Parents sending kids for GEP tuition

Posted on June 3, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘My child is GIFTED’, 3 June 2012, article by Jane Ng, Sunday Times

Parents desperate to get their children into the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) are turning to tuition centres that claim they can help bright nine-year-olds ace the screening test. A growing number of enrichment centres are offering these classes at monthly fees of between $200 and $1,000.

…Mr Kelvin Ong, 36, went from being a GEP student to a GEP teacher before he quit to start his tuition agency, AristoCare. He decides whether to accept a pupil only after a month of lessons which cost $1,000.…He has even started GEP ‘foundation classes’ for kindergarten pupils priced at $600 a month.

At Doctor Peh Associates, a 10-year-old outfit started by Mr Allen Peh – who does not have a doctorate – children who want to sign up for the ‘GEP clinic’ must have English and mathematics scores above 90, while kindergarten pupils must have an IQ score of 130 and above.

‘If they don’t meet those criteria, the GEP is not suitable for them as their foundation is not there,’ said Mr Peh, 51, who has a science degree from the University of Toronto and an MBA from the University of Warwick….He charges $2,600 for 10 lessons.

Enrichment school Morris Allen offers an annual two-week GEP intensive preparation course in June, after selecting its pupils through an IQ test…. ‘With practice under pressure, and repeated exposure to the questions, they show significant improvement and become more confident in answering them,’ said Mr Scarrott (Principal). The fee for 10 days: $888.

Housewife Cindy Tan, 40, is among the hopeful parents whose children are attending GEP preparation classes ahead of the ministry’s screening test in August….’Every mother has hopes for her child. Since we can’t help him at home, we have to get some help for him,’ said Mrs Tan…Adrin, who scored above 95 in his English and mathematics mid-year exams, is getting help at AristoCare. He also has tuition. ‘He has the occasional tantrum but I’ll tell him to finish his homework and I’ll take him out for a McDonald’s treat,’ said Mrs Tan, who has O-level qualification.

What if Adrin does not make it to GEP in the end? ‘I’ll be very sad and disappointed – after all the money spent and we get nothing,’ she said.

I vaguely remember going through the GEP screening test myself and I had no idea what to expect, though I spent most of the time flipping my paper around to work on picture puzzles.  I might as well be deciphering hieroglyphics or Matrix alien squiggles. Not being naturally GIFTED, I flunked out of the first round. Now, if I had MONEY then, that could have been a different matter altogether. I would be out there, you know, making a DIFFERENCE, instead of writing a blog post complaining about GEP.

‘Gifted’ used to describe individuals ‘born’ with a special ‘talent’, and implies extraordinariness and exclusiveness, not something anyone can attain purely through ‘hard work’, or in this case, the help of an ex-GEP student turned tuition teacher with a ‘gift’ for business. One would expect an ex GEP student to do something more worthwhile with his intelligence, like solving the problems plaguing the world today (and getting a doctorate while at it), but that’s besides the point. It’s obvious that having a scorching IQ as determined by some screening test doesn’t guarantee that you’ll do anything particularly useful for humanity. There are so many exceptions to the rule, game-changers, high school dropouts turned self-made billionaires or Nobel-prize winning authors or scientists, people who excelled not just through IQ alone, but mostly through creative innovation, inspiration and sheer luck, things which all these tuition centres and GEP programmes can’t deliver in an entire lifetime no matter how many derivative puzzles they drill their gifted brethren with. Yet these ‘geniuses’ and ‘icons’, though having qualities of the ‘gifted’,  remain, in all appearances, perfectly NORMAL save a few eccentricities without anyone seeing the need to classify them as higher evolved beings in school.

Being a prodigy and working on your ‘gift’ go hand in hand, and one shouldn’t deny kids with a genuine obsession for complex maths puzzles from achieving one’s fullest potential in this scheme, at the risk of being oestracised from their ‘mainstream’ peers, which is an inevitable side effect of being cleverer than your age group. A screening test alone isn’t THE litmus test for genius, and selects for only a certain skill-set that may or may not qualify you as being ‘highly intelligent’.  If you can buy IQ scores through very specific practices like training an archer how to shoot arrows, one trivialises the GEP programme to that of a very expensive, elite mind-sports fraternity. You may well get a couple of sharpshooters in the end, though you’ll also have some singed by their own arrows, victims so worn out by the demands of the programme that their behaviour changes completely, some into angry little recluses who ignore their families. Moreover, the Ministry clearly feels that you’re wasting your time with ‘normal’ students, as what is stated in their GEP webpage.

The intellectually gifted need a high degree of mental stimulation. This need may not be met in the mainstream classroom and the gifted child may become mediocre, indifferent or disruptive in class.

Meaning, if you don’t put your above average kid in GEP, he’ll ROT in class among the minions! Such divisive , sweeping presumptions on what smart kids need for mental nourishment have led many to call the GEP programme ‘elitist’. In fact, the MOE’s statement is copied and pasted wholesale in Kelvin Ong’s Aristocare Gifted programme website. Hell, even the name of his agency has a kingly ring to it.  Here’s a chicken-and-egg argument in reference to those GEP kids who think high and mighty of themselves: Are these kids ‘gifted’ hence arrogant, or did they ‘become’ arrogant once they were labelled and exalted as ‘gifted’ 1%-ters? What have we produced in 30 years that justifies the relevance of a GEP breeding ground in creating mavericks, trailblazers and great thinkers? In an age where brains alone don’t cut it and ‘EQ’ matters more than ever, have we instead LOST ‘functional’ geniuses rather than spawned them through a scheme that cuts them off from the more socially fertile morass that is ‘the rest of us’?

The gifted have been stereotyped as being ‘socially inept’, stick to their own ‘kind’, and summon the image of an awkward, quantum physics textbook totting, bespectacled kid with imaginary friends because all his real ones have left him/her. Meaner ‘mainstream’ kids would refer to them as ‘freaks’.  ‘Gifted’ already has a euphemistic cousin known as ‘high-ability’, which attempts to tone down the lofty suggestions of innate genius but ironically emphasises the disturbing trend that one can be ‘trained’ to qualify for GEP, as long as you’re willing the spend the money and forget about June holidays altogether. One thing these tuition centres dare to boast about is a high success rate of passing tests, but as to what becomes of their students after that, nobody has the slightest clue. High-ability doesn’t equate to hire-ability. From the way they are being groomed and hothoused, they’ve either become stark raving mad scientists  or Phantoms of the Opera.

