Kidney recipient finds out donor is wife's lover

18, 2010

Man jailed, fined for attacking guard and threatening bystanders in angry rampage

By Khushwant Singh

A BUSINESSMAN with end-stage renal disease was saved from death by a kidney donation from a man who was a friend of his wife.

His gratitude turned to anger and depression when he found out about a month after the operation that the good Samaritan was actually his wife's lover.

Worse was to come.

The donor turned out to be the father of his four-year-old daughter, too.

According to documents tendered in court, the businessman was at work on Sept 1, 2008 when he got a call that his wife and his kidney donor were inside his Chiltern Park Condominium apartment in Serangoon Avenue 3.

The man - a wholesaler in soft drinks and alcoholic beverages - decided to confront them.

He was in his lorry, making deliveries with a driver. He told the driver to stop the deliveries and take him home. When the driver left, he took over the wheel.

At about 9.30pm, he drove the vehicle into a service road along the condominium, against the flow of traffic, and parked it also against the flow of traffic.

Police investigations showed that a condo security guard told him to park the lorry at a carpark nearby. The businessman said that as a resident, he could do what he liked.

Sensing that the man was drunk, the guard walked away, but the man chased him and punched his head.

Three young men who were inside the condominium came to the guard's aid. The businessman threatened to run them over with his lorry. He also threatened to use his lorry to hit a van driven by one of the men, which was at the time parked in the grounds.

The businessman returned to his lorry, drove three times round the road in front of the condominium lobby, colliding into railings and walls. He then crashed his lorry against the van till the van rolled down a slope before hitting a wall.

Yesterday, the 47-year-old businessman - who cannot be named because doing so would identify the daughter - pleaded guilty to the rampage and was jailed six months and fined $3,500.

When convicted two months ago, he had also pleaded guilty to refusing to provide a blood specimen for analysis at a hospital on Sept 2, 2008. He also admitted to threatening to punch a police officer in October 2008, and insulting another officer in May last year in separate incidents.

The Singaporean man - who is tall, slender and with lightish brown hair - is appealing against the sentence and is out on $15,000 bail.

In court yesterday, defence counsel Kertar Singh urged the court to 'temper justice with mercy'.

'All the offences have one common thread,' he said in his mitigation plea. 'They occurred due to our client's marriage problem.'

He said the man got married in 1998 and 'it was a love marriage'.

[As opposed to an arranged marriage?]

'The parties were compatible and they had a happy blissful married life for the next 10 odd years.' When the wife gave birth to a baby girl in 2006, 'their happiness seemed to be complete'.

The man had suffered from renal failure problems for a decade. At the start of 2008, his condition worsened. He underwent dialysis and was told he would need a kidney transplant.

He sought a living donor here and in India, and that was when his wife introduced him to a man whom she said was an 'old classmate' who was 'like a brother to her'.

The classmate was willing to donate a kidney and their blood groups matched. The businessman was very grateful and 'purely out of goodwill', offered to start a small business for the donor, said Mr Singh. This was a shop in Little India selling alcohol and beverages, the business he was himself in.

The transplant operation on July 29, 2008 went well. The donor was discharged in early August and the businessman one week later.

The donor went to stay in the couple's apartment to recuperate as his family was not aware he had donated a kidney, said the lawyer.

When the businessman went home, the donor was still there. While both men were recovering, the businessman noticed his wife was more concerned about her friend than in him, said Mr Singh. And when he returned to work soon after the discharge, the donor - who is married - continued to stay at his house.

'This incensed our client somewhat and he questioned his wife,' said Mr Singh. The couple quarrelled and the wife threatened to leave with their daughter. She eventually did this.

Mr Singh said that after she left, the businessman contacted her sister to find out where she was.

'It was at this stage that he learnt the bitter truth. He learnt that an illicit affair had been on going between (the donor) and his wife for the past many years.

'He also learnt that his wife could not leave (the donor) as he was the father of their child. Our client was devastated on hearing all this. Who would not be?'

The wife returned to the matrimonial home for a short period later but relations were very strained.

On the evening of Sept 1, the businessman received a telephone call from a neighbour's maid that his wife and the donor were in his home.

[Why was the neighhour's maid spying for him?]

'Nothing affronts the ego of a man more than being cuckolded and that in his own home and perhaps even in his own bed. The saddest aspect was that the perpetrator was the man who had saved his life,' said Mr Singh.

He said that while the man was in the lorry, 'he was thoroughly confused, shaken and in a dilemma'. This was when he picked up a bottle of whisky - he had been in the process of delivering soft drinks and alcoholic beverages - and 'gulped it down'.

The lawyer said that his client was heavily medicated then because of the recent transplant, and this combined badly with the whisky, and affected him.

Outside the courtroom, the man's elder brother, 58, said: 'If he goes to jail, he won't make it.'

