*Baru! Singapore National Education Part 37
Lee Kin Mun
Singapore National Education Part 37 -- by mr brown
Week of 14 March to 21 March 1998
Legal Mumbo Jumbo:
Copyright 1998 Lee Kin Mun. All rights reserved.
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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! <http://www.mrbrown.com/microsoftcars.html>
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 be\en 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?)
Shameless plug: Go to the Gallery in Browntown and see how much stricter
are the rules on sex in Singapore! <http://www.mrbrown.com/penalty.html>
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.
Shameless plug: Find out why TCS artistes are leaving in droves, in "How
to Make a Singaporean Quit". Or is that "Quilt"?
<http://www.mrbrown.com/tcsquit.html>
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".
Shameless plug: Speaking of Bad Analogies, read some of the true Worst
Analogies ever written by students.
<http://www.mrbrown.com/analogies.html>
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)
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