MR TAN Kin Lian suggested ‘giving full-time national servicemen an allowance similar to that paid to a regular soldier in the Singapore Armed Forces’ (‘Kin Lian: Make NS a privilege, not a burden’; last Saturday).

I have four sons. Two have completed their two years of national service and two are currently serving. Long before their enlistments, I told them it was imperative for them to be trained through national service.

I served national service and attended my four sons’ enlistment exercises. I was confident that they were being turned from ‘boys to men’.

It is regrettable that after so many years of national service and education on its necessity, Mr Tan still regards it as a burden. National service is indispensable; it is a responsibility of citizenship.

Mr Tan called for national servicemen to be paid the same allowance as regulars. We should not belittle the contributions of professional soldiers. The demands on national servicemen are different from those on our soldiers.

I agree. National Service is not a burden – if your family is comfortably well-off or rich. That is, obviously, an enormous IF. And of course, our writer here has never thought about it. Instead he would prefer to spout cliches like the abominably-overused “boys to men” horseshit. I guess he has a point – maturity involves skiving, bootlicking and being able to tell barefaced lies with a straight face. All these are essential life skills one picks up during NS.

That “responsibility of citizenship” crap, however, is transparently indefensible. Only males in Singapore serve NS. So, what, all the girls except those who sign on, are not citizens? They definitely are. However, they mysteriously do not have this responsibility to carry out. Why is that? Dear writer, have you got a good explanation for me?

Lastly, “professional soldiers” in the SAF are, in my experience, anything but. I’ve met an unbelievable number of regulars who were incompetent, thieving, unmotivated or straight-up psychotic. I’ll have to say that in my experience, the NSFs were a lot more competent than the so-called “professionals”. We got stuff done and we didn’t do stupid shit like steal outrations to bring home for our families. We were not tinpot dictators. We were not so incompetent that we needed unbelievable hours of overtime just to complete simple tasks. All of the above, I have seen “professional” soldiers do, even while they suck up tremendous amounts of taxpayer dollars as salary. It was, and probably is, fucking ridiculous.

I can accept that Singapore needs a conscript military. However, I can’t accept the piss-poor way it’s currently organized. The very least one can do is pay the conscripts better than the current pitiful remuneration, and some people won’t even have that happen. Completely outrageous.

I DISAGREE with comments that our electorate has matured. Judging from the uncultured remarks on online forums, posting boards and Facebook, Singapore’s image in the world has suffered a great blow.

The older generation enjoyed much progress from an iron-fist style of government. We trusted our leaders to make the right decisions for the nation and remained positive in times of adversity. We stayed united and swallowed bitter pills for the sake of our overall good.

The younger generation has taken the success of today for granted. They are clearly rebellious, disrespectful, ungrateful and ungracious towards our respectable, world-class leaders.

Will Singapore become a nation of “complaint kings”? All I hear are negative comments about our leaders. It is easy to criticise policies, as every solution will result in winners and losers.

Do people think money drops from the sky when they want costs to be cut in every area? How could we have achieved first class status in finance, health care, transportation, housing infrastructure, education, legal system, network connectivity, environment and defence without our top ministerial brains?

The new generation thinks it is fashionable to be anti-government. They spread hate messages in cyberspace. All praises for policies are rebutted with protests.

Instead of complaining, one should think of the positive side of our policies. If one thinks a policy is unfair, explain why and suggest better alternatives. Always look at the big picture and be gracious to accept counter-arguments.

Look for opportunities to earn higher wages. Be appreciative of what we have and do not put the blame on others.

The good governance and stable economy has enabled my business to grow over the years, even when times were bad.

Having the right mindset is the first step towards a First World society – a class of understanding, tolerant and respectful citizens.

Inevitably, after the PAP suffered a considerable (by uniquely Singaporean standards) electoral setback at the May 8 polls, numerous letters have appeared in the Straits Times defending the PAP’s record and expressing confidence in its ability to take Singapore forward (reasonable) and decrying its detractors as mere complaint kings only interested in attacking policies and the party without any desire to improve the country (not so reasonable). Until today, none have been very egregious, so I have not chosen to engage. But this one needs some rebutting.

To give due credit to our writer, she certainly doesn’t beat around the bush. She characterizes criticism of government policies as being uniformly negative and harmful. She implies that Singaporeans should trust in “our respectable, world-class leaders” because they know what is best for us. Singaporeans should always seek to look on the positive side of any policies even if, I suppose, these affect them adversely. Any criticism of policies should be accompanied by well-thought-out alternatives. And then, ironically, she states that Singaporeans should be gracious to accept counter-arguments.

