Basket.

It is the end of one torrid week and soon enough, the beginning of another. One unpleasant discovery I have had the ill-fortune of making is that the outfield of good old Singapore island itself is by no means better (and in a number of respects actually worse) than that of Pulau Tekong across the shining sea. I never had much problems with mosquitoes in the latter-mentioned area, for instance; here, on the other hand, the critters seem to have been spawned from the depths of Hades, given their sheer persistence, ferocity and quickness. Heavens, they bite THROUGH the long 4. Oh, and did I mention most have white bands? Helllooo dengue!

And so we survived heat rash, horrifying abrasions and killer mosquitoes to haul ourselves through our first outfield exercise. All thoughts that ours would be an "outfield desk job" have been firmly vanquished from my mind. We are as much a combat vocation as any other, and I will not have anyone challenging this.

Before I left for the week, I read with some interest of the PSC scholar who was featured in the news because of some racist comments he made on his personal, private and password-protected weblog. As a result, he has a lot of people calling for his head. No surprise there. I do not condone racism, but a few things about this case perturb me.

For one, he made the comments on a personal website, which he stipulated was only meant for those closest to him to peruse. It was even password-protected; an unusual step for a blog. But someone cracked the password and displayed what he said over the very public domain of the Internet - something he never intended to do.

Why, then, is no one dealing with the obvious breach of ethics (understatement) that is the act of cracking someone's password and displaying the contents of a website he intended to be private for all to see? Why is everyone only focusing on his racism and not condemning the scum who stole this poor guy's password? It's ridiculous.

The very Singaporean tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill was also on full display in this case. Granted, he made offensive comments. However, we do not know why he made them, and the fact that he did not make them in a public domain suggests he had no intention of riling up anyone with them. Is one not entitled to one's own opinions? I do oppose the public expression of opinions such as these on the grounds that they can cause social disunity, but I see nothing wrong with merely holding them privately. If he had published his comments loudly and proudly on some public domain, by all means, sack him and burn him at the stake. But he did not.

Yet many, with nauseating and very Singaporean self-righteousness, are calling for his scholarship to be revoked, completely overlooking the fact that while he has indeed done something foolish, he has also had a wrong done to him. How many of these people would like it if the keys to their personal drawers were stolen and some very private and intimate objects taken and put on full display for all the public to see, afterwhich they are heavily criticised for what these objects show? Not many, I would wager. But here they are, loudly condemning someone who is in the exact same situation. It's plainly silly, but that's the typical Singaporean for you. Loud, hypocritical and overwhelmingly self-righteous.