In Luke 2:16-21, it was written that Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.
It must have been encouraging to know that despite giving birth in a manger, the shepherds had found and paid homage to Jesus.
Again this is a small testament to Mary's obedience when she and Joseph had Jesus circumcised on the 8th day. It was then that Jesus was given the name of Jesus which in the literal Hebrew means the "Lord Saves" It is this name that becomes central in all Christian prayers.
Mary like her son, Jesus had humbled herself for her son's sake and in turn for our sake. She witnessed her son, Jesus die on the cross. It would be most appropriate to thank her for her role and to God to a much larger degree for providing two perfect examples of humility and obdience in Mary and Jesus
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Knowledge vs wisdom by DZOF AZMI
Sunday November 13, 2011
Knowledge vs wisdom
Contradictheory
By DZOF AZMI
Books draw readers into new worlds which help them understand real life, unlike the Net, which dishes out data that we often don’t need.
I HAVE a friend who was told by a slimming centre that if she wanted to lose weight, she had to stop drinking cold water, or else her stomach would stick out.
I don’t think she even stopped to ask why before she walked out the door. She heard this right after the staff there also said they needed to make sure the wrap around her was tight enough so they could “crush the fat cells”.
I suppose sufficient pressure could help you become thinner, in the way a steamroller would help flatten Wile E. Coyote into a sheet of paper. Good for a cartoon, messier for real life.
Perhaps the centre wasn’t intentionally trying to fool my friend. Those guys may really believe what they claim.
I’ve always wondered how it is that we live in an age where knowledge of the world is at our fingertips, but true wisdom still manages to elude us. Just stare at the right-hand side of your web browser. I would like to know how Facebook knows I’m overweight. Is it analysing photos of me?
If you want further evidence that common sense isn’t all that common, just watch debates in Parliament. These good men and women were selected to represent the rakyat, but their tone of debate at times makes me wish I had the power to veto people’s choices.
Watching the debate on the Lynas power plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, was painful. Ascertaining whether a site poses public health risks is clearly in the public interest and not a trivial task. Yet, I hardly saw any real debate about the scientific merits of whether or not the plant should be built there.
One MP even accused another in his own party of not understanding the difference between radiation from a nuclear power plant and that from rare earth materials (PAS MP defends Lynas rare earth plant, Nation, The Star, Aug 25).
But I suspect most members of the public who observed this debate did not fully understand the underlying scientific implications, and so the news that an MP had seemingly turned against his own party made bigger headlines than any quantifiable report about the scientific merits of the site.
It is ironic that while the Internet is such a vast repository of information, so much of it is so fickle, or even just plain wrong.
Data may be easy to find, but extracting knowledge from it is a game of knowing what to leave out, and the wisdom to do that cannot be just learnt online. So, when you browse the Net about whether cold water makes you fat, you can also find assertions that drinking cold water can in fact help you lose weight (recipes.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm?cid=rss1). What’s more, it’s entirely based on science: cold water takes more energy to heat up, and using more energy means you burn up more calories.
Of course, one glass of cold water doesn’t make much of a difference in itself, and I think drinking many glasses would only be effective if the glasses were at the back of a pizza delivery boy’s motorcycle and you could only get to them by chasing him on foot.
But I can see many a slimming centre offering “low-temperature hydro therapy” packages, with the words “scientifically proven” next to them.
(Incidentally: There are about 300 calories in one slice of pizza. Jogging for 15 minutes burns 100 calories and heating a glass of ice water up to room temperature takes 20 calories.)
The difference between knowledge and wisdom is mostly experience. It is the ability to understand facts in the context of the bigger picture.
Schools sometimes get the brunt of this. Teachers are said to teach memorisation and not the application of facts.
I do agree that Malaysian schools at present do not give children an opportunity to understand what they learn in the context of real-life situations. But even if you can’t provide real-life experience, at least start by helping students understand the experience of others.
We already have a mechanism to do this, and we don’t need to depend on schools. It starts with books.
The important thing when reading is both the breadth and depth of the subject. Every book you read is an opportunity to see a little more of the world. A really good book is engrossing and you end up getting lost in a completely new world.
When I was in Paris once, I heard a pair of tourists beside me describe the Notre Dame as “a really old building”, which made me want to drop them off the side of the bell tower.
Yes, the Notre Dame is a really old building. You could learn exactly how old if you searched for it on Wikipedia. But if you go one step further and read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, you will get drawn into the world of 15th century Paris, and all the machinations within.
The problem is that the average Malaysian hardly reads, and I fear that this applies to the current generation, even to those who prefer to skim words in between snatching glances at YouTube videos.