Adrin above is a high-scoring kid with the occasional lack of interest in homework (like everyone else) but yet nudged by parents to prepare for a programme which he may not be suited, using McDonalds as bait like a  Pavlov dog salivating to the sound of a bell. He may very well ace the screening thanks to some insanely methodical and ultimately meaningless grilling, but end up at the bottom of the GEP pack because his ‘giftedness’ is a product not of his genes or upbringing, but that of a tuition machine. Not to mention having his arteries clogged with all the fat from the ‘reward’ fries he’s been eating to finish his work. His mum may be utterly disappointed from all the wasted money and effort, but failure to get into GEP only means one thing for a face-saving kiasu parent: More enrichment classes.

Filed under: 2000s, Teachers, Money, Kids, Parenting, 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Lee Wei Ling’s ‘child-like’ friend-categorisation process

Posted on June 3, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘I have friends, but not because I’m Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter’, 3 June 2012, article by Lee Wei Ling, Think, Sunday Times

I wrote about the distinctions I made between close friends, true friends and comrades some months ago. After that article appeared, I received a sarcastic e-mail from a reader who said: ‘One would be extremely fortunate if one can count to two the number of comrades one has in his life. If it is so hard for an average person to find true friends, it is manifold harder for you because of your family relations.

‘It may be arrogant for me to call you child-like since you are older than me. But I have no better word to describe your friend-categorisation process.’

…His reference to my family relates to the fact that I am the daughter of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and the sister of current PM Lee Hsien Loong. The writer suggested that my ‘family relations’ may induce people to act friendly towards me. He misunderstands the Singapore system. Being a member of the Lee family may mean that I do stand out, but that does not afford me any special power.

My friends – NNI staff or otherwise, doctors or something else – are friends because of mutual goodwill. We either share common interests or have in some way helped one another.

…Take, for instance, the security officers (SOs) who have protected my father and family for decades. Some of them are my close friends – having remained so even after they left the police force. The SOs are paid by the Government to look after us, but they often go beyond fulfilling their duties. And the goodwill goes both ways, for I have always helped them whenever they have approached me with their problems, usually medical in nature.

…There are the friends I made while pursuing various other activities, including writing columns and what I call ’tilting at windmills’ in pursuit of certain causes. This heterogeneous group, some of whom I have known since childhood, are also comrades, for we share the same aspiration – to make Singapore a better country and a better society.

…I do not think, however, that my family connections alone can account for my having so many friends, close friends and comrades. I have become friends and stayed friends with various people as a result of the conscious effort by all concerned to help each other, and also to help others when we can because it is the right thing to do.

Perhaps I have so many close friends and comrades because my family’s position brought me into contact with many good people whom others may not have had a chance to meet. But I think the more probable reason is that I am willing to extend the hand of friendship, be it to colleagues or people I meet in the course of my life. Perhaps my sarcastic letter writer short-changed himself with his cynical attitude towards mankind, which may explain why he has pitifully few close friends or comrades.

According to a previous piece ‘Close friends from all walks of life’, Lee Wei Ling categorises her friends as such:

I categorise people I know into enemies, acquaintances, friends, close friends and comrades. This is admittedly a rough and perhaps simplistic way of classifying people, but it serves my purpose.

I personally can’t think of anyone in my social circle befitting of a ‘comrade’ since I have no evil Communist dictator to topple, but Wei Ling’s clinical dissection of the people around her may well come in handy for someone of her ‘pedigree’, where one has to keep her close friends close, but enemies closer. She describes friends in terms of ‘mutual goodwill’, as in ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’, a pragmatic approach to networking which also applies to her employees and  ‘Security officers’ (SOs), or should I say ‘Bodyguards’.That admission alone would either make her more attractive as a ‘friend’, or scare you off totally because of the possibility of someone shuffling you off with a bag over your head in the middle of the night if you so much as forget to reply to a text message.

I wonder if she knows anyone that she actually enjoys ‘just hanging out’ with, or has a ‘best friend’ for that matter, someone who has a common passion for ridiculous amounts of exercise and not afraid to admit it.  Someone who doesn’t need to beguile you with intelligent discussions to be worthy of company. Someone to, God forbid, gossip with. Her defensive article betrays none of the emotional, and less cerebral,  stirrings that characterise what most of us refer to as ‘true friendship’. We usually don’t have to think so hard about altruism, trust, aspirations or incentives to appreciate the people around us. We just enjoy their company, for who they are, not what they can do or what they have done.  But as a neuroscientist and borne of a man like LKY, you probably would expect otherwise mundane, instinctive perceptions of people to go through the higher brain before ‘hitting it off’ like the rest of us do. Subordinates aside, it’s only natural if you’re a high-profiler to mix and click with people of a similar calibre and background, simply because it’s lonely at the top and these people are all you have. But I can’t speak for the author; she could have a roti prata seller as a key confidant for all I know.

The question of how many of your friends are ‘true’ applies to anyone else in a similar position of prestige and power, whether you’re the daughter of a man renown for striking mortal enemies down or a benevolent king who rules the land and beyond. Perhaps that was the intention of the evil (and quite fearless) ‘fan’ (who just got him/herself filed into the ENEMY basket), not to question Wei Ling’s ability to retain so many ‘friends’ (that’s a given), but whether any of these folks are genuine at all. One may be entertaining fawning syncophants who would benefit from your skills or influence, or people submissive and accommodating to you because of Daddy’s paranoiac, tyrannical shadow looming over like a thunderous dark cloud.  But I suppose that’s up to the good doctor to decide, and being a neuroscientist, I’m certain that in her private capacity she would be able to tell the friends from ‘people who just want something in return’ and ‘people who are nice to you but really just freaking terrified’.

She claims that she has no ‘special power’, but the very act of highlighting someone’s fan-mail and shaming him in the press does stink of a little petty malice. And looking at what her own brother Lee Hsien Yang has done to the TR website despite not being in the business of politics, one can’t help thinking that such crowd-pleasing modesty on the lack of any ‘powers’ as a Lee whatsoever  is a tad too far-fetched to be believable.

