[redbean]

New kid on the blog - p65

The p65 blog is evolving and is crashing into the blogging scene with another loud bang after the first bang whimpered away. This time some big guns were lined up to write for the blog, Mrs Shereen Aziz-Williams, Britain based director of the Council of Ethnic Minority voluntary Sector Organisations, unionist Mohamad Nazir Sani, grassroot leader Terence Quek and MPs are all in the line up.

If you are born after 1965, have non partisan and neutral views, and constructive criticism of policies, you are welcomed. Partisan views are not allowed, I think. I am still trying to figure out what these mean.

And soon they will also have photos and videos, including snapshots of interesting things around the neighbourhood.

Welcome to the blogging world, p65.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Cyberspace state of health

Or shall I call it freedom of speech? Between a communist giant like China and a democratic island like Singapore, I think it is quite shameful if we are to compare the freedom of speech between the two. Mind you, they have demonstrations every frequently. And I am not referring to those in Xinjiang but in Beijing and Shanghai. Back to freedom of speech. The first thought is that we must be much freer, and our bloggers must be blogging themselves crazy with a diverse spread of views, pro and anti establishment. In reality, the country that is freer in terms of blogging and expressing of views is China.

Cannot be? In a comment in the editorial of the ST on the topic of India and China relations, the editor said this, '...few Indians know that there are millions of Chinese bloggers who express themselves freely and fearlessly.' The we look at our own cyberspace and netizens and ask ourselves, who can be qualified as 'blogging freely and fearlessly'?

If there are such animals, they are probably blogging from overseas or found in P65.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Making sense of statistics

Today paper reported that the 60% sandwiched class had a reprieve for price increases in the first 6 months of the year. The increase in CPI for this group of people is 0.7%. The ST highlighted that the poorest or lowest 20% was the worst hit as the CPI rose 1.6% for this group. Both used the same set of statistics from the Dept of Statistics to report a different thing.

So one group should be celebrating and another group, the poorest, should be crying. But these are just statistics. Look at the shopping centres, foodcourts, the property launches, and the mercedes benzes in 2 or 3 rm flat car parks, then you may wonder whether the people are really suffering. You don't see the overt and abject poverty around the public housing estates. Yes there were the occasional soft drink can collectors and a few lonely souls browsing the rubbish bins instead of the internet. They are the exceptions.

Prosperity is in the air. I just recall the happy faces at the NDP and the hundreds of thousands of merrymakers out for a good time at the Esplanade, the Marina Bay and the Padang area. So where are the poor or the poorest? If our poor and poorest are still able to have a good time in the worst economic crisis we are faceing, and with the CPI running away, than things cannot be so bad.

Time for celebration again. For the top 20% they can open that $500 or $5000 bottle of champagne, the middle 60% can open the cheap red from ShengSiong or FairPrice. And the lowest 20% can either go for some cheap beer or toddy. Celebrate within your own means. This is paradise, the modern day Eden. (Jaunty going to scold me now.)
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

The Age of Demonising over?

During the cold war period the western powers and their media went on a tenacious campaign to demonise anything Communist, Russian or China as bad, demons, devils, destructive, terror, evil or whatever that is negative. This went on for more than half a century till today. There is a little easing off lately with the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a capitalist China. The demonising is still going on.

The events following the publishing of the book Men In White could be an indication that the Age of Demonising your enemies or opponents is slowly coming to an end. Or will it be?

Our general election is around the corner. The opposition political parties are not in the same league of the Communists and the Barisan Socialists. They are more like any other ordinary citizens. Would they be subject to the kind of demonising to discredit them as reasonable people unworthy to be elected as the people's representatives in Parliament?

For that matter, why are cyberspace and alternative media being regarded in the likes of dissidents or anti establishment parties, an evil force that must be watched like a hawk and if possible nabbed and put into cold storage? I seem to have this impression, rightly or wrongly, that this is the sentiment. Is it true or just my imagination? Are they that dangerous, that destructive?