I don’t know how many parents now realise that if they choose to watch TV instead of read, it sets an example for their children to do the same. And by denying them the opportunity to learn to love the reading habit, they are literally closing off whole new worlds to the kids.
Besides, there’s another great reason to read books: You don’t see inane advertisements about losing weight.
> Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make of life’s vagaries and contradictions.
Knowledge vs wisdom
Contradictheory
By DZOF AZMI
Books draw readers into new worlds which help them understand real life, unlike the Net, which dishes out data that we often don’t need.
I HAVE a friend who was told by a slimming centre that if she wanted to lose weight, she had to stop drinking cold water, or else her stomach would stick out.
I don’t think she even stopped to ask why before she walked out the door. She heard this right after the staff there also said they needed to make sure the wrap around her was tight enough so they could “crush the fat cells”.
I suppose sufficient pressure could help you become thinner, in the way a steamroller would help flatten Wile E. Coyote into a sheet of paper. Good for a cartoon, messier for real life.
Perhaps the centre wasn’t intentionally trying to fool my friend. Those guys may really believe what they claim.
I’ve always wondered how it is that we live in an age where knowledge of the world is at our fingertips, but true wisdom still manages to elude us. Just stare at the right-hand side of your web browser. I would like to know how Facebook knows I’m overweight. Is it analysing photos of me?
If you want further evidence that common sense isn’t all that common, just watch debates in Parliament. These good men and women were selected to represent the rakyat, but their tone of debate at times makes me wish I had the power to veto people’s choices.
Watching the debate on the Lynas power plant in Gebeng, Kuantan, was painful. Ascertaining whether a site poses public health risks is clearly in the public interest and not a trivial task. Yet, I hardly saw any real debate about the scientific merits of whether or not the plant should be built there.
One MP even accused another in his own party of not understanding the difference between radiation from a nuclear power plant and that from rare earth materials (PAS MP defends Lynas rare earth plant, Nation, The Star, Aug 25).
But I suspect most members of the public who observed this debate did not fully understand the underlying scientific implications, and so the news that an MP had seemingly turned against his own party made bigger headlines than any quantifiable report about the scientific merits of the site.
It is ironic that while the Internet is such a vast repository of information, so much of it is so fickle, or even just plain wrong.
Data may be easy to find, but extracting knowledge from it is a game of knowing what to leave out, and the wisdom to do that cannot be just learnt online. So, when you browse the Net about whether cold water makes you fat, you can also find assertions that drinking cold water can in fact help you lose weight (recipes.howstuffworks.com/question447.htm?cid=rss1). What’s more, it’s entirely based on science: cold water takes more energy to heat up, and using more energy means you burn up more calories.
Of course, one glass of cold water doesn’t make much of a difference in itself, and I think drinking many glasses would only be effective if the glasses were at the back of a pizza delivery boy’s motorcycle and you could only get to them by chasing him on foot.
But I can see many a slimming centre offering “low-temperature hydro therapy” packages, with the words “scientifically proven” next to them.
(Incidentally: There are about 300 calories in one slice of pizza. Jogging for 15 minutes burns 100 calories and heating a glass of ice water up to room temperature takes 20 calories.)
The difference between knowledge and wisdom is mostly experience. It is the ability to understand facts in the context of the bigger picture.
Schools sometimes get the brunt of this. Teachers are said to teach memorisation and not the application of facts.
I do agree that Malaysian schools at present do not give children an opportunity to understand what they learn in the context of real-life situations. But even if you can’t provide real-life experience, at least start by helping students understand the experience of others.
We already have a mechanism to do this, and we don’t need to depend on schools. It starts with books.
The important thing when reading is both the breadth and depth of the subject. Every book you read is an opportunity to see a little more of the world. A really good book is engrossing and you end up getting lost in a completely new world.
When I was in Paris once, I heard a pair of tourists beside me describe the Notre Dame as “a really old building”, which made me want to drop them off the side of the bell tower.
Yes, the Notre Dame is a really old building. You could learn exactly how old if you searched for it on Wikipedia. But if you go one step further and read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, you will get drawn into the world of 15th century Paris, and all the machinations within.
The problem is that the average Malaysian hardly reads, and I fear that this applies to the current generation, even to those who prefer to skim words in between snatching glances at YouTube videos.
I don’t know how many parents now realise that if they choose to watch TV instead of read, it sets an example for their children to do the same. And by denying them the opportunity to learn to love the reading habit, they are literally closing off whole new worlds to the kids.
Besides, there’s another great reason to read books: You don’t see inane advertisements about losing weight.
> Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make of life’s vagaries and contradictions.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Alberto and Cathy Pastorino
Cathy: "We have had the laundry business for 23 years. I work six days a week and my husband works seven days. Of course everybody feels good when they first fall in love. In the beginning I felt like I was married to Roberto Valentino! He was gentle and nice. You want to try to stay the same but we work really hard and we get tired. With love you have to trust each other. You need good communication."
