Left Coast Leaner

An ode to disc golf in Singapore

2010-08-08T21:48:00.006+08:00

Not a lot going on in Leaner land, but I thought I'd direct your attention to something I wrote about Singapore's tiny disc golf scene, such as it is.

This column originally appeared in last Sunday's Straits Times, and can be accessed here, provided you have a subscription. In case you don't, I've also reproduced it below. Lemme know what you think.

Round of disc golf, anyone?

Standing on the 18th green, putter in hand, I test the direction of the wind with a pinch of grass before I line up my shot. A moment of breathlessness as the putt heads towards its target... and drops! Birdie. It’s my best golf score yet.

But this is no ordinary game of golf. This is disc golf.

Its rules are identical to those of the traditional game. But instead of balls and clubs, this game uses discs – not Frisbees – of various moulds to reach the target, which can be a tree, a pole or, on a proper course, inside a metal basket.

Disc golf has been a hobby of mine for nearly half my life. I’ve won money in tournaments and have played courses on four continents: North America, Europe, Australia and Asia (I have not yet made it to the course that exists in Antarctica).

Singapore does not have a formal disc golf course. But that does not mean the game is not played here.

A couple of times a month, a group of us meet for a round. The size of the group varies, and it consists mostly of expatriates. Sadly, locals rarely venture beyond the invite list.

Disc golf can be played anywhere where there is a handful of open acres, preferably with a few trees for obstacles.

Such places are surprisingly numerous in Singapore, and we take our show all over the island, setting up nine portable “baskets” made of canvas and netting to create impromptu courses.

We’ve been known to take over the open spaces near MRT stations like Kallang, Bedok and, most recently, Outram Park, throwing discs and trying to make par.

Passers-by observe us with a mix of awe and bemusement. Many stop to watch the strange sight of ang mohs chucking things in a field.

Rarely does a round pass by without one of us explaining to an inquisitive onlooker what it is we’re doing (“It’s just like golf...”). Once that’s understood, it’s all chuckles and suspicious smiles as they wait for us to demonstrate.

A hefty drive – up to 150m with a good pull – never fails to elicit oohs and aahs and, of course, an enthusiastic “golf clap”.

At first, these occasional weekend rounds were enough to satisfy my disc golf habit.
But after a few months here, I was getting urges to play on weekdays, in the mornings, in the evenings – whenever I could. But Singapore doesn’t have anything resembling a permanent course.

So I decided to build one.

One day about a year ago, I was in a taxi in Upper Serangoon and happened to pass by the old Bidadari Cemetery. My eyes got wide. Such a boundless expanse of unused public land is a rare sight in Singapore. In short, it was the perfect place for disc golf.

I did my research and learnt that Bidadari had been a mostly Muslim and Christian cemetery until it was closed in the 1970s and exhumed beginning in 2001.

It has apparently been slated for development for the last several years, but the only perceivable sign of civilisation is the North-East Line’s phantom MRT station, Woodleigh.

In the meantime, I’ve designated some tees, collected some fallen branches and stuck them in the ground for targets and – voila! – it’s an 18-hole disc golf course. I hope the ghosts don’t mind.

Yes, disc golf is fun to play. But for me, it has also been a vehicle to explore and interact with new and local landscapes.

I’ve played courses in vastly different settings, from the ancient redwood forests in California to the crags of the Rocky Mountains. Each individual spot reveals its own unique flora, fauna and history. Bidadari is no different.

Photographers armed with telephoto lenses stand quietly near Hole 8 trying to catch a glimpse of the rare and brilliant birds flying from branch to branch of the sprawling banyan trees.

At Hole 2, the seeds of saga trees, hard and red as rubies, fall to the ground. An old man gathers them to line the bottom of his wife’s fish bowl.

Relics of Bidadari’s past litter the grounds. From the conical tops of Muslim grave markers to what appear to be directional signs scrawled in Arabic, mementoes of this land’s history are everywhere.

Disc golf in Singapore pre-dates me. The evidence sits along the Nicoll Highway, across from Suntec City behind the Raffles Education Corp College, in the form of a proper, metal disc golf basket.

I have been unable to ascertain why or how it exists. Hopefully the spirit that brought it here and keeps me playing will carry on long after I’m gone.

Sunday Times
August 8, 2010
Page 33

For the last time -- it's soccer

2010-07-01T19:38:00.006+08:00

It was a sad end last weekend to the US's glory run into the knockout stages of the World Cup. The US team generated amazing amounts of excitement Stateside; the game against Ghana was the most-watched soccer game in US history. But alas, it was not to be.

That's OK, though, because I can point to another victory for Americans that took place off the field and appears to have been won last year, upon the publication of the book Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport.

I wrote more about the book (and made the following point) here, if you're interested (in short, the book is worth reading).

It was penned by Financial Times sports columnist Simon Kuper and sports economist Stefan Szymanski, both of whom are bona fide Englishmen (or at least British citizens). On the subject of whether or not the game should be referred to as "soccer", these Englishmen write (emphasis my own):

"At this point, let's agree to call the global game 'soccer' and the American game 'football.' Many people, both in America and in Europe, imagine that soccer is an American term invented in the late twentieth century to distinguish the game from gridiron. Indeed, anti-American Europeans often frown on the use of the word. They consider it a mark of American imperialism. This is a silly position. 'Soccer' was the most common name for the game in Britain from the 1890s until the 1970s. As far as one can tell, when the North American Soccer League brought soccer to the Americans in the 1970s, and Americans quite reasonably adopted the English word, the British stopped using it and reverted to the word football."

I think we can safely say the case is closed on that debate.

Kicking balls, American style

2010-06-26T18:44:00.002+08:00

I'm immersed in one of my most patriotic streaks of recent memory, watching the plucky USA soccer team maneuver its way through the World Cup. Only a few hours till kickoff in the round of 16, and though Ghana will hardly be a pushover (especially with the whole of Africa behind them), there's no reason the US shouldn't be able to avenge the loss from 2006.

(By the way, do the Americans really not have a cool team name like the Ghana Black Stars or the Algeria Desert Foxes... even the Australia Socceroos? I know the US rugby team is called the Eagles, which is OK, I guess. But nothing for this up-and-coming soccer team, really?)

The USA is an extremely fun team to cheer for, in the same way the "Cardiac Kings" were in the early-auts. They're unfavored, but full of heart. They play hard and could potentially win any game. They just need to cut down on the catastrophic lapses that lead to easy goals, and shake their bizarre preference to play the best when they're down a goal (or two!).

The New York Times says we are witnessing the emergence of a new "American style" of soccer, one that is brasher, bolder, and dismissive of convention. When Landon Donovan blasted that shot right over Slovenia's keeper's shoulder in Game 2, writes Times soccer blogger Jesse Pennington:

"A kind of American impatience with custom and formality brought forth a different sensibility, a bit more roguish one. Think Indiana Jones blatantly disregarding politesse by scoffing at (and then shooting) the scimitar-wielding thug in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Think Han Solo blasting down Greedo in the “Star Wars” cantina before the green dude knows what hit him."

(I'll skip the complaints about getting soul-fucked by the ref in that game, because it ultimately had no bearing on anything. But that game did encapsulate everything that's so fun about cheering for this team.)

The Algeria game was amazing. And all the American naysayers, if there are in fact still any, needed only to witness the thrilling end to understand how riveting this sport can be. Crowds all across America certainly understood.

Sipping a brew called American Pale Ale at a microbrewery in Singapore -- Brewerkz on Clarke Quay, which has posters of Sierra Nevada Celebration and Anchor Steam adorning the walls -- we went nuts. Classic explosion of excitement, jumping up to high-five the strangers to either side of you. It was pandemonium for the 100 or so of us crammed in there. A spontaneous chant of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" erupted and I unabashedly and earnestly joined in, probably for the first time in my life

And now I'm off to watch the next game, kicking off at some absurd hour (2:30am). It kills the sleep patterns, but there's something exciting about staying up till dawn watching global sporting events. Go USA!

Flipping in the Far East -- inside the world's best disc golf event

2010-06-21T18:23:00.020+08:00

There is no better disc golf event on earth than the Japan Open, which was held this month. I had heard it was great, and my expectations were high going in. But my expectations were obliterated -- truly, nothing else compares.

But I don't want to just gush here. The Japan Open is one of disc golf's four major events of the year (every other year, really -- the fourth major is held in Europe in odd-numbered years), so the competition is world class. In addition to the Americans and Japanese at the Nasu Highlands (Tochigi, Japan), players this year came from Canada, Finland, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and elsewhere to compete.

The cultural exchange this event offers is certainly one of its selling points. Interactions with people from all over the world are impossible to avoid, whether it's during a golf round, recovering in the hot-spring spa or hanging out late-night with the free flow of booze at Joe's Bar.

One of the most interesting things of the tournament was seeing how the personalities of different nationalities are expressed in players' golf games. The Asians are very compact, quiet and efficient in their driving, getting an incredible amounts of power out of surprisingly limited movement, and their putting games are precise and confident. The Europeans are powerful but modest, throwing a mile but never getting too worked up when a round goes awry. The Americans are also powerful, but noisy, both in the physical approach to the game (lots of movement, heavy steps, flailing limbs, involved putting routines) and the constant chatter and need to complain about errant shots (I include myself firmly within this characterization). Very educational from a cultural and anthropological standpoint.

