Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Ramblings
Nothing really important
Superb open letter rebutting Thio Li-Ann’s nonsensical speech in Parliament
Oct 24th
If you have not read this letter by a first year law student, please do. It’s quite long but it is worth your time.
I’m terribly disappointed with Thio Li-Ann. When I first heard her talk about her area of specialty in law, I thought that Thio was an excellent academic and lawyer. Her arguments were so well reasoned and convincing. Her subsequent speeches on homosexuality started to cast doubts on my initial assessment of her but this latest speech in Parliament is the last straw.
I must qualify that I still think she’s a pretty darn smart woman. My beef with her is that when she cannot win an argument, she resorts to making unsubstantiated assertions. She starts throwing in loaded and ambiguous terms in an attempt to win the argument. Very disappointing.
Here are 2 more resources that shreds Thio Li-Ann’s arguments as well. I still like the the letter by the law student best but these 2 are also worth a read as well.
http://mollymeek.livejournal.com/168810.html
http://singaporepeasants.blogspot.com/2007/10/nmp-thio-li-ann-and-her-intellectually.html
Drama over PSLE paper
Oct 22nd
It’s interesting to see the repeat of a drama that happens from time to time. First, pupils came out of PSLE crying after the mathematics paper. Angry parents start writing to newspapers and ringing up MOE to complain. The examination board chief has to come out and say that the paper was no more difficult than other years.
In the first place, why are the students crying? It’s obviously because parents and teachers are stressing them. Schooling is no longer fun anymore. I don’t mean to say that it was just fun when I was in primary school but I remember grades never seemed so important. In fact, I remember always being sent out of the class and having my exercise books flung out of the classroom door because I often did not do homework.
I honestly don’t recall how PSLE was like. All I remember was that I couldn’t wait for the PSLE to be over because it meant I could go and play soccer everyday. In fact, I think soccer was more important than my PSLE. I know I was a naughty boy back then and perhaps I should have been more disciplined but hey, I think I enjoyed my primary school days.
Of course, I do not advocate such naughty behaviour. I probably will give my own kid an earful for that. What I think parents should do is to tell kids to try their best and if the paper comes out to be really ‘difficult’, assure the kids that it will not be a problem. There are years where papers have been difficult but students still got into good secondary schools. If everyone does so badly, all the good schools are going to close shop because nobody can qualify!
Chill. Things will work out fine.
Compulsory annuities give the rich spare change in twilight years?
Oct 5th
I wasn’t expecting to comment further on my main bugbear with the CPF changes but a letter published in Today Online changed that. It was a letter by Dr Vincent Chia who pointed out some statistics that the government should take note of.
I have not had the time to verify whether the information cited by Chia was true but it is certainly plausible that it is the rich who can expect to live longer compared to the poor. Overall life expectancy might be increasing to 85 and beyond but who are the ones living to such ripe old age? According to Chia’s letter, epidemiological data from America and Britain has shown privileged groups enjoy longer lifespan.
Chia even cites a local study which shows that in 1999, “43.5 per cent of the old-old (defined as aged 85 years and above) live in HDB four-room or larger flats. In comparison, 29.1 per cent of old-old Singaporeans live in HDB three-room flats, while the remaining 11 per cent live in HDB one- or two-room flats”. The figures add up to 83.6% and the missing percentages are probably those who live in private housing (Census 2000 housing data put the percentage of Singaporeans living in private housing to be around 12%).
It is possible that in future, increasing numbers of those age 85 and above will come from upper middle-class and above, and these folks have the ability (in theory) to take care of their themselves. These are the folks who are likely to live longer as well. So, it could be likely that the nice sounding “longevity insurance” could end up benefiting those who are more well-off.
Of course, this is not the main basis on my objection to the annuities issue (see earlier entry) but it is interesting food for thought that the rich (million dollar ministers, wealthy bankers, lawyers and doctors) are more likely to live long enough to enjoy an extra few hundred dollars of spare change every month while the poorer folks find themselves in a permanent resting spot in a columbarium. 
More publicity material for Tourism Board
Sep 11th
I think our Singapore Tourism Board now have another piece of publicity material to use when selling Singapore to would-be tourists.
Reuters: Anime figurine protesters meet real police
Mr Brown: Singapore police sends 4 riot buses to deal with Ultraman?
Welcome to the first country in the world where riot police were on standby to arrest figurines. Uniquely Singapore, indeed.
Young PAP exposed!
Sep 7th
If you have not read The Online Citizen’s latest entry, I recommend reading it.
In what I think is a very funny development to “bicycle politics”, The Online Citizen found out (with screenshots as evidence) that Young PAP has quietly dropped (it’s obviously not quiet anymore) cycling from it’s events calendar. One can only speculate why the guys at Young PAP decided on such a move.
This little episode is funny on another count. Vivian Balakrishnan said this not too long ago:
The most potent impact that the new media will have on politics is that, politicians will find it impossible to lie in the future. The truth will always be out there, because somewhere, someone has the facts, or has seen something, and will publish it. Fortunately for us in Singapore , we have run a clean system, and hence have nothing to hide. (Source: Ministry of Information, Communication and Arts)
I wonder if Vivian is now wishing he never said that. To be fair, we have to keep in mind that technically, the YPAP guys are not politicians, at least not yet. However, it’s still embarrassing that the party leadership said one thing and the youth wing decides to do the direct opposite.
Since we are on the topic of exposition, check out Wikiscanner, a web service built specially to track who’s been editing what on Wikipedia. Wired has a list of the salacious editing of Wikipedia entries on certain organisations, and the editing was traced back to computer networks of those organisations.
The organisations appear to be mainly U.S. or Europe based organisations, though. I wonder if any local organisations have been sneakily doing some Wikipedia edits as well.