Photographed in Park Slope, Brooklyn
Monday, October 3, 2011
Searching for My High School Bully: A Confrontation 25 Years After
Wednesday, Sep. 28, 2011
By John Guenther
The only thought scarier than that of facing my childhood bully in the halls of Morrisville High School was that of facing him again 25 years later. We were meeting at my request. Why was I doing this? His imprint stayed with me years after the bruises faded. I needed some sort of resolution. I needed to know why he singled me out. Actually, I wasn't completely sure what I needed. But I needed to see him.
I had written Frankie a letter and, amazingly, he had agreed to the meeting. I traveled across two states to his current residence in Pennsylvania, about an hour west of where we grew up, just over the New Jersey border. There, in a maximum-security prison, he is serving a life sentence for killing a man who was gay. I am gay. (See pictures of crime in Middle America.)
Before leaving for the prison, I packed my contact lenses as a contingency measure. You see, it turns out that at the State Correctional Institute at Graterford, visitors are not separated by bulletproof glass like in the movies. We would be meeting in a small room, the guard outside with his back to the door. I figured if Frankie jumped me, the eyeglasses were likely to be the first casualty. How, then, would I be able to see the road to make the long drive home? In advance of my visit, prison officials told me that brief hugs were permitted at the beginning and end of each visit. I wanted to tell them, "If you see what looks like a hug, summon the guards. Please!"
When I was finally brought to meet Frankie, I did not recognize him. He was always bigger than me, but he is now 350 lb. and, as I would discover, set a state prison record in power lifting. That made the thought of conflict even more frightening. But there would be no violence. (See the 25 most notorious crimes of the past century.)
The rage that once contorted his teenage face had given way to a broad, if hesitant, smile. We shook hands and awkwardly made our way to our private booth to take our seats and make small talk, each feeling the other out in the manner of two old friends who had drifted apart and were now trying to rediscover common ground and recapture our rhythms. What finally broke the ice was my trademark lack of diplomacy. I just dove right in and asked if he was guilty of the crime for which he was imprisoned. "Oh, I did it," he said, shocking me with his forthrightness. He proceeded to open up about the crime and his life before and after.
When I finally confronted him with his crimes against me, he apologized profusely. But he had no memory of me, which I found stunning given the ferocity of his attacks. Only after four prison visits and an exchange of more than 50 letters did he finally recall a confrontation where he pinned some poor guy against the gym wall. I lit up. "That guy was me!" That proved to be a revelation to me. While Frankie's words and actions in high school had seemed intensely personal, it turns out they clearly were not. I was just a convenient target.
Can bullying be stopped?
Watch Glee's Chris Colfer talk about bullying and being yourself.
Frankie adamantly denies that homophobia was the reason he singled me out, despite his generous use of gay slurs at the time. "Have you considered there could have been lots of other reasons?" he told me. But he himself cannot pinpoint them. Perhaps I can. I am convinced that, in part, he identified with my pain. He was the victim of abuses as a child, of truly ugly stuff that makes my troubles look frivolous in comparison. He also — unsurprisingly — had his own insecurities. His actions toward me were perhaps the only way he could engage someone he sensed had troubles of his own. He knew I was gay even before I knew I was. And in the bumbling, cruel and confused language of adolescence, he was letting me know it. (See pictures of gay youth in America.)
There is no excusing the way he let it out, as taunts and threats — looking me in the eye and saying he was going to kill me, convincing me it wasn't merely a figure of speech, making me terrified to go to school each day. As a teen, I remember sometimes feeling so much pain that I would say to myself, I ought to be suicidal. Fortunately, that wasn't in my makeup. I think I'm too ornery. Perhaps I had more support than I admit to.
I was not all innocence myself. Nearly all of us have engaged in bullying to some extent, if in less obvious forms than pinning another kid against a gym wall. I'm not proud of it, but I have been a bully. As part of a group of nerdy kids in school, I taunted newcomers and outsiders, anyone with a weakness that I could pick to disguise my own. I certainly should have known better. I now know how to recognize the cowardice in bullying and to see valor in aligning myself with the bullied. What must be stigmatized is avoiding confrontation and scattering to safety instead of coming to the aid of the weak.
Now I know better, thanks in large part to this late-in-life gift, what has become a friendship with Frankie. He has helped me explore, depersonalize and put to rest my childhood trauma of being bullied. In the process, he has somehow transferred to me some of the extraordinary mental strength that has enabled him to survive behind bars. (Can a bullied boy leave California a legal legacy?)
