commentary

I refer to Aw Mun Khay’s blog entry entitled “ Are career demands killing marriages in Singapore? ”

I agree with Mun Khay to a large extent that career demands is a main cause of divorce and unhappy family. She mentioned that people overwork and force themselves through strenuous programmes to upgrade their skills while struggling to juggle with their already heavy workload. Thus, they neglect their families and spouse, resulting in divorce. I assume that she is only referring to the lower and middle-income group members. In fact, even people holding high-ranking position faced heavy workloads and long working hours.

I too agree with Mun Khay that all the above are one of the main causes of family miscommunication, leading to divorce and for a country like Singapore, it is best for us to do something about rather than moan about it after it worsen. As mentioned in her entry, Singapore’s only main resource is humans. If most of our people overwork themselves and neglect their families, not only will Singapore have a sickly workforce, we would also experience high divorce rate that will in turn result in low birth rate, which would then affect our main resource. The government should thus take measures to take care of this problems and the solution in Mun Khay’s entry are feasible ones.

In conclusion, Singapore cannot afford to have workforces that always fall sick due to overworking. The government should help reduce this problem to as minimum as possible.

Death Penalty

I definitely support death penalty. According to Antonio Cassese, if you would to keep murderers in prison, the probability that they might kill again is very high. In order to ensure the safety of our society, capital punishment against murders is the most appropriate one. Moreover, if the government decides to keep them in prison for life instead of killing them, they have to spend a lot more money at the expense of the community. Capital punishment also does deter other murderers, which is the most effective way to bring down crime rate. According to Becker, murderers fight very hard in order to not get caught, this proves that they fear capital punishments. Lastly, it is justifiable to kill a murderer as he took someone’s life away, thus he have to pay for it with his own life, as referred to an old law of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Statistics had also proven that a country with capital punishment has a much lower crime rate than those who do not have.

However, careful investigation must be carried out before carrying out capital punishments. This is to prevent the execution of innocent people. Also, death penalty debate should not absorb all our attention. If we intend to abolish the gallows, we should also fight for the prevention of crime and against the inhumanity of many prisons. After all, what is the point of suggesting imprisonment as an alternative to electrocution, if inmates are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment?

Can poverty ever be eradicated?

I think that poverty can never be eradicated, it can only be minimized. From the article “Can the poor countries be rich?”, it is mentioned that poorer countries can never get rich on their own without help as importing technologies requires money and earning money requires technology. Thus, richer nations can lend a helping hand to the poorer ones by providing them with financial aids or loans. However, in my opinion, poorer nations cannot always depend on richer ones to help them, as these richer nations might not find it feasible to always give aid to them. Thus, poorer nations may be better off with the aids the richer nations had given, but not to the extent that all poverty is eradicated from the country. Therefore, poorer nations should also help themselves, for example, by introducing a better education system, as education is the key to being rich. Moreover, it is mentioned that the geography of a country determines its wealth. Thus, it is impossible to eradicated poverty as there is no way to change the geography around you, as the only way is too expensive.

Furthermore, some government in poorer nations practices corruption. Even if richer nations give aids to them, their government would simply keep the money of its own use. One example is the fact that Indonesian government keeping most the money Singapore had gave to aid the local farmers in an effort to reduce deforestation and forest fires. In such countries, poverty can never be eradicated.

Embracing Otherhood

As Singapore plays host to more people from different backgrounds and culture, there are bound to be challenges that Singapore as a small country would face. Being a multi-racial country, discrimination and intolerance against people from different background and cultures is unavoidable. Also, we would also have to face the fact that many immigrants are coming into Singapore illegally.

Foreign construction workers are mostly from the less developed countries like Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian countries. Thus, Singaporeans would tend to stereotype them as the inferior race or culture and do not want to communicate and befriend them. They help us to build buildings after buildings and it is definitely not morally right to be so cruel to them. Example would be that Singaporean would tend to avoid being near to Bangladesh workers giving reasons such as their body odour. One of the challenges facing Singapore is being able to accept and tolerate against people from different backgrounds and cultures so as to be a good host.

