Speculative Photography. Soccer and a Trio of Palm Trees (Bismarckia nobilis), Taman Tasik Perdana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
'Soccer is War!', Rinus 'De Generaal' Michels (1928-2005), famous coach of Ajax Amsterdam, is reputed to have exclaimed. No doubt this young player for Sime Darby FC of the KLFA Stadium, Cheras, here in Kuala Lumpur, has never heard of Michels. And he probably doesn't know that the palm trees he's contemplating are called Bismarckia nobilis. They're named after the Iron Chancellor of the German Empire in the nineteenth century, Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815-1896). He made Prussia and Germany into Europe's most powerful nation. Many will know of his 'Blood and Iron' speech before the Prussians of 1862. Summed up: 'It's not liberalism that's going to guarantee your place in Europe but Blood and Iron: Power and War.'
Earlier in 2010 the enormous multinational Sime Darby Berhad with social and communitarian grace established a Football Club called after itself at Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. The company is widely diversified, but it is especially strong in oil palm plantations. As far as I understand it has an environmental sensitivity. Since 1989 it holds to a ZBTF (=Zero Burning Planting Techniques) Policy. This means that old, useless palm trees are no longer burned (with much damage to the environment) but felled and shredded and left to nature to decompose. Whether Sime Darby Berhad is a party to the proposal to 'clear' the 7000 hectares of the Kuala Langat South Forest Reserve (reported today in The Sun ) for oil palm production, I don't know. I hope not because rare plants would be destroyed let alone the home of tapirs, sun bears, hornbills and panthers. A war against nature...
Speculative Photography. Soccer and a Trio of Palm Trees (Bismarckia nobilis), Taman Tasik Perdana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
'Soccer is War!', Rinus 'De Generaal' Michels (1928-2005), famous coach of Ajax Amsterdam, is reputed to have exclaimed. No doubt this young player for Sime Darby FC of the KLFA Stadium, Cheras, here in Kuala Lumpur, has never heard of Michels. And he probably doesn't know that the palm trees he's contemplating are called Bismarckia nobilis. They're named after the Iron Chancellor of the German Empire in the nineteenth century, Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck (1815-1896). He made Prussia and Germany into Europe's most powerful nation. Many will know of his 'Blood and Iron' speech before the Prussians of 1862. Summed up: 'It's not liberalism that's going to guarantee your place in Europe but Blood and Iron: Power and War.'
Earlier in 2010 the enormous multinational Sime Darby Berhad with social and communitarian grace established a Football Club called after itself at Cheras, Kuala Lumpur. The company is widely diversified, but it is especially strong in oil palm plantations. As far as I understand it has an environmental sensitivity. Since 1989 it holds to a ZBTF (=Zero Burning Planting Techniques) Policy. This means that old, useless palm trees are no longer burned (with much damage to the environment) but felled and shredded and left to nature to decompose. Whether Sime Darby Berhad is a party to the proposal to 'clear' the 7000 hectares of the Kuala Langat South Forest Reserve (reported today in The Sun ) for oil palm production, I don't know. I hope not because rare plants would be destroyed let alone the home of tapirs, sun bears, hornbills and panthers. A war against nature...