BE AWARE

Aware of AWARE?

On aware-ness.
Before I write this, I like to say that I am a “man” trapped in a male body, am not a AWARE member, and is not a Christian as well. The reason I am writing this is because I am a fan of my NUS lecturer, Nirmala, who specializes in the subject of Sex and Gender. This ex-teacher-student relationship by no means warrants my similar stance to her because she gave me a C+ grade (reason cited being I am too philosophical)for that module, which I am still bitter about until now.

If you find my line of arguments reminiscence of C.S.Lewis, you are right. I am reading “Mere Christianity” written by him at the moment but that does not make me a Christian.
In fact, I am going to make it ironical by applying his trains of thoughts to make my secular points across. The argument below is based on common sense of two hypothetical scenarios thrown in lights of comparison. Wow! Common Sense! Something I find missing nowadays.

On lesbianism
Lesbian-ism, like Buddh-ism and rac-ism, very much deserves a "ism" behind them. Imagine now, we have two females in a relationship in the same parallel universe with a heterosexual couple. Suddenly, “Butch” the abusive gal turns violent on “Mutch” the victimized female in the lesbian relationship. Right about the same time for the heterosexual couple, the man whose profession is a butcher, with his waving chopper in one hand, starts to chase after his the other female half. The key victim is the subjugated female who is abused by the other party in the relationship regardless of whether or not the other abusive party is a male of female.

On sodomy
For sodomy, we have two cases, namely couple A and couple B. We have a loving couple A engaging in sodomy but both enjoy a blissful and happy relationship viz-a-viz couple B who are engaging in missionary position all the time but whose wife is constantly abused by the violent husband. I want you to pick the one that deserves attention by AWARE. Have we all realized the invalid-ness of sodomy as an AWARE issue?

On homosexuality
Homosexuality is a more tricky issue for I suspect the gay rights activists are jumping on this bandwagon of free publicity. A half page print on Straits Times is worth around $20,000 liquidated value.

To mingle the gay issues into AWARE will dilute the core objective. Why do I say such? Please note, I am for or against homosexuality but I just regard their interests as separate interests from AWARE. For instance, their fight for rights to sodomy is relevant but it is irrelevant to AWARE.

To deprive one marginalized group voice of participation is to deprive a diversified representation of a common voice is not applicable here. Sorry, Nirmala, I do not agree with you here.

Gay as a marginalized group has a separate self interest, and they are not relevant here in the AWARE saga. Gays in Singapore should band together to form their own group to fight for their own gay rights and not complicate AWARE’s plight. I find their presence insidious in any AWARE meeting. They are furthering their own agendas similar to a indoctrinated Christians voters who are bound to vote against sodomy, homosexuality, lesbianism and they for. For simplicity sake, I would recommend the gays to form a group under the acronyms, “HAPPY” and thrash it out with their own opponents’ proponents.

On Management
NGO, NPO, or grassroots should remain as they are. Once you start to bring in any MNC measures of management, it spells bureaucracy and prevents a bottom-up voices. It is never about top-down efficiency, as we are not dealing with units of labors but rather, people are what we are resolving. Being high-handed and adding additional touch of politics is not going to be any good for AWARE per see.

On Capital
On a lighter note, if we assume there are more than 1000 new members now, we are looking at $40,000 capital injection. And based on the ‘old’ model of burn rate, AWARE can run for 2 more months with all the easily cheated, good-hearted and good-natured probono folks back in the scene. Why not to volunteers when they can cut down AWARE burn rate for a good cause at their expenses of real-time karma?

On AWARE
From a laymen point of view, AWARE job to help women who are subjected to abuses? To provide physical and psychological shelter, food, clothing to the well-beings of abused women. To help these women to achieve financial independence and mental balance to overcome their hurtful past? And for fuck sake, make these rules flexible if they are seeking help in AWARE with a son they escaped with; be flexible with your rules and handout-training manual (I assume they are not bibles). And perhaps we might have less cases of dumping babies in the dumpster or toilet bowl.

On Entertainment
In the words of the new AWARE member I’ve just spoken to, “it is the best $40 I’ve ever spent. The 7 hours saga is even better than our reality TV series ‘X-factor’.” The “bitchiness” is guaranteed to garner viewership.

