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Although the advent of the internet has created a vastly more complex communication channel that humankind has ever seen, it is interesting that we might be approaching a more simple binary equation: Anything on the net is public. If something is meant to be private, keep it off the web.

The recent fiasco of a pastor mocking Taoist rituals, as well as numerous cases of private church services going massively public on youtube, we are beginning to see a deficiency in online controls for tribal communications, especially so for massive tribes.

Common-sense would dictate information disseminated to a substantial number of people is to be equated as being made publicly available, but we are seeing the destruction of valuable private space to the whims and fancies of cut-and-paste artists.

There will always be statements of values and beliefs that befit the tribe but not the population. There will always be divisions among men. Individualism and collectivism are ends of a spectrum, and in between there are shades of groupthink. Granted, I am not advocating religious groups practicing bigotry, but I am against the populist pressure that any value statement made within a group differentiating themselves from the others be taken out in the open and publicly crucified.

I love how the NBA puts microphones on coaches so carefully curated audio clips can be made public. In this case curation is key - without it, the private space between coach and team would be broken apart and speeches would be taken out of context.

The only value statement agreeable to everyone contains no value.

I’ve always been enamoured by professions imbued with a “higher calling”. Nurses, doctors, activists, and the last time I checked, journalists. After all, isn’t a major point in the whole “journalists vs bloggers” debate? The claim that journalists are held to a higher standard in terms of reporting, and more importantly, ethics?

To be fair, the title “journalist” has expanded a lot in recent times. In this age of self-publishing anyone with a novel idea and internet access is able to address an audience. One could argue that the folks at celebrity gossip website TMZ are journalists to some degree. Or the tabloids for that matter. After all, they do bring news to an audience that craves for the genre.

My argument here is not whether Ris Low is news. My own rudimentary understanding of the word’s definition is that “news” is the opposite of “old’s”. Anything that is current is news. Any instant thought on an old subject is a new thought, any content created is fresh content, any pointer leading to old content is a new pointer. As such, it is all news, and it is all relevant if you find the appropriate audience.

My argument is that the Straits Times has failed to live up to journalism’s higher calling. I will constrain this discourse only to Ris Low - there’s no knowing how long we could go on if we were to address the allegations of biased and incomplete reporting.

The role of the press has traditionally been the middleman between authorities and their people. She walks the line between being the government’s mouthpiece and the people’s defender. Above all, the role of the press is to elevate the level of discourse.

The whole Ris Low saga is a scathing revelation of ST’s priorities. In her latest online posting ST’s Online Editor Joanne Lee defends the stance that Ris Low is still news. She is defending ST’s extensive coverage of Ris Low even after Ris has stepped down as Miss Singapore-World. She is defending articles about Ris having to retake her exams (implicit allegation that Ris was caught cheating on her exams would be the news angle here) and Ris not allowed to shop alone.

Is it news? The two articles are the top read stories on the Straits Times Online, so yes. Does it sell papers, attract readers and eyeballs? Yes. If journalism were solely a business of dollars and cents, there probably would be no question. But we hold journalism to a higher standard than just the making of money. The question with producing this sort of news, I would pose to the journalists at the Straits Times, is this: At what cost?

Ris is a 19 year old for crying out loud. You’re really going to do this? Is it worth the short-term bump in online views, the pittance of ad revenue? Is there any empathy left in you? When you first picked up your pen, you did it with empathy. It wasn’t business, you were young then and money wasn’t the motivation. You wrote because you wanted to show the world a reflection of themselves from a myriad of perspectives. The stories of personal triumph, the informative investigative pieces you had spent so much time putting together, the call for action to help those who are suffering?

Do you not see, in your dogged pursuit of Ris Low, that you have caused suffering?

As Asians we are probably used to the Spockian justification, “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (or the one, yes yes). But the public does not need updates on Ris Low. We do need a press who will have the courage to accept the long-term view that the shareholders are best served when the people are well-served. The short-term gratification of getting the public’s fleeting attention at the expense of what the Straits Times could and should be is a bloody waste.

A story based on discussions at last night’s Open Room. An analogy of the relationships between storytellers (old and new), their audience and advertisers.

You could say I’m blessed. I’ve been coming to the same watering-hole for the last 2 years. The lounge lizards still turn and stare at me whenever I walk through the doors, all of them hungry for my attention. I know the game; I offer them fleeting glances from time to time, feeding their hope. Some do get lucky, but mostly out of my whim. It is amusing to watch them scramble about, wondering what it is they did “right” that night. As if my choice were a direct result of their action. The guessing keeps them busy, and I get to maintain the titillation of intrigue.

Many people ask why I keep coming back to this place. Simply put, there is no better bartender in the next 4,000 miles. Oh, and the drinks are free. Or at least they were.

You see, John, the huge bloke sitting in that corner, used to pay for all my drinks. I used to give him the time of the day, but less so these days. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know why I’m not as into him as I used to be. It’s probably because of all the new guys in town: all interesting in their own cute way, and terribly distracting. Not all of them were good guys, a couple tried to get Bill the bartender to slip pills into my drinks.

It was embarrassing the first time I ordered my usual vodka martini (twist of lemon rind) and was asked to pay up. Didn’t Bill know who I am? I was infuriated that he would quibble over so small an item. For god’s sake, it’s just a bloody drink. Not wanting a scene, Bill finally caved and continued giving me free drinks.

That was 6 months ago. Now Bill says he needs to close down the bar because of financial reasons. Stupid bloke should have seen this coming before he set up shop in this god-forsaken town where I’m his only customer. I only hope I can still hit him up for a few more freebies before he heads out of town.

Pay for drinks? Are you friggin’ kidding me?!?

In my opinion, the main impediment stopping Singaporeans of this generation from making a similar breakthrough to that of our forebears (LKY’s generation) is our obsession with competition. Singapore’s particular idiosyncrasy is that if you look closely enough, we care less about winning than about making the other party lose. Point is, the obsession with making the other person lose is driving us apeshit crazy.

A Singaporean will go to an expensive buffet. Rather than enjoying the good food and ambience, his first inclination is to “attack” the high-ticket items in order to justify the money he’s paying for the buffet. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t like oysters, or prefers cod to crab. He does it so that the establishment doesn’t win, without for a second realising that his arrangement renders both parties losers.

What I’m trying to define here is an extension of the popular Singaporean adjective “kiasu”, which denotes a fear of losing. We’ve actually gone one-up, I feel. Not only must we not lose, the other person / organisation / government / country must be made to lose.

But in the words of the ephemerally-famous Jon Stewart, “this is not a [expletive] game”. Working on a win-lose model restricts us immensely. While it served to move us from third-world status to first-world, it is incompatible with any possible evolution towards a higher form of society. There is no noble cause in obsessive competition, no moral lessons or goodwill. There is only the raw animal instinct for survival, and we will stay at this base level if we continue the way we are - content to snap at everybody else and at each other, always bemoaning the fact that someone has it better than us. More money. More happiness. More.

We have missed the forest for the trees. We are failing to see that we have plenty, and with it a responsibility to help those who do not have as much. In this time of need, let us redefine ourselves as a people of action, willing to do what is right at our own expense, rather than waiting for the phantom hand of government to right all wrongs while we snipe from our armchairs.

I think we’ve come along far enough, at least economically, to realise that no one needs to lose. It would be an utter shame for people to be in desperate need while collectively we have so much.

Singapore needs to watch this.

I stood at the reception of Gleneagles hospital, looking out for my father-in-law’s car which would soon make its way up the small hill and unto the roundabout in front of the hospital. He was picking us up. Us - Faith, myself and newborn Caleb.

It occurred to me that the going-ons at hospitals were very similar to that of airports. I don’t mean to trivialise anything, but the hospital is a place of arrivals and departures. In the elevator you would likely face the wide grin of a new father, while in the corner two women are huddled, sobbing in reaction to news they had just received. The emotions are intense as the destinations here are more permanent and life-changing, for both the people involved as well as the family that surround them.

Gleneagles seems to handle all this with a cavalier Melrose Place, Beverly Hills feel. A ring of exotic sports cars and extremely expensive saloons greet you as you come to the entrance of the hospital. Most of these are owned by the doctors who work in the hospital. Whilst waiting for my father-in-law to pull up, I notice how doctors would drive right up and leave their cars at the door, grab their briefcase and toss their keys to the valet.

“Rockstar”, I whisper to myself, the word that first comes to mind.

My thoughts drift. Why do doctors make so much money? Should health, a commodity that hardly counts itself as a luxury good, cost so much? A man who suffers from cancer shouldn’t have to pay so much more than a man who caught a cold - none of them chose their respective illnesses. I don’t know how difficult becoming a doctor is, but in this age of information sharing, shouldn’t medical expertise be more accessible?

A doctor gets into his Maserati and pulls out of his parking lot. A family sits in front of the cashier, wondering.

I’m sitting here watching the proceedings of the NBA All-Star Game held at New Orleans. The Star-spangled Banner was performed by trumpeteer Christian Scott. It’s amazing, but the anthem never fails to move me, even when performed without words. I suppose you could say I’m in love with the United States of America, but the truth is that I’m in love with the idea of America, rather than America herself.

A country where anyone has the chance to be someone. Where everyone has a voice that is heard, however grating the message may be.

As I walked the streets of San Francisco this morning, the reality that America is rather divorced from her original ideals hits me. The huge dome of City Hall looked very impressive with its gilded edges and ornamentation. What you do not see in the photo are the homeless people scattered around its grounds.

The currentUnited States administration has done, in my own opinion, a horrible job of keeping the faith. Bush’s new $3 trillion budget’s main provisions go to the Department of Homeland Security. I’ve been in and out of the United States many, many times, but in recent years there’s been a tangible fear of walking through her immigration counters. It’s like you’ll never know when Homeland Security’s hyperactive index finger would point your way.

America has grown paranoid. Voices, even that of the majority, have been silenced. Newspapers and blogs write about how ridiculous certain bills are, but congress passes them anyway. I’m only a visitor to this country and I’ve seen a fair number of veterans homeless on the streets, but Bill O’Reilly , who actually lives in America, denies their existence. Everything is upside down, America.

Sometimes people are only as good as you believe them to be. When you stop believing in people, there is no incentive to live up to your expectations. There’d be no ideals to reach for.

Tolkien had it down pat when he created Frodo, the quintessential archetype of the overladen worker. Frodo was burdened by a ring - a small innocuous object that couldn’t have weighed more than a gold coin. And so it is to those around, left scratching their heads wondering why employee x, stay-home-mums and school teachers complain as much as they do.

You really won’t know how heavy the ring is unless you’ve carried it.

Work has risen to a fevered pitch and I find myself working on the clock, off the clock, and pretty much any clock I can get. Even while patting Anne to sleep during her numerous nightly tantrums I devote spare processing cycles to work.

It takes a lot to produce good work, and even more to make its production look effortless. The catch-22 is that should you succeed, the people around you actually believe that it’s easy. The fact that you even had time to blog about it at 5 in the morning confirms their belief.

“It’s just a friggin’ ring. What so hard about that?”

Dear Prime Minister,

I absolutely hate it when you compare our home country to a company. We have invested more than just our money. If Singapore were really Singapore Inc, things would be vastly different.

Not many CEOs can lose $1.5 billion on an error in judgement and keep their jobs. You can’t charge employees a fee for coming to work. The list goes on. Maybe the more enthusiastic readers can list these discrepancies in the comments.

I offer an alternative analogy.

The national football team is probably the strongest collection of Singaporean football players we can muster on local soil. It’s hard to put together another team of Singaporeans that can beat them. They’ve also enjoyed some measure of international success, most notably winning the Tiger Cup (Go Lions!). But for the most part, they are players in our local S-League. Should we pay them what other top football players in the world get? Should Daniel Bennett be paid 2/3 of what David Beckham receives?

My analogy is flawed, of course. While our football players are free to prove themselves in England, Spain or Italy, our politicians can’t quite jump into the driver’s seat at the White House. The assumption the Government is making is that all ministers would have been the top dogs in whatever industries they went into.

That’s a really big assumption. Even our international friends find the salary range ridiculous.

Note that I’m talking only about political appointments. Permanent Secretaries manage the operational aspects of government agencies, a task that rivals the running a medium to large corporation. I expect different things from the political leaders I elect (or who walkovered whichever constituency I belong).

I expect ideological leadership more than operational leadership. We already have the civil servants for that. I still don’t understand why we need 3 Prime Ministers. Or why some receive pensions while drawing full pay.

When I came back from the States, I realised that I am ideologically lost as a citizen of Singapore. But if Singapore is our country when she asks us what we can do for her, and becomes Singapore Inc the company when we ask what she can do for us, I am ideologically doomed here.

This is Sparta.

Dear New York,

your children are beautiful. They’re all bundled up to keep warm in the last few days of winter. Many of them are dressed in jackets that have seen more winters than they have. But they don’t care; they snuggle up close to you, and they’re happy.

They remind us of things we’ve forgotten: that it doesn’t take too much to be happy. Designer clothes, dream jobs, lots of money. I fear that we’ve added these prerequisites to happiness on our children back in Singapore. Many of them carry schoolbags larger than themselves, have “structured” playtimes and participate in sports that their parents think will give them an edge, rather than games they enjoy.

I’m sure I’m stereotyping the Singaporean child here, and the many younger parents are making conscious moves to create some semblance of a childhood for their children.

Keep them warm.

I’m sure you’ve heard the well-meaning phrase “if you want to know what the people think, you need only talk to the taxi driver”. I had a cab ride two nights ago that illustrated perfectly how wrong the adage could be.

Like most cab drivers, he drove a little more aggressively than the usual Joe. Needing to cut past 4 lanes he slowed down and allowed a motorcyclist his right of way. The motorcyclist honked twice before zipping by.

