Quote of the Post: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

***

In the latest chapter of my unending computer troubles, it is my desktop which is giving me problems again, specifically recurrent and frequent BSODs (Blue Screens of Death) which are exceedingly serious on Windows XP systems.

The problem began, or at least began to be noticeable, sometime after I'd gotten my free router from SCV. All of a sudden, a BSOD would come up - deja vu, really, except that this was only supposed to happen on Windows ME and older systems. Other symptoms included the computer freezing once during the memory check at bootup and my not being able to defragment my data partition, as the process would repeatedly lock up at the 12% mark (and be unkillable via Task Manager, necessitating a reboot).

Memtest86 made 9 passes of my memory but revealed no problems, and neither did a check by Spinrite on my hard disk. In a vain attempt to cure the problem, I reluctantly performed a format on the last Saturday in September, barely 3 months after the last format.

However, after reinstalling Windows, my system degraded incredibly fast - within hours it had crashed once (ironically enough, right after Windows had been installed, before I had installed anything apart from my wireless drivers and while I was installing MS critical updates), and within days it was back to its old BSOD frequency.

Indeed new problems appeared - now my external CD burner and external hard disk kept causing BSODs when they were connected and were interfacing with my system (resulting in my burning 3 coasters in a row), and USBUHCI.sys was pinpointed in the BSOD report. Restoring an older version of USBUHCI.sys had no effect, and neither did using my external hard disk in Safe Mode. And Windows and Internet Explorer kept crashing (though this was tolerable as this did not take down my system with it).

Around this time, I theorised that it was probably my wireless card and drivers that were giving me all these problems, so I tried unplugging the card, but I still got the BSODs (when using my external peripherals, at least). I then tried to disable the wireless drivers in case they were screwing up my system even when they were not in use, but my problems persisted. And attempting to uninstal the drivers resulted in a bland and ridiculous message: "Failed to uninstall. The device may be required to boot up the computer", even in Safe Mode. And just to liven up the show, my computer froze again while doing the memory check at startup, and green lines appeared on the screen.

To forcefully remove the drivers, I tried doing manual registry editing, but many of the keys were protected. I tried repairing my Windows XP installation and uninstalling the drivers, switching to my old non-wireless setup, but like some vampire in a Chinese Horror Movie, the drivers refused to leave my system (and maybe blocked the non-wireless drivers from giving me my connection). And now Windows takes forever to load the login screen (ie Windows stays in the 'Windows is starting up' mode for a ridiculously long time)

Now I've to resort to RARing my Power Rangers episodes into 5M portions and using my wireless network to get them into my laptop, then burning them and copying them to my external HDD.

***

Mickey Mouse Clubbed - Disney's cartoon rodent speaks out on the Eldred decision.

Mickey: I'm also Buster Keaton.

Interviewer: Sorry?

Mickey: My first cartoon short, Steamboat Willie, was a direct parody of Keaton's movie Steamboat Bill, Jr. On the very first page of the script, it says, "Orchestra starts playing opening verses of Steamboat Bill." I remember what Eldred's lawyer Lawrence Lessig said when he read that: "Try doing a cartoon take-off of one of Disney, Inc.'s latest films with an opening that copies the music."

So yeah, they created me. But they don't want to let other people build on me when they make their own creations, the way they did when I was born. And now I'm locked up for another stinking 20 years! Do you have any idea what it's like to have to greet kids at Disneyland every single day, always smiling, never slipping off for a cigarette?

[...]

Interviewer: This is a parody, Mickey. It's protected by the Fair Use doctrine.

Mickey: So was Air Pirates Funnies, and they still dragged them into court. And it's only gotten worse since then. It's so easy to create and distribute things digitally these days, so the big entertainment combines are in a panic, sending out cease-and-desist letters left and right. Doesn't matter if it's an open-and-shut case of Fair Use—the cost of a court case is disincentive enough.

[...]

