Community approved graffiti

College's contribution to SG60 is a touch-up of the 50 SG50 community wall murals we put up 10 years ago, plus putting up an additional 10 new murals to make it 60. My CT got to paint one of the new ones, lucky us!

It was nice to see everyone engaged and focused on a singular task. Lacking experience didn't stop anybody. The paint-by-numbers task was simple enough, yet provided immediate feedback on how well (and how quickly) we were progressing. Various residents stopped to admire the new splash of colour, and commented appreciatively of the artwork, adding objective user experience feedback while we were painting.

Our mural was split between two load-bearing walls. The design was a triptych depicting 3 familiar local myths. The bottom photo represents Sang Nila Utama spotting his apocryphal lion, which gave our tiny island its current name. The above photo depicts a somewhat obscured legend of Kusu Island on the left, and the legend of Redhill on the right. Yes, somehow Redhill (Bukit Merah) is connected to a tale involving the defeat of a school of marauding swordfish that made a habit of skewering beachgoers, and some court intrigue.

Not often we get such high-profile opportunities to bond as a CT. Today's event was well-received by all involved.

377A, the potential political hot potato nobody wants

So in the National Day Rally 2022, PM announced that Section 377A is finally being repealed. It's been a slow, gradual process laying the groundwork for the dissolution of a legacy law that we inherited from the Brits, made in times long past from which society has grown and changed. To put it simply, 377A criminalises the act of sex between men, and in these more open times is seen as an oppression of homosexuality, although the same law makes no provision for lesbian sex.

Despite times being more inclusive, there are still strongly vocal components of our society who believe same-sex sex is unacceptable, hence the need for years of groundwork: discussions, consultations and reassurances that all interested parties on both sides of the divide will get a fair hearing. For a time, the status quo held that although the law exists, it would not be enforced. But now, this archaic law is about to become moribund, with the compromise that only heterosexual marriages will be recognised and protected by our Constitution. One step forward, and one step back.

But is it, though? Because what I see is a mistaken conflation between the repeal of a defunct law and the implied support for the group the law penalised. The next step on this slippery slope would be that if this once-penalised group has gained even implicit support from the authorities, then the upholding of its asserted rights (in this case to marriage) should follow. That is not what's happening here.

Repealing 377A has nothing to do with supporting homosexuality. Rather, it simply gets rid of a potential political hot potato that creates unnecessary division between people who feel they must draw a line in the sand over the issue. As long as the law exists, no matter how much it is promised to be 'unenforceable', at any time, any zealot from either side wanting badly enough to make a statement could make a big enough fuss over an incident, and demand prosecution. Given how divisive the issue is, and that there are respectable, contributing members of society on both sides of the fence, any decision the courts are forced to make is bound to favour one side over the other, splitting society over a rift of no return.

To repeal 377A is nothing more than a pragmatic decision. It is a recognition that whatever goes on sexually between consenting adults in private is their own business, and not the government's. If someone gets injured, or dies during the act of whatever variety of sex, there are laws that deal with assault or murder. If a sexual act is done in public and is complained about, there are laws governing public nuisance. With 377A gone, anyone charged with such crimes makes for a clearly criminal case, instead of being charged with a law designed to target a specific group of people, raising accusations of unfairness, repression and the violation of human rights. For a Democratic society, such repercussions can be severe and difficult to recover from.

The LGBTQ+ community are disappointed that their right to marriage remains denied to them for now. But this discussion is for another time and cannot be a logical follow-through from the decision to repeal 377A.

Essay: Are foreigners essential to a country's progress?

While others are groaning over a possibly apocalyptic US election result, I'm just going to share another freestyle essay and a self-critique. 'Freestyle' means no plan, just pure improvisation over a 90 minute time limit. And, yes, I do in that span of time allow pauses to compose my thoughts and make edits along the way.

The essay question as follows:
To what extent are foreigners essential to a country's progress? Discuss with reference to your society.