On a lighter note, maybe we can make a reality TV series to elect the new board members for AWARE or should we just stick to the spirited old founders (who require minimal persuasion to join), who were not short of their own internal politics but still get the job done? I for one, nominate Clara Chow to be on board. One thing for sure, we will not see educated woman shouting like fishmongers, “shut up and sit down”. And yes, I need to see more plain ordinary “Jane”s to represent a diversified voice to represent a multiplicities of possibilities for AWARE who already lost their original vision, with too much directions and protocols.

To All the fishmongers out there, please take my comment as a compliment for your shouting still facilitate a function known as transaction, while these highly educated ones do not serve any.

AIG American Dream

This is so atypical of American administration; in trying to solve one problem, create another. Now they probably have to pool in more resources to debate whether or not to give future bailout (hence slowing down the stimulus plan and recovery from recession) and whether of not AIG bonuses handout is essential to prevent talent drain.

First off, we are in a recession; everywhere is taking cost-cutting measures, mid-management lay-off and HIRE FREEZE (so talent drain is the least of worries). So AIG’s stance, if there is any, stands on thin ice and my take is the bonus is to cover the top AIG folks’ asses to maintain their current lifestyles.

Second, good intention of Obama’s adminstration can be taken for granted by the bureaucratic MNCs whose ultimate aim is profit making viz-a-viz government concern to maintain low unemployment rate during this period of loom and gloom.

So, will it be an American Dream or American Greed when taxpayers’ money is involved? God bless America and its spirit of capitalism. If there is any.

"We", the Outsiders of America,"Vote for Change".

PART 1: "We", the Outsiders of America,"Vote for Change".

"Barack Obama: he chose as his pastor a man who blamed the US for the 9/11 attacks. Does that sound like someone who should be president?" the ad said.

McCain's camp in my opinion is greatly mistaken. Obviously, they have not seen "New York, New York" and "L.A., L.A." released by their East versus West Coast rappers. And even they have the decency to show respect to their own pastors or mothers who plead to stop war. "Connection, connection, connection, blame, blame, blame, hate, hate, hate," McCain, get real, stop the blame game, or we know, as outsiders, your strategy if you are elected to office.

Fox News is one-sided favoring the McCain's camp.

The voting system edging on technology or "trick"nology. We all know Al Gore lost to an invisible hand behind a tainted voting system. Will Obama be next? Worse still, can the voting button be programmed to forfeit 1 vote for every 3 votes pressed? After all, Oprah Winfrey's complaint on the voting button had to be based on solid ground. Actually, personally, i believe in impartial news who report two sides of the same coin from two different perspective. ACORN versus OPRAH! Hello America! We are educated enough to unsubscribe Fox News from our cable if we are not Republicans' supporters. Hey! Why did i even mention that? Ain't news suppose to be newsworthy and value-free? Yes, in this case, value-less news. And yes, we have other sources of news, other than American sponsored news. And after the incident in US military-run detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we find it hard to listen to any American news, or human rights preaching coming out of America.

The world it seems, it positioned and opinionated in such a manner that it is "US" versus the "Rest of the World".

While the term "terrorist" might be explicitly true seen from the eyes of America, but seen from outside, it can be used as a blanket term, or seen as a convenient truth. While the so-called terrorist fought against the idea of democracy, capitalism and a traditional way of life under their own unsavory means, which human beings anywhere would not have condoned. Hence, America "war on terror" is justified in that sense but only if they separate the political activists and agendas from the blanket term of terrorist or one day, green peace activists might even be classified as terrorists. America continues with its desire to be the "World Cop" with discrimination only. For instance, nothing much is done about the Hutu an Tutsi ethnic cleansing because there is no benefit in store. America strives to be the world...Turn the table around; it is time to be the "World Leader" when it comes to the issue of oil. America suddenly seems so upright and righteous forgetting they are from the country with their gas-guzzlers 5 litres car where elsewhere is powered by 1-2 litres car. It ain't hard to spot the hypocrisy as an outsider, we know about the Afghanistan spin-off of the terrorist groups from its training days by Americans themselves. The cold-war is even better in Korea. Not forgetting the over-zealous democratized Russia, engineering its "own" collapse. Meanwhile, the Chinese watched, observed, studied and learn'ed' to beat America in it own game since we know cooperation with America is not possible from the Moscow experience.

For a start, please recall your military stations and navy from naval bases stationed outside America, which made America look like Axis Power.

