July Trip
21/7 - Avignon

I had a wonderfully flaky pecan and some-sweet-filling-I-can't-identify pastry for breakfast, and one other. A mere train station bakery could produce such delicious food (I'd gotten breakfast from there the other day too) - who knows what the top joints could churn out?! If the so-called authentic French cafe bakery can make pastries like these, even I would gladly eat there! But then, who knows? Maybe the secret to such delectable pastries is... lard!!!

Me on SEP: But why do you want to go to France?
Someone: Because, oh my god, have you tried the pastries?

The bus driver who piloted the bus to the station was in shorts and some of the staff on the train track were in T-shirts.

Even the French train tickets which are not for specific seats have train times on them. Wth. So if you miss the train you presumably have to get a new ticket, even though the seats aren't linked to the ticket. Ridiculous. At least it's not as bad as Italy - you're unlikely to miss the trains due to their inefficiency.

Even the cheap French regional trains are air-conditioned. Yay.

Ironically, in Italy there were signs in English. In France there were none, even though the level of proficiency was generally higher.

In Avignon there was the 'Avignon Passion' pass, which you'd get stamped at the first attraction you went to and get discounts at others. This pass was free. Though the deal wasn't worth anything to me, since the discounted price equaled the student price at places where the latter was offered. The only must-sees there were the Popes' palace and the bridge; there were lots of museums, but I knew better than to visit them. Happily, the Popes' palace closed at 9pm and the last ticket was sold at 8 (an advantage of traveling in July). So I decided to go to see the stuff in Villeneuve, a village to the north, first.

Maybe the reason why France is the only country in the world where human photography is disallowed without the subjects' permission is that they look the best, at least in Europe. Supposedly Scandinavia is better, but I haven't been there, so.

I think I got cheated of €1 on the bus there (I gave €2,10 for a €1,10 ticket and the woman refused to give me change). Maybe the policy was not to give change for tickets bought on buses, but I had no way of knowing since I didn't speak French and no energy due to travel fatigue to gesture and yell frantically. I should just visit England more next time, then I won't have to lie back and think of England so much.

On French buses the sign which lights up when you press the button reads "Arret demande". How long winded. What's wrong with a simple "Stop"?


Villeneuve slope. Alright to walk up once, but not everyday.


View from the top of the slope

I visited this old French fort, which had an abbey within it.


Fort Saint André gatehouse ('Les tours jumelles'), Fort Saint André


Abbey gardens, pond


Chapel Sainte-Casamie (?), 11th century


Another part of the Abbey

I then visited the fort itself.


View inside


View of the town below. In the second, the Popes' palace is on the left.

Unfortunately I couldn't keep up my Paris pace in this weather, but I tried. Next I went to the Chartreuse of Val de Bénédiction (Carthusian monastery).


Monumental gateway


Monumental gateway from inside the monastery


Lilian Bougent, On/Off, 2001. I don't know wth this stupid light bulb above a switch was doing in the monastery. A sign read: "Please don't jump on the workart"

The monastery was very bare. I pitied the church - the decor did not survive the ravages of time.



Innocent VI's tomb


Small cloister


Flowers in green area beside La Bugade (Bugude?).


Private property in doorway adjoining cemetary cloister, fort walls in the background. Oddly there was no grass.


Chapel of the Dead. Monks' bodies would be put here for a night before they were burried. I don't know what the Morse code stones on the floor were. There were also pieces of paper on the wall with lines in French and an MP3 player for you to listen to mood music as you looked around the chapel, but it was spoilt. Bloody French.


Chapel with Giovanetti Frescoes, presumably what was referred to elsewhere as the only decorated place in the monastery.


Water reservoir in Cloister of St Jean

The monastery was opened for playwrights so they could get at it in restored monks' cells. Uhh.


Villeneuve alley, with fort walls in the background

I then took the bus back to Avignon (I don't think I got cheated this time).


Musee Lapidaire

I had a Coke with Lemon. I hadn't (and haven't) seen Coke with lemon anywhere else, only Coke Light with Lemon, which was a big shame.


Palais des Pepes

Due to the Avignon festival the Palace was open from 9am-9pm. However, in the big courtyard of the Palace (the Courtyard of Honour) there was a stage set upcovering the pre-Papacy remains: the John XXII audience building in the middle.

Even when the French know I don't speak French, they can transition to French in their next sentence. !@#$


Tresur bas
It used to hold treasure. Now it holds €0,01 and €0,02 cent coins.

The inside of the palace was very bare due to a 1413 fire devastating the decor, the French revolution and its being used as a barracks. So the inclusion of the audioguide in the price was welcome (not least because, surprise surprise, there was no information in English). Then again, I wonder how much it'd have been if it was separate. Bundling is such a smart strategy.

It was strange to see an almost totally bare palace. Why did they bother having a separate museum? To furnish the palace they should've put the artefacts in it, especially since they would be so much more meaningful in situ. Furthermore, this was not an open archaeological site where they'd be exposed to the elements. It was an intact building. I think they just wanted to squeeze more money out of visitors.


Cloisters of Benedict XII


Utter bullshit to justify their no photography policy. They claimed that the heat and number of visitors meant that, among other things, non-flash photography was not to be allowed anymore.
I had 2 suggestions for them: open the windows, especially during the summer months, or air-condition the building (or even install de-humidifiers, like all the other museums around Europe). The whole place was essentially sealed, with all the windows I could see being closed. The only way rooms were being ventilated was by doors opening to a passages overlooking courtyards. Probably they were too stingy to deploy enough manpower to open the windows.

There was a Chapelle Saint-Martial which had cost €400,000 to restore. The restoration had finished in April 2005 after 24 months, but for some reason it was closed to the public. This considering that it looks like the most beautiful room of the complex. Wth.


Kitchen tower, with the top tapering to a hole in the tower.

The Pope's chamber were probably the most complete in the complex, with an original 14th century floor. Unfortunately attendants kept hovering here.

A copy of Portement de Croix, 1478 (a large relief) was in the palace, for some reason. This sort of scene is usually a painting. This was a relief carved very deeply, almost a sculptural group.
SPQR peancot? (?)


Chapel. Costumes used in the Avignon festival were exhibited here, so I maneuvred so one exhibit blocked the attendant's view. Heh.


Roof of palace, near their cafe terrasse. The building at the back is Notre dame des dons.

Their cafe terrasse only served beer with lunch. Maybe they didn't want tourists to get drunk on an empty stomach.


Sculpture in front of Notre dame des dons


Magna Porta. Entrance to the chapel, decorated with scenes of the last judgment. The only intact doorway in the palace.

Exiting the palace brought me through a wine tasting room where wine was to be had for €5 a taste. I hope that got you more than a tasting portion. They also sold a pack of 54 bottles of wine, all in aromatherapy sizes (25ml) for €275. They claimed it was the same price as if you'd gotten it in the cellar (€5,80 for 3x5cl) but I didn't believe them.

The souvenir shop sold wooden crossbows which really worked: you could wind the string back and pull the trigger. Though they came sans bolts, so maybe they wouldn't have worked if you tried to fire one.

There was a guestbook at the exit of the palace, so I spent 3x the space allocated for 1 person letting them know in no uncertain terms how I felt and telling them exactly how to solve their conservation problems instead of trying to boost postcard sales. I even left my email address, but maybe their English wasn't good enough, since I haven't gotten a reply yet.

I wonder how a Croque Madame is different from a Croque Monsieur.


Travel tips:

- Ask around for advice, especially from previous travelers. That there was a night train from Avignon to Reims was told to me by someone, and someone suggested I not go to Orleans but instead Reims.

Someone on String Theory and application to Economics:


I think we have witnessed enough man made disastors to prompt us to instinctively cast doubt upon any theory that claims to unity - to reduce the chaos of human interaction inherent in the social sciences into patterns of regularity that can be expressed as verifiable laws. Think about the IMF austerity plans, their underlying models and how they wrecked half decent economies that were momentarily caught out.., the collapse of LTCM, a hedge fund with two nobel prize winning financial economists on board...

I can think of three simple reasons why grand theories and Euclidean like mathematical artifacts will continually disappoint us in the social sciences.

1. Unlike the natural sciences, we have no constant substantive phenomena, or any source of predictibilty in the changing contours of our socio-economic systems. To put it simply, gravity in Newton's apple is the same gravity today. Fifteen years ago, it was held widely that the geopolitics would 'freeze' in a bipolar system founded on nuclear deterrance, and after that came the "end of the history" thesis, and today these ideas look quaint in a widely fragmented world system..

2. Human interaction is inherently unpredictable - we have ways and means of simplifying human behaviour, 'black-boxing' it but we have neither the technology (ie 3000+ years and all we have is game theory) nor the imagination to comprehensively do so. Theories that rely on abject simplications of human behaviour can only serve as benchmarks or 'ballpark figures' that guide our judgement.

3. Theories in the social sciences are reflexive - they can be unconscious products of history, culture and interests. Dominant theories reflect certain fashions and trends which can be brutally fickle...

I've come to increasingly believe that the only way to deal with the challenges of a increasingly disjointed, yet rapidly moving global system to have a mind that can accept incoherency as the starting point, not one that seeks to eliminate it...

Translate each of the following English sentences into the truth-functional symbolic language we have learned; where ‘p’= “Logic is easy,” ‘q’ = “Logic is fun,” and ‘r’ = “Symbols can be used.”

1. Logic is fun, but symbols cannot be used.
2. Logic is not fun unless symbols can be used.
3. Logic is fun only if symbols can be used.
4. Logic is easy, and logic is fun if symbols can be used.
5. Logic is not fun if symbols cannot be used.
6. Symbols can be used, or it is not the case that logic is easy.
7. Logic is fun if and only if it is easy.
8. Logic is neither easy nor fun.
9. It isn’t true that symbols cannot be used.
10. Logic isn’t easy if and only if symbols can’t be used.
11. Logic is fun, but it isn’t easy.
12. Logic is easy; moreover, it is fun.
13. Either symbols can be used, or logic is easy but not fun.
14. Logic is easy, and if symbols can be used, it is fun.
15. Symbols can be used, but logic is neither easy nor fun.


I can't help but admire the perverse mind which came up with this.

"Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, and lessens the frictions of social contacts." - Clare Booth Luce

***

A: Libertarians accept full responsibility for their own lives because they've never been able to count on anyone else for anything beyond the happy convergence of mutual self-interest. They realize that the nature of all relationships is transactionary, because they don’t have very much to offer and have received accordingly. Rather than adopting the libertarian worldview as an ideal state of affairs, they recognize the principles by which it operates as the hard facts
of life. Life isn’t fair and it will never be.

The sooner that people like Derek and you accept that, the sooner you can take positive action towards happiness in life by providing value for value. It's tragic that not everyone will be able to do this, but that's just how it is.

But you cling to this fatal conceit that you can change human nature. The world doesn't work that way, and we pay in blood and treasure until you learn that some people winning and some people losing is better than everyone being equally miserable.


Me: By a curious confusion, some critics have passed from the proposition that life is unfair to the other proposition that life must be unfair and that it is right and proper for life to be unfair.

We'd still be living in the Stone Age if everyone had this mentality.

"Humans are mortal, so there's no point trying to invent a new treatment for gangrene!"

"We will never know all there is to know, so there's no point trying to know more!"

It is not hard to accept full responsibility for your own life if your parents are rich enough to raise you comfortably and provide you with a world class education.

It is not hard to accept full responsibility for your own life if as an expatriate you get paid more than locals for doing less work.

And where the hell did equal misery come in?! Once again a false dichotomy is presented - if you're not libertarian you must be communist. The top 10% of the people getting 40% of the wealth is a much better state of affairs than the top 0.1% of the people getting 99% of the wealth.

I must note, though, that you seem to be talking about a different form of libertarianism. Instead of asserting that libertarianism is the way to go because it leads to desirable outcomes, you assert that libertarianism is the way to go because this is the way the world works.

Suffice to say that not everyone lives in a world devoid of faith, hope, charity/love, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. If you do, then that will be the true tragedy.

"Gross National Product measures neither the health of our children, the quality of their education, nor the joy of their play. It measures neither the beauty of our poetry, nor the strength of our marriages. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories, and the safety of our streets. It measures neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country.

It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth living, and it can tell us everything about our country, except those things that make us proud to be a part of it!"


B: Oh dear. Libertarian drivel. I've often wondered about this -- a lot
of my friends in college are libertarians, at least on an economic level. I get along great with them though. Their economic libertarianism is predicated on careful thought about what kind of govt policy would work in certain situations, whereas yours seems to be some kind of sweeping weltanschauung based on little more than your
conviction that inequality is inevitable and that any kind of redistributive and insurance-based govt policy will lead to communist dystopia. It seems that you have discovered a particularly strange, Ayn Rand-esque strain of libertarianism. I also find it strange that as an objectivist you appear to be very thin-skinned.

> And this characterization that links a libertarian outlook to success
> and good fortune. Maybe that's true for some, but it can work the other
> way as well. Libertarians accept full responsibility for their own lives
> because they've never been able to count on anyone else for anything
> beyond the happy convergence of mutual self-interest.

I think he was making the sociological point that libertarians tend to come from successful backgrounds and this might - surprise surprise - have contributed something to their views.

> Life isn't fair and it will never be. The sooner that people like Derek
> and you accept that, the sooner you can take positive action towards
> happiness in life by providing value for value. It's tragic that not
> everyone will be able to do this, but that's just how it is.

Again, you have not understood that everyone is not an ubermensch who can 'provide value for value' against all odds or whatever. Can a child with Downs provide value for value? What is this value you speak of anyway?

You seem also to forget that there is such a thing as the state, which is an extremely powerful organisation. It can tax, it can subsidise, it can provide public services, etc. Now if you want we can have an argument about whether such policies aimed at poverty reduction, or protectionism, or welfare provision, are always going to be inefficient -- or if you are to be believed, so inefficient that we will all be dragged down into the pit of economic hell. But you have not made this argument. You have merely and conveniently assumed it.

> But you cling to this fatal conceit that you can change human nature.
> The world doesn't work that way, and we pay in blood and treasure until
> you learn that some people winning and some people losing is better than
> everyone being equally miserable.

What blood? No really what blood?

"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor." - Neil Gaiman

***

Quotes from essays for a general education module:

- "In each organism, diploid zygote formation depends on haploid gamete production, and the gametic cycles are in turn controlled by the mature organism developed from a zygote." Instructor: "I don't know what that means."

- Then I thought that it would hardly work in countries like Singapore, where half the people do not speak English or anything proper at all.

- Moreover it is in the University where we are placed on uneven playing fields in bidding for modules, and we learn in each semester how to refine our bidding skills.


I am starting a new mini-series called "u r wt u wr". Today's installment:

- There was a girl in a green shirt with a picture of a bicycle and the words "Want a ride?"
- A girl was in a purple top which had the word "Slutty" on it
- One girl was wearing an emerald coloured top with the words: "I only look innocent"
- Some girl was wearing a pink T-shirt with cap sleeves with the words "Cute", "Single" and others I couldn't see on it

(All the preceding exhibits were glimpsed in school)

Obviously, wearing clothing with such motifs or slogans is begging to have them commented upon, yet my money is on those wearing these pieces of clothing complaining about sexual harassment and claiming that they're being objectified if people actually do comment on them.

Me: if you want you can guest star as the guy who goes up to comment
but if you land in jail I can't help you =D

Expert on Defamation: that's just setting up urself for defamation

Me: what.
I didn't say who wore them what

Expert on Defamation: no, the bit abt guest-starring me :D

i can guest star as HWMNBD :)
he who must not be defamed


disturbed bunny: so many you can add to it lla if only you go shopping with girls more often
"voted most flexible by your boyfriend"
etc etc
tsk you are suaku laaa. i should take you shopping one day
i like "nerds have big hard drives" best

Someone: sadly i have a tee that says "trysexual - everything must try once"

Tenghui's birthday present - Aruba Aluba! (Pillaring), filmed in a Premier University in the Clementi-Kent Ridge area.
The original plan was to taupok, but someone got the idea of aruba-ing instead.

Victim: "pillar is not painful cos it is usually too thick to have concentrated pressure on the groin. but that chair... wah lau that was really painful. i didn't really fight back from the aruba cos i thought it's going to be something symbolic. but it became something actual and practical. "i feel comfortable".... haha"

Someone: "oh i thought the term was only used in taiwan ('阿魯巴')"

IslaFormosa Blog » Blog Archive » Hazing… The ‘Aluba’ Way!

"Among the most intriguing activities of young men in Taiwan (and Chinese East Asia) is ‘Aluba’. I quote the Wikipedia: “A male student is lifted up by several of his classmates and his groin is then rubbed against a hard object such as a pole, a tree, or even the edge of a door. In Taiwan, Aluba is usually performed by hitting the victim’s groin on a tree trunk or a pole.”... Aluba has an English equivalent called ‘Happy Corner’."