The essay here:
http://tinyurl.com/oz6y3gn

And the self-critique:

Clearly not a standard essay for the General Paper. With no plan, I let the scope of this essay go out of control and ran into trouble bringing the argument back into focus. The definition of 'foreigners' was difficult to nail down as the concept is more abstract than I had anticipated. While the simple idea of a foreigner is someone born outside of local borders, the conception of 'foreigner' is just as telling of a mindset as it is a place of birth. Besides, how does one discuss a relative thing like 'progress'? So many things to establish even before I can begin to make a case. By the time I got to make 'reference to your society', it was really the tail end of what I could manage within the time allotted. As such, the conclusion tries to make a point I hadn't had time to fully develop, ending on a hyperbole with little to no substantiation. And, yes, some evidence is contrived as well. As for balance, well, a resource is either essential (absolutely must have) or not essential (can live without it) and cannot be partially essential (which makes no logical sense at all). I chose to argue 'essential'. Being decisive motivates a stronger argument than being placatory.

Staffed duck

Staff retreat. Just ridin' a Duck and feeling like a tourist in my own country.

Getting our flippers wet

Water under the bridge

City skyline

I don't get seasick, else I'd be doing the same

The Sands: view from the Bay

Trusty duck

Wanna bet?

People are understandably concerned about the legalization of online betting in S'pore within the next month or two. Going online makes it more convenient to place bets via mobile app than having to trudge down and queue up at the corner betting store. But will convenience alone cause a spike in gambling as our concerned citizens fear? I doubt it.

This convenience comes with a price: the ability for the authorities to identify individual bettors, track how much each is wagering per transaction and establish their betting patterns over time. Cross-referenced against personal incomes, disproportionate or suspicious spending on bets can be flagged out for intervention if necessary.

If I were a betting man, I'd still go to the corner shop and place an anonymous bet with less-traceable cash. Only if I win big will the world know who I am. Until then, how I bet and what I bet on is nobody else's business. And as a non-betting man, I see more disincentive than incentive to start.

National Day 2016

National Day 2016 begins with an early morning walk along the Marina Bay area with dogs in tow. Also a good opportunity to GO, if you know what I mean. Heh.

Good food goes with good company. Not finding the cafe we intended to park ourselves and dogs, we blundered into Bread Street, which gladly accepted our canine companions at the al fresco tables. When we were being seated, it dawned on us that this was the Bread Street by Gordon Ramsey.

To our relief, the price of breakfast was very reasonable. That is to say, not different from anywhere else that serves a similar menu. My Eggs Benedict was delightful. Eggs poached without being too runny on top of a generous helping of smoked salmon on top of a crispy, fluffy inside English muffin. The whole thing held together by a lovely Hollandaise sauce, creamy and smooth. Staff were attentive and friendly, offering our dogs iced water with lots of ice.

Scored tix to National Day Parade 2016. It was the debut of the new National Stadium as an NDP venue. A big flash and light show, the presentation was spectacular, but relied so much on special effects that much of the human element got lost during the mobile display segments. Dance movements were barely visible, overwhelmed by the massive sets and the barrage of ever-changing colours in a constant swirl. Individual performers were barely recognizable in the mass, lost in the alternations of bright and dark spaces in the performing area.

 Acted on some good advice and left the stadium just at the start of the finale to go outside and get a good view of the fireworks.

We picked out a great spot with fireworks almost literally exploding above our heads. Never been so close before. A superb closure to a fulfilling public holiday!

The baseball-equity cartoon

No, no, no. The above cartoon attempts to explain how equality does not necessarily mean fairness. Actually, what our three friends are demonstrating is criminal activity -- watching a game without paying for a ticket. How are these three moochers being fair to those people in the stands who paid for entry?

In the right panel, all barriers to accessing the game have collapsed. And because nobody needs to buy a ticket, the sport has no more money to maintain a nice, fancy stadium any longer; all the pros have lost their jobs. Goodness knows what our three friends are still watching. Happy now?

Unless... the transparent fence represents a TV screen? It doesn't cost as much to watch a televised game, and every viewer has clear line-of-sight to the action, regardless of how vertically-challenged they may be. The stadium still functions and the professional players are still employed.

All the tweaks we might make meddling with human political systems for the sake of 'fairness' will always leave some party or another dissatisfied. It is perhaps technology that is the greatest leveler in the end.

