http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~lohkaidi/cat_lim_10may2005.htm
It relates to the political issue of political openness, the ability to have free expression to the government and political apathy among the young today. This article is worthy of discussion because it is still relevant in our times today.
Firstly, it seems that the government is limiting us the right to speak freely, to critique them as we want to. For example, do you see any mass protest against the government in Singapore? Do we dare to? It seems that the government is limiting our right to free speech even though it set up the “meet-the-people- session” which actually serves not much purpose. The “meet-the-people” session is a laughable attempt for the government to engage the people as no one would dare to tell their MP what they think of the government. Even if the people dared to do so, if the problem the people address cannot be solved by the government, the MP would just accept what the people had to say, wait and hope the problem would get resolved by itself.
With this limited right to critique the government, it comes as no surprise that the younger generation begin to care less about the government, perhaps to the extent that they just ignore the government. For example, if you were to ask me who our Health MP is, I would be unable to answer as I am more focused on my studies than to care about who my MPs are. This will lead to political apathy in Singaporeans and this is a serious problem as Singapore is a democracy and it uses elections to get the government into office. If we do not know who we are voting for, how do we know if the government we are voting for is a strong one? Even if we try to justify that we will always vote for the PAP, how do we know that perhaps one day, the PAP would be corrupted and if we still vote for the PAP, wouldn’t we allowing a corrupt PAP to power?
The sensible solution for this would be to allow the people to speak, to critique the government, get their suggestions on the bills they want and balance it against its necessity. However I doubt that the government would allow us to have mass protest as they are afraid that this would just hinder the efficient running of the government. In short, the government is as if stating “You do your job, I do mine”.
Singaporeans must also learn to be more politically aware of the government for us to debate against the government. However, I doubt it would happen as we are more focused on our economical benefits than to bother about the government.
Thus, if we were to create a politically-aware Singapore, the government must play its part to allow the people to speak and the people must be more active in debating with the government.
I apologize if I am too critical of the government as I have my prejudices.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Article (Family)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,129914-1178834340,00.html?
The article I am discussing today is related to a social issue-family. Based on this article, the Tan family accused each other of withdrawing from a bank account without permission after the government paid them $1.2 million to demolish their shop houses. Soon, their quarrel has to be settled by the law, and everyone knows about their family quarrel. This article is worthy for discussion as it discusses family and how easily it seems that family can be forsaken through greed and money.
It seems an irony that as Asians, the value of family has been deeply-rooted in us since young, but now we seems to have forgotten this value and the case related above seems to have confirmed that we have forgotten the value of family. The factors for this could be the materialistic world we are living in, the erosion of our Asian values by Western values, and the placement of family behind work and money.
Firstly, it is true that we are living in a world filled with materialistic people. If you have no money, you cannot survive, if you do not have this branded handbag, you will be laughed at, if you cannot buy this branded shirt, you will die. Thus, it seems natural for us to sue our family members over money since we are living in a materialistic world.
Secondly, it is true again that our Asian values are being eroded by western values, in a sense we are becoming more liberal. Asian values empathize a lot more on family than the Western values, such as respecting your elder, never talking back to them etc. However, as time progresses, we seem to believe that Western values are superior to Asian values and began to adopt the Western values. This could be seen in that we can accept women dancing nude in bars during these days but a few decades back, I doubt our forefathers would accept it.
Thirdly, it appears that we had placed work and money over family. It can be seen in that both parents prefer working to support the family than staying at home to take care of the children.
Thus, if I were to put myself into the person who is suing his family members over money, I can empathize with him as this is a materialistic world and we are in-bred to place importance on money.
The solution for this could be to educate our young the value of family, to place more importance on family. I cannot find any solutions other than that as basically placing importance on family is a matter of free-will; we cannot place a law declaring that we cannot sue them over money.
Lastly, we must learn to emphasize with those who sued their family over money as we are in a materialistic world and I apologize for not providing better solutions as I am only 15 and I cannot see why we should sue our own family over money.
