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BETTER HALF

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Chris Bors and Ketta Ioannidou Chris Bors, Jennifer Burbank, Chris Coffin Daniel Davidson, Linda Ganjian, Ketta Ioannidou Tricia Keightley, Jesse Lambert Liz-N-Val, LoVid Donald Porcaro, Leslie Wayne Opening: Thursday, Sept 10, 6-8 PM The Educational Alliance Gallery 197 East Broadway New York September 10-October 29, 2009 JENNIFER BURBANK CHRIS COFFIN DANIEL DAVIDSON LINDA GANJIAN AND JESSE LAMBERT TRICIA KEIGHTLEY LIZ-N-VAL TALI HINKIS & KYLE LAPIDUS aka LoViD DONALD PORCARO LESLIE WAYNE

Goodyear leaves: A bad year for PAP to call for elections?

Now that Chip Goodyear's tenure as CEO of Temasek is a non-starter, a great many questions would be flooding Singaporean minds about the non-answers provided in the official statements of Temasek. Strategic differences? What were they? Why did they not surface earlier during the courting process? Why were they not noticed by the astute custodians of Temasek? Perhaps, the differences involved some corporate governance issues? Perhaps they involved issues of transparency? We will never know. But, in politics, speculations are just as bad as damaging revelations. How would the average Singaporean voter react to Goodyear's departure and the return of Ho Ching? Given the losses churned out by Temasek and the complete silence on the accountability front, it is tempting to assume that the latest news of Goodyear's departure would broaden discontent amongst the electorate. I am not so sure. One type of Singaporean is a hardcore oppositionist. Everything negative involving...

Junior School hit by “Earthquake Disaster”

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The junior school was hit pretty hard by a very localized Earthquake on Tuesday with desks and chairs tipping over and injured staff and students everywhere. Luckily for us the senior children were safe and sent to assist where they could in the junior school. All this activity was filmed by staff and used as an amazing discussion tool about disasters. All we can say is that it was a good thing that our whole school topic for this term is set around answering the big question of how to survive a disaster. The students all agreed that we are not prepared and we need to do a whole lot of work to find out how we can be. This should be a very interesting topic, one that will generate much discussion at home.

Member of Parliament visits Conductive Education

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Clayton Cosgrove MP for Waimakariri visited Addington today to look at the Conductive Education Unit and talk with Teachers and parents of students attending. Mr Cosgrove was contacted by a concerned parent who lives in his electorate. Our principal Trudy Heath, Dave Ching, NZ Conductive Education Foundation member, and Teachers and Conductors from the Unit spoke with Mr Cosgrove about the history of the Unit, its funding, and the impact of funding cuts on our families.  Brittany and her Mum, Julie Baker, spent some time, outlining to Mr Cosgrove and the Christchurch Press reporters with him, the consequences for their family in particular.  At the end of his visit Mr Cosgrove thanked Trudy and her team and said he was now very aware of where our students would be without Conductive Education and was committed to assisting the school raise the profile of our funding issue.

Pork Barrel Politics: Good or Bad?

In the run up to the 1996 General Elections, the then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong warned voters: "Your estate, through your own choice, will be left behind. They'll become slums. That's my message." The PAP then issued an open letter stating: "Please remember that the PAP government cannot upgrade all estates at the same time..... Our resources are limited. Which ones to upgrade first will depend on you. If you give strong support, you will be first in line." The US State Department had some unkind words for the PAP with regard to the latter's 'threat' to the voters. BG George Yeo retorted by stating that pork barrel politics had a long tradition in the USA. so, I take it that pork barrel politics is good. In 2005, at a luncheon organised by the Foreign Correspondants' Association, PM Lee Hsien Loong said the following with reference to Japan: “...they landed into problems because of corruption, money politics, pork barreling, and then neces...

Human Rights for Some Humans

I am mulling over this issue: Is it possible to advocate for human rights and yet qualify it by asserting that not all humans are entitled to rights? The easiest answer to give to that is to say that if you do not advocate rights for all humans, then you do not in fact stand for human rights. What you stand for is rights for a group of humans or a majority of humans. So, how could you be classified as a human rights advocate. This issue has now been articulated through NYU’s invitation extended to Pro Thio Li-Ann. Let us consider the following hypothetical situations: a) Can I be considered an advocate for human rights if, despite other strong views supportive of human rights, I believe that the worship of idols either in public or private should be criminalised? b) Can I be considered an advocate for human rights if, despite other strong views supportive of human rights, I believe that the law should state that women must be homemakers so long as there is a child in the family tha...

I can see where you are coming from Mr Shanmugam

My suspicion is that there is a general consensus or at least a majority view in the Cabinet that homosexuality is a non-issue. Clearly, as a matter of policy they keep asserting that s.377A would not be enforced. This indicates, probably, a Cabinet view that what happens in private between consenting adults is of no concern for the state. If, indeed, this was the predominant perspective of the Cabinet, then why did they still insist in Parliament that the law should be retained? I have a rough idea as to what might have motivated the current posture. Like many average heterosexual individuals in Singapore, I expect that Parliamentarians as well as the Cabinet members by a majority are neither here nor there on homosexuality. Many are not homophobes. Many would have no difficulty communicating or mingling with a homosexual colleague, friend or relative. But, being heterosexual, they don’t understand the marginalisation of a segment of the population on account of sexual orientat...