Please REACH OUT!

The majority still not aware what TOC is about.
Many of these are Intellectuals and degree holders lost
in the city life of work-sleep-wakup-work-sleep.

slaves to installments.

these are what I call the Apathetic. Many of whom are Apathetic BY CHOICE.

Break down this wall!

Other walls have fallen, not this one. It is tougher than a a cryptonite is to superman. everywhere have changed. Not this one baby. It will take a MIRACLE.

Apathetic by choice are
people who knows what are the existing issues and problems and concerns
but choose to ignore if not avoid talking about these issues
and this effectively means and leads to
the rest being sabotaged.
maybe these have vested interest to take care of.

juz me 1.09 cents.

if nation in crisis,
hope there be less who would kow tow to evil
sacrifice others for selfish desires.

Another piece of fantastic manouvering by TOC. Make sure you guys take the opportunity to publicise TOC by ensuring that your brand name is prominent enough for all to see.

TOC’s success is largely attributed to its willingness to listen and work with its readers. Hope it continues in this vein.

On a personal level, I hope to see TOC move away from picking articles from the MSM. It will be better if it can produce news of its own for us to discuss and share our thoughts. Otherwise, it will always be seen as a blogsite that does nothing more than nitpicking on the govt and its policies.

Here’s wishing TOC a healthy and long life.

You have done a great favour for Singaporeans by giving us an alternative channel to not only keep up to date with current affairs but also allowing us to participate in it. I hope to see more open discussion with representatives from the pro-govt camp (like cjc, as an example). This way, TOC will become a very credible alternative voice where honesty and sincerity is the order of the day.

Keep up the good work TOC and continue to stay true to yourself.

A heartfelt thank you from the bottom of my heart.

ps: is TOC able to move out of the regular time slots of between 5pm and 7pm on Saturdays? This will allow others with fixed committments at these times to come mingle with you guys and fellow readers..

That is a great opportunity to come up, close and personal with TOC

gemami,

Huh? “Manouvering”?? No la. Where got? We’re just going to try and have some fun, away from the very serious socio-political stuff day in day out. Time for a breather and we thought this would be good.

No manouvering of any sort! :)

Andrew Loh

Good for TOC, should do it on every Saturday if better to all those HDB Hubs in different areas ike Toa Payoh, AngMokio, Jurong IMM, just to name a few. These are those places where many people who are still unaware of TOC existence and its purpose. Believe me , go to all these places and you have already won at least 50% of the entire population readers.

Nice closure for 2008 guys. FTW!

Hi guys and gals,

We’re looking into doing something special for the poor elderly folks during Chinese New Year. We haven’t made any concrete plans yet but it’ll be something which we haven’t done before.

We hope to have your help when the time comes. We’ll make an announcement here on TOC in a week or two.

It’ll be something simple but meaningful… for our elderly…

Andrew Loh

The year 2008 is coming to a close.
However, issues follow us into 2009.
Lets Never Forget.

Hi Andrew,

Take it positively lah.
Should have used ‘expanding’ instead? Yup, expanding its scope. Well done, any way you look at it.
:)

When you meet friends, old friends or ex-class mates in reunions
its a good chance to find out how many are apathetic by asking the right questions.

toc readers may be shocked how many are not aware or interested in issues affecting themselves or their fellow men. issues of public interest which means can affect themselves if not their children later.

we must continue to find answers.

don’t u get scared if it attract the police attention?

4 interviewers + 1 cameraman = 5 pple

uh oh, is it an unlawful assembly?

Hi gemami;

this IS NOT meant to sing a different tune to your call for TOC not to tag to topics in the MSM. I see a need to know citizen’s reactions to news reported in our MSM which almost all of know to be mouth pieces of the Regime.

Much of the contents in MSM are said and known to brainwash, indoctrinate and to social engineer the populace on top of glorifying themselves(leaders) to no end.

