Hollywood – You are sane until the psychiatrists made you mad

This article is not to malign the noble profession and the good people doing a good job to manage the disease of mental illness.

Hollywood has regularly produced movies on madness and how normal healthy individuals fell victims to dictators, corrupt officials and made to look mad or even become mad with the assistance of evil men and women practicing the trade of psychology and psychiatry. In their hands, they can cook up anything to pronounce a normal person mad and should be held against his wishes, freedom curtailed, and to be controlled by the evil people posing as their guardians.

And once in their hands, in the confines of a mental hospital, in the privacy of their charge, they could do many things to make a sane person mad, even by prescribing and administering drugs and injecting drugs into the victims to ensure that the victim will become mad.

For those who were victims of such circumstances, life is like living hell. And the fictions churned out by Hollywood are only the tip of the iceberg. The truth is more frightening. It is happening everywhere!

GE the Independence Day

The movie Independence Day has many messages that are relevant to the political situation here and the world. The dominance of hegemons and dictatorships over the world and the individual countries to oppress the people in their own interests would lead to rebellion and the overthrow of the empires and dictators. This historical formula is evergreen and would just repeat itself over and over again. It is just like the cycles of life.

The Independence Day movie is about the invasion of aliens in overwhelming superior force. Their spaceships were huge beyond imagination and powerful and impenetrable. Earth was as good as lost and to be dominated by the aliens and controlled by them forever, as slaves to serve the new master.

At the final moment of death, there was a break through. A pilot found a hole in the spaceship when the defence shield was crippled and taken down. Without the shield and knowing the weak point, it was a piece of cake to take down the armada of monstrous looking spaceships.

The next GE is around the corner and Independence Day is also around the corner. The space ships are the prized GRCs. The defence shield used to be the formidable image of the PAP and bolstered by the strength of the ministers helming them. They were impenetrable. This defence shield appears to be no longer there. The PAP has lost that image of invincibility. The ministers, nothing to crow about and worst, everyone looking more like a liability than an asset, or anchor to strengthen the GRCs.

With the defence shield crippled and down, every GRC is vulnerable and ripe for the taking. This GE is not about taking SMCs. These are easy looking at the slate of candidates and the results of the two by elections. The prize now is the GRCs. If there is a better moment to take them, the time is now. There is no defence in the PAP wall and system. The vulnerabilities are exposed and cannot be patched, or not for the immediate future. The next GE is like Independence Day when all the opposition forces are there to strike at the GRCs, to take them down. You can feel the shivers.

The key question is whether there will be enough good opposition candidates to do the damage. The message, the shield is down and there is no ministers left to protect the GRCs.

Section Leader’s Course

I remember that the SAF used to conduct a Section Leader’s Course to train soldiers into leaders. And if I am not mistaken, this is at least a 3 months or 6 months course. This must be the minimum duration needed to train a young man into a leader. Now we have read about the one week programmed by a primary school for leadership training by climbing mountains. This must be a pretty intensive and advanced training method to turn a 12 year old into a leader.

With so much hue and cry about the length of NS, and with many demanding that NS training should be shortened as the two years were a great sacrifice by our young men, putting them at a great disadvantage in their career development against the foreigners that need not waste two years for NS, I can see a good outcome from this innovative school leadership programme.

The SAF should do a serious study on this school leadership programme and learn from them how they could turn young boys and girls into leaders in a matter of one week. And if the result is positive, then the Section Leader’s Course can be modified along the same line, with mountain climbing as the main part of the training, and instead of 3 or 6 months, the training can be reduced to maybe one month.  That could easily save 2 to 4 months of training and thus reduce the duration of NS to maybe 18 months.

And, since the schools are so keen in leadership training, maybe the schools can work with Mindef to integrate their leadership training into the Section Leader’s Course. Let’s say the boys would be made to do a one week compulsory mountain climbing course in primary school and maybe a 2 week mountain climbing course in secondary school. With these two courses in their belt, they are half way there as leaders and the duration of the Section Leader’s Course can thus be halved.

