It’s been sometime since I’ve blogged. 

Partly because I was preoccupied with a major work project which saw me travelling in and out of Vietnam and India, and which finally (sort of) ended in December. 

The other reason is the PC which died and which was only recently replaced in late December, after a long period of disciplined waiting on my part for Windows 7 to be launched, and for the December PC fair in Singapore.

Hopefully I’ll get round to writing more now that things are a little more settled.

If the recent photos I’ve uploaded onto the blog have been looking a little spiffier, it’s thanks to a new toy which I acquired not so recently, courtesy of a colleague who took advantage of some exchange rate differences to get himself and me a new SLR at a rather handsome discount while in Seoul.  (I heard that prices have since been adjusted and no, the camera wasn’t a gift I had to pay him).

Other than taking pictures of Jed and Josh, I haven’t really had the time to put the 50D, or the lens which my former colleagues gave me on leaving my previous job, to good use.

Until we left for our Chiang Mai family holiday last week.  Pictures of those should be coming up next.

A doctor friend today asked for my thoughts on the disciplinary process for lawyers in comparision to the proposed changes to the disciplinary process for doctors (see Ministry of Health summary on proposed amendments to the Medical Registration Act).  In particular, she asked for my thoughts on the issue of bias in self-regulation, which the proposed amendment seeks to mitigate by making possible the appointment of a senior legal or judicial officer (instead of a doctor) to chair disciplinary inquiries against doctors.

Apart from the technical details on the mechanics of the disciplinary processes, I offered a personal opinion on doctors vs lawyers and (I think) came out (in some way) in favour of doctors :

… as a passing observation, lawyers are trained to be adversarial in outlook, ie. they will always try and find fault with the other party.  Doctors on the other hand have a greater sense of camaraderie and are (I think) more tolerant of faults.  For this reason, the Law Society disciplinary process is more likely to mete out harsh penalties [ against lawyers ], leading to the perception that it is (generally) not biased in favour of lawyers.

Whatever the failings of doctors may be when it comes to disciplining their own kind, the professional camaraderie thing is something I really admire.  Or at least I would say that since I’m not a doctor and subject to the politics of your learned profession, there seems to be more of a professional camaraderie thing going for doctors compared to lawyers.

(None of the above, of course, excuses what I believe to have been a mismanagement of my mother-in-law’s condition.)

For lack of anything better to blog about, I’m going to write about the proposed changes to the constitution of my favourite charity, AWARE.  According to the Straits Times (7 July 2009), AWARE has submitted / is submitting changes to its constitution to the Registrar of Societies and Commissioner of Charities for approval.  The two changes, intended to prevent another unexpected leadership takeover, are :

(a)  Requirement for not less than two years’ of membership before a member is eligible to be voted into the Executive Committee; and

(b)  Right of the Executive Committee to expel any "member who acts against ths group’s interest" (quote from ST).

My questions are :

(1)  What are AWARE’s interests ?  Is this set out exhaustively in the Constitution ?  Or is this determined (in part or in whole) by the EXCO ?

(2)  If AWARE’s interests are set out exhaustively in its Constitution, would a member be considered to be acting against its interest if she attempts to gather support to amend the Constitution, against the wishes of another large group (though possibly not the majority) of the members and / or the Exco ?

(3)  If AWARE’s interests are partly or entirely determined by the Exco, would a member be considered to be acting againsts its interests if she attempts to gather support for an extraordinary general meeting and a vote of no confidence against the Exco leadership ?

(And as a philosophical point — how does expelling a member fit in with AWARE’s philosophy of accommodating diverse views and interests in its membership and its work ?)

What are the checks and balances to guard against the abuse of this new power which is concentrated in the Exco ?  Assuming there are none, the next time a "rogue" Exco assumes power will also be the last time AWARE survives a surprise leadership takeover.

In Singapore, the state may preventively detain a person without trial if it believes he is a threat to national security.  There are checks, by no means satisfactory according to critics, to the exercise of such a power though.  Such as the requirement for reviews by the Minister and President at regular intervals.  The person who is preventively detained may also seek a judicial review of the legality of his detention.

The foregoing concerns personal liberty, which as a fundamental right in the constitution may not be deprived except in accordance with law.  I don’t think it is reasonable to expect the AWARE constitution to be anywhere as comprehensive.  At the same time, assuming the ST report had comprehensively covered the proposed AWARE constitutional amendments, it would be naive to think that those amendments are sufficient to safeguard the interests of its members and / or cannot be abused.

