Basket.

My finger was twingeing in the morning. Considering that it is an abridged, although fully healed mishmash of what it used to be, perhaps I should be glad that it isn't doing worse. Coming on two years later though and my left hand is still something like 50% weaker than my right, and it can be irritating to have an itch somewhere that would be perfectly soothed by application of said digit, only to find that said place is now quite literally unreachable.

Whoever is up there, please protect my upper limbs because they sure as hell have suffered more than enough abuse - burnt (by an iron), stabbed (me, with a pocket knife, in BMT), sliced open (by wicked SOC monkey bars, and on one occasion, a claw hammer), caught in doors (various, although only one little scar on my knuckle to show for it) and of course, mangled. It's a miracle they are still working like they should. For the most part.

Fortunately in recent years I have become a little less accident-prone. But some memories, they are forever.

Truly, the Ivory Tower.

That link above would be the latest attempt by our ruling party to utilise the so-called "New Media". As with its predecessor (the laughable P65.sg), all it manages to achieve is to showcase the pathetic naivete of some of our possible leaders-to-be.

Ministerial pay rises have been in the news lately. If you somehow contrive to have no knowledge of the issue, it has recently been stated by our Prime Minister that minister pay, currently S$1.2 million a year, is "only" 55% of what it should be - S$2.2 million. It is safe to assume that in the near future, ministerial salaries will be moved either closer to this level or right to this level all at once.

I would just like everyone to sit back and consider for just a moment how much money is S$1.2 million.

For starters, it is more than 38 times per capita GDP, which is S$30,900 a year (2006 estimate, source CIA World Factbook).

S$1.2 million a year translates to S$100,000 a month. In comparison, an NSF private earns S$450 (combat) or S$350 (non-combat), an NSF corporal gets $S520 (combat) or S$420 (non-combat), an NSF 3rd Sergeant S$600-S$700 and an NSF 2nd Lieutenant S$800-S$1000 a month. A cleaner would be fortunate to get a thousand dollars a month. Apparently, NSF allowances cannot be raised to something even approaching reasonable, but ministerial pay, high to begin with, can be massively added to.

Welfare payments in Singapore for the elderly, ill or disabled are in the region of S$200-S$400 a month.

Our minsters earn more than 3 times in one month what the average Singaporean earns in an entire year.

Are things in perspective yet?

I do not deny that extremely high-ranking civil servants such as government ministers must be paid a salary befitting their status, but S$1.2 million a year is excessive and S$2.2 million is completely absurd. Who the hell needs that much money? What the fuck do they do with it all?

More disturbingly, the implication is that our leaders are induced to carry on serving the nation by the lure of base coin. In that case we shouldn't call it "public service", should we? We are told over and over that we must love and serve our nation - are our leaders setting a very good example for us here by effectively saying that cold, hard cash is their main motivation? We can boast about having extremely low rates of corruption, all we want - but it's all perspective, isn't it? Because it can be argued that our leaders are being bribed not to be corrupt.

What is more, in the recent debate over the GST hike, the government explained that it needed the extra money to help the less fortunate. So, apparently, there is no money to help the less fortunate, but there is money for ministerial pay rises? Imagine how much more money we would have to help the poor if our ministers would show solidarity with the lower-income grouping and take a significant paycut; which, in any case, would in all probability barely affect their lifestyles.

Governments are meant to serve the people. That is and should always be a golden rule of good governance. It should not ever be the other way around - but our government seems to be losing sight of the fact.

A fine start to the week, as the heavens took one look at my puny umbrella, cackled and then proceeded to open in the heaviest downpour we've had for a while. The result? I barely dried off in time for the first lesson. Following today will be three meetings in three days, on top of which 81 essays await marking. It certainly is shaping up to be a wonderful week.

I've been told I'm a workaholic. It seems to be an assertion of some truth, because I have found that the harder a job gets, the more I seem to like it. In JC I soon started enjoying later and later nights making CCA displays ship-shape in school, found a rhythm to the endless Maths questions I made myself get through, but unfortunately never managed to ever "get" Economics. In NS I learnt to become One with my dockets, a desperation born of procrastination. Now, I'm still liking my job, despite everything I've said and certain things I've done.

