Kudos to TTSH for not participating in this duplicity. NUH, SGH and CGH are led by vile hospital administrators. This is going to cost the PAP support, and what for? It is just stupid politics.
I was talking to an old friend whose kids are all doctors and serving in rural areas. Former Singaporeans we have lost, good ones. What we have at home running those three hospitals, I wish they get the boot.
Saw this first thing in the morning. What I heartening post! We are spoiled until we don't want to be. Many of us are like that. We will come together and do the right thing but not during normal complacent times. May we never lose this in ourselves.
At his last woodstock for capitalism Warren Buffett declared he was confident there would not be a trade war between the US and China. I think it time for him to get ready to eat those words. The craziness of Trump must have appalled the wise man.
Who should I quote? More than a few of his cabinet secretaries have called him a moron or idiot.
Beyond the shadow of a doubt he is reckless and stupid. That was what I came away feeling after just reading the Prologue of Bob Woodward's book, "FEAR".
Trump claims himself a Christian. Now if you go to the Bible he will checked every single test of what a fool is. Full marks!
Time for US leaders to put country before president. You all have sworn an oath to do that. Alas there are some mad advisers especially in trade. There are sucker losers who do not know they are cutting their noses to spite their face to stand behind this buffoon.
Found this picture in Sunday Times yesterday. Shared it with a couple of friends telling them that it reminded me of those times when our elder daughter would sometime cradle her younger infant sister.
She has never bullied her younger sister but have always protected and looked out for her. They are young adults now.
Ten years ago we were living in Dubai and the kids were still young. Today they have become young adults. Ten years ago the world changed for many and this morning I spent some time taking it in with the stuff PBS is putting out to do a stock take of then and now.
It's an American story because I think I have seen this before in their history. But they are so bad at knowing where and how they got to be, so they are repeating history. Also structure breeds behavior, in that sense it could not be helped.
First I got this from BookBub which I had no time to look at until this morning.
Then searching on the author I found these a our eLibrary.
and "Chinese Cinderella" which I quickly reviewed the first chapter brought back memories of my mother's childhood. Just like Adeline, her mother also passed away and she had to live unloved with a step mother. She eventually "escape" to live with her late mom's sister. She must have felt unwanted. But it did not stop there and instead brought me back to primary school when during one music lesson the teacher taught us this song which shocked and left an indelible mark on me.
"Nobody's Child" effortlessly reconnected me to an unusual manuscript I read days ago. I think the book is going to be very well received if the writer can market it successfully - you know the trial of a new author. Now as I see how the book had stayed with me in my subconscious instead of fading away, it might even be a best seller if it has the same effect on other readers as well.
Nobody's child was born blind and rejected but a non-speaker would be born deaf mute right? This is a handicap but not as grave as born blind. I think that is how my subconscious must be connecting them except that Non-Speaker is not about that at all. In fact it is worse than nobody's child. It is being nothing.
May K the author told me she has made Chapter 1 available online and a very limited way I am trying to help since this is Blogging for Myself.
Chapter One reads like the equivalent of Adeline Yen's "Chinese Cinderella"
Chapter one reveals May K's unexpectedly imaginative device she used to tell this story by inventing a new relationship between humans and birds. The plot then unfolds in surprising ways.... but in a note to myself earlier, I summarized it as:
In Falconia, your social class is assigned by the birds you can speak to. The lowest of the lowly speak to the humble sparrows, nobles talk to the various birds of prey, the rest of humanity in between. If you can't speak to any bird, you are a non-speaker, a nobody worse than India's Dalits. This is the story of struggle against class, for resilience, courage, friendship and finally between war and peace. It is a story about honour and sacrifice.
That was the macro angle. At the personal level, "Non-Speaker" is about telling the story of how we sometimes feel about ourselves and our hopes without admitting them to others. It can be a metaphorical story for your aspirations and also keeping them private as well. Everyone should find and own their fairy tale and approximate it for reality.
Clever fellow this Jack Ma. He once said this about the government and the CCP: Good to fall in love but do not marry. As Xi Jinping presses on to make many firms wives and concubines of the Party, Jack Ma has shrewdly decided to end the relationship in style. Indeed 拿得起放得下, most of the other tycoons are not able to do that. Quite a few are in the doghouse. More will follow.
Jack Ma will focus on education. For China there are many low hanging fruits he can pluck to make education better. It is an area he can still be in love with the Party and not marry. LOL! It is a good place to stay rich, burnish your image as a public saint and the Party cannot touch you. Recall Tan Kah Kee education philanthropy.
