Why we need a Cooling-Off Day.

Mon, 2 May 2011
4 min read
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After reading my letter, this gentleman called Stephen Teng got so mad that he used 30 question marks in his reply to me.

Maybe this is why we need a Cooling-Off Day – to prevent Singaporeans from voting with their spleens instead of their heads.

I’m not usually a verbose person. However, he seems eager for me to continue the conversation. Hence, I will sacrifice some time off from doing work to respond to him.

–

Hi “Stephen Teng”,

Change for better or worse ???

    Sorry – I’m not too sure which letter you were reading. I did not write about change at all.

What guarantee do u have that the present opposition parties can do a better job ??? On what basis ? Any record to show/prove ?

    No, I made no guarantee that I have any records of the above-mentioned, because I never made any of those arguments. Please re-read my letter carefully.

They can’t even manage their respective party of few hundred members, and they can govern S’pore of a few millions citizens ???

    These are your opinions, which you formed on your own. They can also be perceived as potentially slanderous to the opposition parties.

    Nevertheless, this is Singapore. You are entitled to your own opinions, as well as potential legal responses based on the allegations you have made.

U dare to try them without any understudy at all ? It’s like a business father asking/forcing(freak GE) his inexperienced children to take over his business. Do u not agree ???

    No, I do not agree because I never said anything about “try[ing] them”. Please re-read my letter carefully.

    I will refrain from commenting on your analogy.

Has PAP not proven all these yrs since 1959 ??? Tell me, which same democratic government in the world can survive this long ???

    Three things you may want to note:

    1. To answer your first question: sorry, this is a non-question. You need to state exactly what you are referring to in the case of the PAP government having to prove itself before the question can be answered.
    2. You mentioned having an “understudy” earlier. You may want to bear in mind that the PAP government never had understudies either when they began their term of duty in 1959.
    3. In your second question, you have conflated the concepts of ‘government’ and ‘political party’. Most democratic governments the world over have survived for as long as or even longer than the Singapore government has. Singapore, however, is unique in that one political party has been in power all this while.

Furthermore, PAP only took one GE within 5 yrs to overthrow the previous corrupt government.

    You are attempting to rewrite history by saying that the then-Labour Front government was corrupt.

However, the opposition MPS, both past & present, including the current 3 MPs (2MPs + 1NCMP) have been in parliament for >50 yrs, and have not made any headway. If not, why not ??? So, how many more yrs do they need ???

    I think the first question is best answered by yourself. With regard to your second question, I may be bald, but I can neither read minds nor look into the future. I’m sorry for not being able to answer your question.

Of course, u can always try the opposition. It’s yr free choice.

    Thank you. I already said I have not made up my mind yet. Please re-read my letter carefully.

Suggest u re-read my posting on “fluke or freak GE ?” in this forum.

    Thank you. I will politely decline because I have work to do.

Don’t say, u have not been fore-warned by them, what they plan to do after May 7. Ok ???

    D: Okay.

Thanks,
Laremy

Oh-the-irony of the Day.

Tue, 22 Mar 2011
2 min read
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  1. 6.45pm. Pooting merrily back home. Maybe not so merrily, but still pooting, nevertheless.
  2. I’m in the middle lane of a three-lane road.
  3. Left lane is a bus lane that’s in operation so technically I’m in in the slow-moving vehicle lane.
  4. Comfort cab in right-most lane drives recklessly – as usual – and opportunistically (or recklessly, perhaps) swerves into my lane.
  5. Whatever for? I don’t know. There is no space to be had and I am occupying the lane.
  6. Still. Comfort cab drives recklessly – as usual – and opportunistically (or recklessly, perhaps) swerves into my lane, nearly side-swiping me in the process.
  7. Did I mention the Comfort cab was driving recklessly? I did? Well, the Comfort cab was rather reckless and it nearly side-swiped me.
  8. Without warning, the Comfort cab recklessly swerves away from me, back into the right-most lane, from whence it recklessly came.
  9. Wanted to be angry, but decided against it because I found the irony too… ironic.
  10. The Comfort cab had on its bumper an advertising sticker from W!ld Rice’s Emily of Emerald Hill show which said: “DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT MADE ME WHAT I AM?”
  11. I have appended a visual of what said taxi looks like for your kind perusal.

    12. Comfort cab with a bumper sticker that reads "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT MADE ME WHAT I AM?"

  12. Laugh. Or at least pretend to like it.

Sweet.

Sun, 2 Jan 2011
2 min read
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SQ21: Singapore Queers in the Twenty-First Century.

At the National Library now. Decided to take a break from writing by reading something and ventured over to the shelves behind me.

Picked up SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century by Ng Yi-Sheng and could not stop reading the book because the stories are so compelling.

Here’s a nugget that made me chuckle:

The word [that the interviewee was gay] spread higher and higher up the command chain until it reached my course commander, who was this Senior Warrant Office. He was this big Indian man, a really old-fashioned conservative fella, very regimental. Everything had to be in tiptop shape, our boots had to be shiny, our bunks had to be clean all the time, and he was always telling us, “Fucking hell. You all better run faster! You all so slow!”

I realised this could turn into something big, and I was really afraid for a while. But then once, during a lecture, he was saying, “The weekend’s coming. You all are booking out. Why don’t you all go get yourself a fuck? So how many of you got girlfriends?” Various hands went up. “Boyfriends?” Then everyone turned and looked at me, and I was thinking, “Shit you!”

Then the course commander said, “Why? What’s wrong? Why? Who’s anti-gay here?” A few people put up their hands. He pointed his finger and said, “Okay you. Get out of your seat. You also, get out. You go sit over there one corner. You all can form the anti-gay corner over there. (p. 133; emphasis mine)

Go read it if you haven’t already done so!