Author Archives: reinkefj

http://aliran.com/8166.html

A privilege to have travelled with you, Khay Jin
By Aliran, on 21 February 2012
Francis Loh pays tribute to Aliran’s long-time friend and supporter, the scholar-activist Philip Khoo Khay Jin, who passed away in December 2011.

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So many friends showed up at the apartment on the night of 22 December 2011, as soon as they heard that Khay Jin had breathed his last. Many more then attended the wake the following night and the funeral service held in the Catholic Church in Pulau Tikus, Penang, on Christmas Eve.

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Scholar-activist

For me, he was the model of a scholar-activist, a public intellectual. He was my fellow traveller. Perhaps I can share a bit more about some of Jin’s last thoughts about his projects and dreams. For, not only have I have known Jin for some 50-odd years, but I had the privilege to re-unite and interact with him quite intensely these past two months as he struggled with his failing health.
Jin grew up in Penang and attended St Xavier’s Institution like I did. He must have excelled in Mathematics like some have said; what I do remember was that he was the school’s pianist and on several occasions played concertos with the school’s orchestra. In the late 1960s, when it was still unfashionable to go to the US for further studies, he won a scholarship to attend Manhattan College in New York City, where he majored in Mathematics and Philosophy.

It was in the 1970s when we were undergraduates, and then graduate students in northeast America, that we first began to interact with one another intensely. Whereas most Malaysian students in the US studied the sciences, we turned to the social sciences. Those were heady times in the US and we were also caught in the throes of the social and cultural turbulence that engulfed American society, especially its youths then. We learnt as much in classes as outside them.

We next became colleagues in the School of Social Sciences in USM, Penang. Apart from teaching the same students and fighting the same battles in the School Board, we also conducted joint-research. Not for us to be ivory-tower academics for we desired a more just and free Malaysia and to this end we egged each other on to dedicate ourselves to be scholar-activists. We had lunch together, and debated on all kinds of issues over coffee and cigarettes, almost every day. We were fellow travellers.

But Jin was always several steps ahead of me. He had read more, had a more inquisitive mind, and had deep powers of absorption. While I would still be mulling about a problem, he had decided what ought to be done to overcome the predicament. Although I possessed a PhD and he did not, he was always more insightful and intelligent. He was my mentor.

In 1995, after 20 years in USM, Khay Jin transferred to Kuching. It was the beginning of a new phase in his life: for he turned anthropologist, trekked into the forests, and developed a special relationship with the Penans and other Orang Ulu in Sarawak. He was already there before the Bakun Dam project was launched. He took lots of photographs, filled many log books, and collected invaluable data about those times. Over the next fifteen years, he witnessed the worsening of the Penans’ plight first-hand. Inevitably, he took up their cause.

In this regard, Jin was very different from so many of us would-be scholar-activists. For as many of his peers grew in intellectual stature and moved up the academic hierarchy, and not a few becoming globe-trotting public intellectuals and assuming overseas positions, Khay Jin did the reverse! He dug deeper into the Borneo hinterland … and into local political issues. He even extended his interest to fathoming the ethnic violence in Kalimantan, across the border. And when Jane decided, upon her retirement from Unimas, that she wanted to move back to Penang to establish a new laboratory, Jin was reluctant to leave Sarawak

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Khay Jin, Philip Khoo [MC???? RIP]

Guestbook: None cited

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-22 @ 09:22

http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/index.ssf/2012/02/cordi_stokes_wrote_the_gift_ab.html

Cordi Stokes wrote “The Gift” about cancer: news obituary
Published: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 4:55 PM    
Updated: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 5:02 PM
By Grant Segall

Cordi Decosta Stokes was found dead at home Monday in Cuyahoga Falls, according to the Summit County coroner’s office.

Stokes, 50, had struggled with cancer for 10 years and written “The Gift,” a scene about her famous family’s battles with the illness.

“She was feisty, full of energy, full of life,” said Peter Lawson Jones, former Cuyahoga County commissioner. Jones played the spirit of Stokes’ late father, Carl, former Cleveland mayor, in a scene of “From Breast Cancer to Broadway” at Karamu House and New York’s Cherry Lane Theater. Carl died from complications of esophogus cancer at 68.

