Medical costs in Singapore and how to get the best deal.

 The queue in the Blood Test unit at the Heart Centre, 

Singapore General Hospital. I took this photo at 8:15am.

There were already about 50 other people ahead of me when I arrived at 8am.

If you need to do a simple investigative medical test, say, a blood test to ascertain the level of your cholesterol, where would you go in Singapore if you want it cheap?  Such tests can't vary very much in quality.  After all, how different can a blood test be?  Most people will assume that a public hospital like the Singapore General Hospital will be the best bet for a cheap blood test.  And they can't be more mistaken than that.

A friend of mine has naturally high cholesterol from birth.  It's a congenital condition and he has to go for a blood test at least twice a year.  He tells me that he goes to Gleneagles Hospital for his regular cholesterol blood test because it's the cheapest.  I know that sounds surprising to you just as it did to me when I first heard it.  Gleneagles is a private hospital and one would expect blood tests done there to cost a lot more.

I just did my blood test for cholesterol at the Heart Centre in the Singapore General Hospital yesterday and the bill for the test alone came up to $62.49 (SGD).  Now, that's about twice what my friend pays for his blood test in Gleneagles Hospital.  I had to wait for an hour and a half just to get a sample of my blood taken.  In Gleneagles, the waiting time is probably about 10 minutes.

So, next time, don't just rule out a private hospital because you think everything there is bound to be more expensive.  It may not be.  Some of the investigations may be a lot cheaper than in public hospitals and the waiting time is always much shorter in private hospitals.

But there can be many other factors that will determine which hospital you go to for your blood test. I chose a public hospital because my cardiologist is there.  I have a lot of faith in my cardiologist who is honest and competent.  That rare combination of competence and honesty in a medical practitioner is very important to me and when I have found one who has it, I usually stick to him.  It's just that when I was waiting for my turn (and let's not forget that I waited for an hour and a half - from 8am to 9:30am) and I looked at the huge number of patients also waiting to have their blood samples taken, I could not help wondering if they were aware that at least for the blood test alone, they could get it faster and cheaper in a private hospital.

The Story of Garvan Byrne

Garvan Byrne was a 12 year old Irish boy who died in 1985 of a rare leukemia.  In this video that has been circulated widely on the internet, he talks to a nun about his faith in life after death.  He believes Jesus will look after him and his family.  He speaks with conviction and confidence and without the slightest trace of doubt in his voice.

There have been quarters in the RC church that are asking for Garvan to be considered for sainthood.  See this blog, for an example.  That's of course an indication of the sort of inspiration he has been to lots of people.

It's impossible not to be inspired by this boy who knew perfectly well that he would be dying.  It's only in a religious context that a boy this age can speak of his impending death with eagerness.   Garvan spoke cheerfully of the people he would be meeting in heaven, a grandma he had not seen, a favourite uncle and so on.  When asked if he would miss his family, he looked mildly troubled for a moment but his furrowed brow was smoothed instantly when he spoke about how he would be there in their midst.

This is what Garvan said and I quote verbatim:  "Where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them.  And I will be there in the midst of my family.  They might not see me but I'll be there watching them, looking after them all the time".

Garvan was of course borrowing the words of Jesus in Matt 18:20. "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."  Only a heartless pedant would say that Garvan was theologically incorrect in appropriating the words of Jesus in that way.

But while the story of Garvan illustrates the beauty of religion and the comforting image of Jesus standing with his outstretched hands towards us, his sheep, it does not address the question why Jesus didn't do a thing to heal Garvan in the first place.   Many will say the question is irrelevant for none of the faithful will allow that minor fact to stumble him in his faith.  It doesn't even matter that Jesus didn't do a thing to lessen the pain that Garvan had to go through but no doubt the doctors would have given him a painkiller.  It doesn't matter too that Jesus in his sovereign goodness, mercy and compassion would only guide the hands of surgeons, doctors and nurses in the healing process but only in places where the slow progress of human knowledge and medical advancement have reached.

When I was a boy, I used to wonder why everyone in Pride and Prejudice treated Elizabeth Bennett's common cold with so much concern and fear.  That was only less than 200 years ago but at that time, doctors couldn't even treat a cold effectively and many people died from something as mild as a cold.   Presumably, God could heal the common cold but he must have, in his infinite mercy and love, chosen not to.  God's miracles are strangely always kept in pace with the state of medical progress and when doctors heal the patient, we thank God for guiding the doctor's hands or for breathing efficacy into the medication prescribed.

But there's one thing religion can do that no amount of rational thinking can.  It gives us hope even in the face of utter hopelessness and the story of Garvan demonstrates that.  Highly rational people can be insensitive when they say it's all wishful thinking.  But what is wrong with wishful thinking?  I don't know about you but when my time comes and I'm down on my deathbed with multi-organ cancer and I'm about the breathe my last, I will cling to the hope that is in Christ Jesus and I will think of the love of Christ and the beauty of heaven and I will die with Kyrie Eleison on my lips and a smile on my face.

My mortality

I'm always reminded of my mortality when I have to go for my blood test and general medical check-up.  The time has now come for me to have my cholesterol level checked.  In moments like this, I'm reminded of the frailty of my life.  As Tennyson writes after his dear friend died of apoplexy (whatever that means today),

From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, `A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.

That's precisely it.  Billions of species have come and gone and what's another life?  Who am I that nature should fashion and treat differently?  But we are all egocentric beings and we want to think we are different.  We are meant for higher things and when we die, we're not really gone but we'll be reborn or we go to heaven or whatever it is our religion tells us.  All that may be comforting but the fact is we are going the same way as billions of species that have not just died but become extinct.

It's only a cholesterol test, you may say.  But one thing leads to another and there's no telling when the old heart may decide to stop beating.

I am quite familiar with Bertrand Russell's "Why I am Not a Christian".  It was the first atheistic essay I've ever read.  But for me personally, it's precisely my mortality that gives me the strongest reason why I am not an atheist.  You may say only a fool will believe in something fanciful to give himself a false hope.  And of course you are right.

