The White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington is ostensibly an evening when the president and the press can come together to let their hair down and exchange barbs. But even the president of the most powerful nation on the planet tries to avoid the odd expletive deleted. From the official White House transcript:
"After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me, "Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?" And I said, "Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’" (Laughter and applause.)
Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. (Laughter.) New climate regulations? Bucket. It’s the right thing to do. (Laughter and applause.)"
Doesn't exactly carry the same panache, does it? Granted, it's not as gauche as the pork-chop soup on tap gaffe uttered by another dinner speaker from the Tropics, but we do know some blue noses will be upset if the more accurate term was deployed. Surely the man who can authorise drone strikes on the bad guys shouldn't have to cull his vocabulary. Maybe he does. All said and done, "Bucket, yay, LKY is dead" would make Shakespeare weep.
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Amos runs amok!
ReplyDeleteWoken up to Saturday morning is so much more interesting and thought provoking to read the ANN news than the straits times. This boy continues to keep calm and rock on, while the rest are losing their nerves and composures.
Oh boy, imagine LHL hire Amos to be his angry channeler like Obama did ? Lol
The Amos saga seems like a soap opera that never ends. Boy is an ass and so is the law that got him convicted.
DeleteWhat is soap opera for you is stimulating Nd challenging for him. His bad behaviour could be explained with the right diagnosis. You call him an ass because is the default way to label him superficially. He needs worthy mentors who he can learn positively from and engaged with. Wonder if money and countries are not issue, what would Amos really want now? Would he flourish if he studied with Richard Dawkins? Learn craft with Qyentin Tarantino? More Vegetables for thought?
DeleteKick the bucket - bucket.
ReplyDeleteIs sad when a nation decides to prosecute a child has now resulted in more outbursts and push back. The society has a lot to reflect upon. It has now become a social experimentation for his deeply curious mints outside the classroom.
ReplyDeleteWho has to reflect?
DeleteSingaporeans or PAPigs?
Basket or bucket?..
ReplyDeleteBasket sounds more
interesting!
"Basket" is an euphemism for " Bastard" just as " Fish" is for " Fuck" !
Delete//.. the diaphanous demarcation drawn between vulgarity and obscenity, one has to be careful with choice Anglo Saxon words.//
ReplyDeleteOn point. We are crossing a very narrow grey shades here.
Particularly, with offensiveness without proofs. The latest by AY is a good start point.
For a group of creeds that are so quick to take offence, religious groups that are the first to call foul seem happy enough to dole it out in the other direction. Even the basic tenets of the major faiths, say the eternal reality of Hell for non-believers, could be seen as offensive by those judged worth of being tortured for all eternity simply for getting on with their lives.
And the very predicate of extreme faith – that everybody else lacks a moral compass and is going to suffer tortures for eternity as a result – is fairly offensive (even to me!) – and palpably untrue - by any standard. Once the discussion moves on to specifics, the insults become more pointed; perverts, fornicators, sinners and murderers (homosexuals, unmarried couples, divorcees and anyone involved with abortion, respectively). Their wrath isn’t limited to individuals, entire nations can be written off as corrupt and evil and damned to an eternity of suffering in the blink of an eye and for little apparent reason. In fact no reason, per se, at all.
Many secularists find it offensive too that theists of all stripes assume that there can be no morality without divine instruction, so that could be the first set of offensive comments to go, closely followed by religious opinions on what people should do in the privacy of their own bedrooms and the doctrines of salvation by faith.
As such, what's happening here to the Christians is exactly what's happening to AY all these time. He is offended by these same preaches and should rightly have the basis to file charges against those who continue to "molest" (annoy) his insanity, as he repeatedly articulated. He should have been the one who sue them for religious offensiveness imposed on him.
Since the law said one needs not have proof that the person is offended, and clearly Amos has an even stronger case. He should have just told anyone upfront (if you are going to preach to me without my outright consent) than I can charge you for religious offensiveness. In fact, not only AY, but it opens up a door to a whole gamut of non-believers too.
That, is what the judges have ruled, in my view.
Can't have freedom of religion here, because PAP needs the support of their ever-dwindling conservative vote banks.
DeleteMost people are not asking for Irrational freedom of speech here. All we are questioning is the definition of incurring the wrath of "religious offensiveness" . What exactly is the red line that the state can't spell it out clearly?
DeleteIt is indeed hypocrisy to outwardly call the citizens not to cow to extreme religious terrorists while expecting citizens to readily cow to religious offensiveness at home in the name of harmony!
It's very simple really, if you don't want to get offended by somebody else insulting your religion...then don't have a religion. If a mere mortal like Obama can somehow do it everyday as POTUS, so can your cult venerating an omnipotent god.
DeleteIf you can't handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen, and you also can't have a cake and eat it too.
