Scumbaggery in the UK.

Sun, 14 Aug 2011
2 min read
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Anarchy in the UK.

(NOTE: For the young ‘uns, the title of this post and the image is a reference to a song by the Sex Pistols.)

I’m quite tired of people hijacking the event popularly known as the London ‘riots’ for their own agenda.

Some examples:

  • “This justifies the strict laws against rioting and protesting we have in Singapore”.
  • “This is why we need to love our government, regardless of whoever is in the government”.

I don’t think those two claims are relevant or appropriate to the situation.

The first misses the larger point – this is not a riot, but simply a case of looting and theft carried out by opportunists who have purposefully disregarded social mores and notions of prop(ri)erty.

The second claim entails a blind subservience without moderation or calibration; a one or the other approach seldom makes sense, especially in contexts like these.

In my opinion, the most pertinent issues that seem to have conveniently been forgotten are:

  1. How this scumbaggery has been wrongly labelled a ‘riot’ or a ‘protest.
    This merely legitimises the actions of the looters and thefts and encourages them to be bolder in their impunity.
  2. How everything including the kitchen sink is wrongful fodder for blame with regard to these acts of “feral” scumbaggery.
    When in actual fact, the adage of “Those who criticise [the younger] generation forget who raised it” has never rung truer.

These articles may flesh out my arguments better:

  1. The UK riots and language: ‘rioter’, ‘protester’ or ‘scum’?
    (via Yu-Mei)

  2. Britain’s liberal intelligentsia has smashed virtually every social value.
    (via Andrew)

BTW with regard to the second article, I disagree with the portion on the “destr[uction of] the traditional nuclear family”.

I think the traditional nuclear family is ONE of the ways in which the problem of “a world where the parent is unwilling or incapable of providing the loving and disciplined framework that a child needs in order to thrive” can be resolved.

Also, I’m advocating a moderate approach to parenting/discipline – it’s okay to ‘let children be’, but at times you really have to rein them in.

Thoughts on climate change.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009
2 min read
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While riding along the PIE one day, two thoughts about climate change suddenly popped into my head:

  1. Roads = traffic = exhaust fumes = global warming. This probably increases exponentially during traffic jams which occur during the morning and evening rush hours. Why are they rush hours? Because the bulk of the people are commuting to work/school. Why are we still commuting to work/school en masse when technology empowers us to work at disparate locations?
  2. Warm temperatures in SG = increase in usage of air-conditioning = increase in electricity generation = increase in both fuels burnt (at power station’s end) and machines working (compressors and the like) = increase in output of heat = increase in temperatures in SG = global warming. Is air-conditioning the only way to reduce temperatures in SG, and on a macro level, the world?

It seems to me that both of these ‘problems’ are caused by sociological factors.

  1. People, especially Singaporeans, place great value on ‘showing your face’. So be it for work or for school, the indicator people still stick to in order to measure work carried out or amount learnt is physical attendance. Perhaps this entails a paradigm shift: if we can harness the power of technology to delegate work or conduct lessons, we reduce the need for people to ‘show their faces’. Though it might mean an increase in computing power,  electricity generation, etc. which might also contribute to global warming. But at least there aren’t traffic jams, right?
  2. For reasons that I still cannot fathom, we still stick to ‘Western’ dress codes of suits, jackets, long-sleeved shirts, tailored pants, etc. to go to work. Why? It doesn’t make sense to do so especially in our weather. Logically, we should be wearing clothes that aren’t so warm but we aren’t. Inadvertently, this artifically increases our dependence on air-conditioning. So will this blind embrace of ‘Western’ culture secretly be our undoing (and because I cannot resist it: what has happened to our Asian values??? LOL.)?

Your thoughts/comments?

Censorship and Singapore

Tue, 11 Mar 2008
2 min read
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From: K**
Sent: Wednesday, March 5, 2008 2:37:15 PM
Subject: MDA update

Hi C** and E**

As sms-ed to you, MDA is not giving the go-ahead for The Last Political Animal. It is politically sensitive and should not be staged as it is (sic) as the connections are obvious.

…

Swear words like “Jesus fucking Christ” uttered by one character in The Last Political Animal are definitely offensive and for plays licensed by MDA, they do not allow this.

Please revert by today what you intend to do about The Last Political Animal. Meanwhile, the entire event will carry a R18 rating…

I think what a lot of people don’t realise is that in Singapore, the more you try and prevent something from happening, the reverse usually happens.

I don’t mean to say that the organisers are going to ignore the restrictions and proceed with staging the play; the Ideological State Apparatuses, among other ISAs, have been too far ingrained in most people for them to know when not to throw caution to the wind.

What I mean to say is that the irony in the situation now is that because of the censorship, more people are interested in actually finding out what the play’s about!

So it simply goes to show that human nature is as such – the more authority tries to impose its will upon the liberties of the masses, the more resistance there is to it.