No one helped Frankie when he needed it. And so he went on to cause mayhem in his family and, on one alcohol-sodden night, to murder a man. My mission is now to help the person who bullied me, who caused me years of grief. It's not lost on me that the balance of power between Frankie and me has shifted. Frankie has no possibility of parole. Because of the damage others did to him, he made a terrible mistake and is in prison till the day he dies. I'm powerless to change that. But I can be his friend and return the unexpected and precious favor he's granted me.
Guenther is head of executive communications at a large financial-services firm based in New York. He is writing a book on his experience with Frankie.
By John Guenther
The only thought scarier than that of facing my childhood bully in the halls of Morrisville High School was that of facing him again 25 years later. We were meeting at my request. Why was I doing this? His imprint stayed with me years after the bruises faded. I needed some sort of resolution. I needed to know why he singled me out. Actually, I wasn't completely sure what I needed. But I needed to see him.
I had written Frankie a letter and, amazingly, he had agreed to the meeting. I traveled across two states to his current residence in Pennsylvania, about an hour west of where we grew up, just over the New Jersey border. There, in a maximum-security prison, he is serving a life sentence for killing a man who was gay. I am gay. (See pictures of crime in Middle America.)
Before leaving for the prison, I packed my contact lenses as a contingency measure. You see, it turns out that at the State Correctional Institute at Graterford, visitors are not separated by bulletproof glass like in the movies. We would be meeting in a small room, the guard outside with his back to the door. I figured if Frankie jumped me, the eyeglasses were likely to be the first casualty. How, then, would I be able to see the road to make the long drive home? In advance of my visit, prison officials told me that brief hugs were permitted at the beginning and end of each visit. I wanted to tell them, "If you see what looks like a hug, summon the guards. Please!"
When I was finally brought to meet Frankie, I did not recognize him. He was always bigger than me, but he is now 350 lb. and, as I would discover, set a state prison record in power lifting. That made the thought of conflict even more frightening. But there would be no violence. (See the 25 most notorious crimes of the past century.)
The rage that once contorted his teenage face had given way to a broad, if hesitant, smile. We shook hands and awkwardly made our way to our private booth to take our seats and make small talk, each feeling the other out in the manner of two old friends who had drifted apart and were now trying to rediscover common ground and recapture our rhythms. What finally broke the ice was my trademark lack of diplomacy. I just dove right in and asked if he was guilty of the crime for which he was imprisoned. "Oh, I did it," he said, shocking me with his forthrightness. He proceeded to open up about the crime and his life before and after.
When I finally confronted him with his crimes against me, he apologized profusely. But he had no memory of me, which I found stunning given the ferocity of his attacks. Only after four prison visits and an exchange of more than 50 letters did he finally recall a confrontation where he pinned some poor guy against the gym wall. I lit up. "That guy was me!" That proved to be a revelation to me. While Frankie's words and actions in high school had seemed intensely personal, it turns out they clearly were not. I was just a convenient target.
Can bullying be stopped?
Watch Glee's Chris Colfer talk about bullying and being yourself.
Frankie adamantly denies that homophobia was the reason he singled me out, despite his generous use of gay slurs at the time. "Have you considered there could have been lots of other reasons?" he told me. But he himself cannot pinpoint them. Perhaps I can. I am convinced that, in part, he identified with my pain. He was the victim of abuses as a child, of truly ugly stuff that makes my troubles look frivolous in comparison. He also — unsurprisingly — had his own insecurities. His actions toward me were perhaps the only way he could engage someone he sensed had troubles of his own. He knew I was gay even before I knew I was. And in the bumbling, cruel and confused language of adolescence, he was letting me know it. (See pictures of gay youth in America.)
There is no excusing the way he let it out, as taunts and threats — looking me in the eye and saying he was going to kill me, convincing me it wasn't merely a figure of speech, making me terrified to go to school each day. As a teen, I remember sometimes feeling so much pain that I would say to myself, I ought to be suicidal. Fortunately, that wasn't in my makeup. I think I'm too ornery. Perhaps I had more support than I admit to.
I was not all innocence myself. Nearly all of us have engaged in bullying to some extent, if in less obvious forms than pinning another kid against a gym wall. I'm not proud of it, but I have been a bully. As part of a group of nerdy kids in school, I taunted newcomers and outsiders, anyone with a weakness that I could pick to disguise my own. I certainly should have known better. I now know how to recognize the cowardice in bullying and to see valor in aligning myself with the bullied. What must be stigmatized is avoiding confrontation and scattering to safety instead of coming to the aid of the weak.
Now I know better, thanks in large part to this late-in-life gift, what has become a friendship with Frankie. He has helped me explore, depersonalize and put to rest my childhood trauma of being bullied. In the process, he has somehow transferred to me some of the extraordinary mental strength that has enabled him to survive behind bars. (Can a bullied boy leave California a legal legacy?)
