Our Flag, Our Anthem, Our Pledge

Those who recognise the voices leading the Pledge will know that part of this soundtrack was taken from the last rally held by the Workers’ Party in the GE2006. Ms Sylvia Lim led the English version of the Pledge, and Mr Low Thia Kiang led the Chinese version.

I missed the last rally then, but was told by those who were there that they were really overwhelmed with a strong sense of patriotism. Hearing them recite the Pledge now again still touches my heart.

Thanks to The Online Citizen for a nice video made.

虽然我本身并不认识死者，但也勾起了自己的一些回忆：两年前楼下的家庭医生和我们一家人都非常熟悉，因为大儿子当时常常生病。有一天听到医生骤死的新闻，我们也有点不知所措。

可想而知，这些死者的家人，听到亲人的死讯时，应该会更加振撼。

最近追看香港电视连续剧《溏心风暴》，剧中也有亲人去世的情节。去世了的大妈，安排了一封在死后三个月才交给家人的信，里面写了非常有意义的一句：

哭有时，笑有时；悲伤有时，欢乐有时

吩咐家人：可以为我的死去而悲伤，但三个月后，悲伤的时候也该过去，应该继续有意义，有目标的活下去了。

很简单的一句话，但我在看到这一段时，眼眶也盈满泪水。

自己常常也会想，人生无常，什么事情都可能发生，说不定现在好好坐在这里写博客，一会儿上街因为某种原因去了。也因为这样，自己选择的道路和许多人不同，着重于珍惜现在，而不是希望年轻时猛拼，老来才享受天伦。

只不过万一真的不幸死去，希望我的亲人们也会记得这一句：哭有时，笑有时；悲伤有时，欢乐有时，在悲伤一段短时间后继续坚强的走下去。

Send an email to organising@wp.sg for more details.

Hope to see you.

Just would like to say this is good because it closes a loop:

• Government does something wrong (although not a big crime in this case, but still something that is not right)
• Someone points out (acts as a check)
• Government takes action based on evaluation of feedback
• The right thing is done

This might be a small thing, but it truly reflects that kind of Singapore I would like to live in.  Some comments in my earlier blog postings accuse me of nit-picking on small things.  However, if we don’t even feedback and check on the small things, what happens when something really big goes wrong?  There is definitely a need for checks and balances in our system, from the smallest thing like a Facebook profile, to the “big things” like government policies.

There was others who says I am criticizing from a moral high ground instead of feeding back to Reach on this.  I say this is what the Internet is about: someone says something, if it is complete nonsense, it will be forgotten and left to rot on its on; if it makes sense, someone else will pick it up and more people will read about it.  In this case, I am grateful that someone thought my original posting was worthy enough and recommended it to Tomorrow.sg (although a few days after I first posted it), and the editors of Tomorrow.sg decided to publish it, and from there the attention grew.  Eventually enough people got to know about this, and eventually the right people made the corrections.

Isn’t this a wonderful closure of loop that many would like to see in so many of our other suggestions in day-to-day life?

Definitely, the Internet is not an arena where ‘more heat than light is generated’.

There was a blog that accused me of being rigid and quoted a number of other organisations with Facebook presence, like UNICEF Youth Voice.  Someone responded that the blogger too did not understand, that there is a difference between a User Account (which Reach Singapore’s was), Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages.  Rightfully said, because the violation I mentioned was with the use of a User Account to represent an organisation.  None of the other quoted groups/organisations used a User Account.

Going back to Facebook again to check out Reach Singapore’s profile, I realised that the User Reach Singapore also created a Reach Singapore Facebook Group today.  I was thinking to myself, at least they are pretty fast in responding to feedback, even when the feedback originated from elsewhere on the net.

However, when I refreshed the Reach Singapore User Account profile, I was confused.  The name of the profile was no longer “Reach Singapore”.  It has now become “Ho Chee Har”.

Now there is a small problem here.  What this means is, if you are one of the 300+ people who added “Reach Singapore” as a “friend”, you suddenly have someone you don’t know in your friends’ list.  If you chose the default settings when adding friends, your personal information in Facebook that you shared with your friends will now be available to Ho Chee Har.

This is a small problem because you can always remove Ho Chee Har from your friend’s list.  But it goes back to my original premise: if the platform was understood and the correct tools (Page or Group) were used in the first place, no such problem would have occurred in the first place.

全球暖化者，天地日暖也。蓋百年以來，其勢日明，其害日顯，此固由人為也。工業日進，污染日甚，溫室氣體日濃，熱無以去，遂俳佪於天地間。萬物因而易，異象因而生。海面日漲、氣候突變、水旱交侵，致使農業廢失、物種亡絕、病蟲日增。萬民見害，苦之久矣。諸國遂盟，訂《京都議定書》，力減溫室氣體之釋，以緩此變。惟其成功與否，尚未可知。

有趣有趣，但文中的内容却叫人不寒而栗。

Attempting to engage the thousands of net savvy Singaporeans already on Facebook is a commendable effort, but before one understands the platform, it is usually not advisable to blow one’s trumpet about it.

If the person who signed up the Facebook profile has actually spent enough time in the Facebook community to understand what Facebook really is and how it works, or if the person has taken the time to read the Terms of Use, it would be apparent that the Reach Singapore profile has violated the Facebook’s terms of use.

Quoting from Facebook’s Terms of Use:

In addition, you agree not to use the Service or the Site to:

register for more than one User account, register for a User account on behalf of an individual other than yourself, or register for a User account on behalf of any group or entity;

Think about the money spent and the media coverage on the new Reach Singapore profile, I wonder what happens when Facebook discover this violation and terminates the account.

Update 2008-07-01: Tomorrow.sg link:http://tomorrow.sg/archives/2008/06/30/reach_singapore_violates_faceboo.html

Amaze yourself with how adaptable crows are.

So someone did complain to Mediacorp about this ad. (Wanbao article over the weekend) However, the response from Mediacorp (see insert at the bottom right corner) seems tell us that it is ok to have gory images on all other TV channels except for the kids’ channel.

Is that the same position that MDA holds? What about TCS 8 and TCS 5?

“Poor dispersion of particulate matter”? Dispersion from where?  Why not elaborate further to give the people a better idea of what is happening?

In any case, even if it is not the haze, the particulate matter itself is still and air pollutant.  Does it mean that we only need to worry when it is the haze? Does it mean that NEA will only do something when it is the haze?