School, Memory and Real Life My memory is tremendous. For example, suppose I go to a party, where I know no one except the host, and the host then spends a few minutes quickly introducing the other 20 guests to me. Immediately after that, I can remember every name mentioned, and link it to the right face.Next example. Suppose you recite to me a list of 20 completely random words - "love, Toyota, radio, blog, snake, Mexico, hurricane, hairstylist ..." and so on. Immediately after that, I can recite back to you all those words, without missing a single one. Furthermore I can recite them back to you ... in the exact order that you had told them to me.In my previous post, I had said that rote learning plays an inordinately large role in our education system. You might be thinking now that since my memory is so good, I must have found school very easy. Unfortunately, my memory wasn't so good when I was a student.My memory became so good only much later, when I had already finished school. It all started when I chanced upon a few books on memory techniques, the back cover of which typically made rather outrageous-sounding claims.For example, the book might claim that you would be able to remember up to 100 items in perfect order, and it will take you no more than 20 minutes to do this. And the items could be names; addresses; telephone numbers; important historical dates; key points from your science textbook etc.In fact the claims are not outrageous. They are genuine. You don't have to be a genius either. You just have to put in the effort to understand a few key principles and practise the special memory techniques - one famous one is the Roman Room method.And hey presto, with a bit of practice, indeed you will have a memory that's simply phenomenal, compared to the average person.You can see these memory techniques taken to their extreme, at events like the World Memory Championships (the mind equivalent of the Olympics). Here's one of their events - Random Words. Each contestant has to memorise 400 random words, organised in 20 columns of 20 words each. And how much time do they have to memorise? Just 15 minutes.One might believe that a highly powerful memory is extremely useful in life. I don't really agree. It's good not to be absent-minded, but it's very easy to over-estimate the practical value of a highly powerful memory. I would say that a powerful memory is extremely useful, if you are a Singapore student. However, today I honestly have very little use for my memory techniques, powerful though they may be. Let me explain.If I want to go shopping for groceries, I still make a written shopping list. Why? Well, the very process of writing out the list helps me to work out what I need to buy. And once I've written out the list, why should I bother to memorise it? I can just put the list in my pocket and take it with me to the supermarket. That takes no effort at all.Suppose someone gives me his handphone number. I could memorise the number, or I could just store it in my own handphone. I choose the latter approach. Why? Because both approaches take the same amount of time - a few seconds - and if I store the number in my handphone, later I can speed-dial the number straightaway (no need to manually key in all 8 numbers).At work, there is a set of standard legal documents which I constantly need to refer to. They relate to standard terms used by the international financial markets for trading in foreign exchange, commodities, credit risk etc. And each document consists of many pages of technical definitions and legal jargon, basically a lot of small print.If I really wanted to, I could use my memory techniques to memorise the clauses. But why even bother? I can just put the documents at the side of my desk, within easy reach (and in fact, that's where they are). Whenever I need to, I can just reach out, take the right document, flip to the relevant page and check whatever I want to check.I mean, I'm working. This is real life, not an exam. I don't score any extra marks for memorising documents that are already sitting on my table.By now, you will see that in real life, a highly powerful memory is not that important. It's very valuable only in school, and that's because many things in school (especially Singapore schools) are accomplished by rote learning.In real life though, rote learning is largely irrelevant. Because in real life, you don't waste time memorising information that's easily retrievable from your handphone, hard disk, emails or hard-copy files. You could also just open a textbook - and read it. Photocopy a page, if you need to. No need to memorise at all. Education and The Great Pain of Rather Useless Things An article about PM Lee's National Day Rally speech:ST Aug 18, 2008Let Kids Learn At Own PacePARENTS who complain that the education system here is stressful for their children should look at other Asian countries where it can be worse.In South Korea, there is a school where students can snatch only a few hours of rest each day, are not allowed to make friends or keep items like magazines in their bags.It is like a prison, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday night.'We are not like that. We have some stress but we should manage it, we should take it in our stride,' he said.He referred to the South Korean school when highlighting to parents that some stress in school was inevitable.But he reminded parents that they should also let their children grow and learn at their own pace.He noted that parents push their children further by sending them for extra enrichment lessons.And during examination, they would ply their children with chicken essence.Singapore's competitive school system has been named as a culprit by couples who choose to have no or few children.But, Mr Lee said: 'I think some pressure is inevitable. It is part of Singapore's competitive spirit.'Other East Asian societies are even more ruthlessly competitive.'I like the general theme of PM Lee’s speech, but I think he still missed the point. Frankly I do not care whether our schools are more or less stressful than those in Korea, or Japan, or anywhere else.Here’s the more important question. After all that stress, what do our students actually get out of it?In my own school days, I spent many hours memorizing the structure and details of the Periodic Table in chemistry. From Shakespeare’s Macbeth, I memorized large chunks of verse, word for word, line by line, because that was the way to score an A1 for Literature. In mathematics, I learned to do complex calculations involving an imaginary number called “i”.None of the above knowledge is relevant to my life now. After junior college, I’ve never had any reason to look at the Periodic Table again. Macbeth was enjoyable, but it would have been much more enjoyable if I didn’t have to spend dozens of hours committing it to memory. And as a matter of fact, the last time I used an imaginary number was during the very last maths exam of my life – nowhere else, since then.Most of the substantive formal content we learn in school ultimately has no relevance to the rest of our lives. This isn’t such a bad thing, if in school we just had to walk through the substantive content, gain some understanding, grasp the key principles and move on. We never really know what we might need to know, later in life (I might have become a chemist, an actor or an imaginary mathematician), but if we do understand the key principles, we'll be able to figure our way through.Unfortunately, I think that our education system still heavily emphasises regurgitation over real understanding. Our schools still require tremendous volumes of rote learning. This is where most of the stress arises. In the typical Singapore school, we do not merely miss the wood for the trees. Instead, for the sake of our exams, we desperately memorise the bark, the twigs, the useless fallen dead leaves - and we will be punished for failing to do so. Our students suffer great, continual stress, as they strive to master things that will have absolutely no relevance to the rest of their lives. The Devil, Chua Lee Hoong & Harry Lee William Golding was a Nobel Prize-winning author. His most famous work is Lord of the Flies, a novel which I studied for my GCE O-level Literature exams many years ago. The title is actually a reference to the Hebrew name Beelzebub (literally, "god of the fly", "Lord of Flies"), a name sometimes used as a synonym for Satan.The book is really quite fascinating. It is a study of the human psyche, and it stares straight into the face of evil inside us. I cannot do justice to the book's rich complexity in one short blog post, but let me try anyway.The plot goes like this. After a plane crash, a large group of schoolboys are stranded on a beautiful deserted island. None of them are hurt, and none of them are in danger. There is more than enough food, water and shelter on the island for them to survive indefinitely.The boys quickly organise themselves. They appoint leaders, set rules for themselves and work together to build shelters and gather food. In effect, they become a microcosm of our larger human society. You look at the boys and you can see how human civilisation operates (and this is precisely what Golding intended, for his novel is allegorical).What happens next? Well, the boys could have led a peaceful, harmonious existence on an island paradise. In fact, they initially do. However, things quickly break down. A power struggle breaks out between the two oldest boys - Ralph, who is strong and genuinely good-hearted, and Jack, who is just as strong, but utterly ruthless and power-hungry.At first the boys elect Ralph as their leader. But Jack steadily gains power. Eventually, Jack takes complete control and under his leadership, the entire group of boys degenerate into barbaric savagery. Two boys are murdered and Ralph himself is hunted down like a wild pig to be slaughtered.How did Jack do it? How did he seize power? Essentially he played on the boys' fears. He told them that somewhere on the island, there lived a fearsome "beast". According to Jack, this "beast" was ferocious, it was no ordinary animal, it was a kind of monster and it was hungry. It hated the boys and was out to hunt them down and kill them.And the only way for the boys to escape the "beast" and survive was to accept Jack as their leader. For Jack was the strongest, the smartest, the best hunter. Jack would know what to do. If only the boys would obey Jack and pledge allegiance to him, then Jack would be able to defend them against their enemy.Most of the boys were duped. In fact they obeyed Jack so unquestioningly that they would commit murder, upon his command. And that was how Jack gained power.Of course, the truth was that there was no "beast". It was merely a fiction, a myth, a frightening story that Jack steadily built up over time, by playing on the boys' collective fear of the dark. In psychological terms, the "beast" was nothing more than an external projection of the boys' irrational inner fears. It was through Jack's skilful manipulations that the imaginary "beast" was magnified into huge proportions.Why am I writing about the Lord of the Flies today? Two decades have passed since I first read that stunningly insightful book. Yet up to today, events in Singapore still periodically remind me of that novel. Most recently, we see media reports like these:ST July 12, 2008There is a conspiracy to do us in, says MM LeeMinister Mentor rebuts human rights groups' criticism of SingaporeBy Sue-ann ChiaMINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night dismissed human rights organisations' criticisms of Singapore's style of governance, saying that they were trying to 'do us in'.In a robust rebuttal of these groups' assertions that Singapore is not a liberal democracy, he said that they had never run a country and did not know what was needed to make Singapore tick.'There is a conspiracy to do us in. Why?... They see us as a threat,' said Mr Lee at an hour-long dialogue during the Economic Society of Singapore's annual dinner ....ST Aug 9, 2008Why they hate SingaporeWestern detractors are getting the jitters as others copy our modelBy Chua Lee HoongSINGAPORE is small enough to be a suburb in Beijing, but it has something in common with the mammoth People's Republic. The little red dot and Red China are both countries the West loves to hate.There are those who wish bad things to happen to the Beijing Olympics. Likewise, there are those who have had it in for the Lion City for years ....Do "they" really hate us? Is anyone really out to "do us in"? Is there really a "conspiracy" going on?And if so ....... whose conspiracy is it? Ask yourself that. Education - The Government Still Doesn't Get It In April 2008, Ng Eng Hen became our new Education Minister. Yesterday he gave a speech. ST Aug 15, 2008Next step for schoolsIt's time now to go beyond grades: Education MinisterBy Amelia TanSINGAPORE'S education system has been very successful at the nuts and bolts - it churns out top students, and is ranked highly worldwide - but it is now time for it to evolve.Parents these days are more educated and demanding, while children are more questioning and learn in different ways, and the system needs to keep up with rising expectations.It needs to do more than simply churn out students with good grades, Education Minister Ng Eng Hen said yesterday in a speech at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.At the end of the day, he said, education in Singapore needs to 'nurture each child to believe in himself and be self-sufficient, to care for his fellow man, and to be able to contribute to the larger society around him'.To turn out such students, several things are needed, Dr Ng said.At the top of the list: Raising the number of teachers, and getting more with higher qualifications, so that more can be done to develop students.I found the speech quite lacking in vision. It seems that Ng Eng Hen's only concrete plan was to "raise the number of teachers" and get "more with higher qualifications".That does sound like a sensible idea. However, it is also an utterly obvious idea. Considering the size of Ng's salary (about two million dollars a year), surely one might have expected him to offer a more compelling, powerful or innovative blueprint for Singapore's education system.It really doesn't take a genius to come up with a plan like "hire more people" and "hire better people". My grandmother could have thought of that.I browsed several media reports on this event. My impression was that in fact, the most insightful observations did not come from Ng Eng Hen, but from members of the audience. For example, this is what one Mrs Angeline Soo had to say:EXAMS, rankings and stress.That is what some parents think Singapore's education system is all about.Mrs Angeline Soo, 42, a part-time Master in Public Administration student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, is one.And at a question-and-answer session after Education Minister Ng Eng Hen delivered a speech there yesterday, she let him know it.Mrs Soo complained that her 13-year-old daughter could not join her school's dance team as she was told she was 'not good enough'.The school could lose its niche in dance if the team admitted less talented students, she said.Her question: Would such intense focus on short-term 'key performance indicators' hinder the long-term development of students?........ Speaking to The Straits Times later, Mrs Soo, who is also a manager at U21Global, an online graduate school, said she was satisfied that Dr Ng wanted the system to change.However, she was concerned that his goals might be 'lost in translation'.'When the top decides something and it starts filtering down and the next level interprets it...it may become another numbers game, driven towards certain goals that they think the minister wants to see,' she said.But she added that parents also had to be more involved in the holistic development of their children.Mrs Soo said she tries not to pressure her kids as they are stressed out by the expectations of their teachers, schools and peers.'Parents are too driven and focused on results. There is a need to look at the child in his or her entirety.'We need to look at character and emotional development, and I don't see that happening with a lot of parents,' she added.Maybe SHE should be the Education Minister, LOL. She certainly seems more in touch with the real issues.To be fair, Ng Eng Hen did discuss the importance of values. However, he did it in an oh-so-typically-Singaporean wrong sort of way. This is what he said: "We must maintain this academic rigour and continue our emphasis on maths and science ... But increasingly, we will have to create space and structure to infuse our education system to impart values and not just grades to students."Let me tell you what I think is on Ng's mind. When he says "space", he means that we must get schools to re-jig their schedules, reorganise the school calendar, and make some time available in the class timetables, for teachers to talk about "values" to the students. Fit it in, like an extra subject.And when Ng says "structure", he means that we must develop some kind of teaching plan, such as a syllabus or an MOE-approved textbook, so that a teacher has the necessary materials to stand up in a classroom and systematically teach "values" to 30 kids. And maybe give them some homework questions to do.This would be the right way to teach maths. This would be the right way to teach science. This would be the right way to teach any subject of an academic nature. However, in my opinion, this would be a wrong way to teach values.Values can be learned, but they cannot really be "taught". They are absorbed, naturally, as if by osmosis, through personal experience and observation.For example, at home, you could "teach" love to your little children, by giving them lectures from a book and making them memorise their lecture notes. But if in fact you treat them unkindly and also quarrel with your spouse every week, then love is simply not going to be a value that your children understand.On the other hand, if your family is a close, loving one, then the children do not need to be taught the value of "love". They wouldn't need a classroom lesson in it. Simply by watching how Mum and Dad treat each other, the kids learn about love everyday. It would be a value that naturally instils in them.Currently, our students do acquire values, as a result of being in school. In fact, this is an inevitable process. But the values that they truly acquire are not the ones that the teachers deliberately teach, as part of a formal plan like National Education.Instead the values that the students truly acquire are simply the result of their personal experiences in school. It is an automatic, ongoing and largely unconscious process.For example, suppose I am a science teacher. Every day, I may encourage students to ask questions freely. Or I may ridicule those who waste my time by asking "stupid" questions.I may encourage curiosity and exploration. Or I may insist on a rigid adherence to the exam syllabus, to maximise the students' chances of scoring well.If a student does badly, I might scold him and say, "I think you'd better drop this subject. I don't want you to drag down the school's overall scores!". Or I might tell him that it's important to keep trying and not give up.I may choose to lavish praise on the students who score the highest marks. Or I may choose to lavish praise on students who try hard and show improvement (even if they still aren't scoring A's).I may tell students, "If your dream is to be a doctor and help sick people, you should definitely choose to study Biology." Or instead I may say, "If you want to be rich, you'd better study Biology and become a doctor one day."Those are just a few examples. In each case, I create a different kind of experience for my students, and they absorb a different kind of value. The effect goes well beyond Science. The students' attitudes in life are being formed and shaped.In other words, they're learning values - even though I was only teaching Science.Now, here we should stop to ask ourselves - what kind of experiences are our students having in school? How are these experiences shaping their values? What values did YOU learn in school? How Many Years of Your Life Do You Want to Work? More on babies and mummies. From the TODAY newspaper:Baby Woes Not Just Bosses' FaultBy Neo Chai ChinCHANGE the workplace culture to allow for more family time, some have been saying — but would this truly boost the sagging birthrate?Out of 1,000 mums surveyed in April by the Working Mothers Forum (WMF), 3 in 5 would say “no, thanks” to having a new bundle of joy in their households, even if they could resolve domestic and work issues. Yet, 86 per cent of these mums agreed that having children was “a bliss”.What could explain this conundrum?To mothers like Madam Noroonnessa Begam, 38, factors such as the high cost of raising a child and Singapore’s competitive environment count. “Finances are very important. As you know, there are rising costs and the challenging education system. And if you have one problem child, that will take up a lot of your time,” said Mdm Noroonessa, a childcare teacher with three sons aged 9 to 12.But the experts say, all is not lost in the push for more babies – after all, the survey (done by research firm Connecting Insights Consultants) found that a quarter of the mums would agree to more kids if work-life balance is achieved.“I think that’s a good start,” said Associate Professor Daniel Goh, a pediatrician and chair of WMF’s panel of experts. The survey aims to understand the concerns of working and job-seeking mothers, and if it leads to increased flexibility at the workplace, perhaps “some of these people will change their minds”.The survey also found that one-third of the mothers felt it was impossible to give 100 per cent to both motherhood and career, while 37 per cent felt they could.About half the mums surveyed said employers play the biggest role – more so than the Government – in helping them manage work-family challenges. Flexible policies would do much to ease their load.This year, Mrs Wang went part-time. She now works three days a week. Furthermore, for each of those three days, she can work half a day at home, and it's up to her whether she works from home in the morning, or in the afternoon.This is great for our kids, but logically speaking, a setback for her career. Over the next few years, most likely Mrs Wang is not going to make as much career progress as she would have, if she were working full-time.I do have two important points to make. Firstly, kids grow up. Secondly, the average lifespan of a modern career is much longer than the time it takes for kids to grow up.Currently, the official retirement age in Singapore is 62 years. If you are a female graduate, you probably started working around age 21 or 22. That means your career lifespan is about 40 years.Even if you took, say, five years off to raise your little kids, you still have 35 years left to work. That's a very long time. I think that there must be very few people in the world who can honestly say that 35 years is too short a period for them to pursue their career aspirations.On the other hand, devoting five years to your kids when they are still very young and need a lot of care will make a very big and valuable difference. When they're older and more independent, they won't need that much attention anyway.By going part-time (as opposed to quitting work completely), Mrs Wang has more time for the kids, yet at the same time retains enough connection to the working world to know what's happening. When the time comes, and if she wants to, she can make a smooth transition back into a full-time career.Think about it this way - if she is 40 years old by then, she will still have 22 years left to work, before hitting retirement age. If you can't mentally grasp what a very long time that is, just ask yourself where you were and what you were doing, back in 1986. That was 22 years ago. What a very different world that was, and how very faaaaar you've come since then.Life isn't a 100-metre race. It's actually a marathon, a slow jog on a long winding road. And its final destination is death. If people actually realised that, then they would be more careful about what they decide to chase. Along the way, they would stop to smell the roses, admire the scenery and try out various interesting experiences that life does offer. Like, raising kids. Life And How To Survive It Today I have an old friend as my guest contributor. Adrian Tan is a litigation lawyer at one of Singapore's leading law firms. Outside the courtroom, he is known for a variety of funny things, including The Teenage Textbook, which he wrote in the late 1980s. The book became a cult classic among students of that generation and was adapted into a film 10 years later.Adrian had read my previous post and emailed to tell me that by coincidence, he'd just given a speech along the same theme. Cherian George had invited Adrian to be the guest-of-honour at an NTU convocation ceremony last week, and this is Adrian's speech to the graduating class of 2008: Life and How to Survive ItI must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.On the other hand, I am a litigator. Essentially, I spend my day telling people how wrong they are. I make my living being disagreeable.Nevertheless, there is perfect harmony in our matrimonial home. That is because when an editor and a litigator have an argument, the one who triumphs is always the wife.And so I want to start by giving one piece of advice to the men: when you’ve already won her heart, you don’t need to win every argument.Marriage is considered one milestone of life. Some of you may already be married. Some of you may never be married. Some of you will be married. Some of you will enjoy the experience so much, you will be married many, many times. Good for you.The next big milestone in your life is today: your graduation. The end of education. You’re done learning.You’ve probably been told the big lie that “Learning is a lifelong process” and that therefore you will continue studying and taking masters’ degrees and doctorates and professorships and so on. You know the sort of people who tell you that? Teachers. Don’t you think there is some measure of conflict of interest? They are in the business of learning, after all. Where would they be without you? They need you to be repeat customers.The good news is that they’re wrong.The bad news is that you don’t need further education because your entire life is over. It is gone. That may come as a shock to some of you. You’re in your teens or early twenties. People may tell you that you will live to be 70, 80, 90 years old. That is your life expectancy.I love that term: life expectancy. We all understand the term to mean the average life span of a group of people. But I’m here to talk about a bigger idea, which is what you expect from your life.You may be very happy to know that Singapore is currently ranked as the country with the third highest life expectancy. We are behind Andorra and Japan, and tied with San Marino. It seems quite clear why people in those countries, and ours, live so long. We share one thing in common: our football teams are all hopeless. There’s very little danger of any of our citizens having their pulses raised by watching us play in the World Cup. Spectators are more likely to be lulled into a gentle and restful nap.Singaporeans have a life expectancy of 81.8 years. Singapore men live to an average of 79.21 years, while Singapore women live more than five years longer, probably to take into account the additional time they need to spend in the bathroom.So here you are, in your twenties, thinking that you’ll have another 40 years to go. Four decades in which to live long and prosper.Bad news. Read the papers. There are people dropping dead when they’re 50, 40, 30 years old. Or quite possibly just after finishing their convocation. They would be very disappointed that they didn’t meet their life expectancy.I’m here to tell you this. Forget about your life expectancy.After all, it’s calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average.Revisit those expectations. You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that, as graduates, you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don’t need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.What you should prepare for is mess. Life’s a mess. You are not entitled to expect anything from it. Life is not fair. Everything does not balance out in the end. Life happens, and you have no control over it. Good and bad things happen to you day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Your degree is a poor armour against fate.Don’t expect anything. Erase all life expectancies. Just live. Your life is over as of today. At this point in time, you have grown as tall as you will ever be, you are physically the fittest you will ever be in your entire life and you are probably looking the best that you will ever look. This is as good as it gets. It is all downhill from here. Or up. No one knows.What does this mean for you? It is good that your life is over.Since your life is over, you are free. Let me tell you the many wonderful things that you can do when you are free.The most important is this: do not work.Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.Work kills. The Japanese have a term “Karoshi”, which means death from overwork. That’s the most dramatic form of how work can kill. But it can also kill you in more subtle ways. If you work, then day by day, bit by bit, your soul is chipped away, disintegrating until there’s nothing left. A rock has been ground into sand and dust.There’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are “making a living”. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful.People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense.Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself.I like arguing, and I love language. So, I became a litigator. I enjoy it and I would do it for free. If I didn’t do that, I would’ve been in some other type of work that still involved writing fiction – probably a sports journalist.So what should you do? You will find your own niche. I don’t imagine you will need to look very hard. By this time in your life, you will have a very good idea of what you will want to do. In fact, I’ll go further and say the ideal situation would be that you will not be able to stop yourself pursuing your passions. By this time you should know what your obsessions are. If you enjoy showing off your knowledge and feeling superior, you might become a teacher.Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don’t, you are working.Most of you will end up in activities which involve communication. To those of you I have a second message: be wary of the truth. I’m not asking you to speak it, or write it, for there are times when it is dangerous or impossible to do those things. The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence.In order to be wary of the truth, you must first know it. That requires great frankness to yourself. Never fool the person in the mirror.I have told you that your life is over, that you should not work, and that you should avoid telling the truth. I now say this to you: be hated.It’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you know anyone who hates you? Yet every great figure who has contributed to the human race has been hated, not just by one person, but often by a great many. That hatred is so strong it has caused those great figures to be shunned, abused, murdered and in one famous instance, nailed to a cross.One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it’s often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one’s own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong.The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.Don’t work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone.You’re going to have a busy life. Thank goodness there’s no life expectancy. Your Education And Other Miscellaneous Regrets A rather charming coincidence. Just two days ago, I wrote these words:"In a future post, it will be interesting to explore the reasons why so few Singaporeans enjoy their careers. Personally, I think it all begins with the way the education system pushes students to choose courses which are "useful", "practical" or "in-demand" (rather than the courses for which the student has a genuine interest). But for now, let's just stick to the baby issue."Then yesterday, the Straits Times published this article:ST July 30, 2008More than half of workers in S'pore regret choice of studyBy Clarissa OonA GLOBAL recruitment company has found that more than half of workers in Singapore regret what they chose to study back in school, polytechnic or university.One in three is also uncertain about their ultimate career choice, according to an online survey by Kelly Services. It was released on Wednesday.The findings are distilled from the answers given by more than 2,000 people who had sought Kelly Services help to land a job. They form part of it global survey of 115,000 people by its offices in 33 countries.People of all age groups, educational levels and professions took part and in Singapore, most were in business, engineering, financial services and information technology.One person who can identify with the survey results is Ms Aileen Toh, 34, a legal officer for 10 years. 'A lot of times, I have wondered if I could have done something else, but I was never sure enough to make a complete career switch', she says. She considered, but ultimately turned down, a marketing job in a charity several years ago because she was not sure if the work suited her and if there were long-term career prospects. A tiny minority of people are born lucky. They arrive on this planet with such prodigious natural gifts that there can be little doubt as to what their true calling is. Mozart, uncannily musical as early as age three, is one example. Steve Irwin, in love with a 4-metre pet python at age six, is another. There is no choice - they have to do what they have to do, and since choice is actually a dilemma, there is no dilemma for them.The rest of us have to go by a process of elimination. By late adolescence, the average person is more likely to know what he's not cut out to do, rather than what he is. For instance, the person may know very clearly that he has no aptitude for numbers; and has no talent for sales; and has a strong tendency for seasickness. That tells him what jobs he should avoid. But he is much more uncertain about what he's good at or what he really enjoys.The problem is more intense in Singapore, due to our pragmatic culture. Young Singaporeans don't generally grow up with the idea that they should explore and discover their own individual interests and strengths. Instead, they grow up being told that they should seek to excel in what the school wants them to excel in.The education system itself - and it is a powerful one - is configured to systematically classify and categorise students, and channel them in specific directions towards fulfilling the nation's perceived economic needs. The culture perpetuates itself. Beyond the policies and the programmes, it is a mindset. To go against the system is to take a risk, and our culture has developed to be one that's highly adverse to risk-taking.That observation was often made, back in the early 2000s, when the Singapore government tried to promote entrepreneurship through various incentives and schemes. (Notice that since then, the government has fallen silent about those efforts. Basically, they didn't work too well).Pragmatism has bitten the government elsewhere too. Despite the government's efforts to encourage more people to have babies, our birth rates are falling. And many people decide against becoming parents, for purely pragmatic considerations. For example, a reader commented on my previous post as follows:"I'm male 40 single and not planning to marry. Even if I do, I will not want to have children. Why?I spent the last 10 to 15 years working hard to reach my current position in a electronic manufacturing industry(not very high, comfortable enough).Now with the high cost of living and in-flood of FT, I don't think I will change my mind on marriage.Besides worrying about losing my job, I'm stuck with it. Hate it but can't live without it."You can't fault a person for thinking like this. Firstly, it's his own life, and secondly, the reasoning has its own logic.Just remember though. Pragmatism, if overdone, can have its drawbacks. One of them is regret - about the paths in life you might have taken, but never did. Marriage is one example of such a path; parenthood is another. Career is the third example - see the ST article above. A Personal Baby Insight From Mr Wang The national baby discussion goes on. Every day you can read something more about it in the newspapers.I have lots of thoughts on this topic. And unfortunately, too little time to blog them all. Today I'll share just one small thought on the "career versus babies" theme.Many women say that they do not want children because they want to focus on their careers. You must have heard that quite often. What you’ll rarely hear in Singapore is a woman saying that she truly loves her job and is passionate about it. (I should add that the same applies to men).Gallup’s studies are clear on this. Here's an article which says that Singapore has one of the most disengaged workforces in the world. This means that compared to most other countries, people in Singapore simply aren’t very interested in their work. A human resource study has shown that 82% of employees in Singapore are indifferent about their jobs; 12% strongly dislike their jobs and only 6% love their jobs.(And if you just look around your own workplace, you’ll probably find that the people who really love their jobs are greatly outnumbered by the people who don’t).In a future post, it will be interesting to explore the reasons why so few Singaporeans enjoy their careers. Personally, I think it all begins with the way the education system pushes students to choose courses which are "useful", "practical" or "in-demand" (rather than the courses for which the student has a genuine interest). But for now, let's just stick to the baby issue.So how is this relevant? Well, the next time you meet a woman who has chosen a career over having kids, ask yourself what that really means. It means that the woman has decided not to have kids, so that she can focus on something else.And 94% of the time, that “something else”, her career, is something that she strongly dislikes, or just doesn't care about.Sounds like a strange lifestyle choice, doesn’t it? Then again, human beings are peculiar creatures. Meditate on that, the next time you sit in your office at 10 pm working on a useless and painful project for your unappreciative, grumbling boss. This is what you sacrificed your family life for.A clarification. I am not saying that if you hate your job, you should have children. But suppose you do want children. Then further suppose that you, like most Singaporeans, don’t really love your job. In that case, your career aspirations should not hold you back. In the first place, why aspire to what you find uninspiring? The Disease of Being Normal From the TODAY newspaper:Specially for Normal streamNew Aids prevention scheme to target ‘high-risk’ studentsJuly 28, 2008By Alicia WongA NEW programme to stop the spread of Aids and other sexually-transmitted infections (STI) among youth here is being drawn up by the authorities — but what is different this time is that the programme is specifically targetted at students in the Normal stream, who have been identified by counsellors working with youth as being at “high risk” of contracting such diseases.According to details in a recent government tender posted on the GeBIZ website, the class-based component of the programme will be customised to meet the needs of students from the Normal Academic and Normal Technical streams. The change, says the tender, is based on feedback from teachers and students. The new scheme is expected to reach schools in November or December.The programme will also equip students with the skills to delay engaging in sexual intercourse, as well as issues related to self-esteem, handling peer pressure, teen pregnancy, abortion and contraception. Currently, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) has a general STI/Aids prevention programme for all Secondary 3 students. Observers say this may be the first time that a major health prevention programme here is being targetted based on an education-linked criteria.Replying to queries, a HPB spokesperson told Today that the health board recognises there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach and this special programme is “part of HPB’s ongoing process to constantly upgrade and improve programmes targetted at youth.” Well, I'm not sure what to say about this one. Without knowing the specifics of how the Normal Stream AIDS education programme is different from the Express Stream programme, I am reluctant to criticise this idea.On the other hand, singling out Normal Stream students and treating them as a "high risk" group (like prostitutes and their frequent customers) does seem like an overkill to me, and an unnecessarily stigmatising move.Maybe I know too many highly-educated people who are quite promiscuous, LOL. Human Rights And The Government Baby Incentives – Part 1 In recent weeks, we have seen public discussion on two apparently unrelated topics. The first topic was human rights. AG Walter Woon sparked off that discussion with his controversial comments associating human rights with hypocrisy and fanaticism: “Noting that human rights is “now a religion among some people”, he said: “You have, like in some religions, the fanatics. And it’s all hypocrisy and fanaticism (for these people) to set the views, as the leading spokesmen, of what is acceptable and what’s not.”The second topic was about how to get Singaporeans to have more babies. MM Lee Kuan Yew started that discussion when he revealed that (1) the government is planning to introduce new procreation incentives, and (2) we would seek to use countries like Sweden and Norway as our models.At first glance, these two topics – human rights and childbirth – seem quite separate. After all, aren’t human rights just all that silly nonsense spouted by Chee Soon Juan and other clowns? As for babies, well, that’s a serious matter, for babies are our economic defence against the perils of a rapidly aging population. Right? Here’s a curious point which the Singapore government has missed (or has chosen to be silent about). On the procreation issue, we now seek to use the Nordic countries as our model. But we haven’t realized that their parenthood policies are actually quite significantly influenced by human rights considerations. And this is quite true of European countries in general. How so? Well, for example, let’s look at a rather well-known human rights treaty - the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, for short). The treaty tackles a range of issues relating to women, including pregnancy, motherhood, maternity leave, childcare support, and the involvement of fathers in raising children. Article 11 says:2. In order to prevent discrimination against women on the grounds of marriage or maternity and to ensure their effective right to work, States Parties shall take appropriate measures: (a) To prohibit, subject to the imposition of sanctions, dismissal on the grounds of pregnancy or of maternity leave and discrimination in dismissals on the basis of marital status; (b) To introduce maternity leave with pay or with comparable social benefits without loss of former employment, seniority or social allowances; (c) To encourage the provision of the necessary supporting social services to enable parents to combine family obligations with work responsibilities and participation in public life, in particular through promoting the establishment and development of a network of child-care facilities .... Now if you are a country which takes human rights seriously, the fact that you are also a party to CEDAW will inevitably influence your national policies. CEDAW will lead you, as a state, to focus on the welfare of the mother, and the welfare of the child, and even the welfare of the father. And you will incline towards the view that just by the fact that a family is a family, there are certain rights its members ought to have. After all, they’re human. However, if you are a country which likes to say “Oh, human rights are just an invention of the West; me, I’m Asian, and I’ll have nothing to do with those hypocritical human rights fanatics," then the fact that you’re a party to CEDAW doesn’t necessarily mean anything. You may still want to support procreation, but the motivations are different. For example, the Singapore government seeks to promote higher baby production, but its motivations are purely economic; the aim is to generate a steady stream of future workers for Singapore Inc.. Then the conundrum becomes this. Babies are economically useless. This is undeniable. They can’t type; they don’t wash dishes; and for a long, long time, they definitely won’t be doing any life sciences research in a R&D laboratory. In fact, babies are very much like Temasek’s investment in Shin Corp or Merrill Lynch. One day, they might generate good returns, but that will have to be in the very, very distant future. Meanwhile, they are just a huge, constant and bleeding economic loss. This is not an obstacle, if you view babies and parents as humans, and by virtue of being human, automatically having human rights (like those under CEDAW). But what happens if you view babies merely as future economic units, and women merely as economic-unit-producing machines? The question then becomes – do you, as a government, really dare to bite the bullet? And put your money and political will into this very long-term, risky investment? So far, the government has failed. From the time that "Two is Enough" gave way to "Have Three If You Can Afford it", the government has never succeeded.