The host country leaves its distinct mark on all aspects of the event, from the delicious cuisine to peculiar disc-weight requirements (nothing heavier than 159.9 grams). Each individual golf round kicked off with the rhythmic booms of a group of Taiko drummers (left), pounding the skins as if we were setting off to battle.

Indeed, the courses themselves were veritable battlefields. There were two of them -- the Raijin (god of thunder) course and the Fujin (god of wind) -- laid out on the grounds of a ball golf course (which, by the way, must be one of the world's most scenic... top-tier at the very least). The holes were long, open and often prone to extreme elevation changes -- basically a disc golfer's dream. But every bunker and cart path were out of bounds, turning dreams to nightmares. Rarely will you see a course that forces a mix of such distance and precision. Veterans of the sport like Gregg "The Miniac" Hosfeld who have played upwards of 1,000 courses rank the Nasu courses among their favorites.

Taiwanese player Chia-Shih Lo teeing off on Hole 12 on the Raijin course. The basket is 518ft away and straight downhill -- a helluva heave. Lo is a solid player and he and I went head to head for much of the tourney. I think I edged him by two strokes in the end, but they were hard-fought.

The tournament's payout this year totaled 4,000,000 yen, and the men's winner brought home 500,000 yen -- about $5,000. Hardly your average weekly doubles purse. And the final battle in the men's field was epic.

Defending champ Dave Feldberg, arguably the world's best golfer at the moment, was leading youthful upstart Nikko Locastro by two strokes going into the "Final 9", a decisive showdown between the top four players in both men's and women's divisions.

The personality differences between these two players was as much a part of the storyline as anything: Feldberg is known for his cool, almost robotic composure, not the flashiest player, but excellent at everything and extremely tough to shake. He's been playing at a top level for years and years, and knows how to maintain a lead. Nikko is in many way Feldberg's polar opposite -- he's flashy, hot-headed and prone to tantrums and breakdowns. He's only 21 and his personal growing pains have been on full display over the course of the professional disc golf tour. The buzz around camp was that Feldberg would cruise to a repeat title and Nikko would have at least one breakdown round, frustrated by the rampant 'OB' and unable to cope.

The "Final 9" players, from left to right (and finish): Nate Doss (3rd), Ken Climo (4th), Nikko Locastro (1st), Dave Feldberg (2nd), Valerie Jenkins (1st), Mayu Nonaka (2nd), Des Reading (3rd), Carrie Berlogar (4th).

Here are the overall results.

But here they were, facing off in the Final 9 (Ken "The Champ" Climo and Nate Doss were in a battle for third). The first several holes went about as well as possible for Feldberg, as he steadily built his lead to five strokes with four holes to play. But Nikko kept his head in it and slowly started chipping away, a stroke at a time. Up three strokes with two to play, Feldberg smartly avoided the 'OB' on a hole and laid up for par while Nikko, with no other choice, blazed home a drive, parked for birdie. They approached the final tee with Feldberg clinging to the two-stroke lead he had going in to the round. It was a fairly simple and short hole: a very straight-forward par. Everyone in the 200-strong crowd knew what had to happen for Dave to win -- just an easy layup, steer clear of 'OB', take the par and first place. It was a play anyone watching could have made.

Nikko parked the shot for birdie, as he needed to (he didn't get the ace, which we all figured he needed to have a chance). Feldberg calmly took the box, clutched his trusty Eagle... and completely shanked the shot. It went high and way too short, and the crowd gasped as we watched it plunk into the center of the bunker. OB. Feldberg swears otherwise, but it looked suspiciously like he decided to go for the green instead of lay up, clearly the wrong choice. It's hard to know what exactly was going through his mind at that moment, but one thing is obvious: he choked on the biggest shot of the tournament. Everyone was utterly stunned.

Feldberg had a chance to atone with a 30ft putt, but he clanked it off the basket -- even a robot like Feldberg would be devastatingly rattled after such a colossal mistake moments earlier. So they went to a playoff. Nikko calmly parked his third straight drive, and Feldberg, again, plunked his drive into OB. An easy 12-footer for Nikko (above left), and the tournament was over. The kid was understandably ecstatic, pumping his fist (right) in the air and bear hugging the chains of the basket ("I love everybody!" he said in the post-round interview). Feldberg disappeared. The crowd was in complete shock. For the next hour all anyone could say was "Can you believe that?" or "Have you ever seen anything like that?" No. Can't. Never. (Watch it all unravel here. It's worth it.)

But it was a fitting end to a truly epic week, and both the winners fully deserved the podium.

Japan Open 2010 Champions: Valerie Jenkins and Nikko Locastro

A front-row seat to democracy in the Philippines

2010-05-11T19:27:00.009+08:00

I spent Sunday afternoon down at the Philippines Embassy in Singapore, interviewing expat Filipinos after they cast their votes for president, vice president and legislators -- I was a one-man exit poll. Then I wrote this story.

Filipinos are a generally joyous bunch and it was clear the thousand or so that voted on Sunday were excited to be exercising what many characterized as their civic duty. Many people stood outside the walls of the embassy in the scorching sunshine taking pictures of their ink-stained index-finger nails, documentation that they had actually voted. (Voters' nails are splashed with indelible ink that remains for a week so officials can be sure no one is voting more than once.)

Many of the people there were first-time voters, or second-timers at most. The Philippines instituted overseas voting in 2004, so for many of the Filipino women who have worked as maids and nannies in Singapore for decades this was a rare chance to have a say in the goings-on back home. Indeed, most of the people I met there said they were domestic "helpers". Many of them were shy, but they clearly enjoyed the opportunity to vote.

I asked everyone I talked to who they voted for, but that was not information everyone offered up easily. Most people younger than 35 had no problem discussing their choice with me. It was the older crowd that was a bit cagey. Some told me they didn't think it would be appropriate to reveal their candidate of choice. Others were decidedly more paranoid. One woman told me she had a son in Manila, and wouldn't want him to get any unwelcome visits. Given the history of election-related violence in the Philippines, I can't say I blame them for being cautious.

The big buzz surrounding this year's election was the introduction of automated voting machines. As far as I know, they were not made by Diebold. Still, pre-election reports that the machines were glitchy led some to wonder if they might cause more problems than they solve.

Most people at the embassy on Sunday were pleased with the new machines. Sure the new system was no guarantee against "cheating", may of them said, but it's a big improvement over the old method of writing in your candidate's name and having the ballots counted by hand. "If we're not going to start it now, then when? We don't want to be stuck with manual elections forever," one woman told me.

All indications (including my one-man exit poll) are that Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino would win the presidency in a landslide. I honestly can't say what this will mean for the Philippines, but Aquino, if nothing else, has impressive roots. Here's hoping he does his nation proud.

I (look like) Gumby, dammit!

2010-04-30T22:17:00.006+08:00

The Shanghai Expo opens this weekend, and China's second city has pulled out all the stops -- the city has spent more than twice as much on its coming-out party than Beijing did on the Olympics.

But as with so many things China does, this event is not without controversy. It turns out the Expo's cartoon mascot, Haibao, looks an awful lot like Gumby, and organizers of the event have been accused of plagiarism.

Haibao creator Wu Yongjian pleads innocence and says he's never seen The Gumby Show before. Haibao, which means “treasure of the seas”, is based on the Expo emblem shape (世), the character for “world,” and was picked from 26,655 submissions, according to Chinese celebrity news site May Daily.

I happen to believe Mr Wu when he says he had no intention of riping off Gumby. But the similarity is amusing all the same.

It's not like China doesn't have a reputation for intellectual property theft. As the New York Times recently reported, Shanghai's bootleg DVD shops, a Chinese staple, have gone temporarily underground (or at least behind false walls) while the world's eye is trained on the city. This is exactly what happened in Beijing in 2008, as I wrote here. And just like in Beijing, once the Expo hoopla dies down, the shops will sprout right back up and the vast market of knock-off goods will kick back into gear.

The lifeblood of commerce, visualized

2010-04-28T12:06:00.004+08:00

As a bit of a follow-up to the video I posted last week, here's what Europe's airspace looked like after flights resumed:

That, in essence, is what the circulatory system of $3.3 billion dollars looks like.

Could health care bill kill incentive to marry?

2010-04-27T01:17:00.004+08:00

I came upon a potentially ominous analysis of the new health care bill that argues the bill's implementation in 2013 could spell the end of marriage. At least it would make marriage seem much less attractive for middle-income earners.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, who clearly was not impressed with the Democrats' epic push to reform the American health care system, writes about the bill:

"Two singles would each be able to earn $43,000 and still receive help to purchase health insurance, but if they got married and combined their earnings to $86,000, they would be far above the limit. As a married couple, the most they could earn and still get government help would be $58,000, a difference of almost $30,000, or 32%. This looks like a substantial disincentive to getting married, or to working while married."

