P.R.O.G.R.E.S.S.

I received my Progress Package - a government handout/sweetener today, and realized that it has the most ridiculous acronym I have seen in acronym-overdose Singapore. Providing Opportunities through Growth, Remaking Singapore for Success. What a bunch of bullcrap. The civil servant who came up with it must have thought that it was such a brilliant idea!

I hate to be in Singapore during the election time. I have such a strong distaste for local politics and the shenanigan/vote-buying tactics by local politicians that my guts feel all wretched and tight for days. It was like when I saw the election results of the American Presidential election and George Bush was re-elected. I was so disgusted and upset that I almost cried. I wanted to run out of my apartment and scream at the world, or at least go find some people who share my same political views and curse about Republican politics.

Elections should be coming soon. I can't wait to get out of this country.

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Film Review: Failure to Launch, Transamerica, R.E.N.T and why Brokeback is a great film

Failure to Launch: A surprisingly intelligent film with a witty script, Failure to Launch satirizes the American culture phenomenon of young adults who refuse to move out of their parents' homes. Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey are perfectly casted as lovers whom audience members can only fantasize to be. Unfortunately, such romantic comedies never depart from their saccharine sentiments and formulaic happy endings that are mandatory of the genre, making it an enjoyable escape from real life for two hours but nothing much else.

R.E.N.T: Director Chris Columbus of Harry Potter and Home Alone fame deviates from his usual repertoire to take on the gritty story of a desperate community of gays, artists and AIDS sufferers in NYC. Having seen the original musical, the edgy and emotive power of the book loses its energy through this cinematic translation. Dull and unimaginative, much of the film feels perfunctory in just showcasing the song sequences.

Transamerica: This is a travelling road film that follows the physical and emotional journey of a man-to-woman transsexual who is awaiting her sex-change operation. Felicity Huffman and her co-star son shine with much warmth and humanity to make the film watchable and believable. However, the script is riddled with cliches (e.g. delinquent son who turns gay because of sexual abuse in the South) and conventions that saddle the film with more emotional fluffs than effective punches.

And that is when I realized how monumental Brokeback Mountain is as a film of our times.

Brokeback is a highly accomplished film, depicting a tough subject matter with much grace and dignity. Having seen Transamerica, which deals with a somewhat similar theme of alternative gender issues, Brokeback stands out as a impressive and challenging work that is in a class of its own.

Transamerica is an example of Queer Cinema - films that deal with alternative gender lifestyles, their hopes and struggles. It categorically fits into this type of cinema by using very traditional narrative methods as a catalyst. Road movies that symbolize a pyschological journeys of the characters are trite devices that conform to one-track linear narratives. With its series of supporting characters to inject some colour and comic elements, Transamerica resorts to pedestrian storytelling techniques to elevate the sympathetic status of its marginalized protagonist. In dealing with a topic as complex and contested as gender reassignment, the filmmakers of Transamerica choose the safest route of sugar-coating the realities of the issue to make this a palatable and unmemorable film.

In comparison, Brokeback is a more matured film that never conforms. Ang Lee pushes and challenges the taboo topic of homosexuality in the homophobic setting of the American cowboy western. In theme, Brokeback re-mythologizes the constructed image of the cowboy, insinuating in the most subtle of touches the personal and emotional depth of this American icon, personified in the lead characters. The film is grand in its scope (geographically and temporally) but most personal in its treatment. It never betrays the spirit of Annie Proulx's short story by claiming to speak for anybody else except for Jake and Ennis. The drama of Brokeback is most restrained and refined, with its supporting actors adding insights to the protagonists lives and they act as cultural barometers of the time

As described by a classmate of mine, Queer Cinema are films made not for gay people, but for their parents, as a way for the latter to negotiate and come to terms, in a scrubbed down manner, to alternative lifestyles. Brokeback Mountain, on the contrary, is a film that is true to its subject, which is the bittersweet affairs of love and life both fulfilled and left wanting.

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You're not good at any one thing

Your Birthdate: January 23

You're not good at any one thing, and that's the problem. You're good at so much - you never know what to do. Change is in your blood, and you don't stick to much for long. You are destined for a life of travel and fun. Your strength: Your likeability Your weakness: You never feel satisfied Your power color: Bright yellow Your power symbol: Asterisk Your power month: May

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

So when does my life of fun begin?

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MediaWatch

# The Body Shop has sold (out) itself to French cosmetics conglomerate L'Oreal. The Body Shop - well known for its anti-animal testing stance and belief in community trade, will retain its identity and management. L'Oreal is not known for any ethical commitment and still carries out product testing on animals.

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MediaWatch

New forum site - Yesterday.sg allows internet users to communicate anecdotes of our social and physical history. Set up by a group of heritage and blogging enthusiasts who have joined hands with National Heritage Board and the staff of other museums, the site was first highlighted to the blogsphere incidentally by Tomorrow.sg.

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New MRT Lines coming your way

LTA has unveiled plans for new Bukit Timah MRT (BTL) and Eastern Regional MRT Lines (ERL). The Straits Times reported that LTA has began preliminary work on the two lines.

The BTL will link Upper Bt Timah to the city and is scheduled to be completed around 2016. The ERL will loop around the Jalan Besar and East Coast areas and may be completed after 2020.

On-going projects include the Boon Lay Extension (2 new stations) which will be completed by 2009 and the Circle Line which will be fully completed in 2010.

What is next? The Thomson Line, the equivalent of the CTE for trains to transverse north-south. Time to buy a house near Thomson Road?

Eventually, there will be more than 540km of rail lines, more than the 408km of the London's Tube system.

