singapore claustrophobia and mediacorp

I was talking to my boss today about Israel, Israel's stance, the rest of the world's stance, his personal stance, Palestinian occupation, Islam and well, Singapore at the end of it all.

I was arguing that perhaps it was as he himself said "too much of a focus" on the religion to the point of becoming dogmatic that brought about so much strife.

And then he said he'd read an article comparing Israel to Singapore which of course piqued my interest, as well as the fact that I'd never heard an Israeli opinion before on well, anything. Especially since I don't claim to be a genius on Middle Eastern politics and/or history.

So anyway, I said that in terms of political management, the Mahatir leadership specifically, it was extremely similar to Singapore- and Singapore was hardly Muslim, and Malaysia for that matter is extremely moderate, and due to culture, is a little bit more difficult to compare to the Middle East.

Somewhere in between that point, and asking what the article had said comparing Israel and Singapore (very small secular and relatively better off states surrounded by much larger more populous muslim nations) he asked about why I'd compare Singapore to Malaysia in terms of leadership. (he'd just called Malaysia's Anwar case a result of a dictatorship)

And I said that well, if you really want to clasify Malaysia as a dictatorship, then Singapore wasn't much different. And that we are in fact a democracy, but we aren't a liberal democracy. (where have I heard that one before?) I swear I'm not covering my ass. I actually said that.

"Well you can't be a liberal democracy with compulsory military service can you?" he smiles

yeah well.

we went on....but basically I started whinging about my LushFM ads.

The guy in charge would only give them to me if I did not portray Lush in a negative light ( I said I wouldn't- and I won't. Whaddaya take me for???!!!???!!!). So I said yeah hell, there's no good and bad in this essay anyway. It's a study about how advertising REFLECTS the culture. Not that Lush FM is crap. (I reckon if it plays nothing but chillout all day it's pretty good)

So anyway, my sweet dear friend RenaissanceMan actually went all the way to Mediacorp to pick it up and Fedex it to me...and was told by the dude that I'd have to submit a copy of my presentation AND my final paper for filing purposes.


AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I don't know about you. But despite my decidedly non-negative spin on ANY advertising I'm going to be using, I'm already feeling iffy. IFFY IFFY IFFY.

If I don't blog in the next few months, you know what happened to me. I got bankrupted, had to leave the country, got thrown into jail for my.......errrr......PREVIOUS ESSAYS ON CABLE TELEVISION IN SINGAPORE!!!! oops. I shouldn't have written that should I. Now I'll have government infrastructure ministry or something come after me. DAMN.