Mr Singh had told the court that the businessman had just been hospitalised for pneumonia from Nov 30 to Dec 8 and 'his condition remains fragile'.

khush@sph.com.sg

[Man, this is going to make one great Bollywood drama! better than fiction. Interesting that the lover would be a compatible donor for the man. Perhaps at some DNA level, the woman has a preference for men of the same biological attributes?]

Dec 20, 2010 Update

'I wouldn't have accepted kidney if I knew it was from my wife's lover'

By Kimberly Spykerman

IF HE had known the kidney that gave him a new lease of life was donated by his wife's lover, he would never have accepted it.

'I said to her, if there's something going on between you two, tell me. I don't want his kidney, I can do with dialysis my whole life,' the 47-year-old told The Straits Times yesterday from his bed at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, where he has been warded for a pneumonia relapse.

'She told me no and insisted I take the kidney.'

The Singaporean businessman attacked a security guard and threatened bystanders while on a drunken rampage two years ago, after he learnt the kidney that saved his life came from his wife's lover.

The man had suffered from renal failure problems for a decade. At the start of 2008, his condition worsened. He underwent dialysis and was told he would need a kidney transplant.

His wife then introduced him to a man whom she said was an 'old classmate' who was 'like a brother to her'.

But he found out later that the donor was his wife's lover, and the father of his four-year-old daughter.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, was sentenced on Friday to six months' jail and fined $3,500. He is appealing against the sentence, and is out on $15,000 bail.

A day after the sentencing, he was taken to hospital after experiencing severe chest pains.

He had been warded earlier this month for pneumonia and had been discharged three days before his appearance in court.

Looking thin and frail, he said of the night of his rampage: 'I don't remember much.

'All I knew then was that the guy who is having an affair with my wife - his kidney is in my body.'

That pains him as much as the fact that the child he loves is not of his own flesh.

He found out about the affair in May last year - after his wife served him divorce papers - and there was a tussle over the custody of the child. He admitted, though, that his suspicions surfaced much earlier.

A DNA test showed that the kidney donor is the biological father of the child.

Tears welling up in his eyes, he recounted how he felt when he first saw the report.

'I broke down. When you sleep in the same bed from the time she is a little infant and you watch her walking, and falling down, how do you think it feels?'

He added that he still loved the little girl and wanted her back in his life.

'But the child cannot have two fathers. Either he walks away, or I walk away,' he said quietly.

He said he had already suspected before his operation in July 2008 that his wife was having an affair with the donor.

He claimed she had got rid of the phone and computer in their home so he could not track her calls and e-mail messages.

The two would also often go to clubs together and she would return only in the early hours of the morning, he said.

But his wife insisted in an earlier interview that she had not been in a relationship with the donor, and the child had been the result of a one-night stand with her former classmate.

The kidney recipient - a wholesaler in soft drinks and alcoholic beverages - had gone on a rampage in September 2008.

He was in his lorry, making deliveries with a driver when he got a call telling him the donor and his wife were at their matrimonial home.

In a fury, he got his delivery driver to take him home to Chiltern Park condominium in Serangoon Avenue 3.

There, he took over the wheel.

'I opened the back of the vehicle and there was a bottle of whisky. How much I drank I don't know; I just needed to settle my problem,' he said.

He ended up punching a security guard, crashing his lorry into another van, and threatening three young people who came to the aid of the guard.

When asked about how his marriage had been up to the point he discovered the infidelity, he said tersely: 'We were happy.

'But I don't want to see her any more.'

No more walkover for MM's stronghold?

Dec 17, 2010

This is a GRC where history runs deep and progress pierces the sky. Anchored by Singapore's founding father, it boasts breathtaking projects such as Pinnacle@Duxton and Dawson. Uncontested since 1991, it is now being eyed by the opposition. But would constituents really want a change?

By Andrea Ong , Tessa Wong

THIS is a place where the old and new jostle like doppelgangers.

[What kind of phrase is that? Are doppelgangers known to jostle? Are the old and the new so alike that they are practically doppelgangers?]

Towering over the sprawling constituency like seven sleek, monochrome sentinels is the Pinnacle@Duxton, the award-winning, 50-storey monolith that stands where the first rental flats were built in Tanjong Pagar.

The GRC has another towering monolith: Singapore's founding father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who has been MP for the Tanjong Pagar ward since 1955.

Flags and banners bearing his face wave in the breeze throughout the length and breadth of the GRC - his omnipresence perhaps explaining why the six-seat GRC has been uncontested since its formation in 1991.

The GRC, which is home to some of the oldest buildings and housing estates, is also experiencing the fastest and most extensive changes to its landscape and skyline. Developers are eagerly snapping up land within the GRC's prime location, which borders the Central Business District, Orchard Road, Bukit Timah and Little India.

