TR EMERITUS

Donald Trump is undoubtedly the best thing to happen to anyone in the content generating business. Whenever I am looking for a topic to write about, I merely have to Google something about the Donald and before you know it, I have a ready-made topic. I suspect that the Donald will be reelected based because America’s comedians will make it so – because who else will have the ability to generate material for them in the way that he has. Donald Trump’s latest bout of material generating comes from his handling of the coronavirus. While leaders around the world are busy trying to figure out how to ban people from traveling around for fear of spreading the disease in such a way that doesn’t send their economy into a tailspin, the Donald has decided that he’s smarter than the doctors and declared the virus to be a hoax and the hysteria is being created by the media to screw him in his reelection. You can read the story here. In fairness to Donald Trump, the coronavirus has not been as lethal as it could have been. According to John Hopkins, the coronavirus has killed around 4,087 around the world (including 27 in the USA) as of 10 March 2020 while the common flu by comparison has killed 291,000 to 646,000 people around the world including 12-61 thousand yearly in the USA. The comparison between the viruses can be found here. I, for example am continuing to live life pretty much as I’ve been doing for the last few years. The only thing I notice is that I remember as being very crowded are less so and whenever I enter a building, I need to get my temperature checked and I have to fill out a health declaration to state that I’ve not been to the worst hit places (China, South Korea and now Italy). Having said what I’ve just said, the Donald’s behavior is not what you’d expect of a shopping mall security guard, let alone President of the Most Powerful Nation on the Planet. While the coronavirus may not have killed as many people as the flu, one can argue that the reason for this is simple – the coronavirus has only been around for a shorter period than the flu and governments around the world rushed to contain the virus. To put it simply, we know more about the flu than we do about the coronavirus. There are vaccines that have saved people from the worst strains of the flu. Antiviral medications exist that can address the symptoms of the flu and even shorten the illness. At the time of writing, there are no vaccines for the coronavirus and the antiviral medications are merely in the testing stage as far as the coronavirus is concerned. The flu may have killed more but we know how to deal with it. We know how to deal with the flu. By comparison, much a not known about the coronavirus, other than the fact that it spreads exceedingly quickly. The key here is the fact that this is an “unknown” killer that spreads quickly. World Leaders, including, dare I say President Xi Jin Peng of China are acting to assure nervous populations. The most impressive action came from Macau, which shut down its casinos (which are pretty much the source of economic activity) to contain the virus. These types of action give people confidence in the leadership looking after the citizens. The Trump, by contrast is not providing leadership. Rather than focus on the country, the communication from the White House has been focused on the presidency and how the virus affects the country and it has shown a disregard for the facts. How much reassurance does that provide? The only positive comments on the Trump Administration’s handling of the virus has been to praise the Trump Administration from its crackdown on “illegals” who happen to be “unvaccinated.” Evoking these sentiments at a time of crisis is not leadership but a form of political opportunism. It’s too bad that there are those who don’t recognize the difference between leadership and opportunism.   Tang Li *The author blogs at http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/ .  Read More →

Click to enlarge To me, the picture not only shows recklessness and irresponsibility of the highest level, it is both sick and sucks to the core too. Let me explain. We are in Dorscon orange in our battle against Covid-19 epidemic and one of the basic personal responsibility is to avoid crowded places and to exercise social distancing. In the picture, numerous woman pap ministars and mps such as Josephine Teo, Indranee Rajah, Amy Khor, Joan Pereira, Low Yen Ling and Sim Ann etc gathered in large numbers with many others celebrating and enjoying International Women's Day and to add insult to injury, none of them wore mask. I don't blame lowly educated workers such as cleaners for not appreciating enough the very severe and potentially deadly epidemic that we are facing but for those pap ministers and mps to also throw caution to the wind, that was simply too much and too reckless. Such irresponsible behaviour must be exposed, called-out and shamed. Imagine if just one person among them is asymptomatic and started to infect others like in the Jurong SAFRA incident, then how are those fat salaries drawing and more good years ministars and mps going to face those infected persons and their families? In the words of Gan Kim Yong, many local cases were spread through the irresponsible behaviours of a few such as his parliamentary colleagues as shown in the picture. It is super naive and stupid to believe that only better educated and better earning people such as pap ministars and mps are superior people with better behaviours, more considerate, more caring, more capable and more contributing etc than many others who don't earn more than $500,000/ annually. I for one never buy those cock and bull stories. I ask if anyone in the 70% needs more proofs? Think.   Simon Lim      Read More →

I bought a steam iron from Amazon website. They sent the appliance from America. The voltage could not work in Singapore. I returned it. I did not get a refund for a month. The forwarding agent had given me a tracking number (fortunately). I contacted Amazon via their Chat. A staff answered promptly. She checked and found that the appliance is still on transit. As it was exceptionally long, she took the initiative to initiate the refund of $313.63 before the goods arrived. This is to avoid "further hassle" for the customer. I was delighted. It was an excellent service. My experience with the Chat service conducted by organizations in Singapore is generally "terrible". They take a long time to answer, and are not empowered to address the concern of the customer. I hope that they can learn from Amazon.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →