The Whole Kit And Caboodle

A flurry of exchanges between myself and the housing board authority.

A few very obvious oversight (or no sight even) . They are comparing the SPRs not on a citizenship but on a marital status basis. It is on this premise that I argue Single Singapore Citizens are no better than a non-citizen. They are, indirectly, mopping up brand new units by virtue of their marriage which says nothing about their allegiance to the state unless they swear citizenship on an oath-taking ceremony.

It could be, after all, a marriage of convenience for pecuniary or other material benefits. Already they can bite directly into the secondary market. Two bites of the pie while I only have one. Thus, citizenship for non-citizenship, they are better off than moi.

All the while I thought the housing board was a constitutional sacrosanct (as enshrined in the Constitution Article 12 and as a key statuory board listed in the Fifth schedule right along the MAS, JTC and CPF), a guarantor of equal protection without discrimating on the bases of religion, race, descent or place of birth as long as this is a Singapore citizen, in his acquisition, holding and disposal of property as well as employment. It is also the champion of asset-building and ownership.

Now why would I incur an expense in rental accomodation, throwing money down the drain month after month, and not contribute towards an asset, a point the housing authority has also conceded in its official website.

Once again, I hope the Health authority would re-consider its plans to build the Jurong General Hospital. This has been superceded by the Yishun Norther General Hospital. Apparently there will be just a out-patient health-care institution in the west now and the Northern part of Singapore's population catchment warrants a new hospital.

I have no arguments against that but I am saying the West has an equally pressing need in terms of a growing populace. The National University Hospital seems to serve residents in the Clementi, Dover, Buona Vista and Bukit Timah areas while geographically the Jurong General Hospital would potentially serve Boon Lay, Chinese Garden , Lakeside, Jurong East, Bukit Gombak, Bukit Batok and even Choa Chu Kang.

I am suggesting that the out-patient institution be outfitted with a 24-hour accident and emergency ward with all its attendant ancillaries for life-and-death medical attention where time is of the essence. Imagine travelling out to a distant NUH when you are residing in Boon Lay. Your life could be smothered out even before you reach your salvation.

My lumbar spinal fracture accident has taught me this and I was fortunately a stone's throw away from Tan Tock Seng Hospital, through no fault or planning of mine. As I said, experience is life's greatest leveller. I hope something like this won't have to happen to you to jolt you from your inertia.

Hopefully the present calls for suggestions on the new hospital would see, other than calls for water and landscaped gardens themes, suggestions on more patient-centric and friendly features such as non-slip floors , ramps, elevators and light-weight doors for the infirmed and the gerontologics.

Recapitulating on Louis' fears about menstruation. I think he meant it as gory and thus he is revolted or sickened, and therefore "disgusting" figures in his vocabulary which isn't too far off the mark what he was trying to express. But this is a natural bio-rhythmic cycle and he must be made aware of it. I would be too like I would gory surgery or profuse bleeding from some injuries.

I am amazed my computer can shut down on its own and I can't send selective electronic mails out or some that I do, have parts missing or jumbled. In fact when I receive certain mails, I have letters substituted by chinese characters. Someone tell me what is wrong with me computer.

As I soon discovered, Down's Syndrome afflicts its sufferers to varying degrees. The intellectual development is apparently delayed, but for what kind of numbers, I don't have the information. Even cerebral palsy, while damaging the brain and thus motor ability, can leave intellectual ability intact for how many of its sufferers, again I can't say. So much for my assumption at first. It is clear from this that looks can deceive (physical versus intellect).

Narnia, was, by all accounts, a cold, wintry and heartless place, ruled by the ice-queen, the White Witch herself. It took four sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to break the magical spell she held over its citizens, thus returning the land to its warmth and glow it should have been.

Walt Disney has done it again. We can draw parallels here to nations, whose economic and political pre-occupations, sometimes ignore and leave its citizens out in the cold on universal human and humanitarian needs. Witness the icified statues and you can imagine how we can commiserate in policies and actions of people who leave us precisely that way.

Going round malls, I could see how our Y generation is coupling and turning out. It blew my mind away that the guys are allowing their female compatriots to poke, jibe, slap and hit them all over their body or snatching away their belongings, some obviously wimps. It is bad enough if it is perpetrated by your own gender. Fun goes as far as this, I say. You are going to be one abused and hen-pecked husband in the near future.

Incidentally, my ex-bosses' son, besides being a SJI, CJC and NUS alumus, was also a "chee-hong" (a local colloqualism for men who go to extreme lengths for all kinds of women paramours). The girls get his special attention in class and the class does gorge itself on tit-bits and other bribes his father-and-mother-owned commercial school dishes out.

All this chatter of the coming Christmas festival set me thinking. It is in Scandinavia that Santa Claus is credited with from hailing from. So I cannot help thinking that this place must be a pretty special place in the hearts of everyone.

Its authenticity, reindeers , lakes and forests, cannot but beckon to one and all. I can just pray that its people would be as real as they are portrayed to be. Only even better. Better than Santa Claus, that is.