TR EMERITUS

It has been very clearly demonstrated in terrible plague of Biblical proportions that women are better leaders. According to an April 14, 202 Forbes article, “What do Countries with the Best Coronavirus Responses Have in Common? Women Leaders” [ LINK ], women leaders have demonstrated true leadership in this crisis, and have produced the best Coronavirus responses in the world. Specifically, the article detailed data showing that female leaders such as Angela Merkel of Germany, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland and Erna Solberg of Norway, Sanna Marin of Finland have demonstrated true leadership in this crisis, taking decisive early actions and steering their nations with calm hands, and teaching the world that problems can be solved with truth, decisiveness and technology. Thus very clearly, there is no logical reason whatsoever why Singapore’s Ho Ching cannot do an equal or better job in leading the fight against this terrible plague. If the current number of daily cases for Singapore are not acceptable, then why not enlist Ho Ching’s vast expertise and experience of leading a vast organization such as Temasek in this crisis? Singapore can manufacture all of the its PPE and masks on its own soil by focusing the resources of its government-linked corporations in material science and chemical engineering, etc. to accomplish this, without having to rely on places such as the wayward backwater island of Taipei, which is not even recognized. If the current output or outcome (i.e., the number of daily cases and the algorithmic trend) for Singapore is not acceptable — then, from an input-output driven perspective, there must be something insufficient about the input. So, why not enlist Ho Ching to lead an all-and-improved SG Corona Task Force II?   Chicken Rice, No Bones      Read More →

I’ve read a comment on TRemeritus on a piece of mine that they picked up. This particular commentator claimed that he could identify me by the number of digs, both subtle and overt at America and that I had a biased and myopic view based on my East Asian Heritage. Well, he is partly right. I am ethnically Chinese, which means I have East Asian heritage. However, as my late grandmother lamented, my command of Cantonese and Mandarin is so poor that it would be hard for me to claim full rights to having “East Asian Heritage.” I am not “Anti-American.” I have been blessed by America on a very personal level. My step-dad, Lee taught me that family was not necessarily about blood and when my Dad married my first stepmother, I got a bonus of what is best about America in the form of my step-grandma, Joan. These families I got represented what makes America Great. They were not just ethnically diverse but also welcomed members of different sexualities, religious views and even political points of view. Yet, despite the many differences, we came together as family. We loved and we laughed together and our bonds have remained as strong as they’ve been. My stepsister, Carol, in particular has done a wonderful job of keeping this group of differing personalities together. For the record, both American families that my parents married into are White and Lee’s side of the family cannot claim to be vastly wealthy. Unfortunately, it has become imperative to stress these last two points to make the point that I have experienced ordinary white Americans (as opposed to the “wealthy liberal” elite far removed from the issues this administration claims to solve), who are distressed by the current administration’s antics. My distaste for Trump as I’ve often said on every public forum available to me has nothing to do with left or right political leanings but human decency and dare, I say competence. The White America that I know and call family are intrinsically decent and rhetoric of us versus them only offends them. So, where I do take digs at America, is not so much America as a country but at the ideas generated by this administration. In my defense, I am probably only doing what countless American comedians do, though I think their digs are wittier than mine. The need to ridicule this administration and its copycats around the world has never been greater. The incompetence level in the handling of the coronavirus is such that it is probably as much of a danger as the virus itself. The most recent bout of “competence” from this administration was for the President to tweet and publicise his support for protestors who were protesting against “stay at home” orders in states which incidentally had governors from the opposing party. The Trump chose to cast these protests as a case of “liberty against tyranny,” with his tweets to “Liberate Virginia” and so on. More can be found at: [LINK] In fairness to Trump, he’s not the only world leader to protest against “Stay at home” orders. In South America’s most prominent nation, the self-styled “Trump of the Tropics,” Mr. Jair Bolsonaro has been doing pretty much the same thing. Brazil’s President has downplayed the virus and urged Brazilians to ignore social distancing measures introduced by his own health ministry. More can be found at: [LINK] Both the Original and Tropical versions are clearly doing something dreadful. I get it, “stay at home” orders are not good for the economy. Businesses like retailers, particularly your mom and pop shops are going to take a beating if nobody is going out and spending money. I also get it that being cooped up at home can be maddening. This blog post is being written while I’m at home. Having said that, if it’s a choice between having less money and not catching a highly infectious virus that kills people, most people would choose the former. More importantly, most people would expect their leaders to protect lives. I think of the late Steve Jobs who once said, “There’s no point being the richest guy in the cemetery.” Social distancing, stay at home orders and so on have been proven to be effective measures against this highly contagious virus. Taiwan and Hong Kong, which are next to China implemented such measures early on have 420 cases with 6 deaths and 1,026 cases and four deaths respectively. Vietnam, a poor communist country with a weak healthcare system implemented shut downs early on and at the time of writing has 268 cases with no fatalities. Should anyone feel that I am being biased in my myopic East Asian view, there are also examples of “Caucasian” countries that have handled the virus intelligently by implementing the same measures. New Zealand is a shinning example with 1,105 cases and 12 deaths. If you need an example of a big country that has managed the virus well, there’s Germany which has an admittedly high number of cases at 145,184 but a relatively lower number of fatalities at 4,586. Nobody has made digs at Germany or New Zealand in this situation because they’ve handled the situation responsibly. By comparison, one should be making digs at America, which stands out as a “World Leader” with 764,177 cases and 40,591 fatalities. To put that number into perspective, the USA has lost 2,216 in the ongoing war in Afghanistan and 4,576 in the 2003 Iraq War (figures including the occupation which ended in 2011). So, when you look at these numbers and then at the efforts of the “Commander in Chief” to undermine the very things that have kept the infection rates down, is at best a travesty (what becomes more ridiculous is the fact that a certain section of America would accuse you of being a “left wing conspiracy nut job who is naturally biased against this president”) The same is true for Trump’s Brazilian counterpart, who only gets less publicity because Brazil doesn’t quite command the same global attention as the USA (except during the Soccer World Cup and whenever the Amazon Forrest burns). Brazil’s statistics at 38,645 cases and 2,462 fatalities are also less significant than the US figures, though as the US example showed, infection rates can and do sky rocket (it took around three months for the US to become a world beater in covid-19 cases and fatalities.) I’ve always maintained that the US has been on the balance of things, a benevolent power. However, when you have a situation where you have a pandemic, making thousands of people deathly ill, your health care system is being overwhelmed and you have your “leader” undermining the measures that have been proven to keep infections under control, then, I’m sorry, you cannot expect people not to mock you. Nobody is going to take you seriously as a world leader worthy of respect if you make it a point to undermine the solution when the problem is so large and you convince people that questioning your actions is a “left wing conspiracy.”   Tang Li *The author blogs at http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/ .  Read More →