Its overall development reflects MM Lee's emphasis on the importance of housing and urban rejuvenation at at the national and GRC level.
His five fellow GRC MPs attribute the estate's rapid development to MM's belief that housing is an asset that residents should own and invest in.

'Look at Pinnacle,' Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew tells Insight. Such developments are 'a foretaste of what good planning and good governance can do to continually bring about new improvements and new life, even to the older parts of Singapore', says the MP for the Moulmein ward.

Indeed, rejuvenation is the buzzword here. Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee, who has been MP for the Tiong Bahru ward since 1991 and who stands in for MM Lee at his Meet-the-People sessions (MPS), shares this anecdote.

At a Chinese New Year dinner seven years ago, then-Senior Minister Lee looked down at the crowd and told Prof Koo that more young people were needed. 'I told him, we have no new flats, how do you bring in young people?' recalls Prof Koo.

Young families were leaving the area because they could not find flats and existing old flats were too small. Schools in the area were closing down.

'That is how we started thinking of building the Pinnacle,' he says. In an e-mail interview with Insight, MM Lee notes: 'I asked HDB to do a nation- wide ballot (for the Pinnacle) because I wanted new blood in Tanjong Pagar and I wanted to bring younger people into Tanjong Pagar.'

Now, the place is bustling again. A PCF kindergarten opened near the Pinnacle in August, while a new primary school will start operating at Cantonment Road next year.

The ageing town of Queenstown is set to see a similar renewal, with three major residential projects coming up. SkyVille@Dawson and SkyTerrace@Dawson - both 40-storey, build-to-order projects - are expected to be ready by 2015. They boast flexible layouts and a park-like environment. The other Dawson development will take over the land now occupied by the food centre, flats and cinema near Margaret Drive, all more than 30 years old. It will have residential units, as well as community and possibly commercial space.

PAP'S trump card

DELIVERING on the promise of urban development has always been a major trump card for the PAP.

During his 1963 election campaign, MM Lee promised voters that the two rental blocks under construction in Duxton Plain - where Pinnacle now stands - would be completed.

He told them that if they voted for him instead of the Barisan Sosialis candidate, these blocks would be completed and would be theirs.

Today, the ultra-modern version of its Duxton Plain predecessor is sure to be a similar talking point in the coming polls.

For Pinnacle residents like engineering manager Raghu Veer, 45, it is an achievement which would cement their support for the ruling party.

'I'm proud to live in Pinnacle. After it won an international architecture award earlier this year, my relatives in France and the United Kingdom called me to say how lucky I was,' he says.

The three developments at Dawson fall within the Queenstown and Tanglin-Cairnhill wards, which are overseen by MPs Baey Yam Keng and Indranee Rajah, respectively. Both MPs say these projects will be a highlight of their next term if they continue to serve in the same ward.

They look forward to having a say in how facilities and spaces are planned. 'It's also a unique opportunity to build a new community spirit from scratch,' adds Ms Rajah.

GRC residents can also look forward to a slew of new facilities and upgrading. The Pek Kio Community Club in Moulmein ward will be rebuilt near Farrer Park MRT station by early 2013. It will have new amenities like an auditorium, music studios and an indoor sports hall.

But the fast pace of development has its drawbacks. While residents enjoy the new improvements and facilities, central location and convenient transport, they worry that these factors also drive up property prices and the cost of living.

Shipping executive Michelle Ho, 36, who moved to Redhill from Sengkang a few months ago, laments that her five-room flat cost $600,000, almost three times what the flat in Sengkang cost her.

Says Pinnacle resident Jenna Ong, 41, an assistant manager: 'My husband and I can't afford to get another flat after Pinnacle. This is the flat we're leaving to our eight-year-old son. I hope he will treasure it.'

Residents in the older, less developed areas feel a sense of neglect. They say their neighbourhood is rundown and unkempt.

Tekka resident Mr Wu, 43, who declines to give his full name, complains: 'I just feel the maintenance is not so good. A lot of these foreign workers defecate and urinate around my block. It's a more common sight than you would think.'

Changing population profile

ANOTHER price of progress in the GRC is the swift demographic change over the years.

When MM Lee first stood for election in his ward in 1955, he gave a speech titled 'Why I Chose Tanjong Pagar'.

He said: 'I wanted to represent workers, wage earners and small traders, not wealthy merchants or landlords. So I chose Tanjong Pagar, not Tanglin.'

Ironically, the affluent Tanglin area now forms part of the GRC. MM Lee tells Insight that his own ward has been transformed from a poor working class area to 'a middle upper HDB heartland'.

Managing the transformation of the population and the resulting divergences - in age, income, nationality and housing type - can be a challenge, say the MPs.

