| Friday, May 14, 2004 |
| The People On Top |
Whaddya thinkin' about!
Bill Clinton
Early in 1994, Hillary Rodham Clinton made a fateful decision: she decided her husband needed to lose weight....
George Bush
(A speech on May 5)
Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, The President of the United States, and Mrs Laura Bush!
(Prolonged applause.)
Bush: We are no longer in Washington!
(Prolonged applause.)
Bush: We are in Michigan!
(Really prolonged applause.)
Info from Hugo's.
Enough of American politics, how about some local fare?
The IRAS (Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore)
aka the People Who Handle Our Tax $$$$$
Upon some kind of makeover, the management people celebrated by singing over the PA system:
(to the tune of A Whole New World)
"(Incomprehensible and off-tune singing) A WHOLE NEW IRAAAASSS!!! (A lot more bad singing) A WHOLE NEW IRAAAASSS!!!!!"
Really. I'm not kidding. My friends who're working there part-time told me that. Oh dear. Are they gonna lose their jobs...(well, one of them can't wait to be sacked cos' the mindnumbing-ness of it is driving her nuts, but she doesn't wanna quit because she'll feel bad about it.) Or "I'll probably be shot or thrown into jail or something-" Quoting a JI (Jurong Institute) girl on there being a lack of freedom of speech with regards to the government 2 years back when I attended Pre-U Sem.
Which leads me to...
People In Charge of Pre-U Sem
From mr brown:
"At the [2003] Pre-U Seminar for junior college students to have a dialogue with MPs like Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, students declined to speak to the press because of a rule printed in their programme kits that stated:
'If at any time you are independently approached by a member of the press... give a listening ear to the request but politely decline to be interviewed.'
The official reason given for this rule was 'to allow organisers to balance the need to ensure that the activities at the event and interviewees' schedule are not unduly disrupted with the need to facilitate the media in covering the event and interviewing participants'.
Perhaps the organisers were afraid that the students may actually, gasp, express an opinion. Or worse, a negative one.
That will surely lead to the collapse of civil society as we know it.
Students at the Pre-U Seminar were allowed to talk to the press if they had a Press Officer present.
But if they wanted to go to the toilet, it was ok to go alone. Unless they needed help wiping their ass. Then a Press Officer may be asked to go along.
In his speech to the 510 students (not counting the three girls who went to the tuckshop secretly) at the Pre-U Seminar, DPM Lee told them that '...while material success mattered, 'it is not everything'. They had to give a helping hand to those less fortunate, lest Singapore turned into a society with deep cleavages between the rich and the underclass.'
And of course, as we now all know, thanks to Sumiko Tan, that the midriff is the new cleavage.
As part of their next school project, students who attended the Pre-U Seminar will be examining the deep cleavages of society.
The single biggest learning for the 510 student attendees of the Pre-U Seminar can be summed up in two words, 'No Comment'." |
posted by esther @ 11:20 PM  |
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