The rally, really

PM Lee just delivered his National Day Rally Speech, but I only caught bits of it while I mark my Sunday away, as with many other Sundays. I will look at that next time, when there is time, but I must say I am rather drawn by it. His “text ref” to Goh Keng Swee and S Rajaratnam were endearing.

I think he also mentioned HDB. I think HDB should explain some of the many rules clearly consistently, and they should of course, like good GP students, use realistic, updated and relevant examples–not this:

If only I could get a 4-rm HDB apartment at that kind of price!

And I saw that Singapore is on top of the list…again:

(ST, Aug 22, 2010)

I wonder where they will be living in Singapore.

“Never mind. If you think statistics like these can tell you anything useful that direct observation and common sense won’t, you’re crazy. Still, if that makes you happy…”

Jun 8, 2010

Health, wealth and mapping happiness

By Gwynne Dyer

THERE can be few things less useful than a World Map of Happiness. If you live in one of the unhappy places, there is little chance that you will be able to move to one of the happy ones – and anyway, there’s no way of knowing whether immigrants are happy there. Besides, your personal capacity for happiness is largely hard-wired by your genetic heritage and early childhood experiences. But there are always under-employed sociologists, psychologists and economists looking for something new to research. There is also a permanent oversupply of journalists at their wits’ end for something to write about. Despite Israel’s gallant effort to fill the whole news cycle single-handedly, this has been a slow week for news, so let us consider the global distribution of happiness (or ‘subjective well-being’, as the social psychologists call it). The Satisfaction with Life Index, to give the world happiness map its proper name, does not measure objective conditions like gross domestic product (GDP) per capita or average life expectancy. You can be dirt poor, like Bhutan, and still rank high in happiness. You can also be relatively prosperous but miserable, like Latvians, who are less happy than Ethiopians or Palestinians. The old Human Development Index, dating back to 1990, tells us who should be happy, if income, lifespan and educational level were really the main determinants of happiness. Unsurprisingly, this yields a list that ranks countries pretty much in strict order of GDP per capita. For those who care about the environment, there is also the Happy Planet Index, launched in 2006, which measures ‘the production of human well-being (not necessarily material goods) per unit of extraction of or imposition upon nature.’ In other words, if your well-being comes at a high environmental cost, you drop down the list. On this index, the developed countries do not do so well, for their prosperity comes at a high environmental cost: the United States drops from No. 13 on the Human Development Index to No. 150 on the Happy Planet Index. But that index is really measuring the ‘happiness’ of the ecosphere, as if the planet itself were capable of happiness. Dr Adrian White’s Satisfaction with Life Index, however, is focused on what people actually feel about their lives – and he cunningly avoided the nuisance of sending out 80,000 questionnaires to people all over the world. Dr White, a social psychologist at the University of Leicester, did a ‘meta-analysis’ of other global surveys – by the World Health Organisation, Unesco and half a dozen other organisations – and extracted the data for his own index. They were the ones who actually sent out the 80,000 questionnaires, and Dr White did not compose their questions himself. So you may want to take his results with a grain of salt – but they are interesting nevertheless. The most striking result is that all of the top 20 countries in terms of happiness are relatively small: the biggest, at No. 10, is Canada, which has only 33 million people. All the Scandinavian countries are there, of course, but so are Antigua, Bhutan, Costa Rica and the Seychelles. All 20 are democracies. The saddest countries on the list, numbers 176, 177 and 178, are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe and Burundi. Indeed, there’s not a single country in Africa that counts as happy. Russia and the other countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union are all mired in the Slough of Despond. Japan, surprisingly, ties with Yemen, an almost-failed state, in the happiness stakes. Among the big developed countries, the US places just outside the top 20 at No. 23, well ahead of other rich countries like Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and France. Bangladeshis are happier than Indians and much happier than Pakistanis. Malaysians are the happiest people in Asia, Venezuelans are the happiest people in South America, and the Gulf states from Oman to Kuwait are the happiest countries in the Middle East. Dr White did his major work in 2007, so some of the rankings may have changed since then. Icelanders, for example, may be pretty unhappy since their banks and their currency collapsed. Sri Lankans may be cheering up now that their long civil war is over. Iranians were not happy even before last year’s upheavals, but they are probably even less so now. Health and wealth make some difference in how happy countries are, but they are certainly not decisive, and some other measures that are normally thought to matter don’t seem to count at all. The US, for example, has the greatest inequality of income among the big developed countries, but Americans are happy people – maybe because their national mythology tells them that they all have ‘equality of opportunity’. The size of government doesn’t make much difference either, so long as it is competent. Denmark is the classic welfare state, with the government spending 52 per cent of GDP, while the Swiss government spends only 33 per cent of national income. Yet they are virtually tied for first place in the happiness index. Never mind. If you think statistics like these can tell you anything useful that direct observation and common sense won’t, you’re crazy. Still, if that makes you happy… The writer is a London-based independent journalist.