Bizarrely, Wikipedia reads: "Happy corner has been very popular among students in higher education since late 1990, especially in orientation camps (popularly called o-camps by students). Part of its controversy stems from the fact that some students hazed other students not familiar with the practice, or hazed the other gender, as an act of simulated sexual intercourse... Some have also criticized the Happy Corner subculture for contributing to an openness in attitude in sexual relationships among students."

Males express affection for same-sex friends by putting them down and hurting them physically. Females express affection for same-sex friends by exalting them and buying them presents.



"Women... Know Your Limits"
Someone: i show my gf who's a damn feminist. she found it funnytoo


Kids playing at swordplay at my estate

Does God get in the way of social cohesion?
Straits Times, 21st October 2006

"The way forward is not to sweep sensitive issues arising from religion under the carpet and pretend they do not exist.

Instead, what is needed is a frank yet sober discussion of religious issues in public, as even the religious leaders themselves admit.

As Brother Broughton puts it, "some religious problems cannot be settled by keeping quiet".

But the view among some is that inter-faith dialogue currently exists largely in the level of politically correct platitudes.

This is dangerous, says Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies analyst Yolanda Chin. "The tendency to silence or self-censor any debate broaching on conflicting views on religious issues may be well-meaning but also perpetuates the prejudices and stereotypes that are formed out of blissful ignorance."

Thus, the announcement from PM Lee of a national steering committee on racial and religious harmony was welcomed. It is chaired by Minister of Community Development, Youth and Sports vivian Balakrishnan, and comprises government ministers and religious leaders."


Nowadays the only time I read the Shitty Times is when it lines the dinner table, but my Little Bird recommended this article to me, from what he calls "The Religion Special" of the #140.

The first part of the extract is surprisingly enlightened, but the last illustrates a characteristic lack of awareness. A national steering committee should be condemned, since it would serve to restrict and manage discourse.

To have a "frank yet sober discussion of religious issues in public" instead of "politically correct platitudes", we need to abolish the Sedition Act and related bugaboos (eg the ban on religious issues at the Speakers' Corner), otherwise coherent and reasoned discourse is self-censored suppressed, ceding the ground to nonsensical rants, ad hominem attacks and baseless sliming (a la the Sammyboy Forums), which results in a self-perpetuating cycle.

One thing we absolutely *don't* need is these ridiculous corporatist steering committees composed of supposedly representative leaders. From the Young Republic archives:


A: 1- Representation on MDA advisory committees (and representation in our intellegence agencies including the ISD) appears to be quite multi-ethnic. ( I've seen proof of the latter).

If the minorities in those committees are of the opinion that they don't think that Singapore's liberal enough to risk fatwas and stuff, who are we to disagree?


B: There are a whole load of fascinating assumptions to be unpacked in your argument. Primarily they boil down to your belief that groups of people, identified by their religion or their status as a group of a particular identifiable and state-identified "minority", can have their interests adequately represented on the basis of a corporate, indivisible opinion representative of the "majority of this minority", and that this opinion can be accurately embodied by the actions of each minority's state-appointed mouthpieces

If that seems like a mouthful, it's because the problems in this point of view are manifold. Let me explain each one. First, power looks after its own. Who do you reckon gets appointed to these committees, given that the government does the appointing? There is every possibility - indeed probability - that these so-called representatives represent a particular agenda of the state instead of the minority group from which they also, coincidentally, hail. Or does religion or race define the totality of the person, so that a powerful Muslim person can never have closer interests with a fellow powerful Christian person than with another Muslim person? To my mind that is somehow both naive and racist at the same time. An interesting conflation.

Second, let's grant you that they sincerely believe themselves to be representing "their" minority and indeed reflect a numerically great proportion of persons sharing that minority status. Doesn't it strike you as potentially problematic that (I apologise for the capital letters, I don't want to shout but I want to emphasise this point and I don't know whether I can bold this successfully for all email formats) PEOPLE WITHIN THE SO-CALLED "SAME" MINORITY MIGHT DISAGREE, and that THE MINORITY OF THE MINORITY MIGHT NEED PROTECTION? Or should people with heterodox opinions be penalised because they happen to share a religion with a number of nutjobs? Why shouldn't the rest of the population stand side by side with the repressed female or gay or simply religiously unconventional opinion of a member of a minority? Does the fact that this person is from a state-identified racial/religious minority mean we should abandon them to the opinion of that minority's "group" as a whole? Doesn't this amount to abandoning people to only ever forming identities within a pre-defined religious/racial group since cross-pollination of beliefs is basically prevented? Why can't people have interests that transcend racial classification, so that the interests of a racial block (as defined by one government-appointed arbiter) do not trump the interests of the individuals composed within that classification?

To illustrate the artificiality - in other words, the reliance on stereotype - that your position involves, let's consider the feminism parallel we both seem to have adopted. Leaving aside questions of my highly dubious qualification as a feminist (I read Germaine Greer while wearing a little summer frock and high heels and watching my boyfriend play sport - not a little ironic) - why does this numerical majority matter so much to you? Why do I have to persuade the majority of women to agree with me before you will? The notion that the interests of women are completely uninterrogable to men, or that the interests of Muslims are completely uninterrogable to non-Muslims, is extremely bizarre. But let's say only 20% - a mere minority - of women did have feminist sentiments on a particular issue. That's what, 10% of the population? Going by your logic, by which we judge the interests of people by first segregating them into minorities and then saying, ok, we listen to the majority of those minorities, the claims of this 10% of the population should be ignored. But how is that logical when your same approach would grant people of Indian descent (also about 10%, slightly less I believe, of the population) an important corporate voice on the basis of a majority of them voicing a particular opinion? (Even using the word "majority" there is construing it favourably, for reasons I have already explained relating to the problems of appointing one person as arbiter of some indivisible "minority" opinion.)

I do think there are nuances to being of a particular religion or gender or sexuality or whatever which require especial study on the part of someone who does not share that religion or gender or sexuality in order to adequately understand. This compared to the experience of someone who lives in the role of a person of particular religion or gender or sexuality from day to day. But the idea that a liberal atheist cannot ever understand or explain the concerns of a liberal Muslim - that a feminist man cannot ever fight for the cause alongside a feminist woman - is just wrong. We're not defined by these narrow categories. They're components of who we are, but I reckon any one of us can have a lot more in common with someone who ticks all the different category boxes from us than from someone who apparently shares the same "minority" statuses. And to assume otherwise creates the tyranny of narrowed aspirations that is the precise problem that Singaporeans face now, that stands in the way of any of us developing our own individuality.


C: Thank you B. Which is why I felt offended in the first place - presuming that Muslims must all be fanatical illiberal creatures is speaking (presumptuously) for them - and therefore what gives A the right to shoot is (ugly) mouth off? I have friends who are gay and liberal - and they happen to be Muslim. What of them? Have they no individuality? No say? Nothing, because Muslims must needs be patriarchal, antifeminist, gun-toting, Israel-hating, anti-Semitic terrorists? It seems as if the great number of moderate Muslims (not only in Singapore, but in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as the vast number of moderate Muslims in the Middle East who are not of Indochinese origin) have been eliminated by A's totalitarian and
totalising discourse. And nothing irritates me more than totalitarianism of any sort.

Dialogue with the Muslim community is in order, and yet A is so thankful that the MDA has stepped in again to protect the Muslims from themselves, and in so doing, us from the Muslims. It strikes that in this day and age, what we need are more opinions, more views, more voices to be heard, rather than less.


D: Yes I believe this is what Amartya Sen has been saying in his new book: by looking at individuals only through the lens of the 'community' identity (e.g. Islam, South Asian, Jewish, etc) and not engaging with Muslims, Asians, Jews etc individually but only through the established 'community' leaders, we not only compromise the individual rights of expression etc of members of such communities but in terms of policy-making we tend then to view these communities through the skewed perception of their established leaders ( e.g. imams, rabbis, etc). There is no reason why an individual member of a minority should be any less an individual than an individual member of the majority.

On Young Republic on the Wee Shu-min outrage:

A: entirely disproportionate response to an unkind, unwise, but otherwise trivial rant of a private individual, just like the lucy gao/alexsey vayner brouhaha.

i suppose she will learn a good lesson about public diplomacy, but it seems like you're all too eager to see someone fall from grace, since if it had been anyone else less fortunate who said it you'd be praising them for having the right values about individual responsibility for success. why the double standard? or is it to compensate for your guilt-trip for being so fortunate to be on the right side of the bell curve distribution?

also i think it is sad that her opinions about society will only be reinforced by response from the celebration of mediocrity and culture of victimhood that condemns her.

Me:

>also i think it is sad that her opinions about society will only be
>reinforced by response from the celebration of mediocrity and culture
>of victimhood that condemns her.

