Ramblings

Since this week is National Day week, I’m going to write another entry regarding National Day.

During the National Day parade, Singaporeans at the parade location are always decked out in red. However, members of the PAP are always dressed in white as far as I can remember. This is something I find very interesting. Why are they not dressed in red?

Of course, half the national flag is white so it really isn’t a problem to be decked in white. However, I just think that being National Day, everyone should be united and wear the same colour, and that includes politicians. It gets a little discomforting when leaders try and differentiate themselves from the rest of the populace on National Day.

And, it doesn’t help matters that white is the party colour of the PAP. In wearing white on National Day, are the PAP members trying to subtly hint that the party and the country is one?

Of course, the list of possible interpretations can go on but I think it would be nice if PAP members switch to red during National Day parade. It may be a symbolic gesture with no practical purposes but it is a nice gesture. At least I would appreciate it.

I’ve stopped watching National Day Parades for a long time. As a kid, I used to be very excited over them. However, as I grew older, they got boring.

Sure, the organisers try to do something innovative every now and then but these are just cosmetic effects. The boring thing about NDP is that the story is the same. It’s the same old fairy tale of how Singapore climbed from third world to first by overcoming tons of obstacles and adversities under the capable leadership (of the PAP). It gets really boring to hear the same old propaganda every year.

It would be perhaps a little too much to compare NDP to the kinds of massive, feel good parades that Hitler used to do for his fellow Germans more than half a century ago. However, I cannot help but feel some similarities. At each NDP, the “Singapore Story” is replayed over and over again, but which version of the story are we hearing? My take is that we are hearing what those in power want us to hear and hope for us to believe in the story.

Unless I need some mental anesthetic, I’ll probably not watch NDP ever again.

I just have to get it off my chest. I almost crashed my car 30 minutes ago because a idiot/moron/imbecile/bonehead/dimwit ran across the AYE. Here’s what happened.

I always get on the AYE in the morning via the Pioneer Road North exit to get to NUS. This morning was no different.

I exited the roundabout underneath the flyover to get on the slip road that leads onto the expressway. There was a Mercedes cab in front of me. As the slip road is quite long, by the time you enter the leftmost lane of the expressway, you usually would have accelerated to about 70 km/h or even more.

I kept a distance of about 3-4 times the length of my car from the taxi in front. I saw that the taxi was reaching the end of the slip road and was going to merge into the leftmost lane of the expressway so I looked to my right to check if it was safe to merge into the expressway as I would be reaching the end of the sliproad in a matter of seconds.

When I looked back, I realised that the taxi in front of me was grinding to a halt and I was less than 2 car lengths behind at a speed of about 70km/h. I jammed the brakes but it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to stop in time so I swerved to the right, narrowly missing the taxi. Thankfully, there were no cars in the leftmost lane of the expressway (I had already checked earlier and I knew there were no cars but I am still thankful because if there were cars, I couldn’t avoid crashing the car at all).

After bringing my vehicle to a stop, I looked to my left to see what happened and guess what? There was a man who was walking on the road shoulder towards the expressway exit. My wife, who was freaked out, said later that she saw the taxi driver gesturing somewhat obscenely at that man. I guess what probably happened was that dude ran across the expressway.

Honestly, jaywalking an expressway? You got to be kidding. It’s bad enough to jaywalk across a major road such as Orchard Road but jaywalking an expressway takes the cake. That man seriously has balls of steel (and a heart of iron too). And nevermind the fact that he has the guts to jaywalk an dual-carriage expressway of 3 lanes each. It is damn bloody inconsiderate to do that because he can (and he almost did) cause an accident.

I still can’t believe that someone actually jaywalked an expressway during morning peak hour traffic.

It seems like Singaporeans might be allowed to hold outdoor protests and demonstrations at the Speaker’s Corner (see this article).

Of course, this being Singapore, the fine print has to be read. Buried down the article, it is said that there is a “need to maintain certain fundamentals even as society opens up more”, and I would like to highlight the third “fundamental” which reads:

“Third: There should be no foreign interference in domestic politics. “

So, what constitutes foreign interference? A bunch of singers apparently constitute foreign interference. An academic speaking about gay legislation is also foreign interference. But, our Minister Mentor is famous for commenting on other countries. For example, a couple of years back, he infuriated our northern neighbours with comments about their ethnic minorities.

Can we practise what we preach, please?