Each one of us has a different way of dealing with our impending death.  I deal with mine in the way I am familiar with since my early childhood.  Naturally, I have lost the trusting gullibility of a child and I see things differently today.  My faith today, if faith it can be called, has been long beaten, buffeted and pummelled to a pulp by knowledge and truth and what remains is a faint glimmer of hope.  Tennyson's lines best encapsulates what I feel:

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

Note: I will be recording my hospital visit tomorrow together with all photos in the private pages of this blog. These details will be of no interest to anyone except those very close to me and even then, those close to me won't be interested in the pics and detailed account except maybe the results of the test but there will be some time spent sitting down and waiting for my turn and I might as well occupy my time taking pics and blogging.

The passage that makes me cry.

We all have our favourite passages or poems that make us cry.  I recall asking my vicar a long time ago what I should do if I found myself unable to believe in God and the teachings of my faith.  My vicar was an old man from the north of England and he spoke with a quaint accent that wasn't that different from a variety of Indian accent that I have heard since.  He said that I should pick up the Bible and turn to the passage that affected me the most.  A passage that would make me cry every time I read it.  I told him there was no such passage.   I said the only passage that might do that was probably the start of one of the gospels that had a whole chapter on who begot whom and I might cry for sheer boredom.  He thought for a while and he replied that I was still young and no passage would move me all that much but there would come a time, he assured me, when my eyes would not fail to tear every time I read the passage.  He said any Christian who had lived to a ripe old age would most certainly have such a passage that would hit him with such a force that it was sure to make him shed tears.  I laughed at him and thought he was just babbling nonsense and I forgot all about it.

I lost my faith a year or so after I left university and became an atheist.  For three years, I was as firm an atheist as Richard Dawkins himself.  But I returned to my childhood faith after three years and it was a combination of factors that brought me back to the faith.  One of them was Leon Morris' excellent commentary on St John's Gospel in that wonderful Commentary series called the New International Commentary of the New Testament (the General Editor is none other than the great FF Bruce).

I taught Sunday School in my church when I returned to the faith and although I was orthodox in my teaching I myself had secret doubts that plagued me throughout my service in the Sunday School ministry.  It was then that I studied Koine Greek which was a great asset since the New Testament was written in that language.  I thought of studying Hebrew but I gave up before I even began.  For some reason, Hebrew frightened me.  It looked too difficult and since I was too lazy to put in the requisite effort, I gave Hebrew a miss.

One day, as a part of my Greek study, I was doing a translation of a chapter from the New Testament from Greek to English.  My head was busily getting into the correct declensions and conjugations and I wasn't even paying much attention to the full purport of the passage when suddenly, something hit me hard.  It was like a blow to my face and as I continued translating the verses, my vision began to fail and I found that tears had blurred the page before me.  I had to stop and look away, so ashamed was I to even admit to myself that I had shed tears.  It was then that I remembered what my vicar told me a long time ago.

This is the passage in Greek:

οτε ουν ηριστησαν λεγει τω σιμωνι πετρω ο ιησους σιμων ιωαννου αγαπας με πλεον τουτων λεγει αυτω ναι κυριε συ οιδας οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω βοσκε τα αρνια μου

λεγει αυτω παλιν δευτερον σιμων ιωαννου αγαπας με λεγει αυτω ναι κυριε συ οιδας οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω ποιμαινε τα προβατια μου

λεγει αυτω το τριτον σιμων ιωαννου φιλεις με ελυπηθη ο πετρος οτι ειπεν αυτω το τριτον φιλεις με και ειπεν αυτω κυριε παντα συ οιδας συ γινωσκεις οτι φιλω σε λεγει αυτω ιησους βοσκε τα προβατια μου

αμην αμην λεγω σοι οτε ης νεωτερος εζωννυες σεαυτον και περιεπατεις οπου ηθελες οταν δε γηρασης εκτενεις τας χειρας σου και αλλος ζωσει σε και οισει οπου ου θελεις

τουτο δε ειπεν σημαινων ποιω θανατω δοξασει τον θεον και τουτο ειπων λεγει αυτω ακολουθει μοι

επιστραφεις ο πετρος βλεπει τον μαθητην ον ηγαπα ο ιησους ακολουθουντα ος και ανεπεσεν εν τω δειπνω επι το στηθος αυτου και ειπεν κυριε τις εστιν ο παραδιδους σε

τουτον ουν ιδων ο πετρος λεγει τω ιησου κυριε ουτος δε τι

λεγει αυτω ο ιησους εαν αυτον θελω μενειν εως ερχομαι τι προς σε συ μοι ακολουθει

Since to most of us, this is all Greek to us, I will quote from the NIV this same passage which is John 21:15-22:

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’

‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’

Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’

Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’

He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’

Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’

The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’

Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep.  Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’  Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, ‘Follow me!’

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is going to betray you?’). When Peter saw him, he asked, ‘Lord, what about him?’

Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.’ 

When a student translates the passage into English, he encounters several problems.  The main problem is there are words in Greek that are not available in English.  What's interesting is all our English translations are inadequate when they try to translate Jesus' question to Peter, "αγαπας με" as "do you love me".  And they translate Peter's reply "φιλω σε" as "I love you".

The context of this passage is this - Peter has just denied Jesus three times just before Jesus was crucified.  Earlier, Jesus has declared to his disciples that those who deny him "will I deny before my Father in heaven".  In other words, Jesus will deny those who deny him.  This passage takes place after Jesus' resurrection and it's usually seen by scholars as a reinstatement of St Peter in his apostolic position when Jesus says "Feed my lambs" and "Shepherd my sheep".

When Jesus says "αγαπας με", he is asking if Peter has αγαπη for him which is the highest form of love imaginable; it's a love that is sacrificial, a love one is prepared to die for.   But honest Peter who has just denied Christ three times is not prepared to be so bold as to claim to possess such a love and he merely replies that he has φιλíα for Jesus.  That's a love between friends.

Christ asks him a second time "αγαπας με" to which Peter replies in exactly the same way.

Then comes the touching part.  Jesus descends from his demanding question to the simple question "φιλεις με" which is best translated, "Do you have φιλíα (friendly love) for me?"

Naturally, it's easy to see why this passage had such a profound meaning for me.  Peter may have denied Christ three times when faced with extreme danger to himself.  I, on the other hand, denied Christ for three years.

