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Amazing ... Even THIS Can Be News

I haven't blogged much this month. The local news scene seems incredibly slow and boring.

I thought that maybe it's just me - that nothing very interesting to me is appearing in the local newspapers. But I just saw this in the "Latest News" section of the Straits Times Interactive:

ST Sep 17, 2007
Girl loses phone while swimming

A TEENAGE girl lost her mobile phone when she left her belongings unattended while taking a dip in the pool.

The theft happened on Saturday at about 7pm, at the Jurong West sports complex.

She had left her bag - with her $600 phone in it - on a table before she started swimming with her sibling, police said.

While she was in the pool, she looked up several times and saw that her bag was still on the table.

But when she emerged half an hour later to check her bag, she found her mobile phone missing.

The mobile phone's unique identification number, or IMEI number, is 3593-8100-1783-258.

Anyone with information can call the police at 1800-255-0000.

Gasp. Girl Goes Swimming at Public Pool. Girl Leaves Handphone Unattended. Handphone is Stolen.

This is news? And deserves to be reported in the nation's leading newspaper?

September 2007 is clearly not the most exciting of times to be working as a journalist in Singapore. But one might really have expected the Straits Times to do better than this. You know, send your journalists to do a feature story, investigate some trend, interview interesting people etc, or something.
Gadis Bispak Imut

This Man Is A Hero

He looks pretty ordinary, doesn't he. He teaches science in a secondary school and has been doing so for the past eight years.

But make no mistake, he has plenty of guts. Or is in a position where he will need them. So I wish him all the very best.

For the background, click here, here, here and here.

Wonder if the Ministry of Education or the school will now try to sack Mr Otto Fong. Remember this other case - "Teacher Unaccountably Terminated"?

Well, if it happens to Otto, I hope that all his present and former Raffles Institution students who have a conscience and are not homophobes will know what to do. Go to the principal's office and give your feedback. Write an email to PM Lee Hsien Loong (pmo_hq@pmo.gov.sg) and demand an explanation.

And if the usual fundamentalist Christians start crawling out of the woodwork to protest about the terrible sin of Mr Fong's homosexuality, (and the fact that he actually dared to admit it) - I can only say ..... Shame on you.Why are you Christians still picking on gays?

Leviticus 20:10 prescribes the death sentence for adultery. And plenty of heterosexual people in Singapore are having sex outside marriage. Why aren't you campaigning for them to be hanged? Or at least sacked from their jobs?

A bit hypocritical, aren't you. Or just confused? Never went two steps further in your head, to really think about what your cheerleading man in the pulpit was telling you? Then. Go. And. Think. Now.
Gadis Bispak Imut

Life and Other Questions

I have written little in the past week. Local news has been quiet and I haven't noticed much that I feel like blogging about. However when I checked my Google Analytics today, I found the readership numbers to be surprisingly high.

I then checked Technorati and I think that some new readers must be visiting from outside Singapore, thanks to my blog having been placed on Priscilla Palmer's Amazing Personal Growth List.

Priscilla's list looks like an attempt to compile the world's best personal development blogs. The list has some quite well-known personalities (I mean, well-known in the offline world too), including Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Marianne Williamson and Scott Adams.

As for me, well, I'm just "Mr Wang" as usual, LOL. And I'm probably on the list just for my many "Thought Affects Reality" (TAR) posts back in June and July. After all, on the global scale, no one gives a hoot whether Singapore is building a 4th university or not.

"Personal development" is a wide umbrella term and many different things fall within its ambit. Some are more abstract, some are more evolved, some are more practical and everyday. Examples of PD topics would be time management; goal setting; breaking addictions; career success; spiritual growth; self-knowledge; health & fitness; positive thinking; stress management; service to others etc.

The underlying theme is your self, and how it's going to grow, and get better and better at playing this very interesting game called life. The funny thing is, whatever aspect of personal development interests you most, you will inevitably run smack, in one form or another, back into a central principle - that the results you get in your life depend ultimately on the thoughts you think. And little else.

More succinctly, thought affects reality. And your thoughts create your own reality. Well, you already heard all about it from Mr Wang, back in June and July. So I shall not rehash.

Recently, in a corner of the Internet that I visit now and then, I've been talking to a guy who's about to kill himself (let's call him SD). Actually a bunch of other people have also been talking to SD on the Internet.

We don't know who he is, or where he is, or what his real name is, but he is quite serious about committing suicide (apparently he's already tried to kill himself twice before). Of course we are all trying to talk SD out of it and telling him things like please seek counselling, life is not so bad, there is still hope, the world is beautiful etc.