In a sign that I’m not making excellent use of my short life, my colleagues and I have decided to challenge each other to The Biggest Loser.  The rules are that we each have to contribute $50 to a pool of money, and that he / she who loses 7% or more of his body weight in 3 months gets all of the cash.  (No one seems to have given serious thought to what happens if more than one person loses 7% of his body weight over the period, which is a plausible albeit very unlikely outcome.  So much for all our legal training … I think we’ll have to submit this to arbitration).

I have to lose something like 5 kg (that’s rounded up, but pretty close to what I must actually lose to get hold of the cash).  The last time I was that light was 15 years or more ago, when I was doing NS.  Anyway, if I do lose that much weight, I wonder if I’ll finally see my abs ?  I didn’t have (visible) abs in NS, so not much hope there.

In the meantime, I’ve been eating more unhealthily than ever.  I ate my very first bowl of curry chicken noodles — in my life — yesterday.  And today I had khong bak pau (fatty pork belly) for lunch, I think for the first time in like ten years.

The "old guard" of AWARE (and / or its supporters) have launched a website — We Are Aware — in its campaign for support to oust the new Executive Committee (EXCO) and return to power.

I asked a colleague yesterday what he thought about the whole incident.  His short reply summed up he thought (or did not think) of the matter.

"Do you know how long the old lady has been in control of AWARE ?"

I asked Joyce what she thought, and she felt that the whole matter had been blown out of proportion.  Regardless of who was in control, AWARE was not going to make a significant difference to her life / our lives.  And to the extent that AWARE advocated fringe or extreme positions on feminism or other issues, people would not take it seriously.

Personally, the We Are Aware campaign only cements my impression that the "old guard" is desperate to return to power, and that in doing so it is prepared to play the (anti-)religion and pro-gay cards to pull in supporters from those quarters, namely : we have been taken over by Christian fundamentalists, and these fundamentalists are going to transform AWARE into an anti-gay movement.  If my understanding of the old guard’s strategy is correct, then what has it traded for this support ?  If the old guard returns to power, what is it expected to give to its supporters, in return for this support ?

On the other hand, the new EXCO appears pretty much tactless (seeing how it offended so many people in such a short time, and was unable to manage the Internet and traditional media spin on its Christian credentials) and clueless (because individual members apparently were able to say much about what they wanted to achieve through AWARE).

So whether the outcome of the upcoming no-confidence vote at the AWARE extraordinary general meeting is the retention of the new EXCO, or reinstallation of the old EXCO, my only wish is that neither group will ever run the Government.

What does the world look like to a three year old kid ?  At my mother-in-law’s wake Jed had a chance to fiddle with the camera and here are some of the shots he took.

After I had parked my car at my in-laws HDB estate yesterday a fairly youngish Malay couple with a baby in a pram approached me and asked to borrow (or more correctly give them) about ten dollars so that they could urgently take their child by taxi to Kendang Kerbau hospital.  As I had almost nothing left in my wallet I asked them to wait for my brother-in-law, who was coming to help me carry some stuff from the car.

"Oh, sorry, I thought you’re Malay".  The man sounded very apologetic, almost as if he wanted to withdraw his request.

His remark caught me by surprise and I could only mumble a "no I’m not (Malay)" in reply.

Reflecting on the incident, I think it is somewhat commendable that a Malay-Muslim is able (or should be able) to expect help from another stranger from his community — no questions asked — in such circumstances.  (And maybe, if the couple had thought that they could never squeeze a dollar of help out of a Chinese, than that reflects poorly on the Chinese generally).  I wonder if Chinese / Chinese Christians can expect the same from their community ? 

On my part, I don’t think approaching a stranger for help would have been one of the first options on my mind.

On the second day of the new year I accidentally stubbed my last toe into the corner of the cot.  At first it seemed like just any other small accident which bruise would fade in a couple of hours but this time to opposite happened — the toe swelled and turned a nasty blue-black.  It hurt pretty badly too so for I while I asked if I had twisted or broken my last toe.

Anyway, the happy news is that after limping around the whole of today the toe seems to have recovered.  It doesn’t hurt as much and I’m walking with a normal gait. 

Well, either the toe is recovering, or it starting to turn gangrenous (yucks, probably not).