Freeeeeeeeeedooooooom!!! Death Anniversary of Sir William Wallace

Today marks the death anniversary of one legendary historical figure, Sir William Wallace. Of course you’d have heard about it in class about him and his deeds, but as with history and memory, what is constant may not always be true, but that is not to say it’s just a bag of lies. It could be amnesia, but nothing’s worse than misappropriation:

Braveheart was also adopted by many Scottish Nationalists as a rallying call for independence, a move that Gibson said he had not given permission for. Leaflets distributed at cinemas when the film was released — pre-devolution — read: “Independence isn’t just history. Most European nations have it. Scotland needs it again and now almost 40 per cent of the Scottish people agree. Most of them vote SNP.” –  Lindsay McIntosh in Times Newspapers, Oct 26, 2010

The identity associated with the Scots, real or imagined, has been in existence for centuries. Their deeds spoke for themselves too, and they have the galls to moon the English even in modern times. The animosity is real although not threatening; people move on. But some may not move on just yet:

Aug 17, 2010

YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES: SINGAPORE 2010

Israel cry foul

They say Iran TKD boy not hurt but withdrew on political grounds

By Wang Meng Meng

THE first boys’ taekwondo final in the Youth Olympic Games ended in controversy, as Israel accused Iran of withdrawing its finalist on political grounds.

Sunday’s gold-medal bout between Iran’s Mohammad Soleimani and Israel’s Gili Haimovitz in the 48kg category saw the Iranian athlete withdraw through injury.

Israel’s chef-de-mission Daniel Oren pulled no punches with his allegations on Iran’s no-show, saying it was politically motivated.

He told The Straits Times: ‘It’s not the first time this has happened at the Olympics. But this is a first for a medal match.

‘To be honest, once our boy got into the final, we knew that this (pullout) is going to happen.

‘I spoke to our boy after the final and he, of course, was disappointed that he did not have the chance to win his gold through an actual fight.’

Iran’s taekwondo officials and coaches declined to comment on the incident at Suntec Convention Centre, saying that only chef-de-mission Seyed Saeed Eftekhari, whose mobile phone was switched off yesterday, could speak to the media.

Iran does not recognise the existence of the Israeli state.

Oren added: ‘I feel more sorry for the Iranian boy. He must have trained hard to get to this stage and was not given a chance to fight.

‘We are dealing with sports here, youth sports, in fact. It’s a pity that politics got involved.’

The International Olympic Committee said on its website that the YOG not only aimed to ‘use Olympic values to inspire youngsters to strive to be the best they can be but to also enjoy sport for sport’s sake’.

According to the taekwondo competitions manager Ian Hadjihanbi, Soleimani had suffered a hip injury during the semi-final win over American Gregory English and was unable to compete in the final.

‘He was transferred to a hospital for treatment,’ Hadjihanbi added.

Soleimani was also absent from the presentation ceremony to receive his silver medal.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, swimmer Mohammad Alirezaei did not compete in the men’s 100m breaststroke heats, citing stomach pains. He would have raced against Israel’s Tom Beeri.

Four years earlier, in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili, a former world champion, refused to meet Israel’s Ehud Vax in an opening-round match.

Arash’s actions were praised by then Iran President Mohammad Khatami, who was quoted by the state news agency as saying that the athlete’s actions would be ‘recorded in the history of Iranian glories’ and declared that Iran considered Miresmaeili to be ‘the champion of the 2004 Olympic Games’.

