The USA has had a historic election. After 200-years the country that has done more than any other in history to preach the idea of "Opportunity for All," finally elected a man who was not a White Anglo Saxon and had a name that rhymed a bit too closely with two men they had gone to war with.
Allot is being said about President-Elect Obama and his victory. The usual questions of who will he pick for this and that post and what will his policy on this and that be like, are being asked. Everyone is talking about his fabulous victory speech and the many other great speeches he made.
These are important discussion points and there is no doubt that President-Elect Obama deserves his victory. Let's leave aside the reasons of why he should have won anyway, namely the incompetence of the current Bush Administration. The President-Elect ran a strategically brilliant campaign. His team mastered the art of keeping the money flowing, which meant he could promote his message more agressively. His message was focused. He kept his cool even when his opponents seemed to have ammunition to be used against him. His two challengers, Hillary Clinton and John McCain started out with better brand names and a wealth of contacts and dare I say it, experience. However, once the campaigning began, President-Elect Obama somehow managed to make his older and more experienced opponents look like 60-year olds trying to relive their sophmore years.
So, despite the obvious economic gloom and the military situation in the Middle East, the election of President-Elect Obama has created a seed of a sense of optimism. This is vastly important because if the world's biggest power has confidence in its leadership, it gives the rest of us hope.
For me, I am pleasently surprised that the American public has done what I never expected it to do - vote someone a darker shade of pink into power. However, I think something has to be said about the losing candidate, John McCain. The 2008 Presidential Campaign was as much about the lneptitude of John McCain's Campaign as much as it was about the brilliance of the Obama Campaign.
It was actually quite sad. I remember liking John McCain in the 2000 election. The man was refreshingly principled in that election. He took responsability for the failure of his first marriage and after Clinton's lack of a military record and Bush's avoidance of one, McCain's mere presence in Vietnam made him such a credible candidate. My respect for John McCain increased when, in the Senate, he took on causes that he believed in, despite his party. The McCain-Feingold (Sponsored with Democrat Senator Russ Feingold) act on campaign finance is one such act that showed his ability to cross party lines. My respect for him increased even more when he took a principled stance against torture, even when his President and party were advocating it.
But something happened within the 8-years of the Bush Administration. The Pincipled Maverick of 2000 became an inept self-opportunistic old fart. Allot will be made of the way Senator McCain chose the even more inexperienced (Than then Senator Obama) Sarah Palin as his running mate. However, for me, the saddest thing about Senator McCain's campaign was the way in which he reversed his stance on torture. The "War Veteran" who had been "Tortured" and knew that torture is ineffective, suddenly decided that torture was OK, provided it was applied to Arabs....oopps, I mean terrorists. This transformation was pathetic. Instead of sounding like a leader of high-principles, Senator McCain sounded like what his opponent described him as - George W Bush Mark 2. Thanks to his about-face, all the then Senator Obama had to do was to point out the obvious - vote for McCain and you'd get more years of the same (faggoty mismanagement of the military and economy). Once this happened, it all went wrong for the McCain campaign. When he talked about his military heroism in Vietnam, people saw a sad old man who's only achievement was to marry his money - not exactly the type of man you want telling you to buckle your economic belt while you're keeping the recievers at bay.
So thank goodness for his concession speech. Suddenly we had a glimpse of the 2000 McCain. While his supporters booed Obama's victory, Senator McCain took one hundred percent responsability for the failure of the campaign. He made a call for unity to match Mr Obama's victory speech and stopped his attacks against the man who had just become his President. It was a magnificent speech and credit must go to a fantastic speech writer but let's give Mr McCain his due - he delivered it in a way that probably only he could have done.
To the rest of us, the US Presidential system might seem to be expensive and bitchy. It's chaotic and throughout the campaign, you often see the worst in political leaders. However, once it was all over, you could actually see the best in leaders. It's worth having a system that puts strain on people - the heat of competition is good for everyone. It's something the rest of the world can learn from. No system is perfect and the American system has more faults than one could care to name - but listening to Messers Obama and McCain, I get the feeling that this is as close as humanity will get to testing leaders properly before they are given the levers of power.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
The Problem with Knowledge
Allot of people have asked me why I bother entertaining a certain young grassroots leader from Pasir Ris GRC. At the age of 18, this young man has mastered the art of incoherence. When confronted by a clear and reasonable argument, the young man retreats into a rant on the most indefensible cases. While most young men his age become idealistic to do good, he strives to climb the most slippery pole of the political achievement. So, why do I bother sitting down to listen to his incoherant rants? A part of it is ego. He provides me with an audience and his comments add spice to my postings. But I think the most important part of my dialogues with him, is that he's had an inevitable talent of drawing out the issues that I've commented on
Singaporeans are on the whole like most people. There are good ones, bad ones, pretty ones and ugly ones. Perhaps its just me, but I've started to notice a trend of incoherance and gobbldygook speakers becoming more prominent in public life. Two examples that have come to mind are Nominated Member of Parliament, Professor Thio Li-Ann and Young PAP member, Nicholas Lazarus. Both Professor Thio and Mr Lazarus have mastered the art of disguising ignorance as public morality. As I've said in previous writings, they have their right to their personal views, but it becomes a different matter when they make their views public from the positions they hold.
I've demonstrated Mr Lazarus's lack of analytical ability and after a glance at one of Professor Thio's key speeches, I could blow away her points with a ten minuite search on the Internet. Call me an alarmist but I think it's very worrying that a public, political figure and a representative of the ruling party don't see anything wrong with passing of ignorance as defending public virtue.
What's more disturbing is when you get young, impressionable people like my young politician believing that the arguments that Professor Thio and Mr Lazarus present are credible defenses of 'conservative values.' It just took a bit of common sense to see that neither Professor Thio nor Mr Lazarus presented credible or conservative arguments during the 377A debate. So, why do people like my young politician find them convincing. We're not talking about major government shakers here, so I can assume that this has nothing to do with an effort to carry favour.
I suspect, this is a mindset that has been cultivated within Singaporeans during the past 40-years. One Indian businessmen described Singapore as being a nation of 50 Ministers (Shepherds), 500 civil servants (sheepdogs) and 4,499,450 sheep. This system has worked wonders for Singapore. We are a small nation and as long as our shepherds know what they're doing, its very easy to follow. While state control and central planning have failed miserably in other countries, its worked brilliantly in Singapore - just look at the way the URA has made 4,500,000 people fit on an island 640 square KM, with plenty of parkland to spare.
This is a fine and dandy situation when the shepherds are in control and obviously know what they're doing. It works when the shepherds and sheepdogs are genuinely interested in protecting their flock. Look at Singapore's cabinate in the early days. Men like Goh Keng Swee were genuinely driven by the need to make something for the people they were looking after.
But what happens when the shepherds and sheepdogs don't have the ability to guide their flock and more importantly have no genuine interest in the welfare of their flock. Do the sheep have the ability to recognise and do something about an incompetent or worse - rogue sheherd?
Well, I hope my young politician's attitudes are not a reflection on the rest of the sheep. He's now taken to calling me a 'Gay Right's Western Liberal' because I've proven Mr Lazarus's arguments to be of poor quality. Try and point out the obvious to him and he'll acuse you of undermining Asian Values (the brand espoused in Singapore was incidentally taken from an English Bording school). Poor old God (I mean the Hebrew Yahweh or Muslim Allah, not Lee Kuan Yew), gets dragged in there to enforce the point that "Liberals Know NUTS." (Not that he knows the difference between a liberal conservative).
What was most interesting was when he chose to defend the Bush Administration's indefensible policies - ie it was necessary because Saddam had WMD (5-years still not found), links with Osama (Pentagon admited to be not true) and so on. He proudly told me that the Modern State of Israel was "Liberated for the Jews," (He's Muslim) and the land belonged to God (I assume Yahweh/Allah)
I told him that Sykes-Picot (British and French Foreign Secrateries who carved up the Ottoman Empire after WW1) were not God. When I asked if he knew who Mr Sykes and Mr Picot were, he proudly told me - "Dun Know, dun care to know." He calls it, "Not ignorance, but prejudice against liberals who are trying to do us in."
I can only wonder if he's an odd cookie or if he's representative of the generation below me. Have we reached such a state where the sheep are so comfortable being sheep that they would rather be swindled by a rogue shepherd than to try and live a good life for themselves.
Perhaps I cannot be hard on the "Dun know, dun care to know," mindset of being a sheep. As anyone who has been a unit man during national service can tell you - it's fun because you have no responsability. You just do what the Officer Commanding, Platoon Commander and Section Commanders tell you to do. If anything goes wrong, it is someone elses fault. The bottom will pass the blame up the chain of command, while the top will pass it back down. In the end, passing the buck becomes more important than solving the issue at hand. Just revisit the escape of Mas Selamat - the man remains at large but the sheep, shepherds and sheepdog are still passing the buck.
But the modern economy does not function like that. It is increasingly important to know things and more importantly, one has to care to know things. Singapore's sheepherds remain, thankfully comitted to the welfare of the sheep. But in today's world, its necessary for the sheep to go beyond places where there may be no sheepherd. The sheep will get information and advise in their new pastures. It's common sense to point out that the system in new pastures are not always like at home. How do you know what you've just been told will fill your tummy with fresh grass or turn you into lamb chops for the wolves? So, you have to care to know.
Knowledge, is of course problematic. It means, you have to take responsability, which means you may have to suffer consequences. However, this is how lambs develop into rams. You take responsability and you take ownership. As such, you grow and develop and become stronger.
Yes, my young politician has a point when he tells me that in the Singapore system, we don't have to worry about Temasek Holding's S$18 billion profits, which they derived from S$17 billion worth of asset sales. After all there is the sheepherd to take care of these things.
But we are increasingly moving into a world where relying on the sheepherd is no longer good enough for basic survival. It's no longer to have the Singapore Syndrome of "Not Me" when things happen. One has to care to know things rather than to sit there and accept what any idiot with title offers as good stuff. The sheep who insist on the 'dun known, dun care to know,' mode and blissfully munch on any old crud without taking 10 minuites to analyse things are the ones who end up as someone elses lunch.
Singaporeans are on the whole like most people. There are good ones, bad ones, pretty ones and ugly ones. Perhaps its just me, but I've started to notice a trend of incoherance and gobbldygook speakers becoming more prominent in public life. Two examples that have come to mind are Nominated Member of Parliament, Professor Thio Li-Ann and Young PAP member, Nicholas Lazarus. Both Professor Thio and Mr Lazarus have mastered the art of disguising ignorance as public morality. As I've said in previous writings, they have their right to their personal views, but it becomes a different matter when they make their views public from the positions they hold.
I've demonstrated Mr Lazarus's lack of analytical ability and after a glance at one of Professor Thio's key speeches, I could blow away her points with a ten minuite search on the Internet. Call me an alarmist but I think it's very worrying that a public, political figure and a representative of the ruling party don't see anything wrong with passing of ignorance as defending public virtue.
What's more disturbing is when you get young, impressionable people like my young politician believing that the arguments that Professor Thio and Mr Lazarus present are credible defenses of 'conservative values.' It just took a bit of common sense to see that neither Professor Thio nor Mr Lazarus presented credible or conservative arguments during the 377A debate. So, why do people like my young politician find them convincing. We're not talking about major government shakers here, so I can assume that this has nothing to do with an effort to carry favour.
I suspect, this is a mindset that has been cultivated within Singaporeans during the past 40-years. One Indian businessmen described Singapore as being a nation of 50 Ministers (Shepherds), 500 civil servants (sheepdogs) and 4,499,450 sheep. This system has worked wonders for Singapore. We are a small nation and as long as our shepherds know what they're doing, its very easy to follow. While state control and central planning have failed miserably in other countries, its worked brilliantly in Singapore - just look at the way the URA has made 4,500,000 people fit on an island 640 square KM, with plenty of parkland to spare.
This is a fine and dandy situation when the shepherds are in control and obviously know what they're doing. It works when the shepherds and sheepdogs are genuinely interested in protecting their flock. Look at Singapore's cabinate in the early days. Men like Goh Keng Swee were genuinely driven by the need to make something for the people they were looking after.
But what happens when the shepherds and sheepdogs don't have the ability to guide their flock and more importantly have no genuine interest in the welfare of their flock. Do the sheep have the ability to recognise and do something about an incompetent or worse - rogue sheherd?
Well, I hope my young politician's attitudes are not a reflection on the rest of the sheep. He's now taken to calling me a 'Gay Right's Western Liberal' because I've proven Mr Lazarus's arguments to be of poor quality. Try and point out the obvious to him and he'll acuse you of undermining Asian Values (the brand espoused in Singapore was incidentally taken from an English Bording school). Poor old God (I mean the Hebrew Yahweh or Muslim Allah, not Lee Kuan Yew), gets dragged in there to enforce the point that "Liberals Know NUTS." (Not that he knows the difference between a liberal conservative).
What was most interesting was when he chose to defend the Bush Administration's indefensible policies - ie it was necessary because Saddam had WMD (5-years still not found), links with Osama (Pentagon admited to be not true) and so on. He proudly told me that the Modern State of Israel was "Liberated for the Jews," (He's Muslim) and the land belonged to God (I assume Yahweh/Allah)
I told him that Sykes-Picot (British and French Foreign Secrateries who carved up the Ottoman Empire after WW1) were not God. When I asked if he knew who Mr Sykes and Mr Picot were, he proudly told me - "Dun Know, dun care to know." He calls it, "Not ignorance, but prejudice against liberals who are trying to do us in."
I can only wonder if he's an odd cookie or if he's representative of the generation below me. Have we reached such a state where the sheep are so comfortable being sheep that they would rather be swindled by a rogue shepherd than to try and live a good life for themselves.
Perhaps I cannot be hard on the "Dun know, dun care to know," mindset of being a sheep. As anyone who has been a unit man during national service can tell you - it's fun because you have no responsability. You just do what the Officer Commanding, Platoon Commander and Section Commanders tell you to do. If anything goes wrong, it is someone elses fault. The bottom will pass the blame up the chain of command, while the top will pass it back down. In the end, passing the buck becomes more important than solving the issue at hand. Just revisit the escape of Mas Selamat - the man remains at large but the sheep, shepherds and sheepdog are still passing the buck.
But the modern economy does not function like that. It is increasingly important to know things and more importantly, one has to care to know things. Singapore's sheepherds remain, thankfully comitted to the welfare of the sheep. But in today's world, its necessary for the sheep to go beyond places where there may be no sheepherd. The sheep will get information and advise in their new pastures. It's common sense to point out that the system in new pastures are not always like at home. How do you know what you've just been told will fill your tummy with fresh grass or turn you into lamb chops for the wolves? So, you have to care to know.
Knowledge, is of course problematic. It means, you have to take responsability, which means you may have to suffer consequences. However, this is how lambs develop into rams. You take responsability and you take ownership. As such, you grow and develop and become stronger.
Yes, my young politician has a point when he tells me that in the Singapore system, we don't have to worry about Temasek Holding's S$18 billion profits, which they derived from S$17 billion worth of asset sales. After all there is the sheepherd to take care of these things.
But we are increasingly moving into a world where relying on the sheepherd is no longer good enough for basic survival. It's no longer to have the Singapore Syndrome of "Not Me" when things happen. One has to care to know things rather than to sit there and accept what any idiot with title offers as good stuff. The sheep who insist on the 'dun known, dun care to know,' mode and blissfully munch on any old crud without taking 10 minuites to analyse things are the ones who end up as someone elses lunch.
The One Thing We Do Right
I can't sleep so I think I'm going to add another rant at an hour when I should be doing the decent thing and trying to get some sleep. I think, it must be a case of events and perhaps a pretentious desire to sound intellectual that is keeping me in this state of happy insomnia. But since I'm awake, I think I'm going to try and bash out another blog entry in the hope of being able to leave something for posterity.
Perhaps I'm destined to be a cynic but I've never seen married life with kids as an achievement. I've seen the way my Dad had to plow money into my education and I think...for what? I've seen my mother plow her time into her children and I've not seen her get anything out of it. I think pretty much the same thing for my stepfathers. Why do they bother? Kids, contrary to what many people think are an ungrateful bunch. You spend your life devoted to them and in the end, they leave you to rot in a hovel. Of course, in Singapore, it's a little different - they spew allot of crap about Asian values and how much they respect you and then they leave you to rot in a hovel.
