The Other Atrocities

(With deep condolences to all the families and friends of passengers and crew of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. Not to forget as well, the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza)

7 Times Militaries Have Shot Down Civilian Planes
Updated by Dylan Matthews on July 17, 2014, 5:10 p.m. ET @dylanmatt dylan@vox.com

US intelligence reports that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down, making it one of the highest-casualty airliner shoot-downs in the history of aviation. But it's hardly the first. Events like this — though usually much smaller in scale — have occurred about two dozen times. Many instances were part of ongoing wars, such as Nazi Germany's shoot-down of a British Overseas Airways Corporation flight from Lisbon to London in 1943, or Zimbabwean rebels' shoot-downs of two Air Rhodesia flights in 1978 and 1979.

But in those cases, the countries involved were at war with each other. In contrast, Flight 17 was going from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, and neither the Netherlands nor Malaysia have much of any involvement in the Ukrainian civil war. And the death toll — there were 295 crew and passengers, and, to the best of our knowledge, no survivors — is extremely high.

With that in mind, here are seven previous airliner shoot-downs that could provide some clue as to what the consequences of the crash will be. The list is hardly comprehensive but gives a sense of how these situations are handled.

1) Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (1983)

Also known as "that time the Soviet Union killed a sitting US Congressman." KAL007 (a Boeing 747-230B) was shot down by a Soviet fighter plane on September 1, 1983, killing all 269 passengers and crew, including Larry McDonald, a Congressman from Georgia then in his fourth term. An ardent anti-Communist and believer in various conspiracy theories about the Rockefellers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Council on Foreign Relations plotting to bring about a socialist world government, McDonald also was president of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right-wing conspiracist group.

The fact that the crash killed McDonald would fit perfectly into his particular set of conspiracy theories, but there's no evidence that what happened was more complicated than KAL007 entering Soviet airspace and being shot down as an intruder. This International Civil Aviation Organization report from 1993, incorporating documents released by Russian president Boris Yeltsin that Soviet leaders had previously withheld, summarizes what we know well, and finds Soviet personnel appearing baffled and concerned by the presence of an unknown aircraft, rather than determined to strike intentionally, though their decision to strike without attempting to establish contact with the plane was reckless.

The direct response to the attack — and subsequent Soviet attempt at a cover-up — was largely rhetorical. President Reagan condemned the shoot-down as a "crime against humanity" which "must never be forgotten." The US responded to Soviet intransigence by releasing substantial amounts of classified material to back up the charge that the Soviets (accidentally or not) shot the plane down. An unintended side effect of that was to weaken the US's ability to monitor Soviet communications through Japan "According to various unnamed Japanese officials, changes made in the Soviet codes and frequencies following the American disclosures reduced the effectiveness of Japanese monitoring by 60 percent," David M. Johnson noted in a write-up on the intelligence losses for Harvard and the Center for Information Policy Research.

The shoot-down led to the expansion of the Global Positioning System to civilians, which Reagan announced in the wake of the shoot-down. It would have been harder for the KAL pilots to drift into Soviet airspace with satellite navigation technology.

2) Iran Air Flight 655 (1988)

Though the Soviets did it first, the US also once accidentally downed a civilian airliner (an Airbus A300B2-203) carrying about 300 people on it. On July 3, 1988, as the Iran-Iraq war was winding down, US and Iranian ships were involved in some skirmishes in the Persian Gulf. An Airbus A300 took off from a nearby airport, one which was used for both military and civilian purposes. An American cruiser, the USS Vincennes, mistook the plane for an F-14, an American fighter plane that we had sold to Iran before the 1979 revolution, and launched two missiles, downing the plane and killing everyone on board.

President Reagan called the event a "terrible human tragedy," and stated "we deeply regret any loss of life." Iran's UN ambassador condemned the action as ''criminal act,'' an ''atrocity'' and a ''massacre," while the US insisted it was a misunderstanding. Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush called the idea the US would have shot down the plane deliberately "offensive and absurd," and argued that allowing passenger flights out of an airport as a naval battle was underway was irresponsible of the Iranians. "They allowed a civilian aircraft loaded with passengers to proceed on a path over a warship engaged in battle,'' Bush said. ''That was irresponsible and a tragic error.''

