Raves And Rants

The monsoon season is here. It has been pouring this last few days. So it is with my raves and rants blog. I have been thinking again. BIG TIME! It can be pretty much an emotional drain, raking up the past like that. I suppose we all have coping mechanisms which is to suppress the worst of our memories. Blogging has helped me re-think and define my thoughts on issues, reflect on my experiences and with hindsight, do better in the future.

Before my last blog on "Employment/Women Issues And Discrimination", here is the penultimate blog.

My childhood and youth was a dark period. I was quiet, broody and moody. It was all the happenings around me. What I did was to take in all that, internalise them and they became a well-spring of knowledge, databases and experience. With this in my bag, I can instantly avoid the past mistakes of myself and others.

America is a nation of one from many. With that, there comes a host of contentious issues Americans have somehow inevitably tangle themselves in. To me, some are non-issues. Let me illustrate.

Animal activists have actively campaigned for the rights of endangered species and animals in general. This I certainly support. However in the name of science and for the benefit of a cure for mankind's diseases, I am afraid I have to part ways with the "animalists" (again my definition of defenders of animals)

However I was reading a blog yesterday where a local girl was making a big issue of leather shoes, namely cow hides. I am not sure if this is a bone of contention in America. To me, cows are already slaughtered for their meat. Thus cow hides are by-products. There is nothing essentially bad about recycling an otherwise waste-product much like we recycle electrical components from electronic garbage.

This is precisely how we are swept up by rhetorics of demagogues. We do not deconstruct and dissect their language. We did not delve deeper into the issues. We were only skimming the surface. Professor Nasbitt postulates that one difference between thinking in Eastern and Western ways is that the former is holism while the latter is focussed on one facet only (kind of myopic I guess).

I can see how logic and reasoning play important roles in education. First-principles, the vicious cycle of what-goes-around-comes-around, domino theory, both creator and destroyer theory are all "life-experiences" defined principles. Not some airy-fairy theoretical thingtummy.

My customer pays me late, I have to pay my suppliers late too. A teacher has had bad experiences in school and she reckons she should push some excess emotional baggage onto someone else such as her charges or subordinates. I kick my friend and he in turn kicks his friend. You have megal malls and you get mega mall proportioned problems.

One evil deed perpetuates another. We are SINgapore are we not, as someone pointed out to me.

Logomachy is all that defines issues in so many ways. Let us not assume the words we used carry the meanings we think they intend. Remember "dispensary" and "angst". Add "paedophiles" (sex with a child) and "ephebophiles" (sex with someone other than a child, usually pubescent which is the transition from child to adult). Let us not be assumptive on any count. Someone proposed a "religious education" in Singapore but I would venture to say he means "religion education" where religion figures as one module in a curricula continuum.

I mean it too if I said I have travelled half the world, continentally speaking of course, not by nations count. And then we have to distinguish between the habitable and non-habitable continents. What do we have? Six continents in all. Europe, Egypt and Jerusalem are must-see on my travel plans. I may blog on my past travelogues after the break.

I don't want to get too old before going on a pilgrimage to places like Egypt, Jerusalem and the Vatican where a fair bit of climbs and treks could take a toil on an aging and ailing person. Especially locales where the pyramids and Sphinx are, out in the searing sun and hot deserts (or so I imagine, haven't really examined the travel guides yet).

The bible actually has a paragraph on travel, taken from the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) also known as the Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach, one of the deuterocanonicals, written byJoshua (or Jesus). Seriously I am beginning to suspect this may even be written by Jesus himself.

It says and I quote: "A well -travelled man with wide experience knows many things and talks sense. You can't know much if you haven't experienced much, but travel can make you more clever." Travel , especially if it is backpacking and not so much guided bounded tours, helps you decide where you want to make your last repose too.

I suppose the press has an uphill task then in promulgating the correct use of terms and concepts, multi-faceted cognition, sticking to as close as verbatimly possible in the recount of events and the substance of people's speeches, interviews, etc and factually accurate accounts, carefully researched and up-to-the-minute, other than opinion pieces. A large part of our information derives from the press afterall.

Loose and undefined terminology confuse and warp thinking, bad as it already is sometimes among the people we meet when we engage in discussion and heated debates. We need fresh angles , perspectives and issues never before reported. Not an overkill in oft-reported articles like accidents, disasters, diseases and such. That I think is quintessentially professional and multi-dimensional journalism.

I remember taking a peek at one of the Combined Humanities essay question years ago where it was framed: "Public housing had always been..blah blah blah". With that framing, I would have taken a contrarian view and not a balanced one which schools are espousing. In any case my opinion is if you cannot agree wholly and you can defend your position well, you should go for just "yes" or "no" and not sit on the fence.

Back to the CJC dude incident. When he said his toes were treaded on, I was thinking "can't be a tread that a toenail rips, right"? So he already had a bad toe from an accident beforehand. Then that explains it.

Incidentally the way his fellow collegian carried his shoe reminded me of Cinderella and the glass slipper. I forgot to get his contact. SHIT! Yes yes. Even though he was scribbling it all down at the behest of the "clinician" (my own definition of a clinic assistant). But I wasn't sure if he was gay and why should I bother?

Again, do not assume all those attending staff at a clinic are nurses. Nor are they pharmacists or apothecaries when they dispense medicine. Or the receptionist and administrator at a "school" are teachers. They are just mere mortals - "aunties" to put it simply. So check all the medication now in case you had viagra dispensed as aspirins.

And yes, the counter booking "girl" (ok ok she wasn't exactly a girl, she was old enough to be an "auntie") left the booth so it was eventually a man ( I guess it is the manager) who took in bookings. I did not put down such details then as I thought you would be bored and space does not permit (notice how long all my blogs have been). But for truth and accuracy, I thought I should if just for my conscience sake.

My first impression of snooker as a sleazeball of a game was bolstered by what I saw at a billiard saloon where students at a nearby "school" congregated, smoking and drinking. By the way, do note the fine differences between billiard, snooker and pool.

However my recent visit to one near my hometown changed my mind when the smoke and drink (usually associated with slime, grime and drunkard brawls) were taken away. It became a perfectly legitimate and healthy sport for young people. See how something changes when we redefine it.

Oh yes , semantics, that illusory language construct sometimes. I remember a co-trainer of mine wrote in Chinese "press the lift" when he meant "press the lift button". I do suppose both conjure up contrasting images, no?

Where have all our role models gone? , Imagine a year younger ex-colleague of mine (Hatsheput or is it Cleopatra now?) , a mother of two, taking after her idol Madonna. Does this bode well for us? Are the lives of the celebrities the ones we should emulate or look up to especially if it is rifed with scandals, fights and break-ups? Sorry girls, you don't exactly send me good vibes, experentially speaking. Guess I am kind of a spiritual dude.

Have you seen the way some real estate agents conduct themselves? Totally devoid of professional etiquette. I can't blame some whom existentialism is a question mark at times but I certainly do not want to be at the receiving end.

I am going to write on my last blog soon and with that closure on most of my thoughts on issues. I will return eventually but will during the hiatus occasionally blog should something crops up. Unless I have decided it is so meaningless an existence here that I should just up and leave for somewhere. I am cornered as it is. I don't have many options.