Key skill for graduates – adaptability

My gosh, what, adaptability is going to be a key skill to be taught to the undergrads? After teaching them how to get all the As not enough and must teach them how to be adaptable? When one is growing up, is there a need to teach anyone how to eat, how to sleep, how to make babies? Isn’t adaptability the oldest life skill that allowed man to survive the millennium and the trials and tribulations of life? Adaptability is instinctive.
 
Now to think of it, it is necessary. Our brilliant jokers just cannot think other than aceing their exams. You even have to teach them how to find a boy friend or a girl friend or they would not know how and would not make babies. This is expected when you have a production line producing machine, aka robots. Unthinking but very efficiently programmed to do what they are made to do. Anything else, they are blur like sotong. They may not know how to eat and drink too.
 
Why is adaptability so important today and must be taught at university level? Oh while teaching this skill, make sure it is graded so that they can get an A for it or they would not bother to mug for it.
 
I can only think of one reason for teaching adaptability. In the past our graduates were only competing with the same people coming out from the same degree mill, all honest, straight thinking, no bullshitting, no cheating, no copying or buying their degrees. A CV submitted is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
 
In today’s context, life is much more complicated with the influx of foreigners with their queer degrees and CVs. Our graduates are to compete with these clever specimens from all corners of the world and apparently these newcomers have a string of scintillating degrees and CVs to match, much better than the straight As of our best graduates. Of course the strings of degrees of our graduates are nothing when the foreigners can buy as many as they want, of their own choosing, to be better than our locals. You just can’t beat them on papers.
 
Now what is this adaptability thing? Come on, don’t be stupid. If you want to teach our graduates life skills, survival skills, you much tell them the truth. It is not adaptability skill that is needed. It is called cheating, dishonesty, bluffology or whatever better words, but not adaptability. When everyone is cheating their way through and our naïve and innocent graduates still thinking going straight would get them the job they want despite not even being called up for interviews, you are telling them they need to be adaptable?
 
Please, the Singapore of honesty, integrity, accountability is long gone. The Singapore of today is all about cheating and fakes. To survive, you need to cheat your way through. Cheating is the new virtue, and stop calling it adaptability. You are cheating our graduates by telling them to be adaptable when others are cheating their way through. When cheating is fair game, our graduates, steep in honesty or simplicity and ignorant of the new realities, cannot compete fairly if they did not know others are cheating and do not know how to cheat. It is very unfair to them to think that being adaptable is the solution.
 
Get real.

Amos Yee’s assailant charged in court

Neo Gim Huah, the 49 year old assailant of Amos Yee was charged in court on Monday morning. He admitted hitting Amos and confessed in a CNA article, ‘Through a translator, he said that Yee had been disrespectful and had insulted Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew, and that he only wanted to teach Yee a lesson as an elder and did not want to hurt Yee.’

Neo’s slapping of Amos was premeditated, planned to achieve maximum exposure to the media. He ‘wanted the assault to be publicised “so that the world at large would know that the victim was being taught a lesson”.’ He added that he wanted to ‘instil fear in the teenager, let him know what the ways of the world are and teach him a lesson, ...’

This guy must be thinking that he is another kind of god out to deliver justice to Amos, claiming that ‘it would be difficult for the criminal justice system to deal with Yee effectively because of his age’.

The court thought differently and gave him with a deterrent sentence of 3 weeks in jail to prevent the erosion of the justice system in case every monkey thinks he is the law, to deal with anyone they deemed fit, that the court is unable to deliver justice.

What would be interesting now is the possibility of other parties thinking the same way as this Neo and would want to deal him a dose of his own justice the way he did to Amos. Amos has a father and mother to discipline him and it is pure arrogance for this Neo to think he should do the job, and to represent the justice system.

What a cock? See how he feels if he is made to take his own medicine by someone who thinks he deserves to be taught a lesson, to ‘let him know what the ways of the world are...’

Finally all the suspicions about something missing ends with this man’s appearance in court and his photograph in the msm, and the 3 weeks jail awaiting him.