America, listen up, the world does not belong to you only. The earth, like air, belongs to everyone. Global warming affects us all, and not just America. And it is time like this we need a poet like Obama, whose humility as your own leader. Whose "blackness" on the outside tells us that America is not a racist nation (this goes out to the non-black folks who claim lips support for Obama), whose "softness" can be seen as not so arrogant state to come. Majority of the American is not well travelled yet arrogance is deemed almost an American thing. In short, it ain't hard to spot an American compared to an European. While we know there are humble Americans out there, somehow it all changes when the one that sticks out like sore thumb hopes his or her confidence is not mistaken as arrogance.Their best bet, a leader who is not arrogant, and representing them. We are waiting for change. And no, no change is going to come out of McCain's win as America is going to stay the same. And yes, an Obama's win is going to change all that, merely by representing, even if everything stays the same. At least, we know the American might be sincere this time round. We want the real, righteous, respected American heroes we see in World War II back, in politics with a democratic stance.

America needs a man who is every-man soul underneath his black skin tone and not just a white man burden, carrying "Every Colors Men Burden".

Hi Obama, your claims to be a black man, white man and even purple man convince us you look beyond skin colors to represent every-man equally and not simply by a decree kept in a museum. These are our following requests. Stop portraying all the anti-Americans as terrorists under a blanket term. Stop quoting God, we are tired of Armageddon and religious fervor. Stop sensationalizing the news from American perspective. There are American bombs attacks outside the date of 9/11 and outside New York City that deserve equal sympathy and empathy. We like more super-heroes coming out of America who are, not just white people in marvel or DC comics. Sorry, Will Smith as Hancock does not cut it. So, more black, Hispanic and Asian super-heroes please, without their stereotypical portrayal, so said Edward W. Said.

Perhaps then, we the Outsiders have to change for the better as well. After all, it is better to be influenced than imposed.

GfbV Political Topic

This is one of a series of artwork I’ve been creating.

This piece of artwork is titled “Interface”. Interface is about coexistence of people regardless of ethnicities, languages, religions or nationalities. Interface raises awareness with regard to tolerance and respect to one another in this increasingly small space, as we are becoming a global community.

Interface fundamental part in this fundraising campaign is to integrate and remind us the importance of harmony and solidarity. Minorities or not, we all deserve an equal space. Everyone can help achieve the political and humanitarian engagement of the GfbV campaigns through charitable donations to push the plight of the minorities towards equality.

Putting the “-ism” out! Say no to the KKK if you know what I mean with regard to racism, sexism, so on and so forth.

Rate it and “-ism” out! at
http://pitsch.org/pitsch20/index.php?page=pitsch---illu---gallery---detail&image=26

Coke Zero Viral Video Pitch!

Vote for me yo! I am short-listed for Coke Zero Viral Video Pitch! Here's the link,
http://www.bitfilm.de/club/pitch_votelist.php?id=1
The title is "Delivery in 20 seconds" Mojo in a vendor by Chonglai.

Up against the big boys and big budget production studio. And if this goes through, there is this talented dude who wants to remain anonymous I like to thank. And also my mentor who pushes my ideas up till the deadline. You guys know who you are, heartfelt and godspeed. We’ll warred some more battles in time to come, mates.

There was once a cautionary tale told by Coke Zero to generate a so-called user generated content. It was then later exposed to be the same folklores told by the bumper bees’ writers slaving for the MNC. Somehow, the cat is out of the bag and nothing stays the same again when Coke calls for a Viral Video Pitch! Silly me, why do I still take part?

Let's hope the same cautionary tale does not happen with their latest coke zero viral video pitch. Apparently, it seems they are trying to pull it off as a "viral" reserved for the public to come up with an interesting video idea. However, it seems big budget "TVC" production house (in-house perhaps) is involved in the video pitch as well. If they are trying to tap into "viral" using a "TVC", then what's the whole point? Might as well named it Coke Zero "TVC" Pitch. Spare me the jargon.

War and Terrorism

“What’s the difference between war and terrorism?

War and terrorism are often two sides of the same coin. They always pay each other back in the same coin. And they are trying to get us to use their currency.

They always dress up as the goody two-shoes but in truth, they are Siamese twins. They will stir you up with their own beautiful words. And when you are not wary, they will bring bite with double the usual venom. And anywhere with a beautiful garden is bound to have one-two many lurking around.

They don’t speak for our ideology and majority of the moderates. So we like to see them stop fighting and above all, see them French kiss and make up.”

Now a round up on George Bush and Osama. Both are often inferring God against each other. At times, it seems to spiral into a kids-like spat of “my god against yours”. Let’s see who’s god is better than the other?

