The Irony of trains, wires and fares

Happened to glance at ChannelNewsAsia (CNA) yesterday, reading the little news blurbs that scroll across the screen. One of the first I noticed was how the train service along the North-East Line (NEL) line of our mass transit system was disrupted since about 1pm due to a wire fault. My thoughts were, "Sigh, once again."

Then most interestingly, one of the blurbs following reported that SMRT was proposing to raise its taxi and train fare. What a most unfortunate coincidence.

True, the NEL line is run by SBS Transit, not SMRT. Nonetheless, I don't think the everyday passenger would not notice details like this. And it's certainly understandable. I'm fortunate to drive (but don't get me started on the CTE jams) but I can remember what it was like to have to take public transport everywhere. To have your travel plans disrupted by train failure on one hand then told that the fare prices are being increased on the other hand just doesn't gel.

I recall a while ago, a driver who lost control of his car drove onto the railway tracks between Yio Chu Kang and Khatib MRT stations. The resultant disruption caused massive train disruptions and road jams on Lentor Ave for many hours during the evening peak hours. He was eventually fined for the disruption to the traffice. My question is - shouldn't train operators similarly be fined for disruptions to the train service? What costs to the economy when the trains break down like this? Wouldn't that serve as an incentive for these companies to clean up their act and be more vigilant?

(Another) Reason Why We Shouldn't Have Religion...

Yes, many would accuse me of being ungodly with such a statement. And I hope I don't get hit with the Sedition Act, but sometimes, events around me just make me question, objectively, whether religion has benefited the world at large or not.

I mean, I have great respect for many religious individuals, and the individual good that they do can indeed be very inspiring, and sometimes nationally, as evidenced by people like Mother Theresa.

Yet, organised religion seems to overwhelm and negate all these individual good being done on a day by day basis.

What sparked off this chain of thought? Well, as of now, Israel has just murdered 352 people in Lebanon, most of them innocent civilians. Israel has declared an all out war against Lebanon, firing missiles indiscriminately into civilian areas, and last I've heard, have started invading the country.

And what does the rest of the world do? Discuss what sanctions to impose on North Korea for firing a few dud missiles into the sea.

Might I add that this is led by the US.

I can't help but ask myself what would it be like with organised religion. Israel wouldn't have gotten the strong support of the US, through aid and other support, with the strong support of the Christian Right group there. Actually, without religion, Jews would have been absorbed into the surrounding people thousands of years ago after their kingdom fell. Genetically, Jews have largely been indistinguishable from the community they live with, then with each other.

Many of you would say that it is not the fault of religion, that it is the result of politics. But would politics have the power to generate that kind of devastating power without religion?

I Am Singaporean

This is inspired by the "I Am Singaporean" project by Mr Brown (http://mrbrown.com) and Mr Miyagi (http://miyagi.sg).

My name is kuey, because that's a play on my name, and also because I like eating kueys.

When I was young, I loved eating the kau teng kuey, or the nine-layered kuey. I used to peel them off layer by layer when I eat them. Nowadays though, I just munch them up.

I lived in a one-bedroom apartment until I was 10. My dad got to sleep on the queen-size bed in the bedroom, while my mom, my gor and I slept in the living room. We had to lay our mattresses out every night and keep them every morning. I was very happy sleeping and rolling around on the floor then, and I don't understand why now, I need a queen-size bed all to myself.

I am the son of a once odd-job worker turned full-time taxi-driver, and a housewife turned housewife cum factory-worker. We were very poor but I was happy. I sometimes wish though that my mom didn't have to abort my younger sibling. I know it still hurts her sometimes.

And ma, even though I'm not home very often, and even though we don't talk very much, I will be eternally grateful for the sacrifices you have made. Even though you infuriate me sometimes, I will never forget that you gave up your life so that I can have mine.

I know you don't approve of my dear even though you haven't met him. Even though he infuriates me sometimes, too, I love him very much. And I know he loves me very much, too. We have been together more than a year, and we still have a long way more to go.

I am more than 30 years old already, and I still haven't voted. I am disappointed that the Parliament is closed till November, and I am wondering why we are paying the MP I didn't choose to take a 8 month holiday.

Actually, I'm forgetting whom my MP is.

My name is kuey. I have a blog and I am anonymous, because my career would suffer if I am not.

I am Singaporean. Although I can choose to live anywhere else, I don't. This is where I grew up, this is where my parents will live the rest of their lives, this is where my friends are, and this is where I want to spend my life with my dear.

For better or worse, this is my home.

Civil Servants in the Clouds

I had recently started reading regularly the blogs of various well-known bloggers. Yes, terribly behind times but busy lah...

Must say that I was quite surprised and, I must say, flabbergasted, to read the reply of Ms Bhavani, the Press Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, on July 03, 2006 in response to Mr Brown's article on Today on 30 Jun, 2006. The details can be found at Mr Brown's blog site (http://www.mrbrown.com/) or specifically to the blog article (http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/letter_from_mic.html).

I can accept that the results of the General Household Survey (GHS) were only available after the GE. The survey was started in Mar 05, and I think ran til Jun 05. I can Having been involved in mass surveys like this previously, I do know how long it can take to consolidate findings and prepare the report, so I would give SingState the benefit of the doubt. (I mean, the Household Expenditure Survey (HES) was conducted between Oct 02 to Sep 03, and the results was released in Jun 05, so the GHS was actually quite fast!)

However, I have some issues with this line from Ms Bhavani:
But similar data from the Household Expenditure Survey had been published last year before the election.

