Editorial - Penang Monthly (Page 4)

The Educational Origins of Penang’s Skills Mismatch and Brain Drain

4 min read

EDUCATION IS REGARDED as a human right today. Therefore, most modern states, barring those who expressly consider public education to be a threat to their conti...

Physical Needs Set the Standard and Pace for Intercultural Relations

3 min read

THERE ARE CERTAIN aspects to human cultures which are more universal than others – largely by virtue of the fact that they deal with physical needs more than wi...

Penang: Once Cosmopolitan, Always Cosmopolitan

3 min read

URBAN CENTRES, by their very nature of having concentrated populations, tend also to place people from different backgrounds in close proximity to each other. T...

Of Urban Parochialism And Rural Cosmopolitanism

2 min read

Something that increasingly troubles me is the common supposition that urbanites are cosmopolitan by virtue of being urbanites. Not only does that bias attrib...

A Good State is an Inclusive and Caring State

3 min read

DEAR CITIZEN, who cares for you?Or more succinctly, who should care for you?When we talk about the Care Industry (as we are doing in this month’s magazine), we...

Trusting Remains a Process that Takes Time in the Information Age

3 min read

ONCE UPON A time, information was generated slowly and carefully. The time and distance between thought, expression, dissemination and reception were substantia...

What Do Straits Do—Separate or Connect? [Part One]

3 min read

DOES THE PENANG Strait separate Seberang Perai from Penang Island or does it connect one to the other?This question is not as glib as it may sound at first read...

On Urbanity and Wealth, and the Future of the Countryside

3 min read

URBANISATION IS AN oft-cited sign of radical socio-economic changes in a country.The process at some point could be one of necessity, where the agricultural sec...

The Podcast – Relief for the Distracted

2 min read

THE RADIO WAS the key vehicle for the spread of popular music during my generation. In Penang, where would all those who were in their teens have listened to go...

Respect All Persons, and Gender and Other Equalities Will Follow

3 min read

IT IS UNFORTUNATE that in most minds, the term “Feminism” more often than not, merely raises issues regarding the relatively-disadvantaged status of women as me...

Journalism's past and Penang's future

3 min read

At a time when journalism – as a social activity more than a salaried profession – is booming beyond measure in Malaysia, a fact proven by heighte...

Is Man’s Ultimate Success His Ultimate Failure?

3 min read

THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY of life, all life forms have had to adapt to environmental conditions beyond their control as best they can. Where environmental changes...