1st Retrenchment Looms

Have not spoken to Dean Miller (my boss before Chase bought over Morgan in September 2000) for a month or so now. He called me in the morning to see him at his office in Capitol Towers building where Chase's offices are located.

Dean started meeting by discussing about discrepancy between the lists of junior staffs who do not have positions in the new organisation provided by me and Christopher Lim (a couple of weeks earlier). Sorted those out with him. A couple of phone calls interrupted the meeting. I told him that I was not happy with the lack of HR involvement although we've requested at few times that the HR rep Jacqueline Teo talk to the staff without a job. Dean then said that he too find that Jackie was not that good - unlike Anne Marie Yarwood (white Australian HR rep for Dean before merger). I told him that Anne Marie was the first HR rep we approached for assistance some months back but she was no better. Dean then gave the excuse that it was because she had a new role in the new organisaction!

During the phone interruptions I noticed that Dean's face was a bit pale and blueish, and told him so and asked how things were with him. He said that his mother was not well and things were not easy within the new combined organisation especially with the Business Management group that is responsible for dealing with support groups like middle office (which Dean is now in charge of) and operations. He said that he sometimes wondered if it was the right decision for him to stay back for a role in the new organisation which led nicely into the topic of my position within the new organisation.

Dean then asked what my plans are and if I've been looking for a job outside. I told him that I've not been looking because I was still holding out hope for a role. Dean said that he believe in being honest and forthright about things, and told me that though he tried he could not find a suitable position for me. He specifically mentioned that positions within Operations (headed by Sabha StClaire, an ex-Chase person) have all been filled - probably meaning that he tried to place me in Operations but to no avail. He suggested that I start looking outside now and he will be happy to help as he has connections that may be able to assist. He said that as far as he is concerned there was no hurry and asked me to work out an appropriate timing for my departure. As to retrenchment package, he said that that will include standard one month per year work and prorated bonus (IC). As to extra retention payment for staying back to assist with integration work, he said there was still no clarity yet. {Kuok Lay Hoon, Singapore country HR Manager for new bank, told me and Christopher Lim a month or so earlier that global guideline for extra retention will be 30% more pay for every month of retention}.

Dean also explained to me that the fact that I was not retained was not because of performance (my role in Morgan at time of merger was as Regional Middle Office and Operations Manager for Treasury business). It is just that it made more sense to have the support managers like Stephen Chang (Chase Middle Office Head who got to retain the job) to be in Hong Kong where the regional business manager Paul Kearhson was located. He then proceeded to say that although Stephen and his group were hard working and efficient, their work were focussed on day-to-day stuffs. The implication I got was that he was not very impressed with Stephen. To avoid commenting on that I merely smiled back and told him that he is the boss. He also mentioned that it is the same with his Singapore middle office manager (Shirley Ng of ex-Chase) but also said that they do have their strength. The example he gave was Shirley was able to have a response or ready output to any request by business by the next morning. Again I did not comment. Our meeting ended there.

Outside I passed by the desk of Cheryl Chan who used to work in the middle office but now working on some projects for Dean. She asked how things are with me and I told her about the meeting I just had about my impending retrenchment.

Mahathir Found Solution to His Old Dilemma

Mahathir May Have Final Solution to His Old Dilemma (May 2001)

30 years ago, in his book The Malay Dilemma Dr Mahathir (now Malaysian Prime Minister) claimed that no matter who the person is, he or she will be able to do a job 'if given the opportunity and the right guidance'. His view though simplistic is the essence of Malaysia's New Economic Policy (NEP) implemented since 1970. Like their leaders, many Malaysians believe that the quota system that ensure places are reserved for the Malays in every aspect of life in Malaysia will somehow improve the well being of the Malays. In fact they thought they could even do it without worrying about having the 'right guidance' - although it was entirely possible that they never knew what that meant. Whatever is the case, Mahathir has finally learnt from the aftermath of the 1997 crisis that his old idea did not work. Also according to him, Malay students were not bothered about their education and were losing out to their peers of other races. They were not interested in the sciences and other technical subjects preferring to do the easier subjects like arts and religious studies.

Now Mahathir may think he has a better idea on how to solve his country's problems. In fact he's probably hitting himself for not thinking of it earlier. This new idea was mooted when he suggested that to show that the Chinese in Malaysia are committed to their country, they (only the Chinese) may be drafted to do national service in the military. Soon, to show that the Malays are committed to improving their own lot, Malaysia will be drafting Malays as engineers, doctors, IT technologists, dentists, heart surgeons, scientific researchers and enterpreneurs. You see, that way they do not even have to study and compete against others in schools.

Finally Malaysia will be proposing to the United Nations to make a resolution that to show that the world is committed to the development of 'developing countries' like Malaysia, they should begin to draft Malays as CEO of all Fortune 500 companies. You see, that is perfectly fair as it is only 500 jobs and well within the quota that should be fairly allocated to the Malays based on the ratio of their population to that of the world.

Mahathir must be patting himself on the back half wondering why no one else in the world ever thought of that!

Why Are Eggs Oval?

QuiZ :

All bird eggs (regardless of species) are oval and pointed at one end (instead of being, say, round, cubical or cylindrical) - do U know why?

A. because the birds wanted them to look like those of dinosaurs' so dinosaurs wouldn't destroy them
B. it was pure coincidence - just happen that all birds like their eggs that way
C. because God made it that way
D. because that shape provides the greatest chance of survival for the eggs - they cannt roll away that way. Since birds that lay eggs in other shapes had lower survival rate, they disappear over time (evolution or survival of fittest?).

Unit Trust Malaysian Style

I wanted to put my MYR money in Malaysia into more productive use, but found that there were very few options available for investing in foreign markets (I guess they don’t think why anyone would need that since Malaysia is such a great investment – if you believe them).

Then I found that Maybank's (the leading bank in Malaysia) Unit Trust for KL Equities charges 5 sen commission for every unit. At the issue price of MYR1 that commission represents 5% which is comparable to rates in Singapore which range from 1% to 5%. But with current unit price of 40+sen, the 5 sen per unit commission rate represents more than 10% of the investment! I thought who would buy a fund if they lose 10% of their money up front?

So I decided to call the Bank. I told their sales rep (a Chinese lady) that that's ridiculous and probably explains why no one buys their fund and suggested that they re-look at the commission structure. She agreed but suggested I talk to her manager (a Malay man). The manager's response was really decisive (if nothing else, managers have to be decisive!): they cannot change the way they charge as 'the practice is the same as other funds in Malaysia. Moreover, funds market is under developed in Malaysia and they cannot follow international practices. In addition, when the unit price goes above MYR1 the commission is lower than 5%!'

With that response, I did not know what to say except ‘good-bye’. My thought: No wonder they are under developed!