Received this message shortly after midnight this morning.
I see it is equating Christian with Citizen eh?
Another similar request hours later. In fact I am expecting more of such from my Christian friends. Since this one arrived at a more sanely hour, I responded as follows.
But I must give credit to my response to a book manuscript I have recently reviewed: Non-Speaker.
I quote from relevant bit of the book:
Exactly as I responded to the message that this is a question between the past and the future. The public quarrel that is happening is just partisan and narrow minded. May K, "Non-Speaker" is worth a read. You can read chapter one online for free.
Update: 7:10 pm
This is not a discussion of the future but fear mongering by the Christians. It is borrowing thoughtlessly entirely from the US experience which is a different environment from ours. You can suggest such possibilities but you must also explain how repealing 377A gets us from here to there. Then you are not fear mongering but meaningfully discussing the future. Otherwise it is just a mischievous way for hijacking the future for your hate agenda but having said so, the LGBT idea of love isn't what I think love is either. We don't want to be used by either camp to advance the agenda of either side. Live and let live. We are a secular state and we fashion a future as guided by our national pledge.
Update: Sep 9 9:25 am
I mentioned in the main post and an earlier post the heart of the issue over 377A is not what the LGBT community or the Christians have put up but our future which the government if failing to provide leadership because they have set themselves up as the only entity that could to that.
Alaric Tan story in the Sunday Times is locked up behind a paywall. No point providing a link to it. Pondering over it I thought about the future of this growing community of LGBTs. We either learn to live with them or continue to persecute them, keep them underground and pretending not to see which is no longer tenable. It is also evil and who are we to judge them? As Blaise Pascal pointed out the world consists of only two types of people: Righteous people who think they are sinners and sinners who think they are righteous. I am afraid many Christians belong to the latter. On the other hand LGBTs are no saints themselves. Homosexuality is a sin and all of us are sinners too, mostly fashionable sins and feel guilt free about them. What we need are righteous people who think they are sinners. These are the types of people who know we are different so we are one.
By definition political leaders which our ministers style themselves as, must lead. Meanwhile politicians everywhere in the world look at opinion polls which may I remind ourselves LKY and his colleagues disdained.
Take a stand on this issue. Lead! Persuade! Even the western politicians do that, which you have often disparage. But you are so afraid of losing power. Singapore is more important than your ministerial careers.
Lawrence Wong and his colleagues do not understand that the public is emotional and illogical. Also it is a fool's errand to try to level with their minds when it is the hearts that is ruling. On top of that the public think it is rational. Good luck.
Of course the HDB flat on 99-year lease was sold to us. If the flats were always appreciating in value, people will consider it an asset and owners. If it at any point it stops doing so then isn't. Buyers of BTO flats definitely do not consider themselves renters but will joke about it as 99 years rentals.
Every magic pill if given enough time becomes a poison pill. Too bad in politics you haven't understood this and have prepared new magic pills. Now I can see them trying very hard to turn poison pills into magic pills again with HIP and VERS. You just have to be creative with the national finances knowing that perception is reality.
Update: Sep 5 6:20 am
Yes, the value will never drop if we are even more successful that we are today. Also if we are even less successful than now, not only will the value of old flats fall, even new ones will be sold at a bargain. That was the most important point in LKY's message. The prices of our flats is the measure of our success spread around. If the prices are high it must be accompanied by our young earning far higher incomes than they do now, which is not the case.
We were promised great, the best government but we only got the good or compared to other countries, the least worst. So the promise "Your HDB home value will never drop" could not be kept.
The government can solve this problem fundamentally but it doesn't know how. They will be forced to used clever financial engineering to redistribute wealth and various indirect taxes to keep the value of our flats up. The highest political cost to them will be meted out if they fail to do that.
Happened to pass by 107 Neythal Road today and noticed an office building which was very familiar to me. I was here twice for internship during my NUS days. They no longer do cathodic protection any more. It is now occupied by Richport Technology.
With the PAP you mustn't trust until you verify that they can be trusted. It is issues specific. With Dr. Thum and his compatriots you can't trust them at all.
Indeed Seah Kian Peng might be guilty of contextomy regarding Dr. Thum but I don't see why they should be reaching out to Mahathir at all who is always waiting and eager to do us in. He is no good for Malaysia in the sense that at this moment he is less bad than Najib, which is a pretty low standard to beat.
Update: 8:00 pm
As expected, "Seah appeared to have misunderstood" and that was first published in the ST at 3:49 pm and updated at 6:04 pm