One big issue is the greying population. In Queenstown, one in four of the residents is aged 65 and above, much higher than the national average of one in 12, says Mr Baey.

He is planning grassroots activities and welfare programmes to cater to the elderly. The guest list for a free Chinese New Year lunch, for instance, will be expanded from 2,000 elderly residents this year to 6,000 next year.

In Radin Mas, where 20 per cent of the residents are 50 and above, its MP Sam Tan says he sees more elderly residents coming to him for financial help.

He is concerned that firstly they are not saving enough for their retirement, and secondly, that their children are not pitching in to support them.

The low-income group is also an area of concern. Ms Rajah calls her Tanglin-Cairnhill ward a 'microcosm of Singaporean society' as it ranges from the very rich to the very poor. It is home to both seven rental blocks in Henderson and Bukit Merah as well as landed property in Bukit Timah and Tanglin.

Over at the rental blocks, where drug problems used to be rampant, the area has been cleaned up, she says. There are reading programmes and a new computer centre to keep the less privileged children in the ward occupied.

Mr Lui's branch volunteers donate money from their own pockets to buy food and groceries for needy residents in the ward.

As the GRC extends to Little India and the CBD, it sees a high influx of expatriate professionals and foreign workers on work permits.

Many residents polled expressed concerns about the newcomers living in their midst. Some complained about them loitering at void decks, while others are displeased with their social habits.

Bukit Merah resident L. Kaur, 39, a cleaner who often visits Tekka Market, says she was robbed and harassed by foreign construction workers there last month.

Ms Rajah and Mr Lui say they have witnessed the effects of the tightened labour laws at their MPS in recent months.

They are seeing a spike in the number of foreigners asking for help with PR and citizenship applications and business owners and employees facing problems with their S-Pass renewal.

'This is a direct response to the policy change last year. It is an issue that will require more careful calibration,' Ms Rajah adds.

Opposition testing the waters

BUFFERED by MM Lee's presence, the GRC has seen walkover after walkover since its formation in 1991.

Of late, the opposition seems to be testing the waters. Members of the Workers' Party and the National Solidarity Party have been holding walkabouts in the area since the 2006 general elections.

The Reform Party (RP) has announced its interest in contesting the GRC. Its secretary-general Kenneth Jeyaretnam tells Insight that whether RP contests in Tanjong Pagar would depend on whether it has enough candidates and resources.

Last month, both RP members and Mr Lui's Moulmein branch activists held Deepavali walkabouts at Tekka Market. They crossed paths, shook hands and exchanged newsletters.

Sources say the Singapore Democratic Party is also thinking of fielding a team comprising young members. It conducted walkabouts in Tanjong Pagar Plaza recently.

The most intriguing political question is whether MM Lee - who at 87 is the oldest serving MP - will continue to run (see other report).

Mr Baey says he is not surprised by the growing opposition interest in the GRC. 'They will enter if MM does not contest, and they are also staking their claim on the GRC to prepare for the future when MM may not be around. Any opposition party which contests in Tanjong Pagar will also get a lot of attention.'

Mr Jeyaretnam declines to comment on MM Lee's presence in the GRC. 'It will not be a factor in our decision to contest and we wish him many more years of good health and mental agility.'

But attention is zeroing in on RP because of the GRC's history. In 1981, Mr Jeyaretnam's father, Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam, swept to victory in a by-election which saw him wresting control of Anson ward from the People's Action Party. He held on to Anson, which now falls within Tanjong Pagar GRC, in the 1984 polls.

Is there still a JBJ support base? Mr Lui is doubtful, saying: 'I'm not so sure that the JBJ effect lingers for all that long. You can't be living on past glories. Kenneth Jeyaretnam is not his father...He's got to be able to show he's an independent man and that he's able to contribute.'

Still, all the GRC MPs are unanimous in their view that the opposition would not find much support among the GRC residents.

Insight's straw poll of 46 Tanjong Pagar GRC residents seems to support this. While some welcome a contest just to hear what the opposition has to say, none of the respondents say they would vote for the opposition.

The lukewarm response to a possible challenge was attributed largely to MM's presence and the perception that the opposition could not possibly do a better job than the PAP in developing the area.

Says air force technician Terence Tan, 39, a Tiong Bahru resident: 'I don't want to waste my time to vote unless the opposition can do a better job. But we're well taken care of here, and it's obvious who people would vote for.'

But those who want a contest say it would put the PAP MPs on their toes. 'The MPs may have gotten a bit complacent because they have Lee Kuan Yew here, so a contest will wake them up. The MPs could do better in getting out more to meet people,' says Tiong Bahru resident Caleb Wee, 46.

