First it was Richard Gere using his VISA to swipe the ass crack of a Rajastani bird seller when trying to impress a girl simply wanting to buy 5 birds for her brothers journey.Now it's the Beijing Olympics.
The VISA ads seem to be sarcasticly ambiguous. Especially when Asian countries are involved. India was portrayed like a third world country desperately in need of the MNC's economic rescue.
In the latest ads by VISA... the one thats being aired with Jackie Chan trying to win a pair of tickets to the Beijing Olympics..there is also some subtle message... i shall point out some key scenes from the ad.. and you try to figure out the meaning.
Jackie purchases a Ping Pong bat.... the bat breaks while a training session and he resorts to using his hand. Next, he purchases a soccer ball... but during training, the ball bursts when he kicks it... Then , he leaps of a spring board during gym training only to be overcast into the window... the list goes on..
Still don't get the moral of the story? Simple! Don't buy things that says.... MADE IN CHINA... Hahaha... In case if VISA, Jackie or any Chinese govt agencies are reading this.. don't sue me... it's just a tongue in cheek humour and i seriously can't afford a legal tussle.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Monday, October 08, 2007
Rhetoric's Wish List
1) Complete the long overdue Documentary on Indian Muslims
2) Complete the Documentary on Special Ed.
2) Complete the Documentary on Special Ed.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
doctors on the other side.
Made my occasional visit to my work place last week. As a tour of duty, i started from my class and ended with the OT Rooms. Crapping with the OTs always tends to seize the apprehensions about my job and my seemingly bleak prospects.They give me the "Dun worry, all will be alrite" feel.Anyway, one of them informed me of the contemplations to seek medical treatment in a foreign country ( which by the way is a growing trend now days) and as usual this set me off thinking.
Singapore, a nation with accreditations in medical breakthroughs and R&D. Young, vibrant and on par with first world countries. Yet why do i see more and more people seeking medical attention for their ailments in other countries.... what's lacking here?
A pseudo survey with friends and two coffee(s) later at the coffee shop, i managed to collate their enthusiastic replies.
1) It's too expensive to seek treatment for major illnesses in Singapore. The middle class people seem to be the most affected. Not rich enough to afford the expensive treatments and not poor enough to qualify for any subsidies. This predicament acts as a push factor to fly to developing nations where treatments can be sought for much lower fees thanks to difference in currency.
2) Quite weirdly, some felt that the medical services here are over-rated. Some of my conspiracy theorists buddies felt that for every high-profile medical breakthrough published on national newspapers, there are many screw-ups that are swept under the rugg and kept out of mention.
3) This seems the most logical to me... Red Tape. Our doctors have become intuitive when treating the common colds and knee injuries but they tend to lack confidence and knowledge when they are dealing with potentially fatal illnesses. They want to play safe and follow protocols when diagnosing these illnesses. Though i welcome this move, i just feel that our doctors have become too caught up with procedures and playing safe that they sometimes over look the fact that certain illnesses are time critical.
Classic example would be Cancer. When detected in its earliest stages, can be treated to full recovery. But somehow i just do not understand why the doctors schedule the scans months away... Don't they realize that the waiting period itself is sufficient to mature the cancer? Why does one have to go through so many check ups ( and these are ordinary check ups where the patient is told to wait a few weeks before returning for another check up) before being sent for a scan. Just to be told that he/she has cancer.
But who is really to blame for this ridiculous practice. The doctors? or us, the Singaporeans? Have we become so accustomed to complaining and being picky about even the slightet mistakes that we left the doctors no choice but to follow all these ridiculous procedures.They are human too. They are not born doctors or specialists. If we do not provide the room for them to learn, how are they going to improve?
I feel its a vicious cycle actually but i will elaborate on it in the next entry.. now too tired to continue.
Singapore, a nation with accreditations in medical breakthroughs and R&D. Young, vibrant and on par with first world countries. Yet why do i see more and more people seeking medical attention for their ailments in other countries.... what's lacking here?
A pseudo survey with friends and two coffee(s) later at the coffee shop, i managed to collate their enthusiastic replies.
1) It's too expensive to seek treatment for major illnesses in Singapore. The middle class people seem to be the most affected. Not rich enough to afford the expensive treatments and not poor enough to qualify for any subsidies. This predicament acts as a push factor to fly to developing nations where treatments can be sought for much lower fees thanks to difference in currency.
2) Quite weirdly, some felt that the medical services here are over-rated. Some of my conspiracy theorists buddies felt that for every high-profile medical breakthrough published on national newspapers, there are many screw-ups that are swept under the rugg and kept out of mention.
3) This seems the most logical to me... Red Tape. Our doctors have become intuitive when treating the common colds and knee injuries but they tend to lack confidence and knowledge when they are dealing with potentially fatal illnesses. They want to play safe and follow protocols when diagnosing these illnesses. Though i welcome this move, i just feel that our doctors have become too caught up with procedures and playing safe that they sometimes over look the fact that certain illnesses are time critical.