It's a tough sell, because S is quite determined to kill himself. S didn't come to ask us whether he should or should not kill himself - he actually only came to ask about the implications of suicide from the spiritual / religious point of view.

His general conclusion now is that karma is all nonsense, and God doesn't exist anyway. So suicide has no negative spiritual consequences and he can go ahead and do it. Some posters tried to reason logically with S that even if there is no God, no heaven, no hell etc, suicide is still not a good idea, because life is worth living. As I said, a tough sell.

The odd thing is that S doesn't seem to have any objectively terrible or traumatic event in his life that is driving him to suicide. He isn't bankrupt, he didn't get retrenched, he didn't have a broken relationship, he wasn't blinded or paralysed in a recent accident, his family didn't die in a fire etc. S just thinks that he is a "bad", "evil" person and so he ought to die.

When you ask him why he thinks he's "bad" and "evil", he says that he has no friends, and therefore he must be "bad" or "evil"; either that, or everyone is "bad" and "evil" for not wanting to be friends with him. S also keeps saying that the world is a very bad place and we just don't know it yet, but we will realise it sooner or later and be affected by it (I think he's thinking about stuff like global warming, nuclear war etc).

The scary part is how deeply, how completely, S believes what he's saying. It's a very striking example of how thoughts affect reality. S is deeply entrenched in his own very negative thoughts, and that's what his reality has become right now. We're trying, but we can't get him out. His existence, his reality, his entire world is indeed bad, evil, hopeless and grim - and he made it that way, for himself, through the sheer power of his own thoughts.

That's the same kind of power you have, with your own thoughts. You create your own reality, with what goes on in your mind. So be careful what you think. Make sure you give yourself a good dose of positive thoughts every day.

Gadis Bispak Imut

The 4th University And Other Simpler Options

ST Sep 2, 2007
Tony Tan on ways to expand varsity sector
By Sandra Davie

HERE'S one quick way to add university places: expand the intakes of the three universities next year.

The National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University could each add 200 to 250 places while the Singapore Management University could enrol another 400 to 600 students.

That would bump up figures by about 800 to 1,000 places, and lessen the worry parents and students have of demand outstripping supply, said ex-Cabinet minister Dr Tony Tan, now advising a committee on the expansion of the tertiary sector.

But how to achieve Singapore's new target to raise the proportion of university places to 30 per cent of each cohort by 2015?

One approach, said Dr Tan, would be to re-consider the idea of having a fourth university, mooted by a 2002 government committee.

Another would be to consider a more recent suggestion to have multi-campuses affiliated to the present three universities.

He had in mind three campuses: on health science-related disciplines, liberal arts with a focus on financial services, and engineering and technology.

But whichever option picked, more polytechnic graduates should be helped to obtain a degree.

Well, there is another option. Tertiary education in Singapore has always been heavily subsidised by taxpayers' money. So instead of using that money to set up a new university or new campuses (which would involve high start-up and fixed costs), simply give some of that taxpayers' money to Singaporeans, in the form of financial aid. Help them finance their overseas tertiary education. Say, up to $12,000 per year.

Naturally, we'd have to build in some control measures. For example, we could specify a list of 30 overseas universities of reasonable repute. To get your $12,000 per year, you'd have to get a place in one of these 30 universities (and not just any lousy school).

To avoid fraud and prevent misuse of funds, the government could disburse the funds when you submit documentary evidence of what you need the funds for. For example, let's say that the university gives you an invoice for next semester's fees. You then submit the invoice to the government. The government pays the money directly to the university.

We can build in some "need" criteria into the scheme. For example, depending on the annual income of your family, you may or may not qualify for the $12,000. Or you may qualify for a lesser or greater sum.

To make sure that Singapore, as a state, gets something out of this, the financial aid recipients would have to sign an agreement to say that after graduation, they will return to work in Singapore for at least three years. They can work for any employer they choose, as long as the employer is based in Singapore.

Good deal? Too good to be true? But this is essentially the same deal that we give to the foreign students taking up places in NUS, NTU and SMU. Why should we shortchange our own citizens?

Oh, but this is Singapore.
Gadis Bispak Imut

The Colour of the Skin of Dysfunctional Families

ST Sep 3, 2007
PM: Malay- Muslims now much better off
But problems such as dysfunctional families need to be tackled
By Li Xueying

THE past 25 years have seen a dramatic transformation in Singapore's Malay-Muslim community, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday.

It is now a community 'confident that it is progressing with the others, and succeeding through its own efforts'.

But some pressing and spiky issues need to be urgently tackled, he said. Chief among these: dysfunctional families.