At this point, three Disney bounty hunters entered the bar and seized Mickey. An intense struggle reportedly ensued, but our correspondent missed it, opting instead to crawl out the men's room window.

***

More musings by AcidFlask:

this fixation on metrics in a meritocratic society illustrates a fallacy which i call the engineer's paradox: if some property can't be quantified, than it is irrelevant in describing a system. because the most precise description of a system is when it can reduced to numbers, and we don't have the numbers to describe woolly things like political freedom, emotional health, familial ties, etc., so we just proceed, assuming that it doesn't matter. the logical trap here, of course, is that that a society is simply much more complex than anything else science and engineering have tackled.

The perils of having a civil service full of engineers


consider this, my dear civil servants: what the hell does a background in electrical engineering have to do with the civil service? if you claim that such backgrounds promote the development of skills such as critical thinking, why not just test that outright? why insist that scholars maintain their 'standards of excellence' by consistently scoring high grades, groom them to become useful engineers/scientists (and precious few humanists), then grab them back home and mire them in administrative trivia for the rest of their lives? is this not the clearest example yet of a complete mismatch between what academic scores say and what these people will eventually end up doing? are the best students necessarily the best leaders? and are lousy students necessarily lousy leaders?

***

Me: what happened to [your] soldier btw
Friend: oh we're tight
Me: you're tight? is that a freudian slip?
Friend: hahahah i mean we're tight! hahahah not i.... uhh not that i'm not


Another friend: "i've a new theory. it's that guys past the age of 20 don't really make friends anymore
girls always have friends........ when they have a problem, they go door-to-door with guys, we don't need friends. you can meet someone in a pub, strike up an hour long conversation about soccer, and leave without finding out anything about the other guy beyond his name. it's lovely."

***

Pacific War in M’sia, S’pore remembered (Part 2)

After explaining why he and colleague Kelvin Blackburn still find the Pacific War in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore a relevant theme of research and writing after some 60 years, Oxford-trained historian Karl Hack proceeds to discourse the similarities and differences between Malaysia and Singapore in their experiences, narratives and collective memory.

Malaysiakini: Compared to Malaysians, Singaporeans seem to have done a remarkable job of preserving the collective memory, narratives and discourses of the Pacific War in Peninsular Malaysia and the island itself not only in writings but also in the forms of museums, monuments and memorial structures. Why?

Karl Hack: Malaysia does have a lot of its own. There is Abu Talib’s ‘The Malay Muslims, Islam and the Rising Sun’, 1941-45 (Kuala Lumpur, JMBRAS, 2003), Cheah Boon Kheng’s ‘Red Star over Malaya’ (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983), and Patricia Lim and Diana Wong’s edited ‘War and Memory in Malaysia and Singapore’ (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2000), just for a start.

This is without mentioning a stream of recent works in Chinese and the two recent works on Chin Peng which malaysiakini has featured. Paul Kratoska also spent many years in Penang, working on war-related issues, before crossing the causeway and publishing ‘The Japanese Occupation of Malaya’ (NSW: Allen and Unwin, 1998). As for monuments, Patricia Lim mentions no less than 14 Chinese-supported monuments in Johor alone, with ceremonies at some into the 1990s. I also understand a great deal of oral history has been done at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. There has also been some commemoration of the Malay Regiment’ s role from the 1950s.

So the real question is, why are monuments to the war in Malaysia and books on the war less prominent in schools and in the media, compared to Singapore?

One answer may be that the war is not as central to Malay, and Malaysian, myths and stories about nation-building and decolonisation, as it is for Singaporeans, or at least for the Singaporean government. For Malays, Semangat 1946 and the fight against British (and communist and PAP) images of a multi-racial ‘Malayan’ and then ‘Malaysian’ Malaysia may be more important. And the Malayan Emergency, which has less resonance in Singapore, is also important as a time of growing Malay confidence - whether as police, as Malay Regiment soldiers or as politicians - to increasingly able to shape events. These stories and the gradual construction of inter-communal understandings and alliances, loom larger than the Pacific war.