For the life of me, I can't see why my friends have been so keen to get hitched and burdened themselves with kids. Every time one of my friends tells me they're better halves are pregnant, my only thought is ...... "Another one bites the dust."
I won't say I became a changed man overnight but I think my attitude to the parenting business is becoming softer and I have a midget Vietnamese girl to thank for it. For those of you who have followed my blog, you will know, Thui as Han Li's daughter. I had the privilege of meeting Thui in 2006, the year that I had a career high of working for the Saudi Embassy, helping them when Crown Prince Sultan visited Singapore. The work was exhillerating but if I have to remember the year 2006 for anything, I will remember it as the year I learnt the value of living beyond myself.
To put it crudely, Han Li, Thui's mum is a hard nut, a tough cookie who, to put it politely would probably break a few arms to get what she wants. I'm told its a typical Vietnamese trait - the men sleep, while the women work like mashines. If racial/cultural stereotypes are anything to go by, Han Li fits into that one. So, I guess when she declared me "Boyfriend" in 2006, who the hell was I to argue. The lady is on a long stay in Vietnam as I type these words. I suspect Singapore Immigration found her a little bit too hard for their liking. As such, boyfriendome is wearing down a bit and I'm slowly but surely reverting to the type that needs constant distraction.
Having said what I've just did about Han Li, there was one thing good about my relationship with her and that's Thui, her 7-year old (She's 9 this year). For two months of my life, I got to take care of a little girl who made me understand the meaning of what it was like to live for something beyond yourself. It's thanks to Thui that I think I understand that although most of us end up screwing up our lives, we have a chance to do something correct, and that usually takes the form of the kids that touch our lives.
As you can tell, I managed to speak to Thui on Sunday. Felt really good to speak to her. She's becoming more articulate in English, which is probably a good sign, especially when you consider the fact that she moved back to Vietnam two years ago. It's a tough line to follow. I got to play by certain rules...namely I must remember that she's not my daughter. As much as it disturbs me, I have to accept that she's Han Li's kid and she has every right to set the tone of how Thui develops. It's not like there's custody to fight over....I'm not providing financial support for the kid. I even remember my mother telling me that I was doing things the screwed up way, falling for the kid instead of the mother.
But what can I say, this is the little girl that made two months of an otherwise dull and jittery existence, joyful and eventful. I don't know what it is about having a midget touch your life but Thui obviously knew how to make mine joyful. What little contact I have with her, is precious and while I can't predict how my relationship with her mother will turn out, I know that I have to make at least a single trip to Vietnam, just to see her.
Human's are funny creatures. We have a talent for screwing up and making our screw ups compound. However, we have a wonderful capacity of getting at least something right and that's usually in the form of caring for a small kid. Perhaps I have two wonderful stepfathers to thank, but I've been very fortunate to appreciate that sparks in your life don't have to be your own flesh and blood.
I look at my friend Bijay, the Nepaleese Naan maker. The guy has a talent for screwing up. We're talking about a guy who enters the USA illegally, strolls out like he's in a park and then tries to get back in through the official channel. The man had a wife who cared for him financially, and yet he left her for a cow of a character who's main function is to whine and bleed him dry. Sometimes you want to slap him. But when all that is said and done, Bijay fathered Puja, who is the most amazingly beautiful child and when you look pictures of the child, you think, thank God, the guy existed to this one good deed.
Perhaps I'm naturally cynical about life but at least I got that bit of time with Thui, just to live a few moments outside the cynical shell. I look at Bijay, and all his idiocyncracies are forgotten when I consider the fact that he had a role in bringing Puja into the world. It's a cynical and cruel world out there and it has the ability to warp us as we get older. But I think, I understand it a little better, now. May be my folks were not that silly after all. May be touching the life of a child and letting the life of a small child touch you is perhaps the one and only chance most of us have of doing something right, something to make our screw ups seems irrelevant.
Perhaps I'm destined to be a cynic but I've never seen married life with kids as an achievement. I've seen the way my Dad had to plow money into my education and I think...for what? I've seen my mother plow her time into her children and I've not seen her get anything out of it. I think pretty much the same thing for my stepfathers. Why do they bother? Kids, contrary to what many people think are an ungrateful bunch. You spend your life devoted to them and in the end, they leave you to rot in a hovel. Of course, in Singapore, it's a little different - they spew allot of crap about Asian values and how much they respect you and then they leave you to rot in a hovel.
For the life of me, I can't see why my friends have been so keen to get hitched and burdened themselves with kids. Every time one of my friends tells me they're better halves are pregnant, my only thought is ...... "Another one bites the dust."
I won't say I became a changed man overnight but I think my attitude to the parenting business is becoming softer and I have a midget Vietnamese girl to thank for it. For those of you who have followed my blog, you will know, Thui as Han Li's daughter. I had the privilege of meeting Thui in 2006, the year that I had a career high of working for the Saudi Embassy, helping them when Crown Prince Sultan visited Singapore. The work was exhillerating but if I have to remember the year 2006 for anything, I will remember it as the year I learnt the value of living beyond myself.
To put it crudely, Han Li, Thui's mum is a hard nut, a tough cookie who, to put it politely would probably break a few arms to get what she wants. I'm told its a typical Vietnamese trait - the men sleep, while the women work like mashines. If racial/cultural stereotypes are anything to go by, Han Li fits into that one. So, I guess when she declared me "Boyfriend" in 2006, who the hell was I to argue. The lady is on a long stay in Vietnam as I type these words. I suspect Singapore Immigration found her a little bit too hard for their liking. As such, boyfriendome is wearing down a bit and I'm slowly but surely reverting to the type that needs constant distraction.
Having said what I've just did about Han Li, there was one thing good about my relationship with her and that's Thui, her 7-year old (She's 9 this year). For two months of my life, I got to take care of a little girl who made me understand the meaning of what it was like to live for something beyond yourself. It's thanks to Thui that I think I understand that although most of us end up screwing up our lives, we have a chance to do something correct, and that usually takes the form of the kids that touch our lives.
As you can tell, I managed to speak to Thui on Sunday. Felt really good to speak to her. She's becoming more articulate in English, which is probably a good sign, especially when you consider the fact that she moved back to Vietnam two years ago. It's a tough line to follow. I got to play by certain rules...namely I must remember that she's not my daughter. As much as it disturbs me, I have to accept that she's Han Li's kid and she has every right to set the tone of how Thui develops. It's not like there's custody to fight over....I'm not providing financial support for the kid. I even remember my mother telling me that I was doing things the screwed up way, falling for the kid instead of the mother.
But what can I say, this is the little girl that made two months of an otherwise dull and jittery existence, joyful and eventful. I don't know what it is about having a midget touch your life but Thui obviously knew how to make mine joyful. What little contact I have with her, is precious and while I can't predict how my relationship with her mother will turn out, I know that I have to make at least a single trip to Vietnam, just to see her.
Human's are funny creatures. We have a talent for screwing up and making our screw ups compound. However, we have a wonderful capacity of getting at least something right and that's usually in the form of caring for a small kid. Perhaps I have two wonderful stepfathers to thank, but I've been very fortunate to appreciate that sparks in your life don't have to be your own flesh and blood.
I look at my friend Bijay, the Nepaleese Naan maker. The guy has a talent for screwing up. We're talking about a guy who enters the USA illegally, strolls out like he's in a park and then tries to get back in through the official channel. The man had a wife who cared for him financially, and yet he left her for a cow of a character who's main function is to whine and bleed him dry. Sometimes you want to slap him. But when all that is said and done, Bijay fathered Puja, who is the most amazingly beautiful child and when you look pictures of the child, you think, thank God, the guy existed to this one good deed.
Perhaps I'm naturally cynical about life but at least I got that bit of time with Thui, just to live a few moments outside the cynical shell. I look at Bijay, and all his idiocyncracies are forgotten when I consider the fact that he had a role in bringing Puja into the world. It's a cynical and cruel world out there and it has the ability to warp us as we get older. But I think, I understand it a little better, now. May be my folks were not that silly after all. May be touching the life of a child and letting the life of a small child touch you is perhaps the one and only chance most of us have of doing something right, something to make our screw ups seems irrelevant.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Return to Logic
I owe Singaporeans an apology. In my last two postings, I made it a point to demean the non-existent analytical skills of a member of a member of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP), called Mr Nicholas Lazarus. In my previous postings, I made it a point to destroy Mr Lazarus's case which he presented on why Singapore's government should keep consensual homosexual sex illegal.
I believe an apology for several reasons, of which I will start with the easiest. Mr Lazarus was speaking in a personal capacity and his presentation of his case was amateurish at best. Destroying his case in my private blog was similar to stating the obvious - making statements like fish swim.
More importantly, I think I owe my fellow Singaporeans an apology. In my boredom to rip Mr Lazarus's case to where it belonged, I alluded to the fact that Mr Lazarus was expressing views that the public might hold. I seemed to be under the impression that Mr Lazarus's position in the ruling party was something to worry about. I am clearly wrong.
Mr Lazarus's posting was rightly slammed for its lack of intellectual argument and most of the people who set Mr Lazarus in his place were Singaporeans. Say what you like, not all Singaporeans are sheep. In cyberspace, you will find people who can express themselves and are willing to expose the unintelligent when the unintelligent make themselves known.
More importantly, this morning's Today Newspaper carried a piece by Mr Ho Kwon Ping, Chairman of MediaCorp, Singapore Management University and Banyan Tree Holdings. Mr Ho, called the current legislation on homosexual sex (377A) a "Mockery of the Rule of Law." Mr Ho desereves credit for pointing out the obvious. In a society, dominated by the principle of "Don't rock the boat," Mr Ho has shown the courage to point out a piece of leglislation or more importantly, the official attitude to a piece of leglislation was running contrary to something that has made Singapore a good society to live in.
So, thank you Mr Ho and my fellow Singaporeans for giving me back my faith in the nation. Just when I was about to despair at the lack of intellectual power of our young elite, Singaporeans from all walks of life have shown me that there is yet some hope.
I believe an apology for several reasons, of which I will start with the easiest. Mr Lazarus was speaking in a personal capacity and his presentation of his case was amateurish at best. Destroying his case in my private blog was similar to stating the obvious - making statements like fish swim.
More importantly, I think I owe my fellow Singaporeans an apology. In my boredom to rip Mr Lazarus's case to where it belonged, I alluded to the fact that Mr Lazarus was expressing views that the public might hold. I seemed to be under the impression that Mr Lazarus's position in the ruling party was something to worry about. I am clearly wrong.
Mr Lazarus's posting was rightly slammed for its lack of intellectual argument and most of the people who set Mr Lazarus in his place were Singaporeans. Say what you like, not all Singaporeans are sheep. In cyberspace, you will find people who can express themselves and are willing to expose the unintelligent when the unintelligent make themselves known.
More importantly, this morning's Today Newspaper carried a piece by Mr Ho Kwon Ping, Chairman of MediaCorp, Singapore Management University and Banyan Tree Holdings. Mr Ho, called the current legislation on homosexual sex (377A) a "Mockery of the Rule of Law." Mr Ho desereves credit for pointing out the obvious. In a society, dominated by the principle of "Don't rock the boat," Mr Ho has shown the courage to point out a piece of leglislation or more importantly, the official attitude to a piece of leglislation was running contrary to something that has made Singapore a good society to live in.
So, thank you Mr Ho and my fellow Singaporeans for giving me back my faith in the nation. Just when I was about to despair at the lack of intellectual power of our young elite, Singaporeans from all walks of life have shown me that there is yet some hope.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
My Avnery Strikes Again
Only in Israel can a man take on the State with such truthfulness
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=113829&d=4&m=9&y=2008
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=113829&d=4&m=9&y=2008
| Georgia: Hottentot morality Uri Avnery I avnery@actcom.co.il |
IF he steals my cow, that is bad. If I steal his cow, that is good” — this moral rule was attributed by European racists to the Hottentots, an ancient tribe in southern Africa. It’s hard not to be reminded of this when the United States and the European countries cry out against Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two provinces which seceded from the Republic of Sakartvelo, known in the West as Georgia. Not so long ago, the Western countries recognized the Republic of Kosovo, which seceded from Serbia. The West argued that the population of Kosovo is not Serbian, its culture and language is not Serbian, and that therefore it has a right to independence from Serbia. Especially after Serbia had conducted a grievous campaign of oppression against them. I supported this view with all my heart. Unlike many of my friends, I even supported the military operation that helped the Kosovars to free themselves. But what’s true for Kosovo is no less true for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The population in these provinces is not Georgian, they have their own languages and ancient civilizations. They were annexed to Georgia almost by whim, and they have no desire to be part of it. SO what is the difference between the two cases? A huge one, indeed: The independence of Kosovo is supported by the Americans and opposed by the Russians. Therefore it’s good. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is supported by the Russians and opposed by the Americans. Therefore it’s bad. As the Romans said, what’s allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to an ox. I do not accept this moral code. I support the independence of all these regions. In my view, there is one simple principle, and it applies to everybody: Every province that wants to secede from any country has a right to do so. In this respect there is, for me, no difference between Kosovars, Abkhazians, Basques, Scots and Palestinians. One rule for all. There was a time when this principle could not be implemented. That was the era of the “nation state”, when a strong people imposed itself, its culture and its language, on weaker peoples, in order to create a state big enough to safeguard security, order and a proper standard of living. France imposed itself on Bretons and Corsicans, Spain on Catalans and Basques, England on Welsh, Scots and Irish, and so forth. That reality has been superseded. Most of the functions of the “nation state” have moved to supernational structures: Large federations like the USA, large partnerships like the EU. In those there is room for small countries like Luxemburg beside larger ones like Germany. If Belgium falls apart and a Flemish state comes into being beside a Walloon state, both will be received into the EU, and nobody will be hurt. Yugoslavia has disintegrated, and each of its parts will eventually belong to the European Union. That has happened to the former Soviet Union, too. Georgia freed itself from Russia. By the same right and the same logic, Abkhazia can free itself from Georgia. But then, how can a country avoid disintegration? Very simple: It must convince the smaller peoples which live under its wings that it is worthwhile for them to remain there. It is rather funny to hear Vladimir Putin, whose hands are dripping with the blood of Chechen freedom fighters, extolling the right of South Ossetia to secession. It’s no less funny to hear Micheil Saakashvili likening the freedom fight of the two separatist regions to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Nobody can know what was passing through the mind of Saakashvili. He is an inexperienced person, educated in the United States, a politician who came to power on the strength of his promise to bring the separatist regions back to the homeland. The world is full of such demagogues, who build a career on hatred, supernationalism and racism. But even a demagogue does not have to be an idiot. Did he believe that President George W. Bush, who is bankrupt in all fields, would rush to his aid? The elite units of the Georgian Army have been trained by Israeli officers, including the one who was blamed for losing Lebanon War II. If the Israeli officers infected their Georgian colleagues with their own arrogance, convincing them that they could beat the mighty Russian Army, they committed a grievous sin against them. When Henry Kissinger was still a wise historian, before he became a foolish statesman, he expounded an important principle: In order to maintain stability in the world, a system has to be formed that includes all the parties. If one party is left outside, stability is in danger. The present American policy, with its attempt to push Russia out, is a danger to the whole world. (And I have not even mentioned the rising power of China.) A small country which gets involved in the struggle between the big bullies risks being squashed. That has happened in the past to Poland, and it seems that it has not learned from that experience. One should advise Georgia, and also the Ukraine, not to emulate the Poles but rather the Finns, who since world War II have pursued a wise policy: They guard their independence but endeavor to take the interest of their mighty neighbor into account. We Israelis can, perhaps, also learn something from all of this: That it is not safe to be a vassal of one great empire and provoke the rival empire. Russia is returning to our region, and every move we make to further American expansion will surely be countered by a Russian move in favor of Syria and Iran. So let’s not adopt the “Hottentot morality”. It is not wise, and certainly not moral. |
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Being a Total Arse - Thank Goodness I Don't Know my Place in Society
I must admit that I am a total arse of a character. I am poor, fat and balding. I refuse to work in the civil service, even though it would enhance my career prospects and I have decided I will avoid the model of Singapore womanhood - namely young, Chinese graduates. I drink too much, exercise too little and smoke whenever it suits me. And yet, instead of accepting my place as a worm, I've decided to spice up my life by poking fun of those who are rich, successful and obidient.
So, since this is my blog, I think I'm going to continue my previous topic of making fun of Mr Nicholas Lazarus, whom, for those of you, who read the last entry is a highly successful lawyer, trying to show off his powers of analysis on the Young PAP blog. Mr Lazarus, as on record, made his views on homosexuality well known.
