Aww, poor widdle PAS...

... did those nasty proselytisers hurt you?

No?

Then why do I see in the Today paper there'll be stiffened penalties like whippings, jail terms and fines for them? As if the PAS is afraid Islam is not true enough to compete with other religions for the minds and hearts of its believers. Even the Koran admits in Sura 2:11, "there shall be no compulsion of religion..."

Another reason moderates shouldn't believe everything the higher-ups say... but c'mon, why is the only outcry over religious freedom (or the lack thereof) from non-Muslims? Frankly, if there was a moderate Islamic stand on the Lina Joy case a few months back I think I missed it.

It's been time for them to speak out long, long before 9/11. Singapore's own community can only do so much from across the causeway...

So here's what I propose. I've no problem with Islam remaining the state religion--as long as it recognises the right of individual people to choose which faith they wish to belong to. Orson Scott Card's essay on the concept says much more than I can on the subject... but Muslim moderates who know the way forward... I can't hear you!

The Stooopidity of it all...

I hope Singapore is far, far behind what some Americans are capable of.

http://truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/abc-jesus.htm
http://truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/abc-practice.htm

On a side note, a friend of mine who worked for a GLC (shh) told me about the seedier side of call centres--if a customer is kept waiting for long enough, eventually NOBODY will pick up the call.Why not? He's bound to be pissed off. And no call centre temp would want to speak to a pissed-off person, would they?

I needn't say more. So much for "customer service"... what the heck. And these are the companies we trust our electronic lifeblood to?

For a friend...

Dear Lord,

I’m praying for Andrew. I’ll keep it short—I don’t know details, I don’t know much about his condition—but here’s what I know, and what I want to say for now.

You made it pretty clear to Job we’re not qualified to ask for explanations, go to a Court of Appeal, or say, “If I were in charge, I’d have...”

But seriously. Your servant, Lord, has spent less than 2 decades in this life—less than I have, and certainly had a long future ahead of him—serving You, worshipping with his brothers and sisters, growing to be the salt and light of the world as You call those who follow You to be. Is this the destiny You have for him, Father? I sure hope not...

You may know what happened, but I don’t and the cell hasn’t told me yet. The details are sketchy, the future uncertain (for those of us yet to find it out), the operations dicey. I hear the chances are 50-50, and I’ve just felt my hp vibrate again. Another update. I’m going to take it, and when I finish... anyway, Lord, it’s a balance that can go either way. Remind us, Father in heaven, that You hold the entire darned scale in Your hands.

And I ask You to tip it our way.

The way of Andrew’s recovery. The way of hope. The way of someday.

Someday, your servant looking back on this day as the dawn of another chance, not the end but the beginning of the rest of his life. For You are good, O Lord, and in Your presence is correction and righteousness and fullness of joy.

That’s why the language is from my heart, as fervently as I can type this on a shaky lecture-desk in NUS, (for now) minus editing, minus polish. A little irreverent... but Lord, as long as it’s You correcting me, You healing our brother, and Your hand guiding us as we go along—that’s more than enough.

These paragraphs may be disjointed, they may ramble, they may not have the urgency or lyrical beauty of Job haranguing with his friends. But Father, let these prayers form a request—a request that Your healing power come upon Andrew, body and soul, brain and mind. For if anyone can help, if anyone can comfort and heal at this point in time, it is You alone.

Guide him that he not lose heart, not lose sight of you, and remember you are behind him in the battle for life. Have his brain cells heal, the swelling fade, his blood replenish, his heart beat for You once more... as You have done before and will do again.

Guide his family in their time of uncertainty and anguish—that brothers and sisters in You can come alongside them and carry their burden. Guide them that they not lose sight of You as the One who loves, touches and heals, an everlasting help in time of trouble... if I might presume to bring to mind one of the psalms in Your Word.

[Of course, 75% of the psalms are complaints and lamentations. So maybe we’re not so alone after all.]

I don’t know the depths of their pain and uncertainty over the future, and I pray I never will... but Your healing hand and size ever bigger than our problems are needed more than ever before.