Filed under: 2012, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

$1.99 set meals when 1 cent coins no longer exist

Posted on June 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Do away with $1.99 pricing for meals’, 2 June 2012, ST Forum

(Lim Kay Heng): I WONDER why NTUC Foodfare prices its set meal at $1.99 when the Board of Commissioners of Currency has stopped issuing 1 cent coins (‘Budget $1.99 meal to beat inflation’; Friday).

Why not price it at $2? If NTUC Foodfare wants to give the impression that it can offer a meal for the needy at less than $2, price it at $1.95 or $1.90.

The most affordable ‘Mixed Vegetable Rice’ money can buy

For 1 chicken wing braised in dark sauce, hard boiled egg and what looks suspiciously like canned achar,  $1.99 sounds like a good deal, even looks appetising, though probably not filling enough for me. According to the original article,  ‘the $1.99 rate is for customers who are part of the Public Assistance Scheme, students, senior citizens, full-time national servicemen with concessionary cards and NTUC union members. Other diners pay $2.50.’ Those on the PAS can opt to fork out ONE miserly CENT more if they forgo the set and choose from 20 dishes for $2. Therein lies the oldest marketing gimmick in the book, the use of the magical number 99 to attract customers, when it’s unlikely that anyone will ACTUALLY pay $1.99 (unless you spent your entire childhood collecting one cent coins in a jar). As you’ll see, the extinction of ONE cent coins is not the POINT here. This isn’t charity, and like any other business you need some play with numbers to stay afloat. And this number play is as old school as it can get.

What one cent coins looked like

One cent coins have been out of commission since 2002, incidentally a time when Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2000 Nanz Chong’s ONE.99 shop was considering raising prices of all items to $2. First set up in the Heeren, Orchard Road (circa 1997), ‘$1.99 for everything’ was a shrewd, ballsy gimmick at the time (Everything at $199 – in the heart of pricey Orchard Road? 6 July 1997, ST). That business eventually folded, though many other factors such as copycat competition may have brought the budget concept to its knees other than giving up on a ‘magical’ price tag. I personally wouldn’t buy my kitchenware at a TWO DOLLAR SHOP, though I would patronise a $2.99 store because of the illusion of ‘value’ that the numbers create, even if that doesn’t make any rational dollar sense at all. In 2001, someone opened a $10 dollar clothings shop in Far East Plaza called Take Ten to ride on the $1.99 frenzy (And for $10, 15 Feb 2001, ST). I don’t know if this still exists today but I think more people would bite if it had charged everything for $9.99 instead.

You could apply the 99 numerological sorcery to price tags other than ‘economical’ rice or budget shop items as well.

The list of  freakonomic tricks involving magic number 9 is endless, and since you can jolly well top up 1 cent for better variety, I would think a ‘$1.99 set meal’ is more a calculated gamble on flawed human psychology than anything else.  You feel good about yourself if you in fact do pay $1.99, but even better if you ‘pay a teenie-weenie more’ ($2) for something extra. If the ONE.99  shop and the above examples have taught us anything, it’s that you can always make a hungry person pay more than necessary and still think he had a good bargain.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, Hawkers, Advertisements, Local food, Money, 2012 | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Fifty Shades of Grey banned from libraries

Posted on June 2, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Library’s shades of double standards’, 2 June 2012, ST Life!

(Dr Oh Jen Jen): While I understand the National Library Board’s reluctance to add the Fifty Shades trilogy to its catalogue, I cannot quite accept its practice of double standards (No Fifty Shades For Library, Life!, May 29).

I consider novels by Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins and Harold Robbins, available at public libraries here, equally, if not more, sexually explicit than E.L. James’ fluff. Another title I spotted on the shelf is Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, which contains graphic violence and sexual content.

As already mentioned by another avid reader, Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series is also easily available. Protecting young, impressionable minds from undesirable influences is important, but the above examples demonstrate the NLB’s inconsistency in its choices.

Young adult fiction is now dominated by the likes of Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins. Meyer wrote Breaking Dawn, which features a childbirth scene that I found positively horrifying despite the nature of my job. Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, on the other hand, describes a world where teenagers participate in government-sanctioned slaughter-fests, and the novel appears on the American Library Association’s list of frequently challenged books for 2010, citing ‘sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence’ as reasons.

And, yes, both authors’ series are found in the National Library’s catalogue. My parents never restricted my reading choices and I believe that open dialogue and guidance are far more beneficial than an outright ban.

Library in a knot over 50 Shades

As a hugely popular blockbuster series that started off as Twilight fan fiction, it is unlikely that ‘young impressionable minds’ will get their hands on 50 Shades without making reservations way in advance. If the kids can’t wait to read BDSM prose in a series that brings new meaning to ‘young ADULT fiction’, or if bored housewives long to fulfill their darkest desires vicariously through a tortured ‘heroine’, they can always try their luck at Kinokuniya for a quickie browse, if not download the e-version online.

If we need some sleazy teenage prose to save the book format , get people to read on the trains instead of playing with their phones, and keep our bookstores, but more importantly the entire paperback industry, alive, then so be it. In fact, in the original Life! article, a book publisher quipped that this ban is a ‘welcome shot in the arm for struggling bookstores’. So even if the library decides to put M18 warning labels or place 50 Shades so high up on the shelves that kids can’t reach it, you will have Ye Ol’ Bookshops shouting the promo poster  shamelessly behind stacks of this adolescent smut in display windows everywhere, at discounted prices if necessary, maybe bundled with some handcuffs or leather straps for good measure.

Here are other ‘classics’ which were deemed too ‘pornographic’ or offensive for our library collections:

1) Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn (1938):  Banned in America for almost 30 years, Tropic is an autobiography of its very horny, misogynistic author and his sexcapades in New York City, where women are described by Miller as ‘supercunts’. Another novel, Plexus, was described by a blogger reviewer as containing ‘unapologetically group sex, drunken abuse of colleagues, scatological enterprise, what may amount to rape in the modern context..’

Horny Miller

2) DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) : This literary romp-fest needs no introduction.

3) Nikos Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ (1953 ): Adapted into a movie of the same name which was also banned for blasphemous depictions of the Lord Jesus Christ. Goes without saying that some sex is involved.

