Terrorism

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments to bring about a change, often for ideological or political reasons.

Often use as a last resort to force the government to implement changes.

Reasons for such acts:
Political
+instigate the correction of a flawed system, foment the creation of a new system
Resilence agaisnt the dictators/gov bodies
+attacts on gov bodies
+attacks on military

Economical distress
poverty, unemployment, and land tenure problems
+ draw the gov's attention so that the gov can implement policies that may eventually lead to growth in the country.
-create chaos so as to make use of the opportunity to steal from shops in the midst of the chaos hoping to improve one's SOL

Social
-kills innocent (violates human right of victims) - innocent victims often worst of than the gulity
-threaten national security
-motive motivated by passion and belief which can result in irrational behaviours
-revenge to self's problem
-agaisnt moral values
+terrorist often used to represent people
-greed - uses weapon of disruption to rob.

Religious
-Religious fanaticism
When adherents to a religion get involved in a pattern of violently and potentially deadly opposition to anyone they do not agree with, they are sometimes branded as religious fanatics by their detractors
Basically violent opposition to people who opposes the terrorist's religious beliefs.
internation herald tribune- religious fanaticism

Prevention
Terrorism can never be wiped out, but there are some ways to prevent or counter possible acts of terrorism

Peace talk - diplomacy
Rise awareness
Increase national security
Be prepared - deter possible terrorist
Educate young - reduce social difference
Be more socially aware of people needs
Sometimes, government not giving in to previous acts of terrorism may reduce future acts as it does not give the citizen the idea that terrorising is the only way to get the things they want.


terrorism on a small scale, used as the sole method of struggle in order to provoke the masses into revolutionary action, is ineffective and often counterproductive and hence, cannot be justified. However, terrorism employed in conjunction with guerrilla warfare in a protracted war of liberation may well prove useful and therefore justified, as it did in Algeria and South Vietnam. (For an earlier statement of the same view, see Trotsky 1961: 48-59, 62-65.)
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Thursday, January 10, 2008

5:47 AM

-A broad subdivision of culture


---Visual. Performing. Language. Culinary. Physical

Functions --> Authors' : Self expression
Perspection of the world around him
transmit information, values
To entertain, educate
as a tool to influence, propaganda
binds people of common interest together
social commentary.
Common forms of the arts: dance, music/songs, drawings, plays.


Question to self: Every nation should invest in the arts?
Using maslow hierarchy of needs:

This diagram shows Maslow's hierarchy of needs, represented as a pyramid with the more primitive needs at the bottom.

The development of the arts in a country is related to the economic growth, govt piorities and whether the people in that country has attain the most basic neccessities (maslow hie of needs) before the govt will use their funds to invest in the area of arts.

eg. Developed country like spore. govt has fullfilled most of the population basic needs.
govt build esplanade and many cultural centres
use funds to develop the arts in singapore.

Developing country like africa
govt will not invest in the arts.
people still lack physiological needs, therefore govt cannot afford to invest in art centres.
However, such country can also be rich in their own traditional arts and culture. Therefore, thats another reason why the African govt do not have to invest in the arts since they have a very rich arts culture.

ISSUES AND CONTROVERIES.
different people have different opinion about an art piece which may be dangerous.
-every art piece tells a msg - maoism - mao killed many artist. afraid they might sent out subtle negative comments bout him and his policies through their art works.
-opposes the mundane
-creates new perspective
-challenges people to think and reshape their views

Singapore and the arts.
Various awards adn events govt hold to promote creation of art works
NOISE singapore
Golden Point award
Poetry Slam

Media Development Authority
National art councils

Singapore film festival
singapore arts festival

Media- art central - tv program - front.
all these shows the govt and public support for the arts in singapore.

AS compared to singapore a decade ago, there is more emphasis on the arts now probably becuase the population is enjoying a higher standard of living and can thus afford more time and investments on the traditional and cultural part of their lives.

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

7:12 PM

war and terrorism
biodiversity and environment
globalisation and culture

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

9:08 PM

Same-sex marriages have been a highly dichotomized issue world wide. Since marriage is an interpersonal relationship with governmental, social, or religious recognition, usually intimate and sexual, and often created as a contract, or through civil process (wiki) or simply a legal union between two people, the only thing that should matter in a marriage is love. However, due to strict religious beliefs that consider homosexuality as a sin and in addtion, since religious issues are usually too sensitive a topic to be debated on, many parts of the world have yet to legalise same-sex marriages.