Actually it was the celebration of excellent final outcomes, condemnation of those who lag behind and culture of "meritocracy" that led to her having the opinions that she has now.

It's no wonder people are so skeptical about the benefits of the free market and turn to reactionary socialism. Someone once sent me an article asking: "Why isn't socialism dead?" A fear of such ideology is, I think, a major reason why.

That the ends justify the means is a principle often propounded in undertaking distasteful tasks. A belief in market radicalism seems to take a different tack - the means justify the ends (free market outcomes must be right) which is, frankly, puzzling.

Those who believe that economic might is right and who thus oppose such wimpy bleeding-heart liberal policies as a progressive tax system and subsidised basic health care should bear in mind that a corollary is that political might is right - if the poor, frustrated and disenchanted masses rise up against you and loot your property, you shouldn't have any right to object.

Some might try to impose false dichotomies on me again: that if I do not support the untrammeled forces of the free market, I'm advocating giving the lazy and the stupid as much as the hardworking and the intelligent, or that if I think discrimination and environmental factors must totally account for why a certain group is disadvantaged compared to the rest I must be racist or support eugenics/Social Darwinism. Bizarrely, the post-modernists label me as simplistic and close-minded, and others (right-wing positivists, perhaps? Or maybe my neologism of "altar men", after the "either you're kneeling before the altar, or on the altar watching others kneel before you" philosophy) accuse me of spewing post-modernist bullshit.

It's so hard being a centrist these days. No wonder everyone likes to be an extremist though it's obviously wrong.


"In “The Rise Of The Meritocracy”, published in 1958, Michael Young, a British sociologist and Labour Party activist, conjured up an image of a society obsessed with talent. The date was 2034, and psychologists had perfected the art of IQ testing. But far from promoting social harmony, the preoccupation with talent had produced social breakdown. The losers in the talent wars were doubly unhappy, conscious not only that they were failures but that they deserved to be failures. Eventually they revolted against their masters.

The rise of the talent elite has bred resistance, which started on the right. T.S. Eliot, a 20th-century poet and critic, argued that choosing people on the basis of their talents would “disorganise society and debase education”. Edward Welbourne, a Cambridge don, dismissed IQ tests as “devices invented by Jews for the advancement of Jews”. But after the second world war the resistance spread leftward. Leftists argued that meritocracies were not only unpleasant but unjust. If “talent” owed more to nature than nurture, as many social scientists insisted [Ed: This is one reason I suspect why the PC people are so dead against nature arguments], then rewarding people for talent was tantamount to rewarding them for having privileged parents...

There are plenty of signs that another backlash is on the way, from John Kerry's complaints about American companies outsourcing jobs to a rash of riots in China. Much of this resentment focuses on growing inequalities. People complain that these are straining the bonds of society to breaking point: a new aristocracy of talent is retreating into golden ghettos and running the global economy in their own interests. “The talented retain many of the vices of aristocracy without its virtues,” said the late Christopher Lasch, an American historian, in one of the best analyses of the trend. The logic of talent wars is meritocratic: the most talented get the most rewards. But the reality of democracy is egalitarian: the people can use their political power to defeat the bell curve."

Tonight, I heard La Campanella horribly butchered. The concert was advertised thus: "Exceptional violin students of the Conservatory take centrestage in Double Stops", and indeed this piece was performed exceptionally badly.

The violinist played the wrong thing not once, not twice but *three* times, and each time it was the same part that she got wrong. Instead of playing the right bars for those parts of the song to transition into the next section (a variation on the original theme), she played the original theme (my music kaki suggests 'recapitulation' but indicates that I should use a less cheem term), so it was extremely jarring and the piano had to audibly and visibly accommodate her.

Her very high bits were very scratchy, she had a lot of hairy notes (blurred notes) and she did painfully slow pizzicatos near the end, really taking her own sweet time. Paganini is hard, but the first error is particularly unforgiveable (3 times?!). On the up side, her imitation of the bell was quite good, and the running passages were reasonably graceful ('well the girl was aesthetically pleasing'). I tried to blog my outrage immediately after her performance, during the interval, but unfortunately there was no wireless reception in the concert hall.

Beethoven's Spring was technically alright but horribly bland. Hubay's Carmen Fantasie Brilliante was interesting.

The night's violinists all seemed to be PRCs and all closed their eyes ('stage fright'). The boys were also better players than the girls, because their clothes were in varying degrees of un-ironed-ness ('evening gowns cannot be crumpled. technically impossible unless you use a steamroller').

Unfortunately, the best female performer had a really awful dress which could best be described as an orange mermaid gone wrong (the black shoes didn't go either, which didn't help). She got the 2 most challenging songs of the night's programme, which was a pity since they were both awful songs, beyond the rescue of the best violinists. Chausson's Poème, Op 25 must've been about existentialism, since there seemed to be no theme or even melody in it. Ravel's Tzigane was horrible as always, despite (or maybe because) of its being a vehicle for showing off violin technique. Essentially the former bored me and the latter raised my blood pressure.

The best performer took on Bazzini's La Ronde des Lutins, Op. 25, and originally earned from me the ultimate compliment - he made a French song sound good! (I have since discovered that he was Italian, which explains why the song sounded good and why Tzigane and Poème could not be rescued). Kaki on the best performer: "jaw dropping. just the first 10 bars and my jaw dropped", and on the best female performer: "flawless technique".

Besides La Campanella being butchered and the bad costuming, there was only one other factor spoiling the evening: this annoying couple beside my concert kaki who kept on chattering despite the former's finally telling them off during the last piece; after the concert this Brit in the seat behind me also told the girl off: "If you can play better..." (things always sound more authoritative with a British accent). Personally, I think playing ability is irrelevant: even if Itzhak Perlman had been sitting in that seat, I'd have scolded him for chatting; it's like how movie critics don't have to be able to do better to make legitimate criticisms of a film.

Republicans Give In To Bush, Betray America

When I was working in Russia some years ago, a friend in Kaliningrad told me a perhaps apocryphal story about Nikita Khrushchev, who, following Stalin's death, gave a speech to the Politburo denouncing Stalin's policies of imprisoning people without trial. A few minutes into Khrushchev's diatribe, somebody shouted out, "Why didn't you challenge him then, the way you are now?"

The room fell silent, as Khrushchev swept the audience with his eyes. "Who said that?" he asked in a reasoned voice. Silence.

"Who said that?" Khrushchev demanded angrily, leaning forward. Silence.

Pounding his fist on the podium to accent each word, he thundered, "Who - said - that?" Still no answer.

Finally, after a long and strained silence, the elected politicians in the room fearful to even cough, a corner of Khrushchev's mouth lifted into a smile.

"Now you know," he said with a chuckle, "why I did not speak up against Stalin when I sat where you now sit."

--- Thom Hartmann

Another picture post:


Even movers are Christian these days. Next you know we'll see Christian ice.


someone's 1.4kg monster courgette


The following were all taken in school:


A madman I met along the AS1-6 corridor


No exit through the exit. Quite Kafka-esque.


People are like teabags...
... Once you use them, you throw them away.
... They always come with strings attached.
... We always label them.
... They're always getting into hot water.
... They're naturally bitter!
... They don't reveal their essence unless you hang them up and give them a well-needed dunk.
I was exorcising the motivational posters in Chatterbox one day. Others added their contributions.


Most wrong P-plate placing I've ever seen, along Heng Mui Keng terrace


LT11 Water Parade (Lost and Found corner?)


Ringafling ad, seen near AS2. My 'favourite' is "Hi, my name is 'Milk,' I'll do your body good.
One person guessed it was a bash, another told me he knew it was a bash, but he doesn't know whose (just that it's probably not an Arts thing). Maybe it's Science - they always have the most silly bash concepts (S.T.R.I.P, Dare 21).


Young Singaporeans - Your gateway to the "Last Paradise on Earth"... "In NZ, the government looks after you from the day you are born till the day you rest in peace. The government of your adopted country will never let you go hungry... Do not procrastinate any further. Singapore is no longer a pot of gold for you."

"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it." - Terry Pratchett

***

Quotes:

'If a nuclear bomb hit us, I would be the King of France.' is actually true in a true-false conditional.

Sino-US trend deficit (trade)

[On a presentation] To synchronise ourselves, we are all in black tops and sandals (our dressing)

High rates of grorth (growth)

US blair'ms China for its tread deficit (blames, trade)

The younger generation has only seen the US economy doing well. Therefore they don't know the importance of farming (saving)

[On a presentation] I hope you all understood most of that, but if you didn't, that's okay.

Em'pie'rer'curl estimates (empirical)

Desperate times calls for desperate measures (call)

[On what honesty in doing problem sets gets you] I did it myself. That's how I know I got it all wrong.