Funny Poetry

(Received this funny poem from Edna, and sent back another I penned at bottom)

Die Die must read.....very interesting

Life was originally simple and HAPPY
We only toil and suffer in STUDIES
At first only A-B-C, -,+,divide and 1-2-3.
Primary 6 is kan-cheong PSLE
Then go up to SECONDARY
Must learn HISTORY and GEOGRAPHY
Physics, bio and CHEMISTRY
After O levels go JC
Some will choose to go POLY.
This hot and humid little COUNTRY
Somehow seems to have many ENEMIES
Boys 18 years old must go ARMY
After that then enter UNIVERSITY.
Girls here always watch TV
Often skip class and CHIAK LEOW BEE
If you ask them do some DUTIES
They'll just shout " Alamak ! " and cry for MUMMY.
Can study, continue STUDY
Can't study, work FACTORY
Cannot rely on CHARITY
Work like hell and earn just a little SALARY
After CPF and INCOME TAX, you'll be lucky that you
still can buy ROTI
Save money lor use MRT.
Colleagues formerly seem FRIENDLY
Daily treated to their tea and COFFEE
Now they gradually get CRAZY
Worst still behind me say I LAZY.
Bosses every where have no SYMPATHY
Work always must HURRY HURRY
Say I always take MC
Often make me do OT
Midnight go back in TAXI
Midnight surcharge ERP
Cause my bank account NO MONEY
Nowadays you pity POSB
DBS just want EXTRA FEE
Got cheek and say " Nothing is FREE ! "
Boy/girl friend-friend become STEADY
Serious pak-tor and then MARRY
Waste-time and money on ceremony and dinner PARTY
Still got joker-friends just give PANTY
After marry no more HONEY-HONEY
Two years later become DADDY
Wife at KK give birth to BABY
Name given is DO RE MI
Monthly pay back HDB
Moonlight anything including KARANG GUNI
Earn not enough FEEL GUILTY
Jump river suicide and want to MATI
Maybe life is really not that EASY
Better go to heaven and be FAIRY ..............

You say FUNNY or no FUNNY?



(returned to sender)

This story very funny
sometimes a little silly
whatever the worry
the poor writer I pity

e-mails u send many
kept me very busy
asked about your trip to Aussie
but you never answer me

instead I get some more story
make me feel more giddy
so, if you have some sympathy
may be lunch is the remedy?

please please honey
do make me happy
p.s. so how's my poetry?
let me know if it's a beauty....

Icing on The Garden of Eden

Probably not definitive (what is?) but a good overview of what on earth we live in. Worth spending a few mins reading this since many lifetimes were spent understanding it. But then again, it could just be someone's wild imaginations. A grand hoax .....but which one? [cck]


EUROPE: Tracking Climate Change and Human Evolution

Carried away, perhaps, by His matchless creation, the Garden of Eden, He forgot to mention that all He was giving us was an interglacial. Robert Ardrey, 1976

Matching wits with the fickle climate is how we became human. Or so I reflect, while waiting for the London-bound flight to depart from New York. "Delayed by unseasonably severe weather," a disembodied voice proclaimed an hour ago. My fellow passengers speculate about whether the greenhouse climate has already arrived.

Well, there really isn't a threshold of some sort — whenever the ice ages temporarily recede, the carbon dioxide starts climbing. It's more a question of how badly we are augmenting the overheating tendencies. And what sort of trouble we'll make for ourselves with major climate change.

It usually works the other direction: climate change affecting humans in a big way, rather than vice versa. Major climatic changes — particularly the ice ages — have meant quite a lot, when it comes to human evolution from the apes. Back before the ice ages started 2.5 million years ago, we were upright and even looked pretty human, if seen from a distance. Yet up close, it would have been apparent that behind that large face was an ape-sized brain. Then the ice ages started. Great continental ice sheets built up and then they melted off, dozens of times. During all that, we evolved much faster than in the preceding few million years. We now have smaller faces, though with a notable forehead. Seen in side view, however, there is a big difference. That's because our brains have quadrupled in size over the early model hominid.

Why? Nothing similar happened to any other animal during the ice ages. With the brain's enlargement and reorganization, we acquired some beyond-the-apes abilities that we value most highly: a versatile language and a plan-ahead consciousness that enables us to feel dismay when seeing a tragedy unfold, enables us to develop ethics.

What was it about climate change that pumped up brain size, that somehow augmented intelligence? Surprisingly, severity of weather, as such, probably wasn't the key. Rather, it's those repeated boom-times that early hominids had the opportunity to exploit. Some of the stories now emerging about the ice ages demonstrate the challenges and opportunities faced by our ancestors. For example, two particularly dramatic events occurred about 11,000-12,000 years ago, just as the last ice age (the one that began 118,000 years ago) was ending and half the accumulated ice was already gone. Until very recently, no one had been aware of either the American or the European story. And while these two climatic episodes probably didn't affect brain size very much, some of their predecessors likely did.

IN CANADA, TWO GIANT ICE SHEETS had been pushing against one another, head to head: the one pushing west from Hudson's Bay, the other grinding eastward, coming down from the Rocky Mountains. They met in the eastern foothills of the Rockies. With the melting, they each pulled back a little, allowing some grass to grow. And this opened up a north-south route from northern Alaska down to Montana.

It's called a corridor because corridors have walls: I tend to think of this as something like the biblical parting of the Red Sea. The grazing animals discovered the new grass growing in the corridor, and their predators followed them. Brown bears migrated south, as did the humans who had reached Alaska sometime earlier by crossing the Bering Strait from Asia.

This corridor had only one exit. When the hunters reached the southern end of the corridor about 12,000 years ago, at about where the U.S. border is now, they discovered the Americas largely uninhabited by humans. It was ripe for big game hunting and, thanks to living in Arctic latitudes where gathering was scarce, they were experienced big game hunters, even felling mammoth and mastodon in addition to lighter fare.

So they had themselves an enormous baby boom, thanks to this previously untapped resource. A few dozen generations later, about 11,000 years ago, these hunting families were all over the continent, judging by their propensity for losing their favorite spearheads, the so-called Clovis points (one has even been found in the rib cage of an extinct mastodon). Their descendants are, with the exception of a few latecomers such as the Inuit (Eskimo), the present-day Indians of both North and South America.

IN EUROPE at about the same time, there was a more established prosperity, as hominid hunters had been living off the grazing animals there for many ice ages, more than a half million years. By the beginning of the most recent ice age, about 118,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had probably evolved from the earlier model, Homo erectus. Brain size may have already reached the modern size by then; the main change during the last glaciation can be seen in the teeth, but only if you look very carefully.

Teeth became about ten percent smaller, seemingly a consequence of the food technologies invented during this last ice age; they dropped another five percent when agriculture came along. Cooking came first, judging from the charcoal that appears on cave floors starting about 80,000 years ago. Food preparation involving pottery improved things even more. We start to see skulls that indicate even the toothless could survive, suggesting both food preparation and a level of care of the disabled that was not seen in earlier times. Late in this glaciation, between 37,000 and 20,000 years ago, the life of the mind grew: Carved ivory and cave paintings became popular. By 11,500 years ago, these European hunters might have been starting to practice herding and agriculture (which was certainly imminent in the Middle East).

But, as the new Americans were thriving, the more established Europeans got a big surprise, and I doubt that they liked it very much. I wouldn't be surprised if linguists someday show that the phrase, "The good old days," dates back to 11,500 years ago.

THERE WAS A EUROPEAN GENERATION who in their youth enjoyed the warming climate. New grass was growing everywhere along the glacial margins, and the herds were gradually getting larger. It wasn't a boom time for humans, as in the Americas, but both animals and humans were probably doing well because of the North Atlantic's warming trend that had suddenly started 1,500 years earlier (this "Allerod event" was about 13,000 years ago).

This same generation saw things change. One year, the winter rains were scant, and it seemed colder. It wasn't as cloudy as usual in the spring, and the summer was bone dry. The good grazing was exhausted early, and animals started exploring unlikely places in search of food. By the time that the winter snows started, both humans and animals were in poor condition; more than the usual numbers died that winter. Was it just a drought?

The next year was even colder and drier. And the next. The next twenty years saw dramatic changes, far greater than in the "Little Ice Age" of a few centuries ago. Forests died and weeds took over. It became more dusty as severe storms stirred up the dry topsoil. The herds surely dropped to a fraction of their former sizes.