[To Be Continued] The Emigration Surprise ST July 21, 20081,000 S'poreans give up citizenship each year AN AVERAGE of about 1,000 Singapore gave up their citizenship each year in the last three years, said Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng on Monday.The reasons they renounced their Singapore citizenship ranged from marriage to foreigners to yearning for a different environment, he said in his written reply to a question from from Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim, who wanted to know how many Singaporeans had emigrated in the last three years.Most of them took up new citizenship in countries in Southeast-Asia, the United States of America and Australia.I guess it's common knowledge that many native-born Singaporeans have emigrated to the US and Australia. So many Singaporeans have left that there's a good chance your brother, aunt or some other relative is one of them.The somewhat surprising point, as revealed by Wong Kan Seng, is that Singaporeans are also emigrating to Southeast Asian countries. That must mean countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, whose standards of living are generally regarded as clearly lower than ours.What might be the push factor? Well, one must bear in mind that what's available for purchase in Singapore is not necessarily affordable for everyone here. For the same amount of money, an individual could possibly enjoy a better quality of life in, say, Malaysia, than in Singapore (even if Malaysia's overall standard of living is lower than that of Singapore). After all, there is cost of living to think about. Hmmm, I Just Wonder About This ST July 19, 2008Selfless Chit Chung, a true son of Singapore DR ONG Chit Chung's death on Monday was a shock to most MPs and Bukit Batok residents and fellow Singaporeans. We have lost a 'golden son of Singapore' who had no political ambition and, for the past 20 years, sat as a Member of Parliament, delivered speeches on foreign policy and looked after the welfare of Bukit Batok residents. The contributions he made are many and, to name a few, remarkable. On Oct 2, 1995, Dr Ong and other members of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Education visited Yusof Ishak Secondary School and found limited facilities. This paved the way for the school to move from its confined site in Jubilee Road to its current sprawling grounds in Bukit Batok. This marked a milestone in the school's history. Dr Ong was then chairman of the GPC for Education.On April 23, 2006, he and other MPs set a new Guinness World Record for the longest kaya toasted bread which measured about 1,200m and was completed in 40 minutes at Bukit Batok East Family Day. He was also the driving force behind the plan to move Victoria School to its present Siglap Link location as he wished to see it close to Victoria Junior College.Dr Ong was truly a son of Singapore who had selfless love for his residents and fellow countrymen, and a true Victorian alumnus. His death means a great loss to the community. Kok Mei Hui (Ms)No offence to the recently departed. But if I were dead, setting a new Guinness World Record for the longest kaya toasted bread is not exactly what I would like to be remembered for.Ong Chit Chung's kaya bread achievement came at a time when it was fashionable among some Singaporeans to aim for world records in some rather peculiar things. You can read more about it here. Singapore's "achievements" included these:* Most Number of Burgers in Mouth Without Swallowing* Fastest Heinz Tomato Ketchup Drinker Using a Straw* Longest Time for a Female with Palm Placed on a Car* Fastest Cream Cracker Eating* Push an Orange with your Nose - Furthest Distance in 30 Minutes The Death Penalty Revisited From today's Straits Times: ST July 18, 2008Do not kill Bali bombers: father of Australian victimJAKARTA - THE father of an Australian killed in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings asked Indonesia not to execute three militants convicted in the blasts, saying on Friday 'no good, only harm' would come from their deaths.'Nothing will return my son to me, to his mother, his family and his friends,' Mr Brian Deegan said in an open letter to Indonesian authorities. 'But the execution of a selected few who were responsible for his death and the death and maiming of hundreds more will not cure the pain.'Mr Deegans's son Joshua was one of the 202 people killed in the Oct 12 blasts on the resort island. Most of the victims were foreign tourists. Authorities have convicted more than 30 Islamic militants in the blasts, three of whom are on death row.On Thursday, an Indonesian court said it had rejected a final appeal by the trio, bringing their executions closer. The three can still appeal for clemency to the president, but have said they will not do so.Mr Deegan, a barrister and a magistrate in his native Australia, said he and Joshua were opposed to the death penalty in all cases.His letter was released with his permission by the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, a regional group that campaigns against state executions.He said killing the three men - who have shown no remorse and maintain their acts were sanctioned under Islam as revenge for Muslim deaths in Afghanistan and elsewhere - risked turning them into martyrs.He urged the death penalty to be commuted to life imprisonment.'I see that no good will come from their execution. I see only harm,' he wrote. 'I will not beg for their lives to be spared. But I seek that which I consider more appropriate. A penalty which will serve as a constant reminder to others. A penalty which will not destroy the lives of their families.'The above article reminded me of a post which I wrote more than 2 years ago. I reproduce it here:Death in ThailandOn different occasions, Mr Wang has written a lot about capital punishment on this blog. Here is one example, here is another, and see here and here as well.Today the Straits Times has an article about a capital case. This case has nothing to do with Singapore, but that in itself is advantageous in helping Singaporeans understand the issue more clearly. We get none of the distractions of the "them-vs-us" mentality which unfortunately confused both Singaporeans and Australians in the recent Nguyen Tuong Van matter.One of Mr Wang's essential points in the capital punishment debate is the need for a principled stand. If one opposes capital punishment on the basis of the sanctity of human life, then one opposes capital punishment all the way. You cannot pick and choose between those whom you think deserve death, and those whom you think do not.Our present case concerns a British tourist, Katherine Horton, who was raped and murdered by Thai fishermen on the popular island resort of Koh Samui. The crime was brutal: Ms Horton, a Reading University student, was brutally attacked while vacationing in Thailand.She was speaking to her mother Elizabeth in Wales on her cellphone when she was set upon by the two men.The attackers had earlier been drinking and watching a pornographic film on a fishing boat moored offshore. They then swam ashore, came across Ms Horton, hit her with a beach umbrella, raped her and threw her into the sea.Her body was found floating in the sea the next day.The murder led to an uproar in the British media and outrage ... and the evidence was clear-cut: Judge Chamnong Sutchaimai said the forensic evidence could not be disputed and the brutality of the crime committed by them had shocked society.'The court has ruled them guilty of all the crimes they were charged with and imposes the maximum penalty,' he told the packed courtroom. Notwithstanding this, Katherine Horton's mother has taken a principled stand. And so has the British government. The victim's mother had earlier said she would prefer the two spend the rest of their lives in prison.Britain's Foreign Office thanked the Thai authorities for finding the two fishermen who raped and murdered Ms Horton.It too insisted that it opposed the death sentence.They think that the death penalty is wrong in principle. And therefore they oppose it. It does not matter that the victim was her daughter; it does not matter that the victim was a British citizen; it does not matter that her death was caused in a most brutal fashion by two evil foreigners in a foreign land. Those two evil foreigners are human beings too, therefore they should not be executed. This is what Mr Wang means by a principled stand.Alas, it seems that it is Thailand which has gone astray: The murder led to ..... outrage among locals in Koh Samui who were appalled by the incident and worried it would hurt the island's booming tourism industry.Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, concerned about a drop in the tourism dollar, last week called for the death penalty.This is so wrong, so wrong, so wrong. Firstly, Mr Wang believes that you should not kill people. Secondly, Mr Wang believes that you should not kill people for the sake of tourism. Old Kidneys and Young Kidneys Recently I discussed the topic of organ trading. The ST article below raises an interesting point not previously mentioned in my old blog post nor by the readers who had commented.ST July 17, 2008Short queues for kidneys in Spain and Norway: Here's whyKidneys from the elderly are accepted and more people are willing to be donorsBy Salma KhalikBEFORE considering organ trading, Singapore can increase its supply of kidneys by learning from Spain and Norway, says a top kidney specialist here.The two European countries have short waiting lists for kidney transplants - unlike Singapore, where the average wait is nine years for the 560 people on the list.Both countries accept kidneys from the elderly, whereas in Singapore, kidneys are taken only from people 60 years old and younger.This immediately cuts off the supply of many kidneys every year. In Spain, a third of the cadaveric kidneys are from people over 60 years old.Spain and Norway stand out in the world for their short list of patients waiting for kidney transplants. Their success has been cited in the current debate raging over whether Singapore should consider legalising the organ trade to meet the high demand here.Organ trading is a criminal offence here and, in the last month, five men were charged in connection with the offence, the first such cases here.The cases have resulted in some people calling on the Health Ministry to reconsider the ban on organ trading.But before going down that route, Professor A. Vathsala, director of the kidney transplant programme at the National University Hospital, said Singapore should expand its organ donation programme first.She has visited Norway and Spain and believes that some of their practices, such as removing the age restriction on cadaveric donation, could be adopted here.Spain transplants both kidneys from an older donor - even someone in his or her 80s - into an elderly recipient.'No organ goes 'wasted' to be buried needlessly when it can save the lives of so many others with organ failure,' she said.The obvious question that comes to mind is whether older cadaveric kidneys and younger cadaveric kidneys yield equally good transplant results. (Strangely, the Straits Times article did not discuss this at all).I did a quick Google search. The answer seems to be that younger cadaveric kidneys deliver better transplant results than older ones. How significant that difference is, I must leave to the experts to comment (a fair number of doctors regularly read my blog).The next point to consider is whether the kidney patient would be better off with a transplanted old kidney, or with no kidney transplant at all. This could be a "beggars can't be choosers" situation. Your best bet might be with the old kidney, since a young kidney might never become available before you die.Finally, back to the question of whether organ trading should be legalised. The way I see it, there are many ways to skin a cat, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive. For example, we could legalise organ trading and at the same time, accept the use of older cadaveric kidneys. At the same time, we could continue to encourage "altruistic" donations from living donors etc.The goal is to save lives. We can simultaneously pursue different paths to that goal. Check Out The Glass Castle Glass Castle is a new webzine focusing on women's welfare and gender issues in Singapore and around the region. One of its editors emailed me to tell me about it.The first issue has. among other things, an article with NCMP Sylvia Lim. A brief excerpt:Glass Castle: There are many well-known and well-respected female politicians in Singapore, but none in the Cabinet. Do you think the lack of representation at the highest levels hurts women? Do you think women in Singapore face a level political playing field? Have you faced any particular challenges, in your own political activities, which you think may be related to societal expectations regarding women?Sylvia Lim: I think that statistically it does not make sense that no woman has been found suitable for the cabinet. But this may change soon, so the rumour mills go. I do recall that there was some reluctance to imagine a woman leading a GRC team into elections - this was publicly stated by a veteran PAP MP who has retired...how far this reflects the current thinking there, I am not sure. I don't think I feel discriminated against as a woman in opposition; at times, I find it an advantage, because my experience has been that people tend to trust women more easily.The blog section also has a post commenting on AWARE's recent study of sexual harassment.If these issues interest you, do check out the site here. Guilt & Innocence in The Criminal Legal System ST July 12, 2008Judge: No question of 'factual guilt' after acquittalJustice V.K. Rajah takes issue with Govt's position on guilt and innocenceBy K. C. VijayanA HIGH Court judge has taken issue with the Government's position that people acquitted of crimes may not necessarily be innocent.Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah said it was a cornerstone of the justice system that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and it was for prosecutors to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.He said: 'If the evidence is insufficient to support the prosecution's theory of guilt, and if the weaknesses in the prosecution's case reveal a deficiency in what is necessary for a conviction, the judge must acquit the accused and with good reason: it simply has not been proved to the satisfaction of the law that the accused is guilty, and the presumption of innocence stands unrebutted.'It is not helpful, therefore, for suggestions to be subsequently raised about the accused's 'factual guilt' once he has been acquitted.'To do so, he added, would be to undermine the court's not-guilty finding. It would also 'stand the presumption of innocence on its head, replacing it with an insidious and open-ended suspicion of guilt that an accused person would be hard-pressed to ever shed, even upon vindication in a court of law.'His remarks on acquittal, innocence and guilt came near the end of his written judgment explaining why he acquitted former teacher William Ding, 36, of molesting several schoolboys.While he did not say so, his comments appear directed at the position taken by the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) in The Straits Times on May 8 and May 14.The AGC was quoted in the first article as saying that a judge was bound by law to acquit a person if the prosecution could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.'This means that if there is any reasonable doubt, the accused gets the benefit of it. It does not mean that the accused was innocent in the sense that he did not do the deed,' its spokesman said.The AGC later wrote to the Forum Page and said that the nuance of an acquittal was often not clearly appreciated by the public.'(The accused person) may be guilty in fact, but innocent in law because the evidence was not there,' its spokesman said.That position took many, including lawyers, by surprise. Lawyer N. Sreenivasan wrote to the Forum Page saying such a view was of 'grave concern'.'If the prosecution, with the full resources of the police, the power to interrogate accused persons, interview witnesses, seize evidence and rely on various presumptions, cannot prove a case beyond reasonable doubt, then the prosecution should not cast any cloud on the acquittal of the accused,' said Mr Sreenivasan.Ahh, this brings back memories. Once upon a time, I was a Deputy Public Prosecutor, so I'm well-acquainted with the matters discussed above. Let me explain the issues with a simple, narrative example.Suppose an old woman, Mrs Lee, is walking down a quiet street late at night. Suddenly, Ah Beng comes up from behind and tries to snatch her gold chain. Mrs Lee screams for help. Luckily, two passers-by are nearby.Kumar, a foreign construction worker, shouts loudly at Ah Beng who gets frightened and decides to run away. George, a big burly tourist from Canada, chases after Ah Beng and manages to catch him. Mrs Lee quickly dials 999, and two police officers arrive in five minutes.Ah Beng is charged with attempted robbery. This looks like a very simple, clear-cut case, the kind that would be assigned to a newbie DPP, just for his very first solo court trial.However, in the months between the offence and the actual trial, a few things happen.Mrs Lee has a stroke. She becomes paralysed, and unable to speak properly.Kumar gets sacked by his boss in Singapore and goes back to his little village in rural India where he will raise chickens for a living. The entire village has only one telephone, which usually does not work. Kumar is no longer contactable.George's holiday comes to an end and he flies home to Canada. The police can contact him, but he's very busy with his family and career. "Will you fly back and testify in the trial in September?" asks the police."Don't be ridiculous," says George, "I already did you a big favour in catching the guy, the rest is up to you." And he promptly hangs up the phone.At the trial, the judge finds Mrs Lee to be an unreliable witness because the judge cannot understand her slurred speech. Now paralysed, Mrs Lee cannot even hold a pen and write out her responses.No evidence is available from Kumar, because the legal rules of evidence would require him to be physically present in court, to tell the judge what happened. And Kumar is just not there.For the same reason, no evidence is available from GeorgeThe prosecution's only admissible evidence comes from the two police officers who had arrived on the scene that night, to see Mrs Lee, Ah Beng, Kumar and George.Ah Beng's defence was that he was in a big hurry that night to meet his girlfriend. He was running down the dark street and accidentally bumped into an old woman, who thought he was trying to rob her.Ah Beng further claims that George and Kumar arrived on the scene only a few minutes later, while Ah Beng was still trying to explain to Mrs Lee that he wasn't a robber. George and Kumar misunderstood the situation and pounced on him. Mrs Lee cannot rebut this, because she cannot talk. George and Kumar cannot rebut this either, since they are not present in court.(Correctly) presuming Ah Beng to be innocent, and (correctly) assessing the evidence available to him, the judge (correctly) declares that the prosecution has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Ah Beng is acquitted. He happily walks out of court a free man.Ah Beng had 2 previous convictions for robbery, and in each case the modus operandus was similar - both his earlier victims were women walking alone in quiet streets at night. This was another fact which the rules of evidence forbade the prosecution from telling the judge, during the trial. ************ The general idea goes like this. A crime happens, and the investigation process yields a lot of evidence that X did it. However, for technical or logistics reasons, some of the evidence cannot be presented in court to the judge, or has to be presented in some greatly reduced form. Based on the evidence actually available to him, the judge then proceeds to acquit X of the offence.I do agree with VK Rajah that it is unhelpful for the prosecution to raise suggestions about the accused's factual guilt after he has been acquitted. It simply isn't very constructive. The only purpose it serves is to defend the AGC's own public image - vis a viz the public's comments like "Oh, how could AGC even have charged this poor innocent person in the first place" etc. Well, perhaps image defence was all that Walter Woon wanted to do, in this particular case. But from this perspective, VK Rajah's statement is also in the interests of defending the image - of the courts. Clearly it isn't very good for the courts' reputation if the general public starts believing that a man isn't necessarily innocent just because the judge says so, or that a man isn't necessarily guilty just bcause the judge says so. Then people will start saying, "Well, what is the use of having judges then?"The heart of the matter, the real essence, is something a bit too subtle for the man in the street. In the end, we just have to accept that the criminal legal system is imperfect. Criminal law is simply not a maths question capable of exact solutions. Some factually guilty persons may be found legally innocent. Some factually innocent persons may be found legally guilty. Real life is too complicated for such things to never happen. The system has to constantly work towards minimising such risks and occurrences, that is all. How good a job is the system currently doing? That's another kind of question. I shall not comment, since I've left that particular system behind me. Nowadays my legal playground is the financial derivatives industry across Asia. George Jacobs on Vegetables Food is not the usual topic of this blog, but last month I did discuss an ST Forum letter about global food production and consumption. George Jacobs, the letter writer, discovered my blog shortly after that.George also happens to be the President of the Vegetarian Society. We exchanged a few emails and he kindly contributed this article:Singapore Vegetarian HeroesPeople have many important reasons for eating meat, many reasons for avoiding vegetarian food. I’ve been active in Vegetarian Society (Singapore) for many years, and I’ve been a vegetarian almost 30 years. When I tell people that going veg or at least eating less meat is good for the environment, good for our fellow animals and good for human health, I hear lots of reasons in defence of meat.One of the reasons I hear most often in defence of meat eating is that we need meat to be healthy. I can cite evidence from health experts, such as the American Dietetic Association’s statement that “[A] ppropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” Similarly, the Singapore Health Promotion Board’s Healthy Diet Pyramid - tells us that we need to eat meat or alternatives (italics added).But many people aren’t convinced by what the experts say; they want to see real-life, flesh and blood evidence. No worries – we’ve got lots of evidence right here in Singapore that we can be perfectly healthy on a veg or a less meat diet. Let me introduce you to four Singapore vegetarian heroes.Let’s start with Mr Goh Joo Heng who is one of Singapore’s top blood donors. Some people worry that vegetarians don’t get enough iron, but every time, I go to donate blood, the technician tests to see if my blood has a sufficient iron level, and I always pass the test. I’ve donated only about 10 times, but Joo Heng has donated more than 140 times! Read more about this great humanitarian here. Want to know what he eats, write to him at goodman48@singnet.com.sg.You are supposed to end articles with the most impressive example, but all these heroes are so impressive, I can’t decide who is most impressive. Why don’t we go next with the newest vegetarian in the group, Mr Ang Hwee, of the Singapore Weightlifting Federation, who has been veg for only a few years. In that time, he has won medals in weightlifting as a vegetarian, most recently 3 silver medals at the 2007 Thai Open in the 94kg class. Last month, he did a “clean and jerk” lift of 120kgs at a Vegetarian Society event. Read an interview with him here (you need to scroll down a bit).Another local vegetarian athlete is M. Rameshon, the Singapore national record holder in the marathon. Last year, his picture was featured in Adidas posters plastered all over town. Even though he set the record about 15 years ago, it remains unbroken, and Rameshon is still running marathons, although he is now in his 40s and a full-time teacher. Rameshon coaches other runners, and this serious student of human physiology firmly beliefs that a vegetarian diet provides the best fuel.Rameshon’s longevity as a runner is most impressive, but hands down, the longevity championship must go to Teresa Hsu, a life-long vegetarian who celebrated her 111th birthday (yes, one hundred eleven, no typo) this year. Born in China, Teresa has long devoted her life to the welfare of others, including the other animals with whom we share the planet. Read more about this amazing person here. And Teresa is still running a charity, Heart to Heart Service, providing vegetarian food to people who need a bit of help.There you have it, four Singapore vegetarian heroes, who have accomplished great physical feats in spite (or is it because) of being vegetarian. Of course, there are many more examples beyond Singapore of Olympic gold medallists, body building champions, martial artists, ultramarathoners, etc.But, here’s just one more bit of evidence that we can eat little or no meat and still be healthy, in addition to the scientific evidence cited at the beginning of this article and the individual examples above. In Singapore, we can meet many people of Indian origin, either Singaporeans or people here for work or studies, who have been vegetarian their entire lives. Talk to one of them, and you’ll probably find that their family has been veg for generations. For example, I used to have a colleague who is a 33rd generation vegetarian. If vegetarian food isn’t healthy, how has this professional’s family survived and thrived for hundreds of years.To conclude, I guess the final bit of proof you need is to try for yourself to eat less or no meat. Start slowly, just eat one or two fewer meat meals a week. Experiment with new foods; try new eateries, new recipes. Ask hawkers and restaurants if they have meatless versions of your favourite dishes. You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy and tasty it can be to eat less meat. And, you’ll be proud of yourself for helping the non-human animals, the environment and yourself. Good luck! – georgeGeorge Jacobs, Ph.D.President, Vegetarian Society (Singapore)www.vegetarian-society.orgHere's another vegetarian - Dalip Singh Rana.He's better known as Great Khali, a WWF wrestler. The International Bar Association And Its Report on Singapore The International Bar Association is an organisation that brings together lawyers, bar associations and law societies from around the world. Globally, it has a membership of 30,000 individual lawyers and more than 195 bar associations and law societies.The IBA also has a Human Rights Institute, of which Nelson Mandela is the honorary president. Just yesterday, the IBA HRI released a report on Singapore, expressing concern about human rights and the independence of the judiciary in Singapore.This report was 72 pages long, divided into eight parts, and concluding with 18 recommendations for the Law Society of Singapore and the Singapore government.Sometimes you just cannot help but admire our Law Ministry. They must have employed some highly-skilled speed readers and writers. On the very same day that the report was released, the Law Ministry has already responded. ST July 10, 2008Govt rebuts law group's attack on S'pore judiciaryInternational law body's criticisms unsubstantiated, Law Ministry saysBy Lydia Lim A REPORT issued by the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute has drawn a sharp rebuttal from the Singapore Government. The 72-page report, decrying Singapore's perceived limits on freedoms and alleging executive interference in the judiciary, was issued yesterday, just eight months after the IBA held its annual conference here last October.Responding to media queries, the Ministry of Law said the aspersions cast on the Singapore judiciary are unsubstantiated and contradict what IBA president Fernando Pombo said here then.In his opening speech at the conference, Mr Pombo noted that 'this country has an outstanding legal profession, an outstanding judiciary, and outstanding academical world in relation to the law'.In its report, the IBA Human Rights Institute, a sub-section of the association, acknowledged Singapore's good international reputation for the integrity of its court judgments in commercial cases.But it said that for cases involving politicians, there were 'concerns about an actual lack or