In the age of globalization, the world is progressing at a rapid pace. Economical development is considered one of the main factors that enable a nation to prosper and progress. According to a study (Inter@ctive Week, August 30, 1999. Pg. 20.), the US gay community consists of over 19 million people with an estimated buying power of $800 billion. Thus to tap on the “Gay Market”, a country should legalize gay marriages, allowing homosexuals to be gradually accepted and blend into the society. Although many will resist change initially, eventually, when the citizens finally start accepting these individuals, advertisers can then start focusing on advertisement that direct at the “Gay Market” as gay men and lesbians express a definite preference for advertising that specifically reflects their mindset and sensibilities. Thus, allowing same sex marriages is a practical consideration as it will increase boosts the economy considerably.

Since homosexuality is an accepted lifestyle nowadays with a proven biological causation. We cannot change the sexual orientation of such individuals, thus in the age of globalization where people constantly preach human rights, everyone should have the rights to who they want to marry. Furthermore, homosexuality is an accepted as part of our lives, we should acknowledge them as any of us and not deprive them a chance of a legal union. Since they have been living together for many years getting married is just a form of security that their partner will be taken care of if anything were to happen to them. Same sex marriages is practical here as many a times, as gay couples are not legally married, they are not given the spousal benefits many couples are given and they cannot make their partner their legal beneficiary. To give them such an advantage, a same sex union should be legalized.

However, above all these orthodox religion and tradition restrictions still do affect people’s view on gay marriages. People who are more conservative consider gay unions as a taboo or against the biblical rules set out by the Christian churches. Therefore, in my opinion, gay unions are not practical here as we have to consider that cultural and religion is deeply inculcated as part of people’s everyday life. Many of them view the “words of Jesus as the ultimate key to the meaning of the Bible.” If the large majority is against same sex marriages and we cannot change such conventional mindset, one will be discriminated if they were to be engage in a gay marriage ceremony, then I do not think this decision is realistic. A leeway can always be made as to who you want to be your insurance beneficiary without having to be legally married. Although many US states claim to have accepted same sex marriages, gay couples still do not get the same benefits as a heterosexual couple would receive. So why do we have to go through all these discrimination and predicament and in the end, not acquire the benefits we initially set out to find?

Overall, I think whether same-sex marriage is a practical consideration in this age of globalization depends on the country one live in and how tolerant the people around them are. It is no doubt that homosexuality is still not widely accepted even in a globalized nation and thus even more people will consider same sex marriages as undesirable. Hence, I think same sex marriages is not practical now but in the long run, for nations that want earn the “gay dollar” and to give equality to individuals, it will be a practical consideration for these country in the age of globalization.
“Lead to unorthodox unions may be allowed to marry an immediate relative such as a sibling, marry multiple partners, marry a child, or even marry a pet.”
I don’t understand why a man who can be so “pro gay” to be against such unions. To quote him “the only thing that should matter in a marriage is love” then if I love my pet, why cant I marry it? They practice this in china right??? I mean if to him such unions are unorthodoxal then what make a gay union right? weird guy. Shrugs. Hee. Im mad.
http://www.statoids.com/essays/samesex.html
http://www.gaymarketexpress.com/

1 Comments

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

6:14 AM

Animal experimentations.
why do we put animals on death rows?

while some think it is necessary....
1. is it more humane or feasible to sacrifice oneself or a close relative to be part of an experiment in place of an animal?
We need a cure for bird flu, let’s just grab a random sample of 1000 people and see what happens.” After all, it’s all for the greater good……to help billions of others. and as a matter of factly, who would do that?

2.without such experiments on the animals, there woiuldnt be cough mixture and antibiotics that are safe for human consumption.

3. everyone will visit the doctor during some point of their lives. who will be willing to pay the doc for medications that are not tested?

4. will it be feasible to allow millions to die from a virus outbreak just to safe the lives of thousands of animals?

5. to go back to the fundermental idea of "the fittest survive". since humans have the say and the ultimate power over these animals, they then have to be sacrificed.

others are strongly agaisnt the idea...

1. animals are cramped in a small, dirty cage wasting their lives away "queueing" to be part of the next potential fatal experiment to be conducted on them.

2. anesthetic are often not administrated on these animals so that the experiment results will be more accurate without the effects of the anesthetic. these animals have to bear intense pain during the experiments..

3. most animals are left ailing and suffering after the experiment has been conducted on them. they are usually not cured and left to die by the disease that we humans have deliberately administed on them.

4. animal testing should be BANNED for cosmetics.. why take another precious life for the sake of beauty, vanity and money?