How is the PAP team bracing itself for the possible boundary changes? Mr Lui says: 'The message that has been going out to the six branches is: No.1, expect to be contested. No.2, be prepared to contest as an SMC.
'There is every possibility that there could be an SMC or even two SMCs coming out of the GRC. All of us must not only be ready to do battle as a GRC but we must be ready to stand independently on our own as an SMC.'

There has been talk that Mr Sam Tan might be moved out of the GRC to helm a single seat on his own. Another question is whether Mr Lui, who was promoted to full minister recently, may be posted to another GRC to anchor a team.

The minister says he will leave it to the Prime Minister to decide. 'But I would say I've benefited immensely from the guidance of MM. Just watching the man close up, you imbibe certain lessons. It's a worthwhile learning experience like no other.'

Will residents cling on to the iconic brand name of MM Lee and the PAP's track record, or will they be swayed by the allure of an opposition challenge?

andreao@sph.com.sg
twong@sph.com.sg

MM: All parties welcome to contest

OPPOSITION parties are welcome to contest Tanjong Pagar GRC, but they may find it difficult to exploit issues to garner votes, says Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

'I would say there are no pressing political issues for the opposition to exploit. The people are happy,' he replies by e-mail to Insight's questions on the possibility of a contest.

Members of Workers' Party, Reform Party, National Solidarity Party and Singapore Democratic Party have been seen on walkabouts and house-to-house visits in the GRC in recent months.

MM Lee has been MP for the Tanjong Pagar ward since the 1955 Legislative Assembly elections and the anchor minister for the GRC since 1991.

As a single seat, Tanjong Pagar saw furious battles which Mr Lee won handsomely. Since it grew into a four-seat group representation constituency in 1991, and a six-seat GRC in 1997, it has never been contested.

Explaining why his constituents are happy, he points to the ward's transformation from a poor working-class area to a middle- to upper-income heartland.

When he first won the Tanjong Pagar seat, he recalls, 'there were many port workers and casual workers without homes'.

He notes that two blocks of rental flats - the pioneer project of the Housing Board's Home Ownership Programme - were built along Cantonment Road in 1963. Other estates such as Everton Park, Spottiswoode Park and Tanjong Pagar Plaza soon followed, housing port workers, executives and the working class.

Now, after extensive upgrading and the building of new projects like Pinnacle@Duxton, and with most first generation residents having paid off their loans, 'housing is not an issue in Tanjong Pagar', MM Lee says.

Neither is cost of living, he adds, noting that ComCare funds have not been fully disbursed as the ward sees 'very few' hardship cases.

As for the GRC's mature estates, he says there has been an effort to improve mobility through barrier-free access and upgrading.

When asked if the MPs are ready for the possibility of some divisions being carved out as single-member constituencies, he replies: 'They are all prepared.'

And on the PAP's line-up for the GRC in the next election, he would only say: 'Wait and see. PM will decide.'

It is the same response he gave last month when asked if he would stand in Tanjong Pagar GRC for the next election.

MM Lee had said then that he would stand if he was fit and if the PAP's secretary-general, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, decided to field him.

His fellow GRC MPs declined to speculate on whether MM Lee would continue to stand. But Mr Lui Tuck Yew, who oversees Moulmein, says: 'Singaporeans benefit significantly from his insight, from his connections, from the respect he continues to command in many different countries.'

The MPs speak of bigger-than-usual crowds at GRC events featuring MM Lee as the guest of honour. Mr Sam Tan, the MP for the Radin Mas ward, describes him as having the draw of a 'superstar': 'It's genuine. People gravitate to him, take pictures with him, and shake his hand. This enthusiastic crowd comprises different ages too, from young to old.'

What do the constituents think? In a street poll of 46 people, 29 are in favour of MM Lee continuing to stand, 12 are undecided, while five feel he should retire.

Civil servant Steven Tan, 42, agrees that MM Lee has done a lot for Singapore but feels that he should retire as he is getting old.

But to Mrs Siew Sim Cheng, 53, a Bukit Merah resident and housewife, age is not an issue. 'MM... may be old but he can still use his mouth and his mind,' she says.

A sense of reassurance is cited by residents who want him to stay. 'To a certain extent, because of MM, we do expect that this area would be taken care of,' says Mr Ray Wang, 29, an engineer who lives at the Pinnacle@Duxton.

Others cite his stature and legacy.

Says video editor Teo Wai Chin, 33, who lives in Everton Park in Tanjong Pagar ward: 'MM should stand if he wants to. It's more symbolic than anything else - for the longest time, this has been his ward.'

TESSA WONG & ANDREA ONG

Woman who knows no fear could offer brain clues

Fri, Dec 17, 2010 AFP

WASHINGTON - US scientists have discovered a woman with a rare brain disease that makes her afraid of nothing - not a huge snake lurking near her children, not a knife to her throat, and certainly not a horror movie.

The woman cannot experience fear because of a condition that has destroyed the part of her brain - the amygdala - where researchers say they believe the feeling of fear is made.