And the human tribes likely did poorly in consequence. Half of all children tended to die in childhood, even in the best of times before modern sanitation and medical care, but poorly fed children succumbed even more readily to childhood diseases. If anyone had had time to notice while scratching around for food, they would have seen glaciers advancing once again. In Scotland, where glaciers had already completely melted off, they started to reform as the summers became too cold to melt much of the winter accumulation.

People didn't live half as long as we do, back then. A forty-year-old person often looked old and worn out. Children, who had never known those warm days of plentiful food on the hoof, surely wondered what the old folks kept talking about. When the generation that had seen the transition died out, the stories may have persisted for a while, and the good old days were perhaps incorporated into the creation myths as a form of heaven on earth.

(A few decades ago, modern scientists looked at the accumulated layers of a lake bottom in Denmark. In a deep layer, they saw the sudden introduction of the pollen of an arctic plant called Dryas that had no business being in Denmark, and named this cold snap after it: the Younger Dryas climate.)

And then — it ended even more suddenly than it had begun. There was a generation about 10,720 years ago, the great-great-(repeat that 29 more times)-grandchildren of those people who were absolutely sure about the good old days, that experienced the change. They grew up in a cold and dry Europe, and then saw the warm rains suddenly come back over the course of just a few years and melt the ice. The grass prospered, and the remaining grazing animals began a population explosion. It became a boom time for those Europeans who had survived up in the land of hard winters, just as it had become a boom time for the Arctic-adapted hunters who reached the end of the North American ice-free corridor a thousand years earlier.

It was as if a switch had been turned off. And then back on again. Or perhaps faucet is the apt metaphor, since the key to what happened is the Gulf Stream's European relative, the North Atlantic Current.

AFTER LEAVING NEW YORK at sunset, our London-bound airplane followed the Gulf Stream to the northeast, up over familiar Cape Cod haunts in the dusk, then just offshore of the Nova Scotia peninsula. We saw the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the overflow from the Great Lakes makes its way out to sea, and saw many fishing boats as we passed over the Grand Banks fishing grounds off the large island of Newfoundland. Finally, during the night, we followed the eastbound Gulf Stream out over the North Atlantic proper.

Before dawn, we flew over the North Atlantic Current, which sweeps northward up toward Iceland. But even after we passed over the current, I continued to see its effects, in the form of rain clouds drifting eastward toward Europe. I saw southern Ireland in the dawn light, great green patches between the storm clouds. Home of the Irish elk, the deer with the giant wingspan — at least for about 1,500 years (the Younger Dryas wiped it out, a good 1,600 years before humans arrived in Ireland).

Seen through the scattered clouds, London at six in the morning is glowing in the early morning sunlight, and the streets shine from the spotty showers; a few delivery trucks cast long shadows while driving on the wrong side of the street. The green parks and the tennis courts are empty. But it's the London of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Dr. Johnson, Charles Darwin, Bertrand Russell, and George Bernard Shaw.

And London is a puzzle, since it is 51.5° north of the equator. It is hard to imagine any city in Asia or the Americas, that far from the equator, becoming such a center of culture and commerce. None has, so far: not Calgary, Alberta (where parking meters have electric outlets, so you can keep the car warm enough to restart). Nor Moosonee, the town at the bottom of Hudson's Bay. Or chilly Puerto Arenas at Tierra del Fuego, equally distant from the equator to the south.

Indeed, most of Europe is at Canadian latitudes. Compared to the populous parts of the U.S. and Canada, mostly between the 30° and 45° lines on a globe, the populous parts of Europe are shifted 10-15° to the north, mostly between 40° and 60° latitudes. "Southerly" Rome lies at the same 42°N as does "northerly" Chicago. Paris lies at the latitude of Vancouver, British Columbia, about 49°N. Berlin is up at 52.5°N, Moscow at nearly 56°. Oslo, Stockholm, and Leningrad nestle up just under 60°N, where the sun makes only a brief midday appearance during December — about the same as in Alaska's coastal cities.

The reason that Europe is warm and wet, where Canada is cold and dry, is largely due to the North Atlantic Current and how it differs from similar major currents in the Pacific Ocean. All those rain clouds I saw this morning were caused by the copious evaporation from the warm ocean surface of the North Atlantic Current.

But what if something were to happen to the North Atlantic Current again?

THE BEST-KNOWN CLIMATE CHANGE in the offing is the global warming that is occurring from the greenhouse effect. It isn't minor, as this 1989 summary notes:

Computer-modeled predictions of greenhouse warming suggest that global mean air temperatures may rise by 5°C [9°F] over the next 30 years, with amplified rises of up to 12°C [22°F] in polar regions. This is comparable with the temperature increase from the last glacial period to the present interglacial, and the projected rate of increase is probably greater than at any time since then.

The best-known consequence is the rise in sea level that threatens coastal populations. But climate need not change gradually. We now know that, in the past, other climatic changes have flipped on and off, without much of a middle ground. The North Atlantic Current's on-and-off tendencies are only one example of the more general problem of "modes" of behavior.

It has long been known that the climate could, in theory, become trapped in extreme states. The "White Earth Catastrophe" scenario could happen if ice extended over enough of the Earth's surface to reflect a lot of arriving sunlight back out into space: the Earth could freeze and never recover, short of volcanos covering the white surface with some dark lava. And the "Greenhouse Catastrophe" scenario would occur if the carbon locked up in the sediments (not just coal and oil but also that frozen tundra of Arctic regions) were released to the atmosphere in quantities sufficient to form a greenhouse layer of insulation, allowing the atmosphere beneath it (and oceans, and land, and us) to heat up catastrophically.
In the 1980s, the Swiss climatologist Hans Oeschger suggested that, in addition, the earth's climate had several modes of interaction between the oceans, the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the ice sheets. These aren't extreme (indeed, we're in one mode now) but the transitions between them could be uncomfortably sudden. There had been hints of fairly sudden minor transitions. After all, people periodically rediscover that monsoons can simply be omitted some years.

There are drought cycles that repeat every few decades, but some are much shorter: South American fisheries and the bird populations of many Pacific islands are dramatically depressed every half-dozen years by the warming changes in the ocean currents, known as El Niño. Evidence has been accumulating that North American droughts are secondary consequences of equatorial ocean currents turning colder, the so-called La Niña condition. But what Oeschger was talking about was more than minor: he suggested that the climate had major modes, some lasting many centuries. These bistable styles of operation may pose far more of a threat than the slow loss of coastal real estate to rising sea levels.

Modifying the earth's climate with greenhouse warming may well exaggerate such mode-switching — or leave us stuck in the "wrong" mode for centuries, as has happened before. Paradoxically, you can get cold from heat, as the Younger Dryas demonstrates: a warming trend can apparently cause a prolonged cold snap. Most people have a tendency to dichotomize climate change into warming or cooling, and forget that both can happen simultaneously — but in different places.

Ice layers preserved under Greenland's glaciers show that more than 20 regional chills, each lasting centuries, have occurred in the last 120,000 years. The Younger Dryas was simply the most recent and the longest-lasting (almost a thousand years). Though detectable along the east coast of the U.S. and Canada, it was most pronounced in Europe and southern Greenland; you won't see it in the deep ice cores from Antarctica. It was probably triggered, in part, by the dilution of the salt water by all that freshwater glacial runoff. But how were the other 19 cold snaps triggered? Might something like a greenhouse warming provoke another one? Those are the kinds of questions to which we urgently need answers.