5. "Why Animal Experiments Must Stop" by Dr Vernon Coleman, Britains best- known medical writer, who says that "Vivisection is unbelievably barbaric and unforgivably cruel. It is worthless, inaccurate, wasteful, uninformative and dangerously misleading. The truth is that animal experiments kill people"

6. since humans and animals alike are sentient being, why then are animals often looked down upon by humans? why should animals be allowed to suffer in place of humans? dont we have animals rights?

i feel like i have a spit personality after trying to be in the shoes of the pro and anti animal testing activist. So when cursing the people who conduct animal tests, why not thank the scientists and the animalss that help millions of people live?

ponder power
When you think only animals are suffering from such selfish act..
Ever wondered why the UN spend millions of dollars sending medications to people in Africa? Ever thought of why millions still die after "proper" medications are given to them.
Is the UN's intention only to help save the people's lives? or do you think theres more to that?

hee. no evidence to prove.. but some random thoughts and personal opinions (dont sue me :))..
ever came across to you that they might be sending medications there to make use of the ailing people from these third world nation to test and research on their newly invented pills and vaccines before they are sold to the rich? i mean if this isnt one of the way they do it, then why how do companies claim that their products are tested and proven safe?

this bring us back to the question.. No human rights or is this another case of discrimination agaisnt the poor. dont the poor and sick have the rights like any other to be given tested and medications that are certified safe..

the unspoken truth? or another silly assumption? shrugs... god. cant believe i did this.

1 Comments

Thursday, August 09, 2007

8:01 AM

“The mother of revolution and crime is poverty"(Aristotle)
Do you agree?

Revolution and crime usually occur when a person or a particular group of people demand a change to their current economical state, standard of living or to simply voice out their discontentment to the authorities.

Revolution involves uprising or rebellions of a group of people with a common purpose. Their main objective is to force the government to quickly resolve their pending problems. Revolutionists are usually the lower class citizens who are powerless and therefore have little or no rights to interfere into the government’s decisions and thus, have no other means to improve their livelihood other than to resort to such desperate measures to seek attention from the authorities. Such revolutions generally lead to economical standstills, damaged properties and future economical problems as the finances that may be used to improve the country have to be channeled to repairs and humanitarian works. However, a revolution is inevitable and is also often deem as the most effective way if one want to bring about a change to one’s society.

Crime is viewed as a deviant behavior that violates the norms, prescribing how humans ought to behave. (wiki) A crime can be a trivia case of theft or a comparably more serious case of terrorism. Similar to the start of a revolution, a crime is usually committed by people who are in frantic desire for something, usually to improve ones life financially.

To a large extent, I agree that “The mother of revolution and crime is poverty". Poverty is usually the trigger that gives rise to revolutions and crimes. Finances are one of the most fundamental requirements one needs in order to fulfill basic needs to survive. When one is trapped in the vicious poverty cycle, the basic human instinct would set to think of alternatives to free oneself from such routine.

Revolution is a way how people show their defiance to the authorities when they are dissatisfied with their living conditions or when they want to bring about a change to their lives. As the saying goes, “united we stand; divided we fall”. As locals unite to create chaos within a country, to end further damages, the government is forced to listen to the opinions of the people and set about changes to improve their lives. This is clearly the most effective way for the government to meet the demands of locals. For example, the 1917 October revolution in Russia is sparked off by discontentment of the lower class citizens in Russia as there are serious cases of food shortages, unemployment and in short, people are living in poverty within the country which the local government did not attend to. The revolution had proven successful as after a week of rioting and confrontations, the authorities gave in and brought about changes to their lives. This shows that poverty is indeed the main trigger of a revolution and without it, the authorities might not give attention to the problems the poor are facing.

Crimes are often committed by people in their desperate attempt to obtain money in the fastest and simplest ways.

Poverty is defined as the state of being poor and lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts. Therefore, the lack of finances for one to live a mediocre life causes one to be irrational and seek different illicit methods or crimes in a desperate attempt to obtain money in the fastest and simplest way. Base on a research study, there are evidence to date that low wages and unemployment make less-educated men more likely to turn to crime. (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/crimwage.htm). Another major crime that one may commit due to poverty is terrorism. For example, Iraqi militants are offered US$1 million dollars by Osama to give up their life as a suicide bomber during the 911 attack murdering thousands. In a third world country where hundreds die everyday due to hunger and poverty, who can resist the million dollar offer to free their family of the poverty cycle forever? This evidently shows how severe poverty can cause one to submit and sacrifice their lives to a tyrant that masterminds the mass murder of thousands of New Yorkers.