Of course my head tells me that this passage was concocted by the writer of the Gospel.  Peter would have spoken in Aramaic to Jesus and the linguistic niceties that Greek has are not found in Aramaic.  The conversation could not have taken place in that manner.  This is the same reason why that particular part of the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus could not have taken place in John 3 - see what I wrote in an earlier post:  The ανωθεν problem

But I want Jesus to have this conversation with Peter, so let's put all doubt to sleep and pretend they were speaking in Greek.

Jesus then goes on to prophesy that Peter would die a martyr's death.  Tradition has it that he was crucified upside down.  Peter then sees John passing by and he jealously asks if John will be similarly martyred.  Jesus basically tells Peter it's none of his business what happens to John.  And then comes the part which is a huge problem for me and my faith.

You see, in the next verse, we read in the Gospel, "Because of this, the rumour spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?' "

I'll explain why this verse is a huge problem for me.  In all three Synoptic Gospels (these are Mark, Matthew and Luke), there are many problem verses that show quite indisputably that Jesus promises to return in glory on a cloud with the angels (his Second Coming) within the lifetime of the early disciples, the people who listened to Jesus in the first century.  When Christians in the church in Thessalonica started to die, the rest of the Christians were terrified because Jesus had not yet returned and what was going to happen to those who had died?  St Paul, in writing 1 Thess had to address this problem.  In his epistle, even Paul himself did not envisage that Jesus would fail to honour his promise to return in the lifetime of the Apostles.  If you want to read a full explanation of this, please see an entry I wrote more than two years ago on another blog by clicking this: Christ will come again

Scholars tell us that St John's Gospel is the last gospel to be written.  It was written long after the Synoptic Gospels were written and it was probably written by someone after the death of John the Apostle, who was probably the last Apostle to die.

When everyone started to die off and one by one of the Apostles passed on and yet Christ had not returned, a rumour must have spread among the early Christian community that St John the Apostle, who was by then the only living contemporary of Jesus, would not die before Jesus' Second Coming.  But John soon died and so what was to be done?  The Gospel of John had to be written and that rumour addressed.  Notice that the Gospel of John does not have the verses in the Synoptic Gospels that specifically talk about Jesus promising to return in the 1st century?  By the time of writing, it would have been apparent to the writer of John's Gospel that Jesus certainly wasn't in a hurry to return.

Let's bust that myth No. 1 - Kuwait's shark tank collapse

Most of you would have received an email with this photo:

The photo is always followed by an explanation that the shark tank in Kuwait's Scientific Centre collapsed and sharks were all swimming on one floor of the centre.  While it is true that Kuwait's Scientific Centre does have a shark tank, there has been no incident of the tank collapsing.

Here is another example of myths perpetuated on the internet.  What really happened was a recent flooding in Toronto's Union Station and here is the photograph that was subsequently doctored by people with loads of time on their hands:

Click here to see many other examples of funny photoshopped pics that came about from the Union Station flooding.

Here are excellent reports of the flooding at Union Station: National Post and CBC

Well, obviously, flooding happens everywhere.  The next time we in Singapore experience a heavy downpour and Orchard Road begins to flood, let's remember we're not alone in our troubles.

Singapore's nooks and crannies

One tends to think that one knows everything there is to know about an island so small you can't run a marathon in a straight line in without hitting the sea. But is that entirely true?

Is the picture below all one can associate with the island of Singapore?

But it's a beautiful picture nonetheless. It speaks of progress, efficiency and development which are all hallmarks of this amazing country.  But is that all there is to Singapore?

Below are photos taken in Singapore and I bet most people won't be able to tell me where exactly they were taken.  I have blotted out my image from the pics for privacy.

 Doesn't this look like a photo taken in Narnia?

 A water-spouting dragon.

Most people would have thought this pic was taken in Malaysia if they had seen it in the context of this post.

Somewhere in the Netherlands?  Haarlem, perhaps?

Bali, of course!  Without a doubt, you would say.

One final word on Teo Chee Hean & the boy

I don't want to belabour the point but I thought I should put in one last word on this matter.  In my earlier posts (see One More Silenced and Cowed into Submission), while deprecating the silencing of a teenager when we should do all we can to encourage the young to speak up and express their thoughts in words, I was clearly disapproving of the boy's use of swear words.

I would be untruthful if I said that profanity was all right to me because it certainly isn't and I personally detest all forms of profanity.  But the world was not formed for me alone and there are others living here too and I do try to understand how others think and the context in which the profanity was said.  I have said in one of my earlier posts (see the links in the preceding paragraph) that the boy's other posts in his blog also contained the word "fuck" and its derivatives, chief or which is the word "fucking" used as a modifier.

One point to note is the boy's blog was in tumblr.com.  Anyone with a tumblr account should know that for reasons I cannot understand, the use of "fuck" and "fucking" is extremely common in tumblr culture.  If you haven't got a tumblr account and you try to think of your facebook postings as an equivalent, forget it.  Tumblr is very different from facebook or twitter.  For example, I like cycling and I follow cycling groups in facebook and cycling blogs in tumblr.  In facebook, a typical cycling group is simply called "Cycling".  In tumblr, the best cycling blog to follow is "Fuckyeahcycling".   Everything is preceded by Fuckyeah.

I'm not trying to excuse the boy who seems to have been at the receiving end of everyone's rebuke but we must look at everything in its proper context.  Of course you won't catch me going "Fuck yeah!" in my speech and writing even though I have a tumblr account and I do blog there regularly.  But I'm not an impressionable 17 year old and I cannot be so presumptuous as to measure everyone else by my own yardstick.

When we look at the entire circumstances in which the boy used the offensive word, we have to admit that it was hardly offensive at all.  We should also not forget that he was addressing a public figure.  If I say "Fuck you" to a cashier in a supermarket, that is highly offensive but it is much less so when someone says the same thing in a blog to Obama.  Obscenities directed at the US President or the British PM are so common that nobody bats an eyelid.  It would be shocking to hear of a schoolboy being summoned to meet Obama with his teacher and father because he wrote an obscenity directed at Obama in his blog.  If Obama did that, he'd be out of office by November this year.

