy comes? What if there’s a third, and fourth, and so on?

In Six Sigma approach towards eliminating defects via methodical approach, a key component identified to achieve is the root cause analysis. I believe that we are not doing enough to tackle our problems at the root level. We hack and hack the branches of the tree because they cause safety hazards to pedestrians, but they keep on growing because the root is still intact. Perhaps we purposely avoid pulling the tree by the root, because the sap of the trunk can be sold to get some money. In the meantime, a few more people got smacked by the branches, a few more branches got hacked off, a few new ones sprouted, and so on and so forth.