Just gonna comment on some things that have caught my interest lately:

There's a post on the Singaporean/Malaysian Student's Assocuation mailing list has led to an uproar. (I'll just assume that anyone who mass mails flamebait on the mailing list pretty much doesn't mind everything being placed on the web, since the list is pretty much a public space anyway) It involves an article by Alfian Sa'at, someone whom I'm sure most of us are familiar with at least by name. W's initial mail had a accusation that SMSA ex-co was being possibly "racist" by not serving up vegetarian or halal food at the CNY dinner they organised.

Now, of course the way I figure it, since there are no Muslims that I know of in the SMSA, and the attendees at aforementioned CNY dinner were probably all going to be Chinese anyway, what's with the gripe? Being "multiracial" doesn't mean you ought to bend over backwards to ensure that your own (private) cultural celebration should be acceptable to everyone else. That's not the ideal of acknowledging and accepting cultural differences - it's more a "lowest common denominator" situation: "since our (fill in cultural group here) brothers/sisters can't do (whatever), we won't either." It's crapping on your own cultural traditions just to emphasise that you're being politically correct. How dumb is that? Multiracialism means accepting other people's traditions, but it also means that you get to (and ought to!) keep your own traditions alive.

Of course this remarkable trollish comment brought a flurry of responses. The majority are from ex-co members countering that dietry preferences were taken into account, and provisions would have been made for those who required special diets at the dinner. One person just emailed to say how this is the way with all minorities (and I can't say I disagree. The first human response when confronted with a different culture is fear and loathing) all over the world. Someone else made a comment that the difference between Singapore and Malaysia, say, in persecuting minorities is that Malaysia's government is pretty overt about it, while in Singapore it's the general population that discriminates. (This is remarkably similar to a comment C made a few days ago about homosexuality in Singapore - that Singapore is remarkable in that it isn't the people demanding openess on this issue, but that it is the government instead that leads in bringing change. I disagree about this one actually, sometimes I think that the government gets the best of both worlds by subtly instigating the factions in society to repress each other, then appearing to be a force of "liberalism" in public. No buearucracy, IMHO, can really look out for anything but the status quo. Machivellian, I know... ) And then there's this long, rambling response without much of a point (basically, it states the current controversies of biological determinism and race, etc. without adding any original thought).

So what's with this blow-by-blow breakdown of the posts thus far? Well, I did that to indulge in sniping at people, really. Or more specifically, I like reading into people's motivations and personalities from their writing. The orginal poster was a bit of an idealist, and perhaps too obsessed with being PC (which, from what I know of her school background, is absolutely believable). The ex-co people, largely goverment scholars and probably future bureaucrats came back with pretty boring "don't blame me!" responses. Mostly run of the mill stuff, solid, dependable writing. One of them tried a nice rhetorical trick - trying to ally himself with the original poster ("hint hint, nudge nudge, and maybe this annoying person will shut up"). One poster was obviously an idealist as well - comparing the Singaporean and Malaysian situations in a slightly wistful "why can't the world just get along" tone (well, it can't. People are mean and nasty by nature) The last, long rambly one was by the awardee of a very prestigious government scholarship, young and not exactly as eloquent (or as sensible, perhaps, or he wouldn't have taken the flamebait) as his seniors. Now, his post was long winded, largely meaningless and tried to advance a pro-social unity stance. I think he actually believes the mush he's spouting (which means he needs a lesson in cynicism. Fast), and believes in it so much he's trying to advance this agenda in the face of ultra-liberals and skeptics. It's sad watching him try. Gotta be better than that if you want to deal with real politics (of course I recognise that most Singaporean political leaders aren't very eloquent either. I remember with fondness when a couple of anti-goverment types at school cornered a perm sec during a speech he was making. Of course they didn't push it all the way and the politico squirmed out with typical double-talk... I remember this because it was the first time I was actually paying attention and noticed when a politician tried to shift the subject while losing an argument. Why don't the people just turn around and say "quit with the garbage and answer my question. I'll repeat it if you need help remembering." Maybe that's why you only ever get one shot at the mike when you talk to a politician?)

On to a less controversial issue:

I finally got xcom and xcom2 working on my comp! Yay! Now I can shoot those alien bastards to my heart's content! (More likely they'll carry off my agents for horrible mutilating genetic experiements, but still!) Maybe I have a better grasp of tactics now that I'm older... If not, I can stick hack and make my little pistols do 255 explosive damage. (Nuclear bullets!)

And:

Why don't people find Kill Bill as funny as I do? Watched it with my suite and friends at Berkeley and eveyone was like "I was so grossed out." This compared to me with my "didja see the way he got his hand sliced off? Cool!" response. Why do people have to take films like this seriously anyway? It's violent, yes, but obviously meant to be a fun movie. How else do you explain the extreme cheesiness? The kooky effects? The horrendous dialogue ("Wiggle your big toe." "Those of you who have lost limbs, leave them. They are mine now") ?

Finally:

Is it weird to read for pleasure? Because the same suite + friends group as above took one look at the book I'm currently reading ("Susie Bright's Sexual State of the Union") and immediately asked if I was reading it for a class. It's like, if I started reading Plato again I must be taking a classics or phiolosophy class. =P Come on. Reading for for the heck of it is normal. Right? After all, we're all in college. It isn't weird to be genuinely interested in learning...