“These motorbikes…if you give way to them, they’ll act all proud as if they don’t need your kindness”, said the cabby.

At the next junction we stopped at a red light, beside a medium-sized car. There was a Malay family in the car, and both women wore the tudung, the traditional Muslim head covering for women.

“These Malays always try to copy what other people do. The women never had any of these head covering in the past.” I thought about it for a while and realised that I really didn’t remember such a prevalence of tudung-clad women in my childhood. I told the cabby that perhaps Singaporean Muslims were returning to more conservative roots.

“No lah. Last time the only ones who wore head dresses were the Catholic nuns. The Malays just copy them.” He went at length on Southeast-Asian history and the Dutch colonisation of Indonesia, and that the indigenous Muslim women started wearing head covering so that they could trade with the Catholic Dutch. He stopped a hair’s breadth short of a racist tirade.

Probably interpreting my stunned silence as agreement, he warned me that many Malays could now speak many Chinese dialects, and that I had to be careful not to be within earshot of them when talking bad about them.

I got out of the cab convinced that the world, like the blogosphere, has many conversations, but that we need not waste our time listening to all of them. And that a little skepticism is good when there is so much being said out there.

Given that I read all my news online and our beloved Straits Times believes in charging for online content, I gleaned this from Jeff’s Blog:

Opposition MPs ‘naive’ to expect upgrading funds

Offers of upgrading in opposition wards were part of a slew of policies proposed by People’s Action Party candidates during the General Election, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said yesterday.

But as voters rejected the PAP’s candidates, it was ‘naive’ of Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir) and Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang) to now expect the Government to give them the funds for upgrading, he added…

Yesterday, Minister of State (National Development) Grace Fu… made the point - reiterated by Mr Mah - that the PAP’s upgrading offer was part of a larger package of policies which the ruling party offered to voters.

‘The electorate in Potong Pasir has obviously not supported that and therefore they should not stand to benefit from any surpluses that are generated from that suite of policies,’ she said.

During the elections I thought it was highly questionable for the PAP to offer voters packages from the nation’s coffers even though they were and were likely to continue being the ruling party.

To deny Singapore citizens who live in constituencies not under PAP governance the funds to upgrade their estate shows the petty character of those in charge.

Did these people opt out of paying taxes? Don’t they pay their dues like everyone else and be entitled to the same level of welfare? Must everyone bend over and kiss the toes of the PAP before they can be given what they already paid for?

The government exists to look after the welfare of its people. PAP clearly does not.

Aaron’s article “Small wonder why NUS alumni not donating back to alma mater” on the reasons why alumni giving is almost non-existent at NUS seems to have triggered quite the online discussion.

I do not pretend to know the answers as I was never an NUS student. But I do know why I feel so strongly for my alma mater, The University of Arizona.

I could tell you of the amazing school spirit at basketball games or the colourful homecoming parades, but get this - they made me feel I belonged, and wanted to belong, even before I stepped foot on the campus or learned about their many traditions.

When I applied for the U of A, they offered to pay a large part of my tuition expenses. I had not applied for any scholarship and was actually all ready to have my parents foot the full bill. I had done relatively well during my polytechnic days, but an unsolicited offer was totally unexpected.

Being the skeptical Singaporean I was, I asked if there was a bond of any kind attached. I asked if I had to stay in the United States or work in Arizona for a period of time to repay their investment. Their answer? We want to give you this money because we believe you can go on to make a difference in the world.

I will never forget the kindness shown to me nor the mandate to make a difference. Their generosity has had a profound impact on my life and I find myself inexplicably tied to my fellow Wildcats, to the city of Tucson, to the state of Arizona and to America herself.

I may not agree with everything that has since transpired, but I can never deny the fact that a large part of who I am and who I want to be is tied to that single email which led to three and a half years of being nurtured under a stranger’s wing.

It is not exactly divine revelation, but Singapore has to undergo a change in character (you could say Singapore has to develop some character) before she can be considered a world-class nation.

Despite the myriad of cultures and religions, every person above the age of 3 is able to sum up Singapore’s predominant character traits. They are kiasu and kiasi.

Kiasu refers to a fear of losing out. Singaporeans are obsessed with being number one. We proudly boast having the best airport, the best zoo, the cleanest country. If there’s a list, we need to be on the top of that list. Occasionally, our organisations even brag about coming in first in a one-horse race.

Kiasi refers to a fear of failure. We always play it safe. This explains many things in Singapore - why we cannot chew gum, hold protests (however civilised), or speak ill of the powers that be. If there is a failure, we’d rather not talk about it. You’ll probably need to find out from foreign news sources that we failed. And even then there are usually actions taken to distort the reality field around such failures.

These 2 traits are the yin and yang of Singapore’s character, but unlike yin and yang, these 2 traits do not co-exist. In most cases, you cannot be number one without some probability of failure.

So we do the wise thing. We pick battles in which we will surely win. You will find Singapore on top of many a list, but if you look closely they are safe victories. You will not find allusions of grandeur, or attempts to embrace and uphold noble ideologies. You will instead find the base of Maslow’s famous triangle - bread and butter issues. Lifts that stop on every floor. No free press. No crazy democratic ideals. No discussion. Casinos.

I am not sure what history will remember us by; whether the eat, drink and be merry existence would suffice to bind us together as a people. It would have been nice to know if we had the guts to spit in the face of the world superpower because we believed her a bully, or stand beside her because we believed her cause righteous.

The way we are, it seems we want to be remembered simply as the country who turned a blind eye to everything around her so long it did not affect her diet of rich foods or quest for opulent livery.

I’ve trained in combat all my life. The mastery of 7 weapons, 5 styles of unarmed combat, advanced equestrianism, pin-point accuracy with countless projectiles. I can’t say I’ve learned everything there is to know, but you could say I’m better equipped on the battlefield than most. Even before my adolescence, there has always been a great desire to learn the ancient techniques and modern adaptations that have made me the soldier I am today. The desire, while strong as the day of its birth, has come under a shroud of doubt in recent days.

One soldier can only do so much. This is the divisive fact that separates history from legend. History remembers individuals who guided their civilisations to glory while legend favoured heroes who overcame herculean obstacles through their own skill and ingenuity. Gone are the days where battles between nations were settled by pitting their best fighters, like David and Goliath. Battles are won through the management of numerous troops. It is slowly dawning upon me that I might serve my country better this way.

Just as most VCs do not even read an iota of code, most generals wouldn’t last two minutes in a one-on-one fight with a brutish footman. But the general, whose only skill is moving these footmen around, is revered throughout the land while the footman is celebrated only in the small confines of the local tavern.

I used to loath these generals, wondering how they felt qualified to lead an army to battle without ever having seen the carnage of frontline action. And it is awkward that I should now see their role as the greater, and my years of training as naught.

Maybe it is pride that prevents me from being that which I once despised. Or the inevitable atrophy of skills that had taken me a lifetime to acquire. Did I really walk down the wrong path?

Anyone can sit back and move footmen around the battlefield…right? Would the potential to do the greater good be worth my personal sacrifice?

Tonight at the ball courts someone on the sidelines picked up another guy’s ringing phone, spoke on it for a while, then shouted to some guy on the court, “Eugene, your mother tell you to buy bread on the way home!”.

An odd feeling came over me. I looked at the young men on the court, and for the first time I saw beyond the external bravado of youths playing a contact sport. I saw them, sons of parents. Boys on the verge of becoming men, somewhere between being loved as a child by their parents and learning to love their parents in return. Somewhere in stasis - a cocoon of sorts, so much transformation taking place, yet to them it seems their youth lasts forever.

Then I wondered: if you saw what I saw tonight, would you be shooting Lebanese children? Would you still have the heart to fire rockets into buildings in which Israeli children slept? Would you finally understand that there are no soldiers; that we are children of our parents, parents to our children, brothers and sisters to our siblings. That the death of a soldier is the death of a civilian. And the death of a civilian is a cost borne by those yet living.

It is borne ultimately by us all.

Standard disclaimer applies here, as it does to all of this site, that I write on a personal level and do not represent any views held by my employer…yadda yadda. You get the idea. Though I am aware riding on this train may get me fired.

When I read Kin Mun’s article on Today I knew immediately that this article was very different from the ones he normally writes. It was less tongue-in-cheek and more angsty. There is an impotence that comes with being humourous; the joker, whose presence is acknowledged, is never used in a game of poker where real money is at stake. If you follow mr brown’s archives you’ll see that he has become increasingly political of late, drawing national attention with the bak chor mee podcast.

Summarising it in roadside vernacular, hiding behind humour is like wrapping yourself in a sarong and hoping Superman can’t see you naked. He only pretend he didn’t see. MICA’s response to mr brown’s article wasn’t Superman using his x-ray vision to carefully analyse the arguments. It was Superman shooting laser beams out of his eyes and frying mr brown’s balls.

The beloved Dr. Mahathir jokes about how the MIGs Malaysia purchased during his term as Prime Minister are superior to the F-18s recently purchased, because the MIGs can bomb Singapore while the F-18s can’t. According to the educated doctor, it has something to do with America owning “the source code”.

Sure, the absurd insensitivity draws fire, but what astounds me is how he uses technical jargon like “source code”, but still calls MIGs M-I-Gs every single time he mentions them (imagine him saying s-c-u-b-a diving). Someone please send him a pirated copy of Top Gun.

Oh and Doctor, I don’t think airbases need to write extensive programs (aka source code) to make planes fly north to make drops.

I simply had to take a photo of this at the IPS Elections Forum. Most big shots would be shaking hands with the “important” people, but here was Professor Tommy Koh dishing out nametags (and shaking hands) to whoever was next in line, regardless of whether you were renowed or unknown.

I don’t use vulgarities much, but there is no other way of expressing the level of incredulity currently running through my being. So if strong language bothers you, don’t proceed any further.

You are absolutely shitting me.

James Gomez was arrested after the elections for “criminal intimidation”. If charged, he could be jailed for 7 years.

A large part of PAP rhetoric this time round has been along the lines of “what we promise, we deliver”. Then there was the whole character assassination of James Gomez which took up a considerable chunk of what could have been useful discourse. Make no doubt about it - James Gomez was delivered a swift kick to the balls. This reveals the moral fibre of the ruling party, and that wearing an all-white ensemble only means having to use more bleach.

It has been so hard to write anything upbeat during election week. There is so much ugliness, and we the common people have to contend with the fact that these are the best we’ve got. These are our leaders.

Goh Chok Tong threatens Potong Pasir residents with no upgrading should Chiam See Tong remain voted in.

I have lost all respect for this man and the ideology he represents.

They’re showing re-runs of Commonwealth Games table-tennis matches on the telly. After all the hulaballoo about our paddlers not being Singaporean by birth, it is interesting to note that the Commonwealth table-tennis tournament looked like a mini-Chinatown. Singapore isn’t the only one “importing” foreign talent when it comes to sports. The whole world is in on it.

Which brings me to question the idea of a birth-home, and whether it is fast becoming an obsolete idea.

Back a few hundred years you were likely to live and die in the place you were born. Then there were ships, and people migrated. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t cheap. We weren’t that distant from the pre-travel era, and the idea of the birth-home was still a strong one.

Now in a time when air travel is almost as ubiquitous as that on land, people move all the time. You don’t even need a very compelling reason to move. My sister, who’s tired of Tucson, is thinking of moving to another city. Truth be told, if air travel were cheaper and immigration laws less a pain in the behind, many of us would have moved out of the country in which we live.

Being born in a place means nothing to me. It probably means nothing to you. My memories of Tucson are every bit as real and precious as my memories of my childhood in Singapore. You cannot tell me to stay in Singapore because I was born here, or because this is the place I grew up. You need to convince me, and the many like me, that Singapore is an idea I can believe in.

If you’re selling Singapore as a good place to stay because we can make money here, we’re out when the tide changes. This National Day, I hope for hope. I’m tired of being battered into submission. I’m still disgruntled about the government building two casinos despite most Singaporeans not wanting any, as if to spite us. I don’t want to be kept in the dark, or be thought of as too stupid to handle the truth. Why no one has given us an account of what’s happening with Temasek’s investment in Shin Corp is beyond me. I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure the stock arrow is pointing south.

Like sports and the table-tennis tournament, citizenship and nationality is fast becoming a choice, not an involuntary birthright.

If it ends with a pedia, it’s got to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth, right?

Wikipedia is turning into the world’s proverbial magic mirror. US Congressmen edit Wikipedia biographies in a bid to make themselves look better. Because if you read it from the internet, it must be true.

Even local bloggers are putting up Wikipedia entries of themselves. I guess it’s one way to get into the history books.

We’re barely toe deep in 2006, and we’re already starting to kill each other.

Freedom - the right to do whatevere I want, let no one stop me. When will the west learn that you can’t trample on others without repercussion? Yes they say that they merely drew offensive cartoons, nothing compared to the retaliatory arson, kidnappings and murders. But don’t they understand that words move the heart? Don’t they believe that their art affects people? Or do they pen their works, believing daily in the impotence of its form, such that they are now so appalled that anyone could have taken their life work so seriously?

What other purpose did the cartoon serve, except to put down the beliefs of a multitude different in skin colour, different in upbringing, different? Was it necessary to utter the ink-strained sound, merely to justify one’s existence in the world? Do you talk just to be heard?

Then you have the sell-outs. Google censors itself for China. Google, by its censorship, warps time and space, rewrites history books. Google essentially makes itself a search engine to a parallel universe - a communist disneyland (such a strong oxymoron) in order to gain a foothold in China. Data integrity? Zilch. Integrity? About as empty as a Google search page without data.

Then you have the over-eager ones. Yahoo allegedly provides China information leading to the arrest of a journalist. It almost reads like a real-world remake of Star Wars. Is Yahoo!’s right to divulge this information? Isn’t it Yahoo!’s freedom of speech? Why should they keep quiet when there’s a gadzillion dollars at stake?

