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Singapore National Education
Part 37
by mr brown
Week of 13 March to 20 March 1998
(Feel free to distribute for non-profit and non-commercial purposes but keep my byline, email address and URL intact please. Thanks)
I have also learned lately:
1. That it is hard to tell what women really mean sometimes. Upon watching an Ally McBeal episode, where a fat guy gets a heart attack and collapses, and Ally saves him, my wife playfully turns to me and says if anything like this happens to me (insert obligatory "choy, choy!" here), she will give me CPF.
Under those circumstances, I'd much prefer CPR but money is good too.
2. That I made a mistake in SNE Part 31, Point 25. Bill Clinton's favorite movie is "Free Willey". We apologise for the error.
3. That toll collection has begun at the Second Link. As a result, the bridge has seen a huge drop in the number of cars using it, down from a previous figure of no cars.
The hardest hit group that uses the Second Link the most, The Association of Smugglers of Illegal Immigrants, has filed a formal compliant to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM).
4. That the Malaysian Defence Ministry, in a dramatic turnaround, has announced that women Air force pilots can now get pregnant. Defence Minister Datuk Syed Hamid did add that, "Those who are pregnant will not be allowed to fly any aircraft". This ruling apparently applies to male pilots also.
However, I understand that women Air force pilots who breast-feed will not be allowed to do so while flying. Something to do with interference to the plane's avionics.
5. That by the end of the year, all Internet service providers in Singapore will be required by regulation, to sanitise the Internet, so that children will not have access to online smut. So if your child is accessing Naughty Pictures of the Serengeti, it is the fault of the ISP not filtering the Net enough. And other users of the ISP's service will probably have to bear the cost of slower access times and costlier access prices. Singapore plans to be the IT Hub of the Region.
One suggestion was for the ISPs to introduce a heavily-filtered, much-slower "family-safe" Internet access package that costs more to subscribe to, for parents who are too busy making money and who have no time to supervise their children. These are the kind of parents who make up for their absence from their kids by buying condominiums near Little Guilin.
When asked if it was more practical to introduce legislature to force all parents to surf the internet with their children and supervise their online activities, Minister for Information, Arts and Censoring Bad Language said that it was not technically feasible and would infringe on their civil rights.
6. That Microsoft's Bill Gates recently visited Malaysia with their Multimedia Super-Colliding Door, and Singapore with our Singapore ONE network (as in "Why SINGAPORE so like that, ONE?"). He was here to help to improve our Government's Computer Infrastructure. Help from one monopoly to another, I guess.
I shudder to think what it would be like if Singapore becomes Microsoft-ed. We'd be living in an environment with effectively only one choice of government, one choice of semi-affordable homes, one choice of main local newspaper and one choice of free-to-air TV station. Wouldn't that be terrible?
Shameless plug: Read about the latest Microsoft cars in Readers' Contributions!
7. That in a bid to increase motorist awareness and acceptance of the new EMAS (Expressway Monitoring Something or Other) electronic signboard system, that cost a lot of taxpayers' money, the LTA will be screening on all EMAS boards the uncensored version of the movie "Titanic" on the first week of the EMAS launch. This was decided after poor motorist perception despite the cute LTA messages displayed on the EMAS signboards.
Motorists are advised to keep their eyes on the road especially during the Kate Winslet nude scene.
8. That another 13,500 VCDs, suspected to be obscene, have been seized in a series of raids on retail outlets and makeshift stalls through the island, part of the Singapore authorities' efforts to show that Singapore should not be blacklisted as a Pirates Haven.
"We will slowly but surely making a dent on the copyright piracy problem," said a Police storeman involved in watching the VCDs to determine if they were indeed obscene and violated copyrights.
Estimated damage done to the pirated VCD business was estimated to be as much as S$2.95.
9. That the police reported that they and officers from the Board of Film Censors have conducted 39 raids since March 4 this year. According to Browntown's analysts, this works out to be an average of 346 VCDs seized per raid.
10. That there is entertainment to be found in the most unlikeliest places. When bored, check out the planet's worst DJs on Singapore Cable Vision's 1-900 telegames by tuning in to any SCV channel that you do not subscribe. There will be games like Mind Master, Tank and other mindless activities that require you to call the 1-900 number to join in. (True example of the tough questions asked: "What is Neve Cambell's latest movie?" My guess would be "Screem Too")
Then there is the pop music in the background voiced over by a DJ who says hip stuff like, "call now, we have many slots and we just added another 10 slots, so hurry up and give us a baazzz before we run out of slots, no, er, no need to hurry up since we added the extra slots, er...".
11. That the SCV 1-900 telegames can be really tough. Well, once, when a photo of Hongkong star Ekin "Noodle" Cheng was flashed on the screen with the question "Who is this HK Superstar", the DJ, for want of something to say, said, "Guess who is this lovely girl, this beautiful face..."
