In the context of Singapore's multi-racial society, where there is cultural and religious pluralism, which author's view do u think should be adopted?

I feel that in Singapore, in a country where racial harmony is celebrated and multi-raicalism is widely encouraged and practiced, we should adopt Szilagyi's view, to focus more on social responsibility and not on freedom.

Singer talks about having the freedom of sppech and that we should not punish those who voice out opinions that differ from the rest. That will only make them think that they are only imprisoned for expressing views that cannot be refuted by evidence and argument alone. I feel that Singer does make a point there. These people may not be convinced of being punished just because they spoke something that violated the " right thinking and belief". Freedom of speech is the liberty of speaking and holding opinions without public authority interference. Even so, I feel that in the midst of given the liberty to speak whatever we want to, it is still important for us to be sensitive and cautious of the opinions that we are raising, whether other people will be hurt or be mocked at. Whether that is considered disrespect? I believe that although freedom of speech is granted to us, it is still bounded to some kind of restrictions and extent. Once we crossed the boundary, we will still have to be punished for what we said in order to maintain peace and suppress the rising tensions.

Besides, anyone who still has some knowledge of their secondary school's history will know that back in July 1964, there had been a serious race riot which had sparked off between the Malays and the Chinese in Singapore. Furthermore, communal tension was raised due to Utusan Melayu, a Malay newspaper which allows negative potrayal of PAP to be discriminating towards the Malays. This shows that the press do play an important role in maintaining the harmony between different races, especially in Singapore, where there are more than four different races congregating together. Although multi-raicalism is practiced and no discrimination is given to any of the races in Singapore, it is still important to be cautious and sensitive towards such issues and keep in mind of not to make any anti-racial comments in newspapers or even in other channels like blogs especially. Like what Szilagyi said, we have to think of what is more important for the democractic advancement of the society, whether we should ensure the freedom of expression of all its citizens or to protect the collective interests of society.

To me, the interests of the society lies above all. If we are unable to protect the interests of everyone, to be able to express whatever negative or discriminating views of the different raical or religious group of people, tensions and riots will tend to occur. In that case, how are we able to advance and move forward if we are bounded by such racial and religious internal conflicts? I believe we certainly do not wish to end up like another Sri Lanka, do we?
All in all, I still believe that social responsibility of the people need to be practised, especially in the context of Singapore.

Vocabulary:
1) Ghetto: in former times, an area in European towns in which the Jewish population was required to live.
2) Refuted: to prove something to be false or somebody to be in error through logical argument or by providing evidence to the contrary.
3) Enormity: extreme evil or moral offensiveness.
4) Atrocities: a shockingly cruel act, especially an act of wanton violence against an enemy in wartime.
5) Lamentably: sadly and mournfully.
6) Fascist: somebody who supports or advocates a system of government characterized by dictatorship, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism.
7) Solidarity: mutual agreement and support.
8) Libertarians: someone who to set somebody free from traditional socially imposed constraints such as those arising from stereotyping by gender or age.
Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

"YouTube has no ethics, it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money." Do you agree?

After reading the four articles, I do not agree that YouTube is created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. It has been stated in the fouth article, "The YouTube Gurus", that the intial concept of YouTube was to allow people to have a website to upload anything for everyone to watch and share information around globally since only the owners of their websites could do that previously. YouTube only removes those videos that have pornography in them and have no censorship on the rest. Perhaps, this freedom of allowing anyone to post any videos online had caused people to abuse it. They even uploaded videos that are related to sensitive and provoking issues like the culture, traiditon, race and even religion of other people and countries.

For example, in the first article, someone uploaded a video of a Swiss man spray-painting posters of the Thai King, King Bhumibol Adulyadej in the northern city of Chiang Mai. To the Thais, this have greatly offended and insulted the country's monarchy and is considered as a
crime. However, I feel that the real cause of all this is the people's attitude towards such a free and unrestricted website. Will they put up all these videos with provoking and sensitive contents just because this is the website that provides such a service? If it is that case, then the initial concept and idea of YouTube has been abused. Instead of sharing information that is of use around, people have been treating the website as a channel to post on videos that they can't on other websites.

However, there are still people who posted useful videos on certain health issues as stated in third article, "Is YouTube just what the doctor ordered?" There have been videos posted by people all around the world on issues concerning attention deficit disorder to using inhaler, providing useful information on their uses and how to tackle them. People that have problems with regards to any of such issues can find their solutions at a click of their mouse. That, is what YouTube want to be, to be a intermediate channel for people to post and to view videos and gain knowledge and information.

With regards to entertainment and money, I feel that it has been evolved overtime, when YouTube become more popular and peple started posting more videos on dramas, movie previews, MTV and interesting videos since practically no restrictions is given. It is only when YouTube become more popular,with more viewership that it is deemed as a favourable website for doing advertising work and has its value raised til US$1.65 billion.

Vocabulary:
1) Infringement: a failure to obey a law or regulation.
2) Litigation: the act or process of bringing about or contesting a lawsuit or all lawsuits collectively.
3) Conduits: conveyer of information.
4) Scour: to remove something.
5) Fraca: a noisy quarrel or fight
6) Escrow: an amount of money or property granted to somebody but held by a third party and only released after a condition has been met.
7) Inconsequential: of little or no importance.
8) Magnate: somebody who has a lot of wealth and power, especially somebody in business or industry.
9) Demiurges: a very strong, driving, and influential force or personality.
10) Rumpus: outcry or noisy disturbance.
11) Flubbed: to blunder or make a mess of something.
12) Proclivities: natural tendency to behave in a particular way.
13) Consternation: a feeling of bewilderment and dismay, often caused by something unexpected.
14) Propitious: favorable and likely to lead to success.
15) Reticent:unwilling to communicate very much, talk a lot, or reveal all the facts; reserved.
16) Peripatetic:traveling from place to place, especially working in several establishments and traveling between them.
17) Demur: to object mildly to something that you do not want to do but have been asked to do.

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2005. © 1993-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

AlL aBt mYSelf

zen revolution begins: on a beautiful morning on 27 september 1990, 0800 hr. my mum was rushed to mount alvernia hospital before that. when i came out, crying, my face insipired my dad to name me: susan. ( guess i didn't give him much inspiration)

i'm the middle child sandwiched between 1 elder sister( 19, poly undergrad) and 1 younger brother( 14, sec sch student of ytss). usually, i'm on pretty much good terms with them.

i was previously from ahmad ibrahim primary school (AIPS) where i was a student prefect for 2 years. later on, i became a student of yishun town secondary school (YTSS) and my cca then was girl guides(woah!) i held different positions over the years such as being a patrol member, assistant secretary(2003) to patrol leader, secretary( 2004/2005) and the highest i could go for was an assistant company leader(2005/2006) where i have to take care of my sec 2s squad, (now sec 3s) give drilling sessions etc etc.

in primary school, my results were considered average. that's why i ended up in yishun town. however, i vowed to do better so i work hard and manage to stay in the top five from sec 1 to sec 3. unfortunately, my grades slipped when i did not do consistent work and study during my prelims. i dropped out of top five and scored 13 points. with that kind of score, i could only make it to meridian junior college. although i was demoralised, i put in my best effort for the last lap and work hard for o levels. since i scored 7 points, i decided to switch from mj to anderson as mj is really too far from my house.

-ZEN BRiEf PROfiLe-
zen's hobbies: cycling ( pulau ubin), badminton
zen's favourite no: 7
zen's favourite colours: black, white, red, brown