apparent lack of impartiality and/or independence'.The ministry pounced on this in the report, noting that it had failed to provide evidence.It slammed as 'feeble justification' the report's argument that 'regardless of any actual interference, the reasonable suspicion of interference is sufficient'.The ministry noted that the defamation suits brought by People's Action Party members usually related to scurrilous and untrue allegations against them.The decisions of the courts in these cases were matters of public record, it noted, adding that it is 'also absurd to suggest that honourable and upright judges in commercial cases become compliant and dishonourable when dealing with defamation cases involving government ministers'.'Every society must find and decide the appropriate balance between rights and responsibilities for themselves,' it added.On second thought, perhaps the speed of the Law Ministry's response is not surprising. After all, if you look at the contents page of the IBA HRI report, you'll see that Section E goes like this: E. Current human rights issues1. Freedom of expression (Singapore's obligations under international law)2. The use of defamation laws to stifle political opposition and expressionJoshua Benjamin JeyaretnamTang Liang HongChee Soon JuanRestrictions on the freedom of the pressFar Eastern Economic ReviewInternational Herald TribuneThe EconomistFinanceAsiaGovernment control over the media in SingaporeAsian Wall Street JournalRestrictions on the InternetSintercomChen JiahaoThe Independence of the JudiciaryJudge Michael KhooThe trend of the courts in defamation casesThe courts in the Jeyaretnam appealRights of assemblyFalun Gong - Mrs Ng Chye Huay and Mrs Cheng LiujinIn other words, there's nothing new. We've seen and heard it all before. We know that these sorts of problems and issues exist in our nation - and the rest of the world knows it too.There's nothing in the above list which hasn't, at one time or another, been raised in some way by, say, Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; the US Department of State; Reporters without Borders; or even the World Bank.And so the Law Ministry should be able to respond quite quickly. In essence, the response is just about the same as has been given dozens or hundreds of times in the past - "You are wrong, we are right, we know best, you don't, Singapore is a special case; we're different from everyone else on the planet; and so we should always get to do things the way we please.Do you disagree? Are you trying to make trouble? We'll either sue you; ban you; fine you; revoke your PR status or your newspaper licence; lock you away on Sentosa Island; zap you with the riot squad; get our police officers to physically encircle you with their arms so as to restrain your movement; or call in the army should you win in a freak election."It's always the same stuff. Just a matter of cutting and pasting and shifting the words and sentences around, to achieve the desired degree of politeness or hostility, in each particular case. A quick response is really no problem at all.-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --Psst .... Don't forget to vote for Mr Wang! The State and the Media and Their Embarrassingly Passionate Embrace in Singapore If the New York Times published an article criticising some aspect Singapore, the Singapore government might get upset - with the New York Times. But the Singapore government would not get upset with the US government.And that's because we all understand that the NYT is the NYT, and the US government is the US government, and the opinions of the NYT are not the opinions of the US government.Similarly if the BBC published a report criticising some aspect of Singapore, the Singapore government may get upset - with the BBC. But the Singapore government would not get upset with the UK government.And that's because we all understand that the BBC is the BBC, and the UK government is the UK government, and the opinions of the BBC are not the opinions of the UK government.However, in our own backyard, things seem to be somewhat different. Here's an example.ST July 5, 2008S'pore media should not take sides: PM Lee's press secretaryTHE press secretary to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has written to the Today tabloid newspaper, taking issue with recent articles on the wife of Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak.'Although developments in Malaysia affect Singapore, we must be disinterested external observers, not partisan participants in their domestic politics,' Mr Chen Hwai Liang said in a letter addressed to the paper's editorial director, Mr P.N. Balji.He was referring to a report headlined 'Under fire - the 'First Lady-in-waiting'', which appeared in Today on June 27.This quoted various Malaysians describing Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor as 'arrogant' and 'ambitious'.Also criticised by Mr Chen was a subsequent note from Mr Balji, headlined 'Leave it to our readers to judge', which was published on July 3.The latter was in reply to a letter from the Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore, Datuk N. Parameswaran, taking issue with the June 27 report.Both of Today's articles 'took a slant which cast doubt on your newspaper's objectivity', said Mr Chen.'Singapore media reports on events and developments from around the world in order to keep Singaporeans well-informed and aware of what is happening around us. But it is important for the Singapore media's reporting of political developments in other countries to be objective and factual,' he said.'In particular, it is unwise for Singapore media to take sides, especially when it involves our immediate neighbours,' he added.Basically, TODAY published an article. The Malaysian government was unhappy with it. To appease the Malaysians, PM Lee Hsien Loong's office had to make it clear publicly that it didn't approve of TODAY's article.As I had earlier said, if the New York Times publishes an article, we expect that it's really a New York Times article - not a US government press release. But in Singapore's case, such expectations shrink drastically.Thus if a Singapore newspaper publishes an article which a foreign government finds somewhat "out of line", the Singapore government may well choose to intervene directly and publicly (as shown in this case). Otherwise the foreign government might assume that the newspaper had published the offending article with the Singapore government's implicit or explicit approval. No one really believes that the Singapore press has its own independent opinions. Certainly not the Malaysian government. When The Media Starts To Smell Fishy ST July 3, 2008Vivian's visions from the InternetPolitical messages in new media are susceptible to populist pitfalls, he says at RI dialogueBy Jeremy Au YongWHEN Dr Vivian Balakrishnan gazed into a crystal ball yesterday on how the Internet would change local politics, three visions popped up.They were: more diverse views, louder political discourse and politicians delivering their messages in stylish, short multimedia packages, a phenomenon he labelled 'YouTube politics'.But this future is fraught with pitfalls, the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports told students of Raffles Institution, which had invited him to give a talk on new media and its impact on politics.As he spelt them out to the 2,000 students, he urged them to use their heads when reading online: 'In the midst of such an exponential growth in information, determining what is true or false is going to be extremely difficult... I have no easy answer except to ask you to be sceptical and to think and be careful.'To illustrate one pitfall, he pointed to those who still believe that the sun revolves around the earth: 'Because you have an interconnected world, people with far-out ideas, or even wrong ideas, will be able to find someone who also believes the sun revolves around the earth and reinforces those beliefs.'A diversity of views did not always end up in a 'fundamental truth'. New media allows wrong ideas to be reinforced, he said. After all this time, our dear leaders are still tossing out all these same old boring red herrings."In the midst of such an exponential growth in information, determining what is true or false is going to be extremely difficult ..." Vivian says. But suppose you lived in a highly controlled society where information was very limited. Would it then become easier to determine what's true or false? Heheh, go think about it. Also, go think about who would be in the position to selectively feed you the information that you do get. The controllers of your society, of course."New media allows wrong ideas to be reinforced," Vivian says. And what about old media - would it reinforce only the "right" ideas? Well, perhaps you would say so. Especially if you belong to the ruling party and the state controls all the old media organisations. Including the ideas that the media organisations write about. In another ST article today, Vivian offers the following remarks:He also noted that if the traditional press loses credibility, people would go to the new media. 'There are very few national newspapers with as broad a coverage and obsessive attention to detail and accuracy as our mainstream media,' he said.Oh certainly, Vivian. In fact, last year, I was even told that the overwhelming majority of readers consider the Straits Times "important" to their lives, and a definite "must-read".Who told me this? The Straits Times itself.And did the Straits Times have the statistics, the figures to prove it? Ah yes, certainly.And how did the Straits Times come up with those statistics and figures? LOL, click here. Back to the Law I submitted my resignation letter about a month ago. I was in a front-office role structuring credit derivative products and transactions. But in my opinion, structured credit is just not the place to be right now. Never very well-understood by the public to begin with, credit derivatives have now become more misunderstood than ever before. I’ve now returned to my previous investment bank to become a lawyer again. In this role, I still work with credit derivatives, but also a range of other types of derivatives such as foreign exchange, commodities and interest rates.In bad times, there is a certain kind of resilience in a lawyer’s job. Of course, it does depend on your specific legal skill set. However, bad times do create new sorts of opportunities for some kinds of lawyers at least. For example, I know a lawyer who grew very rich in the 1997 financial crisis. He was kept very busy at work, advising banks on the restructuring of bad loans from Indonesia. And for a couple of years, Indonesia generated a seemingly endless flow of bad loans. So the lawyer had a lot of work and made a lot of money. The past year has been a pretty mind-boggling one for the global financial services industry. A lot of history was made. Bear Stearns literally became history. So many banks lost billions of dollars in asset write-downs that after some time, the word “billion” no longer seemed surprising. It will be interesting to watch the slow collapse of Citigroup. When I say collapse, I don’t mean that Citigroup will become bankrupt or insolvent. Instead I mean that it will dwindle and shrink, steadily, steadily, steadily, over the next few years, and by the end of that process, it will have become a much smaller institution than it is today. It’s all part of their survival strategy to save themselves. Citigroup’s plan is to sell off big pieces of itself on a worldwide basis (hmmm, you could think of it as the sale of unnecessary body parts – see my previous post) to raise $400 billion. See this article for some idea of the kind of scale we’re talking. Among other things, Citigroup’s 340 branches in Germany is said to be up for sale; and also its entire brokerage business in Australia; and also Primerica Financial, its life insurance and mutual funds company which has around 6 million customers. Ironically, one of the safest jobs in the financial world right now may be as a mergers-& acquisitions lawyer with Citigroup. With so many assets and businesses to sell off, Citigroup will need a small army of M&A lawyers. I bet they would be able to command a good price too. Vote for Mr Wang! The Singapore Blog Awards are on, and I've been nominated for the "Most Insightful Blog" award.This category is for "serious blogs with interesting and revealing insights, analytical reports, dealing with various social issues". There are 10 finalists.If you have enjoyed reading my blog, please vote for me! The contest rules allow you to vote once every day for Mr Wang, for the next 30 days (up to 31 July). So don't vote just once, keep voting again and again!I stand to win a laptop and a trophy designed by Singapore's multi-disciplinary artist Tan Swie Hian. While you, just by voting, stand to win something quite nice too. The lucky draw prizes for voters include travel packages to Bangkok and Vietnam and a luxurious resort accommodation package in Phuket.Seriously, I would like to win this award. Then I can tell my wife that all my time spent blogging over the past few years hasn't been wasted. At least she got a laptop out of it. Help me make Mrs Wang happy, okay? :PTo vote for Mr Wang, click here. The Issue of Human Organ Trading in Singapore Two Indonesian men are being prosecuted in Singapore for agreeing to sell their kidneys. This landmark case has sparked a lively discussion on whether organ trading should be legalised.ST June 29, 2008Should sale of organs be allowed?Doctors and MPs give their take on organ transactionsBy Shuli SudderuddinOrgan selling should be allowed in a properly controlled system, and in fact this is long overdue, Associate Professor Lee Wei Ling, director of the National Neuroscience Institute, said yesterday.'People are dying of organ failure. And there are people who are healthy enough to donate their organs. It is ironical that the law at present punishes the very victims it is supposed to protect,' she said.She made this call when asked for her views on the first-ever kidneys-for-sale case, which came up in court last Friday.Dr Lee has been championing organ selling since last year when she wrote in to The Straits Times Forum page.She said yesterday that in Singapore, it is possible to ensure the donor is healthy enough to donate his organ without adverse medical consequences, and there is fair remuneration. Checks can be made to ensure the donor does not carry any diseases that can be transmitted to the patient through the transplanted organ.'In other countries, the donors are at a disadvantage without knowing it, and can get exploited. Singapore is the one place that can ensure that the donor is taken care of.'We should be proud of it. There are existing rules and regulations that are outdated and irrelevant to the current situation in Singapore. We should set out to change them and do what is right.'Every one of us has a duty as human beings to help others. People who may potentially be saved are dying, yet