Estimated rail ridership will go up to 1.5 million a day when the Circle Line is up. This unfortunately still pales in comparison to the 2.1 million bus ridership figure. Perhaps the government should be investing more money on bus facilities (e.g. bus lanes, bus terminals, handicap-access buses, NextBus information, longer running hours etc).

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Singapore Budget 2006

Key facts of the debate which ended last week.

Operating revenue for Singapore government - Fiscal Year 2006 projected at $29 billion.
This is an increase of 5.4% from previous FY2005.
Total expenditure projected to be $30.6 billion, a 6.1% increase.

This means a budget deficit of $2.9 billion. This is the largest budget deficit in more than 20 years!

Special transfers include $2.6 billion, going into the Progress Package. Remember that in 2001, during the country's worst post-independence recession, the handout was only $2.1 billion. Does it sound like a election budget or what?

MINDEF budget of $10 billion is up 8.5% from previous year.

Ministry of National Development budget is $1.24 billion, down 8.3% from previous year.

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MediaWatch

# Trader Joe's opens first branch in New York City on March 17.

# Rather accomplished local short film, Hosaywood even has a professional-looking website. The director has quite a good eye for camera framing and editing and very persuasive story-telling, and with very confident action sequences. Best local film I have seen this year. Highly recommended.

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SinGov: No Mandatory Rest Days for Maids

Singapore government cites families with "special needs" as the reason not to legislate mandatory off days for domestic maids. MP Mr Hawazi explains these special needs as coming from some elderly and the infirm who needs constant attention.

Choosing to cater to a very small minority (elderly and the infirm who needs constant attention and cannot be taken care of by their families) as an excuse to deny the rights of other human beings is horrific. This reason fails to justify to any degree why such laborers are not protected and given equal rights as other laborers. It shows a misplaced sympathy only for those who are receiving the care of the maids. This is a selfish and bigoted response to ensuring that the costs of taking care of the elderly and maintaining a nuclear family (so that all working adults can be dutifully employed to oil the economic machinery) are only taken at the expense of our so called foreign talent. This is why Singapore will never become a first world country.

Singapore: Domestic Workers Suffer Grave Abuses
Ministry of Manpower Statement on the report

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Sustainability and Singapore

I recently got my hands on the book Sustainability and Cities, by Dr Ooi Giok Leng of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). An extract:

The primacy of economic objectives in environmental planning [in Singapore] is evident in four ways.

First, the government has been reluctant to implement EIA (environmental impact assessment) legislation, although the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources has claimed that there is an internal process which assesses the environmental impact of all development projects that require its planning and building or construction approval... The government's reluctance to legislate EIAs has also been attributed to the concern that they would hinder the progress of economic development.

Second, nature is also incorporated into the development schema because of its economic value such as for tourism or a recreational resource. Hence, nature is more often than not confined to "carefully selected sanctuaries" such as nature reserves...

Third, the areas that have been designated as Nature Areas in the Concept Plan have, technically speaking, little legal status. This means that they are not protected against disturbance or development if there are other competing uses of national and strategic interest which arise from time to time. Indeed, this has been the experience since the 1960s. The only remaining primary rainforest nature reserve that had been linked to a mature secondary rainforest reserve was effectively divided into two by an expressway that was built in the 1980s. This development decision was made by the Ministry of National Development, the ministry which also administers the work of nature conservation. Thus, the conservation and preservation of such areas has always been qualified by planning authorities as a status that will remain for as long as possible. The trend therefore has been to treat nature reserves like the city's land bank to be drawn on for development whenever the need arises.

Fourth and most importantly, the government tends to equate the gains from pollution control with "conservation" effort and "sustainable development". According to Hilton and Manning (1995) this is erroneous. While the government argues that the "cleaning and greening" of Singapore have created an aesthetically pleasing environment, others argue that the physical changes which occured have been "at the expense of the indigenous terrestrial and marine habitats, ecological health, and indigenous biota" (Savage 1992, p. 207)

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The Simpsons - Live Action

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Crash-ing the Brokeback Party

The 78th Oscars Ceremony was held this evening at Hollywood and Highland. The biggest surprise came when Crash won for Best Picture, beating pundit's favorite Brokeback Mountain. You can see the surprise on everyone's face for a good few minutes after Jack Nicholson announced the winner of the biggest prize of the night.

Frankly, I just saw Munich this past weekend, and thought that that was the best film in contention tonight.

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Gerrymandering Begins

The 2006 Electoral Boundaries are out.

Looks like my ward will remain a PAP stronghold. Yea, now I can look forward to more sheltered walkways and lifts that stop at every floor - all the things that are important in my life.

Paging for Mr Jeyaratnam...

ST Interactive - THE latest report on electoral boundaries sees surprisingly few major changes, unlike in past elections. Hot seat Aljunied GRC, where the Workers' Party has been active for four years and which the party has said it will contest, remains.

The biggest change is in single seats. Bukit Timah and Ayer Rajah will no longer be single seats. They have been merged into the renamed Holland-Bukit Timah GRC and West Coast GRC respectively.

Two new single seats have been created, which could well see two relative People's Action Party (PAP) newcomers face off against opposition contenders. As in previous elections, GRCs helmed by senior ministers grew larger.

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City Lights

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Kohn Pedersen Fox - MGM Mirage

Just heard the news last night. MGM Mirage has revealed their architects for the IR bid. Kohn Pedersen Fox, creators of utilitarian architecture and giant box complex such as Roppongi Hills and Shanghai World Financial Centre, are currently also the architects for the next biggest project for the Marina Bay waterfront - the Business and Financial Centre (BFC). Perhaps URA should just hand over the entire Marina Bay to PDF for them to design our entire skyline.

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