When TOC Readers and Posters put in their reactions, views and thoughts to the MSM here, we get to know how much the citizens believe in the MSM, how credible the MSMs are and what type of calibres are working for the MSMs. In short, through TOC, the leaders and MSM people will get to know themselves(leaders/media people) better by reading the reflections of their readers and audiences in TOC and other Blogs.

Contents in MSMs are not only sanctioned by the Authority, they carry much of the policies of the Leadership to the citizens and as we are very awared, much of the policies lately are ‘bitter pills’ as rightly and aptly described by the PM himself.

It is certainly great that TOC is reaching further out to the people by going beyond the Cyberspace and moving into the living and working real space. This is a solid concrete move and for once I see an organization doing something substantial, much more than any opposition party has ever done, for the betterment of our society.

To the TOC PEOPLE, I hereby salute YOU(all) with respect !!!

Yours Sincerly: patriot

Hi patriot,

I understand your position and I would like to apologise to you in case you or anyone else read me wrongly.

I must quickly add that I agree with you that we cannot run away from the fact that news will still be dictated by the MSM. However, we need not be dominated by it, as you have rightfully suggested, by bringing these topics onto TOC for a fair, open and honest discourse.

I am silently hoping that TOC will be more popular in 2009 and that the increase in readership and participation will be more than the last two years put together or beyond. When it is able to achieve this end, and people find it credible and reputable, then it might be wise to report independently on the same issues that are reported by the MSM, or to source out other issues that might have been suppressed or overlooked (like the 179 workers).

Trick is to know what the issues are, where they are etc. and to go after them before the MSM does. It might be too soon for such a wish but a wish is still a wish and I do not want to underestimate the speed of growth that TOC can make progress on.

Just so you know, I was half asleep when I posted in #4, and the words I used there were struggled out from my mind. Just wanted to quickly let TOC know that I am one of its most ardent supporter eversince I stumbled onto the blogsite.

My hats off to all at TOC.

Best regards,
Gemami P.

1) I think this is a great move by TOC to reach out to the members of the public. The timing is just great as Singapore winds down the year and look forward to next year in every aspects of their lives, socio-political or otherwise.

2) TOC should consider doing such “outing” on a regular basis, just stay connected and get first hand feel on the ground. Perhaps its TOC’s version of the ‘meet-the-people session’.

3) One wonders though how TOC is managing its resources, especially in financial term, while its undertakes this and many other activities in the future. High costs are involved in maintaining its team and improve the quality of its writings and research. It maybe too quick for me to suggest here that TOC, in order to remain viable in the long run, should consider charging some minimal subscription fees (just like their counterpart in neighbouring country).

Regards.

I am glad that TOC now takes to the street and talk to people on camera. You may see that many Singaporean will speak quite differently on camera than writing post like this. I believe that the views expressed on camera will be rather mild as compared to that in the post.

As many has expressed disappointment with the ruling party, but there seems to be little than we can do. We are like barking dogs that have no teeth.

I sincerely hope that the opposition can take note of all the comments made in TOC and teach the ruling party a lesson.

If TOC can somehow have a collaboration with talkingcock.com to expand the content, than it can be more interesting because talkingcock.com has a humor element in its site.

I look forward to see the TOC videos online .

Good job.

TOC wrote:
>*There have been some comments which contain vulgarities. Please do not ?use vulgarities – either in local slang or in English. Comments which contain such vulgarities will not be allowed. Thanks.

You guys and gals need to grow up. Please make an effort to understand the context which the expletives were made. Some persons may be so frustrated that they resorted to expletives to express their extreme frustration. Others may resort to expletives due to the limits of their vocabulary to express the depth of their unhappiness. Therefore, please show your emphathy while they are shouting at the top of their voice or in the process of expressing the expletives. You can do so by looking at them intently and nod sincerely while they are expressing themselves. Educated and civilised individuals like ourselves do not censor others when they are using expletives. Nor do we say we do not allow this or do not allow that. Instead we show emphathy. If in doubt, you can always seek my advice. Thanks.

If they were to spit on your faces while at the height of expressing their expletives, please dodge.

I think Singaporeans who like to online often should bookmark TOC as an important website to be accessed daily.