....... Sounding a sober note, Mr Lee observed that the problem of dysfunctional families manifests itself in many ways - divorce rates, single parents and the 'unacceptably high' number of teenage births.

Without a supportive home environment, youths drop out of school.

'This will permanently blight the child's life chances and risks perpetuating the problem into the next generation,' said Mr Lee.

In tackling this, self-help efforts are critical. So going forward, Mendaki needs to come up with new programmes and adjust existing ones.

...... Speaking to reporters later, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim said a review of programmes on the dysfunctional family problem is under way to see where the gaps are.

'And if those gaps are critical and strategic to the community, we'll probably have to move our resources there,' he said.

One possible issue is the need to train people on the frontline. Malay organisations have told him they encounter such families when giving out aid, 'but they stop there'.

'Perhaps there is a lack of understanding and expertise in the Malay organisations to... deal with the families in a holistic manner,' said Dr Yaacob."

Personally I wonder whether a dysfunctional Malay family is so different from a dysfunctional Chinese or Indian family that social support and counselling etc needs to be divided along racial lines and administered by separate racial organisations (Mendaki, Sinda etc).

I imagine, for example, that a key part of the effort to reduce the number of teenage births would be sex education for teenagers. But I don't see how the content of the sex education programme would be very different for Malay, Chinese or Indian youths. They all make babies in approximately the same way.

But if different racial organisations all ran their own sex education programmes instead of pooling resources, well, counsellors' expertise in running such programmes can't be shared and there is less economy of scale.
Gadis Bispak Imut

New Aggregator in Town

This email arrived in my inbox:
“Hi there Mr Wang,

The Singapore Daily is an effort by a group of Singaporeans to help collate and aggregate articles, blog entries and forum discussions on important local current affairs and issues. We hope that our little project can contribute positively to local discourse and help everyone be more informed about current issues. We look forward to your support!

Sincerely
The Singapore Daily Team
singaporedaily.wordpress.com”
And so, soon after the sad demise of Intelligent Singaporean, we have a new aggregator in town. It looks somewhat more varied in its content, and features sports, technology as well as pictures of “chiobu”. Click here to visit.
Gadis Bispak Imut

The Choice Between Thinking Small or Going Global

ST Sep 2, 2007
Write on local law, CJ tells academics
He points to tension between need to write on S'pore law and need to write for world renown
By Melissa Sim
LAW academics in Singapore are writing more about foreign law than Singapore law and this may not be a desirable situation, said Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong yesterday.
Speaking at the 50th anniversary gala dinner of the law faculty of the National University of Singapore, he said Supreme Court judges have referred to, and adopted, academic writings in their judgments, especially on difficult points of law.
But there is a 'current tension between the need for academics to write on Singapore law for local consumption and the need to write for international recognition', he said.
A study of The Malaya Law Review and the Singapore Journal Of Legal Studies has shown that from 1959 to 1979, the number of articles on foreign law exceeded those on local law. For the next 20 years - from 1980 to 1999 - the trend was reversed. However, since 2000, the situation has reverted to show a bias in favour of foreign legal developments.
The CJ said that law academics must write on and about Singapore law because the NUS law faculty is a national law school with a mission to produce graduates for national needs. 'If they wish to influence the judiciary in the development of our law and legal system, they must generate the arguments and the ideas for us.'
He said it was necessary to 'strike a proper balance between personal and national interests'.

You might not be able to tell from the above article. But there's a fairly sharp conflict of philosophies here between the Chief Justice and the NUS Law Faculty.

For quite a number of years now, NUS law dean Tan Cheng Han has been pushing hard to put a much more international perspective into legal education in NUS. He wants law students to have a better understanding of the legal systems in other countries, believing that this is more in line with commercial realities in a globalised economy.

The Chief Justice, however, wants legal academics to focus on more-local issues. He would like them to analyse issues and problems in Singapore's legal system, and thereby build a body of legal literature to help Singapore's judges in their legal work. The Chief Justice also says that NUS is a "national law school with a mission to produce graduates for national needs".

I am with Tan Cheng Han on this issue. In my opinion, the kind of lawyers which Singapore's economy needs most badly are those who have knowledge and/or experience with international transactions and cross-border deals. This necessarily means that these lawyers need some degree of familarity with other legal systems, such as those of China, India and South Korea. If they can get some exposure during their law school days, so much the better.

It follows that law students who spend more time in school studying foreign / international law would spend less time studying Singapore law. I suppose a balance has to be struck somewhere, but frankly it's not such a big deal if you only knew a little about Singapore law. You'll get a sense of why, if you read this old post where I wrote about my previous legal job.

Gadis Bispak Imut