The pork problem

So now my favourite Ma Ling spam is off the shelves. Something about a carcinogen.


www.roxytrading.com

It's not the first time that 1984-ville has been affected by such occurences in other places. Remember the Nipah virus scare that hit parts of Malaysia back in 1998?

Which drives home the point about how vulnerable 1984-ville is and how much its denizens are NOT in control of their own destiny.

So much for all the bluster about making it great on our own strength and we can't even solve a porky problem.

Whatever it is, I'm sure the good people of Malaysia and China are quietly enjoying their pork, fresh or canned.

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food

Please make sense

Read an article in the local rag about the rising trend of 1984-ville parents sending their children to international (private) instead of government schools. Apparently parents need approval from the government for their kids to attend private schools. The reason cited in the article was a need to promote cross-culture understanding. However in the same article, the writer noted that international schools have students from many countries and are more heterogenous than local schools. The environment is more child-friendly, catering even to kids with special needs.

I have only 3 rhetorical questions:

1. Can someone please make sense here?

2. Why don't we just admit that the reason for not allowing local children into what are essentially foreign schools is so we can brain-wash them early?

3. Who says I need approval for doing what I want to do for my kids?

Good behavior doesn't allow me to express myself in Hokkien here.

Fatigue

Where there is no vision, the people perish
-The Bible

I am very tired. I don't remember being this tired when Faith was born 2 years ago. In fact, I was working with frenzied energy completing the grad thesis, moving into a new place and starting a job when Faith came. There are less things to tend to this time round. This tiredness is quite mysterious. Maybe it was the 30-hour labour that Wifey went through before Joy was born. That experience was emotionally draining. Maybe the magic of being a parent is wearing off. Maybe it's the experience of seeing how the education system crushes the youth in school. Maybe it's the credit card debt. Maybe it's the thought that my two children may be stuck in this lousy place if our emigration plan does not succeed.

I need to do something different soon, like going off for a dig in Turkey or somewhere similar. One thing is for sure: I need something more than bread and butter stuff to keep me motivated.

ASEAN Summit

and the propaganda machine is in full swing, enlisting Stefanie Sun to sing praises about it, while the purge of Burmese monks continues.

Death penalty

So the UN General Assembly voted 99-52 for the adoption of a non-binding resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. This moratorium was adopted with a view on the eventual abolition of the death penalty as a form of criminal justice. Thirty-odd other countries abstained.

1984-ville, not surprisingly, voted against the adoption of this resolution. In fact, some news wires reported that the UN representative of 1984-ville led the group of 52 nations who voted nay.

A 99-52 margin is not even close. In fact, it's almost 66-33 in terms of percentages. In any electoral process, that wide a margin is considered a thrashing. To put it in context, the Prime Minister of 1984-ville, considered one of the more popular MPs, barely achieved that kind of margin in his own constituency a year ago.

Which begs the question: Is 1984-ville a pariah state?

Hardly. That's because the United States government is a firm supporter of the death penalty. But then again, one could argue that a post-9/11 US is a pariah in the world community.

Progress in this area is slow. Like the abolition of slavery, apartheid and other such things, changes take time. The hangman's (or firing squad, lethal injection etc) count will continue to increase until humanity finally sees the light. But given the sad state of human affairs, I'm not optimistic.

Update: Here is the BBC report. And it quotes the 1984-ville UN representative, "They (countries that voted for) claim to support freedom of expression, but vote to deny it to others." Since when was the death penalty a form of expression that needed protection?

The 25k project

So we looked up the process of applying for Permanent Residency in Canada. It's a lot less bureaucratic than that for Australia. The only thing holding me back now is the proof-of-funds. The Canadian government requires a C$19k prood-of-funds. Basically to ensure that we don't fly over and live off welfare for a while. The CIC website doesn't mention what this C$19k (roughly S$25k) is about. I'm thinking, maybe I can show the valuation of my flat. That'll settle things, after all, the last transaction for a similar flat in my area was 470k. But anyway, where can I raise 25k?

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emigration

The end of the innocence

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by

..and so the first four verses of the song by Don Henley goes. I fear the end of the innocence for Faith has begun.