An Iranian government spokesman said other Iranian athletes would be expected to do the same if confronted with an Israeli opponent.

*

Some ties are hard to mend, and some people are just waiting for the collective memory of past events to fade before feeling at ease or at peace. But many others who are truly bitter rivals till the end will recall the injustice till the end of time, it seems: Neighbours st18810 & Good Neighbors

(Missing text^)

Singapore’s top-ranked player Goh Wei Ming (left) giving his all against grandmaster Garry Kasparov. — ST PHOTO: BENJAMIN NG (Aug 17, 2010)

How time flies. I was only 14 when I first played against Goh; now he’s Singapore’s #1.

Speaking of ranking, we should be glad, shouldn’t we, that Singapore isn’t #1 on this chart:

Aug 18, 2010 (ST)

Taiwan’s fertility rate at record low

Taiwanese deterred by cost; govt must offer incentives, says expert

By Lee Seok Hwai , Taiwan Correspondent

…Both the CEPD and the Interior Ministry blame the dearth of babies partly on superstition: Last year was a ‘widow year’, according to the lunar calendar. This year, the zodiac Year of the Tiger, is also considered inauspicious for having babies.

Thus, only 117,000 couples got married last year, compared with nearly 155,000 in 2008. As of June this year, only 82,712 babies had been born, 8.9 per cent less than in the same period last year.

But superstition does not explain why the fertility rate has been slipping since 2006, when the TFR was 1.115. Last year, it fell to 1.03.

Paradoxically, a survey shows the Taiwanese are willing to have babies. Of 800 people aged 20 to 49 interviewed by the China Times’ research centre in March, 78 per cent said the ideal number of children per household was two.

One might well have been 37-year-old bank executive Lin Kueh-fang. She is pregnant with her second child, but she is one of the rare ‘productive’ people among her 60 co-workers.

‘Only seven people in my department have two children, nine others have one child each, while the rest are either single or married without children,’ she said.

Population studies expert Chen Kuan-jeng of Academia Sinica blames the government.

He said: ‘The people’s main concern is about money, but it has not come up with cash incentives to encourage couples to make babies.’

Past baby-boosting measures included increasing maternity leave to two months in 2002. The government has also created a database of licensed babysitters, given preferential home loan interest rates to couples, and ensured the protection of working mothers’ rights.

There is also a plan to introduce cash bonuses, according to the Interior Ministry, but it is unlikely to happen until 2015.

Local administrations have not been sitting on their hands either. Hsinchu city, for example, started handing out hongbao to new mothers in 2002 and now gives up to NT$25,000 (S$1,000) for each baby. Its fertility rate is consistently tops, notching 1.515 last year.

Bringing in foreigners would have a limited impact and would create another set of problems, experts say.

‘The government plans to bring in more white-collar, highly skilled foreigners. But we have to fight with the rest of the world for those people,’ said Professor Chen Yu-hua of National Taiwan University’s Population and Gender Studies Centre.

Besides, she said, Taiwanese might baulk at sharing space and possibly jobs with foreigners: ‘It’s easy to open the doors but hard to close them.’

Prof Chen of Academia Sinica said adding foreigners is but a short-term fix. Foreign brides are not much more prolific than Taiwanese women, averaging only about 1.5 babies each, he noted.

‘We need long-term plans, not short-term measures,’ he said. ‘A lot of money is needed to fix the problem… People will not feel the pain until the population starts falling.’

Local administrations have not been sitting on their hands either. Hsinchu city, for example, started handing out hongbao to new mothers in 2002 and now gives up to NT$25,000 (S$1,000) for each baby. Its fertility rate is consistently tops, notching 1.515 last year.

Bringing in foreigners would have a limited impact and would create another set of problems, experts say.

‘The government plans to bring in more white-collar, highly skilled foreigners. But we have to fight with the rest of the world for those people,’ said Professor Chen Yu-hua of National Taiwan University’s Population and Gender Studies Centre.

Besides, she said, Taiwanese might baulk at sharing space and possibly jobs with foreigners: ‘It’s easy to open the doors but hard to close them.’

Prof Chen of Academia Sinica said adding foreigners is but a short-term fix. Foreign brides are not much more prolific than Taiwanese women, averaging only about 1.5 babies each, he noted.