Over the past two decades researchers have been analysing the woman, known as SM, for clues about her condition which they say could help them treat post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly in soldiers returning from war.

"It is quite remarkable that she is still alive," said lead author Justin Feinstein whose study appears in the journal Current Biology.

"The nature of fear is survival and the amygdala helps us stay alive by avoiding situations, people, or objects that put our life in danger," he said.

"Because SM is missing her amygdala, she is also missing the ability to detect and avoid danger in the world."

Instead of fear, SM, whose rare condition is known as Urbach-Wiethe disease, describes "an overwhelming feeling of curiosity."

To test her reaction, researchers led her into an exotic pet store filled with spiders and snakes, animals she repeatedly said she "hates" and tries to avoid.

"Upon entering the store, SM was spontaneously drawn to the snake terrariums and appeared visually captivated by the large collection of snakes," the study said.

Asked by a store employee if she would like to hold one, SM agreed and then played with one for about three minutes.

"She rubbed its leathery scales, touched its flicking tongue, and closely watched its movements as it slithered through her hands," it said.

"Her verbal behavior revealed a comparable degree of fascination and inquisitiveness: she repeatedly commented, 'This is so cool!'"

When she reached for a tarantula, however, she had to be stopped because there was a high risk she could be bitten.

"When asked why she would want to touch something that she knows is dangerous and that she claims to hate, SM replied that she was overcome with 'curiosity,'" the study said.

The woman's eldest son, who is in his 20s, told researchers he could not ever recall seeing his mother afraid of anything.

He said he remembered one event in particular from his childhood when he was playing with his two brothers and they saw a big snake in the road nearby.

"Well, Mom just ran over there and picked it up and brought it out of the street, put it in the grass and let it go on its way," he said.

"I thought that was kind of weird."

The woman also told researchers that when she was in her 30s, a man grabbed her and stuck a knife to her throat.

"She looked at the man and confidently replied, 'If you're going to kill me, you're gonna have to go through my God's angels first.' The man suddenly let her go," said the study, adding the woman then described walking calmly home.

Other experiments devised by the researchers - leading her through a haunted house where people dressed as monsters and ghosts sprung from the darkness, and showing her a series of scary video clips - fell flat too.

"She reacted to the monsters by smiling, laughing, or trying to talk to them," the study said.

"She found the fear films to be exciting and entertaining, and in one case, she inquired about the name of the movie so she could rent it from the video store later that day."

Scientists believe she was once able to feel fear because she has described a childhood memory of being afraid of a dog.

They also note that "SM has never been convicted of any crime, but rather has been the victim of numerous crimes."

Feinstein said he hopes that SM's experience could help treat people with post-traumatic stress disorder, a problem he has seen in his work treating US soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Their lives are marred by fear, often times unable to even leave their home due to the ever-present feeling of danger," he said.

"By understanding how the brain processes fear, we may one day be able to create treatments that selectively target the brain areas that allow fear to take over our lives."

Feinstein said science should look for PTSD treatments that "focus on ways to safely and non-invasively dampen amygdala activity," mainly through medication and psychotherapy.

[Hopefully, this can help people suffering from PTSD. However, the difference is that this woman deals with actual fear-inducing incidents, whereas PTSD may be memory-related or contextual or more complicated phobias. The woman is supposed to be afraid of snakes, but snake evoke curiousity not fear. It would seem that the brain chemistry that should have been expressed as fear is translated into curiousity because of the damaged amygdala. However with PTSD sufferers, are there specific objects of fear? If the fear is of open spaces (because in a war zone open spaces are dangerous), is that specific enough, or is the fear more complex? Of course if it is purely an amygdala issue, this may well work.]

Naked aunty boards bus at Bedok

Asia One 16 Dec 2010

ARE we becoming a nudist colony? Early this week, a man strutted stark naked into a McDonald's at Queensway to order a cup of coffee.

Just yesterday, a woman paraded in public in all her butt-naked glory - and even boarded a bus in broad daylight.

Witnesses who were present at Bedok told Lianhe Wanbao that they saw a middle-aged woman taking off her clothes piece by piece as she was approaching a bus stop along Bedok Ave 1 on Wednesday evening.

The woman was first spotted at Block 302. While making her way to a bus stop in the rain, witnesses said she stopped halfway, put her bag down on the ground and took off every single piece of clothing she had on her.

The Chinese evening daily reported that the bus stop was crowded at that point in time as well and her jaw-dropping stint caused many to stare at her in disbelief.

The woman continued to walk to the bus stop, as if nothing had happened.

Five minutes later, bus service number 22 approached and witnesses said she casually strolled through the crowd to board the bus.

Upon seeing the naked woman boarding the bus, the driver immediately closed all the doors and called the police.

