tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-208704032024-03-24T01:58:49.410+08:00burgers and duriansburgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-16581920097375810282007-11-13T22:42:00.000+08:002007-11-13T22:47:06.497+08:00on ancestors<span style="font-size:85%;">"Do you think when a tree dies all its work is finished? Of course not. It then has the work of decomposing, of becoming soil in which other trees grow. It is very careful to do this, left to itself, and not hauled off to a lumberyard. If it is hauled off to a lumberyard and if nothing is left to decompose and nurture the young trees coming up...Disaster!"<br /><br />Alice Walker<br />in <span style="font-style: italic;">Now is the Time to Open Your Heart</span></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-48795843898797395012007-10-04T21:45:00.000+08:002007-10-07T11:37:10.180+08:00Go sign the petition<span style="font-size:85%;">On whose backs our wealth?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In whose name those bullets?<br />Whither our conscience?</span><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5117478321850162178" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2y11PtpiZyGAc3Ojk70SoLuHlDymENzYDJvFqOY03-u6FbqjffaiZ_DyAwaXITB9PRtPT4dHMR925ps1ONNdP8QPcFPF9A9T5KOFvSopZ-144HjD3VDOwLzCVlNpYFpATX29T/s320/myanmar+embassy.jpg" border="0" /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The number of signatures reached above 1000 tonight. That's 1000 people who were willing to brave police intimidation, walk up to the building and sign their name to a petition calling for peace and freedom in Myanmar.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Will you join them?</span></p><p><span style="font-size:85%;">Myanmar Embassy, St Martin's Drive (opposite Tanglin Mall)</span></p>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-6017164404793246612007-09-29T17:28:00.001+08:002007-09-29T17:28:59.744+08:00Baa Baa Black Sheep in Raag<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><object height='350' width='425'><param value='http://youtube.com/v/3EmkrsJvbBU' name='movie'/><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/3EmkrsJvbBU'/></object></p></div>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-44857884526203707322007-09-28T19:17:00.000+08:002007-09-29T17:21:37.795+08:00Happy 100th Birthday, Shaheed Bhagat Singh!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcoKO2_Cd7DRxJSuLTDQnZZhT5mMJrPHUjpkShv19LuT1ZC-LNyZle15dsEdgS66KsWaV6FH6sItvBDFNAeujaZ1UNT-SK2t4vgPWY20hmeE4MfehhJapG7RnOdIQTGcm2OAf/s1600-h/Bhagat21.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115553472126917618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpcoKO2_Cd7DRxJSuLTDQnZZhT5mMJrPHUjpkShv19LuT1ZC-LNyZle15dsEdgS66KsWaV6FH6sItvBDFNAeujaZ1UNT-SK2t4vgPWY20hmeE4MfehhJapG7RnOdIQTGcm2OAf/s320/Bhagat21.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Revolution is an inalienable right of mankind.</span><br /></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size:85%;">Freedom is an imperishable birth right of all.</span><br /></em></div><div><span style="font-size:85%;">- Bhagat Singh</span></div>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-53855958538530978082007-08-25T15:56:00.000+08:002007-08-29T18:03:06.508+08:00Asian Dub Foundation @ WOMAD 24 Aug 2007<span style="font-size:85%;">Update 29/8: This review is now also available at <a href="http://aussgworldpolitics.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/power-to-the-small-massive-asian-dub-foundation-womad-singapore/">Readings From A Political Duo-ble</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">They came, they sang, they played, they fucking rocked! After years of relying on their music as an outlet for anger against oppression and as inspiration to work for social change, it was the most wonderful experience to finally see them perform live. Their 1 hour 20 minute set consisted of some new tracks from their upcoming album as well as a good mix of songs from their previous albums. My favourite was Fortress Europe – that song just lends itself so well to a live performance. It was angsty, angry and resistance-fuelled. My least favourite was the Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan track. It was cool that they wanted to pay tribute to him; after all, it’s his 10th year death anniversary. But to be honest, the performance straddled the line between music and noise a bit too closely for me. I think the recorded track works well because you can clearly hear the beautiful fusion of qawwali, rock, punk, etc, whereas there was too much feedback and audience cheering in the live session to get a full sense of the composition.<br /><br />I liked that they picked a lot of songs with socio-political messages to perform last night – besides Fortress Europe, they also sang Rise to the Challenge, Kill Racism and a new track about those getting left behind and trampled on in India’s impending rise to superpower status, before ending the night with Rebel Warrior. Musically, I realized that it’s really in the live performance that their unique and label-defying style comes through. Simply seeing the DJ booth, tabla, electric guitar and dhol on one stage complemented by smooth vocals with a dose of hardhitting lyrics was a phenomenon in itself. Without having to deconstruct their sound, listening to their performance of Riddim I Like proved their musical credentials like nothing else could.<br /><br />Even while ADF’s musical style is a constant reminder that South Asians don’t all play the sitar and sing in ululating aahs (and smell like curry and live in ashrams and…), they continue to push the envelope all on musical fronts in their explorations of hybridity. I particularly enjoyed the way in which the tabla and dhol were pretty much the percussionist backbones of their music. Having now taken a few dhol classes myself, it was exciting to see how the traditional beats blended with the other instruments and how new beats were created to work in the context of their sound.