What happens to the fines collected by the CCCS?

Sun, 21 Oct 2018
1 min read
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Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore

Close to a month ago, I noticed these two stories about the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) published in The Straits Times on consecutive days:

From these two stories alone, the CCCS stands to collect some $39 million worth of fines from the firms mentioned.

And that’s after subtracting the whistle-blower’s reward mentioned in the chicken cartel story!

I sent an e-mail message to the two journalists whose bylines were on those stories asking them if it might be possible to do a story on the following:

  • On average, how much does the CCCS collect, in fines, each year?
  • What happens to the fines collected by the CCCS?

I thought it’d be in the public interest to understand how – and how much – monies collected by the CCCS are eventually returned to Singaporean consumers.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any follow-up stories on those two questions yet, on any media platform.

I thought I’d share my curiosity with everyone else, in case some other media outlet might be able to provide some answers to my questions.

Representation

Wed, 30 May 2018
2 min read
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Representation is always difficult, and nowhere more so than on maps.

In constructing a map for a project, I spent – what I initially thought was – an inordinate amount of time on it. But I realised otherwise upon producing the final copy.

What I learnt about what took me so long was the exact thing holding me back from completing the task: Wanting to be perfect. I wanted to be as exact as possible so as to do justice to the geography.

At some point, it dawned on me that for the purpose of what I wanted to achieve, accuracy was still important – but faithfulness was not.

All I needed was an approximate model for people to get from Point A to Point B. Here, I had to strike a balance between what I wanted ideally and what people really needed.

If map-making is a metaphor for sharing one’s wisdom about finding one’s way in the world, then this route stands out: art, like life, entails having to be comfortable with making choices and accepting sacrifices.

Nevertheless, these trade-offs cannot be made unthinkingly; for example, there will be situations in which accuracy and faithfulness are equally important, and approximations will not suffice.

Also, while there is much value in putting in the hours to learn the intricacies and nuances of any craft, sometimes, it’s always better – and quicker – if you have a guide to show you the way.

I hope this map guides your path in the same way it will guide mine.

Satire in an age of fake news

Sun, 29 Apr 2018
2 min read
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Trump and the "very, very stupid people" (IMAGE: Tom Toles)
Trump and the “very, very stupid people” (IMAGE: Tom Toles)

As an aside, this Ministry of Chindian Affairs thing is a long-running joke between me and my friends.

The last time I posted about it was in 2014 – and in how things have changed since then.

I thought it was telling – and a bit sad, really – that today, I had to explicitly tag/indicate that this post was #satire.

I had a conversation a while back with a fellow writer about art, where we talked about the tension between accessibility and obscurity when it comes to writing.

We don’t have to be too obvious, she said. The reader should get what it is we want to say, without us trying too hard.

And if they don’t get it, so what? Their loss.

It’s a different age now.

It’s become compulsory to make clear that what is written is satirical, just to prevent keyboard warriors from coming up with trumped-up charges of “fake news”.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall in late 2016, after Trump got elected.

Back then, I noticed how The Borowitz Report’s slogan quietly changed from “The news, reshuffled” to “Not the news”.

Subsequently, the column name itself evolved from “The Borowitz Report” to “Satire from the Borowitz Report” sometime in 2017.

It’s sad when the assumption is that the reader will wilfully misinterpret what it is we are say, so all subtlety has to be forsaken.

And it doesn’t say much about the state of intelligence in society, as well as skills of critical thinking, media literacy and all that jazz.

Then again, maybe it might make for a more compelling reason for why learning literature should be compulsory.

Because if a child can’t even interpret irony, then how is she going to begin to figure out fake news?