Another problem we are facing is the fact that there are immigrants illegally coming to Singapore to find a job. Although the immigrants have usually no choice but to illegally come to Singapore because of various reasons, it is unsafe for them to do so. As mentioned in the article, an illegal construction worker fell to his death while working. His employee not only fails to report his death and he also dump his body at a nearby car park. As we can see, illegal working can cause innocent lives being lost. One way to solve this problem is to conduct checks regularly in construction sites. Through all this, we can be a good host to people from other countries through ensuring their safety.

what would happen if human vanished?

I would agree to a large extent that the Earth would be a better place if humans were gone. The Earth is definitely suffering. Humans’ activities had caused much destruction to the Earth. One example, global warming. Humans are not concern about the Earth; most of them only care about technology and how to make life better for themselves. Due to global warming, the Earth is getting warmer and warmer. Humans would feel the effect of cause, however, they are causing harm to the animals as well. The animals have no business for causing the global warming; this is caused by humans’ selfishness. Humans are also consuming and using much of Earth precious non-renewable resources at a fast rate.

Although humans had caused harm to the Earth, not all of humans’ activities are harmful to Earth. Unless global warming has already progressed beyond the point of no return, it would eventually recover much of its diversity and richness. There is no doubt that humans had revolutionized the Earth. One example is that humans had come out with ways to prevent and to anticipate natural disasters. These prove to be a great help as it prevents massive destructions.

If humans are really gone in this world, it will allow the Earth to heal.

Singapore Swing

I feel that if globalization really does not benefit the poor and the middle-class at all ,the government should really do something about it. Although globalization benefited the economy of the country, the middle and lower classes actually get poorer due to the slashing of labor prices, leading to deduction of wages. As there is always a larger percentage of middle and lower class people compared to the upper class, the government should face this problem seriously.

The other issue raised in this article is that foreign competition for jobs hurts the middle class and the lower class more. It gave example like unskilled workers like street sweepers and security guard are finding themselves undercut by immigrants willing to work for less. This is forcing native Singaporeans to change occupations or work harder for less pay. I feel that foreign competition is inevitable. The government cannot be totally blamed for this problem arising. The people affected should have the awareness to go to have the necessary skills upgraded to make them more competitive for their job. Everyone has a part to play to solve this problem.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that Singapore’s economy is blooming. However, the government of Singapore should address globalization in a way that everyone benefits from it, not only the upper class. If nothing is to be done, it may lead to the forming of an underclass and the making of social instability. Singapore would definitely not want to add on to their problems by having and underclass and social instability in the country.

Commentary

I would like to comment on Shaam’s blog entry entitled ‘School break-ups and heart breaks’.
Link to Shamm’s blog: http://www.shaamation.blogspot.com/


I agree with Shaam to a large extent that having a relationship at young age will not last long and that it would result in eventual heart breaks. I agree that these relationships will never work out as teenagers are too immature to handle relationship. It often started when two parties feel a burst of emotion for each other and started going steady. This means that both parties often do not have ‘real’ feelings for each other. Thus, this explains why teenagers often change their partners throughout their teenage years. As for break-ups, most teenagers take them lightly, while others take them seriously. Some of them could not get over with them and got into all sorts of problems like depression.

However, it is wrong to say that this kind of relationship does not do any good. If both parties are mature enough, they may use this relation and encourage each other to study hard. They can also tell each other their personal problems and come out with a possible solution.

In conclusion, I agree to a large extent that teenage relationship causes heartbreaks and is a waste of time. However, if the relationship is handle by mature parties, it may actually benefit them.

Freedom of Speech in Singapore

I think that both authors’ views each have their own valid points for how freedom of speech should appear. Therefore I feel that for a multi-racial society like Singapore, we should adopt both authors’ views and strike balance between them.

Firstly, the fact that Singapore is a multi-racial society makes focusing on social responsibility important. For example, if the Danish cartoon, which is mocking Prophet Muhammad, were published in Singapore’s newspaper, there would be guaranteed mass protest and anger in the Muslim community. Conflicts, resulting in riots, might also arise as the Muslims may feel that they are being discriminated. Therefore Singapore must be very careful with situation like this or history would repeat itself (1960s racial riot).

Secondly, I also feel that freedom of speech should not be limited to a large extent. As raised by Singer, “ We must be free…to criticize the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha, as reported in many texts that millions of people regarded as sacred. Without that freedom, human progress will always run up against a basic roadblock.” I do agree with him that we should be free to criticize the teachings of other religions so that the human race can as a whole improve. However, there should also be a limit on how we criticize them. Criticizes should be generalize in such a way that they do not offend the affected people of that particular religion. There should be a limit to the doubts raised when discussing such issues as the use of wrong words can easily offence another community.

In conclusion, for a multi-racial society like Singapore, democracy should be preserved by allowing freedom of speech to a certain extent that do not result in conflicts among different races. Thereby focusing on social responsibility also.

Effective law and order requires effective punishment. Do you agree?

I agree that effective law and order requires effective punishment. What will stop a person from committing a crime and not give in to the temptation he has? Neither is it mother’s nagging nor is it moral education. It is punishment.

Punishment has been proven to be the best way to maintain effective law and order throughout the years. Punishment inflicts both physical and mental pain in the criminal, some of which he or she would remember for life. The main reason why ex-offenders did not repeat their mistakes is because they do not want to go through the pain again. One part of the video shows a man not willing to confess that he had stolen his friend’s crops, but when he was to dip his hand into the hot oil (a traditional way of indicating who is guilty), he was so scared that he confessed that he was the one who stole those crops. This shows that generally, man is afraid of pain and punishment. Examples of punishments include: committee services, canning, jailing, public humiliations and death sentence.

Nevertheless, punishment must be differentiated from torture. Torture is the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, according to dictionary.com. Acts of torture should never be allowed to be a form of punishment as it clearly violates human rights.

However, punishment does not necessary yields effective law and order. Some criminals got use to the punishments that are inflicted on them and they are thus immune to the pain. No amount of punishments would change them. For these people, what they need most are supports and encouragements from their love ones.

In conclusion, effective law and order requires effective punishments. However, punishments should be justifiable so that it does not become torture. If punishments no longer proves to be useful on someone, its time to use something “soft” on him.

Google Gooses Big Media

I agree with the author that big media (computer form of media) will soon overtake other forms of media in time to come. Movies, music and TV shows, have their value, but they alone have never generated the huge, reliable profits that keep investors happy and pay for midtown-Manhattan skyscrapers. Nowadays, computers are readily available in developing and developed countries. We can get access to information anytime, anywhere we want, unlike television and radios, where we can only get them on specific timeslots.

For small advertisers and publishers, Google’s automated advertising network is a boon: a new, cost-effective way to connect with one another and with customers. But big media companies had already established connections before Google came along, and so far the amounts of money Google offers content producers are paltry compared with what gets thrown around in traditional media.

However, for the time being, computer media is a media firm that produces no content as stated in the article, thus it might not be a good form of source of information after all.

Big Chain Restaurants' New Small Portions

The basic laws of restaurant economics state that meals keep getting bigger because food is cheap and fixed overhead--staff, rent, equipment--is the same no matter how much is piled on your plate. So giant servings are a win-win: you pay a little extra for a lot more food, and the restaurant makes extra profit. Thus it is surprising that a restaurant, Ruby Tuesday, tried to position itself as the healthy chain restaurant by cutting back on serving sizes and printing nutritional info on its menus in 2004. However their customers did not welcome this plan, they hated the smaller portion foods so much that the plan was dropped within five months.

Well, who would like to have a smaller portion of food when ordering the bigger portioned one is just a few bucks more? People nowadays do not care much on keeping a healthy diet. Not even the restaurant’s plan of having a smaller portion for health sake appealed to them. Maybe it is because the benefits of having a smaller diet were not brought across widely, as mentioned in the article. Restaurants can try to educate the public about the importance of a healthy and smaller diet. Also, introducing more incentives would also attract people to buy smaller portions. Examples like cutting the prices or giving a free drink.

Women's Pay: Lagging From the Start

Men have been always known as being the “stronger sex” since the past. However this is proven wrong with as times past by and the world becoming more advance, what men can do, women can also do. Take for example, there are females becoming engineers too.