While I fully support his right to have his views, as well as sharing a dislike for a good many homosexuals, I find his ability to argue his case in a logical manner, free of personal prejudice to be rather ammusing. The fact that Mr Lazarus has made his way into a senior position in a party that has dominated Singapore for so long, makes him a depressing symbol of my generation's ability to apply common sense in daily life. We have, I fear, become a generation so able to absorb what we read, that we have become incapable of think for ourselves.
On July 28, 2007, Mr Lazarus informed cyberspace that he felt that any moves to abolish a law that served no purpose would create social tension within Singapore. He painted a picture of how abolising the law against a private act between consenting adults would lead to...horror or horror's - people holding hands on the MRT. I won't repeat myself, but do take a look at his comments in the previous posting and try to work out the logic in his statements.
When the rest of cyberspace pointed out that he was speaking rubbish, Mr Lazarus proceeded to post the following reply on July 29, 2007:
Leaving aside my religious views on this matter, I am against any change of law/policy on homosexuals because:
1. They threaten the social fabric of the nation. Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream.
2. They cannot procreate and thus cannot produce offspring for our nation.
3. They cannot serve as soldiers because instead of serving alongside our men in green, they are more keen to sodomise them.
I do not accept the notion that homosexuals are "creative" and thus we need homosexuals to make our nation more "creative". There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals are any more or less creative than heterosexuals.
If an analysis is done, they seem to bring more problems than benefits.
This is the analysis on a trained lawyer. My Young Politician from Pasir Ris GRC was most offended by my decision to riddicule Mr Lazarus's efforts to protect the 'moral' fiber of the majority. But since Mr Lazarus has decided to post his views in cyberspace, he's made his views, public property. More importantly, because Mr Lazarus has made his membership of the rulling party public, the public has every right to scrutinise his postings and assess what it says about his thought process and what he's likely to do if he gets political power.
Let's take a look at this lawyerly analysis:
Point 1 - They threaten the social fabric of the nation. Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream.
a - How do they threaten the social fabric of the nation? Does homosexuality cause a rise in HIV? Not if you believe the Ministry of Health's statistics, which show that HIV/AIDS is a predominantly a hetrosexual disease. Does homosexuality cause an increase in violent crime? - thus far there are no global statistics to suggest that it does. - What evidence has this lawyer shown that "They" threaten our social fabric?
b - Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream. - What is it about 'their' ways that their ways that the rest of us don't accept? Is it because men hold hands? Well, obviously Mr Lazarus remains removed from Little India, where hetrosexual construction workers from ASIA hold hands as part of their culture. There are plenty of Asian men who like Fat girls - this is unacceptable to many people, but is it criminal?
I'm not sure what the argument is over here? Is he suggesting that if the government were to decriminalise a private act between consenting adults, the population would turn homosexual?
Point 2 - They cannot procreate and thus cannot produce offspring for our nation. -
a - Obviously he never studied biology? A homosexual male is able to produce the same sperm with the same capability of impregnating a woman. Homosexual's do not reproduce because their sperm ends up in places where there is no human egg.
b - Which is exactly the same for hetrosexual couples that chose not to allow the male semen and female eggs to meet. If one follows Mr Lazarus's logic, homosexuals should not be allowed to have sex because it does not lead to procreation - which is the same logic for having birthcontrol.
c - Would it be illegal for a homosexual man to donate his sperm to a single woman? WIth IVF, homosexuals can easily reproduce.
Point 3 - They cannot serve as soldiers because instead of serving alongside our men in green, they are more keen to sodomise them.
a - Where is the evidence that homosexuals are keen to sodomise everyone?
b - In the 1990s, the US Army allowed homosexuals to serve on a "Don't Ask, don't tell," basis. Thus far, there have been no major reports citing vast ammounts of sodomy taking place within the US military.
c - More importantly, any of the decline in morale in the US military since then seems to come from combat fatiqgue in Iraq than from fear of being sodomised by homosexuals on their own side.
Finally, Mr Lazarus, along with the 'moral' crowd missed the point that 377A was about criminalising a particular sexual act rather than homosexuality itself.
I'm no lawyer, it was pretty darn easy to destroy Mr Lazarus's case. If this fat, balding, unemployed drunk who prefers the company of Geylang's residents to the Tai Tai's group can demolish Mr Lazarus's analysis of a situation, what can his clients expect when they go to court and face opposing counsel?
I hope I'm wrong about Mr Lazarus. Perhaps, like Mr Neil French, former WPP Gloabl Creative Head, Mr Lazarus is a genious for self-publicity - the 70 plus responses he got have given him good positions on Google. But I wonder. Is showing off your inability to analyse and getting caught trying to fool the world into thinking you can analyse what you want to be known for, especially if you have political aspirations?
So, since this is my blog, I think I'm going to continue my previous topic of making fun of Mr Nicholas Lazarus, whom, for those of you, who read the last entry is a highly successful lawyer, trying to show off his powers of analysis on the Young PAP blog. Mr Lazarus, as on record, made his views on homosexuality well known.
While I fully support his right to have his views, as well as sharing a dislike for a good many homosexuals, I find his ability to argue his case in a logical manner, free of personal prejudice to be rather ammusing. The fact that Mr Lazarus has made his way into a senior position in a party that has dominated Singapore for so long, makes him a depressing symbol of my generation's ability to apply common sense in daily life. We have, I fear, become a generation so able to absorb what we read, that we have become incapable of think for ourselves.
On July 28, 2007, Mr Lazarus informed cyberspace that he felt that any moves to abolish a law that served no purpose would create social tension within Singapore. He painted a picture of how abolising the law against a private act between consenting adults would lead to...horror or horror's - people holding hands on the MRT. I won't repeat myself, but do take a look at his comments in the previous posting and try to work out the logic in his statements.
When the rest of cyberspace pointed out that he was speaking rubbish, Mr Lazarus proceeded to post the following reply on July 29, 2007:
Leaving aside my religious views on this matter, I am against any change of law/policy on homosexuals because:
1. They threaten the social fabric of the nation. Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream.
2. They cannot procreate and thus cannot produce offspring for our nation.
3. They cannot serve as soldiers because instead of serving alongside our men in green, they are more keen to sodomise them.
I do not accept the notion that homosexuals are "creative" and thus we need homosexuals to make our nation more "creative". There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals are any more or less creative than heterosexuals.
If an analysis is done, they seem to bring more problems than benefits.
This is the analysis on a trained lawyer. My Young Politician from Pasir Ris GRC was most offended by my decision to riddicule Mr Lazarus's efforts to protect the 'moral' fiber of the majority. But since Mr Lazarus has decided to post his views in cyberspace, he's made his views, public property. More importantly, because Mr Lazarus has made his membership of the rulling party public, the public has every right to scrutinise his postings and assess what it says about his thought process and what he's likely to do if he gets political power.
Let's take a look at this lawyerly analysis:
Point 1 - They threaten the social fabric of the nation. Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream.
a - How do they threaten the social fabric of the nation? Does homosexuality cause a rise in HIV? Not if you believe the Ministry of Health's statistics, which show that HIV/AIDS is a predominantly a hetrosexual disease. Does homosexuality cause an increase in violent crime? - thus far there are no global statistics to suggest that it does. - What evidence has this lawyer shown that "They" threaten our social fabric?
b - Their ways represent an alternative for which we should not accept as being mainstream. - What is it about 'their' ways that their ways that the rest of us don't accept? Is it because men hold hands? Well, obviously Mr Lazarus remains removed from Little India, where hetrosexual construction workers from ASIA hold hands as part of their culture. There are plenty of Asian men who like Fat girls - this is unacceptable to many people, but is it criminal?
I'm not sure what the argument is over here? Is he suggesting that if the government were to decriminalise a private act between consenting adults, the population would turn homosexual?
Point 2 - They cannot procreate and thus cannot produce offspring for our nation. -
a - Obviously he never studied biology? A homosexual male is able to produce the same sperm with the same capability of impregnating a woman. Homosexual's do not reproduce because their sperm ends up in places where there is no human egg.
b - Which is exactly the same for hetrosexual couples that chose not to allow the male semen and female eggs to meet. If one follows Mr Lazarus's logic, homosexuals should not be allowed to have sex because it does not lead to procreation - which is the same logic for having birthcontrol.
c - Would it be illegal for a homosexual man to donate his sperm to a single woman? WIth IVF, homosexuals can easily reproduce.
Point 3 - They cannot serve as soldiers because instead of serving alongside our men in green, they are more keen to sodomise them.
a - Where is the evidence that homosexuals are keen to sodomise everyone?
b - In the 1990s, the US Army allowed homosexuals to serve on a "Don't Ask, don't tell," basis. Thus far, there have been no major reports citing vast ammounts of sodomy taking place within the US military.
c - More importantly, any of the decline in morale in the US military since then seems to come from combat fatiqgue in Iraq than from fear of being sodomised by homosexuals on their own side.
Finally, Mr Lazarus, along with the 'moral' crowd missed the point that 377A was about criminalising a particular sexual act rather than homosexuality itself.
I'm no lawyer, it was pretty darn easy to destroy Mr Lazarus's case. If this fat, balding, unemployed drunk who prefers the company of Geylang's residents to the Tai Tai's group can demolish Mr Lazarus's analysis of a situation, what can his clients expect when they go to court and face opposing counsel?
I hope I'm wrong about Mr Lazarus. Perhaps, like Mr Neil French, former WPP Gloabl Creative Head, Mr Lazarus is a genious for self-publicity - the 70 plus responses he got have given him good positions on Google. But I wonder. Is showing off your inability to analyse and getting caught trying to fool the world into thinking you can analyse what you want to be known for, especially if you have political aspirations?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
A Lack of Logic
My sleep patterns are as usual, quite screwed up and hear I am on a Sunday morning, bashing out a blog entry after reading a other people's blog entries. One of the more interesting blogs in cyberspace is the Young PAP Blog (http://youngpapblog.blogspot.com), a forum where two up and coming members of society have decided to express their views. As well as being members of "good" society (Namely professional people), they're also members of the ruling People's Action Party or PAP. The voices in these blogs, if you believe conventional wisdom, are supposed to represent the future.
To be be fair to Mr Nicholas Lazarus and Ms Elaina Olivia Chong, they have taken on a task which is not exactly enviable. When you post things on cyberspace, you leave yourself open to attack from all sorts of people. For some reason, the internet inspires more than its fair share of wack jobs, who think that hiding behind a pseudonym gives them the right to be rude. To be fair to Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong, they also do take a position or two that is different from the official one - namely they prove the point that this is the Young PAP blog rather than the Young Government Blog.
However, if you read through their posting, you'll notice a rather worrying trend - namely the inability of educated, professional people to think through the issues that affect the rest of us in an informed and educated manner. This is rather worrying because these guys are supposed to be members of the elite. Both Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong are educted professional people and you'd expect them to be able to convince you of the most interesting positions in the most convincing of ways. Singapore has thus far succeeded because its elite have managed to produce thinkers like Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Unfortunately, neither Mr Lazarus nor Ms Chong are demonstrating against the ability to think and if they are represenative of a generation of Singaporeans who benefited from the hard work of previous generations - I can only shudder. The only saving grace is their inability to think may produce a generation that is able to think.
Mr Lazarus has made his name through his views on the issue of repeling 377A, that is the code that criminalises consensual sex amongst adult men. Mr Lazarus, a practicing lawyer applies his analytical skills thus:
"With all this talk about legalizing homosexual acts, I was just pondering what would happen if such acts were indeed legalized.
Imagine men walking hand in hand with other men down Orchard Road, kissing, fondling and making out.
For that matter, imagine all that taking place on the MRT.
Instead of teachers dealing with boy-girl relationships, teachers would have to deal with boy-boy relationships.
Then, you might have the homosexuals all over Asia descending upon Singapore to flaunt what they cannot in their own countries"
Sure, this is a personal opinion and Mr Lazarus has every right to his views. But surely, one should expect a bit analysis and logic from a man that was educated and stands tall as an elite member of a society that prides itself in being rational, practical and logical? I mean, if this arguement was offered by your hawker stall auntie, I could understand. I would even applaud her for being on the net.
But Mr Lazarus is not your uneducated hawker stall opperator. He's a lawyer, an educated person. The fact that he's blogging on the Young PAP Blog rather than a private blog indicates he's trying to show his capacity for future political leadership. You would think that Mr Lazarus would be quick to want to show of his ability for critical analysis, after all the party that he claims to represent has always taken pride in selecting people with the courage to think through issues in a cool and well thought-out fashion no matter what the emotional pressures. But there you have it. I can only hope for Mr Lazarus's clients that he does not apply the same ability to think when he handles the cases they present him. Or perhaps this is why he's entered politics.
Ms Chong, who I think is in PR, does not do her status as an educated professional much more credit, either. She actually makes a comparision between the repel of 377A to buying MP3 players. Or perhaps I am just being sour because she's more successful than I am. Instead of being bitchy about the woman, I should applaud her for coming up with the ability to make the link between an MP3 and a piece of leglislation.
She does spend a good deal of time whinging about the media. Not the wisest move to make for someone in PR. Yes, I do have my issues with the media too but I work with it and when it covers what I consider to be "crap" I don't consume it. For Ms Chong, she lectures the media for covering a topic that had a national bearing:
"The consequence of this hullabaloo has not only been divisive, it has actually succeeded in creating more public empathy via a proxy of perceived marginalization - individuals with alternative lifestyle preferences. All this baloney in parliament has done no more good than brightened the lumens on a minority faction hoping to advance their attention-seeking agenda. And all the frenzied spin by media has done nothing but more harm."
Once again, I can only hope that Ms Chong's understanding of the role of the media in society does not affect the work that she does for them.
Perhaps I'm just a complacent drunk with a fat tummy, balding head and not much money, but I think its quite scary when professional people of my generation demonstrate such powers of analytical thought. I mean, its been drilled into all of us that Singapore has no resources other than her people. We've read so much about how we made the leap from third world into first within a generation because of our commitment to developing people. But if the likes of Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong are anything to go by, I would be inclined to support a friend of mine who thinks that every minister of education we've had should be shot.
To be be fair to Mr Nicholas Lazarus and Ms Elaina Olivia Chong, they have taken on a task which is not exactly enviable. When you post things on cyberspace, you leave yourself open to attack from all sorts of people. For some reason, the internet inspires more than its fair share of wack jobs, who think that hiding behind a pseudonym gives them the right to be rude. To be fair to Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong, they also do take a position or two that is different from the official one - namely they prove the point that this is the Young PAP blog rather than the Young Government Blog.
However, if you read through their posting, you'll notice a rather worrying trend - namely the inability of educated, professional people to think through the issues that affect the rest of us in an informed and educated manner. This is rather worrying because these guys are supposed to be members of the elite. Both Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong are educted professional people and you'd expect them to be able to convince you of the most interesting positions in the most convincing of ways. Singapore has thus far succeeded because its elite have managed to produce thinkers like Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Unfortunately, neither Mr Lazarus nor Ms Chong are demonstrating against the ability to think and if they are represenative of a generation of Singaporeans who benefited from the hard work of previous generations - I can only shudder. The only saving grace is their inability to think may produce a generation that is able to think.
Mr Lazarus has made his name through his views on the issue of repeling 377A, that is the code that criminalises consensual sex amongst adult men. Mr Lazarus, a practicing lawyer applies his analytical skills thus:
"With all this talk about legalizing homosexual acts, I was just pondering what would happen if such acts were indeed legalized.
Imagine men walking hand in hand with other men down Orchard Road, kissing, fondling and making out.
For that matter, imagine all that taking place on the MRT.
Instead of teachers dealing with boy-girl relationships, teachers would have to deal with boy-boy relationships.
Then, you might have the homosexuals all over Asia descending upon Singapore to flaunt what they cannot in their own countries"
Sure, this is a personal opinion and Mr Lazarus has every right to his views. But surely, one should expect a bit analysis and logic from a man that was educated and stands tall as an elite member of a society that prides itself in being rational, practical and logical? I mean, if this arguement was offered by your hawker stall auntie, I could understand. I would even applaud her for being on the net.
But Mr Lazarus is not your uneducated hawker stall opperator. He's a lawyer, an educated person. The fact that he's blogging on the Young PAP Blog rather than a private blog indicates he's trying to show his capacity for future political leadership. You would think that Mr Lazarus would be quick to want to show of his ability for critical analysis, after all the party that he claims to represent has always taken pride in selecting people with the courage to think through issues in a cool and well thought-out fashion no matter what the emotional pressures. But there you have it. I can only hope for Mr Lazarus's clients that he does not apply the same ability to think when he handles the cases they present him. Or perhaps this is why he's entered politics.
Ms Chong, who I think is in PR, does not do her status as an educated professional much more credit, either. She actually makes a comparision between the repel of 377A to buying MP3 players. Or perhaps I am just being sour because she's more successful than I am. Instead of being bitchy about the woman, I should applaud her for coming up with the ability to make the link between an MP3 and a piece of leglislation.
She does spend a good deal of time whinging about the media. Not the wisest move to make for someone in PR. Yes, I do have my issues with the media too but I work with it and when it covers what I consider to be "crap" I don't consume it. For Ms Chong, she lectures the media for covering a topic that had a national bearing:
"The consequence of this hullabaloo has not only been divisive, it has actually succeeded in creating more public empathy via a proxy of perceived marginalization - individuals with alternative lifestyle preferences. All this baloney in parliament has done no more good than brightened the lumens on a minority faction hoping to advance their attention-seeking agenda. And all the frenzied spin by media has done nothing but more harm."
Once again, I can only hope that Ms Chong's understanding of the role of the media in society does not affect the work that she does for them.
Perhaps I'm just a complacent drunk with a fat tummy, balding head and not much money, but I think its quite scary when professional people of my generation demonstrate such powers of analytical thought. I mean, its been drilled into all of us that Singapore has no resources other than her people. We've read so much about how we made the leap from third world into first within a generation because of our commitment to developing people. But if the likes of Mr Lazarus and Ms Chong are anything to go by, I would be inclined to support a friend of mine who thinks that every minister of education we've had should be shot.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Relative Welative
It's been a relatively successful day. Started off with a very successful interview for GE Commercial Finance South East Asia. Interview was on alternative financing for SMEs and it felt good to do my part to let the small business people know that there are other ways to getting cash - that most valued of commodities - other than waiting for government grants or conventional loans. If there's anything I've learnt in the last few years of running my own show, cash is a very precious commodity and its always important to find ways of getting hold of it. Big organisations have a terrible habit of needing to delay payments or have ultra long credit terms, but you still need to live.
Anyway, its been an interesting week. Lunch with Balji and the guys at Ammado went well. They seemed quite happy to tell him about what Ammado does and he offered to link them up with Lucas Chow, the CEO of the MediaCorp Group. It seems that Lucas is quite big into the philanthropy scene and I think there are many ways in which Ammado can help make philanthropy a very interesting value proposition to industries - though I think its going to take sometime to get the philanthropic habit working in Asia, especially in Singapore, where, thanks to our culture, we tend to be a bit more selfish.
I'm not sure what it is but I think we live in a culture which is a "Me First" culture. You could blame it on the fact that we are secular state - unlike Catholic Philippines, which means the population has a tradition of 'tithing' or Muslim Malaysia or Indonesia, where Islam has instilled the values of Zakat, another form of tithing.
But then again, you can't blame secularlism for everything. The US of A, is founded on the principle of being a secular state, that keeps Church and State separate. But the USA is the home base of the people turning philanthropy into an industry. You have some of the richest men in history like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros making it a point to give in a way that is effective.
For some reason, Singapore is rather lacking in the 'giving' department. I don't what it is. I suspect a culture of over dependence on the government is to blame. Life is such that the only way to get ahead is to work for the state and to climb the bureaucrates ladder - It's a Confucian Wet Dream - but I think when you get a society where the only way to get ahead is in the civil service - you cut people off from the idea that they are actually dependent on the widder community to stay alive and thus the need to contribute. Instead, you get a population that thinks - "Screw you, I'm not going to endanger my job." Nobody sees opportunity in solving problems and so, we ignore it until it's way too late.
Hong Kong, on the other hand has proven to be much better in developing the 'giving' mentality. I think this has something to do with the fact that the city is owned by business tycoons rather than bureaucrates. Sure, tycoons like Li Ka Shing have an exceedingly powerful grip on certain industries - but business people like Mr Li don't get cut off from reality. Why? That's because they realise that their survival depends on their customers. As such, you realise that you need to give back to the widder community to keep going. If you bleed your customers too much, they will go out of business. If you help them grow, they can spend more on you. If you're a bureaucrate, you don't actually need to care what goes on in the real world. If you need money, you can always get your political masters, the politicians to raise taxes and throw them into your pet projects.
Interestingly enough, Li Ka Shing is leading the drive for Asian tycoons to go into charity work. In Singapore, the charities are doing quite nicely thanks to the likes of the Shaw and Lee Foundation (established by China born tycoons), and we have the community chest, which is funded by.........?
Of course, the Singapore government is working desparately hard to make Singapore into a 'Philanthropy' Hub, amongst the other things we're a hub off (Oi, Hub Off). I'm sure, it will use the usual tools of schoolarships and incentives....something which they're even trying to do to get people to have more babies.
Not sure if this will actually work. Sure, people might go on a spending spree (which yields sales tax) if you give them $100 but I don't think people are just going to go out of the way to take on a lifelong commitment for a few thousand....
Anyway, its been an interesting week. Lunch with Balji and the guys at Ammado went well. They seemed quite happy to tell him about what Ammado does and he offered to link them up with Lucas Chow, the CEO of the MediaCorp Group. It seems that Lucas is quite big into the philanthropy scene and I think there are many ways in which Ammado can help make philanthropy a very interesting value proposition to industries - though I think its going to take sometime to get the philanthropic habit working in Asia, especially in Singapore, where, thanks to our culture, we tend to be a bit more selfish.
I'm not sure what it is but I think we live in a culture which is a "Me First" culture. You could blame it on the fact that we are secular state - unlike Catholic Philippines, which means the population has a tradition of 'tithing' or Muslim Malaysia or Indonesia, where Islam has instilled the values of Zakat, another form of tithing.
But then again, you can't blame secularlism for everything. The US of A, is founded on the principle of being a secular state, that keeps Church and State separate. But the USA is the home base of the people turning philanthropy into an industry. You have some of the richest men in history like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros making it a point to give in a way that is effective.
For some reason, Singapore is rather lacking in the 'giving' department. I don't what it is. I suspect a culture of over dependence on the government is to blame. Life is such that the only way to get ahead is to work for the state and to climb the bureaucrates ladder - It's a Confucian Wet Dream - but I think when you get a society where the only way to get ahead is in the civil service - you cut people off from the idea that they are actually dependent on the widder community to stay alive and thus the need to contribute. Instead, you get a population that thinks - "Screw you, I'm not going to endanger my job." Nobody sees opportunity in solving problems and so, we ignore it until it's way too late.
Hong Kong, on the other hand has proven to be much better in developing the 'giving' mentality. I think this has something to do with the fact that the city is owned by business tycoons rather than bureaucrates. Sure, tycoons like Li Ka Shing have an exceedingly powerful grip on certain industries - but business people like Mr Li don't get cut off from reality. Why? That's because they realise that their survival depends on their customers. As such, you realise that you need to give back to the widder community to keep going. If you bleed your customers too much, they will go out of business. If you help them grow, they can spend more on you. If you're a bureaucrate, you don't actually need to care what goes on in the real world. If you need money, you can always get your political masters, the politicians to raise taxes and throw them into your pet projects.
Interestingly enough, Li Ka Shing is leading the drive for Asian tycoons to go into charity work. In Singapore, the charities are doing quite nicely thanks to the likes of the Shaw and Lee Foundation (established by China born tycoons), and we have the community chest, which is funded by.........?
Of course, the Singapore government is working desparately hard to make Singapore into a 'Philanthropy' Hub, amongst the other things we're a hub off (Oi, Hub Off). I'm sure, it will use the usual tools of schoolarships and incentives....something which they're even trying to do to get people to have more babies.
Not sure if this will actually work. Sure, people might go on a spending spree (which yields sales tax) if you give them $100 but I don't think people are just going to go out of the way to take on a lifelong commitment for a few thousand....
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Just Before Lunch
Am currently trying to kill off a few moments before a lunch appointment with Balji, Mark and Peter and Joeri from Ammado.com. In a way life has become fairly relaxed after three weeks of intensive fun of working on two of my own accounts and more importantly getting paid by two of my bigger accounts too. In this quiet moment, I'm relaxing, but getting a tad bored with life.....need to drum up some more of my bigger clients into paying mode and I've pumped a bit more money into the hi-fi business - returns have thus far been good and I hope this does become a "gold slave" that will get things on the go.
In the mean time, life continues at a rainy pace. I don't recall having this much rain before. Perhaps I'm starting to show signs of giong senile, but it's been raining tigers and wolves (if the English have cats and dogs, we in the tropics have to have something a wee bit bigger.) The nice thing about all of this is, the weather is darn good for sleeping. Somehow, when you are on the 22nd floor, the combination of a simple electric fan, the rain and sea breeze make sleeping very condusive - good for sweet dreams.
Got and accepted a friend request from a girl called Cassandra today. Pleasent surprise, I remember her as being by far and away the most attractive girl when I was still at school - I think it had something to do with the fact tha she had ultra long legs and a very pretty face. I think she must have been the cause of the school insisting that skirt lengths went only up to the knee.
Well, she's no longer the sexy vixin that I remember, she's a married mother of a cute and very adoreable baby. But she's still exceedingly attractive. Allot of it, I think has to do with getting lucky with the genetic lottery. But allot of it, I think has to do with being happy in life. She looks happy and so she looks good.
I, on the other hand, have become something of a balding, fat womanising drunk. Which is not bad when you think about it. Nobody comments on my good looks, unless they have a particular fettish for me being what I am, but I'm allowed to be exceedingly cynical in life. There are joys in being a bitter and twisted cynic, you know. I get to see the dark side in everything that humanity produces and I get to have a good laugh.
OK, I'm hungry, so allow me to contribute to an early grave, care of a heart attack and several rounds of blubber.
In the mean time, life continues at a rainy pace. I don't recall having this much rain before. Perhaps I'm starting to show signs of giong senile, but it's been raining tigers and wolves (if the English have cats and dogs, we in the tropics have to have something a wee bit bigger.) The nice thing about all of this is, the weather is darn good for sleeping. Somehow, when you are on the 22nd floor, the combination of a simple electric fan, the rain and sea breeze make sleeping very condusive - good for sweet dreams.
Got and accepted a friend request from a girl called Cassandra today. Pleasent surprise, I remember her as being by far and away the most attractive girl when I was still at school - I think it had something to do with the fact tha she had ultra long legs and a very pretty face. I think she must have been the cause of the school insisting that skirt lengths went only up to the knee.
Well, she's no longer the sexy vixin that I remember, she's a married mother of a cute and very adoreable baby. But she's still exceedingly attractive. Allot of it, I think has to do with getting lucky with the genetic lottery. But allot of it, I think has to do with being happy in life. She looks happy and so she looks good.
I, on the other hand, have become something of a balding, fat womanising drunk. Which is not bad when you think about it. Nobody comments on my good looks, unless they have a particular fettish for me being what I am, but I'm allowed to be exceedingly cynical in life. There are joys in being a bitter and twisted cynic, you know. I get to see the dark side in everything that humanity produces and I get to have a good laugh.
OK, I'm hungry, so allow me to contribute to an early grave, care of a heart attack and several rounds of blubber.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Protest
After ranting on about how the world did not get irony, I was proven wrong by the Singapore government. Although the insitution has never been known for it's sense of anything outside moral fortitutde, the morning's turn of events proved me delightfully wrong. Just when you expect peolpe to be depressing, they surprise you.
Yes, I am reffering to the "Easing" of the ban on outdoor protest, which was screaming as the front page lead. Oh my, now we have a situation where, guess what, you can have a gathering of more than four people without having to apply for a police permit. So, it looks like we may have a reached a stage of political maturity, where the government has decided it's ok to give us an extended curfew.
It's going to be interesting to see how the drama plays out. A part of me shudders at the thought of giving Singaporeans a bit more freedome at times. In my short little life, I've noticed that 'freedome' tends to be expressed in the most ugly of ways - look at the liter that Singaporeans leave in Johor. Then again, look at what happened when they first let go of the laws on censoring movies - people went crazy. Are we now going to get a bunch of crazies hogging the headlines now that they can protest - you'd be surprised by the things people protest over.
Then there is the government. How serious is the government about allowing protest? This is, after all a government steeped in a culture of hanging onto control. Furthermore, this is a government lead by a Prime Minister, who has, in his DNA, instincts to get as much power as he can. So, when you consider all these things, letting go, is a revolutionary step by this government. It's like ...suddenly, they've gone against everything they've ever believed in. One should not be to surprised if they find a reason to clamp down again in the near future but for now, I think the government deserves kudoes for taking such a move that runs contrary to what it's always done.
Having said all of that, I don't think much will change. There's remarkably little that one needs to protest about in Singapore. City runs like clockwork, for the most part and it's got a pleasent living environment. So, although it's now legal for me to gather a group of people and get them to march in the streets - why should I? Of course, you may find some smart arse in one of the government departments thinking that the city is a little dull without outdoor protestors and in true Singaporean tradition, you may find that the government will see the need to teach people how to protest against the government.
No, I'm not being silly here, this is well within the range of the government-people dialogue in Singapore. I mean, can you think of another society in the world where you actually need the government to teach a horny young man and horny young woman what to do when they're in the same room? So, I guess the next thing we should look out for is government organised classes on how to be rebellious against the government.
Yes, I am reffering to the "Easing" of the ban on outdoor protest, which was screaming as the front page lead. Oh my, now we have a situation where, guess what, you can have a gathering of more than four people without having to apply for a police permit. So, it looks like we may have a reached a stage of political maturity, where the government has decided it's ok to give us an extended curfew.
It's going to be interesting to see how the drama plays out. A part of me shudders at the thought of giving Singaporeans a bit more freedome at times. In my short little life, I've noticed that 'freedome' tends to be expressed in the most ugly of ways - look at the liter that Singaporeans leave in Johor. Then again, look at what happened when they first let go of the laws on censoring movies - people went crazy. Are we now going to get a bunch of crazies hogging the headlines now that they can protest - you'd be surprised by the things people protest over.
Then there is the government. How serious is the government about allowing protest? This is, after all a government steeped in a culture of hanging onto control. Furthermore, this is a government lead by a Prime Minister, who has, in his DNA, instincts to get as much power as he can. So, when you consider all these things, letting go, is a revolutionary step by this government. It's like ...suddenly, they've gone against everything they've ever believed in. One should not be to surprised if they find a reason to clamp down again in the near future but for now, I think the government deserves kudoes for taking such a move that runs contrary to what it's always done.
Having said all of that, I don't think much will change. There's remarkably little that one needs to protest about in Singapore. City runs like clockwork, for the most part and it's got a pleasent living environment. So, although it's now legal for me to gather a group of people and get them to march in the streets - why should I? Of course, you may find some smart arse in one of the government departments thinking that the city is a little dull without outdoor protestors and in true Singaporean tradition, you may find that the government will see the need to teach people how to protest against the government.
No, I'm not being silly here, this is well within the range of the government-people dialogue in Singapore. I mean, can you think of another society in the world where you actually need the government to teach a horny young man and horny young woman what to do when they're in the same room? So, I guess the next thing we should look out for is government organised classes on how to be rebellious against the government.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Irony and Sarcasm
The Beijing Olympics have closed and as an ethnic Chinese, I'm glad to see China coming top of the gold medal tally. For the first time since the 1936 Berlin games, has a country other than the USA and USSR headed the list. What's even more satisfying is the fact that the Chinese came ahead by quite a decent margin - 51 to 36, of the USA.
In true sportsman like fashion, the American media decided to pay as little attention to the games as they could and more importantly, the US of A has been pointing out that it won more medals overall - 110 to 100. Funny, nobody seemed to notice the total medals won when the USA was on top of the gold medal table.
Americans, as was often said at school, have no ability to get irony or sarcasm. At the same time as the Olympics were taking place, America was leading the Western World in condemning the Russians for bullying Georgia. According to President Bush and his Gang of neoCONS, it is BAD to invade other countries. Nobody seemed to get the irony of the situation as they all made bold pronouncements about how bad the Russians were for invading an enclave that had Russian citizens being badly treated by the Georgian government. Those with the most to say didn't seem to think there was anything wrong when they were the ones fabricating evidence to invade another country.
Let's face it, the recent Olympic Games and the demonstration of irony over Georgia should be a sign to Asians, Arabs and Africans that not all things Caucasian are better. I'm not anti-Caucasian per se. There are things that Caucasians actually are better at than the rest of us. Take getting off a subway for example. Caucasians understand the value of letting people off before they hop onto the subway. This shows common sense - something which does not require a government schoolarship but makes life so much easier. After 8-years back home, I remain unused to the fact that even in one of the most evolved cities in Asia, we've yet to learn the basic art of getting of a train.
Where I object to Caucasians is the assumption that most Asians, Arabs and Africans have that they're automatically supperior. Singapore is an example of how the love affair with White Skin has made a mockery out of recent developments in Asia, Arabia and even Africa. I know a Malay girl, who proudly tells me that, "White Men, they're SO MUCH better." Unless you're working in Geylang or Orchard Towers, where the girls charge double the rates for locals, I can't see how anyone who is educated can consider most of the Caucasians living in Singapore as better - most of them haven't even been to school.
But there you have it. You have to give credit, where credit is due. You can't fault the Caucasian for being who he or she is, as long as the Asian, Arab or African continues to bow and scrape before him or her. Perhaps I'm being cynical here but I've noticed that there's a growing trend for Caucasian entrepreneurs to come knocking on doors for money. As someone who has been perpetually broke, I'm totally sympathetic.....that is, until I realise these buggers are getting away with selling fantasies. Non of these guys has shown the ability to produce figures based on anything more than their belief of where the industry would be heading. One of them even used the phrase, "I'm not in trouble....I just have cash flow issues."
Still, despite such obvious warning signs, Asians with money cannot resist throwing cash at these guys fast enough. I guess, there's nothing quite as satisfying as telling the world you've backed a Caucasian entrepreneur. Let's see, should my next venture be..."Adopt a Caucasian," and my slogan will be - "Feed him twice a day and he'll piss over you."
Hey, I'm not being sarcastic here. It's happening on the national stage, where Soverign Wealth Funds like GIC and Temasek are stumbling over each other to piss their stakeholders money into Merril, UBS and Citigroup. What do they get in return? They get capped over and they can't stop getting enough of the stuff. When Merril's shares went down from $48 to $24 a share, the local press couldn't stop singing, "We're so clever, we've got the White Man to shit on us even more."
There are of course, clever Asians, or at least Asians who understand that their success is due to their own ingenuity and hard work and not handed down by letting the White Man shit on them. Li Ka Shing didn't buy into any of the banks swimming in sub-prime woes. Instead he sold Hutchison Essar to Vodaphone of the UK for some US$11 billion about a year or so ago. Incidentally, Vodaphone had already made him some US$15 billion in the late 1990s, when he sold Orange (UK network) to Mannesman, which was subsequently aquired by Vodaphone.
There remains allot that Asia can learn from the West. America in particular has produced and continues to produce some of the most brilliant minds. In business, the USA has shown us the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the late Sam Walton and Jack Welsh. Across the Atlantic, you can look to the likes of JK Rawling. Look to the men who founded and created the EU, a superstate of peaceful, prosperous nations. This is sheer genious at work here and Asians, Arabs and Africans need to look at why the West succeeds and continues to do so in so many ways.
Yes, America did win more medals than China and three out of the top five medal winners are Western societies. Likewise in the world today - the West remains better maintaining prosperity and spreading it around its citizens. This is something that we need how to learn to do.
The killer instinct, the hunger to succeed is probably greatest in Asia, particularly in places like China. The Chinese, as one Indian businessman notes, realised that it was most important to go for gold medals rather than overall medals and devoted their energies there. How did the Chinese get successful in sport - they invested in developing their vast talent pool, even learning from the West. How will China rise? It will do so by learning from the West and other societies. Everyone I know who has been to China marvels at their hunger to learn.
But let's look for the right teachers. Instead, we in Asia, Arabia and Africa seemed obsessed with learning from the dregs of Western society. Look into any book shop in Singapore and you'll find books by and about Donald Trump, Richard Branson and Robert Kiyosaki out numbering Jack Welsh and even Warren Buffet. You'll have people paying the likes of Roger Hamilton and the XL Group thousands of dollars (Allot of them claimed they were impressed with the promise to give 10 percent to charity - namely - the society of prevention of cruelty to impotent slime,) when Mr Hamilton is basically offering what you can get from Facebook for free.
I suspect allot of it has to do with an infactuation with glamour and a disdain for reality. Jack Welsh, Warren Buffet et al became rich by adding value to real businesses. Messers Trump, Branson and Hamilton made it by clever salesmanship. But lets look at it this way. Mr Buffet lives in a simple house in Omaha, Nebraska while Mr Trump has a choice of mansions in a choice of glamorous cities, but who has more money and who has never had to bounce back...?
In true sportsman like fashion, the American media decided to pay as little attention to the games as they could and more importantly, the US of A has been pointing out that it won more medals overall - 110 to 100. Funny, nobody seemed to notice the total medals won when the USA was on top of the gold medal table.
Americans, as was often said at school, have no ability to get irony or sarcasm. At the same time as the Olympics were taking place, America was leading the Western World in condemning the Russians for bullying Georgia. According to President Bush and his Gang of neoCONS, it is BAD to invade other countries. Nobody seemed to get the irony of the situation as they all made bold pronouncements about how bad the Russians were for invading an enclave that had Russian citizens being badly treated by the Georgian government. Those with the most to say didn't seem to think there was anything wrong when they were the ones fabricating evidence to invade another country.
Let's face it, the recent Olympic Games and the demonstration of irony over Georgia should be a sign to Asians, Arabs and Africans that not all things Caucasian are better. I'm not anti-Caucasian per se. There are things that Caucasians actually are better at than the rest of us. Take getting off a subway for example. Caucasians understand the value of letting people off before they hop onto the subway. This shows common sense - something which does not require a government schoolarship but makes life so much easier. After 8-years back home, I remain unused to the fact that even in one of the most evolved cities in Asia, we've yet to learn the basic art of getting of a train.
Where I object to Caucasians is the assumption that most Asians, Arabs and Africans have that they're automatically supperior. Singapore is an example of how the love affair with White Skin has made a mockery out of recent developments in Asia, Arabia and even Africa. I know a Malay girl, who proudly tells me that, "White Men, they're SO MUCH better." Unless you're working in Geylang or Orchard Towers, where the girls charge double the rates for locals, I can't see how anyone who is educated can consider most of the Caucasians living in Singapore as better - most of them haven't even been to school.
But there you have it. You have to give credit, where credit is due. You can't fault the Caucasian for being who he or she is, as long as the Asian, Arab or African continues to bow and scrape before him or her. Perhaps I'm being cynical here but I've noticed that there's a growing trend for Caucasian entrepreneurs to come knocking on doors for money. As someone who has been perpetually broke, I'm totally sympathetic.....that is, until I realise these buggers are getting away with selling fantasies. Non of these guys has shown the ability to produce figures based on anything more than their belief of where the industry would be heading. One of them even used the phrase, "I'm not in trouble....I just have cash flow issues."
Still, despite such obvious warning signs, Asians with money cannot resist throwing cash at these guys fast enough. I guess, there's nothing quite as satisfying as telling the world you've backed a Caucasian entrepreneur. Let's see, should my next venture be..."Adopt a Caucasian," and my slogan will be - "Feed him twice a day and he'll piss over you."
Hey, I'm not being sarcastic here. It's happening on the national stage, where Soverign Wealth Funds like GIC and Temasek are stumbling over each other to piss their stakeholders money into Merril, UBS and Citigroup. What do they get in return? They get capped over and they can't stop getting enough of the stuff. When Merril's shares went down from $48 to $24 a share, the local press couldn't stop singing, "We're so clever, we've got the White Man to shit on us even more."
There are of course, clever Asians, or at least Asians who understand that their success is due to their own ingenuity and hard work and not handed down by letting the White Man shit on them. Li Ka Shing didn't buy into any of the banks swimming in sub-prime woes. Instead he sold Hutchison Essar to Vodaphone of the UK for some US$11 billion about a year or so ago. Incidentally, Vodaphone had already made him some US$15 billion in the late 1990s, when he sold Orange (UK network) to Mannesman, which was subsequently aquired by Vodaphone.
There remains allot that Asia can learn from the West. America in particular has produced and continues to produce some of the most brilliant minds. In business, the USA has shown us the likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the late Sam Walton and Jack Welsh. Across the Atlantic, you can look to the likes of JK Rawling. Look to the men who founded and created the EU, a superstate of peaceful, prosperous nations. This is sheer genious at work here and Asians, Arabs and Africans need to look at why the West succeeds and continues to do so in so many ways.
Yes, America did win more medals than China and three out of the top five medal winners are Western societies. Likewise in the world today - the West remains better maintaining prosperity and spreading it around its citizens. This is something that we need how to learn to do.
The killer instinct, the hunger to succeed is probably greatest in Asia, particularly in places like China. The Chinese, as one Indian businessman notes, realised that it was most important to go for gold medals rather than overall medals and devoted their energies there. How did the Chinese get successful in sport - they invested in developing their vast talent pool, even learning from the West. How will China rise? It will do so by learning from the West and other societies. Everyone I know who has been to China marvels at their hunger to learn.
But let's look for the right teachers. Instead, we in Asia, Arabia and Africa seemed obsessed with learning from the dregs of Western society. Look into any book shop in Singapore and you'll find books by and about Donald Trump, Richard Branson and Robert Kiyosaki out numbering Jack Welsh and even Warren Buffet. You'll have people paying the likes of Roger Hamilton and the XL Group thousands of dollars (Allot of them claimed they were impressed with the promise to give 10 percent to charity - namely - the society of prevention of cruelty to impotent slime,) when Mr Hamilton is basically offering what you can get from Facebook for free.
I suspect allot of it has to do with an infactuation with glamour and a disdain for reality. Jack Welsh, Warren Buffet et al became rich by adding value to real businesses. Messers Trump, Branson and Hamilton made it by clever salesmanship. But lets look at it this way. Mr Buffet lives in a simple house in Omaha, Nebraska while Mr Trump has a choice of mansions in a choice of glamorous cities, but who has more money and who has never had to bounce back...?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Olympic Efforts
Unlike the Soccer or Rugby Union World Cups, the Olympic Games have had a way of reflecting the geopolitical situation of the world. While countries like Brazil and New Zealand may rule in the World Cups, the countries that top the medal tables are the superpowers of the world. For many years, the Olympic Games was a duel between the USA and the USSR and then when the USSR vanished, the USA ruled the roost. Now, in Beijing, it's quite clear that China will take home the most gold medals, though the USA will probably come ahead in total medals won (which I am sure, the Americans in their insecurity will harp on about being the 'REAL' deal - though one notes they never made noise when they were ahead in gold medals).
Here in tinny little Singapore, we're just happy that our women's table tennis team managed to take home the silver medal. Despite all its achievements, Singapore has been rather lacking on the sporting field and I guess its wonderful that after 48-years of being without a medal, we finally have a medal on the world's most important sporting stage. Sure, history tends to remember only the winners, but for our tinny nation, being able to say we came second in the world at something is pretty pleasing.
You'd imagine that Singaporeans would be overjoyed at winning something on a stage where we've been rather lacklusture. You would imagine that the medal winning team would be greeted with the same fashion that the 1998 World Cup Winning French Soccer Team or the 2007 Iraqi Asian Cup winning team was.
But that's not been the case. Just read through the internet forums - instead of finding postings cheering on the efforts of the medal winning team, you'll find the grumbles about how we bought the China B team instead of the China A team. It makes one wonder if Singaporeans are just a grumpy lot who just need to find something to grumble about - even when we're doing something good?
I'm inclined to see things that way. Seriously, who cares if the team members were born in Mainland China rather than Singapore? So what if they prefer to speak Mandarin instead of English - they're no different from a good 70 plus percent of the Singapore population. Can't we just concentrate on the fact that we finally won something on the world stage? They may have been born in Mainland China but it was our flag that got raised in front of the world's media and for once this had nothing to do with a visiting politician.
But to dismiss the grumblings about the team as merely the rantings of ungreatful brats would be wrong too. I'm inclined to think that the lack of joy at winning a medal after 48-years is a sign that there a gulf of communication between the governed and the governing classes. You can almost sense the frustration of the Prime Minister of this gulf in communication between the classes in his National Day Rally speech. The government, through the media, reels of a range of statistics to show how much its done for the citizens and how good life is for the citizens. In return the citizens go to the internet and grumble about the unfairness of life in Singapore.
I think the reality is somewhere in between. Life is exceedingly good and comfortable in Singapore but the system is highly unfair against individual Singaporeans. You can do pretty much what you want here but if you even disagree with the apparatus of power, you get crushed. When some people earn higher salaries its called attracting talent but when others (namely the poor) get higher wages, it's a potential to stroke inflation which harms the poor. On the other hand, the government is not mean in all its actions. When the economy is doing well, we get money as part of the budget surplus - a case of sharing in the good times. When the economy is doing badly, we get money that is meant to help us out. Government subsidies do exist but not to the extent of disincentivising work.
No where is this dichotomy clearer than in the issue of foreign talent. Singapore needs forigners but it also loaths them. Just look at the table tennis team. Local Singaporeans don't have certain skills to take the jobs being produced by its economy just as we don't have atheletic talent to compete on the world stage. So what do we do .... we import the talent from the rest of the world. It's not a bad idea - every Singaporean was a forigner at one time or another. Not only do 'forign talents' bring in skills and capital but even poor and uneducated forigners provide an energy, a hunger that the local population lacks. Look at Hong Kong, the city ticks over because you get a free flow of educated professionals with capital but you also get plenty of hungry people from the Mainland to keep the local population on its toes.
Unfortunately, you don't get a free flow of people in Singapore. I suppose you get the benefits of 'stability,' no clashes between bitter locals and disgruntled forigners. However, Singapore's obsession with 'stability' has killed the ability of its local borns to think beyond its own square borders and people who don't fit into the square borders are resented. Look at the way Singaporeans resent the 'illegal' curry puff sellers from Batam - These guys are obviously not a threat to the social system but you wouldn't realise that reading some of the letters to the media - "How dare these uneducated people find a way to make a living....they didn't go to school like us...they're supposed to starve and die..."
Can local Singaporeans be world class atheletes, musicians, artist etc? Why haven't we developed the talent.....Well to be fair, these vocations were never seen as valuable until recently. They were more for airy fairy liberals from private property land. It's only recently where the government has decided that such people had value in society. Before the 1990s, you could only succeed in these vocations if you went overseas. Fandhi Ahmad, often hailed as a 'millionaire soccer player,' was only such because he played in Holland. Other than that, no self-respecting parent would allow their kids to pursue such 'passions' - "Ai Yeo, you want to play football like Malay Boy ah," (I can imagine your typical middle class Chinese mother making these remarks).
So, we got to import the talent from elsewhere, while we try to develop it domestically. Unfortunately, developing talent takes patience and persistence - not exactly virtues in a civil service mashinary. So, its easier to buy it. You need table tennis players - go to China. You need people who can write code for the finance industry - go to India. You want beggars with no money but can tell stories - go to the USA or Australia (I think they're a bit cheaper).
To a certain extent, this works brilliantly. Look at our table tennis stars - thanks to them, we got our medal. But are we going all out to get forign talent without sharing things with the local population. You talk to enough Singaporeans, and you'll find that plenty of them suspect that, if they don't work for the government, will naturally be subordinate to some White Man (easy to swallow) or these days, an Indian or Chinese (nearly impossible to swallow).
Sure, some of our 'forign talents' may actually have talent. But if you look at the way the Singapore government goes out to woo forign talent - you'll understand why a locally born Singaporean who has served national service is getting the message - "Me Clever, You Stupid, You better sacrifice for me clever people." May not be true but this is the impression given. Given the disregard that Singaporeans have for people with spines....they're quite delighted to shrink into a corner and beg for more punishment.
Compare that to Hong Kong. There are plenty of expatriate workers but I don't get the sense that they're resented the way they are in Singapore. I suspect, its because the locals have a better understanding of why the 'foreign talents' are necessary. I also suspect that its easier for local business people to hire talent and integrate them into the culture than it is for a government. Li Ka Shing hires people from different races out of his own pocket - it's assumed he really takes care that they're good and have something the locals don't have. By contrast, when Lee Kuan Yew hires, it's assumed he's doing it at the tax payers expense - does he really care if he gets it right or does he want people he can control more easily? Clearly, this is something that Singapore's Mr Lee needs to explain to the public.