By contrast, the Fall of Singapore and occupation lie close to a ‘Singapore Story’ of creating a multi-racial, independent nation. In this story the war comes as a sharper break from a pro-colonial, pre-war mentality - we need to remember Singapore was part of a Colony, the Malay States were not - to one where self-government was seen as desirable, and as a sharper lesson in the need for a community to be self-reliant, and defend itself.

Hence the Singapore government has made use of the war story for national education purposes, in schools and beyond. In the first phase from the 1960s, it helped to reshape the Chinese-initiated project to set up a memorial to the 20,000-30,000 sook ching victims on the island. That is, to those killed - mainly Chinese - in Singapore during the Japanese ‘cleansing’ operation from February to March 1942. The government helped to see that the resulting ‘Civilian War Memorial’, which now stands near Raffles Hotel, was built as four pillars or ‘Four Chopsticks’ - one for each of the four main groups Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian. This fitted with the theme of a nation emerging through common suffering and struggle, and of a common recognition that relying on the British was not enough.

Compare this to Malaysia’s sook ching and Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) monuments. The latter retains their intimate link with events, and emotions, but as a result ‘belong’ to one community. At best they are limited in scope, at worst they may remind people of tensions during and after the war between anti-Japanese forces, and those who served in the police or Japanese militias. In Singapore, the Civilian War Monument takes on a wider significance. The downside, of course, is that people’s understanding of this extraordinary monument - extraordinary because below it, smack in the middle of a modern, global city, are the remains of 20,000 plus victims - was diluted. Its emotional force was dissipated, even as its message was widened. There is no ducking it, the issues here are difficult.

How does one retain the authenticity of monuments, and their umbilical cord to the groups affected and actual events, while still creating an overall commemorative environment which unites more than it divides? Malaysia’s and Singapore’s, and Malaysians’ and Singaporeans’ different approaches both have their strengths and pitfalls. Are either, or both governments and sets of people ready and able to improve on matters?

You know, beyond this, it is very strange for a historian such as myself, who has taught in Singapore since 1995. One half of me empathises with the Singapore narratives, of each community individually and of the struggle to create a multi-racial nation despite tensions (my parents were in Singapore during its 1964 riots). The other, British half of me sees the oddity of The ‘Fall’ being represented over and again, and then again.

Not only is Feb 15 marked as ‘Total Defence Day’ - in contrast to many other countries which mark the end of their wars - but the ‘Fall’ can be seen in a waxwork model diorama at Sentos's ‘Images of Singapore’, in Percival’s underground bunker at ‘The Battlebox’ on Fort Canning Hill, and from next year at the Ford Factory, which will open as an interpretative centre. This British part of me says: what psychological and political needs demand so much concentration on the act of defeat, compared to the daily reality of occupation or local comfort women, or understanding what drove Japanese actions? Or, on the desire to focus on the end of war as a date for commemorating the fallen not just from one set of dates or one conflict, but of all the nation's fallen: present, past, and future.

Anyway, in a second phase, from the 1980s, and more so from the 1990s, Singapore seems to have determined to remind its new, post-1960s ‘aircon generation’ of the struggles and vulnerabilities which the government believed had shaped the early state and nation-building. So the war was emphasised in schools, in television series such as ‘The Price of Peace’ and ‘A War Diary’ and by marking historical sites, almost as a symbol for the island-state’s survival, in the widest sense, depending on people recognising that it could only thrive by constant struggle in every sector. The ‘Fall’ seems to have become a useful symbol for something much bigger. Its projection was also linked to the continuing need for National Service, despite threats seeming less immediate.

Finally, one might argue that Singapore has more war sites simply because there was more war, more military here per square mile of territory, than there was or is in Malaysia’s larger expanses. The battle and the bombing came to the city itself in a way it did not, perhaps, to many Malaysian towns. Singapore was bombed on and off from the night of Dec 7 and 8, 1941 right through to the bitter end, with storm drains taking on a new role as ubiquitous, handy air-raid ‘shelters’.