I agree that this particular reality of the bill is less than desirable, and it's something I'll be forced to deal with if I ever make it back Stateside. It doesn't seem fair for the would-be brides and grooms of the lower middle class to get tangled up in the intersection of tax brackets. But the cutoff for government tax credits has to be somewhere, doesn't it?

I'd also be willing to bet that workers earning a salary of 40-50 grand would have jobs that provide health benefits anyway, and, as so many health-care-reform opponents frequently pointed out, most Americans are happy with the health plans they currently have.

Ms Furchtgott-Roth has a point that workers at this unfortunate crossroad who are thinking of marriage will have a tricky decision to make. What I am unclear about is how employer-provided health insurance is affected by these tax credits and whether or not employers are somehow let off the hook if their employees are receiving credits. At what point are employers required to start paying a fine if they're not providing insurance, and is the insurance employers provide necessarily better or worse than what can be bought with credits? No one ever said this wasn't complex... any ideas out there?

A new look

2010-04-22T20:57:00.001+08:00

So I've been doing a little bit of tinkering with the layout of this blog thing. I thought this one looked nice -- clean and simple with comfortable space to breathe. (I got the idea to tinker after I saw this post from Mashable, which directed me to Deluxe Templates, the creator of this layout.)

Whether or not this inspires more consistent output on my end remains to be seen. The truth is, I post more to my Twitter account these days (see here, or over there --> ). My thoughts of late are more of the micro variety, I guess.

And while we're housekeeping, as they say, the Leaner's old address at UBC has been wiped from existence. That is what was causing some of the trouble you may have experienced trying to access this address a while ago (long story). I will hopefully be moving some of the more interesting content from that address over here, but who knows when I'll get to it all. But if you happen to have any links to that old address, do please update and direct the link this way. Thanks.

With one modest belch, our arrogance is swept aside

2010-04-21T18:14:00.006+08:00

It is easy to forget amid the saturated media coverage that the plume billowing from Iceland is more than just a monumental inconvenience to millions of passengers and a thorn in the side of businesses around the world. It is also a profound reminder of our insignificance and utter submissiveness to geological rumblings.

An editorial from the Observer posted on the Guardian's website takes a meditative step back, and it's a thought worth repeating:

By colonising the space above our heads and above much of our continent, the eruption provides a reminder of our status in relation to our planet and over which we have arrogantly seized stewardship. We imagine ourselves its master and yet with one modest belch it hems us into our little island, sweeping instantly from the skies the aeroplane, which we consider to be an example of the irrepressible genius of our species... It would be crippling to retain that kind of perspective on a daily basis – anyone who set their watch by geological time would never get out of bed – but a glance at ourselves in proportion to the universe is salutary on occasion... We cannot blame the volcano, only observe how liberating it is sometimes to be powerless before nature.

On a side note, the timing of the massive halting of much of the world's air traffic is interesting (to me) because it comes just a few days after I saw this video (below), which is pretty cool-looking regardless. I wonder how different it would look these days.

I do not exist

2010-04-07T13:21:00.003+08:00

I was excited to fill out the census this year. For the first time, I'd be counted as a real person, not just some hanger-on.

But as it turns out, the Census Bureau does not deem me worthy of inclusion in its decennial tally. As an American expat living abroad, I, for all statistical intents and purposes, do not really exist. Even though I am an American passport-holder (now with a new biometric chip, since my old passport went through the washing machine) and fully plan to vote in the November elections, by taking up residence overseas I am essentially a castaway for the next decade. When it comes to the census, my status is less than that of an illegal immigrant.

Apparently it's too complicated and expensive to count people like me in the census. According to a Wall Street Journal article last year, the Census Bureau examined the possibility of distributing census forms to Americans overseas, but decided it wasn't worth the cost or the headache.

I suppose losing some constitutional rights are just a fact of life for those of us who choose to reside outside US borders. I've managed to get myself counted by having my parents fill me in as a third resident at their house in Northern California. That is my permanent address after all, and is the district in which I'll be voting. But a hanger-on I remain.

Still, I'm surprised the bureau doesn't at least count absentee ballots in this whole process. But then I'm no demographer.

I also want to fill out the census just to spite those idiots that are convinced the census is some sort of leftist conspiracy. It's embarrassingly absurd. Even Karl Rove says it's OK to fill out the forms.

Tender Ankles: A snap shot of health care in Singapore

2010-03-14T21:23:00.005+08:00

An article in the Washington Post a couple weeks ago looked at Singapore's health care system in comparison it to the US model. Among other things, it said:

Singapore spends less than 4 percent of its GDP on health care. We spend 17 percent (and Singapore's somewhat younger population doesn't begin to explain the difference). Matching Singapore's performance in our $15 trillion economy would free up $2 trillion a year for other public and private purposes.

Impressive. As the article says, adopting all of Singapore's practices would not really work for American patients -- the country's notoriously intrusive tendencies in personal matters is nothing to admire.

But here's a little anecdote, just for matters of comparison. Earlier this month, I tweaked my ankle playing basketball. I knew it was nothing serious, but a few days later it was still a bit tender . So I decided to see the doctor, just to put my mind at ease.

This is something I would never even consider doing in the US -- peace of mind is not worth the however-many-hundred dollars a 10-minute doctor visit would cost. Such exorbitant cost is not something I have to worry about here, though.

I showed up to the clinic without an appointment and had the doctor look at the ankle. As I suspected, nothing a few more days of rest wouldn't fix. He gave me some cream to rub on the muscle to make it feel better. Since I was there anyway, I asked him about a wart on my toe I've had for a while. He gave me something for that too. The grand total when I left, including all medication, was three Singapore dollars -- less than two US dollars.

In the US, I would have spent half an hour or more filling out gratuitous paperwork, waited another 20 minutes for the doctor to see me, probably gotten an X-ray "just to be safe" because the doc doesn't want to get sued, and who knows what else. One thing's for sure -- I would have felt a lot worse after I saw the bill than I did when I went in.

I doubt Singapore has the best health-care system in the world, maybe not even one of the best. But it sure beats what's on offer Stateside.

And one more thing to respect about the way things are done on this side, from the Post piece:

In Singapore, if a child is obese, they don't get Rose Garden exhortations from the first lady. They get no lunch and mandatory exercise periods during school.

How Vancouver won the green medal

2010-03-01T13:28:00.008+08:00

The Vancouver Winter Games have come to a close, and the Canadians did indeed "own the podium", just as they set out to do. Good for them.

The 2010 Games have been billed as a great success, probably the most-watched winter event in history (though die-hard Olympic skeptic Dave Zirin obligingly challenges the merits of this particular edition).

VANOC has also declared this to have been the "greenest Olympics ever", and they're probably right, even though I can't imagine the 1896 Games belched nearly as much carbon into the air as any modern iteration. Regardless, the notion of green Games doesn't really mean much these days.

Still, there were valiant efforts to reduce the Olympic footprint. The odd-looking, wavy medals are probably the best example -- they're comprised of gold from recycled e-waste, an innovative use of one of our most daunting environmental scourges. Have a look (via Motherboard.TV):

Whatever the level of green-ness at the Vancouver Games, you can be sure it will trump the next Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, where environmental degradation is already running rampant -- only one of many problems facing Sochi.

And speaking of e-waste and Vancouver, here's something from the J-school students at my alma mater, UBC, that is quite old but always worth knowing about. It's a Frontline investigation into what happens to the e-waste from North America after it leaves the continent (it goes to impoverished areas of Africa and Asia) as well as the potential national security questions the practice of exporting e-waste raises (not to mention environmental and human security). Watch the video here.

The only thing controversial about the Super Bowl was the music

2010-02-09T11:58:00.004+08:00

One thing is obvious after watching the Super Bowl: Sean Payton has balls. The interception return might have been the play of the game, but the onside kick was the decision of the game, hands down, and was key in setting a second-half tone that allow the Saints to win. Awesome.

I watched the game at Chili's in Singapore (no baby back ribs or Dunder Mifflin staff that I could see). Shockingly, this and another place were the only venues that seemed to be showing the game on the entire island. The other place was booked solid days in advance, and there was standing room only at Chili's.

One guy I sat near was peeved that The Who were playing halftime. Not because they're washed-up has-beens -- he adamantly believed an "American band" should play the Super Bowl. He must have said it four or five times. It's a comment that's hardly even worth refuting. Never mind the fact that the game strives to attract a global audience, or that half the commercials are from non-American companies. "At least it's not U2," he said. Sigh...

Far more worrisome is the alleged plagiarism of a White Stripes song on an Air Force recruitment ad. The Air Force denies any intent to, as the White Stripes allege, "re-record and (use) without permission" the band's song Fell in Love With a Girl, saying an outside company was responsible for creating the soundtrack to the commercial (which has since vanished from the web, from what I can tell). It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Will the US Air Force be the new Men at Work?

As for the pre-game controversy over the Super Bowl ads, here are my thoughts.

CBS's obvious double standard for a Super Bowl of irresistible storylines

2010-02-07T11:06:00.006+08:00

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I watched more NFL games this year living in Singapore than I have any year I lived in North America. That's the power of a DVR and a night shift -- wake up and tear through three games in about three hours, all before work.

