Random Discourse – World Crass EzLink System

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Fellow blogger khaosd brought this to my attention.

Below is a screenshot of a zaobao article on 23 Sep 2010, several days ago.

The article is a 79 year-old man’s response to a reply by TransitLink about alighting from the front of the bus. He mentioned that just like many commuters, he doesn’t check his card when tapping out and thus he wouldn’t have noticed whether he is double-charged if he alights from the front when the validator is set to ‘Entry’ mode. He stated his wish that to make it convenient for commuters (especially for old folks) to alight also from the front door, the operators should improve the system.

I agree with the old man they need to do something about this. Old folks like my parents, who also do not know English, will have no freaking clue whether the validator at the entrance of the bus is in the right mode before tapping their cards!

It is often that TransitLink ‘tirelessly’ waste time and space on the papers to explain the reason why such things happen. It never seem to occur to them, or the fxxkwits in the PTC, that the system should be completely hassle free to commuters to ensure that there will be minimum delay when boarding and alighting. There should be no need for commuters to inform the bus captain or to check whether the validator at the front door is in the ‘right’ mode before alighting. The fact that the front door validators aren’t in a mode that can identify whether a commuter is alighting or boarding should not have been accepted into ‘production’ in the first place!

Frankly, it is not good enough to just explain the limitations of this stupid system time and again or to suggest ‘workarounds’ whereby a commuter will still be penalised in their haste. The fact that the ‘right’ mode on the validator is toggled by the bus captain reminds me of the frequent miscalculation of fares when the bus captain failed to update the stages in the past. (Even though they now claimed the fare stages are updated automatically, fare miscalculations still happened.)

That’s not mentioning that getting a refund for all these wrong fare calculations and deductions is tedious and time consuming to the commuter while it also costs money and time for TransitLink itself to process and issue the refund. Even if the requirement to allow alighting from the front was overlooked when the system was put in place, it is unacceptable all of these incidents did not trigger some form of problem management to find a long term solution. Then again, perhaps no one is looking into this because everyone was cracking their heads to create a bizarre, if not arcane, fare calculation system which no one can figure out how the so-called ‘distance- (and time-) based fares’ is calculated.

This has been an ongoing issue for as long as the EzLink ItchyLink card has been in operation. And this is among the list of many things that the ItchyLink card has been infamous for. Here is the reason why I called it ItchyLink because it is like an irritating itch that surfaces from time to time at different parts of the body which is hard to scratch.

First of all, Singapore reinvented the wheel to put this system in place when Hong Kong had the ‘Octopus’ already in place (which is a far greater and more widely used system). Then it was the ridiculous need for us to keep $3 in the card and put up deposits to obtain a card, citing the cost of manufacturing each card because people are buying more than one card. It was rather amazing they didn’t realise people will purchase more than one card or that some people sometimes lose their cards from the usage pattern of the old flimsy magnetic cards.

That’s not mentioning the need for commuters to place a $1 deposit to purchase a single trip ticket and the need for them to go to the ticketing machines to get their deposit back. All of these makes me feel that this is an absolutely World Class Crass system deliberately thought out in such a way to not just stop fare cheats, but to now make extra money out of it with not just the glitches but a fare system that benefits 66% of commuters in an alternate universe.

Anyway, there are at least two obviously (though hardly ingenious or intelligent) solutions to the problem of commuters alighting from the front. First of all, upgrade the crap system so that the validator automatically recognises a tapped card as entry or exit or look at the issue on why the bus are so packed that it requires commuters to exit from the front and not the back of the buses. Simply put, other than old folks who would have problems moving to the rear, it is often many of us find the need to alight from the front of the bus when it is packed. Obviously, Raymond Lemon Lim doesn’t take the bus often enough to ensure that not just the bus situation in Bukit Panjang (or just Bus Service 960) needs to be improved.

Perhaps, it is also high time to implement a flat rate concessionary fare (regardless of distance of the time of the day) for senior citizens so that they don’t get ‘punished’ by this ridiculous system. Whether they tapped wrongly, or whether they forget to tap really doesn’t mater when it is a flat rate. Stop giving us the bullshit that this is a cross-subsidy system that we have to pay more if this is going to happen. Come up with the bill and tell us how much more we will be expected to pay if this is going to be implemented, and let us decide if we want to all contribute to help the elderly among us. After all, we will be helping them today, so the future generations will be helping us when we grow old!