we still bury our heads in the sand and allow the suffering to go on? Of course, we should not break the law. But we should change the laws when they have become irrelevant. We should ensure that the person who is selling his organs is protected, and eliminate the middleman.'She noted the existing market for organs mediated by a middleman.'We should set up a proper, competent system to ensure the safety of the donor and that the donor receives a fair sum of the money in exchange for his organ.'Echoing her sentiments was Dr Lee Keen Whye, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Gleneagles Medical Centre.'As long as there is a willing buyer and seller, why not? If the seller does not feel exploited, who are we to judge? It's more important to save lives first,' he said.Other doctors and MPs interviewed, however, disagreed. Dr Pwee Hock Swee, renal medicine specialist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, felt that organ transactions should be purely altruistic.Dr Lily Neo, an MP for Jalan Besar GRC, said that kidney transplants are 'a big life- and-death operation and people should not be induced to part with a part of themselves for a financial reward'.Dr Fatimah Lateef, an MP for Marine Parade GRC, feels that it is more important to raise the number of donors available. A price tag should not be put on human organs.Ms Halimah Yacob, head of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Health, was also not in favour of organ trading 'because the poor and the weak will be the ones who have to give up their organs and this will lead to them being intimidated and harassed'. Organ trading presents a host of sensitive issues. At this point in time, I haven't yet considered all the finer points. But from a broader perspective, I can roughly see how a system of new legal rules can be built to deal with the main ethical concerns. Thus I am inclined to agree with Dr Lee Wei Ling (who happens to be Lee Kuan Yew's daughter) that it is possible, and desirable, to legalise organ trading.The key ethical objection is that human organ trading may lead to the exploitation of the poor and of socially disadvantaged donors who are unable to make an informed choice. For instance, a poor, lowly-educated person may be persuaded to sell his organ to a rich patient who needs such an organ. The poor, lowly-educated person doesn't understand the health risks that he is exposing himself to. In exchange for the kidney, the rich patient pays a sum which is peanuts to him, but which seems like a lot to the poor person.This is the paradigmatic situation that the legal rules would have to deal with, for human organ trading to be legalised in Singapore. How? These are the features of a possible legal framework that I can envisage:1. Organ sellers should be Singaporean citizens or permanent residents. This eliminates the potential problem of ill Singaporeans regularly sourcing for organs from desperately poor people in neighbouring countries such as Indonesia and Thailand. In the long run, this avoids major diplomatic disputes from arising between Singapore and its neighbours.2. The government needs to act as a middleman. Seller and buyer should not be allowed to know each other's identities beforehand, if at all. If Y wants to sell a kidney, Y will inform the relevant government authority. If accepted for sale, Y's kidney will be transplanted to a patient selected by the hospital according to its own priority list. This avoids the ethically difficult situation where the patient directly locates his own poor, desperate person, and exercises his own undue influence to persuade or coerce the poor person to sell his kidney.3. In addition to medical check-ups, the potential organ seller should be given the relevant counselling and medical advice. This is to ensure that he fully understands the medical risks he will be undergoing. 4. If there is any medical reason to believe that the potential organ seller's health will be unduly affected, his sale proposal should be rejected. A panel of independent doctors will have to assess each case.5. Organ prices should be fixed by law. The price should not be subject to any kind of bidding system, nor any system whereby richer patients can gain priority by offering to pay a higher price. The Health Ministry can regularly review and revise the applicable organ prices, if necessary.Two key considerations should be kept in mind. Firstly, more organ transplants ultimately meas that more human lives will be saved - this is the noble intention of the system. Secondly, we are talking about the types of organ transplants where the seller will have every reasonable expectation of being able to live normally after the organ is removed. (For example, a healthy person is typically able to donate one of his two kidneys and continue to live a normal life). June 28, 2008 Tangs chief named in kidneys-for-sale case Two Indonesian men arrested; they plead guilty to organ sale Tang Wee Sung an intended recipient; transplant blocked following probe By Elena Chong IN THE first case of its kind, two Indonesian men who agreed to sell their kidneys to patients here for over $20,000 each have pleaded guilty to offences linked to organ trading. Court documents cite Mr Tang Wee Sung, executive chairman of retail company CK Tang, as one of the patients who had offered to pay for an organ. But the 55-year-old kidney patient, who is on dialysis, did not get the transplant. Investigations into the organ trading allegations put a stop to it this month. But an earlier transplant, in March this year, went ahead at Mount Elizabeth Hospital for an Indonesian patient, Ms Juliana Soh. Both patients were treated by renal physician Dr Lye Wai Choong, president of the Society of Transplantation (Singapore), who runs a clinic in Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre. And in both cases, the donors had lied about being related to the patients and also about not being paid for their organs. Ms Soh's donor, known only as Toni, 27, pretended to be her adopted son since he was 10 years old. On his return to Medan after the operation, 186 million rupiah (about S$29,390) was banked into his account. He was back in Singapore on May 29, this time as a 'runner' escorting Sulaiman Damanik, 26, who was preparing to donate his kidney to Mr Tang. Sulaiman had agreed to sell his kidney to Mr Tang for about 150 million rupiah. His alleged connection to Mr Tang - his aunt was married to Mr Tang's niece's brother-in-law. Both men pleaded guilty in a district court to charges under the Human Organ Transplant Act and Oaths and Declarations Act. The duo are expected to be sentenced next Wednesday. Investigations into others connected to the cases continue. Organ trading is banned here and in most countries worldwide, the Health Ministry (MOH) said yesterday, because poor and socially disadvantaged donors who cannot make an informed choice can be exploited. But the practice continues to take place and over the years more than 300 Singaporeans have gone overseas for transplants. The main reason for this - a transplant gives a kidney patient a better chance of survival than dialysis, where 38 per cent of people die within a year. With a transplant, only 7 per cent die within 12 months. Long-term survival is also better, with 89 per cent of transplant patients living for more than five years, compared to only 36 per cent of those on dialysis. There are about 600 people waiting for a kidney here, with an average waiting time of nine years. Some patients do not survive the wait. Others get too old and are taken off the waiting list. Despite several calls over the years to reconsider the ban on organ trading, the Singapore authorities have remained dead set against it. Instead, MOH has progressively expanded the list of possible organs for transplant to include the liver, heart and corneas. The organs can also be harvested from patients left brain-dead after an illness, and no longer only from accident victims. At a community event yesterday, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said: 'There is always more demand than supply, so I can understand why some patients become desperate because it is about life and death. 'But no matter how desperate the situation is, we must never break the law.' He added that only by protecting the interests of both the patients as well as the donors, can Singapore maintain the high ethical standards needed to be a transplant hub. elena@sph.com.sg Ideas for Void Decks A letter from the ST Forum ST June 28, 2008Why are void decks so, er, void?HDB void decks strike me as under-used spaces.Is this due to:Fire hazard?Insufficient human traffic?Lack of air-conditioning?Our collective love of blank walls?HDB restrictions on commercial use?Our national obsession with shopping centres?Need to have space for the occasional wedding or funeral?Need to let second-storey residents enjoy a little peace and quiet?Whatever the reasons, it is a great pity that so much public space should be left void, empty. A cafe would be nice. Or perhaps a bookstore. A newsstand, perhaps.If rent is low - and why shouldn't it be, the space is empty anyway - these small businesses could survive, and give us an alternative to shopping centres.Public spaces need to be occupied, for them to belong to the public.Khoo Chun YokNot all HDB blocks have void decks. Especially in the older housing estates, the space is often used to build flats on the ground floor. Such flats have their pros and cons. There is less privacy and more noise from passers-by. However, many ground-floor residents will utilise the grassy areas near their front door to grow plants. So in effect, despite being HDB residents, they have a garden. I once saw a resident in Toa Payoh who had cultivated chillis, tomatos, long beans and a custard apple tree outside his ground floor flat.However, most void decks are indeed void. While a few void decks can and should be left void (to facilitate human traffic and as an open area for holding the occasional wedding or funeral), most void decks are really just a waste of space.Here are some of my ideas on what could be done with void decks:1. Help NSmen pass their IPPT. Install pull-up bars and sit-up stations. Also make the necessary markings on the ground to allow NSmen to measure their own standing broad jumps and do their shuttle runs.2. Additional storage space. Build large, heavy-duty, lockable cupboards with adjustable shelves. Residents may rent these cupboards for a small annual fee and use it to store their personal items at their own risk. This could be useful for residents because your average HDB flat is not exactly very big. Residents may want to use the cupboards to store items like luggage cases; old textbooks; old clothes; exercise equipment; baby cots; unused fish tanks; a pail for washing the car parked nearby etc.3. Murals. Art students from secondary schools, junior colleges or institutions such as Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts may be invited to do murals on the walls. Who knows, over time, Singapore may evolve its own indigeneous urban art form.4. Indoor playgrounds for toddlers. A lot of such equipment is quite durable and needs practically no maintenance after installation. Kids can play, both on rainy and sunny days.5. Indoor carparks. The pillars will need to be modified and some road works will need to be done, but some void decks could probably be modified into a small car park. This could be a useful idea especially for HDB blocks with limited parking space.6. Function rooms. Many private clubs and condos have a function room which you could book to host a private function. Such a room could be constructed under some HDB blocks. It could be equipped with chairs, table, a small stage, microphones, air-conditioning etc. To use such a room, you would have to make a booking with your town council.7. Green projects. Recycling bis for different materials (glass, paper, metals) could be placed at void decks for residents to dispose their waste. The Government Does Not Make Money From The ERP Increase. So Says Lim Swee Say. Lim Swee Say claims that the government will not make any money from the ERP increase.ST June 23, 2008Govt doesn't make money from ERPTHE CashCard reader in labour chief Lim Swee Say's car beeps four to six times a day. This is because he passes through that many Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantries along busy city roads to get to and from work.He was driving home the point that ERP exists solely to control road congestion and not to enrich government coffers or raise the cost of living for Singaporeans.Mr Lim was responding to a question at a dialogue on why the Government was raising ERP rates by as much as $2 and adding five new gantries from July7 in a climate of rising inflation.The new gantries along the banks of the Singapore River bring the total number of gantries islandwide to 65.Mr Lim said Transport Minister Raymond Lim had told Parliament previously the Government does not make any money from the ERP increase.The reason: It will collect $70 million a year from the ERP increase, but will lose $110 million due to the 15 per cent reduction in road tax from next month.That is, in fact, a net loss of $40 million, he said.This reminds me of what happened in early 2007. The government was discussing its plans to raise GST from 5% to 7% in July 2007.Back then, the Finance Minister had said that even with the GST increase, the government would suffer a $700,000,000 budget deficit. In other words, the government estimated that even with the GST increase, it would collect $700,000,000 less than what it actually needed, to run the country.Many Singaporeans were thus persuaded that the GST increase was a necessary evil.But what happened next?One year later, it was revealed in Parliament that the government did not have any budget deficit for the 2007/2008 financial year. Quite the opposite - it had a huge budget surplus of $6.45 billion dollars.In other words, the government had collected $6.45 billion dollars more in taxes than what it actually needed to run the country. The people got suckered again.For more details, refer to my old post here.So when Lim Swee Say tells you that the government won't make any money from the ERP increase (and will in fact suffer a $40 million loss), take it with a pinch of salt. Or maybe three big tablespoons of it.The last time round, our Finance Minister missed his Budget estimate by $7,100,000,000. In percentage terms, what makes you think Swee Say will do any better? Wong Kan Seng's Latest Career Achievement First, the terrorist Mas Selamat escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Centre in broad daylight. Then two detainees at the Subordinate Courts lock-up beat up the police officer supervising them and made an escape bid, also in broad daylight.And now, a 61-year-old retiree breaks through all the security measures at Changi Airport - without even meaning to.ST June 24, 2008Dad flies off using son's passportHe checks in at Changi, clears immigration and gets on Tiger Airways jet to