The sook ching also wiped out a small but not inconsiderable percentage of the island’s adult male Chinese population. People were killed on beaches in Changi, but also by being machine-gunned in the waters off today’s Sentosa, so there are sook ching concentration and massacre sites across the island. And Singapore had vast military installations, the naval base and barracks covering much of Changi, as well as a coastal gun system, headquarters and civilian employees of the military. Even when Singapore had fallen, it still remained more of a military epicentre, with the Changi POW camp, and Indian POWs. Sentosa Island for instance, within sight of Singapore’s Central Business District, is still covered with barracks and old coastal gun sites, and areas around Portsdown Road and much of Changi still bear the imprint of the British military.

In one, final sense, however, both Malaysia and Singapore share additional dilemmas and difficulties about remembering the war.

In both cases the Malayan Communist Party played a dynamic part in organising Chinese resistance to Japan, going back to 1937, and forward to the MPAJA. In Singapore it was the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) which helped recruit Chinese volunteers to fight alongside the British in 1942. It was also the MCP which first tried to commemorate Feb 15, in 1946, until a march their affiliates helped organise was halted by police and gunfire - at least one marcher died - outside today’s Singapore Art Museum. This in itself is an incredible moment to contemplate.

During the first post-war anniversary of Feb 15, the marchers assembled and arrived at what was then St Joseph’s Institution en route to the Padang. And then the police arrived and shots were fired. But of course the post-war struggles of the PAP and of the Alliance against communists have made it difficult to integrate this anti-Japanese story into mainstream accounts. In Singapore, the Chinese, Guomindang nationalist Lim Bo Seng remains an acceptable war hero, but Chin Peng who met him from a submarine off Malaya’s coast, and his colleagues, are not. This is a question that future generations may ponder more, as the Cold War recedes into memory post-1989, and as we recognise how many of those who fought did so not primarily or only as communists, but also as patriots of one sort or another.

In both Malaysia and Singapore, as well, one has to acknowledge that different communities had different experiences, and that the respective peoples and governments may find it difficult to both recognise difference, and yet also create stories usable at a national level. How does one integrate both the anti-Japanese fighters, and the Indian National Army which fought alongside Japanese? How about the stories of those who worked with Japanese, and found them considerate as employers, with others who lost family to the sook ching?

Also, ‘collaborator’ is a loaded word; people work with various regimes to further their own, sometimes personal and sometimes nationalist, ends. But nevertheless the complexities, practical and emotional, of living under a Japanese regime have not been adequately explored, in books or on film. And this is without even mentioning the communal violence which broke out in August to September 1945, when the MPAJA emerged from the jungle, and some Malays took exception to attempts to mete out ‘justice’ on ‘collaborators’ and to wield influence.

Dr Blackburn and I are revisiting these thorny problems and varied memories in a book we are just finishing, on Asian Memories of the war and occupation, and of notions of heroes, villains and victims. Here we not only look at national narratives, but also at the different experiences of each community, and even for different parts of each community.

***

Aspects of the tudung

"Is the woman who wears the tudung forced to do so by her father, mother or husband? Did her ancestors wear it? Does she choose to wear it? And if yes, why does she choose to wear it? Does she believe that this choice is totally independent of, and not influenced by, the setting and circumstances in which she finds herself?

Does she realise that when she defends her right and freedom to wear the tudung she is also invoking a modernist, Western discourse? How does she perceive herself when she is wearing the tudung in public and when she is not wearing it in private?

Has her social status improved because she wears the tudung? Does she feel oppressed? Would she like to take her tudung off ? Is it too hot to wear one? Does she consider herself modern or old-fashioned? For the more cynical, does she have a bomb strapped to her neck under her tudung? "

***

409 scams have become global. Maybe they figured that everyone knows emails from Nigeria asking for money are fake, so they outsourced their operations. At least their English is better and they don't CAPITALISE ALL THEIR WORDS ALA AOL.

"do not take undue advantage of the trust I have bestowed in you" - Gee, that's rich coming from them.


Dear Sir,

I am Mr Liu Jiankai, the bill and exchange manager of a Bank in Hong Kong and
I am contacting you on a business transfer of a huge sum of
money from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction of this
magnitude will make any one apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you
that all will be well at the end of the day. We decided to contact you due
to the urgency of this transaction.

PROPOSITION;

We discovered an abandoned sum of US$10,500,000.00 (Ten million, five hundred
thousand united states dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our
foreign customers who died along with his entire family. Since the death of Mr.Phillip Brian,
none of his next-of-kin or relations has come forward to lay claims for this
money as the heir. We cannot release the fund from his account unless
someone applies for claim as the next-of-kin to the deceased as indicated in
our banking guidelines. Upon this discovery, we now seek your permission to
have you stand as a next of kin to the deceased as all documentations will
be carefully worked out by us for the funds (US$10,500,000.00) to be released
in your favour as the beneficiary's next of kin. It may interest you to know
that we have secured from the probate an order of mandamus to locate any of
deceased beneficiaries.

Please acknowledge receipt of this message in acceptance of our mutual
business endeavour by furnishing me with the following;

1. Beneficiary name and address
2. Telephone and fax number

These requirements will enable us file letter of claim to the appropriate
departments for necessary approvals in your favour before the transfer can
be made. We shall be compensating you with One million, five hundred dollars on final
conclusion of this project, while the balance of Seven million will be for us.Our share we would want to invest in your country with your advice.
If this proposal is acceptable by you, do not take undue advantage of the
trust I have bestowed in you.
I await your response

Regards,

Mr Liu Jiankai.

***

Furious responses to the recent "smashing" of a cocaine trafficking ring in Singapore:


Caleb: I find it nauseating that Marx Oh and co are facing the DEATH PENALTY for trafficking cocaine and pot. I assume the cocaine is not crack cocaine and pot is quite harmless -- certainly not more harmful than tobacco or hard liqueur. How in God's name can we KILL someone simply for possessing large amounts of pot?

Pot isn't even illegal in Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK. And the poor 'victims' of this trafficker were not rolling around at home in a state of physical and mental incapacitation. They were ppl who were successful, creative and perfectly functional. (Editor of tatler magazine, award winnig chef, wow that sounds like these guys were totally wasted). NO justification exists for the execution of cannabis traffickers.

Well, for that matter, no justification exists for the execution of drug traffickers of any sort. The law as it stands imposes a MANDATORY death penalty for trafficking certain drugs -- *based on an arbritary mathematical cut-off point*. So 15.99999 grams of heroin and it's 20 years, 16grams and it's death. This sounds like The Merchant of Venice: "and if the scale do turn but in the estimation of an hair, thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate". It is also patently absurd.

Killing ppl is not a drugs policy. Well, it is, if you want a cheap and no-brain policy. No need to spend millions on education, clinical rehab, social work to help sectors of society who are particularly susceptible to dangerous drugs like heroin and crack cocaine. No need, in fact, even to spend on keeping the traffickers housed and fed in prison.

We can save a lot of money by just hanging them. I'm sure the rope only costs, say, $2.

Yes, I'm being flippant, but my point is serious. To systematically execute drug traffickers, even those who traffic recreational, harmless drugs, is NOT just. It is utterly, utterly detestable.

If ANY of you find yourselves in power in future, please please please change this law. Please. I will thank you here in advance. Thank you. Thank you for bringing some dignity to this judicial regime.

(Note: This is not some leftist drivel: the death penalty is opposed by many who are otherwise "conservative", e.g. John Paul II and the Catholic Chuch. And in any case I'm not talking about the death penalty in general here -- though I am opposed to all types of death penalty except in cases where the offender has actually debased humanity and should be purged from our community (the so-called purgative argument, cf Michael Krammer).)


