Well, the Singapore parliament report will take a while to be published, so, for now, let’s take a look at the Straits Times coverage of yesterday’s sitting of parliament, and what the MPs have had to say on the ministerial pay review. As the most widely circulated broadsheet in Singapore, the Straits Times ought to have some credibility, right?

Before carrying on, I wish to establish my position on the ministerial pay review.  Of the three constantly parroted principles governing the review committee, my main gripe is with its stance that salaries must be competitive with the private sector, and the implicit assumption that they must be large enough to attract the right kind of talent. As PAP MP Denis Phua put it, pegging salaries to those of Singaporean top earners “smacks of elitism”. Under both the existing framework for ministerial compensation and the soon to be implemented new one, constituents are expected to swallow wholesale the baloney that capable political talent can only be drawn from the ranks of those who are capable of earning sackloads of cash outside of politics. By establishing the scope of the review committee through its three principles, the government has tried to cater to populist sentiment whilst still maintaining the position that politically talented people only work in fields where the big bucks are to be found: finance, top management, law, and accountancy, and definitely not in areas such as medicine, social work, or academia.

The review committee’s report can be found here. I am of the opinion that proposals it received to peg salaries to the median wage of Singaporeans, or that of lower-income Singaporeans (point 66b), is a better option that the one it has finally settled on. If the committee had taken on this proposal, and made the proportion of the National Bonus (dependent on indicators of employment, wage growth, and inequality) larger, it would reflect accountability of ministers to the well-being of residents, and should spur ministers to work towards across-the-board real wage growth as well as increased wage equality. While detractors have decried the option, stating that the value of the multiplier is arbitrary, it is useful to note that a 40% discount of the median wage of the top 1000 earners in Singapore uses two arbitrary numbers as well. Combined with the fact that the majority of the bonuses ministers can expect to receive comprise of automatic bonuses (13th month/AVC) and performance bonuses decided solely by the Prime Minister, we have a ministerial compensation policy that only pays lip service to the idea of accountability to the public and indicators of public well-being.

While a multiple of the median wage seems to be a better option (if one is willing to reject the unspoken belief that political talent only comes from the pool of people in top-earning professions, and that compensation should reflect this), even better (in my opinion) is the WPs proposal that compensation be pegged to that of MP allowances. This proposal is absent from the review committee’s list of proposals, for a perfectly good reason. And this is where the disingenuity of the Straits Times and the sheer stubborn boneheadedness of some PAP MPs comes into the spotlight.

The reason this proposal is absent from the review committee’s report is that MP allowances are currently pegged to ministerial pay. So, trying to implement that proposal would be circular, impossible, and quite ludicrously stupid. And that last one is how the Straits Times and those PAP MPs seem to appear right now. On page A12 of today’s Straits Times, under the headline “WP plans differ little from recommendations: PAP MPs”, PAP MPs reportedly state that the WP’s proposal is, in principle, no difference from the committee’s recommendations. Apparently, Dr Amy Khor sees no difference in the committee’s recommendations, that ministerial pay be directly linked to top earners (supposedly where all the talent is), and that of having it as a multiple of MP allowance, which is compensation for the political work expected of an MP.

Normal service will resume shortly; we apologise for any incompetence

It’s a new year and time for fresh starts, hurrah!

Well, actually it’s been more than two weeks, and now is pretty late to be making new year’s posts; so, not only will there be a late post to ring in the new year, there shall be excuses as well:
Namely, that 2011 has been dismal and 2012 promises more of the same; if a new year falls into our laps and no one around sees any hope of fresh beginnings or better things on the horizon, is it still a new year? Or does it simply count as another day ticked off the countdown clock; another ordinary step towards the still-distant finish?

If anything, what I’ve learnt about myself in 2011 is that I can be quite a lot more nasty, unpleasant, impatient, or easily angered than how I usually am, believe I project, or wish I was. NS has brought out the worst in me and as much as I don’t like the SAF and its management, I don’t like much of what I saw in myself in 2011, even as I indulged in smug superiority or impatient self-righteousness. I used to take some small pride in having no patience for fools; although I still believe I’ve met plenty of fools and endless incompetence, a retrospective look at my reactions to it leaves me ashamed of my judgmental-ness and condescending-ness. Impatience and frustration are bad enough habits which have resurfaced in 2011, of which I’m not proud, but even worse is to let that grow into personal hatred and letting it boil over for everyone to see.

Hmmm, this post wasn’t meant to be a retrospective on that, but I guess it’ll serve as a timely reminder, especially when I ORD and look back with, if not fond memories, then at least not complete bitterness. And of course, there will be memories of NSFs to treasure.