Guide the doctors and surgeons, who labour daily to monitor and bring Your power to heal into his body. May their hands move under Your will, their minds focused and sharpened, the saving complete so we and they may rejoice together one day.

And guide us, Andrew’s family in Your service, on what to do to bring Your light to them. May Your direction be clear, Your orders followed, Your name praised in all we do. Apart from You, O Lord, we have nothing.

In short...

HEAVENLY FATHER, PLEASE, PLEASE HEAL OUR BROTHER. Amen.

Restaurants and more Reilly books

“Then the night grew deathly quiet, his face lost all expression
He said, ‘if you’re gonna play the game boy, you gotta learn to play it right.’”

-- Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

I am in mourning—my favourite chicken restaurant is dying. Of attempted (I hope) suicide.

Attempted and committed are not the same thing. Committed means the act succeeded.

I remember back when I was a kid of fifteen, and I’d go with the youth group to the Kenny Rogers’ Roasters outlet at Century Square. Later I went with my mom and bro, and get rotisserie-roasted chicken with meat cooked to perfection. Nutritionists say the skin has twice as much fat as the meat, but it was so well-done I didn’t care.

If nutrition has ever mentioned exceptions to the “tastes good, bad for you, tastes bad, good for you” rule, I’d love to hear them. (Just kidding; don’t write in with them.)

But am I the only one who remembers you could get a quarter-chicken set with two side dishes (chicken-diced whipped potato beside salty, creamy macaroni and cheese, mmm), warm soup and a cool drink for 12 bucks? We’d go there week after week, listening to Rogers’ rasp and reading menus and faces in the half-darkness.

Then the Century Square outlet closed, and I learned once again that change is the only constant in life. I swallowed it and moved on.

Fast-forward 6 years—I’m 21 for a moment, to paraphrase Five for Fighting—and looking for a new laptop at Suntec City when lo and behold, a Roasters outlet showed up at the basement. I decided I’d splurge and indulge in some good ol’ memories… but I realized something was wrong when my meal ended up costing SGD16.30.

What? What?!? But I handed the money over, and wondered if it was my imagination telling me the Kenny’s Famous Corn Muffin was smaller than I remembered.

Then a month later I brought my brother. It’s a LONG walk to Suntec from City Hall, and we were grumbling at the crowd when we found the place was under renovation. That didn’t help.

Now it seems they’ve just opened, and I fear they’ve not only stuck a carving knife into their chests, but twisted it.

Let me start with the décor. It wasn’t the Kenny Rogers experience I’m used to, with rough bricks, jade walls, and neon-lit song titles above our heads in dim lighting your eyes have to adjust to but makes the plate before you look oh-so-delicious. That, brothers and sisters, is DEAD. In its place was generic whitewashed wall, harsh fluorescence, and packets of some unknown brand of cereal in recesses on the wall.
And the ordering process is a pain if I ever felt one. We ordered a chicken-wing set only to have the staff mistake it for the lunch menu. Then the order of the lady before me got a little mixed up, as if the staff themselves didn’t know much more than we did. When everything got straightened out we ran into another bottleneck, the stupidest of all.

The cutlery was placed vertically downward.

Here’s a quick geometry refresher—a cylindrical container necessitates placing items vertically. But when said container is opaque, plus customers fresh from handing over their Yusof Ishaks… now they have to lean over and peer in to see if the sticks of metal visible to the eye end in skewer points, a scoop, or a blade.

Yeah, I know it takes a few seconds. But why not save them when you can?

I haven’t even got to the food, and I’m sad to report the renovation made the Kenny Rogers lunch worse, not better. Until the chain gets its act together, I’m saving my money. The chicken isn’t so tender anymore, and the side dishes come in annoying little bowls starched white like every other nook and cranny of the restaurant. Urrgh. I’ve never been able to conceive of rotisserie chicken separated from thick, gooey cheese—but now I can.

Great move, Roasters. I’ll still give your other outlets a chance—but let’s not push that knife in any further, shall we?