The latest godly demand is that America drops the whole idea of capitalism and converts to Islam.

The differences here in my opinion lies in the idea of imposition and influence. Anyone ought to be allowed to practice whatever religion pleases him or her. I am sorry I omit the racism, sexism, “class-ism” and lots of “ism” inequalities in between and make a “leap of faith” statement. All religions generally teach us to be good people and do well in general. But I also think that atheist in general shouldn’t be discriminated! But this is totally another issue altogether.

The America demand will be - I want to dominate the world politics and economic as the number one superpower. So please allow me to continue to use your countries as bases for our air forces or naval. If not, I will sanction you in the name of Calvinism! Your country export goods will not be imported! You will not get financial aid from our country! Your country does not have human rights unless you lead our way of life! Listen to us immediately and allow “US” to baptize you in the name of democracy and all’s well end well. And we may even consider selling you our unregulated arms, so you have extra hands in the raping and plundering of different ethnic women. Of different conquered states like Genghis Khan!

Now slowly, but really, we approach the arm issues in America. The sales of firepower to selected nations to neutralize or create an offset of balance of power are anyone guess. The main issue of capitalism is about the manipulation of resources. And if we examine the trade from a resource point of view, Osama’s men are actually involved in capitalist trade! On top of the ransom to free the Korean hostages, of course. I guess these are all rather “uncapitalistic” and “unreligious” only in the face of a higher cause. A hypocrisy popularized by the Americans now has a new face.

What goes around, comes around. And what’s the difference? Tell me, I implode you, I implore you…

OZ ‘s Identity and Migration

I was thinking of writing about the hole in the sky and I reckon lots will be writing in on that as well. So I decide on a sensitive topic that is real and still bothers me.

Personally, this is my two cents worth based on my personal observations during my educational stay in Australia. And this is also the reason I withdrew my application halfway through my permanent residency in Australia after much careful deliberations.

What constitute the Identity of Australia? Should Australia be a cohesive Multicultural society? Or should Australia suspend its identity of being apart of Asia for political-economic sake but wallows in its self-fulfilling prophesy of rejecting an Asian-tic people and its influence (Asianization) citing erosion of OZ’s identity as an explanation? Namely, the National Republicans.

People get deluded into blaming the “Asian” for bottle-necking the demographic of OZ population. They are unaware such tool as a propaganda is one of the easiest way to garner political support for a given group. Through steady blaming and consistently channeled hatred at descriptive characteristics of a given group. It is not uncommon, as we seen first hand how Hitler does it during political rally during his speech to fan emotions for prejudiced support. Common laymen are easily susceptible to stereotyping and attributing behavioral qualities that in truth varies from individual to individual. Such a political strategy is a rather cheap shot that is often lost in the watering down of what constitute “Asian” or “Asian-ness”.

If we adopt the late Edward W. Said’s “Orientalism” and Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined community” perspective, we might even understand better that Asia is “South-east” only relative to enthnocetricism. The master and servants’ servitude continues its new saga from the hypocrisy of US treatment of Indians to the apartheid of South Africa. The trilogy should rightly be so of how the aboriginal are marginalized – they are biased towards unemployment when there the law states equal wages for Australian with an “Aboriginal” tag. So much for an Australian being the new European country allowing colonization and eugenics policy on its own.

The solution I proposed is a system of migration based on meritocracy with two blind eyes cast on racism, sexism, nationalism and ethnicities. The selective criteria is purely based on merits, free from corruptions and does not discriminate an individual based on his or her nationality, sex group, sexuality orientation(s), race(s) and ethnicities. This is a system built to control and “filter” migration. For instance, not everyone is allowed migration as in, preferences are given to those who merits themselves to do so. They are able to contribute with skills or talents of some sort to the overall well being of the country as an individual. They are economically sound and able to finance or invest in business that generate employments and churn out products with export potential. Socially and culturally, they have a given set of values that can contribute to moral health without contradicting the political and social stability of the country.

I wish Australia well and decide not to settle there as a second-class citizen, where the rightful first class Aboriginals Australians are not even first-class citizen. I’ve since decided at a place built on meritocracy and equality (hierarchical status almost minimal) where an individual with talent will shine through sheer hard work. It is not an American dream; it is reality in an Asian country they label as a “Fine City”. And William Gibson rightfully quotes it as “Disneyland with a Death Penalty”. And where William is from, it is likely to be a place where the sentence is past, and they like to hold on to that right.