I don’t think TYS was “sought” for the article. It is his style to actively “seek” for such opportunities to show off. It was REALLY his style to emphasise things like his son being in an Ivy League, and that his wife is someone senior in a bank, etc. He’s very into status / prestige / ranks. He asked for every young officer’s CV the moment he joined the ministry – so that he could focus on the Ivy Leaguers and Oxbridgers and scholars – and ignore the rest of the homegrown NUS / NTU folks.

Even that comment about having a strong team – it is really just his way of telling everyone (especially his bosses) that he is so capable in the leadership department.

He has ready connections to the press (every ministry has) and that’s how perm secs get their promotions – by deftly making use of the press to highlight their achievements, or those of the statutory boards they control). The more you are in the news (for the good reasons, of course), the more “visible” you are when it comes time for promotion.

In case you are wondering what promotion – when they move to a more glam ministry, it’s considered a promotion. MEWR is not glam. It’s the bottom-ranked in terms of prestige. If you move to MINDEF / MOF – you control more people / power. That’s how it is with these elites.

This article was obviously a botched up attempt by him to glorify himself, I think the next promotion cycle for perm secs is probably coming up and he was probably trying to get himself a move up the glam ladder to a more glam ministry. If anything, he is really out of touch with the ground because this thing about being a good leader who can delegate – was part of the civil service focus on “work life balance” before this whole economic crisis came about.

Even if he includes himself as one of the lesser mortals then he is still subscribing to the segregation of society into greater and lesser mortals and chiding lesser ones for being envious.

Reality of life hurts!

Don’t waste your breath here.

Ask Tan to open French restaurant in Singapore. Many lesser mortals will want to try his French kueh kueh. Still can make his millions.

Actually, the best defence is for that Chef Tan to stand up and speak for himself.

Say sorry, if he’s wrong and if not, stand up on his own beliefs.

LKY has guts to do it but sadly, his clonies don’t have balls but like only to carry balls.

Lets see when the ‘lesser mortal’ will get a reply from the diety…..lets see how many days it will take…

In the next few days, we will see the MSM shifting the blame onto us for being petty and for being the cause of this brouhaha. Yes , we will get the blame and then the usual call will be heard; “Let’s move on”, and the chapter, closed.

Before they start to do this, we must all understand why there was a sudden need for Teo Chee Hean to touched on this issue. It is all about votes. Do you think he really cares whether his civil servats are sensitive or not? If he had cared enough, there are a lot more things that should not have happened would not have happened.

It is all about votes, and now there is a dire need to repair the damage done by TYS, and the possible loss of votes if left unattended, that he had came out to try and address the issue.

Now, no thanks to Charles, the issue has got bigger and no repair is enough to undo the damage.

please read all my posts in this thread and his accusations of me and see if they tallied? he did not read any of my posts, neither did he read the newspaper article, but made wild assumptions and accusations and attacked everyone that did not agree with him.

i will not waste time engaging him.

I do not know how you could not see the article as a boast except to continue to harp on your narrow view that it was an article offered by TYS because he was asked to do so.

Does that other guy who unintentionally gave credence to a bogus university ring a bell? Oh yes, they are all very honest mistakes. Now let me remind you that these are top civil and public servants, handsomely paid to scrutinize and draw up policies that influence and affect the lives of Singaporeans, whether lesser mortals or higher beings.

If these people are being showed up for such kind of lousy lapses, being insensitive, as confirmed by their bosses at ministry levels and appropriately rebuked, who then, can defend them the way you are doing so here?

Notwithstanding the fact that he had offered his article without coercion and of his own free will, it does not lessen the crime that it came out at an unapportune time. I do not believe the article was plucked out from somewhere but was wriiten and offered, as you suggested, at the invite of the newspaper.

Why did he not decline, knowing that it is not the time for such a boast? A top civil servant would be able to read the climate of the moment, won’t he? Let alone to allow it to be carried in a national paper, read by the man-in-the-street who are calling out for help in this troubled times.

Anyway, like I suspected in my post #98, the civil service was out in full force yesterday to do damage control and perhaps you are one of those taken in by their arguments.

Go take a look at the papers today and you will see clearly the cover ups. They are presenting via their hardcopy news that the people are now empathising with TYS when you and I know that the reaction to what was uttered by the bosses yesterday has in fact aggravated the issue.

This govt talks about New Media and engaging the public but it does not see that the New Media is having a hard time trying to repair the damages made by the print media. This is another story for another time.

And he bragged about being an excellent leader who could disappear from work for 5 weeks.

Notice this style of leadership is highly similar to our PAP leaders’.

Now, he lets everyone cleans up his shit. Probably Tan’s surbordinates had been doing that during his exotic holidays as well.

Perhaps, they even prefer him not to be around.

Just like I wish we don’t have 82 MPs. They irritate me when they appear in the news.

I want to tell my mother and all my relatives (over 70 with no education and no job) that we are now officially lesser mortals of Singapore.

But I don’t know how to translate this into Chinese. Any help here?

Otherwise, how can we serve Charles a cocktail?

I am sure this generation of old folks want to know how PAP has valued their contribution all these years.

I have to say these people are people with high IQ but bloody LOW EQ ! If you are eating on the same table with others who are having only bread, would you join them to eat bread or would you order a steak and have it yourself on the same table ?

If you are ordering a steak for yourself (with your own hard-earned money), what are you trying to prove by eating the steak with the people who are eating only the bread ? That you are rich to afford a steak or to show how they can be like you able to order a steak ?

I guess you should have changed table (and) Mr Tan should have emigrate to another country because there are too many ‘lesser mortals’ watching him having his steak with saliva dropping.

BTW, send my love to Harry Lee please !

Can we lobby for that in TOC ? It will make Singapore government proud ! It will be another world first. Notwithstanding that they will try to ‘improve’ their breathtaking salary records even further.

Nomination:
World’s most expensive PM
World’s most expensive President
World’s most expensive unneeded Trinity. PM, MM, SM
World’s most expensive Clowns
Word’s most incompetent government (considering the monetary loss per size of country)
Word’s most kangaroo laws in first world country
World’s expensive government
Word’s most ridiculous law event (Remember the 200m voting area ? When you already inside, it is not breaking the law, only when you outside) First class law , really !

Wow, so many nominations and Singapore doesn’t even need to make the largest prata and other time-wasting shows to enter into world’s Guiness record !

Go for it !

Now you people knows why these govt keeps increasing the taxes every year even in bad times. So we will all know who to vote this coming GE, no matter how much carrots they may come out with, once the winning is done, we know we are going to pay them back much more in the next 5 years.