#

Fads and fashions must someday end, their slaves rushing to embrace new masters every turn of a very, very fickle cycle somebody with The Power decides on. We then rush to feed Them with money, money and more money.

I say this because I am extremely jealous of Matthew Reilly.

As in Australian thriller writer Matthew Reilly.

Why oh why can’t I write like that? His first novel, Contest, was spotted by executives at Pan Macmillian after self-publication... and soon he had hit the big time, churning out the most outlandish thrillers I’ve had the misfortune to pick up.

I read Contest. And now I am hooked. A writer-friend of mine took one read, and came away with a one-word review.
Woah...

Contest never lets up the action with its tale of a young doctor and his daughter trapped in the New York State Library, which for just one night will serve as the venue of a battle-to-the-death match between seven people... and our MD has been chosen to take part. I finished the entire book in three hours—it was so tight, so focused, so how-are-we-going-to-get-out-of-this I got very little swimming done the day I brought it to the pool.

Make no mistake—this was a young writer of great power, drive and the ability to tell a genuinely terrifying, edge-of-your-seat story of adventure and survival.

(Did I mention it was science fiction?)

Then I tried Ice Station, in which Reilly tells us all about his new hero, Lieutenant Shane M. “Scarecrow” Schofield... the man who made me use was in my review of Contest. Reilly’s “Scarecrow Trilogy”, Ice Station, Area 7 and finally Scarecrow packs more impossible, James Bond-worthy escapades into each book than most writers do in their lifetimes. Supposedly it’s set in our world, and as such Reilly doesn’t feel bound by the “one impossible thing at a time” rule in—you know—science fiction.

SF these works are not. The writer of Contest now plays fast and loose with the very fabric of possibility, throwing in crossbow-wielding French commandoes, a spaceship hidden under the Antarctic ice, and (literally) killer whales swimming in the water under the besieged Wilkes Ice Station. All the while I couldn’t stop taking in the stupidity of it all. A lesser writer would have made me toss the book aside.

But I couldn’t.

You see, Reilly doesn’t just throw in mindless whiz-bang action for its own sake—it’s mindless whiz-bang action for a higher goal.

Letter to Mr. Policeman, liberal-smashing, and my new camera

“We are a force for the nation, ensuring the security, survival and success of Singapore, and helping to build it into our best home. We are a police force that inspires the world.
We are united with the community. We care for and serve the community that we work in and with.”

-- The Shared Vision of the Singapore Police Force


Dear Mr. Policeman,

I never thought I’d treat this salutation as more than the title of my Sec 2 Moral Ed textbooks, but I’m so sorry.

I’m sorry the ability to keep our citizens safe has been taken away from you. I’m sorry the violent people who prowl our streets have the ability to attack with impunity, so long as “life” not be in danger (by the terribly shaky definition of “grievous hurt” lawyers have such a great time arguing over). I’m sorry they can now spit phlegm and vomit on the image of individual and community safety, and defile with their actions the harmony our leaders have so carefully built up.

If the ordinary man-in-the-street can lose four teeth to an assailant without you being able to do anything about it, I worry.

I worry for the superiors the force sees fit to place over you. Don’t they realise crime is more than white-collar embezzlement, more than walking about naked in one’s own home? Yet when there are assaults leading to permanent hurt, and spousal abuse under the guise of “family discipline” every night, and you have to walk away because your superiors have determined for you what is a seizable event and what isn’t... it isn’t only my safety I worry about.

It’s the country’s.

I’m not here to speculate on what could cause a policewoman to give away her service pistol to a cheat whose story stinks to high heaven, or a thug to gain the ability to attack innocents with impunity... but I simply want to make a statement with my stupid, non-elite head.

The Singapore Police Force exists to protect Singaporeans. Full stop.

My non-elite thinking leads me to operate under the assumption that ordinary citizens like me are the ones the SPF was created specifically to protect, to ensure I can move about, eat, work and sleep without fear of somebody harassing me, breaking into my house, or threatening my safety—and if they do, that justice be seen to be done and the offenders taken to face whatever music they deserve under our law. The scholarship holders they put over you, Mr. Policeman, don’t patrol the streets themselves, and don’t get their hands dirty and see the violence men can do to each other. Are these the kind of people the Singapore Police Force puts above field officers like you? If so, don’t let their petty distinction between offences stop you from investigating—as the ones on the scene, your power to stop and protect is the most immediately seen.