That’s it, I think this is a very good idea for the two ministries to think about. No? Did any say no? Alright, I can agree that there is now a fear for mountain climbing for children. But there is still a big demand for leadership training for 12 year olds right? So how? They need to be trained as leaders and the earlier the better.

How about this, Mindef work out a one week leadership training for the 12 year olds using the Section Leader’s Course programme. And the students need not have to climb Mt Kinabalu. They only need to climb Pengkang Hill. I think this is reasonable. 12 year olds climbing a hill should be easier though not as challenging as climbing mountain. And I think Pengkang Hill is quite far away from the earthquake zone.

And if one week is too short, add another week when they are in secondary schools. And as suggested above, with these two programmes, the duration of Section Leader’s Course can be shortened and the 2 year NS can be shortened by 6 months.

The more I think about these two options, the more brilliant I think of myself. What do you think? Don’t call me ‘seow’ ok?  I am just trying to help. With the schools so keen to make leaders out of the boys and with Mindef needing leaders in the field, they must be able to work out something for the good of everyone. This must be another win win formula.

MERS coming, are we prepared for it?

The hospital said so, Hsien Loong also said so. This is a true sign of being prepared for it. The hospitals are all well prepared and equipped with all the protocols in place. MOH has also started to screen passengers from South Korea.

With the rapid spread of MERS there, we know that they have fouled up badly. We cannot do less than them. We have our experience with SARS and know exactly what to do.The govt is well prepared, are the people and commercial organizations well prepared as well?

This MERS thing is not just the job of the govt. One thing for sure, the SMRT is the most well prepared for MERS, to spread like wild fire if a MERS infected passenger happens to be in a jam packed train. The tightly confined cabin with the recycling of little air in them makes it a perfect contraption for the spread of MERS in the shortest possible time. Our shopping centres and all airconditioned environment are ideal breeding grounds for MERS to spread.

What about the people? Are the people equipped to defend themselves against the spread of MERS? The haze season is still a few months ahead and there is no need to issue protective masks to the people yet. With a more deadly and contagious disease like MERS that will come, only a matter of days, could be the next hour, why are the masks not issued to the people? Are the people told to start buying masks and start to wear masks or to wait until an incident strikes?

When should the people be prepared for this attack since it is a matter of time before it arrives? The preparedness of the govt and hospital is only a small part of the equation.

Mt Kinabalu – A word of appreciation to the mountain guides and teachers.

The 12 year old students were there when the mountain shook. Never mind why they were there. Try to visualize the terrifying scene when the rocks and boulders came tumbling down, the roars and rumbles of tons and tons of rocks falling at break neck speed.The screaming and cries of fear. The first reaction, shock and awe. The next instinctive reaction, run for your life. The third reaction, look for a safe spot, unfortunately there would be none if one was in the path of the falling rocks.

Now what would be the first thing in the minds of the teachers and guides? Yes, run for their lives. But, there were children with them, hapless children needing the protection and help of adults. These adults would have the basic instinct to want to protect the children instead of running away, grabbing at the children, shielding them, trying to pull them to safety, ducking the rocks, and forgetting that they too were exposed to the dangers and their weak bodies would not stand a chance.They could have run at the first sign of trouble, as fast as they could to save their own skin.

It appeared that they went for the children, stayed with the children, and perished with the children as a result. They were in the same boat, caught in a downpour of stones and rocks. As adults, they stood a better chance to flee for safety. Very likely they didn’t, as brave men would behave in times of grave danger.

And there were some brave guides that went back to look for survivals when the mountain was still unstable and the rocks could still come falling down. And a few were saved as a result of these brave men, to return them to their grateful, frightened and helpless parents waiting in despair.

I salute these brave men, those who survived trying to save the children and those that lost their lives trying to save the children. I would like to suggest the govt offers some form of monetary assistance to their families as a gesture of our appreciation for the lost of these brave men who died in the line of duty, to save our children.This is a small thing that we can do for them.

And don't forget the guide with one of our children on his back, saved from the jaws of death.