No one helped Frankie when he needed it. And so he went on to cause mayhem in his family and, on one alcohol-sodden night, to murder a man. My mission is now to help the person who bullied me, who caused me years of grief. It's not lost on me that the balance of power between Frankie and me has shifted. Frankie has no possibility of parole. Because of the damage others did to him, he made a terrible mistake and is in prison till the day he dies. I'm powerless to change that. But I can be his friend and return the unexpected and precious favor he's granted me.
Guenther is head of executive communications at a large financial-services firm based in New York. He is writing a book on his experience with Frankie.
Friday, September 30, 2011
POP - Recruits have to pay $2.50 to cover refreshments
My Point
Published on Oct 1, 2011
NS graduation
'I was impressed until my son told me he had to pay $2.50 for my attendance, as did his peers for their families at $2.50 per head.'
MS NG BENG CHOO: 'My son's passing out ceremony at the Paya Lebar Airbase on Monday was well-organised with video presentations, which gave parents glimpses of their sons' national service experience. I was impressed until my son told me he had to pay $2.50 for my attendance, as did his NS peers for their parents, at $2.50 per head. Parents sacrificed by offering two years of their sons' lives to serve the nation and yet the Ministry of Defence is unable to allocate a tiny sum for the light refreshments. Is our support for our sons' national service not worth more than $2.50?'
Published on Oct 1, 2011
NS graduation
'I was impressed until my son told me he had to pay $2.50 for my attendance, as did his peers for their families at $2.50 per head.'
MS NG BENG CHOO: 'My son's passing out ceremony at the Paya Lebar Airbase on Monday was well-organised with video presentations, which gave parents glimpses of their sons' national service experience. I was impressed until my son told me he had to pay $2.50 for my attendance, as did his NS peers for their parents, at $2.50 per head. Parents sacrificed by offering two years of their sons' lives to serve the nation and yet the Ministry of Defence is unable to allocate a tiny sum for the light refreshments. Is our support for our sons' national service not worth more than $2.50?'
Abercrombie & Fitch's Ad
This isn't indecent ... But this is
WHAT is the fuss over American fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch's giant advertisement, which the regulatory watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), saw fit to define as indecent ('Abercrombie & Fitch ad 'indecent' but will stay for now'; Thursday)?
Would ASAS care to assess a truly obscene poster advertising a local firm specialising in beauty and waxing? The vulgar visual of the poster advertising Strip: Ministry of Waxing is plastered in malls and on lamp posts, and as street buntings. One cannot fail to see it at The Cathay building and on lamp posts around Great World City, to name two of the places.
Anand A. Vathiyar
WHAT is the fuss over American fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch's giant advertisement, which the regulatory watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), saw fit to define as indecent ('Abercrombie & Fitch ad 'indecent' but will stay for now'; Thursday)?
Would ASAS care to assess a truly obscene poster advertising a local firm specialising in beauty and waxing? The vulgar visual of the poster advertising Strip: Ministry of Waxing is plastered in malls and on lamp posts, and as street buntings. One cannot fail to see it at The Cathay building and on lamp posts around Great World City, to name two of the places.
Anand A. Vathiyar
Teachers and Coaches must rein in their passions
Coach's passion admirable, but he took it too far
By Rohit Brijnath
I COME here not to bury Radojko Avramovic nor to praise him. He is a decent man but guilty of the indecent football act.
We can't vilify coaches who abuse referees across the planet and then excuse it when it is from our own. We must laud a man who stands hunched over at the touchline as if swollen with passion, but can't excuse him when he is unable to contain it.
There is a line in football, there must be. And literally, and figuratively, he crossed it.
The referee that day in China was lousy. This is not in question. He gave a penalty he shouldn't have and didn't give a penalty he should have. But this is also football. Unfairness - depending on the colour of your shirt - is at the heart of this sport. Every day an offside, a dive, a shirt pulled turns it into an opera. Which, of course, draws us in.
Fans will holler, tear their hair and it is fine. This is their entertainment. Coaches will have apoplectic fits, gesticulate wildly and this is fine, too. But to a point. Because the field is their office. They are part of the play, they are governed by rules. They have to be, else chaos rules.
Singapore football is humble, its talent pool limited, many of its rivals better-funded. It is a sport searching for oxygen. It is disadvantaged enough. To add an errant referee to the mix is almost perversely cruel. Avramovic might have wanted to eat the referee's heart for dinner. Uncooked.
This is understandable.
He might have felt a symbolic act as coach was required, as if his rage was a demonstration to his wounded players that he felt for them, he was one of them, he was there for them.