Random Discourse – Public Transport Improvements

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Everybody look forward to the weekend, but the coming weekend is one the commuters who will travel to town along Bukit Batok MRT Station of the North South Line will not be looking forward to because there is yet another train disruption. Fortunately this time round it only affects that little stretch between Jurong East and Bukit Batok but not Clementi MRT or else people like me who stayed in Jurong West will suffer again.

I doubt those travelling from Bukit Batok to Jurong East this weekend will get a worse experience than those who stayed further west of Jurong East along the East West Line 2 week ago. While no one can probably say the resources committed on the ground between Clementi and Jurong East stations were insufficient, the route taken by the shuttle buses from Jurong East to Clementi (and vice versa) took up more time than necessary. I believe it took up at least 10 ~ 12 minutes of travelling time when it would have taken maybe just 2 ~ 4 minutes on the trains?

But that wasn’t all! If one is going from Joo Koon to town, one has to first get off at Lakeside and cross the platform to the other side to head to Jurong East. If there’s a train waiting when this happens, it wouldn’t be so bad. Unfortunately, the connecting train is nowhere to be seen and it will only appear like 5 minutes later. That is the same if one is travelling in the other direction. It gives people the impression that there is just one train serving between Joo Koon and Lakeside, and another serving between Lakeside and Jurong East. One has to ask why these two trains aren’t running on to-and-fro on each track between Jurong East and Joo Koon instead.

Either way, I choose to believe such an arrangement is made because trains cannot enter the east bound platform of Jurong East MRT station while the works are underway. Yet, I wondered why the shuttle bus service didn’t just run between Lakeside and Clementi MRT stations. In fact, why didn’t SMRT just run the shuttle buses all the way between Joo Koon and Clementi?

On deeper thought, the answer is self evident. SMRT under CEO Saw Phiak Hwa ‘Phiak Phiak’ has never been (in my opinion) a commuter-centric company. The company has always cared only about the bottom line and thus trains are run at ridiculous intervals like 4 ~ 5 mins even during peak hours which I defined as between 730 ~ 930aam and 5pm ~ 8pm (since I can’t find any indication anywhere in the stations to tell me what the peak hours are!) Don’t forget that this is the company that refused to put platform doors on the open air station in spite of the spate of suicides on the tracks causing great disruptions to our lives if we are unfortunately enough to be travelling when that happens.

Simply put, if SMRT is to run trains all the way between Clementi and Joo Koon, it would then have to put up more logistics to deal with the passenger flow along each of those stations on both sides of the road. That would be a no-no and thus it is simply ‘common sense’ commuters are put through an agonising triple transfer at Lakeside, Jurong East and Clementi – turning a 15 minute trip from Joo Koon to Clementi into a trip that can take up to 45mins.

There is no point to complain because in typical Tali-PAP fashion, the members of the Public Transport Council [PTC] (which serve no better function other than to rubber stamp fare raises or put into effect ludicrous fare structure modifications that allegedly cost less for 2/3 of commuters which few commuters can agree with), the LTA, the Mini$try of Transport and the Transport Mini$ter Raymond Lemon Lim would have asked those who complained whether they have any ‘better ideas’ to make this work.

As such, it was better for one to stay home (and save himself from the agony and some money) that weekend because the train disruption also put a strain on the other modes of transport in the whole of Jurong. If one is thinking about taxis he is also out of luck, since there was a ridiculous long queue at the Jurong Point taxi stand (at least the one facing Jurong Central Park). Hapless people who are in the HDB heartland areas like Jurong West Streets 4x, 5x, and 9x also had a hard time finding an empty cab to flag down. In fact, some even tried calling for a cab and not getting one after 1130am. Ironically, there was a short queue of 4 ~ 5 taxis at the Jurong Point taxi stand along Jurong West Central 3 – a bare 100 or so meters away from the other Jurong Point taxi stand where passengers waited frantically for a cab to show up around 1pm that day.

