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The Trouble with Nalgene
The news came out a while back that even reusable plastic water bottles posed a possible major health risk with Nalgene, one of the bigger names in the water bottle industry, being a particular major offender due to its inclusion of Bisphenol A in many of its products. I’ve been using Nalgene water bottles for awhile now, and it seems awfully wasteful for me to simply throw them out when they’re still in good condition. Regardless, I’ll probably use them for a few years more until they get banged up beyond repair and then I’ll probably make the switch to SIGG and/or Klean Kanteens.
Don’t Buy A Nalgene Water Bottle Until You Read This : TreeHugger
Canada Calls Bisphenol A “Dangerous” : TreeHugger
about the Bukit Ho Swee fire
The subject of my doctoral research is a watershed event, being the greatest fire in Singapore’s history, burning down a massive urban kampong (’village’ in Malay) and rendering 15,694 people, mostly low-income Chinese, homeless. In the aftermath, the fire victims were swiftly rehoused in emergency flats built on the fire site by the Housing and Development Board. I examine the inferno as a case study of the social transformation of Singapore in the first decade of the People’s Action Party (PAP) government. The Bukit Ho Swee disaster is officially depicted as a ‘blessing in disguise’ in clearing what was allegedly ‘an insanitary, congested and dangerous squatter area’ and enabling the ‘emergence of Bukit Ho Swee Estate: from desolation to progress’. Such an account of the fire indicates, as James Scott contended, the ’self-confidence about scientific and technical progress’ which typified ‘high modernism’; what is emphasised is the progress which came afterward, not what was lost in the flames. My thesis sought to establish what the fire meant to the fire victims and to the government which responded vigorously to the disaster. This involved research into the official archives and interviews with former kampong dwellers, many of whom still live in or visit Bukit Ho Swee, now a graying estate close to the town area.
To be born after the fire in present-day Singapore is to be ‘young’. There are several historical frames defining the ‘old’ and ‘young’ – the Japanese Occupation, the ‘trials and tribulations’ of political development in the 1950s and early 1960s and the unforeseen independence of the nation in 1965 – but all share the one requirement of having experienced the landmark events in recent history. ‘Young Singaporeans’, also labelled ‘post-1965ers’ in the press, are purportedly ‘without history’, having been born in the supposedly rosy phase of Singapore’s development after 1965. A generation ago, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew defined this divide by stating that while his generation ‘faced Japanese Occupation, conquest, hardships, brutalities’, the younger generation ‘have had relatively quiet and placid a life.
There’s a really good piece on sg_ljers positing the Bukit Ho Swee fire as the turning point in modern Singapore history. It’s apparently part of PhD research by this LJ user who has a number of excellent posts in a similar vein.
Lagos, Nigeria
From Current
Doing post-colonial literature I think we covered a little bit regarding Nigeria through the works of Chinua Achebe, and the reason why I enjoyed taking my course is that as far as the humanities are concerned literature covers a lot of ground. Unfortunately a lot of us (myself included) don’t take the time to follow up the study of art with the study of life.
I still believe that an urban environment can be the best choice for humanity ecologically and economically speaking, but this particular mini-documentary shows some of the problems that humanity faces in actually translating an ideal city into a functioning reality. And to keep things local, Lagos is the fastest growing mega-city in the world, referring to urban areas with more than ten million people. Granted the fastidious nature of the Singaporean administration means we’re unlikely to have slums on the level that Nigeria does, but I hope awareness of the situation of other cities in managing their populations means we tread more cautiously towards the goal of a population of more than six million.
18 Two wheels of justice
Montreal wants Paris style bike-sharing
The city is planning a bike-sharing project that could make stations available by fall of 2008, and could cover the city in 300 stations by fall of 2009…The idea is to encourage Montrealers and tourists to use the public bicycles instead of cars for short, inner-city trips. Users will be able to pick up a bike at one station, use it, then drop it off at any station of their choice.
Big cities try to ease way for bicyclists
Sadaqah for Darfur
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The Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur
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And because I love etymology,
Block Thinking
http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_157069.html
Dispelling the fog of prejudice
By Charles Taylor
THE suspect word almost everywhere in the world now, especially in Europe, is ‘multiculturalism’.