VietnamBy Carolyn QuekIN HIS hurry to catch a flight at Changi Airport's Budget Terminal yesterday morning, retiree Ang Heng Soon, 61, grabbed the wrong passport and left home.He took his 39-year-old son's passport. They had left their passports on the dining table, because the son was also flying from Changi Airport.The father's mistake, and how he cleared all security checks at the airport and flew to Vietnam, led to a long day for both.Even with the wrong passport, Mr Ang first checked in at the Tiger Airways counter for his flight to Ho Chi Minh City, where he was headed for a six-day holiday.He next got past the security check by Certis Cisco officers at the entrance to the restricted passenger area.Then he ran into problems, failing repeatedly to scan his fingerprint at the immigration Automated Clearance System.Noticing his difficulty, an Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officer directed him to a lane for manual clearance.There, an officer cleared him to leave Singapore, and he boarded his plane.Mr Ang told The Straits Times he realised his mistake only during the flight. You know what will happen next, don't you? The Little People will be punished again. You know, the Cisco guard, the lady at the airport check-in counter, and so on. The good minister Wong Kan Seng will strut around, point his finger and say, "Tsk tsk ... you so naughty ... you so negligent ... your pay is docked ... you are sacked ..." and then he will probably look at the TV camera and say, "Lee Kuan Yew was right - you Singaporeans are too complacent."Someone might quietly suggest that in view of all these security lapses, perhaps the Home Affairs Minister is not doing his job very well and should resign. Whereupon Wong Kan Seng's eyes will widen slightly in surprise. And then he'll say: "Ooh, I am sorry that this has happened. But in Singapore, sacrificing the minister for political expediency is just not right. I am very highly talented, you know. I must be - otherwise why would you be paying me a world-class salary? It will be a tragic loss for Singapore if I were to quit." Up, Up And Away - The ERP Takes Off Two years ago, I wrote a post entitled Money & Material Things. I mentioned then that I lived in a HDB flat, did not own a car and did not plan to.Two years later, I still live in the same HDB flat, still do not own a car and still do not plan to. Relatives have given up asking me why Mrs Wang and I, two quite successful & established professionals, do not even aspire to move to a condo or own a humble secondhand car (Mrs Wang is a lawyer).There are a few reasons. One is that a car is largely unnecessary to our lifestyle. Our HDB flat is two minutes away from an MRT station, which is extremely convenient. Also, the nature of our professional backgrounds means that our offices will almost certainly be in the CBD, and it is quicker for us to get to the CBD by train than by car. Furthermore CBD driving has its own problems, including higher parking costs, heavy road traffic and ERP costs.Another reason why we don't want to own a car is that in Singapore, car ownership just makes you a rather easy victim for the government's Pay-&-Pay policies. ST June 17, 2008ERP charges up at 32 CBD gantries from July 7Five more new gantries coming up along Singapore RiverBy Maria AlmenoarTHE roads are getting pricier from July 7. Five new gantries, forming a cordon along the Singapore River Line, will go live to regulate the evening traffic flow from 6pm to 8pm, bringing the total number of gantries to 65.In what is seen as the most extensive revision of Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) here since its implementation 10 years ago, another 32 gantries in the Central Business District (CBD), including those around Orchard Road, will also have their charges increased.Rates are being revised mostly during the evening time slots because speeds have fallen steadily during the home-rush hours.The Government is going to fix this by doing three things.The biggest change is that if you pay, you will get to enjoy a smooth flowing ride - which is not always the case now.Motorists can expect to pay as much as $1 more at existing gantries and $2 at new gantries .... The above changes are going to cause some loud howls of protest among the public, considering the price of oil nowadays and the inflation situation. Actually, if you had plans to destabilise our society, raising fees at 32 ERP gantries would be a positive first step in the right direction. (P.S That was just my way of saying that the Transport Minister has a very bad sense of timing. But since I do not drive, I shall not comment any further. Car-driving readers may now proceed to the comment section of my blog).(P.P.S I invite my driver-readers to share some details of their lifestyle (for example, how often they drive, and from where to where) and also how much they spend on car-related expenses. It might be interesting for such readers to compare notes). If A Very Sick Man Was About to Die, Wouldn't You Help To Let His Mother Know? Apparently not. Today we look at a human interest story in the Straits Times. To summarise, a man had a stroke and would soon die. His relative tried to contact the man's mother. The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), which is also our national issuer of NRICs, knew exactly where the man's mother lived, but refused to reveal the details. ST June 13, 2008One last look at prodigal sonST helps cousin of man in coma to locate his family; son dies 15 minutes after mum leaves hospitalBy Teh Joo LinMORE than 20 years ago, Mr William Rajasingam Kasinathan became estranged from his family. He lost touch with his mother, sister and son.... Last week, the 53-year-old prodigal son suffered a stroke and was on his deathbed. And the search was on for his kin.On Tuesday, mother and son had a reunion of sorts - Mr Kasinathan was comatose - in the intensive care unit of Tan Tock Seng Hospital.The frail woman gazed upon her son and looked lost as she repeatedly rose from her chair and sat down.Fifteen minutes after the 78-year-old left the hospital, he died.It was his cousin, Ms Prem Bir Kaur, 53, who managed to track down the old woman.Aided by a doctor and a medical social worker, she contacted the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA), the custodian of the national registration records, in the hope of securing an address.The hospital staff offered to furnish proof that Mr Kasinathan, a bar musician, was in a critical condition so that the ICA could try and contact his mother on Ms Kaur's behalf.But rules forbade the ICA from revealing her whereabouts, Ms Kaur was told.On Monday night, she called The Straits Times, which helped her locate Mr Kasinathan's mother by going down a list of possible family names in the phone directory.When given the news that her son was gravely ill, the old woman told her daughter: 'He's still my son. Take me to see him.'Ms Kaur is relieved mother and son got to 'meet' one last time but wonders why the ICA would not help her.She said: 'It's not fair for him to die alone. At least I can say I've tried to fulfil his last wish.'And why did the ICA not help to fulfil he dying man's last wish? What reason could the ICA possibly have? An ICA spokesman told The Straits Times that the National Registration Regulations make it an offence for any public officer to disclose to anyone information from its records - on pain of jail time, a fine or both.The exceptions are few - when it is in the public interest and with the permission of the ICA Commissioner, or for the purpose of criminal proceedings.This was not a criminal case, so the police could not formally help either.Dr Teo Ho Pin, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Law and Home Affairs, agreed it was important to protect the private information of people. Recently I commented that PAP MP Teo Ho Pin is quite a clever person. After reading the above ST article, and Teo's remark as quoted in it, I feel compelled to withdraw my comment. I no longer think that Teo is very clever.According to the law, ICA was not allowed to reveal the old lady's address to Prem Bir Kaur. However, there was a very simple solution. ICA could have contacted the old lady directly, by phone or by mail, and said:"Dear MadamWe were informed by Tan Tock Seng Hospital that your son William Rajasingam Kasinathan is seriously ill in Ward ___. His cousin Ms Prem Bir Kaur has also contacted us about this matter. She has been trying in vain to locate you.To safeguard your privacy, we have not given them your personal contact details. However, if you wish to know more about the matter, you can directly contact Tan Tock Seng Hospital (tel no. XXXXXXX) or Ms Prem Bir Kaur (tel no. YYYYYY) yourself."Simple as that. As I see it, there could only have been two reasons why ICA didn't do it:(1) ICA is just too stupid; or(2) ICA just can't be bothered.Either way, it just reflects very badly on the ICA.On a separate note, isn't it really quite ironic? If you have died in hospital without signing the opt-out form, the government has the legal right to immediately cut out your organs for transplant purposes. But while you're dying in hospital, the government won't even help to let your mother know. Thinking About Critical Thinking A reader, AM, writes from Melbourne University to tell me that he is a final-year law student. Recently he has had to write many legal essays. AM wonders how he can learn to think more critically. Evidently he feels that his earlier education in Singapore has disadvantaged him: "Of course at this time, being a Singaporean, I would readily point the blame finger at the government and MOE for creating a flawed system where schools do not encourage critical thinking but hard memorization and accurate application (or maybe that was just my school only). So I was just wondering, how does one develop critical thinking if the system we are in doesn't necessarily encourage it?"Personally I am very interested in the mind. But less interested in critical thinking. While critical thinking is no doubt a useful tool, my personal adventures into the intuitive right brain (via meditation, self-hypnosis and certain other esoteric methods) have made me a little wary of the dangers of over-reliance on the logical left brain.I'm sure that the above statement will surprise, perhaps even upset, some people. And it is not exactly the easiest thing to explain to a general audience via a blog post. So I shall not elaborate. Not now anyway.Back to the left brain then. Here are six questions about critical thinking:1. What is it?2. Who said so?3. Why should I be interested?4. Where can I use it?5. When shall I use it?6. How can I apply it?Guess what, I am not providing the answers. I posed those six questions just to demonstrate a certain critical thinking skill. It's called asking questions. This one, specifically, is known as 5W1H.The five W's are what, who, why, where and when, and the one H is how. 5W1H was originally conceived as a journalistic tool. Out in the field, reporters would use 5W1H as a mental checklist to generate questions and make sure they cover all the basic facts needed for their news story. Now 5W1H shows up in all sorts of other places, such as in the Six Sigma processes.As far as AM's law school adventures are concerned, 5W1H can be applied as follows. Suppose you are reading a legal article where the good professor is expounding certain opinions. Since he writes persuasively, you feel inclined to agree. On the other hand, if you wish to consider his article more critically, you simply generate questions to consider. Such as - what is he really saying here? Who would agree with this? Who wouldn't? Why not? What is the justification for this point? Where are the examples? What are the alternative views? When would this idea fail? And so on.You might not have expected that such a simple thing as asking questions would be so important as to merit its own special acronym "5W1H". Well, it just goes to show you that critical thinking isn't that difficult, after all. On the other hand, many of us know from our personal experiences that Singapore's teachers often implicitly discourage questions, especially if the question strays outside the confines of the school syllabus. And over the years, many Singaporeans will forget how to ask questions. So perhaps we do need to remind ourselves about 5W1H. In fact, asking good questions is probably the most important thing that an MP can do in Parliament.Not to flog a very dead horse, but there's a useful illustration from April this year: Mr Low Thia Khiang: "Did MHA conduct regular audits at the Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC) prior to the escape of Mas Selamat?"Mr Wong Kan Seng: "The WRDC and the Gurkha Contingent guards have their respective procedures. When the detainees are in the cell block, they are watched by a significant number of guards. The ratio of guards is more than what one can see in the prison.When they're taken to other blocks, most of those movements are in passageways that are enclosed and they're also blindfolded, to keep them from familiarising themselves with the surroundings.The only thing that ought to have been done better is a regular system check and audit. These will now be carried out on a regular basis."Paragraph 1 of Wong Kan Seng's answer was irrelevant to the question. Paragraph 2 of his answer was also irrelevant. Well, no, not exactly, they did serve a purpose. They distracted people.Now, look at Low's question again. And then just focus on the only relevant part of Wong's answer: "The only thing that ought to have been done better is a regular system check and audit. These will now be carried out on a regular basis."What would be the most natural follow-up question you would ask?Probably something like this: "Did MHA ever conduct any audit at WRDC at all? If so, when?"The question was not asked. So we will never know the answer. We do know what happened next. Various lowly MHA officers were punished for the Mas Selamat escape, while the Minister was completely unscathed. In fact, he was the one handing out punishments.But what if the question had been asked? And what if the truthful answer was that not only was there no regular audit system, but there had been no audit at all, for many years. For example, what if the answer turned out to be something like this: "WDRC has never been audited. Not even once, ever since I became Home Affairs Minister fourteen years ago, back in 1994. As a matter of fact, we've simply never bothered to audit any of our prisons and detention centres for security." Under such circumstances, I think that it would be more difficult for PM Lee to assert so blithely in Parliament that it is unthinkable for Wong Kan Seng to be punished.But then we don't know. We probably never will. The right question wasn't asked; it was never asked; Wong didn't have to answer it; and so, the political history of Singapore took a certain turn, and went on in a certain way. As I predicted quite long ago, Wong Kan Seng managed to make the Great Escape.