Singapore 2006

Frown Singapore
I was picking up my mail from Yvonne when I spotted them. Two of the IMF/WB delegate who were pleasantly engaged in a conversation. It was one female gendered woman and one male gendered man. They were heading fast toward me, SUNTEC CITY, where the convention is being held, just up an eaving highway a stone's throw away.

That was when our national exhortation of "SMILE SINGAPORE" hit me and I was feeling on top of the world today.

So I flashed them my sweetest of cutey pie smilew but guess what? The two Neanderthals actually looked at moi briefly, almost disbelievingly (kinda like a snub) , looked away and continued on their way, drivelling away in their own small world.

Look Neanderthals! First because of you people, the shopkeepers in and around the convention place had to endure a ghost town and now how dare you give this kinda "attitude" in my face?

Just because you guys own the world's financial institutions and regulate them as well, doesn't mean you can intimidate all those Asian countries you badgered during the 1997 financial crisis.

I demand an apology! Better still, I wanna talk to all the major activists holed up in town right now. If not, I am actually starting mine. A group called "Don't give moi that kinda attitude IMF/WB". How's that for the next convention you people are gonna attend?

Dead Men's Books
John Holt's "Instead Of Education"
I am reading (the late) John Holt's book "Instead Of Education" right after I have finished (the late) Professor Stephen Jay Gould's book "The Wonderful Life". I stumbled upon this really gem of a book yesterday.

You would have noticed that I have been reading a lot of dead men's books lately. Don't gimme that kinda ghostly deadly (oopsy daisy) look! Blame it on the dead men writing such eminently quality stuff!

I am about 45 pages done and John Holt says the things I would have said myself about the sorry state of education we have gotten ourselves into nowadays. I will probably write a review some time soon after I have finished reading it.

Stephen Jay Gould's "The Wonderful Life"
All Stephen Jay Gould wanna say is that the Burgess Shale was wrongly shoehorned into some existing phlya because of an old fart's administrative burden (and thus wasn't able to pay as much attention to the shale as he should have) and his archtraditionalist background (he couldn't go another way because that was the way he is).

The section on the new light shed on this profound discovery showed up several interesting facts.

First, natural history has been relegated to its very low status in the totem pole of science (as compared to the "hard" sciences) only because it couldn't be simulated experimentally as much, thus the testability, predictability and mathematically formulaed or quantified factors.

This brings to mind how psychology has been somewhat elevated in the realm of science with its refocus to mathematically formulate every testing possible. The psychological testing we all know. But which doesn't measure as much , in my opinion.

Secondly he staunchly defended his field of science (or art) as being just as rigorous and demanding in its historical or contingency interpretation of events. Inductive and deductive methods, observation and antecedents leading to the final outcome.

I really admire this guy's book, the way he writes it and propounds his line of reasoning and argument. He has my 100% vote on a truly scientific and artful chef-d-oeuvre.

Singapore : The Encyclopaedia
I realise how it is always the same few people who get featured time and again. Usually people of the establishment. I don't think we will ever head in any new direction if this goes on indefinitely. Singapore will just suffer if there isnt even a semblance of infusion of truly new blood in any field.