While waiting for the authorities to arrive, the driver went into an "emergency" mode and instructed all male passengers to move to the front half of the bus.

He then instructed the naked woman to move to the back of the bus and positioned the female passengers around her.

One of them even took off her jacket and offered it to the naked woman, who was led away by the police when they arrived at the scene.

The episode lasted for about 45 minutes.

[I thought the bus driver was remarkably pro-active. I wonder if he's from China. :-) ]

We’ve Only Got America A

December 14, 2010
New York Times

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Former President José María Figueres of Costa Rica has a saying I like: “There is no Planet B” — so we’d better make Plan A work to preserve a stable environment. I feel the same way about America these days. There is no America B, so we’d better make this one work a lot better than we’ve been doing, and not only for our sake. When Britain went into decline as the globe’s stabilizing power, America was right there, ready to pick up the role. Even with all our imperfections and mistakes, the world has been a better place for it. If America goes weak, though, and cannot project power the way it has, your kids won’t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world. You will not like who picks up the pieces. Just glance at a few recent headlines.

The world system is currently being challenged by two new forces: a rising superpower, called China, and a rising collection of superempowered individuals, as represented by the WikiLeakers, among others. What globalization, technological integration and the general flattening of the world have done is to superempower individuals to such a degree that they can actually challenge any hierarchy — from a global bank to a nation state — as individuals.

China has put on a sound and light show these past few weeks that underscored just how much its rising economic clout can be used to warp the U.S.-led international order when it so chooses. I am talking specifically about the lengths to which China went to not only reject the Nobel Peace Prize given to one of its citizens — Liu Xiaobo, a democracy advocate who is serving an 11-year sentence in China for “subversion of state power” — but to intimidate China’s trading partners from even sending representatives to attend the Nobel award ceremony at Oslo’s City Hall.

Mr. Liu was represented at Friday’s Nobel ceremony by an empty chair because China would not release him from prison — only the fifth time in the 109-year history of the prize that the winner was not in attendance. Under pressure from Beijing, the following countries joined China’s boycott of the ceremony: Serbia, Morocco, Pakistan, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Colombia, Ukraine, Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Vietnam and the Philippines. What a pathetic bunch.

“The empty chair in Oslo’s Town Hall last Friday was not only that of Liu, but of China itself,” observed Rowan Callick, a columnist for The Australian. “The world is still waiting for China to play its proper, full role in international affairs. The perversity of such a successful, civilized nation playing a dominant role as a backer — if sometimes merely by default — of cruel, failed or failing states is intensely frustrating.”

It gets worse. The Financial Times reported that “outside Mr. Liu’s apartment in Beijing, where his wife Liu Xia has been held under house arrest since the award was announced, large blue screens were erected, preventing television cameras from having a view of the building.”

Honestly, I thought China’s leaders had more self-confidence than that. Clearly, they are feeling very insecure. Think if China had said instead: “We disagree with this award and we will not be attending. But anytime one of our citizens is honored with a Nobel, it is an honor for all of China — and so we will pass this on to his family.” It would have been a one-day story, and China’s leaders would have looked so strong.

As for the superempowered individuals — some are constructive, some are destructive. I read many WikiLeaks and learned some useful things. But their release also raises some troubling questions. I don’t want to live in a country where they throw whistle-blowers in jail. That’s China. But I also don’t want to live in a country where any individual feels entitled to just dump out all the internal communications of a government or a bank in a way that undermines the ability to have private, confidential communications that are vital to the functioning of any society. That’s anarchy.

But here’s the fact: A China that can choke off conversations far beyond its borders, and superempowered individuals who can expose conversations far beyond their borders — or create posses of “cyber-hacktivists” who can melt down the computers of people they don’t like — are now a reality. They are rising powers. A stable world requires that we learn how to get the best from both and limit the worst; it will require smart legal and technological responses.

For that job, there is no alternative to a strong America. Critics said of the British Labour Party of the 1960s that the Britain they were trying to build was half-Sweden and half-heaven. The alternative today to a world ordered by American power is not some cuddly multipolar system — half-Sweden and half-heaven. It is half-China and half-superempowered individuals.

Managing that will never be easy. But it will be a lot easier with a healthy America, committed to its core values, powerful enough to project them and successful enough that others want to follow our lead — voluntarily.

Weird Prawn

KOTA BARU - AVID angler Nordin Ahmad is stumped by his latest catch - a strange-looking prawn that has crab-like pincers and legs.

'I was fishing at a river in Tok Sadang in Pengkalan Chepa with my nephew when I caught this strange creature.

'At first I thought it was a prawn but after looking at it closer I thought it looked like a crab.

'I have shown it to everybody and maybe someone could identify it,' Mr Nordin said at his home at Taman Tengku Anis here.

