rally !

I was thrilled to hear about last week's protest headed by Chee Siok Chin, Chee Soon Juan's sister.

At last, some life in our boring quiet streets!

Too bad they were roused with a charge of illegal gathering and causing a public nuisance. Although compared with picketing in other countries, u can hardly call a group of four people in the middle of Shenton way a riot, can u? Only in Singapore.. only in Singapore.

The report is hilarious. Protesters sent packing.

Excerpts:

'The group were protesting against a lack of transparency and accountability in three Government organisations. Wearing white T-shirts painted with red words and carrying placards.. (they) stood outside the building for nearly an hour..'

'..Ms Chee, the sister of opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, said the protesters did not represent any political party or group.'

'..Dr Chee arrived with a male companion 10 minutes into the protest and started selling his books just metres away from where the protest was taking place.

Both Dr Chee and the protesters told reporters they were not "connected" with each other.

"If there are no more than five of us, we don't need a permit. This is perfectly legal," said Ms Chee.' (haha! ingenuous)

'..At 1.15pm, four police vans from the Neighbourhood Police Centre carrying about 40 policemen of which about 10 carried shields and batons arrived..' (Right. 40 men to deal with 4. Great police-to-criminal ratio.)

'After observing the activities of the six people..(the police) ordered them to disperse. The four protesters then moved to the side of the building but were again stopped by the police officers.'

'Their particulars were noted and their placards and T-shirts seized.' (This is my favourite part. So our wonderful police sent them packing, topless?? Including Dr Chee's sister? Did she then get arrested for indecent exposure? ..)

'The case is under investigation.'

Yeah. Right.

Come on people; let's go picketing! Gotta do it topless in groups of four.. woohoo

earthquake

today, i was listening to music on the radio while drawing up the month's accounts. when the news highlights came on, i nearly switched stations, but something made me listen.

"..earthquake of 7.2 on the Richter scale has hit the north prefecture of Japan, mainland Tokyo, injuring 30 people. A tsunami warning has been issued.."

or words to that effect. my heart jolted and practically stopped; i literally gasped. the next thing i knew i flew to grab my phone and was frantically messaging k. he'd just reached tokyo last friday for a holiday and i didn't know if he was still there.

for the next ten minutes as i waited tensely for a reply, i started thinking how nobody is safe in this world, no matter where we are or how safe our country's supposed to be. Few days back on tv, i watched in dismay as newly enforced armed security officers patrolled MRT platforms and cars, their measured pace and unwavering gaze seeming to inspire more dread than feelings of safety. even their too ernest attempts to scowl menacingly, which looked more constipated than fierce, couldn't distract me from the declaration that they were licensed to shoot to kill. if they thought you looked like a terrorist that is. or a suicide bomber. (if they did shoot a suicide bomber, won't he just blow up in all our faces anyway?)

the point is, i can no longer pretend that news that doesn't interest me, doesn't concern me. as safe as safe can be. it's never safe enough. 'it's just a matter of when it will happen, not if,' said J. this profoundly disturbed me. it's not that i have been so naive as to think we will never have any disasters befalling us. i just don't like to think about it. but with revolver-carrying-shoot-to-kill-policemen striding around when i take the train, i don't see how i can avoid speculating about the day their services will actually be called for. worse; if the sight will one day be just the norm. i said i liked a clockwork orange. but in my worst dreams i don't want to live in such a world.

i once said i don't watch the news cos it depresses me and i feel helpless in the face of suffering. but maybe the least i can do is to be aware of what's happening around me.. i can't be no *'katak bawah tempurung' no more. *malay proverb; lit. 'frog under coconut shell'; refers to someone who is ignorant (doesn't know, doesn't care?) of everything else outside his own self-contained world.

cos how can i ignore what goes on in the world when i have people i love in countries other than my own..?

ten minutes. k beeped. said he only just left tokyo and is back in nagoya. safe. even then he felt tremors there. but safe, safe.. thank god.

they say ignorance is bliss. is it, really?

a clockwork orange

".. I mean it to stand for the application of a mechanistic morality to a living organism oozing with juice and sweetness."

.."Europeans who translated the title as Orange Mécanique could not understand.. and they assumed that it meant a hand grenade, a cheaper kind of explosive pineapple." haha!

i just read this book today and it is a hoot! damn interesting. for one thing, the language is all twisted and he uses words from an invented speech that's really nonexistant. so right from the first paragraph i was puzzling out what in the world is a 'droog' and 'skorry' and 'peet' and 'veshches'. and the amazing thing was, in no time at all, you actually begin to get the meanings from the context itself, so i quickly made up my mind that 'droog' is friend, 'skorry' quick, 'peet' drink and 'veshches', shit. whether it's 100% accurate i duno, but it makes it all the more intriguing that here is a book which a third of the meaning is entirely up to me to decide.

Burgess said he did it because 'It is not a novelist's job to preach; it is his duty to show. I have shown enough, though the curtain of an invented lingo gets in the way.. Nadsat, a Russified version of English, was meant to muffle the raw response we expect from pornography. It turns the book into a linguistic adventure. People prefer the film because they are scared, rightly, of the language.'

Well i found it delightful, if downright exasperating.. I would love to watch the show; I've to see about getting my rooks on it. Hands. haha.

If you need more reasons to pick up this book.. It's all about this vicious youth Alex who gets his nightly highs thrashing and robbing and raping and killing, and one day his droogs betrayed him, and landed him in Staja (State Jail). In there, him and his cellmates brawl half in self defence but when he accidentally kills the offending chelloveck (criminal), they finger him again and he's taken away by state authorities. They put him through a hellish reform program, chemically triggering him to get puking sick everytime he sees violence. Finally the reaction is ingrained and just the thought of being violent makes him sick. He's released 'cured' but incapable of making his own decisions as to be good or bad. Misfortune after misfortune befalls him, and by the end of the novel you can't help but like this irascible, strangely redeeming character.

it's a pity that stanley kubrik's film version leaves out the ending that's played out in the very last chapter, cos the first US version of the book was published without it. it's the last chapter that does justice to the whole book; when i finished, i was smiling for a good five minutes..

verdict? this is one you shouldn't miss. (unless of course the whole bloody world's gone and read it and i'm the last belated fool to wax lyrical on it..)

out of the mouths of babes

On our way back home yesterday, my 11-yr-old bro decides to play 20 questions.
(bus passes bedok swiming pool)
h: how is swimming pool water kept non-stagnant?
r: it's stagnant what.
h: then mosquitoes can lay eggs in the pool?
r: no, the water has chlorine. that's why it's blue.
h: chlorine? what, chlorox?
r: no, it's chlorine.
h: then why does it smell of chlorox?
r: clorox has chlorine. (erm.. does it?)
h: what is it for?
r: it disinfects the water so that germs are killed. that's why mosquito eggs will also die. (erm.. i think so.. i'm not very sure...)
h: what's disinfect?
r: to kill germs. that's why so many people can swim in the pool together but it's still clean and you won't catch any diseases. (i'm not really confident of this either. i just never thought about it.)
h: oh.
(pause)
h: so if you want to get clean, you just swim in the swimming pool?
r: (gives up) yes.
h: then the sea le?
r: the salt will keep you clean.
h: oh. why is the sea salty?
r: (giving up even more) you ask god la.