Sometimes we say one man's ponens is another man's tollens.

'State will play in a bowl game.' Who's State? What's a bowl game?

[Student: Here *hands tutor tissue*] What is it? [Student: A tissue. Unused.] Thank you.

[On EN2101E] All 4 of my literature books are about sex.

[On engineering diagrams] [Instructor: Don't you all, the Engineering guys, learn this in school?] You mean Art and Craft?

Aviation fuel is very cheap. The fuel surcharge is nonsense... How does SIA make so much money? [Me: By cutting the pilots' pay.]

[On bidding being silly] This is true. You spend more time learning bidding skills than anything [in class]

[On an essay] 'Multi-sensual instructional process'. This I don't get. What is a multi-sensual instructional process?

Last time - the chalkboard. It was very slow... while the students are copying they are thinking. What has happened now is that the syllabuses have increased by - 300%...teachers can give a lot of notes... your thinking time is compromised.

[On possible accusations of nepotism] 'What happens if my daughter gets an A?' If she gets an A she gets an A. I can't help it.

[Instructor: 15 years ago there was this stall at the Arts canteen selling kway teow... They used to have very long queues. They guy had a secret formula.] *Sotto voce* Marijuana. After a while you need 2 plates to get the same kick]

[On taking photos of public property] Newspapers, all the people... If you're in a public space, anyone can take a photo... If someone barges into my class and takes a photograph, I will take the camera and throw it away.

[On publishing an article based on another's ideas] The law of confidence. 'It's not my fault. I gave him a beer and he blurted out to me. Even though I gabe him the beer so that he would blurt it out.'

[On copyright] Multiple copies - meaning copy 1: pages 1-5, copy 2: pages 6-10? [Instructor: That's an interesting interpretation of 'multiple copies']

[On my Asian Prince card] He looks very wealthy. [Me: He is]

I like your shirt. [Me: It's doubly haram] It's triply haram, cause you're in it. [Me: Thanks]

I used to go to Church when I was young. My whole extended family is Christian. [Me: Then what happened?] I read the Bible.

[At 10:48] Here's a good time to take a short break, so be back by noon. (11)

[On rules vs discretion and crying babies] You need to have some mental fortitude and maybe a streak of cruelty to carry out this policy.

If you work it out - actually I'm not sure if I want you guys to work it out. Maybe I should leave it for the problem set. *Audience groans*

[On Central Bank independence] They're going to tell the government to go to hell.

[On property prices] Clementi region has good schools, [a] good university.

[On his homework partner filing for graduation in the middle of the term without telling him] It was so sudden. No warning at all. Like the Thailand coup.

[Me: are you motivated by his 'motivating example'?] No, it's discouraging.

[On panel data] After 1 year, age is one year more, obviously. Sex is diff... the same. *Laughs from audience*

Taking ***, they get a B from me. They are working in the same form. (got, firm)

idiosyncrity error (idiosyncratic)


[On a row of waterbottles at the back of the LT] What is this, water parade?

[On the end of the exam] All good things must come to an end.

high'poh'tee'nurse (hypotenuse)

[On Wo-Hen] It's good to have this kind of people around. I don't know about you - he makes me feel good to be normal.

[On late handing in of an assignment] I suppose that if I accept this joker's tutorial exercise, I will have to do the same thing to those [who are finishing them up now]... If you have the gall to do the same thing later, put yours on the small stack [and I will decide whether to accept them later]... [It's a form of] entertainment.

I didn't name the arguments Modus Tollens and Modus Ponens. They were already named that way... All the good arguments are named after me.

Interestingly enough, in the US every Chinese restaurant has a buffet. I used to think it was authentic. Now I don't think so anymore... Nice and greasy.

"Never have children, only grandchildren." - Gore Vidal

***

The Riddling Reaver I got from eBay was described as being in "very good" condition, but when I got it I realised that even the most charitable appraisal could only deliver, at most, a verdict of "good". I made note of this to the seller and he said it was "very good" considering it was 20 years old. Slightly peeved, I left him neutral feedback with a gentle chiding about an inaccurate description. In return for my polite, factual and *neutral* feedback, I got negative feedback from him and some really far out comments ("Rubbish ebayer"). I checked his feedback history and found that he had similarly burnt other unfortunate souls. I emailed 4-5 of them to commiserate and 1 replied:

"It was so nice to get your message, because I felt so aggrieved by the whole incident with ***. My 1st negative feedback and really brutal - and all over a £3.00 transaction! I haven't bought on ebay since as it left me feeling so wronged. Still, I suppose if I'm losing sleep over something like that, I need to develop a thicker skin. Anyway, thanks for getting in touch - it's good to know that I'm not the only one to be bruised by him."

After some thought, I figured that the feedback system would be improved and people would be more inclined to give genuine feedback rather than spiteful, unwarranted feedback in retaliation or misleadingly glowing feedback for fear of retaliation, if the decision was made in secret by both sides (you leave feedback, he leaves feedback and both sides see what the other party has done after they themselves have moved and cannot alter their decision); right now if you are the first to leave someone feedback he can see your move and respond to it. Hmm, this may even have an element of time inconsistency.

I emailed eBay with my suggestion, but like YouTube (which keeps setting my uploaded videos to Chinese) they sent me a stock reply (not an auto-replier, mind you) clearly showing that they hadn't read my email at all.

The second time, they did reply properly (unlike YouTube, which sent me a rubbish response maybe 2-3 times), and it was bizarre:

"I assure you that we are committed to the continuous improvement of our website to make it both a fun and safe place to trade. However, please note that our company policy does not allow us to accept or consider ideas or proposals, other than those that we have specifically requested.

Please understand that this policy is intended to avoid the possibility of future misunderstandings when new products, services or features developed internally by eBay employees might be similar or even identical to your idea or proposal."

Hopefully what I suggested falls under "Send us your suggestion to improve the eBay site." I'm not going to re-submit it in another obscure corner again.

Me: I'm not good at spotting you underaged people [at clubs]
I need a bionic eye

Someone: hahaha its quite easy what.
just look for the ones with lots of eye makeup, jeans, skimpy top, one BIG group of girls.


Me: sorry was on the phone

Someone else: nah it's alright
and don't ever use sorry when talking to me

haha =p
one of my idiosyncrasies

i hate the word
=p

Me: wth?!
... women

Someone else: not really a woman thing =p
i hate it cos it makes me feel bad when people say it to me
hahahaah


Sec 2 friend: Does cytokinesis happen during telophase in mitosis or does it happen after?

Wth. Why're they learning A level biology in Sec 2? And it seems the Sec 1s are learning what they're doing now. I wonder what they'll do in JC.


Someone: i've found your blog useful in one aspect
everytime i get a chain email
or someone posts stupid stuff on the forum
i just send them a copy of the Ultimate Chain Email found on your blog


Someone else: lenovo rocks
'submit feedback' button leads directly to 'cannot find server' page
repeatedly
this is a ploy

Me: haha
I remember the IBM days...

Someone else: oh well. they're prcs


Someone: [I've been single for] a year +
now i'm turning gay
checking guys out


Someone else: gabriel if you want more people to like you as a conversationalist, i suggest you emulate wt by being enigmatic and freaky

***

Me: Girls who like Jap guys who look like girls are ugly

Someone: ahhahahah
hahahahaha

sorry
you got me really hard this time haha
i can't stop laughing irl.

Me: how many of those do you know :P

Someone: not many actually, but the question itself is hilarious haha
the thing is
it's like lesbians
usually, people think lesbians are hot
but those are girls that like girls
in this case, you're asking about girls who like guys that look like girls

;Someone else: i find them very immature
gets so excited when they see e jap guy pics or hear their names

Me: haha
I get excited when I see wo-hen pics or hear his name

Someone else: u're exceptional haha

;Noodles girl: I'M NOT UGLY.­

Someone else: yes.
guys who look like girls are hideous
and should be castrated for the better good of humanity.
amen.

girls who like jap guys are usually cheena and ugly
they usually dress terrible, read manga
speak too much terrible singaporean chinese

and are..

uglee.

fugly.

shugly ( shit ugly )

Someone (2): uh...­
they are not necessarily ugly, but they are painfully act-cute

;Someone (3): i know some jap looking guys with the cutest girls i've ever seen
im so jealous i wish i look jap

Me: take note
Jap guys who look like girls
not Jap guys who look like guys

Someone (3): most jap guys look like girls?
they still get all the chicks
no diff

"A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs." - German Proverb

***

Disadvantages of using your laptop in class: People can see that you have a MSN contact group called 'SGBOY'. Hurr hurr.