But even the casual fan can be excited about what's on tap for the Super Bowl this weekend. The storylines are innumerable and captivating.

The commercials, of course, are always part of the Super Bowl story, but this year the pre-Bowl hype has reached new heights. It all started with Tim Tebow's Focus on the Family spot. Lefties and women's groups were in an uproar that CBS would allow such a controversial message on the airwaves during the big game. Let us watch the game free of politics, they implored.

I don't really have a problem with athletes expressing their political beliefs(douchebags like Paul Shirley aside). For the most part, I think people in prominent positions should use their status to make the world a better place (even if I happen to disagree with their methods).

What I do take issue with is the obvious double standard CBS employed when deciding who and who doesn't get a piece of their precious air space. I wrote about it here, at the Straits Times blog.

(I will also say that I'm bummed I won't be able to watch any of these ads during the game. The stupid simulcast keeps the rest of the world locked out. Even Canada doesn't get to see the commercials. And there might be some good ones this year -- I've heard the Simpsons have a spot (Coke, I think) and I hear LeBron's McDonald's ad reprises the classic Jordan/Bird "nothing but net" spots. Sure, I could watch them online after the fact, but that just seems like a waste of time.)

Satan's response to Pat Robertson, the dark lord's faithful servant

2010-01-17T22:31:00.006+08:00

You've probably heard by now Pat Robertson's "pact-with-the-devil" comments regarding the devastation in Haiti, and gagged with disdain (but, sadly, not disbelief).

The callousness is unthinkable, but fortunately the Devil himself -- somehow channeled through a woman in Minnesota and onto the pages of the Star Tribune -- has responded to Robertson. (Since letters to the editor tend to have short life in cyberspace, here's the text of the letter reprinted in full):

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan
LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

And in another welcome rebuke to Robertson, the consummate Christian extremist, here's former Sacramento Kings center and prominent Haitian activist Olden Polynice talking to The Nation's Dave Zirin:

DZ: I have to ask you your thoughts about Pat Robertson saying the earthquake happened because Haiti made a pact with the devil for independence.

OP: Pat Robertson can suck a big one--you can quote me on that. He is not a man of God and shouldn't claim to be. And you can quote me on that. Please.

You can't mosh to this -- spending time onstage with Fugazi

2010-01-16T23:18:00.004+08:00

I am a man of many regrets. I cringe when I hear these optimistic types proclaim they have no regrets in life. If that's really the case then they are either too simply satisfied or they are deluding themselves.

My list of regrets could fill volumes, but I'm focussed on one in particular at the moment: the fact that I never got to see Fugazi play live. The extent of the regret is somewhat tempered by the fact that I can't remember any specific time they were nearby and I made a conscious decision not to go. But it's a life failure all the same. (Maybe a lifetime of abstaining from substance will allow them to bust out on the road again sometime, but you can only expect so much from a group that must be pushing 50.)

But I did just get a bit of a flavor of what one of their shows might have been like, even beyond the essential "Instrument". It's a compilation of stage banter, sans music, just 40 minutes of the guys castigating moshers and just being general badasses. It doesn't sound like much, but how can you not get a kick out of hearing Ian MacKaye say things like "I'm wearing an inordinate amount of Ben Gay" and muse on the importance of democracy (in this case, an audience petition to get the band to turn the venue lights off). It's really quite entertaining.

Check it out if you have a chance or have 40 minutes of menial work to do (cleaning the bathroom, in my case). I'm sure it pales in comparison to actually being at a show, but at least it will remind you what a legendary outfit they are/were and, if you're like me, what an unfillable void you have in your life.

I heard about it from the Pitchfork blog, which will direct you here.

Another smashing benefit and bash in the little town of Washington

2010-01-12T16:56:00.008+08:00

You haven't been to a party till you've been to a Buck Rainey party.

I've been to a few, mostly back when they were held at the Peppermill in Reno (the winter versions, anyway). But 2009 was my first experience at the Washington Party, spawn of Peppermill.

Postmaster Buck -- chief mail sifter for the little town of Washington -- is the consummate host, and he goes all out.

After trekking to Reno got too cumbersome, with the oft-impassable Donner Pass limiting attendance, Buck decided to bring his year-end bash back to Nevada County -- and he brought the casino along with him. Buck built by hand a regulation-size craps table, a blackjack table and a roulette table. Once a year, he lugs all of them into the dining room at the Washington Hotel and sets up the sweetest casino the sleepy little town has seen in centuries. (See the pics of Buck building the tables and more information about Buck's party-planning at The Wild Buck website (login: "guest" pass: "friend").)

Friends come from far and wide to gamble freely and imbibe deeply. Nevada City's harpist sensation Joanna Newsom and her beau, SNL's Andy Samberg, are regular attendees. Washington's population comes close to doubling on that night, and it's quite likely that the hotel (and bar) makes more money on that single night than it does during any single month the rest of the year.

Sure, it's an excuse for everyone to party like only Nevada City crits know how -- uproariously. But in the end, it's a big benefit for the host town. The hotel rakes in fistfuls of cash, sure, but all the gambling benefits go to the town council. Some $800 was donated this year. It will help pay for the town's electric bill and go towards building a new stone sign at the city limits.

This year's bash is still in the earliest of planning stages, but if you are anywhere near Nevada County around Christmastime 2010, it is an event not to be missed.

Seeking a creative spark in 2010

2010-01-12T16:21:00.005+08:00

I have just returned to Singapore after three weeks in lovely Northern California. I've said it before, and now, once again: I'll take a pine tree over a palm tree any day (though I fall in love all over again with the "live oaks" every time I'm in NorCal).

It's a new year, and for the first time I can remember I've jumped on the old resolution bandwagon. In addition to studying Chinese at least five times a week (I'm currently on once in 12 days), I really want to get my writing gears back in working order, as they seem to have rusted to a halt.

Quite simply, my mind has gone fallow, and it frightens me. My level of inspiration is stuck at zero. I feel like my vocabulary is shrinking, not growing, and that anything resembling a creative peak that I may have had has long past.

I've been feeling this way for months. But it was a conversation a few days after Christmas that really got me self-evaluating. I was talking to someone I've known for years at a party in the little town of Washington (more about the party here). I was trying to talk to her about my life and current interests when she looked at me in mild disbelief and told me plainly: "You've lost your spark."

It was a rather jarring reality unexpectedly thrust in my face, but I could not disagree. She had me nailed.

So please forgive this public reckoning with myself. I'm hoping I can, in 2010, rekindle whatever "spark" I once had and kick this dearth of inspiration. Perhaps it'll require a change in my physical environment, or maybe just an adjustment of attitude. I'm trying to read more fiction and plan to buy a guitar, see if those things help me tap into some dormant creative juices. But this will be a real undertaking, akin to self-reinvention. If anyone has any advice on how to proceed, I'm eager to hear.

Among the Scrabble all-stars in Southeast Asia

2009-12-15T21:20:00.009+08:00

A couple weeks ago, my girlfriend and I took our first dip in the waters of competitive Scrabble. We go head-to-head semi-nightly and the battles are always intense (sometimes, possibly too intense). We figured it was time to put our skills on public display.

The Singapore Scrabble Association was hosting the 2009 Yew Tee Scrabble Open Championship, which, as it turned out, was a warm-up for the biennial World Scrabble Championships (WSC) that was being held the next week in Johor Bahru, Malyasia, just across the strait from Singapore.

We were just there for a little fun, of course, full embodiments of our "Recreational" division (she finished 7th, I finished 9th out of 16 players). But others were there for some real-life Word Wars.

We didn't mingle much with the players in the Masters division. They had a pretty intense palate of games -- eight that day (compared to our six total) and eight the day before. But we chatted briefly with a guy decked out in short shorts and a Metallica "Ride the Lightning" T-shirt. (Didn't catch his name but the T-shirt was sick.) He had flown in from Hungary where he's among the elite, a top-rated player in both English and Hungarian versions of Scrabble. How someone can master all the arcane words required to be a world-class Scrabble player in just English is incredible. To be able to do it in multiple languages just makes my mind hurt. He was in Southeast Asia for the next weekend's WSC and was in Singapore to practice.

Also competing at the Yew Tee Open was New Zealander Nigel Richards, who cooly strolled up to the community center auditorium sporting jeans, a Scrabble T-shirt, a pair of thick glasses and a bulging fanny pack. I noticed him because of the fanny pack, of course, but little did I know that he is, or at least has been, the top-rated Scrabble player in the world, as well as the the reigning WSC champion. He crushed the competition in Singapore, winning 13 of his 16 games by a combined margin of 1575 points. He would go on to finish as the runner-up to Thailand's No 1 player, Pakorn Nemitrmansuk, at the WSC.

The WSC pitted more than 100 players from 40 different countries against each other over three days and 24 games worth of high-powered letter crunching. Turns out Thailand is a Scrabble powerhouse of sorts; Pakorn, who was the runner-up in 2003 and 2005, was one of three Thais to finish in the top 5. He won US$15,000 for his efforts. He secured his victory and a score of 670 by playing the word "botanica", whatever that means.