While we may wish to make use of this episode to teach the young the importance of writing good and polite essays, we should stop making this boy a scapegoat.

Why I don't read the local papers regularly

Time is limited and reading the papers does take up some time.  But everyone has to read the papers to keep himself abreast of current news.  All the major newspapers are available for free online.  My main online newspaper is the BBC.  It has the best coverage and gives the latest news fastest.   I am signed on the best newspapers in twitter and I find the BBC gives more news and is a lot swifter in getting its tweets to me than CNN or NY Times.  The local papers are of course good for local gossip, if one has the time.

In my earlier blog post (see the last paragraph of this post), I alluded to some serious shortcomings of the local press but I didn't give any details.  In this post, I will give a proper account to justify what I have said of the local press.

I have written elsewhere on this blog about the serious language errors in the local papers such as the Straits Times (for an example, click here).  I have on numerous occasions written to the Press about them but the local press is averse to publishing letters on its wrong use of words and other grammatical errors.  They usually thank me for my letters and they inform me that they will alert the newsroom but they don't publish the letters.  In many instances, I wrote to them only because the articles that contained grammatical errors were articles about the importance of good English.   Surely if a journalist has the ruddy cheek to write about correct English usage and criticises the general public for its common errors, he must at least ensure that his article does not contain grammatical errors!   But this is what Straits Times journalists have failed many times and despite the effort I put in to point out the errors, the Straits Times is only willing to "alert the newsroom" but not the rest of its readers.

Language matters are for another post.  I have written extensively on them and I will write more in the future.  I have saved all my letters and Straits Times' replies on my google plus and so it's easy to blog about them but they don't concern us here.

Language errors don't stop me from reading the newspapers.  But inaccuracy and irresponsibility in reporting are far more serious lapses.  And these are part of the failings of local newspapers.   It is common to hear how lacking in independence the local press is.  The opposition parties are always accusing the local press of being controlled by the government and most people do believe this is true but I'm not interested in politics and in what the government controls or doesn't control.  I'm only interested in ensuring that the newspapers I spend time reading are accurate in their reporting and it doesn't bother me in the least if the agenda is political or religious or racial.  I want full information and if you hold back information for whatever reason, you aren't responsible in your reporting and I'm not going to waste my time reading your articles, especially when I have free access to the world's best newspapers that don't hide information.

Let me give an example.  I will pick a local news item and compare the reporting of it in the local papers with what appears in a foreign press.  There will be less excuse for the local press since the news item is local in nature.

I first read about the death of JB Jeyaretnam (an opposition leader) in the Straits Times.  They had a write-up on his life and upon reading it, I knew something was missing.  I looked up the news online and the same chunk was strangely left out in the Channel News Asia article.  Channel News Asia is the publisher of Today newspapers and it is produced by the same team.  Here's the Channel News Asia article which is substantially the same as what appeared in the Straits Times (you may click on the image to enlarge it):

Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/379303/1/.html





I have produced the article in full because I want to show you what's missing in it.  Now you may want to see what the BBC has to say.  I'll just post the screen shot below.  The link to the article appears at the bottom.

Source:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7643379.stm




What made me unhappy with the local newspapers is they totally left out the fact that the Privy Council ruled in Jeyaretnam's favour.  The Law Lords in London made scathing remarks about the judgment of our local court.  I remember what a foul mood the then Chief Justice was in for weeks after the Privy Council ruling.  Shortly after, appeals to the Privy Council were discontinued.  Surely this fact is worth mentioning in an article that announces the death of JB Jeyaretnam and makes direct reference to his 1986 conviction?  Why should we have to read a foreign newspaper for such information when one would imagine that it should be readily available to local journalists?

My view is simple - if I want current and comprehensive news, I wouldn't look to the local papers.  I don't blame the government for this.  I don't believe the Ministry of Information is to be faulted.  The government of Singapore is actually quite liberal and easy-going.  It's the people of Singapore who have misplaced fears and they are the ones who exercise self-censorship.  These people include journalists.  I recall years ago a talk between Lee Kuan Yew and a group of young journalists.  They told Mr Lee that the people of Singapore were generally afraid of voting the Opposition.  When asked by Mr Lee, they admitted that they too were afraid if they were to vote in favour of the Opposition. I remember poor Mr Lee looking shocked and he mumbled in disbelief that these journalists had had a good university education.  But that's precisely what I've observed and what the foreign press always misses.  It's the people with their misplaced fears that give a false impression that a benign government is draconian.

I will say no more.  Politics is not what I'm interested in and all I want to say is if you want responsible, fair and comprehensive reporting, go for the foreign press. There are many different newspapers to choose from and they are all freely available online.  But if trash is your cup of tea, go for the Straits Times.  A good example is this scandalous article complete with the filching of someone's photograph from her facebook account:

Source:  http://www.straitstimes.com/The-Big-Story/The-Big-Story-1/Story/STIStory_810392.html

It's a vile thing to do to that poor woman but that's the local press for you.

Cum dumplings in Singapore

In my earlier blog entry, I talked about a food stall that had a signboard that declared to the whole world that it was selling "INDIAN CUM".  Here's the link to the entry:  Indian cum

But that was an excusable mistake made by a food seller who was not comfortable with the English language.   What I saw this evening was totally unexpected.  Here is a photograph of it:

Notice that this is something organised by the Community Club.  In Singapore, it means this is a government-sponsored event.  There's to be a Cum Dumpling Making Competition on 16 June.  To enter the competition, you have to be in a team of two to three persons, presumably, one has to be a man.

This is not a misprint.  There are two other banners in different locations that say the same thing:

 Coincidentally, I had 4 different types of dumplings tonight for dinner.  As you can see from the labels, none of them is a cum dumpling.  Others may eat cum dumplings for all I care.  I'll just stick to the traditional dumplings.

