"The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it." - Bill Nye

***

Frigid Girl: hurhur i had a proj member who used menstrual cramps as an excuse on fri
come on this isnt JC PE anymore
and it baffles me how she can tell this to a proj work grp full of guys

[Ed: Someone added on that in HCJC they keep track of the times you use that excuse to skip swimming lessons, so you can use it at most twice a month.]

Me: hahahahahahaahha

precisely what
they don't know

guys always give girls more slack
and if they argue you can call them sexist

Frigid Girl: there're more bimbos in NM than any other major
maybe soci has, but i haven't seen many
media = they think it's something they wing with if they look pretty enough?


Someone: gabriel
i still thnk u are the shen in econometrics

no matter what ur grades are
or how long ur hair is
or whether u are a virgin or not

u are still my idol in econometrics
=X


Someone else: really distracted the past week
chatterbox doesn't help

no, i'm lying
i chiong home everyday to play WoW -
-_-

Me: not that game with the dark elves with big breasts ah

Someone else: oh no
they made me giddy, so i switched games

i'm looking at human breasts now

Me: oh what made you giddy
the breasts?

uhh

Someone else: oh yes
the swells made me seasick when they moved


Someone: fyp thesis, i realise its not the quality
its e quantity of bullshit (for engin side)


Frigid Girl: to be capable of reading women, you have to be really sensitive ie paranoid

prepare for everything
at least read wrongly in the right direction
when you haven't offended her, assume you hvae

*** does this
and that's why he had 5 girls after him in 3 months


Me: why is the ID post called "she's pretty"
haha

Johnny Malkavian: not very smart lor

Me: women tend not to be very smart

Johnny Malkavian: actually,
i think women tend to be smarter

it's just we're smarter than most men, which is why women seem relatively stupider

Me: haha

eh
but [I] find men relatively smarter than women

Johnny Malkavian: if that's true, we won't find that most women have their men wrapped around their little finger

Me: hahahahahahahahaahahah
true, there is that

I shall requote nietzsche
haha

"Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything."


Someone: well the key to a relationship is emotional manipulation
u have got to work within dominant paradigm

"Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind." - Marston Bates

***

IVLE Announcement:

"Hi,

1. A reminder that the exciting grp project presentions begin tomorrow (Tuesday). Your presence is required on all *** day slots in these last two weeks for peer review and your education.

2. optional suggested video fo the week : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnvSQuv-H4 [Ed: Bobby Mcferrin - Don't Worry, Be Happy]

3. optional suggested readings:
a) http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Happy [Ed: How to Be Happy - wikiHow]

b) http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Top-10-Steps-to-DeStress&id=6506 [Ed: The Top 10 Steps to DeStress]

have fun,

*"


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it." - Abbie Hoffman

***

Quotes:

Quote me! Quote me! I want to be quoted on your blog.

I think the standard of living here is higher than in the UK.

[On answering questions] You cracked your hands. You go.

[Me: I think what she's trying to say is: were you brought in because you were white or were you brought in because you were good?] [Other student:] That is what I was trying to say, except that I didn't put it in such black and white terms.

[On post-colonialism] There's a special deference... How do you guys relate to the British in India? [Student: Bad.]

[Illustrating reflexive unreflexivity] We have a guest lecturer... She's always arguing with the British. 'I'm a developing world academic. I don't need you.' It's incredibly empowering.

[On white bashing in India] The government, when they feel like their policies are not succeeding - they use colonialism to gain support. I don't think they use it for anything else.

[On revolutionaries' education] One of the ironies of the post-colonial discussions is that in many ways the people leading the charge are very deeply implicated in these colonial institutions.

When I visit my friend in a condo, I do my white man gait and I go in. None of you guys can do that... I never get stopped. Do you guys get stopped? [Student: I get stopped in my own condo.] That's very tragic. I've never been stopped anywhere in Singapore.

[On 'neo-colonialism'] The SIA A380... They feature 2 elderly Caucasians. [Me: That's because only they have the money.] [Student 2: They don't want to promote promiscuous activities] So you're saying older people cannot-

I talk to my African friends... They get very different sorts of pressure. Not many Africans like it here... He's driving... The officers stop him... 'Officer, what's the problem?' 'Nothing. We just don't see a lot of black guys here.'... This was in Singapore.

[On worshipping whites by association] American cultural products are all over the world... Channel 8 is not much to worship. [Student 2: You'll be surprised.]

'Speak Good English'. Grammatically it's correct but stylistically it's a horrible sentence.

[On giving out surveys] I don't have enough. [Student 2: It's alright.]

[On white-bashing in India] There's this Prince of Wales Museum. They changed it to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Museum. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj was this guy who killed a lot of British.

[On exchange students not mixing with Singaporeans] They say that we are in our bubble... They were surprised when I went up to them to talk to get karma for my exchange later.

[On the Bubble in Singapore] I don't know where the American School is. Where do you hide it? How do you hide 10,000 Americans in Singapore?

[Student: He didn't say much about being American, except about Baseball.] Did he ask you to call him 'coach'? [Student: Yeah.] That's really weird... He talks about himself in [The] 3rd Person. 'Coach has a ball game, he's gotta go.'

China has lots of chip labour (cheap)

[On the US-China dispute] Everybody: taxi drivers, even my mother, was trying to be an expert in economics

economics issue (economic)

The presentation is going to be so good, we're not even going to ask you not to sleep.

Technical errors is bound to happen, otherwise it's not IT (are)

teet for tat (tit)

offshore tax heavens (havens)

[On double counting of value added and trade figures] Is China benefiting as much as it is? (seems to be)

China has a try'ving counterfit industry (thriving counterfeit)

[On the free will defence and murderers] Why don't the police do that, or why don't you do that? If you see the guy stalking the victim, would you say 'I wanna respect his freedom'?

[On the free will defence and miracles] Suppose this guy is dying of lung cancer because of a history of smoking. The guy and all his friends gather round to pray. And lets say God heals the person. This limits the impact of free choices.

[On apologetic disingenuousness] It just strikes me that Boyd is trying to fit his data to the curve he wants.

Unless you point to his troubled childhood, to look at what made him want to be an assassin.

[On my slapping someone's butt with my file:] Sue him. [Slapped student: He's so asexual it hardly matters.] Money's matters. (money)

What are some of the dangers of using a cheap pair of sunglasses? People will know. [Student: What the fuck.]

It's a miracle. So quiet. [Student 2: Yah, Friday afternoon.] [Me: So why did you spoil the silence?]

***? [Student: I did next week's one {exercise}] Okay. So I'll remember to call you next week.

"Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked." - Peter de Vries

***

American lawbreaking: How laws die - "The importance of understanding why and when we will tolerate lawbreaking cannot be overstated. Lawyers and journalists spend most of their time watching the president, Congress, and the courts as they make law. But tolerance of lawbreaking constitutes one of the nation's other major—yet most poorly understood—ways of creating social and legal policy. Almost as much as the laws that we enact, the lawbreaking to which we shut our eyes reflects how tolerant U.S. society really is to individual or group difference. It forms a major part of our understanding of how the nation deals with what was once called "vice." While messy, strange, hypocritical, and in a sense dishonest, widespread tolerance of lawbreaking forms a critical part of the U.S. legal system as it functions."

Museum drops race row scientist - "The Science Museum has cancelled a talk by American DNA pioneer Dr James Watson after he claimed black people were less intelligent than white people"
200 years ago they'd have dropped you if you claimed black people were as intelligent as white people.

2 Scholarly Articles Diverge On Role of Race in Medicine - "A view widespread among many social scientists, endorsed in official statements by the American Sociological Association and the American Anthropological Association, is that race is not a valid biological concept. But biologists, particularly the population geneticists who study genetic variation, have found that there is a structure in the human population. The structure is a family tree showing separate branches for Africans, Caucasians (Europe, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent), East Asians, Pacific Islanders and American Indians... Dr. Risch and nine co-authors say that ignoring race will "retard progress in biomedical research.""

Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place - "Deftly, Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, lifted a flap on her skirt to reveal a large sheet of cloth printed in bright red with a soft drink logo partly visible. By holding the sheet open and stepping to the side of the road, she showed how a woman walking alone could elude pursuers — by disguising herself as a vending machine."
Damn Japs.