Classic example would be Cancer. When detected in its earliest stages, can be treated to full recovery. But somehow i just do not understand why the doctors schedule the scans months away... Don't they realize that the waiting period itself is sufficient to mature the cancer? Why does one have to go through so many check ups ( and these are ordinary check ups where the patient is told to wait a few weeks before returning for another check up) before being sent for a scan. Just to be told that he/she has cancer.
But who is really to blame for this ridiculous practice. The doctors? or us, the Singaporeans? Have we become so accustomed to complaining and being picky about even the slightet mistakes that we left the doctors no choice but to follow all these ridiculous procedures.They are human too. They are not born doctors or specialists. If we do not provide the room for them to learn, how are they going to improve?
I feel its a vicious cycle actually but i will elaborate on it in the next entry.. now too tired to continue.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Multimedia Computing... Whats that?
Meetings with Hong Bin always bring unwarrented enlightenment. This time, he chose to shed light on the redundancy of the Diploma that we had slogged to attain in Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
Diploma in Multi-Media Computing...a lodestone to tech savvy teenagers of 1999. A cash cow in the eyes of parents who want their children to hitch a ride on the IT wave at the end of the 20th Century. It's a course that promised a good foundation in multimedia skills and computer programming. Basically I should have been a master of anything that starts with e- .
However, thanks to Ah Bin's wisdom of the second, I just realised how far off target i fell thanks to Multimedia Computing (MMC). Instead of becoming Masters of the trade, we became the Jack of NOT too many trades. Simply put its Chapalang Course. They took a bit of everything and cramped it in. We got quantity but where the hell was the quality?
The irony was that i was getting outdated even as i was progressing to my second year in the course. I studied Flash 3, six months later ALI ( my junior of 1 year) was studying Flash 4. I can't believe that i enrolled into this course to keep up with the times.
Anyway coming back to the point, a pseudo reality check in the hallways of SIM, confirmed that neither Ali, Hong Bin nor myself had pursued a job or further studies in relation to our field of study. Further information came from the Guru of the second (Hong Bin), that more of my classmates were dropping this field as they were squeezed dry but paid peanuts...
It just makes me wonder at times, how many of us really pursue what we had studied. From the housewives with PhD to the Post-Grad Prata Man. Have we hit a saturation point that the degree doesn't count anymore? Are the tongue in cheek jokes of the coffee shop ah pek about requiring a PhD to sweep the roads going to become reality?
Where are we really heading? There is an E-Theory. That the ever growing internet would one day grow so big that everything will crash. I know that my analogy does not make much sense but i just needed to justify my diploma in MMC... anyway yeah, have we pusued the degree so much that we even require it do a physically skilled job?
When the courses provided doesn't meet the market expectations, it becomes a disillusionment to the students who fork out ridiculous amounts of cash to study it.
I fear that education has become too commercialised and true knowledge has become buried deep beneath wads of cash and cheques. How ah, like that?
Diploma in Multi-Media Computing...a lodestone to tech savvy teenagers of 1999. A cash cow in the eyes of parents who want their children to hitch a ride on the IT wave at the end of the 20th Century. It's a course that promised a good foundation in multimedia skills and computer programming. Basically I should have been a master of anything that starts with e- .
However, thanks to Ah Bin's wisdom of the second, I just realised how far off target i fell thanks to Multimedia Computing (MMC). Instead of becoming Masters of the trade, we became the Jack of NOT too many trades. Simply put its Chapalang Course. They took a bit of everything and cramped it in. We got quantity but where the hell was the quality?
The irony was that i was getting outdated even as i was progressing to my second year in the course. I studied Flash 3, six months later ALI ( my junior of 1 year) was studying Flash 4. I can't believe that i enrolled into this course to keep up with the times.
Anyway coming back to the point, a pseudo reality check in the hallways of SIM, confirmed that neither Ali, Hong Bin nor myself had pursued a job or further studies in relation to our field of study. Further information came from the Guru of the second (Hong Bin), that more of my classmates were dropping this field as they were squeezed dry but paid peanuts...
It just makes me wonder at times, how many of us really pursue what we had studied. From the housewives with PhD to the Post-Grad Prata Man. Have we hit a saturation point that the degree doesn't count anymore? Are the tongue in cheek jokes of the coffee shop ah pek about requiring a PhD to sweep the roads going to become reality?
Where are we really heading? There is an E-Theory. That the ever growing internet would one day grow so big that everything will crash. I know that my analogy does not make much sense but i just needed to justify my diploma in MMC... anyway yeah, have we pusued the degree so much that we even require it do a physically skilled job?
When the courses provided doesn't meet the market expectations, it becomes a disillusionment to the students who fork out ridiculous amounts of cash to study it.
I fear that education has become too commercialised and true knowledge has become buried deep beneath wads of cash and cheques. How ah, like that?
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