The article I am discussing today is related to a social issue-family. Based on this article, the Tan family accused each other of withdrawing from a bank account without permission after the government paid them $1.2 million to demolish their shop houses. Soon, their quarrel has to be settled by the law, and everyone knows about their family quarrel. This article is worthy for discussion as it discusses family and how easily it seems that family can be forsaken through greed and money.
It seems an irony that as Asians, the value of family has been deeply-rooted in us since young, but now we seems to have forgotten this value and the case related above seems to have confirmed that we have forgotten the value of family. The factors for this could be the materialistic world we are living in, the erosion of our Asian values by Western values, and the placement of family behind work and money.
Firstly, it is true that we are living in a world filled with materialistic people. If you have no money, you cannot survive, if you do not have this branded handbag, you will be laughed at, if you cannot buy this branded shirt, you will die. Thus, it seems natural for us to sue our family members over money since we are living in a materialistic world.
Secondly, it is true again that our Asian values are being eroded by western values, in a sense we are becoming more liberal. Asian values empathize a lot more on family than the Western values, such as respecting your elder, never talking back to them etc. However, as time progresses, we seem to believe that Western values are superior to Asian values and began to adopt the Western values. This could be seen in that we can accept women dancing nude in bars during these days but a few decades back, I doubt our forefathers would accept it.
Thirdly, it appears that we had placed work and money over family. It can be seen in that both parents prefer working to support the family than staying at home to take care of the children.
Thus, if I were to put myself into the person who is suing his family members over money, I can empathize with him as this is a materialistic world and we are in-bred to place importance on money.
The solution for this could be to educate our young the value of family, to place more importance on family. I cannot find any solutions other than that as basically placing importance on family is a matter of free-will; we cannot place a law declaring that we cannot sue them over money.
Lastly, we must learn to emphasize with those who sued their family over money as we are in a materialistic world and I apologize for not providing better solutions as I am only 15 and I cannot see why we should sue our own family over money.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Article (If you drive, don't drink)
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,129823-1178747940,00.html?
The article which I am discussing today is related to a social problem prevalent in our society- drink-driving. Drink-driving is a social problem that should be easily solved as if you want to drink alcohol, do not drive, if you want to drive, do not drink alcohol. However, even though the police had been campaigning to prevent drink-driving from occurring, deaths from drink-driving rose up from last year, and compared to other countries such as the U.S., Japan and Australia, Singapore had the highest amount of deaths in 10,000 vehicles caused by drink-driving. Thus, we must try to analyze this problem and provide suitable solutions to it.
The main factor behind drink-driving would be the drivers themselves, as if they did not drink and drive, the problem would not occur. Thus, my solution would be targeted at the driver and perhaps at the pedestrian crossing the road as it is also his responsibility to watch out for incoming cars.
However, why would drivers drive alcohol and then drive off in their cars? I believe it is because alcohol promotes self-confidence in the driver, he feels that he has the ability to drive in his car even though he is drunk. This over-confidence may kill him as alcohol also causes blurry eyesight, and slowed reflexes, thus he may not be able to see the pedestrian crossing the road before it is too late. Thus, if I were to put myself into the driver’s shoes, I can empathize with him that he may feel alcohol is the main cause of this problem.
After knowing the problem, I can come out with two solutions. Firstly, ban alcohol so that no one can drink them, and there would be no drink-driving occurrences. Secondly, ban cars so no one can drive in them, and thus there would not be such accidents anymore. However, since these two solutions are too extremist and would not be popular with Singaporeans, we could try more subtle ways to solve this problem. For example, we could try to encourage drives to bring a friend along when he goes drinking and makes sure that his friend is sober, so that his friend can drive him home. Another solution could be calling a taxi to bring you back home and take back your car the next day.
The pedestrian could also help out in solving this problem if they could avoid crossing roads in the middle of the night or looking cautiously left and right before crossing as “the road is as dangerous as a tiger”.
Lastly, I feel that even if a driver drinks alcohol drives off after that and gets into an accident, we must still sympathize him as he is a human, he may make mistakes sometimes, allowing his desires of alcohol get the better of him and still feeling confident enough to go driving.