Optimism 'no bearing on cancer' - "The power of the mind has been overestimated when it comes to fighting cancer, US scientists say. They said they found that a patient's positive or negative emotional state had no direct bearing on cancer survival or disease progression."

Naked sleepwalking? - "In June 2005, a London 15-year-old left her home near a building site, climbed an overhead crane and walked across a narrow beam while remaining fast asleep. In 2004, a woman in Australia was found to be having sex while sleepwalking. At night while asleep, the middle-aged sleepwalker left her house and had sexual intercourse with strangers. The behaviour continued for several months and the woman had no memory of her nocturnal activities. In 1987, a Canadian man was acquitted of murder because he was sleepwalking at the time. He drove 23 kilometres from his home in Pickering, Ontario, to his in-laws house, where he strangled his father-in-law unconscious, and stabbed his mother-in-law to death."

Speedy Gonzales Caged by Cartoon Network - "The rapid rodent has been deemed an offensive ethnic stereotype of Mexicans, and has been off the air since the cable network became the sole U.S. broadcaster of old Warner Brothers cartoons in late 1999. But that has animated fans of the spunky character who want Speedy cartoon shorts — and the famous "Arriba! Arriba! Arriba!" cry — back on the airwaves... And where do you draw the line with a medium that, by its nature, relies on caricature for humor, Mukhtar asked. "What about Pepe LePew? His chasing of unwilling females surely sends the message to children that's it's OK to stalk and attack them if they resist," he wrote in an e-mail. "Plus, because he's French, does this mean that all Frenchmen are sexual predators?"... there is a place where Speedy can still be found zipping across TV screens — and, presumably, where the crude stereotypes he embodies don't touch a cultural nerve. That place: The Cartoon Network Latin America, where, ironically enough, Speedy Gonzales is "hugely popular," Goldberg said."
Seems he's back now, yay; I'm sure there's a PC theory about false consciousness to explain why Latin Americans love him.

"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant." - Scott Adams

***

Someone asked me where all the Muslims ate on Hari Raya if all the Muslim food stalls were closed.

Singaporean identity is defined regardless of race, language or religion. Thai identity is based on precisely these 3 things. Maybe this is why we've been pissing them off lately.

For some reason, poor people's doorbells mostly don't work. Maybe they don't install new batteries.

When a member of a subaltern (oppressed) group says he's discriminated against, he's right. When a member of a subaltern group blames himself, he's internalised the dominant paradigm.

Khad's Kebab, Pizza and Spaghetti was at a school bazaar. It was recommended by Makansutra (03/04), Selamat Pagi Singapura and Gila Makan. I had my doubts but tried it. Sure enough, it was worse than any Kebab I'd tasted outside of Singapore (which probably explains why the Makansutra endorsement is 3 years old). We need to bring in some Turks to make proper kebabs (though actually, Germans would be better).

They used to kill and stuff cats (with the fur still on them) in Bugis to eat.

"We all approve of what the government does." - Some Bugis residents on redevelopment

There's an underground mosque at Boat Quay.

Some foreigners, mostly here for conferences, walking about in Boat Quay were asked what they enjoyed the most about the place and the overwhelming response was "the people". I thought that they were thinking of the SPGs but sadly (for my hypothesis) most of them were there with female companions from their homelands.

If you want to interview people you should be a girl, since that makes the potential interviewees more likely to talk to you - everyone likes women.


An exchange student when he'd been in Singapore for about 2 months:

"This is me with my FIRST broken phone. And... it happened again. I've never broken a phone in my life... until Singapore, where it's happened twice."

I was wondering why my friends' phones kept being lost or broken. So it's not them - it's Singapore!

"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good." - Samuel Johnson, (attributed)

***

Bloomberg: Sexual Frustration Will Hurt Asia's Economies: William Pesek

''The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration.'' That's how Martin Walker, a senior fellow at the New School University of New York, refers to an underappreciated risk to Asia's economic outlook.

French demographer Christophe Guilmoto calls it ''masculinization.'' Others put it more bluntly: ''The Penis Preference.''

No matter what one calls it, the desire for sons in China, India and other Asian economies is causing a dangerous gender gap. In China, for example, 120 boys were born for every 100 girls in 2005, according to a new United Nations report. This growing testosterone glut is something investors making long-term bets on Asia should be monitoring, and closely.

''Sex ratio imbalances only lead to far-reaching imbalances in society,'' Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, head of the UN Population Fund, said in Hyderabad, India, on Oct. 29. ''We must carry forward the message that every human being is born equal in dignity, worth and human rights.''

Tell that to the ever-growing numbers of families from Beijing to New Delhi and from Hanoi to Kathmandu actively avoiding the birth of daughters. It's a cultural phenomenon governments have yet to address sufficiently and one that could have unexpected economic side effects.

The preference for boys often boils down to economics. Sons tend to support parents in their old age, while daughters are often seen as a liability. Families sometimes need to pay a dowry when daughters marry. In some cultures, sons perform last rites when parents die and continue the family name.

Reverse Darwinism

It's a bit of Darwinism in reverse. Families are conducting a kind of unnatural selection process to get ahead economically. Yet hundreds of millions of households engaging in such an experiment may backfire on entire economies. Guilmoto, who wrote the UN report, says men will outnumber women by 23 million in India and by 26 million in China by 2030. Some estimates are even higher.

In the 1990s, economist Amartya Sen drew attention to the phenomenon of ''missing women.'' Improved census data now allow us to see how much the trend is growing and could undermine Asian growth, productivity and lead to bigger budget deficits. It might even lead to an increase in violence.

This latter risk was detailed in the 2004 book ''Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population.'' In it, Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer warned that Asia's shortage of women is giving rise to an entire generation of young men with no prospects of finding a mate. They argue that biology, sociology and history suggest the imbalance will lead to crime and social disorder.

Gender Gap

Farfetched, perhaps, yet the UN warns that the focus on sons in countries such as China, India, Nepal and Vietnam may fuel sexual violence and trafficking in women. The UN notes that if Asia's overall sex ratio were the same as the rest of the globe, in 2005 the region would have had 163 million more females.

Here, China and India should be the largest concern for investors. Multinational companies are relying on increased consumer demand in the two most-populous nations. So are investors, who are betting on strong economic growth, rising productivity and an ample supply of increasingly skilled labor.

''To address the socio-economic basis for the preference for boys, both societies need to reduce the dependence of parents on their male children, while improving the economic standing of daughters,'' says Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Hong Kong. ''This will require improvements in social security and policies to improve education and female participation in the workforce.''

Trafficking

One consequence of Chinese becoming richer may be more sex selection, not less. Improving ultrasound and amniocentesis technology is making it easier for parents to abort girls, and reports of female infanticide are becoming routine. The same is true of India; the wealthier the region, the wider the gender divide is likely to be.

What also concerns the UN is what all those single men will do with their desire for female companionship. Sadly, the real winner could be the human-trafficking business amid increased demand for prostitution and the outright purchase of mates.

China's government is beginning to address the issue. Earlier this year, the Communist Party vowed to take ''tough measures'' to control the imbalance. Yet China needs to become more aggressive in tackling a problem that's partly at the root of President Hu Jintao's push for a ''scientific outlook on development.''

Sexual Frustration

Hu wants to spread the benefits of China's 11.5 percent growth. At the moment, the lack of safety nets -- public help with education, health care and pensions -- means that sons are the safety net. Having a boy is your retirement plan and until that changes, Chinese may welcome fewer and fewer daughters.

Among the biggest obstacles is the not-in-my-backyard dynamic that demographers confront in Asia. It's recognition by parents that it's important to have more girls -- just as long as someone else has them. Breaking this NIMBY mindset will require tremendous political will and spending in the years ahead.

In Asia's case, worsening sexual frustration may frustrate economic growth.

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at wpesek@bloomberg.net"

"Why is it good to drink soup before a meal?

It lubricates the throat and oesophagus, allowing the food to pass through and preventing dry and hard food from irritating the membrane of the digestive tract. Pretty serious eh?"

--- TCC menu


More FUD! Evidently they haven't heard of saliva.

"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us." - Peter De Vries

***

Quotes:

If you look at the SAF advertisements, the narrative is: 'If you're a woman, feel safe and be glad that your men are willing to die for you'

I think if you took away the narrative you're giving the museum visitors too much credit, that they'll go home and Wikipedia it. [Instructor: You're always great for a soundbite.]

