The Great Disruption vs The Big Shift

There's so much stuff out there today.

If I had all the time in the world, I would be writing a long posting. So, to keep it fairly short, I'll just point out two thought-provoking commentaries from the New York Times.

In the first piece, Maureen Dowd uncovers the interesting family background of Steve Jobs... that he was an adopted child, that his biological father (still alive) is a naturalised Muslim Syrian, that he has a sister whom he finally met in adulthood, and more. Here's the link to Dowd's article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/prosperos-tempestuous-family.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

The second piece is by Thomas Friedman. He tries to figure out why there is so much social unrest today. It has spread beyond the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street (New York), Occupy Washington DC, etc, movements in America.

He then taps into two current hypotheses. The first -- The Great Disruption -- is what Friedman calls "threat-based" ie people everywhere have become despairing of the capitalist system, seeing it as serving only the top one per cent (hence the charge of corporate greed), abetted by colluding, or even conniving, or hapless governments. The world order is being threatened with self-destruct.

The second view -- The Big Shift -- is "opportunity-based". To quote Friedman:

"In the early stages, we experience this Big Shift as mounting pressure, deteriorating performance and growing stress because we continue to operate with institutions and practices that are increasingly dysfunctional -- so the eruption of protest movements is no surprise.

"Yet, the Big Shift also unleashes a huge global flow of ideas, innovations, new collaborative possibilities and new market opportunities. This flow is constantly getting richer and faster. Today...  tapping the global flow becomes the key to productivity, growth and prosperity. But to tap this flow effectively, every country, company and individual needs to be constantly growing their talent."

Friedman is optimistic that, either way, global social meltdown can be averted. He concludes:

"...while the Great Disruption is inevitable, humanity is best in a crisis, and, once it all hits, we will rise to the occasion and produce transformational economic and social change (using tools of the Big Shift).... the Great Disruption may be barrelling down on us, but... the Big Shift has also created a world where more people than ever have the tools, talent and potential to head it off."

Here's the link to Friedman's article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

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Will mass social unrest hit Singapore as well? I think all the issues that have made Singaporeans unhappy -- from the widening income gap (yes, we have our own "one per cent" too!) to the presence of foreigners -- are a potential powder-keg.

I think too that the PAP government buys into the optimism of the Big Shift hypothesis while also not discounting the social dislocations that the Great Disruption can wreak. But there are realities it cannot wish away -- that there will be winners and losers, that meritocracy and policy offsets can only do so much, that vested interests especially among the elite cannot be wished away albeit attempts can be made to mitigate them (openly and discreetly), etc, etc.

That's why the ruling elite keeps talking about the "new normal" in politics here since the May 2011 general election. The latest buzz phrase is "a more inclusive society". What has emerged is a slicker government PR machinery: from the political leaders to the bureaucrats who deal with the public, there must be no discordant message. Opinion makers, like a certain law academic, are the preferred non-government voices.

I could go on, but I promised to keep my posting today fairly short.

Some headliners, and that darn dangling participle again!

Confucius say...
I forgot to include these yesterday.
-- War not determine who is right; war determine who is left.
--  Passionate kiss like spider web; soon the fly is undone.
-- He who make Confucious joke English not so good.

Great headlines...

I admit, as a Beatles fan, that I'm biased but I simply love this headline in ST Life! (11 Oct, page C10):

The story also said another (unnamed) newspaper, in reporting Sir Paul's new marriage, had this lovely headline: "Yes-today".

ST has, apart from the one above, been having a good crop of headlines:

"Spas open 24 hours to meet customers' kneads" (10 Oct, page B1)
"Ad ab-solutely by the book... Billboard put up only after BCA okay: A&F" (8 Oct, page A14).

A cheeky headline...
New Paper (last Sunday's edition) can get away with this one; I doubt if ST can:

And a strange ST headline:



This headline above appeared in last Saturday's ST (8 Oct), as part of its special report on Singapore's prison service. It is kind of surreal to call our prisons the "world's best"! I can almost hear the prisoners exclaiming, "It's a great life here, so give me life!". Oh, boy.

And still dangling...

I wish the sub-editors can really spot dangling participles. This glaring one is from the page one lead today (ST, 11 Oct, "Govt pledges better life for all"):

"Having done well in strengthening racial and religious harmony, Dr Tan said Singapore must now try hard to prevent a new fault line from forming..."

We can achieve zero tolerance with regard to dangling participles because they are so easily correctable, as in this rendition:

"Dr Tan said that Singapore, having done well in strengthening racial and religious harmony, must now try hard to prevent a new fault line from forming...".

