Talk about an insult to the intelligence...

The latest competition on Class 95 is:

"Unscramble the following: T R O Y P H"

This is a competition to win a spot among the privelleged few who will see the world cup trophy. Hmmm...I wonder what the word could possibly be...

Wow...that's a tough one...Unscramble the letters to form a word. Let's see...Dang. I would really like to see the world cup TROPHY, but I can't for the life of me figure out the word. This is really a head scratcher.

Porthy?
Rotphy?
Orpthy?
Rytoph?
Hytrop?

Dang...This is SO difficult.

Isn't it sad...

...When your entire existence is tied to an idea? When your life is so closely linked to the life of a country that your eulogy ends up sounding like an NE lesson? When all who mourn you are the maids that took care of you?

A state funeral may mark the passing of a great man but if the bitter detachment of the funeral is made all the more cold by the lack of people who loved him surrounding the casket, one wonders about the sacrifices made for that greatness. And one wonders if it were worth it.

9 months in the making...

...And a week and a half early.

Baby Janine made her appearance today at 4:06pm. She's beautiful. And relatively quiet. Let's see if the peace continues. :)

My first blood-niece.

Yay!

The buzz is palpable in the west.

Yes, it's that time of the 24 month cycle again.

Point of Interest:

"Companies are recruiting Internet 'community moles' to plug their products and services, with one aim: To deceive Internet users into believing that these word-of-mouth reviews come from genuine buyers - and then into buying their wares."

"Yes, he will certainly be retained unless he served NS. But as a parent or actually your boy, you should take the initiative to find out, before making decision not to serve. Anyway serving NS is not that bad, in fact is experience of lifetime before going to the working adult world for next 40 years."


"What to do? Singapore needs to maintain good relationship with its neighbors and ensure that its people do not fight among themselves due to race or religion, something westerners do not understand. It is so easy to imagine we Asians (Chinese, Indian, Malay, Japanese, Koreans and of course middle-east) willing to kill and die to protect their race or religion. Moreover Singaporeans live in such close proximity from each other.
Harmony can never be established if Singapore allows the Press to write trash like they do in the West, then they can only hold together with Law and guns. Just look at US post-Katrina."

Singapore is already well-known for being strict in implementing its law and order, and that is the secret for keeping the place clean, discipline and corruption free. Many other countries especially with corrupted government and business practices are ‘flexible’ in implementing its laws that people can get away by pretending to be ignorant, sympathy or negotiate with some tokens. This practice has made Singapore a safe and easy place for everyone especially western foreigners to setup business & commerce, raise their families, and go for social visit or vacation. Singaporeans are very lucky nation of people in Asia to enjoy equality and freedom, independent of their sex, race and religion.

And I got all this when I was looking for the author of this:

Singapore is a very small, crowded place and is very difficult to hide things, and even if possible, not for very long. I think our system in dealing with the Press is very good, giving them the responsibility to validate what they report. And our government knowing that the people want more transparency, effectiveness and power of Internet, implemented discussion sessions, Feedback.gov.sg and even email to PM & ministers. And because our Press can be judged and brought to trial, we get downfall of old NKF. The government move fast to fix the problem.

I believe that we have found a mole. But instead of trying to get us to buy into a product, they're selling "Singapore"...

Oy vey.

Concert

Beauty is a voice that fills a great hall with its quietness.

Corrinne May was awesome.

The newspapers and Politics.

Was going through this with my class just now about how the press works and the dangers of government control over said institution when I realised that I've had this post in my head for the past couple of weeks and I haven't written it down yet.

How is it that one party gets to use the press in a way to hit the other over the head when the media in Singapore is not supposed to be the medium for partisan politics?
"Hmmm..." says I.
"Hmmm..." says the students.

Hmmm...

I guess it's not surprising to say that Singapore does not have a free press. It's been overtly controlled by the government, admittedly so at that, so no big shock there. But then again, the government's made up of primarily 1 party. So...What does that mean for the press?

Does it mean that the media is controlled by a single political entity which is not necessarily our elected government per se? Does that mean that the primary means of information dissemination in Singapore is worked by a partisan body? Does that mean that effectively rules regarding the media are set (and broken) by said majority power and is partisan?

Hmmm...

On the other hand, it's hard to believe that the Workers Party came up with a manifesto so flawed that if it were more flawed, we'd be walking on it? (Aural joke...listen to it) Maybe there's a conspiracy... (Oooo...) I figured that it sounded like someone from an opposition party sneaked into WP headquarters and messed around with their manifesto.

Hmmm...


Meanwhile, I'm bemoaning the fact that it's evident that elections are coming around and that means one whole day burned. Maybe my constituency will be a walkover. (It's all becoming so anyway...) Maybe I'll call in sick.

Hmmm...

Something funny...or perhaps not.

Firstly: This was seen in Toys 'r' Us. Two ways of seeing this. Firstly, ain't it great that kids are learning at an early age that they can all be losers? Secondly, macho-much?




Secondly: Motherhood is supposed to be a beautiful thing. Why, oh why did they do this? Is this supposed to sell the product? (Note this was THE main display for the store...) It looked painful and humiliating.

Ai...

Bone tired.

It's funny but this entire week has been exhausting despite the sleeping early. Today, it culminated in a sleepy headache, which ended up with me going comatose from about 2 to 6pm.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle because when I got up at 6pm, I still felt sleepy...think I could've slept till next year...hopefully that won't happen though...I've heard that I'm not the most social sleeper.

:)

Off to the All New United Square. It's date night tonight and we decided that the new US definitely looks interesting enough to see.