‘We need long-term plans, not short-term measures,’ he said. ‘A lot of money is needed to fix the problem… People will not feel the pain until the population starts falling.’

…

Total fertility rate* last year

Japan: 1.37

Singapore: 1.22

South Korea: 1.15

Hong Kong: 1.04

*

^ It is unfortunate that Microsoft Internet Explorer decided to crash my laptop, and I had not had a previously updated version of this post saved. I’d added a couple more articles and paragraphs, but I just can’t remember what they were, scarily. With a tired mind, memory fails frequently. And so I give up. I give up trying to remember what were the other articles I’d added here before the crash. They were good articles. I will still try to salvage the remnants from the ravaged, overclocked memory…

Musing Over Our Vulnerable Position

The Staff Contact Time (SCT) today was like the erratic weather in Singapore: the first part was not really insightful, maybe because I have beef over the official definition of the word “innovation”. With officials treating words the way corporations do (eg: Kbox [check out https://akbywerk2.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/gp-is-not-about-u/] and Wall’s [“Share Happy”; check out http://www.facebook.com/ShareHappySingapore]), I see Newspeak coming soon. Thanks, George, for 1984.

By the way, I’m still so totally digging Muse’s latest album (actually it was released last year), The Resistance. That is arts and politics conveyed through music and marketing, specifically through the piece, United States of Eurasia + Collateral Damage. Check out this Wiki entry:

• In a pre-release interview featured in the August edition of music magazine Mojo, vocalist and guitarist Matthew Bellamy reveals the song to be inspired by “a book called The Grand Chessboard byZbigniew Brzezinski,” explaining that “Brzezinski has the viewpoint that the Eurasian landmass, ie Europe, Asia and the Middle East, needs to be controlled by America to secure the oil supply.”^[6]Bellamy goes on to suggest that the song is also influenced by George Orwell‘s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.^[6]
• While initially thought to be the first single due to be released from The Resistance, the band confirmed on their Twitter profile that “Uprising” would in fact be released as the lead single, and that “United States…” would be the ‘prize’ achieved by completing the ‘treasure hunt’ activity set up by the band, “United States of Eurasia”.^[7] As of 20 July, all six sample segments of the song promised by the treasure hunt have been unlocked by the fan community; a message is currently being displayed on the project page, ordering viewers to report back soon for an “emergency flash briefing.”^[8] The main site then changed the green headline title from “Ununited States of Eurasia” to “United States of Eurasia”.
• At July 20th at approximately 12:00 PM (BST), the treasure hunt site “Ununited States of Eurasia” updated its map to include America and a banner reading “RECOGNITION FROM USA REQUESTED” with co-ordinates to a street in New York where the last phase is being played out. Interestingly, it is the only station that has a timed limit to it for activation and that failure in activating it will result in a Lockdown Crisis Mode which will mobilise “The Resistance”.^[9] A recent Twitter post by Matt in reply to a fan states that US would have the grand finale and that they would have “a tough decision to make”, hinting on the possibility that the final station should not be activated and that United States of Eurasia should not be recognised.^[10][11] Joe Ellis became the first DJ to air the new song on KXLL during his Sunday show on 19th July 2009.^[12]
• Following the conclusion of the treasure hunt on 21 July 2009, the song was made available for download^[13] from the microsite, complete with ending piano sonata “Collateral Damage”, a slightly altered version of Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major Op. 9 No. 2, with additional sounds of playing children, and a jet fighter.

This is the first time I ever edited a Wiki entry! Well, it was just a minor deletion: the original entry read (in the last line) “…and a jet fighter or a missile”. After living in Jurong West for so long, I am absolutely sure it is a jet fighter. If Matthew Bellamy says otherwise, I will quit (Jurong West) and he and Kate Hudson could move over (I read they are looking for a big house, but who says they can’t have an Asian getaway that will further inspire him and his girlfriend) and I can get my S$1000000 COV!

Anyhow, I think critics might have missed the point when they claim that the song’s plugging US of America shamelessly. To the contrary, the song is like an absolute claim which should repel you to argue otherwise (the hint: “+ Collateral Damage”).

That’s innovation there.