Confucius say...

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) reportedly said, "Let China sleep; when she wakes, she will shake the world."

Fast forward to today. Both China and Taiwan mark 10 Oct as the day in 1911 when the Chinese people overthrew the Qing Dynasty as well as the yoke of feudalism. Unfortunately for the Nationalists (KMT), the Communists (CCP) swept them out to Taiwan in 1949.

Today -- 10 Oct 2011 -- marks the centennial of China's Republican Revolution led by Dr Sun Yat Sen.

Listening to the words of today's CCP leaders, one senses their quiet confidence in the veracity of Bonaparte's prediction.

Chinese President Hu Jintao said, "To achieve the great revival (emphasis mine) of the Chinese nation, we must certainly firmly uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party."

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So, if China's leaders can help it, liberalisation into a "two-party" system merely means one on Friday night and one on Saturday night! Work hard the rest of the work-week, comrades! (Actually, this joke has been attributed to the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping but I doubt if he had such a humorous bent).

Having dug up some Russian-themed jokes yesterday, I thought it would be fun to do likewise with some Chinese ones. Most "Confucius say" jokes are over-the-top corny but I think these here just about make the pass grade:

Confucius say...
If you want pretty nurse, you got to be patient.
Man with athletic finger make broad jump.
When called an idiot sometimes better to be quiet than open mouth and remove all doubt.
Man who runs in front of car gets tired. [note: this works only with American spelling]
Man who runs behind car gets exhausted.
Man who drives like Hell soon gets there.
Man who gets hit by car will have that run-down feeling.

This next joke is attributed to Ronald Reagan:
How do you tell someone is a communist? He reads Marx and Lenin.
How do you tell someone is an anti-communist? He understands Marx and Lenin.

What about Mao Zedong jokes? I thought this one is pretty good...
Where is Mao buried? In a MAOsoleum!

Then there is that classic Bush-era joke in which Condi Rice tells Bush "Hu is President of China" which made Dubya angry because he didn't like her to answer his question with a question (I had posted this one in a much earlier posting).

Last one...
Three men are standing on a street corner. A news reporter comes up to them.
"What is your opinion of the meat shortage?"
The American: What is shortage?
The Russian: What is meat?
The Chinese: What is opinion?
[This is not true, of course. Many netizens in China are bravely voicing their opinions on social media.]

Russian/Putin jokes

There is a genre of jokes loosely called "Russian jokes". Given the country's tumultuous history, the Tsarist era, Soviet-era and post-Soviet era jokes can be poignant.

I still recall this one from the musical Fiddler on the Roof (the context is Tsarist persecution of Jews):

*A villager asks the visiting Rabbi: Is there a prayer we can say for the Tsar?
Rabbi: Yes, of course, that may he be kept far, far, away from this place. 

Then there is this Soviet-era joke:

*A professor is invited to a mental asylum to give a lecture about how great communism is. At the end of the presentation, he gets a resounding applause from the packed audience. But one man stands silently, with his arms folded.
The academic asks him, "Why aren't you clapping too?"
The man replies: "I'm still sane. I work here."

In post-Soviet Russia, strongman Vladimir Putin served two terms as president and because the Constitution disallows him from an unbroken third term, he arranged for his prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, seen by most Russians as a political wimp, to become the "seat-warmer" president while Mr Putin became prime minister for a term.

Well, the Russian presidential election is due again in March next year. The prospect of Putin becoming -- once again, for the third time -- Russia's next president has generated a slew of Putin-themed jokes.

I found, online, these three jokes (and have updated the third one):

* Stalin's ghost appears to Putin in a dream, and Putin asks for his help in running the country.
Stalin says, "Round up and shoot all your opponents, and then paint the inside of the Kremlin blue."
Putin: "Why blue?"
"Ha!" says Stalin. "I knew you wouldn't ask me about the first part."

*Putin goes to a restaurant with Medvedev and orders a steak.
The waiter asks, "And what about the vegetable?"
Putin answers, "The vegetable will have steak too."

*Putin and Obama are fishing on the Volga River. After half an hour Obama complains, "Vladimir, I'm getting bitten like crazy by mosquitoes, but I haven't seen a single one bothering you."
Putin: "They know better than that."

More recently, AFP filed a story that said new Putin jokes are making the rounds ahead of next year's  vote, and with many Russians fearing that he will remain in power for two more six-year terms until
2024. By that time he would be 72 and the longest-serving Moscow leader since dictator Joseph Stalin.

