Singapore Notes

In 1961, Nelson Mandela realized that non-violent measures in protest of the South African government’s policy of apartheid would not be successful, and formed Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), a militant wing of the African National Congress (ANC).

A raid on the ANC hideout of Lilliesleaf farm in Rivonia produced documents describing MK’s plans for attacks and guerilla warfare. The government charged 11 ANC leaders, including Mandela, with crimes under the 1962 Sabotage Act. In court, Mandela chose not to take the witness stand. Instead, from the dock, he admitted to many of the charges against him and defended his use of violence:

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

If anyone attempted to make a mockery of a defence for violence, it has to be the misguided sycophant who told the court on Monday that he wanted to teach his victim “a lesson” for disrespecting Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew:

"This child is so disobedient that even the elders, parents, police, the court and the society will not have any impact on him.... I remember how arrogant he was…That’s why I thought by giving him one slap would instill fear in him, and also let him know what are the ways of the world.”

Whatever the aberrations of the case, he got one part right. It was never about religion or obscenity. The three weeks in jail meted to him for a slap that was probably heard around the world will pass quickly, but the on-going lessons to be learned will be forever embedded in our history books.

It has been said that Robben Island became the crucible which transformed Mandela. He emerged from it the mature leader who would fight and win the great political battles that created a new democratic South Africa. Let's hope that Changi Prison will also be a transforming experience.

The outside world may have awaited anxiously for the outcome of the court case yesterday - including The Washington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and International Business Times - but we who are born and bred here know that the result is a foregone conclusion.

Grace Fu, Singapore’s second minister for foreign affairs, was quoted by The Associated Press (AP) as saying she wasn’t concerned about the international response to the image of a teen shackled for speaking his mind online. This is one foreign minister who cares not an iota about our soiled reputation as a global city. Instead, she's more concerned "my family would not suffer a drastic change in the standard of living" if the drop in income "is tilted further in the future".

Not everyone is in the game for the money. Acting pro-bono, defence lawyer Alfred Dodwell enjoined out of conscience (?) in the David-Goliath face-off, except that in this version, the small boy gets to lose. Christians ought to be offended by this rewrite of the biblical story. From the detritus of the mock battle, all that's salvageable are some quotable quotes. :

“He is only 16 years old. Don’t make him out to be a demon.”
“I won’t say he’s a man of conviction, but he’s certainly a kid of conviction.”
“Amos is very positive; he believes there’s nothing wrong and stands by what he says and this is the very reason why he is in remand, because he refuses to be gagged.”
“We may not agree with him on what he has posted… (but) if it is a crime it has to be proven in the court of law.”

Well, the court has ruled, but the truth is still out there. When courts are seen to be unfair, we become more fearful and less able to trust each other. We end up divisive, spending more effort protecting our own turf because we don’t believe the system is there to back us up. Nation building requires more work than solving SuDoku puzzles, for which there are plenty of sites to download scripts.

On April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola Company took arguably the biggest risk in consumer goods history by announcing that it was changing the formula for the world's most popular soft drink. And spawned an avalanche of consumer scorn the likes of which no business has ever seen.

The company had intended to re-energize its Coca-Cola brand and the cola category in its largest market, the United States. In 1983, Coke’s market share had slipped to an all-time low of just under 24 per cent.

The firestorm ended with the return of the original formula, rebranded Coca-Cola classic, a few months later. The return of original formula Coca-Cola on July 11, 1985, put the cap on 79 days that revolutionized the soft-drink industry, and stands today as testimony to the power of taking intelligent risks, even when they don't quite work as intended.

Conspiracy theorists have gone so far as to say the whole thing had been planned as a deliberate marketing ploy to reaffirm public affection for Coca-Cola. After all, what better way to make someone appreciate the value of your global brand than to withdraw it completely?

"Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a marketing mistake, some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing," said chief operating officer Donald Keough at the time. "The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart."