I think I just enjoy the satisfaction of a job efficiently completed. Maths paper completed, answers checked, mistakes noted. Docket perused, amendments made, non-amendable mistakes properly recorded for auditors' benefit. Test marked, looked through once more, marks recorded, answer scheme typed, printed and sent for duplicating... sit back and enjoy the moment. I am, however, an acolyte of procrastination, even these days. I can put off something again and again and again when it would probably take a fraction of an hour to complete. Then I finish it and ask myself, "Why the hell didn't I do this sooner?" But I simply adore being efficient, being piled with work and finishing it bit by bit by bit until I put on the final touch and feel so content that everything is complete and ready to go.

So what am I exactly working for? This nebulous sense of achievement? This perception of completeness? Usually I say I do something because it needs to be done - and usually, that's good enough for me and everyone else.

There are honestly few things I see and hear about anymore that are truly disturbing, but revelations from the recent case of a teacher acquitted of molesting his students have shaken me somewhat.

For those of you who have somehow contrived to not know about this case, a teacher was recently acquitted of molest, much to his relief. However, details of his close relationship with a number of his students tumbled out during his trial, and have been listed in the newspapers over the past few months. Among the things he did were adopt 22 students as godsons, buy them expensive gifts on various occasions, greet them in school with hugs and kisses and sharing a bed with them on various separate occasions.

I find such behaviour, to put it lightly, highly questionable. It is not, to me, behaviour befitting of an educator and someone responsible for the well-being of teenaged students. In fact, this case is disturbing on so many counts: the disturbing behaviour of the teacher, the disturbing fact that somehow the school administration failed to act to stop such unseemly conduct and the disturbing "it's ok" attitude of the parents of certain students involved in the case.

I mean, what was the teacher thinking? One of the golden rules of being a teacher is not to get too close to your students. Teacher-student relationships must always be healthy and respectful, with a line drawn somewhere. This particular person virtually behaved like a sex predator. Kissing and hugging underaged schoolboys? That is way beyond acceptable behaviour. The teaching profession is not for people without any semblance of self-control whatsoever; if you cannot control your desires, it is not the right occupation for you. Because what kind of example, exactly, would you be setting? Like it or not, we are judged because of the very nature of our job - which is to mould upstanding citizens of the future. An upstanding citizen is one who knows that there are limits to anything and is in full control of all his faculties. That is not something the teacher in question has demonstrated.

Just to clarify, in case anyone is wondering, I am far from homophobic. I fully support the right of consenting members of the same sex to enjoy a loving relationship. However, I do not support at all a loving relationship of this nature occuring between a teacher and student(s) of any gender. It is just not right, because there must always be a proper distance in any fruitful teacher-student relationship. Our job is not to get entangled with our students; our job is to look after their well-being, education and personal development.

I am also appalled that the school administration seemed clueless about all these sordid goings-on. This case should have been dealt with well before it saw the interior of a courtroom. The teacher and relevant students should have been strictly warned of the consequences of their actions, failing which the teacher should have been sacked, taking the rap because, as a discerning adult, he ought to have known better. What kind of principal was running this school? As it is, the case went to court, so many details were revealed, and it is definitely going to have some effect on all parties involved, the school included.

Most shockingly of all, parents of some of the students in question believe that the behaviour of the teacher was, to quote the papers, "acceptable". I cannot believe that any responsible parent would not be seriously disturbed to hear about his/her son's teacher greeting him with hugs and kisses in school. If I was ever in such a position, I would demand the immediate removal of the teacher, failing which I would pull my son out of the school at once. I do not care for all that bullshit about being an "inspiring and caring" teacher. A teacher is perfectly capable of being inspiring and caring without greeting his students with hugs and kisses and sharing his bed with them. Such behaviour borders on paedophilia, and is completely unacceptable to me.

I might be sounding far too uptight and alarmist, a departure from my usual style, but there are things I firmly believe in and will not compromise upon. The role of a teacher, I say again, is to guide and nurture, not to get entangled with his students. This is an occupation that requires patience and restraint. If you have neither, if you are not able to keep your desires in check, this is not the profession for you.