It really makes no difference taking the bus either, since there isn’t that many service heading out from Jurong West to Clementi. The wise cracks at the PTC had decided that it would hurt the bottom line of the transport operators if another mode of transport to duplicate the services of the MRT. In my opinion that they are clearing out of their fxxking minds because having a bus service from the rival company running along the MRT line not only provide an alternative for commuters, it also serves as a ‘punishment mechanism’ on its own if one operator screws up. SMRT wouldn’t even have to keep buses on standby for such an eventuality as commuters will all just take the alternate mode of transport (which benefits the rival company). Then again, if such a system is in place there wouldn’t be any reasons for the LTA to fine the transport operators when they screw up! What good is there to fine the operator when not a single cent goes into compensating the poor sods who suffered as a result of the screw up is beyond me.

Anyway, there are just 2 bus services (154 and 198) heading eastwards out from Boon Lay Interchange. Bus 154 stops next to Clementi MRT while 198 stops next to Buona Vista MRT. Sadly, both of them wouldn’t even have gotten a commuter out of Jurong (i.e. beyond Jurong Town Hall Road) within 30 minutes. Such is the wonders of our allegedly ‘World Class Crass’ Transport System.

There is yet another alternative, but one would have to catch Service 99, or just take Express Bus Service 502 all the way to town. All of these alternatives will put you at your destination anywhere eastwards beyond Clementi some way or another. But none of them would have offered you the same speedy mode of transport the MRT would have offered. Frankly, there is completely no use talking about it because it will be met with indifference or what I called contemptuous neglect from those who had the power to do something about it.

While I agree with the Prime Minister Baby Lee that I should have more patience while they upgrade the signalling system of the trains so that the trains can come more frequently, it is my considered opinion that this is clearly not enough to deal with the capacity issues the MRT is facing. It is high time the land transport planners take a hard look at the issue and seriously consider putting some real express buses into service and not the kind like 97e or 502 which still takes a roundabout route. Considering that taxis would have cost me $15 ~ $25 (depending whether it is peak or off peak) to get to town, I wouldn’t really mind paying $4 ~ $5 for a premium, no-standing express bus service from Boon Lay, Woodlands or Tampines interchange to town if that would put me at Raffles Place within 30 ~ 45minutes (not including waiting time). In fact, that might even take some demand off taxis and knock some sense into some recalcitrant taxi drivers who is taking advantage of the thrice damned, infernal surcharges or the call-booking system.

Such a bus service can in fact happen right away, since a bus company now have idle buses lying around with the termination of the shuttle service between the Integrated Resorts and the heartlands. At least the poor bus company which sunk $2.5 million into investing into those buses and hiring all those extra drivers can continue to make some money. Alas, I doubt any of these will happen at all, unless something drastic happens at the ballot box to knock some sense into these self-claimed ‘elites’ in their f**king ivory tower who can’t seem to admit that there are things they overlook. Again, that isn’t surprising at all because doing so would simply prove that they are rather mediocre individuals who aren’t justified to be paid what they have given themselves right now.

Photos – The Pinnacle

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My friend who is a resident at The Pinnacle lent me two resident passes and I went with some friends over the holiday weekend and took some pictures. The view from the Sky Garden on the 50th floor is breathtaking but I wonder whether the residents who stayed there will still appreciate it after some time. I noticed that quite a bit of precautions were taken on the 50th Floor to deter those people who choose it as a spot to be a ‘jump off point’ to their next life. Unfortunately, that makes photo taking at that level difficult, since a lot of times the metal grills end up in the way and spoiling the photos.

The 26th Floor is restricted to residents only and fortunately I had a resident’s pass so that gave me access to that level. It has also a sheltered running track, a ‘Sky Gym’ and a children’s playground. I took two different group of people there over both Friday and Saturday. The photos on the 26th Floor were taken on the subsequent visit.

Situated just a stone’s throw away from the CBD and in between two MRT stations (with Outram MRT being the interchange station between the NE and EW lines), I think the residents got a good deal for a unit there.

Satire – National Service Recognition Award (NSRA)

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During the National Rally, the Prime Mini$ter Baby Lee unveiled the NSRA, the National Service Recognition Award, to recognise Singapore citizens who have served are still serving national service. Imagine my joy when I heard this on TV – I was almost moved to tears.

And several days later, my tears did fall and it fell like the rain that flooded Orchard Road when I realised that this will not include those who who have already completed their entire national service cycle before 29th of August. The Mini$ter of $tate for Defence, Koo Tsai Shit Kee, said, “Government policy has never been retroactive. The first significant milestone is on the 29th of August when the Prime Mini$ter made the statement. Many generations who have served NS, like many of us… recognise that we have already benefited from previous policies and this policy is for NSmen going forward.”

