That was me, ugh.

Some of my 2005 posts are cringeworthy. I sound so self-righteous and/or mushy my hair stands when I read past entries. But stand they will so my kids can see how silly dad sounded back in the day. It's hard trying to find a voice I'm comfortable with. I can't even decide why this blog exists. It started out as something to document EJ's birth and life but how do I frame my posts? Do I address EJ as you or in the third person? Of course once Number 2 and Number 3 comes along they'll get lumped in. Or do I record some of the world they are growing up in? Seems a waste to just write about them But I can do more, I can write about the world they are growing up in, I can give them a little glimpseI can write about a million things. I can't possibly cover every day and every event that transpires and the inherent bias that is me will shape my output even more so.

Meh, I can't even concentrate long enough to write a coherent piece.

07/07/07! Never to be repeated! Ever! (363 days to 08/08/08!)

Saturday, 07/07/07, a unique date which has manifested itself 6 times already, each time in a slightly different form no less and which will appear 5 more times before we're rid of the damned phenomena came and went. Despite the best efforts of 770+ couples locally and 150 music acts playing to an estimated audience of 2 billion people worldwide the planet grinds ever so remorselessly on it's path to a drop in internal core temperature.

Saturday morning brought with it a good old fashioned tropical thunderstorm, lightning and all. I know this because I had to fetch the wife to work. I imagine it must have played havoc with quite a few schedules and nerves but alas to my disappointment the storm abated after a bit and the rest of the day was pleasantly cool. I had such glorious visions of absolute chaos at the ROM. Dang it. Sidebar article on frontpage of 6th July's edition of ST was a story on the 700 odd couples who would tie the knot the following day and the usual inane examples of how numbers play an altogether too significant part in some people's lives. As for me, I'd just like to give a big shout out and Hello! to Mr. Sparks Ng of SIA! Must not...oh hell, /roflmao. Anyhoo, grats to the 700 odd couples who tied the knot on this very special, very unique day ya? Just you, your special other and 1,400 other people. Sparkingly! Twas probably a good weekend for Durex I'm betting.

Live Earth was the other highlight of the day. Well, for 2 billion other people anyways. Heavily tax households who have more than 1 car, tax vehicles which have big engines, bigger rebates for hybrids, make cycling a safe and viable form of transportation, put out more recycling containers in HDB estates, drop your secondary school going kids outside of the all boys school gate and let them walk in, they'll make it to their classrooms just fine I promise, and that's just in Singapore. I don't need convincing that global warming is real, oil interests and countries like China and India do. The US? Yeah, probably but in a generation what China alone will put out will make the US look like Greenpeace if nothing changes. And on a personal note. Fuck, like wearing green and showing solidarity with other tree-huggers-for-one-day while watching acts who waltzed in courtesy of private jets and police escorted tour buses will change anything. You doing anything different today from last friday on the green front?

Let me get this straight

Got this off another blogger, I shouldn't run on the platforms or concourses of the Tube, especially if I'm carrying a rucksack, wearing a big coat or look a bit foreign. We're already tarring the Muslims with the same brush anyways, let's just do a double jeopardy on Muslims (majority of whom are not Caucasian and therefore foreign) and who might just come from a climate where 17 degrees C is indeed cold and therefore warrants a big coat. Let's not forget the backpacker tourists from warmer climates who are visiting London this time of the year too. Stereotyping, gotta love it.

I've already said my piece about Jean Charles. I understand the need for acting in the interest of the safety of the majority but what like the Telegraph opinion piece says,

On the same day, Mr de Menezes's jacket cost him his life, the Telegraph ran a page of portraits showing the dead of July 7. Many were like him: young adults of vaguely foreign extraction for whom English was a second language. Possibly they, too, had suspicious quirks of dress. Certainly, at any moment of the day the Tube's full of foreigners with heavy coats and bulky bags. They're on the Piccadilly line heading to Heathrow, the Victoria line to pick up the Gatwick Express, the Docklands to City Airport, the Northern to Euston. I doubt whether many Bulgars or Croats or Mauritians or Quebeckers or many of the rest of the vast tide of humanity sweeping through London every day would be sufficiently familiar with the Met's new policy to prostrate themselves quickly enough before plain-clothes marksmen.

The more I think of it, the more ridiculous it seems, Menezes was observed from the time he went out of his flat, got on a bus and then into a Tube station, if authorities had suspected him of carrying explosives at that time, why didn't they take him down sooner? Why let him get on a bus in the first place? Isn't that also a target? I know it's not kosher to second guess the coppers, it's a shitty situation, damned if you shoot, damned if you don't. I know I wouldn't want to be in the shooter's shoes right now but the Met apprehended the 4 suspected bombers, alive.

Perhaps the shooting of J.C. was a knee jerk reaction to the events of the previous day but when you see the 4 suspected bombers alive and Menezes dead something does not compute. If authorities can track someone who they think is carrying explosives all the way from his house to a Tube station and then decide to do something about it only when he gets there, something about the whole things is terribly, terribly wrong. Menezes part 2 cannot be allowed to happen again, no matter what Sir Ian Blair says.

A package from Canada

I received a package from Canada today, it cost something like $18 Canadian in postage. In it there were 2 books on babies and a card for the parents of EJ.

It came from a man I barely knew, with whom I had spent all of maybe 4 hours, we met because of business but parted after sharing our views on Psychology (we both studied it) and bringing up kids. I don't know much about him and I think I probably will never see him again, which just amplifies what he did. Two strangers who might never have met had it not been for a phone call. It warms my heart to know that there are people like him, who will spontaneously do something nice for a fellow human being no strings attached, still out there. This planet might still be worthy of redemption yet.

Thanks Larry, I'll see you around.

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