What I did mean to get on with, before a detour into bitterness and embarrassment, was how much I miss a lot of good things. Like reading  and writing, which took an extended hiatus on account of training requirements and university applications. Glad those applications are done, and now it’s in the hands of God. Speaking of which, God is something else I’ve taken something of a sabbatical from I’m afraid. Hence, the to-do list: turn around and stop fleeing from God; read; write; face the future, both immediate and long term, with equanimity and calm.

In parting, apologies (if they are in order) for not posting for two months and a day, apologies for the disjointedness of this post (mostly apologies to future me I suppose). Apologies for incompetence and inconvenience (if any); normal service will resume shortly.

No cheat codes but growing up

So it turns out I am back from the dead. Metaphorically. Well, if being a soldier/essay writing zombie, sucked dry of any creativity and sapped of all will to do anything else, counts as being undead (and, technically, definitely, literally dead), then I’m literally back from the dead as well. Or, at least this blog is, because I sure as hell intend this post to be more than an internet copypasta.

Which, of course, doesn’t rule out the possibility of it including funny things from the endless vaults of the internet, so here’s a video of Simon Pegg before he did Shaun of the Dead. Or zombie movies. Or movies in general:

Anyway, that aside, it turns out that nostalgia is a really good cure for being a shambling undead monstrosity forever enshrined in early 21^st century pop culture. That and the not altogether unpleasant shock of seeing a whole lot of new buildings in your old school compound, that is.

But, school isn’t really about spanking new buildings sprouting in every direction the eye can see, or the steel and glass wonder of an “administrative centre” hanging where the bridge between RI and RJC used to be, or even the pieces the art students are having slowly creep across every available open space. It’s rather a lot more about the unchanging hordes of green and white with the same faces and same chatter which seemingly never age or get bored of the same things over and over again. And that’s marvelous.

All the better that I went back on a major A level exam day then. At 3pm the majority of J2s are still glued, oblivious to the arctic air conditioning, to their seats in the two exam halls, reproducing in handwriting their printed chemistry revision notes and, once in a while, either staring in uncomprehending panic at a question they don’t understand or, much less commonly, feeling great, smug, satisfaction at their work. The remaining J2s are docilely poring over their notes in the usual corners (the windy benches, the canteen, next to the lockers, abandoned classrooms, etc.).

The J1s, however, are an altogether different breed. After all, with PW done school is most certainly out for the year, and the lectures they nominally come back to school for are nothing more than irritants to be completely forgotten in the much more immediate concerns of CCAs. Poetically enough, it’s the quintessence of RJC: mad CCAs everywhere to be seen (and some in places unseen), students ranging everywhere (from the library to the canteen, the amphitheatre, and the secondary school side) dancing, fencing, singing, acting, running, and being so generally chill they ought to be frozen. And all this speckled with the small but unmistakable signs of muggerdom everywhere.

At least until the paper is over.

Then come the familiar stream of students pouring out from the exam halls like a vast unstoppable tide of relief, an undertow of self-doubt, and eddies of both panic and satisfaction. And you see yourself, just a few short months ago, seemingly a fingersnap and a twinkle in the mind’s eye distant, part of that mighty crush of eager, anxious students. The vein of sentimentality runs deep, and you find yourself pining for bygone days. The ceaseless foment or turmoil of adolescence does not come to mind, but only carefree memories remembered through the rose-tinted lenses of reminiscence.

No one ever told me school was just the tutorial for life (and not a very good one either). Or that the learning curve was so steep. I want my money back (or three extra lives).

The internet is really really great (reprise)

I don’t understand how this doesn’t have over nine million views

Dead as a doornail

Four weeks (to be fair, four weekends) since the last post. A lot of going-ons in the past weeks, namely running around in the outdoors in green trying not to resemble a headless chicken. Been outfield, done the summary exercise, getting the black-coloured rank tomorrow.

I think being outfield just kills all desire to write. Or, perhaps, the perceptiveness that births content. Or writing essays for colleges and thinking about them in camp just drains me completely. I ought to sleep on this

Never Let Me Go (to sleep)

I have a (mostly) unread collection of Kazuo Ishiguro short stories sitting on my growing I’ve-bought-these-so-I-really ought-to-get-down-to-reading-them pile of books. I put it aside after two stories (for what, I don’t remember) and keep telling myself I should get back to it, but I haven’t for quite a long while now. Yet now I think, for the first time in a long while, I’m truly excited about a book, without having even come anywhere close to it before.

