A Disgraceful Episode
The first registration exercise for Ministry of Education (MOE) kindergartens was met with a curious response. Over 196 applications were received for a total of 240 places, while at Dazhong there were...
View ArticleThe Party Goes On
It's enough to make you do a double take. It is reported that Robert Prior-Wandesforde, director of Asian economies at Credit Suisse, actually said: "Singapore clearly remains the sick man of Asia......
View ArticleThe Curious Case Of Mr Dorsey
He was no run-of-the-mill keyboard warrior blogger. Mr James Dorsey was a veteran journalist and freelance writer before appointed senior fellow at National Technological University (NTU)'s School of...
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Letting Go
More horrifying than the ghastly pictures of the victims of the Boston pressure cooker bomb blast, must be this AP photo of a crowd celebrating a politician's passing.On 3 May 1989 Margaret Thatcher...
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Indian Giver
The "permanent" exhibition of segments of the Berlin Wall The 5m long section of the Berlin wall, comprising slabs 251-254, was supposed to be on indefinite loan from American art lover and oil...
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We Don't Need This
These are not the bullet points you like to see in a Powerpoint presentation. A Singapore Business reminded us of 8 facts about Singapore's housing and transport woes:1 Singaporeans are experiencing...
View ArticleNot All Flies Are Treated Equal
“There are those who say we should not open our windows, because open windows let in flies,” Deng Xiaoping once proclaimed in defence of his reformist vision, adding, "If you open the window for fresh...
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Unpleasant Reminders
The counter for the mobile phone repair center was manned by Burmese, all of them. It was a golden opportunity to ask why the locals we came across in a recent trip to Rangoon were decorated with a...
View ArticleGuided Democracy In Play
Contemporary conceptualizations of the public sphere are based on the ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas' book "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere". Broadly speaking, the public sphere...
View ArticleThe King Is Not Amused
The concept of Lèse-majesté (French, from the Latin laesa maiestas, "injured majesty") as a criminal offence goes all the way back to ancient Rome and was zealously guarded by absolute monarchs in...
View ArticleDialogue — The Speech of Fiction
We have had enough of bad dialogue. Enough of those politically correct utterances from staged puppets, spouting verbiage that no one is allowed to challenge without the consequence of a lawyer's...
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The Crack In The System
The proverb, "A new broom sweeps clean", was intended to suggest that someone who is new in a particular job will do a very good job at first, to prove how competent he or she is. Too bad it doesn't...
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Same Old Same Old
The guy was helicoptered in to address the reliability issues of the "world class" mass rapid transit system, but instead of focusing on the uptime and safety aspects, he is proving to be another...
View ArticleHe Will Not Be Missed
Two years ago today, May 2nd, Osama bin Laden was put out of his miserable existence in Abbottabad, his hiding place of choice in Pakistan. At least Hitler did us a favour of putting a bullet to his...
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Sleeping With The Enemy
When the Memorial to the Civilian Victims of the Japanese Occupation ("The Cenotaph") was spray painted with graffiti, many were howling and baying for blood about the sacrilege of the war dead. Some...
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Another Dog And Pony Show
It can't be expressed clearer than this: the TCs were set up for, and fulfil(,) a political purpose.Deputy Secretary (Development) Tay Kim Poh had his hands tied from the very beginning. Although...
View ArticleThe Golden Rule
Named after Charles Ponzi, a Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays unrealistic returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors. The latter...
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An Inconvenient Truth
Not the "Gentleman" moveIt would appear to all and sundry that heaven and earth are being moved to protect Teo Ho Pin from the malodour of AIMgate. For starters, the official mouth piece, now ranked...
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Press Freedom Update
The latest 2013 World Press Freedom Index prepared by Reporters Without Borders dispensed with weightage of dramatic political developments, focusing instead on the attitudes and intentions of...
View ArticleMoving On
Business Times reports former Member of Parliament (MP) Cynthia Phua has just joined real estate consultancy Knight Frank Singapore as its executive director of retail services. Madam Phua was once a...
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