The teacher has expressed a wish to return to the service. I say keep him out. He has been a disgrace to the profession. I am certainly all for second chances, but I believe this particular person has gone too far. Until he shows that he is able to exercise a degree of restraint, able to keep a healthy distance from students, able to involve himself in a proper teacher-student relationship, he should not be allowed to step into a classroom.

Student life is the best. Of course, no one believes that when they are actually leading such a life (I most certainly did not), and it is not difficult to see why. Mounds of homework, unreasonable demands, co-curricular activities, tight schoolyard discipline, classroom politics and the bewildering experiences of puberty are just some of the things our typical secondary school student might have to deal with. It can definitely look like a really bleak life at times, but believe me, this is about as good as it gets.

Females are perhaps more fortunate. They don't have to go through the degrading experience of NS, bowing and scraping to lesser men. However, the camaraderie of secondary school and JC (no idea about polytechnics) life is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Beyond that, there are no more chances for an entire same grouping of people to sit together, suffer together and fool around together for up to two years, building friendships that can last a lifetime. For femamles, this is pretty much the only chance one gets to know a gang of other people that thoroughly, to have so many shared experiences and inside jokes. For males, there is NS - or more specificially perhaps, BMT. Even then, the time spent together is relatively short; 3 months. School is still incomparably better.

That said, of course, school can really, really suck. The best way I can describe it is that it is the best of a bunch of truly awful alternatives. Student life is the best kind of life you can ever get, but it really isn't very good. I remember the days when the essays just kept piling up at exact same instant I couldn't be home doing them, all the really awful and useless teachers I had (what the fuck, five-metre dense undergrowth in tropical rainforest) and of course the classroom politics that were especially prevalent in JC. It is impossible not to be overwhelmed most of the time, and impossible not to think that you'll rather be someplace else far, far away.

That's how it's going to be, though. Anything school ever threw at me was still many miles better than fucking around in a pitch-black middle-of-nowhere sometime in the early hours of the morning with a rifle, an unwieldly helmet and 10kg on your back. Or being wrapped in layers and layers of red tape every time someone wanted to do so much as take a crap. God, NS fucking sucked. I am so glad it's over. Until they finally call me back, of course.

So anyway, treasure your school days. And remember that being a teenager is all about doing stupid things that you are going to be really embarrassed about later in life.

First day of term today, and certain numbers of my students were, quite understandably in retrospect, a little more chatty than usual - to grossly understate the fact. It wasn't something a slightly ill, sleep-deprived, needles-in-throat me was prepared to tolerate. Today was a day that truly made me wonder about attention spans and why they appear completely non-existent for some people, who cannot seem to just sit down and not move their mouths for even five minutes. Unbelievable.

Was feeling weak and dizzy during most of the lessons; recovered slightly during recess but fatigue was silently killing me by the end of the day. I could not concentrate on anything after that so I just went home. A shower and dinner got me feeling vaguely human and alive again, but soon after that I simply crumpled onto the sofa and let sleep take me.

Not going to get anything else done tonight. Hope tommorrow will be a better day.

Well, was a little bored so I decided to spend some time making this...

Presenting: 300! Or rather, 160...


























Made with Rome: Total War and Adobe Photoshop.

If you happen to like any one of these images and wish to reproduce it anywhere, please have the decency to seek my permission.

If you ever wondered what happened to that *wonderful* International History tutor you had in RJ...




Newly 42, and right here with his faithful HISSOC 2003-04 exco. Or part of it, anyway. The restaurant was Rice Table, and yes that is indeed a lot of food.




Later, with the cake he shared with Nizam. You will notice that for some odd reason I can never smile for the camera. Trying to figure that one out, myself.

A very enjoyable Sunday evening was had by all, but I do believe I was a little too honest when I told Kwok directly that his notes back in JC were all but useless... I did not twist the blade I had stuck into him by telling him that a single class discussion Zihao and I created was infinitely more useful than his stacks and stacks of Crisis of Communism notes and readings. And it had a good Soviet joke at the end, too. Truly, many trees died without a cause under his hand.