[On the National Museum] Japanese prostitutes. Then there was a washbasin. There was nothing to connect [them]... They summed up the Japanese invasion with a bunch of bicycles... The Japanese Occupation was a bunch of bicycles. And a washbasin there.

I wanted say that Kobe Bryant was better [than Yao Ming] because black guys steal, run and shoot.

A lot of people ask me if you're bi. [Me: People used to think I was gay or asexual, so I guess that's an improvement.]

[On killing groups during presentations] I've to sacrifice at least one group. Otherwise I've to put up with 2 weeks of nonsense... [Student: I've already dug my grave] Deeply? For the whole group?

LDC country (LDC)

low-cost label (labour)

There will be a reduce foreign investment (reduction in)

create complementaries (complementarities)

importing finnish goods (finished)

an airpline in India polis (Indianapolis)

What do you want to be when you grow up?... [Student 2: I can grow? Sideways.]

[Me on NUS Tangs sale: The bras are all so padded.] I need the padding. Sorry.

[On the problem of omniscience, free will and God's not having definite foreknowledge of a free choice, open theism] Judas has a moment of conscience and goes: 'I can't betray Jesus'. We imagine God in Heaven going: 'Oh no. What do I do now?... Now Judas has screwed it all up. What do I do?... Judas needs to betray him.' He could, directly, override Judas's will. Make him betray Jesus to fulfil his plan... He couldn't hold Judas responsible anymore, for making that choice. He might even have to apologise to Judas... He only knew this as a probability... 'Whadday know, it's Murphy's Law'. God's saying to himself... He can't do that without overriding Judas's libertarian freedom.

Any questions? 10 more minutes [till we end]. [Me: Have you finished {marking} our midterms?] That was not the sort of question I had in mind... [Student: How are we looking?] I knew this was coming... Any relevant questions? [Student 2: I was going to ask if we could get it on Monday] Any relevant questions?

GE Moore famously had an argument for the existence of an external world. Premise 1: Here's a hand. Premise 2: Here's another hand. Therefore there is an external world. *student claps* *laughs from audience*

[On 'Shakespeare hates your emo shirts' being too popular] I have that one... I don't know where to wear it. [Student 2: You wear it to lit.] That's when everybody wears it.

What did you say? [Female student: I'm ponning {Translation: skipping class}] I heard 'I'm horny'.

I'm very disappointed. In dance, most male dancers are straight. [Me: Maybe it's because they screw the female dancers.] Yeah, maybe. [Me: Maybe you can convert a straight guy.]... That's every gay guy's dream.

He asks bullshit questions. [Me: They're not bullshit. Just because you don't understand them doesn't mean they're bullshit.]

[On a class's composition] It's IIs, CCs and baffled Singaporeans.

[Me to someone bemoaning the lack of ability: Your comparative advantage lies elsewhere.] So politically correct put. [Me: I said 'Your comparative advantage lies elsewhere', not 'Your absolute advantage lies elsewhere'] (How politically correct)

You look a bit sicky today (shakey)

[On an EZ-link card] How do they store the information inside? [Student 2: ... use the scissors to cut it up and look inside.]

[Written] Today is Ladies Day. Ladies will answer all the questions. Guys will only speak when invited [to]. (Gentlemen)

[On why we may be able to use our handphones on planes soon] If that was true, most planes would've crashed by now because there are all the electromagnetic waves in the air... It turns out they just figured out how to make money out of you... A lot of lies told by companies.

eye rern (iron)

[On microwaving water in a new mug] You put something in the water. [Student: Boiling chip] ... You don't put boiling chips when you boil your tea (chips)

[On microwave oven leakage] Otherwise you will be cooked. Humans - you're made of meat.

All the food that we like to eat has lost its vitamins. Or has the tasty brown stuff outside that gives us cancer. Maybe the best thing to do is to eat salad. [Student: Eee.] E? Yeah, Vitamin E. [Me: *sotto voce* Pesticides.]

different shells (cells)

[Student on avoiding handphone radiation: Bluetooth Headset.] I think people who have that in their ear already have something wrong with them.

[On cellphone tracing In the early days a lot of criminals got caught because they didn't take [module name]

[On catching a pedophile with cellphone tracing] He was in a cell in a remote part of Thailand. Very easy... 'Have you seen a foreigner here?' 'Yeah, he's there'.

Can you be assassinated while talking on your handphone? [Student: Yeah. You're talking and somebody shoots you] I didn't mean it that way... The Israelis... They waited until the guy was talking on his handphone... They sent a missile. It locked in on his signal, went through the window and assassinated him.

[On the principle of cellphone detonators] Now I [have] taught you how to make a simple bomb. [Student: How do you know that? [Student 2: {He's} Done it before... Afghanistan]... In Singapore if you go on the Internet and search how to make bombs, you'll be tracked. In Singapore everything is tracked... You will get caught. There're so many ways to track you... It's not easy [to make bombs]... If you use your handphone [as a detonator] when you are making it and your friend calls you, you are gone.

[On 'Havard'] I was wondering why, then he said 'Malay spelling' and it made sense.

[To me] I can't get over his hair. I got over your hair pretty quickly. [On his hair] It's very ugly. [Me: My hair is very ugly meh.] It's a different aspect of getting over. (type)

Colonial superiority over the indie'genius population (indigenous)

[On his presentation partner] Basically if you didn't get what she was saying - the 3 main points...

readaption (readaptation)

In Singapore it's unicameral. Which means there's only 1 House. House of Parliament? Sorry sorry. My PS [specialisation] is International Relations.

I realise that the presentation has been quite heavy so far, so just bear with me for a few slides more then we can look at pretty pictures.

This is very amusing. The massive use of glass in the new Supreme Court building signifies transparency in the justice system... The UFO thing represents the dome.

The Singapore Arts Museum (Art)

CHIJMES. I'm very indignant because I'm an IJ girl. So much for being Simple in Virtue and Steadfast in Duty... People used to drop off babies because they couldn't take care of them. Now it's where babies are made... They totally pervert the CHIJ name. Like CHIJAZZ. What is that.

I interviewed a professor in NUS who's been here for 18 years, but who wants to go home.

[On Americans in Singapore] No contact with Singapore or Singaporeans... I asked him if he goes to the Borders bookstore. He said he can't go there. 'Orchard is outside the bubble'.

The students at the Singapore American School are very isolated. They don't have a Singapore accent. They have a SAS accent, which is described as a Texas-Valley girl accent.

[On SAS descriptions of Singapore] One of the students said 'gay'. Gay means stupid, I understand... He can't spell 'humide' very well.

I was asked to be a coach for the baseball team... I asked what was so good about it. He got very excited. 'It's like coming home to Kansas'. I'm from New York. I can't think of a worse place to go to.

[On expats in HCJC humanz] They're just permanent install'lations there

How do you normally get your papers back? [Me and other student: Throw them in the air.]

[On procrastination] Finally getting down to work. After I check Facebook.

[On disposing of fluorescent tubes] They go and bury them somewhere where they only kill some fish or something.

The word 'laser' is actually an acro'nyear'm (acronym)

They heat the less'tiss (lattice)

[On semi-conductors] This area where the electrons cannot move is called the Forbidden Zone... That's not the Forbidden Zone. That's the Depletion Zone... I don't know why I chose that name. I've seen too many movies, I think.

He wants to play testes. He said it again. (tetris)

[On the Asian Dog] Who's this sad person who's your bitch?

[On assignment guidelines] He's like a woman. What he says and what he wants are completely opposite.

[On assignment guidelines] He keeps on changing his mind. You should follow the last thing he said.

I don't know if it's true, but one of my professors said, 'If on the day of the exam, the class is silent, then they're gonna do well.'

The rest of this is just a verbal discussion, so if I talk fast you can read slow at home. (quickly, slowly)

[On returning term papers] I hate this but I'm so rubbish with Chinese names. I know that people will be upset. They may not even know that I'm calling them... I'm going to tell myself that it's not my pronunciation, but your terrible attendance that is responsible [for your not coming to collect your papers].