As the title of the article said, women’s pay had been lagging behind men’s since the very beginning. This is due to discrimination in women that they are not as efficient as men, which is very wrong. Women had proven themselves as they too occupy some of the high-ranking jobs. Other factors includes women having to work shorter hours as they have to take care of their children and the effect of maternity leave on the company.

However, is it really fair that women get lesser pay? Considering the fact that both men and women have the same level of education and are both graduates. I feel that it is really unfair. Since women had proven themselves to be as capable as men, means that they are as efficient. There is really no reason to give them lesser pay.

The article also mentioned the fact that one of the reason women are given lesser pay is that women expect less and negotiate less pay for themselves than to men. Maybe it is not entirely the society’s fault that women’s pay is lesser. However, in the near future, women would then learn negotiation skills right from young. The problem would then be solved.

Life on the New Planet?

-article taken from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1614620,00.html

The Earth today is facing a lot of crisis like overpopulation and global warming. No one can ensure that the Earth can provide a safe and comfort planet for us to live in forever. The search for a new planet to live in may sound absurd but it is definitely essential in the far future.

According to the article, the newly discovered planet, 581c, showed signs of live. Like Earth, it orbits a comfortable distance from its sun; like Earth, it maintains a surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Most importantly, like Earth, it could easily harbor surface water. In the biological arithmetic we know best, warmth and water often equal life. It is also about 1.5 times larger than Earth.

However, one of the problem found is that 581c is a lot nearer to the sun as compared to the Earth. (The Earth is 92.9 million miles away from the sun while 581c is just 7 millions miles away). Traveling there also becomes a problem as we took 8 months to travel to Mars, which is about 35 millions miles away. How long will it take to travel to 581 c, which is 120 trillion miles away? Thus, this planet might not be suitable to live in after all.

Do not be surprise if you would to find your future generation living on other planets. Earth simply just cannot last forever. With scientists and astronomers working on finding a suitable planet to live in, it is definitely possible.

Is the use of torture ever justified in dealing with criminals and terrorists?

I strongly believe that torture is justifiable to those criminals who committed hideous crimes and terrorists. In the first place, it is those criminals fault to have committed crimes or endangered peoples’ lives. I feel that they deserve the torture if they do not confess to their crimes or provide information that could save lives. As mentioned in the first article, some may feel about the terrorists’ treatment, but when they think of 9/11, of the awful carnage, their screams may start sound like justice. Harsh treatments are not illegal and are often effective as said by Bush. Thus, torture is one of the most effective ways to get useful information from stubborn criminals.

However, there is also a limit to torture. Torture is only acceptable in some circumstances as raised in the second article. Mr Faris, former chairman of the National Crime Authority, said that torture is only acceptable in criminal investigations that implicate lives. An example would be when a criminal hides a tied-up hostage, who has no ability to move, in an enclosed area, endangering his or her live. When he refused to say that person’s whereabouts, torture can be used to force the criminal to confess, as this will implicate a person’s live and death. I feel that it’s definitely not against human rights to torture a person that endanger the live of another person, as it will save some one’s live.

Nevertheless, torture should be stopped if proven ineffective on certain criminals. As mentioned in the second article, if a criminal doesn’t say anything after his fingernails had been pulled out, this would mean that no amount of torture would work on him. Torture should stop and not go to the extent of hurting innocents like the criminal’s loved ones to emotionally torture him. I feel that this is then violating human rights.

In conclusion, torture is only justifiable when police is certain that that criminal has information about other serious crime or that criminal happens to endanger other peoples’ lives by not giving the whereabouts of those people to the police.

New Media – Power to the people or threat to stability?

I agree that new media can be a threat to stability. New media provides much information for the people. While some might be useful, some might be a threat to stability to the country or even the entire human communities. Take for example, the terrorists may use the new media to brainwash the people’s mind to influence them to join terrorist activities. Since more satellite dishes are now available, the terrorists can now easily deliver extremists’ ideas to the people and manipulate their minds. This would then threaten the stability of the country if there were people who are successfully manipulated and are carrying out terrorist activities.