No money coming in this week; fortunately, not going out so often either, because everyone else has to work. I am trying my best not to procrastinate, but it's been a failed effort thus far. Just like when I was a student, being forced by prior laziness into nightmare 5-hour Econs sessions the night before/morning of the paper. Those were seriously not funny, because after about four hours straight you get some really fucked up hallucinations like (I am not making this up) faceless people calling to you with average cost curves floating around in the background. Good times; I probably am going to revisit them soon.

What I must now do is get my driving licence at the first attempt on Friday, because it will be a bloody expensive affair if I don't, and heaven knows it's already cost enough. What happened today does not bode well, however. Two days before my test and I'm still nearly causing accidents. Don't know what the fuck was up today because I could not do a damn thing right on four wheels.

Hope it isn't the same on Friday.

Tintin movie in the works

Got the news early this morning from Today, and just grabbed the first link to come up on Google. Needless to say, I am very interested in how this is going to turn out. The boy reporter's (who, I have noted, barely ever does any actual reporting) adventures were an integral part of my childhood. I have read almost every issue, except the really rare ones (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, Tintin in the Congo), although I do not own all of them, and these days occasionally revisit classic plotlines in bookstores if I happen to have a bit of time to kill.

It seems that all the classic series of my childhood are being revived as feature-length films; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is out this month, and Transformers is approaching. And now, Tintin. I am buoyed by the success of 300 and optimistic of yet more good adaptations - another of which will be Watchmen, slated tentatively for next year and directed by 300's Zack Snyder. In recent years, of course, the movie industry has awakened to the sheer popularity of classic graphic novels and comics - from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (based upon Alan Moore's series of the same name) to Spiderman (based on, well, Spiderman) to Batman Begins (based on Frank Miller's Batman Year One, with a sequel also coming along next year), Sin City (Frank Miller's Sin City), Fantastic Four (Marvel's Fantastic Four), the three X-men movies, and V for Vendetta (Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. This is leaving aside 2001's From Hell, a loose adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name, and latest of all, 300. It has been quite an incredible glut, and shows little sign of slowing down. Hits and misses (LXG, Fantastic Four), but when they are good, they are really good (300, Batman Begins. I just hope Watchmen is done justice to.

Would certainly not be surprised to see future adaptations of Swamp Thing, Tom Strong (both Alan Moore), Age of Bronze (when Shanower finally finishes it) or even Vertigo's Sandman series. It is interesting times for the entertainment industry, indeed.

Today's article justifying the GST hike has only left me more mystified than before. Our leaders gave some baffling assertions which I simply cannot wrap my mind around, and which seem to defy the laws of both basic economic theory and plain common sense.

For instance, exempting GST on essential items is "not the most effective way" to help low-income families, because "the bulk of their funds is not spent on essentials". "The better-off will save more because they spend more on these items." I am not able to comprehend this reasoning. Even if the bulk of their funds are not spent on essentials, will it not still help them out in some considerable fashion if the cost of these essentials, such as foodstuff, was reduced permanently? So the most effective way of helping these poor is not actually reducing costs and thus the amount of money lower-income families have to spend on getting their everyday goods, but giving them paltry one-off increases and an ethereal financial safety net? Am I missing something here?

In addition, better-off families spend more, thus they will save more? This does not square with Engel's Law, which states that as income rises, percentage of income spent on essentials such as food will fall. The better-off thus spend a smaller percentage of their income on basic essentials, although they might spend a larger amount of money in absolute terms. Either the government is being woefully unaware of basic economic theory here, or they are hoping to get away with statistical sleigh-of-hand. Lies, damn lies, and statistics, anyone?

Mr Tharman also stated that 14 percent of lower-income families' budgets are spent on essential items like oil, rice and uncooked food, with one-third going towards housing, education and healthcare, which have no GST. And thus, in his own words,

"So you can have low or zero rate GST for this 14 percent, but the rest of their expenditure, as a result, will be at a higher rate."

Again, I am baffled. Why does one automatically result in the other? Why would a low or zero rate GST on essential items instantly trigger increased spending by lower-income families on housing, education and healthcare? What is the correlation? Or is he implying... that the government will be forced to tax healthcare, education and housing in order to raise the additional revenue it absolutely must have? Otherwise I do not see how decreased spending on essential items will result in higher spending on housing, education and healthcare. Again, am I missing something here?