4) Judy Blume’s books: Accused of promoting underage dating and eventually sex, Judy Blume at first glance appears to be the most innocent of the lot, that is, until you read ‘Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret‘ where a tween prays to dance with the hottest boy in school ‘just once or twice’. She even has a book titled ‘Freckle Juice’, which could be mistaken for the title of a Barely Legal porn DVD series. If 50 Shades advocates hollow, brutal sex among consenting adults, then Blume’s puberty fantasies are baby steps towards ultimate debauchery.

5) Helen Bannerman’s The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899): A children’s picture book which was allowed for loan in our libraries (Book that raised storm abroad is popular in Singapore, 7 Jan 1991, ST) but, as the title suggests, slammed for racist depictions of dark-skinned people elsewhere. Do kids these days still read Noddy?

As social norms of what distinguishes ‘art’ from ‘porn’ evolve, what was once unacceptable (infidelity, multiple partners, inter-species sex) is now commonplace in ‘young adult fiction’, and it’s only a matter of time before voluntary degradation and humiliation that are the hallmarks of sadomasochism join the rest of the erotica bandwagon in toeing the line of public decency. If prestige is at stake, and if NLB insists on portraying itself as a responsible purveyor of wholesome literary entertainment, then banning a book like 50 shades makes sense, though one should question whether we should rely on librarians to decide for a bunch of uncontrollable, sex-crazy teens as to how far one should relent on graphic sex for the sake of ‘artistic merit’. By fuddy-duddily clamping down on such popular literature,  the library is not so much a place to cultivate the reading habit anymore, nevermind the rainbow murals and funky furniture. With reference materials available at the click of a mouse, what was once a nourishing wellspring of information and imagination has turned into a study centre, a lounge for uncles to read newspapers, or an internet cafe for schoolkids to log on to Facebook when their parents aren’t around.

Until the day when those dark smudges around fashionable young girls’ eyes are no longer vampire goth-inspired makeup but actual bruises, or if you no longer see bracelets around their wrists but rope burns , 50 shades and its torture-kiddy-porn  SM spinoffs are here to stay. We’re no longer in Sweet Valley High territory anymore.

Filed under: 1980s, 1960s, Sex, Censors, Violence, Racism, Public works, Kids, Art, Fun and games, 2012 | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Man posting upskirt videos on Youtube

Posted on May 27, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Man targeting S’porean women posts their upskirt videos online’, 27 May 2012, article in asiaone, Digitalone.

A man targeting women in Singapore has been posting a collection of ‘upskirt’ videos online. The man even went as far as to lift the skirts of some of the women he filmed. The man’s activities were brought to light on Stomp by a reader who sent screenshots of the man’s collection of videos on video-sharing site YouTube.

A check on the user’s YouTube page shows the user last uploaded a video a week ago. The user was last active on May 22, 2012. The reader told Stomp: “It’s very disturbing to see someone filming Singaporean women and post them on a public site like YouTube.

“What’s even more disgusting is that he even numbered them, like ‘Singapore office lady 21′, and documented where he found them. “He even lifted their skirts in some cases! “I really hope the police put a stop to his reign of terror!”

While it’s safe to assume that the pervert was a man, even young girls may get hooked on upskirt voyeurism, thanks to a free online game called ‘Under Cover’, where one scores points by snapping photos of animated women in vulnerable but tasteless positions. Though it’s unlikely that such games would spur men to prowl MRT stations and shopping centre escalators to snap under women’s skirts (more likely to be porn that’s the source of inspiration), the act of peeping is as old as civilisation itself, when humans first put on clothes and had something to hide from prying, horny eyes. Or maybe it’s all Sharon Stone’s fault for her scene-stealing spread in Basic Instinct.

Modern voyeurism has been played down as a form of sexual neurosis, or a symptom of major depression. The nature of compulsively hording images or videos, even categorically labelling them in folders, has added a dimension of ‘obsession/addiction’ to the voyeur’s ‘disease’.  Such upskirt attacks have been on the rise since 2004, with many otherwise respectable men being admitted for ‘treatment’. Even a National Day medal winning grassroots leader has succumbed to such gross indecency. In 2010, an officer in the police force was caught for not just filming an upskirt of his female colleague, but for adding his semen into her drink, which suggests that ‘voyeurism’ is just one ‘symptom’ of a spectrum of related deviant fetishes.  We live in an age where Freud, if he were alive, would have been at his most prolific. People no longer maintain a ‘collection’ for hours of personal entertainment. Video-sharing, forums and blogs, with social media elements like ‘hits’,  ‘ratings’, ‘likes’ and reputation points, have supplemented one’s upskirt obsession with something equally stimulating to the unsound mind; an audience.

One may blame technology, porn and the incessant drive to miniaturise gadgets for this wave of peepshow gratification, but even before James Bond pinhole cameras or mobile phones, men still found ways and means to catch a glimpse of female bottoms, even if it meant lying down in a prone position to try their luck. Some would do away with the gizmos and stealth altogether and lift skirts directly.  But where’s the ‘thrill’ in that? The more discreet would use mirrors to satisfy their curiosity, while the rest would peep through cracks in toilets, showers, bedrooms and changing rooms. One guy in Tampines made it a daily ritual to view upskirts from below an overhead bridge while on a bicycle.

In 1956, the penalty for looking at your neighbour bathe is a staggering $20, compared to the up to one year jail term today. Which means seeing someone completely naked deserved less punishment in the past than spotting someone’s undergarment today. We still call such sneaky folks ‘peeping toms’, a term which suggests a boyish naughtiness that deserves nothing more than a rigorous spanking. Today the term ‘mischief’ no longer applies, you have instead committed a sexual offence. But it’s not just women who need to watch out for suspicious bags floating beneath their skirts, we men have been known to have our ‘modesty outraged’ by cubicle stoopers as well, especially when we’re taking a shit. We don’t even have to dress sexily to be stalked by a sicko. It’s also a  really dumb, not to mention smelly, position to adopt if you want to spy on innocent people doing their business.

But if indeed voyeurism were a sexual disorder, such incidents may trigger another sort of neurotic behaviour, a wave of paranoia that there is always some sex predator out there with an invisible gadget looking to steal a shot of your underwear. Terrified women may start avoiding overhead bridges, spend more time checking for bugs in the cubicle than urinating, or avoiding the Mint Museum of Toys and its glass ceilings. Every staircase, ladder or locker room would be approached as if it were booby-trapped. Thanks to this share-the-nasty-stuff culture, I can no longer text on the stairs, under a ladder or on an escalator without the fear of getting mistaken for a lecher and receiving a flying handbag in the face.