<br /><br />Throughout the concert they kept up a lively engagement of the audience. During portions of songs where the music stopped to allow for Hindu spiritual incantations, they would raise their arms into the air, point their faces to the sky and assume a position of spiritual reverence, encouraging the audience to do the same. It was funny because I think it was meant to be at least partly in jest – a subtle parody of religious dogma and unthinking compliance, but I’m not sure if most of the audience ‘got’ that.<br /><br />In fact, I’m not sure if most of the audience ‘got’ ADF at all. This is the only thing that tempered the experience of the performance for me. As with other such music festivals, the crowd was made up mostly (and this is of course a gross assumption based on physical appearance, accents, snatches of overheard conversations, my limited social network and the steep $58 ticket price alone) of Western expatriates, kids of Western expatriates, university students and middle class 20/30/40somethings. Since I currently fit into the last category, I implicate myself and interrogate my own social position in my critique of the audience as well.<br /><br />The beauty of music, and of all art for that matter, is in its ability to elicit enjoyment at many different levels and from many different perspectives. There are no laws against enjoying music on a purely superficial level. Political music, however, wants to do more than simply elicit pleasure. It wants to ask questions, raise awareness, it wants to criticize, educate, surface alternatives and explore other possibilities, and it wants to move people and inspire them to action. The depressing thing is I’m not sure if ADF accomplished that last night. It was clear that most of the people around me did not know ADF’s music – most didn’t seem to recognize the song titles when they were announced and weren’t mouthing the songs lyrics. Worse, there was an obvious disconnect between what the band what trying to say and what the audience understood. For instance, when a band member said “We want something from you… We want your oil! Sound familiar?”, I turned and saw “huh?” looks on the faces of the group of people standing next to me. And when introducing the song about India’s poor, they started talking about how some people are saying that India is going to be the next world superpower, and people actually starting cheering. The band looked disgusted and one band member groaned, “No, no, no. That’s not necessarily a good thing. We want equal power for everyone!” Towards the end when they were about to start singing Fortress Europe and said, “This song is for all immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers everywhere”, the cynic in me began to wonder how many of the people who cheered were really Singaporeans who mutter under their breath about losing jobs to foreign talent and who chose to blind themselves to the Bangladeshi workers shuttled in on lorries at the end of the night for clean-up.<br /><br />All in all, though, it was a good evening and I’m glad I finally got to see ADF live. One can only hope that for the members of the audience last night who had never before been exposed to ADF’s music, that their ADF concert experience would at least propel them to dig deeper into and find out more about the band and hopefully, their broader political message. In the meantime, watching the Asian Dub Foundation perform might just have restored a little bit of my own commitment to fighting injustice and reinvigorated the spirit of resistance that I thought I was coming close to losing.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-60801015973658773692007-05-25T10:50:00.000+08:002007-05-25T10:54:12.678+08:00Magic<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Sometimes </em></span><a href="http://www.kolki.com/poems/Democracy.doc"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>democracy</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> works like magic!<br />Party in power can tally </em></span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60427-2000Nov26?language=printer"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>election results</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> to victory!<br /></em></span><a href="http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/12/08/president.election/"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Judges</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> can </em></span><a href="http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/election/electionfaq.htm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>stop vote counts</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> making election mockery!<br />Citizen’s welfare takes back sit for </em></span><a href="http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/107201/Bush_Sends_Congress_2_9_Trillion_Spending_Plan"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Military priority</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>!<br /></em></span><a href="http://www.kolki.com/peace/9-11-terror-act.htm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Truth</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> becomes powerless conspiracy!<br /></em></span><a href="http://www.kolki.com/peace/NewPearlHarbour.htm"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Conspirators</em></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em> run Government with legitimacy!<br />Mighty power invades foreign countries for democracy!<br />Installs dictatorships as convenient allies!<br />Revolution against occupation becomes insurgency!</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><em>Protests for democracy are silenced as militancy!