Black face to red-faced: Toggle, The Smart Local say sorry for racist videos

Wow, two Facebook apologies within two hours of each other for racially insensitive online videos.

First, Mediacorp's Toggle said sorry for this:





Then The Smart Local for this:





This must be some sort of new record.

#Thisis2016


COLUMN: Shane Pow! Mediacorp's Toggle gets black eye over blackface

Hello, have you been retrenched by SPH?

Time to address to the elephant in the room. Or rather, on the phone. Though it’s not very nice to refer to my mother as an elephant, as heavy as she is.

She called me yesterday afternoon.

Actually, it was two minutes after noon, to be exact. The first thing she asked me was whether I was awake. Since it was only two minutes after noon, the answer was barely.

She then asked me if I had been laid off.

Where did this come from?

Was it because she had read that the number of workers retrenched in the first half of this year has hit a six-year high, according to Ministry of Manpower figures?



No, it’s actually because she had heard from my aunt who had heard from my cousin that my company was retrenching people.

My mother also said that my cousin has moved in with my aunt because he used to live in his ex-wife’s home but was kicked out because his ex-wife wants to sell the home because she’s living in the US now.

Yeah, it’s complicated. But I digress.

My cousin had probably read last week that Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is cutting up to 10 per cent of its 4,182-strong workforce over the next two years through “attrition, retirement, non-renewal of contracts, outplacement and retrenchment”.

SPH also announced that it is merging free sheet My Paper and paid daily The New Paper to form a revamped TNP, which will be launched on Dec 1 and distributed free at the same places you get My Paper now.



The new New Paper will be published from Monday to Saturday.

Which means that The New Paper on Sunday, where you’re reading my sad words at this moment, will be headed for the great recycling bin in the sky.

So if I were me, I would be worried about losing my job.

Hey, wait a minute, I am me!

My wife said it would be funny if I were retrenched by SPH again because it would be the second time. Like the way many readers feel about this column, I fail to see the humour in it.

In 2001, two months after 9/11, the now-forgotten SPH MediaWorks laid off 73 workers — and I was one of them.

Let’s have a moment of silence, please, in memory of Channel i, which was formerly TVWorks, where I formerly worked.



Unlike 15 years ago, the Government seems to be making a better effort in helping job seekers now.

Back then, there was no Singapore Workforce Development Agency, which was created in 2003. There was no National Jobs Bank, which was launched in 2014.

Even though I was unemployed, I still looked forward to the weekend because Saturday was (and still is) the day The Straits Times has the most job ads.

At 35 when I was laid off, I already felt I was too old for many of the positions I was applying for.

Now that I’m half a century old, I’m more likely to get colorectal cancer than another job if I’m retrenched again.

At least that’s the impression I got from the letter the Singapore Cancer Society sent me after my 50th birthday asking for my stool samples.

A photo posted by SM Ong (@sm_ong) on Aug 30, 2016 at 8:20pm PDT

They’re on their way.

Incidentally, Singapore postal workers are heroes for the literal crap they have to handle in the mail.

Hmmm, I wonder if there are any job openings at Singapore Post.

After all, I can’t be too picky since there just isn’t much demand for unfunny “humour” columnists five years away from being eligible to withdraw from their CPF.

Maybe I can get a job running the Singapore national men’s football team.

Last week, the Lions fell to an all-time lowest world ranking of 171 out of 205 in the latest table published by Fifa on Thursday.



I believe that I’m qualified for the job because like whoever is in charge now, I too have absolutely no experience in running a successful national football team.

But fortunately (or unfortunately) for Singapore football, I have not been retrenched by SPH (yet).

And that was what I told my mother on the phone.

She was relieved.

I wanted to ask her about my cousin, but I wanted to go back to sleep even more. After all, it was only a few minutes after noon.

I said goodbye to my mum and hung up.

A few minutes later, I received a WhatsApp message from my sister: “I heard about SPH cutting people from someone working at News Centre...”

Aiyah, here we go again.