We just had a wild two weeks - actually 18 days - when the world press was galvanised to see a child shackled in chains for tarnishing the name of somebody's papa. Turns out the whole exercise was just to "protect the minds of vulnerable people from corrupting influences", and “avoid sexual experimentation”. That was the court ruling on obscenity. The religious hurt was a bit murky, but the learned judge wrote in paragraph 40, page 11 of 15 pages, "It does not require proof that the religious feelings were in fact wounded." So was it a smart move to skip the elephant in the room? Was the whole thing planned as a deliberate ploy to reaffirm public affection?

We once had a colleague who never used a swear word in his whole 40 years on earth. When he got really angry, it was like, what the fish. For minor disasters, the strongest utterance was, "Oh, sugar!" I guess with the diaphanous demarcation drawn between vulgarity and obscenity, one has to be careful with choice Anglo Saxon words.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington is ostensibly an evening when the president and the press can come together to let their hair down and exchange barbs. But even the president of the most powerful nation on the planet tries to avoid the odd expletive deleted. From the official White House transcript:

"After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me, "Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?" And I said, "Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’" (Laughter and applause.)

Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. (Laughter.) New climate regulations? Bucket. It’s the right thing to do. (Laughter and applause.)"

Doesn't exactly carry the same panache, does it? Granted, it's not as gauche as the pork-chop soup on tap gaffe uttered by another dinner speaker from the Tropics, but we do know some blue noses will be upset if the more accurate term was deployed. Surely the man who can authorise drone strikes on the bad guys shouldn't have to cull his vocabulary. Maybe he does. All said and done, "Bucket, yay, LKY is dead" would make Shakespeare weep.

This is the kind of statistics that set you wondering. Of the convicted penal inmate population languishing in Singapore jails, some 27.7 percent are aged 51 and older as of 31 December 2014, a significant jump from the 16.8 percent of 2010. The figures for younger folk, of ages 50 and below, are lower, indicating a healthier downward decline. For sanity's sake, let's assume our youngsters are better behaved, and not that they can better afford clever lawyers.

The assistant director of the Prisons' building management department would only comment on the additional facilities required by elderly inmates, justifying the invitation to tender for grab-bars, hand-rails, self-closing taps and other senior citizen friendly enhancements to be installed in the jail cells. We are not told why more old folks are being locked up. Were they arrested for not having the prerequisite licence to collect cardboard from used cartons or selling tissue paper from table to table? Were they put away because they missed a town council tariff and lacked the cash for the fine? Here's a thought to keep you awake nights: are they preparing for a tsunami of silver haired inmates who are too destitute to afford the inflated Medishield Life premiums?

Instead of dwelling on the hardware aspects of the penal infrastructure, the associate director of one legal firm urged the authorities to allow for more "age- appropriate sentences" and early release for senior inmates with low risk of re-offending. Instead of locking up everyone at the slightest whim - the way they sweep up all the beggars and cart them to Pelangi Village to present the false facade of a youthful nation - they should ask themselves if prison is the right place to visit Ah Kong.

Whilst a graduate student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Jason Rosenhouse was surprised when his active Christian friends were uninterested in accompanying him to hear the famous evangelist Luis Palau preach. The incongruity of the outspoken unbeliever - Rousenhouse is a "nonreligious mathematician" and author of "Among the Creationists, Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line" - trying to persuade his believing but reluctant friends to see a world-renown preacher in action was one for the books.

Rosenhouse wasn't impressed with the Bible-thumping sermon, and was surprised to see at least a dozen people going forward in response to the inevitable altar call at the ending. While he was wondering if something was wrong with himself for feeling unmoved, one of his Christian friends who did accompany him to the tent meeting said, "I hate this part, pressuring people to make a public display of faith."

Palau's histrionics were, for his friends, a caricature of Christianity, wrote Rosenhouse. Whereas he found the proceedings slightly silly, they found them offensive. It was his introduction to very different facets of modern American Christianity.