Sure, we can’t do without mobile phones or tiny cameras, but let’s just pray no one invents an invisibility cloak.


Filed under: 1950s, 2000s, 2010, 2012, Justice system/Lawsuits, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Png Eng Huat’s character assassinated by PAP

Posted on May 27, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Low Thia Khiang slams baseless attacks at WP’, 27 May 2012, article by Elizabeth Soh and Lim Wenjian, Sg Yahoo News.

“Baseless attacks” and “character assassinations” were what characterised the Hougang by-election, said the Worker’s Party (WP) Secretary General Low Thia Khiang on Saturday night.  Speaking at the WP’s post-win press conference at the party’s Syed Alwi road headquarters, he said that there had been “several calculated moves” to “discredit” candidate Png Eng Huat by the People’s Action Party (PAP), and accused them of using the “carrot and stick” approach to “coerce voters from… freedom of choice.”

“PAP said this is an honorable fight, but… they used tactics to smear our reputation,” Low charged. He was referring to a war of words that erupted, during campaigning last week, between the WP and Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Teo Chee Hean over a copy of leaked WP meeting minutes.

The minutes, which was sent anonymously to the media, showed Png in the running for his party’s vote for the Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) seat after the General Election (GE) last year. This, after Png had said in an interview that he had taken his name out of the ballot. …Following that, DPM Teo accused Png of having integrity issues and repeatedly suggested that he was not the WP’s best choice or candidate.  During the press conference, Low took aim at mainstream media outlets, saying that they had been used as a “political tool” in the PAP’s campaign….Low referred to a photo run by The Straits Times that showed Png standing behind Low and WP Chairman Sylvia Lim in an unflatteringly subservient position.

…In response to Low’s assassination comments, DPM Teo also said that he welcomed the MP for Aljunied GRC and the WP to take legal action against him. “It all came from contradictions within his own party,” added DPM Teo, who nonetheless congratulated Png on his win.

Huat’s up with this, ST?

Well, to be fair, Desmond Choo was also put in a rather ‘unflattering’ light in another ST shot below. Though that didn’t stop more than 37% of Hougang residents from giving a 34 year old man who needs the PM to chaperone him on visits a fighting chance.

PM wants you to know how ‘guai’ Desmond Choo is

ST aside, the New Paper came up with this surprisingly rockin’ shot of Png Eng Huat being drenched in the rain looking like the album cover of a K-pop superstar. He could cut an entire album in Teochew/Hokkien and still sell more records than Nat Ho.

P.E.H

The former REAR-Admiral TCH has stopped short of calling Png an outright ‘liar’, using terms like ‘have not been upfront/honest/may not be the best man for the job/contradictions’, though the PAP banked its ‘smear’ strategy on what is itself a scoundrelly move by a ‘Secret Squirrel’ within the WP ranks. Though Low doesn’t see the need to expose his traitor for now, you could expect PAP to launch a million dollar smear campaign within a smear campaign to smoke out a similar insider in their midst and deny all leaked allegations if given a chance. Then again, who needs moles and squirrels when you have the Temasek Review/Revealed/Times folks exposing your dirty laundry for you.

Smiley Squirrel has lots to smile about

Png was victorious by 62% nonetheless, mole (or squirrel?) or no mole, which means Hougang residents are either resistant to change, loyal devotees of the Low Thia Khiang ‘brand’, or have become immune to one PAP back-handed sucker punch after another. TCH calls Hougang elections ‘special’ and that the WP stronghold ‘is not representative of Singapore necessarily’.  I wonder what brand of grapes he has been eating that he has forgotten that Hougang residents are SINGAPOREANS first. So much for an ‘inclusive’ society. This calls for a timely reminder that TCH himself was propelled into office via a 1992 Marine Parade GRC by-election called by then PM Goh Chok Tong, which makes him ‘representative’ of how PAP MPs come into power. You may question what right does one have running down an opponent like Png when one never really fought the way Desmond ‘I’m my own MAN’ Choo fought for Parliament all these years. Sometimes you got to wonder if brandishing sneaky, unverified, leaked emails to gun down your opponents and using Choo as a proxy for warmongering makes one even A MAN at all. Instead of shooting one’s mouth off with nothing to lose, how about leaving Pasir Ris Punggol GRC and going man0-a-mano with WP in Hougang the next GE then? I think that would be a worthier challenge than sueing you for defamation, and one WP would gladly accept.

You guys are not ‘representative’

PAP’s trademark ‘assassination’ tactics against opponents began from their early days in power in the 60′s, when  ex-Chief Minister Tun Lim Yew Hock of the Singapore People’s Alliance was accused by none other than LKY for ‘selling planes to the Federation Government’.  Former National Development Minister Ong Eng Guan was called a ‘liar and a scoundrel’ and had ‘no character’ to be assassinated, this after someone dug out that he had a ‘multiplicity of wives’. In 2006, Low Thia Khiang was implicated in the James Gomez incident; while Wong Kan Seng and LKY were busy discrediting Gomez as a ‘liar’, LKY proceeded to comment that ‘Low had lower standards of integrity’ than Chiam See Tong.  LKY then dared the WP to ‘sue him’ for his harsh allegations (Gomez a liar, so sue us: MM Lee, 3 May 2006, Today). Just last year, the SDP was questioned if they were pursuing a ‘gay agenda’ after the PAP (namely Vivian Balakrishnan)  got hold of a Youtube video of Dr Vincent Wijeysingha speaking at a gay forum. In a nutshell, this is how PAP works when it has desperately run out of ideas to sell itself; Identify a target. Unleash your ‘research’ bots to scour Youtube, CCTVs, invoices, marriage certs, leaked emails. Bombard the media with cunning accusations on someone’s integrity, ability and personal life, sexuality if need be. Add the disclaimer ‘If you not happy, sue me lor’. Which is like the Hulk telling the birthday boy to kick him out  a party for squashing the cake. It has all the pathological signs of a high-functioning, confrontational bully with plenty of lawyer henchmen at their disposal. Finally, after 40 over years in the assassination business, the people (or the majority of Hougang at least) are no longer buying it.