We should all do well to go back to the basics.

Don’t talk with your mouth full.

When you look at the cross-strait relations between Singapore and Malaysia, it feels like a bunch of Primary school kids trying to one-up each other.

Malaysia plans ‘crooked’ bridge.

So the gist of it is this: Singapore and Malaysia are connected by a causeway which was built too low to allow ships to pass. Singapore has been profitting from this because ships need to go around Singapore rather than through the Straits. Malaysia wants to rebuild the causeway into a bridge high enough for ships to pass but Singapore doesn’t. Malaysia decides to tear down their half of the causeway and build a bridge anyway. In order to accomodate the necessary height in such a short span (their half) of a bridge, the Malaysian side would have to curve. This prompts some Singaporean “source” to hint that this is because Singaporeans are straight while Malaysians are crooked.

Do you remember those idiotic kids on the bus who refused to budge just to spite the other kid?

Dear readers, a question came to mind, and its very basic nature confounds me.

“What does your country believe in?”

I ask this not to make a mockery of the nation or pass some snide hidden remark; I ask this because I find myself unable to give an answer.

Over lunch a few colleagues and I engaged in small talk, and somewhere someone commented that as a nation we sat on the fence regarding a lot of issues.

It is true.

We don’t seem to have a strong stand on the China - Taiwan issue. You don’t see our leaders being very vocal about terrorism. In fact, we tend to slink away in a corner, hoping to stay unnoticed, playing it safe.

However, we are extremely vocal about internal matters. The smallest measure of political dissidence draws the heavy guns like a shark to a drop of blood in water. A large majority of newspaper headlines cover our economic growth and how well we’re doing.

As a people, we’re afraid to stretch outside of ourselves. We’re the Asian family down the street; whose parents cane their children and tell them to mind their own business while the husband in the next house beats the living daylights out of his wife.

“Don’t put your elbows on the dining table. Don’t shake your legs. Sit up straight. Don’t stare at other people.”

I used to take pride in the fact that Singapore, while insular, tried to hold on to her own principles even if she didn’t impose them on others. WIth the casinos being built here despite the public outcry against it, my faith is shattered.

Nihilo sanctum estne? (Latin for “Is nothing sacred?”)

We are empty, without and within. Maybe I’m wrong. I’m almost begging you - convince me that I’m wrong.

I may not agree with America’s brash handling of world affairs. I may even fear for my safety and that of my family if I lived in London or Australia; with them being ardent supporters of the “war on terror” and all. But I wouldn’t have to be afraid of accidentally doing something. The prevalent message I get from our leaders is this: don’t screw it up. Everyday, every moment, every message seems to boil down to this. Don’t screw it up. We’ve come a long way. Don’t screw it up. We’re a multi-racial society. Don’t screw it up.

Don’t talk, don’t speak. Don’t do anything.

So dear reader, please help me out here. Please. I want to want to stay in Singapore.

What do we believe in? What are we passionate about?

I know it’s not any of his fault (you may choose to argue otherwise), but George W. Bush has been spending billions upon billions of dollars lately.

Aid for Katrina victims. Aid for Rita victims. Preparation for a possible Avian flu pandemic.

Where is this money coming from? More relevantly, who’s money is being rechanneled to these efforts? Surely we can’t all be applauding while Bushie pulls Benjamins out of thin air.

Channel NewsAsia reports Two bloggers charged under Sedition Act over racist remarks in Singapore.

The article above does not tell you what they did, except that whatever they did was racist. It also wrongly identifies the two as bloggers, when one of them didn’t post on a blog but wrote in an online forum. It does everything but tell you what sedition is.

A person is deemed to have committed an offence under the Sedition Act if he performs any act which has a seditious tendency, or conspires with any person to do so.

Gee. Thank you very much. It’s like back in Primary school, when asked to construct a sentence using “sedition” and going “Today, our teacher asked us to write a sentence with “sedition” in it”. In Primary school you got a big fat red zero, but it passes for clarity in our local media.

You are much better reading this account of what happened.

More information, fewer words.

And by the way, courtesy of Dictionary.com,

se·di·tion:

1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
2. Insurrection; rebellion.

Learned a new word today.

A decapitated head was found in a bag at Orchard train station in Singapore. The other parts of the murder victim’s anatomy were found in another bag at MacRitchie Reservoir, more than 5 kilometers away.

News has it that it is a murder of a filipino maid by a filipino maid, but I find it hard to believe. There aren’t enough details to be certain - it’s just a gut feel.

If it were a maid kill maid scenario, why would the murderer leave the victim’s head at one of Singapore’s busiest train stations? Wouldn’t she have wanted the evidence not to be found? The placement of the head in a highly conspicuous place is clearly the act of someone sending a message. What the message is, and to whom, we do not know. It reeks of terrorism, or at best gang activity.

Though 5 kilometers doesn’t seem too far a distance, you don’t walk 5 kilometers carrying a bag full of human body parts. Filipino maids in Singapore do not drive, nor do they own cars. How did she manage it?

There’ll probably be answers to my questions as the case unfolds, but I’m also expecting it to “disappear” from the media in a cloud of ninja smoke. As of now, things don’t quite tally. It feels like the seconds before wool is pulled over our eyes.

Videos from FoxNews from New Orleans.

You have to see this.

In democratic Singapore, every citizen has the right to vote. Actually we’re even more democratic than the United States because it is compulsory by law for every citizen to vote. What our darling government has done, bless their heart, is take away our need to vote.

I’ve been of voting age for some time now and like many of you, have never voted. We have been rendered mindless peons in the running of this country, physically here because Dick Lee’s “this is home, truly” is a pretty darn good song that goes well with fireworks.

The whole Presidential election issue was about choice. Most of us probably wouldn’t dispute that current President S.R. Nathan is a more qualified candidate than Andrew Kwan, but we would have liked to have chosen our own President, thank you very much. We would have liked a fair fight, instead of having Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong issue a bounty hunters fee for Andrew’s decapitated head. The picture the local media paints of Andrew Kwan is so exaggeratedly ugly that you’d think Andrew’s father was head of JTC and made him the CFO. That reminds me of another person…

The Singapore Caste System

After our Prime Minister announced that there was going to be a “Singapore Elite”, he made formal what we already knew: that in Singapore only a few, or even one, have the power to make decisions, the rest are expected to follow like little lambs.

The Presidential Elections (or lack of it) is another case in point. Why do we need a Presidential Elections Committee to apply such stringent criteria as to who has the right to run for office? Is the public so stupid that they can’t be trusted to make a good sound decision? Is the government afraid that we’ll choose an ex-murderer to be our President? Why can’t we decide what’s good for ourselves and live with the consequences of our own actions?

It’s ironic that the ruling party is the People’s Action Party when all it does is inhibit the action of the people.

What I want in a President

Someone who earns his / her SGD2.3 million annual salary. If we’re going to get pissed of by T.T. Durai’s meagre $600k, we better be on the edge of our seats to make sure our money’s hard at work here. Durai made the NKF what it is today. I may be wrong, but I doubt any President we’ve ever had has done more.

The President used to have veto power to challenge the government’s spending. After President Ong Teng Cheong signalled his intention to use his veto, the government, bless their heart again, decided to cut the veto power of the President to non-constitutional bills. I think a huge pay cut should accompany the cut in job responsibility, if salaries were pegged to the private sector, which is our government’s rationale for the extremely high salaries paid to ministers.

Conclusion

I know my rants have become exceedingly tedious, and it’s probable that my writing is scarcely sufficient to hold your attention.

I’ll post something less cerebral up next. Promise.

After all, we are neither the hive mind nor the elite, and shouldn’t bother ourselves with such things.

With my parents taking care of Anne the last two days, I finally had a chance to “see the world”. Even when out with Anne, it’s amazing how much attention she soaks up, to the point us parents are pretty oblivious to whatever happens around us.

Excellence in Action

I went to the Singapore General Hospital for specialist medical advice regarding my hyper-thyroidism. It was a fairly pleasant experience as I had time to sit down with two books, one work related and the other had something to do with some wizard and a half-blood prince. I was impressed by the level of service at the hospital. I have to say that the healthcare system here in Singapore is excellent.

A woman on her mobile-phone was complaning loudly about how she was made to wait for an hour before getting her consultation. She was only three patients behind and it took an hour yadda yadda. Come on already, lady. If you want personal service, pay for it. The waiting isn’t bad if you plan ahead. The hospital even sends a text message to your phone when the queue number comes close to yours. Pretty brilliant, I must say. Doctors and nurses would have a heck of an easier life if patients were less anal about not having their every whim and fancy pandered to.

I didn’t need much persuasion to fill in a feedback form and rated most things favourably.

Excellence in Character

The purpose of a feedback form is usually to quantify the unquatifiable: in this case customer satisfaction.

In Singapore we tend to take quantifiable results very seriously. Children are groomed from a young age not to disappoint their parents by losing out to the “neighbour’s kid” in examination grades, musical talent or even physical apperance.

It sucks that everything has to be a competition. Yes, it drives us to perform well, but it consumes our soul.

Just a few hours ago I was at Suntec City with Faith and Anne. They were giving out free newspapers that cost 50 cents on any other given day. An middle-aged man and his friend grabbed two copies. His friend went “but we can share the paper”. “But it’s free!”.

Kiasuism - The Fear of Losing Out

Singaporeans are driven by a relentless need to win. The rhetoric you’ll hear is that we are driven to succeed, but “win” is a better term here.

Success is a variable term. To some, success is a nice quiet life in the countryside while to others it is a BMW convertible. To win, on the other hand, is quantifiably definite. From the level of government, down to the classrooms, we are told to be number one.

We are the number one airport in the world; the number one seaport; we have the number one zoo; so on and so forth. When I was 12 years old I visited Australia. I went to the Sydney zoo, raised an eyebrow when asked how it was and replied “Singapore has the number one zoo”. I would have been crucified if not for the fact I was a minor.

The flip side to this game of numbers is the fear of losing. A typical Singaporean response to hearing that your child came in second in class would be to scold them and make them work harder to beat the top guy.

We realise that in order for us to win, someone has to lose. We grab the extra newspaper, even when we don’t need it, because it makes the other guy lose. Singaporeans will join a queue just because it’s long. I know someone who bought a condominium this way. She didn’t know it was a line for a condo until she reached the front, and bought it because she queued for so long already.

So when you hear the term “ugly Singaporean”, it refers to those of us who feel a need to deprive someone else just to feel better. In Singapore cars speed up when you signal your intention to filter into their lane, instead of slowing down and letting you in. There was once I had Anne’s pram and bags of groceries in hand, and barely managed to open the door leading out of the carpark. A guy just walked through the open door, made me drop the pram and groceries and left me with the door now sprung shut in my face.

Ugly. Singaporean. Same thing. Sometimes?

I am finding new things to love about Singapore, and finding old things not to like about her still with us.

So Dear Singapore, happy belated 40th birthday. My gift to you is Sir Henry Wotton’s poem, “The Character of a Happy Life”.

The Character of a Happy Life

How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his highest skill;

Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepar’d for death
Untied unto the world with care
Of princes’ grace or vulgar breath;

Who envies none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
The deepest wounds are given by praise,
By rule of state, but not of good;

Who hath his life from rumours freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruins make accusers great;

Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his grace than goods to send,
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend.

This man is free from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

Sir Henry Wotton

I’ll say what every homemaker thinks at some point of every day: we ought to get paid for this.

Don’t you find it odd that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, yet is rendered unable to feed itself? If bringing up your child is as noble a profession as people make it out to be, show us the money.

Governments that encourage child-bearing should go a step further than just tax breaks, they should make it a viable profession. Here in Singapore we have an entire generation brought up by underpaid domestic help from third-world countries. An entire generation of whom many have absolutely no memories of their parents being there when they lost their first tooth or had their first crush. It should be no wonder why there is no nationalistic loyalty to be found in our young. We are a people who do not know our own mothers.

Nothing to draw the good old ugly Singaporean out like a little money.

The guys at the Youth Portal Project offered a top prize of $2000 to the winner of their Web Design Contest. Over a hundred entries were submitted, including my two-hour last ditch effort, which was subsequently rejected from the top 5 list.

In the Youth.sg forums where non-shortlisted designs were being revealed and comments on the top 5 exchanged, Patrick Ong innocently drops a question: Why those 5 designs? He proceeds to insist that the internet community be allowed to view all 100+ and vote for their favourites. Also in the same thread, he dismisses the top 5 as “disappointing”, and suggests that they were possibly chosen because the judges were fatigued, having had to go through more than a hundred, or that the designers were friends or relatives with the judges…you get the idea.

Then it gets interesting. In another thread, he reveals his design. They discover that you can buy Patrick’s submission off Templatemonster. And no, it wasn’t designed by Patrick.

Back in the previous forum thread, he starts getting all defensive when the general public doesn’t see that democracy is best served only when his design wins. He states that his company has 100+ designers, so on and so forth.

And he still thinks everyone else is stupid for not having chosen his design.

I’m amazed.

You pay road tax, a certificate that “entitles” you to own a car, suffer the newly extended hours on road tolls via the Electronic Road Pricing scheme and bus and train fares adjust themselves to Argentina’s 2001 hyperinflation every two years or so.

Now they advertise on the tarmac on which you walk.

Remember when someone asked if our economy was indeed so bad that we needed to build a casino in Singapore and the ministers denied it?

After watching First Knight it dawns on me that I’ve been fascinated by mythical places like Camelot or the utopian society in Star Trek. These places, fictional as they are, embody the universal good. Not good that is for the here and now, or good that applies only for a select few.