</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">by Deepak Sarkar</span><br /><a href="http://www.kolki.com"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">www.kolki.com</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-16514972403955045992007-05-08T23:48:00.000+08:002007-05-08T23:40:41.100+08:00Exactly."I am SICK of lame reasoning, faulty logic and threats that my country is going to collapse under the Muslim threat, the Opposition Party threat, the poverty threat and the Inefficiency threat. How about the threat from ineffectual, self-interesed, and not very bright politicians who do not show tangible results in spite of being lauded as the best damn brains our paltry population has to offer?"<br /><br />From: <a href="http://thotspeak.blogspot.com/2007/04/bad-logic-and-ministers-salaries-and.html">The Art of Dumbspeak</a>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-47223005888294069462007-05-08T23:24:00.000+08:002007-05-08T23:33:52.426+08:00Oh great<span style="font-size:85%;">I changed my template and lost all my links. Lovely.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">And only realize it 15 hours later cos I did the template-change on the sly at work. And was blogging on the sly at work cos the home computer is the most popular piece of technology in the house with up to 5 people vying for it at one time. I think it's about time to get my own piece of metal.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Links will be back up soon. She says, mostly to herself and a host of random people who've googled 'bimbo' and found her thanks to one regretful post.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-17418634292580249202007-05-08T09:25:00.001+08:002007-05-08T09:25:45.807+08:00<span style="font-size:85%;">Welcome to the club, France.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-83756935421648095162007-03-26T22:51:00.000+08:002007-03-26T22:50:46.159+08:00are missiles bad for your health?<span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>Doctors attack Lancet owner's arms fair links</strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Polly Curtis, health correspondent</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Friday March 23, 2007</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The Guardian</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The publishers of The Lancet are under fire from leading doctors who are complaining about their escalating involvement in arms fairs. Across three pages of today's edition the medical journal publishes letters from top doctors, led by the Royal College of Physicians, who say that Reed Elsevier's commercial interest in the arms trade undermines the journal's efforts to improve health worldwide. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The editors of the journal also call on their proprietor to drop its work with the defence industry, claiming that the association is damaging The Lancet's reputation. The Lancet's international advisory board is now considering an "organised campaign" against its own publisher.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,,2040822,00.html">More</a></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">***</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I work for doctors, and most of the time, it makes one bitter and cynical to be constantly reminded that most people become doctors not out of some humanistic impulse to heal, but because they can make a lot of money. So when this kind of thing happens, it warms my soul to know that sometimes, even doctors have principles and are willing to stand up for them. But here, some words of wisdom from one great doctor:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"<em>In moments of great peril it is easy to muster a powerful response to moral stimuli; but for them to retain their effect requires the development of a consciousness in which there is a new priority of values</em>."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">- Che Guevara</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-57725137638179252622007-03-26T20:39:00.000+08:002007-03-26T20:46:23.168+08:00snooping ladies<span style="font-size:85%;">I read on the <a href="http://thefunkyghettohijabi.blogspot.com/">funky ghetto hijabi's blog</a> that there’s this list of <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/africa/cuvl/Afbks.html">Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th century</a>. It was cool to check it out and find that my taste in literature can’t be all bad if most of the African writers I’ve read (although not a lot) are actually on there.<br /><br />It’s interesting to come across this now, though, cos I’m currently reading <em>The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency</em> by Alexander McCall Smith. It’s pretty light reading, with fairly simple language and a narrative that’s paced like linked short stories, which is great for a tired mind on the train ride home. But it’s becoming a rather problematic read.<br /><br />The basic premise, easily guessed from the title, is that this is the story of Precious Ramotswe, a woman in Botswana who decides to open up her own detective agency – the first of its kind in the country. This seemed interesting enough to me, and I’d glanced over a Sunday Times interview with the author who was recently in town to promote his new book, so picked it up when I saw it going for $4.50 at a garage sale a few weekends ago.<br /><br />One of the problems I am having is that the language just seems a little too simplistic. It’s obvious the guy can write, but his writing style makes it seem as if he is trying to “dumb down” his language. This may be because the book is meant to be ‘young adult fiction’, but a quick Internet search tells me that it’s not marketed to that specific reader demographic. Is he trying to mimic the way people in Botswana talk, if they even speak to one another in English? I say mimic because, in case it wasn’t already obvious, Alexander McCall Smith is a white guy – an older, Scottish medical law and ethics academic who was born and grew up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe to be exact.