Some people who'd gone to the US on exchange said that the difference between the US and Singapore was that in Singapore people would look at you and go "Why are you like this?" (said in Chinese), but that in the US people would look at you and go "Oh, so you are like this." (said in Chinese too); they said that in Singapore people hold you to a standard and stare at you if you don't fit in, while in the US you can wear what you want - one day you can wear makeup and a skirt and basketball shorts the next, and no one will say anything.

I asked the Malay stall woman not to give me a plastic bag, but she insisted and said that otherwise the plastic store would close down. Uhh.

A presentation on the US-China trade deficit suggested that one way to improve it would be for China to develop its civil society. This was too outrageous a claim to let pass, so I called them up on it. The response was that a more democratic China would result in consumers having greater choice and buying more US goods. Uhh.

One of my minions told me that a gaggle of people was behind me in the corridor, and they were going: "Look, it's that blogger... His hair is so long. He thinks he's Vanness Wu?" Someone: "next thing you know a yaoi fangirl with too much time on her hands will produce gssq/vaness fanart -_-" Someone else: "vanness wu. ­what an insult. ­you should smack them"

The people who write the menus at Munchie Monkey are as deprived as those who ocme up with bash names. Smoothies were described as "a fruity twist for those in heat", and 3 scoops of ice-cream was named "Ménage à trois".

It tells you something that at the New Zealand's Natural in NUS, half the flavours are no/low fat.

Someone showed me some of the official unofficial smoking points in NUS. It was very interesting, not least since the biggest one (with a "NUS is a smoke-free campus" sign, no less) is where I've seen female students smoking in NUS for the first time (they're more risk-averse than the guys); I saw a female staff member smoking in a carpark - apparently it's a loophole in the regulations. I'd document these corners, but that would incite a crackdown, so.

For a test, I watched a documentary on Millennium Tower in Hong Kong (some people watched the wrong video, heh). The various concerns (providing a good mix of facilities, having a church for weddings, express lifts etc) reminded me of playing SimTower.

"The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too." - Oscar Levant

***

I notice the girls who gush over Jap guys who look like girls tend to be ugly.

"Singaporean men marry foreign women because they're losers. Singaporean women marry foreign men because Singaporean men are losers."

My brother-in-law was in a cab with a Malay taxi driver, and they both agreed that Singaporean Malay food was better than Malaysian Malay food. However, Indonesian food trumped them both. He said there was one good Malaysian "Malay" food stall though - Merlin Prata in JB, just after Imigresen. The cab driver was intrigued, though, when he was told that Malaysian Chinese hawker food was better than Singaporean Chinese hawker food ("Isit? I don't know.")

I can't stand how rude some Christians can be. I SMSed someone to ask him something and then out of the blue he replied: "you know what you need in your life? jesus." Not only did he need his god more than me, it was totally irrelevant and totally inappropriate. Worst of all, it was also extremely rude, since he knows my feelings about such matters. Much worse, I might add, than mocking someone for his baldness. He deserves to be mauled by bears!

A fine specimen of the other gender supplied me with a remarkable insight the other day: women don't want to be understood, since that'd make it too easy for their partners. This explains why they play games, throw smoke bombs et al. They want to be understood instinctively on a visceral level (on reflection the last point seems to contradict the first - perhaps instinctive understanding is alright but intellectual understanding isn't).

I think my printer's finally given up the ghost after 2 years and 9 months. It was printing kookily for a while, but it seems the holes are finally well and truly clogged - I tried 3 cleanings, 2 deep cleanings and changing the cartridge, but nothing works. Using third party ink probably had something to do with it, but using original ink would be so expensive, I might as well get a new printer (or even a laserjet). Time to trek down to Business to get 4 cent/page printing.

Someone I met for the first time looked at my hair and asked if it was rebonded. I asked how she knew and she said usually guys don't have such straight hair. She claimed that girls are genetically predisposed to have straighter hair.


I think an important reason why the politically correct group always likes to dig up and focus on examples of discrimination (even when it is questionable and when other factors undoubtedly play a part) is their ideological obsession with equality (whether equal opportunity in the mild case or equal outcomes in the extreme one).

Some simply refuse to accept that unequal outcomes can be due to innate differences and endowments, and instead blame discrimination, upbringing, the environment et al. But then innate differences and endowments are not a person's fault any more than discrimination and the lot are.

In any case, even if innate differences exist, they are not immutable. Gattaca is a good example of this.

Speech By DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng During The DAP Economic Forum "NEP vs VISION 2020: WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?" In The Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall On 26.9.2006

"The United Nations Human Development Report consistently list Malaysians as suffering the worst income inequality between the rich and poor in South-East Asia. This is conceded by the 9MP which showed the share of income of the bottom 40% of the population declined from 14.5% in 1990 to 13.5% in 2004 whilst the share of the top 20% of the population increased from 50% in 1990 to 51.2% in 2004.

The income inequality within the Chinese community worsened in the period 1999 to 2004 from 0.434 to 0.446 whilst for Indians from 0.413 to 0.425. The income inequality amongst bumis was even worse from 0.433 in 1999 to 0.452 in 2004. Marginalization of Malaysians generally can be seen with the Ninth Malaysian Plan (9MP) showing the Gini Coefficient nationally worsening from 0.452 in 1999 to 0.462 in 2004.

How come UMNO does not talk of reducing the widening income disparity between rich Malay millionaires like him and poor Malays but continue to hit out at Chinese as if there are no poor Chinese and all Chinese are millionaires like him? If UMNO is sincere about helping poor Malays and Malaysians who are marginalized he should be asking the government to abolish the 5% bumi housing discounts given to million ringgit homes (as if Malay millionaires need a discount) and distribute Petronas RM70 billion ringgit profits to the people."


Someone should sue him for defamation.

Action in the High Court of the Republic of Singapore ("Singapore High Court")
Lee Kuan Yew v Review Publishing Company Limited and Hugo Restall
(Case No. S540/2006/Q)

This is hilarious, and quite Kafka-esque: "We sue you for defamation for alleging that we sue people for defamation unnecessarily"

Page 9 of the Writ of Summons for a libel suit against FEER reads:

"16. In addition, the phrase "How many libel suits have Singapore's great and good wrongly won, covering up real misdeeds?" was repeated and given special prominence in a box in the Article."

They even helpfully include in Appendix A an extensive list of defamation suits won by the plaintiff.

Irony, thou art dead.


Why My Vote Matters-A Dialogue With Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew

MM Lee: You mean to tell me you have, you're one of the 40% who voted against the PAP and something happens to you?

Ken Kwek, 26 - Journalist; Never voted: I mean, I've never voted for that matter, but I mean - we talk to hundreds of voters in the course of our work, and it's either "no comment" or "if I vote against the PAP..."

MM Lee: Let's get down. What are the hundreds of voters? You name the hundreds of voters, a few of them. Tell me.

Ken Kwek: Well, I mean I can't name them-

MM Lee: No no.

Ken Kwek: By name.

MM Lee: No, you tell me who you've spoken to and they say "we're afraid to vote..."

Quotes on Religion - Carl Sagan:

"One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and - whole the events of that year were certainly of some importance - the world did not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended. There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvinenced in any way. But they did not. They could have said, Well, the world would have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with God so He spared the Earth. But they did not. Instead, the did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world had in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout. It is astonishing in the fact of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. The fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough- mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration was needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry." - Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain

All the forum letters are about stupid things. Time for editors to act

All the forum letters are about stupid things. Time for editors to act

I turned to the Forum pages of the Straits Times today, as well as previous days, and noted the sort of letters being published.

The main themes focused on banal exultation of irrelevant and perversely insidious moral values, brainless enquiries/complaints, beating the hollow drum of patriotism, sterile corporate template replies to enquiries/complaints which mostly avoid the issue and responsibility, glowing praise of the government, petitions from peasants to the Emperor, thanking taxi drivers, totally pointless shit and basically plain idiocy. Here are some of the letters:

. Long Live the Great Leader - a paean to an exalted figure, gushing obsequiously in praise of him;

. Condoms encourage promiscuity - about why we should ban condoms so only married couples will engage in congress;

. Why is company racist? - complaining about how a company's ad did not keep to the requisite quota of 1 Chinese, 1 Malay and 1 Indian (with 1 Other if budget permits);

. Smile, Singapore! - about how we should have heeded the Government's call to welcome the world with smiles;

. Singapore is truly meritocratic - about how a WASP immigrant from the USA, despite all odds, managed to secure a high-paying job here, in contrast to the discrimination he faced at home due to his being on Medical Leave all the time;

. Worms because of unethical supplier - about how there were worms in a restaurant's soup because the supplier let an expired batch through (ignoring the fact that the cook and waiter should have spotted the worms while serving the soup);

. Town council should not raise conservancy charges - begging the town council not to raise conservancy charges;

. Singapore Boleh! - about how we should emulate Malaysia in having a nationwide "Boleh" campaign, and urging us to insist to one and all that Singaporean hawker food tastes better even if we would secretly rather drive up to JB to eat.

