Queer women within feminist Singapore Part of Singapore's month-long gay pride celebration Indignation 2008, this talk might be its most important event as it best fits this year's theme of Building Bridges. Agagooga has declined to attend the talk due to his antipathy to the idea of feminists, but for the boy who grew up counting Murphy Brown (since 1989), Hillary Rodham Clinton (since 1991), and Ellen Degeneres (since 1994 - I Brain surgery - what's inside the heads of homophobes? Part of Singapore's month-long gay pride celebration Indignation 2008, the eponymous talk attracted the attention and interest of Agagooga and myself. [Yes, we attended the talk together and I typed the notes on his laptop - happy picture of us live-blogging (or note-taking, as it turned out that 72-13 had no wireless@sg network) at event to come, courtesy of the official photographers from In other news: I'm back. Friends with schizophrenia: an elegy At this point, I would have accumulated enough of his SMSes to launch a conceptual art exhibit at the Substation's gallery - that is, if I had saved them up meticulously. After all, they were lovingly and quite possibly painstakingly typed in the truncated, abbreviated, I'd like to buy a vowel please version of SMS English. I could never comprehend his obsession with the luminous, or his urge to I sent an email to Thio and all I got was this lousy T-shirt Part 2 of 2 I hope you're happy... I hope you're happy now! I hope you're happy how you've hurt your cause forever, I hope you think you're clever... Poor Kway Teow Man is flabbergasted at why some gay activists say that even though the failure to repeal Section 377A was as expected, this was a sign of progress. Why ye of little faith, have ye no faith in the Father of the Singapore Gay I weighed in the 377A debate and all I got was this lousy T-shirt Part I of 2 I hope you're happy... I hope you're happy now! I hope you're happy how you've hurt your cause forever, I hope you think you're clever... Fellow conservatives, Professor Thio Li-ann has failed us all. I speak of course about her contributions in the 377A debate, of her fiery speech in Parliament and her defence of how fundamental religious viewpoints must be allowed expression in The same problem, elsewhere UK politician steps down for questioning immigration policy The row over the Midlands candidate was ignited after the Observer reported details of his column in the local Express and Star newspaper, in which he claimed that "we roll out the red carpet for foreigners while leaving the locals to fend for themselves ..." Also related: Intra-EU immigration patterns, via takchek. One way to shift The conservative case for 377A Gabriel Seah has recently argued that the energies of the state and the activist citizens of Singapore should not be spent on a campaign to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code. The act criminalises homosexual sex as unnatural gross indecency, yet for all that it's worth, various leaders of the state (i.e. father and son) have stressed repeatedly that this law will not be enforced. For male Sedition! Russian Edition Jonathan Eyal (read as "isle") is the research director of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, and also apparently the correspondent for the Straits Times Europe bureau in London. On most days of the week, Eyal has a doctorate in International Law and Relations, and is by all means a respectable military historian and analyst. Of course, respectable is a Malicious, mendacious, and meretricious Recently in the news, 3 major challenges facing Singapore getting some discussion in the current Parliament session. 1. The re-tweaking of CPF, the annuity, and the "Longevity Insurance" Goodness knows why the government of Minilee has finally acknowledged that the average Singaporean is still unable to have any significant savings when they retire. Of course, Minilee holds fast to the sacred Holy real estate, Batman! Via Asiabuilders: Capitaland joins with Rock Productions (aka the business arm of New Creation Church!) to build a $600 million lifestyle hub at Buona Vista... Holy real estate, Batman! "COME 2011, a futuristic-looking lifestyle hub with a 5,000-seat theatre, restaurants, shops, chill-out wine bars and even dance clubs will emerge in Buona Vista." Guess who's going to use the 5,000-seat Architectures of Control From the introduction to Architectures of Control: Increasingly, many products are being designed with features that intentionally restrict the way the user can behave, or enforce certain modes of behaviour. The same intentions are also evident in the design of many systems and environments. I usually add to my blogroll without much fanfare, but here's a site that I would make some noise about. Founding legends Was vaguely aware of the Army Half-marathon run on Sunday; I had to wait twice as long for my bus to come from Marina. It turns out that a 25-year-old Captain collapsed and died after completing his run that morning. That's tragic, but what can one expect from a sport whose founding legend involves someone dying after the run? The Greek soldiers were hardly a sedentary bunch; if they could Nazi board games Excerpts from the BBC: Nazi board games under the hammer A collection of Nazi era board games - including one where players are given points for bombing British cities - are being auctioned in the UK... The rare trove of wartime board games also includes a version of Snakes and Ladders based on the exploits of U-boat captain Gunther Prien. "They say a lot about the Nazis, and about the German From the mouth of a scholar You just can't write these stuff up. The Straits Times Aug 17, 2007 President's Scholar follows in dad's footsteps The money quote that appeared below the headline: 'I think the President's Scholarship is, more than anything else, responsibility. It tells you you can't slack off, but have to try to enrich yourself