She had better have some great gossip for me about my cousin.

- Published in The New Paper, 23 October 2016

You can take the SIN out of Singapore, but you can't take out the sin

I guess we can now cast the first stone.

At least at international sporting events.

Last month, Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) announced on its Facebook page: “Our NOC code is now ‘SGP’ instead of ‘SIN’. In line with the United Nations (UN) / International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) official 3-letter country code.”



Yes, we are finally without SIN.

Fortunately, legalised online gambling isn’t one of the seven deadly ones.

But lust is.



Thirty National University of Singapore (NUS) students were punished for “disorderly and offensive behaviour” and “organising and participating in improper orientation activities that potentially put other students’ physical welfare at risk” during the freshman orientation period.

What kind of “disorderly and offensive behaviour”?

To quote Acting Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Ong Ye Kung: “Pretending to ejaculate into the face of a fellow student.”

Hey, at least, it was just “pretending”.



But NUS wasn’t the only local tertiary institution in the news last week for the sins of its undergrads.

Perennially behind NUS in world rankings, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) wasn’t going to let NUS corner the market on students behaving badly.

On Thursday, a male NTU student was caught allegedly taking videos of other male students in the shower.

NTU campus newspaper The Nanyang Chronicle reported that 66 videos of male students showering were found on the phone of the 24-year-old suspect, who is a final-year student from the National Institute of Education.

Wait, the National Institute of Education? You mean, this voyeur was going to be a teacher?

The operative word being “was”, I hope.

The Nanyang Chronicle also quoted the residence hall president as saying: “We strongly advise all residents in every hall, no matter their gender, to be careful when they shower or use the washroom.”

Careful when showering? I already have enough on my mind, concentrating on not dropping my soap and bending down to pick it up.

“No one is safe,” the residence hall president added. “So bathe quickly and be observant of the openings in the toilet cubicles.”

But what if you’re not the Usain Bolt of bathing?

The only way to be really safe is to skip showering and going to the toilet at NTU altogether.

But isn't this a form of victim-blaming?

Instead of telling students to be careful when they shower, shouldn’t students be told not to take videos of other students showering?

Even though the possible future voyeur-teacher has been arrested, that doesn’t mean our children’s innocence is safe.

That’s why we should be grateful to Facebook user Mylilbookworm who warned parents about a comic book sold at Popular Bookstore called Bro Don't Like That La Bro #2: My Bad Bromance by Malaysian cartoonist Ernest Ng.



This is in addition to the warning sticker on the book itself, which says: “Careful! Cheeky content inside! Suitable for ages 18 and up. Or really matured kids. Or people who are not easily offended.”

But that sticker is clearly not enough as one parent pointed out: “The label they had used looks like something not to be taken seriously.”

The book was also categorised under “Local interest” in the adults section, but since there are no bouncers or door bitches to stop underage children from entering the adults section in the bookstore, Popular took the books off the shelves on Wednesday.

Informed of this bad news about his book on Facebook, Ng replied: “I don't think this is bad news at all hahah.”

He also posted: “Exposure is best currency. I can buy food with exposure. And then I die. Ballin' in exposure yo. Don't be hatin'.”



So it’s win-win for everyone. Mylilbookworm got Popular to remove the books and the book’s author got some free publicity.

It’s almost like The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye and that book about the gay penguins all over again.

Lust may be a sin, but you still need it to improve our country’s fertility rate.

This much is tacitly acknowledged by Senior Minister of State Josephine Teo in an interview last week with The Straits Times about whether young people are not getting their flats early enough to have children.

“You need a very small space to have sex,” she said.

In other words, size does not matter, which is what I have been telling all my girlfriends.



The Member of Parliament for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC, who also oversees the National Population and Talent Division, added:

"In France, in the UK, in the Nordic countries, man meets woman, tonight they can make a baby already. They love each other."

Is that love?

Sounds more like lust to me.

Perhaps we should’ve remained as SIN city after all.

- Published in The New Paper, 16 October 2016