SDU

Woohoo I now have SDU membership. Watch out, all you single, eligible male graduates (since SDU doesn't care about non-graduates), I'm here to flirt your socks off!

SDU's personalised/exclusive services are "[for] the completely confident member who wants total control." [emph mine]

Uh-huh. Right. There's never such a thing as trying too hard right.

Despondency and Cynicism

Post from one of my now favourite blogs.

Like IPU, But older and cooler

Discordianism

Discordianism is a modern, chaos-based religion founded in either 1958 or 1959. It has been described as both an elaborate joke disguised as a religion, and as a religion disguised as an elaborate joke. Some of its followers make the claim that it is "a religion disguised as a joke disguised as a religion" (or "a joke disguised as a religion disguised as a joke disguised as..."). It has also been described as "Zen for roundeyes," and converges with some of the more absurdist interpretations of the Rinzai school.

Hahahahaha

Sorry, this all just sounds too familiar. Terribly amused.

One for the ladies: How to date a geek guy?

Movie log (14 Oct-22 Oct 06)

You, Me & Dupree - This is not my fault. The bf gave me a choice between Silk & this.

Black Dahlia - Creepy at parts, but fun. Sniggered throughout the show, full of outrageous characters and (to me) nostalgic plots.

My Summer of Love - Cool show! I loved it.

Don't ask me why I'm watching so many movies. *cry*

'Tis a crazy world - BBC stories

Experts create invisibility cloak
A US-British team of scientists has successfully tested a cloak of invisibility in the laboratory.

Oslo gay animal show draws crowds
Curators say a Norwegian exhibition on homosexuality among animals has been well received, despite initial indications of strong opposition.

But there has been strong interest in an aspect of animal behaviour the museum says is quite common.

It says homosexuality has been observed among 1,500 species, and that in 500 of those it is well documented.

Thieves spend £15,000 on sweets
A gang who swindled £20,000 out of a Belfast pensioner's bank account spent his savings on luxury chocolates.

More convulsions of outrage

More rants.

I'm disturbed by all those ads for the handicapped pleading with 'society' to let them contribute, because they're all useful people. I can't remember the exact wording of the ads, but it goes something to the effect of 'I can contribute too.'

When I was in my final year of undergrad, I went to ICA in a futile attempt to apply for citizenship. I shall ignore the misinformation that led to me going to ICA twice. On my 2nd visit, I was trying to pin down the eligibility criteria (which I couldn't find on online) by interrogating (yes, I was miffed that I filled in all those forms and went down twice) the counter staff. I suppose the lady was so frustrated with me, she finally said it didn't matter even if I got my degree, because "as long as you don't have a job, you don't have any value."

When the lady at the counter said that, I was shell-shocked. My mother (who was with me at that time) told me later that I looked as if I was going to cry.

It is a bitterness and sense of betrayal I've not quite let go of. I've lived here all my life. I love this place. Unlike many of my Singaporean friends, I do not want to emigrate. I love Singapore more than many Singaporeans, and I love it, not because of National Day Parades or standards of living. I love Singapore because of the memories and the people. I know about the economic rationality that seems to underlie government policy here. However, this is the first time I've personally confronted it in its most blatant, undisguised form. I am Singaporean, but the state does not recognise me as such because I don't have a job.

I know that at some point in my life, I will be able to apply successfully. This is not about a failed application attempt. It is about the way the state (or rather, the government) perceives us, its people.

I know every country does this, but there is something fundamentally wrong with seeing people in terms of the economic utility 'society' can get from them. There is something profoundly disturbing about the way the Singapore government (and perhaps, other governments) treat people as commodities, units of labour, for example, in their pro-family policy (increase the amount of future labour) and their education policies (improve the quality of labour).

People are not units of labour to be used, moved around, redesigned, discarded for the welfare of society and state. The state exists for the benefit of individuals. The government is not meant to rule us. It is meant to serve us.