Mr Tharman next points out that it is difficult for the government to determine what are essential items, and what are not. An argument that makes more sense, at last. But is the august minister honestly suggesting that our bureaucrats are incapable of making arbitrary classifications based upon rigid set standards without providential clarification? Why, I believe they have more than enough experience in that sphere, because they certainly have no problem doing it both with movie ratings and NSF postings. When it comes to really helping the people (as opposed to "protecting" them), it seems that things have a nasty tendency of becoming impossibly difficult.

As such, I am wholly unconvinced by the government's latest attempt to justify raising the prices of everything we need. I believe their explanations lack conviction and betray a poor understanding of basic economics. If anyone can take the government's stand and point out to me any error of my ways, you are more than welcome to do so.

Below that transcript, on the same page, came a suggestion that money can be saved by paring the number of generals in the SAF. It was declared, in response, that every dollar spent on defence was worth it. Anyone who has ever done National Service will have an exceedingly hard time believing this, and anyone who has ever done NS will also have an exceedingly hard time believing that anyone can say this with a straight face. Because seriously, there is a fuckload of wastage in there - the most glaring example being the vast amounts of food wasted in the hundreds of cookhouses around the island every day.

Anyway, I suppose they can keep the generals - what the SAF has too many of is not generals, but warrant officers. I believe a lot of people can agree with me here. Seriously I've met more utterly worthless warrant officers than I can count. Usually they're just sitting around, waiting for retirement... and drawing thousands in taxpayers money every month. It's a bloody scandal. Every NSF, everyone who has served NS is bound to know at least a few of these worthless oafs. For example, my previous unit had one warrant officer who was superb at offloading his work onto much lower-paid NSFs, brilliant at stealing newspapers and food from the SAF (the former to sell, the latter to, I don't know, eat?) and absolutely top-notch at utilising the free office telephone to make lengthy personal phone calls. In other words, he never did much more than report for work daily, read the newspapers and then keep them, have long personal telephone conversations and deflect any work that somehow landed on his desk. All for something like four thousand dollars of taxpayers' money a month. Fucking hell, sack the bugger already. Take every single fucking warrant officer, look hard at what they actually do, and it can probably be found that 99% are useless bloodsuckers who ought to be thrown out onto the streets - at a cost savings of literally tens of millions for the Singaporean taxpayer.

Seriously, 3G army? Fuck that. What a bloated, useless force. If you even want to start heading in that direction, start actually behaving like a responsible public organisation and get rid of all the goddamn deadweight. Then maybe you'll find tax hikes are completely unnecessary, after all.

Last day of term today, and the students let us know how glad they were of the fact at dismissal bell. Well, can't blame students for liking school holidays

Fatigue hit me like a brick after lunch, as I tried to wind my mind around a good stack of unnecessarily complex material replete with tiny font. I gave up, waited out the usual post-school rush, then closed my term, wishing students happy holidays all the way to the station. Then I got home and proceeded to not be able to get to sleep.

A real annoyance, but my sleep patterns have always been fucked up. In my entire life I can count the number of times I've slept all the way through the night on one hand. As a student I could never sleep more than six-and-a-half hours (didn't usually have the luxury of doing so, anyway), and afternoon lessons would then be hell because fatigue would clobber me over the head and force my eyelids down. I once fell asleep in the middle of writing a chinese composition, pen trailing off in a scrawl that was rather hard to disguise later. JC only made things worse because the workload was even heavier and when that happens, the first thing to go is sleep. We could all do amazing things on very little sleep, and I think that is a survival skill.

It didn't help, of course, that I had to be obsessed with C Maths because I literally only began passing it in J2. Cramming Economics until I began hallucinating is one enduring memory, and not the good kind. Not that it helped, because our Economics department was complete rubbish, good economists I hear but certainly awful teachers.

