Sorry Also Must Apologise

Bipolar disorder is a condition in which people switch back and forth between periods of a very good or positive mood and downright depressive states of negativism.  The nature and severity of mood swing episodes experienced depends on the individual; the range is often described as the bipolar spectrum.

A contrite Baey Yam Keng told parliament yesterday, "It was never my intention to undermine Singaporeans. But to those whose feelings my words have hurt, I am sorry." This is the guy who told us not to jump to the conclusion that all foreign students are like the obnoxious Sun Xu who insulted our senior citizens and insinuated that "there are more dogs than people in Singapore." In a rare moment of clarity, he mouthed, "I do not think that we can just treat all the negative sentiments towards foreigners as noise."

Just when you start to feel bad about sending him to the dog house for siding with the PRC free loader and not standing up for fellow Singaporeans, he makes you wince again by reverting to attack dog mode:
"If we care too much about what people call us, we will find it difficult to be more than the stereotype or inaccurate label. Let us be confident and quietly proud of ourselves, of what we are."

We may overlook the bad choice of words from a Chinese national linguistically challenged in the English vernacular, but Baey is the Managing Director (promoted effective 4th January, 2011) of Hill & Knowlton, a global public relations company with the corporate boast: "We create value by shaping conversations: we start them, we amplify them, we change them. We can connect seamlessly with all of your audiences." His boss, Regional President & COO Vivian Lines, must be wringing his hands why he ever let him replace Jimmy Tay, who was named PR Agency Head of the Year at the Asia Pacific PR Awards 2009. Surely a humble copywriter would have done a better job than the doggone China lover.

Food For Thought

The eatery at Teban Gardens was one of the few places where you can buy a plate of chicken or char siew rice for $2. Not exactly a balanced meal, since the only vegetable is a few slices of thin cucumber, typical hawker fare to tide over the hunger pangs until time for a more substantial meal at home or elsewhere. With such paltry ingredients, the profit margin should be quite handsome, except for the overheads. Without the airconditioning, large screen TVs and pleasant ambiance, the humble hawker may not have the volume to make ends meet.The national panel chaired by “social entrepreneur” Elim Chew for new hawker centres suggested integrating community space and childcare centres as part of the draw factor. Problem is, the cost of these extras will probably end up in the price of the meal. Don't forget, the guys in charge always remind us that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Once upon a time, hawkers were given licences on the basis they need to make a living in spite of their lack of education or better paying skills. For the rest of us, they provide a source of cheap meals. Those who can afford the XO Sauce know where else to head to. And good riddance to them.

Along the way, “entrepreneurs” have come into the picture, making money by subletting, or turning hawker outlets into restaurant chains. Food courts now boast exotic cuisine, rivalling the seafood prices at tourist trap Newton Circus. 

Here's the worry factor: NTUC Foodfare CEO Perry Ong, who is also in the same panel chaired by Ms Chew, is already eyeing the profit opportunity, “if the Government feels we could potentially add value or possibly co-run it, we will be happy to consider it.” NTUC was originally mandated as a co-operative to provide affordable groceries for the general population. Nowadays, penny pinching housewives head for Giant or Sheng Siong to stretch their dollar. Unless you are keen on fresh air flown oysters from New Zealand on sale at upmarket NTUC Finest, which aims at “bringing the fine life closer to shoppers”. You can probably pick up the XO Sauce there.

Truth Hurts

Baey Yam Keng famously declared "By the way, I am born in the year of the dog" when he dashed to the defence of PRC scholar Sun Xu. Latter was the target of much odium when he coined the other equally despicable phrase, “There are more dogs than people in Singapore.” PM Lee said being poor in Singapore is no fun, but is a dog's life any better?

The mainstream media went overboard on Sunday to paint a pretty picture of how dogs have it good in Singapore - all the abandoned animals photographed were in the pink of health. Law and Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam got into the act when he and his wife Seetha adopted a cute puppy on Saturday at the Animal Welfare Symposium at Chong Pang Community Club - lucky pooch, it will be residing in a millionaire's home. Non-canine observers were more keen to scrutinise the Minister's number two wife, the first time anyone ever got to see her in real life, and know of her name in print.

Dogs didn't get good press in George Orwell's book. There the dogs represent the military/police. Shortly after the last revolution, several pups were stolen from their mothers and groomed and trained to protect dictatorial Napoleon from a second potential by-election revolution, and help perpetuate his rule. It is not difficult to recognise similar characters in our socio-political stage. Other animals on our little red farm have their own battles to fight.

Lesser mortals working class like the baby boomers must empathise with Boxer the plodding horse, who ended up at the glue factory after a life-time of struggle. Always portrayed as a dedicated worker, but as possessing a less-than-average intelligence, hence the constant talking down to. Occasionally the spurs are dug in for a spurt of required productivity. The novel accurately describes the horses as being "most faithful disciples" and that they "absorbed everything that they were told [by the pigs], and passed it on to the next generation by "simple arguments".