I apologize if my solutions seemed immature as I am not eighteen years old yet, so I cannot drink and drive.
The article which I am discussing today is related to a social problem prevalent in our society- drink-driving. Drink-driving is a social problem that should be easily solved as if you want to drink alcohol, do not drive, if you want to drive, do not drink alcohol. However, even though the police had been campaigning to prevent drink-driving from occurring, deaths from drink-driving rose up from last year, and compared to other countries such as the U.S., Japan and Australia, Singapore had the highest amount of deaths in 10,000 vehicles caused by drink-driving. Thus, we must try to analyze this problem and provide suitable solutions to it.
The main factor behind drink-driving would be the drivers themselves, as if they did not drink and drive, the problem would not occur. Thus, my solution would be targeted at the driver and perhaps at the pedestrian crossing the road as it is also his responsibility to watch out for incoming cars.
However, why would drivers drive alcohol and then drive off in their cars? I believe it is because alcohol promotes self-confidence in the driver, he feels that he has the ability to drive in his car even though he is drunk. This over-confidence may kill him as alcohol also causes blurry eyesight, and slowed reflexes, thus he may not be able to see the pedestrian crossing the road before it is too late. Thus, if I were to put myself into the driver’s shoes, I can empathize with him that he may feel alcohol is the main cause of this problem.
After knowing the problem, I can come out with two solutions. Firstly, ban alcohol so that no one can drink them, and there would be no drink-driving occurrences. Secondly, ban cars so no one can drive in them, and thus there would not be such accidents anymore. However, since these two solutions are too extremist and would not be popular with Singaporeans, we could try more subtle ways to solve this problem. For example, we could try to encourage drives to bring a friend along when he goes drinking and makes sure that his friend is sober, so that his friend can drive him home. Another solution could be calling a taxi to bring you back home and take back your car the next day.
The pedestrian could also help out in solving this problem if they could avoid crossing roads in the middle of the night or looking cautiously left and right before crossing as “the road is as dangerous as a tiger”.
Lastly, I feel that even if a driver drinks alcohol drives off after that and gets into an accident, we must still sympathize him as he is a human, he may make mistakes sometimes, allowing his desires of alcohol get the better of him and still feeling confident enough to go driving.
I apologize if my solutions seemed immature as I am not eighteen years old yet, so I cannot drink and drive.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Commentary to an article (4)
I just have to write a response to this article, when I see it, as it is something close to my heart; it is related to the relationship of teachers and students. The article's link is below.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124376,00.html?
After reading this article, I realized that the classmate and the teacher were at fault for causing this boy to be blind. If the classmate had not misbehaved in class, and the teacher had not lost his temper, none of this tragedy would have occurred. We must analyze the behaviors of the classmate and the teacher to understand why they acted in this way, and to prevent such an event from happening again.
The classmate may just seem to be having fun, making some noise. However, he is showing disrespect to the teacher, at the same time, disrupting those who would rather listen to the lesson. Respect is a core value in our society, if this 14-year-old cannot respect his teacher, how can we expect him to be a building block in our society? We could speculate as to how his behavior is shaped, probably due to his friends, as a person is shaped according to the people around them, and in this case, as he is a student and teenager, his closest influences would be from his friends. We could speculate his friends would probably have the same attitude as him, perhaps due to the family being too lax in enforcing these values, thus it is no wonder that this classmate do not have respect deeply rooted in him.
The teacher seemed to have lost his temper a bit easily and threw a dangerous object (ruler) at the boy. Did the teacher stop to think about whether the ruler would injure anyone? I doubt so as if he had thought about it, he would not have done so. Did the Ministry of Education impart knowledge to the teacher to inform him to keep his temper in check? These questions puzzled me after I read the article. Moreover, this teacher only visited the injured boy once in hospital after causing such serious damage to his eye that he may go blind. It can be assumed that the teacher is not very sympathetic to the boy.
However, perhaps the classmate thought it was just fun to talk loudly in class, and did not think about the consequences and implications about it as he is only 14, and too young to control his desire to talk. The teacher, perhaps angered and irritated by the classmate after many warnings, lost his cool and threw the ruler to vent his anger only, not to injure anyone. Teachers are not gods, they are only humans, and thus it is understandable that they would lose their temper. Perhaps again, that the teacher feels so guilty about injuring the boy that he dare not visit the boy in hospital.
Lastly, as I am a more responsible-type of student, I am not sure about the “classmate’s” mindset. Even if I do not like the teacher, I would still respect him or her and listen to the lesson, as I know that the teacher must have some experience in this subject and it is to my loss if I do not listen.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124376,00.html?
After reading this article, I realized that the classmate and the teacher were at fault for causing this boy to be blind. If the classmate had not misbehaved in class, and the teacher had not lost his temper, none of this tragedy would have occurred. We must analyze the behaviors of the classmate and the teacher to understand why they acted in this way, and to prevent such an event from happening again.
The classmate may just seem to be having fun, making some noise. However, he is showing disrespect to the teacher, at the same time, disrupting those who would rather listen to the lesson. Respect is a core value in our society, if this 14-year-old cannot respect his teacher, how can we expect him to be a building block in our society? We could speculate as to how his behavior is shaped, probably due to his friends, as a person is shaped according to the people around them, and in this case, as he is a student and teenager, his closest influences would be from his friends. We could speculate his friends would probably have the same attitude as him, perhaps due to the family being too lax in enforcing these values, thus it is no wonder that this classmate do not have respect deeply rooted in him.
The teacher seemed to have lost his temper a bit easily and threw a dangerous object (ruler) at the boy. Did the teacher stop to think about whether the ruler would injure anyone? I doubt so as if he had thought about it, he would not have done so. Did the Ministry of Education impart knowledge to the teacher to inform him to keep his temper in check? These questions puzzled me after I read the article. Moreover, this teacher only visited the injured boy once in hospital after causing such serious damage to his eye that he may go blind. It can be assumed that the teacher is not very sympathetic to the boy.
However, perhaps the classmate thought it was just fun to talk loudly in class, and did not think about the consequences and implications about it as he is only 14, and too young to control his desire to talk. The teacher, perhaps angered and irritated by the classmate after many warnings, lost his cool and threw the ruler to vent his anger only, not to injure anyone. Teachers are not gods, they are only humans, and thus it is understandable that they would lose their temper. Perhaps again, that the teacher feels so guilty about injuring the boy that he dare not visit the boy in hospital.
Lastly, as I am a more responsible-type of student, I am not sure about the “classmate’s” mindset. Even if I do not like the teacher, I would still respect him or her and listen to the lesson, as I know that the teacher must have some experience in this subject and it is to my loss if I do not listen.
Monday, March 5, 2007
Marking Scheme
"Dear Ms. Kuang,
Just grade my second and fourth articles, thanks."
Quote From Ben Ng, Put up by iRIch. " Did ben see my blog?" =p sry!
Just grade my second and fourth articles, thanks."
Quote From Ben Ng, Put up by iRIch. " Did ben see my blog?" =p sry!
Incest
I am sorry to all bicyclists out there whom I had offended with my insensitive viewpoints and rants. So, once again, I will embark on yet another article to prove my worth as a mugger. And yes, this time I will do it in such an objective and mugger-like way that even I will be proud of it. P.S. No humor involved. However, I will be leaving my 3rd article on my blog, as it is part of my process as a writer to try out different styles. This article took the most time out of me-2 hours as I really went to research and check out several points about incest.
I will be commenting on this article, all the best to me.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124215,00.html?
This article relates about how a brother and sister fell in love and committed incest. They had four children together. The brother was tried in court for committing incest and sentenced to jail many times. There is a question underlying this article, should we accept incest in our society? To answer the following questions, we have to understand what incest is all about and why is incest taboo?