We have our own homegrown oddities, one who cajoled heartlanders to "give until they bleed", one who dabble in magic tricks to preach about real miracles, and one who perverted a good Samaritan role into a Dominatrix charade. The mother who believes that her son is "a fantastic child, perhaps born in the wrong country" should take heart that there is still a compassionate God. It's the misguided charlatans who give him a bad name.

It was not the kind of soft balls lobbed by a compliant press that Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam was accustomed to. At the "An Investigative Interview: Singapore 50 years After Independence" segment of the 45th Gallen Symposium, host BBC HARDtalk presenter Stephen Sackur was pulling no punches.

Do believe in Singapore exceptionalism?
You know what, Singapore's gone as far as it can go, there are other places we can put our money and see it bear fruit better than Singapore in the future.
And being constant, does that mean that Lee Kuan Yew's family will always be in charge?

Taking in the cue that Sackur might not be slammed with the Protection from Harassment Act - the weapon of choice these days - others joined in the feeding frenzy. A member from Mexico steered straight into the hornets' nest:
Given your determination to control immigration, could that run into a clash with your desire to see foreign companies headquartered in Singapore, developing their operations in Singapore, because one might run against the other?

A member from Uganda invoked the spirit of Harry Truman, admired for his plainspoken common sense, his zero tolerance policy for bullshit, his sharp wit, and blunt honesty:
Does Singapore today consider itself a developed country in the Harry Truman sense of "developed" and "development"?

The member from Armenia probably heard stories about our civil servants veering on the side of the political wind:
Is it (Singapore development) thanks to the political will, or did it start from the bottom civil or economic level? And what is the level of democracy between the political right and the economic right?

And then there was the surprising lesson from China. Their representative, despite not having visited the country, saw through the smokescreen - one haze issue we can't pin blame on the Indonesians - mouthed the Amos Yee question:
But you mentioned something like you would actually make life harder for people who are not willing to work in Singapore... you know if your society works this way, won't you deprive the freedom of people who just want to be wild and anti-establishment?

Sackur must have been losing patience with the "official lines" that Tharman was obviously regurgitating, especially when his pointed question about a social safety net was parried with another "clever" one-liner. Sackur, at wits' end:
I believe in the sometimes simplicity of yes-or-no answers. What about this this idea of a safety net? Does Singapore believe in the notion of a safety net for those who fall between the cracks of a successful economy?

Tharman's answer ("I believe in the notion of a trampoline.") has to those heartless responses that is worthy of 3 weeks' jail for a tight smack. So what happens to those who are physically or mentally unable to climb onto the trampoline without assistance, and can't possibly survive a leap into the air without incurring further damage to the body or mind? Sackur surmises it best: "You mean you're a bit more ruthless. Is that what you're saying?"

Astrologer Joan Quigley claimed in her memoir titled "What Does Joan Say?" that it was a question that the former president habitually asked Mrs Ronald Reagan. In an interview with “CBS Evening News” in 1989, after Reagan left office, Miss Quigley said that after reading the horoscope of the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, she concluded that he was intelligent and open to new ideas and persuaded Mrs Reagan to press her husband to abandon his view of the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” If Nancy Reagan employing the services of a professional astrologer sounds a bit weird, she's not alone.

Someone else seems to be putting much faith in a third party researcher to shape the future of our country. Blackbox Research's "YouKnowAnot" bulletin of April 2015 has been quoted as saying, "Our survey findings indicate that current community sentiment points to much greater prospects for an early election."

The interesting factoid is that Blackbox reported that "overall satisfaction with the Government has risen eight points from a year ago." While not exactly annus horribilis, the past year has hardly been smooth sailing, so that finding has to be debatable.

Senior Minister of State for Education Indranee Rajah seems less optimistic, sharing that “I don’t speculate on outcomes and things like that. As you can see in the British elections, one should not really try to second guess what will happen."

Whatever happens, the prime minister has told the media that, apropos of speculation about timing of the General Election that must be held before January 2017, "the baby has already been conceived earlier on." If the choice of analogy is accurate, the nine month clock has started ticking. As any mother knows, the outcome can be a successful birth or end in tragedy, such as a spontaneous expulsion of the fetus due to unforeseen developments. Even Nostradamus would hesitate to bet on a blackbox.