Iran sued the United States in the International Court of Justice, and the American government eventually agreed in 1996 to pay $61.8 million ($93.7 million today) to the families of victims; notably, that amount was 1/30th of the compensation the US secured from Libya for victims of the Lockerbie plane bombing that same year. The US government has never apologized for shooting down the plane, beyond Reagan's initial statement, and Max Fisher has noted the event contributes to Iranian mistrust of American intentions to this day.

3) Itavia Flight 870 (1980)

This is a case where we still don't really know the true story. On June 27, 1980, an Itavia Airlines (a DC-9) flight from Bologna to Palermo with 81 passengers and crew crashed in the Tyrhennian Sea, near Sicily. The New York Times' Elisabetta Povoledo reports that the "most widely accepted theory behind the crash" — for which an Italian court last year said there was "abundantly" clear evidence" — was that a stray missile from an aircraft hit the plane, but any information about which country's aircraft it was, or why, is still very much up in the air.

An Italian judge, Rosario Priore, presented the theory that there was a NATO plot to shoot down a plane carrying Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and the Itavia jet got caught up in that operation. He presented radar evidence suggesting the presence of US, French, Libyan, and British military operations near to where the plane crashed. Francesco Cossiga, the prime minister at the time, said decades later that the plane was shot down by French military personnel. But neither his nor Priore's claims have been proven.

4) El Al Flight 402 (1955)

On July 27, 1955, an El Al (a Lockheed Costellation) flight from Vienna to Tel Aviv flew into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG fighters. All 58 people on board were killed. After initially denying involvement, Bulgaria admitted to having shot the plane down. Despite occurring during a low point in relations between the Soviet bloc (including Bulgaria) and the US and its allies (including Israel), international fallout was minimal.

Eight years after the attack, Bulgaria agreed to pay a total of $195,000 ($1.5 million in current dollars) to Israel, having already compensated non-Israeli passengers.

5) Cathay Pacific Airways (1954)

On July 23, 1954, mainland China's People's Liberation Army fighters shot down a Cathay Pacific Airways (the airline of Hong Kong, then under British control) Douglas C-54 Skymaster flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong; 10 out of the 19 passengers and crew died. In apologizing for the attack to Britain days later, the Chinese government stated that they had thought the plane was a military aircraft from the Republic of China n (Taiwan) on an attack mission against Hainan Island (near where the shoot-down took place).

However, the initial tragedy was compounded when two PLA fighters engaged three US Navy planes that were searching for survivors; the two PLA planes were shot down. While admitting fault and promising compensation in the case of the civilian plane, China claimed that it was faultless in the confrontation with the US. President Eisenhower, in turn, alleged the harsh tone toward the US and conciliatory tone toward Britain in reference to the Cathay plane was a Communist plot to split the allies.

It's hard to say the incident made relations between the Allies and mainland China much worse than they already were, but it risked bringing the Allies further into the battles that were then occurring between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. Given that the Eisenhower administration was apparently considering using nuclear weapons on the ROC's behalf, any heightening of the tensions there was dangerous.

6) Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 (1973)

On February 21, 1973, a Libyan Arab Airlines (a wholly owned part of the Libyan government) Boeing 727 flying from Tripoli to Cairo got lost and flew over the Sinai peninsula, which had been under Israeli control since the Six-Day War in 1967. After giving signals to land and firing warning shots, Israeli jets shot down the plane, killing 108 of the 113 people on board, and leaving four passengers and a co-pilot alive.

David Elazar, the chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, took responsibility for ordering the shoot-down. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan called the event an "error of judgment" and the Israeli government compensated the families of victims. Libya condemned the attack as "a criminal act" while the Soviets called it a "monstrous new crime."

7) Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 (2001)

Perhaps the strangest precedent for the Malaysian Airlines crash in Ukraine is a shoot-down in 2001 caused by military forces in … Ukraine. On October 4, 2001, 64 Siberia Airlines passengers and 12 crew members onboard a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154 en route from Novosibirsk to Tel Aviv were killed when the plane was shot down over the Black Sea by a Ukrainian missile.