Yes, she said this: “The younger generation has taken the success of today for granted. They are clearly rebellious, disrespectful, ungrateful and ungracious towards our respectable, world-class leaders” in her letter and still thinks she is qualified to lecture others about being gracious in accepting counter-arguments.

1) Take your own advice, madam.

2) It is unhealthy to characterize all negative feedback about government policies as mere complaining. As she herself acknowledges, policies have good and bad sides. To minimize the bad, it is necessary to consider criticism and act on it where possible. It will not help anyone being adversely affected by a policy to think positive! What they want is for a policy to stop screwing them over; telling them to think positive is akin to (note: it is an apocryphal story) being an aristocrat telling starving peasants to eat cake. I do not condone personal attacks on any politicians, PAP or opposition – that is definitely beyond the pale. But criticism, even harsh criticism, must be taken in the right spirit. The solution is never to shut everybody up as our writer appears to be implying.

3) The top-down leadership of yesteryear will no longer wash. Every Singaporean has a stake in this country. We have all made sacrifices for the country; we have worked hard for it and many of us have trained to defend it. In return, we must have a say in how things are run. If you want to simply trust in strong leaders, we might as well turn this back into a despotism. And as examples from around the world (North Korea, Myanmar) have amply demonstrated, that is not the way to go in the present-day. It is absolutely vital that any government pay attention to what its citizens want; in fact, it is essential, since the primary duty of any government is to take care of the country and its citizens within. Our leaders, paradoxically, are also our servants. They are not gods sitting, judging, rewarding and punishing us from on high.

4) It is not reasonable to expect citizens to sketch out well-thought-out alternatives to policies they are unhappy about. Firstly, they may be only unhappy about elements of a policy. Their comments should be taken into account and the policy tweaked. Secondly, few citizens have experience and training in policy-making. They are primarily concerned about how, on a micro-level, policies are adversely affecting them. The onus is on our leaders to take into account criticism and feedback to change their policies – because that’s what they have been elected to do! We wouldn’t need leaders if the average man on the street could come up with complex national policies in a flash.

For the country to move forward, both we and our leaders have to be more accepting of change and be more willing to listen. There are signs that it might be happening. I sure hope it is.

‘Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) candidate Dr Ang Yong Guan was quoted as saying that ‘a person’s sexual orientation doesn’t matter’, while reacting to news about his teammate, Dr Vincent Wijeysingha (‘PAP and SDP square off over ‘smear tactics”; Tuesday). A person’s sexual orientation is immaterial and not an issue to most Singaporeans if he is not holding an influential public office. If Dr Wijeysingha were to be voted into Parliament, I would be very wary of him if he is a gay activist. A Member of Parliament is beholden to his electorate to preserve the social fabric and moral values of our society. We are still a conservative nation with strong family and religious values against homosexuality. The last thing we want in Parliament is a gay activist. I am certain the voters of Holland-Bukit Timah GRC would not want to vote in their ‘first gay MP’.’

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see a letter of this ilk. After all, that was probably exactly what Vivian was aiming for when he launched his personal attack. I wish it was not this way, but Singaporeans holding discriminatory and outdated opinions is not exactly something new.

To point out what our author is saying or implying:

1) “The gay” is akin to a disease that can be spread.

2) There is a danger that public figures will spread it. How? Beats me.

3) We can and should legislate morality.

4) Legislation should be passed according to religious values not held by all.

Every single one of those arguments is bullshit. Citizens’ private lives should be of no interest to the state unless they are pursuing activities that directly and non-consensually harm other members of society; for example, child pornography. Legislation is meant to protect every citizen in the country equally; it is not meant to discriminate and hold anyone to an arbitrary moral standard. The idea of a gay agenda is completely laughable, or should be, to any discerning individual. Most importantly of all, legislation should not be passed according to religious values or moral standards held by only a percentage of the population. Singapore is a secular state, and a secular state it ought to stay. We cannot permit any religious values to influence the laws passed here, because we are not a theocracy and, fortunately, only a crackpot minority think we ought to be.

This country will never advance if its people continue to cling to outmoded concepts of morality and law.

AS AN older citizen, I am uncomfortable about the presence of former government scholarship holders in the opposition.

To me, it seems as if they are abandoning their parents who paid for their excellent education.

Yes, one could argue that these candidates were in fact supported by taxpayers and will now serve all Singaporeans, and not only the People’s Action Party.

But, are they really sincere about helping Singapore achieve a better society by joining the opposition?

Can they effectively check the Government or will they create more fighting or quarrelling like the parliamentary sessions in Taiwan?

Aren’t there enough ways of giving feedback to the Government?

I can contact my Members of Parliament any time; I don’t even have to make an appointment and can e-mail them when I need help.

It takes time to know these scholar opposition candidates and I wonder if I should risk the four to five years it will take to know such a candidate’s ability, and compromise national progress.

A better answer for me is not to vote them in for this General Election and see if they continue contributing.

I would even apply my answer to the Workers’ Party’s star candidate, Mr Chen Show Mao.

I would like to see if he really relocates his family to Singapore, as he has told the press he would, if he fails to win the election.

A candidate like Workers’ Party chairman Sylvia Lim is too academic for an average voter like me. She makes good speeches but rarely champions a voter’s bread-and-butter needs.

A good MP to me must not only act as a check on the Government, but also serve the ground and offer effective solutions to the Government.

I would prefer a few good opposition MPs than many who are merely interested in the glamour of being in the opposition in Parliament.

With the General Election coming up, the press has predictably been flooded by writers eager to, colloquially speaking, angkat bola. But this letter takes it to a whole other level. I am at a loss at to how people who can think this way even exist. Don’t they for a moment stop to consider the absurdity and illogicality of their opinions?

To deal with the letter systematically:

1) AS AN older citizen, I am uncomfortable about the presence of former government scholarship holders in the opposition. To me, it seems as if they are abandoning their parents who paid for their excellent education.

Are you fucking serious. Are you seriously making this argument. One central assumption seems to be that people living in opposition wards don’t pay taxes. I am pleased to inform our reader that they, in fact, do. And they pay these taxes at the exact same rate as Singaporeans living in PAP wards. And even if they did not, former government scholarship holders – “former” being the key word here – are not beholden to the government their entire lives. They take scholarships, serve their bonds, and the contract is considered fulfilled. There is absolutely no reason they have to uncritically back the government their entire lives. Furthermore, to finally put the seal on this completely absurd argument, the PAP is a political party and does not constitute the Government. The distinction might be lost on many, but it’s a fair one to make – especially considering a rule exists that civil servants cannot be members of any political party.

In short: “Yes, one could argue that these candidates were in fact supported by taxpayers and will now serve all Singaporeans, and not only the People’s Action Party.” Yes indeed, that is the only sensible argument to make, not the one you are making, dear writer.

2) But, are they really sincere about helping Singapore achieve a better society by joining the opposition?

What particular reasons have you got to doubt them? The fact that they don’t wear all-white and have a lightning symbol pinned to their chests?

3) Can they effectively check the Government or will they create more fighting or quarrelling like the parliamentary sessions in Taiwan?

Yes, opposition candidates run for Parliament so they can get the privilege of punching each other out in its hallowed halls.

But even then, you know what fighting and quarrelling shows? It’s not pretty, but what it shows is passion. And that is exactly what our tepid Parliament lacks. There is absolutely no sense that most of the MPs want to serve the people. Better them fighting to push through their agendas, than falling asleep all the time during speeches.

4) Aren’t there enough ways of giving feedback to the Government?

Singaporean doesn’t understand what democracy is. Colour me surprised.

5) It takes time to know these scholar opposition candidates and I wonder if I should risk the four to five years it will take to know such a candidate’s ability, and compromise national progress. A better answer for me is not to vote them in for this General Election and see if they continue contributing.

Here’s an idea: why don’t you flip that thought and not vote for the new PAP candidates and see if they continue contributing? I also resent the implication that the PAP is the only party capable of giving us “national progress”, whatever that incredibly vague term means. But knowing Singaporeans, it probably means “make the rich lots more money”.

6) I would prefer a few good opposition MPs than many who are merely interested in the glamour of being in the opposition in Parliament.

Where the hell is the glamour? Show me the glamour that our current opposition MPs are currently enjoying. What the fuck, do you think they get a red carpet and a horde of paparazzi clicking away every time they show up at Parliament? Are reporters crowding their abodes for quotes and whiffs of scandal?

This is a thoroughly silly letter. Unbelievable that someone thought about it and decided to write in, and even more unbelievable that someone looked at it and decided to publish it.

I’m one of the many readers who has been following the story of the full-time National Serviceman photographed with his maid carrying his bag. As an NSman myself, the story holds particular interest for me. But I only realised the full scale of the interest in the incident, when I noticed the news of the boy having owned up and being offered counselling appearing on the BBC World news ticker during Tuesday night’s broadcast.