<br /><br />And therein lies my other major discomfort with the book. What is it about white guys writing colonized women? (Think <em>Memoirs of a Geisha</em>.)<br /><br />Smith’s heart seems to be in the right place – he says he wants to write positive stories about Africa, he wants Africa to be known not just for AIDS and poverty and blood diamonds, he wants to tell feel-good stories because isn’t the world full of so many terribly depressing things already that we need some happy thoughts in our lives. His well-meaning intentions just aren’t enough though. Wasn’t the entire European colonial project propped up by an ideology of well-meaning intentions?<br /><br />Where is Smith’s cultural knowledge of the ‘good side of Africa’ coming from? His portrayal of middle class, working class and peasant Africans will necessarily be a portrayal <em>as seen through the eyes of an upper class English-educated white man living in Zimbabwe</em>. He cannot simply erase his identity and ignore his position in the race-class-gender hierarchy in Southern Africa. For instance, I remember reading in the Sunday Times interview that Smith chose to set the story in Botswana rather than his home of Zimbabwe because Botswana is an economically stable country with decent infrastructure and no military conflict. As an upper class descendant of colonizers, I am sure Smith would much prefer if the locals did not fight for autonomy and simply integrated quietly into the global capitalist economy. Funny how Smith never mentions that the single largest foreign contributor to the Botswana army is the United States, or that HIV/AIDS is a major healthcare crisis in Botswana, and although he describes the difficulties of working in a diamond mine (Precious Ramotswe’s father worked as a diamond miner), he never takes the mining companies to task for the exploitation of their workers and the land.<br /><br />It just seems as if it’s a lot easier to look at the good in the world when you’re not intimately affected by the bad. The book’s attempt at humanizing Southern Africans only results in objectifying them further, in this cynic’s view.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-85595996258851361422007-03-20T14:19:00.000+08:002007-03-20T14:24:37.404+08:00Flee!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFV3N5lXKmJ7_yF65xlQrZ1mrAfSRJPKyCUKx1SuPGg4LT-DzcrDNlB5G8T_8BO8CatLRitzhBTdNDBbGbFWWZW92_-zCD6QRd5oNbQbGAVJIHMrd6cyIlE0KZYRjcWcyn3rm/s1600-h/Flee+24+March.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5043887619372933362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxFV3N5lXKmJ7_yF65xlQrZ1mrAfSRJPKyCUKx1SuPGg4LT-DzcrDNlB5G8T_8BO8CatLRitzhBTdNDBbGbFWWZW92_-zCD6QRd5oNbQbGAVJIHMrd6cyIlE0KZYRjcWcyn3rm/s320/Flee+24+March.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="center"><strong>SGSELLTRADE FLEE! Market #7</strong></div><div align="center"><strong>Date: Saturday, 24 Mar 2007</strong></div><div align="center"><strong>Time: 12-6pm</strong></div><div align="center"><strong>Location: Gashaus, 114 Middle Road</strong></div><div align="center"><strong></strong> </div><div align="left"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:85%;">Sis has a stall. Will be there helping her. Come say hi and buy cheap stuff!</span></div>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-63448433550603162672007-03-14T11:01:00.001+08:002007-03-14T11:01:24.865+08:00my letter on barking women<span style="font-size:85%;">On Sunday I sent the below letter to <em>Today</em> newspaper. They didn't publish it.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">***</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I refer to the article by Nazry Bahrawi “Woman barks up the right channel to find lost pooch” (Mar 9). I am deeply disappointed that <em>Today</em> has allowed such callous reporting to make it to print. Even if the pun was intended, the headline is extremely offensive to women by referring to them as dogs. The story about one woman’s attempt at finding her missing dog is unfortunately tainted by irresponsible reportage that is disrespectful and objectifying to all women, and whose logic continues to fuel greater injustices that include harassment, abuse and violence against women. The fact that this comes just one day after International Womens’ Day is even more tragic. The media plays a large role not just in reflecting, but also in shaping, the ways that Singapore society treats women. I hope that in the future, <em>Today</em> will consider with more gravity the ways in which its headlines and framing of articles shape and affect the way we perceive women.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-74204366068329119592007-03-08T22:01:00.000+08:002007-03-08T22:07:11.226+08:00a friendly IWD reminder<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46vS-173gqNuPUARKYtO4glsvAYekE6ojmv9tEkwnf1CSf0rrc-pYHUra9l6Bu8gW0Z2rKDeAQkf3r86OzCYbA_GIE6Qj-Oj0_yIr1PIIBkLZTu6XkJgY0bGEOBT7xMv3EFHi/s1600-h/fencingwomen.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5039554471240101426" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj46vS-173gqNuPUARKYtO4glsvAYekE6ojmv9tEkwnf1CSf0rrc-pYHUra9l6Bu8gW0Z2rKDeAQkf3r86OzCYbA_GIE6Qj-Oj0_yIr1PIIBkLZTu6XkJgY0bGEOBT7xMv3EFHi/s320/fencingwomen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>"We should look to the confrontational style of previous feminist movements and actions for inspiration. We should once again make the personal political and look at the ways in which our individual experiences with sexism are part of a larger system of domination. In other words, as women continue to lose rights won for us by previous generations of feminists, young feminists need to once again make feminism dangerous. We need to stop worrying about being nice and pretty and start to challenge not only the misogyny and sexism deeply ingrained in our society but also the racism and class bigotry. We need to reframe feminism as a movement that is deeply political and that courageously challenges all forms of oppression."</em></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://briarpatchmagazine.com/news/?p=399">More</a></span></div>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-15805235793678951402007-03-07T23:12:00.000+08:002007-03-07T23:15:39.815+08:00The ageing population<span style="font-size:85%;">I don’t understand the underlying logic. Currently we are having this problem called ‘an ageing population’, which essentially means that in a couple of decades or so, there are going to be many more old people than there should be in society (according to some human geographical theorists) and not enough people to look after them. Plus, the fact that the population will be made up of more old people than it does now means that there will be less young people, which means that there will be less workers, which is – roll the drums – “bad for the economy”. I suppose this is because when there are less workers around to push the paper, press the buttons, insert the microchips, clean the hotels and serve the coffee, there will be less profit, and we know how much dem bosses wan dey profit.<br /><br />But this is the part that I don’t get. If there are going to be more old people, and if the solution is to make sure that there are even more young people, then doesn’t that mean that in another few decades those more young people will become more old people that need even more young people to replace them with? You follow? The way the wind is blowing, if you think catching a cab at 5:45 on a Friday evening is tough now, just wait another 50 years…<br /><br />I thought the world is already overpopulated (and I’m not even gonna go into an existentialist diatribe about whether life is so great that we need to bring even more poor souls into it, or a feminist rant about how population planning is oppressive to women, or a tirade about how immigration regulations discriminate between different classes of immigrants and create a destructive antagonistic nationalistic environment of foreign versus local). I thought that Singapore has already almost reached its peak population density (although <em>some</em> people seem to think we can squeeze another 2 million people in here – obviously <em>they’ve</em> never tried getting on the MRT at Simei at 8 in the morning).<br /><br />I just wanna know – if we think we got problems now, aren’t the solutions the government is proposing just gonna make things worse in another 20, 30 years?</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-75652102196651510502007-02-08T21:58:00.001+08:002007-02-08T21:58:49.588+08:00A call for a global justice response to the threat of pandemic flu<span style="font-size:85%;">Today humanity faces a massive global threat from avian influenza ('bird flu'). Leading researchers believe a human pandemic is not only inevitable but overdue. </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In December 2006, the Lancet medical journal estimated that a global H5N1 influenza pandemic could kill over 60 million people - 96% of them in the Global South.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In 1918, an influenza virus killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years. Overwhelmingly, these deaths took place in the Global South. People with HIV and AIDS will be particularly vulnerable to a new influenza pandemic, along with those affected by malnutrition and war.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The world needs:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* an end to corporate patents that restrict access to critical medicines</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* urgent funding by the rich world to boost health and surveillance systems in countries most at risk in Asia and Africa</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* the elimination of large-scale intensive livestock farming, which is accelerating the development of new pandemic viruses.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Corporate greed and Western self-interest are blocking these urgently-needed actions.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The Global Justice Movement can and must take action now.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Signed by:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Walden Bello, Mike Davis (author of 'The Monster At Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu'), Michael Greger MD (author 'Bird Flu: A virus of our own hatching'), Caroline Lucas (Green MEP, UK), John Pilger, Jonathan Stevenson (Pandemic Action), Kathy Kelly (Voices for Creative Nonviolence), Michael Albert (ZNet), Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Nobel Peace Prize Winner), Hans von Sponeck (former UN Assistant Secretary-General), Denis Halliday (former UN Assistant Secretary-General) and others.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">*****</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Pandemic Action is a new group based in the UK provoked into action by the book 'The Monster At Our Door' by US professor Mike Davis. Members include Gabriel Carlyle (Voices in the Wilderness UK), Jonathan Stevenson (Jubilee Debt Campaign), Milan Rai (Justice Not Vengeance), Patrick Nicholson (Scientists for Global Responsibility), and Martin Hearson (British Overseas NGOs for Development) (all in personal capacities).</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1170940709730135922007-02-08T21:09:00.000+08:002007-02-08T21:24:46.290+08:00more questions<span style="font-size:85%;">XXXVI</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In the end, won't death</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">be an endless kitchen?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">What will your disintegrated bones do,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">search once more for your form?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will your destruction merge</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">with another voice and other light?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will your worms become part</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">of dogs or of butterflies?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">XXXVII</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will Czechoslovakians or turtles</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">be born from your ashes?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Will your mouth kiss carnations</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">with other, imminent lips?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">But do you know from where death</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">comes, from above or from below?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">From microbes or walls,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">from wars or winter?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">- Pablo Neruda</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>The Book of Questions</em></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1170488791902568542007-02-03T15:41:00.000+08:002007-02-07T06:12:38.266+08:00Dear tonsils,<span style="font-size:85%;">You must be enjoying this. Most of the time, I don’t even know you guys are there, I don’t pay you any attention. You’re just, you know, there, doing your thing, guarding the gates to the rest of my body, doing your job, keeping out the riff raff.<br /><br />Then once in a while, you get fed up and need to make your presence felt. But do you really need to swell up to twice your size to be heard? Do you really need to grow specks of pus all over yourselves, putting me at risk of strep throat, just to remind me that you’re there? Do you really need to set me back $40 in doctor’s fees for that?<br /><br />I’m not angry, really. It’s actually nice to have the day off work, even if I spend most of it trying to sleep over the sound of the phone ringing and the sms beeping. It’s just, why do you have to make it so painful? If I’m not wincing from swallowing the gross-tasting Campbell’s Minestrone Soup-in-a-can, then I’m walking around in a drugged up stupor not even properly able to comprehend why Grisam is looking extra-serious in the CSI episode I’m watching. Next time you feel under-appreciated, couldn’t you just, like, wave or something? Or just get something stuck between you guys so that I need to cough for awhile and then be thankful that you’re around to protect me. No? Aw, come on…<br /><br />Anyway, in order to avoid any future misunderstandings, let’s clear the air once and for all. I appreciate you. I would never get rid of you, never. You’re my first line of defence and I will continue to invest in you until the day I die. If it helps, from now on, I promise to drink more lemon-honey-barley drink from the Chinese herbal medicine shop and put less chilli sauce on my Boon Tong Kee chicken rice. Anything else you need from me, I’m there. I hope that we can agree to deal with any future differences in a more amicable and less painful manner than the current situation permits.<br /><br />Yours Sincerely,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>burgersandurians</em></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1169628196276704622007-01-24T16:30:00.000+08:002007-01-24T16:46:07.116+08:00This Friday, a man will be killed, for no good reason<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7153/2102/1600/841862/tochi.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/7153/2102/320/682224/tochi.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://singabloodypore.blogspot.com/2007/01/pending-hanging-of-iwuchukwu-amara.html"><span style="font-size:85%;">Press message from the Singapore Anti Death Penalty Committee </span></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.yawningbread.org/arch_2006/yax-645.htm">Yawning Bread article on Tochi's case</a></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/20/asia/AS-GEN-Singapore-Amnesty-Death-Penalty.php">Amnesty International appeal</a></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=68771">Nigerian government to apply diplomatic pressure</a> </span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><a href="http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articletochi8.html">Take Action</a> </span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1169041596702733262007-01-17T21:43:00.000+08:002007-01-17T21:46:36.713+08:00III<span style="font-size:85%;">Tell me, is the rose naked</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">or is that her only dress?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Why do trees conceal</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">the splendor of their roots?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Who hears the regrets</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">of the thieving automobile?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Is there anything in the world sadder</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">than a tree standing in the rain?</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">-Pablo Neruda</span><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">The Book of Questions</span></em>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1168867750788232642007-01-15T21:22:00.000+08:002007-01-19T07:20:10.736+08:002006 Lists and New year's crises<span style="font-size:85%;">Um, yeah, kinda late. But what the hey.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In no particular order:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong>My 2006 Shit List</strong><br /><br />1. Moving away from my ‘self-created community’ in Vancouver<br />2. Moving back in with my parents<br />3. Having my 9-year-old laptop konk out<br />4. Peeing in a cup for Canada Immigration<br />5. Moving from full-time community organizing/activism to becoming a 8:30 to 6 zombie worker<br />6. Voting for the first time in my life, and having it feel so completely disempowering<br />7. Lebanon<br />8. My trip to Aceh (Christians are mind-boggling, NGOization is a fucked up process, government inaction is infuriating)<br />9. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Being single <em>all</em> year…burn<br /><br /><br /><strong>My 2006 Hit List</strong><br /><br />1. Being around lots of family again<br />2. Not spending ¾ of the year with my hands in my pockets and shuddering with cold every time I get on a toilet seat<br />3. Char kway teow, and lots of it<br />4. Having a stable income every month that is enough for food, shelter, clothing, a few extras, and some savings to boot<br />5. My trip to Aceh (viva the kampong life, yo)<br />6. Finally reading <em>Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee </em>by Meera Syal and loving it<br />7. Improving my Punjabi (sorta, I mean, thora jia)<br />8. Having a dog again<br />9. Beginning to blog (Even though I post so rarely, and most of the time they’re cheating-posts and even though no one really reads it anymore – which might actually be a good thing – it’s done wonders to help me chip away at a writer’s block that’s been a perpetual problem since my mother found my diary in my teenagehood.)<br /><br />In the wee hours of 2007, after ushering in the new year in a Kejang in the middle of the craziest traffic jam ever in downtown Jakarta (any thoughts of making our 10:30pm dinner appointment long ago abandoned), after learning a harsh lesson about never leaving home without a swiss army knife (it’s the new year’s countdown, you’re stuck in traffic, you’ve got an enticing bottle of wine, and you can’t friggin get to it, man!), after finally finding a place to eat at 1:30 in the morning, after getting sufficiently buzzed to pay your respects to the year past and the one now open like an unwritten book before us, I make myself a New Years’ Resolution. I am embarrassed to admit it, but here it is: at 3:30am on January 1st 2007, I resolved to become a bimbo. I figured, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. If it’s been so hard for me to find people I can connect with politically, socially, intellectually, if I’ve had such a hard time breaking out of my inherited community in Singapore now that I’ve lost touch with so many of my non-Punjabi friends from before, if the only way I won’t go crazy is to keep spending time with my cousins and friends who love shopping, watching movies, chasing celebrities, gossiping, and not much else, then it’s time for me to get wid the program. Get Wid The Program.<br /><br />So I spent the first 12 days of January shopping, reading only fashion magazines (no non-fiction allowed, exception: celebrity gossip columns), watching only mindless tv (no documentaries allowed), gossiping about other peoples’ problems, talking about my hair and allowing political positions I disagree with to fly over my head.<br /><br />But then, on the morning of the 13th of January, I woke up, opened the front door, and felt a flap of sheets brush past my ankle and land on my feet. I jumped with a start, thinking I’d stepped on the dog’s feet again, and rushing to get away from her angry bite. Feeling no needle-jab of a pain in my foot, I looked down, and there it lay, in all its glory, tempting me with its in-depth analysis of current events and interesting tidbits about the latest in the arts scene: the Saturday newspaper.<br /><br />Keeping my cool, I repeated my routine practice of picking it up off the floor, placing it on the dining table, and heading off into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. Once coffee was ready, though, I began to panic. I’d finished reading the only fashion magazine I had left, and I couldn’t check my email because the computer remained beyond my grasp in that space behind the firmly-shut door from which emitted the low, rumbling sounds of, no not Miffy, but of my brother enjoying his weekend away from the army and in his own comfy bed.<br /><br />And then my curiosity started to get the better of me. Had they found the rest of that missing Adam Air flight? Somehow having ridden the same airline to and from Jakarta during the new year’s break made me feel some strange sense of camaraderie with those missing (and probably unfortunately dead by now) people. It could’ve been me, so the least I could do is find out if there was any news. What about Iraq? What was the joker in the White House gonna do now? What kinds of white-man-imperialist excuses was he gonna give this time? And what new propagandist rhetoric was the Singapore government trying to feed its population this new year? I had to know, I just had to know.<br /><br />And so, with my head bent low and bits of coffee bouncing onto my hand as my fingers dug deep into each other around the mug with anticipation, I did it. I read the Saturday newspaper. And that, as they say, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I can talk about my hair for maybe 20 minutes and then probably won’t wanna revisit that conversation for another 3 months. I can look at the pretty (yeah, pretty sexist!) pictures in Female for awhile, but then need to get back to finishing Fanon’s <em>The Wretched of the Earth</em> because it just seems so much more important to understand the psychology of the colonized than it is to understand the physiology of peep-toed shoes (yikes, I know what they’re called now!). I can let one comment about freeloading immigrants go, but anything more and I will defend to the death the principle of open borders for labour.<br /><br />And I am no longer ashamed to admit this one fact. I am, like, sooo not a bimbo. I am a nerd. I am a geek. And I’m sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable that I challenge you. I’m sorry if you’re bored that I can’t give you the latest gossip about which marriage announcement is gonna top the one nobody thought could be topped at the beginning of the year. I’m sorry I’ll never dress as well as you, never bother with as much make-up or as many accessories, never keep up with the latest cellphone design. But I’m not sorry for who I am. So there.<br /><br />I feel I have come out of this experience with more of an understanding of those who are labeled ‘bimbo’ (actually a somewhat offensive term, I think. I wish people didn’t use it so carelessly so often). I really don’t mean to sound like I’m belittling people who are into the kind of stuff I tried. In fact, I must say I’ve gained a lot more respect for people who take the trouble to look their best all the time. It’s just, well, it’s just not what I’m into, most of the time.<br /><br />Now I’ll just head back to my blissful, guilt-free reading of hard-hitting political analyses on the Internet. Ahhh, that invigorating whiff of critique, dissent, debate, commentary, it comes a’calling…</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1167296547970194722006-12-28T16:56:00.000+08:002007-01-13T16:21:44.800+08:00<span style="font-size:85%;">There's an <a href="http://sg.news.yahoo.com/061227/1/45nwr.html">earthquake in Taiwan</a>,</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">2 people are dead, many injured</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">most of the Asia Pacific is left with no Internet access</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">but wait...oh, thank god! The stock markets are okay!</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">All that matters is capitalism.</span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1165628717480434242006-12-09T09:39:00.000+08:002007-02-07T06:07:33.073+08:00shaking hands with totalitarianism<span style="font-size:85%;"><strong><em><a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/08/business/AS_FIN_Myanmar_India_Gas_Deal.php">India-Singaporean consortium signs oil, gas deal with Myanmar</a></em></strong></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>The Associated Press<br />Published: December 8, 2006</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>YANGON, Myanmar: An Indian and Singaporean consortium has signed a deal with the military junta in Myanmar to jointly drill for oil and gas off the country's west coast, state-run media reported Friday.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>The contract signed Wednesday between the consortium of Gail India Ltd. and Silver Wave Energy of Singapore and the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise calls for the companies to jointly explore, drill and produce oil and gas in offshore Block A-7 off Myanmar's western Rakhine coast, the Kyemon daily reported.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Financial details of the contract were unavailable.</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">More details about Singapore's happy connections with the Burmese elite available <a href="http://www.bigo.com.sg/">here</a></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1165245020715575152006-12-04T23:10:00.000+08:002006-12-08T11:40:33.683+08:00<b>12 Days of Christmas</b><br /><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://youtube.com/v/owK5tHjL0aE"></param><embed src="http://youtube.com/v/owK5tHjL0aE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br>I can't decide if I find this hilarious or offensive.burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20870403.post-1165136636473939742006-12-03T17:00:00.000+08:002006-12-04T18:16:51.510+08:00Stan Goff talks some serious shit about marxism, feminism and the united states left<span style="font-size:85%;"><em>"With some sadness and with not the least desire to devalue the experiences I have had with comrades, nor to minimize the hard work, nor the consciousness and concience, nor the friendship of many comrades, I am herein announcing and explaining my definitive rejection of Marxism in its current organizational forms, be they called Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyist or Maoist.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>This decision comes after months of intense reflection. I will not attempt to separate the personal from the political reasons. My personal life, as a spouse, father, grandfather, friend, and member of local and poltical communities, is my most direct window on the world, and the experience against which I have to measure any political belief or organizational theory. Even moreso, as I now find myself indefinitely caring again for an infant; and thereby bound to the house in the same way as many women, constantly being confronted with the most immediate and practical necessities. The kind of politics that does not take these constraints as the starting point of all politics is what I am now taking under long review.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>One of my primary disappointments has been what I consider the failure to take seriously the struggle against patriarchy, and to give it the same weight in our organizing as we do class and national oppression. There have been only token efforts in this regard, and no serious initiative that I have seen to go outside the canon to understand this system. Worse, there has been a reactive embrace of liberal-libertarian “feminism” by many comrades… which I consider to be a sly academic reassertion of male power in the consumer-choice package of “freedom,” undermining the whole analysis of gender as a system. But this is not the crux of the issue for me. Feminism was the gateway to a number of other interrogations of the assumptions of organized Marxism."</em></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Read the whole thing (long and very very chewable) <a href="http://stangoff.com/?p=423">here</a></span>burgers and durianshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08832487044771715351noreply@blogger.com0