Some parties are more equal than others?
Sep 3rd
The following statement by Ho Peng Kee is probably the talk of the town now:
“If you listened very carefully Mr Low, I don’t know whether his hearing aid is with him because he wears one, I said there is a greater potential for law and order problems. You may be well-behaving, but there may be other people whom you come across when you cycle who may stop you, may want to debate with you and that may attract a crowd, and therefore will result in problems the police want to avoid.”
I don’t need to intend to add more fuel to the fire but I just can’t help but feel a tinge of double standards. I do think that there wouldn’t be an issue if it was the PAP instead of the WP applying for a permit to hold an outdoor cycling event. Nevermind that the permit was not granted, but for a minister of state to respond to a question on why the permit was denied with the above quote is certainly baffling, to say the least. It really smacks of bullying.
A case all political parties are equal, but some are more equal than others?
Speaking on behalf of others
Sep 3rd
I was chatting with a friend and he raised, in my opinion, an extremely valid point about how many bloggers, in discussing social issues, usually do so on behalf of the less privileged because most bloggers are probably of a relatively high socio-economic background. There is a lack of online participation coming from those who are really under-privileged.
It is a fair statement to say that most bloggers are of a certain level of socio-economic status. To be able to afford Internet access, have the technical know-how to maintain a blog as well as to be able to express oneself coherently using the written word certainly says something about the background of the typical blogger. However, I do think that it is perhaps not exactly a bad thing that bloggers are speaking on behalf of the less privileged.
This is because those who are “less privileged” are most likely not able to express themselves eloquently enough. Of course, that should not be an excuse not to participate but I think that these underprivileged group might think of themselves as being too inferior and not dare to participate as a result. Whatever the case is, their voice has to be heard, be through themselves or through people who are more privileged than them.
And of course, if we maintain the perspective that the underprivileged should be speaking up for themselves, then our parliament should reserve some places for the coffeeshop uncle, the taxi driver and the refuse collector. I think that would be really interesting (and my idealist streak will say that’s real representativeness).
Perceived lack of linguistic ability
Aug 30th
I remember a few years back, I was in England talking to a counter staff at a museum. After conversing with him for a few minutes, he remarked that my spoken English was pretty good. I told him that I’m from Singapore and English is actually my first language. He seemed pretty surprised to hear that. Back then, I thought that maybe it’s because I’m ethnically Chinese and he probably assumed that English is a second language for me (that is, if I knew any English at all).
Some weeks back, I was talking to some fellow students from China. I decided to speak to them in Mandarin because I thought that it would be much faster to communicate my thoughts across that way. After a few minutes of speaking to them in Mandarin, they remarked with much surprise that I speak the language pretty well. It appears that that is this notion that outside of China (and possibly Taiwan), even if you are Chinese, you probably can’t speak Mandarin for nuts.
I can’t generalise these 2 experiences but somehow, these experiences made me feel somewhat neither here nor there in terms of language ability. Here in Singapore, we pride ourselves for having an education policy that emphasizes bilingualism. However, to the English speaking world, we are perceived as being less than proficient in English. To the Chinese speaking world (I’m not sure about the Malay or Indian speaking parts of the world, so I’m not going to comment on that), we are perceived as being less than proficient in Chinese.
I suppose this is all quite amusing. Perhaps the Tourism Promotion Board might want to advertise Singapore’s bilingualism more aggressively to change the perception of the language ability of Singaporeans (in the context of this entry, Singaporean Chinese). We can “jiak kang tang” (a local hokkien dialect saying that literally translates as “eat potato” and is used to describe Singaporean Chinese who are proficient in English but not Mandarin) and drink Chinese tea at the same time, you know.
Pictures of New Arts Canteen
Aug 16th
I’m sorry that it took me a while to get my digital camera from my wife, but here are the pictures! Enjoy!
The 5 food stalls (hell level)
The 2 drink stalls located opposite the 5 food stalls (hell level)
Walkway leading to the old law library (now SOC)
Another view of hell
View from Earth
Stalls at Earth level
Another view of the Earth
Looking up at Heaven from Earth
Looking down at Earth from Heaven
View from the entrance
Another view of the airconditioned Heaven
Olio Dome and Lek Thai
Cozy coffee corner
On frankness and incivility
Aug 12th
I cannot help but feel that for some, frankness and incivility are both one and the same. I don’t think they are quite the same. One can be civil without being frank, or one can be frank without being civil. By the same token, one can be both frank and civil at the same time.
An example might be easier to understand. Let’s imagine that you and I are at a mutual friend’s place (and the friend happens to be a cook by profession) and that friend has kindly decided to make pasta for all of us as dinner. At the dinner table, the pasta is served and you take a first bite. The first thought that comes to your mind after tasting the pasta is that the pasta simply tastes horrible.
There are several ways of telling the cook friend know that he has just made some really bad pasta. The civil yet not frank way of doing it could probably be like, “Hey, your pasta tastes not too bad.” (Avoidance of frankness in order to be civil)
The frank but uncivil way of conveying the same message could be, “Are you sure you are qualified to be a cook? How can this pasta be eaten? Go back to cooking school la.” (Gets to the point in an extremely rude manner)
The frank yet civil way of telling the friend would be along the likes of “You know, the pasta you made today is below your usual standard. Are you ok?” (Gets to the point that the pasta is bad but phrases it nicely)
There are ways to be frank and yet civil at the same time. There are people who confuse the two, thinking that by saying they are being frank, they are automatically given the license to be less than civil, or even insulting/rude. It is little things like this that start ugly quarrels and bar brawls. The world will be a much nicer place if people can learn that it is possible to be frank and civil at the same time.
But that’s just me. My opinion is definitely no representative sample of the entire population.
Recent Comments