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Friday, Feb 02, 2007 - 03:00 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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The Winds Of Jurong

Fifteen storeys up in the air, it's seriously cold. How much of my life have I spent fifty metres above ground level? So strange, when I think about it - of all that could have been, this is. When one considers all that exists in an instant of time, it is easy to imagine that this is about as close to almost never as can be, the equivalent of being at the exact point a dart hits when thrown at a dartboard with an essentially infinite number of points within.



From MTG:Gatherer

Don't you sometimes think it absolutely wonderful?

Trivia: Magic: The Gathering has a cycle of Winds in the Prophecy set:

"The first wind of ascension is Forger, burning away impurity." Searing Wind
"The second wind of ascension is Reaver, slaying the unworthy." Plague Wind
"The third wind of ascension is Eliminator, clearing Keld's path to victory." Denying Wind
"The fourth wind of ascension is Anointer, deifying the worthy." Blessed Wind
"The fifth wind of ascension is Exalter, fulfilling Keld's destiny." Vitalizing Wind

Winds were aplenty at the National Stadium's swansong too, but this time it was the winds of controversy. Dad gamely picked me up after my evening lecture had concluded, and we got there in time for the second half with six gallery tickets unused (too bad about that, we did make an attempt to give them away but it was probably too late). I confess I was pleasantly surprised to see the scoreboard read Singapore 1 Thailand 0, but the Thais quickly pulled level after no foul was given for overrunning a Singapore player.

The fans kept their colour however (ironically the Thais were the ones playing in red, so any unaware neutrals might have concluded that they were the home side), especially one wit seated behind me who uttered such comments as "You want to go Bangkok at 1-1 issit? Die, lah!" After a few decisions didn't go the Lions' way, cries of "Busoh!" (Smelly?) and "Referee kayu" began to ring out. Then came The Incident. I was situated at the other end of the stadium, but a player going down in the box is always eyecatching. Nothing given, I sat down again, then - penalty!

That cheered up the fans quite a bit, but then it soon became clear that the Thais had no intention of letting the penalty be taken. While there was a nice 14 minute 19 second debate at the Thai bench, the Singaporean players passed the time trading passes on the pitch, and the spectators with several consecutive Kallang Waves. Understandably, we were pretty pissed at the delay. What was the point? They could just walk off immediately if that was their intention, and save us all the wait, or continue if they were not going to boycott anyway. Of course, FIFA would not take kindly to such a flagrant breach of conduct and some ban would have resulted if they had abandoned the match, and the Thai side probably knew that, along with the fifteen minute limit. Thus the well-timed delay.

Perhaps they were trying to unsettle the eventual penalty taker, but if that was so it didn't work. Mustafic Fahrudin, the Serbian-born Singaporean, rifled a perfect shot into the top right corner. In fact, I suspect that well-hit penalties to the top corners are nigh impossible to save even if the keeper knows where it is going, but it takes quite some accuracy and guts. And so we won. For now. Until Sunday.

I have to say though that I feel divided about foreign talent in sport, though. On one hand, the Lions' FT contigent - off the top of my head I can remember Mustafic, Bennett, Shi Jiayi, Itimi Dickson and Precious - performed very well, and looked proud to wear the jersey. On the other hand, on the day of the match, a former Lion quietly left Singapore, just like that, perhaps never to return. His name was Egmar Goncalves, he hailed from Brazil, and he took up citizenship in 2002 to play for the national side. I cannot fault him in wanting to return to his motherland, where his family resides. But to say that we nutured his talent when he was already 31 years old in 2002 is more than a little odd.

I always thought that the idea was to adopt and nurture undeveloped raw diamonds, not to jump the whole process by simply offering national colours to S-League stars. Then again, maybe I am just naive. This is an age where Chinese paddlers represent European countries, and African marathoners fly the banners of Gulf states. This leads me to recall a passage from Bartholomew's biography of the Sultan of Brunei, which describes the problems of His Majesty hiring top Argentinean polo players to secure wins against his Malaysian counterparts. "The Sultan of Brunei won some games against one of the Malaysian Sultans with the aid of such sporting prima donnas. But then the Malaysians too started hiring the 'assassins' and were able to hold their own again. One may wonder what was the point of it all."

Judging from how some Thais were burning our DPM's effigy even before this (our PM got it last year), I guess we won't exactly be persona gratis in the Land of Smiles for the near future; Indonesia's stopping sand sales, Malaysia's spinning flood tales (their own exporting of sand to us was banned in 1997). Have we become the USA of SEA, or am I just overreacting?

Well, trust Dr. M to throw in a free kick, even if he no longer represents the official Malaysian position. "You'll get nowhere with them either being nice or being tough, they only think of themselves." What's this, good cop-bad cop? Oh, and he said "(Thaksin's) outspokenness against Western countries has put him in a bad light with the foreign press." That's rich. To be fair, many politicians are afflicted with Pot-Kettle-Black Syndrome (Note: I Drew This is an unashamedly liberal cartoon).

But back to Singapore not winning the Most Popular Nation Award. There's the old baggage of our recognition of Israel and perceived alignment with the USA, not too welcome in these parts - but size has quite a bit to do with it too. A target is always more tempting when it's smaller, even Taiwan added peesai to the growing lexicon of derogatory references. But justice at international level has always been a matter of convenience. If Iraq didn't have oil (like a certain North Korea), would a certain superpower have been so eager to institute regime change? And it turns out that Iraq never had any Weapons of Mass Destruction, the original mandate for the war. But North Korea proudly brandishes WMDs! Well, here's news - Bush on North Korea: "We Must Invade Iraq".

What about the other reasons?

1. Links to al-Qaeda: Also not proven. Secular tyranny and religious fanaticism don't make good bedfellows. And guess what, when foreign troops start invading on a somewhat flimsy basis, it's likely that young men search for an answer, and al-Qaeda and other similar groups are in a good position to provide them.

2. Removing an oppressive dictator from power: Saddam's a special one, I'll have to say that. Quote the above news article from The Onion: "Kim Jong Il, you have withdrawn from international nuclear treaties and cruelly starved your own people," Bush said. "The world at large will not let your evil deeds go unchallenged. Someone, somewhere will hold you accountable, sooner or later. I do not know who this person is, but somebody will. North Korea has been pouring its limited resources into development of a huge military force at the expense of its own people's well-being," Bush continued. "Somebody should take decisive action against this, just as the U.S. did in stopping the Taliban and will soon do in ousting Saddam Hussein." One wonders what the African variety needs to do to attract the U.S.'s attention.

3. Bringing of democracy to Iraq: Not much democracy now, and if the U.S. cuts and runs, there might be not much Iraq left either. One of the few things that can be said about Bush is that he's taking some responsibility here, though he's not the one paying for it.

The Beckham's Gillette specialization of Occam's Razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem - entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity) which I subscribe to says that if you have more than one good reason to do something, there is no need to worry overmuch about which of those reasons is the best. Unfortunately, good reasons are a scarce commodity here. But guess what? Few care, which is understandable considering the brutality of the unlovely Mr. Saddam; But I cannot just help but think that had Iraq been poorer in resources, he might have escaped the noose.



Don't think of it too much (From China Daily)

I'll leave the connection to game theory till tomorrow. Or soon.



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...st hope you take this to heart; Before you complain, realize what you are complaining about, and why. It will make you stop typing so quickly, and start thinking more.[bert's blog - The Winds Of Jurong]https://blog.glys.com/index.cgi?e=2007-02-02-the-winds-of-jurongWinds were aplenty at the National Stadium's swansong too, but this time it wa...


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