laremy.sg

This is from Learn Something Everyday, a new site I discovered from I forgot where.

Anyway, while the site is an interesting and innovative initiative, and the fact in itself is interesting too, my biggest grouse is – how do I verify the authenticity of what’s being said?

I tried searching for the information online but the quote always turns up on its own, without any sources or studies to back it up.

I’m probably not looking hard enough – the last time this happened was when I was working on my research paper and I found this quote about Alfian Sa’at’s One Fierce Hour and how the Straits Times lauded it as “truly a landmark for poetry [in Singapore]“.

Every source I found about the book had the same line, but I couldn’t find the exact article with those words. I remember searching for days on end and wondering if this was one of those things that become truth when you repeat it often enough.

(Who said that line about repeated lies becoming truths, anyway?)

Well, suffice to say, I managed to find the article on RedNano (proved to me that the damn site was good for something), and in case anyone is curious, it was Lee Tzu Pheng who said it in a book review.

So yes – I’m probably not looking hard enough, so if anyone can point me to the actual source where the information about being able to guess someone’s sex from smelling their breath can be found, I’d be very grateful.

Anyway, some tangential information on the Big Lie to sum up what I’ve been thinking about information and credible sources.

To date, my Bookends contribution hasn’t been published yet and I’ve got a feeling in my gut that it won’t ever be published.

It’s highly unlikely that it’ll be published next Sunday, because it was meant to be used as publicity for Own Time Own Target, and the run for Own Time Own Target ends this coming Saturday.

Anyway, since Mr Wang has very kindly reviewed Own Time Own Target and helped to plug it as well, I think I’ll just put what I have to say about his book up here.

In essence, I think Two Baby Hands is very good. Go read it, especially if you don’t read poetry normally. IMHO, it provides a very good primer/introduction to Singapore society and literature in general too.

But before you read on, I think I must say a few things here about why I am not very happy that my contribution wasn’t published.

1. The non-publication of the piece is a let-down for me because I had to take time off to write the piece. I put quite a bit of thought and effort into it, and I think the editor of Sunday Lifestyle could’ve been courteous enough to at least say, “Thank you for your contributions but we’re sorry we cannot publish your piece.” That is only fair.
2. It is also a let-down for me and other people because the publishers of Two Baby Hands very kindly agreed to let me purchase a copy of the book in advance of the launch because I really wanted to write about it in the Bookends piece. I think we all expected the piece to appear because we never thought the contrary would happen.
3. That the contrary did happen i.e. the piece wasn’t published might be saying something too, because I believe that silences, or the things that aren’t talked about, are equally, if not, more important than the things that are discussed in public. I can only speculate, but I think it might’ve been that the other two books I wrote about didn’t exactly make for very ‘acceptable’ conversation – but ‘acceptable’ by whose standards, I’m not too sure. Nevertheless, I leave the reader to make her/his own conclusions.
   

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1. What books are you reading now?
   I’m reading three books.The first: Two Baby Hands by Gilbert Koh. I’m quite fond of the poems so far because Koh discusses subjects – like education and National Service – that are close to my heart. Moreover, he deals with these subjects in a straightforward manner without using obscure language.

   
   Another book: Our Thoughts are Free: Poems and Prose on Imprisonment and Exile, edited by Tan Jing Quee, Teo Soh Lung and Koh Kay Yew. I like how it uses creative writing as a means to discuss a difficult portion of Singapore’s history. This makes the issues more accessible to readers like me, since most of us have lived in relative freedom all our lives.

   
   The third book is That We May Dream Again, edited by Fong Hoe Fang. This has accounts of some of the people involved in the so-called ‘Marxist conspiracy’ of 1987. What has struck me most thus far: the detainees’ passion for wanting to help the less fortunate in Singapore, along with how their lives and perspectives have changed after their detention.

   

2. If your house was burning down which book would you save and why?
   It’s a toss-up between Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton and Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Both books speculate on issues like ethics, technology and human communication in ways that are appealing and endearing – the former has dinosaurs running amok, while the latter uses a militaristic backdrop to tell its tale.

Here’s hoping Today doesn’t become yesterday. (On a sidenote, I think Yawning Bread should switch to WordPress.)

The whole comparison to water usage is a deliberate attempt to mislead.

The standard telecom contract for data services has been based on bandwidth provided since the invention of data circuits. Indeed, the ISP’s price their services based on the bandwidth to which one subscribes. If I have subscribed for an 8Mb/sec service, how can I be a “bandwidth hog” for using 8Mb/sec of bandwidth? I paid for it, and I have the right to use it.

– Waleed Hanafi, Singapore – ISP’s to customers – “You are evil”

It’s an old article but I think it’s a very good example about how language and the media have the power to shape public opinion, and the media having a responsibility to report the news in an objective way. But if that doesn’t happen, then readers have to develop media literacy and critical thinking skills in order to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of information and data processing.

Yi-Sheng says:

To herald the new and bid farewell to the old, I’ve drawn up a list of artsy people based in and/or from Singapore, singling them out for being interesting, independent and (thus far) a little unrecognised.

It’s a personal response to the front-page article of Straits Times Life! at the end of last year (“FEEL THE POWER”, Thursday, 4 December 2008).

I like it because it presents an alternative, which is what I think we need more of.