Can work can leow. Degrees not necessary

What can work and work efficiently, with minimal cost must be good. Old wife’s tales, grandmother’s recipe, whatever, sometimes can work wonders. Below is a wonderful example of a remedy that is cheap and good, never mind if it does not need the sophisticated machinery or skills of a million dollar surgeon. The point is that it works man!
 
‘Anil Jadhav, 30, was arrested on Monday after members of the public accused him of snatching the 63,000 rupee (RM3,555) necklace from a 52-year-old woman in Mumbai’s Sion area.
 
According to the BBC, an initial body search by police failed to retrieve the necklace, which weighed 25g.
 
But it was found lodged in his food pipe during X-ray scans of Mr Jadhav’s body.
Police then put him on the special diet of bananas and liquids….
 
Jadhav has defecated it after he was fed special liquids and bananas, and had four enemas administered to him by doctors. The necklace has since been returned to its owner.’ …thestar.com.my
 
What a brilliant idea. So efficient and so cheap. India is not only famous for low cost engineering. They also have low cost medicine and practices. Our hospitals can learn a trick or two from such ancient wisdom and folk practices. No need every time must queue to pay a specialists and go under the operating table costing a bomb.
This is a good example of why degrees are not necessary. Tiok boh?

A time to support the politicians

Don’t laugh, I am dead serious. Politicians are the highest office holders of a country. They run a country and are responsible for the people’s well being, and the number of people can be in millions or billions. The strange thing about this job is that not many people want to be politicians. Maybe because of its bad image that politicians are rascals, crooks. Some even said politicians cannot be trusted, worse than lawyers and salesmen.
 
The thing is that good politician is a rare breed and must be celebrated, loved and worshipped if you can find one, and be supported or protected. The PAP knows this and that is why they have raised the pay for politicians to a level that some think is crazy, unacceptable. But how, when no good people wants to step up and serve and those who grudgingly stepped out may demand to be paid in the millions? There is no other option but to pay ‘out of this world’ salaries to get the good men and women to be politicians.
 
Even as we are paying unbelievable salaries, we are still not getting the best out there. Maybe it is time to raise the salaries higher to get the really good and reluctant ones. Maybe we should cast the net worldwide to find the best men and women, citizens or no citizens, no big shit. Pay them what they want and hand them a pink IC will solve all sticky problems.
 
Ask the PAP for their experience in hunting for the few rare talents and you will know. They are scrapping the bottom of the barrel and still could not get the really good stuff. Look at Hsien Loong’s futuristic team, his best talents and you will get the answer.
And politicians are not confined to only the winning parties. The politicians of alternative parties are also politicians. They are also people, with two eyes and a mouth and a good heart to want to serve the people and country. And not only have they got to face many hazards peculiar to the profession, to step forward, they still need to win the hearts and minds of the people. It is time the people open their hearts to all politicians regardless of the parties they are from, to welcome them to fill these important positions that will affect their life and their future. If the people want more and better people to be politicians, they must take positive actions to tell the potential candidates that they are needed, no matter if they are from the PAP or not from the PAP.
 
At the moment the PAP is struggling to find the best men and women to join them. Maybe if the people are kinder and more receptive, more good and able people will step forward to serve the parties they feel comfortable with, parties with the right mission and heart to serve the interest of the people. Then only the people will have more and better candidates to choose from.
 
In the case of politicians from alternative parties, they need all the encouragement and support from the people. If the people want them to represent them, the people must stand up to say so, to walk with these brave and good men and women, to defend them when they are fighting for their causes. If the people do not think it is necessary to support the men and women in politics and let them fend for themselves in this treacherous profession, why would the good men and women risk their lives and well being to step forward to receive the bashing, to have their lives ruined, the lives of their families ruined or compromise to want to serve the people? A good case is the WP, seemingly fighting for survival, alone, without the people showing any care or support for them except during the election.
 
