Skip to main content

I'm outraged!

My posts are coming fast and furious, man! Compared to the poor record from April to July. But I just have to record my outrage about 4 pieces of news.

Hurricane Katrina
I can't believe that this kind of thing is happening in the USA, in this time and age. People are dying, corpses are rotting, there's not enough food and clean water and then there are armed people looting, assaulting others, shooting at police and helicopters bearing relief supplies!! What's with these people??

Anyway, on a slightly related topic, the increase in petrol prices is really no joke. Pumped a 'full tank' yesterday for a whopping $77!! Don't remember ever having paid so much for a full tank. Unleaded 92 some more.

The white elephants of Buangkok MRT Station
Another unbelievable development. Someone actually complained about those white elephants and now police are investigating!! I hope they don't catch the 'culprit'. People should just lighten up, lah. What was wrong with those cardboard elephants? Thought they looked rather cute and, after all, the station is currently a white elephant. And, didn't the minister say he was 'amused'?

Anyway, what's the difference between putting up those white elephants and complaining on one's personal blog or writing to the Forum page about the unopened station?

Please don't report my blog to the police. I don't want to be accused of abetting those white elephant people.

Lady in coma and driver who knocked her down have EQUAL share of blame
Come one, the driver was the one who committed most of the mistakes -- reversed 5 car lengths against the flow of traffic on a one-way street, did not check blind spots, did not check for pedestrians (and possibly not for other cars either). The lady's husband has a point -- if you are crossing a one-way street, you are likely to just check for traffic coming from the direction they are supposed to come from.

Although Justice Lai also has a point, that pedestrians have the responsibility to check (and there are many pedestrians who do not bother to look out for cars, even when crossing roads illegally), I really don't agree with her reasoning that it is 'easier for a pedestrian to see a reversing car than vice versa', nor the point that because the car is a 'large vehicle' that 'has its blind spots', the pedestrian is as liable as the driver. It is the driver's responsibility to check and he/she should know that there are those blind spots and should all the more be careful. Especially when he/she decides to do the stupid and dangerous thing of reversing (I suspect at a fast speed, to 'chope' the parking lot) five car lengths against the flow of traffic. And it is common sense that the car, being the more dangerous of the two, is more a threat to the pedestrian than the other way around.

Please don't report me to Justice Lai.

The curious incident of the arctic dog who died
The owner of the poor Siberian husky who died of heatstroke got off with a fine. Why, in the first place, are people bringing in dogs like Siberian huskies?? I mean, the dog will have problems surviving even in temperate countries. It should remain in Siberia. What is it doing in Singapore? Why did the owner get it in the first place? Presumably he must be a dog lover. (Who else would spend so much on such a nice looking dog?) Why didn't he care about the dog's welfare?

And why is Bernard Harrison himself taking care of two(?) such dogs? He said he took them over from someone who couldn't care for them or something. He also said he has a huge shaded compound where they are kept. The point is his compound may be huge and shaded but this is the equatorial region. Why doesn't he send/sell those dogs to some place where the poor things can live comfortably? I'm wilting most days in this heat, even indoors. I can't imagine what it is like for those creatures with double coats of fur!!

Notice I used 'who' for the dog...

Comments

Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

A lesson in love

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the

No wonder

According to a poll of about 300 people, reported in yesterday's Sunday Times, (how come nobody ever asks me these things?) , the Seven Wonders of Singapore are (in order of merit): 1. The Esplanade (a whopping 82 votes) 2. Changi Airport (53 votes) 3. Sentosa 4. The Merlion 5. The Singapore River 6. Food 7. Mount Faber and LKY (tie - 10 votes each) Some 'offbeat choices' which didn't make it to the top 7: aunties selling tissue paper at coffee shops, Singlish, kiasuism, 4D-Toto outlets and Newater (said someone of Newater: 'We are probably the only country with branded recycled sewage.' Well said, ha ha.). Maybe it's a personal bias but I feel that a 'Wonder' must also have strong historical and cultural/social value (so I'm rather miffed that Angkor Wat didn't make it to the 7 Wonders of the World; in fact it was never in the running for the top 7). Therefore, these choices are a little too modern for me. The Esplanade, for example, is a