Animals in captivity do not breed!

I read the following on sammyboy's Alfresco coffee shop, and decided to post it here, to remind myself why, if I were to have a baby on this Matrix Island, I should wish for a daughter, and not son:

QUOTE
On the 7th of July, a thursday, we, sergeants-to-be and future commanders in the SAF, did saikang. We shifted huge steel lockers, tables, cleaned windows and bed frames, arranged chairs in the "entertainment room", swept the floors and took out the trash. All this on the Officer-Cadet-Trainee(OCT) floor. And not just for the OCTs, who are of the same age as us by the way, but for a particular OCT who was going over to Signals the next day. An OCT with a... particularly powerful father. I don't think i need to mention his name, do i?

It wasn't just the sergeants-to-be who had to do all this work. Every operator had to do their part, and there were warrant officers, people who've spent over 20 years as commanders in the Army, shifting beds around and going around unscrewing our locker door handles 'cos the OCTs did not have enough of them. Unscrewing door handles. An officer doing construction-worker-style stuff for no bonus pay. We even had to make sure the OCT's lockers had enough hooks to place their precious jockey-caps and berets...when almost all the beds in OUR own bunks have no hooks at all. (Not to mention the fact that our big mirror has been taken away...as well as our own bloody toilet door!!!)

It wasn't just yesterday. Word of the young prince's imminent arrival had spread over a month ago, and renovation work had begun since then. The particular floor was given a new coat of paint, mosquito nets were installed in the OCTs' bunks and new rust-free fans were installed. 10 fans to a room. In contrast, the sergeants and operators have 4 fans to a room, all rusty. And no way to block out insects that often fly in.

What makes me so pissed is that this normally wouldn't have been done for officers-to-be at all. Only for THIS particular batch for you-know-what-reason. As a senior officer whispered to us, normally there wouldn't any renovation at all, and no effort to wipe out the rat population before the OCTs arrived. Our OC apologised to us, as making sergeants-to-be do saikang wasn't his directive (although his sergeant probably couldn't refuse the officer who had sent him off to find man-power). "You know how it is", our OC told us. After all, what if that OCT had complained to his dad during dinner that the bunk conditions were horrible? Yes, what if?

Everybody i've talked to don't like what's happening, don't like this obvious show of favouritism and pulling strings, but most of them, including senior officers, also believe that there isn't really much choice. "Bo bian mah, he's his father's son after all." This's what disgusts me the most. WHY should it be "bo bian"?? Why should it be obvious to people that he should receive better treatment than the rest of us? Why are there so many people just craning their necks and taking all this crap simply because he obviously cannot be touched, that the world is unfair and "we have no choice"??

Is this something like our own Singaporean facination with our former colonial masters?? Is this favouritism for the supposedly more noble so inbred in our bones that we do it without thinking and even acknowledge it as a normal frame of mind?

It's really sad that you can be treated like a king simply for having the right parents. It's something like people getting treated better for HAVING lots of money, although they don't spend any more than the next guy. This particular OCT doesn't give SAF head honchos ANYTHING; he's just a normal 18 year old with normal grades like the rest of us (i don't know if he even plans to go into politics), but he still gets to have an easier life in BMT, OCS, and gets to go to an easy course in Signals and succeed in the army while doing less and having less hardships than everyone else. Simply because he has a father who MIGHT give the head honchos SOMETHING, however unlikely. It's not gonna help, you know...in the future he'd have a really myopic view on the hardships of NS life, which wouldn't be good for Singapore if he DID go into politics.

Other people have to sweat blood to get their officer rank. But he doesn't. And in the future, everyone except for those who were there when he was in NS would think he had gone through one of the toughest courses in NS. Whatever job he applies for, he'd be able to show off that rank to a lot of "Wow, he's such a talented person!" People will think that he had experienced hardship during his NS life. When he hadn't, actually. And that's really unfair.

I don't bear too much of a grudge to this particular OCT though, he probably doesn't have much of a choice except to accept the good treatment. His dad too; there's a good chance he doesn't even know what's going on. I definitely don't blame the poor warrant officers who had to make us do saikang as well. Rather, the blame lies with someone higher up, who just loves to lick other people's boots and get promoted.

But what can i say? As my friend says, the world is dark after all, and i'm just a corporal.
UNQUOTE


I disagree with the writer that the papa horse and the little horse are not to be blamed. Of course they are! If papa horse had given a strict order that absolutely no preferential treatment was to be given to his little horse and that any such unfair treatment would be considered bribery and those responsible would be court-martialed, nobody would be doing all these things! Obviously, the papa horse - even if he did not issue any orders explicitly- was knowingly and quietly encouraging all these nonsense!

And why shouldn't he? If I were him, I would also diam diam and let my subordinates 拍馬屁 (pat my little white horse's fart) as much as they want. So long as my unfair and selfish action is not exposed or questioned - it is practically impossible for a person to be given absolute power and then be expected not to abuse his power (esp, when the abuse simply involve keeping quiet, as in this case), which is why we need a free press, free speech, democracy, check and balance etc that The One has been advocating! Only then can absolute power - and the abuse that comes with it - be exposed and thus kept in check.

Anyway this post is not about all these. I want to talk about something else:

Animals in captivity do not breed!

Go look at those signs in our zoo, and they will tell you how much trouble they have getting those tigers, lions, polar bears etc to breed. It is a well-known biological fact.

These mammals somehow know that if they breed, their offsprings are going to suffer the same fate as them. And so, nature made sure that their sex hormones, stress hormones etc are at such and such a quantity and quality that they will have no interest in breeding or will somehow not breed successfully.

Maybe that's why Human Batteries are not breeding! We are mammals too! Give me one good reason why I would want to have a son to do cheap manual labour while being scolded with vulgarities, and subjected to the risk of losing a limb or even life, for exactly 2 years for 2 years initially and then periodically for another 10+ years? Mind you, I am not talking about defending the country, combat training and such cocks. I am talking about packing national day packets, helping to move schools (yup civilian primary and secondary schools!), watering the plants at Gombak (they call it "horticutural assistant", I believe) and in this case, renovating a dormitory for somebody else's son! What the chao chee bye has all these fucking things got to do with training to defend the country?

Nothing at all!

NS is about 3 months of learning how to defend this island (which is not worth defending, by the way, considering how it is being run), and the remaining 21 months being a source of cheap labour! And I believe I am already very generous with my estimation.

So yeah, bully me as much as you want. But that's it! I shall have no son for you to bully. haha!

Sorry. No Matrix quotes available again. As I search through my list of Matrix quotes, I am begining to envy those Human Batteries in The Matrix movie. There is no concept of white horse in the Matrix!!!