During the National Day Rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced that the government will seek to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code. The LGBTQ community and their allies see it as a hard-won victory. For others, it will merely be the start of a long and gruelling campaign ahead. S377A criminalises male homosexual […]
The Rainbow and the Cross
Subversive predators follow a time-honored playbook. First, they infiltrate a community. Then they inveigle themselves into positions of power and influence. They build networks of patronage. They present themselves as upstanding members of the community. Then they begin to hunt for prey. Should their victims threaten to expose them, they will rally the community around […]
When Waves Combine
What happens when the next wave of Covid meets the Great Resignation? Singapore is going to find out—and it will be ugly. The Straits Times presents an optimistic picture of the labour market. Among other things, unemployment fell from 3 percent to 2.6 percent, retrenchments dropped from 26110 to 7820, and the Ministry of Manpower expects […]
Become Unemployable
Every unvaccinated and non-exempted worker in Singapore is barred from returning to the workplace. Two weeks from now, every partially-unvaccinated worker who refuses to take the second shot will be barred from returning to the workplace. Employers are supposed to redeploy these workers to remote positions wherever possible, or allow them to work from home. […]
Riding Out the Great Termination
The world is in the throes of the Great Resignation. Workers are quitting en masse, seeking better prospects elsewhere, triggering a labour shortage across the board. Hidden in this trend is the Great Termination: vaccine mandates, official or otherwise. In Singapore there is no formal mandate. However, unvaccinated workers are barred from returning to the […]
Into 2022
2021 was the darkest year I’ve lived through yet. The pandemic. Government responses to the pandemic. Ever-changing policies and advisories. Supply chain crisis. Inflation of the US dollar. Growing societal divisions. We’re going to see the effects spill over into the coming year. 2022 will demand the most and the best of us. Courage. Motivation. […]
No Jab, No Job Comes To Singapore
No jab, no job has come to Singapore. The government won’t call it that, of course. They are simply barring the unvaccinated from returning to the workplace, even with a negative pre-event test, starting 15 January. Partially vaccinated workers have until 31 January to complete their vaccination regimen. Employees who cannot work from home risk […]
Walking Alone in the Age of Covid
All my life, I have walked alone. In all things I have forged my own path. As a child, I favoured solitary pursuits over group activities. My tendencies drew me away from the crowds, and towards the meditations of the ancient philosophers, the craft of art, the way of sword and pen in accord. In […]
The Covid State
History remembers pandemics as periods of great human suffering. The Black Death. The Spanish flu. Smallpox. The Covid era will be remembered not merely for the severity of the disease, but the rise of the global Covid state. Big Government wants supreme power over the lives of the people. Big Pharma seeks a captive market. […]
Adapting to Omicron
Omicron is the word on everyone’s minds now. The word ‘Covid’ conjures up memories of lockdowns, mandates, restrictions, a full-court press of fear and flip-flops in the news. With the Omicron variant, it’s so tempting to fall back into the old patterns of thinking. As for me, I’m quietly optimistic. The data is extremely limited […]