And here is an interesting little blog posting from the Wall St Journal several months ago about Scrabble.

Obama aces the politics of APEC as Singapore's political freedoms struggle to pass

2009-11-26T11:59:00.004+08:00

I was at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference a couple weeks ago, mostly hanging out in the press room at the Suntec convention center watching on the TV the events going on a couple floors below me.

It was something of a historic conference with Barack Obama making an appearance, which was unfortunately truncated because of the shootings at Fort Hood. He ended up only being in town for less than 24 hours before he was whisked away to China.

While here in Singapore he was able to meet with leaders of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), including Burma, the first time a US president has done either of those things (a prez had never met with ASEAN, and not formally with a Burmese leader since LBJ in 1966).

APEC is not an incredibly interesting event and Obama's presence there was all about cultivating US "soft power". Here is a good description of what APEC is all about from the Economist's Democracy in America blog:

It's a big deal because, while what gets said at these Asian summits isn't usually important, who shows up is. It isn't a big deal because...well, just reverse that last sentence... But it is one of the premier Asian forums for showing up and being photographed standing next to each other while smiling, and one of the irritating things about East and Southeast Asia is that showing up and being photographed standing next to each other while smiling is extremely important. The Bush administration failed to send sufficiently high-ranking officials to Southeast Asia, and experts from the region said that contributed to declining American influence.

From Obama's standpoint, APEC was all well and good; photos were taken, hands were shaken. But the event also highlighted some of the more unseemly aspects of the host nation in terms of its political freedoms (officially, we're supposed to refer to "host economies", for PC's sake; I'm talking about Singapore here).

First, a well-known freelance journalist, Benjamin Bland, was denied accreditation to cover the conference and a renewal of his work visa was rejected, so he couldn't even be in the city while the conference was going on. No explanation was given for the rejection, and Bland said that if he had spoken out about it he would have been arrested. No wonder Reporters Without Borders ranks the country 133rd our of 175 on the world press freedom index (a ranking, by the way, that Singapore's Law Minister K Shanmugam calls "absurd and divorced from reality").

An unrelated, but significant, event also took place while Obama was in town. It was the launch of a book by Dr Lim Hock Siew, Singapore's second-longest-held political prisoner. I can't say I know a whole lot about this man or his politics, but I couldn't help but be captivated by what he had to say at the book launch (see below).

As a top figure in the opposition Socialist party (and a defector of the still-ruling People's Action Party), he was detained without trial for close to 20 years (released in 1982). Opposition voices are not exactly welcomed in Singaporean politics, and as Dr Lim's case shows, many opposition figures are forcefully silenced. I don't know if the book launch was meant to coincide with Obama's visit here, or if anyone expected Obama to even acknowledge the plight of Dr Lim. Under the circumstances, it would have been wildly inappropriate and counterproductive of Obama to do so. Nevertheless, Dr Lim seems to be quite an interesting figure in Singaporean politics, or maybe I'm just a sucker for the underdog:

Overcoming the truthiness of Tim Donaghy and Game 6

2009-11-02T10:59:00.003+08:00

One of the most painful memories of my life as a sports fan (one of my most bitter memories as a human) is the terrible conclusion of the Kings-Lakers playoff series of 2002. It will be a long, long time before a team I care about as much as the Kings even approaches the upper echelons. Those early-aught years were a special time in Sacramento sports history that I'm beginning to realize will probably never be recaptured. NBA talent is moving far away from Sactown, and its return is hardly guaranteed.

This all makes the revelations in disgraced former referee Tim Donaghy all the more painful. Of course we Kings fans accused the referees of engaging in some sort of conspiracy to allow the Lakers to win that series. But that's what any good sports fan would do -- blame the refs for his team's ineptitude.

Then the Donaghy thing happened and we learned that referees really can be corrupted. Donaghy came out swinging, insisting he was not the loan bad apple and that plenty of other dubious choices had been made by referees over the years. He promised a tell-all book and apparently wrote it. It remains unpublished after the NBA threatened to sue.

But excepts have recently emerged and they seem to back up everything Kings fans assumed way back then: Game 6 was fixed.

Now, considering the human tendency toward truthiness, one way to look at Donaghy's allegations is to say that his supposed "truth" jibes all too well with how we, as Kings fans, view the world: that there was a conspiracy against the Kings to boost TV ratings. I don't deny that I'm predisposed to believing anything that bolsters that notion, despite any evidence against it (there's not much, however). The truth is that Donaghy is not exactly a trustworthy character, and to use his claims as your supposed "proof" is not exactly firm ground to stand on.

Still, his claims sound all too plausible, but not in a "truther" sort of way, which represents cynicism to the point of implausibility. Basketball fixing is something that just seems too easy not to happen, it's just all very believable -- and the evidence was right there in front of us.

So yes, Donaghy is a schmuck. But that doesn't mean I still don't feel totally robbed and cheated by forces greater than myself because I didn't get what would have been one of the sweetest vicarious thrills of my life. And yes, the Kings shouldn't have missed all those free throws in Game 7, but that's beside the point (I do think they were the better team in that series, having proved it in Game 6).

In case you haven't seen it, here is what Donaghy has to say about what happened that fateful night in LA, care of Deadspin:

The 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Sacramento Kings presents a stunning example of game and series manipulation at its ugliest. As the teams prepared for Game 6 at the Staples Center, Sacramento had a 3–2 lead in the series. The referees assigned to work Game 6 were Dick Bavetta, Bob Delaney, and Ted Bernhardt. As soon as the referees for the game were chosen, the rest of us knew immediately that there would be a Game 7. A prolonged series was good for the league, good for the networks, and good for the game. Oh, and one more thing: it was great for the big-market, star-studded Los Angeles Lakers.

In the pregame meeting prior to Game 6, the league office sent down word that certain calls — calls that would have benefitted the Lakers — were being missed by the referees. This was the type of not-so-subtle information that I and other referees were left to interpret. After receiving the dispatch, Bavetta openly talked about the fact that the league wanted a Game 7.

"If we give the benefit of the calls to the team that's down in the series, nobody's going to complain. The series will be even at three apiece, and then the better team can win Game 7," Bavetta stated.

As history shows, Sacramento lost Game 6 in a wild come-from-behind thriller that saw the Lakers repeatedly sent to the foul line by the referees. For other NBA referees watching the game on television, it was a shameful performance by Bavetta's crew, one of the most poorly officiated games of all time.

Truthiness is still alive and strong

2009-10-29T12:14:00.006+08:00

Frank Rich has an interesting column this week in defense of Richard Heene, the 'Balloon Boy' dad. Not because Heene is any kind of great dad, rather because "Heene is the inevitable product of this reigning culture, where 'news,' 'reality' television and reality itself are hopelessly scrambled and the warp-speed imperatives of cable-Internet competition allow no time for fact checking."

This column is an extrapolation of the themes Rich explored in his 2006 book The Greatest Story Ever Sold, a work that helped define the meaning of truthiness -- truth derived from emotion rather than from fact -- just as well as any late-night comedian could have. Even though that particular word has been absent from the popular lexicon of late, Rich reminds us that it still very much describes our present reality.

"None of this absolves Heene of blame for the damage he may have inflicted on the children he grotesquely used as a supporting cast in his schemes. But stupid he’s not. He knew how easy it would be to float “balloon boy” when the demarcation between truth and fiction has been obliterated."

Also this week, the Democracy in America blog over at The Economist cited recent research to help explain some of the reactions of both global warming deniers and believers to the new book Superfreakonomics:

"People's pre-existing personality biases, (the researchers found), actually shape their beliefs about the factual reality of the world; more information is unlikely to produce consensus, because people tend to reject information that does not cohere with their worldview ...
We have a dynamic of political discourse that produces absolute belief in things that, often enough, aren't true."

That, too, is textbook truthiness. From-the-gut truth is no longer a cornerstone of American policy (for now at least) so the catastrophic danger of blind faith does not feel as urgent. But it's clear that we've become a society that willingly abandons the need for fact-based truth for the sake of self-satisfaction -- and a good show.

(Note: I'm not trying to say anything about the truth or truthiness behind global warming here or what is said in Superfreakonomics. That's a different discussion entirely. It just happens to be the subject matter of the above link.)

(Only tangentially related, but related all the same: Here is an interview Dan Savage of The Stranger did with Frank Rich recently that is worth a glance. Describes how and why pop songs changed from show tunes to rock songs around the time the Beatles came along.)

Singapore leaders are either too cheap to recycle or too lazy

2009-10-27T13:02:00.005+08:00

Last week, Singapore's infallible first Prime Minister and current Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew was giving a talk at the Singapore Management University and was asked a question about why Singapore has fallen so far behind other industrialized Asian nations like Japan and South Korea on the recycling front. His answer? Too expensive:

On recycling, (MM Lee said) the main problem is that the single rubbish chute in every Housing and Development Board flat encourages residents to throw everything into it, instead of separating their recyclables from food waste as the Japanese, Taiwanese and South Koreans commonly do.