BMT was the one time I could sleep really well, which makes sense. In general everyone did a lot of sleeping in NS, sneaking naps in the garage and later the office and even later back in bunk, because the closer you get to finishing the less they give a damn about you. Now that I'm back in civilian life, it seems that old habits are returning and my sleep patterns are going all to hell all over again. Disturbingly, it also seems that I have lost my edge in functioning on little rest, because Thursday was a really shitty day and all I could think about was getting home for a little shuteye. The price to pay for catching a late 300. Not that it wasn't worth it.

And so, one term rounded up. I have little doubt that the next one to come will yield yet more lovely surprises.

Oh yes and post number 600. Also hi and welcome to all my new visitors.

Disclaimer: If you are intending to catch the film/read the book, and are deathly afraid of spoilers, do not read past the first paragraph below.

Well, caught 300 at last yesterday - with Justin, Sean, Roger, Elgin and Zihao. Yes, six guys. Well, if there ever was a guy movie it would be this bloody, testosterone-soaked epic. That was exactly what I expected from it, and that was exactly what I got.

The most faithful movie adaptation of a book I have seen thus far, 300 the movie differs from 300 the graphic novel in only two major aspects: Queen Gorgo (Leonidas' wife) gets a far larger role and a main Spartan villain (the councilman, Theron) is added. Director Zack Snyder (who will helm the upcoming Watchmen) manages, impressively, to turn a graphic novel that takes barely half an hour to read into a gory two-hour epic, striking a delicate balance between that and remaining faithful to the source material.

Indeed, several major scenes are soft, gorgeous tributes to Frank Miller's original panels. I won't say which ones, not here, but they'll be immediately obvious if you have the book. Some scenes, moreover, are improved versions of what appears in the novel; given voice, gravity and dynamism by the magic of film.

The entire film is full of soft lighting and textures, with morning sunshine being a recurring motif. Sunbeams on wheat might well be a device borrowed from Gladiator, but 300 has a lot more to offer than just that. The wall of Persian dead is itself a breathtaking marvel, and the easily-overlooked background scenery a testament to the present power of computer graphic imagery. Costumes are lush and exotic (although the Spartans, unrealistically but faithful to the novel, quite literally virtually lack them), and although the journey through Xerxes' harem can be construed as gratuitous, it is a visual feast and offers up a contrast between Persian decadence and Spartan frugality (the word "spartan", is, of course, even today used to describe frugal and simple living conditions).

But enough of the technical stuff. On to plot, and my opinion is that the director has managed to improve on the novel. His best decision was to greatly expand the role of Queen Gorgo, who gets three lines (albeit one of them being the famous "Spartan! Come back with your shield or on it.") in the graphic novel. In the movie she gets to give a speech to the Spartan council, and a fine speech it is. She also offers a break from all the relentless blood-soaked glory of the battlefield; a break that we do not get in the graphic novel. To cap it off in a most visceral manner, she is pretty good-looking to boot, and even gets a moment of blood-soaked glory for herself. Not going to spoilt that, so watch the movie.

The director's other main decision, adding the Spartan villain Theron, is also a well-advised one. It gives the film some balance, adding a little grey to the monochromatic, Persians-are-all-bad-guys and Spartans-all-good-guys (except the ephors) spiel of the graphic novel. Frank Miller, has, of course, never been known to go for grey areas in his work. He always has clearly defined good guys and bad guys (Batman: Year One being a prime example), with the possible exception of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which portrays a melancholic, morally ambiguous Cold War world. Yet the situation still ends up being a tad trite, what with the classic noble-king-hampered-by-treacherous-ministers scenario playing out. Still an improvement over the slightly too simplistic graphic novel, however.

Other than these modifications, the rest of the film plays out much like the graphic novel does, with major occurences such as Ephialtes meeting with and rejection by Leonidas, his subsequent betrayal, Xerxes' meeting with Leonidas and the dramatic last stand of the Spartans all intact and played out in scenes very similar to the corresponding panels within the novel. Both works end the same way, with Dilios the storyteller ending his tale and then charging into battle against the Persian army at Plataea.