Here in tinny little Singapore, we're just happy that our women's table tennis team managed to take home the silver medal. Despite all its achievements, Singapore has been rather lacking on the sporting field and I guess its wonderful that after 48-years of being without a medal, we finally have a medal on the world's most important sporting stage. Sure, history tends to remember only the winners, but for our tinny nation, being able to say we came second in the world at something is pretty pleasing.
You'd imagine that Singaporeans would be overjoyed at winning something on a stage where we've been rather lacklusture. You would imagine that the medal winning team would be greeted with the same fashion that the 1998 World Cup Winning French Soccer Team or the 2007 Iraqi Asian Cup winning team was.
But that's not been the case. Just read through the internet forums - instead of finding postings cheering on the efforts of the medal winning team, you'll find the grumbles about how we bought the China B team instead of the China A team. It makes one wonder if Singaporeans are just a grumpy lot who just need to find something to grumble about - even when we're doing something good?
I'm inclined to see things that way. Seriously, who cares if the team members were born in Mainland China rather than Singapore? So what if they prefer to speak Mandarin instead of English - they're no different from a good 70 plus percent of the Singapore population. Can't we just concentrate on the fact that we finally won something on the world stage? They may have been born in Mainland China but it was our flag that got raised in front of the world's media and for once this had nothing to do with a visiting politician.
But to dismiss the grumblings about the team as merely the rantings of ungreatful brats would be wrong too. I'm inclined to think that the lack of joy at winning a medal after 48-years is a sign that there a gulf of communication between the governed and the governing classes. You can almost sense the frustration of the Prime Minister of this gulf in communication between the classes in his National Day Rally speech. The government, through the media, reels of a range of statistics to show how much its done for the citizens and how good life is for the citizens. In return the citizens go to the internet and grumble about the unfairness of life in Singapore.
I think the reality is somewhere in between. Life is exceedingly good and comfortable in Singapore but the system is highly unfair against individual Singaporeans. You can do pretty much what you want here but if you even disagree with the apparatus of power, you get crushed. When some people earn higher salaries its called attracting talent but when others (namely the poor) get higher wages, it's a potential to stroke inflation which harms the poor. On the other hand, the government is not mean in all its actions. When the economy is doing well, we get money as part of the budget surplus - a case of sharing in the good times. When the economy is doing badly, we get money that is meant to help us out. Government subsidies do exist but not to the extent of disincentivising work.
No where is this dichotomy clearer than in the issue of foreign talent. Singapore needs forigners but it also loaths them. Just look at the table tennis team. Local Singaporeans don't have certain skills to take the jobs being produced by its economy just as we don't have atheletic talent to compete on the world stage. So what do we do .... we import the talent from the rest of the world. It's not a bad idea - every Singaporean was a forigner at one time or another. Not only do 'forign talents' bring in skills and capital but even poor and uneducated forigners provide an energy, a hunger that the local population lacks. Look at Hong Kong, the city ticks over because you get a free flow of educated professionals with capital but you also get plenty of hungry people from the Mainland to keep the local population on its toes.
Unfortunately, you don't get a free flow of people in Singapore. I suppose you get the benefits of 'stability,' no clashes between bitter locals and disgruntled forigners. However, Singapore's obsession with 'stability' has killed the ability of its local borns to think beyond its own square borders and people who don't fit into the square borders are resented. Look at the way Singaporeans resent the 'illegal' curry puff sellers from Batam - These guys are obviously not a threat to the social system but you wouldn't realise that reading some of the letters to the media - "How dare these uneducated people find a way to make a living....they didn't go to school like us...they're supposed to starve and die..."
Can local Singaporeans be world class atheletes, musicians, artist etc? Why haven't we developed the talent.....Well to be fair, these vocations were never seen as valuable until recently. They were more for airy fairy liberals from private property land. It's only recently where the government has decided that such people had value in society. Before the 1990s, you could only succeed in these vocations if you went overseas. Fandhi Ahmad, often hailed as a 'millionaire soccer player,' was only such because he played in Holland. Other than that, no self-respecting parent would allow their kids to pursue such 'passions' - "Ai Yeo, you want to play football like Malay Boy ah," (I can imagine your typical middle class Chinese mother making these remarks).
So, we got to import the talent from elsewhere, while we try to develop it domestically. Unfortunately, developing talent takes patience and persistence - not exactly virtues in a civil service mashinary. So, its easier to buy it. You need table tennis players - go to China. You need people who can write code for the finance industry - go to India. You want beggars with no money but can tell stories - go to the USA or Australia (I think they're a bit cheaper).
To a certain extent, this works brilliantly. Look at our table tennis stars - thanks to them, we got our medal. But are we going all out to get forign talent without sharing things with the local population. You talk to enough Singaporeans, and you'll find that plenty of them suspect that, if they don't work for the government, will naturally be subordinate to some White Man (easy to swallow) or these days, an Indian or Chinese (nearly impossible to swallow).
Sure, some of our 'forign talents' may actually have talent. But if you look at the way the Singapore government goes out to woo forign talent - you'll understand why a locally born Singaporean who has served national service is getting the message - "Me Clever, You Stupid, You better sacrifice for me clever people." May not be true but this is the impression given. Given the disregard that Singaporeans have for people with spines....they're quite delighted to shrink into a corner and beg for more punishment.
Compare that to Hong Kong. There are plenty of expatriate workers but I don't get the sense that they're resented the way they are in Singapore. I suspect, its because the locals have a better understanding of why the 'foreign talents' are necessary. I also suspect that its easier for local business people to hire talent and integrate them into the culture than it is for a government. Li Ka Shing hires people from different races out of his own pocket - it's assumed he really takes care that they're good and have something the locals don't have. By contrast, when Lee Kuan Yew hires, it's assumed he's doing it at the tax payers expense - does he really care if he gets it right or does he want people he can control more easily? Clearly, this is something that Singapore's Mr Lee needs to explain to the public.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Celestial Places
I'm a bad sport with no sense of festive joy. I really dread huge gatherings of relatives and for me, the most important part of a celebration is the sending out of greetings to the people who have touched my life and then I can't wait to get back to work. You could call it one of the major consequences of being self-employed, when every second spent away from being productive could cost you, your next meal. Although my sister leaked it to me that my mother is distressed by my lack of enthusiasm for festive occasions. I go through the rituals, I enjoy the food but the rest of it is distracting me from the life I need to live.
So, I guess it should be no surprise that I was a party pooper on National Day. In stead of embracing a day of National Unity with pride and joy, I chose to play the role of a critic. Perhaps my shots at the inability of Singaporeans to understand right from wrong without the heavy hand of government leglislation was a cheap shot at my fellow countrymen. If it is, I stand by everything I've said. Just as Christmas has become season for retailers of tacky cosmetics, National Day has become a season of thoughtless chest beating and endless inflation of the National Ego.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's allot of celebrate about being a Singaporean, just as I believe that the birth of Christ is worth celebrating. Singapore, for all that I've said, has much to be proud of. My belief that Singapore stands out as what a city should be continues to hold - we are rich, clean and green and this is particularly true when you think that Singapore is in a region that is by and large chaotic, lawless and poor.
But let's not get overboard with the chest thumping. Yes, there's much to be proud of but let's not bring it to the state where we become like ostraiches with our necks stuck into the ground. A few 'responsible' journalist have made it a point in telling us that states like Russia and China are studying the Singapore model with great interest because - We're economically RICH but politically AUTHORITARIAN. If you read through the thoughtfullness of these arguments, you'd get the impression that Singapore is successful because its political system is authoritarian. To enforce this view, the 'responsible' media have gone onto point out that corruption has been on the rise in Thailand, Phillipines and Taiwan ever since they cast of their authoritarian yokes and had 'free' political systems with a press that actually challenges authority or at least does not report things 'responsibly.'
Unfortunately, this 'thoughtfullness' shows how little understanding the so called 'fans of the PAP,' have of the PAP. The fact that the man who deserves credit for setting up the success of the Singapore system seems to espouse this line, is even more tragic. It shows that despite all his achievements, he's reached the stage where he's living in a cloud of his own making.
The PAP and Singapore did not suceed because it was 'authoritarian' in its approach. It succeeded because it delivered a better life for the people and in many of the important arguments, PAP governments have proved to be on the correct side. It was right to welcome multi-nationals into Singapore when the spirit of the times in post-colonial times was to boot them out. It's right to allow your red light district to survive under light regulation. Singapore has plenty of economic and social statistics to show off.
Yes, Lee Kuan Yew did 'ram' through policies without too much of a fight. However, his ability to swot away critics has nothing to do with his success. It had everything to do with his ability to think and to accept the intelligence and thoughtfullness of a core of highly competent people like Goh Keng Swee, a man who's role in making Singapore what it is today seriously needs to be promoted. Contrary to what modern mythology would have you know, Lee did not say 'Folks, I'm going to tell you what to do." The magic of his leadership came from his ability to set certain goals and let men like Goh Keng Swee, S.Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye and Gang get on with it. I realised this at S.Rajaratnam's funeral, when Lee Kuan Yew mentioned that there would be furious arguments in the cabinate - "Wow! You mean people did argue with Lee Kuan Yew. He actually allowed people to tell him that God did not report to him?" Well apparently he did.
So, where the hell did we get the idea that God reported to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore thrived because of it? I suspect the culprit is Confusious and his idea that the central authority knew it all. Lots of people hold the old fart up as an example of good Chinese values. I think of him as the man who took away China's place as the world's largest economy. Had the Chinese military commanders listened to Sun Tzu instead, they would have had the sense to see that the Chinese military was no match for the Western powers and done something about it, regardless of what the central authority said. Instead, Confuciuos rulled the day and Central Authority said tell the guys with guns to bugger off.
I think something similar to what happened in Ancient China is happening in Singapore. Everybody seems convinced that the ONLY wisdom and knowledge comes from a firm central government. Nobody wants to look bad in front of the boss because that's the only way up. You get a culture where we're so busy blamming someone else or trying to cover up the flaws and look good infront of the VIP, nobody spends time solving the problem at hand - 'It wasn't me."
How did a 'highly secure' detention centre not have a window grill? Didn't anyone notice in 14-years and say, "this has got to be fixed." Apparently not, people were too busy fighting for their high-tech oooppps high spending budgets.
Look at the charity scene. Within two years of the nation's largest charity being exposed as a money making scam, a Buddhist monk is found to have been exceedingly successful at fund raising. Did anybody bother to check on these characters? Didn't anybody question why charitable organisations needed palaces for their CEOs. What has been the answer to all of this - Get more leglislation, its not like there isn't allot of it to begin with.
Then there's the ability of the GIC and Temasek Holdings to play roulette with tax payer funds - ooppps I mean government surpluses - with banks that have had to write down enough bad debt to drown the nation. What has been the response to all of this? The public remains silent and the government insist that it's investing long term.....but the government can't do anything to two private compaines wholly owned by the government and staffed by former civil servants and besides you'd ruin the strategic advantage of GIC and Temasek if you knew what they were doing with your money. Funny how nobody seems to have told Warren Buffet that he'd be far more successful if he scapped his public AGMs.
Authoritarian states can only succeed if you have the celestial emporor at the top. Perhaps this is why Kim il Jong decided to make his dead dad "President for All Eternity." Unfortunately, even in North Korea, the celestial emporor has a way of getting incapacitated and dropping dead. When that happens, the people are lost and unable to fend for themselves.
You can't assume that honesty in people with extreme power will always be the case. You got to question once in a while - it's the responsible thing to do particularly when you're paying for it. Do you expect the shop keeper to call you irresponsible when you remind them they didn't give you enough change?
So, I guess it should be no surprise that I was a party pooper on National Day. In stead of embracing a day of National Unity with pride and joy, I chose to play the role of a critic. Perhaps my shots at the inability of Singaporeans to understand right from wrong without the heavy hand of government leglislation was a cheap shot at my fellow countrymen. If it is, I stand by everything I've said. Just as Christmas has become season for retailers of tacky cosmetics, National Day has become a season of thoughtless chest beating and endless inflation of the National Ego.
Don't get me wrong, I think there's allot of celebrate about being a Singaporean, just as I believe that the birth of Christ is worth celebrating. Singapore, for all that I've said, has much to be proud of. My belief that Singapore stands out as what a city should be continues to hold - we are rich, clean and green and this is particularly true when you think that Singapore is in a region that is by and large chaotic, lawless and poor.
But let's not get overboard with the chest thumping. Yes, there's much to be proud of but let's not bring it to the state where we become like ostraiches with our necks stuck into the ground. A few 'responsible' journalist have made it a point in telling us that states like Russia and China are studying the Singapore model with great interest because - We're economically RICH but politically AUTHORITARIAN. If you read through the thoughtfullness of these arguments, you'd get the impression that Singapore is successful because its political system is authoritarian. To enforce this view, the 'responsible' media have gone onto point out that corruption has been on the rise in Thailand, Phillipines and Taiwan ever since they cast of their authoritarian yokes and had 'free' political systems with a press that actually challenges authority or at least does not report things 'responsibly.'
Unfortunately, this 'thoughtfullness' shows how little understanding the so called 'fans of the PAP,' have of the PAP. The fact that the man who deserves credit for setting up the success of the Singapore system seems to espouse this line, is even more tragic. It shows that despite all his achievements, he's reached the stage where he's living in a cloud of his own making.
The PAP and Singapore did not suceed because it was 'authoritarian' in its approach. It succeeded because it delivered a better life for the people and in many of the important arguments, PAP governments have proved to be on the correct side. It was right to welcome multi-nationals into Singapore when the spirit of the times in post-colonial times was to boot them out. It's right to allow your red light district to survive under light regulation. Singapore has plenty of economic and social statistics to show off.
Yes, Lee Kuan Yew did 'ram' through policies without too much of a fight. However, his ability to swot away critics has nothing to do with his success. It had everything to do with his ability to think and to accept the intelligence and thoughtfullness of a core of highly competent people like Goh Keng Swee, a man who's role in making Singapore what it is today seriously needs to be promoted. Contrary to what modern mythology would have you know, Lee did not say 'Folks, I'm going to tell you what to do." The magic of his leadership came from his ability to set certain goals and let men like Goh Keng Swee, S.Rajaratnam, Toh Chin Chye and Gang get on with it. I realised this at S.Rajaratnam's funeral, when Lee Kuan Yew mentioned that there would be furious arguments in the cabinate - "Wow! You mean people did argue with Lee Kuan Yew. He actually allowed people to tell him that God did not report to him?" Well apparently he did.
So, where the hell did we get the idea that God reported to Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore thrived because of it? I suspect the culprit is Confusious and his idea that the central authority knew it all. Lots of people hold the old fart up as an example of good Chinese values. I think of him as the man who took away China's place as the world's largest economy. Had the Chinese military commanders listened to Sun Tzu instead, they would have had the sense to see that the Chinese military was no match for the Western powers and done something about it, regardless of what the central authority said. Instead, Confuciuos rulled the day and Central Authority said tell the guys with guns to bugger off.
I think something similar to what happened in Ancient China is happening in Singapore. Everybody seems convinced that the ONLY wisdom and knowledge comes from a firm central government. Nobody wants to look bad in front of the boss because that's the only way up. You get a culture where we're so busy blamming someone else or trying to cover up the flaws and look good infront of the VIP, nobody spends time solving the problem at hand - 'It wasn't me."
How did a 'highly secure' detention centre not have a window grill? Didn't anyone notice in 14-years and say, "this has got to be fixed." Apparently not, people were too busy fighting for their high-tech oooppps high spending budgets.
Look at the charity scene. Within two years of the nation's largest charity being exposed as a money making scam, a Buddhist monk is found to have been exceedingly successful at fund raising. Did anybody bother to check on these characters? Didn't anybody question why charitable organisations needed palaces for their CEOs. What has been the answer to all of this - Get more leglislation, its not like there isn't allot of it to begin with.
Then there's the ability of the GIC and Temasek Holdings to play roulette with tax payer funds - ooppps I mean government surpluses - with banks that have had to write down enough bad debt to drown the nation. What has been the response to all of this? The public remains silent and the government insist that it's investing long term.....but the government can't do anything to two private compaines wholly owned by the government and staffed by former civil servants and besides you'd ruin the strategic advantage of GIC and Temasek if you knew what they were doing with your money. Funny how nobody seems to have told Warren Buffet that he'd be far more successful if he scapped his public AGMs.