The first generation leaders were not afraid of contrarian ideas, and sparring with intellectual equals. For instance Toh Chin Chye, although over ruled, always maintained that health care should be free. What we have today is the perversion of preaching to the choir, preferably with a select audience with double digit IQs. "Let's Think About It - Episode 2" opens up with a million dollar minister driving a small Japanese make. Maybe the Mrs has the other car, or COE has breached the stratosphere. Whatever, it really sets the stage for the credibility level.

This guy pays $1,800 for "professionals" and expects daft Singaporeans to respond in droves. Are we even on the same planet?

"Salaries are being compressed" - right on, brother. He may not be invited on another panel but truth, expressed with rare honesty, is always refreshing.

"To hire a foreigner is not cheap" - so why descriminate against home grown? Clue: predilection for aliens, even married one.

30% to 40% of his nursing staff are foreigners - and he wants more. He is probably tired of scolding Singaporeans for their “poor upbringing” just because some patrons did return their trays after dining at hawker centres.

Her half of Singaporeans won't slave long hours like her half of Vietnamese staff - Saigon has been renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Why not rename Singapore as Little Red Saigon?

"When was the last time we had a serious recession" - how the hell does he know? This fellow had a kevlar plated iron rice bowl since day one. Maybe when he is kicked out like George Yeo's GRC team, he will appreciate what it feels like to be displaced by foreign talents, armed with a resume padded with degree mill certificates.

"I foresee a day when Singaporeans may have to adjust" - not contented to play the movie role of a horrible person, this character starts to behave like one, talking down to a fellow Singaporean who dare justify hiring a domestic help to look after grandparents, parents and the kids while husband and wife slough it out in the workplace to make sure the Medishield Life premiums will be paid on time.

Fortunately, it's Friday and we don't have to put up with any more crap for the week. Instead, we can sit back and listen to Lea Salonga singing for her supper, with well-loved favourites from Miss Saigon, Les Misérables and Frozen. That's the way it should be, foreigners performing for us, not the other way round.

It has to be clearest signal to date that the rare sighting of a member of parliament walking in your neighborhood is imminent. Health Minister and Minister-in-charge of Ageing Issues Gan Kim Yong announced yesterday (Friday 22 May) that more than 700,000 senior Singaporeans will receive a SG50 Seniors Package.

In line with party philosophy that trampolines are preferred to safety nets, even Ah Kong strickened with dementia has to solve the Cheryl type mathematical problem to earn the freebies.

Complimentary admission to Gardens By The Bay is good only from June to August;
Complementary admission to Jurong Bird Park good only for month of June;
Discount for selected performances at the Esplanade good only from August to November.
When will the General Elections be held?

Last night Lea Salonga performed beautifully to a sell out crowd. Mostly filipino fans. Even if you were one of the outnumbered Singaporeans lost in the spectacular sneak preview of People Power - it was as if the Esplanade was teleported to the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) - you are unlikely to enjoy a discount for the two night engagement.

Unless Salonga comes back again - in August to November window - to sing what she called the "ubiquitous song of 2014". She invited the rapturous audience to join in an impromptu karaoke session. The lyrics of the Frozen princess sing-a-long are all too familiar, but we thought it sounded awfully like:

Let them go, let them go
Can't tahan them anymore

Let them go, let them go
Turn away and slam the door
We don't care
what they're going to say
Enough of the wayang already.
We're determined to VTO anyway

with apologies to Lea

Cappadocia (/kæpəˈdoʊʃə/; also Capadocia; Turkish: Kapadokya) is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely covering the Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, and Niğde Provinces in Turkey.

Cappadocia is real old. The earliest record of the name of Cappadocia dates from the late 6th century BC. It appears in the biblical account given in the book of Acts 2:9. The Cappadocians were named as one group hearing the Gospel account from Galileans in their own language on the day of Pentecost.