SUDDEN REGIONAL COOLING during a global warming trend probably happens because the circulating ocean currents switch into a new mode, as when the North Atlantic Current no longer warms and waters Europe in its customary way. And Europe without the North Atlantic Current would be about like Canada: they both have a comparable amount of fertile agricultural land at similar northerly latitudes. Indeed, Europe gets Canada's air second-hand, a week or so later, as Europe periodically rediscovers whenever a forest fire in Canada makes European skies hazy and sunsets dark red.

You might surmise that Europe's population ought to be something like Canada's 27 million people. But France alone has twice as many people as Canada. Europe, to the west of the Soviet Union, totals more than 500 million people (twice the U.S. population), and there are another 200 million people in the western parts of the Soviet Union that share Europe's climate (the Younger Dryas climate reached as far as the Ukraine). That Europe presently supports about 26 times as many people as Canada is largely attributable to the beneficent influence of the North Atlantic Current, warming all that cold Canadian air crossing the North Atlantic, before it reaches Europe. And thus loading it with a lot more moisture, to be dropped on Europe as rainfall.

What will the "extra" half-billion people of Europe do, should the North Atlantic suffer another hiccup, returning Europe to a Canadian climate? If one could reliably forecast this situation, with a lead time of a hundred years or so, perhaps those Europeans would move elsewhere peacefully or develop a reciprocal symbiotic economy with some Third World countries that could feed them. Yet mode-switching cooling can happen as quickly as the onset of a minor drought, and no one knows how to predict it, much less control it. The first few years, there would be an "economic response": Europeans would buy grain elsewhere and ship it in, cut back on meat. But what would happen in the long run?

Remember how poorly the economic response worked for Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century when the potato crops failed? And what happened during Europe's last Great Depression a half-century ago: Germany's lebensraum excuse for territorial expansion, a professed need for "more living space"? Europe is technologically competent, compared to today's Third World or nineteenth century Ireland, and a starving population isn't going to die quietly. They will move instead. A little glitch in the North Atlantic, similar to those of the past, is the most serious, least avoidable scenario for global warfare that I can imagine.

Whether it is a greenhouse-induced rise in sea level threatening the half-billion people relying on low-lying areas of the Indian subcontinent, or a cooling-and-drying Europe in need of lebensraum for a half-billion people, or the projected return to dust bowl conditions in the American Midwest and the loss of irrigation water in California (whose agriculture already helps feed Eastern Europe and the USSR in their bad years), climatic change is not likely to be peaceful. "Disruptions" is hardly the word for it.

We are very overextended, with far more population than we can support (even in the off-years of our current climate, as those Third World famines have repeatedly demonstrated). Major climate change, whether ice age or greenhouse warming, means a considerable "contraction" in the human population that the planet can support, unless new technologies fix up things very well indeed. An abrupt Dryas-like climate change, however, could easily destroy the stable civilizations that such large-scale innovative technologies require.

BUT WE HUMANS THRIVE on challenges, and a prolonged series of climatic changes probably played a leading role in how we evolved the neural mechanisms for those aspects of our consciousness that exceed those of the apes.

The most unique aspect of our consciousness is "thinking ahead," our ability to spin scenarios that try to explain the past and forecast the future. Often these strings of concepts make little sense (such as our nighttime dreams); other times, we shape them up into a thing of quality (such as a poem or a logical argument) and then act on it. Planning ahead in other animals is mostly a hormonal thing, hoarding behaviors being triggered by the shortening daylight hours of autumn which prolong the nighttime release of melatonin from the pineal gland. But we humans are capable of planning decades ahead, able to take account of extraordinary contingencies far more irregular than the seasons.

Since the prehuman brain enlarged only when the ice ages came along, the betting is that climatic challenge had something to do with the Great Encephalization — probably not so much because of a more severe climate but because the constant disruptions created opportunities and slowed "optimizing." Shaping up a body plan to the environment, efficiently dealing with its opportunities and hazards, is the usual anthropological concept of darwinism, but fickle climates can add another dimension to the story.

Give evolution enough time to shape up things for efficiency, and jack-of-all-trades abilities will be eliminated — we'll get a stripped down, lean-mean-machine version optimized to the existing climate. Fortunately, evolution is slow. Climate often changes faster than biological evolution-for-efficiency can keep up — and so a brain that can function in various different climates has an advantage over one that is merely efficient in a single climate. Retaining those jack-of-all-trades abilities is a lot easier if the climate keeps switching around unpredictably.

Ever since the major buildup of ice caps started 2.5 million years ago, the world climate has been oscillating markedly every 10,000 years or so (and more often in some regions), with major meltbacks of the northern ice sheets every 100,000 years (like the one 13,000 years ago that heralded the development of agriculture and then civilizations). This book makes the argument that we owe our versatile brains to these first-one-thing-and-then-another challenges of the ice ages — and the boom times that often followed.

That doesn't mean, however, that another major climatic challenge will pump up the brain a little more. There has been a little change in scale. The human population has increased a thousandfold since the end of the last ice age: that's what agriculture, animal breeding, and technologies have made possible, compared to the days of hunter-gatherer bands wandering around. Having large numbers of individuals tends to buffer biological change, to slow it down.

EXPLAINING THE CLIMATIC PAST, forecasting our climate's future — those are some urgent tasks for our newfound mental abilities. But since human behavior plays the major role in generating the problems we now face — all those boom-time birth rates that lead to more population than can be fed in the drought years, our live-for-today and let-tomorrow-take-care-of-itself mentalities that lead to more pollution — understanding our evolutionary past may be just as important as building those big computers that will make working models of the global interactions between ocean, atmosphere, and ice. The way to make plausible plans for the future is to know what's worked in the past, and what hasn't. Navigating in tight spots means knowing the currents.

The inhabitants of planet Earth are quietly conducting a gigantic environmental experiment. So vast and so sweeping will be the consequences that, were it brought before any responsible council for approval, it would be firmly rejected. Yet it goes on with little interference from any jurisdiction or nation. The experiment in question is the release of CO2 and other so-called "greenhouse gases" to the atmosphere.... Because of our lack of basic knowledge, the range of possibility for the greenhouse effects remains large. It is for this reason that the experiment is a dangerous one. We play Russian roulette with climate, hoping that the future will hold no unpleasant surprises....

My impressions are more than educated hunches. They come from viewing the results of experiments nature has conducted on her own.... Earth's climate does not respond to forcing in a smooth and gradual way. Rather, it responds in sharp jumps which involve large-scale reorganization of Earth's system.... Coping with this type of change is clearly a far more serious matter than coping with a gradual warming.

the geophysicist Wallace S. Broecker, 1987

'K' Carved on Her Chest

Below is a news item from today's Straits Times in Singapore.

The woman's sin is doing business with fellow men of the 'wrong' colour!
Despite all the ill-gotten advantages passed on them by their forefasters some whites still do whatever they can to retain that veil of supremacy. Even if it includes harming their equally superior whites. If those white Afrikaners below can do that in this time and age, can one possibly imagine what their ancestors could actually do to the blacks over the last few centuries? (sorry, not just the blacks but that's a bit too much for many to take).

For some friends of mine who are newcomers to the Christian faith who so surely tell me that they cannot understand why people like me cannot accept the Bible since its effect on people is 'clearly good', the above must be new to them. So too would the fact that more than 1,000 years with the Bible had done nothing to make any good out of those Afrikaners. Some will undoubtedly say that the Afrikaners did not truly follow the faith. If that's the case I suggest they go tell it to the Afrikaners in South Africa and see which letter get carved on their bodies. Then how I wish we can turn the clock back about 100 years before they do that. For if my wish can be met, my faith tells me there's a high chance I'll not see those friends of mine again. But then, I wonder who would have the faith to do that then.