By the way, alternative parties are just groups of individuals offering an alternative to run the country and not gangsters or mobs or triads or demons. They need to be treat respectfully as any deserving citizens, in fact better, for their noble intention to serve the people and nation. There are thugs, rogues and scoundrels in their midst, possible. In fact these undesirable elements are present in all corners of society, among the elite as well.

Will we see the passing of the Age of Demonising? Or calling people names, branding people as bad, etc etc is still a way of protecting ones own self interest. They are bad, we are good!
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

A new fad in town

It is damn great fun to own a media agency or a blog or forum and use it to ridicule or malu other lesser beans. It is funny and very effective and you can cheer on others to join the ridicule game. I heard a girl by the name of Ris Low, or something like that, was made fun of in the media. I must qualify here, they did not ridicule her but all made in jest, just for fun lah. And I like the spirit of making fun of others, no matter how insensitive it is. Maybe it is another way to teach people why they must spaek good Inglish.

This girl did not speak good or perfect English and became a very convenient and funny target. The more she speaks, the more funny she becomes and more ammunition for attacking her. Oops, I mean making fun of her in jest. No hard feelings.

Language is just a skill, like dancing or playing football. Given time and effort, one should be able to pass off quite reasonably. Stupidity is acquired or born and not easily removed by effort and training. For people who were speaking a language for a long time, as a primary mode of communication, or educated in the west, it is easy to laugh at those who are new to the language. It is as good as an entitlement to sneer and ridicule those who can't speak as well as them.

I wonder how these jokers will sound if they were to speak to Ris Low in Teochew or Mandarin? Would their dialect or Mandarin sound just as ridiculous? I love to hear them speak something they are not familiar with and use it to ridicule them to the max, in this blog/forum.

Let's start a campaign to ridicule people who can't speak English well, just for fun lah. Then we can follow up with a few more campaigns to ridicule those who can't speak their mother tongues. Like they said, orang china bukan china or in different variations to suit the different races.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Boon Wan blogging in MOH blog

This looks like for real. Now we have a real minister blogging to share and exchange views in cyberspace. According to the report, Boon Wan is going to blog regularly, not blogging just for show. Given his busy commitment, it will be quite demanding on him to reply to the issues that will pop up in the MOH blog. I think he will cope.

The cyberspace, blogging etc is the most effective means of communicating with the masses and vice versa. And handling it well, it can achieve a lot of goodness and goodwill. Goodbye to snail mail and writing to the media forum and hoping it will be printed. The main medium does not have the space to provide a meaningful two way communication which is something cyberspace is best designed for.

Look at the number of letters on HDB prices that are filtering out into the main media forum and you can extrapolate how many have written in but unable to see the light.

Welcome to cyberspace, Boon Wan.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

The assassination of Ris Low

It started of as a guise, projected as good humour and clean fun to poke at the way Ris Low, the newly crowned Miss Singapore World, speaks English. It was so innocent and with good intention, that Ris Low should speak good English or else....

Now part of the deception is off. The campaign to assassinate her continues. The ST reported that 40 letters were received on Ris Low's poor command of English and wow, 11 writers were quoted. I am now wondering how many letters were written to ST on the high cost of property prices. But 40 letters must be a big sampling of the voices to support the case Ris Low is not fit to represent Singapore. On face value this is a lot when all national issues probably got a handful of letters. But of course no such statistics were given except for this case. ST is just doing its objective role of reporting the groundswell.

Who is mastermind behind this character assassination? What is his true intent or identity?

Is speaking good English a criteria in this beauty contest? If it is, then this requirement must be stated clearly from the start and contestants must be interviewed to screen them out of the race. Obviously not. If I can remember, contestants from non English speaking countries can choose to have a translator. Ris Low can ask for a translator and speak in Mandarin or dialect or Singlish and get it translated. Why not when Japanese, Spanish, or whatever contestants can do so?

Anyway, what's so big deal about a beauty contest when the contestants won by default as the true beauty of a nation will never stand out to be chosen? It is just a little fun and fancy contest. And I agree with what Woffles Wu said as quoted in ST. Go for it Ris Low. Be yourself and not what the pretenders expect you to be.

