National day

Watching NDP online

Yesterday was National Day ... Singapore's that is. Thanks to Channelnews Asia online, I could watch the Parade. It's been many years since I watched the Parade ... I remember it used to be in the Padang with govt. officials wearing white. Everything solemn and dignified. Imagine my shock when I saw govt. officials yesterday wearing red T-shirts and waving flags and marching into the podium in twos ... like Noah's Ark's animals. Or as I thought - a Disneyland Parade. And their entry to the stadium was announced and the public was called to applaud ... what was this???? Rise of the personality cult??? In the past, MPs came unannounced, low key, humble. I'm not used to this "new generation" of govt. officials' style. It departs drastically from the spirit of LKY. It's now very Hollywood, hyped and americanised. Not a right move ... because the higher the profile, the harder the fall.

Summer flowers

It has been unusually humid these past few days. In the mornings the Mt. of Olives is barely visible in the mist. And the nights get quite chilly. Someone mentioned that the day temp. is also not as hot as last year ... but we forget the past all too easily and complain only about the present. True. Anyway the humidity is doing great things for the plants ... they are blooming longer than usual into August. And the humidity is a bit of help to my asthma. The moisture in the air reduces the irritation on my bronchus so I get less attacks ... relatively.

Absolutely ingenious ... the PM who is beleaguered with accusations of many things, has now a bill tabled to be passed which will make him immune to investigation for any accusation that carries a jail term of 6 months or less. They're minor offences after all. That's the argument for tabling this bill. The ingenuity of the democratic system.  http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Opposition-outraged-by-bill-exempting-PM-from-probes-of-minor-offenses-463622

To distract from this contentious issue, headlines have focussed on Israel's first medal at the Rio Olympics. It's a bronze medal for Judo. Not bad. Let's see if there's going to be more medals this week.