Perhaps the PAP should stop thinking of Hougang as some impenetrable fortress helmed by stubborn slum-dwelling berserkers and make it their core mission to thwart the WP by hitting them where it hurts, below the belt and behind the back if necessary. So despite the PAP and ST seemingly ganging up on the Opposition, a disgraced Yaw Shin Leong apologising to remind residents of his sudden abandonment, some last minute party pooper posing as a back-up candidate, or some two-timing double-agent who knows how to tickle the PAP smear machine to orgasm, the WP still got the last laugh.

And then, there’s this, a clip that captures the essence of the 37%’s enthusiasm perfectly.

Congratulations, Png Eng Huat and WP, and may these internal shenanigans serve as rough but fruitful lessons for better governance during your reign.

Filed under: 1960s, 2000s, 2011, 2012, Campaigns/Elections, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Xiaxue taking revenge on Facebook bullies

Posted on May 25, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Blogger Xiaxue fights back against Facebook abuse’, 25 May 2012, article by Grace Chua and Jessica Lim, ST

MEN who this week called popular blogger Xiaxue a ‘stupid bimbo’ and a ‘whore’ online are getting a taste of their own medicine. She is fighting back by posting their photos and information on her blog, in an attempt to show that they do not have much of a leg to stand on in the looks and intelligence department themselves.

The furore started when photos of her with two friends, taken without permission from their blogs, surfaced on the Facebook page of political website Temasek Review on Monday, Tuesday and yesterday, with an invitation to caption them. The photos of the three – Xiaxue and her friends Qiu Qiu and Sophie – were taken at a People’s Action Party (PAP) rally in Aljunied GRC during last May’s general election. In the photo, Xiaxue, 28, and Qiu Qiu, 24, have PAP logos on their faces.

…Commenters responded to the Temasek Review’s invitation readily: ‘Cheap b****,’ said one. ‘Pretty and sexy girls, which part of Geylang they work?’, said another. To get back at them, she trawled Facebook for their photos and information – and Facebook was obliging, because many of their profiles were public.

…’She added: ‘What kind of men would say this kind of thing? Singaporean men are such bullies. They think I’m a nobody – just a random girl they can bully.’ Among the men who featured in her gallery of ‘bullies’ were several who are married with children.

…One of the victims of Xiaxue’s revenge, swim coach Lim Soon Chwee, 34, told The Straits Times last night that his comment, ‘Pretty and sexy girls, which part of Geylang they work?’ was incomplete. ‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ he said, adding that he was actually trying to defend her.

…Another man who got one back from Xiaxue, Mr Hong Xing, a 35-year-old father of one, was less forgiving, because the photo Xiaxue held up for ridicule also featured his wife and child. The engineer admitted that he had insinuated that Xiaxue was an underage prostitute, but said he preferred women in more conservative clothes.

‘Look at what she is wearing. When she bends down, you can see her breasts,’ he said, adding that he has seen prostitutes in Geylang who dress this way. He added that he might not have posted the comment if he had known she would see it, but that she should not have posted photographs of his family online. He said: ‘My wife feels really bad. This is between Xiaxue and me. She shouldn’t have attacked my family.’

This girl has a reputation of not giving a fuck, and whatever one’s position on such merciless revenge, this incident has unveiled the social cost of ridicule if you happen to step on the toes of someone immensely popular, while allowing yourself to be exposed via Facebook. Of course Xiaxue isn’t a ‘nobody’, some have even revered her as ‘a slice of Singapore’. Xiaxue.blogspot.com has even been archived by the National Library Board, somewhat like the Declaration of Independence from the National Treasure movie. A million light years from now, aliens will be downloading and translating her blog out of a time capsule and wondering what the ‘KNN’s scattered all over her posts mean.

Celebrities will be targetted from whatever portal there is available for mudslinging, should trolls choose to show their face or hide behind a cloak of anonymity. Most stars would ignore the verbal hooliganism, but Xiaxue has answered, somewhat defiantly, the ‘What if celebrities bite back?’ question. The very convenience of commenting on a Facebook  page or website without the hassle of registering and thinking of passwords has made people forget their place in cyberspace, that the target of their insults, especially one with the classic hallmarks of a narcissism complex (like everyone else who posts stuff on Facebook), is bound to find out through not just her loyal fanbase but from her haters as well. It’s time to finally figure out those privacy settings instead of checking out ex-flame photos, guys.

One could argue one has every right to throw baseless insults at the expense of people you hardly know in the name of ‘entertainment’.  In real life it’s called gossip, and celebrities used to take the slimeballing as part and parcel of the job, while some comedians do it for a living.   When a site claiming to be a ‘socio-political’ blog like TR encourages such behaviour with a seemingly innocuous ‘caption contest’, it’s obvious that you’re not going to get anything remotely ‘political’, witty or smart. I’ve seen the pic myself and all I could think of is whether one of the girls was a spokesperson for Pepsi Cola instead of a PAP supporter from the way her face was painted. One of the victims featured in the ST article even tried to deflect attention away from his prostitute insults by talking about Xiaxue’s BOOBS. It’s like you just dumped cowdung on someone’s head and then saying that you smelled like shit before that anyway. Not clever at all, man.

The web is no longer the venting channel we were once so used to where you can get away with snide, anonymous remarks, curse any saint, god, politician or grandmother you want and leave no trail behind. You could get charged for concocting hoaxes of NS men getting killed (via another ‘Temasek’ clone site), threatened for relaying some juicy tidbits about the PM’s brother(Temasek Emeritus), or blasted for inserting LOLs in all the wrong places. Hell, it’s much easier these days to get into trouble name-calling than downloading hardcore bestiality porn. Xiaxue decided to save on lawyer fees and instead dished out a characteristically bitchy mode of punishment, the online equivalent of catching a molester, pulling down his trousers, strapping him in public and having his wife and kids recoil in horror instead of calling the police. Not a pretty sight, but somehow painfully, worryingly effective. Xiaxue playing the avenging vigilante-angel card is likely to start a anti-bullying meme among blogger celebrities with a similar reputation for attracting all sorts of ‘whore’ accusations, that you’re no longer ‘pwned’ if your occupation, hobbies, innocent pets, embarrassing Bejewelled scores and ugly photos get leaked onto a revenge post, but ‘Xiaxued’. All you need are tens of thousands of followers and have a face that at least some men will get an erection to.