[On Chinese names] These are the ones I don't like. The ones with the Qs and Xs... Tell me the rule about the Qs with no Us... [After calling a name] Ah. She's not even here to appreciate [my effort].

I don't think the principle of moral responsiblity is appropriate for what I had for lunch.

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." - Redd Foxx

***

The economics honours cohort doesn't seem as close as some of the other majors in Arts (and biology, for a cross-faculty comparison). Someone attributed this to competitiveness and size.

My sex bible was missing from Week 8 (coincidentally around the time some sofa room shenanigans started) to Week 11. It'd been hidden on 2 occasions before but eventually turned up after some searching. I had given up on its reappearing when one day it suddenly reappeared. However, it was gone once more 1-2 days later. I need to chain the damn thing.

Someone told me she entered the sofa room last year and saw someone on top of someone else, but they sprang apart when she opened the door. They really need to remove the screen preventing people from looking in.

Pseudo-Western has actually become better since returning to the new canteen.

I saw a guy in a long sleeved dress shirt, black pants - and slippers. He wasn't limping and I didn't see any plasters or bandages on his foot. I'd have enquired about this incongruency, but the lift door opened and he walked out.

I am told that from 1st October, the thermostats of all central airconditioning in NUS have been raised from 24 to 25 degrees to save power. It must be because all the new CCTVs they're installing everywhere are sucking up power.

There's one class where various causes keep being pimped to us. In all my years (damnit) I've never had a class where the pimping even came half as close - 1/3 to 1/4 of the current pimping is the closest I've experienced. Of these, one particular cause has been pimped so much and so shamelessly that I've decided that henceforth I will do nothing to support it (it doesn't hurt that it's a cause I'm morally opposed to too) .

Apparently NTU students dislike SMU too. Hurr hurr.

The RiceTable Indonesian Restaurant Singapore: "RiceTable. The Only Authentic Dutch Rijsttafel in Singapore!"


But they don't have Sate Babi!!!

"Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home." - David Frost

***

Fuggi, fuggi, cor mio,
L'ingrat'e crud'Amore!
Che tropp'e grand errore,
Fars'un cieco fanciul si alto iddio,
Conosci il tempo perso,
Per una finta se colma d'inganni!
Esci di servitu, esci d'affanni!

Non istar più sommerso in gelosia, sospetti, sdegn'e pianti!
Che'l fin de ciechi amanti
E in van pentirsi e finir in dolore
Per esser tropp'erore
Fars'un cieco fanciul sì alto iddio.

"Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." - Bernard Berenson

***

"With these factors eliminated, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the failure of some Malay parents to send their children to kindergarten is a matter of choice, not necessity...

It should not be surprising that many Malay parents are uncomfortable sending their children to PCF kindergartens. The Straits Times, 18 September 1999, carried a story of a Chinese mother who put her son into a PCF kindergarten and her daughter into a YWCA kindergarten. According to the newspaper report,

She could not help but be struck by the difference. She noted that her [daughter] learnt to be sociable and confident, and knew her numbers and letters too. [Her son] was good academically, but he would hide from strangers and was poor in social skills. So [the mother] moved him to the YWCA centre and he . . . improved.

This testimony is consistent with the apocryphal evidence about the nature of socialisation in PCF kindergartens that was put forward to Barr in several interviews. PCF kindergartens socialise children into an academic and examination-oriented education system at the expense of social skills. It may be re-running a stereotype to assert that Malays place a high value on family, motherhood, social skills, inter-personal relations and personal virtues like generosity, but there is no escaping that there is a large amount of truth in this particular stereotype. Whether in casual conversation, in a formal interview or conducting a business transaction with a Malay Singaporean, one is usually struck by the gentleness and sophistication of the conversational skills, the reluctance to press a point or articulate a criticism, the comfortable sense of self-composure and friendly serenity. It reflects a rather generous spirituality and humanism that is commonplace within this community, but which is not in step with the dominant ethos of Singapore. This is not to say that these characteristics are innate. Malay mothers work very hard to teach their children how to behave, as do mothers everywhere. In this particular culture, however, these virtues are given a position of pre-eminence. Malays are capable of adapting to Singapore’s materialistic exam-oriented culture, and they have no intrinsic problems with engaging in capitalist pursuit of profit. But it seems that Malays are reluctant to enter wholeheartedly into the milieu of the Singaporean education system at the expense of these virtues. Hence, Malay reservations about the sterile anti-humanistic culture of the PCF kindergartens, coming on top of issues of cost and lack of Muslim kindergartens, have combined to generate a situation of underrepresentation of Malay children in kindergartens."

--- Assimilation as multiracialism: The case of Singapore's Malays, Michael D. Barr; Jevon Low


Cultural differences are denied or played up alternately by academics, but always for the same agenda - to prove that there is structural and/or systemic discrimination and/or marginalization which is unwarranted.

Or, in other words, the Powers That Be are evil.

Using similar mumbo jumbo, I can "prove" that women are not physically weaker than men and that claiming that they are is sexist.

We need more reflexivity here.


Friend: They did a project on how left handed people are marginalised.
Me: Har?
Friend: It's social theory - everyone is marginalised.

"Care should be taken that military uniforms such as the Army Combat Uniform, Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform, and the Airman Battle Uniform are not washed with optical brighteners, as these will make them more visible through Night Vision Devices or under low light conditions."

HAHAHAHAHA

Weary of contestations, negotiations and renegotiations.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

National Prescribing Service learning module -

"The only other comment to make about trandolapril are the unusual brand names: Odrik, Gopten and now Tarka (as a combination with Verapamil). Sound like the sort of medications you would buy over the internet from a bloke called Borat in Khazhakstan. "

"When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones." - Peter De Vries

***

u r wt u wr:

- 'I ♥ to scope out slopes'
- 'Too busy to fcuk'
- 'You better make more than I can spend'
- 'Yoga keeps me flexible'
- 'Some girls have *4-leaf clover* all the luck *4-leaf clover*'
- 'I *soccer ball in heart shape* soccer players'
- 'Behind every girl. [Back] There is a guy checking her out.'
- 'Want a game? Adidas.'
- 'I like nice boys' (Yeah right)
- 'Some day my Prince Charming will come'
- 'Suicidal tendencies' (???)
- 'I am beautiful in every single way'
- 'I make boys cry' (I know this person)
- 'Taste of innocence'
- 'What I want for Christmas is 2 boyfriends' (Contributed)

- 'I only sleep with the best' (Worn by a balding man in his late 30s)


A tube top over a T-shit is the ugliest Superman I've seen so far.

"The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums." - Peter De Vries

***

I feel like a zoo animal in a cage.

There're ang moh tourists here to tour the library.

And some of them are taking pictures of us.

"My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them." - Penn Jillette

***

Quotes:

Do you know, some guy said I have a bukkake face [Student 2: Was that a compliment?]

[On St Margaret's] I'm surprised the school buildings aren't polka dots. Then they can blend in.

[2nd upper person on the economics crowd] Just now this second lower girl rolled her eyes at me. I think she thought I was third class.

What should I bring to deal with stupid group members? Intelligence. Not present at the moment... Water, so I can shout and scream at them.

[Me: Get me a drink] What do you want? [Me: Surprise me] ... Do you drink Mango?
[Me: Then it's not a surprise anymore]

[On journalism] I love coming to USP for quotes. It looks like I'm going all over the university for quotes.

XXX? Is XXX here? I've seen him only twice this semester. I'll ask his friend YYY. You two guys alternate. If you don't come, he doesn't come. If he comes, you don't come.

I don't know what an armature is. Very few people here know what an armature is. Actually I know but I'm acting blur on behalf of the other people in the class.

[On a student's explanation] One person didn't understand. So maybe it's just his fault.

It's the RMS value. [Instructor: What's RMS? Come and draw a picture.] *sotto voce* I should just have kept quiet.

Can you explain? [Student: It's very complicated.] That's why I asked you to explain... [On the explanation] If this was an exam question you'd have filled out one whole page and you still wouldn't have gotten the answer.

I'm writing in horrible handwriting, because everything is in your lecture notes. Anyway I don't have better handwriting.

God might still be there, but he's not a useful hypothesis in Science.

[Me on why I seem so free: I do not engage in a lot of-] Pre-marital sex. [Me: ... Yes. That saves me a lot of time.]

[Student: ***, do you use a Mac?] Do I look like I use a Mac? Macs are for losers. *slaps butt*

Are you GEP?... You look GEP, you sound GEP.

Happy birthday. [Me: I should come up with a catchphrase to counter that.] You can say 'I'm GEP'. That annoys me.

[On Powerpoint] Make sure your names are on the title slide... Are you all ashamed of your work or what?

That cursor [is] moving by itself. It's getting closer to Halloween.

You with me or not? *swings head* That means we take a break.

How many of you have seen Bertrand Competition before? *Hands raise* In IO or in Micro? [Students: Micro] You guys know too much. Was today's lecture too slow? *Disappointedly* I had to spend time typing all these notes.

*Drilling noise* *In direction of drilling* Hey! Stop that! *Drilling continues*

What could [Claim] 3 be? What could 3 be? Let me end the suspense.

[On condemning people to hell even if they haven't heard the 'truth'] They could say, 'But I didn't know' and he'd say '*Blih*. Down you go... I know you such that if you'd been presented with the truth, you'd have rejected it'. What can the guy say?

die vine knowledge (divine)

[On God creating us in a way such that we'd act a certain way and only be secondary causal agents] But our actions are pre-determined. Which sucks.

In the other tutorial, they sit in the front two rows. In your tutorial you sit at the back. I can't figure that out.

Some people in Britain think the Elgin Marbles have become part of British National Heritage. I disagree with them. I think what has become part of British national heritage is the conflict over them.

Anywhere in the world I go I can have a hot shower, except for Britain. [Student: You're just being an American]... They have diseases that are medieval. Foot and Mouth Disease. Mad Cow Disease.

The British artifacts in the British Museum in Singapore... I came late. I thought we had the British Museum here. [Instructor: We don't have the Elgin Marbles here]... I was quite confused.

My mom, she's a horrible tourist... She says things that appal me... She's been to so many places, yet in some ways she's never travelled... She goes on and on and on and tells the man at the Turkish Restaurant how the Greeks have such great food... But one of the things she does that's very condescending: 'Oh, they have that here?'... As if it's a revelation... At one level, I can see a connection being created and fostered.

[On the ACM] We can't really rely on our coolie past or our convict past to foster [National Pride]

Liberal arts college... Sign of the times. 'What do we need to turn you guys into?'

3000 people in the woods somewhere. You wear sandals, smoke lots of dope. You also have issues of gender and sexuality. That was my experience of a liberal arts college in the States.

[Instructor: Who here thinks a liberal arts college in Singapore won't work?] XXX has to die... XXX has to die. ZZZ has to die. [Instructor: I don't... I want to keep my job.]

The teacher was droning on and on about mathematics, then he said: 'Now, let's take 5 minutes to do Creative Thinking.'... He flashed some transparency... After 5 minutes... 'Let's get back to work'

[On liberal arts in Singapore] We spend 12, 13 years [in the Singapore education system]. We're not ready for it. [Student 2: To interrupt you, respectfully, then what the hell is this class doing?]

Are you guys passing notes in class?... *sees notes* 'The evolution of the human penis' *I get slapped* Are you the resident expert? Your name is on it. [Student: She had props too. Peanuts.] [Student 2: Carrots.] *I get slapped*

I don't like the National Museum. It's one of the worst museums I've ever been to... I don't think I've been to a museum that downplayed artefacts more than this museum. They have these magnets at the entrance and people can play with them... Things that have nothing to do with the museum.

[On the National Musem] They gave me the little robot... I couldn't figure it out. [Instructor: Are you an arts studentu?] Yeah.

Everything has a narrative, even if it's 'I'm pretending that there's no narrative and I'm being neutral.'

It didn't feel like a museum. It felt like Epcot Center. [Student: It's like the Singapore Discovery Centre]... What happens there? [Me: You get brainwashed.]

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one." - Cato the Elder

***

Someone: this is a real acid test for any lit paper
with the ongoing penchant for jargon
which is like a pandemic in our discipline right now
few outside the discipline give us any sort of credit at all

Me: oh so it's not just me huh :P
WHY AH WHY AH

Someone: fuck you lah, go to bed lah
i never said it wa sjust you what :P


Someone else: the moral from my project *** sems ago
'don't be the only girl in the grp'

coz guys are so SERIOUS

no matter how smart u are
even if u decide to say someething irrelevant/random/out of pt during a meeting
they look at u like you're a bimbo

and guys only talk to each other when there's only one girl
and not inform girls anything

Someone on the above: it depends also on whether the gal is a chiobu
it matters A LOT

Someone else (2): hahahaa
chey
not as if girls don't do that


Frigid Girl: oh today they were giving out condoms in the arts walkway, so they gave one to me
and i asked my tutorial mate if he wanted it at the start of the tutorial
and he said, nahh
then at the end of the tutorial i asked him, you sure you don't want?
then someone else interjected, how's things with your girl?
then he said to me, I think i'll have that afterall, thanks

they just got together
which was why he didn't think of it initially


Someone: attend more conferences
fertile breeding grounds

all these repressed academics and students
im goin for one in *** next month


Tim the Great: horowitz london, funny

he come in, they standing ovation him
then he sat down
they sat down

then he gestured for them to stand up. then they didn't

then, opening bars of god save the queen
then everyone has to stand

i want yo yo ma's rendition of dvorak's cello concerto. dunno where to start looking

Me: record store

Tim the Great: ...


MFM: it's ok, most of your readers prob don't read yawning bread.

Me: so who reads yawning bread
gay people and?

you. LDPVTP

MFM: politically interested people. I suspect most of your readers are just gossip fans

Han: or people who like to look at your hair


MFTTW: notice that uber-conservatives like to hide behind free speech when it suits them

but when you try to have some gay party..... oops, it's worthwhile to stifle free speech of the minority when it could lead to "social destabilization"


Someone: iya some idiot lah
i bet he also dunno anything bout the arts

jus a normal pop culture typical singaporean
so much for uni education

...

whos thio li ann!?
okay heres uni educationnot working on me

From Alfian:

Exaggeration and Intimidation: On Thio Li-Ann's tactics

In the press, Thio Li-Ann has spoken about one hate mail she has received, regarding someone who wanted to 'defile her grave'.

*********************

From her Parliamentary Speech:

"This August, I had my own experience with this sort of hysterical attack. I received an email from someone I never met, full of vile and obscene invective which I shall not repeat, accusing me of hatemongering. It cursed me and expressed the wish to defile my grave on the day 377A was repealed.

I believe in free debate but this oversteps the line. I was distressed, disgusted, upset enough to file a police report. Does a normal person go up to a stranger to express such irrational hatred?"

From The New Paper:

'I have already been insulted and received hate mail, even harassment.

'But should we be a nation of cowed individuals, subjugated by fear of being called hateful names?

[...]

Since her speech on Monday, she has been called terms like 'homophobic', 'unenlightened' and 'prejudiced' on the Internet. Some called her a 'fundamentalist'.

Many other profanies, vulgarities and four-letter words were hurled at her because of her stand.

Prof Thio said: 'One person expressed the wish to defile my grave on the day 377A was repealed. And I am conveying the sense of it in the most polite way I know how.

'I don't believe in repeating obscenities.'

From TODAY:

Professor Thio herself was "shell-shocked" and made a police report after receiving an abusive email in August from an unnamed stranger who threatened to defile her grave on the day Section 377A was repealed.

"If it was just a rude letter, I'd let it slip. But this really overstepped things," the law lecturer told Today.

*********************

Some of you might be curious to know what was this mail that was "full of vile and obscene invective", with "obscenities" she could not repeat, that she had to censor by "conveying the sense of it in the most polite way I know how".

I reproduce it here for you. I know what that email is because I wrote it. And contrary to the TODAY report that said it was by 'an unnamed stranger', I actually signed off with my name, and sent it from my yahoo email account (the one I'm using here). This is the email. It consists of four lines:

*********************

Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2007 05:03 +0800 (CST)
From: "Alfian Bin Sa'at"
Subject: a valentine
To: lawtla@nus.edu.sg
Sunday, Aug 12, 5.03am

Subject: a valentine

Dear Dr Thio,

This is a personal note to you.

I think you are absolutely fucked up.