I decided to take time out to go through the HES (you can, too, at http://www.singstat.gov.sg/press/hes.pdf), especially para 14-19. I quote the following from the report:

• All households, including those in lower income groups, have achieved a higher standard of living during 1993 - 2003.
• For example, after taking into account the rebates and waivers on rent and utilities... , per capita income of households in all the quintile income groups registered positive rates of growth between 1998 to 2003.
• The per capita income of households in the lowest quintile income group which registered a decline of 1.6 per cent per annum during the same period, showed a gain of 0.1 per cent per annum after rebates and ERS were taken into consideration.

Compare this with the GHS report (http://www.singstat.gov.sg/press/ghs2.pdf), especially para 12-17):

• Compared with 2000, the average household income from work declined for households in the 2nd and 3rd decile group in 2005.

I don't know about you but the impression I got from the HES and GHS are quite different. True, both seemed to have presented the same facts, but the connotations between the two seem quite different. The GHS is definitely more stark in terms of how badly the poor are doing in terms of income. Specifically, the 2nd decile group's income dropped by 4.3% while the 3rd decile group's dropped 0.5% between 2000 to 2005. (The 1st decile group's average monthly household income dropped from $90 to $0.) And based on what I can understand from the Annexes, I believe these have not accounted for inflation (although I can't be 100% sure).

My other main concern is with this line:
It confirmed what we had told Singaporeans all along, that globalisation would stretch out incomes.

I find this line may be underplaying the issue - the GHS clearly indicates not just a stretching of income, but that the poor are actually getting poorer in real terms. It is not simply just the rich making money at a faster rate than the poor.

My other issues with her reply are more general, and really just a matter of difference.

• poured sarcasm on many issues - Can't a intellectual article be couched in sarcasm to more effectively highlight the issues?
• He offers no alternatives or solutions - Must a careful analysis of problems also bring up possible solutions or lose credibility? (This reminds me of the now-infamous slap on the wrist Ms Catherine Lim got quite a few years ago.)
• It is not the role of journalists or newspapers in Singapore to champion issues - (Notice the mention of "in Singapore".) Why not? When journalists write pieces to champion greater accessibility for the disabled and elderly, are they wrong? How do you write an opinion piece without championing issues?
• he is no longer a constructive critic, but a partisan player in politics - Does criticising the Government or some of its actions become a political action? When did the Government = party politics?

And of course, my biggest issue against her reply was this:
And he should come out from behind his pseudonym to defend his views openly.

Anyone who takes the trouble to just visit mr brown's blog site would know that he has never hidden behind his pseudonym. I can excuse the average reader of the Today to not bother doing this but for the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, the very Ministry in charge of the medium that he works on, it seems quite bizarre. Could the Ministry be totally unaware of that he quite openly posts his name and face pictures (including pictures of his adorable children)?

From what I know about the civil service, replies to this would usually be first crafted by a junior staff, which would then be cleared up succeeding levels, and it would like reach the Permanent Secretary (the highest level civil servant), and perhaps even the Minister. I wouldn't know how far this reply might have reached in the Ministry before clearing for release, but it would definitely would have gone through a number of hands. And none of them know that mr brown is not actually anonymous?

The Gay Gene?

There was a brief discussion on Signel a while ago on the biological causes of homosexuality and I posted this.

I think that homosexuality survives only BECAUSE it aids a particular species. Otherwise, it would been discarded by evolution long ago. Someone posted an article a while ago on the theory of homosexuality's role in strengthening social bonds. Although that is true in many animals, e.g. bonobo chimpanzees, I'm personally not quite sure this is the primary reason, or was it simply a evolutionary development that got tapped on for other uses. (This is not uncommon in evolution - scientists postulate that wings of birds evolved first as a tool for heat regulation, for example.)

Those of you who have read Richard Dawkin's Selfish Gene would be familiar with his theory of how altruistic behaviour (e.g. female meerkats staying celibate to look after their nieces and nephews) can arise out of "selfish" genes, i.e. genes whose primary purpose is to seek to replicate into next generations. Essentially, it rests upon the fact that genes that occur in a particular animal is also likely to reside in their relatives, and this probability increases the closer the relationship.

My take is that something similar has ensured that homosexuality has survived to this day. Genes that causes an animal to be exclusivelyhomosexual would make no evolutionary sense since they would never reach the next generation but genes that causes an animal to be homosexual a certain X% of the time, or causes X% of the populationto be homosexual all the time (or some other combination in between) could survive and propagate, provided that this gives these genes a higher chance of survival into next generation. Especially for animals that live in close proximity with their relatives and/or in areas that face resource constraint, even if the gay animal doesn't take care of the offsprings of its relatives, a few animals giving up the chance for reproduction can greatly reduce the dangers of overpopulation and its resultant environment depletion in the locality of the species. Environment depletion due to overpopulationis seldom gradual - it usually occurs after being apparently stable for some time until pushed past the tipping point following which everything comes crashing down. (Thus the reason for concern by many environmentalists.) Thus, my theory is that the genes that predisposes some homosexual behaviour provides a pressure relief for overpopulation.

This would also work for genes that predisposes animals to asexuality, and this does occur in nature, e.g. celibate meerkats, worker termites (i.e. other than the queen), but it is probably easier to subvert a particular evolutionary development (in this case sex drive) than to de-evolve it. Besides, sex drive is still needed in general to propagate the species. Of course, there could be other benefits to the genes, e.g. increasing social bonds, gay animals who do take care of the children of their relatives, but to me, it seems that population control would be the primary reason. It appears that the prevalence of homosexuality is higher for social animals (i.e. animals that live in close proximity with each other), and also higher when animals are placed in caged settings (simulating limited environmental resources - how would the genes know that the animals they reside in are actually being artificially fed). For example, among the apes, homosexual behaviour is much less reported for gorillas, where each troup consists of a dominant male and his harem occupying a large territory with the other males roaming separately between unclaimed territories, as compared to bonobo chimpanzees, an extremely social species of ape.