Mark Romanek’s film adaptation of Never Let Me Go is devastatingly good; and the critics tend to agree the novel is much better. The film is the so very sad: it transcends mere heartbreak and enters the territory or literal and literary tragedy.

The film’s main premise, of widespread human cloning to meet organ donation needs, strains at the boundaries of credulity and is its Achilles’s heel. It makes the going-ons seem surreal, and all that less believable. It leaves a shadow in the back of one’s mind, constantly nagging, asking why the characters seem so normal and calm in a world apparently gone mad. But, in spite of this the actors do a brilliant job, bringing poignancy to their characters’ desperate struggle to live. The dystopia of the film’s setting is so absurd and the characters’ attempts to fight fate so futile; combined with the humanity the actors bring results in a product that forces us to confront what it means to live, to breathe, to be human in an ultimately hostile world. It is terrifyingly good.

Yes Mr. Carr, the Internet is making us stupid

I have got to be the most easily distracted person I know, at least when it comes to getting things (work?) done. It’s as if my Hyde personality insists on finding something distracting even when Jekyll has done his damnedest.

So, in an attempt to overcome my tremendous capacity for procrastination, I’m in a library attempting to write essays on a laptop which has no games, no stumbleupon, and none of my favourite internet bookmarks.

And I still end up with a tiny, undeveloped foetus of an idea and a paltry 150 words written before getting distracted.

None of which has to do with the following. But then, music or art doesn’t necessarily have to do with very much anything else at all, and yet brings us closer to our humanity, or perhaps even something that transcends it.

Which might explain why I’m listening to one of my favourite covers, and being in turn reminded of a fantastic webcomic that I may or may not have repeatedly professed my love for before, with little remorse for the fact that I’ve completely neglected the task for the day. Oh well.

(music starts around 2:01 by the way)

This cover reminds me of this comic, which is written by the amazing Winston Rowntree, who also authors Subnormality and produces genius like this. Which is all the more reason I should get back to work.

iPhone coupling

Curious observation: there exists a breed of hybrid creature indigenous to MRT trains known as the iPhone couple. Contrary to what the name suggests, it is not, as one might presume, a pair of iPhones attached to each other by means of some sort of adhesive, waylaid carelessly on the train. Rather, the term refers to a pairing of man and woman (rarely, boy and girl) ostensibly in a romantic relationship. Judging by their standards of dressing (read: bermudas-and-flip-flops-everyhwere-I-go-because-I-just-don’t-give-a-damn-anymore), they appear to be almost middle-aged and presumably well advanced in their relationship, long past the initial whirlwind of attraction and infatuation. I.e., failed yuppies of a sort.

In the uncommon but not unheard of circumstance of the couple being unseated, they will attempt to stand facing each other in order to maximise eye contact with their respective iPhones and keep up the sham of appearing to try and pay attention to his/her partner. It simply does not work – no observer is ever fooled into believing that either of the couple has anything to say that would be more captivating than getting to that next level on Bejeweled.

It is much more common to observe the iPhone couple seated, either partially or completely.  In the event whereby only one seat is available, the male member of the couple will chivalrously offer his seat to the female member, and then proceed to stand protectively in front of her. Presumably, this is as much to offer the female an opportunity to rest her legs as to facilitate his peeking at her screen to see if she caught up with him on Plants vs Zombies yet.

The male member of the iPhone couple is possessed of remarkable situational awareness and multitasking ability. Not only is he able to stand protectively over his partner, manage his resources in whatever tower defence game he is playing at the moment, and listen to music at the same time, he can also spot vacated seats up to two seats distant from where his partner is seated, and proceed to immediately plonk his ass down on it before some undeserving usurper, like a primary school student or a lady tottering on four-inch-heels, steals it away.

Once both members of the iPhone couple are comfortably ensconced within their seats, multitasking capabilities are disabled. Both will stare intently at their iPhone’s 3.5-inch display, focusing on whatever the latest hot game is, to the exclusion of all other outside stimuli. And if the game ceases to be of interest, there is always fiddling around with music playlists, the app store, facebook, twitter, foursquare, and, if nothing else, rearranging icons on the menu to do. For the iPhone couple, there are endless possibilities of self-distraction available to delay having to, horror of horrors, talk to each other.

It’s just like…tumblring

It just gets better and better after 0:50 of the second video

So, what do you think? Or should it be left up to…t the government?

 

Also, the comments section in the linked page is surprisingly decent

This is why I can’t tear myself away from reading too much SF

“time travel is ruled out by dialectical materialism”

-The Human Front, Ken MacLeod

~I lol’ed