Footnote: Located the original artist of the graphic. Craig Froehle is now tracking in fascinating detail the meme he created. Click here for an interesting read into how it has spread in its many permutations since its conception in 2012.

"The myth of the universality of human rights"

In today's IPS lecture, Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan discussed the myth of the universality of human rights. That is to say, the concept of 'human rights' exists as an ideal we aspire to, but because it is also a mental construct, its application and implementation are very much dependent on context and wide open to interpretation.

I think we know what 'rights' means. The problem is that we can't define 'human' satisfactorily enough because we are too close to the subject matter. Human rights are easier to conceive of when we think of it in terms of the very broadest ways in which we humans differ from one another: the physical, the psychological, and the identity of self. For example, in our national pledge we are all equal 'regardless of race, language or religion'. Whomever we are, we can be identified as human despite of our race, language or religion, and no one is likely to dispute that -- unless our society totally breaks down and we become paranoid and insular.

But when human beings begin to define themselves by increasingly narrow criteria, they run the risk of defining themselves outside of what the majority can roughly agree is identifiably human. If you define your needs as so particular that I don't identify your needs as my needs, then we are going to have a problem agreeing that you have a right to meet those needs of yours.

Minority groups have this problem of getting their particular needs met and recognized by mainstream society. Paradoxically, perhaps the best way to help minorities is to not recognize minority differences at all. Recognizing minority groups legitimizes and therefore draws attention to characteristics of those groups that make them different from everyone else. The more marginal the difference, the less mainstream society is likely to sympathize as whatever need arises from that difference, it really isn't mainstream society's problem to deal with.

It's a two-way street, of course. Mainstream society is just as likely to identify minor differences in certain groups of people and exclude them from the mainstream and the privileges therein, like legal protection, education, opportunities and otherwise a decent way to make a living for oneself. In which case, if mainstream society sees itself as being overrun by minorities, it usually is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Where we see difference, there is difference.

What is a democratically-elected government to do when the people are fractious and tense because differences are everywhere? I guess you start with doing right by the majority of the voters, since your mandate comes from the majority, but make policy such that people are treated fairly across the board within the broad definitions of what we can agree are what makes us all 'human' -- such that we no longer see the differences between 'us' and 'them', and 'they' no longer see how different they are from 'us'.

Too idealistic? Too naive? If we leave dealing with difference at policy level, it means the ground isn't ready to make any meaningful progress where it matters the most. Complying with policy is not the same as making a personal choice at the individual level to extend understanding and support to the people among us.

In the end, perhaps rights can be defined as the privileges we are willing to give up in favour of doing right by the other person. What could make us more human than that?

Like pulling marrow from the tulang

I turned down a good cause. A door-to-door representative from the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP) approached me and I flatly declined to donate either my time or money to the cause. Donating my bone marrow was out of the question. Was it worthy cause? Yes. Were they asking for much? No. Could I have been inclined to help out? Maybe. So why didn't I?

It was the sales pitch. The boy, bless him, was such an android doing everything he had been programmed to do. He started off by offering me some very unpalatable alternative ways to be a contributor. While he wasn't asking for my bone marrow, he suggested that I could be a volunteer like him, then he reminded me how busy I probably was and so I wouldn't be likely to consider contributing that way.

Next, he went on a heartbreaking spiel on how young some of the bone marrow recipients were -- "months... months old only" and how would I feel as a parent of such a child, separated from parental love being confined in a glass box and stuffed full of tubes? I happened to be holding on to the dog at the time, so it was hard to empathize.

He complimented me on my interior decor (seriously?), hoping to trigger a psychological reminder of how well-off I was, then offered me a suite of possible tax deductible donation plans and which demographic each plan was targeted at. He surmised that like so-and-so and so-and-so who signed up (ooh, neighbour envy), I might undertake the middle-income plan, at which point I had heard enough and closed the door on him with a "thank you for the information, sorry for wasting your time."