Francis Chua,

I am sorry but I do not agree with what you said.

I think one should learn to express oneself without resorting to expletives or vulgarities.

Andrew Loh

Albert Einstein said that it is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. I think he is correct in his observation. Often, in the regimentation of the formal educational process, paradoxically, curiosity which is where knowledge arise, gets drown out. Maybe, formal ‘education’ should be relabel as formal ‘indoctrination’ instead.

This is also proof that Singapore is non-meritocratic, despite the official claims that Singapore is meritocratic. The ignorant idiots are at the top, in the universities, doing the directions, while the talented and knowledgeble are not. This show up the prejudices in Singapore against those without the benefit of the ‘paper’ qualifications. I PROTEST!!!

Just how many in Singapore have the ability to express their unhappiness the way the educated hypocrites do, that is why some of them express it in expletives. See the point? At least there is honesty in the expression of expletives when one vocabulary fails them. What a freaking rotten society!

Anyway, time to dismantle the Lee Kuan Yew elitist system, it is proving to be an idiotic system that is an embarrassment as well as a danger to the general public.

[i] think one should learn to express oneself without resorting to expletives or vulgarities.

Andrew Loh[/i]
which is why
on this topic
i have nothin to says or express
in some other forum including the great young ntuc
you have yet to see my picture of 1 finger point
hee hee

TOC is still bounded by limitations.

I support TOC’s stand against vulgarities. It is not censorship. It is plain courtesy in speech or writing.

If a poster feels his expression is seriously limited by a lack of vocabulary, he can simply SHOUT by using capitals when posting. It doesn’t require too much formal education to do this. Let’s keep our comments decent.

Dear All;

I support TOCs’ call to commentors not to use expletive and vulgarity in postings at this site.

It is my sincere belief that the meanings, messages and expressions can be fully conveyed without the use of ‘dirty words’, as is clearly the case in TOC Postings that we have read this far and we know it can be maintained this way.
There are other sites where the uses of expletives are quite a norm and those with unbearable frustrations could go over and join the crowds there and return here after throwing away those frustrations. Hope I do not douse your enthusiasms as I do wish that more will participate in the discussions here.

Me like to suggest to TOC to have its’ email add at every thread(article) either at the top or bottom so that whenever any reader want or need to communicate confidentially with the staff will be able to do so. As can be seen in postings from time to time, readers offering their opinions on the legal/lawfuless of TOC Activities, some of those reminders/cautions may have came from people familiar with the Local Legislations trying to offer their advices. Such kind offers would be better served with direct contacts; I opine.

I have learnt much from reading TOC and got to know some kind and helpful fellow countrymen, hope we will interact with one another with kindness and gentle persuasions.

I thank All for reading this post.

patriot

Re. 26, yes there are always ‘limitations’, be they legislative or normative, but I think TOC has done a fantastic job in working within its perceived parameters. Andrew may think otherwise, but there has been some very clever manouvering on TOC’s part — moves to embrace a wider section of the populace hitherto distanced from online activism and political commentary, which I believe can only be healthy for Singaporean civil society.

Happy New Year to all!

I hope to see more people, especially the government, reaching out to the needies and elderlies, and not simply
providing “relief packages” then sit there waiting for those who stand to benefit come forward themselves.

I hope to see more activists engaging the government directly (or should I say, go through proper channel first), and not simply
take to the streets and rant all the way, asking “perhaps the appropriate authority should look into this?”

I hope to see more proactive measures taken to help vulnerable investors, and not simply,
set a few rules and expect the financial institutions (FI) to comply, and if they allegedly don’t, expect the complainants to take the FI to tasks individually.

I hope to see more proactive measures taken to help vulnerable workers (local and foreign), and not simply,
set a few rules and expect the employers to comply, and if they allegedly don’t, expect the complainants to take the employers to tasks individually.

I hope to see everyone actively participating in nation building, to make Singapore a better place to live, work and play and not simply,
shut our mouth, work harder, pay taxes and progress economically only.

I wish everyone a better New Year!