The new media can also be harmful to the society when people express extremist views on certain issues like racisms or posting illegal information or images. These may lead to discontentment in the affected group of people and they might start do the same things to those who hurt them. When this viscous cycle continues, the new media would then become a portal for people to quarrel and argue. In worst-case scenarios, riots might even break out.

Although new media can bring harm to the society, it has also brought power to the people. People all over the world have discovered profitable ways to incorporate blogging in their personal and business lives. For example, in Africa, the Mail and the Guardian hosted a blog for all politicians in recent local elections. This resulted in many comments and helped to encourage debate. Through this way, people are then engaged actively in the politics of their country. They can now express their views about the country and the governement have to response to them.

In conclusion, I agree to a large extent that new media has brought more of a threat to the stablility of people as the consequeses caused by it is simply too serious.

Can the media ever be relied upon to convey the truth?

Based on the article “Great Lies of the American Free Press”, it can be concluded that the media actually focuses more on the 3P’s (popularity, prejudice and profit) rather than the interest of the people and of the public. Thus I feel that, to a large extent, media can sometimes never be relied upon to convey the truth.

From the word “popularity”, we know that the media edit and select their reports in order to not lose their readers and viewers. This means that the media would only publish reports, which they think that will attract the attention and concern of numerous readers and viewers. For example, the Iraqi War is one that was "fueled by corporate-controlled media's lust to boost profits". The more Iraqi War was promoted, the more will the media have viewers and readers who want to know more about the updates of the war. The word prejudice suggests that the media is bias in their reports. For example, the media may decide to censor an article, which conveys the truth of an improper act by the police force, as the media is afraid that they might offend the police force. This kind of practice may result in the police force continuing that inappropriate act, which maybe harmful to the society. Also, the act of censorship greatly reduced the chances of the public getting to know the truth.

Lastly, profit, which is the most powerful driving force for the media, suggest that the media accept bribes from people to publish articles that favors them. This kind of articles are often unreliable. One example from the article is that Armstrong Williams, a “conservative” African-American pseudo-journalist, was recently paid two hundred and forty thousand dollars ($240,000) by the Bush dictatorship to promote an education reform law on his syndicated television show.

In conclusion, based on the above factors, the media can never be relied upon to convey the truth to the public.

GP-an influential person

Today I am going to talk about a influential person in the field of humanitarian.

Mother Teresa was a compassionate lady whose great contribution in humanitarian work won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She also founded the Missionaries of Charity and attended to the needs of the poor,sick,orphaned and dying of Calcutta,India. Over time she gained international prominence as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless.

I consider Mother Teresa to be influential as she inspired a lot of other people to affiliate themselves with her order. Her efforts in the humanitarian work made them admire her and made them feel that it is important to care for the poor and disabled rather than always focusing on the rich and wealthy to see what they can contribute to the society. Catholics who were inspired by Mother Teresa set up quite a number of charity organisations and recruited volunteers to help out at these places.

Mother Teresa gave hopes to the poor and disabled not only in Calcutta,but to the rest of the world as well. She spent her entire life doing humanitarian work,without any complaints or regrets. Her contribution is just limitless. Untill now,her missionaries of charity are still helping people who are helpless,with over a million volunteers. This shows that even people today get influence by Mother Teresa's effort in the humanitarian field and want to play a part in helping the less fortunate too. Mother Teresa is also voted by people around the world as the 1 of the 100 most influential people in the world.

My name is Jonathan Leo Qi Xiang. People always say that my surname is so special,which I think so too. Not many people have this surname,or should I say I have never met one yet. I am now in 08/07 in ajc,took up subject combination of H2 mathematics,chemistry,physics and H1 history. I did not go to any JC during first 3 months as I wanted to use that long holiday to get some work experience.

I love to play basketball,I will feel very uncomfortable if I do not touch a basketball at least once a week. For now,I am playing only once a week during saturday. People may think that since I like basketball so much,I should be in the basketball cca. Well,but I am now actually in hockey. I did not join basketball because I felt that aj basketball standard is too high and I do not think I can make it to the school team. Other hobbies of mine includes playing card games and watching movies.

Last of all,I just want to say that I created this blog because of gp. No choice. I personally do not like to blog. Well,no particular reasons. However I really hope that by blogging,I can really improve on my english language.