Cowed into submission

So I was right in my conjecture about Reuben Wang, the blogger who used profanity against Teo Chee Hean.  It's all in the papers now.  I had surmised that his school probably forced him to close down his blog.  The local papers say he was "counselled" by his school.  As late as this week itself, he stood by what he had written although he acknowledged that his use of profanity was in poor taste.  On Wednesday (2 days ago), his entire blog was deleted.  On Thursday (yesterday), he had a meeting with Teo Chee Hean with a teacher from SAJC (his JC) and his father.  Teo Chee Hean gave him a book autographed by himself.  How sweet.  Strangely, despite the quick pace of events that followed immediately after he posted his blog, his principal had something to say about the whole event and even the Ministry of Education had time to say something about the student's post.  "Rude and unbecoming", says a spokesman for the Ministry.

The Ministry of Education and the principal of SAJC have made it clear that this is a good teaching tool for students in general.  What lesson can we draw from this?

A cardinal rule is this - NEVER use profanity.  I said in my blog post yesterday that the boy's swear words detracted from the elegance of his general writing style.  It is not just a matter of style.  It involves one's credibility and effectiveness too.  Logically, it should not affect the writer's credibility but we live in an illogical world and people generally lay less store by articles that contain vulgarities.

But let's be clear about one thing and all students and young people should bear this in mind.  Reuben Wang is perfectly justified in forming his opinion about Teo Chee Hean or any other persons.  It's perfectly acceptable for him to say that Teo did not answer the questions of the students if in fact he had failed to do so.

After all, Reuben is only 17 and we ought to cut him some slack.  He had something to say about the Pre-U Seminar.  He was most unimpressed by Teo's handling of the seminar.  He may have expressed himself inappropriately but we should give him another chance to say what he wanted to say about the Pre-U Seminar, this time without profanity.

If I were Reuben Wang, I would write a fresh blog and give clear reasons why I think Teo failed in answering the students' questions.  I would give specific examples of questions, Teo's answers, if any, and my assessment of the entire scene.  I would do it in polite language.  That would certainly give Reuben Wang more credibility and the respect he deserves.  And I'm sure Teo Chee Hean would be happy to have honest feedback from a student who attended his Seminar.  Neither the school nor his parents have the right to stop Reuben  from expressing his thoughts.  Otherwise, all we have is the story from the local newspapers (which I tend to read with a pinch of salt - and I can justify what I have said with an article that appeared in a local newspaper in 2008 but that is subject for another blog post). 


Since I have made a snide remark about the local newspapers, my next post or my post in the near future should be "Why I don't really read the local papers" and I will give my reasons.  Without profanity.

Land of the gods

Saw 3 temples within 100 metres of one another. Here are two:

The Synoptic Problem

Oldest surviving sarcophagus portraying Jesus as the Good Shepherd (a reference found only in John's Gospel)

Photo taken from Bart Ehrman's The New Testament - A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.

This is an excellent book every Christian should read.

I first read of the "Synoptic Problem" when I was a boy but the text was not easy to follow and so rather than read up on it (this was a time before the internet) I did the next best thing - asked my vicar.  He told me this was not something for the lay person and it was huge ground for theologians to cover and we who were devout parishioners in Christ's Holy Church should be thankful for the work of these experts. They have grappled with the problem and they have solved it.  However, it would be too arduous a task for each one of us to try to understand such a difficult subject and we should rest secure that these brilliant scholars are there before us.

But what my vicar said to me was nothing unique.  I have since met many Christians including a good friend of mine who takes precisely that route in their belief - he actually said to me as we were drinking coffee after lunch that the scholars were more brilliant than both of us combined and if these scholars could believe, why couldn't we?  When my vicar first told me that, I knew he was talking rubbish and I realised that there were problems in the church that priests and scholars wouldn't want the laity to know.   So I did a bit of research on my own.  And boy, what a can of worms you can open up if you really want to peer into the Synoptic Problem.  The similarities of the Synoptics aren't all there is to a problem larger than the entire Church.  When you start examining the differences in the Synoptics, it becomes even more interesting.  How Luke changed Mark's stories, for example, (Mark was written much earlier than Luke) to suit his idea of Jesus being in supreme control as opposed to Mark's very different Jesus and how different Synoptic Gospels copied the sayings in Q (a sourcebook that scholars are certain was used by the Synoptics but has never been found) cast such a spell over me as a boy in a way that Treasure Island could not.  Of course when you go further and start to compare the Synoptics with the Gospel of John, you fall right into the deepest quagmire imaginable.  As someone close to me once said, he could not understand why the church did not get rid of 3 Gospels and left only one as the word of God.  Even a common burglar knows better than to carry his tools out in the open for all to see.

For a long time, I dismissed the existence of Q and I forced myself to think that the similarities (even where the verses were copied verbatim) were all due to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  In my late teens, I joined a fundamentalist church and I firmly rejected any book that did not accord with the Baptist belief of biblical inerrancy.  For two years, my mind was shackled and I utterly refused to read any book that argued against biblical inerrancy or that questioned the canon of scriptures.

It's very hard to be a fundamentalist because you can't chain the human mind for too long.  Deep down, you know it's all bunkum but you are taught that such thoughts come from the Devil and the correct response is to reject them in Jesus' name.  But how many years can you fool a child into believing nonsense?  There will come a time when he will want to read those books written by the Devil himself and decide for himself who the real Devil is when it comes to lies, deception and falsehood.

To me personally, the biggest obstacle to faith must be the Holy Gospels themselves.  Elsewhere in the Bible (except for a few Old Testament books where two books tell the same story), each book has a monopoly of the story it tells.  Some tell the most fanciful tales but hey, you've got to accept them because they're inspired by God and besides, nothing is impossible with God, you of little faith!

But the Gospels tell largely the same story.  They all talk about Jesus and his ministry on earth.  But they disagree with one another like crazy.  And of course when you bring in John's Gospel, you are as good as supplying non-Christians with nuclear warheads and begging them to blow you up.

Theologians always come up with great names for serious problems with the Bible.  For example, instead of saying there are huge similarities and dissimilarities in the first three gospels, they talk of the Synoptic Problem.  This is sure to make the average parishioner lose interest.  Next, everyone knows how different John's Gospel is from the rest.  John's Jesus is a very different Jesus from the other Gospels.  In John's Gospel which was written the latest - as late as towards the end of the 1st century, Jesus is almost equal to God; in fact, a plausible argument can be made that he is equal to God! How else can we have our doctrine of the Trinity firmly entrenched if not for John's Gospel?