But isn’t Xiaxue herself guilty of flogging strangers, you say? Isn’t her meanness and sharp tongue the secret to her success ? In a 2007 post, she had a field day flaming the ’7 most disgusting bloggers in Singapore’ , victims include the hapless Steven Lim (‘overhanging foreskin with smegma’),  Maia Lee (‘loserish’) and amateurs like Celeste Chen (‘attention whore’). In an attempt at satire she put herself in the list as well. So Xiaxue, of all people, in her ‘do onto others’ element, should expect to receive the same sort of treatment from those she chooses to be nasty to.  In 2005, someone was so offended by her he/she decided to hack her very bread and butter, her blog and e-mail accounts. Over New year in 2006, a netizen petitioned against her ‘racist’ post for a remark about foreign workers (banglas) molesting local girls at Orchard Road Xmas eve/New Year parties (Netizen petitons against blog, 29 Jan 2006, ST). Rival sex kitten blogger Dawn Yang slapped her with a lawyer’s letter for ‘defamatory remarks’ in 2008 (Xiaxue won’t say sorry to Dawn’, 23 July 2008, ST).

By putting random men in the spotlight and getting their families caught in ‘friendly fire’, Xiaxue seems undeterred from past experience and may be setting herself up for another round of hater retaliation. One of these guys may even file a police report for ‘harassment’, but I suppose that’s a risk she’s willing to take, just like these slap-happy morons who compared her to Miss XXX, underaged prostitute and asked for ‘prices’ while leaving their Facebook profiles open to scrutiny from not just Xiaxue herself, but their bosses and wives as well, like sticking an ang pow over your anus before a charging bull. People have mostly good things to say about her ‘heroics’, though.  AWARE treats her like some kind of Joan of Arc now, referring to her post as ‘EPIC’, just like nearly everyone else who read it. This incident also deserves a spot on Oprah because of how ‘You Go Girl-ish!’ it has all become.

Then I read that this woman is married and it makes me suddenly realise how woefully OLD I am. Ris Low, please don’t get any ideas, wherever you are.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, Bloggers, Dress sense, Foul language, Fun and games, Nudity | Tagged: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Maids adding bodily fluids into food

Posted on May 23, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Maid charged with stirring menstrual blood into employer’s coffee’, 22 May 2012, article by Alvina Soh,  Channel News Asia

An Indonesian domestic worker was charged on Tuesday with adding her menstrual blood into her employer’s coffee cup. 24-year-old Jumiah allegedly committed the act at a residential flat early in the morning on 31 August last year.

For mischief, she could be jailed up to a year and fined.  Her case will be mentioned next week.

Sometimes it’s better to get your own damned coffee. At first glance Jumiah may be trying to get herself sacked, taking revenge against an unreasonable employer or just severely absent minded. Chances are she was taking the advice of a bomoh, that by tainting her employer with her endometrial secretions, relations would improve by some form of devilish possession. If the intention was to charm the drinker with her menses, then it’s not so much ‘mischief’ as a desperate, deluded faith in ‘black magic ‘. Yet the same disgust towards eating or drinking womb remnants doesn’t apply to local women eating placentas for youthful skin.

Cannibalising a part of another human as transference of one’s ‘essence’ is a superstition as ancient as there have been shamans and broomsticks, such as  drinking your sworn brother’s blood in a secret society initiation ritual. Christians eat a piece of their Lord and drink his blood all the time. For all its symbolic and religious associations, (menses) blood isn’t the only bodily discharge that have been used against employers. In 2009, Indonesian maid Sri Aryati added urine into drinking water in a kettle and jug. In Hong Kong, another Indonesian maid put her own urine in milk to feed a baby, with the belief that she should have ‘greater influence’ over the child by bonding through her pee. Between the two bodily fluids, urine is probably less hazardous, though I’d imagine to be equally unpalatable.

Real ‘mischief’, or even ‘attempted murder’,  occurs when maids trick owners into consuming window-cleaning solutions, mix detergent into milk powder to feed babies or switch shampoo and conditioner with household bleach. The malicious (forced) feeding of inedibles  and unmentionables goes both ways, with several instances of maids being abused by employers and forced to EAT faeces (Granny accused of making maid eat faeces, 11 April 2003, ST) or drink urine, with some bullies dishing out the worst possible humiliation by force-feeding animal dung (Pair accused of forcing maid to eat dog faeces, 19 Sept 1997, ST). If I were ever tortured and forced to choose between a menses-soaked teabag and a piece of poo, I would settle for some period-infused Earl bloody Grey in a second.

Filed under: 1990s, 2000s, 2012, Foreign workers, Superstitions, Violence | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Zeng Guoyuan’s bird abusing the police

Posted on May 16, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Zeng Guoyuan not contesting Hougang by-election’, 16 May 2012, article in Today online

Retired acupuncturist Zeng Guoyuan, who collected the political donation certificate, is not contesting the Hougang by-election. According to Mr Zeng, he was disqualified because he was fined in 2008 for a public offence. It involved the use of vulgarities when police officers entered a shophouse he was in.

Mr Zeng said it was his parrot’s “friendly, understanding, caring, kind” words that earned him a S$2,500 fine. Officials from the Election Department later clarified that Mr Zeng did not file his nomination papers. Mr Zeng tried, and failed, to contest as an independent candidate in the last General Election in May last year.

That’s PROFESSOR Zeng to you. It’s a pity that the Election Department doesn’t allow nutjobs to contest, not even solely only for sheer entertainment. I would attend the Prof’s rallies for sure, just to have a feel of what a new-age cult gathering feels like. He does fit the politician bill in some aspects though, a mastery of blame-shifting, an unwavering determination despite embarrassing himself, and the ability to wiggle his way out of wrongdoing in the calm, collected manner of a sermon like he was preaching to lesser beings.

According to his Vegetable Shampoo blog, he has an affiliation with the Medicina Alternativa Institute of Sri Lanka, which is linked to the Open International University for Complementary Medicines (U.S.S R). U.S.S.R! That alone explains everything. He addresses himself as Sen. Prof. Dr SIR Zeng Guoyuan MD, DSc, PhD in a newspaper ad featuring his 99 year old Grandfather. Yet in this 1987 article where he was fined for putting up ads claiming treatment for pain and piles, he was reported to possess only a Higher School Certificate.

