Remarkable tourism ad taken in Singapore

I took this photo in a MRT station in Singapore in March 2009, the Chinese (PR that is) tourism people advertising occupied Tibet's Lhasa as a Chinese tourist destination.

And that was the week...

Yay, a truly hectic working week is finally over. I spent all day today running around taking pix of the latest Singaporean skyscrapers. Even bumped into the world's largest cruise liner in the harbor.

I spent 5 out of 5 days regaling high school students with tales of cloning and animal experiments, A*STAR scientists with insights into academic publishing rules (and ethics), as well as staff at the Singapore General Hospital with a workshop on publishing ethics. Last but not least I gave a colloquium in the philosophy department at the National University of Singapore. The paper I presented was co-authored with Christopher Lowry. Chris is currently a doctoral student at Queen's and soon to be an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (yep, he is one of the few who managed to score jobs in the current climate). Probably didn't hurt that he published quite a bit of peer reviewed content during the last year and a half!

Anyhow, Russell Blackford with whom I currently edit a volume on atheist thought, and I managed to send the corrected manuscript back to the copy-editor, so it should soon enter the typesetting stage. Quite excited about this piece of work. Look out for the book, it's gonna be called '50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists'. It's coming with Wiley-Blackwell in a few months time.

Talking about Wiley-Blackwell, on Monday I will meet Cindy Chong, the Production Editor here in Singapore of two journals I co-edit for said company. It's funny how this stuff is being put together by diligent people literally all over the world. Our authors work in the most far flung corners of the world, and even us at the editorial side of things are in North America (yours truly, Ricardo Smalling), Europe (Ruth Chadwick, Clancy Pegg, Celia White and colleagues), Latin America (Debora Diniz) and Asia (Cindy Chong and colleagues). Without the advent of the internet that plain would not be possible. It's a remarkable thing really, when you think about it.

Talking about the net. I joined - ugh, terrible to admit, Facebook. Actually, it's an amazing site/ Within a week or two I gathered some 100+ 'friends', that's people making contact with you and ask that you kinda add them as 'friends'. Turns out to be an excellent tool to track 'lost ones'. I was found by folks who I haven't heard off for oodles of years. Bit of a waste of time otherwise. Would you believe that I posted a thing saying that I enjoyed Tim Tam's. I mean... please!

In case you're really bored, here's a link to images taken during my various 'performances' (there were stages on some occasions :).

A380 and such

Yours truly is currently in Singapore, on a work visit to the NUS bioethics centre. Will also be giving a talk here in the philosophy department. You might hear from me, on and off, but don't expect too much, the weather is such that I'd rather be outside than to go on blogging...

Hey, on the bright side, the dreaded flight on BAs 777 to Singapore from London turned out to be a Qantas A380 trip. The plane, according to its pilot, is a mere 4 weeks old. And guess what, it worked a treat. Being 'just' an academic, I flew of course torture class, and had it not been for an exit row 'window' (there's no window) seat and 7mg of diazepam I probably would have 'died'. Well, so I slept roughly 10 out of the 12 hours and am reasonably fit. Funny enough, these meds are not supposed to be used for this purpose. Btw, you probably don't want to go for the exit row seats in BA 777 fleet's economy section, just about all their monitors were broken. I wonder why. They fall back and hit people's knees all the time. They eventually upgraded me to Premium economy. Seems well worth it, to be honest. Lufthansa's business class just a few years back would have been what premium economy is today on most carriers. OH well, enough of this babble, I have this obsession with comparing airline services (well, disservices these days, mostly). I am pleased to report, however, that I avoided again Air Canada, so arrived on time without hick-up's.

Singapore is still as crazily efficient as it has been 10 or 15 years ago when I ventured here first time round. No queues at customs, luggage waiting, clean reliable taxi taking me to my residence, security waiting to take me to my lil flat (which turns out to be huge, 2 bedrooms and no less than three bathrooms...). Funny enough, I ended up in the supermarket next door to buy some of life's basic necessities, only to be told that they're not taking credit cards (in hi-tech Singapore of all places).

On that note, enjoy your day. I will do the same :).

Hope for Zimbabwe - Robert Mugabe is gone

... sadly only for a month. Mugabe is gone on a 92,000 US$ junket shopping trip (courtesy of funds from the Zimbabwean Central Bank) to Malaysia and Singapore with his wife and kids. Quite remarkable, considering that the death toll resulting from an entirely preventable cholera outbreak is ever increasing. While there are food shortages in the country, caused by Mugabe and his cronies' idiotic policies, he and his spendthrift wife will burn thru taxpayers' monies in Singaporean shopping malls. To describe all of this as shameless is probably an understatement. It is a sad indictment of these countries that they welcome international pariahs such as Mugabe and his wife.

Singapore being funny again

Singapore's legislators reportedly changed legislation that until recently threatened to punish perverse (in the non-reproductive sex act sense) sexual activity with jail of up to two years. So, a married couple enjoying oral-genital intercourse, if caught (somehow...) could end up in the slammer. Well, I'm sure that was just those Singaporeans being funny (different, 'Asian values' and all) again. You know, it's the same crowd that prohibited the sale of chewing gum because it messed up their subway. Reportedly Singaporeans are conservative - as if conservatives didn't do such things, but hey, I suppose they don't talk about it.

Anyway, Singapore, with this move came frighteningly close to the civil rights type legislations we take for granted in other democracies. To me it seems as if Singaporeans are kind of keen to continue to be sniggered about behind their backs, much like in the chewing gum case. So they decided that oral-genital is cool whenever it's male to female, but that it's totally unacceptable (and must be punished with jail of up to two years), when, you guessed it, two blokes engage in the same conduct. They even managed to legislate the same spiel for anal intercourse. So, if you're married and you engage in anal intercourse Singapore's legislators don't think any longer two years jail is a sensible response, but if you're a guy doing it with another guy, hey presto, Singapore's jail is waiting for you. One of its psychiatrists discussed in a local medical journal a couple of years back the question of whether one should offer a genetic test (prenatal) for homosexuality if one came about, in 'the absence of treatment'. At the time homosexuality had long been eliminated from any known classification of diseases, but then, he probably didn't know, being conservative and all.

In the real world, of course, nobody is likely to ever go to jail because of this legislation. How would any policewoman ever find out what's happening in any of a zillion flats in Singapore's high-rises? No, this really is a means to say straight sex that isn't reproductive is cool, while gay sex that isn't reproductive isn't.

Inequitably treating like things not alike? Sure thing. Unjust? Sure thing. Bit silly? Sure thing. But hey, what's new about Singapore? One the one hand the city state professes its version of Asian family values. These seem to require that homosexual activities (ie a victimless activity conducted among consenting adults) be criminalised. On the other hand, the professed Asian respect for conservative moral values doesn't seem to prevent the place from being one of Burma's dictators' favorite trading partners. Hypocrisy - I think so.