Cappadocia is big. The relief consists of a high plateau exceeding 1000 m in altitude, an area approximately 400 km east–west and 250 km north–south. It is pierced by volcanic peaks, with Mount Erciyes (ancient Argaeus) being the tallest at 3916 m.

Cappadocia is awesome. Sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams and ignimbrite deposits that erupted from ancient volcanoes eroded into a fairy tale landscape of cones, pillars, pinnacles, mushrooms, and chimneys. People have long utilised the region's soft stone, seeking shelter underground and carving out living quarters, places of worship, stables, and storehouses.

Cappadocia is famous. The region was used for the 1989 science fiction film "Slipstream" to depict a cult of wind worshippers. In 2010 and early 2011, the film "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" was also filmed in the Cappadocia region. The panoramas of Cappadocia are featured prominently in the cinematography of "Winter Sleep" (Turkish: Kış Uykusu), the 2014 film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and winner of the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes film festival.

Cappadocia is a world heritage site. The Singappore Botanic Gardens, the picnic grounds of filipino domestics, also wants to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Liddat how to compete?

The best way to take in the spectacular panorama of Cappadocia is to go up in a hot air balloon. The only bitch is that wifi is not available at that altitude. Hence, blogging will have to take a backseat in the coming days.

“The most the police can do is give chase and try to bring (suspects) into custody. Use of deadly force or opening fire is not an option in (roadblock breaches),” a former officer of the Singapore Police Force was quoted. Which makes it kind it hard to explain why Mohamed Taufik Zahar was shot dead by trigger happy gunmen wearing a blue uniform. Opening fire at a suspect is NOT part of police protocol for roadblocks.

Meanwhile, 16 going on 17 youth Amos Yee is remanded for 3 weeks because some judicial officer is unable to assess whether he is suitable to serve reformative training. Yee was initially due to be sentenced on today (Tuesday), based on a pre-sentence report for an earlier request by prosecutors to explore the possibility of probation. Which makes it kind of hard to explain what kind of civilised country Singapore is.

Best response to the curious Europeans in this part of the globe with a history tracing back to the Ottoman empire is "me no speakee English".

When Francis Seow was incarcerated at the Whitley Detention Centre in 1988- at the pleasure of the horrible man - the doctor's concern about his weight prompted his jailer to inquire about his choice of meal for dinner. Seow indicated "a yen for a grilled country-killed spring chicken from the Goodwood Park Hotel" . Someone was actually sent out to buy it but it was not available, not even in the deluxe Royal Holiday Inn across the road. So he had to settle for Penang-style fried chicken from the nearby family-size Sloanne Court Hotel (page 155, "To Catch A Tartar, A Dissident In Lee Kuan Yew's Prison").

When the 16 year old - birthdate 31 October ~~1988~~ 1998- confided to his doctor that he was entertaining suicidal thoughts, the prison pyschiatrists had him forceably strapped, arms and legs all, to a bed, and expected to discharge his bodily fluids into a jar. Well, if Amos was not actually suicidal, that kind of child abuse will definitely drive him into full fledged sudicidal mode.

The Hippocratic Oath is supposed to be all about "First do no harm" (Latin: Primum non nocere). It would appear that the hypocrites in charge are all out to extract their pound of flesh, anything short of a lobotomy to preserve the saccharine sweet memories of their departed dear leader. It is obvious that the thugs who did Dinesh Raman in are still gainfully employed at Changi Prison.

Peak season in Hokkaido is usually during February for the snow festival and July autumn for the lavender season. So why did the prime minister decide to go to Japan in summer when Tokyo temperatures are in the 40s? Even in Hokkaido, we are talking about 28 degrees - warmer than a cool night in Singapore.

The bigger question is why he planned to give the spectacular 28th Southeast Asia Games closing ceremonies a miss? Tickets for the $40/$20/$12 climatic closing show, featuring giant floats and aerial displays set in a festive party atmosphere with live music, have already been sold out. Was he afraid that the organiser would run a last minute repeat of the Balakrishnan request to "revise" the $104 million YOG budget to $387 million? The Singapore SEA Games Organising Committee (Singsoc) had announced that they will spend not a cent more than $324.5 million. To match the YOG scale of debacle would mean easily a billion flushed down the drain.

Lim Teck Yin, chairman of Singsoc's executive committee, had boasted, "This is a special year for all Singaporeans, and Singsoc will strive to deliver a Games that will bring people together in a fitting and memorable celebration." He probably did not count on the fact that someone would rather not be included in the people defined. Never mind that the gold medal tally for Team Singapore has already breached 83, second only to Thailand's 93.

SMRT has announced that train services and selected bus services will be extended for the Closing Ceremony on today Tuesday (Jun 16) and roads in and around the Singapore Sports Hub will be closed or have restricted access for vehicles. Lots of Singaporeans will be in a partying mood - surely not because the horrible people, one by one, are exiting the country?

Putting our fate in dumb animals

A friend planning to visit Greece in July - no, he is not one of the ministers rumored to be clearing annual leave for fear of being ousted in the next GE - asked if it was safe to ascend the 300 steps from the port of call to the cliff top village of Oia, Santorini, to catch a glorious sunset. Unlike Fira, there is no cable car alternative. He had read many of the “don’t ride the donkey” online posts on TripAdvisor.com which keep harping on links to 5-year-old articles from The Daily Express about animal abuse.

The Greek lady selling the cruise package was a bit on the heavy side but looked stout enough. For all we know, she has lineage tracing all the way back to King Leonidas of Sparta. Going up is okay, she advised, but going down can be hairy. But even ascending was a nightmare, as the donkeys, prodded by their master in the rear to speed up, veered perilously close to the tiny brick wall on the left preventing us from going over the cliff, or towards the right to smash against the uneven cliff side. And there was this awful account:

"The men organising it were very abrupt and rude, but the danger was when we came to get off at the top and they started turning the donkeys round before we had a chance to get off! I ended up with one leg in the stirrup and one on the ground and then fell into someone else and we both dived into the side as the donkeys came running back down! The men just told us to hurry up and get out of the way!!"

By now we know that the Mount Kinabalu trek is not without its dangers, earthquakes notwithstanding. The Ministry of Education (MOE) must have swallowed their travel advisor's pitch, hook, line and sinker, when they claimed that it is not a challenging climb. Even for 12 year olds, hanging on for hours to a rope diameter designed for larger hands. The positive experience, to borrow the insensitive phrase of some horrible person, is that parents are now more aware of what risks they are signing off on the indemnity form. No parent should have to see their offspring crushed by falling rocks (Warning: Do notclick on the link if you are faint hearted).

Kishore Mahbubani (former permanent representative to the UN who told the world "There are no homeless, destitute or starving people in Singapore. Poverty has been eradicated.") once wrote in his column in The Straits Times on December 13, 2014 that Singapore is not ready for a serious political cartoonist.

“Singapore is clearly not ready yet for a serious political cartoonist. However, we can try to encourage a culture of cartoonists by getting some of our leading citizens to allow themselves to be parodied. I am confident that some of our leading lights – like Tommy Koh and Chan Heng Chee, Ho Kwon Ping and Gerard Ee – would not object to being lampooned once in a while.”

Notice that Lim Chin Siong and the horrible person who cannot be named are not included. Which explains why Sonny Liew’s graphic novel "The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye" had to have a sticker plastered over the National Arts Council (NAC) logo in its first sold out 1,000 copies. Which should make the $34.90 Singapore variant of a manga a guaranteed collector's item.

Mr Khor Kok Wah (senior director, literary arts sector, National Arts Council) the Indian giver provided more graphic details for rescinding $6,400 of the $8,000 publication grant which had already been disbursed: “We had to withdraw the grant when the book The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye came out because its sensitive content, depicted in visuals and text, did not meet our funding conditions." Sensitive content meaning that when the 1987 Operation Spectrum, involving 16 young persons detained without trial allegedly over a Marxist conspiracy to overthrow the Government, is turned into a plot to replace all music in Singapore with the melodies of American singer Richard Marx, it's all too much for thin skinned folks who claim to be flame-proof. And found the kitchen getting too hot, so had to cool off in Hokkaido.