A: I can't bring myself to accept a nation's right to kill, and a jury's
(or in this case, just a judge, one person guided by statute and case law) right to sentence a man to death. Nevertheless it is still a safe insurance to have for particularly henious crimes. Does a serial killer deserve to live? Does a rapist (whose crime is the most henious of all in my opinion)? Do we have the right to decide that? Does the government? Does a government who controls and manipulates power so effectively as the PAP have the right to rule on an issue that questions religion and ethics and human rights as much as it is an issue of public policy?

I for one would like to see the death penalty abolised for all crimes save for murder, and possibly rape. Certainly you cannot kill someone for possession of a drug. It is a ludicrous poilcy that should be abolished. A friend was telling me how a drunk construction worker (who had briefly worked at her house) turned up at her doorstep one day begging for food. She gave him food, and let him have a shower. She was afraid he might try something funny but did not call the police because she saw he had pot on him. She wasn't sure how much, so she darent turn him over. The fact that this man could have been hanged because he had pot on him scared the hell out of her.

Should drug offenders be punished? Yes. Should drugs be kept away from our young? Yes. Are drugs any different from smoking? Yes. They are more addictive, they are more harmful, and they ruin lives much more than puffing a cigerate will ever do.

Should someone be killed because he is in possesion of drugs? No.

The hypocrisy of the government's policies are plain for all to see. This month saw the active promotion of the Yellow Ribbon project. Its goals are to "create awareness of giving second chances to ex-offenders", to "generate acceptance.. by the community" and to work towards "re-integration."

It is a program I whole-heartedly support. The plight of ex-cons in the country is a serious one. But on the flip side, we hang people for possesion of drugs that maybe they only want to consume. Where is their second chance? Where is the second chance we give to people who commit assault, armed robbery, gangsterism - why don't we afford the same opportunity for drug offenders?


Me:

Really, the only rational reason I can think of for this misguided War On Drugs, which has galvanized people to near-religious levels of hysteria and zealotry, is that governments are trying to divert attention from bigger issues and their own failings, just like how Nazi Germany held a decade-long anti-Semitic and anti-Gypsy witch-hunt. Hell, make that everyone. No one likes the Jews. The Jews are to blame for everything! The extinction of the dinosaurs, September 11th, milk curdling, the Second Law of Thermodynamics...

"Maybe the Jews are seen as different, and no one likes different people. No one likes the X-Men, for example." - Yortsin

Anyone read The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion? That's seriously hilarious shit!

But I digress.


Let the numbers speak for themselves:

---------------------------------------------

Annual Causes of Death in the United States

Tobacco 435,000
Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity 400,000
Alcohol 85,000 / 101,653
Microbial Agents 75,000
Toxic Agents 55,000
Motor Vehicle Crashes 43,000 / 26,347
Adverse Reactions to Prescription Drugs 32,000
Suicide 30,622
Incidents Involving Firearms 29,000
Homicide 20,308
Sexual Behaviors 20,000
All Illicit Drug Use, Direct and Indirect 17,0001
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Such As Aspirin 7,600
Marijuana 0*

* - An exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of deaths induced by marijuana. The US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records instances of drug mentions in medical examiners' reports, and though marijuana is mentioned, it is usually in combination with alcohol or other drugs. Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause an overdose death.

Source: Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), available on the web at http://www.samhsa.gov/; also see Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A. Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), available on the web at http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/; and US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition" (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 57.

(http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm)

(Interestingly enough, www.cannabis.com is blocked by Singaporean proxy servers. Doubtless the unwashed masses must be prevented from finding out the TRUTH about this foul drug. After all, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Why, it might even lead you to the truth! Just imagine that. Shock. Horror. Gasp. No more Asian Values!)

---------------------------------------------

Considering that every other US College Student smokes pot, and probably every one of them has tried it at some point in their lives (even if they didn't inhale), these statistics are telling. As is the fact (that Caleb has brought up) that smoking ganja does not turn you into a mindless stoner.