Understand that the boy did everything he was taught.He smiled at the right time, he picked up on the right cues, he asked for reasons for my concerns... he was trained well. And that's my problem. I turned him down because he was doing what he was told.  While he may well have been personally motivated for whatever reason to volunteer for this worthy cause, his performance was perfect as a mouthpiece for whomever trained him and didn't sound sincere at all. Most of all, I hate being manipulated. This template-dialogue just made it so obvious.

Perhaps karma will bite me in the ass someday, but if and when I do donate to a good cause, I want to do so because I genuinely believe it is the right thing to do, and not because I couldn't say, "no", to someone groping around looking for the right buttons to push on me.

Looking back at the results of GE2015

Woke up to clear white skies with just a tinier patch of blue than before. Against expectations, the incumbents took a larger share of the popular vote at GE2015 than earlier indications seemed to suggest. It looks like beyond the raucous rallies and the social media frenzy of support for 'alternative voices' in parliament, the sleeping giant of the silent majority only made a noise where it counted the most: at the polls.

Looking back at how this apparently out-of-the-blue support for the incumbents might have reached landslide proportions, we need to see what the electorate did NOT vote for:

Clearly, the electorate did not want the incumbents to lose its 2/3s majority in parliament. Given that all constituencies were once again being contested, voters took no chances and chose conservatively. Having said that, it is telling that the blues kept their strongholds while the other oppo parties were quite let down at the polls. It could be said that the blues did not fight to win big at this elections but rather strategized to not lose its major symbolic territories. Letting the other oppo parties become the distracting sideshows that they were actually made the blues look good in comparison, and keeping 6 elected seats in parliament is still better than losing them all. The voters win, the blues win, and the other oppo parties win because they still keep an 'alternative voice' in an otherwise all-white government, 'moving forward'.

Even before Nomination Day, the voters could see the infighting, dissent, tantrums and rage quits that showed the different oppo parties not quite getting their act together. If that was what the campaign was going to look like, the electorate could not stomach that lot in parliament where actual decisions are being made about real lives and real livelihoods over the next 5 years to come.

The biggest losers are the Independents because if no one wanted them to join a party... 'nuff said.

The party that was obviously running a poorly-disguised racist platform got few votes because the electorate had already left ethnically-based politics behind decades ago, knowing that a country divided along such lines will absolutely ruin what has gone right for this country for the last 50 years.

The party that promised to TAKE money out of voters' pockets and give it to the poor and needy elderly cardboard collectors union of Singapore found little support for its well-meaning humanitarian social-welfare platform.

The party that stood for Democracy over Action found out that the electorate, though relishing a good debate, is still fundamentally pragmatic and is swayed more by results than a dramatic chin-and-finger-wag.

The People's party found out that after all, only one Person ever mattered, and that without him, they had become the who-are-you party. Which was probably the same case for the remaining oppo parties which ran equally forgettable platforms and candidates.

What the electorate DID vote for was a calm, dignified, matter-of-fact, results-orientated tone of voice. Non-reactionary, non-sensational, ultimately boring and occasionally foot-in-mouth in presentation, perhaps overly-highly paid but at the same time has done nothing to damage the reputation; infrastructure; and standing, trustworthiness and respect of the country on the international stage.

In fact, GE2015 turned out to be little more than a municipal election in which all contesting parties, including the incumbent who went along and played the same game, were only vying for a town council seat. The electorate instead decided to vote for a Government -- the one that was already there in the first place.

V-day dinner company

Valentine's Day and we're passed out on the living room carpet semi-watching yet another HK lawyer drama serial. It's been a long, busy week for both of us and to be able to just do that is luxury enough.

Now that she's working for a charity NGO, she's starting to involve me with some of her work. Earlier this evening, we took a little time out to eat a simple dinner with the old ladies boarding there. For a treat, she got me to bring over a couple of tubs of Neapolitan ice-cream for them. They seldom get ice-cream, so they were quite appreciative of her thoughtfulness.

All-in-all, this V-day has been quite special. No gifts to each other, but a small token that didn't cost much given to others from the both of us. Dinner was hardly romantic, but there was a different kind of warmth around the table for more than two. Special, indeed.