“We have thought about this very carefully, but just restructuring the buildings to make the lift stop on every floor...may cost nearly $100,000 per flat. You start putting two or three chutes into every flat, where do you find the space and what will it cost?” he asked.

True, Singapore has some green tendencies. Just this week it launched a Zero Energy Building, which produces as much energy as it uses and is the first such building in Southeast Asia. The country has also found a fairly innovate method for disposing of waste, at least for the short term. Trash is incinerated and then shipped to an island a few miles off the coast where the ashes are buried. The Semakau landfill also doubles as a rejuvenated nature preserve. But trash incineration, even though it supposedly also creates up to 3% of the total power generated in Singapore, is far from a sustainable way of getting rid of waste.

Still, Singapore is hardly known for its environmentalism. The most popular food courts serve their goods almost exclusively on Styrofoam plates with disposable chopsticks. Grocers may literally give you more plastic bags at checkout than actual products you're purchasing -- one small bag for the meat, one for the soap, another for the shampoo and so on, all placed in another large bag to carry all your (bagged) products. It's shocking, and I stand by with a watchful eye declining the excessive baggage. I usually leave an unneeded bag or two on the counter when I leave.

Recycling is such an easy way to reduce waste. It's a habit that's been drilled into my Western mindset, but it's one of the healthier habits I've developed. Recycling bins apparently exist across the island, but I can't recall ever seeing one. And without a vehicle, it's not exactly convenient to haul bulging bags of bottles and containers to some faraway receptacle.

At my apartment, we put bags of recyclables and stacks of newspapers outside our door or down in the basement, assuming they're picked up and properly deposited. But now I'm not so sure that whoever picks up those items doesn't just toss them in with the rest of the trash.

For MM Lee to be so flippant about even trying to promote recycling is troubling. The way he puts it, it'll just be too expensive to retrofit apartment buildings and that's the end of the discussion. All it would take is to have a collection bin at all apartment complexes, convenient enough for willing recyclers, and have waste management services swoop by on their regular routes. People may be lazy, but just because they can't currently toss recyclables down a shoot like they do other refuse doesn't mean recycling is a lost cause. For such an advanced Asian nation, Singapore's primitive attitude towards recycling is inexcusable.

Weed: The cancer of Humboldt County?

2009-10-23T10:14:00.006+08:00

I just watched the A&E documentary "Pot City, USA", a fear-inducing chronicle of grow houses in Arcata, Humboldt, NorCal.

Watch Part 1. (Thanks NCJ!)

Watch Part 2.

Watch Part 3.

Watch Part 4.

Having not lived in Arcata for nearly four years now, I honestly don't know what the situation has become. This documentary feels a bit sensationalized, complete with dramatic and emotive music and fast cuts. But it also seems pretty accurate when compared to what I've read elsewhere.

Many pot growers (and way too many smokers) often have a misguided sense of entitlement to do what they do simply because they think they're fighting against the injustice of prohibition. The feeling is all the more righteous in Humboldt because pot is quasi-legal there, or at least hyper-tolerated. It's really a shame to see the destruction, as depicted in the documentary, that some of these grow-ops have wrought. I guess I never realized how much damage a careless grower can do to a house -- the mold, the fire danger, the rot. Growers I've known are just more responsible than some, I suppose.

It seems to me that the main problem here is the quasi-legality of pot. Even before it reached that status with the passage of Prop 215, which made medical marijuana legal in California, Humboldt was a haven for pot growers. I also don't know what things were like in the years before 215, but I don't think it was any worse than what's shown in the documentary in terms of number of grow houses. After 215, my guess is that Humboldt's reputation attracted a new wave of growers eager to exploit the already liberal attitude.

But the fact that the drug was/is still technically illegal means growers can still rake in the cash. They have been able to operate in this grey area where pot is both legal and illegal -- liberalized laws make it easier to grow but growers can still get paid from the unregulated black market. A perfect storm, if you will.

One more argument, it seems, for why pot should be fully legalized and regulated -- it's an all-or-nothing endeavor. As mentioned at the end of the documentary, if pot was legalized, all those grow houses would cease to exist. I'm not entirely sure grow-ops would just up and vanish, but at the very least, the trade would not be so lucrative so reckless amateurs would be less inclined to rush up to Humboldt to make a quick buck. If growers had to register with authorities, for example, the potential for damage to a property would be significantly reduced, and if a house was trashed there would be a viable recourse.

It even looks like legalization could happen as soon as next year. Not holding my breath, but hey, California is a trend-setter.

It's clear that growing pot is not (always) a victim-less crime. But the victims would be far fewer if it was no longer a crime.

A tale of chaste sex-tourism in Cambodia

2009-10-12T22:33:00.004+08:00

I was in Cambodia back in the summer. I wrote about it here.

But there is a sequel. It takes place in the seaside town of Sihanoukville. Here it is, at long last, finally published on The Tyee last week.

Enjoy.

The absolute worst sports column ever written (in case you missed it)

2009-09-16T22:11:00.004+08:00

Really slow on posting this, as I am wont to lag. But it is certainly worth your attention (if you've not already granted it) to check out this column written by Mark Whicker of the OC Register.

You've probably already heard about it -- meat-head in Orange County writes a column ostensibly addressed to kidnapping victim Jaycee Dugard running down all the sporting events he can think of that she has missed out on during the 18 years of her incarceration. It is an embarrassment to letters and words and really anything else decent in the world, and indeed has been roundly condemned on these here interwebs. Hard to have any other reaction.

Whicker is obviously completely tone deaf to even conceive of such a thing, but his editors deserve just as much blame for giving his schlock the green light. It's strange, too, because not one week earlier the same newspaper ran an exclusive and very moving interview with Jaycee's aunt, Tina Dugard, who recounted her and her family's experience getting re-acquainted with Jaycee. It's heartfelt and tender, but Whicker's follow-up commentary bashes all those warm fuzzies with a baseball bat.

Whicker has apologized for "disconnect[ing] that bond" with readers who were offended by the column. But in an interview with Poynter Online, he sure doesn't seem all that sorry. "I vehemently believe I wasn't insensitive about the fact that she was kidnapped," he told the website. Hmm...

Seems it's a conceit Whicker's used before, as Poynter points out, having written almost the exact same article in 1991 when hostage Terry Anderson was released from captivity in Lebanon. At least those who fall victim to lunatics have someone keeping track of the sports world for them.

New hoops league to tip off in Southeast Asia

2009-09-08T19:31:00.005+08:00

Basketball fans in Southeast Asia now have some professional teams to call their own, as the ASEAN Basketball League was officially launched last week in Manila. Games should get underway next month.

Backed by AirAsia founder Tony Fernandes, the league will start with six teams from six different countries: the Brunei Barracudas, KL (Kuala Lumpur) Dragons, the Philippine Patriots, the Satria Muda BritAma, the Thailand Tigers and the Singapore Slingers. There will be 15 home and away games with a four-team playoff in February.

Basketball hardly enjoys the following in ASEAN countries as it does in, say, China. My guess is that the Philippine Patriots are going to be the hottest team and probably the most financially successful. Of all these countries, the Philippines is definitely the most hoops-mad -- while soccer is king everywhere else, it barely cracks the top three favorite sports in the Philippines, coming in far behind basketball and volleyball (in that order).

I played a few games with my Filipino roommate's 14-year-old son, and at a foot shorter and 15 years younger than the rest of us, he dominated. The Patriots are the team I'll go check out when they come to Singapore.

According to ESPN Star:

Each ABL team will be fielding seven local players, three ASEAN imports (with one needing just ASEAN heritage to qualify), and two international imports. Teams do not have to field ASEAN imports if they have the additional three local players they are satisfied that can perform just as well, like the Patriots of the Phillipines.
A significant point was made at the press conference and that is the salary cap has been set at US$400,000 per season, with the top import being set to be paid in the region of US$100,000. The second top import's salary will be set at US$50,000, with the remaining players splitting the salary amount left according to their discretion.

The league is interesting because it will pit club teams that represent countries against one another, injecting an undeniable flavor of international competition with heated rivalries almost a given. I'm sure the Singapore/KL games will be intense.

It may take a few seasons to get off the ground, but with solid financial backing and the moral support of FIBA, the ABL could really be something. Measured against the always floundering CBA in China, success should not be too difficult.

For all the dogs that get Left Behind...

2009-09-08T11:14:00.002+08:00

We all know that most pets are hopeless heathens. Beautiful and loving beasts each one, but as unrepentant sinners, their chances of joining the faithful in eternity are nonexistent.

And when The Rapture hits and thousands of believers are instantly transported into Paradise, who will be left to care for our furry friends?

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA, that's who. They are a group of animal-loving atheists who for a meager fee of $110 are offering their services to the hundred million or so Americans who believe that, when the time is right, on the verge of the Apocalypse, God will suddenly call them up to heaven while the rest of us, left behind here on earth, battle evil forces for the survival of our eternal souls (or something like that).

Lest you think it's a joke, the group writes on its website: "This is a serious offer to our Christian friends who believe in the Second Coming and honestly care about the future of their pets after the Rapture occurs."