It took a while for Ukraine to admit that was what had happened, but after pressure from Russian investigators, Ukraine's then-president, Leonid Kuchma, accepted that the Ukrainian military was at fault. The day of the shoot-down, the Ukrainian military was conducting a massive military exercise which involved shooting 23 missiles at drones. "Experts say that the radar-guided S-200, among the farthest-flying and most capable antiaircraft missile in the arsenal of former Soviet nations, simply locked onto the Russian airliner after it raced past the destroyed drone some 20 miles off the Crimean coast," the New York Times' Michael Wines reported.

Kuchma accepted the resignation of his Minister of Defense, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, following the admission that the military was at fault. From 2003 to 2005, Ukraine paid $15.6 million to families of victims following a deal with the government of Israel.

My Utterly Gorgeous Read 2

I first read this book something like 20 years ago in its original Indonesian. I have read other books by Pram (as Indonesians refer to the author) but Gadis Pantai remains my evergreen favourite.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925 - 2006) is generally regarded as the greatest of Indonesian novelists. The immediacy, clarity and direct emotion of “The Girl From the Coast,” the unpretentious story of a poor village girl torn from her family and married to an arrogant nobleman, make it a compulsively readable novel.

The girl from the coast, a slender, pretty but otherwise ordinary 14-year-old is plucked from her life of ceaseless labour as a fisherman’s daughter and betrothed to the Bendoro, a local wealthy Javanese aristocrat whose luxurious lifestyle is light-years beyond anything the girl and her family have ever seen or imagined. To me it is the story about the oppression of the women in a feudal society. It was loosely based on the real experience of Pramoedya's grandmother.

Gadis Pantai
Karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Gadis Pantai adalah seorang anak gadis yang cantik dan cerdik dari sebuah keluarga miskin di perkampungan nelayan. Kecantikannya memikat hati seorang pembesar berketurunan Jawa yang bekerja untuk Belanda. Pada usia 14 tahun dia diambil menjadi isteri pembesar tersebut yang di gelar Bendoro. Ibu bapa gadis pantai menyangka mereka memberikan kehidupan yang lebih baik kepadanya dengan mengahwinkannya dengan Bendoro. Sewaktu pernikahan hanya ketua kampung yang datang dengan membawa sebilah keris yang mewakili Bendoro.

Dengan berat hati gadis pantai meninggalkan keluarga dan menjadi Mas Nganten dirumah pembesar tersebut. Dia diberikan kemewahan namun tidak kebebasan. Gadis Pantai tidak diakui sebagai isteri sebaliknya hanya dijadikan tempat melepaskan nafsu sang pembesar. Dalam erti kata sebenar-benar walau diberi kemewahan taraf Mas Nganten didalam rumah tangga Bendoro tidak lebih dari seorang hamba atau gundik. Pada masa sekarang Bendoro ini boleh dikategori sebagai seorang paedophile.

Di rumah besar tersebut dia seolah-olah orang asing bilamana orang-orang terlalu mengikut protokol kerana takut akan kemurkaan Bendoro. Demi mengisi kekosongan hidupnya, Gadis Pantai belajar, membatik dan beberapa pekerjaan lagi, lebih-lebih lagi setelah pembantunya dihalau pembesar.

Namun setelah melahirkan seorang bayi, segala-galanya berakhir begitu sahaja ketika bayinya berumur tiga bulan. Dia diceraikan dan bayinya diambil Bendoro. Perkara seperti ini sememangnya telah merupakan perkara biasa kepada Sang Bendoro. Mengambil gadis-gadis muda dari keluarga miskin untuk dijadikan sebagai "isteri percubaan" kemudian dihalau pulang kekampung setelah melahirkan anak. Dirumah agamnya terdapat beberapa remaja lelaki merupakan anak-anak Bendoro dengan isteri-isteri percubaan yang telah diceraikannya. Si Bendoro dari keturunan bangsawan yang kaya raya hanya layak dikahwini oleh perempuan bangsawan yang setaraf dengan beliau sahaja. Demi meneruskan hidup gadis pantai memilih untuk pergi ke Blora, menolak untuk pulang ke kampung halaman kerana malu dengan jiran tetangga.