It was only then I realised that I had no idea what Singapore’s ruling class stands for. I’ve watched quite a bit of the going-ons in parliament and the only message I get is that we want to create a place where “if you work hard you’ll get there”.

“There” has always been dictated to us. Now with talk of the creation of a Singaporean elite, I can’t help but feel like I’m living in an RPG. We can’t relax, we can’t take it easy. We’re not “there yet”.

Our children carry school bags the size of giant sacks of rice and most have every single minute of their little lives crammed with extra tuition, music lessons or golf instruction. Many of them are primed for an adulthood their parents want them to have.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels a need to end the oppression and give our children back their childhood. I want to bring up my kids in a place where they can find time to chill without having to feel like they’re falling behind.

With the government’s decision to create a Singaporean elite, as well as the building of casinos in spite of the majority who oppose the idea, I am really not so sure about staying here. There is an emphasis on the moral obligation to contribute back, but the steps the new government has taken demolishes my attempts to reconcile my physical presence on the island and my yearning to leave it.

I want a Singapore where the voice of the people is heard and given real credibility (the casino is going to be five minutes away from where I bring up my first child); a Singapore where we are all considered equals (I don’t have to work hard to get into the elite before my existence matters), and a Singapore where we strive for the greater good. A Singapore that tries.

The recent case of AcidFlask vs A*Star chairman Philip Yeo has brought the dooce right into our front yard. If you’re unfamiliar with AcidFlask vs Philip, refer to the case notes.

There are many issues at hand, but let’s look at the dominant one a little more in depth.

Is it AcidFlask’s right to air his opinion on his blog? Did it amount to libel? Was Philip Yeo’s demand that AcidFlask remove his entire blog excessive?

Now that AcidFlask has taken down his blog, we cannot ascertain for ourselves whether or not what he wrote (falsely) lowered Philip Yeo’s or A-Star’s reputation in our eyes. Based on the discrepancies between the Singapore Ink account and the Channel NewsAsia accounts, A*Star seems to take issue that AcidFlask accused them of bribery, “misuse of money and misbehaviour”. Someone said that those allegations were made by a reader in the comments, and not written by AcidFlask (I’m beginning to feel very 1990s calling this guy by his nick) himself.

From what I gather, Philip Yeo comes across as a person who doesn’t take well to criticism. In Saturday’s profile of him in The New Paper, he was quoted as saying,

‘You can call me names,’ he said. ‘I don’t care. Just don’t criticise my work… I will bomb you flat.

So let me get this straight. You can call him names, but you can’t criticise his work. He openly calls male scholars wimps, openly stating his preference for female scholars.

How is this relevant to the dominant issue? If Philip Yeo is as we read him to be, wouldn’t he be a person to overreact even if AcidFlask’s opinions were well within the realms of fair comment? Would Philip listen if we sat down and calmly listed down the problems inherent in the current scholarship system, or would that be critical of his work? Would it have turned out better if AcidFlask were female?

The blog is a two-edged sword. It is as personal as you want it to be and yet as loud a megaphone as any form of communication medium can ever possibly be. But remember this nugget of wisdom from the THX folks: The audience is listening.

I think it is preposterous for someone to blog about something and then later claim an entitlement to personal ranting as a defense. You’ve put it on the friggin’ internet. There is no larger audience accessible to the common man, especially given the fact that Singapore’s speaker’s corner is located in some obscure pedestrian-deficient part of Singapore.

That being said, if we are to progress as a society we cannot continue the “no one can criticise my work” / silence all opposing viewpoints mentality our government used to have. The powers-that-be need to adopt the new government directive: listen to the people, put on a smile, build the casino anyway.

A few moments ago, the Singapore government gave the “green light” for the building of casinos (coined as “integrated resorts” by the powers that be) in Singapore. Boiled down to its very essence, this debate pits the pragmatism of economics against the ideals and principles of the general populace.

Among some of the issues I had with the Prime Minister’s speech was his discounting of the people’s voice. He said that msot of these opinions were personal, and some were of a religious nature, and that as a government they had to remain secular and have the people’s interests at heart (if I recall correctly).

It is obvious the voice of the people is a matter of personal opinion. Many of the non-supporters have seen their own families ruined by gambling. Does this make their viewpoint any less valid? Is the emotional trauma irrelevant? Did we add a dollar value to offset the economic benefits we would gain from having not one, but two casinos in Singapore?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t all the religious groups oppose the building of the casino? Prime Minister Lee says that in a multi-religious setting, no one group’s values should have greater importance than another’s.

Dear Sir, capitalism is as strong as any religion. Not choosing an ideal isn’t an option.

Ok, got to run back to the telly for the continuation.

After Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan listed the safeguards that will be put into place to deal with the social ills that come with gambling. Among which is a $100/day, $2000/year admission fee.

Other (heavily paraphrased) speeches include:

“Let us put aside our differences and move on” - Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong

“I was against it, but after weighing the greater good, we cannot pass the opportunity by” - Wong Kan Seng.

“I am a Muslim, but I can’t force my values on other people. Should we stop selling meat and condoms to cater to a particular group?” - Yakob Ibrahim, Minister for Muslim Affairs.

Loudest expulsion of hot air:

“When we talk about an aquarium, you’ll think about the one at the basement of Wisma Atria, or even the underwater world at Sentosa. But what if I told you we’ll have an aquarium large enough for a whale to swim freely? That’s the kind of scale we’re talking about”. - Lim Hng Kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry.

The whale comment drew laughter, especially from the two members of parliament sitting directly behind Lim Hng Kiang. The blonde guy (if someone can identify who he is) mouthed incredulously, “Whale! A whale! Blue whale!”.

I don’t know why we ban chewing gum but not cigarettes. Or why government officials want us to believe that they’re opening up and listening to the people now that the era that required the iron fist is over.

Until I see a change in the decision to build a casino in Singapore, I maintain that the government we have merely covers the iron fist with a velvet glove.

Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan was seen on television urging the public not to be “trapped by ideologies” when it comes to the casino debacle. What a load of crap. The last thing I need is a government without an ideology, merely existing with no purpose or direction.

Your decisions dictate the ideology you subscribe to. Word from the grapevine is that our government lost money in Enron, and with the large number of workers headed towards their retirement, instant cash is needed to release their CPF money they’ve saved.

Our young people face enough vice as it is. We couldn’t stop porn from seeping (rather flooding) through the internet. We can, however, stop the casino from being built. There is nothing good or noble about gambling. It is not an indication that we have “arrived”.

It’s construction will be a testament to the impotence of the citizen’s voice. It’s a done deal. I don’t know why I’m even ranting about it. These are times I really hate the government’s “we know better” attitude.

After catching the second round of the US Presidential Debates, it becomes clear that both Bush and Kerry have run out of original catch phrases.

He’s wavering!

He’s scaring you guys!

Go back and forth on those lines, sneak in an implied “He didn’t serve in Vietnam” and state as firm as you can that the other party doesn’t have “what it takes” to be commander-in-chief because he’s never been one before (isn’t that why they’re having elections anyway?) and you have the Presidential (and Vice-Presidential) debates. Now that I’ve gotten that extremely long and grammatically-challenged sentence past me, let’s move on to an opinionated rant.

Bush maintains that the world is better off without Saddam in reign. That is true of course. But the world is better off without a lot of things. I think Kerry has a good point in his “wrong war, wrong time, wrong place” argument, the one good point being “wrong time”. This is especially true in light of North Korea.

North Korea (frantically waving): We have nuclear weapons here!

USA: Nah, you’re alright.

So we’ve attacked a country we now know has no weapons of mass destruction. Bear in mind that it was the very premise upon which this war was waged. We did not enter this because Saddam had “the intention and means” as President Bush put it. To change the underlying reason for war at this point in time is a blatant lie. Some people actually call this “inconsistency”. Ceteris paribus, war on Iran and North Korea seems more justified. Honestly, if any country had a chance to upseat the world’s lone superpower, there would be intent in every heart.

That being said, I don’t find a compelling reason to like Kerry. I don’t dislike him, and I find it hard to do anything different regarding the war in Iraq give the depth of the hole we’ve dug ourselves in. Bush is right in pointing out that Kerry will find some problems in convincing allies to join in the wrong war at the wrong place in the wrong time. But that wasn’t Kerry’s mistake. If if were a mistake it was Bush’s.

During the Vice-Presidential debates the undisputed point Chaney brought up was that the effort to spread democracy throughout the world was a noble one. It’s hard to argue with that because I can’t come up with anything better. But looking at the last two elections, it’s always been a voting for the lesser of two evils. If I had a vote, I would vote for the person who didn’t seem he would mess up as bad, as opposed to a strong belief in a particular candidate.

It is hard for any self-respecting candidate to step up. Primarily because the existance of a self-respecting politician is still a hotly debated topic. Add to that the amount of money needed to campaign. That narrows down the field to rich blokes who most probably ganered up a truckload of obligations to various sponsors with a million different agendas. I’m looking for a William Wallace. Or at least someone from the middle class, if they’re going to keep talking about understanding the needs of the middle class.

Is democracy, with America being the model, all that it’s cut up to be?

Notice I’m using the royal “we” when it comes to talking about the United States of America. That’s because everything’s all rosy in Singapore. We have a Prime Minister who isn’t the lesser of two evils. There isn’t a lesser or greater when there is only one from which to choose. Not much to talk about. Not the type that results in change, anyway.

I’m a political nomad, settling wherever thought can be provoked. And that’s my two cents worth.

I killed a cat yesterday. Kicked it in the side I did. It flew a meter in the air as it yelped. I couldn’t believe that it landed on its feet. I kicked again. Blood trickled from its jaw as it lay down.

What the heck. I stepped on its skull.

Then I noticed something. There were two patches on its tail.

Old Donald Rumsfeld being grilled about the “alleged” torture of Iraqi prisoners.

We’re functioning in a — with peacetime restraints, with legal requirements in a war-time situation, in the information age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon.

Ok, when he said “unbelievable photographs”, I don’t think he meant great-looking photos. I can testify that it’s really very hard to photoshop a group of Iraqi prisoners piled up naked in a pyramid.

Call it like it is, Donald. Rape rooms are back.

Let me get this straight:

You get fired if you take photos of coffins covered with a USA flag, but you become the Newspaper Photographer of the Year if you took photos of uncovered dead Liberians.

Was it bad photo composition?

CIA lies to United Nations. Bush administration lies about healthcare to justify budget cuts.

These are two (in a single day, mind you) out of many, many reasons why this administration has got to go.

Sure, Nader may fail. Kerry may fail. But Bush has failed.

Dear General Powell,

I just read the article “The Tragedy of Colin Powell” and wanted to communicate what I felt about it to you.

You became an inspiration to me after the Gulf War. It’s odd because I did not know you well. At that point I had no idea what you did (besides the Gulf War of course) or any details of your illustrious military career. I only knew that both General Stormin’ Norman and you led your men to save a helpless Kuwait that was brutally attacked by the larger Iraq. You were a hero. Those tomahawk missiles could hit a mailbox from 2000 miles away, I read. I swelled with pride that the good side had such advanced weaponry.

As I grew out of my teenhood I became more aware of the things going on in the world. I had so much respect for you that I hoped that you’d run for President after Clinton’s term was up. I would have voted for you, save for the little obstacle of me not being American.

Singapore tops Amnesty International’s execution league. According to the article, we have the world’s highest per capita execution rate, three times higher than that of hand-cutting Saudi Arabia. I feel all bad-assish after reading the article.

Heck, we’d have killed Michael Fay if he placed his pinky on his can of spray paint just one more time. We might have even tried to execute Clinton for opposing the caning sentence. We’re like that - natural born killers.

We arrest people for changing their addresses and charge them with $4000 fines for looking the magistrate the wrong way.

There are many things I might not agree with, but if I had to choose between Singapore’s and America’s handling of crime, I’d pick the former. It’s only because we all need to satisfy our thirst for blood.

What if the conspiracy theories I dreamed were true?

It may have been an American tank that fired on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

Before Schwarz was governor of “Cauliforna”, Estrada was the president of the Philippines. Before Estrada, Ronald Reagan was the president of the United States. Not to be outdone, FPJ has declared that he is running for president.

What is it with actors and politics? People totally inexperienced can take up office simply because they have the money to “surround themselves with smart people”. Are we actually so gullible to believe that people who know nothing about economics can manage our fiscal policies, or employ people who have not travelled widely to dictate our foreign policy?

Is it a lack of choice that leads us so? After all I’ve heard quite a number of people say that they’d vote for Howard Dean simply because he’s not George Bush. Or are we really looking for that fairytale Hollywood role model?

“Don, this can’t continue. I won the elections because of the stand I took with regards to my faith. Ok, so I made the mistake by riding the “God bless America” hype, but that was truly how I…and the whole of America felt. I didn’t mean for it to become a holy war, but…darn…it really looks like one isn’t it? We need to restructure the Middle-East, there’s no doubt about that. Doesn’t help that our getting rid of Saddam came across as a dilution of our attack on the Al-Qaeda. It now looks like we’re targeting all Muslims.

Is there any way we can have them on our side in this one?”

Don smiled. He knew what had to be done, but waited patiently for the right time to bring it up.

“If we launch small covert attacks on strategic targets, we can have all of them on our side. A little bit of confusion and anarchy would have them begging for our intervention. It is then we can establish our blueprint for the Middle-East. Imagine having a hand in establishing democracy in all of the Middle-East, rather than just Iraq.

We already rule the airwaves and all the media channels. We own the average world citizen. Monarchy has to go - affecting one suspicious person is more difficult than changing the minds of the unsuspecting public. Democracy serves us.”

George sighed. He had little time before the next election. He had to win it to best his father. He had already managed to turn the country’s eyes away from the flickering economy, but he couldn’t manage that forever. Control of the globe would definitely raise his chances at a second term.