Finally, to praise the cast - who all did stellar jobs. Gerard Butler plays Leonidas exactly like Frank Miller drew him; Lena Headey plays the stately, dignified, tough-as-nails, yet heartbroken and vulnerable Queen Gorgo brilliantly, in the absence of any help from Miller's pen. Rodrigo Santoro was panned in the New Paper, but it is obvious that that particular reviewer has never read the book, because he plays Xerxes just as well as Butler plays Leonidas. His voice, in particular, described in the novel as being "as smooth as warm oil on well-worn leather and as deep as rolling thunder" is exactly what I imagined it would sound like. A slight pity, then, that his lines are virtually verbatim. Dominic West is suitably scheming, malicious and despicable as the villain Theron, and his eventual moment of death will probably be welcomed by many. David Wenham (most famously, Faramir) does well as the storyteller Dilios, although my opinion is that he is too young to be a storyteller of this stature (the Dilios in the novel is a middle-aged warrior). A very strong performance indeed from all the main actors.

A comment on the historical value of this film: it is broadly historical, but the Spartans did not fight in cloaks and thongs, and it is most unlikely that Xerxes was a tall, black Nubian with gold piercings embedded all over his body. Nor, obviously, were rhinoceroses present at Thermopylae, or elephants, either. The novel shows camels, which is just as unlikely. In addition, the real number at the last stand of Thermopylae was not 300 Spartans, but rather around 900 to 1200 Spartans, shield-bearers, servants and Thespian allies - and while it is implied that Plataea was the decisive engagement of the Greco-Persian Wars, that honour actually belongs to Salamis (one of history's very few truly decisive naval battles), where the Athenian admiral Themistocles dealt a devastating defeat to the vastly larger Persian fleet. I did not, however, watch it for the history, but for the action, and there it certainly delivers.

I also wonder just how many people in the cinema actually got the ending - which is a reference to the Battle of Plataea in 479BC, the final battle of the Greco-Persian Wars. Forty thousand Greeks, including the full Spartan army of ten thousand (the only time the full Spartan army was ever deployed), destroyed Xerxes' final army in Greece (his main force had returned across the Hellespont the year before after the devastating defeat at Salamis. As mentioned earlier, however, I tend to think of Plataea as little more than an afterthought; the real damage had been done a year earlier at Salamis, and Xerxes and his main army were already safely back home. Nonetheless, it was a good ending.

In conclusion, anyone who enjoys blood-soaked war epics - this is the perfect film for you. Unless you are under eighteen, of course.

Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong once famously declared that "women hold up half the heavens". The way I see it, men only appear to hold up their half, and the weaker sex is anything but.

Experience in a mixed school serves only to strengthen this notion. I have observed that when class committees are composed of, say, a male chairperson and a female vice-chair, the latter ends up doing all the work while the former is more than content to sit back and allow his female compatriot free reign. It is a very tiny, fairly insignificant example, but quite a microcosm of the stereotypical strong female and meek male partnership. But it isn't just them, of course. I am more than certain that all males who read this will be more than content to sit back and leave decisions to female colleagues/friends/relatives/etc. I personally certainly am.

Teaching in an all-male school, I suspect, would be much easier but also probably far less interesting. Male students, as you all might know, you can do anything to them. You can pick them up by the scruff of the neck and hurl them out of class and they'll return later in the day still smiling sheepishly none the worse for wear. Aside from the fact that physical contact with female students is a very strict no-no, for obvious reasons, one cannot do this to female students. They are built differently. Female students can hate you forever over just one relatively mild reprimand. It is a difference acknowledged by teacher-training programmes and by very experienced educators. Always be more careful about female students, is the advice I have received, and I have found it to be true. They are a lot likelier to take things to heart and to hold grudges, so quite a bit more caution is needed there.

On the flip side, female students are a lot more responsible. They hand up their work on time, virtually every time, and hand it up at the earliest opportunity if they have valid reasons for missing deadlines. Male students will happily leave assignments undone until the very last second your patience expires. If not prodded, they will happily leave assignments undone for all eternity. The overwhelming majority of my notorious lazybones are male. It's better that way though, because I can really give them hell.

Anyway, a mix of gender makes things a lot more colourful. While girls are more volatile and can dislike you a lot more easily, they also warm to you a lot more easily. The male students tend to be rather quieter, rather less attuned to their surroundings and a lot more easygoing. Taking the good with the bad, that's the only way.