Firstly, we must define what incest is. Incest is the practice of sexual relations between close blood relatives. The second question is more difficult to answer, why is incest taboo? There are many theories being it, such as one being a biological issue, which means having incest with one sibling has a higher chance of leading to birth defects in their children, due to the increase of homozygotes which may encode a birth defect. Another theory would be to encourage exogamy and prohibit endogamy to strengthen social solitary. However, we are not too sure about why incest is really taboo, perhaps in our ancestors’ days, they fear incest, thus they spread down “unwritten” rules to us not to commit it, and for us to develop this mindset that incest is “bad’.
Thus, should we commit incest, should we allow incest in our society? I believe we should. Think about it, incest is just primarily sexual relations between a man and woman, albeit that they are blood relatives. Moreover, the theories explaining why incest is taboo have its flaws. For example, the biological theory that incest may lead to birth defects in their children has its flaws, if the siblings do not have any homozygotes that encode a birth defect, it may even reduce the number of the carriers of the defect. Thus, incest is primarily a social and psychological issue.
It seems ridiculous that a man and woman who genuinely love each other and have sex have to be charged in court and sentenced to prison just because they are siblings. A taboo that is ingrained in our mind and which we are not clear how it originated has caused this couple to be separated even though they are in love with each other. We are not even sure how sex with your close relatives became a taboo, and yet we are adhering to this mindset, it seems illogical to me.
However, it would be difficult to counter this mindset as this taboo is so ingrained in our minds that it would be “wrong” just to suggest that this taboo should not be a taboo. This taboo is as if a core belief of our society and if we assume that incest is not a taboo, it just seems to break down the very fabric of our society. Thus, perhaps we should wait for our society to be more mature before discussing this taboo subject.
In conclusion, I feel we should accept incest in our society, if we could overcome the basic belief in our mindset, that incest is “bad.”
I will be commenting on this article, all the best to me.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124215,00.html?
This article relates about how a brother and sister fell in love and committed incest. They had four children together. The brother was tried in court for committing incest and sentenced to jail many times. There is a question underlying this article, should we accept incest in our society? To answer the following questions, we have to understand what incest is all about and why is incest taboo?
Firstly, we must define what incest is. Incest is the practice of sexual relations between close blood relatives. The second question is more difficult to answer, why is incest taboo? There are many theories being it, such as one being a biological issue, which means having incest with one sibling has a higher chance of leading to birth defects in their children, due to the increase of homozygotes which may encode a birth defect. Another theory would be to encourage exogamy and prohibit endogamy to strengthen social solitary. However, we are not too sure about why incest is really taboo, perhaps in our ancestors’ days, they fear incest, thus they spread down “unwritten” rules to us not to commit it, and for us to develop this mindset that incest is “bad’.
Thus, should we commit incest, should we allow incest in our society? I believe we should. Think about it, incest is just primarily sexual relations between a man and woman, albeit that they are blood relatives. Moreover, the theories explaining why incest is taboo have its flaws. For example, the biological theory that incest may lead to birth defects in their children has its flaws, if the siblings do not have any homozygotes that encode a birth defect, it may even reduce the number of the carriers of the defect. Thus, incest is primarily a social and psychological issue.
It seems ridiculous that a man and woman who genuinely love each other and have sex have to be charged in court and sentenced to prison just because they are siblings. A taboo that is ingrained in our mind and which we are not clear how it originated has caused this couple to be separated even though they are in love with each other. We are not even sure how sex with your close relatives became a taboo, and yet we are adhering to this mindset, it seems illogical to me.
However, it would be difficult to counter this mindset as this taboo is so ingrained in our minds that it would be “wrong” just to suggest that this taboo should not be a taboo. This taboo is as if a core belief of our society and if we assume that incest is not a taboo, it just seems to break down the very fabric of our society. Thus, perhaps we should wait for our society to be more mature before discussing this taboo subject.
In conclusion, I feel we should accept incest in our society, if we could overcome the basic belief in our mindset, that incest is “bad.”