I really have no clue what previous policies were there for NSmen in the past, but if a person of ASSociate Professor Koo’s calibre said so, it must be true. Mini$ter Koo further added that “NSmen who had completed their NS obligations had ‘benefited from the peace and prosperity that they’ve helped create’.” I am pretty sure he speaks from the bottom of his heart, considering how much money a mini$ter like him earns every year while NSmen keep the nation safe!

The Mini$ter, however, has been kind not to elaborate on all the other benefits that many other NSmen have gotten. Unlike Malaysia which gives the bumiputra an advantage, Singaporeans males gave foreigners who graduate together with them a generous head start of at least 2 years in the workforce, and a go at our women while they run around with a gun in the forest and learn the arts of war. Old NSmen like us are also so much superior (than the present stock) that we gave an extra half a year in service more than what the current batch is giving now. It doesn’t even matter some of us would have lost touch with our studies when we are done with our Full Time National Service, we believe ultimately we will still beat our foreign opponents no matter how much head start we have given them!

The army also allows us to pick up the priceless knowledge like the finesse of Hokkien, and the directness of its profanities. Everyone becomes Hokkien, as people gets names like Chow Ah Kwa, Kam Lan etc. The army even teaches us a lingo of its own, like keng, wake up your ideas, bobo king, tekan etc. All of which go forth to enrich our vocabulary in Singlish, making our conversations more lively.

Did I also mention all of the food we eat during our time in the pre-3G army have their own purposes? Hard-boiled eggs can be used as weapons when we run out of grenades. They are lighter than rocks but they are hard enough to cause as much pain. Perhaps getting hit by one of these hard-boiled eggs inspired our engineers in Singapore Kinetics to design the Terrex ICVs and Bionix AFVs.

We even get extra protein in the form of worms in our cabbage when we are lucky! The worms assured us that the cabbages bought by the SAF are of the highest quality because no insecticides were used on them. Otherwise, how else would the worms have survived? To think of it, the SAF even used its food to train us to be armed to the teeth, and literally so! We are given noodles which is like rubber band that when worse come to worst, we can use our teeth to chew right through the taut muscles of our enemies in one bite!

That’s not all. We learn dexterity in the form of change parades, changing from our Long 4 uniforms to PT-kit and back, or a mix match of both. It would have been kinky to be in long 4 shirt, PT-shorts and ‘panda brand sports shoes’ or untied boots if we weren’t men. We also learn flexibility, converting between sit-up position to push-up positions or to jumping jacks or burpees in rapid succession. I recall having fun numbering the lamp posts in the PT field, so that when the Physical Training Instructor (now known as Fitness Specialist) wants us to remember the company line’s telephone number we will be running to the lamp posts in that order. At times, the PTI encourages us by ordering pizzas and we will be running to lamp posts 2, 3 and 5 to keep our spirits high.

We shoot with primitive iron sights (not scopes!) and we can still pick out individual targets 300meters away. We are told our M-16 rifles are like our wives even though they have served (or abused by) the batch before us much like a prostitute served the previous customer. We are even trained in quick thinking by having all our gear thrown into a common pile during bunk inspection and then learning to quickly sort out our own and put every item back in their place in the cabinet within 5 minutes. Mind you, it’s only 5 minutes on a day when the Platoon Sergeant (or Platoon Commander) is feeling generous. On a day when God looked the other way, we get just 3 minutes. If we didn’t meet the time frame, we all take it in stride and do as many push-ups as we can until our arms give way. Everyone do the same and anyone trying to be special (or funny) learns the true meaning brotherly love in what is uniquely SAF – The Blanket Party. Blanket parties are such intense affairs that at times some brothers gave just a little too much love causing the recipient to end up at the sick bay with injuries.

Really, there’s really much, much more than all these. Not forgetting the then rather generous BMT Recruit allowances that started at $90 in the early days of NS. That must have caused a real strain on the country’s coffers at that time.

All of these benefits made the pre-3G NS experience so priceless that it is definitely worth more than $9000. The government gahmen is indeed wise not to give those of us who are done with NS a cent at all. If they did it would really have cheapen our NS experience. The gahmen is giving these new NSmen the money to compensate what they are missing!

The more I think of it, the more I want to use this renowned Hokkien phrase to express my appreciation of the past benefits of NS:

kan ni na bu chao chee bye!