Do you find them helpful, do you give a thumbs up? Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, you know better than anyone else that your wife Ho Ching is a most compulsive social media user. Her never-ending mishmash of social media shares and posts give Singaporeans – and even foreigners – plenty to chew over. Take her recent post of a cryptic “Errr…” in response to news that Taiwan was donating face masks to Singapore. That was not the first time she caused a bit of a ruckus. PM Lee, did you go “Arghh” when you saw her “Errr…”? Or when she posted a cheeky photo of a monkey making a rude gesture. Was that targeted at anyone? And how did you react when your wife posted a spirited defence of seven-figure pay of politicians, arguing that Singapore’s political salary system is unique as it does not include perks or pension? PM Lee, what ran through your mind when you saw that? There must have been times when you felt a surge of pride. Like the numerous occasions when Ho Ching posted poems she penned, including one on flooding in Singapore and another on saving the environment. PM Lee, did you compliment her when you read those poems? PM Lee, you might be pleased to know that we have found some of your wife’s Facebook posts oddly fascinating. For example, we didn’t know that turtles cry and butterflies drink turtle tears for sodium which is a mineral missing from their diet. Sometimes her advice isn’t so helpful though – like “any masks will be better than no masks.” Or that as a substitute for commercial hand sanitisers, “we can use a strong alcohol such as brandy, maotai or vodka!” Those of us who have such alcohol at home would only imbibe and never think of using them for hand washing. That’s a luxury we can ill afford. PM Lee, we do have to say we are disappointed that Ho Ching delves into almost everything except her work. We would love to know what goes on at Temasek and what makes your wife tick as the CEO. Nevertheless, Temasek aside, if Ho Ching isn’t relentlessly giving us stuff to nibble and chomp, we wouldn’t be talking about her. Perhaps that’s what keeps her going. Finally, PM Lee, the silver lining is that your better half chooses to dabble in social media instead of some extravagant indulgence. Unlike Rosmah Mansor (wife of Nazib Razak) whose love for Hermes Birkin bags put her husband in a spot of bother. It must also be said that Ho Ching’s open toe sandals are in stark contrast to the designer shoes of Imelda Marcos which became the stuff of legends.   Augustine Low * The author is a proud but concerned citizen. Voicing independent, unplugged opinion is his contribution to citizen engagement.      Read More →