The other letters are about inconsequential concerns and events. These are time-wasters and sad to read:

. Haze is getting bad - about one person's breathing problems;

. Speeding may cause accidents - about as informative as saying that old age kills;

. Taxi driver picked me up - about how a taxi driver deigned to ferry the letter-writer.

These letters do not provide any wholesome and meaningful points. The more a person reads them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless since this is the best that Singaporeans can come up with.

Forum letter writers are happily ripping off the editors and the public by giving us stupid letters that piss us off. It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from reading these letters as the tasteless letters in the Forum continue to defile intelligence and common sense.

Where are our educators? Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? What does our conscience tell us about such letters being printed in public? Do we have a conscience at all?

One may argue that we have a choice not to read these letters. But if it Hobson's choice everyday with such low quality letters, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good letter when none is available? The alternative, not to read the Straits Times and drink deeply from its overflowing cup, is surely unthinkable.

What about the public's right to read good letters? And why do we create for ourselves a famine of intelligent, meaningful letters?

A letter that is worthwhile reading would give hope to the viewer about the future of Singapore and Singaporeans.

A good letter should result in stirring a person's mind to think critically, possibly on issues never before considered or which no one else dares to raise. A good letter should result in stirring one to reject hitherto acceptable half-solutions. A good letter should teach us at least one non-obvious thing. A good letter should elegantly yet adequately deal with pertinent issues.

How should we rate a letter for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its worth based on banality, idiocy, lies, half-truths and brainwashing, but instead focus on good wholesome values such as prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the letters mentioned above.

Letters that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are all not published in the Straits Times Forum. I particularly enjoy reading those on blogs such as [redacted to remain a non-political observer and avoid becoming a partisan player in blog politics].

Yet if it remains only an online blog post, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress, especially if most people continue reading the Straits Times and the Straits Times Forum.

It is not enough just to point out society's ills. Society must also be willing, aware and able to change.

I would like the Board of Straits Times Editors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the letters currently being published.

The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote critical thought.

And it should not be influenced by the editors' undiscerning taste that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the intelligent reader.

XXX

***

All the movies are about sex and violence. Time for censors to act

I turned to the cinema pages of the Life! Section in the Straits Times last Saturday and noted the sort of movies being shown in town.

The main themes focussed on violence, crime, death and sex. Here are some of the movies:

. The Black Dahlia - about Hollywood's most infamous sex murders;

. Dead man's shoes - about revenge;

. Silk - about spirits;

. Death Note - about death;

. The Departed - a crime drama;

. Wet hot sake - about sex, sleaze and sensuality;

. My Summer of Love - more sex and sleaze.

The other movies are about inconsequential events. These are time-wasters and sad to watch:

. Talladega Nights - about brainless and crazy people with fast cars;

. World Trade Centre - a disaster;

. Rob -B-Hood - no theme.

These movies do not provide any wholesome and meaningful lessons in life. The more a person watches them, the more he would be made to feel that life is hopeless and meaningless.

Movie directors are happily ripping off the public by giving us worthless movies that harm us. It is useless to bar only children and those below 18 from watching these movies as the tasteless pictures in the media continue to defile good sense and morals.

Where are our educators? Why are they silent on this sad state of affairs? What does our conscience tell us about such movies being screened in public? Do we have a conscience at all?

One may argue that we have a choice not to watch these shows. But if it Hobson's choice everyday with such low quality movies, where is the freedom for one to choose a wholesome and good movie when none is available?

What about the public's right to see good movies? And why do we create for ourselves a famine of morally enriching shows?

A movie that is worthwhile watching would give hope to the viewer about the meaning of life and its purpose.

A good movie should result in stirring a person's mind and heart to do good for society. It should focus on wholesome family values of love and care, and respect for the elders and the government.

How should we rate a movie for its value? We should not give ratings to reflect its popularity based on violence, crime and sex, but instead focus on good values such as kindness, gentleness, love, peace, goodness, faithfulness, self-control and joy.

Unfortunately, none of these good values can be found in the movies mentioned above.

Movies that espouse the desirable values are rare. These are 'Chariots of Fire' and 'Akeelah and the Bee'. I particularly enjoy watching Jack Neo's portrayal of our primary school system in 'I not stupid'.

Yet if it remains only a portrayal of our country's meritocratic education system, it alone would not be able to help us make further progress.

It is not enough just to point out society's ills. The movie's director should have concluded the show with lessons on corrective measures for the public.

I would like the Board of Film Censors to critically review and evaluate the quality of the movies currently being screened in public.

The guiding principle of the authority should always be driven by good and responsible values that promote hope, compassion and love.

And it should not be influenced by the public's lust for sex, violence and death that leads to a sense of hopelessness for the viewer.

George Lim Heng Chye

"Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use." - Wendell Johnson

***

Quotes:

What's the difference between Transport [Economics] 1 and 2? [Other student: Nothing]

[Starting the first lecture after the mid-semester break] So let's begin. I guess you guys are all happy to see me. [Audience: No] No?

[Student: Sir, this week is week 7] I consider this week week 8... is this too difficult for you? [Student 2: Yes]

[On how extreme 'rational expectations' is as an assumption] A lot of econs students don't have the right models, and even a lot of lecturers are not sur eif the models they have are correct.

[On William Phillips] I remember from Wikipedia he was also a crocodile hunter, so he was an early day Steve Irwin.

That's the end of the history of Macroeconomic thought talk. We're not going to move into the SP-DG model yet. Instead we're gonna take a 10 minute break. *Cries of relief from audience*

I see you guys have had a good break. 10 minutes. But we have work to do! Wait a minute, that's Saruman (???)

[On making snide remarks about 'Beautiful Voice'] After I went back I got 6 pimples. It's really karma... after bitching about him.

The effect of attendence on score in the final exam. That is what I am very interested in finding. If I find out I will let you know... if you find a good IV [Instrumental Variable], please let me know.

Engin reminds me of NJ. Dark and gloomy. Hot and humid. [Me: Everything is gray]

The difference between formal logic and informal logic. Informal logic you can do while you're in T-shirt and jeans.

[On the argument from authority] According to John Lennon, lowering interest rates at this time will not affect economic growth.

[Student: You look like you're going on Safari, game hunting]... [Me: Do I look like I'm going on safari?] You look like Steve Irwin. You need a baby.

It's not surprising that the majority of Australian tourists on Bali are against the death penalty for drug trafficking... Most of the Australian tourists on Bali would probably get hanged... Who cares what those Australian tourists on Bali say? They're all high anyway. Most of what they say is false. *Student asks him to uncover notes on the visualiser* You can't see anything? Are you Australian?

It's okay, I don't have anything against Australian tourists. If I teach a class in Australia I'll make fun of you guys.

[On what happens when 2 circular arguments collide] I can imagine 2 people arguing: is the Bible the word of God or the Quran? 'The Bible is the word of God' 'Prove it' 'It's in there: "The Bible is the word of God"' 'No, the Quran is the word of God' Tch tch tch...

And zen I do the F-test (then)

dependable variable (dependent)

the ward test (Wald)

In order to solve for this optimal waste. (weight)

[On girls singing in Chatterbox] Really, USP has all the [Me: Weirdos] No, bourgeoisie... Where do you find people who do opera?

By the way. How did you guys do on your test? [Student: Are we supposed to get it back?] You're supposed to lah, after I've marked them.

This is just a discussion. It will not come out in the exam unless he teaches it in the lecture. But for the lack of anything better to do, unless you have any questions...

[On Tag Hauer] Who cares right? It's Maria Sharapova. Whether it's false or true it's Maria Sharapova.

God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. So why is there evil in this world? An earthquake in Afghanistan is evil... George Bush is evil. *Whispers* *** *** *** is evil!

[On the argument from ignorance] I don't know that X. Therefore X, or not X. I don't know... anything. I don't know anything. I can't think of any examples.

You're arguing that God operates on a different logical plane. That is arguing ad hoc - why?!... [Student: The others argue that the god does not have a different logic from humans] If you say that you don't know that God uses a different form of logic, that's the argument from ignorance... There is no reason to think that God has different logic from humans. The burden of proof is on you... The common way of putting it is 'You don't understand God'

Hume has a problem with induction. When you want to justify induction, you use induction.