Authoritarian states can only succeed if you have the celestial emporor at the top. Perhaps this is why Kim il Jong decided to make his dead dad "President for All Eternity." Unfortunately, even in North Korea, the celestial emporor has a way of getting incapacitated and dropping dead. When that happens, the people are lost and unable to fend for themselves.
You can't assume that honesty in people with extreme power will always be the case. You got to question once in a while - it's the responsible thing to do particularly when you're paying for it. Do you expect the shop keeper to call you irresponsible when you remind them they didn't give you enough change?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Ranting
Just came back from a darn good evening at the Raffles with Joe, Luke and Hadi. It was an evening filled with decent company and nice food at Doc Cheng's in the Raffles Hotel. Didn't drink but each of us had a 5-course meal, which was very nice in its own peculiar way. The evening's festivities were a curtesy from Jean-Phillipe, the F&B Manager of the Raffles Hotel - got this in return for helping him get an interview on 938 Live.
I've been doing quite a bit of pro-bono or non-cash related work in the last few months. It's been interesting. On one hand it does not seem logical for a cash-strapped person to get involved in non-cash work. But I think its been exceedingly enjoyable to use what little that I have to offer to add value to people's lives. I read somewhere that the universe has a way of keeping score for people and you get what you give. Tonight was one of those moments. This was an ad-hoc project and although I didn't get cash, I managed to get something valuable from it, which is something money can't always buy.
More importantly, creating value for other people is healthy for the brain. I've been through the spells of unemployment and I can speak from experience when I say that the worst thing about being unemployed is the boredome. It gets pretty gaulling when you sit there day after day hopping for something to happen. I think I have Vincent to thank for encouraging me to go self-employed - I was unemployed and was searching for a job - which was something quite hard to do back in 2001, when Singapore's economy was somewhere in the toilet. He suggested that rather than spend scarce resources looking to work for someone else, I should just go direct to the client and get the money in my own pocket.
Now, 7-years later, I'm still mooching along in some silly sort of way. I think I'm probably no good at employment but it does not mean that I can't create ways to make myself useful. OK, I'm not much good at doing charity work but there are other ways of trying to be a useful digit in society.
Of course, in Singapore, we have National Service. I've been accused of being something of a critic of the Singapore system in recent months, but I think I draw the line when it comes to doing National Service. Say what you like about this institution, but I think its probably the most educational in the life of a Singaporean male. Yes, it does put as at a disadvantage when it comes to initial phases of entering the job market, but I also think it helps us to understand the world as we live in it.
Like most Singaporean men, I bitch and moan about the institution at every available opportunity. However, I'm greatful for the experience of National Service. It helped me to discover some of the best people I've meet. It helped me discover myself. I'm greatful that National Service helped me realise that the Singapore of my folks (Artsy, well-to-do media people) was in many ways a mirrage - the real Singapore remains a rather rough but decent place.
I've been accused of being arrogant about high-society, particularly in Singapore. But then again, it was National Service, that made me realise that many of the people living in high-society are pretty awful people. Anyone who has been through National Service realises that it's your fellow 'educated' people who will sell you at for their own glory. The guys with less education will help you out when things get rough - as they often do during National Service. I think it was this realisation that made me realise that the major difference between the activities in Geylang and a high-society event is price and packaging. Of course, packaging is very nice and I love feeling the glitz and glamour but at the end of the day, human emotion with all its faults remains the same.
I've been doing quite a bit of pro-bono or non-cash related work in the last few months. It's been interesting. On one hand it does not seem logical for a cash-strapped person to get involved in non-cash work. But I think its been exceedingly enjoyable to use what little that I have to offer to add value to people's lives. I read somewhere that the universe has a way of keeping score for people and you get what you give. Tonight was one of those moments. This was an ad-hoc project and although I didn't get cash, I managed to get something valuable from it, which is something money can't always buy.
More importantly, creating value for other people is healthy for the brain. I've been through the spells of unemployment and I can speak from experience when I say that the worst thing about being unemployed is the boredome. It gets pretty gaulling when you sit there day after day hopping for something to happen. I think I have Vincent to thank for encouraging me to go self-employed - I was unemployed and was searching for a job - which was something quite hard to do back in 2001, when Singapore's economy was somewhere in the toilet. He suggested that rather than spend scarce resources looking to work for someone else, I should just go direct to the client and get the money in my own pocket.
Now, 7-years later, I'm still mooching along in some silly sort of way. I think I'm probably no good at employment but it does not mean that I can't create ways to make myself useful. OK, I'm not much good at doing charity work but there are other ways of trying to be a useful digit in society.
Of course, in Singapore, we have National Service. I've been accused of being something of a critic of the Singapore system in recent months, but I think I draw the line when it comes to doing National Service. Say what you like about this institution, but I think its probably the most educational in the life of a Singaporean male. Yes, it does put as at a disadvantage when it comes to initial phases of entering the job market, but I also think it helps us to understand the world as we live in it.
Like most Singaporean men, I bitch and moan about the institution at every available opportunity. However, I'm greatful for the experience of National Service. It helped me to discover some of the best people I've meet. It helped me discover myself. I'm greatful that National Service helped me realise that the Singapore of my folks (Artsy, well-to-do media people) was in many ways a mirrage - the real Singapore remains a rather rough but decent place.
I've been accused of being arrogant about high-society, particularly in Singapore. But then again, it was National Service, that made me realise that many of the people living in high-society are pretty awful people. Anyone who has been through National Service realises that it's your fellow 'educated' people who will sell you at for their own glory. The guys with less education will help you out when things get rough - as they often do during National Service. I think it was this realisation that made me realise that the major difference between the activities in Geylang and a high-society event is price and packaging. Of course, packaging is very nice and I love feeling the glitz and glamour but at the end of the day, human emotion with all its faults remains the same.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Values
National Day has come and gone and for once, in seven years, I managed to get away without catching a glimpse of the parade. I've seen more than my fair share of parades and after a while, you get the idea of what's going to happen. Allot of work goes into the parade and I feel bad not appreciating the work that gets put into the parade, but I think it would be nice if there were a few fresh ideas about expressing the joy of being an independent nation.
My ex-boss once said that her husband does not give her a Valentines Day gift because he believes that everyday is Valentines Day with his wife. If you think about it, he's right. Why should we only express our feelings on just a single day? It should be everyday. I think this principle should applied to National Day. Why do we need this annual event to remind us to be proud to be Singaporean? Surely, we should have some reason to feel pride in our nation for 365 days a year.
Am just being sour? Am I just grouchy that I avoided going into town because I knew the roads would be jammed? Perhaps I am, but I think our emphasis on nation building and values needs to be internalised and not just expressed once a year because we happen to throw a huge party. It seems that we just go back to being grouchy about things like the rising cost of living, lower wages and so on, while the Ministers get grouchy because we're grumbling that they're not doing what they're telling us to do - note, giving a Minister a pay raise of several hundred thousand a year is necessary to attract talent and is beneficial to the economy but giving a street sweeper a a couple of hundred a year more could stroke inflation.
Seriously, we need to look beyond quick stop-gap measures. As far as I can see, the real values of the nation are - "Screw those who've been screwed and allow those who can screw you to screw you good and hard." If you don't believe me, just take a ride down the MRT and you'll be treated to the sight of old people having to stand in the corner, while the fit and healthy 20-year olds pretend to sleep. Or look at the amount of letters complaining that the government is not doing enough to protect national security whenever someone tries to make 20cents by selling a curry puff without a government license. Of course, when a drunken American sailors assult people, we stand idilly by while the American Ambassador speaks some gobledygook about who Americans respect Singapore.
Of course, anyone who points out the inconsistency to all of this gets labbled a Western Liberal with an agenda to do Singapore in. I'm not sure how getting upset that the American navy gets a free rein to hit our citizens makes us Western Liberals but there you have it, Singapore has its own unique brand of values, which some how became known as Asian Values. You can tell that these values are so well entrenched, when you actually need government leglislation to enforce these values. My Young Politician often reminds me that keeping 377A upholds the values of the majority. I'm not sure how it's actually done it but there you have it, we are a society that needs to leglislate to believe.
I suppose the Young Politician is right. If we removed 377A, all the 'Moral' people would turn gay. If you look at the attitude of Singaporeans towards litter, it's very telling. Singapore is thankfully spotless, but the moment you cross the causeway, you'll find yourself assaulted by a flying plastic bag - a souvenier of a Singaporean discovering the pleasures of littering other people's country.
But there you have it, we are a conservative society that requires leglislation to make us good. If you had no laws against littering, Singaporeans would empty their trash onto the streets. If you didn't have 377A, you'd have everyone buggering each other - and finally, if we did not get ourselves into National Day, Singaporeans would probably run away from the country the moment there's any sign of trouble. National Day serves the purpose of telling people to be patriotic and I should simply understand that people need to be told what to feel. - How sad!
My ex-boss once said that her husband does not give her a Valentines Day gift because he believes that everyday is Valentines Day with his wife. If you think about it, he's right. Why should we only express our feelings on just a single day? It should be everyday. I think this principle should applied to National Day. Why do we need this annual event to remind us to be proud to be Singaporean? Surely, we should have some reason to feel pride in our nation for 365 days a year.
Am just being sour? Am I just grouchy that I avoided going into town because I knew the roads would be jammed? Perhaps I am, but I think our emphasis on nation building and values needs to be internalised and not just expressed once a year because we happen to throw a huge party. It seems that we just go back to being grouchy about things like the rising cost of living, lower wages and so on, while the Ministers get grouchy because we're grumbling that they're not doing what they're telling us to do - note, giving a Minister a pay raise of several hundred thousand a year is necessary to attract talent and is beneficial to the economy but giving a street sweeper a a couple of hundred a year more could stroke inflation.
Seriously, we need to look beyond quick stop-gap measures. As far as I can see, the real values of the nation are - "Screw those who've been screwed and allow those who can screw you to screw you good and hard." If you don't believe me, just take a ride down the MRT and you'll be treated to the sight of old people having to stand in the corner, while the fit and healthy 20-year olds pretend to sleep. Or look at the amount of letters complaining that the government is not doing enough to protect national security whenever someone tries to make 20cents by selling a curry puff without a government license. Of course, when a drunken American sailors assult people, we stand idilly by while the American Ambassador speaks some gobledygook about who Americans respect Singapore.
Of course, anyone who points out the inconsistency to all of this gets labbled a Western Liberal with an agenda to do Singapore in. I'm not sure how getting upset that the American navy gets a free rein to hit our citizens makes us Western Liberals but there you have it, Singapore has its own unique brand of values, which some how became known as Asian Values. You can tell that these values are so well entrenched, when you actually need government leglislation to enforce these values. My Young Politician often reminds me that keeping 377A upholds the values of the majority. I'm not sure how it's actually done it but there you have it, we are a society that needs to leglislate to believe.
I suppose the Young Politician is right. If we removed 377A, all the 'Moral' people would turn gay. If you look at the attitude of Singaporeans towards litter, it's very telling. Singapore is thankfully spotless, but the moment you cross the causeway, you'll find yourself assaulted by a flying plastic bag - a souvenier of a Singaporean discovering the pleasures of littering other people's country.
But there you have it, we are a conservative society that requires leglislation to make us good. If you had no laws against littering, Singaporeans would empty their trash onto the streets. If you didn't have 377A, you'd have everyone buggering each other - and finally, if we did not get ourselves into National Day, Singaporeans would probably run away from the country the moment there's any sign of trouble. National Day serves the purpose of telling people to be patriotic and I should simply understand that people need to be told what to feel. - How sad!
Friday, August 08, 2008
Fleeting Moments.
It's been a fairly good week on the job front. Managed to get two writing jobs, which should add another grand to the war chest and am now waiting to collect from last weeks job. Also looks like I've managed to revive some of my bigger jobs - namely GE Commercial Finance.
Must have been really restless. Decided to type names on the friend finder section of Facebook and who did I choose to type but Carra Teo's name. Actually got to see her name and more importantly her picture. She's just as beautiful as I remember her to be. Older, quite a bit older but like good wine, this is a woman who gets better with age. I think this is the only woman in my life whom I considered it a fantasy to be married and loyal too - and you're talking to a guy who thinks that men have an obligation to not remain the exclusive property of anybody.
But I guess that was a long time ago. I was an up and coming Citibank intern who had big dreams of being somebody in the career ladder space. Instead, I'm slowly but surely degenerating into huslter bohemian land and the only girls I ever seem to want to meet are ultimately bad for me. I think there's something glamorous about being one of those seedy artistic types that smokes and drinks too much and is struggling to make ends meet while there's a rough girl or two in the background to add spice to life.
I'm at an interesting stage in life where I really don't want permenancy, particularly in relationships with the oppostite sex. Seriously, what can a monogomous relationship offer you other than suffocation? I mean, in the job market, people who got used to working to one organisation for life have been on the 'kicked' end of the rough boot. So what makes you think that being with 'one' person for the rest of your life is any healthier in today's world. I could never understand the desire for exclusivity in anything.
I remember sending a married lady a slightly romantic sms. She was offended, and suspected I had intentions of taking her away from her husband. Heck, she was wrong - I was only interested in many nights of passionate sex. I was even willing to take the heart break of being in love but I was no means interested in marriage. I was actually quite insulted by the suggestion that I wanted her to leave her husband for me....I wanted the pain of a passionate love affair and hot steamy sex but why the hell would any man in his right mind want obligations that bore.
Carra was and til this day remains the one woman in my life who could make me feel the want to settle down into the mediocrity of marriage. Two-years of marriage to Gina proved that I was right - exclusivity is for people who are not good enough to take competition. I guess there have been a few. I enjoyed being somewhat able to do 'romantic' things for Angela, a girl from China who in her efforts to dress down still looked better than an army of tarted up Singapore girls. But when she said she wasn't interested - well, it was a little insulting to the ego but I'm fine. With Han Li, the best thing was and remains Thui.........
I don't know what it was about Carra. I guess being 24 rather than 34 for helped. Youth is wonderful for idealism but what else is there. I've been sending her birthday wishes for the last eight years. She never replies, but that's OK. It's important that I remember her on her birthday...I probably will til the day I drop dead. I think, other than looking at her picture on facebook, why dig up the useless desires she inspired in me? It was good when it was there but it's not any more.
Monday, August 04, 2008
For the want of something intelligent to say
It's a Monday and I'm running on some nervous energy. Didn't get much sleep last night and so I ended up spending the wee hours of the morning writing story pitches for a few people and touching base with a few people. Decided to make a gift of Arup Gupta's CNBC clip to a few people. Unfortunately Enterprise Ireland, which was a prospect I was hoping to hook won't be engaging external consultants but the Irish Embassador was very enthusiastic about ways in which Ireland's interest could have been promoted.
Life in general is at an interesting stage. Am a little short of cash until I collect the main cheque but am in somewhat optimistic spirits. Have been busy trying to put people together and seeing if I can create a few synergies. I think, sometimes when there's nothing better to do, you just got to find a way of creating value - you'll get your reward soon enough. Life's a little funny like that.
Gerard Lim, former General Manager of Leo Burnetts says that he believes in Karma. When you're a junior executive, you find hard to understand, since everything is about trying to take care of yourself. But I think as you get older, you realise that the world is not all about you and sometimes you simply need to let go in order to gain something.
I'm helping out a lawyer called Mark. Like me, he's a one-man show in a profession where the norm is to join a prestigious firm. Somehow he's managed to hold his own against much larger opponents. Although lawyers and PR people are not supposed to get along, we're getting along fairly well. I think it has something to do with the fact that I like his philosophy in life, which is to give back through your work. He does allot of pro-bono work. I've been doing things for people at give-away rates and barter. Sometimes I've taken to doing things for a free-lunch.
But the main point, is I'm actually using my brain allot more and that's good. The worst thing is when you start to stagnate, all in the name of trying to make a buck. One of the things I've noticed is that allot of the doctors I've been working with have made it a point to retain their links with the government hospitals. As my mother puts it - if they didn't, they'd die of bordome in private practice - for ophthalmologist that usually means neurotic people worried they're picked on because they wear specs (specs are not that uncommon in Singapore), for gynacologist, it probably means even more neurautic women worried that their breast are too small or too big (As Thomas often points out - gynacology can put you off sex).