.

Random Discourse – Facebook Arrest & Blogger Clampdown

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If the government gahmen wants us to know that they monitor the social networking platforms and blog closely, and that it takes some of the things written seriously, it has certainly caught the attention of netizens. First, the arrest of Facebook user 27-year-old Abdul Malik Mohammed Ghazali (aka Malik Syasha Sotongz). He was charged for incitement of violence due to comments he made on Facebook where he had urged other users to ‘burn’ the MCYS mini$ter.

I will not comment on whether this overly outspoken sod meant it figuratively or literally. Neither will I speculate the outcome of the trial which he will go through since he is now officially charged. However, it is almost certain that local cyberspace (which I have come to view as overwhelmingly hostile to the powers-that-be) felt that the gahmen had over-reacted. To some, even the outcome of Abdul Malik’s trial is a already foregone conclusion.

Those who felt that Abdul Malik has meant his comment figuratively, would point to some comments made by the Prime Minister several years ago in an election rally about ‘fixing’ the opposition and cry foul over the alleged ‘double standards’ applied here. It really doesn’t matter to them that the authorities took Abdul Malik’s comments literally and seriously because a back-bencher MP from the ruling party was torched by an angry old ex-cabbie just a few years ago. As far as I am concerned, we can just expect criticisms to fly hot and furious in blogs, forums and the social networking platforms over the next few days regarding this matter. I personally wouldn’t be surprised if another few hotheads end up on the wrong side of the law for their comments over the matter.

As if this matter isn’t enough to fuel the fire… a blogger and NSman with the Singapore Police Force, Abdillah Zamzuri, was hauled in by his reservist unit for questioning. This is due to his blog post on the cuffing of Lianhe Wanbao photographer Shafie Goh. According to this article on xinmsn which reference exclusively to the rabidly anti-gahmen website Temasek Review, Zamzuri was charged for ‘Prejudice to the Conduct of Good Order/Discipline’. I find this article on xinmsn rather appalling, since it has no further updates on the matter, nor did it verify the source of the information other than referencing it to the Temasek Review, which in my opinion is extremely biased and rarely do a good job in ensuring that their articles are as factual as possible.

A fellow blogger pointed out that had Zamzuri not pointed out in his blog post that he is a reservist police officer, he might probably not be hauled in for questioning nor will he be charged. After all, what Zamzuri has done is the equivalent of commenting / criticising the employer (albeit in this case a part time one). In the private sector, a company may also press charges against employees when they openly criticised the company or another employee resulting in reputation loss.

I have a different and more simplistic view on both matters. Simply, the gahmen wants every netizen to be aware that it does monitor the Internet and it will not hesitate to act against netizens especially during the impending General Elections (GE). In my opinion, the ruling party has taken the lessons of the recent Malaysian GE seriously and is taking the steps to ensure one of the avenues (i.e. outspoken bloggers hostile to the gahmen) that brought about the disastrous showing of the Barisan Nasional (BN) will not happen here.

In a discussion with fellow blogger ErniesUrn on Facebook, he point out that this is ‘scare mongering’ and it cannot prevent a political tsunami (i.e. voters voting the other way) from happening, if it is to happen at all. To use high handed tactics (ranging from red tape, censorship etc.) to get the results desired would defeat the purpose of becoming democratic society and is counter productive to whatever targets that have been set – such as promoting Singapore to be a regional hub for Information, Arts and Culture, and even Sports.

I would not disagree that what he has mentioned would be detrimental to whatever targets (or objectives) we have set for our tiny little nation. In fact, while ErniesUrn pointed out that red tape would hurt our drive to be an Information Hub, I would consider the lack of transparency and accountability (over such matters as the losses suffered by Temasek Holding, the GIC and certain town councils) to be more damaging. When even the matter of whether someone in a town council got a hefty bonus isn’t even clarified, just what kind of Information Hub are we talking about when the people seems to be deliberately kept in the dark over some politically thorny issues?