While waiting for the reprint which will be available in all good stores from 19 June, do browse the free book online by another cartoonist with sensitive content taking jibes at the nefarious Population White Paper whitewash. Enjoy.

One has to be blind to miss the sweet young thing (SYT) stationed at the ticketing terminal to help the senior citizen (SC) redeem the $50 Public Transport Voucher.
SC: Can you tap the card twice to credit $100?
SYT: Cannot lah, government very clever one.
SC: Okay, lor. BTW, congrats on your $500 bonus.
SYT: What $500 bonus?
SC: Didn't you get the memo? It's in all the newspapers.
SYT: Aiyah, that's for full time staff only.
SC: But you are also serving the public, what!
SYT: !!!????!!!

The Public Service Division (PSD) justified the one-off bonanza by explaining that the Singapore economy grew by 2.6% on a year-on-year basis in the first quarter of 2015, faster than the 2.1% growth in the preceding quarter. You don't need Accounting 101 to appreciate that the civil service is a cost center, not a profit center. Surely the productive elements in the private sector - whither in construction, manufacturing or sales - deserve the ex-gratia pay-off more. After all, the windfall is tapped from their income taxes and other monetary contributions to the economy.

Not having worked a day in the public service, it's best to let someone else explain the anomaly:

"Do you know how government make decisions whether it's regarding what to teach, interest rates, defense, welfare all the stuff that impacts you? Middle management hears a [insert word for sound of odoriferous discharge from anal cavity] from a minister and tries to guess what he means. Doesn't want to ask in order not to look stupid. He doesn't know what to do, so he asks the most junior guy to write a paper. The junior guy does his best and the paper floats up to his head, it bounces back an forth a few times between them, then it bounces to a director then a few times with another higher up. There are many layers. By then, it is morph into something completely different and it gets implemented. A senior guy once told me that writing papers and second guessing your boss correctly is key to success. Practical experience, actual care for serving the interest of Singaporeans actually a detriment."
(Thanks, anon@6/18/2015 4:15 AM)

Sceptism aside, there has to be method to the madness. Those 82,000 beneficiaries could easily translate into votes.

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean said the use of any firearm is taken very seriously, and that police are investigating. Nope, he is not referring to the shoot out at Shangri-La when a panicky gunman shot dead a motorist who was afraid of being caught without a driver's licence. The latter alibi cannot be established in a court of inquiry, since dead men tell no tales. Plus, the police shooter got away clean. Even Jason Tan, the avowed child mutilator, was slapped with a "stern warning in lieu of prosecution”.

The one-way exchange of gunfire at Ardmore Park was the first in 7 years that police was reported to discharge firearms in a non-combatant zone. The last incident involved a knife-wielding man who advanced on an officer at Outram Park MRT station in 2008. It must be a very scary blade that prompted the policeman to fire at point blank in a very crowded place. And probably messed up his underwear as well.

Teo was talking about the 24 year old who, while under arrest and armed escort at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), managed to grab hold of a police officer's firearm and wounded him in the thumb and foot. Apparently they only hand cuff and leg shackle 16 year olds. 6 year olds are hand cuffed only, since their little legs can carry them only so far.

Since the focus of the investigation is most likely on the man who attempted to escape, we'll never get to know other important details. Such as why the holstered revolver's retention device - the thumb-snap that must be unclipped in order to draw the weapon - was not secured, and why the safety catch was not activated. It took three rounds to rouse the surprised cop from his revelry, probably day dreaming about the Kate Spade he could buy his girl friend with the free $500 already in the bag. Maybe he should ask for a transfer to ticketing funeral buses parked illegally.