Most Afrikaners will tell you they are devout Christians. Same way that Pauline Hanson claimed that Christianity is 'the white man's way of life'. It is their faith. Same way that those friends of mine say that that's all that matters: faith. Of course faithful as she undoubtedly is, Pauline Hanson did not take the Bible literally. But 'do not take things literally' is exactly what those newcomer Christians tell me to do when they cannot explain contradictions with modern knowledge (i.e. science). They say do not take the Bible literally. Well, one of those friends of mine has to go tell Pauline Hanson that she is right after all....literally, please.

When I cannot reconcile things like the above and wonder at how they can do so, some of them tell me not to think that they are stupid. Of course, I would not dare say so literally but non-literally it must have appeared so to them, remembering that they are the experts at the non-literals.

So I have to put this down literally: I dare not say they are stupid, I just don't suppose they are as smart as they think they are. Some good may come of it if they take the same position themselves. Then they can walk the streets with some respect for the others - including their forefathers whose different faith some of them may find so inferior (some of them actually say so literally).


'K' carved on her chest for serving blacks
JOHANNESBURG - Ms Wanda Stoffberg says that racism was force-fed to her every day as a blonde Afrikaner child growing up in South Africa. Two balaclava-clad men used a knife to carve the letter 'K' on Ms Stoffberg's chest. -- AFP

'One day you wake up and realise you have been part of something so bad and so wrong, for so long,' she said two weeks after two balaclava-clad white men attacked her with a piece of wood, carved a 'K' into her left breast, and told her she was a 'kaffirboetie' - a 'nigger-lover'. They objected to the fact that she served black and coloured (mixed-race) clients at her butcher's shop in George, an Afrikaner-dominated town in the far south. One of the men told her: 'This is a message from our boss,' and then said that 'kaffirboeties' were not permitted to stay in George, she told a racism conference two weeks afterwards.

She kept it quiet at first, but told the conference that the men had also abused her sexually in the July 30 attack. 'They kicked me like a dog and sexually abused me,' she said. She spoke out, she said, because 'I decided to stand up for the truth for once in my life, a truth which many of us are still in denial of'.

She added: 'We should not tolerate any form of discrimination or racism in our country. The perpetrators should be punished. This is the humble message I want to bring to you. I want something positive to come from this. We are a nation in the process of healing.'

Police have posted a reward of up to 10,000 rand (S$2,200) for information leading to the arrest and conviction
of the two men.--AFP

Education Malaysian Style

Types of Schools in Malaysia
There are 2 main categories of schools in Malaysia: 'national type' (whose language of instruction is mainly Malay) or vernacular (whose main language of instruction is Chinese or Indian). Because of 'political' reason and Chinese or Indian being the language of instruction, most vernacular schools did not have Malay headmasters.

Malay Progression or Educational Regression?
From age 7 (1969) to 11 (1973), I studied in a 'national type' primary school (Pasar Road Primary School). When I started there, the headmaster was an Indian. By time I left it was a Malay. Same with my secondary school (Datok Lokman) - Chinese headmaster soon gave way to a Malay. By time I got to form 6 in VI (supposedly one of the top secondary schools in Malaysia) in 1980, it was already run by a Malay. This phenomenon was widespread in the national type schools by 1980. If the large scale promotion of Malays to such important roles as headmasters was based on merit, then in a short time the Malays have made significant progress indeed. But if that was the case, why is it that the NEP is still required today - 22 years later?

The real answer may lie in PM Mahathir's public explanation in 2000 as to why there was increasing number of non-Chinese sending their children to Chinese schools. According to him it was not because they wanted their children to learn Chinese but the teachers were more dedicated. Therefore parents that want their children to do well (in real terms I guess) in education send them to the Chinese schools.

For Students or Teachers?
Directly opposite my old primary school was a Chinese primary school (Chin Woo Chinese Primary). During my 1st year at Pasar Road School, it had a brand new 4-storey building. Throughout my years there, Chin Woo only had a 2-storey building. When I visited the place a few years back there were noticeable changes in both schools. Chin Woo had a new 4-storey classroom block in place of the 2-storey block it had. The new addition to Pasar Road School was a teacher's recreational centre!

Enterpreneurship or Mismanagement of Teachers?
During my days in secondary school we had a few school teachers (characters) that I remembered well. The year I was in Form 1 was the year when Malaysia hosted the Hockey World Cup, and there was a Sikh teacher in charge of physical education who took the opportunity to sell us hockey sticks he sourced from his brother’s sports shop. He sold them to us on installment basis, and we would pay him a dollar a week until we pay it off.

I also found that a Science teacher of ours who was also the discipline master of the school had his own shoe shop which he goes to run after school.

In Form 2 or 3, we had an ‘Industrial Arts’ teacher who sub-contracted door/window grille works that he farmed out to us students who did it as a source of pocket money. It involved essentially soldering of iron pipes to make grilles. I and some classmates joined in act but were not properly trained nor briefed on how to do soldering and the risk associated with it. As I was new I had to look directly at the spots that I was soldering instead of doing it behind the dark-gass shield. I paid dearly for that. After a day of doing that, my eyes were so strained that I had to sleep immediately after I got home. When I awoke, my eyes were oozing tears and ‘puss’, and was so painful that I could not open them hours!

Reserve or Deserve?
When I was in form 5 (17 years old), we sat for our MCE or 'O' level examination. The school had just published the results of a ‘trial exam’ and we were anxiously reviewing our results and counting the number of points we got. In real-life the points would determine whether we got to go on to form 6 (HSC or 'A' level) and then to university. So it was quite an important matter for all of us - at least that was what I thought. As me and a few friends were anxiously counting our points, a Malay schoolmate rode up to us in his bicycle wearing a grin on his face. He must have noticed our anxiety. His comment to us was this: you all (non Malays) have to worry about the number of distinctions and this points thing before you can go to the next grade and enter university. I on the other hand don't have to worry about them. I only have to pass my exams and I will get a place!

I was quite surprised to hear that. I did not know about the New Economic Policy well then. Although I knew that a quota was reserved for Malays in university and at work, I did not think of it the way this boy did! That was a day of reckoning for me and I could never forget that day. He must have been taught by someone (his parents probably) that there was no need for him to perform any better than just pass exams, and a place will be reserved for him in the university and presumably everything after that. And if every Malay kid thinks the way he did at that age they would probably never find the need to work hard for the rest of their lives!


The above is an example of how a system whose intention was to uplift a whole race but compromises on time tested considerations like meritocracy and quality actually resulted in the very opposite of what was intended.

No Money to Share a Football?

In my secondary school days - when I was between 13 and 17 years old - there was a group of school mates that I played with everyday. We must have been the most playful lot in school for we played before school starts, during recess and after school ends. And the games we played each year varied according to the 'flavour' of that year. In form 1 (13 years old) it was hockey because Malaysia was the organiser of the hockey world cup. An Indian teacher must have made quite some money selling hockey sticks to the kids in school - cost about 18 dollars a stick then. As we grew older and when the school started to provide the balls it was volleyball and basketball. But football was the perennial favorite of all the boys. When we were younger and before the school started to allow us to borrow balls from the school we played real football only during physical education classes because we could not afford to buy a ball. At other times we only played a football 'variant' - kicking bottle caps on the cement floor of the school's basketball court. Our school shoes wear out really fast then because of the constant scratching against the cement floor!