“Just do what you got to do, Don.”

Don rose from his seat and walked to the door.

“Don? Make sure you stick the bullseye on the bull.”

Don picked up his cellphone and dialed a number.

“Hello. No, I don’t need to speak with O’Reilly. Put me through to your editor. He’s not there? Just tell him that Al-Qaeda claims responsibility for the attack on the mosque in Mecca tomorrow.

We are all full of ourselves. I once read an article on psychology that stated that even Mother Teresa helped out because of a “selfish” desire - the need to feel that she was being altruistic. It is an extreme view that irked my ire quite a bit, for my young self wanted so much to believe that we could choose to live above ourselves, but there is some truth in what the article said. We make decisions based on our needs. A parent provides for his or her child for the comfort that he or she is being a good parent, and so on.

Nowhere else is this more apparent than the governing of nations. While America keeps harping on how it wants to see justice done in Iraq, or how it is the only one capable of righting a wrong, we can bet our lives that its own interests are the foremost of its priorities.

Democracy was established to balance these inevitably selfish interests. I want what I want, you want what you want. We’ll take the mean of all of what everybody wants and somehow things will sort of even out. It is a system of checks and balances, and nothing less than the participation of the total population would see the most equitable decision made.

When the United States embarked on a policy of unilateralism, she made a statement to the rest of us that their selfish interests were more important than ours. The French could go to hell and all that.

I was living in the United States then and felt utterly helpless to affect her actions that would change the world in which my own children would inherit. Even in an academic environment, we foreigners were told to shush up because we weren’t the ones “paying the price” of sending our kids into Iraq. Joi Ito’s right - Foreigners, even those living in and contributing to the diversity of the United States, have no say in its foreign policies that affect many of our homelands.

As Bush continues to give Rumsfeld and Chaney the nod, the American people themselves begin to lose their own democracy. They are scarcely able to affect any change themselves.

I’ve learnt a thing or two about rigging statistics when I was studying business. You narrow the sample size to your desired group of people and the statistical mean falls within your favour. Just watch Bill O’Reilly tell guests on his show to “shut up” because they have a different opinion. Be the last one talking and everything will be fine.

Remember Jessica Lynch? The U.S. army private who got stabbed, shot and kidnapped by the Iraqis during the height of the Iraqi war? Remember the daring rescue by the U.S. Marines who broke into a highly fortified Iraqi hospital via helicopter insertion and stretchered Private Lynch out using the U.S. flag as a blanket? Or how she was beaten so badly she had amnesia and couldn’t remember being beaten?

I can almost hear President Bush humming the Star-spangled banner on this one. The television networks are clamouring over who gets to tell her story. She finally lands a deal with NBC. Get ready to read her book, watch her MTV, eat her cereal and listen to her songs. The line between entertainment and news is blurred as FoxNews still proclaims that it is the only “fair and balanced” entity in the world.

I was stupid enough to fall for the Tomahawk Missile crap back in the first Gulf War. If you believe this whole Jessica Lynch story without as much raising your eyebrow, you’re more gullible than I thought.

Kristen always seems to land the most news. Her latest find on misused doggy poo bags in Singapore highlights a larger problem: Singaporeans can’t speak English.

Faith and I were lamenting that Singaporeans weren’t treated as “native” speakers of english despite having sacrificed our own “native” tongues to learn it. This formed a natural barrier to many jobs that would have otherwise been open to us.

With the doggy-poo article out in the international press, our place in non-native-english-speaker land is etched in stone. An example of our fluency in the article:

Some of them they bring their dogs here and they poo here and they just pretend they don’t see. Then we saw it and tell them they say where, where, where. I said there, there, there.

The thing that scares me is that it makes perfect sense as I read it. Maybe we really are english illterate.

Much as I love being home, there are some things I absolutely hate about Singapore. Even though we have public campaigns for just about everything, their presence seems to only prove that we’re a pretty mindless society who despite our newfound wealth, exist in a very primitive state.

I’m currently rather P.O.ed because someone decided to throw a bag of rice out of their high-rise window unto my car (ok, my parents’ car) parked below. It’s a little past midnight and I had to wash the car as best I could so the rice grains don’t stick. On top of that I’m really really tired and sleepy. I actually felt like beating up the person who did this.

People are starving around the world. Singapore’s too bloody spoilt to see anything beyond our own needs.

The whole “Save Karyn” endeavour taught us one thing: There’re always be the thick-skinned amongst us.

There have been numerous forums and debates over Karyn’s actions. For those of you not in the know, Karyn found herself in over $20,000 of debt and decided to use her website to well, save her. She managed to get out of debt through charitable donations and has now written a book.

Maybe it’s a personal prejudice, but I hate beggars. I don’t despise the ones in third-world countries who have no choice but to resort to it, but when the beggar in question is probably using a computer that he or she owns, the need factor that justifies begging does not exist.

In the papers today, Daniel Lim, a Singaporean has decided to do a Karyn on the rest of us so he can buy his own 17” Powerbook. Sorry if I sound P.O.ed, but I’ll be darned if he actually sounds proud of it. He claims to have a well-paying job and all too.

“Mr Lim said he did it as a ‘little quirky’ experiment: ‘A test of the Internet’s powers, an exercise of my creativity, a challenge, an event which is meaningful for me.’”

It’d be meaningful for me if you gave me a washing machine and dryer combo for my coming wedding too.

The Ghyslain (Star Wars kid) donation fund was a grey area. It has been thoroughly debated and both sides have credible reasons. Fact of the matter is that he made us laugh. I might even have donated to Karyn just for the sake of her orignality.

I’ll probably see Daniel Lim sometime in Mac meetups or blogmeets or something. I’m hoping he calls the whole thing off now. There are so many more pressing issues that require our charity. The doctors and nurses that lovingly tend to SARS patients. The Iraqis who lost their homes. AIDS research. Heck, even SETI. By the way, if you’ve links to where Tribolum readers can donate to those causes, put them up in the comments.

They’re charging me by the minute for Internet access here at the library. Maybe you could send me a little money and put my pictures in the papers. I’ve one up on Daniel: I don’t have a job.

Many of us against the war complained about it before it all began. We stood with our signs and signed countless petitions. When Bush went ahead anyway, we pulled back the lines and adopted a wait-and-see (not Waite and See) approach in hope that the US would prove us wrong by actually living up to the gentle giant it wanted everyone to believe it was.

Part of the new US proposed resolution on Iraq strips the facade.

The United States and Britain submitted letters to the Security Council recognizing their obligations as occupying powers. The draft refers to them as the “Authority”.

Occupying. That’s from the word occupation, wasn’t it? So at least for the time being (we hope), the Iraqi people have exchanged one dictator for another.

All proceeds from oil sales would go into the Development Fund until an “internationally recognized” Iraqi government is established. The monies would be “disbursed at the direction” of the Authority (United States and Britain), in consultation with the Iraqi interim administration.

Translation:

All your money are belong to us. I’ll take the wallet, thank you very much. And here’s my business card. The money was for your mother’s birthday present? Sorry dude, write me a letter and I’ll see what I can do.

There’s justice. Then there’s American Justice. No wonder Bush was clear to point out that they were different.

Link via Andrea.

I spoke to Zahid a few nights ago. We spent the better part of the evening sitting and chatting, something we haven’t done in a good two years.

Zahid and I go way back to the beginning of life here at the University of Arizona. Having both started out in Spring of 2000, we were the odd ones out. Most people start in the Fall semester. Many evenings were spent crossing the road from the dorms to Carl’s Jr. to grab a bite. It’s amazing how time has passed us both by.

He’s now awaiting the processing of his visa that would allow him to continue working here in the United States. He spoke about the constant discrimination he faced as a foreigner, and though I am glad to have found someone who shared my incredulity at white dominance I am saddened that he should have to suffer it first-hand.

Political talk at work goes like this: Americans make disparaging remarks about other civilisations. Foreigners like Zahid get fired up and retort. A short intellectual argument ensues. Americans fire ultimatum of “if you don’t like it here you can always leave”.

I’ve had emails saying more or less the same thing when I write my own opinions here. It dampens our spirits to be oppressed in such a manner. We become slaves, dependent on the United States because of their new-found dominance in the world economy, and told to strip ourselves of our identities and opinions if we wanted to stay.

It is a heavy hand that presses upon our backs. Slavery has taken a new form.

I went to court today. No, I’m not a lawyer. I got pulled over a little more than two weeks ago and received a ticket for not having my insurance papers with me. Apparently a court appearance was needed to rectify the paperwork problem. Now we all know why lawyers are always in demand: They become judges.

I haven’t been to downtown Tucson since I first came to Tucson more than three years ago, except the ocassional musical or ice-skating fiasco. Sitting outside the “Consolidated Courts of Justice” (the technical name for the place, mind you), and eating a hotdog brought about new observations and experiences.

Going to school in Tucson doesn’t mean living in Tucson. School’s full of rich kids with rich parents, driving their big cars and complaining about the lack of parking space. Surrounding yourself in this environment 24/7 means you begin to believe all of Tucson is like that. It’s not.

A black man who muttered constantly to himself sat near me, while working types reading their novels filled most of the other outdoor seats. Young Hispanic parents walked with little children who made a sport of chasing pigeons. A boy who can’t be much older than high-school age mans the hotdog stand. In the distance, little pockets of homeless people try to catch their forty winks in the shade.

It’s not the prissy goodie two shoes society that exists in school. It is ironic that the people who get summoned to courts are the often the victims of a society that has ripped them off - either by not providing them an affordable education or jobs that would have helped them off their feet. The dome of the Courts stands proud and its marble exterior seems to mock the poverty that lies at its feet.

In the courtroom, two veterans sit nearby. One of them is rehabbing from drugs and alcohol while the other just turned 79 and had open heart surgery. The younger of the two tells us that he knows he’s going to get time, but hopes to postphone it until his rehab program is completed. They share war stories.

There are times when I see the inequality in society and express my helplessness with a sigh. Other times I wonder if it were high time my generation started its own wars and wrote its own stories about how we tried to set things right.

There’s a bill that’s been brought to the forefront recently regarding equal employment opportunities for transexuals and I had the chance to hear a short debate on Hardball on MSNBC.

Some research showed that 70% of the transexuals in San Francisco were unemployed, and the report concluded that it was due to their sexual orientation. The argument being made is that transexuality (including cross-dressing etc.) was an inborn attribute. As such, it was involuntary and should not be used to discriminate transexuals in the issue of employment. The reverse side of the argument is that employment inherently contains some form of discrimination, and at its core transexuality is a choice.

This is such a tricky issue. Where does genetic predisposition end and choice begin? If I argue that I wasn’t born as smart as Einstein, could I then sue NASA for not employing me? It is ironic that the United States, where personal choice is a pillar of society, genes are often used as a scapegoat to disavow the responsibility that comes with freedom of choice.

Is transexuality a choice or a genetic predisposition? I’m no expert in the area and honestly, I don’t know. But a fair yardstick should be used when measuring our ability to “affect our own destinies” and facing up to the consequences of our own actions.

Walker posted an interesting link detailing Saddam’s atrocities. It helps to understand why the pro-war believe what they do, and it clears doubt that despite our differences, we want the best for the Iraqi people.

Only time will tell what the true motivations for this war was.

First was “Chemical Ali”. Now it’s “Dr. Germ” and “Missile Man”. Who on earth comes up with such ridiculous nicknames for the captured Iraqi officials and scientists? If I had the resources, I’d do an in-depth investigation of whether Nickelodeon is the puppetmaster behind the news networks.

Did it occur to you that Dr. Germ, the alleged cornerstone of Saddam’s chemical weapons program, is a woman? All this time we’ve been hearing about how women are being oppressed and denied an education, and now the brains behind the whole operation is a woman?

Maybe Iraq was a much closer paradigm of an effective Middle Eastern government than the west gave them credit for. After all, a lot of the flak the Iraqi government suffers comes after the sanctions levied upon it by the United Nations (spearheaded by the U.S.). I found it highly ironic that the news ticker today read “Bush wants U.N. to lift sanctions against Iraq”.

Looped footage of rejoicing Iraqis have been playing on the news channels almost endlessly today. I’m thankful that the war is (for the most part) over, but the consequences of the actions taken in the past few months remain to be seen. Many precedents have been set in this war with Iraq, and I fear that they may come back to haunt us another day. As far as I’m concerned, the United States has undermined its authority in international affairs, while the United Nations has been made a cuckold of. I’m hoping that things will bounce back to where they were before we started, but that naive hope doesn’t survive the furnace of reality. The worst case scenario is that a move towards an international anarchy has begun, and we’re starting to see signs of it.

In between video clippings of rejoicing Iraqis (played for the nth time), an analyst for MSNBC was talking about how the part of the international community that didn’t support the war should be made to “pay penance”. He suggested that the U.S. exercised its veto power in whatever motion France or Germany might bring forth in the next two or three years, and that the U.S. shouldn’t hear from Canada in the near future.

In a country where every citizen has the right to their own opinion, it is ironic that an educated man voice his opinion so freely, suggesting that people from other countries be stripped of this right. With Congress supporting the whole “freedom fries” campaign, I do not doubt that this analyst’s opinions would be shared amongst a few of those in power.

My hope, however, is that you do not partake in this campaign sowing hatred and mistrust. I put up a small flag on the sidebar which you can place on your website in support of France and its right to a difference in opinion.

I love France, as much as I love the United States for all its colour and glory. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to do too.

For those of you who were found the last blog a tad long and didn’t click on the “continue reading…” link, I’d just like to clarify that I didn’t hit anybody. It was a literary piece I had crafted to parallel (though not perfectly, I concede) the war on Iraq.