The pig in the book is Squealer, representing the Russian media, who spreads Stalin's version of the truth to the masses. We all recognise the similarities in the MSM.

The Quieter One

One thing seems clear these days. If you want to hide something from the internet - you're only likely to make it more widely available, so you're often better off not stirring the hornet's nest. That's what Mike Masnick wrote about Barbara Streisand's legal effort to have the photo of her Malibu beach house removed from the internet. The futile exercise that gave us the Streisand Effect.

Do the people who hire the lawyers realize that the act of trying to repress something they don't like to read online is likely to cause it to be read by many more people, including people who may not have bothered to know about it anyway? The move by Lee Hsien Yang, younger brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and second son of Lee Kuan Yew, just days after PM Lee demanded a website to apologise for a post that alleged nepotism in the appointment of the premier's wife as head of Temasek Holdings, has set off a stampede of keyboard junkies scouring the internet to locate the offending bits.

Since most of the limelight has been on elder brother, little is known of Lee Hsien Yang - unlike a politician's, his personal life is his private affair. Interviewed years ago by Major Leong Choon Cheong, compiler of the book "Youth in the Army", he considered himself "more at home with numbers than with words"(page 188). He told the author, "I can't tolerate a poet friend". His wife is the one who works with words, a very talented lawyer in her own right, and daughter of Lim Chong Yah, the professor of economics who gave us the National Wage Recommendations (NWC).

Less is known about why he suddenly resigned from Singtel in July 2006, a job that paid as much as $2.2 million in a good year. "It's certainly surprising, it's not something they've been telegraphing," was the reaction then of Hugh Young, managing director at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore. Even more surprising was the ex-CEO's parting remark, "At this point in time I really have no idea where I will be going." When he signed on with Fraser & Neave as business consultant for $1 million, even his father was surprised: "That's not a full-time job." "Yes," he explained, "but I'm also going to manage my portfolio." So he went to Fraser & Neave and managed his portfolio, wrote Lee Kuan Yew ("Hard Truths", page 415). Life is full of surprises.

If the legal tussle had proceeded on to court, even the kopitiam crowd will have something to yak about. Unfortunately the website has decided not to "vigorously resist Mr Lee's demands", its lawyer having discharged himself after claiming to fight "in defence of the freedom of expression in cyberspace." The offending comment posted on the website has been removed, nobody knows what the fuss was all about, leaving an open field for speculators to run wild with their imagination. The frustrated keyboard sleuths, at least the pissed-off ones, swamped the website with some 300 comments, postings that were allegedly outright "defamatory and seditious." Since everything online is being purged, rumour mongering will just have to revert to the good old fashion grapevine.

Of Dogs And Men

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education Sim Ann disclosed in Parliament that about 800 pre-tertiary and 900 undergraduate students from non-Asean countries are awarded scholarships to study here each year, awards costing Singapore taxpayers $14,000 for pre-tertiary students and between $18,000 and $25,000 for undergraduates. This is on top of the 150 scholarships Education Minister Heng Swee Keat earlier confirmed are given out gratis to students from ASEAN countries at the pre-tertiary level and another 170 at the undergraduate level. One of the recipients is Sun Xu from Suzhou, Chiangsu, China.

Sun Xu (孙旭) posted the following on China's microblog "Weibo" on Saturday, 18 Feb 2012.

His rant was basically about accidentally bumping into senior Singapore citizens, and ended up being the subject of angry stares and muted mutterings. Which led him to conclude, "There are more dogs than humans in Singapore.”

MP of Tampines GRC Baey Yam Keng has now shown us where he stands on the dastardly aliens in our midst, "We need to reflect, are we the way that they described?"

And what exactly is that, Mr Baey? That our senior citizens are deserving of the derogative descriptive “瘪三” ? Or that Singaporeans are a "bunch of 挫逼"? Maybe he is simply in agreement with the PRC scholar that, "There are more dogs than humans in Singapore”, alluding to the 60.1% of running dogs that put him into office. Sadly, someone else also used the same pejorative on us Singaporeans.

"Mine is a very matter-of-fact approach to the problem. If you can select a population and they're educated and they're properly brought up, then you don't have to use too much of the stick because they would already have been trained. It's like with dogs. You train it in a proper way from small. It will know that it's got to leave, go outside to pee and to defecate. No, we are not that kind of society. We had to train adult dogs who even today deliberately urinate in the lifts." - Lee Kuan Yew, 1997

It is easy to see why these foreign nationals are emboldened to openly attack us, biting the very hand that feeds them. And we thought only animals are capable of such behavior.