People say things like: ‘I used to be for openness and toleration of difference, but now I see where it’s leading.’ But where is it leading?Almost every reason for toleration’s apparent fall into disrepute concerns Islam. Even simple requests, such as that of Muslim schoolgirls to wear headscarves in class, are suddenly freighted with immense political significance and treated as issues that must be resolved at the highest level of government.
People - and their elected leaders as well - often have the feeling that such seemingly innocent proposals are in fact part of an ominous ‘hidden agenda’.
That agenda is ‘Islam’, which many imagine to include all the terrible things that we read about in the press: the stoning of adulterous women under syariah law in northern Nigeria, the amputation of thieves’ hands in Saudi Arabia, honour killings of women who refuse arranged marriages in Pakistan (or even northern English cities such as Bradford and Manchester), the willingness to justify suicide bombings.
1994: Dick Cheney on why an American invasion of Iraq would be a bad idea.
It’s making the rounds, but I think it’s worth posting here in case anybody hasn’t seen it. It’s a C-Span Interview circa 1994, with Dick Cheney explaining why the US didn’t simply evict Saddam Hussein’s government after the Persian Gulf War. It’s a line of thinking that I first read over a decade ago and didn’t really understand when I was younger but made more sense as I grew up. And obviously in hindsight it was also absolutely right.
Blog recommendation: The Head Heeb
An exceedingly well written blog dealing with political matters I’d like to recommend is The Head Heeb. Written by Jonathan Edelstein, a Jewish American lawyer, it doesn’t deal with the issues you might expect, and one reason why I like it is because he follows developments in two regions that rarely get any air time or print space in traditional media: Africa and the Pacific Islands. I haven’t read it in awhile, but I recently added its feed to my Google Reader. Recent posts include the growth of Islam in Melanasia, intellectual property rights with regards to coffee in Ethiopia and Sudanese refugees taking asylum in Israel. While posts are often lengthy, they’re also intelligent and well-written and well worth reading for anybody who gives a damn.
Life and Debt
With all the recent talk about Special Economic Zones (SEZs) recently I thought it fitting that this turned up on Google Video. I watched it about four years or so back during the Singapore Film Festival Under the Radar; a showcase of documentaries showing the underbelly of labour abuses. Life and Debt is a documentary on the SEZs in Jamaica, and the reason why they’re becoming increasingly popular is because these zones are allowed to circumvent laws and regulations that might apply elsewhere in the country. I don’t think I’m anti-capitalist in any fashion, but I’ve never subscribed to the notion of so-called free market economics as a cure-all for economic woes. It’s a shame that the interests of people are often sidelined in the name of profit. Life and Debt is 80 minutes long, so you might want to let it load before watching it.
Life and Debt at VideoSift
Life and Debt official site
Mr Lye and Mr Chia
I suppose I can’t take a visit to Sentosa seriously without thinking of Chia Thye Poh, placed under virtual house arrest on Sentosa even after he’d been released from imprisonment and after Sentosa had been reimagined as a tourist attraction. I wonder if back in the day anybody visited Sentosa with the intention of paying him a visit, or if there were safeguards in place that prevented any wandering tourists from having a conversation with him.
Also, I remember an episode of VR Man (yes, yes… BTW if anybody can find me a good photo of James Lye in his VR Man costume I’d be much obliged) where a group of student geniuses were confined to a building where they were being cultivated to do God knows what. The only glimmer of hope in their lives came from a pamphlet they had for Sentosa, and naturally when Inspector Mike/ VR Man himself rescued them they wanted to visit Sentosa. I mean, Sentosa’s never been that great of a theme park but I suppose if you’ve been locked up all your life anything would be good.
I wonder if the writers were taking a dig at the education and/or political system with that episode (I wouldn’t put it past them to do so), or whether it was just one of life’s little ironies. And yeah this post makes a connection between political prisoners and James Lye. Cos that’s how I roll, son.
Singapore’s Gentle Revolutionary
40 years of independence, but not for Asia’s Mandela
Chia Thye Poh ? The Man Himself
Asiaweek: A Man Who Never Gave In
Peace.