Novel ini membawa persoalan tentang perbezaan kelas yang sangat ketara pada era penjajahan Belanda di Indonesia. Ia juga merupakan kritikan yang sangat tajam tentang kemanusiaan dan bagaimana mudahnya kelas bawahan ditindas mereka yang kaya dan berkuasa yang juga mengakui diri mereka sebagai golongan yang taat kepada agama. Golongan priyayi (bangsawan) seperti Bendoro banyak mempelajari selok belok agama, namun mereka juga yang sering menindas dan mengambil kesempatan keatas orang miskin. Orang bawahan yang miskin juga disekat dari bersuara apa-apa melainkan menerima sahaja segala perlakuan pembesar walau pun ternyata sangat tidak berperi kemanusiaan. Jika dilihat dari buku-buku Pram yang lain, di era penjajahan seringkali ada sekelompok pembesar yang datang dari warga tempatan yang turut sama menindas bangsanya. Dan jika difikirkan  secara mendalam, adakah kebebasan dari penindasan itu wujud bagi kelas bawahan setelah sesebuah negara itu dikatakan merdeka sekali pun?


About the Author 
Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925 - 2006) was a major figure in world literature and was constantly mentioned as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize. He was the author of more than thirty books, including The Fugitive, The Buru Quartet, and The Mute's Soliloquy, and is published in more than thirty countries. He has been profiled in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other major publications around the world. He was the recipient of numerous literary prizes and awards, including the PEN Freedom-to-Write Award and a Hellman-Hammett Award.

The Japanese occupation (1942-1944) and Indonesia's struggle for independence  provided the basic material for Pramoedya's writing. His best-known work is the Buru Quartet (1980-88), banned by the Suharto regime. The story, originally written between 1965 and 1979, is set at the turn of the 19th century and depicts the emergence of anticolonial Indonesian nationalism. Pramoedya's books have been translated into some 30 languages.

Pramoedya's writings sometimes fell out of favor with the colonial and later the authoritarian native governments in power. Pramoedya faced censorship in Indonesia during the pre-reformation era despite the fact that he was well known outside Indonesia. The Dutch imprisoned him from 1947 to 1949 during the War of Independence (1945-1949). During the changeover (coup) to the Suharto regime Pramoedya was caught up in the shifting tides of political change and power struggles in Indonesia. Suharto had him imprisoned from 1969 to 1979 on the Maluku island of Buru and branded him a Communist. He was seen as a holdover from the previous regime (even though he had struggled with the former regime (Sukarno). It was on the Island ofBuru that he composed his most famous work, theBuru Quartet. Not permitted access to writing materials, he recited the story orally to other prisoners before it was written down and smuggled out. Pramoedya opposed some policies of founding President Sukarno as well as the New Order regime of Suharto, Sukarno's successor. Political criticisms were often subtle in his writing, although he was outspoken against colonialism, racism and corruption of the Indonesian new Government. During the many years in which he suffered imprisonment and house arrest (in Jakarta after his imprisonment on Buru), he became a cause célèbre for advocates of human rights and freedom of expression.

How To Cultivate A Lifetime Reading Habit

Reading has always been and will always be an integral part of my life. I felt very blessed that I always have a natural inclination towards reading even when I was very young.

However if you do not posses this natural tendency and yet you envy people who can bury themselves in a book and tune out the world for hours on end, there are still tips you can follow. You must be among the many people who would love to read more, but just feel restless, distracted or bored while you do it. You can still unleash your inner bookworm by following the advice below.

At first I thought I want to write the tips myself. However there are very good lists of suggestion available on the net with many points similar to mine. So I copied and pasted one, again from www.lifehack.org. My comments are in blue.

14 Ways to Cultivate a Lifetime Reading Habit
FEATURED LIFESTYLE BY LEO BABAUTA | 1K SHARES

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Somewhere after “lose weight”, “stop procrastinating”, and “fall in love”, “read more” is one of the top goals that many people set for themselves. And rightly so: A good book can be hugely satisfying, can teach you about things beyond your daily horizons, and can create characters so vivid you feel as if you really know them.

If reading is a habit you’d like to get into, there are a number of ways to cultivate it.

First, realise that reading is highly enjoyable, if you have a good book. If you have a lousy book (or an extremely difficult one) and you are forcing yourself through it, it will seem like a chore. If this happens for several days in a row, consider abandoning the book and finding one that you’ll really love.