Here are a selection of the fresh Putin jokes:

*Q: Who are you going to vote for: Putin or Putin?
  A: I’m so sick of them all, I’ll vote for Putin.

*February 2012, a sign on the wall of a polling station says: “Sunday, March 4 is the date for the election of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

*Hello, you’ve reached Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. If you wish to speak to Dmitry Anatolyevich (Medvedev), press “two.”

*A referendum in 2012 asks: Do you agree to give another term to: 1) Vladimir Putin; 2) (Jailed oligarch) Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Vladimir Putin: “I am fine with both.”

Going bananas in Oz...

I'm posting here some pics from my Oz trip. First one is of this bunch of bananas...

What's so special about it? Have I gone bananas? Yes, I forgot I was not in Singapore... after the supermart checkout girl had keyed in the transaction, I found I had to fork out A$5.50 for this very ordinary bunch of five bananas (A$1.10 each!).

Next, Oz is a big country, and Aussies are big on many things. So this sign is believable:

They don't just have big bedlinen; they have massive ones. How about this next snapshot, to rival that titilating A&F poster ad on Orchard Road -- if it were to take up as huge a space:

That pic was taken at a factory outlet mall. I bought a shirt there, which has this label on the inside with typically Aussie sense of humour:

 
On the way out of the mall was this sign. Hmmm, with what...

Last one... is this where screwed-up people finally have a ball of a time? I wouldn't know... I merely stood outside to snap the pic:

Keeping things in perspective, be it about Singapore or stuff happening.

I'm back from my Oz trip, and was catching up on the newspapers before going off to work.

ST carried a commentary article by Canadian journalist Neil Reynolds, headlined "In Singapore, it's save and be saved" (7 Oct, page A34). Some of his statements are inaccurate or debatable but the figures he cites are spot-on and sobering. Among them:

"...in 1959, Singapore was an impoverished Third World island nation with all the filth and fever that stagnant sewage ensures in a densely populated city (population: one million) of slums. Per-capita GDP then was US$400.

"In the 50 years since, Singapore’s nominal per-capita GDP growth has signalled its astonishing advance: in 1990, US$12,000; in 2000, US$22,000; in 2010, US$50,000 – or, expressed in terms of purchasing power, US$62,000. This ranks Singapore as the fifth highest in the world, well ahead of the United States (in 11th place with per-capita GDP of US$47,200) and Canada (in 22nd place with per-capita GDP of US$39,400).

"Boston Consulting Group says Singapore has more millionaires, relative to population, than any other country in the world: 15.2 per cent of all households have more than US$1-million of personal assets “under active management,” which means that house values aren’t counted."

Here is the original Globe and Mail article (ST's version seemed to have some missing bits):

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/in-singapore-its-save-and-be-saved/article2182024/?service=mobile

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There are also some quotable quotes in today's ST:

"Cinderella's not going to the ball, so Republican voters are going to have to settle for one of her ugly sisters." -- political pundit Mark McKinnon on US rightwing darling Sarah Palin's decision to not make a bid for the 2012 US presidential election.

"It was very painful, and I felt like I was being chainsawed in the stomach, with hot sauce on the chainsaw." -- contestant Curie Kim on how she felt while taking part in a curry eating contest in Edinburgh, Scotland. She came in second.

"Every family has a black sheep. You wouldn't kill the entire family because of that." -- Hort Park and Southern Ridges assistant director Wendy Seah on having to keep a sense of perspective, following a recent attack by a rogue alpha male macaque monkey on three people at the park.

'In case of fire, exit building before tweeting about it'

Gary Hayden has responded, with regard to my summary yesterday of his article in Thursday's Mind Your Body supplement. Here is his much appreciated comment:

"Actually, I didn't mean to imply that the third option is the preferred one. I think that all three responses may have their place -- depending on the circumstances and the individuals involved. The title, 'Insults are Best Ignored', wasn't mine."

Thanks for the clarification, Gary.

It's been a long day (and night) at the office for me, so I'll wrap up with three quirky signs. The first is this "in case of fire" sign that Tom sent me:

This next one was spotted on the cabin ceiling of the cruise ship I was in earlier this year. I guess there must have been passengers who tried to hook clothes hangers onto the sprinkler:

This last one is typical Singlish, from the collection of my son-in-law Mike's sister:

PS: I'm off for a short overseas trip. Will resume blogging next Saturday or Sunday night.