Even a hustler has lessons to learn

It started when Hollywood studio Voltage Pictures - in the person of Samuel Seow Law Corporation in Singapore - sent out threatening letters of demand to local Internet users for illegally sharing its film "Dallas Buyers Club": pay up or run the risk of being sued. By hinting at the possibility of criminal sanction, apparently the lawyers ran afoul of the Law Society's Practice Directions and Rulings 1989 which state: "It is improper for a solicitor to communicate in writing or otherwise a threat of criminal proceedings in order to achieve a stated objective in any circumstance."

Without going into the intricacies arguing that a case cannot even be made to say that a identified internet protocol (IP) address is proof one has actually downloaded one complete copy of a movie, the stinker here is that the whole exercise is a scare tactic and a copyright troll. Michael Wickstrom, vice-president of Voltage Pictures, has said that a letter from a rights holder is a “good deterrent” to further piracy, admitting, “All I request is that our local attorneys send a warning, because I don’t anticipate a settlement from them except a warning.” Worse, his company has a notorious history of using tracking software to bait victims by mimicking a user of a peer-to-peer network and to offer a file for download to other file sharers.

Plenty of grounds for Internet Society (Singapore)’s president, Harish Pillay, to complain to the Law Society, accusing the firm of engaging in a “bad bullying tactic”. The parties named are Robert Raj Joseph, director, and Lee Heng Eam, associate, from Samuel Seow Law Corp’s litigation and dispute resolution practice group. Raj, who issued the letters of demand, is reported to be leaving the company and has been placed on "gardening" leave, a fancy term for an employee's suspension from work on full pay for the duration of a notice period, typically to prevent them from having any further influence on the organization or from accessing confidential information. Samuel Seow said that Raj’s departure is not related to the handling of the case, suggesting he might also be naughty in other fields of pursuit.

The positive outcome of this nasty episode is that it has rekindled revival of interest in virtual private networks (VPN) - unblock any sites, protect your privacy and surf anonymously with a free proxy. Have you installed yours yet?

On 2 June Amos Yee was sent back into remand for an additional 3 weeks because District Judge Jasvender Kaur wanted more time to contemplate his suitability for the Reformative Training Centre (RTC). While she was thinking, the boy was cuffed spread eagle to an iron bed. Well, come Tuesday 23 June, the report is in, and it says the kid is physically and mentally suitable for reformative training. The monkey wrench in the works is that on Monday 22 June, the United Nations Human Rights Office had asked Singapore courts to "drop the demand for sentencing (Yee) to the RTC" and called for the "immediate release of (Yee) in line with (Singapore's) commitment under the UN Convention on the Rights of Child".

So a Dr Munidasa Winslow suddenly pops up to suggest that Yee may be suffering from autism-spectrum disorder (ASD). Now ASD is a complex disorder of the central nervous system, which often first appears as delayed speech in children around 18 months of age. Anybody who has seen and heard the articulate boy pontificating on his YouTube videos, including the one about the horrible dead guy who kicked the bucket, will wonder if Winslow has his head screwed on right. More important, the SingHealth website openly declares that there is no known cure for autism. Therapies do NOT cure autism, although they MAY bring about marked improvement.

This Mandatory Treatment Order (MTO) which the learned judge is juggling with is merely an option that could be meted out in lieu of imprisonment. Introduced as part of a series of community-based sentencing (CBS) options implemented since January 2011, the positive experience of this route - how we hate this phrase - is that the criminal record will be rendered spent, and the offender deemed to have no record of a conviction whatsoever. In other words, the child is no longer a criminal under the infamous Singapore system of justice, and the United Nations can call off their intervention force with the famous blue helmets.

But that does not change an iota about Madam Mary Toh's precocious son having to spend 3 + 3 + 2 weeks in a lock-up - the last sojourn in a mental institution with electroshock therapy options. Judge Kaur has painted herself in a corner, and a notorious niche in the international hall of shame. Bet you she's willing to forgo her SG50 $500 bonus and have someone else assigned to the case.

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