The Ministry of Education [MOE] has drafted a revised Sexuality Education Programme [SEP] to boost emphasis on abstinence over contraception, reported The New Paper [TNP].

Emphasizing on abstinence is placing too much faith in a person’s self control, and self control is one thing that we humans rarely possess. Human beings in general are irresponsible, as evident by the multitude of legislations in place to ensure compliance and acceptable behavior from most members of society.

Sex education, in the secular point of view, is not so much about morality but more about the biological / physical aspect (which deals with procreation and a physical need), and the health aspect (taking care of one’s health and body). I don’t really give a damn if a guy wants to be a “breeding pig” or if a girl wants to be “every men’s convenient store”. However, I am quite sure it is necessary to let teenagers know that everyone has only one body and the failure to take care of it and ruining one’s own life in the process – such as a body harming abortion, an unwanted pregnancy, or sexually transmitted infections – are consequences that only they alone will bear.

Contraceptives such as condoms is thus a “necessary evil” when the craving of one’s crotch overwrites the brain’s higher functions and throws abstinence to the four winds. They maybe the only thing that prevent to a large extent the nasties that might come with a rash decision even though it is not absolute in its protection.

In my opinion, sex education should emphasise on the health aspect – i.e. all of us cannot just discard our body and move on to another when it fails. Knowing all the avenues to prevent harm to our health in a moment of passion is of utmost importance, even if that offends certain fundamentalists who believes that too much emphasis is placed on contraceptives.

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Temasek Junior College student Kwek Jian Qiang is in the spotlight for making a controversial comment on the disparity in expenditure of campus facilities between Junior Colleges [JC] and the Institute of Technical Education [ITE]. In a letter to TODAY he wrote that “there are significant disparities in the quality of learning environments”, and that “our brightest students should get the best facilities in order to excel and grow”.

Singapore’s emphasis in this so-called “meritocracy” has clearly breed nothing more than self important elitists. Should we really blame Kwek Jian Qiang for being an elitist little prick when the system promotes such snobbishness?

From what he has written, I must say Kwek clearly didn’t look too bright and if he thinks the facilities in his JC was bad, he certainly got what he deserved (according to his own measure). If he was any brighter he would have realised that the examples he gave were actually self defeating. He might have a point if the facilities at Anderson or Victoria JC were the result of deteriorating academic capabilities of the students there. Unfortunately, nothing of that sort ever happened and it may even be true that many of students in those JCs actually rank higher than Kwek himself. Regardless of what Kwek thinks, it is the duty of the nation to provide the necessary facilities it can afford to all students regardless of their academic performance, and not only to the best or bourgeois bloatpigs like Kwek. That said, it doesn’t mean that everyone will get equal use of those facilities since they will be limited. Not to mention there will always be disparity in the quality of learning environment depending on the age of the facilities, unless someone could advise MOE on how to keep all education facilities in Singapore up to date at the same time.

Either way, just because a person is damned good and scoring in tests and examinations does not mean he is very bright. Even less so when he thinks lesser of someone simply because that person isn’t in JC!

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While the total recorded rainfall at Orchard Road was 152.8mm, the Public Utilities Board [PUB] said “there was no flooding at Orchard Road”. “However, water ponded at the open area of Liat Towers, the underpass between Lucky Plaza and Ngee Ann City, and the basement of Lucky Plaza due to the sustained heavy downpour,” it added.

Euphemism is not going to change the facts, PUB. Whether a person has died or passed away doesn’t make a damned difference to the fact. Similarly, whether it was flooding or ponding does not change the fact that the water should not even have been there in the first place. At least for many years this didn’t happen so why did the water now not drain away effectively? How bad is 152.8mm compared to the other two times which has also resulted in flooding? Has Orchard Road not experienced similar rainfall previously? And if it has, why didn’t the rainfall back then cause similar flooding? Keeping the public in the dark about these facts merely gives me the impression that this is deliberately not revealed to us to hide failure or incompetence. Using euphemism makes that even worse. This might be the way to work back in ancient China where officials are the Emperor’s representative to rule the people but there hasn’t been an Emperor over all of China for 100 years. Frankly, not even a person in China would take such shit lying down these days when I look at some of the news coming out of some parts of the Guangdong province recently. That’s not forgetting that this is Singapore and not the People’s Republic of China.

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It took SMRT three train breakdowns and four days to create a social media account on Twitter.

I hope there is no PR company or self-claimed “social media guru” advising SMRT on this. That is because the way SMRT is using Twitter is an utter total fail(ure). SMRT might as well not have done this in the first place as it is no better than having an announcement page on its official website. If SMRT really intend to keep up with the times and wants its Twitter account to succeed, it needs to do better in providing prompt information and in interacting with those it hopes to reach. Otherwise it should just consider this a failed experiment and delete its Twitter account immediately.