I don’t have the money for a lawyer. I don’t have hours and hours free to find out for myself what I should be being told outright. And I'm sure I join the average Singaporean in not caring a s**t about the difference between a police report, a magistrate’s complaint, or somebody taking the law into their own hands. (If the law isn’t in your hands, Mr. Policeman’s, it’s in somebody’s. And if that somebody has no compunction about harming people who annoy him in the slightest...) And I highly doubt any victim of a crime will be in a much of a frame of mind to listen to some half-wit exposition of the differences between a police report and a magistrate’s complaint. Not everyone has a degree in law—or the patience to do a filing clerk’s work for him. Why not simply classify reports into magistrates’ complaints and those requiring further investigation at the station proper? To us, a police report is a police report is a police report. Please, Mr. Policeman, remind your superiors of this.

And if it were a foreigner—say, a Caucasian visitor on business—who made a police report? I’m not sure he’d be told to make a “magistrate’s complaint”, whatever in the world that is.

That’s right, I’m bringing out the old “colonialist” card. But it’s something I hope to stand corrected on.

I may not know as much as the Cornell grad in your HQ’s HQ’s HQ, but I do know this—a fist in the face hurts, but what hurts a helluva lot worse is being abandoned and the attacker set free by the very people I entrust my life and safety to every day.

So, Mr. Policeman... it’s your authority on the “offence” scene. Not the lawmakers’, not Parliament’s, not the rapidly-promoted scholarship holders who see so little action they think the entire world conforms to the laws they stuff into their heads.

So let us (“us” including Singaporean and foreigner alike) see you using it, and giving us citizens the safety and peace of mind your posters and mission promise. The country—non-elites included—will thank you for it.

#

Somebody will always take you to task if you speak from the gut. That’s why rhetoric like you find on http://takeastandagainstliberals.blogspot.com/ is so refreshing—it says for me what I have the civic-mindedness not to.

Its author is Jenn, a lady with decidedly anti-Democrat views and who’s not afraid to come out swinging, and heaven help anyone in her way. Singaporeans may find it irreverent, inspiring or anywhere in between, but she at least stands up and yells “Wrong!” Check out especially the post “Tokyo Rose”, in which celebrities today eerily echo the seductive Japanese propagandist of World War II.

In short, Jenn is like a conservative version of Christian Internet evangelist Jack T. Chick—extreme, unyielding, sometimes taking liberties with the record... but inspiring nevertheless. Now I don’t agree with all she says—some of her reported events are dubious at best, the action she supports sometimes downright offensive—but she is coming from the right place, with logic and rationality and a colourful flair for the English language to boot. Not to mention graciously exposing the hypocrisy right under our noses, such as when moderate Muslims in America somehow don’t denounce the oppression of other faiths by radicals who will stop at nothing short of utter Islamisation—by their very unpleasant definition.

(Yes, I faithfully read Chick’s material for a few years before the MDA banned his website. C’mon, it’s for Singaporean parents to teach their children to decide for themselves what they can or can’t read, not the MDA’s to stuff down EVERYONE’s throats.)

Those who are easily offended can either go elsewhere... or sit down and READ. Just don’t expect to leave without a thicker skin.

#

I love my new Samsung NV3 digital camera, even though I’ve never used some of its more... let’s say, unusual functions. “I need a camera that plays music,” comments one reviewer on GearAxis Unwired, “like I need a toaster that also vacuums the carpet.”

I didn’t know I’d bought a mag carrying a review before I bought the camera, but it doesn’t matter now—its pics are razor-sharp, and I’ve never looked better in shots. (If you know me and are reading this, please don’t correct me.) It’s so small it takes up almost no space in my bag, and a sleek purple-black design means it’ll go well with the dark colours I invariably end up wearing.