It's easy to draw in God in all these informal fallacies. People always use informal fallacies.

Just now we did the design thing and then we realised that the iPod has the worst design. [Me: So why is it so popular?] We have no idea... It's confusing. It's not user friendly lah. I didn't even know how to turn it off. [Me: I thought Macs are supposed to be good for idiots.] Only the computer lah. The iPod is horrible.

It doesn't matter what I say about you, because some day you will be getting a lot of chickes... girls like financial analysts (!@#$)

[Me: Intelligence doesn't matter. You also won't be happy] Check out IMH [Me: They're very intelligent meh?] No, they're very happy. [Student 2: All the crazy people I know are unhappy. They're lucid enough to know... They're all intelligent]

Are you going to quote me? [Me: Is there something to quote?] Everytime you whip out that piece of paper I freak out.

Did you say 'Screwed Up Girl'?... I completely agree with that... She thinks she is a cupcake... Before you talk about pure love I want to talk about screwed up stuff first.

Didn't you use to date her too?... What's her appeal to guys? [Student: It's not her appeal I'm questioning. It's her taste in guys] *everyone laughs*

Why didn't you tell me? [Student: I don't want to bother people.] I need these issues to channel into my work! [Me: I love these inter-female dynamics.]

[On How Girls Waste Time] Is that how guys waste time? [Me: Not all guys do that] Only screwed up guys.

[Student to someone else on my interview: Are you actually doing any reading?] No. I've been reading the same sentence for 5 minutes.

[On someone] I think every arts student who has taken a class with him before is scared of him. [Me: I've taken a class with him before.] I think every arts girl who has taken a class with him before is scared of him.

Strange. I had the impression I had more students. What happened to everyone? All doing problem set? The haze? Gastric flu? (Is everyone doing the)

[On handing up the problem set only in soft copy] NUS is not going to graduate students who are afraid of IT. So get used to it.

[On the Lucas critique] Lucas says that is naive. That was not a nice thing to say to other macroeconomists and policy makers. (said that was)

The Keynesian philosophy of childcare is that you should respond when the baby cries... New Classical philosophy is: do not respond. Wow, that's harsh... It [The Keynesian perspective] is naive because it takes the baby's propensity to cry as an exogenous parameter. Babies are smarter than we think... If you don't respond, the baby will adjust her propensity to cry and she will stop crying. That's the George Akerlof homely example. (George Akerlof's)

[On time inconsistency] A third example is exams. I want you guys to study hard, so I announce that there will be an exam. Once you have studied hard, I am tempted to cancel the exam so you guys don't feel so stressed. I'm a caring person. Actually I don't wan tot mark exam scripts.

[On underidentified model - 0 IVs, 1 endogenous variable] You are laughing at my idea. But a lot of people out there use an endogenous variable to find the causal estimator... Still people claim that attendence has [a] causal effect on grases... That is where Mark Twain accuse people of using statistics to lie (accuses)

[On the Hausman test for endogeneity] It is very simple and straightforward and an example of how you can become a famous econometrician and have your name included in the your-name test in an Econometrics textbook... He replaced the plus with minus. Being famous is so simple, so if you want to try, try. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make a contribution yet.

There was an introduction in garbage incinerator (of a)

[On the difference-in-difference estimator] Clementi and Orchard. A garbage incinerator is built suddenly in NUS.

[Instructor: These are the elements of an academic essay...] *Sotto voce* Isn't it interesting he only teaches it after it's [the essay's] due?

99% of the students and the staff I was teaching during my time in Engineering didn't know the difference between an introduction and a conclusion.

Engineers have lots of workshops on public speaking skills.

In the States they can do what they want. They haven't seen the sea. Some of them don't know who the President of the USA is... They still use pounds... I don't want to say anything bad about the US because the Minister Mentor is in the US. After he comes back I will tell you more.

[On a joke] A vulgar and male Chauvinistic episode. My apologies to the girls, and empathy with the boys but I think they are mature man enough to take it (written)

[Instructor on student going to the toilet: You're going at the wrong time because I am going to talk about the exam paper.] It's ok. It's quite urgent.

[On the test] 2 years ago I gave them a fork, a table fork, and asked them to estimate the volume and surface area of the fork. As a bonus they got to take the fork hom.

I have given you boxes. I am not going to read what is outside the boxes. If your handwriting is too large, too bad.

[Student: Civil law is where there're no criminals. Criminal law is where there're criminals... Civil law is when there's a family dispute. And criminal law is when the husband kills the wife.] This is what will happen if you don't answer properly. *brandishes hair shaving tool* I took a course in hairdressing, so I know how to use it.

[On patenting Singaporean inventions here] Actually it's a jailable offence to patent it elsewhere.

If you pay a composition fine you're not a criminal, but if you pay a normal fine you're a criminal.

[On a random name chooser MATLAB program] *** [Student: You've already called me.] They like to hear your voice. [Student 2: Even the computer knows]

[Instructor: What does a patent achieve?] Wait ah. *flips notes*

"If you don't find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue." - Unknown, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Consumer's Guide, 1897

***

NUS is sending us lots of surveys this semester. Seems they finally decided to listen to the ground and find out what students think. And even if, as some believe, they don't care what we say, well, there's always the free iPods!

"NUS Art-Vibe : call for ex-members to join back... NUS Art-Vibe(Former art-verve) has now risen to be a registered society under Office Of students Affairs(OSA). This is an appeal to previous members of Art-Vibe to join us back, we shall be more than glad to have you with us." - This is damn sad.

A poster advertising "An Inconvenient Truth" went: "Pledge to watch the film now". See, in the good old days, you pledged to do things like cut your waste production, plant a tree and stop kicking the dog. These days all you need to do is pledge to watch a show.

For one class, they had to go to Starbucks and order coffee. Wah lao.

Some people can come in to lecture at 10am with notes uploaded at 9:42am. Gah.


Someone asked me why Economics is a pseudo-science (in the sense of sort-of belonging to the Science faculty and yet not really), so I formalised my list of reasons:

Our science attributes:
- We have no or almost no readings
- We have a lot of maths
- We use textbooks and no coursepacks
- We have PRC and other Asian lecturers (the 'flavours of asia') and tons of PRC tutors
- We look like science people (ie ugly)
- We have no discussions - we just go to class and copy answers
- We have homework which we hand up and forms part of our course grade, where doing well depends on finding the right people to copy from and not actually knowing what's going on
- We think we're very smart and "practical"

On the other hand, we still retain some Arts characteristics:
- No labs
- Lectures once a week
- The Maths is not that hard
- Our Maths is not that good
- Arts canteen
- Aesthetic quality a bit above science

Someone: i've some econs girls in my gender and food classes
dey couldnt understand wats goin on at all
and at all really AT ALL

like just duno all abt it lor
and think can smoke thru
and do readings majiam never do
highlight here highlight there but came in still blank

and worse, highlight all the not important things
hahaha the worst of all IS
when do projects, den its congrats man
dey'll go: huh, y soci like tat one.. think so much

there're [SACSALs] in soci too
just wana scrap thru a BA with zero maths
tat [soci] stats module is not even compulsory anyway. and it has the lowest no. of students in any sem it's offered
like 30+?
when sexuality can easily get 100+

aiya u can do the soci ones lor. alot of ur SACSALs?
those last min still make flowery notes

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought." - Dorothy L. Sayers

***

Jascha Heifetz

"On his third tour to Israel in 1953, Heifetz included in his recitals the Violin Sonata by Richard Strauss. At the time, Strauss was considered by many to be a Nazi composer (see Strauss and the Nazis), and his works were unofficially banned in Israel along with those of Richard Wagner. Despite the fact that the Holocaust had occurred less than 10 years earlier and a last-minute plea from the Israeli Minister of Education, the defiant Heifetz argued that "The music is above these factors ... I will not change my program. I have the right to decide on my repertoire." Throughout his tour the performance of the Strauss sonata was followed by dead silence.

Heifetz was attacked after his recital in Jerusalem outside his hotel by a man who struck blows to his right arm with an iron bar. As the attacker started to flee, Heifetz alerted his companions, who were armed, "Shoot that man, he tried to kill me." The assailant escaped and was never found. The incident made headlines in the press and Heifetz defiantly announced that he would not stop playing the Strauss. Threats continued to come, however, and he omitted the Strauss from his next recital without explanation. His last concert was cancelled after his right arm began to hurt. He left Israel and did not return until 1970.

After only a partially successful operation on his right shoulder in 1972 he ceased giving concerts and making records. Although his prowess as a performer remained intact and he continued to play privately until the end, his bow arm was affected and he could never again hold the bow as high as before."


!@#$%^&*()