TR EMERITUS

1. Should the government spend $72 million a year to fund two medias, i.e. Channel News Asia and SPH? Do we need two medias? 2. Some people say that the state can save this money, as these medias are not doing useful work and the people can search for news on their own through the internet. 3. I hold the view that this money should be spent, and that it is useful to have two separate medias to cover two separate perspectives. However, they should avoid covering the same subjects, e.g. CNA should cover external issues and SPH should cover domestic issues. 4. The perspectives presented by the media should be factual and objective and promote the interest of Singapore. (This is different from promoting the interest of the ruling party). 5. There are many events happening around the world that have an impact on Singapore. The state funded media should cover the event so that the people in Singapore are aware about these events. 6. The government should also use the state funded media to explain to the people in Singapore on policies that they have taken that will affect their daily lives. The state media should also be used as a channel to provide feedback to the government. 7. There will be occasions that some events that happened in Singapore cause people in other countries to be upset. The foreign affairs ministry should, through the state funded media, provide an answer to the affected people in the foreign countries. The aim is to promote mutual understanding and cooperation. 8. In carrying out its role, the state funded media should adopt the following approach: a) By factual and objective b) Be positive and constructive c) Be honest 9. The journalists have to rely on external sources, such as international news agencies. They should pay special attention to discern the objective facts from the subjective opinions (which may be smears and slanders). They should get the facts from several sources to give a more objective view. 10. Some people hold a negative view that the state funded media cannot be trusted as it is funded by the government in power, and that they will promote the interest of the ruling party. The state funded media should be aware of this mistrust and act constructively and honestly to regain the trust of these people. 11. For the majority of the people that trust the government, the state funded media provide a useful source of what is factual and reliable. This will guide them from being misled by unreliable sources of information.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

My petitioning creditor has messaged me asking if I can meet today to provide them with an update on the status of a liquidation and that’s just reminded me as to why I detest just about everything associated with corporate bs. I understand where these guys are coming from and I am saved by the fact that the boss is exceedingly busy on another matter to worry about too much other things. This incident has gotten me to talk about one of the things that I’ve often mentioned – the fact that I detest the office and many of the things that I associate with that institution. Many would say that spending more than half my working life as a freelancer had the unhealthy affect of making me adverse to what everyone else called normal. However, my aversion to desk work and the trappings of corporate bs came from national service. My first battery commander (who has, like all good military scholars gone onto become very senior in a statutory board) had an addiction to endurance meeting. He believed that team bonding among his officers and nco’s was best done over a work meeting and he was a little fond of holding them on Saturday afternoons (back when the working week ended at 12 noon on a Saturday). He would drone on and on and then look at us fidgeting and offer to get us pizza, which we would politely refuse because pizza meant a reason to keep the meeting going and the end of our precious weekend. His love for endurance meetings reached such as stage that we celebrated the fact that his successor as our battery commander was married and had every motivation to want to go home. We thus made it a point to be very nice to his wife whenever she showed up at the unit. In this respect, national service actually proved to be valuable. My first battery commander showed me that meetings were actually a legitimate form on mental masturbation, regardless of whether this was in the military (part of the bureaucracy) or in the private sector (in the Singapore context, that includes the sector too small for Temasek Holdings). One of my worst experiences with meetings was when I was with an agency that served the Public Utilities Board (PUB), where I had to sit in a meeting that never seemed to end and I wanted to yell “What are you trying to achieve?” Thanks to the army, every time I am forced to sit down and listen to someone, I start to fidget after an hour. [LINK] Like with most things, I do see the necessity of certain things. There are times when a face-to-face meeting helps break the ice and you can learn a lot by studying a person in the flesh. I actually liked creditors’ meetings that were done in person because it gave me a chance to meet the business people funding the professionals. However, if we ae really honest with ourselves, we will find that the time we spend in an office is actually non-productive. If anything, offices and meetings are often counter productive institutions designed to make the impotent feel big. If you are in a white collar job, there’s no reason why “work” needs to be confined to a space for set hours a day. As long as you have a laptop or even a smart phone, you can work from anywhere. Covid showed us how unnecessary the office was. We could do work elsewhere. Technology had shown us that you can access documents through a common server and you could have face-to-face meetings through zoom. So, why has there been a rush to go back to things like the office or to Zoom. In Singapore, the answer is obvious. Landlords and property developers suffered in Zoom. If work could be done remotely, why pay so much for prime office space? Hence, you had the flurry off ads and articles about the wonders of the office, which in my feeble mind only seemed to enforce the point that offices are actually places of toxic socialising masquerading as work places. Technology has freed us from tyranny of the definition that work can only be done within a certain time frame and confine to a certain location. We need to liberate ourselves from this need to pleasure ourselves in our own self-importance if we are to take full advantage of what advancements that have been made in order to be a productive society.     Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