The Singapore PRs, the foreigners, the handicapped, the homosexuals, the unemployed, the elderly... these are not true 'members' of society, they are not to be acknowledged as true members of society unless they can prove themselves 'useful'. And even then, acceptance might only be fleeting and superficial. How can the marginalised be accepted? The marginalised have to prostrate themselves before the altar of economic rationality, and beg to be used.

Liberal democracy

I once went for a job interview with the civil service (I won't say which ministry) that involved job applicants having a little 'discussion' on an assigned topic. One topic was the Prophet cartoons and the huge row they made elsewhere. The topic was initially left open-ended (ie. discuss the cartoons), so we could focus on any aspect of the issue. Halfway through the discussion, however, the facilitator suggested we talk about why there was no such ruckus in Singapore.

After a few suggestions were thrown out, the facilitator stepped in again, and 'suggested' that 'perhaps' the reason there was no unhappiness in Singapore was the success of the government's multi-racial, multi-religious policies.

The facilitator asked us whether we thought it was important for Singapore to maintain its multi-racial policies... and there was a whole chorus of vehement, ringing 'yes'. (and I mean this literally. I kid you not.) We're all Made in Singapore after all. No, I didn't act any differently.

And that section of the discussion ended there. (the other topic we had to discuss was how to get graduates to marry each other and reproduce... and no, we didn't discuss if this was something the government should do.)

Ok, maybe since it was a job interview, people felt compelled to go along with the facilitator. I certainly felt that way. Nevertheless, the way the agenda for the discussion was set by the facilitator, and the way we had our opinions spoon-fed to us was really disappointing.

I wonder if the facilitators or organizers thought about the fact that while they're evaluating us for the job, we're also evaluating them as potential employers. It could be that they thought the prestige (and salary) that went with the job was enough to buy anyone over. It also makes you wonder what kind of people eventually end up in the high levels of the civil service, if such people are picked through selections like this.

During a class discussion, a student who worked for some time in the civil service commented that it was not fair for the Western liberal democracies to tell countries like Singapore to 'liberalize' since they don't know what is best for us. Funny, isn't that usually the argument for liberal democracy? That the government does not, cannot know what is best for the people?

I'm not saying there're no liberal or dissenting voices within the civil service. I'm just wondering if these unorthodox voices are ignored. Perhaps those of you in the civil service will know the situation better. As for myself, I'm pretty discouraged by my 'encounters of the third kind'.

There will be some of you who'll tell me that each company has its own orthodoxies that employees have to follow. I agree entirely. However, politics is a different ballgame altogether. A government is not a company. You can leave a company if you want to, even risking a period of unemployment. You don't have an emotional attachment to the company the way you might have to your country. Your company doesn't permeate all areas of your life, from your marriage, to your entertainment on tv, to your utility bills. I hope. Politics is emotional, it is about the things we value the most - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I'm supposed to be studying now! But you see, ever since I stopped being apathetic, I've been so consumed by regular bouts of outrage that I've stopped being productive as well.

Another foreign voice

This Iraqi blog speaks for itself.

I’ve said goodbye this last month to more people than I can count. Some of the ‘goodbyes’ were hurried and furtive- the sort you say at night to the neighbor who got a death threat and is leaving at the break of dawn, quietly.

Some of the ‘goodbyes’ were emotional and long-drawn, to the relatives and friends who can no longer bear to live in a country coming apart at the seams.

Many of the ‘goodbyes’ were said stoically- almost casually- with a fake smile plastered on the face and the words, “See you soon”… Only to walk out the door and want to collapse with the burden of parting with yet another loved one.

It is difficult for us in Singapore to imagine life in Iraq. I have seen a life like that, but only in my worst nightmares.

it's been a long day

I actually watched 2 movies today, The Fog of War and Les Amants Reguliers.