When we were in form 3 someone suggested that we pool some money together to buy a soccer ball. Although each of us had to only contribute about 2 or 3 dollars, it was still a big sum for most of us. So when a Malay friend of ours (named Rashid) told us that he could not afford to pay for his share, we sympathised with him and I went round asking the other boys to chip in and pay for his share. I was quite happy that we managed to do that and Rashid got to play without paying anything. I was however shocked speechless a few weeks later when I saw Rashid coming to one of our games in a nice looking track suit (matching yellow color Adidas pants and top). It was the 1970s and no one else in school other than the sportsmen representing the school got to wear something like that. And that's partly subsidised by the school. Although I knew it was expensive I did not know exactly how much. So I asked him how much it cost him. He sheepishly told me that it was 30 odd dollars and his father bought it for him. I thought to myself that this is the same guy who told us a few weeks ago that he could not afford the couple of dollars to share a ball. I then realised that it was all a lie to get someone else to pay for him. How silly of me to have paid for part of his share when I myself could not afford that nice track suit he was wearing.

I never did own a track suit until I came to Singapore for university studies - with money my elder sister gave me from her savings. (She started working a couple of years back and gave me about $1,000 when I left for Singapore for university. It was not enough to last me the 3 years and I was relieved I got a $11,000 study loan from the Kuok Foundation a couple of months later.)

Priest-Nun Leviticus

(This joke inspired my little contribution at bottom)

Subject: Priest n Nun joke

A priest was driving along and saw a nun by the side of the road. He stopped and offered her a lift which she accepted. She got in and crossed her legs, forcing the habit to open and reveal a leg. The priest looks and nearly has an accident, and after changing gear lets his hand slide up her leg. She immediately says, "Father, remember Psalm 129".

The priest apologizes profusely and removes his hand but is unable to remove his eyes from her leg. Further on when he changes gear and has ogled at her leg for the zillionth time, he lets the hand slide up the leg again. The nun once again says, "Father, remember Psalm 129". Once again the priest apologizes, "Sorry sister but you know the flesh is weak".

Arriving at the convent the nun gets out and the priest goes on his way. Once he arrives at his church he rushes to the Bible and looks up Psalm 129 - it said: "GO FORTH AND SEEK, FURTHER UP YOU WILL FIND GLORY."

MORAL OF THE STORY:
YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE WELL INFORMED IN YOUR JOB OR YOU MIGHT MISS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY.



CCK:
Have to say nun-type was quite creative coming up with first chronicle.....but alas got nun of the fun she want.

So mark the second chronicle:

Revelation for nun-type:
getta to john and not beat around the book.
Just let priest-type's hand runneth over your cup
while nun-type offereth constant confessions (feedback).

Did not help that nun-type used quotation
that's nevereth in the said psalm.
Luckily for nun-types with lesser psalm collections,
there are hymms that don't give a luke
what says the psalm,
and are endoweth with johns
that giveth what nun-types needeth without psalm aids.

So genesis the world as numbers come forth
and sought, and found glory further north.
And causeth the exodus of the likes of
matthew, daniel, samuel, esther and george.
While other nun and priet-types play judges in spite
and use only their palms for leviticus.

Psalm good?
nun the less, priest the lord!

Organic Fools

One weekend when my sister & family from Batu Pahat was visiting, they brought along some home-grown vegetables for us. On learning that the vegetables we were having for dinner were 'organic', another relative in Singapore expressed interest in getting some in the future as she also 'believed' in the benefits of organic food.

So months later when we visited my sister, we brought back some of those vegetables and my mom gave some of them to this other relative who upon seeing that there were holes on the vegetables exclaimed 'ee! how come got holes one?'.

I did not know what to say but wondered on what basis this fella expected the vegetables grown without the 'protection' of insecticides to be 'hole-free'. It is like expecting the insects not to touch those vegetables and to leave them exclusively only to humans!

Only fools think that nature is made only for man, and they can have exclusive right to nature's offerings ......

WL's Gift to An Old Tin Can Collector

It was one of those Saturday nights when 2 niecese came over to our house to play with my daughter WL. At about 9 PM I suggested that we go for some 'teh tarik' like we do once in a while at the 24-hours prata place at Old Bedok Road. (Once, after one of these teh tarik sessions, I found that I could not sleep even at 3 AM, and I could hear the kids running and playing around on the floor upstairs oblivious to the fact they were suffering from the problem as me!)

That day, by about 10 PM the kids started pestering me to bring them for 'teh tarik'. I told WL that she will have to bring some money along (something I do quite often by now to teach her monetary concepts). So she took some money from her ang-pow collection and we went with grandpa, grandma and LL.

After the tea, the kids and grandma went for a stroll along the row of shops where the prata shop is. A while after that the kids came and told me enthusiastically about some poor kittens they saw lying on the five foot way. WL insisted I go along to see. When we got there the kids started talking about how pitiful the kittens looked and asked if we can bring them home. May be I did not look very enthusiastic about the idea so WL suggested bringing only one home. I disagreed and explained that their mom will be looking for them and will miss them if we take them away. On top of that the kittens were being taken care of by the people around there as there was some milk placed there for them to drink. The kids seemed satisfied with my explanation. So we left the kittens alone.

As we were walking back to our outdoor table at the prata shop, we saw an old man rummaging through the dustbin at the bus stop nearby. On the ground was some empty soft drink cans he had collected. Although I turned my head back to look at the man, I did not say anything. Did not even know that the kids noticed. It reminded me of a news report I read years ago about one such man who died after being knocked down by a car while going home late at night. That dead man was out with another friend of his to collect used cans in the middle of the night.

The next thing I knew was WL taking a 2 dollar note from her pocket and asking me if she can give it to the man. I said okay and left her to walk over to the man to hand over the money. From afar I could see that he was talking to WL and it took him like half a minute before he accepted the money from WL. I did not ask WL what the old man said to her but she came back to me looking quite happy with what she did. I carried her in my arms, gave her a peck on her cheek and whispered softly into her ear about how nice she had been with that gesture.

Interestingly, unlike the case of the poor kittens, her 2 cousins were not interested in the old man and did not partake in what happened.

Loo's Grafitti

(Received this chain mail about graffitis. It inspired my little poem at the bottom)

Subject: Graffiti...hilarious!

Washroom Graffiti 1
Here I lie in stinky vapor,
Because some bastard stole the toilet paper,
Shall I lie, or shall I linger,
Or shall I be forced to use my finger.

Before he graduated to be a poet, he wrote this....
Washroom Graffiti 2
Here I sit
Broken hearted
Tried to shit
But only farted

Some one who had a different experience wrote
Washroom Graffiti 3
You're lucky
You had your chance
I tried to fart,
And shit my pants!

Perhaps it is true that people get inspiration in toilets
Washroom Graffiti 4
I came here
To shit and stink,
But all I do
Is sit and think.

There are also people who come in for a different purpose
Washroom Graffiti 5
Some come here to sit and think,
Some come here to shit and stink,
But I come here to scratch my balls,
And read the bullshit on the walls...

Toilets walls are also job advertisement places.......
Washroom Graffiti 6 (written high upon the wall)
If you can piss above this line,
the Singapore Fire Department wants you.

Ministry of environment advertisement
Washroom Graffiti 7
We aim to please!
You aim too! Please!

Washroom Graffiti 8
Seen above a urinal:
Please do not throw cigarette butts in our urinal.
We don't piss in your ashtrays!

Washroom Graffiti 9
On the inside of a toilet door:
Patrons are requested to remain seated
throughout the entire performance.

Washroom Graffiti 10
A sign at a swimming pool bathroom:
We don't swim in your toilet,
so please don't pee in our pool!

Washroom Graffiti 11
Another sign seen at a swimming pool:
Welcome to our ool.
Notice there's no P in it.
Please keep it that way.