It opened my eyes to a few things; the most glaring of which is our eroded trust in established institutions. Where I had a number of “wow, you were so brave to have done that”, I didn’t receive a single “you should have informed the police”. We have grown to believe that the traditional avenues have become ineffective, and in some way vigilantism has become an acceptable form of justice.

It is impossible to reconcile the two sides of the argument for and against war. It doesn’t help that pro-Arab Al-Jazeera is cut off while pro-US media giants CNN and MSNBC hammer propaganda into the minds of the public.

The goals of the journalist used to involve providing unbiased news. It is a goal long forgotten. As the reading public we’ve learnt to balance our news by sampling as wide a selection of sources as possible. It is inevitable that we go to sources that agree with our own bias and beliefs. But coordinated moves like Akamai’s decision to discontinue their services to Al-Jazeera and the NYSE’s barring of Al-Jazeera journalists from the trading floor has revealed the utter hypocrisy of the political powers that reside in the land of the free.

Now that war has begun and the cries of millions of anti-war protestors fallen on deaf ears, what do we do? We’ve heard all the lofty promises. Hold them to that. The victory lies not in Saddam’s death nor the change of the regime. It lies in the fulfillment of all the promises made to us as justification for the war. In my heart of hearts I hope that President Bush delivers.

For the sake of us all I hope he does.

Links via Kottke.

Jerry Bruckheimerisque music stirring up visions of grandeur

“We bring you the latest reports of a daring Marine rescue operation. The POW in question is 19 year old Private First Class Jessica Lynch. We are told that she suffered multiple gunshots and knife stab wounds and is now held captive in an Iraqi hospital.”

Angry murmurings

“Those brutes. Have they no shame? She’s just a 19 year old girl! Multiple gunshots! And stabbed many times with a knife! *?#(%#!”

So later we find out that “the doctor has not seen any of this”. Maybe the doctor’s still looking.

I’m very disappointed in the media. I’ve long wanted to be a journalist and held them in high regard. On the side of the common people, so I believed. It is abundantly clear that NBC’s Kerry Sanders was more interested in selling the news than reporting it. Even when proven wrong, the media has done nothing so far to apologise. They just move on to the next big lie. They even placed undue emphasis on the words “Iraqi hospital”, as if it were the wrong place for the injured to be.

Fox News has a wall of photographs of military personnel sent to the Middle East - pictures sent in by their loved ones. Who weeps when a Republican guard dies? 70% strength. 50% strength. Decimated. Obliterated. Can’t you see that they’re the same as you and I? Can’t you weep?!?

Where is your heart, people of America? Where is your heart for the downtrodden, the suffering, the wronged and the injured? How can you celebrate a loss of life as victory?

The sword of the strong is deadly sharp, but his hand is made strong with restraint. It is the coward’s arm that flails about, and nicks, scrapes at whatever he may find.

A marketplace is Baghdad was the scene of the lastest strike on Iraq. As civilian casualties mount, Washington denies that the “coalition of the willing” had anything to do with it. But why stop there when you can push the blame on the Iraqis?

“given the behaviors of the regime lately, it may have been a deliberate attack inside of town”, Brig. General Vincent Brooks was quoted as saying.

A U.S. spokesperson summed it up: “we may never know” precisely what happened.

Well, a U.S. military spokesman said coalition aircraft had indeed attacked missiles and launchers in a residential area of Baghdad at around the time of the explosion. This was said without “directly admitting responsibility”.

Though this war is probably more thoroughly covered by the media than any previous war, I am still a little sceptical about the integrity of the news coverage. After all, don’t they always begin their reports with “a government official said…”?

CNN link via Crazywalker.

God bless America. I mean it, I really do. When I stood at the steps of the State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on the National Day of Prayer I uttered those overheard words very audibly in the most secret place of my heart.

In church we pray for the safety of the U.S. troops and wisdom for the U.S. government. If we stretched a little outside ourselves we prayed for the Iraqi civilians. No one prays for the Iraqi soldiers; and no one, by any stretch of the imagination, prays for Saddam Hussein. Praying for his swift demise is another matter altogether.

Aren’t Iraqi soldiers fathers, sons and brothers too? Every time a missile hits a building, a SAM site, people die. It is so important to remember that, and not be desensitised simply because their faces were never shown or their families interviewed.

So tonight, do something new. Pray for the Iraqi soldiers. Heck, pray for Saddam the same way you’d pray for Bush. That he’d have wisdom to make the right decisions, so on and so forth.

Their blood too is red, and they are not lesser than you and I.

Shock and Awe has officially begun. It is sad that there were some who felt the war started off too slow, and we could almost hear the moan of newscasters awaiting the big bang.

Amongst the comments heard over the news channels today, a Fox correspondent stationed in Iraq likened the scene to an “action movie”. I’m not sure if it’s because our appetites have grown so numb, but I actually found myself awaiting some form of explosion on television. It’s almost surreal how the loss of life takes a backseat to the “oooh” factor of visual pyrotechnics.

So, everyone’s happy now right? In Jack Ryan’s (or rather, the villian’s) words, “you’ve got your own little war”.

Have a nice day everyone.

One of the first things you learn as a politician is probably this: People won’t complain forever.

Raise the price of bus fares. Increase income tax. Do whatever it is that is unpopular. As long as the elections are not anywhere near, there is close to nothing the people can or will do.

The war has begun. Can someone please, please remind me what all this is for again? Because it’s the right thing to do?

The liberation of the Iraqi people is a right thing to do, there is no question about that. But let us not confuse the end result with the means by which it was obtained. Why didn’t the inspections go on? Because they took too long? Because we were impatient? Were they ineffective? Was Hans Blix lying when he said that Iraq’s disarmament would be complete in a few months given the level of cooperation Iraq was now showing?

Disarmament. That’s the word the news channels are using for the war. The disarmament has begun. If a guy walked up to me wielding a Samurai sword, and I being the far superior fighter (this is my blog) could easily disarm him, but chose to kill him instead, would that be disarming him? I guess you could say that. The sword’s out of his hand, isn’t it? Oh, he’s dead? Small matter.

I’m pretty sure I heard the sound of a thousand scoffers scoffing simultaneously (check out the alliteration) when they aired Saddam’s address to the Iraqi people. He actually called the U.S. the evildoer. He had the guts to say that he would render “the evildoer” incapable of doing “any more evil”. So if the U.S. is evil, and Iraq is evil, who’s good?

Oh wait, that’s right. France = Freedom.

There are many questions that run in my mind tonight and it seems an almost distant memory as to how we all got here. It’s the sickness that afflicts us commoners - we tend to forget. It won’t be long before the picket signs sit at the back of the garage and no one remembers what we were fighting for.

History is intriguing that way. Alternate realities and what-ifs all die once the crossroads are passed and the path chosen. Think hard: What would it have been if inspections were given time? Remember that. Blog it.

It is the path not taken.

On MSNBC, they're now talking about what to do after the war on Iraq. Largely paraphrased,

"We should then go to Syria."

"You mean militarily?"

"When you have 250,000 troops and have just won a war, you don't need to fight. You just go there."

A map of the region is pulled up as the analyst talks about the next steps after victory in Iraq. I could have sworn I heard glee in his voice.

This is not talk of peace. If anything, it has grown into a rationalised conquest. What, you think they didn't use to do that? I'm sure Hitler didn't go around saying "we gotta kill people because we feel like it". Heck, even the early American settlers themselves must have concocted some lame excuse for the genocide of millions of native Americans.

I'm very concerned over the state of things right now. It's almost like Washington has lost her mind, and the term "peace in the Middle East" a cliché that rhymes. A page of world history is being written before our very eyes, and I fear America's portion be written with the blood off soldiers and foreigners.

The White House spokesman just spoke on how the “US is now on its last mile of diplomacy”. It’s clear to me that diplomacy is defined as a united effort in war, rather than peace. The United States has been patient on this matter of gathering support for war, but there was no doubt that a united war would be its best attempt at diplomacy.

Congress’ response to France grows more juvenile each day.

But House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said at a news conference that applying legislative sanctions to France was not necessary. “I don’t think we have to retaliate against France. They’ve isolated themselves pretty well,” he said.

Them, and the millions who gather at anti-war protests.

There was a coordinated student strike in the country yesterday. “Books, not Bombs” was their cry, and a noble one. Well, sort of.

Tucson, arguably having the highest activist per capita, would of course join in the festivities. A bunch students here at the University of Arizona decided to hold their protest outside the school adminstration building, continually urging students to boycott class.

“Skip class! You know you want to!” was among one of the more innane rally cries uttered. Also protesting the hike in school fees (a thousand dollar increase next year), another protester hollers “One thousand dollars can buy you so much more beer and chocolate!”. I squirm in shame, half wanting to hide underneath the nearest rock.

A good protest, like any debate, should focus on a few main issues. This protest was all over the place. Just check this out.

“You’re so far across the line, the line’s a dot to you!”

Uttered in a fit of comic rage by Joey Tribiani, this line from Friends has become one of the most well-remembered of our generation.

Slightly less than three years ago, University of Arizona journalist Sheila Baphat wrote an article about the right of a U.S. citizen to burn the American flag. She applauded the Senate for rejecting an amendment to ban flag burning, and said of those who opposed the act: “They are obsessed with protecting a piece of cloth that represents, most importantly, the right to burn it”.

They read your names out today at the vigil. Every line read was a life that ended prematurely - an act, a decision made by a fellow human being.

A young boy aged eleven, a father aged fifty-one, a young mother aged twenty-four. Now we’ll never know what they could have become or how our own lives may have been affected had their presence been with us. Some of us might have found love, started families or changed the world in some way.

Now their lives are but a statistic that serves so poor a reminder of what humans do to other humans. The sound of their names fades away into the cold air of winter.

We would be fools to forget them, especially in these dark times.

According to the referral logs, someone came upon this site via Google with the search parameters war, iraq, un, decision, us, unbiased opinion. Google’s complex algorithms apparently believed me to be the ninth best source given the search criteria (at the time of the search).

I’ll be the first to admit that my views are hardly unbiased. I know I’ve pissed off quite a few who see war with Iraq as a necessary step forward, and I apologise (especially to you, Walker) if I do. But that’s simply what I think. Sadly, even what I think shifts with the ebb and flow of information. It is not to say that I don’t believe in the things that I say or write here.

Politics is like quicksand. The more we struggle the deeper we sink. There is simply too much information and too many hidden agendas for us to grasp the whole issue. In some cowardly fashion it is much easier to stand detatched.

I’ll refrain from adding fuel to the fire or including my own opinion on the issue. It is unlikely that my rants will bring about any change at all. Maybe some day this will all make sense to us and we will see things for what they truly are.

That’s probably going to be in heaven.

If America is truly the liberator of the Iraqi people, wouldn’t they (the Iraqis) have built this monument to bear the America flag instead of its own?

Many of us waited for Colin Powell’s great revelation. Where he would dispel all fear and lay to rest our doubts as to whether to engage in full-scale war. We came out of it sorely disappointed.

As the United States continues to call in the reserves and send in the calvary it is evident that she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Such a massive logistical movement wasn’t initiated so that troops could sit around and wait. It is almost inconceivable to imagine the massive force trotting home because the rest of the world disagreed. Bush will have his war, sanctioned by the U.N. or otherwise.

Shock and Awe. That’s the plan isn’t it? Fire 800 missiles into Baghdad in two days. Cower all of them into submission, if any of them be left. Send in the ground troops to clean up.

But the Tomahawk missiles used in the Gulf War are as precise as a surgeon’s scapel aren’t they? I remember distinctly reading a centerfold spread in Singapore’s own New Paper quoting U.S. newspapers that the Tomahawk could hit a mailbox from 2000 kilometers away. So, with such pinpoint precision, Rumsfeld and his lackeys claim that they reduce collateral (read civilian) damage.

You don’t believe that crap, do you? A missile fired from a ship 2000 kilometers away can hit your mailbox? Why even bother flying planes in then?

Make no mistake about this. Many civilians will die if the United States implements its plan of war. Their deaths will not make headlines on CNN or FoxNews, both of whom seem utterly bewitched by Bush Jr’s charm. Since General Powell’s anti-climatic attempt (and I belive is the United States’ best) to convince us all, I can only deduce this:

It is about oil. If so much blood be shed over it, oil will be the dirtiest three-letter word in human history.

So here we stand, at the aftermath of what was the Chinese New Year. Though alien to most westerners, Chinese New Year’s is nothing more than an Eastern Thanksgiving - a time for family reunions, the trading of war stories and lots of food.

Barely a week later I return to read blogs from Singapore and instead of finding a small slice of home I can take with me in my heart, I find the words of malcontents. I’ve grown so much more appreciative of family over the years, regretting the many stories and experiences that fade away every time an elderly family member passes on. Now, many miles away, the pang grows exceedingly strong and I await the day I return home to the people whom I hardly know. Maybe this time I’ll redeem the time.

To read the gripes and complaints stabs at my heart. As Areya correctly pointed out, my generation has truly grown self-centered, oblivious to the wisdom of the many generations before us and forsaking what has always been important through the ages. We complain about how tiring and troublesome it is to visit relatives that we haven’t seen in a while. Some go as far as calling the whole tradition hypocritical.

It is one thing to mull over the hassle involved, and yet another to doubt the good intentions behind the efforts already put in. It is true that Singapore’s lifestyle ill affords activities that take away our time for rest, but family - in all its mishapen glory - is important and efforts to maintain it essential.

Grow up, for these are more important things than yourselves.

I don’t think I’ve ever been this eager to hear a politician speak. U.S. President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union address a few hours ago. We all expected him to concentrate on two points: The war on Iraq and his plans to boost the U.S. economy.

I’ve received emails regarding my stance towards the war against Iraq, most of them chiding my naïveté. I am not anti-war. I say this regretably because the years have taught me that war is sometimes an inevitable course of action. What I desire is a good reason for war - something that may somehow console me when I think of the bloodshed. People I could have met and known - dead because of our choices. I need a good solid reason, and I think many of us do.