However, other than poverty, there are other factors that give rise to crime and revolutions. Some factors are greed, socio political instability, religious and racial concerns. These troubles normally drive people to the edge and compel them to react impulsively or illogically. When one is beleaguered, we often think unwisely leading to undesirable behaviors that generally lead to unexpected actions like committing a crime out of a spur moment of desperation that will cause a lifetime of regret and guilt. Though there are other factors leading to revolutions and crime, most of these factors are also caused by poverty itself as be it political, social or religious instability, when one is poor and have no other alternative methods to improve their lives, they would resort to violence leading to religious, political and social instability. Thus, since the poverty is also the root causes these instabilities; I agree with the statement that the mother of revolution and crime is poverty.

OH GOD! I have no idea what I’ve jus written!!

1 Comments

Sunday, August 05, 2007

5:57 PM

1. Lookism
Lookism is discrimination against or prejudice towards others based on their appearance. The term is not in widespread use, though it appears in major English-language dictionaries.[1]

Lookism relates to preconceived notions of beauty and cultural stereotyping based on appearance as well as gender roles and expectations. Important economic considerations include the question of income gaps based on looks, as well increased or decreased productivity from workers considered beautiful or ugly by their co-workers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role

2. Ageism
Ageism is stereotyping and prejudice against individuals or groups because of their age.[1]
"My boss ... looks for specifically younger people because they're cheaper," one IT worker told the Employers Forum on Age.
BBC news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2975754.stm

3. Disablism
It is used to describe inherent discrimination against people with disabilities in favor of people who are not disabled. An ableist society is said to be one that treats non-disabled individuals as the standard of ‘normal living’, which results in public and private places and services, education, and social work that are built to serve 'standard' people, thereby inherently excluding those with various disabilities.
Articles on disablism: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ouch/200705/b

logging_against_disablism_200_1.shtml

4. Discrimination against Foreigners. (xenophobia)
4.1 As with all phobias, a xenophobic person is aware of the fear, and therefore has to believe at some level that the target is in fact a foreigner. This arguably separates xenophobia from racism and ordinary prejudice in that someone of a different race does not necessarily have to be of a different nationality.
4.2 Additionally, in the world of science fiction, xenophobia may refer to a fear or hatred of extraterrestrial cultures or beings.
Example
Xenophobia in Japan
From 1641 to 1853 Japan had a policy of exclusion of virtually all foreigners (not merely an avoidance of foreign relations), known as 'national closure' (sakoku 鎖国). In the early 19th century Mito scholars (水戸学者) advocated jōi (攘夷), the forceful expulsion of 'barbarians', though almost none existed there. By the middle of the 19th century, with outside pressure mounting, some Japanese scholars and leaders tied 'Western Learning' and 'Nativist Studies' (kokugaku 国学) toward the project of nation building.[2] Nihonjinron, a widely popular type of nonfiction literature emerging in the second half of the 20th century, has been described as xenophobic.[3], though most of the works in the genre cannot by any description be so defined.
Currently, the only legal protection foreign citizens enjoy from xenophobic practices is Article 14 of the Constitution, which states: 'all of the people shall be equal under the law,and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin[...]'. Japan ratified the ICERD in 1995, but has failed to enact appropriate legislation as directed by Article 2b, simultaneously using 'freedom of expression' rights as a shield against the stipulations of Article 4a and b. The 2006 report by the UN Special Rapporteur for Racial Discrimination, Doudou Diène, was highly critical of current Japanese xenophobia and on-going discriminatory practices, which include difficulties in access to housing, accommodation (hotels) and other commercial establishments open to the public (spas, bars, night-clubs, restaurants and others) based on physical appearance and myth, and bullying at school of foreign-looking children.[4] The current Japanese word for xenophobia -外国人恐怖症, (gaikokujin kyoufu shou, lit. 'Foreigner fear condition') - interprets it as if it were a medical condition, revealing a lack of proper understanding of the concept.

White supremacism

a racist paradigm based on the assertion that white people are superior to other races. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates social and political dominance for whites.

White supremacy, as with supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony. It contains varying degrees of racism and xenophobia. White supremacy is often associated with ethnic cleansing and racial separation.

White supremacy has often resulted in anti-black racism and anti-Semitism, although it has also involved prejudice and discrimination against a wide variety of "non-white" groups, including Arabs and the various Asian peoples.

Not all white supremacist organizations agree on which group is the greatest enemy. However, many white supremacists consider Jews to be the gravest threat to their cause, and accuse them of manipulating other minority groups for their own gain.


A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own. Bigot is often used as a pejorative (belittling) term against a person who is obstinately devoted to prejudices even when these views are challenged or proven to be false.

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