As for being a Arts and Cultural Hub… first of all I don’t really give rat’s ass about the arts or whether the objective of being an Arts Hub falls on its face. I have heard the gripe about censorship often and how that is bad for the Arts and Entertainment. Yet I am still convinced that censorship is a necessary in certain aspects after considering the effect of the media on public opinion during the Vietnam War and the recent incident involving Israeli commandos on a Turkish ship, and how it partly caused the tragic end in the recent bus-standoff in Manila. Where to draw the line on how much censorship is necessary will be delicate. As for being a Cultural Hub, it is an utter farce trying to promote that when the authorities slap down Singlish – the very thing which we can consider as part of Singapore’s indigenous culture. Of course, there is no doubt the self-proclaimed ‘elites’ will want to wipe Singlish off the face of our country. I deeply suspect they couldn’t grasp the nuances of Singlish just like how angmohs (local slang for white foreigners) couldn’t catch when and where the lahs are placed. In fact, these ‘elites’ probably couldn’t understand the meaning of even the most simple of Singlish sentence and that alone would have shown them to be just how seriously out of touch with the common man.

As for the promotion of the Sports and Singapore to be a Sports Hub, I am never comfortable with the promotion of Sports as a career. It’s not because of the traditional Singaporean view that you must study hard or else you won’t earn enough money. It also doesn’t matter sportsman in Singapore are not really paid as well as those overseas. The core reason of my discomfort with it is that Sports is largely dependent on a person’s youthfulness and yet at the meantime we are talking about raising (or even abolishing) the retirement age. Consider this, just how long can you play table tennis or soccer, or remain the Taekwondo champion? Ultimately as a person ages his reflexes will start to deteriorate, and just how many will excel and gain sufficient fame to becomes coaches at the later stage of their lives? Even if a sportsman can rise to fame and gain wealth quickly at a young age, whether they knows how to handle their fame and maintain that wealth later in their life remains to be seen. Don’t forget, Singapore is a rather unforgiving place when a person mess up his life and it would be a long and hard struggle for a person with no other skills.

Either way, in our discussion we also talked about the matter of GDP growth and the immigration policies. As far as I am concerned, the GDP growth figures are nothing more but a bunch of numbers and some statistical mumbo jumbo if it does not translate into more money in the pocket of fellow Singaporeans and in the long run, greater social mobility.

The immigration policy however, would be one of the most thorny issues in the upcoming GE. As most Singaporeans are rather moderate, few of us are really opposed to the immigration policy. Yet, I have no doubt that it is our sincere wish that the gahmen look into tightening the criteria, and ensure that the issuing of citizenship and PR will be more stringent. Frankly, what is the point of allowing people from China and India into our country, when they form communities of their own, speaks an alien tongue (their own dialects) in our midst and refused to assimilate with us? And that would bring me back to the point of why we should not eliminate Singlish, because that is would form part of a cultural identity we can call our very own.

To summarise the point I am making here: Demagogic blog posts or comments are obviously undesirable, but they can only have an effect when people also feel very strongly about the issues raised in those blog posts. Such blog posts and comments will only spark off a fire when there is chaff for it to ignite. If the day comes when people take to the streets in response to someone’s rally on the Internet, it will be on issues or matters which they feel strong about – such as on 11th May 2010 when over 2000 people of local Chinese community rally at the Speakers’ Corner at Hong Lim Park to express their outrage at a suspected move by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to reduce the weightage of the mother tongue in the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE).

Any attempt to silence netizens will generally achieve the ‘Streisand Effect’, in which the information is publicized more widely and to a greater extent than it would have originally if no such attempt is made in the first place. Instead of wasting time and effort to ‘muffle’ netizens, the gahmen / ruling party will do better by improving on transparency and accountability, refining the immigration and public housing policy and even review some of the directions they have set for the nation and what they are going to promote as a result of them.

I ain’t gonna to rally to some extremist or radical inciting violence, but I seriously find the gahmen / ruling party wanting in particular on transparency and accountability. Not to mention the response from some of our political leaders lea-duhs on the matter of the recent floods clearly shows they care more about money than the general welfare of Singaporeans. How I feel about such issues will determine how I will vote in the next GE. I can no longer convincingly say I won’t vote for them if an opposition team decide to run in West Coast GRC, as compared to half a year ago when I will be hesitant to vote for the opposition.

As Hang Jebat has said, ‘raja adil raja disembah, raja zalim raja disanggah’ (a fair king is a king to obey, a cruel king is a king to fight against). I will ‘fight against’ the rulers who no longer feel for us with my vote when I get the opportunity to do so. Even if it might be insignificant to the final outcome, that is the least I can do for the democratic society I believed in.

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