I have seen and heard of NS boys handed far more serious punishments for seemingly lesser offences. I think it would be in the interest of fairness and equality for Mindef to be more forthcoming with the details of its handling of the case.

In case you have been living under an immovable boulder for the past half a month or so, the case being referred to concerns the now-infamous photograph of an NSF being followed by a maid carrying his backpack for him. I agree that this is a source of shame for all Singaporeans – it demonstrates primarily the tendency of many among us to make mountains of molehills.

Let us review the facts of the case. Our NSF here has done wrong – that much is undeniable. He should carry his own backpack. In allowing or maybe ordering his maid to do it for him, he has behaved like a spoilt brat. But is that such an enormous crime? Is that worth pages upon pages of newsprint and the vast amounts of teeth-gnashing that has been going on about how soft our soldiers and younger generation has become? It isn’t.

We need some perspective here. First of all this is one soldier. How can we extrapolate so much from the behaviour of one person? Adrian Lim, infamous as Singapore’s only serial killer, is one man. Should his deeds be used as evidence towards a trend that Singaporeans are becoming increasingly murderous? Surely this will strike most people as being utterly ridiculous. Yet so many are applying the exact same principle – one soldier gets his maid to carry his backpack for him; it means all our soldiers are getting soft. That’s ridiculous and completely illogical.

Second – why should he be punished more harshly? Behaving like a spoilt brat is undesirable but last I checked it isn’t actually a crime. Some might argue that he has brought low the SAF’s image but come on – half the population, the half that served, at least already has a low opinion of the SAF anyway. More seriously, it is merely one soldier. Anybody who thinks less of an enormous organization composed of thousands of people in a variety of diverse vocations due to a single photograph involving a single, low-ranking member of said organization needs to have a modicum of logic slapped vigorously into him or her.

Third – what punishment does our writer think is sufficient? Extras? DB? Confinement? String him up and whip his back bloody in public? What is the point of punishment anyway? It is primarily to teach somebody that something he or she has done is wrong, and not to do it again. Punishment can also have a deterrent effect on others. From the media firestorm and counselling, I think it is safe to say our soldier knows his mistake by now and that future soldiers will not make the same mistake, as presumably nobody wants the media and Singaporeans baying for their blood. What purpose, then, would further punishment serve? The personal gratification of people like our writer is not a valid reason.

Let’s become a more forgiving society. When something goes wrong, let us focus on putting it right rather than hunting for culprits to punish. It is ridiculous to behold how far this single photograph has taken us. The media seems the only beneficiary from the increased, rage-fuelled sales of their newspapers.

TO MOST Singaporeans, The Straits Times (ST) has been a daily staple which has chronicled the nation’s growth.

The newspaper has evolved beautifully over the years and is a heartwarming sight, especially when one is on a flight back from overseas.

At such moments, seeing and reading it makes one feel like one is coming home.

So, I would like to congratulate the staff who make ST a great paper. As much as New Yorkers love The New York Times, Singaporeans have our beloved ST.

In the era of digital e-readers and tablets, I still see the value of print media. Nothing compares to the feeling of holding a fresh copy of ST.

I have two wishes for the paper for 2011.

First, that it will roll out a digital subscription edition that can work on devices such as the iPad and other tablets.

This will be a delight for those who like to have their news with them. Currently, the version on my iPhone is fine, but having it on a tablet platform will be a welcome addition.

Second, that the paper will reduce the ink smudge in the print.

Spare pet owners the “D” word (11 January 2011)

RECENTLY, my dog passed away and I had to deregister it on the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority website.

On the site, under the given options for reasons for deregistration, the first one is the word “dead” followed by others such as “lost”, “stolen” and so on.

We are already feeling very sad over the loss of our dog and it is insensitive to have such a word on the site. Is it possible to change it to something like “passed on”?

This would really go a long way towards helping dog owners get over their grief.

How did this get published?

THE Ministry of Education (MOE) said in its reply last Wednesday (“Child porn scholar: Teachers omitted peeping offence”) that the teachers of scholarship holder Jonathan Wong had not included in his testimonials the fact that he was publicly caned as a student in 2002 for peeping in a women’s toilet.

Testimonials, especially for scholarships, should not gloss over such important details and facts. In future, MOE should hold the issuer of such testimonials accountable for any omission big or small, or it will defeat the purpose of a testimonial.

Let us take this as an embarrassing lesson.