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Commentary on an article (2)
Today I will be commenting on the article listed below.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124000-1172786340,00.html
This article describes a nine-year old girl who got pregnant. It implies a serious problem in our society. How could it be that a nine-year child know how to perform sex with her boyfriend from the same primary school? How could it be that the parents of the 9-year old child do not know what their child is doing at home. These questions need to be addressed as they present a problem in our society.
Firstly, we could assume that the girl or her boyfriend must have got their information on sex from somewhere or else they could not be so "lucky" to find the way of how to perform sex by pure experimenting. Thus, somehow they must have some knowledge about sex. How? We could only speculate. However, a likely reason would be of the spread of the Internet. With the Internet, one could gather information easily, even taboo subjects, such as sex. Thus, if we could assume that this couple know how to access the Internet, and with such information on sex readily available, it would be only right to assume that this young couple got their information from the Internet. Thus, in order to prevent such occurances from happening, we could either prevent these curious children from accessing the Internet, visiting websites related to sex, or educate them about the dangers of sex.
However, even if we ban these ignorant children from using the Internet, there will still be chances that they would get information about sex from other souces such as friends. Thus, in order to gain a sure-fire "cure" for sexual behaviour at such an irresponsible age, you will need to educate the young children about it, such as you cannot touch a woman's privates or you are not supposed to strip someone's clothes off at such a young age. If these children could understand and accept the advice, the chances of being pregnant at such a young age would be reduced, as the children would grasp the basic concept of the dangers of sexual behaviour.
Next, how could the parents of the girl not notice that their child was having sex with a man? Yes, I understand that both of the parents are working; however they should have imparted to their girl the knowledge of not bringing your friends or classmates to home at such a young age, especially a boy. Moreover, these parents did not even notice that their girl was pregnant until the foetus was six months old. This implied that parents nowadays are too busy to bother about their children's lives, thus causing this tragedy. If we are to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, parents need to play a more active role in their children's lives, at least know where they are, who they are with etc.
In conclusion, I feel that we should educate younger children about sexual education for them to understand the dangers of sex and parents should be more active in their children's lives.
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,124000-1172786340,00.html
This article describes a nine-year old girl who got pregnant. It implies a serious problem in our society. How could it be that a nine-year child know how to perform sex with her boyfriend from the same primary school? How could it be that the parents of the 9-year old child do not know what their child is doing at home. These questions need to be addressed as they present a problem in our society.
Firstly, we could assume that the girl or her boyfriend must have got their information on sex from somewhere or else they could not be so "lucky" to find the way of how to perform sex by pure experimenting. Thus, somehow they must have some knowledge about sex. How? We could only speculate. However, a likely reason would be of the spread of the Internet. With the Internet, one could gather information easily, even taboo subjects, such as sex. Thus, if we could assume that this couple know how to access the Internet, and with such information on sex readily available, it would be only right to assume that this young couple got their information from the Internet. Thus, in order to prevent such occurances from happening, we could either prevent these curious children from accessing the Internet, visiting websites related to sex, or educate them about the dangers of sex.
However, even if we ban these ignorant children from using the Internet, there will still be chances that they would get information about sex from other souces such as friends. Thus, in order to gain a sure-fire "cure" for sexual behaviour at such an irresponsible age, you will need to educate the young children about it, such as you cannot touch a woman's privates or you are not supposed to strip someone's clothes off at such a young age. If these children could understand and accept the advice, the chances of being pregnant at such a young age would be reduced, as the children would grasp the basic concept of the dangers of sexual behaviour.
Next, how could the parents of the girl not notice that their child was having sex with a man? Yes, I understand that both of the parents are working; however they should have imparted to their girl the knowledge of not bringing your friends or classmates to home at such a young age, especially a boy. Moreover, these parents did not even notice that their girl was pregnant until the foetus was six months old. This implied that parents nowadays are too busy to bother about their children's lives, thus causing this tragedy. If we are to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, parents need to play a more active role in their children's lives, at least know where they are, who they are with etc.
In conclusion, I feel that we should educate younger children about sexual education for them to understand the dangers of sex and parents should be more active in their children's lives.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)