Other than that, try these tips to cultivate a lifetime reading habit:

Set times.

You should have a few set times during every day when you’ll read for at least 5-10 minutes. These are times that you will read no matter what — triggers that happen each day. For example, make it a habit to read during breakfast and lunch (and even dinner if you eat alone). And if you also read every time you’re sitting on the can, and when you go to bed, you now have four times a day when you read for 10 minutes each — or 40 minutes a day. That’s a great start, and by itself would be an excellent daily reading habit. But there’s more you can do.

Always carry a book.

Wherever you go, take a book with you. When I leave the house, I always make sure to have my drivers license, my keys and my book, at a minimum. The book stays with me in the car, and I take it into the office and to appointments and pretty much everywhere I go, unless I know I definitely won’t be reading (like at a movie). If there is a time when you have to wait (like at a doctor’s office or at the DMV), whip out your book and read. Great way to pass the time.
I always read while I wait for the train to and from work as well as while riding them. If I go into a restaurant alone, I would read while waiting for the food rather than toying with the hand phone like a lot of people do nowadays. If the stranger next to me on public transportation start to be a bit too friendly and began asking a lot of questions on the pretext of making small talk, l get my book out and start reading.

Make a list.

Keep a list of all the great books you want to read. You can keep this in your journal, in a pocket notebook, on your personal home page, on your personal wiki, wherever. Be sure to add to it whenever you hear about a good book, online or in person. Keep a running list, and cross out the ones you read. Tech trick: create a Gmail account for your book list, and email the address every time you hear about a good book. Now your inbox will be your reading list. When you’ve read a book, file it under “Done”. If you want, you can even reply to the message (to the same address) with notes about the book, and those will be in the same conversation thread, so now your Gmail account is your reading log too.
One of my important goals in life is to read as many books as possible that have won the Putlizer Prize for Fiction as well as the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. However on both of these award-winning lists I have only read less than ten each. There are indeed many many great books on both lists. The problem is I usually get distracted by newly published books every time I visited a book store and thus the number I have read on both lists move rather slowly. Respected authors' work are of course great to read most of the time but newcomers can be thrilling too.

Find a quiet place. 

Find a place in your home where you can sit in a comfortable chair (don’t lay down unless you’re going to sleep) and curl up with a good book without interruptions. There should be no television or computer near the chair to minimise distractions, and no music or noisy family members/roommates. If you don’t have a place like this, create one.
I believe people are different in where they prefer to read. I do not really mind the noise if I have a good book. In fact a good book would be a distraction from all the noise.

Reduce television/Internet. 

If you really want to read more, try cutting back on TV or Internet consumption. This may be difficult for many people. Still, every minute you reduce of Internet/TV, you could use for reading. This could create hours of book reading time.
Too much television or Internet dull the senses. Is there such a thing as too much reading? Hmmm..........rather unlikely I think.

Read to your kid. 

If you have children, you must, must read to them. Creating the reading habit in your kids is the best way to ensure they’ll be readers when they grow up … and it will help them to be successful in life as well. Find some great children’s books, and read to them. At the same time, you’re developing the reading habit in yourself … and spending some quality time with your child as well.
Sometimes just poking fun, I would read aloud near where Mickey and Tam are sleeping. Mickey just couldn't be bothered he would just continue sleeping, but Tam would move further away after a few minutes. Must be the wrong book ha ha ha.

Keep a log. 

Similar to the reading list, this log should have not only the title and author of the books you read, but the dates you start and finish them if possible. Even better, put a note next to each with your thoughts about the book. It is extremely satisfying to go back over the log after a couple of months to see all the great books you’ve read.

Go to used book shops. 

My favourite place to go is a discount book store where I drop off all my old books (I usually take a couple of boxes of books) and get a big discount on used books I find in the store. I typically spend only a couple of dollars for a dozen or more books, so although I read a lot, books aren’t a major expense. And it is very fun to browse through the new books people have donated. Make your trip to a used book store a regular thing.
Around Klang Valley you should watch out for the famous Big Bad Wolf Sale. You can really really get a bargain especially for children's books, travel books, coffee table books on various topics, business and management books, DIY books, self-help books. However not so much on literary fiction I think.