This should teach you a lesson
Washroom Graffiti 12
Sign seen at a restaurant:
The hands that clean these toilets also make your food...please aim properly.



LOO'S GRAFFITI by CCK
Since we usually find the most creative graffitis in men's toilet, here's a dedication to them.

Hell knows no fury
than a man in hurry
to dispose of his carry
through his little furry

Therefore one can relate
if we can be considerate
that the loo we congregate
should not one desecrate

But not 'em wonderful graffitis
for they are cute little titbits
that make it easier a bit
for men to relieve their 'di' 'di's

Graffitis are what people scratch
on the wall and the ledge
with one hand on the catch
and a nice imagination to match.

Whooosh, pheeew and yeeees!

German Field Marshall's People Management Guide

Erich von Manstein, one of Germany's ablest field commander during World War II used to remind his military commanders of this people management principle.

He said there are 4 types of officers based on combination of 2 characteristics - smart/stupid and lazy/hardworking

1. Stupid but lazy ones: leave them alone, they do no harm

2. Stupid and hardworking ones: these people are a menace and must be gotten rid off at once (they will create all sorts of problems that require a lot of other people's effort to fix)

3. Smart and hardworking ones: keep them, they make excellent staff officers and make sure every detail is taken care of

4. Smart but lazy ones: they are suited for the highest office (for they will find the shortest way to get things done!)

Difference Color and $20 Makes

Last Sunday, I cycled to the local Bedok South market to buy some soya bean drink. In front of a toy shop, the owner has installed a 3-track motorised Tamiya toy car racing circuit. When I first stopped to watch there was a bunch of about 10 or 12 young boys (Chinese and Malays who were no more than 15 years old) crowded around the track but I noticed something immediately. Only 2 of the boys, Chinese brothers, were placing their cars in the track. Even though they each had a toy car in hand, everyone else (Chinese and Malay kids inlcuded) just watched them silently. I noticed some of the other kids sheepishly slipping their cars into the track only when the brothers' cars were not in the track.

The cars belonging to the brothers were very fast and zoomed round the track. The other kids were obviously impressed. But that was not the only reason why they stayed out. I could see that the 2 Chinese boys whose father was standing behind them looked rather proud. And when one of the Malay kids looked admiringly at one of their cars as it was picked up, one of the brothers said to him in Hokkien vulgarity something like "what the fuck are you looking at?". I was shocked that the father did nothing but I figured that it must have been happening for some time and the man had done nothing all the while or probably worse condoned what his kids did. From then on I looked straight in the direction of those 2 boys and noticed that they knew that what they did was not right. For I could see that in their eyes when they sneaked a look at my direction once a while.

When one of the brothers' cars jumped the track, a Malay kid picked the car up and placed it back into the track but the Chinese kid did not even show any appreciation. Given his arrogance and his remark to the other Malay kid earlier I angrily told the Malay kid in Malay that those Chinese kids were bad mannered (kurang ajar) and they should not pick their car up for them anymore, and their cars were faster because they had better batteries. I wasn't sure but figured so as there were not many variations I could think of for such simple toys.

The Hokkien kid that said the vulgarity earlier sensed my displeasure at him and knew I was talking about the batteries. So when another Malay kid, a rather plump (in a cute way) kid of 10 or so, placed his car in the track but the car went in a much slower pace than the brothers, I asked him if he knew what caused the difference. And to my surprise, the perviously arrogant Hokkien kid joined in and offered his advice by shouting to the Malay kid to get "GP batteries". So I gave this plump Malay kid some money to buy some of those GP batteries which cost $1.20 for two. Another skinny Malay kid wanted a set too so I passed him some money and asked him to go get it.

As it turned out I discovered that there are faster motors that cost $19.90 while slower ones cost $5.90. And there were fast-drain batteries that were better than others. I asked the 2 Malay kids if there are rechargeable batteries and if they are better. They said yes and I gave them $50 to get them. They cost $10 a pair.

Also found that there are more variables. Some kids add lead weights to the cars and has foam tires instead of original rubber ones. So, I tried to explain to some of the Malay kids crowding around me then (they must have heard about my gifts by then) how they should play around with the variables or combinations and see what is best for the track, not necessarily one combination fits all etc. But I could see that all except the skinny one was not really paying attention (may be they just wanted some fun and not interested in figuring things out). The skinny kid also thanked me 2 or 3 times for the batteries. He will be grow up to be different.

At the end, I thought how arrogant the Hokkien kids were earlier and all because they had more expensive motors and batteries that probably cost no more than $20 each. I felt like going to get a few top end sets and give it to some kids to 'compete' against those arrogant brothers!

But first, need some quick education. Must surf the net to find out what Tamiya has to offer…..

Old Cobbler Wong

Cobbler Wong was an old shoe mender near our office - McCallum Street by the side of DBS Building to be exact. His death a week back at the age of 82 was reported in the Straits Times with the following account:

- the man worked as a cobbler from the age of 13 till the day he died.

- words of appreciation from one of his sons written on a board and placed at the spot where his father mended shoes for his customers and where the old man fainted the morning of the day he died. The message was for all the nice people who had been his father's customers through the years and who had shown the old man great kindness like buying him meals daily.

- how much his cobbler father’s work meant to him and about him waking up at 4 am daily to 'go to work'

- the man being awarded an award some years back for his exemplary services (despite his age), honesty etc. as a roadside cobbler

- the old man giving each of his grandchildren $10 every week but had never stepped foot outside of Singapore - not even Sentosa!

- One of his son's remarking about how surprised he was that so many people could have shown such kindness to his father even though he was neither 'rich nor famous'.

I remembered the old man well for 2 reasons. He was very much a part of the 'scene' along the path many of us take to go for lunch daily. Whenever I see him I wondered if he really had to do that given his age and how lucky most of us are in contrast. It also reminded me of a saying by an English writer quoted by Gandhi as having had a profound impact on him: 'A life of labor is a life worth living'.

I remember the 2 instances when he turned down my business. Sometime back I thought I might be able to give him some business. So, I brought my old soccer boots and asked him to have the soles reattached. But he told me that he cannot fix them and I'll have to go to a shop with the machinery to do stitching. I returned weeks later with a simpler problem - a casual shoe with part of its sole detached. I thought now he should have no excuse not to fix it since I could have glued it back myself with super glue. To my chagrin he turned me down again! This time he told me that the sole would not stay on for long even if he glued it back for me. Which was true - I glued it back myself and it did re-open again sometime after.

My personal experience with Cobbler Wong helped me to better appreciate what was reported in the papers. That old man was really honest and professional. And his other customers must have appreciated it too - thus the award and kindness shown to him in return. I now feel a tinge of regret for having approached him - for he might have thought that they were just out of sympathy (which was somewhat true).

So from him, a few important lessons I learnt in life were reinforced:

- A life of labor is indeed a life worth living. His work meant so much to him that he did it till the day he died.

- Goodness begets goodness and it does not matter who you are and what little you do.

- Never be like Cobbler Wong's sons. One who wondered in public why others could have been so nice to his father even though he was neither 'rich nor famous' as if goodness has anything to do with those 2 attributes. None of the sons and grandchildren had bothered to accompany the old man even for a trip to Sentosa! It made me feel sick. And that probably explains why the old man preferred to come to McCallum street everyday. He probably felt closer to the nice people he knew there than his own off springs.

But all the above would have just simply receded to the back of my mind had I not learnt of what a man I know did for old Cobbler Wong. And I had to write this down - for my friends and kids when they grow up. This man is a colleague in JP Morgan's Corporate Services group - responsible for mails and other administrative tasks. Apparently his first encounter with Cobbler Wong was more than 10 years ago when he wanted a new hole punched on his belt which the old man (younger then) did for free. This colleague felt so bad that he bought the old man a drink that day. What was most admirable was that since that day, that was what this colleague did almost every morning without fail! Just like what a woman was reported in the newspaper to have done with meals for Cobbler Wong.

