SCDF In The News (Again)

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) announced that it will be conducting an emergency exercise today from 12.30pm to 3pm at the Singapore Sports Hub, including Kallang Wave Mall and Stadium MRT Station. The SCDF said such exercises are part of the on-going efforts to validate and update operational plans and procedures, and the public should not to be alarmed.

What the public should be alarmed about is how the SCDF will be performing their duties in earthquake ravaged Nepal. The SCDF had already sent a 55-man search and rescue team to site, with the first team partnering personnel from Belgium and Spain to cover the Gorkha region, which is near the epicentre of the quake.

Will they be using liquids from a packet drink to put out fires?

Will they cover up the cracks in the floors with Kiwi shoe polish?

Will they be junking perfectly working ironing boards while clearing the debris?

One thing's for sure, they will be documenting their handiwork to show mom they were actually in a disaster area.

Weird To The Very End

Recently a tembusu tree was planted at Duxton Plain Park together with a time capsule intended to be unearthed 50 years later. The time capsule was filled with cards, tributes, newspapers and other tear-jerker memorabilia which marked the North Korean styled week of mourning in March. We won't know what will happen in 2065, but it is unlikely Lim Swee Say - born July 13, 1954 - will still be around to murder the English language.

In his swan song message to the trade unions, Lim urged his troopers to weave technology into manufacturing, services and daily life. "Incorporate" would be a better choice, since sewing takes us back to the bad old days when the textile industry was mainstay of employment. The guy who coined lexicon atrocities like "betterer" and "upturn the downturn" claims that his intent was "not to spoil the language" but simplify communication with the workers. Which makes you wonder what's so complicated about "return our CPF at age 55".

How can someone schooled at Catholic High School and National Junior College - no degree mills, these esteemed halls of learning - produce an output with a, in his own words, "limitation in explaining complicated policies to people"? And still be made cabinet minister, drawing a million smackerooes a year, year after year. Laughing at his own CPF statement along the way.

Last month the outgoing labour chief came up with "futurise", supposed to mean seeking out change instead of yearning for things to remain as they are. This month, he is saying "futurisation" means "early bird catches the worm." If you can figure out which planet this weirdo hails from, we don't really want to know. They should just include his species in the time capsule, and let the future generation of scientists wrack their brains, trying to understand how we even survived 50 years under such Leedership.

War Stories

Last week the fat geezer was called a "fighter". We are not told what exactly he fought for. We do know from his own writings is that he was definitely on the side of those who fought the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army, the MPAJA.

Ex-president Devan Nair once told Melanie Chew that his contact with the MPAJA happened through an untouchable, the pariah Paramanan. He was one of the labourers working for Nair's father, the chief clerk put in charge of a rubber estate. It was a moral dilemma for father and son when thirty Japanese trucks rolled up and demanded the surrender of the labourers. Nair undertook the risk to warn Paramanan during the night. Next morning, the Japanese found only old ladies and babies, everybody else had fled to the jungle.

There were 15 people who had been involved with Paramanan and the MPAJA. Father and son included. If Paramanan was caught and succumbed to torture, they would be finished. The horribly mutilated corpse of Paramanan was later found, thrown out of the Kempeitai headquarters like discarded trash.

Parmanan had not revealed any names. What Nair found incredible was that "an unlettered, illiterate, lowly born pariah, enduring the most cruel Japanese torture" had saved their lives. He saw it as one more reason to reject one hated man's views on genetics and intelligence. You can give a man all the paper qualifications in the world, he said, it will not make a difference. Don't even get started with the bogus certificates from degree mills which the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) seems to accept with alacrity.

Safety First

It looks like it will be quite a while before we stop hearing stories about the dead guy.

Former top Australian golf professional Alan Murray was talking about the time on the course when he was swinging with the VVIP and wondering where his ubiquitous security attachment was. He hit a couple of wayward shots that drove him into the bushes and an epiphany:

"When  we started I was surprised that I could not see any of his security men following him. Only when I hit into the bushes and went to look for my ball that I discovered they were around, behind the trees."

Murray was bowled over, "That's efficiency. Now I know why Singapore is a safe and secure place."

Some will call it a waste of resources, policing an exclusive golf course where only those elites who can afford the exorbitant green fees are allowed to romp on the manicured grass. Instead of protecting the vulnerable like the 27-year-old woman researcher who was slashed while walking along a poorly lit and derelict path linking Biomedical Grove to Commonwealth Drive. The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) belatedly issued a circular to its staff advising them not to use the shortcut leading from Biopolis to Commonwealth MRT Station. Contrary to what the tourist promotion board likes to crow about, not all Singapore streets are safe to walk alone. Swallow the official spiel at your own peril.

Food For Thought

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind” is a quote oft attributed to non-violence champion Mahatma Gandhi. Fred R. Shapiro, editor of the Yale Book of Quotations (YBQ), has more to contribute on the subject: "The Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence states that the Gandhi family believes it is an authentic Gandhi quotation, but no example of its use by the Indian leader has ever been discovered."

Apparently an important biographer of Gandhi, Louis Fischer, used a version of the expression when he wrote about Gandhi’s approach to conflict. Fischer used the expression himself as part of his explanation of Gandhi’s philosophy. Some readers may have decided to directly attribute the saying to Gandhi based on a misreading of Fischer’s works.

There is a more authoritative biblical injunction in the Book of Exodus: "And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (King James Version, Chapter 21, Verses 23, 24).

We are not sure from which entity, God or mammon, ex-pastor and General Secretary of the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) Dr William Wan derived his inspiration when he included following in a press statement (which was not published in the mainstream media):

"Tasteless videos and posts are no excuse for responding with vindictive attacks and threats of unspeakable violence. There is a difference between objecting, however strongly, to something that offends us, and meting out an eye for an eye, or worse."

SKM was pretty sure Dr Wan did send a letter expounding on said position to one of the local papers, before conveniently going away on leave. That's how serious discussions on religious topics can be in this town. Remember, local doctrine has it that the little boy's sin is criticising a religious figure, not the dead political one.

[Interesting aside: anon@4/24/2015 12:39 PM is theorising that the choice of banana is a mockery of the cookie monster determined on stuffing phallic shapes into oral cavities. More research may be needed here; the precocious child could be experimenting with different shapes, wondering why sycophants have a fascination with oblong elongated objects, instead of the natural banana contours.]