Having the cake and eating it at the same time...

"Gamblers in our midst: Unmasking the Singapore punter", a special report published in today's edition of the Straits Times, discusses the observations of a couple of ST journalists over their 5 day outings at both our casinos. I must admit that the article proved to be throughly insightful as it provided a glimpse into the lives of those individuals affected, be it positively or negatively, by the launching of these 2 IRs on our shores. I read through all the mini-articles and loved the way they categorized/stereotyped the assortment of punters who pass through the doors of both Casinos.

After reading all the articles + the recommendations at the end, I got a sense (no prizes or surprises there too...) that aside from the extra income and revenue from the casino levies and regional publicity generated by the opening of these two casinos, nothing good has come out from the establishment of these two casinos. "Technician Jerry Lee, 38, misses the celebratory dinner his mother had cooked at home...", "The last straw came when he (Mr Khoo) gambled away the last bit of money meant to settle the family's utility bill","Gambling is now his dirty little secret..." etc., the list of stories goes on and on. Personally, the negative externalities incurred by our society as a whole, far outweigh whatever profit we're generating from these two casinos. In fact, I believe that none of these social ills can be compensated by any amount of money.

Singapore isn't a state stuck in some random desert away from the rest of civilization, neither is it an island isolated from the main population reachable only by a couple hours of flying or ship. We're a small city state with our people as our only resource. Proximity makes a helluva a difference and we're starting to see the impacts of these two casinos on our society. One family broken as result of poor self restraint on the part of the gambler is one family too much. There was a report (if my memory doesn't fail me...) written a couple of years back about the feasibility of establishing these two casinos a while back and the report concluded that the casinos should NOT have been built.

Now that both casinos have been completed and opened for business, we start to see hear more and more "true" stories of individuals and families getting burnt by their escapades emerging from the shadows of these two glitzy new buildings. The broken family, the youth who started gambling merely out of curiosity, the terminally ill individual who chooses to shut himself up in a casino wasting his days away... its almost painful to carry on. Did the relevant authorities factor this into their calculations before OK-ing the casino despite strong protest from Singaporeans? I highly doubt so.

What's hilarious perhaps is the list of recommendations published after the main article. 10 seemingly well thought out and carefully planned recommendations on how to reduce the social ills emerging as a result of these two casinos. Some seem workable but others such as having social workers prowl the casino floors to spot potential gambling addicts? seriously? You can't have the damn cake and consume it at the same time I say. I seriously need to get back to my essays but yeah... go read both articles and reflect on it... Here's a quote for those out there who haven't made up their minds about gambling yet.

"The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your POCKET."

- Kin Hubbard

Logical Reasoning

I made a decision a long time ago with regards how I was going to handle some of the friendships I have established over the years. There are some which just keep going on because... the friendship itself was an end in its own right and there were those that fizzled out because the friendship took too much out of one party of the other. There are some friendship that seem to flicker about like a candle in the wind but still stay firm at the end of the day and there are those that blossom like a Mexican Petunia, only to die before the next sunrise. A friend once talked to me about the importance of sustaining a friendship, the need to make an effort to groom and nurture that friendship. The friend continued to mention that the lack of enthusiasm on my part was detrimental to the sustenance of that friendship.

I see all human relationships, when stripped to its bare essence, a simple transaction of emotion between two individuals. One must have something the other needs and vice versa for that transaction to go through or that relationship to occur. The lack of enthusiasm perhaps is a result of me realizing my inability to provide you with what you seek and you not being able to do the same :) Simple and good analogy, I would say.

Passion

Never had it, never will. I wish there was an ejection lever I could pull :(