Let us take this letter as an embarrassing lesson that Singaporeans are still incapable of giving people second chances. For all the talk of how developed this country is, so many people’s mindsets are still not mature enough to look beyond witch-hunts and grasp the idea that, sometimes, human beings make mistakes which they ought not to have to pay for for the rest of their lives.

I’m not about to defend a child pornographer. What he did was reprehensible and – rightly – he is going to pay dearly for the offence. But that is not to say that his teachers were wrong to give him a second chance, particularly when he was considered by professional therapists to have responded well to treatment back then. He got his second chance, and he did not take it. That is not any fault of his teachers. As a sentient adult with – as far as I know – perfect control of his mental faculties, the fault is entirely his own.

So why look for someone else to blame? Must there always be a scapegoat?

It was a youthful indiscretion. He was punished at that time, and underwent treatment subsequently. He was judged to respond well to this treatment and the case was, reasonably, considered closed. There was no way any of his teachers could know he would re-offend on such a scale in future. They did the right thing, the compassionate thing, and refrained from passing negative judgement on him in a document that would be with him for life. Has our flawless author of this letter never made a mistake in his life, or been given a second chance by anybody? It is his transparent lack of compassion for fellow human beings that is embarrassing.

YESTERDAY’S report (‘Newspapers still relevant: SM Goh’) reconfirms my view that newspapers will always remain relevant.

It is a medium which the Internet and the visual media will never replace.

For instance, a reader can always reach for his newspaper at any time, and it allows him to think and mull over its contents even as he reads. Neither the visual media nor the Internet offers such a convenience.

It takes more than an hour of reading The Straits Times before I can put the paper down.

The paper comes to me like a fresh brew of coffee every day. I can hardly say this about the Internet.

It never fails to amaze and amuse me how people can be so wrong in so few words.

The visual media might never replace newspapers – television and newspapers have coexisted for decades, after all – but the Internet surely will, one of these days. The writer most likely has watched television, but I’m pretty sure he’s not actually been on the internet before, because he seems to think that news websites have mysterious devices that shut them down after midnight or something. These devices also somehow shield perfectly sentient human beings from coherent thought while they are reading news on the Web.

If anything, Internet news is a heck of a lot better because not only can it be access all the time and can be mulled over (unlike what our writer, who is possibly still using stone flints to start his cooking fire, seems to think), one can also access breaking news from another part of the world in a different time zone. Can newspapers break news that way? Not unless they become self-updating. Minority Report is a cool movie for having that, but sadly it still does not exist in the real world.

You have to be a special kind of dinosaur to claim that paper on words is more convenient than the ever-present Internet. But I do agree with the reader that newspapers will always remain relevant – you can’t swat a cockroach with a laptop.

I AGREE that the proposed changes to censorship rules (‘Allow R21 films

in heartland cinemas with curbs’; yesterday), are aimed at promoting greater freedom of choice, and that there are optional filtering systems people can put in place

But such changes may lead to a degradation and erosion of moral values.

Granting people easier access to adult material that reek of profanity, violence and nudity might lead them to succumb to temptation after watching such films as a form of entertainment.

On the surface, it may be be hard to see the negative effects of such accessibility.

But such films are clearly at odds with the values we were brought up with, irrespective of race and religion. These qualities include moral uprightness, decency and respect for every individual. Adult material tends to focus more on personal and carnal gratification.

Making such material available widely and conveniently may shape the way people perceive violence and sex, and desensitise them.

I understand the need for freedom of choice and a compromise is possible.

For example, instead of limiting the websites people have access to, a restriction should be applied to the number of times and duration in which people can access adult material online.

This is to ensure that they exercise some self-restraint and are not going to suffer an addiction to it.

The small-minded tend to make big assumptions, and our writer makes some huge ones. Namely:

1) All movies rated R21 in Singapore are prurient, exploitative affairs that do little else but promote sex and violence.

2) People will succumb to temptation and presumably begin having sex with everything from aardvarks to xylophones right after viewing these movies. In public. Society’s downfall is assured the moment discerning adults are permitted to watch whatever they like.

3) Discerning adults must be policed like children because they don’t know their own limits. This will further ensure the apocalyptic collapse of society never occurs.

I think most people who read here will already see my point but let’s just go through these one-by-one so this post isn’t too short.

1) All movies rated R21 in Singapore are prurient, exploitative affairs that do little else but promote sex and violence.