Yessiree - pot is harmless, despite what they tell you in school. Or at least it's more harmless than Tobacco and Alcohol, all of which are Socially Acceptable (TM). The only reason why it's not legal is because there isn't a lobby for it, unlike Alcohol and Tobacco.


The Singapore government justifies its tough policy on drugs (and liberal application of the death penalty) with the claim that "tough" justice is supported by the majority of Singaporeans. Perhaps so, but the majority of Singaporeans also don't believe in Racial Harmony, despite what they'd like you to think, and besides which, if you've never heard anything other than the mindless mantra: "Drugs are bad for you. They kill (and if they don't, the State will do the job for them!). Our tough stance on drugs is good", of course most people are going to believe it. See also: Children of Creation 'Scientists' and members of the Flat Earth Society.


>if you guys really feel so strongly about such matters or any matter,
>you should write in to the straits times
More for pedagogical ends than anything else, I did try submitting 3 letters to the Straits Times Forum 2 years back (when I still read the ST, having nothing better to do in Sungei Gedong Prison). One was a response to an op-ed claiming that Slavery was "a social distillery for ethnic cohesion" wherein I pointed out the article's failure to mention that there were no Malays in the Commandos, Navy or Armour, and that the Police and Civil Defence had a grossly disproportionate number of them. The supreme irony, I pointed out, was that the cartoon accompanying the article "showed an APC, whose tracks spelled 'Ethnic Cohesion', steaming along. I don't think there were any Malays in that APC."

Needless to say, it was not published. A second letter on the (then) recent move to adopt the US's ridiculour copyright laws, questioning how allowing royalties to be collected on works for 70 years after the author's death would encourage people to create more content (Gee. I know that a Conglomerated Corporation will own the rights to my works for 70 years after I'm dead. Let me create more content for the profit of some corporate fatcat even though he will not give anything to my widow, offspring or estate!) was also rejected. As was a third letter protesting mindless and unjustifiable homophobia (but I let this pass because others who'd championed my cause more voaclly had their letters published).

Meanwhile, everyday we see letters thanking taxi drivers. Go figure.


>anyway you won't really grow or learn/understand
>much in the safety of your school friends or those with similar
>views.
I suppose that's why we have you here to challenge us :)

>and you can distribute your writings
>publicly if you feel so offended.
I believe you need a PERMIT for this or you'll be arrested for disrupting the peace, being a public nuisance or (the good old) jeopardising public order, health and/or morality.

>that's just the difference between having another opinionated
>opinion, and really having the moral guts or character to stand up
>for your beliefs, or to find out more about something, and pursue it
>to the end.
Unfortunately, not everyone has the courage and conviction of Chia Thye Poh. I know I don't, or I would currently be languishing in DB right now for being a conscientious objector. (The Associate aka He Who Must Not be Named aka mindgame aka nw.t. has a dispensation from me to hold his tongue, or not having someone to help him do laundry)

***

If You Drop It, Should You Eat It? Scientists Weigh In on the 5-Second Rule - "High-school student Jillian Clarke investigated the scientific validity of the "5-second rule" during her apprenticeship in Hans Blaschek's University of Illinois lab this summer. You know the rule: If food falls to the floor and it's in contact with the floor for fewer than 5 seconds, it's safe to pick it up and eat it. According to Clarke, a senior at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, the 5-second rule dates back to the time of Genghis Khan, who first determined how long it was safe for food to remain on a floor when dropped there. Khan had slightly lower standards, however; he specified 12 hours, more or less."

Electric Pickle - "See what happens when you overload your pickle? Why would someone plug a dill pickle into electricity in the first place?"

How do you run a convention on a record of failure? - "Invoke 9/11: *cue George W Bush and friends repeating 'September 11th' ad infinitum*. Know your enemy: *cue Bush and friends repeating 'Saddam Hussein' ad infinitum*. Handle the Bin Laden matter appropriately: *cue deathly silence*. And above all, spread fear: *cue Bush and friends talking about war, danger, torture, weapons, terror and above all, 'terrorists'*. George W. Bush - Keeping America Scared"