The people deserve the govt they get. If the people do not stand up to support the good people serving them, they deserve to have the second or third best to serve them, or to exploit them. The politicians are there to serve and not the enemies of the people. Only bad politicians are the enemies of the people and the state. It is high time the people know what they want and go out to support the politicians they want and not waiting for any wannabes to call them and say they are the best to serve them. The people need more choices and this can only happen if the politicians are welcomed and celebrated and supported.
 
What happened at Hong Lim, the turnout to support the people spending time and effort to speak for them, to fight for their cause and their interest, is pathetic. If the people did not want good people to represent them, to stand up for them, to fight for them, then they must be prepared to contend with mediocrity or worse, to have charlatans and pretenders pretending to serve them but serving themselves.
 
Oh, good politicians are not those with a string of degrees and earning big monies in their professions. Good politicians are sensible people with their hearts in the right place, to put the interest of the people first and foremost, to improve the life of the people first, not their own interest first. Beware of politicians that demand millions before they are prepared to serve.
 
Let’s celebrate the politicians together by showing them that the people need them, want them and wiling to support and to stand and fight side by side with them against all odds. The people can only protect their own interest with good men and women stepping forward to serve them, selfless and righteous men and women.
 
The politicians need the people to support and to protect them as well, especially those budding politicians from the alternative parties. They are very vulnerable and no matter how good they are, they cannot live to fight another day without the support of the people, without the people standing up for them. A politically apathetic people do not deserve the services of good men and women to serve them.

Amos Yee – The boy versus the State

Amos Yee was charged for 3 counts by the public prosecutor for his rant in his youtube video. The third charge has now been stood down but not necessarily withdrawn. The first charge is for posting obscenity, an offence against the law and not necessarily that someone has been hurt. Of course there will be people who felt offended by it, but without stretching the imagination too far to say that someone may also be offended when it rains or the sun rises too early or too late. The second charge of offending a religion, very subjective, some people would claim to be offended while the church would to say it was alright and forgiven.

The third charge would be the family members of the dead person to feel offended and there is a clear relationship between the offended and the people abused or ridiculed. Can a non related person or the public claimed to be offended too and seek the court to judge against the boy? For the moment this not an issue as it has since been set aside.

The situation now is that this boy is being charged by the State and produced in court with hands handcuffed and legs shackled like a very serious criminal. And the boy is being defended by 3 lawyers on a pro bono basis. And that was it. It is now a matter between the boy and the State.

Roy Ngerng, a friend of the boy, tried to internationalise his plight by writing to the Pope in the Vatican and several bodies in the UN. Not sure if he had addressed his mail to Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General. And not sure if he has sent any mail to Obama, the President of the USA who always climbed to the top of the mountain to yell human rights violation and claimed to be the defender of human rights in all corners of the earth. Maybe this case is not an issue of human rights, just a legal issue, not even political.

There has been silence in the western front. No Pope, no UN, no Obama. No one seems to be interested in the affair of this boy or his well being. In the domestic front, no politician, not even from the ruling party, except maybe the SDP, has stood up to say something about this case. So it is not a political issue too.

The case as it stood is a straight forward case of a boy against the State on a matter of law, a trepassing of the State. No amount of internationalisation or politicisation would turn this simple and trivial case into anything else but a simple matter for the court to decide. The case is so simple that no one would dare to use it as an excuse to flog for their cause or to cry crocodile tears. The only tears that would be shed would be the tears of the boy’s parents. No, the brave boy would stand tall, would not shed a tear, not even when he was hit by a 49 year old man outside the court.

There are some noises from the lunatic fringe but just noise and nothing more to have any impact on this case. The world and world news too have scant little interest in this case. No do gooder, bleeding heart socialist, or conscience stricken western journalist would even give it a second look.

It is the boy against the State. Or it is the boy and his parents and the 3 lawyers versus the State. No drumming in Hong Lim Park other than the little murmurs that were hardly heard in the alternative media. It is the day the world and conscience turn their backs, to look the other way, not wanting to know there is a boy called Amos Yee.