Prompt information would mean that the information coming from SMRT’s twitter account would be almost as prompt as those from other Twitter users. While I do not expect SMRT to beat my friends in updating everyone about a breakdown, posting about a breakdown which happened around 6:50pm at 8:10pm is ridiculous. How much time does SMRT need to confirm that a train has stalled long enough to warrant an announcement to the public? The details on why it has broken down can come later but informing the commuters within 10 minutes of the incident would have made known to them that the next few trains will be more crowded than usual once service resumes. They can also make a decision using that information, and even re-tweet it so other commuters who do not follow SMRT’s Twitter account can benefit. It is the quick propagation of information on social media platforms such as Twitter that makes it an effective tool of communication.

To exploit this advantage of social media, whoever manning that account must interact with other users on Twitter. While it is almost certain that SMRT will be getting loads of crap from cursing and swearing commuters, that does not mean avoid interaction completely because of these “trolls”. Helping those who are genuinely seeking more information or clarifying their queries will only help to move information along. Not doing so simply allow speculation to fester and even allow false information which is detrimental to SMRT to propagate.

For e.g. a friend posted a photo on her Facebook profile two days ago. Not long after, I directed a query to SMRT on Twitter to find out whether this has anything to do with opening of the remaining 3 Circle Line (CCL) stations. I received no response at all. While few noticed this, the photo could have been passed on in Twitter with negative information which may not be true. Someone may post the same photo with a comment that “CCL is having a problem again” and under the current circumstances, other users might actually believed it and pick that up. All of a suddenly, people will be talking about a problem which does not exists. Those who are not sure might even avoid using the MRT and it won’t to too far fetched to imagine that there will be income loss for SMRT.

Had SMRT replied, at least some of us would be able to help counter any false information or speculation when we see them. Without anything to back us up, we will simply not comment on the other Tweets since everyone is entitled to their own opinion. SMRT obviously didn’t understand enough of this new media platform to make full use of the account it has created.

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The Online Citizen [TOC] started a shit storm with an article titled “MP Seng Han Thong: SMRT’s unpreparedness also due to Malay and Indian staffs English language inefficiency”.

I am not sure if TOC is aware that the title itself is misleading. It gives us the impression that Seng Han Thong made that comment, which isn’t the case when we view the video. For failing to admit that the title is misleading even when it might not be its intention, TOC has shown itself to be no better than the main stream media [MSM] which is often accused to be biased. In fact, the way it reacts to criticism showed that it was hardly any better.

Let me explain. It is hard to assess whether Singapore is matured enough to tackle the issues of racial harmony, but the impression that an MP is “racist” would have been quite a blow to our already fragile racial harmony. The headline made it a matter of racial harmony which should be handled with care. With that title in mind, I was appalled with what was said on my first view of the video, Being biased against the PAP, my initial reaction was: “What a dumb ass PAP man who say things without going through his brains.”

Indeed, I wasn’t even surprised when Halimah Yacob said Seng’s remark was ‘inappropriate and unfair’. I would be surprised if the rest of the non-Chinese PAP MPs remained silent. Seng simply should not have mentioned any race in specific at all. Subsequently, I viewed the same video again several days later when the MSM went full force to present a picture that was some what different from what I understood. I then realized that I had actually ignored what Seng said at the end of those comments: “but I think we accept broken English”. As a result, I have to grudgingly admit Seng was simply pointing out that in that kind of situation (i.e. the MRT breakdown about 2 weeks ago), what really mattered was to communicate information to commuters even if that person does not speak English well. However, I had to disagree that Seng was showing that he strongly disagreed with that comment. To present it that way (as Shammugam did) would be laying it a little thick. It is also meaningless to say that Seng (or the PAP) was trying to deflect the blame to the staff for SMRT’s utterly dismal handling during the breakdown. There is a line to be drawn between speculation or leading the public away from that which has truly transpired.

Anyway, someone must have heard it over the radio when an officer from SMRT said something over the radio which suggested that poor language skills of its drivers were part of the problem in the inadequacy of SMRT’s response. Both the MSM and TOC has not reproduced this in its context for the benefit of the public. Without this piece of evidence it is actually difficult to put this matter to rest. To me, TOC response to Cherian George’s criticism is reminiscent of the petty and childish online squabbles between Xiaxue and Dawn Yang or Steven Lim. Then again, to some celebrity blogger ‘flame wars’ may actually be more entertaining! The saga even reminded me of the fuss made over a packet of food for the YOG volunteers. One photo was all it need to condemn the authorities. No one bothered to check whether all the volunteers were getting equally bad food.

That was exactly the same effect of TOC’s title on Seng. In my opinion, everyone thought Seng is another Choo Wee Khiang, who made a lousy “joke” about Little India in Parliament. Many would have gotten the impression that Seng is a racist while few would have reviewed the video. Thus, Cherian George was right in his criticisms of TOC. If online media such as the TOC wants to be an alternative source of news for the people, its response to Cherian George shows it has a long way to go. While it maybe true all those who oppose the PAP are already biased, failing to even attempt to act objective will only further alienate those with a moderate view. In my view, the TOC page on Facebook (if not the TOC site itself) is going the way of STOMP or that of Temasek Review. It is a noticeable downward slide ever since the Prime Ministers Office [PMO] gazetted TOC as a political organisation.