As long as you exist, with your hatemongering and your vicious crusades against sexual minorities, I will never leave Singapore. I hope I outlive you long enough to see the repeal of 377A and on that day I will piss on your grave.

With love,
Alfian.

*********************

Thio Li-Ann has filed a police report, accusing me of 'Intentional Harassment'. On 26 October, I sat for a two-hour investigation at the Tanglin Division Police Station at Kampong Java Road. The Invesigating Officer was a very friendly and helpful man. Those of you with uniform fantasies, please restrain from asking me if he was attractive, because I will not entertain that query. Anyway, he wasn't in uniform. In my statement, I reported the following.

1) The mail was shot off one night after clubbing with friends (hence the time). Before that, on the cab ride home, I had been told that Thio was the 'member of the public' who called the police, resulting in the cancellation of the 'Pink Picnic'. The officer asked me how I felt when I wrote that letter and I said 'aggrieved, wounded and helpless'. And then taking a cue from her Parliamentary speech, I added, 'distressed, disgusted and upset'.

2) I had sent only that one email to her, which I did not think satisfies the criteria of repetition and persistence that would constitute 'harassment'.

3) The phrase 'fucked up', to my understanding, meant 'dysfunctional'. I said I did not consider the term abusive.

4) I had not threatened her with bodily harm.

5) In fact I had not made any threats to her at all, unless she thinks being a fellow citizen with me in Singapore constitutes a threat.

6) As for 'cursing' her with death by talking about outliving her, I said I was merely pointing out the obvious fact of her mortality. I also said that since I was younger than her, I would naturally expect her to die earlier, barring any misfortune. The sympathetic policeman offered to change the word 'die' to 'pass on' in my statement.

7) On the part about pissing on her grave, I said that gesture was meant to celebrate the repeal of 377A. I also said that a few lawyers had told me it was not illegal to piss on graves.

As the interview went on, the incredulity of it all I think struck the policeman. I told him that if what I sent her constituted harassment, then it would set an impossible precedent. Anyone who has received any message through whatever form of communication causing 'emotional distress' can file a police report alleging 'intentional harassment'.

I asked the policeman why he was even acting on her complaint, and whether he had more urgent cases to attend to. I told him she was wasting taxpayers' money and state resources. I said this was precisely the kind of 'bully-boy tactics' that she spoke of in her Parliamentary speech. I also said I considered her calling the authorities about the 'Pink Picnic' to be an example of harassment, and that I felt harassed listening to her Parliamentary speech.

I ended the statement by saying that I hoped she was aware that many of her actions have affected and hurt other people. I said I did not discount the possibility of her receiving other hate mail, but acting on me specifically as I was a strategic target, having written plays with gay themes.

I am posting the 'hate mail' here, knowing full well that there will be those who will chide me for my hot-bloodedness and impulsiveness. I apologise to those who think that my 'uncivil' four-liner has somewhat sabotaged the repeal-377A cause. But I think the exposure of this woman's pettiness, tendencies towards exaggeration, as well as her wanton abuse of the legal system, far outweighs the flak I will inevitably receive.

Alfian. : )


(This is why I cannot be a journalist, hurr hurr)

The Internet in school was sucky on Friday and Saturday, and I'm told it still sucks now, but there's a way to fix it (not least since it might still suck tomorrow).

ashke:

"From sofero-senpai, how to get around the problems of accessing those sites:

Dear all:

After confirming that while access to these services are possible outside the Local Area Network, a frustrated me called NUS ITCARE who then provided a solution:

In Internet Explorer:
Go to Tools > Internet Options > Connection Tab > LAN Settings > Tick the checkbox for “Use a proxy server for your…” > In the Address Field type in “veron.nus.edu.sg“, under Port field, type in “3128″ > OK to apply settings.

This according to NUS ITcare however, is only a temporary measure. (Seem like someone screwed up some port settings over there) They advice us to regularly check back if these sites are still accessible without the proxy server method

Similarly, you can do the same in Firefox. Just go to Tools > Options. Click on the “Advance” tab where you’ll see the button for “Settings” on how Firefox connects to the internet. Fill out the HTTP proxy as “veron.nus.edu.sg” and fill in “3128″ for port.

Addendum: It seems that some people can’t get on MSN Messenger. Well, you can try this: go to Pidgin’s download site and get their multi-protocol messenger (can sign in to many messengers all at once in one program). I’ve been using it all this time and didn’t notice a difference."

"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything." - Walter Bagehot

***

"I have no real reason for uploading this note and it will probably be deleted; I just have a perverse wish to vent against such tripe.

The first eighteen lines of The Canterbury Tales, to cite what is probably the best-known passage of early English literature, articulate a dense web of cultural relations that structures and locates individual subjectivity, a web that we may call "heterosexuality." The lines seek to situate humans in the grand scheme of the cosmos, in relation to both the physical and the spiritual realms. They do this by specifying a network of categories, of binary oppositions...that structures the world of the Tales (and the world that produced the Tales) - and they begin with an act of masculine penetration of the feminine: "What that Aprill with his shoures soote, / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote." April/March, summer/winter, male/female, active/passive, desire/inertia (or desire/dullness, as T.S. Eliot would have it), fecundity/barrenness, generative nongenerative, sky/earth, spiritual physical, knowledge/the unknown, outside/inside, public/private, health/illness: a whole cultural paradigm, structuring the seasons, the labor, the physical life, and the spiritual development of humans, is set up: male pierces female to the root.

-- A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, by Carolyn Dinshaw
Diacritics © 1994 The Johns Hopkins University Press

OH PLEASE. SHUT UP AND DIE. It's HIS because there's no word for ITS in Middle English. March is NOT called female. Just cos you see PENIS ALLUSIONS everywhere does NOT mean they're there: it just means you are profoundly desperate to have something "FRESH" to add to a library of Chaucer criticism in which anything remotely useful you might have to say has ALREADY BEEN SAID. How the HELL do you get 'labor', 'a whole cultural paradigm' and 'spiritual development of humans' from the stupid rain chasing away the stupid drought? You get THE WEATHER REPORT, that's all you get. Taking the first 18 lines of The Canterbury Tales and calling it a 'dense web of cultural relations that structures and locates individual subjectivity' also known as 'heterosexuality' is just STUPID PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL POSTURING. You're MUTILATING a great work by appropriating and contextualizing it to suit your own devious queer-theory gender-studies agenda and THAT'S SHAMEFUL. NOW GO AWAY AND DIE.

It should be noted that the venom in my vent is due to my bad lungs and worse temper at being awake at 1:30am researching this crap in an attempt to write lucid essays."


The original article sounded funny enough to check out, so here are some other gems:

"It is certainly true that innocent kisses often occur between men at moments of heightened emotion in late Middle English texts-just kisses, as when Arthur and his court regretfully kiss Gawain goodbye as he sets out on his journey [596]. Such kisses represent conventional cultural practice, informed by the rules of courtesy and hospitality; there is nothing problematic about men's kissing one another per se in the medieval romance context, as there might be today in the United States."
This is a very problematic passage, since there's something problematic about men kissing women - what more with men kissing men?!

"The Fathers and Doctors of the Church saw that kisses between men could be sinful, a possible first step in homosexual encounters that were spoken of in terms of one partner's feminization-terms that make homosexual relations parodic of heterosexual ones. Though they are not in themselves mortal sins, Aquinas discerns in the Summa theologiae, kisses come to be treated as such "ex sua causa," "because of a wicked intention," as the Blackfriars edition renders it; kisses that are intended to arouse, to incite venereal pleasure, are properly called libidinous and are condemned as mortal sins. Earlier, Peter Damian ("The Jerome of our times," according to Bernard of Constance) had written in his Liber Gomorrhianus that "whoever is found in a kiss alone. . . will be justly subjected to the whole range of ignominious discipline" ("qui solo osculo ...omnibus illisprobrosae disciplinae confusionibus merito subjacebit"). The comprehensive and influential Penitential of Cummean (seventh century) regards kissing, either "simpliciter" or in various degrees of erotic involvement, among homosexual acts to be censured.'"

"The role reversal in the bedroom is represented on the first day as Gawain and the female deer-barren hinds and does-are hunted in narrative tandem. The animal whose slaughter is described is the mirror image of Gawain: finally killed, the throat is cut, the limbs are cut off, the doe is eviscerated, and her insides are unlaced [cf. 1334]. In a passage whose length has always been a puzzle-we know the gentry must have loved this detail; but it does seem excessive in this carefully structured romance, and such detail is repeated in the narration of the following two hunts (of male animalshthe animal body is split to pieces. I suggest that this unlacing of the body is the poem's visual representation of straight gender identity's failing. When such identity fails, the body perceptually disaggregates, because it's that heterosexual identity matrix that-ideally and tenuously-accords unity to the body in the first place. The straight gender behavior that Gawain enacts is so fundamental that without its guarantee of unity he is subject to-or, better, of-corporeal disaggregation. And such disaggregation threatens the possibility of meaning itself: "The image of [man's] body," says Lacan, "is the principle of every unity he perceives in objects" [Seminar 2: 166, qtd. in Butler, Bodies 77]."

"Gender, desire, and anatomy here are not, and don't have to be, unified. He kisses him just like a woman, but he doesn't break like a little girl. The parody of heterosexuality that emerges as we read these kisses serves to denaturalize for us such a notion of Christian heterosexual identity... We could imagine that Bertilak had more agency in this whole plot than he finally admits to Gawain-that his sending his wife in to Gawain was a way of bonding himself, via the woman, to the man... But Gawain is not a character given to parody, and neither is this poem interested in pursuing the homoerotic links that would unsettle its project of representing Christian knighthood. Any liberatory potentials of this parody such as recognizing a positive erotic impulse between Bertilak and Gawain and linking it to identity are unthinkable in the culture of this poem"
Funny - so much of what she says is unthinkable in the culture of the poem.

"Human beings are seventy percent water, and with some the rest is collagen." - Martin Mull

***

Potter is a lefty, says French philosopher

"PARIS (AFP) - Harry Potter is a left-winger and the seven books by J.K. Rowling are a diatribe against Thatcherite Britain, a French philosopher said Friday on the day of the last novel's publication in French.

"It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today's England," Jean-Claude Milner told the left-wing newspaper Liberation.

"Reading it, one can see that J.K. Rowling -- like many cultured English people -- believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture's only chance is to survive as an occult science."

According to Milner, Harry's world of magic -- and especially the elite public school setting of the Hogwarts school of wizardry -- offer a means of resistance against a triumphant middle-class represented by the non-magic Muggles.

"Harry's uncle and aunt -- Muggles par excellence -- live like heroes of Margaret Thatcher's world, in a neat little estate where all the houses are identical," he said.

"One can equally say that modern England is a world where the Muggles have indeed taken power, first with Margaret Thatcher and then with Tony Blair -- a world where the omnipotence of the middle class is given free rein," he said.

According to Milner -- a professor of linguistics at Paris university -- the scene in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" in which Harry's aunt is blown up like a balloon is a satire on Thatcher.

"Here we can see a reference to (the film) 'The Great Dictator' by Chaplin, featuring an all-powerful middle class figure gone mad. And one cannot help but note that the aunt is called Marge -- a clear allusion to Thatcher."

For Milner, Hogwarts provides a refuge for the minority who wish to preserve civilisation from the dangers of globalisation. And he says Rowling's use of Latin and Greek words in her magic vocabulary is a kind of antidote against the value-for-money society of modern Britain.

"In the world of Hogwarts there are certainly inequalities. But at the same time, since culture is open to all, Hermione -- the child of Muggles -- can outperform Malfoy, the child of wizards," he said.

"So what appears as elitist is in fact real equality, as opposed to the false equality of the Muggles. In this, Harry Potter is a war-machine against Thatchero-Blairism and the 'American way of life'.

"J.K. Rowling is a real libertarian motivated by a desire to conserve. It is as if she is saying ... the real magicians are not Tony Blair's spin-doctors but people who know Latin and Greek."

As for the evil Voldemort, he is the "super-spin doctor". A wizard himself, he is proof that culture alone is not enough to save the world. Power-mad, he differs from good wizards because he lacks "nobility of soul".

"So we have on one side the Muggles, where oppression means power over things; and on the other hand Hogwarts, where knowledge enables one to resist the materialism of the Muggles -- but also opens the way to power over people.

"This terrible power, which Voldemort seeks and which we call tyranny, is one of the themes of Harry Potter -- and indeed one of the themes of English literature since Dickens and Orwell," he said.

Some British critics have in the past accused J.K. Rowling of conservatism for setting her books in a nostalgic era of boarding-schools and steam trains.

The finale of the series -- "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows" -- went on sale in France and Germany Friday, three months after it came out in the English-speaking world."


Of course, this has to come from a Frog.

MFTTW: they only published harry potter in french last friday?!
damn, no wonder the french are disgruntled.

"Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question." - Albert Camus

***

"One example was during the period of the Sultanate of Melaka. According to its maritime law, it was possible for anybody who was fishing on a boat in the Melaka harbour to catch anything caught by his fishing hook, including the wife of a captain. So if you were to catch the wife of a captain with your fishing hook, you could have her."

"I once had a visitor in my office in NUS in the early 1970s. This man had a problem. Apparently, his problem was a lost brother. I asked him where his brother was lost. In all seriousness, he told me that his brother was lost in the Kallang River. I became curious. How can you get lost in the Kallang River where everybody can see you wherever you go? Apparently, he believed that he has a twin brother who was a crocodile. Although this is something which does not harm other people, I am sure it will harm him. He may be spending unnecessary time on the problem. I do not know whether he is sane. But then you will be very surprised that there are thousands of people who believe him. If I were to take him to Rembau, Kuala Pulai and Seremban and meet the people there, thousands would believe him."

--- The New Malay: His Role and Future / Syed Hussein Alatas (1996)


"In the early post-war years a series of articles appeared in Singapore's English-language press about the plight of poor Malay farmers and fishermen by a then little known writer. This C.H.E. Det is now better known as Mahathir Mohamad."

--- Other Malays: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern Malay World / Joel S. Kahn.


"In Singapore 98 per cent of Malays are Muslims. Malays make up 99.3 per cent of the total Muslim population in Singapore (1980 Population Census of Singapore, Department of Statistics"
I always thought the former figure was more than 99% and the latter 95% at most, but then these statistics are outdated.

"Since the PAP's inception in 1955, its democratic socialist label has always been vague... Particularly after Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia in 1965, the PAP government began to gravitate from its earlier democratic socialist platform which aimed 'to abolish the inequality of wealth' (Petir, 1958: 2)... Indicative of its ideological metamorphosis, the PAP's democratic socialist ideal of creating 'a more just and equal society' was formally discarded in the party constitution in 1982... Compared to the parsimonious social welfare expediture of the state (Ramesh, 1992), its generous spending on various elite programmes has been justified in cold instrumentalist terms."

"The [HDB] ethnic residential quotas have ensured that the Chinese remained the numerically and electorally dominant community in all constituencies. Far from establishing a multiracial environment in all public housing estates, constituencies such as Hougang, where the Chinese make up approximately 80 per cent of the total population, have been allowed to remain Chinese residential enclaves. The contradictory logic underpinning the ethnic residential quotas was noted by Tremewan (1994: 66): 'By this logic, a block which has 87 per cent Chinese residents is not a racial enclave but a block which has 26 per cent Malay residents is a racial enclave.' Whilst the emerging Malay residential enclaves have been vigilantly nipped in the bud in the name of multiracialism, the strong Chinese residential enclaves in public housing estates like Hougang have remained. Moreover, the exclusive private residential estates off Holland Road and Bukit Timah Road where Malays are negligibly represented have not been the focus of the government's concern. The policy also contradicts the PAP government's exhortations for greater family support, filial piety, and the maintenance of traditional culture as the quotas can hinder those who wish to live near their families...

Rabushka's (1971: 91-107) study found that it was common for people living in ethnically homogeneous areas to adopt favourable attitudes towards other ethnic groups. Further, people who resided in ethnically mixed areas but did not mix with other ethnic groups also were found to hold negative attitudes towards others. He postulated that physical proximity coupled with superficial interaction across ethnic lines may in fact lead to heightened contempt for other ethnic groups... physical ethnic proximity in large cities may well engender 'mutual revulsion' and a heightening of ethnocentrism."