The way you speak is what you are. And if you want to speak the best you can, choose the medium that you are comfortable with and not be forced to use a foreign tongue. I hope the nasties will not continue with the attack and go after her schools, teachers and her families. The vibes are disgusting. Hiding behind the veil of good intention to destroy another person is low down behavior.

Will the mastermind behind this saga owns up?
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Ah Mah and Ah Kong's Singlish

How many of you have been entertained by the Singlish of Ah Mah and Ah Kong? It is hilarious if one is kind, difficult and irritating for the less tolerant, and outright outrageous and stupid for the Anglophiles. For the latter, Ah Mah and Ah Kong are simply idiotic, can't speak simple English. They should be kept away from the polished crowd of sophistication and well cultured WOGs.

How much different is Ris Low from Ah Kong and Ah Mah? I am waiting to read more letters to attack Ris Low for her poor command of the English Language. Let the campaign continues to drive Ris Low into hiding. Make her feel ashame, huh?

We are the sikit atas Singaporeans. We spaek good Inglish. If you cannot spaek good Inglish, stay away from us. I shall use my control of the blog/forum to attack such poor Inglish speakers.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

No Yellow Ribbon for Ris Low

More efforts and revelations are needed to destroy this 19 year old girl. Do more research and dig deeper to bring out more unpleasantness of her life, and it is only a matter of time before she be buried and done away with.

First it was her poor English. So she is bad. Now it was her credit card fraud. She was found guilty for cheating using stolen credit cards. This must have done the job. Attacking her for bad English was snobbish. Revealing her cheating conviction was hitting her below the belt. For the latter, I too find it difficult to defend her case. Having committed a crime is something that would put Ris Low and the organiser of the Miss World campaign in a very awkward position.

And the attackers gone to town with everything they had against her. Oh, wait for more. It is not over yet. And I am reading very carefully between the lines to pull out the mastermind behind this whole sordid affair of character assassination in the name of good fun and righteousness.

Forget about forgiveness, forget about Yellow Ribbon. Forget about gracefulness. We Singaporeans are just a bunch of rats! Talking about grace, forgiveness and having a Yellow Ribbon campaign is only an aspiration and not meant to be real. We are honestly just low down human beans.

Let's bury Ris Low in the most humiliating ways we can think off and use the media to its best advantage.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

End of the Dark Ages

With the advent of cyberspace we are seeing the dawn of a new era of freedom in mass communication. The days when the govt controls all the modes of communication are over, or about to be over. Or at least we are now allow to hear alternative views and news.

Gone were the days when the masses were fed with fairy tales, legends or stories of comic book superman and superheroes. Today we are seeing and hearing different kinds of heroes. In our local context we are hearing news and views that would not have the chance to see in prints. Now we have Ngaim Tong Dow, Seah Chiang Nee, Lucky Tan, Gilbert Goh, Alfian Saat, Tan Kin Lian, Andrew Loh, Choo Zheng Xi, Leong Sze Hian and many others who are saying things from the way they see it. Without them and all the infamous bloggers in cyberspace, we will still be like little children, reading fairy tales and comic books, and feeling very good.

All bloggers should continue to contribute to the diverse views of truths and coloured truths, to challenge the truths in the old media. Only then can the masses break free from the oppression of one sided media transmission.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

SPH named this picture file as 'sg-stupid.jpg'

http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIM.../sg-stupid.jpg

@metacole has a sharp eye to detect the above. Mr Brown has posted it in his blog.

PS. I am still investigating the mastermind behind this concerted attack on Ris Low. There is someone out there very determined to destroy her.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Dawn Tay, 'the media's role is to ensure accountability. Between pageant organisers and beauty queens, and the country they represent. Between newspapers and readers, to whom the press has responsibility to uncover the truth for.'

The above is quoted from an article by Dawn Tay in My Paper today. She went on to justify 'the steady stream of reports by various media, which shed more light on the saga and eventually forced pageant organiser ERM World Marketing to break its silence last Monday.'

With such a high standard set by our media, we must feel confident that any dubious activity or less than righteous happenings will be fully reported with the same zeal and conviction as the indiscretion of a 19 year old kid who cheated a few thousand dollars. We should soon be able to read more reports about cases involving millions. Actually no. Singaporeans don't cheat, except kids.