Have a library day. 
Even cheaper than a used book shop is a library, of course. Make it a weekly trip.

Read fun and compelling books. 

Find books that really grip you and keep you going. Even if they aren’t literary masterpieces, they make you want to read — and that’s the goal here. After you have cultivated the reading habit, you can move on to more difficult stuff, but for now, go for the fun, gripping stuff. Stephen King, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Nora Roberts, Sue Grafton, Dan Brown … all those popular authors are popular for a reason — they tell great stories. Other stuff you might like: Vonnegut, William Gibson, Douglas Adams, Nick Hornby, Trevanian, Ann Patchett, Terry Pratchett, Terry McMillan, F. Scott Fitzgerald. All excellent storytellers.
What is fun and compelling is different from one person to another. To kindle your interest in reading the reading materials are not necessarily great literary works by famous authors. It can be titles like "Mindfulness for Busy People", "The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People", "A Cook's Tour", "Defying Age", "Found in Malaysia", "The Complete Cat Book", "Illustrated Tales from Shakespeare", "Anne Frank Diary of a Young Girl". There must be some topics you adore, start from there. Read whatever catches your fancy. Don't worry about hype, bestsellers, respected authors, etc.

Make it pleasurable. 

Make your reading time your favourite time of day. Have some good tea or coffee while you read, or another kind of treat. Get into a comfortable chair with a good blanket. Read during sunrise or sunset, or at the beach.

Blog it. 

One of the best ways to form a habit is to put it on your blog. If you don’t have one, create one. It’s free. Have your family go there and give you book suggestions and comment on the ones you’re reading. It keeps you accountable for your goals.

Set a high goal. 

Tell yourself that you want to read 50 books this year (or some other number like that). Then set about trying to accomplish it. Just be sure you’re still enjoying the reading though — don’t make it a rushed chore.
Have a reading hour or reading day. If you turn off the TV or Internet in the evening, you could have a set hour (perhaps just after dinner) when you and maybe all the members of your family read each night. Or you could do a reading day, when you (and again, your other family members if you can get them to join you) read for practically the whole day. It’s super fun.
Frankly I am not so worried about how many books I read. I just read. There are books I finished in a week, there are others that I took a month or more to finish. There are books I have bought for a few months and still haven't come round to reading them. There are books I read quarter through then I left them out, because I got hold of a more interesting book, coming back to them only months later. Sometimes I have like two or three books that I am reading at one time. I am not a very disciplined individual where reading is concerned. I tend to be greedy. And definitely, in a month for example, my buying list is higher than my have-been-read list. I am a book hoarder too!

My Utterly Gorgeous Read 1

I have decided to list down and write little notes and add on facts here and there on books I have read previously which had left huge and lasting impression on my psyche. These books have among others made me think a lot about myself, about others and about society in general. In life we witness and experience social stigma, injustice and prejudice. At times we look up to our peers, our leaders or the experts to find answers to questions and yet the answers given do not satisfy us and we are much better off thinking about them ourselves.

Reading these awesome books made me realise that all is not lost, there are always like-minded souls out there and really you are not a freak if you think differently from the mainstream thinking. Books do liberate the minds if only you read them. I very much believe books I read changed and emancipated my spirit from certain shackles which otherwise would remain lifelong. That does not mean I profess to be a very clever person, far from it. I am just a humble person, trying to make sense of my life, people around me, my interaction with other members of society, my feelings and my aspirations. Society most of the time expects to us to conform, books help us learn to look at things from different perspectives.

First on my list is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee which I read about ten years ago (have always wondered why Mockingbird is spelled as one word). The book won the 1961 Putlizer Prize for Fiction. I think the Malaysian equivalent in terms of literary importance would be something like Salina by A. Samad Said or Ranjau Sepanjang Jalan by Shahnon Ahmad.

The book was made into a movie of the same name released in 1962, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Bodham as the bookish and adorable Scout Finch. Thank you Zam and Ain for letting me have the chance to see this movie (copied it from your external hard drive).

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Summary

The story takes place during three years (1933–35) of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama, the seat of Maycomb County. It focuses on six-year-old Scout Finch, who lives with her older brother, Jem, and their widowed father, Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt each summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo, and, for many years few have seen him. The children feed one another's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. After two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone leaves them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, he never appears in person.