"Given the reliance of the Malay based party PKMS on Malay electoral support, the GRC requirement has effectively prevented the party from contesting in the GRC constituencies... The GRC system has tended to discourage ethnic minority candidates in the GRC team from raising politically sensitive issues specific to the ethnic minority community in order to avoid accusations of ethnic chauvinism and weaken the GRC team's electoral support from the dominant ethnic community. Thus, under the multiethnic slating regime, ethnic minority candidates tend to be pressurized into focusing on neutral national issues that are not specific to the concerns of the ethnic minority community... during the 1991 electoral campaign in the marginal Eunos GRC, the Workers Party candidated Juffrie Mahmood was accused by the PAP leadership and the media of pandering to communal politics and ethnic chauvinism... [Goh Chok Tong and Lee Hsien Loong] have acknowledged that their allegations of communalism against Juffrie helped to clinch the critical votes required to win the marginal Eunos ward."

--- The Singapore dilemma : the political and educational marginality of the Malay community / Lily Zubaidah Rahim.


"The researcher's status as a young, white mother was unthreatening, yet curious enough to the Malay housewives that they were willing to invite her in and answer questions."

"The strongest challenge to the assumption that the household is an income-pooling unit has come from women's studies. Feminist analysis has refuted the thesis that the household is a non-exploitative, intrinsically democratic and co-operative unit operating in the interests of all its members."
Creationist analysis also shows that Evolution is false.

"There has been discrimination both for and against Malays during Singapore's history... The Malays were positively favoured as employees bythe British, particularly in the uniformed services (army, police, fire) and in some related clerical, transport, and personal services. In 1957, almost 20 per cent of Malay working men were employed in the uniformed services... Malay youth were not called up for National Service during the 1970s, and some were still not being called up in 1984. Those who were called up claimed to be placed only in menial capacities, and always excluded from the airforce, commando, and tank units which are the key units in Singapore's defence system.

There was an unfortunate side effect to the non-recruitment of Malays into National Service. Employers in Singapore are generally unwilling to recruit or train young male workers who have not completed National Service or obtained exemption papers as these youths can be called up at any time. Since Malays were not officially exempted from National Service, Malay youths were uable to obtain apprenticeships or regular jobs, and many were forced into an extended limbo period of about ten years from ages 14 to 24... [this] was in part responsible for the high percentage of Malay youths who became involved in heroin abuse during the late 1970s."

"In his study of Malay and Chinese workers in large Singapore establishments, Deyo (1983: 223) found that there is no basis for the belief that Chinese workers are more materialistic, hard-working or ambitious than Malay workers"
Any introductory statistics student can point out that this study suffers from selection bias.

"When not making general, ethnic statements, Malays draw distinctions between different types of Chinese. Malaysian and Indonesian Chinese and the Peranakan (descended from early Chinese settlers) are often thought to be more courteous, having learned from the Malays, while Singapore Chinese... are known as 'hill Chinese' and felt to be the most coarse and 'low class'."

"[Some] Malay contractors... claim to have their bids consistently undercut by Chinese competitors, convincing them that the Chinese firm is making a loss with the intention of eliminating the Malay enterprise."
And the polio vaccine is meant to make them sterile.

"Entrepreneurs felt that all other Malays, whether traders, customers, kin, or neighbours, were jealous of their success and were engaged in schemes to cause their downfall. Malay entrepreneurs described the attitude of other Malays towards them as jealous (iri hati), angry (panas hati), dissatisfied (tidak puas hati), upset (sakit hati, susah hati), encious (sakit mata), or evil (busuk hati)... One entrepreneur with an established retail outlet stated that 'if you have two Malay shops side by side, selling the same product, but one has more customers because he is more friendly, the other will be envious and upset; so he will lower his prices to sell at a loss, until both shops are bankrupt, but he will feel satisfied'. Besides competition from other entrepreneurs, Malay businessmen or women often feel threatened by gossip or rumous the Malay public may spread about them, or by witchcraft which can harm them physically and prevent them from continuing to do business."
Maybe this is the myth of the jealous native.

"One established trader chose to site his shop far away from areas of intensive Malay settlement because 'there are too many Malays there, they get jealous and try to put a curse on you, or say you are mean and spread stories about you'. A woman involved in petty retail was equally explicit: 'I don't sell my things here in the kampong. I have a lot of friends, especially other races, and I sell to them. Round here there are too many stories.' Other traders prefer to do business with Malays, but avoid their own neighbourhood."

"The assumed social, moral, and ethnic bond that links all Malays, and that is held to characterize them as Malays, makes it impossible for any Malays to conduct pure business relations within their own community."

"The widespread and deeply held belief among Malays in Singapore is that their problems and disadvantages have been imposed on them on a racial basis by the Chinese majority... There is no doubt that some discrimination does occur, but it is also the case that the tendency to see Singapore society as divided on racial lines, and Malay disadvantages as stemming from race, has distracted Malay attention from the process of economic differentiation, which also has a great impact in shaping the conditions of their daily lives."

--- Malays in Singapore: Culture, Economy, and Ideology / Tania Li

New blog picture:


Take back the web

Russian National Chamber Orchestra
Pinchas Zukerman, director / violin
Amanda Forsyth, cello

VIVALDI : "Autumn" from the Four Seasons, RV 293
VIVALDI : Concerto for Violin and Cello in B flat, RV 547
BACH : Violin Concerto in E, BWV 1042
MOZART : Symphony No 36 in C, K425 (Linz)


Vernon and I were asked to leave our bags at the entrance checkpoint. This is the first time I've ever been asked to leave my bag outside. Vernon attributes this to our coming relatively late and the ushers needing to look like they're doing work.

The concert was not very well attended. Even at our poor people section half the seats were filled at most (maybe this is why we don't get Baroque music in Singapore). Since this was Baroque music, they carted in a harpsichord, so I've finally seen one in Singapore.

Autumm did not start off well. It was ponderous most of the way, and though it picked up a bit after the start the orchestra still lacked life and levity. Zukerman was alright, though his playing was not as flavorful as I expected and his violin was somewhat squeaky (let's blame the humidity, but then presumably the rehearsal room is air-conditioned). The second movement was alright and the third had a very warm sound, embodying the cheer of the season. He seemed to play tutti (with the violins) suka suka (anyhow), often breaking off in mid bow to wipe or adjust something.

The violin and cello concerto started off with a brighter tone, which was good, and Zukerman's violin had become less squeaky. Unfortunately, throughout the concerto the soloists' communication and chemistry wasn't quite there. Among other things, they didn't look at each other.

[Addendum: The two are married. Hurr hurr.]

The violin concerto was probably the best of the pieces. It started off with everyone sounding confident, and the movement was warm, ripe and bursting with flavour. Vernon thought it was too straightforward, but even in a world of wines there is room for grape juice. The second movement was poignant. However, in the third everyone sounded overeager; Vernon thinks it was overcompensation for evenness towards the end of the second.

After the intermission we had Linz. Throughout the movement the French Horns had trouble, with both players turning their instruments upside down and fiddling with them repeatedly and thus it was no surprise that funny sounds ("ratty") kept coming from them (perhaps it was a valve problem). Other than that, I had no comments (this is usually a good thing). MFM would probably have found it banal, but then it's a nice type of banality.

The sound was not as intimate as I expected from a Chamber orchestra, but we were far away (and once again maybe you can blame the humidity).

Forsyth wore a simple sun dress, which was quite odd given the gowns they usually wear. Perhaps Saturday will have something else in store.

Goldberg Variations by Alexey Botvinov

Overall I found the music too legato (smooth). This is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if one wishes to exploit the potential of the piano and aim for a less-antiquated style, but some parts seemed rushed and coupled with the liberal use of the sustain pedal, many notes blurred into each other which seemed messy (for this work).

Of course, I am a harpsichord fan and am sympathetic to the concept of HIP (Historically Informed Performance); using a harpsichord disciplines you and forces you to articulate each note properly, exploit the trills and ornamentations to link notes and play around with the stops.

I think I also detected some rubato (jiggling note durations around) which contributed to the more Romantic feel. If nothing, it stopped me from falling asleep (hurr hurr).


I really don't like most of the slow and/or melancholy variations.

At a few points in the performance, one member of the audience was channeling Glenn Gould, which was very annoying.