Back to the SCT: the next part of it was a serious affair and it was a topic that has always intrigued me. It’s about the law and how we in our position are liable for a lot of things and the only protection we’re going to get is paperwork. Hmmm. I think I should seek clarification, because this can’t be right. I wonder what is our core business.

As I’ve always said, there are loopholes in laws and those who know them will exploit them just so that someone is answerable to their problems (and so, pay up). I wonder what happened to mediation. I remember my law lecturer ethically reminding us that the first thing that should be done in any conflict is to mediate. People will still pay up, sans trauma, if we just mediate, if the claims are indeed true. If the claims are not true, I will counter-sue for libel, if there was a lawsuit earlier. So taking people to court isn’t exactly a fun thing to do.

(Just heard over the news that the Hilton fall case is ruled an accident, and the hotel, though answerable, isn’t responsible. They have accounted for it. I just find it heart-wrenching that the wife subsequently committed suicide.)

(And the Swiss graffiti artist, after appealing his sentence, has an additional two more months to serve in jail.)

What’s up with society? Make peace, not war!

Cai Guo-Qiang’s Head On (2006) is a statement not just about Germany, but also society in general, with its herd-mentality and mindless obedience to “the cause”.

(If you look closely, you will see Ms Tay Li May and her husband looking at something on the wall at the back! Bumped into them by chance.)

(Photographs taken at the National Museum of Singapore on Aug 7, 2010)

The beauty with installation art is at every venue, the vibes you get is different. Check out http://www.caiguoqiang.com/project_detail.php?id=196 for more information. For this exhibition, the path of the wolves take a large portion of the space and it was impossible to capture the entire span in a single-shot, at least not with my camera!

And here’s my favourite shot:

NDP 10: What I do see…

Somehow I’m still stuck with last year’s National Day song (maybe because it has every potential to be ‘creatively’ ridiculed.)

So this is a What-I-do-see list, especially significant after I got my right eye laser-fixed recently and now, like the boy in The Sixth Sense who says “I see dead people”, I see patriotism.

1. There was a N. Korean star on the parade ground; I don’t mean celebrity.

2. The song, Commoners’ Voice (or “Xiao Ren Wu De Xin Sheng”), was awkwardly meshed in the rest of the medley in one segment. Is this a hint at the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots?

3. I thought I saw a frail Chiam being helped to his seat by gentlemanly PAP members. Quite a heart-warming sight.

4. I saw Courts in Jurong Point selling LG karaoke DVD player at S$59, with lots of foreign workers looking interested.

5. Almost wanted to pay S$46 for Merly & Lio cards; I really wanna support the YOG, but with Cash Over Valuation hitting well above S$30k (averaging at S$45k) with crazy China Chinese buyers throwing cold hard cash at property agents, every cent counts for me and I am gathering aluminium sheets to hoard up areas under flyovers. I foresee property prices at these slums to go up.

6. Returning back home in time to catch Kit Chan’s Home, “truly”, touching. Felt like eating rice. Had a really nice homecooked meal in the evening. Fish head curry and steamed fish-tail. Marvellous. Had been a long while since I last ate a homecooked meal. About a few years. I am not exaggerating.

7. Can we pretend that the airplane in the night sky of Jurong West is like a shooting star…

8. Working away the day and the next the same thing every year. Words on the scripts were making me see stars.

9. As soon as the fireworks were over, people in my neighbourhood started burning incense paper. I wondered why, till I saw on the Lunar calendar that the Hungry Ghost Festival had just started. I hope I don’t see dead people.

10. I didn’t know 7-11 sells incense paper and offerings, till recently when I saw them with my own eyes.

Regional Frustrations

I was visibly upset and amused at the same time when I once again am reminded that Ang Mo Kio is not part of Singapore. I was trying to play The Noose in class today and xinmsn, an official initiative between Microsoft and Singapore, told me “the video is not available in my region”. I can access it in Jurong, though.

Unlike Desperate Housewives, which is available on many illegal sites allowed in Ang Mo Kio, The Noose has not and probably will never attain international recognition and so will not be available on any other sites.

Do check this out when you can (or are not in AMK): The Noose 3 Episode 3. It will make you feel proud (or ashamed) to be a Singaporean. Very funny.