Disclaimer: Above post was not meant to be sexist in any way. I am only making general observations. There are exceptions to the rule. There will always be exceptions to the rule.

Headline news today: "GST hike needed to pay for social spending: Tharman".

What follows is yet another insistent declaration of the necessity of raising the Goods and Services Tax from 5% to 7%, and how this measure, which is going to make everything more expensive, is really intended to help the poor.

I think we have enough of a unique economic policy around here to deserve a name for it. I shall christen it "Tharmanomics" in honour of the august Second Minister for Finance and Minister of Education, whose political star is apparently currently shining as brightly as his polished bald patch at the moment.

Tharmanomics apparently calls for, very baldly (pun fully intended), a policy of robbing the poor to give to the rich. It is immediately obvious even to the layman who the GST hike will most greatly affect: the less well-off sectors of the population. The reason? They have less money to spend on things, and when these things get more expensive, they will be able to buy fewer of them. Especially essential items such as rice, flour and milk powder, which no household in Singapore can do without. The GST hike is concurrent with a drop in the corporate tax rate, which will most benefit enormously wealthy multi-national corporations out to make themselves yet wealthier.

Is this not a fairly transparent attempt at robbing the poor to give to the rich? Reducing the amount the rich have to pay, and making up for the loss of revenue by increasing the financial burden on the poor? Or am I missing something here?

It is argued, of course, that the recently-announced Budget has measures in place that will aid the lower-income groupings. The increased employers' CPF contributions (up from 13% to 14.5%) is welcomed but long overdue. Workfare is a commendable initiative, but the amounts involved are really peanuts (S$1,200 a year for those over 45, S$900 a year for those between 35 and 45). GST credits are peanuts as well, and so are virtually all the various other handouts the government so sonorously proclaims. How much can all this really help, especially when much of it is short-term or one-off? The GST hike to 7% will be forever - until they raise it again, that is. The lasting effect will be to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

What is surprising, however, is that the government now expects a budget deficit: S$1.28 billion for Financial Year 2006 and S$0.69 billion for Financial Year 2007. It is good to know that our government is not as pathologically fearful of budget deficits as I initially thought. However, it seems to be made clear that deficits are to be avoided as far as possible and getting one is like getting the plague. It seems that there will be deficits only when there is no choice; even the most authoritarian of governments must contend with public opinion. Still, considering that our reserves are S$197 billion, these deficits are infinitesimal. Larger deficits could be run over the medium term to help out the people with little ill-effect. But our government would rather preserve their warped form of financial stability than adequately perform the sacred duty of all governments down the ages: to look out for the well-being of their people.

The government does not even have to run large deficits to appear more reasonable. One measure proposed was to exempt GST, or at least the GST hike, on essential items such as rice and milk powder. Somehow this proposal has never been considered. It makes eminent sense to me. But it seems they'll rather have the money than genuinely help out the needy.

Nonetheless, I recognise that our government cannot run budget deficits year after year. Extra revenue must come from somewhere. But it can come from somewhere else other than GST hikes - it can come from hikes in personal income tax. As we run a progressive tax system, a hike in income tax rates will affect the poor less and the rich more, which is as it should be. In fact, the government can actually simply raise the income tax rate for the highest annual income bracket (S$320,000 and above): say, from 20% to 22%. The marginal effect on people in this tax bracket would be relatively low, because how much money do you need anyway? Seventy-eight percent of S$320,000 is still S$249,600 a year, which is more than ten times the yearly GNP per capita. Plenty of room for extravagance.

This way, the whole system would be a lot more humanistic and make a lot more sense. It would, for one, help close the income gap (widening in recent years, as demonstrated by the rise in Singapore's Gini coefficient from 0.49 in 2000 to 0.52 in 2005). It would truly improve the plight of the lower-income grouping in Singapore. It would not put us in the ludicrous position of robbing the poor to give to the rich.

Not that it's ever likely to happen. Thatcherism ruled Britain in the 1980s while Reaganomics held sway in America. Tharmanomics is going to be here forever.