You are missing the point @3.55
DeleteIf an atheist can be charged for offending religious group , why couldn't an atheist charge a(any) religious groups for offending his sense ? Is the law a one way street?
www.godhatestheworld.com/singapore
"Since the law said one needs not have proof that the person is offended,"
DeleteIt is when the rule of law controlled by vested interests repeatedly challenges and make a mockery of the layperson's commonsense that social mood takes on the determination of regime change. Translated: even spastics will not bet in a kelong match, confirmed and double confirmed ah!
www.ted.com/talks/adora_svitak?language=en
ReplyDeleteWhy would a kid like Adora given space and platform to be heard , but I dark ages in singapore, we want to suppress him ?
Amos Yee used the word "molest", meaning annoy, irritate or pester in an aggressive manner.
ReplyDeleteI would use the word "harassment" instead.
If MINDEF, the outfit that is supposed to defend the tiny country could not defend itself and had to resort to asking the Courts for protection, not agaist invasion of the land but against harasment by an online citizen,
Then Amos Yee has a higher ground to ask the Courts to defend his hapless little privacy and almost non-existent space from continuous harrasment andand mental tortures by assholes disguised as caring adults who "molested" (harassed) him no end.
Is the Law created in the spirit of protecting the weak from the strong, protecting the powerless from the powerful, protecting the small boys from the big bullies, protecting the poor from exploitation of the rich, and protecting the good people against the bad wolves? OR THE OTHER WAY ROUND?
from The Molestation of Vincent Law
DeleteSo right now Vincent is hogging my mother , demanding that I issue a public apology to him and his family, otherwise he would get a lawyer to sue me.
And I think that’s pretty clear enough evidence that Vincent Law, is a charlatan, Vincent Law is huckster, he is a hypocrite and he is a fraud.
He’s standing up for me, he’s fighting for freedom of speech, he’s fighting against the laws that claims that even if somebody lies, mocks or offends a person or large amounts of people, it should not be deemed as a criminal offence.
But now, when the cause that he so boldly advocated, is used unfavorably towards him, he is now threatening to use those exact same laws that he went against, to sue me, and yet you all claim that his intentions were genuine.
But let me tell you Vincent, if you do indeed sue me for defamation,then I’ll sue you for emotional abuse of a child. And seeing how I’m already baselessly deemed as a mentally disturbed teenager, I think the judge will look very favorably to my case.
So there you go. Ah hah! How about that bitch!
Oh and also, unbeknownst to me initially, my mother revealed that there is in fact a 2nd definition of the word ‘molest’. With reference to thefreedictionary.com
mo·lest
(mə-lĕst′)
tr.v. mo·lest·ed, mo·lest·ing, mo·lests
1. To disturb, interfere with, or annoy
And after you’ve read this tale you would know that Vincent did in fact disturb and annoy me. So technically, Vincent didn’t molest me, but yet he did. The beauty of contrarieties in life.
Thanks for the link.
DeleteMy first impression after reading is that Amos just wants to be consulted in decisions that involve him.
Rather than have everyone talk around him as though he does not exist or that his opinions do not matter.
Kind of like the 6.9 million population white paper that was pushed through parliament.
Or maybe the old "Stop at 2 children" policy.
and maybe any other PAP policy you can think of.
No one is going to think any less of Vincent law just because the boy threw him under the bus. in fact the colourful post more than exonerate him from the molest allegations. Whether boy was remorseful l or sincere is irrelevant - since he is clearly incapable of self reflection. Also he y did the same with father who tries to discipline and most just rolled their eyes. Common sense prevails.
ReplyDeleteJust like to say that Amos Yee use of the Word 'molest' seems more suitable than harass.
ReplyDeleteIt is more spiritual or more appropriate in spirit so to say.
Lee Kicked Ye bucket would make Shakespeare and 450k Sinkies weep. But he did make up his bucket list, like no monuments, his red box, his Oxley home, mixing his ashes, etc.
ReplyDeleteLKY had died abd there was no sign to show that he was one with impact.
DeleteHis passing was no different to that of anyone else.
The SGX did not tumble, the World goes on as usual and the Sinkies enjoy their livings as much.
Speculations that that Demise of LKY will cause much consequences were just fear mongering.
Even if a few more at the Top kick the bucket, Sinkies will be hardly affected.
The restaurants and shopping centres will still as busy as ever, maybe even more so.
"Over my dead body" (LKY) sound familiar? "Bucket (list) is Obama's way of saying the same thing, though less colourful. When you are about to "kick the bucket", you prepare a "bucket list". Shakespeare was more refined and subtle than dickhead Cookie, and used euphemism, puns, imagery, allusions, double entendre, play with words. He would have said "cut off his (Amos') 'thing' and put it in his mouth". Ever see cunt, fuck, dick, penis etc in the Bard's vocabulary, but that is not to say that he was not "dirty" or "naughty". "Nothing" is the female genitalia (vulva), thus the play "Much Ado About Nothing". Which is what the Amos episode all about, isn't it?
DeleteWhat do you make of this? MALVOLIO:
By my life, this is my lady's hand these be her very C's, her U's and her T's and thus makes she her great P's.
They can never be obscene and depraved because kids don't understand Shakespeare and moreover Twelfth Night is available in the Library and is an approved MOE text which right thinking parents should encourage their kids to read or maybe not when they realise its C U "n" T making her great Piss.
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