For me, I'm not sure if I've become a better or worse writer since I left the agency game and started on my own. I find press releases to be a drag - I sometimes pitty the editors who have to read the drivel that the PR side often thinks is news. Everyone has "The First-Ever," or "Only in." What do these phrases actually mean? In case you're wondering if I'm casting stones at the PR profession, you're probably right. I've looked through the last string of press releases I've writen and I find myself writing according to a formula - gibberish!
Of course, I live in Singapore and so I can have a bit of fun blamming my clients (Guys, I hope you're reading - censure me if you will - but I'm trying to get us to a higher level). Sure, its nice to see yourself in print or on TV, but the world is larger than that. You should want to engage hostile interviewers. You should welcome a combatative interviewer - only then can you show the world the beauty of your message. You should not be afraid to engage your public when they call back during radio interviews, or respond to you in forums. It's called public relations for a good reason - in relationships, both parties talk and listen.
One of the guys I've really started to admire in recent months is my former intern from BANG PR. Glenn worked at BANG and then at CommsDNA for nearly 3-years. Sweated blood, I think. But when he left and started 20Twenty PR, he actually started doing PR as it should be. Yes, he provides clients with the traditional media relations work, but he's also been very daring and successful in getting them to use new media - instruments like You Tube and Facebook.
I remember saying to PN Balji that I think one of the most crucial things that PR people forget is the fact that they are consumers of the media too. Too often, we feel that we've done our job when the client is quoted in the press or comes out on TV. Sure, the client's ego is often satisfied and its nice to recieve recognition for our work. I know I often allow my ego to be satisfied - satisfied customer equals hefty cheque, praise and probably a good word for you to potential clients - what more could one ask for.
But imagine if PR practitioners got curious about the people reading the news or watching the broadcast? We would actually start creating some real value for our clients. Wouldn't it be good if you could actually tell the client - 'bro if you say it this way, you'll put people off the product or turn them onto the prodcut' At BANG PR, the motto was 'Stories that are READ not PUBLISHED.' Shouldn't we take it further - 'Stories that create a reaction.'
Of course, it's hard to measure a reaction in the way you measure sales. But PR is often about dealing with the intangible and surely these moments should be recorded too. As a profession, we need to get ourselves to a state where we go beyond ourselves as professionals and see ourselves as people who recieve messages. It would be a bold leap of faith but one worth making.
Friday, August 01, 2008
What's Wrong with Being Privilleged?
July has come and gone and I'm starting August in a pretty optimistic mood. Managed to complete a rather successful project with Polaris, with the prospect of more to come and GE Commercial Finance look like they're coming back online. The money from the Polaris job will not only replenish the savings account but also add to it and God-knows, I do need those surplus funds in the bank account. Unlike the US government, I can't sell bonds in myself can I? Of course, if anyone reading this blog wanted to buy bonds in me, I wouldn't object - I would borrow your money to buy things from you so that you could lend me more money.
OK, enough of that. It's fun to make fun of Americans but one shouldn't be too harsh about them. After all, much of the prosperity that the modern world faces was made by America and the generous spirit of the American people. As distasteful as I find the Fags in the Bush Administration, I think you have to hand it to American people and American culture for encouraging a 'Go-Getting' spirit in people. Racism may exist in America but by and large, Americans applaud people who come in as migrants and somehow find a way to climb up and make something better for themselves. As long as the Bush Administration does not kill this spirit, I think the future of the USA will remain great.
Look at the difference with Singapore. Over here, bitching about people who become successful is quite a hobby. It's especially noisy when the characters who become successful have less advantages than we do. My young politician would probably site this as an example of how we've become successful but I think Singapore has succeeded inspite of this mentality - or perhaps we've become more like this with age and ironically success.
Philip Yeo, current Chairman of SPRING Singapore, the government body responsible for promoting SMEs and entrepreneurship (Yes, we actually have a government body to teach entrepreneurship), recently made some remarks that if all things are equal, he'll prefer to give scholarships to those from poor backgrounds, because he feels they're more hungry. Suddenly you had lots of people from the well to do and middle class writing in to complain that Mr Yeo was biased in favor of the poor.
I'm no fan of Philip Yeo. The man has an ego the size of a cliff. But in this case, Philip is right. If you have to be biased in dishing out help, you should be biased in favour of the poor. Its like this. A poor boy with a schoolarship will have the chance to go on and succeed and pull himself and his family out of poverty. A boy from a middle class family will see the schoolarship as a means of enhancing his personal family prestiege. Now, tell me, which is more valuable to society? This being Singapore, the answer is will funnily enough, be the later. Instead of thinking, if the other guy has the chance to earn as much as me, I'll have more money by dealing with him, the Singapore mentality is - eeekkkks, there will be less for me.
If you don't believe me, try and remember the Commonwealth Games in Manchester some 5-years ago. Singapore had an incredible running, winning more gold medals than it had in its rather short history. But instead of rejoicing, the nation started to bitch and moan that the atheletes that won the medals for us were not local born and were stealing opportunities from locals.
Compare that with just about everywhere else, where when the national team wins, it's a national triumph and you have that wonderful sense that for a brief moment, all devides are healed. Look at the winning French football team of 1998. France was suffering from major divisions, mainly racist ones between the Whites, Algerians and Blacks. But for that brief moment of the winning of the World Cup, people forgot about colour. The French proudly proclaimed their winning team as 'Les Blancs, Les Blacks, Les Beurs' (The Whites, the Blacks and the Berbers) - Vive Les Bleus (The Blues as the team are known).
Since the government plays such a prominent role in shapping culture in Singapore, I think it needs to look at this quite urgently. I mean, how can you expect Singapore to grow in the world when its people are culturally programmed to begrudge success to the less fortunate and are so unwilling to celebrate the good things in life.
I think of my Dad who grew up in a different era from the one I'm growing up in. My grandfather could barely afford to feed his ten children and I think that gave my Dad a determination to never be poor. My aunt helped him into art school, but he never made it to university, and yet, in the end, my father ended up in the position of hiring those who went to university. I'm not exactly cuddley with my Dad but I hold him in high regard for having climbed so high without a degree. It's like when a few agency clowns mention that he's a little ecentric, I remind them that he made it the hard way.
I don't know, I find myself cheering for people who make it without the paper. They're usually better on the job too. I'm reminded of Uncle Jeffrey who described how he got a 'b' grade on a 10,000 word university assignment, which he did in three days, but it took him three days to write a 300 word article when he joined SPH. What does academia teach you? For the life of me, I cannot figure out why employers bother paying graduates more? Strange isn't it.
OK, enough of that. It's fun to make fun of Americans but one shouldn't be too harsh about them. After all, much of the prosperity that the modern world faces was made by America and the generous spirit of the American people. As distasteful as I find the Fags in the Bush Administration, I think you have to hand it to American people and American culture for encouraging a 'Go-Getting' spirit in people. Racism may exist in America but by and large, Americans applaud people who come in as migrants and somehow find a way to climb up and make something better for themselves. As long as the Bush Administration does not kill this spirit, I think the future of the USA will remain great.
Look at the difference with Singapore. Over here, bitching about people who become successful is quite a hobby. It's especially noisy when the characters who become successful have less advantages than we do. My young politician would probably site this as an example of how we've become successful but I think Singapore has succeeded inspite of this mentality - or perhaps we've become more like this with age and ironically success.
Philip Yeo, current Chairman of SPRING Singapore, the government body responsible for promoting SMEs and entrepreneurship (Yes, we actually have a government body to teach entrepreneurship), recently made some remarks that if all things are equal, he'll prefer to give scholarships to those from poor backgrounds, because he feels they're more hungry. Suddenly you had lots of people from the well to do and middle class writing in to complain that Mr Yeo was biased in favor of the poor.
I'm no fan of Philip Yeo. The man has an ego the size of a cliff. But in this case, Philip is right. If you have to be biased in dishing out help, you should be biased in favour of the poor. Its like this. A poor boy with a schoolarship will have the chance to go on and succeed and pull himself and his family out of poverty. A boy from a middle class family will see the schoolarship as a means of enhancing his personal family prestiege. Now, tell me, which is more valuable to society? This being Singapore, the answer is will funnily enough, be the later. Instead of thinking, if the other guy has the chance to earn as much as me, I'll have more money by dealing with him, the Singapore mentality is - eeekkkks, there will be less for me.
If you don't believe me, try and remember the Commonwealth Games in Manchester some 5-years ago. Singapore had an incredible running, winning more gold medals than it had in its rather short history. But instead of rejoicing, the nation started to bitch and moan that the atheletes that won the medals for us were not local born and were stealing opportunities from locals.
Compare that with just about everywhere else, where when the national team wins, it's a national triumph and you have that wonderful sense that for a brief moment, all devides are healed. Look at the winning French football team of 1998. France was suffering from major divisions, mainly racist ones between the Whites, Algerians and Blacks. But for that brief moment of the winning of the World Cup, people forgot about colour. The French proudly proclaimed their winning team as 'Les Blancs, Les Blacks, Les Beurs' (The Whites, the Blacks and the Berbers) - Vive Les Bleus (The Blues as the team are known).
Since the government plays such a prominent role in shapping culture in Singapore, I think it needs to look at this quite urgently. I mean, how can you expect Singapore to grow in the world when its people are culturally programmed to begrudge success to the less fortunate and are so unwilling to celebrate the good things in life.
I think of my Dad who grew up in a different era from the one I'm growing up in. My grandfather could barely afford to feed his ten children and I think that gave my Dad a determination to never be poor. My aunt helped him into art school, but he never made it to university, and yet, in the end, my father ended up in the position of hiring those who went to university. I'm not exactly cuddley with my Dad but I hold him in high regard for having climbed so high without a degree. It's like when a few agency clowns mention that he's a little ecentric, I remind them that he made it the hard way.
I don't know, I find myself cheering for people who make it without the paper. They're usually better on the job too. I'm reminded of Uncle Jeffrey who described how he got a 'b' grade on a 10,000 word university assignment, which he did in three days, but it took him three days to write a 300 word article when he joined SPH. What does academia teach you? For the life of me, I cannot figure out why employers bother paying graduates more? Strange isn't it.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Can't Afford, I'm Pikey Priky Wicky
It's been a strange month, this month of July. It's as if allot of promissing things have come about but they all seem to be hanging in the air, while in the mean time I have to hold my private bits and figure out how to make ends meet.
It must be a testament to my acting skills, but thus far I've managed to smile at the adversity that's come my way. I remember the times I used to appear at functions and cooly listen to people discuss their million dollar deals and then, when the party was over, I'd find a way of sneaking away from the crowd and jumping into a bus, which was usually at a stage when I was worried about taking the bus. I know I'm probably flattering my ego here when I say with some pride that it takes skill to sound like a credible person in a conversation about lots of money when you haven't got any, then again, its been a matter of necessity. People don't give jobs to the poor and needy, which is probably the wrong thing to do because these are probably the most hungry. Then again, if the girls in Geylang and stand there and look desireable and sexy when they're not particularly feeling sexy, then why shouldn't I be able to hold my own in conversations with people who make more in an hour than I do in a month.
Anyway, in spite of being in the usual state of skintdome, I'm managing to stay busy. I've been matching people here and there and somehow, I think I'll be rewarded. I've just finished a book where the main bit of advice is to do favours and add value to people because somehow, there's a universal accountant helping keep score. I think Vinod used to say that "Good Guys Always Win," a lesson which "Green Day" seemed to disagree with in their song "Nice Guys Finish Last."
Well, I think there's a happy medium somewhere in there. I think I've been lucky. I mean, I have a gang of clowns who always need bailing out and they always seem to have a talent to get into trouble when I can least afford to be helpful. But then again, as much as I bitch about being an unrewarded banker to the clowns in my life, I am greatful to the fact that there are people who I've ended up having to take from and they've refused to let me repay them. So, I guess there is something to this cosmic balance of good and bad deeds.
Anyway, it looks like I am about to make a bit more money from the internet. Made about US$16 from mylot.com this month and should be getting to another US$10. It's been quite fun posting discussions on the internet, ranting and raving and reading other people's rants. Men are as always obsessed by their trouser snakes (I've declared that I am so miniscule, I get laid many times because the girls don't believe me when I declare I'm tinny). American Fundimentalist Christians are convinced that Barak Obama is a secret plot by the Islamic world to turn the US of A into a shit pot (if Bush II has not already made it so). Women are obsessed with when they should lose their virginity. It's amazing what people will talk about when nobody thinks they're being watched. I've been posting on all these crazy discussions and its adding up in my paypal accont.
Well, do feel free to join mylot. It can be a laugh. The link to join is under my recamendations and links part of this multiply blog.
Of course, allot of people laugh at me for working for pennies. Seriously, this is not work for me, just a form of ranting and the pennies I earn, end up becoming a form of alternative savings. You know what they say about how you should always keep your spare change in a jar and it grows into something quite substantial at. I guess working on mylot has that same effect. Even if I only get 20 plus cents a night, it's 20 plus extra cents I would not have had otherwise.
Am thinking of holding a Raffle of sorts on this blog. Let me know what type of prizes you think I should offer and hopefully this will turn out to be a good value added proposition to you guys who have been reading the silly things that I get up to on a regular basis. Hopefully, there will be some money in there for someone too. Anyway, you can tell I'm broke, I'm actually doing a bit of thinking about how to solve the usual predicament here.
It must be a testament to my acting skills, but thus far I've managed to smile at the adversity that's come my way. I remember the times I used to appear at functions and cooly listen to people discuss their million dollar deals and then, when the party was over, I'd find a way of sneaking away from the crowd and jumping into a bus, which was usually at a stage when I was worried about taking the bus. I know I'm probably flattering my ego here when I say with some pride that it takes skill to sound like a credible person in a conversation about lots of money when you haven't got any, then again, its been a matter of necessity. People don't give jobs to the poor and needy, which is probably the wrong thing to do because these are probably the most hungry. Then again, if the girls in Geylang and stand there and look desireable and sexy when they're not particularly feeling sexy, then why shouldn't I be able to hold my own in conversations with people who make more in an hour than I do in a month.
Anyway, in spite of being in the usual state of skintdome, I'm managing to stay busy. I've been matching people here and there and somehow, I think I'll be rewarded. I've just finished a book where the main bit of advice is to do favours and add value to people because somehow, there's a universal accountant helping keep score. I think Vinod used to say that "Good Guys Always Win," a lesson which "Green Day" seemed to disagree with in their song "Nice Guys Finish Last."
Well, I think there's a happy medium somewhere in there. I think I've been lucky. I mean, I have a gang of clowns who always need bailing out and they always seem to have a talent to get into trouble when I can least afford to be helpful. But then again, as much as I bitch about being an unrewarded banker to the clowns in my life, I am greatful to the fact that there are people who I've ended up having to take from and they've refused to let me repay them. So, I guess there is something to this cosmic balance of good and bad deeds.
Anyway, it looks like I am about to make a bit more money from the internet. Made about US$16 from mylot.com this month and should be getting to another US$10. It's been quite fun posting discussions on the internet, ranting and raving and reading other people's rants. Men are as always obsessed by their trouser snakes (I've declared that I am so miniscule, I get laid many times because the girls don't believe me when I declare I'm tinny). American Fundimentalist Christians are convinced that Barak Obama is a secret plot by the Islamic world to turn the US of A into a shit pot (if Bush II has not already made it so). Women are obsessed with when they should lose their virginity. It's amazing what people will talk about when nobody thinks they're being watched. I've been posting on all these crazy discussions and its adding up in my paypal accont.
Well, do feel free to join mylot. It can be a laugh. The link to join is under my recamendations and links part of this multiply blog.
Of course, allot of people laugh at me for working for pennies. Seriously, this is not work for me, just a form of ranting and the pennies I earn, end up becoming a form of alternative savings. You know what they say about how you should always keep your spare change in a jar and it grows into something quite substantial at. I guess working on mylot has that same effect. Even if I only get 20 plus cents a night, it's 20 plus extra cents I would not have had otherwise.
Am thinking of holding a Raffle of sorts on this blog. Let me know what type of prizes you think I should offer and hopefully this will turn out to be a good value added proposition to you guys who have been reading the silly things that I get up to on a regular basis. Hopefully, there will be some money in there for someone too. Anyway, you can tell I'm broke, I'm actually doing a bit of thinking about how to solve the usual predicament here.
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