This is also understandable.
But equally understandable is the notion that all action has consequence. Ironically, it is precisely what Avramovic must be teaching his players. Keep your cool. Don't react. Harness emotion. Don't get sent off. Especially in the heat of the moment, especially when it matters. You have to wonder, has he gently undermined his own lessons?
Avramovic has said he wanted to protect his players. This we like. The coach as champion of his team. White knight and all. The issue is the avenue of protest. Then, wildly, on the pitch or later behind closed doors? The point is the cost of protest. This we may not like so much.
In effect, by protecting his team, he has now left them defenceless. Now they will not have him on the bench. Now his players will miss his direction and have said so themselves. We can argue four matches is too harsh, but still it might have been two, or three. What would have been worth it?
Sport is absurdly illogical, which is how we like it. So we might ask: Will the ban in fact bind his team more tightly? Will it, inadvertently, drive his players to prove themselves for him. Will they repay his uncontrolled rage by playing with a controlled one? We shall see.
Let us be fair to Radojko Avramovic. Let us say this is an aberration from a coach who has never been sent off for Singapore before. Let us be honest and say we kind of like his fervour. Let us also be clear. He was wrong.
rohitb@sph.com.sg
By Rohit Brijnath
I COME here not to bury Radojko Avramovic nor to praise him. He is a decent man but guilty of the indecent football act.
We can't vilify coaches who abuse referees across the planet and then excuse it when it is from our own. We must laud a man who stands hunched over at the touchline as if swollen with passion, but can't excuse him when he is unable to contain it.
There is a line in football, there must be. And literally, and figuratively, he crossed it.
The referee that day in China was lousy. This is not in question. He gave a penalty he shouldn't have and didn't give a penalty he should have. But this is also football. Unfairness - depending on the colour of your shirt - is at the heart of this sport. Every day an offside, a dive, a shirt pulled turns it into an opera. Which, of course, draws us in.
Fans will holler, tear their hair and it is fine. This is their entertainment. Coaches will have apoplectic fits, gesticulate wildly and this is fine, too. But to a point. Because the field is their office. They are part of the play, they are governed by rules. They have to be, else chaos rules.
Singapore football is humble, its talent pool limited, many of its rivals better-funded. It is a sport searching for oxygen. It is disadvantaged enough. To add an errant referee to the mix is almost perversely cruel. Avramovic might have wanted to eat the referee's heart for dinner. Uncooked.
This is understandable.
He might have felt a symbolic act as coach was required, as if his rage was a demonstration to his wounded players that he felt for them, he was one of them, he was there for them.
This is also understandable.
But equally understandable is the notion that all action has consequence. Ironically, it is precisely what Avramovic must be teaching his players. Keep your cool. Don't react. Harness emotion. Don't get sent off. Especially in the heat of the moment, especially when it matters. You have to wonder, has he gently undermined his own lessons?
Avramovic has said he wanted to protect his players. This we like. The coach as champion of his team. White knight and all. The issue is the avenue of protest. Then, wildly, on the pitch or later behind closed doors? The point is the cost of protest. This we may not like so much.
In effect, by protecting his team, he has now left them defenceless. Now they will not have him on the bench. Now his players will miss his direction and have said so themselves. We can argue four matches is too harsh, but still it might have been two, or three. What would have been worth it?
Sport is absurdly illogical, which is how we like it. So we might ask: Will the ban in fact bind his team more tightly? Will it, inadvertently, drive his players to prove themselves for him. Will they repay his uncontrolled rage by playing with a controlled one? We shall see.
Let us be fair to Radojko Avramovic. Let us say this is an aberration from a coach who has never been sent off for Singapore before. Let us be honest and say we kind of like his fervour. Let us also be clear. He was wrong.
rohitb@sph.com.sg
Stressful lessons for parents - Parents being taught by teachers to teach their children at home
I am the stressed-out parent of an 11-year-old daughter. After reading Parental Guidance (LifeStyle, Sept 25), I find it hard to believe that after a hard day's work, parents are expected to coach their children at home.
Similarly, after a day in school, why are children expected to be taught by their parents at home?
What is the role of a parent at home and the role of a teacher in school?
My idea of family bonding is to play with my children or discuss topics not related to their school subjects. It is time we consider spending some time to impart moral values and social etiquette to our children at home and in school.
While it is good that parents pick up some knowledge on how to teach the correct techniques to our children, will our children then take it for granted that mum and dad can coach them at home?
Will they think that they need not concentrate and understand their classes while in school?
We have to be careful how we balance our lives in Singapore. If we are so caught up with academic excellence, we may lose focus of our roles in society.