One day last week, on his usual drink delivery to Cobbler Wong, this colleague was a little surprised when the old man asked him to take off his shoes so that he could polish them. Our colleague was embarrassed but did so as it was an unusual request from the old man and he did not want to disappoint the man - if it made him happy why not? But he was to learn on his next delivery the next morning that the old man had fainted the previous morning (sometime after polishing his shoes) and had passed away that day. He returned to the office that morning with the memory of the dead man and wondered about the significance of the event the day before. Did the old man sense that he was about to go and the polishing of his shoes was his last act of appreciation for the kindness shown to him?

That only God will ever know but we should all be proud to know that among us is a very, very nice man and his name is Das, short for Devathas Kumarasamy.

p.s. can someone pls forward a copy of this to Das - couldn't find his e-mail ID! And those who want to join Das for lunch can let Ee Lin know - she is arranging one and it was she who told me the story about Das and Cobbler Wong.

Why Maids Are Not Allowed in Cricket Club

ST reported recently about a member of Singapore Cricket Club challenging the club for forbidding her Sri Lanka maid from entering the club. The Club claimed that it was specified as condition of club membership. The question is why are maids not allowed in the club? Pick the correct answer from below:

A. Members in club are not distinguishable from maids and do not want to be mistaken as one (see next point)

B. Members' parents and grandparents were treated the same way by the club when it was exclusive to their colonial masters and they were not allowed to enter the club. So their children now want to do the same to others to feel as good as their parents' colonial masters.

C. Members paid so much money to show off they could not afford to be seen there with someone else's maid

D. All of the above.

Why JP Morgan is the Best

JP Morgan announced agreement to merge with Chase which agreed to pay US$60 billion to exchange about 3.7 Chase shares for each Morgan share. Each Chase share was valued at about US$50 and Morgan share about US$180. There has been a lot of rumours and talks about impending buyout of Morgan for the last 2 years. It has finally happened and was the talk of every staff in Morgan.

That was what happened one day that first week in our pantry among some of our staff from the human resource department when I went there to top up my cup. I could not avoid joining in the most important topic for the week and asked them what the sentiments were in their department. One of the HR staff responded that they were not worried. When I asked why that was so since there were talks about impending cuts in staffing by about 3,000 world wide, she said that it was because 'Morgan is the best' and looked at me quizically as if saying that I should know that.

When I asked her why she thought Morgan was the best, she said 'everyone knows it'. So I insisted on getting some proof which was duly given : Morgan's stock price was $180 while Chase's was only $50! I was shocked and proceeded to explain to her that it was an incorrect conclusion and gave her the example that my having $50 dollar notes in my wallet while another person having only $10 notes in his does not mean that I am richer. I may have only 1 $50 note but the other guy may have a thousand $10 notes!

The HR lady understood my point and the conversation ended there. I thought to myself what would happen if that lady had quoted that to potential recruits of Morgan as example for why 'Morgan is the best'! It would be the fastest way the disprove that statement.

History of American Folksongs

Old Folks At Home, Old Kentucky Home & Old Black Joe

The songs were classified as "Ethiopian Melodies". When once Stephen Foster devoted his life to song writing, the talent developed into a rare one. Old Folks at Home was written in 1852 and was one of the three which were written in that year. It also proved to be one of the big and lasting hits and it's publishers, Firth, Pond & Co., of New York, realized much on it. It is a typical negro minstrel song and was, of course, sung by the Christy Minstrels. This song followed in the footsteps of such other favorites as Uncle Ned, Nelly Was A Lady, Open Thy Lattice, Love; Suwanee River, O Susanna, Laura Lee, Wilt Thou Be Gone Love, I Would Not Die In Summer Time and many others. It is reproduced here to show that there is truth in the statement that most of Foster's lyrics were as original with him as were his melodies.

"As I once intimated to you, I had the intention of omitting my name on my Ethiopian songs, owing to the prejudice against them by some, which might injure my reputation as a writer of another style of music, but I find that by my efforts I have done a great deal to build up a taste for the Ethiopian songs among refined people by making the words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some of that order. Therefore I have concluded to reinstate my name on my songs and to pursue the Ethiopian business without fear or shame and lend all my energies to making the business live, at the same time that I will wish to establish my name as the best Ethiopian song-writer. But I am not encouraged in undertaking this so long as "The Old Folks At Home" stares me in the face with another's name on it. As it was at my own solicitation that you allowed your name to be placed on the song, I hope that the above reasons will be sufficient explanation for my desire to place my own name on it as author and composer, while at the same time I wish to leave the name of your band on the title page. This is a little matter of pride in myself which it will certainly be to your interest to encourage. On the receipt of your free consent to this proposition, I will, if you wish, willingly refund you the money which you paid me on that song, though it may have been sent me for other considerations than the one in question, and I promise in addition to write you an opening chorus in my best style, free of charge, and in any other way in my power to advance your interest hereafter. I find I cannot write at all unless I write for public approbation and get credit for what I write. As we may probably have a good deal of business with each other in our lives, it is best to proceed on a sure basis of confidence and good understanding, therefore I hope you will appreciate an author's feelings in the case and deal with me with your usual fairness. Please answer immediately. Very respectfully yours, Stephen C. Foster."

It is ironic that the only race that developed a folksong literature in this country is the race that was brought here against it's will, and was and has been the most brutally exploited of all-the Negro. The Negro spirituals and Stephen Foster's songs are the nearest to completely indigenous folksongs that we possess. - Deems Taylor

Street Peddlar and Big Business

For the last 3 years or so, an Indonesian man from Batam has been selling his curry puffs at 3 pieces for a dollar at various places around the new SIA building. Before completion of the SIA Building, he started by selling his puffs right at the back exit of DBS Tower 2. It was a pretty good location that captures the traffic going into DBS Tower 2. I like many other people around the office find this convenient and cheap supplier a welcome.

When SIA Building opened it has a small mamak shop (provision shop run by Indian families common in Singapore) at its back exit that faces that of DBS Tower 2. It also sold snacks like nasi lemak, fried mee hoon and, of course, curry puffs. I guess the Indonesian peddlar must have either found that he was losing some customers to the Indian shop or was chased away by the DBS building management. For awhile after that he moved his operations to a spot right in between SIA Building and CPF Building. It was also a better location since it was right in the middle of traffic moving from the Tanjong Pagar MRT station to the various buildings near SIA Building. That continued until the week Starbucks opened its coffee outlet in the ground floor of SIA Building. The peddlar disappeared the week Starbucks appeared. Initially I was not sure if Starbucks was the cause as the peddlar might have been ill. But he never appeared again at that spot.

A few months later, while driving into the CPF carpark I caught sight of the Indonesian man again. This time he was selling his puffs at the other end of CPF Building, nearer to the traffic lights (and away from SIA Building). But I did not see him again subsequent to that. Still wondering where he has gone.

This little episode of this poor but resourceful Indonesian peddlar sticks in my mind for a few reasons :
- circumstantial evidence showed that he was probably chased away as part of the deal between SIA Building and Starbucks. I have always wanted to catch hold of the peddlar to confirm this but never got to do it. And if that is the case, it shows what big businesses are capable of. Even a small time peddlar was not given a chance. For me, it increases my commitment not to ever buy anything from Starbucks and SIA.
- it also shows the odds which smaller businesses have to go against.