Aug 18

• Market Hazards

  from Perspective Unlimited

• Police declare joggers an “illegal assembly”

  from Yawning Bread Sampler

• Natural For Citizens To Criticise, As Well As Praise Govt: George Yeo

  from SingaporeSurf

• En Bloc’s Greed

  from My sketchbook

• The Big Picture Viewpoint

  from Stressed Teacher

• $150 per month for severely disabled elderly – extended…

  from theonlinecitizen

• Of social mobility and university education

  from Hear ye! Hear ye!

• Social Political Blogging: Singapore vs US

  from Simple is the Reason of My Heart

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Is This “The End” For Socio-Political Blogs?

You all know what Dodo birds are don’t you? The Dodo aka Raphus cucullatus was a flightless bird which once lived a placid existence on the island somewhere in West Indies. The dodo has gone the way of the dinosaur since the mid-to-late 17th century. It is commonly used as the archetype of describing lousy thoughtware that leads to inexorable extinction. The phrase “it’s history like the dodo” means undoubtedly and unquestionably dead beyond all possibility of recall. The stuff of gone with the wind, kaput, habis, finito etc. The verb phrase “to go the way of the dodo” means you’ve just bought yourself a one way ticket to the end of the road.

Recently, I came across a Dodo statement, don’t ask me where I read it, but it’s probably very near a place where the road runs out and after that a cliff follows. The statement goes like this:

“I share a common view with Alex Au (aka Yawning Bread) that there is an over optimistic view that the internet is the answer to the tipping point for political change in Singapore. In reality, it does not work for a few reasons. First of all, there is no direct translation of activity from social political blogs to the real world. Most of us (including myself) are armchair critics. If Martyn See’s video is that effective, the political parties involved should all be helping those poor people out there. Has there been any action taken to help those poor people? Has anyone alerted the authorities that we need to help those people? It is the lack of action that convinces me that the social political blogs in Singapore do not have an influence in the off-line world.”

Do you really want to know why I believe this statement deserves the Dodo award of the year?