But instead of saying this, scholars merely say that we see in John what they choose to call "high Christology".  Wow, you've got to give it to these scholars.  When it comes to covering up problem areas, they are second to none.  High Christology sounds so lofty and correct.

You may think this isn't something you can fool anyone on but the average parishioner is fooled.  In the first place, most Christians aren't at all interested in their religion or the Bile or problems in the Bible.  They are more interested in the stock market, cheap deals and the latest tv programme.  They are more interested in, if I may borrow biblical language, the things of this world.  When you haven't the slightest interest in the Bible, why should you care if someone tells you there are huge problems with it?  You'd be more interested if he's letting you in on info concerning an imminent collapse of the stock market. 

But for those who are interested in these problems, the church has its apologists whose job it is to defend the faith.  There are many books written to reconcile what they call "apparent" inconsistencies.  I've read many of these books and I'm quite familiar with how they go about doing this.  I'm talking mainly about the Gospels because like I've said, for all the other books of the Bible, they usually have a monopoly over the stories they tell so there can be no contradictions there.

Broadly, this is how you reconcile the differences:

1.  Choose the greater number.  For example, in one Gospel, only one woman was at the Crucifixion of our Lord, another gives a different number and yet another gave about 4 or 5 (I don't recall the precise number).  The apologist will always take the larger number to be correct.  The Gospels that said fewer attended the Crucifixion were merely zooming in on these few without excluding the presence of the others.  Sometimes, you can't employ this ruse.  For example, John tells us the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 and one of the Synoptic Gospels says it was 4000.  Some apologists are quick to point out that one of the Synoptic Gospels specifically explained that the 4000 did not include women and children.  Difference harmonised?  No, I'm afraid not.  In John's Gospel, Jesus used 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed the 5000 and the crumbs filled 12 baskets.  In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus used 7 loaves and a few fish to feed the 4000 and the crumbs filled 7 baskets.  Now, this calls for a different method:

2.  Say they are two separate events.  The feeding of the 5000 is a separate and distinct event from the feeding of the 4000.  Problem solved.

3.  Confuse parishioners with Greek.  Because the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, it's easy when one encounters a problem to say that the Greek word allows for a different meaning.  One example is our Lord's promise that his Second Coming would take place in the lifetimes of the Apostles, his listeners in the early 1st century.  This is one of the major problems of the faith because technically, Christianity should have died out in the 2nd century AD when Christ did not come again. Scholars tell us that some scribes in the early church even tried to alter some biblical verses to remove this promise of our Lord because it wouldn't look good for God to make a promise he didn't fulfil. In one verse, our Lord said that "this generation" would not pass before the end of the world came and of course he (Jesus) would come on a cloud with the angels.  Scholars have brilliantly shown that the Greek word for "generation" can also mean "race" and since the Jewish race is still around, phew! we can't say Christ didn't fulfil his promise.  Alas, there are at least 5 other verses where our Lord didn't use the word "generation" and he still made it clear that he would return in the 1st century when his 1st century listeners would still be around.

One more silenced.

Just last week, a seventeen year old Junior College student posted on his blog what he thought about a Cabinet Minister who visited the Pre-University Seminar which he attended.  His posting received the attention of other bloggers who lauded his post and circulated it all over cyberspace. A few days ago, I saw on my tumblr a post he made about his surprise that his blog which had all along been read by only a few friends should suddenly receive the attention of so many people including quite a few online bloggers who are usually critical of the government.  A day after that and without a word, his blog disappeared totally from tumblr.






One can easily conjecture what must have happened after he gained popularity for that post of his.  Singaporean society is very tightly controlled by rules, a lot of which are unspoken.  A word from the principal of his college is enough to ensure that his blog is removed from the internet.

While I do not approve of profanity used in any form of writing, I do not understand the need for him to remove his blog entirely from tumblr.  He could easily have set that article to "private" (that's a feature in tumblr) but half measures are not what Singapore is famous for.  I'm only surmising of course but whoever had told him off must have insisted that he deleted his entire blog.

That's a shame.  Stifling the writings of young people is something nobody should do.  If I were the principal of his Junior College and I felt strongly that his blog post did not give a fair assessment of the Minister at the Pre-U Seminar, I would have written a response to his blog and requested him to post it alongside his original post.  I would most certainly take him to task for his gratuitous use of profanities which appear quite liberally in his other entries too.   These profanities certainly detract from the general elegance of his style.

It is really unfortunate that his entire blog has been removed.  What Singapore needs are more young people who are able to think through issues and express their thoughts in words.  Fifthazure, the username this boy used for his blog, is certainly capable of doing that but the poor chap has had his knuckles rapped.

Trinity Sunday

Today is Trinity Sunday.  What is the Trinity?  We have a long and convoluted Creed that purports to explain the Trinity but it doesn't help very much and it leaves us bewildered.  Let me give you a brief guideline that I will write off the top of my head without having to check google for the correct spelling or the Bible for the correct verses so if I get anything wrong, please don't pick on it.

It all began with Judaism and the Old Testament is very clear about this.  God is ONE.  Not two or three but ONE.  The most important call that a faithful believer will say twice a day is the sheema which is this: "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord".  The unitary nature of God is important throughout the belief of everyone from Abraham to Moses to all the Prophets, major and minor.

You may ask yourself how much clearer one can make about the unitary nature of God.  THE LORD THY GOD IS ONE LORD.

Now we come to the New Testament.  Let's remember that this is a BRIEF guideline.  The Trinity in 10 seconds.  I need to cycle to church soon to play my instrument in the church ensemble and I've got to be quick.

