absolutum dominium

i hadn't really been following the papers till i heard abt mr brown being personally attacked by tt k bhavani person (i still say: "shame on you! using ur position of dominance and power and hiding behind your fancy title to attack someone representing the views of the common man on the street"). but tt being said, i think rockson says it much better than i do. hahaha.

and oh, the video below is a nice tribute too..



Link

anyway i came across this massive spread abt 'citizen journalism', and i thought to myself: "finally, the st has decided tt it will do less ball-licking and devote a bit more coverage to the *real* stuff like the blogs tt are up in singapore for the more discerning man on the street to read."

but i realised, i was wrong.

their excuse for 'citizen journalism' is this online portal 'stomp' tt they introduced. it allows people to send in photos and log on forums and it has 'star bloggers' who pen 'columns' for people to read. in my mind, 'stomp' doesn't seem any different from anything tt st has ever done before. i don't see 'citizen journalism' here at all.

coz as cherian george has put it, 'stomp' is editted by the st personnel - media personnel who get to choose what they want to put up and to censor what they don't want to put up. so how is this really reflective of what the man in the street is really reporting?

the way i see it, the st is using 'stomp' as some kind of medium to attract back the so-called 'young and disenfranchised' who have come to realise, particularly through the last election campaign, tt our national newspaper is the prejudiced and partisan one, and for tt reason no longer particularly worth reading.

the way i see it, the st is like the government medium for pacifying the disillusioned young. i mean, they restrict our rights, they keep telling us to fuck off and to shut the fuck up coz they know better, all while knowing tt we know tt our country is going the way of the the rich and the ang moh. the rich are still getting richer. you can be 80 and older and still hold a damn well-paying job so long as you're the right person; else where you're prematurely retired at 45 to make way for the disenchanted youth who despite being armed with our myriad of degrees and dreams, cannot find a fucking job. "household incomes go up while the bottom 1/3's 'wages' go down." tt's how the st reports the widening income gap where the bottom 20% cannot make ends meet, all the while while everything else increases. taxi fares, soon bus fares, electricity and water bills, cigarettes...

and you can't say anything about this apparently, coz some person who calls herself k bhavani says tt it's all coz 'oil prices' have increased. 'oil prices' have been increasing since may. however, it is still possible to get a litre of petrol for $1.15 in canada, and a litre of petrol for $1.91 ringgit in malaysia. which is apprently the competitive market price for oil. so tt being said, why don't *you* justify why singapore oil prices at $1.91 sing dollars a litre, are at least $1.00 over the competitive market price?

the prophecies are coming true. the stupid singaporean voted, even while the others like us knew for certain tt from history, all prices would go up post-elections. the stupid singaporean was so blinded by his progress package handout, tt he didn't stop to think tt he would be paying back 4 times over how much he had received in may, over the course of the next couple of years.

the stupid singaporean will regret, but come the next election, he might forget again. but for the rest of us, we are the worrying ones. we are disenfranchised and disillusioned. we watch and read and listen to the same hellfire and brimstone arguments tt the ruling party puts out through its many disposable mouthpieces over the past 20 years, and we know what exactly is real and what exactly is bullshit. we might be proud to be singaporean, but we might have no love for how our lives are being run, and we might have no qualms about choosing to leave for a place where maybe, we might not have so much security, where maybe we might not have what we consider to be the same creature comforts, but where maybe... we might lead happier, freer lives.

but i digress. the way i see it, the ruling party knows tt citizen journalism is dangerous. it represents the minds of the people, the minds tt can not always be subject to thought control. and tt is why being unable to regulate the internet despite the many threats and rumblings, they hope to manufacture their own version of 'citizen journalism' targeted at the young, hoping tt the youths will be stupid enough to buy into the glamour of the project.

so give it a little colour, get so-called 'celebrity bloggers' - i.e. pretty or well-known but rather vacuous individuals to argue about politically-correct or politically-irrelevant issues to give people the impression tt the st is hip and happening, and tt it is not the sell-out tt it proved to be in may.

well, i got a newsflash for you. the stupid might continue to subscribe to the whole 'citizen journalism' spin tt you put out, but those of us tt knew long ago, know. we're not stupid. we know trash when we see it.

and for me, entertaining tt the st and its attempts are, trash is at the end of the day, still trash.