This is completely false. Obviously there are many sleazy exploitation movies out there (check the Life! section and look for “Overseas Movies”) but, unlike what our writer seems to think, plenty of serious movies are rated R21. To just rattle off a few, there is the biopic Milk, the film adaptation of Watchmen, the modern fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth, the thriller The Departed, and – most recently – the Swedish film adaptation of the novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Yes, most of these contain a lot of violence and a couple also contain a considerable number of sex scenes, but all of them have well-constructed plots. The sex and violence is not the whole point of any of these movies. These scenes are merely to advance the story, and these movies all tell excellent stories. They can hardly be called exploitative films that “focus on personal and carnal gratification”.

No wonder our writer calls for curbs on what discerning adults should be perfectly within their rights to do. He’s not yet one himself.

2) People will succumb to temptation and presumably begin having sex with everything from aardvarks to xylophones right after viewing these movies. In public. Society’s downfall is assured the moment discerning adults are permitted to watch whatever they like.

This one’s familiar. It’s the old slippery slope again. Easier access to R21 material means that people will become desensitized to sex and violence which means they will “succumb to tempation” and descend into depravity. Give us a little more credit, eh? Obviously there are those among us who will be negatively affected, but these are in the extreme minority. These people need help and there are plenty of mental health professionals around to help them. Surely it makes no sense to severely restrict access to adult material if only a tiny proportion of the population experiences lasting effects from it? Should we prohibit entirely the consumption of alcohol due to the propensity of some people to drink and drive?

3) Discerning adults must be policed like children because they don’t know their own limits. This will further ensure the apocalyptic collapse of society never occurs.

I find the suggestion by our writer that “a restriction should be applied to the number of times and duration in which people can access adult material online” extremely insulting. Discerning adults should not be treated like children. We have the mental faculties to distinguish right from wrong, and while a proportion might yield to temptation, or develop psychological issues from unrestrained access to adult material, the vast majority of the population should not. It’s all about personal responsibility. Just like a vast proportion of the adult population are responsible enough not to drink and drive, the vast proportion of the adult population is responsible enough not to become sex addicts and maniacs. This is why, despite drink-and-drive incidents, the consumption of alcohol is not restricted to the general populace. I can go right out there now and down as much alcohol as I please. If I choose to get into a vehicle and operate it immediately after, I run the risk of dying in a car accident or being arrested and heavily punished.

Similarly, if someone goes online and downloads lots of nasty porn, then gets aroused and goes out to molest women, he runs the risk of being arrested and heavily punished. What is the difference here? Should we, because of this, ensure that nobody can drink more than, say, 2 beers every time they go to a bar? There is no such restriction, so why should there be a restriction on the amount of time anybody can spend viewing pornography online? It’s an infringement on personal liberties.

Hence what I can conclude from this hugely ignorant letter is that the restrictions our writer suggests should not be implemented on anybody except himself, because he is clearly not a discerning adult. Until he becomes one, he should not be allowed to access adult material at all.

IT WAS interesting to read about how much the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) cost us and how much it brought into Singapore in terms of dollars and cents.

Even leaders felt the need to emphasise the economic gains to justify the expenditure. Do we need to always whittle everything down to economics?

Indeed Singapore has benefited. But I think above all, as Singaporeans, we need to be proud of the fact that by hosting the first YOG, we send a signal to the world that as a nation and society, we value and invest in our youth.

They are worth every penny spent as they will be the generation that can make this world a better place for all. We need to ensure that we enable them to learn to work, play, relate and even compete with integrity and fairness so that all can benefit, even as some win and others do not.

We hope this YOG would also inspire other nations to understand that they have to prepare and invest in their youth for the future. I hope with subsequent YOGs, we will see more countries participating and investing in their youth for a brighter future.

This is a senseless (get it?) post. In fact, our man is intellectually bankrupt because he found it necessary to state the blindingly obvious. He also finds it a great achievement that our country has just spent nearly $400 million to tell most of the world what they already know.

The message? Young people are important for the future of society. Holy shit, thank you for illuminating this obscure subject, I don’t think ever in the rest of my hopefully long and productive life I will ever have an epiphany half as devastating. No doubt world leaders received such a seismic shock to their senses as well upon reading of the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Because the rest of the world has obviously been diligently relegating its youth to filthy, overflowing gutters, completely unaware that the young people of today are the future of their respective countries. It is only with the YOG that the world has learned that things will go to hell in a handbasket if no steps are taken to properly feed, educate, police and care for the younger generation. And that lesson was worth $400 million.

Really? This is so awful I can’t even get very angry about it. It is just sad.