in as many ways as possible.' - Stephanie Koh 18, on what it means to be a The Willow Tree From the Iranian director who gave Children of Heaven to moviegoers everywhere and Homerun to Jack Neo, comes a rare movie revolving around adult characters. One might be forgiven for thinking that this marks a move away by Majid Majidi from his trademark magic realist, sometimes rustic, but always emotionally effective directing style, but nothing can be further from the truth. Yet at the same More great moments in television history (Part 2 in a continuing series) Very shortly after touching down in Singapore, Sir Ian McKellen begins to ask reporters for directions to the nearest gay bar. The climate of oppression against homosexuals in Singapore has either dissipated recently, or has always been a myth invented by certain activists - luckily for everyone, The New Paper, former (or supposed) scourge of many a gay agenda Asian Boys Vol. 3 At the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2, Uma Thurman as The Bride walks out of the mansion with her young daughter- not into the sunset, for that fate has been reserved for Bill (David Carradine). Instead, the lioness and her cub retire to a hotel where The Bride, resolved of the burden of her karmic duty, experiences joy mixed with an equal amount of sorrow, held together by tremendous relief. Uma An announcement This isn't one of those things that I'm happy to have done; but this isn't one of those things that I'm happier not to have done. Theonlinecitizen replies Choo Zheng Xi, currently a law undergrad at NUS and the co-editor of theonlinecitizen, has replied via MSN. He is the original author who broke Alfian's story, advised Alfian to send in his essay on Francis under a pseudonym, and also published Alfian's op-ed piece "Should homosexuals be allowed to teach" as an uncredited article. The sum of it: Choo Zheng Xi has refused to answer any of the Alfian writes in Mr Alfian Sa'at has emailed to clarify the questions raised in the earlier post, and I am reproducing his reply here word for word, with no additions, subtractions or alterations: there is no big conspiracy. The story goes like this: a) I file in the 'Francis' article for Trevvy. b) Trevvy editors freak out; they think it's sensitive. They tell me they're not going to run it. c) I consider Compare and contrast. Discuss! This is Alfian Sa'at on Trevvy. This is Ramlah Abu Bakar on The Online Citizen. Compare. Contrast. Question for Alfian Sa'at: Are you the author of the Ramlah Abu Bakar article on theonlinecitizen? Question for theonlinecitizen's editors: Were you aware that Ramlah Abu Bakar is Alfian Sa'at? If yes, when did you know? If you knew this, can you explain why you felt this fact had to be hidden No place I'd rather be Dick Lee points that some NDP songs are just crap, but my friend the Samurai Blogger points out that this year's NDP song by Kit Chan is really the pits. I'm of the opinion that anyone who watched the National Day broadcast must be working off some serious karma. Today, though, for your pleasure (or not), we have a youtube clip of No Place I'd Rather Be, lyrics by Jimmy Ye. Contrast this with The campaign to confer the martyrdom award to Alfian Saat An incident, a talking point, a concerted campaign Dear readers, we've known for almost a full month that Alfian Sa'at has been sacked from his relief teaching post at East View Secondary School. Word travels fast, especially since the playwright took it upon himself to tell his friends, fans, and acquaintances about it. We are not unsympathetic to Alfian's loss of the beginnings of a meaningful גם זה יעבור Gam zeh ya'avor: this too shall pass Foucault's discourse theory places primacy on the zero point, the beginning point where a certain mode of discourse shaped from that time on how we see the world, describe it, and picture ourselves in it - such that we can scarcely think of any other way to see the world, describe it... that it appears as though from time immemorial we have always been seeing The vile and malevolent Ng Eng Hen Khaw Boon Wan may be the stupidest man in the Singapore Cabinet, but his sheer destructive capability is dwarfed by the sheer mendacity and malevolence of his colleague Ng Eng Hen. The illustrious Mr Ng is, after all, the labour minister who wanted to reclaim jobs for Singaporeans - in the marine, nursing, and cleaning industries. He is the same man who runs a ministry that won't let anyone know Woody Allen spoof "At first, we didn't know exactly what this was, but we've developed a theory. We feel that when citizens of your society were guilty of a crime against the state, they were forced to watch this." Mary Douglas is dead I found out on Friday, but didn't get around blogging about this. At least we'll have the cold comfort of commemorating her and other anthropologists here. The Guardian has a thoughtful obituary: Dame Mary Douglas, who has died aged 86, was the most widely read British social anthropologist of her generation. If she had to be recalled for a single achievement, it would be as the anthropologist The Great Firewall of Singapore, episode 2 Duly noted: Singnet users have problems displaying their blogs. Explanation Affected blogger users, all logging in from Singnet accounts, experience decreased functionality with blogger. 1. Missing Blogger bar on front page of all blogs Singnet users get this page. Note the cropped Blogger 404 banner where the blogger bar should be. Hello, blogger bar! 2. Logging into blogger, the Wankerdämmerung! Not a good week for wankers, apparently. On one hand, the gang of wise old men are called out by Elia Diodati and twashers. On the other... The Void Deck has pronounced Wankerdämmerung on the Brotherhood, while Mr Wang Says "Wankerdämmerung!" to the Brotherhood as they invade his blog. Agagooga has looked into the eyes of the Brotherhood, and he says Wankerdämmerung to them. It is now twilight