Spoof of the race between Obama and Clinton - utterly hilarious even though it may be a bit out of date by now.

I admit, I am not a great fan of poetry - my first experience was with Shakespeare's sonnets, and my response was to run far far away. Occasionally though, dragged kicking and screaming, I find myself enjoying some poetry - Seamus Heaney, John Milton, heck, even some of the metaphysical poets like John Donne were fun - always to my surprise.

I never heard of Elizabeth Alexander until recently, when news emerged that she has been selected as the Inaugural Poet for Obama's inauguration. And I did what every net-savy person do nowadays, I Googled her. 

Turns out that her poems are online (big surprise) and they are, surprisingly (for a person who always fliched from poetry that is) good, the couple that I read at any rate. A Huffington Post article quoted The Times Book Review describing her work as "intellectual magic". It sounds about right. The poem I have reproduced below is apparently one of her most well-known poem - and I liked it because it takes something that actually occured in history - something that in modern times is outrageous - and turns it into something beautiful - horrifying but not angry.

I also found a recording of an interview she had with Poetry Foundation, and one statement she made me think that perhaps there is not that great a difference between lawyers and poets after all:

"We think what we do is important because we struggle to be precise and that is how human beings communicate across divides, communciates across differences. We take that work dead seriously and that is the work we want our leaders to be engaged in with equal care."

Amen.

( The Venus Hottentot (1825) )

Kinda amazing...

I am a new devotee of Etsy - the stuff available there is just incredible, and I mean it in both good and bad ways.

( A case in point ...  )

This is just too funny!

I am not too sure of the value of this endorsement - Colin Powell is a major player in the misinformation campaign that led to the Iraq war. While there is some talk that he is not one of the bloody thirsty war-mongers, the fact remains that he was the one who spoke at the United Nations, he was the one who lied (knowingly or otherwise) to the rest of the world. What value is such an endorsement?

On the other hand, there was one part of his endorsement that touched me - the part where he essentially questioned the relevance of one's religious beliefs in ascertaining his eligibility for the presidency. So what if Obama is a Muslim? Should a little Muslim boy who was born in America and who grew up in America be told that he can never be the president of the United States? Surely not! The idea that your race should not matter, your religion should not matter - that what determines success should be your own capabilities and hard work is a fundamental tenet of the American Dream as I see it.

( Just as the Singapore Dream ...  )

I dun think I am subtle in what I think of Sarah Palin. If she does become the Vice-President of the United States of America, I think I better find a hole somewhere to hide for the next 4 years ... I really hope it doesn't happen, but it is America after all...

OK, there is sufficient coverage, both online and offline regarding Palin but this, this really really turns me off big time.

I do not consider myself a single-issue voter but ultimately, I believe in choice. In other words, while I personally may not care for abortion, or gay people, or marriage or religion, I care about having the freedom to choose. Choose to abort a child or have a child, choose to have a life-long partner of the same or different gender, choose to get married, stay single or in a long-term relationship, choose to believe in the existence of a supreme being or many, or none, as the case may be. We are in a diverse society, where people of different values live together, the least we can do is to respect those differences. In the context of Singapore, the best analogy I can draw is this - my vote may not matter because I am in the minority, but my ability to cast that vote (as opposed to sitting pretty due to a walkover) is important to me.  

And it is sick that anybody in any position of authority can say that a rape victim or an incest victim should not have the freedom to abort a child from the crime. I really don't care that a person takes that position - if that person is a victim and decides that to keep the child, good for her. But I care if that person tries to impose that view on everyone else, I'll object. And if I can, I'll make sure that person never reaches a position of authority that allows him or her to impose such views on the rest. And if that person is a she, then, even more so, shame on her. If that is sexist, so be it.

Absolutely darn funny.

From the top floor of the building where my apartment is, I can see the islands of Indonesia, as from my office building. If I travel an hour up north by bus to Woodlands, I can walk to Malaysia. Heck, I had a passport since I was 7, and I actually used it! Oh man, it seems like I have sufficient foreign policy experience to be the Republican nominee for the next vice-president of the United States!!!! Time to go get a green card....

ROFLOL ...