The group's founder tells the Main Street website that somewhere between one and 175 people have signed up for the service. It's hard to know how many of these might be true believers who worry about their pets and how many are just fellow atheists who support the effort. Either way, it's nice to see such harmony between the saved and the damned, working together for the betterment of animal welfare.

Hoping Kennedy's death eases the insanity in the health-care debate

2009-08-31T17:10:00.004+08:00

In another blog posting for the Straits Times, I weigh in on the health-care debate, taking a cue from something Chris Dodd said about how everyone, in Ted Kennedy's honor, should just take a deep breath and talk about health care rationally, minus all the death-panel idiocy.

Not that Leaner readers need much convincing that the American health-care system is in serious need of an overhaul, however it happens, or that all this babble about death panels is nonsense, but here and here are a couple stories to push that argument even further (which didn't make it into the blog post). The first one embodies everything wrong with insurance companies; the second is just a tragic tale of how burdensome health care is in its current form.

As for the blog posting itself, the conversation developing in the comments is refreshingly worthwhile. Have a look.

While we're free-associating, more Bill Hicks!

2009-08-31T12:32:00.007+08:00

In searching for the YouTube link at the bottom of my last post, I ended up taking a pretty thorough journey down Bill Hicks memory lane. It reminded me that I had forgotten to watch the David Letterman clip from January featuring Bill's mother, Mary Hicks.

The brief backstory is that Bill was scheduled to appear on Letterman back in 1993, months before he passed away, but Dave, in a heavy-handed act of censorship, decided Bill's material was not appropriate for the show and cut the segment.

Fifteen years later, Dave decided to make amends and had Bill's mom on and showed the cut segment. Mary is very sweet and Dave honorably acknowledges his mistake and repeatedly apologizes for it. It's actually quite moving.

Here is Dave's intro, followed by the bit with Mary and Bill's never-before-seen Letterman segment:

Not gonna be such a good night for Muslims in Malaysia

2009-08-29T15:07:00.006+08:00

The Black Eyed Peas are scheduled to play a concert near Kuala Lumpur on September 25, but the Malaysian government has banned all Muslims from attending the show. It seems the fact that the show will be sponsored by Guinness beer goes against Islamic law, which prohibits the consumption of alcohol.

The show is only allowed to go on at all because authorities think it will be good for tourism. Not for Muslim tourists of course; even Muslims that live outside the country are legally forbidden to consume booze there -- and to go to the show. (No beer will be sold at the concert either.)

Black Eyed Peas fans are not the only ones to feel the wrath of Malaysia's strict booze laws. A model who is visiting Malaysia was recently convicted of drinking a beer. For her transgression she was to face four lashes with a bamboo cane (her caning has been suspended until after Ramadan). She wants it to be a public caning, to set an example to other Muslims.

As for the Black Eyed Peas, I have a deeply ambivalent attitude toward them. They mostly just make me depressed. Their first two records are great. But the fact that the first track on their first record, "Fallin' Up" off Behind the Front, contains the lines "Is it 'cause we don't wear Tommy Hilfiger or baseball caps?/ We don't use dollars to represent, we just use our inner sense and talent", their Dr. Pepper commercials were a little hard to swallow when they came out. It's only gotten worse.

I bristle at the idea of accusing artists of "selling out". There's nothing wrong with success, however you define it. Black Eyed Peas know how to write hits (I doubt they play "Fallin' Up" very often these days), but I can't say I dig their music these days.

I think the late great Bill Hicks said it best:

He also said it here, but less directly. "It's only your dignity. Suck it!"

**UPDATE** Looks like the BEP show in Malaysia is back on. Score one for the moderates.

ESPN starting to cover disc golf

2009-08-26T11:51:00.004+08:00

At a loss for anything else to write about, I thought I'd direct your attention to a solid article from ESPN's page 2 website about disc golf. (Page 2, of course, used to be the realm of Hunter S. Thompson in his later years. One can only imagine what his gonzo take on disc golf would have been...)

Every year, it seems, disc golf is deemed "the fastest growing sport in America" or something to that effect. Whether that's true or not any given year is hard to say. People are probably more financially strapped this summer than in summers past, and as folks search for low-cost entertainment, well, there are worse places to end up than a disc golf course.

The ESPN story does have its requisite introductions to the game, the obligatory hat tip to the "long-haired hippie" cliche and the standard disc golfer bluster -- one tournament director is quoted saying "Who's to say in 20 years [disc golf] isn't conventional golf?" No need to get carried away. Disc golf will always exist on the fringes of the sports world. Still, it's nice to see a major sports media organization like ESPN give some serious attention to it.

There are even a few things in this story that I didn't know about. I didn't know, for example, that there was some $2 million floating around in PDGA tournaments last year. And I had no idea that Dave Feldberg teaches a for-credit class on disc golf at the University of Oregon (cue underwater basket-weaving reference). All I can say is that I hope part of the class involves taking a field trip to Whistler's Bend in Roseburg, one of the best courses around, in my opinion.

Probing the gray areas of racial profiling

2009-08-05T11:15:00.004+08:00

Here's something I wrote last week following the little furor over Obama's comments on the Henry Louis Gates affair. It's a tale long-time readers will already be familiar with.

I hesitated writing it because I wasn't sure the extent to which it would perpetuate certain stereotypes. I decided it was OK, though, because my point is that racial profiling is rarely a clear-cut issue; it so often falls into that uncertain gray area. Even what at first seemed like a clear-cut case of profiling with the Gates/Crowley incident turned out to have far more shades to it than first appeared. But we should stare hard at these gray areas, because that is where our prejudices really reveal themselves.

Still, some commenters found my story offensive because I supposedly perpetuate a racist myth. Others are offended that I condemn Crowley for being a racist (which is simply not true). Not sure how to reconcile the two sides, but I tried to write it in a way that rejects the notion that I was mugged because of the race of my perpetrators. It was merely situational, but highlights the thorniness of the issue.

The incident I recount in this story is something that happened, a real-world application to the utopian ideal that we can and should always look beyond the superficial. If I had taken one look at the gentlemen who mugged me, evaluated their appearance and run the hell away, wouldn't that in itself be racial profiling? Is that acceptable, and if so, where do we draw the line?

Conversing with them and expecting the best may have been naive, but it was also a conscious effort not to make prejudiced judgments. What was the "right" thing to do? I'm still not sure. But some of the nasty comments are sure, however -- sure that whatever I did, it was wrong. Ah, the conundrum.

You want to find a racist in this story, how about this guy?

Launching a new address

2009-08-03T23:59:00.003+08:00

Welcome to the unceremonious launch of a new web address for the Left Coast Leaner. The address of the old site was going to change anyway, plus it wasn't a very good address to begin with.

Things should be much cleaner and smoother here on Blogspot. Much nicer software. Hope I retained some eyeballs. Also hope to move over some archives from the old site, for nostalgia's sake.

Also, I'm trying out this Adsense thing. If anyone finds it offensive or intrusive, please let me know. I don't expect to make any cash from it, but hey it's worth a try.

Thanks for reading!

Tuol Sleng and the Killing Fields: A morning basking in past brutalities

2009-08-03T20:34:00.002+08:00

I've been spending more time travelling than blogging, lately. I should be staying put here in Singapore, for a while anyway, but for now I'm going to use this space to regurgitate some of what I've seen.

It's not all interesting, but some of it is. Back in June I took a trip to Cambodia. I was told before I left that Cambodia is a place where things rarely go according to plan. Even though I had no firm plans going in, I still found this to be the case.

The first part of my trip, in which I play "genocide tourist", can be summed up here. Read that for more explanation about the material below.

The rest of (this part of) the trip will be told through pictures (and some text):

This is the inside of one of the classrooms-turned-torture chambers at Toul Sleng prison (S-21). Hard to imagine what unspeakable acts happened to poor souls shackled to that metal bed, tortured into unconsciousness. Outside this room is a set of tall wooden poles. It's like a gallows but without the mercy of death. Prisoners would be yanked off the ground by their arms, behind their backs not over their head. Once the prisoner passed out from the pain, he would be lowered to the ground where his head would be shoved in a cauldron of rancid water, often contaning human waste, to be shocked back into consciousness.

These are some of the thousands of pictures of condemned inmates. The utterly terrified look of the guy on the bottom left pretty much sums up how I think I'd feel if in their position.

These are some paintings by Vann Nath, one of the 10 or fewer prisoners to survive out of the 15,000 or so detained at the prison (see some more of his paintings here, depicting the varieties of torture and murder inflicted at Tuol Sleng). Vann Nath recently testified at the ongoing genocide tribunal. Pay particular attention to the painting on the right (hint, note the water can)...

Look familiar? Looks an awful lot like waterboarding to me. That means the tactics the US has employed in the "war on terror" to extract information are comparable to the brutalities favored by the Khmer Rouge. Let it be said, indisputably: waterboarding is torture.

Part of what makes Tuol Sleng so chilling is its dirt and grittiness. This is not a Disneyland ride. I have no official confirmation, but if those aren't blood stains underneath where there were once shackles and countless suffering prisoners, I have no idea what they are.