The Synoptic Gospels are very clear about Jesus.  The Father knows when the Second Coming of Jesus will be but Jesus doesn't know that. Jesus prays to God. Jesus emphasizes his role as someone sent by the Father and he has to obey God the Father.  When the rich young ruler called him good, Jesus responded with a terse "Only God is good".  John's Gospel which scholars tell us is the latest of the four is quite different.  From the get go in the very first verse in the first chapter, we read that "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God".  In Greek, "the Word was God" is not as simple as it might appear in English.  Even great evangelical scholars like Leon Morris tell us that it can be translated "the Word was divine" or had the qualities of God but of course Morris goes on to say why "the Word was God" is preferable to him as an evangelical.  In my younger days before I became jaded by the problems of my religion, I regarded "and the Word was with God" as more definitive of the Godhead of Christ than "the Word was God".  The reason for this is the Gospel writer used the accusative mood "πρὸς τὸν θεόν" and not the dative "παρὰ θεὸς".  Of course I was grasping at straws as I always have been to justify the teachings of my church.  Rather than admit that the writer's Greek was flawed, I chose to believe that the accusative mood was an indication that Jesus being God could not be with God but the "with" was more an "acting upon" - like a spiritual reactionary co-mixing of each other and the accusative best expressed that.  Of course that was all rubbish.  The human mind is highly inventive when it comes to justifying the ways of God to men.

But elsewhere in John, we see clear verses that deifies Christ.  I have no time to go into them but you can look them up.  Briefly, "Before Abraham was, I am" and doubting Thomas going on his knees and calling Christ "my Lord and my God" are all found ONLY in John's Gospel.

With the passage of time as Jesus was worshipped more and more, it was unthinkable not to elevate Christ to full Godhead.  But wait, it doesn't end there.  How much God is Jesus?  The greatest early Christian thinker Origen did not deny the divinity of Jesus but he wrote that Jesus was the first creation of God the Father.  Jesus is the begotten son of the Father.  Naturally the Father has to exist before him.  After all, St Paul wrote that Jesus is "the firstborn of all creation".  You can twist a sentence any way you like and you can look at it in Greek, English or Urdu but the firstborn of all creation MUST be a creation.  It's as elementary as that.  You would have thought Origen did right to say that.

But poor Origen was posthumously pronounced a heretic when the church moved on to decide that Jesus was co-eternal with the Father.  That means it's heresy to say Jesus was created.  Would the Church declare St Paul a heretic for writing that Jesus is "the firstborn of all creation"?  Of course not.  You can't do that to St Paul because his writing is the Word of God.  All we have to do is to decide that the firstborn of all creation is not a creation.  This is religion, remember?  And no decent person questions religion.  So today, you will find a Christian totally unfazed when he reads the verse - it's like water off a duck's back.
 
What about the Holy Spirit?  The Filioque caused a schism within the church.  We say in the creed that "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son".

But that's not how an Orthodox would say his creed. His Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father whereas the Holy Spirit of the rest of us  (RCs and Protestants alike) proceeds from the Father and the Son. But what is the big deal, you may legitimately ask?  What does it even mean for the Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son or from the Father alone?  After all, the Church has decided that the Holy Spirit too is co-eternal with the Father and the Son.  But what's the difference and what does it mean?  But this difference has caused a huge split in the church and has been the cause of wars and bloodshed.  Can you imagine that?  Just because someone believes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and not the Father alone is a reason for you to kill him and the other way round too?  And you don't even know what it means?  I've tried very hard to understand what the church has come up with and to see which church is right and I'm confused.  Now, the Holy Spirit is also referred to as pneuma which is "wind" and he proceeds from either the Father alone or the Father and the Son.  What meaning can that have?  My immediate thought is something I dare not even think of because our Lord tells us that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a sin that is unforgivable.  But I do want to know what it means before I can understand why people would kill over a disagreement that they don't even understand.  Can one say that all three - Father, Son and Holy Spirit are co-eternal so it really doesn't matter who proceeds from whom because they've always existed anyway?   No,  he must take a stand or he risks being called a heretic.  The creed I recite ALWAYS says the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son but that's because I don't live in Greece or Russia.

All Christian traditions that survive to this day accept that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God but in three persons.  But the Old Testament and all the Patriarchs and Prophets insist that the Lord our God is one Lord.  But the church will say of course God is one Lord but he is three Persons.  The sheema doesn't say "Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God is one Person" because God is one Lord but in three Persons.  But if you think about it, how on earth could the Old Testament writers envisage that one day, we will say that God is one but three Persons?  I'm sure if they had a vision that we'd come up with this formula, the sheema would have addressed our situation more specifically and it'll probably read "Hear O Israel, the Lord they God is one Lord and one Person".  But then the church would never have contradicted the Old Testament so openly as to insist that God is in three Persons.  What the church would have done is probably to say that God is one Person but in three Entities.  That's the beauty of religion.  You can always use another word and if the meaning is confusing and mystical, so much the better.  Besides, we are always told that we can't really understand the Trinity because that is how great God is.  There is no way the Old Testament could have ensured that people in the future who claim to use it do not flout its most basic tenet as contained in the sheema.  There is always some way of getting round it.

But for those of us who have been in the faith all our lives, the name of the Holy Trinity is precious and our bodies naturally react at the invocation of the name.  Even though my faith is what it is today, my entire being reacts instinctively whenever the name is invoked and my hand will rise to my forehead to make the "holy sign" almost as if it has a life of its own.  It's the same with the Creed.  There is one part in the Creed where we should bow but I have noticed that only old people bow so I ain't doing it!  But the Creed was at one time a battle cry and the yardstick by which dissidents and people who differ from us were killed.  Why then do I not feel a revulsion for it?  How can I bow when it's said? How can I cross myself after it's been said?  But we still do it and I will do it for the rest of my life.  The killings were all in the past and they serve as a reminder to us that there should be no violence.

The Archbishop of Canterbury ruled a couple of years ago that no convert should be required to accept the virgin birth as a prerequisite for acceptance into the church.  But the virgin birth is in our Creed and shared by ALL churches: "I believe in..... Jesus Christ who was born of the Virgin Mary".  When we would once kill someone for denying the virgin birth or for saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and not the Son, today, the good Archbishop has declared that we don't even debar such a person from being received into the church.  We have certainly come a long way since the early church.

As we observe Trinity Sunday, let us remember that there are many of our brethren who are unable to accept the virgin birth or who believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, whatever that means and I assure you, nobody knows what it means - it's conveniently and charmingly called a "mystery" of faith.  Let us remember also Origen and think fondly of him even though he was posthumously branded a heretic.  Origen was a great Christian thinker and how was he to know that the church would decide that Christ was co-eternal some decades after his death?  After all, he was being faithful to the Bible or more specifically to what St Paul wrote in the Epistles.  Rather than look for differences, let us learn to be inclusive.