The Plain Dealer’s Julie Washington called the Stokes scene the most affecting in the show.

Codi Stokes grew up watching her father become the first black Democrat in the Ohio House, then the first black mayor of a major U.S. city. She watched her uncle, Louis, become the state’s first black member of Congress. And she once lay on the floor of her home with her family because of threats from angry whites.

The next year, the family moved to Manhattan, N.Y., where Carl became the first black TV news anchor. She attended Martin Luther High School and Manhattan College there, according to a brother, Cordell Stokes.

She spent most of her adulthood in Cleveland and Shaker Heights. She worked for the Ohio Lottery and was a finalist for the Cleveland school board in 1988. She helped manage Sacks Discount Drugs, owned by her late stepfather, Nathan Sacks. She spent the last few years selling insurance.

Survivors include her mother, Shirley Sacks of Beachwood; a daughter, Sybil Quinn McBee of Atlanta; and two brothers. Lucas Memorial Chapel is handling her private arrangements.

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Stokes, Cordi Decosta [MC???? RIP]

Guestbook: None cited

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-22 @ 09:05

http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/566194/Brother-James-Gaffney-F-M-S-.html?nav=516

Brother James Gaffney F.M.S.
February 22, 2012
The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register

GAFFNEY, Brother James Venantius, F.M.S., a member of the Marist Brothers of the Schools for 64 years, died on February 8, 2012 at Champagnat Hall, the Brother’s residence in the Bronx. He was 80 years old.

Bro. James entered the Marist Brother’s Novitiate, at Poughkeepsie, New York in 1948. He professed his first vows in 1950. After completing his religious and academic studies at Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York, he began his ministry in the Archdiocese of Boston at Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, MA. He ministered at Central from 1952 to 1955, then from 1961 to 1968 and after studies in Fribourg, Switzerland, again from 1969 to 1977.

Bro. James received his undergraduate degree from Marist College in French, his Masters degree in French from St. John’s University and a Masters degree in Reading from Manhattan College.

Bro. James also served in the Archdiocese of New York at Cardinal Hayes High School from 1955 to 1962. He taught at Central Catholic High School, Wheeling, WV from 1962 to 1968. He taught at Mount St. Michael Academy in the Bronx from 1977 to 1984. From 1984 to 1990 he taught at Holy Trinity School in Poughkeepsie, he returned to Mount St. Michael in 1990 where he ministered until he retired in 1999,

A funeral Mass was celebrated at the chapel at Mount St. Michael Academy on Friday evening, February 10, followed by burial on Saturday, February 11 at the Marist Brother’s Cemetery in Esopus, New York.

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Gaffney, Br. James Venantius [MC???? RIP]

Guestbook: None cited

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-22 @ 08:59

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lohud/obituary.aspx?n=Paul-Wilson&pid=156026239

Paul F. Wilson (1920 – 2012)  
Wilson, Paul F.

Paul F. Wilson long time resident of Larchmont passed on February 20, 2012 at the age of 91. Born in Batavia, New York, and a graduate of Manhattan College, he served in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant during World War II. He was a lifelong opera buff, avid hiker, and was an active member of Westchester Trails Association. He was a contributing editor of The New York Walk Book.

He is predeceased by his wife, Mary Elizabeth. He is survived by his loving children, Irene Amy, Paul Wilson, Mary Humphrey (Jack), Anne Dellis (Fred), Richard Wilson (Pat), and John Wilson (Marie), 7 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

Visiting Today 2-4 and 7-9 PM at The John J. Fox Funeral Home in Larchmont. Mass Thursday 10 AM at Sts. John & Paul Church in Larchmont. For more info go to his listing at www.jjffh.com

Published in the The Journal News on February 22, 2012

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Wilson, Paul F. [MC???? RIP]

Guestbook: http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/lohud/guestbook.aspx?n=paul-wilson&pid=156026239&cid=full

# – # – # – # – #  2012-Feb-22 @ 08:37