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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.