Mr Nordin, 45, a Tenaga Nasional technician, said that he had been angling for 20 years and this was the first time he had ever seen such a creature.

Mr Nordin asked those who could shed light on the species to e-mail him at dleasaa_inn@yahoo.com. -- THE STAR/ANN

A happy nation of grumblers

Dec 16, 2010

Commentary

Appearing happy seems to be a social taboo in Singapore

By Jeremy Au Yong


EAVESDROP on any coffee shop conversation, and chances are you will hear complaints of how tough life is in Singapore. If you believe the kopi tiam chatter, this is the picture you would get of life here: Every day, weary Singaporeans leave the flats they can barely afford, take a long, overcrowded bus or MRT ride for which they may be overcharged, to get to a job that they fear losing to a cheaper foreign worker.

So, it must have been quite bewildering for some Singaporeans - including me - to read that American explorer and author Dan Buettner considers Singapore one of the happiest places in the world.

My initial instinct was to dismiss the views of a foreigner who has spent all of four weeks in Singapore, and whose research seems to go little further than interviewing a handful of members from the country's upper rungs.

After all, other surveys rank Singapore as middle-of-the-road unhappy. The Happy Planet Index released last year, for instance, ranks Singapore 49th out of 143 countries - behind nearly all our Asean neighbours. This seems more intuitively in sync with the picture of Singaporeans as I know it.

But then, Mr Buettner's assertions are also based on a happiness survey. He relied on data from Gallup, the World Values Survey and the World Database on Happiness, which have done comprehensive polls and studies over the past seven decades examining factors that impact happiness directly.

And he used these to identify the happiest places on earth. From there, he began to study why these places were so happy.

The World Database of Happiness, which, like the Happy Planet Index, is also a survey asking people how happy they are, seems to have caught us in a good mood. Poll results put us as the second happiest place in Asia, behind the people of the United Arab Emirates.

When looking at why a place is happy, Mr Buettner considered factors that one may not have traditionally thought had that much to do with happiness - things like community tolerance, safety, trust in government, good housing, health care and social mobility.

On that scorecard, he found that Singapore did very well.

But his findings seem to fly in the face of daily experience here. Singaporeans, after all, are champion complainers.

So the question is: How happy are we really? And if we are as happy as Mr Buettner says, why do we always complain and seem so grumpy?

I did not have the means to conduct my own nationwide happiness survey, so I settled on an informal poll of one - myself.

And I found that when I actually thought about it, I ended up counting my blessings more than my misfortunes.

I ranked my happiness at seven on a scale of one to 10, which turns out to be consistent with the average 6.9 score for Singapore recorded by the World Happiness Database.

Then, I asked a friend how happy she thought I was, and she gave me a five. Apparently, I complain a lot.

That, for me, explains the apparent gap between my assessment of Singapore's happiness and Mr Buettner's.

You see, it has become part of our culture to amplify our unhappiness and diminish our joy in public. Do otherwise, and you will find yourself ostracised.

In other words, appearing happy is a social taboo here.

Just think about every time you have asked someone how they are doing. If they are having a bad day, they will quite readily declare how rotten times are and how difficult life is.

And if you are not just making idle chit-chat, the two of you may even launch into a traditional 'bitch-off' to see who can produce the more compelling litany of life's misfortunes.

Conversations like this might end with one party conceding: 'You win, your life sucks more than mine.'

And even if you ask someone who is having a pretty good day how he is, the most positive response you are going to get is 'so-so' or 'okay'.

The person may have just won the lottery, received a big raise and discovered he is going to become a father all on the same day, and the most you are going to get out of him is 'not bad'.
And as every Singaporean knows, that understated 'not bad' translates to 'very good, but I don't dare say it in case you think I am showing off or worse, in case the gods are listening and I get bad luck after saying it'.

It is rare to hear someone declare they are having a 'great' or 'fantastic' day. Chances are, we would not know how to proceed with such a line of conversation. A likely rejoinder would be to bring the person down a notch: 'Oh, good for you. If only we could all be so lucky.'

The end result is social intercourse where no one dares to express happiness, but everyone enjoys sounding grumpy.

Indeed, if one day we were to have nothing to complain about, we would have nothing to say to each other. All this adds up to everyone projecting a public image that is quite a bit unhappier than they really are.

This would explain why Singaporeans complain a lot and seem to be unhappy in public, but confess to relative joy under the cover of an anonymous survey.

Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with that - some might call it a case of humility and good manners - but the danger is if we start to believe our own unhappy hype.

My own solution to avoiding this trap has been to take a step back once in a while and conduct a frank assessment of how unhappy I actually am.

I also frequently indulge in activities that make me happy: Having a good meal, sleeping in on weekends and, of course, gathering with friends and family...for a good grumble.

jeremyau@sph.com.sg