It's fatal if you don't read the footnotes!!!

I was cycling late this afternoon when something caught my eye and I knew I just had to turn back.  I had seen the name "Pentecostal" on top of a building.  There were a lot of men wearing ties placing notices outside the church telling motorists not to park by the roadside.  I took a pic of the church from across the road.  I must confess I felt a little uneasy and I did look at the road beneath my feet to see if there might be some slithering creature not far from me.

This is the pic I took:

The reason why I took the pic of the building that says "Pentecostal Church of Singapore" and the reason for my apprehension can be explained by merely referring the reader to this link on ABC News:

Click here


Here's an excerpt from the link:

The report goes on to say: "Snake-handlers point to scripture as evidence that God calls them to engage in such a practice to show their faith in him. Mark 16: 17-18 reads, "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

But this is one of those sections in the Bible that are disputed and today, even the most evangelical scholars believe that they shouldn't be a part of the original Bible.  Just look at any modern translation of the Bible and you will see a footnote that says of a large chunk of the end of St Mark's Gospel that includes those verses quoted by the snake handlers that "older and more reliable manuscripts do not contain these verses".

The Bible can be fatal if you believe it wholeheartedly and you don't read the footnotes.

Anyway, I wanted to ask the church attendants what they thought of Pentecostal pastor Mark Wolford but I didn't have the courage to ask anyone in the church.  I wouldn't dare trifle with them.  There may be no rattlesnakes in Singapore but if any one of them gets mad at me, he might just throw a King Cobra at me and I have too little faith to claim the promise in Mark 16:17-18.  Besides, I have read the footnotes!

Would you buy a pre-loved car?

If you are sick of seeing used cars or second-hand cars being given the name "pre-owned" cars,

 how do you feel about the euphemism "pre-loved" cars?

That's how ridiculous the second-hand car industry has become.

What's wrong with these people?  I call my bicycle a bike or if I have to be specific, a mountain bike and you will never catch me calling it a two-wheeled love machine.


Source: Straits Times,  2 June 2012 (in the Classified Ads, somewhere at the bottom of the right page, I think).

What's ideal when it comes to adopting children?

A facebook discussion on this question arose as a corollary to my JC Penney article (see the entry immediately below) which led to an impassioned opposition to my stand.  There are implications made that I was homophobic and I was tarred with the same brush as those who, in the past, wrote gays off as insane.  Below is the entire exchange.  Please read every word before coming to your own conclusion and decide if I was in fact homophobic.  You may disagree with my stand that singles, widows, widowers and those who can't offer a mother-and-father home environment are less ideal in raising kids but is that homophobic?  Search the postings below with a fine toothcomb and let me know where I have exhibited homophobia.  Please post your comments below.  For the sake of privacy, I have deleted all but the first names in the posts below.

JC Penney in the thick of a cultural war with fundamentalists

On the top right hand corner are these words:

One Million Mothers, a Christian group, is up in arms against JC Penney and has called for a boycott of the company.  See the report here:

Source:  Click here

JC Penney's publishing of the ad in their Father's Day brochure is a clear indication of the company's stand despite the criticism it faced in February from the American Family Association's One Million Mums project for hiring Ellen DeGeneres to be the company's spokesperson.  Ellen DeGeneres if of course a lesbian.

Although I have doubts as to whether it's prudent to allow adoption of children by gay and lesbian couples, I am absolutely disgusted by the stand taken by One Million Mums.  JC Penney, in spurning One Million Mums, is to be lauded.  Organising a boycott is so typical of groups that do not place much store by reasoning and debating. 

Personally, I wouldn't bother to try and convince JC Penney that adoption of children by gay couples isn't ideal simply because JC Penney is not an adoption agency.  Their views on adoption have nothing to do with their customers.  It's different if JC Penney sold clothes that came from factories which exploited young children in illegal underage labour.  If that is the complaint, a boycott is understandable.




EDIT: 2:50pm, 7 June 2012:
In the 6 June 2012 issue of the Huffington Post online, there is an interview of the two dads.  Here it is:

Link to article and video

The Fatal Junction

I recently took my bike out for a spin late one night.  As I approached at about 3am the road junction where a Ferrari driver smashed into a taxi killing himself, the taxi driver and his passenger, I saw blinking lights by the roadside.  This was also the same junction where another non-fatal accident happened just last week (about a week after the fatal Ferrari accident).

The blinking lights came from two police officers, a policeman and a policewoman.  They were very friendly and pleasant.  They told me they were on an operation to arrest motorists who beat the red lights.  As I removed my rucksack to take my phone-camera out, they even advised me to bring my bike onto the kerb.  Naturally, they didn't want a third accident at this junction and right in front of them too.

Police officers in Singapore are a decent lot.  Racist policemen who beat up blacks and only get booked when the video of the beating goes viral are non-existent here.   When I was a student, I even got a ride on a police patrol car out of the Hall of Residence in my university to the bus stop some distance away.  That incident emboldened me and the next day after having had breakfast, I saw from the dining hall of my university hostel a patrol car moving slowly along the road in the direction of the bus stop I wanted to get to.  Accustomed to the incredible friendliness of police officers and without a thought, I clutched my bag and ran after it.  I didn't want to have to walk the long stretch to the bus stop.  The policeman stopped his car immediately, thinking no doubt that a crime had been committed and I was running to them for assistance.  It's not surprising that I got an earful from them when they heard with disbelief that all I wanted was a ride in their patrol car.  That was the only occasion when they were less polite.  But even then, they were not rude.  They were probably too shocked to be rude.  They pointed out to me that it was a patrol car they were driving and not a private car.   After apologizing to them, I even had the cheek to ask if they could still give me a ride but of course they refused and drove off.

But that was a long time ago and now I'm older and wiser.  I asked these police officers if I could take pics for my blog before doing so.  I was tempted to ask them to take a pic of me on my bike but I felt that was going too far and even a camwhore must know his limits. I am indeed older and wiser.