Margaret Goh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is disquieting to see parents being taught by teachers in a primary school classroom so that they can go home to teach their children. It is irrelevant whether one uses algebra, modelling or heuristics to solve the problem. The key question is why the child has not learnt to use these in school.
In order to face this problem, there has to be a radical change in the delivery of public education. Such a change would include quantum increases in funding, reduction in student-teacher ratio to 1:20 and freeing teachers of non-teaching duties, including co-curricular activities.
We have to move away from an infatuation with the regurgitation of facts, and focus on meeting each child at his or her level. This has to start at the very beginning of compulsory education to ensure no child is left behind.
It is unacceptable to assume that basics such as the alphabet would be known to all children entering school.
Teachers must be given the tools, resources and, most of all, time to fulfil their professional obligations. Students must be given the time and space to assimilate knowledge.
I fear that without change, we will continue to produce generations of workers for the world and fail to perceive the invisible ceiling that comes with such an education system.
The truly exceptional ones will still succeed, but we will have wasted a large proportion of our most precious resource - our people.
Dr Yeo Poh Shuan Daniel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I refer to the article Parental Guidance.
I was one such parent years ago, when my children were in primary school and I took Chinese lessons to try and help them.
As a result, my relationship with them was like a power struggle. I had no life of my own. My life centred on my three children and it was neither effective nor healthy.
When I realised it was not working, I started to invest in myself and took self-development courses and seminars.
Instead of fixing my children, I started to let go and focus on building my relationship with them. They are now 16, 20 and 22.
What I did was to teach myself to love them unconditionally. To communicate with them instead of telling them what to do.
I inspire them to take responsibility, be positive, adapt and be resilient.
If parents are stressed and children are not receptive to their teaching, their relationships would be affected.
Still, coaching your children can be good for bonding - if you do not focus on academic results.
Dolly Yeo
Similarly, after a day in school, why are children expected to be taught by their parents at home?
What is the role of a parent at home and the role of a teacher in school?
My idea of family bonding is to play with my children or discuss topics not related to their school subjects. It is time we consider spending some time to impart moral values and social etiquette to our children at home and in school.
While it is good that parents pick up some knowledge on how to teach the correct techniques to our children, will our children then take it for granted that mum and dad can coach them at home?
Will they think that they need not concentrate and understand their classes while in school?
We have to be careful how we balance our lives in Singapore. If we are so caught up with academic excellence, we may lose focus of our roles in society.
Margaret Goh
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is disquieting to see parents being taught by teachers in a primary school classroom so that they can go home to teach their children. It is irrelevant whether one uses algebra, modelling or heuristics to solve the problem. The key question is why the child has not learnt to use these in school.
In order to face this problem, there has to be a radical change in the delivery of public education. Such a change would include quantum increases in funding, reduction in student-teacher ratio to 1:20 and freeing teachers of non-teaching duties, including co-curricular activities.
We have to move away from an infatuation with the regurgitation of facts, and focus on meeting each child at his or her level. This has to start at the very beginning of compulsory education to ensure no child is left behind.
It is unacceptable to assume that basics such as the alphabet would be known to all children entering school.
Teachers must be given the tools, resources and, most of all, time to fulfil their professional obligations. Students must be given the time and space to assimilate knowledge.
I fear that without change, we will continue to produce generations of workers for the world and fail to perceive the invisible ceiling that comes with such an education system.
The truly exceptional ones will still succeed, but we will have wasted a large proportion of our most precious resource - our people.
Dr Yeo Poh Shuan Daniel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I refer to the article Parental Guidance.
I was one such parent years ago, when my children were in primary school and I took Chinese lessons to try and help them.
As a result, my relationship with them was like a power struggle. I had no life of my own. My life centred on my three children and it was neither effective nor healthy.
When I realised it was not working, I started to invest in myself and took self-development courses and seminars.
Instead of fixing my children, I started to let go and focus on building my relationship with them. They are now 16, 20 and 22.
What I did was to teach myself to love them unconditionally. To communicate with them instead of telling them what to do.
I inspire them to take responsibility, be positive, adapt and be resilient.
If parents are stressed and children are not receptive to their teaching, their relationships would be affected.
Still, coaching your children can be good for bonding - if you do not focus on academic results.
Dolly Yeo
Indian Nationals' view on being punctual
A time to be tardy
Indians find it easy to settle down here - until they find their concept of time differs from Singaporeans'
By paddy rangappa
When we arrived in Singapore 11 years ago, the plane landed so softly we hardly felt it, and that describes our emotional landing, too.
My wife and I were delighted to find how easy it is for Indians to live here.