In case anyone had the idea to plunge off the third floor of the cell block to end with a quick and relatively honorable death, three-storey sheets of barbed wire were stretched across the front of the building. That's the courtyard in front.

Finally, this is not at Tuol Sleng but the "Killing Fields", which likely more people have heard of. It's where most Tuol Sleng prisoners were hauled and finally executed, usually with a club to save bullets. The fields themselves, formerly an orchard, are not much to look at. Some exhumed mass graves, now grassy ditches scarring the earth. A lot of skulls too. It's all about the vibe there, just dwelling for a moment on the unspeakable acts and thoughtless murder committed just 30 years earlier on that very spot. The thing that represents this perversion of nature more than anything else is above: the killing tree. Guards would bash the heads of children against the base of the trunk and dispose of them that way. This glorious, benevolent entity twisted and turned into a tool of destruction ... it really just gets me, eats at my conception of nature. I sat in the tree's shade and pondered this paradox. It still haunts me.

Standing up for the "sexually challenged"

2009-06-01T12:48:00.000+08:00

It's easy to retch at the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold the legal-discrimination edict of Proposition 8. A shame, yes, but really not all that surprising. And, sadly, it was the "right" decision, in that the court's job is to interpret the constitution, not legislate. Like it or not, in a state famously "governed by proposition", the constitution actually allows the nuptial equivalent of separate drinking fountains for gay people.

That is reason enough for California to junk its current constitution and start from scratch. Suffocating 2/3-majority requirements that leave the state financially hamstrung every year is probably the most politically viable reason to start fresh, but the fact that California's constitution now officially promotes ignorance makes the whole thing seem worthless. The fact that a majority of ignoramuses can pass a measure so rooted in archaic understandings of human relationships proves the current system is seriously flawed in what is otherwise a fine state.

Then again, it's not all that bad when compared to the situation in Singapore. We learned earlier that views of homosexuality here are not exactly enlightened. And though I think people in the US who would deny a homosexual the right to marry the person he or she loves would be the same people a generation earlier tsk tsking at "uppity negroes" holding up traffic, I also realize that they don't hold a flame to attitudes here.

To review the basics: sex between two men in Singapore is against the law; it is a "gross indecency" under section 377A. Apparently, sex between women is OK, or at least not criminal -- they seem to differentiate between "lesbianism" and "homosexuality" here. To be fair, anal and oral sex of any kind was illegal here until 2007, when that ban was repealed. Progress?

Like elsewhere, I would hope attitudes towards homosexuals here are evolving and that discrimination will die out in the next generation. But reading some of the things printed in the paper last week makes me think attitudes here have a long way to go.

Take this letter to the Straits Times, posted on the website. The author sagely informs us that "sexually challenged" is not an offensive term referring to gays. He continues:

"It is a fact that homosexuality is an abnormality for the simple reason that it is against the laws of nature. Nature intended each species to reproduce itself and homosexuality does not do the job.
"It is possible that some people are born with homosexual inclinations but that does not make them normal. They are in the same category as people born mentally retarded or blind or deaf or mute. While we may sympathise with them, we do not think of them as normal."

How enlightening. (In case that link disappears, as the ST website is not terribly reliable in its archives, here's the cache.)

On Thursday, another article ran quoting a professor named Koo Tsai Kee, who delivered an impassioned plea to Parliament warning that "intolerance" poses the biggest threat to Singapore. Ok, you'd think, some truly wise words. (Here's the cache.)

"Intolerance", Mr Koo says, is a "growing cancer in society". But to him, intolerance only relates to "religious and racial bigotry". The AWARE saga (linked above) was a showdown between a group of conservative Christians and another group of (for the sake of derogatory hyperbole) homosexual sympathizers. That the debate was "framed" this way by the media, Mr Koo claims, shows there is a clear "intolerance of diversity". In other words, being supportive of gays is an affront to Christianity and, thus, a potentially destructive show of intolerance.

The way the saga was covered, Mr Koo suggests, was tainted by reporters "hobnobbing with the homosexual fraternity", something that calls into question "whether there should ever be an unregulated press". ST editor Han Fook Kwang rightly refuted such claims in his defense of ST's coverage, which was as complete as it could be under the circumstances.

But no one in the mix seems to understand the heart of the issue: Tolerance means tolerating everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual preference. The very fact that there are laws on the books ANYWHERE that legalize discrimination and criminalize human nature is an affront to humanity. Until we see the end of officially sanctioned intolerance, the "growing cancer" will continue to spread.

The mysterious disc golf basket in downtown Singapore

2009-05-15T23:56:00.002+08:00

I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I was on my way home from the CBD in Singapore, on the 70 bus. I was looking out the window as we passed SunTec City, the giant mall and convention center near the City Hall subway stop. Singapore was still a new place to me at the time, so there were many unusual sights for me to see. But this forced a double-take:

What in the world is a disc golf basket doing there?!

Disc golf in Asia is very rare indeed. The biannual Japan Open is well known and well attended (even if people grumble about the 150-weight-class requirement), and earlier this year Taiwan staged the first-ever Asia Open. There is also a course on the island of Koh Samui in Thailand. (Tragically, I took a trip to Koh Samui a few months ago, and despite knowing that there was a course somewhere in Thailand, I didn't realize it was actually the very spot I was on holiday until after I got back. Foolish. Anyway, I heard rumors that it has closed, which I hope is not true, though it would make me feel better since I blew it so badly earlier.) And of course, there's my failed attempt to get something going in Beijing.

The game does exist here in Singapore, despite the absence of permanent courses. This is pretty much all thanks to die-hard Lance DuBos, an ultimate player who acquired some portable golf baskets along the way and trucks them out to various spots on the island most weekends. There is a very small core of us that get together for a few hours, most often at the state-land park next to Kallang MRT, and throw discs -- that is, when we don't get pummeled by violent downpours and bone-rattling thunder-and-lightning strikes.

But no one can explain the basket pictured above; no one else even knew it existed. From what I can tell, it's on the grounds of the Raffles Education Corp College. I'm not entirely sure what this college is all about, but they seem to have some sort of design program. My best guess is that some student sometime put together a disc golf basket for a project and they just kept it around because it was quirky. It sits there, apparently embedded in the ground (it's not portable), sitting unused in a small plot of lawn next to a basketball court. I wonder if it's ever tasted the sweet ching of a disc sliding through its hanging chains...

I can think of several better places to put that basket (and between 8 and 17 others). Kallang would be one, though I think it works better as a temporary course. Another would be the plot of state land at the end of Guillemard road where it meets Sims, right next to the Judo Club. That spot is a little too swampy, though.

The most perfect spot on the island, from what I've seen, is the vast plot of rolling hills on Upper Serangoon Rd, between Aljunied and Braddell Rds., the site of the old Bidadari cemetery. It is a crime not to have a disc golf course there. If we could only figure out the origin of that mysterious basket across from SunTec, maybe we could get this place on course to be a truly industrialized nation.

**UPDATE** (March 30, 2010): There is now an object disc-golf course at the old Bidadari Cemetery in Singapore: Bidadari Disc Golf Course. Contact me if you want to play, or check out the map.

Pacific Ocean's Trash Island revisited

2009-04-05T09:01:00.001+08:00

Some of you may remember a mention I made last year about a massive "trash vortex" about the size the size of the continental US floating out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It's still there, of course, and got a recent write-up in the Wall Street Journal. The gyre of trash sounds like an environmental travesty; The Economist doesn't seem to think it's doing much good since the breakdown of plastics tend to seep into the food chain on onto our plates. But the Journal still manages to put a positive, yet interesting, spin on it:

Though no one thinks any possible benefits of plastic outweigh risks, Prof. Karl did find some positive aspects of the patch -- a high concentration of microorganisms clinging to the debris. "The microorganisms are good for the ocean, because it turns out they're making oxygen," Prof. Karl says. "If plastics were otherwise neutral to the environment, then they'd be helping by harvesting more solar energy." Dr. Bamford says it is possible that a cleanup, even if it were feasible, would do more harm than good, by removing these organisms.

The Journal also mentions the disagreement over the exact size of this marine plastic pile. Could be as big as North America, could be as small as Quebec. I wonder how much of of the estimated 100 million tons of plastic out there is made up of my discarded goods...

(This originally appeared on this date at the old address, which is no longer accessible)

Trash island -- 'plastic soup' as big as a continent

2008-02-21T08:10:00.000+08:00

I wish there was some sort of picture because I don't believe it myself, but apparently there is a massive "trash vortex" -- twice as big as the continental United States -- 10 meters thick and packed with everything from footballs to kayaks to Lego pieces and other garbage thrown overboard or elsewhere that is swirling around the Pacific Ocean about 500 nautical miles off the California coast stretching almost as far as Japan.

Go to the link to read more and to see a graphic. There's no picture because since much of the waste is translucent, satellite images can't detect it. I'll just leave you with this vivid (written) image:

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

(This originally appeared on this date at the old address, which is no longer accessible)