Judge Taylor appoints Atticus to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus's actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view.

Atticus does not want Jem and Scout to be present at Tom Robinson's trial. No seat is available on the main floor, so by invitation of Rev. Sykes, Jem, Scout, and Dill watch from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk—are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella made sexual advances toward Tom, and that her father caught her and beat her. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice becomes badly shaken, as is Atticus', when the hapless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.

Despite Tom's conviction Bob Ewell is humiliated by the events of the trial, and vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face, tries to break into the judge's house, and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout while they walk home on a dark night after the school Halloween pageant. One of Jem's arms is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is Boo Radley.

Sheriff Tate arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has died during the fight. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of charging Jem (whom Atticus believes to be responsible) or Boo (whom Tate believes to be responsible). Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective, and regrets that they had never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.


A Little On The Mockingbird And The Reclusive Harper Lee

In July 1960, J.B. Lippincott Company published To Kill A Mockingbird, a story of social injustice, morals, and growing up in the Depression-era South. It was the debut novel of a 34-year-old woman named Nelle Harper Lee, who dropped the "Nelle" from her pen name because she didn't want it to be mispronounced. Lee's book went on to become one of the most successful novels in American history. To Kill A Mockingbird has sold more than 30 million copies, with another 100,000 flying off the shelves each year. The book has a place on virtually every Best Of, Greatest Novels, and Favorite Books list in existence. The movie adaptation is a classic in its own right. The success of both guaranteed fame and financial security for the rest of Lee's life.

Every word of To Kill A Mockingbird has been analyzed in countless essays and critical papers. But far less is known about the book's author, and that's just the way Harper Lee wants it. Unlike her childhood friend and fellow literary superstar Truman Capote, who once confessed to having a love affair with "cameras—all cameras,"1Harper Lee has studiously avoided the public eye since the publication of her one and only novel. (She's alive and well, and reportedly splits her time between New York City and Alabama.) She declines interviews. She refuses public appearances and says little when she makes them. Enterprising reporters have knocked on her door and she has firmly turned them away, though not without autographing their copies of To Kill A Mockingbird with a polite "Best Wishes."

Biographers have practically torn their hair out trying to get close to their unwilling subject, with one even faking his way onto an online reunion site in an attempt to contact her old classmates. We won't go that far. What we have here at Shmoop is the story of Harper Lee's life and work—as much as she has been willing to share with the world. And we think that's enough. Harper Lee wrote a book that has brought hope and tolerance to countless numbers of people. And as Atticus Finch reminded us with respect to the title's mockingbird, to harass a creature that brings nothing but joy is a sin.

There are only so many things that we know for sure about Nelle Harper Lee, born 28 April 1926, and the author of To Kill A Mockingbirdand precisely zero other books. We know that she was a lawyer's daughter, raised in a small Alabama town in the 1930s, just like her plucky narrator Scout Finch. We know that Lee was aware of the racial injustices and ugly prejudices that simmered in small towns like hers, and that sometimes these prejudices erupted in trials similar to the one at the center of her book. We know that in 1960 she published a novel that became an instant classic, inspiring millions with its unique blend of humor and sharp social observations. And then, at the peak of her fame, Harper Lee decided to turn down the limelight offered to her. She is, as the writer Garrison Keillor has put it, "a woman who knew when to get off the train." Lee has put her legacy even more simply: "I said what I have to say."

At a time when everyone seems to have their own blog, Twitter feed, and hourly Facebook updates, it can be hard to understand why someone would turn down the recognition that comes with the rare feat of writing a bestselling and highly-acclaimed book. According to people who know her, Harper Lee is not a creepy recluse like Boo Radley or a social misfit or misanthrope. She's funny, outgoing, and a valued member of the Alabama community where she lives. She simply values her privacy and would prefer to let her beloved book speak for itself. The little she has shared about her background helps us understand the time and place in which Mockingbird is set. But that's all we're going to get. And, really, it's all that we deserve. "She is apparently in good humor and enjoying her food and not planning to go on Oprah or Charlie Rose," Keillor wrote. "And so there, dear reader, you will just have to leave her."