Ekin "Noodle" Cheng is a guy with long hair. Must have been a trick question.
As one of the SCV DJs puts it, "It's one man for himself in this game". I am not making any of this up.
12. That on a recent Showbuzz episode, the gay character that Oscar-nominee Greg Kinnear portrays in "As Good As It Gets" was described as "artistically happy".
13. That a bond-breaker who is named is very unlikely to be employed by the Government in the future. He has a much better chance becoming an elected Member of Parliament.
14. That a Penang sessions court judge was arrested for allegedly performing oral sex in chambers on a male subordinate. The judge, who is married, had warned the subordinate that his career advancement would be affected if he resisted. If convicted, the good judge faces caning under the Malaysian Penal Code.
Man, that sucks. I hope that the male subordinate will not have to give any oral testimonies in court.
Usenet Fun Fact #467: The word "testimony" is derived from the word "testes", way back when men gave sworn statements by grabbing their testicles. (Like Michael Jackson does when he gives testimony - "Ow! He's Bad, he's Bad..." Is that how he gets his falsetto, you think?)
15. That scientists from Monash University of Australia, Department of Reproduction and Development (hey, cool job description: Semen Scientists!), has teamed up with an underwear company to come up with a new kind of cooler, sperm-friendly boxer shorts. This is to fight Global Warming, of men's testicles, that is, and the global trend of falling sperm count.
I understand that an Air-conditioned model is on its way, as soon as they can reduce the size of the aircon compressor unit and battery pack, and minimise the possibility of electrocution.
"Hey, is that your new Aircon briefs or are you just happy to see me?"
16. That Michelle Goh, TCS's resident sex kitten, may be quitting soon. Rumour has it that she did not like the Mee Pok in the TCS canteen. Either that or VR Man was too demanding of her acting talents.
17. That the headline about a change in HDB's Singles' housing policy read, "Singles over 35 get $15,000 CPF grant to buy resale flats" but did not include the important caveat, "BUT SINGLES NO LONGER ALLOWED TO PURCHASE NEW FLATS DIRECTLY FROM THE HDB".
I suppose there was no space to include the rest of the information. Maybe the new-look Straits Times will rectify that.
18. That a senior Japanese economic figure, Mr Kazuo Nukazawa, has declared that cronyism is not behind the fall of Asian economics. I personally believe El Nino is.
Mr Nukazawa was quoted as saying, the Americans "believe the fair weather will last forever. But fair weather stops. The fair weather in America will stop."
Told you El Nino was to blame.
19. That President Suharto has promised to donate his salary, a princely sum of 15 million rupiah (S$2820) per month for twelve months, to the poor in his country. My mother makes more money than he does, but she lives in a much smaller residence. I guess she did not have his thrifty ways.
His wealth is estimated to be US$16 billion and his family's wealth to be US$40 billion. I hope that his army pension and his personal wealth are enough to sustain him after this huge sacrifice.
20. That we could see frontal nudity in Schindler's List on TV but we could not listen to bad language and dirty jokes in the Oscar-nominated movie "Good Will Hunting" at the cinemas.
The former was relatively uncut due to a rare understanding of context from the BFC but the latter was seriously hacked up by the Board of Film Censors. This is despite the importance of the cut portions to the context of the film's character and plot development.
But according to Tan Chiu Kee, Secretary to the BFC, "their removal did not affect the development of the story in any way."
21. That the Straits Times has been running lots of pages on how wonderful the New-Look ST will be, and they even have sidebars where the various ST editors get to voice their views on the re-design.
How come no editor says something fun like: "Personally, I think the new look sux real loud."?
22. That motorists whose non-Sun-resistant ERP CashCards have melted in their IU Units are advised to pour out the liquid contents into a small cup and bring it to the nearest 7-11 to exchange it for a free packet of tissue.
23. That the school curriculum will be cut by 10% to 30% from next year to reduce student workload. As part of this new policy, Recess will be cut by ten minutes.
This is to allow exciting subjects like Information Technology (PC only) and Singapore National Education (haha). Creative Thinking will also be part of the new education system. It is not clear if students will have to take examinations for Creative Thinking ("My son got 98 marks for Creative Thinking!"). Hopefully, it will produce students who can come up with better analogies than "Student-loan-defaulters versus Bond-breakers", and "Water Used in Silicon Plants versus Water Used in a Jacuzzi".
24. That the US First Dog, Buddy, will be neutered. This is true stuff. Guess they were afraid of any fresh scandals from the First Family.
25. That Bill Clinton's minders probably wish that they could do the same for their Commander-in-Chief (ie. Snip Willy). But there are probably laws in the States that disallow this kind of thing.
By Lee Kin Mun (Copyright 1998)
All fan mail and soft toys may be directed at mrbrown@mrbrown.com
Other writings may be found in the Website "BrownTown" at http://www.mrbrown.com