He also bears an faint resemblance to Shoko Asahara from Aum Shinryoko sect, so maybe it’s not his past brushes with the law that’s preventing him from running for MP. Rather how the government is afraid that he would enslave Hougang residents through Soviet-trained brainwashing sorcery and make everyone worship a foul-mouthed parrot as a deity. He’s to politics and pseudoscience as Steven Lim is to entertainment.

In 1991, he did in fact run as a Opposition candidate for WP in Bukit Timah (Zeng Guoyuan pays up for his limo, 7 Dec 1991, ST), before getting himself charged for molesting a customer in his clinic (Former WP candidate faces molest charges, 14 April 1996). While in prison he complained of mistreatment after developing rashes on his rectum (I was mistreated in police lock-up, says acupuncturist, 29 Aug 1996, ST). In his defence, he claimed he was a ‘knight’ of St John (Accused cries in court, saying again he was set up, 4 Sept 1996, ST). Zeng eventually got jail and 4 strokes of the cane (Acupuncturist guilty, gets jail and four strokes, 14 Sept 1996, ST), though that didn’t stop him from coming out to sell more snake oil and make the ‘independent candidate’ position the turf of wacky millionaires again.

In 2009, he opened a centre in Toa Payoh, putting up Mas Selamat banners as ‘sunshades’ (and was fined) and FCUK posters (friendly, caring, understanding and kind?), where he beat African drums, sang, danced, and boxed when he’s not selling bogus shampoos. In the last GE, he turned up on Nomination Day declaring himself a ‘Muslim convert’ and that his name was ‘Mohammed Ali’, and then proceeed to rip his form to pieces. I admire the journalists for stifling their laughter.

A pantheistic guru like Zeng would probably be more successful polling in Inner Mongolia than here, where few would have the tolerance for a bizarre leader who could say ‘fuck’ is a ‘good’ word with a straight face, and then praises Allah. In fact, it’s how he defended the expletive so matter-of-factedly that makes it funny. For a by-election harangued by rumours of dissension and racism, Zeng and his vulgar parrot is a welcome dose of zany comic relief. He could talk about housing woes one moment and then time travel and reincarnation the next. Still, anyone with a parrot on his shoulder and an unpredictable streak is way more interesting to watch than a candidate  with nothing but white on his collar whose slogan you could see coming light years away.

Here’s a picture of the Professor and his feathered friend.

Filed under: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2011, 2012, Advertisements, Campaigns/Elections, Foul language, Justice system/Lawsuits, Pesky animals, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Killer Ferraris on congested roads

Posted on May 15, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Gerard Ee rejects call for curbs on fast cars’, 15 May 2012, article by Ethan Lou, My Paper

MR GERARD Ee, chairman of the Public Transport Council, has rejected calls for tougher restrictions on high-performance sports cars following the fatal three-vehicle collision in Bugis involving a Ferrari.

Instead, he blamed reckless drivers and not fast cars. “Low-performance cars can also be going at 100kmh and beat the red light,” Mr Ee told my paper last night. In a post on citizen-journalism website Stomp yesterday, a netizen known as “Ban it” proposed that high-performance sports cars be banned on congested Singapore roads.

The netizen wrote: “As a small country, should we accommodate such high-performance cars on our increasingly packed roads?”

While most Singaporeans are reeling from the shocking video, others are hurling abuse at the dead PRC speedster. The reactions from Twitter are flushed with unanimous anger towards the departed, with insults like ‘bastard’ ,’Ferrari fucker’ and terms like ‘murder’ being tossed around. A case of flogging a dead horse perhaps, but anyone who has seen how the maniac smashed into the taxi with the relentless ferocity no Michael-Bay special effects could possibly match, killing two innocent people, would be tempted to think the Ferrari driver was asking for it. It adds an ironic twist to how someone once suggested that there should be a death penalty for speeding. Taxis seem to bear the brunt of sports car collisions; In April 2011 and July 2008, taxis collided with a Lamborghini and Mitsubishi Evo 9 respectively, the latter fatal for the taxi-driver involved.

The media is still milking the tragedy dry with the expected ‘mystery nightclub hostess’ angle, hoping to reap some scandalous, poetic justice out of a terrible situation for all families involved. Taking these monsters off the road won’t help matters, and nobody who could afford to drive a Ferrari would waste it by sticking to the speed limit. Like guns Ferraris don’t kill people, drivers do. Except that while most of us yield pistols, those who could afford it go for machine guns and missile launchers. This guy was freaking Rambo, and he bit the bullet hard.

It’s easy to associate Ferrari drivers with a certain ‘fast and furious’, decadently lavish, Type A lifestyle, though some loutish towkays who pick fights with random youths may own one too. In some tragic cases, the allure of  the testosterone and adrenaline cocktail that comes with driving such cars prove too much for children of FATHERS who own them (Mazda MX-5) (Teens killed in horrific Sixth Ave  car crash, 5 June 2008, ST). Still, most owners should be familiar with the temperament of their beasts and pay extra caution on the roads BECAUSE they are Ferraris, and because they’re expensive. Ma Chi could have been an experienced racer with hardly any incident during his racing streaks, no thanks to the bewildering generosity and ‘support’ from a wife who allowed her husband to sneak out with his toy in the wee hours to break the law, oblivious to how dangerous his addiction to speed is. Even the professionals on the circuit crash and burn, and maybe this isn’t really about drunkedness, the distraction of an attractive hostess/mistress, or whether PRCs can drive, but simply horrible luck; You can totally trash a sports car but still end up unhurt, while your passenger gets killed all because of you.

In 2010, Regan Lee lost control of a Mazda MX-5 during a test drive, and the car ‘flew over the road divider, smashed head-on into a black BMW, flipped over it and crashed down into a van in the other lane’ – an orgy of wanton destruction. You would have thought the guy would have been pulverised to bits, but he emerged unscathed. His female passenger, on the hand, was killed and all he got was a driving suspension. Maybe these guys were playing Stare and Drive,  like what the folks from Fast and Furious do to impress girls.

Filed under: 2012, Foreign workers, Fun and games, Funerals/Death, Motorists, PRCs, Taxi drivers, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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