Singaporeans should thank the media for their strong commitment to uncover and report the truth.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

What is public interest?

We had been hit by a continuous barrage of articles that were deemed news worthy during the Aware saga and the recent Miss Singapore World scandal. The amount of information and effort spent on these two issues, the number of space allocated to report on them, must have given the public the impression that these were two very serious issues that were affecting the lives of Singaporeans, or at least Singaporeans were nosey and lapped them up with glee.

We had a few reports of the LUP in opposition wards and the prominent role played by grassroot leaders over the role of elected MPs. There must be many interesting angles to look at this development, from the constitutional, political and party politics angles. I am hoping that this will be news worthy enough for the issue to be discussed at least for a month with the main media giving it an in depth coverage, front page and centre spread.

Looks like this issue is of not much public interests and has died a natural death after a couple of reports and a letter from Low Thia Khiang. Not news worthy. Does not affect the lives of Singaporeans or our political system and culture.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Blogging is a waste of time!

Blogging, whinning, complaining, writing letters to forums to air your disagreements etc were a complete waste of time. This was the message I got in a discussion with some friends. Why bothered whether it was Low or Chiam or Sitoh or Eric making the announcements on the LUP? It was money spent for the good of the people. There was no issue or the issue was too small to talk about. Later I discovered why it was a waste of time. All these talks would be worth nothing, and nothing changed. Go and form an opposition party and take on the govt if you think strongly of issues or else get on with your life and let the govt do what they think best.

If this is the kind of attitude that Singaporeans should adopt, then there will be peace in paradise. And everything will be well taken care of. There will be no need for the ST to spare 3 or 4 pages on the public housing issues today. In an article, 'Insight examines the six most hotly debated issues among house hunters today' by Tan Hui Yee, the following were discussed: 1. Are permanent residents driving up resale flat prices? 2. Are investors pushing up prices of resale flats. 3. Are new HDB flats really subsidised? 4. Are new flats affordable? 5. Is $8000 income ceiling too low? 6. Are leftovers flats really 'undesirable'?

Though I would expect more insights from these articles than just what have been discussed publicly, it is good that ST officially dealt with these issues and gave it a wider coverage.

And there was a letter from Lim Yuin Chien responding to Sylvia Lim's rebutt. What Lim Yuin Chien said is simply, 'Let's agree to disagree.' What this means is very similar to what I heard last night, that the govt will do it its way and you can disagree. But if you want to do it differently from the govt, make sure you form the govt, ie, form an alternative party and vote the govt out if you can. Otherwise, tough.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.

[redbean]

Blogging is a waste of time (part 2)

I was lambasted by a friend for raising the controversial issue of LUP in the two opposition wards. To him there was nothing wrong with the way it was done and the govt had the right to appoint whoever they want to announce the LUP. Raising such issues in a blog is a complete waste of time.

Using the same argument, the half page article by Sue Ann Chia in the ST today must be a bigger waste of time, and ST must be wasting time and money allowing the issues to be printed on its pages.

Why would ST choose to air this issue over again? I think the editors or someone up there must be feeling uncomfortable that if Singaporeans are so dumb, or choose to be ostriches, and refuse to question controversial issues affecting their lives and the political development of the people, the continued existence of Singapore and Singaporeans as a thinking people is questionable. Is it a good thing for Singaporeans to just shut up when they are confronted with controversies or even questionable decisions by the govt? Some may think so, assuming that everything is in good hands. So they can sleep in peace, happily making money.

What kind of Singaporeans will we have if this be the case? Why are we complaining that Singaporeans are apathetic and apolitical and regretted that this is not a good thing? Should Singaporeans be more political, more aware of the political developments and affairs of their country?

Should those who are raising issues and questioning controversial policies be called fools or the other way round, that the greater fools are the silent majority who allowed themselves to be pushed around like sheep, not knowing, not wanting to knowing, not to bother and think that all is well?

I thank Sue Ann Chia and the ST for raising this issue again to stir the dull and numb minds of Singaporeans and to educate them to be thinking citizens.
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what i posted is just my personal view. feel free to disagree.