In many ways, it was as if we had not left India. Tamil signs welcomed us at the airport; we visited temples that might have been transported straight from India (with Sanskrit-chanting priests who definitely are); shops were stocked with Indian basmati rice and pickles; and walking in Little India was like walking on an Indian street - except that it appeared to have been recently scrubbed and three-quarters of the vehicles seemed to be missing (and the rest replaced with sleeker models).
We settled easily into living in this country and everything was hunkydory... until we encountered the Singaporean's strange sense of time.
For Indians, time is a loose, arbitrary concept, worn casually like a bathrobe at the poolside on a Sunday.
When an Indian says he will do something 'definitely by tomorrow', he means he will get to it in the next few days, God willing. Likewise if he says he observed the full moon 'just yesterday', he means he saw it some time during the last week (and perhaps it was not really, completely full).
And on both occasions, to make matters worse, he will use the same word 'kal', a roomy Hindi term that accommodates both tomorrow and yesterday in its meaning.
In India, it is normal to be invited for dinner at 'around 7.30pm' but actually landing up anywhere close to that time would be considered a severe breach of manners. The hosts would still be cooking dinner or visiting a supermarket for ice or relaxing at the park with the kids. It is customary for the first guest to arrive after 9pm and the last closer to 11.
Soon after we came here, a Singaporean colleague invited us home for dinner. 'Come at 7pm,' he said, 'We've invited two other couples.'
'We should reach his place at about 8.30pm,' I told my wife on the day of the dinner. 'So we should leave home at 8. That means,' I added, to ensure she understood the gravity of this statement, 'you need to be ready by 7.55.'
'Absolutely,' she said and promptly came out dressed: at 8.45pm.
It was 9.15pm when we parked the car at my colleague's apartment complex. As we reached his door, it opened and we met the other guests. They were leaving after their dinner.
Much embarrassment ensued. I apologised for our tardiness; my wife apologised after me in her inimitable way ('I told Paddy we should go earlier but he didn't listen'); my colleague apologised for not taking my telephone number and therefore not calling me (to ask what the devil I was up to); his wife apologised for serving the dinner without us; the four guests individually apologised for eating it and leaving so early.
After going around at the rate of one apology a person, an uncomfortable silence descended on the group, and everyone seemed to be looking at me. So I apologised again and we went around one more time.
We might have done it a third time but my colleague's wife broke the deadlock. 'Why don't you come in and eat? You must be hungry and there's lots of food.'
My wife and I entered their apartment reluctantly, but not as reluctantly as the other guests. Too polite to leave, they sat in the living room looking at us stonily while the good hosts laid the table and took food out of the refrigerator. I could sense their thoughts: A lovely night ruined, thanks to this idiot.
When the food was ready, we all sat down at the dining table and, under the spotlight glare of six adults, my wife and I ate.
I could have entertained everyone with a couple of funny anecdotes about life in India that I had in my repertoire but I felt the mood was not right.
One of the guests was constantly drumming the table - 'eat fast, eat fast, eat fast', her fingers seemed to say - and another kept looking at his watch. So my wife and I ate silently... and at a frantic clip.
Soon we were ready to leave, as were the other table-drumming, watch-watching guests. After we had said bye and thrown a few more apologies at everyone, I turned to my wife.
'Whew!' I said, 'Next time, we go 10 minutes earlier than the time he calls us.'
But for some odd reason, my colleague hasn't called us again. I wonder if I should give him my cell telephone number once more.
stlife@sph.com.sg
Paddy Rangappa is a marketing professional who has been living in Singapore for 11 years and writes in his spare time. Read more on his blog http://theflip-side.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2011 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Rick Warren message - About not living the high life but the spirit-led life
This is Moving & Uplifting , wish other religious leaders are like this pastor, their followers will be less desperate chasing wealth.
Several religious leaders of our day have negatively influenced their followers to think that God's blessing consist only in an abundance of possession.
You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California . In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond:
In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?
Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD..
God's Blessings HE ARRIVED THIS MORNING, WE HAD PRAYER; SPENT SOME TIME JUST TALKING, AND HE HELD ME FOR AWHILE BECAUSE I WAS HAVING A BAD MORNING.. THEN, HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO YOUR PLACE.
May God bless you , AMEN"I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by It" - Dr. Maya Angelou
Several religious leaders of our day have negatively influenced their followers to think that God's blessing consist only in an abundance of possession.
You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California . In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond:
In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:
If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?
Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)? When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.
That's why we're called human beings, not human doings. Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD..
God's Blessings HE ARRIVED THIS MORNING, WE HAD PRAYER; SPENT SOME TIME JUST TALKING, AND HE HELD ME FOR AWHILE BECAUSE I WAS HAVING A BAD MORNING.. THEN, HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO YOUR PLACE.
May God bless you , AMEN"I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by It" - Dr. Maya Angelou
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