The court has determined that the ex-nurse was paralyzed after taking the vaccination and SGH had terminated her employment after 6 months of half salary arrangement as she could no longer perform the role of a nurse. SGH & MOH scramble to deal with the barrage of criticisms and PR crisis. SGH offered to re- employ the nurse when she recovers while MOH started to put up statistics to show that it has been providing one time off financial assistance to those who are injured by the vaccine (V) and categorically state that the nurse did not apply for it. Let me just dissect this whole mess here: 1) SGH is no ordinary employer. It is a public hospital filled with professionals in medicine! It knows the rules set by MOH very well. 2) Did SGH conclude that the nurse's paralysis is due to her jab? If so, why didn't it help its own employee to apply for the VIFAP? Shouldn't MOH actively engage this nurse since she works right under its umbrella? 3) Or did they insist that her paralysis has nothing to do with the V? If so, do they have any evidence at all that her paralysis is due to other issues and not the jab? 4) V was mandated for all those who worked at the Healthcare Frontline services. Thus, getting injured by V is legitimately considered as work injury. Did SGH offer to compensate the nurse for work injury? 5) MOH puts up the statistics that: a) There were 413 successful VIFAP claims. But it didn't state how many claims were rejected! b) A total of nearly $1.9m were issued out for all 413 claims c) 3 claimants were granted the maximum of $225K 6) Apart from the 3 top claimants, 410 claims shared a total of $1.225m. That will work out to an average of $2988 per claimant! 7) Do you know how big the hassle a claimant has to go through just to get that $2988? As far as I know, most doctors and specialists in SG are extremely reluctant to certify any serious health impacts after V as a result of V injury. It seems that this has become a taboo subject to them. 9) The standard reply for rejection is "there is no evidence that the V cause XXX" etc. 10) Before the report of V causing Myocarditis, all heart issues or heart attacks hours or a couple of days right after V were brushed aside as "no evidence". 11) I do not know what's MOH experts' criteria to certify V injuries. I don't think anyone know other than themselves. But I believe they restrict the health issues to those which are only "officially recognized" but now we know, even Pfizer's secret documents have listed 1291 serious adverse side effects as potential V injuries! 12) In my view, the "experts" seem to hold the view that the V is absolutely safe and only those who are "allergic" to it will suffer V injuries. They just disregarded the whole list of 1291 serious adverse side effects listed in Pfizer's own documents. 13) We must acknowledge the V has certain risks which may include some long term impacts which we do not know yet. It must be communicated to people who are taking the jab. 14) When this V is not totally safe (it has officially 413 V injured with 3 serious ones and many rejected VIFAP claims, this V should not be mandated at all and worse, force people to jab as a job requirement! 15) Under such draconian regime, how could we make an honest assessment of the real individual benefits and risks of the V? 16) Even US CDC has acknowledged the V seems to cause long term health problems to some recipients. They acknowledge the preliminary data shows that Bivalent V may have risk of causing stroke. 17) Countries like UK recently decided to limit V to only elderly and some vulnerable people. 18) SG, along with all the highly V countries are suffering unprecedented PROLONGED consistent Excess Deaths with lots of unknown sudden deaths. 19) All these signals cannot be ignored and MOH may have to REVIEW all the rejected VIFAP claims in accordance to the latest discovery of 1291 serious adverse side effects. 20) MOH can't just continue to deny there is any evidence of great number of V injuries when it is actively denying VIFAP claims or its methodology of determining V injury is narrow! Unlike US, UK or Europe, we don't even have a transparent and open system for people to report adverse events independently! 21) In the spirit of science, if the same V is found to cause strokes in US, it would most probably be the case here. 22) Last but not least, after consulting an HR expert, there is a legitimate case for the nurse to sue SGH for work injury compensation, which has no limits (aka $225K max).   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →