Random Ramblings and Nicoll Fell Yesterday...

Lousy day at work. Past issues not handled carefully came back to huant me. Digging back to History is a pain and realising i could have done it better was a real "Grrrrr" at myself.

Anyway, I had a discussion with my colleague yesterday. She too felt that there's a change to Singapore nowadays. More things are happening to our island with the latest being the collapse of Nicoll incident.
I feel we are slowly losing our "Blessings". As a young country, we started off with government policies that were strict , honest and efficient and I would say the blessings were abundant as a result of these. We were doing relatively well, and most importantly, we felt safe.

These days it seems there's a little signal of movement towards more 'relaxed' regulations. Bar-top dancing has been allowed, changing of laws towards oral-sex and homosexuality laws etc. What the government relaxes, the public will indulge, especially so for a mass that's suddenly exposed to their new-found freedom. As people gets more and more morally degraded, so will the protection of the Holy Spirit withdraw. Disaster like a devouring wolf will be happy to follow.

I'm not perfect myself, but as I witness these turn of events, it brings a shudder to think there will be more to come.

Common Sense aint so Common nowadays

It was fun! Had an afternoon of sea-water and hot scorching sun. Together with the church youth, we filled up 9 kayaks and fought waves and splashes. The tide was up and it was choppy at times. It struck me how tough a simple act of getting my kayak out to the water was. Prompted by my ever faithful rowing partner to get on the boat first, the idea was 'get-on-and pedal-out-to-sea'. I got on the front...wave came...kayak rocked threateningly, I saw sea water getting nearer to my face and was tipped over the minute I climbed aboard with legs dangling up. Never mind, try again, got on and pedaled with all strenght I could muster. The bit of water fight and joining up of all the kayaks was highlights to otherwise normal pedalling and sun basking out in the water. Life jackets given were useless, torn zippers, flat and worn.. We fastened it best we could by tying nylon strips attached to jackets. There's no doubt if a huge wave were to sweep us over, our oversized jackets would simply be washed over our heads.
It was only an hour and a half but it felt like forever, so does the weight I feel resting on my arms now. My guess is tomorrow's gonna be even worse, for all I know my armpits might ache as well! Right now as I type, I've got 3 pieces of Salon Plastered on my shoulders. They do offer some relief, let's hope they stay 'relieved'.
I thank the Lord for keeping us safe and as Faith said, '..give us Wisdom that we may have the wits to stay safe..' Isnt it incredulous? That sometimes we have to pray for common sense to watch out for ourselves? Like my lecturer once said "Common sense is not so common nowadays" so we'd better not take it for granted.

They Could Have Just Said 'No' The First Time

You know that previous entry I blogged about? That super-hero who dived off the towers? Well, our neighbouring country had banned the episode entirely, with or without cuts. They axed the program knowing we axed the sensitized shots. I had this feeling they didnt even wanna consider taking back on that episode the first time they reviewed the program. The embarassment must have stung so badly the first time, they felt the whole incident should be just swept under the carpet. No more Extremists Ep.1. It's banned, no more mention, no chance of airing in that part of the world. The way I see it, decisions like these would only worsen the extent of bribery within the country.
On the contrary, if they would accept the cuts, review the episode again and find the program to be 'clean', let it go on air, wouldnt that give you an impression the officials know bribery is wrong and that they wouldnt want that act to have more exposure then it should by airing it and yet at the same time have the right frame of mind to let the 'clean' shots pass.
It takes more of a gentlemen to go over an ugly episode to find it cleaned up and allow passage then closing up of the mind and throwing the whole program out altogether. Brushing it off gives the feeling they dont wanna deal with it. In other words, doesnt that equate to closing their eyes to bribery? Now how would that help the country?
Let's throw the angel off abit and zap back to the moment the bribe took place. Actually the whole success of Felix leaping of the towers hinges on whether he could actually bribe someone. He wouldnt be able to make it on his own without the cash bait. That guy actually took a whole hour getting around the building looking for the right exit. He needed an insider. Now, if you were that someone he actually approached with the 1000 US Dollars, some clown comes to you with all these money and tells you, you can have it all just by letting him jump off the 88th storey, would you take it?

*I'm not targetting at any one country, bribery is a universal problem. As long as there's Humans, there's bound to be mischief. I'm just being bittter cos I'm not that fella who was being approached.