On Self-Confidence

The article below is copied and pasted from www.lifehack.org. The quotes on confidence images are taken from all over the net.

15 Things Highly Confident People Don’t Do        COMMUNICATION MOTIVATION BY DANIEL WALLEN | 63K SHARES

Highly confident people believe in their ability to achieve. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should anyone else put their faith in you? To walk with swagger and improve your self-confidence, watch out for these fifteen things highly confident people don’t do.

1. They don’t make excuses.

Highly confident people take ownership of their thoughts and actions. They don’t blame the traffic for being tardy at work; they were late. They don’t excuse their short-comings with excuses like “I don’t have the time” or “I’m just not good enough”; they make the time and they keep on improving until they are good enough.

2. They don’t avoid doing the scary thing.

Highly confident people don’t let fear dominate their lives. They know that the things they are afraid of doing are often the very same things that they need to do in order to evolve into the person they are meant to be.

3. They don’t live in a bubble of comfort.

Highly confident people avoid the comfort zone, because they know this is a place where dreams die. They actively pursue a feeling of discomfort, because they know stretching themselves is mandatory for their success.

4. They don’t put things off until next week.

Highly confident people know that a good plan executed today is better than a great plan executed someday. They don’t wait for the “right time” or the “right circumstances”, because they know these reactions are based on a fear of change. They take action here, now, today – because that’s where progress happens.

5. They don’t obsess over the opinions of others.

Highly confident people don’t get caught up in negative feedback. While they do care about the well-being of others and aim to make a positive impact in the world, they don’t get caught up in negative opinions that they can’t do anything about. They know that their true friends will accept them as they are, and they don’t concern themselves with the rest.

6. They don’t judge people.

Highly confident people have no tolerance for unnecessary, self-inflicted drama. They don’t feel the need to insult friends behind their backs, participate in gossip about fellow co-workers or lash out at folks with different opinions. They are so comfortable in who they are that they feel no need to look down on other people.

7. They don’t let lack of resources stop them.

Highly confident people can make use of whatever resources they have, no matter how big or small. They know that all things are possible with creativity and a refusal to quit. They don’t agonize over setbacks, but rather focus on finding a solution.

8. They don’t make comparisons.


Highly confident people know that they are not competing with any other person. They compete with no other individual except the person they were yesterday. They know that every person is living a story so unique that drawing comparisons would be an absurd and simplistic exercise in futility.

9. They don’t find joy in people-pleasing.

Highly confident people have no interest in pleasing every person they meet. They are aware that not all people get along, and that’s just how life works. They focus on the quality of their relationships, instead of the quantity of them.

10. They don’t need constant reassurance.

Highly confident people aren’t in need of hand-holding. They know that life isn’t fair and things won’t always go their way. While they can’t control every event in their life, they focus on their power to react in a positive way that moves them forward.

11. They don’t avoid life’s inconvenient truths.

Highly confident people confront life’s issues at the root before the disease can spread any farther. They know that problems left unaddressed have a way of multiplying as the days, weeks and months go by. They would rather have an uncomfortable conversation with their partner today than sweep an inconvenient truth under the rug, putting trust at risk.

12. They don’t quit because of minor set-backs.

Highly confident people get back up every time they fall down. They know that failure is an unavoidable part of the growth process. They are like a detective, searching for clues that reveal why this approach didn’t work. After modifying their plan, they try again (but better this time).

13. They don’t require anyone’s permission to act.

Highly confident people take action without hesitation. Every day, they remind themselves, “If not me, who?”

14. They don’t limit themselves to a small toolbox.

Highly confident people don’t limit themselves to Plan A. They make use of any and all weapons that are at their disposal, relentlessly testing the effectiveness of every approach, until they identify the strategies that offer the most results for the least cost in time and effort.

15. They don’t blindly accept what they read on the Internet as “truth” without thinking about it.

Highly confident people don’t accept articles on the Internet as truth just because some author “said so”. They look at every how-to article from the lens of their unique perspective. They maintain a healthy skepticism, making use of any material that is relevant to their lives, and forgetting about the rest. While articles like this are a fun and interesting thought-exercise, highly confident people know that they are the only person with the power to decide what “confidence” means.