So the UOB guy calls and tells me that not having monthly statements sent to me is a feature of Campus accounts; you’re suppose to check your statements online, which only shows you the current and previous month statements.

But I’ll give it to them for giving me a checking account with interest (however pathetic) and no minimum balance or service fees. Take that OCBC and your bloodsucking $10,000 minimum balance.

From Rogier van Bakel. These police are not real cops, but “deputied volunteers who fancy themselves real ones.”

Reminds me of our own paranoid SMRT and SBS staff over here. Not to mention the security guards ya.

Catherine Lim wrote a letter to the Straits Times on Wednesday, speaking up for the officers who were punished and expressing her disappointment with the verdict. Guess what? A Mr Ooi Boon Hock (along with many others who have left angry comments on her website) decided to misinterpret her letter and rebuke her for using the term “little people”, which he claims is “very patronising”.

Seeing so many clueless ingrates around, Catherine probably decided it was best to clarify her use of the word–which she needn’t have, of course, but she was nice enough to.

And guess what? Another reader who is too afraid to sign off his real name, decided to join in the bashing:

she only clarifies and wouldnt even deign to apologise?

she is no different from the rest!

is S.O.R.R.Y such a difficult 5 letter word?

Now enlighten me… what is Catherine suppose to be sorry about? About you being clueless? Yeah, perhaps she should be, I would, too.

The last time I heard, Straits Times wrote— “If it is determined there was only one weak link, at junior escort level, then the people should stop carping about why it is usually small fish that get fried” –in their April 24th editorial and nobody complained about being called “small fish”.

It baffles me that some Singaporeans can be so clueless, deliberately or not, I do not know. And I wonder why Catherine bothers to speak up for them.

The Chinese say, “己所不欲，无施与人。” (Do not do unto others what you would not want them do to you)

The Christians say, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”

The Busy Brain wrote:

The story behind beheading goats for sacrifice starts from when Abraham was asked (or tested) by God to show how obedient he was. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, Ismail, who was born after Abraham was very old. Both of them were in confusion, but then both said that if it is in ordered by God, then they should do it.

So, Abraham prepared to behead Ismail, and when the knife (or guillotine, or whatever they were using at that era) almost reached Ismail’s neck, he was replaced by a goat (or cow).

The moral of the story is, if you want to be blessed by God, you have to sacrifice.

Now, it is as if translated to: If you want to be blessed by God, you have to kill a cow/sheep/cattle/camel.

This Hari Raya Haji, 5,000 sheep will be slaughtered in the name of God the Halal way — slitting the throat of a conscious animal and allowing it to bleed to its death.

Cutler wrote:

As he spoke, my mind began to wander. I started furtively looking around the room, searching for famous, interesting or familiar faces. Having eaten a big meal just before the talk, I started to get sleepy. I drifted in and out. At one point in the talk, my mind tuned in to hear him say,

… the other day I spoke about the factors necessary to enjoy a happy and joyful life. Factors such as good health, material goods, friends, and so on. If you closely investigate, you’ll find that all of these depend on other people. To maintain good health, you rely on medicines made by others and health care provided by others. If you examine all of the material facilities that you use for the enjoyment of life, you’ll find that there are hardly any of these material objects that have had no connection with other people, either directly or indirectly. Many people are involved in making those things possible. Needless to say, when we’re talking about good friends and companions as being another necessary factor for a happy life, we are talking about interaction with other sentient beings, other human beings. So you can see that all of these factors are inextricably linked with other people’s efforts and co-operation. Others are indispensable. So, despite the fact that the process of relating to others might involve hardships, quarrels, and cursing, we have to try to maintain an attitude of friendship and warmth in order to lead a way of life in which there is enough interaction with other people to enjoy a happy life.

As he spoke, I felt an instinctive resistance. Although I’ve always valued and enjoyed my friends and family, I’ve considered myself to be an independent person. Self-reliant. Prided myself on this quality in fact. Secretly, I’ve tended to regard overly dependent people with a kind of contempt — a sign of weakness. Yet that afternoon, as I listened to the Dalai Lama, something happened. As ‘Our Dependence on Others’ was not my favorite topic, my mind started to wander again, and I found myself absently removing a loose thread from my shirt sleeve. Tuning in for a moment, I listened as he mentioned the many people who are involved in making all our material possessions. As he said this, I began to think about how many people were involved in making my shirt. I started by imagining the farmer who grew the cotton. Next, the salesperson who sold the farmer the tractor to plow the field. Then, for that matter, the hundreds or even thousands of people involved in manufacturing that tractor, including the people who mined the ore to make the metal for each part of the tractor. And all the designers of the tractor. Then, of course, the people who processed the cotton, wove the cloth, and the people who cut, dyed, and sewed that cloth. The cargo workers and truck drivers delivering it to the store, and the salesperson who sold the shirt to me. It occured to me that virtually every aspect of my life came about as the result of other’s efforts. My precious self-reliance was a complete illusion, a fantasy. As the realization dawned on me, I was overcome with a profound sense of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all beings. I felt a softening. Something. I don’t know. It made me want to cry.

An excerpt from The Art of Happiness by H.H. Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler, p. 55 – 57. Cutler wrote of his thoughts during a talk by the Dalai Lama.