The first was ok, interesting enough. McNamara is, of course, an intriguing character, and it's nice to hear his version of what happened. I thought it was really touching when he broke down while talking about JFK's death though (I'm a sucker for these things). Sometimes we forget that presidents are humans with friends and loved ones too.

Les Amants Reguliers was an elegant, elegiac film, starting with the 1968 riots, and moving on from there. I don't know why, but I was entranced by the quality of the film... and here I really mean how sharp the images were, and how that enhanced the beauty of the black and white images. The shadows and lighting were beautiful...

Anyway, it starts off with idealism and violence and revolutionary ideas, and hopes. And slowly all that gets stripped away, and everyone is gradually co-opted into the system. Disappointment sets in, and weariness, and then resignation. The people who'd been with the protagonist during the riots gradually leave him. All head for a better life. Some hold on to the idea of the revolution, but descend into buffoonery as their ineffectual efforts testify to the lost cause. Most others abandon the cause and become 'bourgeois'. The 'Establishment', at first seen by the protagonist as these 'lousy bastards' who clobber women and sneak up on barricades, are actually nice, genial, if shrewd old men... But they're part of the system nonetheless, and they triumph in the end, as the police officer pronounces the protagonist dead. Dead, not fighting for the revolution, but dead from a lousy drug overdose. Death of youth, death of love, death of ideals, death of hope, death of dreams...

The film was very slow, and lasted 3 hours. Only 2/3 of the audience was left by the time we were done. And I think it's a pity that we've become so used to fast-paced Hollywood flicks that we can't adjust ourselves to the pace of slower (but better) films. We can't seem to wait for pleasure anymore, but I think patience is exactly what we need. You don't really understand in the first few minutes of the film; you need to wait for its full flowering to be able to appreciate it. But if you get bored by the end of 10 minutes, then you don't get to taste the many textures and emotions of the film. It was a very 'whole', 'completed' work, and I know that if I could watch it another time, I'd get more out of it, because there's so much more to it.

I loved the frames where the actors/actresses stayed very still for very long... It was not that they froze the frame. The actors just stayed still, but you could tell because they couldn't really stay perfectly still. It was like a 'live' portrait, very aesthetically pleasing. (most of them were portrait shots)At times I thought the actors/actresses looked like flowers in their fragility and their 'aliveness' and their stillness. It's as if the director had wanted that moment of time frozen forever, like an old photograph, yet better, because this photograph breathed and lived.

And the sense of history in the film... Perhaps the director assumed mistakenly (this is Singapore after all) that the popular history of 'barricades in the Latin Quarter' was known to the audience. I don't think some people got the references.

Anyway, I'm hopelessly tired. I think I over-committed myself. Usually I'm very careful about giving myself enough time and space (because I'm both extremely introverted and a low energy level creature). Unfortunately this time I thought maybe for once, I could forget about that and go all out. As a result I'm exhausted. The languages I'm learning, music, school, films, the thesis, the extra papers that I might have to write even... I want to do all of that very very badly. But I'm tired, very rapidly losing my sense of humour, and currently, my thoughts feel like a swarm of intoxicated bees.

Preliminary notes (hermeneutics)

taken from this site

Heidegger

Hans Georg Gadamer
- ontological hermeneutics
- fusion of horizons - dialectical relations between texts of past and understanding of present self - Gadamer's version of the hermeneutic circle
- challenges scientific approaches - truth & objectivity - the endpoint of knowledge (Emilio Betti, Eric D. Hirsch)

Habermas
- Gadamer negates ability to reason free from history & context (Rawls?)
- Gadamer not entirely wrong, but mistakenly posits universality of hermeneutics
- solution: universal pragmatics - communicative rationality - hermeneutics + emancipation

Ricoeur
- need emancipation & critical reflection, but this doesn't require abandoning the texts of the past - potentiality for transcendance through historical texts

Derrida

Richard Rorty

(to be cont.)

Movies watched in past week

I finally watched Singing in the Rain! It was fun, but I think I'm growing out of movies of this type (plotless musicals).

(btw, Bleach is showing now on cable!)

Also watched Scoop, which I don't remember much of, but it was funny.

Watched Fauteils d'Orchestre (Orchestra Seats) at Alliance today (and ran into one of my profs haha). It was good! and inspiring... I loved the concert pianist! And the idea... What happens when your achievements, your certs, your qualifications, start becoming a burden? They start restricting your options, and start pushing you to where you might not want to be... Haha of course I'm not saying I'm not lucky to have come this far. It's just that I'm starting to feel increasingly restricted, not by anything material, but by the expectations of others. *whine* :P

I hope tomorrow's show will be as good as I expect it to be. Hee.

Oh and bought Cache! and A Ton Image! For an incredible price! (10 & 2 bucks respectively)

And It Started with a Kiss (taiwan drama) is coming to cable mwahahahaha...

*yawnz* I'm incredibly tired... and brain dead.

Iraq

Washington Post's very sobering article on how the bonds of community have broken down in Iraq. Who still thinks the war wasn't a mistake?

Extract from article:

On this day, Abu Mohammed, still angry, was thinking about revenge. He, too, believed the Egheidat had fired the mortar two days before. But now he had a more pressing goal. He said he and his comrades had identified three Sunnis, including one Egheidat, who they believed were involved in the killings of the four members of the Mahdi Army, including his nephew. Now, he said, he was planning to create a death squad to carry out the justice the tribal negotiations didn't bring.

Asked how he knew the three men were guilty, Abu Mohammed said witnesses told him that the men were inside one of the cars that rushed the checkpoint. "We only take blood for blood," he said.

Asked if the three men lived in Tobji, Abu Mohammed replied: "Yes, they are our neighbors. Now their houses are empty, and they have fled."

Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto (whom some here might know as the composer for the soundtrack of Tony Takitani - one of the movies I've been obssessing about, and whom Ed might remember as composer of that darned piece, "A Day a Gorilla gives a Banana") has an album called "Derrida". I'm intrigued... especially since today's lecture is on Postmodernism :P

To do list

I should really do an inventory of the articles/books/chapters I have... I keep coming across familiar names that I am absolutely certain I've come across before, but I can't remember where or how. It's really irritating, especially since I don't have everything on my computer, so I can't do a simple search. Instead, I have to go to my soft copy archives, and if that doesn't work, plough through all my files.

Unfortunately, doing an inventory of the stuff I have is a gargantuan task that cowardly me shrinks from. If you count 1 file for every module I've done in NUS, that makes it 40 files of stuff (and I know I don't have 40 files at home, so don't ask me where all my stuff went), plus 2 files for every module I'm doing now, which makes it another 6, and probably about 16 by the time my course finishes. Not counting the stuff I've done outside of school.

I have a big BIG problem on my hands.

The Agent-Structure Problem

I can't seem to escape from it, it's everywhere I go. *agent-structure agent-structure agent-structure ad infinitum*

On this blog, I often refer to neo-Marxist/Frankfurt School theories without any academic rigour at all. Yet, what is the tendency to focus on society and hegemony and economic and ideational structures? Merely an assumption of the ascendance of structure over agent - an assumption that I don't question often enough. At the same time, the 'call to arms' by the more optimistic FS theories, the call for revolution puts the emphasis on agency.

Ditto for neo-realism - structure over agent. And I just can't divorce the IR inter-paradigm debate from the agent-structure question. Perhaps the solution I find most satisfactory is the constructivist one of mutually constitutive structures and agents.

The only context in which I believe I can take a definite stance of the ascendancy of structure over agency is the religious one - ie. the question of free will. And that is because the structure of the world is predicated (at least in monotheistic religions) on the existence of the ultimate agency that determines structure. In that sense, the assumption of a unitary agency that is Alpha and Omega, an agency that is prior to structure (though help me out, is it good & evil before God, or God before good and evil? I never figured that out), therefore determines all structures, and negates other agencies' ability to influence or transcend structure. If this is so, then perhaps it is not helpful to talk of structure, or of human agency, but of the single, ultimate, structuring agency that is God.

