Random Playlist Song: Trevor Pinnock - The English Concert and Choir: Handel - Messiah - Comfort Ye My People (tenor, accompagnato)
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Random Trivia bit: The most commonly used artery in the embalming process is the carotid artery.
The common carotid artery is located in your neck above your collar bone. It is cream colored and is hollow, much like a smooth rigatoni noodle.
***
In the midst of all the letters from the Moral Majority about how setting up a casino in Singapore will lead to the erosion of our Asian Values, cause pathetic weak-minded Singaporeans who can't think for themselves to gamble away their life savings and sell themselves into slavery and their 5 year old children into child prostitution in Thailand, and generally bring about the Apocalypse and the end of society as we know it, and how we must thus "protect the people from making the wrong choices" (perhaps even where the political process is concerned), there is one very interesting one on ideology vs pragmatism:
Don't be pragmatic at expense of ideology
I REFER to the article, 'Investors to be asked to submit resort plans' (ST, Nov 17). I am deeply saddened that Dr Vivian Balakrishnan is asking for a 'sensible, pragmatic approach', rather than an 'ideological approach' to the question of whether or not to build a casino.
While the man in the street often has to take a pragmatic view of things, we should not ever lose sight of the fact that it is ideology that makes an organisation great. We strive to bring up our children to be men and women of honour who will, at the crossroads, choose integrity over gain.
We respect multinationals which choose the more costly option in the interest of environmental preservation, or which pour hard-earned dollars into Third World programmes that have no hope of repaying the benefactor.
If this is so, why are we saying in this case that we should put aside our ideas of right and wrong and make a decision based on the economics of it? A ship without a rudder will sway with the waves. If our momentous decisions are made on pragmatic grounds without deference to any higher code, we will come to resemble the rudderless ship, swaying with the next money-making idea.
I am not saying we should not entertain money-making ideas. I am just appealing to the Government to remember that we answer to a higher call than Mammon's, whatever our religious persuasion.
Ong Chooi Peng (Mrs)
Given that our government proudly proclaims that it has no ideology but pragmatism, I wonder if she realises the full ramifications of her stunning indictment of pragmatism *g*
"We can't have a situation where we protect you even from yourself. If the entire population needs to be protected from their own choices, then we will be in a very, very sorry state in the future." - Dr Vivian Balakrishnan
***
"Screw you talking cock dot com. I'm not a minister dementor. I... I... I
love Singapore and I drink Evian. My son is not Red Shirt. Don't talk
cock, sing song, play mah jong anyhow, or I will sue you and sodomise
your son. And increase bus fares while we are at that. HA HA HA!" (Xiaxue)
Apparently what happened was that I sent my previous Veeprs e-cards to a friend, who made one of her own and posted it on her friend's YACCS comment box. Someone viewed it, made one of her own and Xiaxue made her own.
The wonders of the net.
[Ed: Thanks to Xiaxue herself for specifying exactly what she typed into Veepers]
***
Letter from Singapore
"The Straits Times has no competition in Singapore. It's owned wholly by a company called Singapore Press Holdings, whose stock is sold publicly but whose affairs are closely monitored by the government of prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of Singapore's founding father, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The paper is run by editors with virtually no background in journalism. For example, my direct editor was Ms Chua Lee Hoong, a woman in her mid 30s. She was an intelligence officer. Other key editors are drawn from Singapore's bureaucracies and state security services. They all retain connections to the state's intelligence services, which track everyone and everything.
At the newspaper, I was struck by the total absence of conversation or banter in the huge newsroom. Having spent two decades at the New York Times, including my student days in the United States, and having run my own newspaper subsequently, The Earth Times - not to mention my 18-year tenure as a columnist at Newsweek International, plus 16 years at Forbes as a contributing editor - I was accustomed to the spirited atmosphere of news rooms, not to mention disagreements and disputes.
I believe that what precipitated my termination from the paper on the morning of Tuesday, November 16, was my refusal to include in the article about the LKY School some falsehoods about Mr. Mahbubani that two editors suggested that I should insert. They both claimed that Mr. Mahbubani has had problems with the nation's security services and that he was viewed as a radical when he was a student at what was then the University of Singapore (now National University of Singapore).
There was no way that I could independently confirm such suggestions. Moreover, I believe they were false. Mr. Mahbubani may have been a student activist in his writings for the university newspaper - but since then has distinguished himself for nearly four decades as Singapore's emissary in various places. The fact that he was named head of the LKY School is testimony to the high regard in which he is universally held. (His first book, "Can Asians Think?" was a best-seller in Asia and Europe, and also did pretty well in the United States. His next book will be published in the spring by Public Affairs in New York.)
It would have been simply inappropriate to include unsubstantiated stuff about Mr. Mahbubani's alleged radicalism during his student days. And it's highly unlikely that he would have risen as high as he has, had he been really considered a national security risk. My own feeling is that among some of the intelligence and bureaucratic types who run the Straits Times, there isn't universal good will toward the LKY School or its dean.
[...]
Ms Chua, my editor, also killed two other exclusive interviews I'd obtained in recent days, mainly through my access to important people gained over four decades in international journalism. She said that what was said by Dr. Supachai Panichpakadi, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, and Mr. Peter G. Peterson, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations - and the author of a recent best-seller - was "boring."
In fact, both were timely interviews. Dr. Supachai spoke about ending textile quotas which, starting in December, will give developing nations unprecedented access to the markets of industrialized nations. And Mr. Peterson spoke about the troubling U.S. deficits, and how both Republicans and Democrats have been irresponsible about dealing with the current-account deficit that's expected to balloon past US$600 billion this year.
Ms Chua further recommended that I should turn to a white colleague in the news room for lessons on how to ask questions. Since I didn't come to the Straits Times to be re-educated in journalism - after a pretty distinguished career of my own - I felt that her advice was inappropriate. She was, of course, well within her rights to kill any story she wanted, but people like Dr. Supachai and Mr. Peterson aren't usually accessible to inconsequential newspapers such as the Straits Times.
[...]
The behaviour of Ms Chua, the editor, may be simply the kind of office politics that people holding power engage in every now and then. But it's also part of a broader attitude that I detect among many Singaporeans in journalism's top echelons here - that no one else's record or accomplishment or opinion counts but theirs. Any divergence of view is immediately regarded as subversive dissent.
This is an important point because if Singaporeans are going to be perceived as filled with hubris and an unbending my-way-or-highway attitude, it is going to be increasingly difficult for this country to attract the talent it needs to sustain its economic ambitions. In fact, young Singaporean professionals are emigrating to Australia and Europe in record numbers because they feel stifled here.
[...]
This is such a beautiful place with such beautiful and giving people. It's hard not to be a well-wisher. But the Straits Times as a model of dynamic, open-minded journalism? It will happen on the day that it starts to snow here on the equator.
... Which is why I don't read the Straits Times.
He must have really hated the ST - he posted that immediately after quitting.