Poor choice of words

So a fella gets ripped a new one for posting insensitive comments online. The fact that he is a foreigner is not a factor in this situation because anyone who posts stupid things online is fair game for trolls seeking easy targets to vent on.

The hypersensitivity of the overreaction is more fascinating to me. We are enraged for being labelled "poor". Um, so what? There is no shame in being poor. The vast majority of us do not drive around in Porches, but we still get around town and get our stuff done just fine, anyway. We're resourceful like that.

Besides, we even call ourselves "poor" and complain we can't afford fees, fares, housing, education and food. So we can label ourselves "poor" when it suits our arguments, but we can't accept the same label when it doesn't? Instead, in our online culture we take every chance to shame people who claim to be "rich". Essentially, we are telling people who own nice things to get off the Internet. That's not very nice of us, is it?

His second transgression was stating his desire to "wash [off] the stench of public transport" after his experience with it. We've all thought the same thing ourselves; we've posted the same thought online ourselves; and now we are excoriating someone for also posting the same comment in his own paraphrase? Everybody knows our public transport system is terrible. Online we're so vocal with our complaints about overcrowding; so many breakdowns; such frequent delays... That totally stinks and yet they keep raising fares! TMD!

So we all think the same thing, and we post our thoughts online though in different words, some more prosaic, some more droll, most just shoot from the hip. There is no need to take such huge issue with a "poor" paraphrasing of such a common thought. Let's just take a chill pill and give more room to nuance, off-colour humour, and multiple-entendre. And stop trying to police the Internet for politically-correct speech. Right now, online trolling is more a threat to our Internet freedoms than the MDA. Think about that.

'C' is for cookie

The wife's been busy baking up a storm of these almond cornflake cookies. Not for us, though. They're her contributions to a charity fundraiser. Who knows, maybe it's also a hint as to a whole new career direction for her?

Down by the riverside

A new long walk route to try: Punggol Waterway Park. NParks has done a terrific job of prettying up the Punggol River. Although it now looks manicured and well-maintained by an army of gardeners, it still retains its authentic swampy, all natural smell.

Such a long stretch of picturesque greenery to traipse along. My route took me from the main car park all the way to the Sunrise Bridge and back along the opposite bank.

Tasha will tell you that the mad not-Englishman was at it again. It's blazing hot today, and he didn't bring enough water. Fortunately, there are public toilets at both ends of the route for a top-up of fresh tap water and a vending machine for cold drinks (the one at the Sunrise Bridge end only accepts old coins, not new). 

Tasha can't resist taking a peek at the river from this end of the Sunrise Bridge. The name suggests that perhaps the best time to walk this route is early morning. Will keep that in mind next time.

Finally back at our starting point, taking a break before crossing the Adventure Bridge back to civilization.

Yes, Tasha deserves a good lunch after all that calorie incinerating exercise.

Me too.

Walk this way

Look at my gaggle of ducklings, taking a long morning stroll through the park for a good cause. For each kilometer walked, NTUC will donate a corresponding kilogram of rice to the needy per participant. In this annual Walk-for-Rice event, our planned route was 8km long (my GPS tracker counted 9.7km to be exact), so my little flock should have amassed 288kg of rice in total at least.

Personally, I've been training for this event. My asthma's been making a comeback so I figured I'd better not be unprepared. For the past week or so, I've been walking 4km twice a day around the neighbourhood. The exercise has been doing me a world of good. Since I started, I've been able to breathe again. The trade-off: a couple of awesome blisters from all that walking. Worth it, I guess.

Exit, stage left

Friday evening, we attended Tina's memorial (above) dressed in our old "z-Friends" costumes. Comprising a solid colour T-shirt underneath denim overalls, this was what we wore for our street gigs. Using (or rather, misusing) buckets and mops, we devised many ridiculous scenarios such as "astronauts"; "circus" and "Olympics" for the purpose of entertaining children and for other fringe activities. Of course, my set of overalls had gotten tight over the years. Sigh.

Anyway, a number of very eloquent people said a lot of very nice things about Tina which we all could nod to. Her straightness of back; her humility; her giving of herself to project, people and the community; her sense of quick-witted and spontaneous fun; her discipline; her genuineness; her respect for others regardless of age, background or experience... and so many other things we will miss now that she's gone.