What is a solid reason? One in which all or most of us can believe in. That is why it is essential (at least for me) that the United Nations are behind the decision.

I was impressed tonight. President Bush has, once again, shifted his stance. He did not emphasise the fact that America would go to war regardless of support from other countries. He didn’t even implicitly imply that countries that didn’t support the war weren’t “friends of freedom”. He said that he would lead a coalition into Iraq to disarm Saddam. He shown tonight a consideration for the viewpoints of the international community, which was a welcome reprieve.

Much like a Jerry Bruckheimer production, one has to discern fact from fiction. Though Bruckheimer’s action flicks border on incredulity, Bush’s speeches often come close to the same degree of exaggeration.

I come away tonight a little more content that this man is approaching some level of clarity. Having moved from nuclear weapons to weapons of mass destruction, Saddam having links to Al Qaeda to the possibility of the link, Bush has, at the expense of some credibility, moved closer to what is believable.

From the debates some things can be gathered:

• Saddam is in breach of the U.N. resolution calling for his disarming.
• Saddam is presently not an imminent threat to the United States.

New information will be made known to us in the next few weeks. I hope the decision is made easier for all of us to bear.

“What should we do?”, “Where do we go?”, “Who’s the best?”. The best idea we’ve come up with as a species is democracy (so some argue, as do I). It’s answer to those hard questions?

Let’s vote.

Ever hear the joke about the three world leaders in a flaming plane? No? Here goes.

Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev and Ferdinand Marcos were on a plane that was going down in flames. They scrounged around and found one parachute.

“I’m the leader of the largest country in the world” said Gorby, “I should have the parachute!”.

Reagan disagreed of course. “I’m the leader of the free world. I should be the one who gets the parachute!”

Marcos said, “Let’s vote”.

Marcos won 18-2.

It’s the same thing in real life. Whether it’s the Academy Awards or the Presidential Elections, politics drags all good intent through piles of dirt.

The latest fiasco? The Bloggies. They’re the awards given out to weblogs and online ramblings much like this one (only better).

So someone complained about the fairness of the judging, one of the judges admitted to some campaigning going on within the judging circle, a high-profile contender pulled out of the contest to escape the hullabaloo and all hell breaks loose. Everyone gets hurt and the online world falls divided. In the meantime, Disney Corporation holds Mickey hostage and denies us (online users) access to our own culture, giving us the thumbs-up (link not suitable for minors) while we squabble amongst ourselves.

I’m actually going to meet quite a number of these people at SXSWi. Hope it doesn’t turn into an all-out brawl.

When George Bush took office, we all made fun of him. We thought he had the facial expressions of a chimp and the grammar and vocabulary of a four-year old. No one pays attention to a four-year old playing in the sandpit, but in this case, Bush seems overly eager to place his fingers on a few big red buttons.

I’ve always thought of myself as neutral, but it has become harder and harder for me to understand the arguments on this side of the fence. After engaging in a civil debate over at the Ricebowl Journal Forums, it scares me to think that the sole source of America’s strength lies not in its character but in its firepower. The one quote that got me utterly peeved was

The people we piss off can do us some damage but it’s minor when you look at the big picture, but the key is that we can squash them whenever we want.

Most of all, it appears to be the opinion of quite a number of them. If anything, 9/11 showed us all how vulnerable we all are, and that our actions are all intertwined.

Now with war in the air again, it takes the strongest and blindest of faith to believe that this man who spouts big words knows what he is doing. I don’t know if it’s possible to muster that kind of faith.

What does the Creative Commons mean for all of us? It means I can share Heather’s wonderful photography, like the one above, with the rest of you who haven’t already discovered it.

Feel the power?

Simulcra: Some Rights Reserved at East West Magazine.

Entertainment isn’t what it once was. Not too long ago we were entertained by the scholars and geniuses of the age, be it Plato and Socrates who dazzled the people with their philosophies, or Shakespeare’s witty knitting of societal issues and human emotion.

Today the loudest voices seem to be just that - the loudest voices. Though one could argue otherwise, the majority of material on radio and television airwaves hold little intellectual value. Majority taste has deviated from drama and moved on to action. Art has evolved into a monster that feeds on the bottomless capitalist pockets. The rustling of money overpowers that of the leaves in the trees.

A girls’ high school basketball game yesterday ended with a 115-2 score by the end of the game. This has enraged many, including the coach of the losing team, as an act of devoid of any form of sportsmanship.

Ironic, isn’t it? In an avenue in which we spur our children to win, winning actually became a bad thing. It is true that sports consists of many good things and that at times competition has to take a back seat to good old humanity. I just find it highly hypocritical that we choose to focus on that after the equilibrium between the need to win and a trampled ego got totally skewed.

MeFi has a pretty good discussion thread going.

Are Teachers Overpaid? We live in a world where the average professional basketball player earns ONE HUNDRED times more than an educator.

Talk about priorities.

Though a university degree and the relevant qualifications used to be the hallmark of an educated person, I feel that in today’s context it has little worth. Today the masses hurl their gold coins at the once lofty giant that the education institution once was. He bends down to pick up the fruits of commerce and now his corpse lays bear for the consumption of all.

The true spirit of education is not so much the acquisition of knowledge, but a quickening from apathy.

As Eldred vs Ashcroft gets into court today, Matt Haughey writes an excellent article on copyright, and gives us the vision of what Creative Commons sets out to achieve.

As Einstein once said, “There is no such thing as creativity. It’s only how well you hide your sources” (paraphrased). This day of digital manipulation the fear on the side of the artist is the public’s new-found ability to produce perfect copies, and in a display of altruism share it with the world, depriving them of the millions and millions of dollars they had gotten used to getting.

Creative Commons seeks to establish copyright protection for a reasonable time, and then enrich the public domain by making these works available to everyone.

As children, even as adults, we all learn by example. How do we move on as a species if all these examples come with a price tag on them?

The whole move towards digital media over the old analogue systems used to be the ability to create perfect replicas. For the marketer, it was heaven. It meant that one could produce millions upon millions of copies, every one as good as the first. Photos, movies, music, data…you name it. For the consumer it meant that we got nothing but the best. No unnecessary noise from the duplication process. “Media sharing”.

The digital age also opened a lot more than just the duplication of media. We created virtual relationships, instituted businesses that produced no tangible goods, recreated scenarios never thought possible in history. Through massive online gaming worlds like EverQuest, we even created lives for ourselves which would have otherwise been impossible.

Though one can argue that it has been a liberation of the imagination, the digital world that we seem sucked into seems to lack the authenticity of the physical. The very selling point of the digital standard stops here. We can string together as many emoticons we can think of, but they do not fully express a true smile. We live lives in front of the computer, and despite of the very real human presence on the other end, its intangibility isolates us - we scream into a vacumn in which the silence deafens us.

Much as I would like to believe that the computing age offers us so many new means by which to do good, I’d much rather be looking you in the eye right now. Having a milk-shake or whatever you wish to order. Maybe engaged in debate. Maybe falling in love.

:) … that simply will not do.

This entry at Breakfast of Champions quotes an article of the aboved title from the magazine Granta written by Dorfman.

It is an almost perfect metaphorical description of what the United States seems like to most of us from other parts of the world. It explains our apprehension towards embracing the universal “American” values (an oxymoron in itself), and our love for the underdog, the less conspicuous, the humble of heart.

Read it, it is wonderfully written.

I had initially refrained from writing anything 9-11, because the rest of the country would be doing just that. In classic youthful candour I assumed that the paranoia was only a product of media hype, and I viewed much of the grief with a sceptical eye. In the background, groups of college kids went on with their parties.

After reading some blogs I am no longer able to turn my face away. America (save those college kids who don’t deserve residence, least of all citizenship) is holding its collective breath - a half breath - in shock, fear and pain. It evokes in me the feeling that one gets when we accidently slap a child too hard. It is strong cocktail of guilt for having ever doubted the authenticity of the pain, and the ice-cold feeling of being so utterly appalled that the child should have to experience something so stark…so real. We then chide ourselves for ever having doubted the pain, and for the additional hurt by inflicted by our scepticism.

Despite her often boisterous nature, America is but a child. Her history of a little more than 200 years makes her barely a toddler when compared to the more established civilisations like the Jews or the Chinese. It is because of her youth we see her wielding her new-found power without humility’s restraint, often offending the older nations now made weak by time and history’s circumstance. Yet it is in her youth we see her brazen idealism. She actually believes in the good of the individual - a utopian ideology…a dream at best. Though we don’t often say it, deep inside us we hope for America to fulfill her dream, and grow up into a bringer of true hope to the rest of us.

Wipe your tears away America. We love you, even if it is in our muddled multi-cultural way. Even if we don’t show it much.

One of the most prominent western ideologies proliferated by Hollywood and Disney cartoons is that you should not conform readily to social pressures and be yourself. From the subtle everyone is unique and beautiful to the stronger message of standing up for what you believe in, in spite of what others might say.

Somehow it dawned on me that this message goes against the democratic form of government that is also strongly advocated by the West. Why do we listen to the masses, if we ought to stand up for ourselves? Where do we draw the line? Within the political party? Nationally? Globally?

Should the American government go to war with Iraq, it is a small circle that they have encapsulated themselves in. Even the American people, the everyday Joe, seems to take more caution when at the brink of a violent crusade.

Kids at a school in Singapore made the first finals of a competition, going further than any of their predecessors ever did. They put in hours and hours of hard work, day after day, hoping to come home with the gold.

They didn’t win.

In most people’s eyes they were already victors, having broken new ground and done their best. But sadly, the education system in Singapore has become quite the corporate beast. No pity is found there. Nor love.

The teacher who is overall in charge reprimanded a few of these students days later. Something along the lines of them failing to win the competition, and failing to do well in their studies. Something about them failing. In everything, so it implies.

It can be argued that the school system is indeed providing education and getting these children ready for the jungle of a world out there. But there’s something to be said about the nobler things in life. Teaching about the journey rather than just the destination. There’s something to be said about not standing up for these things, and succumbing to the pressures of the world “outside”, the world which has seen giant corporations swindle savings from the helpless.

The school, the children are the last bastion of hope in an already bleak and dreary world. To stop fighting here is to subject all of humanity to an existence of utter despair.

The saying that has been now embraced as rule goes:

In the medieval days of feudal lords and lowly peasants folklore created a hero for the people in Robin Hood. He defied the law of the land, and administered his own brand of justice. Yet his actions were deemed righteous, because he saw a greater good, and he felt the pain of the people.

In today’s age of information technology the war is the same. It is still a matter of money. The rich are still getting richer, and the poor are still left to starve. In the light of legal battles between entertainment executives and technological prodigies it is clear that Robin Hood’s arrow is no longer sufficient to battle the large monster capitalistic greed has become.

The fall of Napster and Morpheus are but the beginning. The legal ramifications of this battle doesn’t end at the server. It carries all the way to the bedrooms and personal lives of those who have trespassed against the media monguls. It concerns us.

While it is true that the letter of the law has been breached, there is no violation of its spirit. No one disputes the fact that such and such a music artist wrote or sang such and such a song. Kudos was given. Respect was given. Money was not given. That, is the essence of the battle.

It is absurd that these individuals earn enough to feed millions of people in poverty-striken countries simply by enforcing intellectual property rights. There is no doubt that many of them work hard, but so does the miner, accountant and janitor. They wield their power because they hold the pulse of human culture hostage, and rather than have their talents contribute towards a communal good, they make their millions.

The question, is not whether we have stolen from them. The answer to that is obvious. The true question lies in whether they have stolen from us all.

Singapore’s women table-tennis team won the gold at the Commonwealth Games. The last time this island city saw gold at the Games was forty years ago. It didn’t smell this bad forty years ago.

At the heart of the problem lies the fact that the entire team, except for one who didn’t get to play, were China-born. They did not migrate to Singapore when they were children. They were brought here and granted citizenship with one sole purpose - to win medals. They did their job. Simple as that. They put in the years of sweat and toil (most of which were spent under the Chinese), and it paid off.

It is a Singaporean trait to be afraid of defeat. It has become part and parcel of our identity. It is the destination, not the journey, that we seem concerned with. The lust for first place is getting continually worse. We need to win.

I’m proud of the girls who won. I am. I’m ashamed of the decisions the people we put in power made in order to gain these accomplishments. The excuses they put up to justify their actions.

We do not support atheletes in our country. Let’s just face those facts and be honest about it. Howe Liang, the only Singaporean athelete to win a medal in the Olympics, is not rich, nor does he have a job coaching the younger generation. His sacrifice brought us glory, and he now bears the weight alone.

Learn to live life, Singapore. Don’t ever, ever sell out.

Maybe we already have. My heart weeps.

Don’t take my word for it. Read.

We all knew it would happen. Scientific innovation is an unstoppable vehicle that ploughs down any obstacles that stand in its path. Someone, somewhere was going to clone a human being. Despite laws and questions regarding the venture’s moral fabric, someone jumped the red light and went on ahead anyway.

So a woman in South Korea claims to have a cloned baby in her womb, that will undoubtedly put her in the spotlight of scientific scrutiny for years to come. Many questions come to mind, and few have been answered, or even pondered on. Many of them of a spiritual, rather than a scientific nature.

I guess science has always struggled with the paradox. Staunch scientists refute the existence of anything spiritual simply because things of that nature are not quanitifiable by empirical methods. Yet they continually bank their knowledge on logic and mathematical constants, both of which they had no part in inventing. They tread by faith, yet mock those who would proclaim it aloud.

Will the child have a soul? A spirit? Did we create life, or just produced a bunch of cells that mimicked it?

Whatever we have produced, we have to love because we are talking about a real human being. If only we loved him or her enough to think long and hard before playing God.

You find one or two in every family. That distant relative that no one ever talks to anymore because of something he or she did that was totally unacceptable. No one remembers the real story anymore, but the smell of disgust is still fresh, like the taste of raw carrion after a kill. They don’t attend family functions, and aren’t invited to weddings. Or maybe your family has a grey sheep or two. Those whom everyone speaks of in a negative light. They are described by the more vocal family members as obnoxious, vain, troublesome, heartless and such. If you have neither black nor grey sheep in your family, look carefully in the mirror - you may be it.

As a child I never could understand how family relations could degrade to the extent of lifelong begrudging. How can people who used to share family life hate each other to the point of wanting absolutely nothing to do with each other for the rest of their lives? Some of these grudges even carry on through multiple generations.

Now, years later and arguably none the wiser, I see that it is not hard to change the colour of one’s fleece. As one grows older, familial obligations and responsibilities get heavier. This is especially true in an Asian household, where children are expected to care for their parents upon coming of age. One wrong judgement call…one exchange of bitter words…one bad case of pre/post/perpetual menstrual stress and you find yourself on the wrong end of the popularity polls.

A crude mathematical formula is as follows:

where P(black) is the probability of you becoming a black sheep forever.

Forgiveness people. We need forgiveness. I can’t even begin to fathom how many families would be healed, and how many lives would be enriched if we were able to give each other the benefit of the doubt, or believe in the almost almighty power of perpetual menstrual stress.

The cellular phone has become a necessity in many of our lives. Its convenience is much longed for, but its swift inclusion has changed our lifestyles and killed many a good thing.

With the instant communication it offers, there is little need to adopt a habit of punctuality. Meeting times are changed on the fly, often with a quick SMS (short messaging service) informing the other party that you’ll be running late. Though it saves the punctual person from wasting time, it does away with the need for integrity of word. Things can be changed simply because it is convenient to.

In the times way before our own, in the days when martial arts heroes would duel for the right to be top dog of the martial arts universe, they would duel with their most powerful adversary, then arrange to meet ten years later for another bout. Ten years later, they would show up in the predetermined place for their showdown.

Ok, so Chinese martial arts novels aren’t exactly a collection of historical fact. But we looked up to these values once upon a time.

When Faith (my fiancé) got herself a cell, there was a change in the way we interacted. There’d be times when I was talking whilst driving and she’d take out the blasted gadget and begin typing in a short text message. She doesn’t do that anymore.

In our ten years together, we always had a set time at night to talk to each other. Whether I was working in Chicago or home in Singapore, we’d speak on the phone at ten o’clock at night Singapore time. I liked the security of such an arrangement, and even to this day I still make it a point to always be there.

Used to a lifestyle of instant communication, she now calls me whenever she wants to. I find myself unable to adapt to the concept of short brief phonecalls, preferring to lay on my bed for a hearty exchange. The intermitten calls disrupt my lifestyle, and I have often found myself more irritable than I would have liked to be.

I wish some things could stay the same. I like to sail my boat slow and steady.

It is sad that our society pays pittance to the more noble occupations, whereas dishonest corporate ladder climbers are rewarded handsomely. Social workers and teachers are amongst the most overworked and underpaid people around.

Having played chauffeur this past two months, I can better empathise the cost of a life spent toiling for the “greater good”. Though I deem myself as less materialistic than the average joe, it still stings a little when I see my contemporaries bring home the spoils of a normal paying job - often in the form of new clothes or fancy gadgets I wish I could have.

It is not easy keeping one’s eye on the greater good - something so intangible. Its ethereal nature pales when we place it beside the more visible. Its light shines bright when our aim is true, and it is then we know that its all been worth it.

The fear that we’ve been deluding ourselves strikes at our heart. We breathe, and hold our hand steady once more.

BBC is currently broadcasting a debate on the conflict in the Middle East between senior Israeli and Palestinian representatives. Though a tad long, it goes beyond being highly informational as one cannot help but feel the emotion emanating from these parties personally involved.

It is curious that two of the world’s oldest (arguably) civilisations would fight tooth and nail over the top of what is essentially a hill. To narrow down the point of contention even further, the argument revolves around a rock that stands atop the hill.

Most people would be inclined to shake their heads at what would seem to be a trivial thing to die for, but when we explore the deep religious and cultural implications built over many generations, we begin to see how this debate is far from reconcilable.

Though I’m not familiar with the Islamic point of view, the Temple Mount, known as Haram Al-Sharif to the Muslims, is the very spot in which the original temple of Jerusalem was located. Within it stood the rock which the ark of the covenant (holding the Ten Commandments) was assumed to have stood upon. The Muslims believe that the rock was the one upon which Abraham was called to sacrifice his son Ishmael.

The Christians believe that that very hill is where Jesus will first plant his feet upon His second coming. The Bible also states that the Temple will be rebuilt before His arrival. Though passive, many Christians are watching carefully to see how the Temple will come into being, fulfilling one of the final of many prophecies.

Like I stated previously, my knowledge of Middle-Eastern affairs is very limited, so if I have misquoted facts do correct me when or if I’m wrong.

My sister (the youngest) just passed what is in my mind a major milestone. She told me the magic words, “You should read this”. Not a newspaper article, or a magazine, but a book. After learning that I’ve not read “To Kill a Mockingbird”, she spoke those amazing words.

It’s mind-boggling how full of information our existence has become in the past few years. Never has humankind had to deal with the sort of information overflow that is present in our generation. We don’t read books, we read excerpts, summaries or reviews of books. Sometimes we even “read” the book from the blurb off the back of a videotape containing a poorly adapted motion picture somewhat loosely related to the story. We have become a people that skips past life. We don’t live it to the fullest. We don’t drink of its fullness. Fact is, you’re probably skimming over this right now. Just sort of getting the gist of it. Not feeling. Not truly knowing. Well, that is until you read this.

I will read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Right after I’m done with “Tuesdays with Morrie”, “Husbands and Wives” and a little of “Contemporary Issues Facing Christians Today”. Blogger Comments x

During the heavy promotion of the E.T. remake, we watched how Henry Thomas (the child star who acted as Elliot) got his job. Spielberg gave him the scenario of losing a make-believe friend and waited to see his portrayal of such a scene.

Elliot’s eyes welled up with tears. He wept, softly first, then uncontrollably. His pleas for the intruders to leave his friend alone made everyone forget that he was acting out of nothing at all. An amazing feat, even if an older actor had performed.

Much as I admire the skill needed to bring forth any message with such great emotion, I am sure that the task of separating one’s true self from the created is nothing short of gargantuan. How does one be so involved yet stay detached? The great yearning for the stage still runs in my blood can cries out to me from time to time, but I know that forcibly manipulating my emotions would eventually result in a rupturing of truth’s fragile fabric. Who would I be? Would I still be me? Would me still be me? I dare not risk my self.

I applaud the players who work long and hard to give us insight into lives we may never live. I wish we could treat them like the normal people they are. It is so much more than the burden of stardom we have placed on those who love the art. Blogger Comments x

It is funny how lazy humans are. We naturally atrophy ourselves to the state of least resistance. We settle into our mundane routines because it requires the least effort from us. We seldom challenge the status quo, and allow ourselves to be controlled by external forces that in all honesty, aren’t all that unmoveable.

I found this to be true when it comes to relationships as well.

I was picking Faith up from work today, and had told her on the phone not to be late because it was hard to find any parking where she worked. Traffic was less congested than usual and I arrived there sooner than I would have expected. I looked around. No sign of Faith. I drove round and round, passing the entrance of her workplace (where she was supposed to wait for me) over and over, each time getting more agitated than the last. Though my irritation didn’t arise to the point of anger, I took special notice of my thoughts and feelings, and decided to trace its evolution.

Reminiscing back to the time when our relationship was still new, it seemed then that everything was rosy. Even if she were late for an appointment, I’d make up plausible excuses for her in my mind.

Maybe she was held up. Maybe something happened. I hope she’s all right.

My thoughts now were drastically different. Rather than giving her the benefit of doubt, I found myself going “here we go again”. It was neither constructive nor beneficial to our relationship. It is often these unspoken thoughts that devastate relationships the most. I consciously made it a point to revert back to the former train of thought.

This is my theory on relationship economics.

If two parties give each other the benefit of the doubt and are willing to love each other beyond what is just “fair and equitable”, there is enough leeway for the occasional circumstance where one of us gets slightly less lovable.

Then we get lazy after a while and realise that we don’t really have to work that hard. So we move towards an equilibrium.

This model requires the minimum effort to maintain a relationship. It does not allow much room for error. In situations where one party grows a little less lovable (eg. PMS, jealousy etc), cries of “you’re not being fair!” are often heard.

It soon atrophies to the third model, which results in a breakup.

That’s my theory on the economics of relationships. I don’t know if it makes much sense to you, but I’m gonna try to stay model number one as much as I can. I know how unlovable I can be at times.

Blogger Comments x

Heard on BBC Radio today that a homosexual group in Australia was denied when they wore their rainbow sashes to Holy Communion in a Catholic church. In the light of recent accusations facing the Catholic church regarding the sexual molestations of children by Catholic priests, one cannot help but shake their heads at the holier-than-thou attitude exhibited by the deliberate exclusion.

We face an interesting dilemma regarding the issue of homosexuality. In recent times, many scientists, psychologists, geneticists and sociologists have managed to bring homosexuality forward as a mainstream lifestyle. Though some may still yet frown, most have learnt tolerance or partial acceptance of homosexuals in our society. And then there are others who proclaim public condemnation upon them, calling on the authority of God and man alike. As a Christian, it is easy to point to scripture and decry our own brand of judgement upon them. A violent crusade is hard to implement when we find our friends and family among the intended targets.

Let there be no doubt about this: Homosexuality is considered sin by Biblical standards. There are no two ways about it. At this, many Christian groups are fast to point the accusing finger. They forget that lying, stealing, lusting in one’s thoughts and heart are just as abominable to God. Homosexuality is a sin, but so is sexual promiscuity. Just because one is more socially acceptable than the other does not make it any more or less right in God’s eyes.

With the Bible as the standard, I cannot condone homosexuality, much as I feel their turmoil and pain. But I despise those who promote hatred. They look for scapegoats to alleviate the guilt of their more acceptable sins. Blogger Comments x

As the plane touched down on Singapore soil, we flew over Tanah Merah Country Club and its pristine golf course. Everything in Singapore is so pretty, the intention of the people who are behind land planning rather than any random natural beauty.

The plane taxied in the runway for a bit and we were all able to take a look at the Control Tower of Singapore’s Changi Airport, a major landmark that has stood for many years. A golf ball that sits atop the tee that is Singapore itself. It’s amazing how the officials at that time foresaw that golf was going to be a big factor in the everyday lives of affluent Singaporeans. Looking at it on a deeper level, Singapore is all about golf.

We spend most of our lives chasing down elusive small white dimpled balls. Upon reaching them, we simply take out our largest clubs and hit them as far away as we possible can, then walk after it again. Life here is an endless game of golf. Singapore’s always striving to be number one, and even when that is achieved, we still push on. I don’t have a beef with wanting to do well, but there should be a time when we knock the ball into the cup and head back to the clubhouse for a nice cool drink.

Here in Singapore, we have the tees and the fairways. The cup is something we’re told is there. No one’s ever seen it.

Image &copy Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. Blogger Comments x

The ladies’ figure-skating event is finally over, and what a surprise it has turned out to be. As America held its collected breath for favourite ice-daughter Michelle Kwan to fulfill her destiny, history repeated itself. In 1998, Nagano Japan, Michelle’s dreams of Olympic gold were dashed by a very young and spritely Tara Lipinski. Now four years later, her quest for gold is again thwarted by American teenager Sarah Hughes.

Honestly, I am happy that Sarah Hughes won. She skated with such reckless abandon that she brought her audience back to days of childhood innocence. As she spins on the ice, we too remember ourselves turning round and round, and revelling in the surreal sensation it brought. She encapsulated the thrill and joy that is so lacking in our sports today. It is neither the money nor the fame that drew out Sarah’s best tonight, but the sheer exhilaration of being able to skate, just as a child first learns how to walk. She giggles and squeals at the news of her winning the gold medal, and we cannot help but squeal with her.

Yet we cannot forget the pain Michelle is going through. Granted that silver medallist Irina Slutskaya also had the gold medal within her grasp, there is little doubt that Michelle was dealt the hardest blow. Her story will probably go down in trivia cards as the answer to the question “who was the winningest world champion figure-skater never to win an Olympic gold?”. It would be easy to dismiss her as a failure, never accomplishing her task of bringing home the gold.

We would be shallow, insensitive and shortsighted to join the multitudes who will no doubt do exactly that. Let us not forget the many wonderful memories Michelle has given to us over the years - the best years of her youth. Her performances, like that of many others, were not put up to bring her fame and glory. Her talent on ice gave her the power to reach out to the common person, and whisk them away to a world where music and movement flowed together, and where men and women seem to glide, feet barely touching ground. She captivated us all, two minutes, four minutes at a time. She gave us a way to escape our own harsh realities. To laugh at her in her time of sadness would be utterly ungrateful.

Dearest Michelle, we wipe away your tears and whisper to you that you have already won the true prize that lies beyond that found in any competition. You have won our hearts, not only by the way you have skated all these years, but more importantly by the manner in which you’ve taken your losses with such grace and dignity. There were no losers tonight, there never were. If you would think yourself as such the only loser would have been us, for we would have lost a valuable transport who has unfailingly taken us to a world where we could lose ourselves.

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John Pilger wrote an interesting article that reveals a little of what we do not see in the Western controlled media. It offers a glimpse of the other side and to me, it helps reason out what has essentially been a one-sided argument. John’s Article.

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