Disclaimer: I know this sounds like I'm trying to complicate things, but all I'm trying to do is to frame the old debate in agent-structure terms.

Disclaimer no.2: I'm no Bible scholar, and I refer primarily to Christianity because that is the religion I am most familiar with. However, I would think that the above could refer to any monotheistic religion that posits and omnipotent, omnipresent God.(correct me if I'm wrong)

Anyway, since I mentioned Alpha and Omega, here's an interesting link to this online Catholic encyclopaedia that argues translations from Hebrew to Greek have resulted in a de-emphasis of the idea of God as truth (as opposed to goodness).

I have absolutely NO idea how true the article is (see Disclaimer no.2 above), but it seems to me that this demonstrates the untranslatability (is there such a word?) of languages. And this is coming from a Catholic source, mind you.

Weapons of Mass Disruption

I just attended a seminar on potential terrorist attacks using non-conventional weapons. A large part of the argument was centered around the idea of weapons of mass disruption as opposed to weapons of mass destruction - attacks where the psychological damage is disproportionate to the direct material damage done. Hmmm.

My Suggestion for a Terrorist Attack on Singapore:

Agent and Delivery Method:
Load film of Ronald MacDonald capering around, wearing nothing but his face paint and big red shoes on those big video-screens in your family-friendly heartland mall and along Orchard Road. For maximum effect, make Ronald dance to 'I Will Survive'.

Projected Effects:
Along the road, parents will be simultaneously closing their eyes, and attempting to cover their children's eyes, thus causing traffic gridlock and one or two accidents along the main tourist destination and shopping district of Singapore.

In the heartland malls, families will trample each other in an attempt to escape. The choice of the location of the attacks - civilian shopping areas - is meant to maximize psychological damage done to a broad cross-section of the population, as well as economic disruption (the malls will be closed for weeks).

Long-term social and economic damage to the country will result, as unsupervised teenagers and children stare transfixed at the images, thus corrupting them, and making them gay, decadent, dumb, or all of the above. This will result in a projected decline (approx. 24.6%) in Singapore's social cohesion, Asian values, birth rates, and economic productivity by the year 2012. The attack could also lower Singaporeans' resistance to political leaders dressed in colours other than white (eg. red and yellow), thus putting the state in grave danger of being invaded by (unspecified) neighbouring countries.

The attack will also strike a blow at MacDonald's Corporation, the heart of American capitalism and neo-imperialism. At the very least, they'll have to get rid of that tasteless mascot.

PS. pls mention justareed.blogspot.com in the closing credits of the film

Alternatively, terrorists can take over Singapore's radio stations and broadcast the feature story in Iss.61 of @NTU.

Feature Story - Feisty Freshmen: They pack a punch!
"Teeming with ideas, our irrepressible freshmen from the Class of 2010 are busy hatching dreams, with energy to spare. We find out how some of them are putting more zing into their already full lives - with the help of NTU, of course."

... okay.

Note: this mode of attack has the benefit of being a suicide attack, as the terrorist reading the article will be martyred in a horrendous manner.

another (insert colour) ribbon project

Interesting piece on breast cancer awareness programme in the US. It's all about patriachal society and hegemony man! Haha...

And if anyone asks, yes, I've been lazing around the house all day.

North Korea

This is what they call an 'oh shit' situation. Well, we'd been told the test was likely over the weekened, but this is still not a good way to start the week.

No matter what the constraints on the use of nukes may be, or how much I think the axis of evil discourse is crap, a nuclear North Korea is still extremely extremely scary. The spectre of nuclear war.

FEER

Hohoho check out FEER's rather indignant and outraged response to its ban.