So with red wine and white wine, masala tea and tetra-pak drinks, we toasted Tina even as we vowed to keep her memory alive while we kept theatre alive and thriving even though one of our biggest prime movers has exited, stage left for her curtain-call of great applause.

To be fixed

This poor fellow is a recent arrival to the void deck of a neighbouring block. He's very friendly... which is how he ended up in our cage. We're helping our local cat welfare chapter neuter strays and this guy is a prime candidate for fixin'. He'll be be picked up in the morning by a fellow cat caretaker and taken to the vet; after which he'll be released to recuperate where we found him downstairs.

I feel sorry for him, though. Confined to a tiny cage all night and made to fast before his 'procedure', he hasn't stopped crying since we brought him home. I feel your pain, l'il buddy. But it's for your own good.

Edit 01: Oops, the boy was already fixed. Oh, well, just to make his overnight stay in our cage worthwhile, he got a health screen and his ear clipped.

It's curtains (or is it?)

Lucy's got me working on another arts focused essay. This one's an actual Cambridge question from 2010: "Would it matter if all the performing arts venues in your society, such as concert halls and theatres, were closed down?" A nonsensical question, if I ever saw one.

Again, my instructions were to be as detailed as possible so hang limits on word count and time. Click here, if the question somehow appears as as a must-read to you.

Take away the incentive

How is it that the more resources there are available to us, the harder it is for us to share them? We have plenty of road, yet drivers and motorcyclists are squabbling over what turf is rightfully "theirs".

On our roads, motorcyclists will squeeze between lanes, raising the ire of drivers. Drivers hate such behaviour because motorbikes unpredictably appear from blind spots -- even after checking. Bikers are fast, less visible and aggressive, or they are slow and hog lanes. Either way, they can't win against drivers who feel that the roads are more legitimately theirs.

Let's agree on one thing, at least. Everyone wants to get to their destination safely and in one piece. Speed is a secondary issue. Speed is a function of what the individual road user perceives as "safe". Slow users are careful. They want longer reaction times to unpredictable events. Fast users are avoiding "being there" when something bad occurs on the road. Everybody is searching for some space where they can exist while minimizing the possibility of having to share the same space at the same time, which -- according to the laws of physics -- can often result in a fatal merger.

As a driver, I say we take away the incentive for bikers to squeeze between us. The reason why they feel it is safer between us than behind us is because we give them less space behind us than between us. Whenever we see a biker in front of us, we speed up and force the biker over to one side so we can get past. Admit it, that's what we do -- presumably because we pay more road tax or ERP; or because four wheels are better than two; or something.

Once we realize that our behaviour influences the actions of others, we empower ourselves to do something about the situation instead of waiting forever for someone else to change their behaviour. What am I suggesting? Fellow drivers, for Pete's sake, give bikers the same respect and minimum safety distance as you would for another car on the road. To keep bikes off the sides of the road, give them a safer option and they'll take it.

Bikers will also take advantage of stop lights and jams to weave between us and get to the head of the queue, and that's annoying, but because of their relative size, that's their prerogative. It also helps shorten the queue a bit, so let them do what they do best and we keep our cool about it, can?

But bikers also have to realize that they are too vulnerable to stay on the rightmost (fast) lane for too long. So, if they agree to keep off the right lane unless they are making a right turn or if they absolutely have to overtake a slowpoke on the left lane (in which case they should do it quickly and get back off to the left asap) I think there'll be a much safer traffic flow for everyone.

Return of the baby

News that I have become a great-uncle once again should put the Senior Lee's fears to rest. This whole baby dearth thing is probably a phenomenon relating specifically to my generation born during the tumultuous years between the 60s and 70s. People blame the population policies of the period and while there is truth in that perception, the greater truth is that people are more flexible than just blindly complying with a non-compulsory governmental exhortation. My generation is the literally lost generation, at this age too old to reproduce and too tired to bother looking after babies. The generation after mine is better-adjusted, a lot more secure and forward-looking. I daresay the babies are coming back again.