Pwnager~Black God~

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

President’s Star Charity Show- is there a need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations?

The President’s Star Charity show has been running for quite a long time. It has often been an annual event hosted by charitable organizations to raise funds for the group of underprivileged people they are serving. These people range from the elderly to homeless children or orphans, sometimes even mentally and physically disabled people. The organizations virtue is one that gives the right social treatment to this group of unfortunate people and help them survive in the outside world.
In order to compromise on this need, the organizations need to host annual events for the raising of funds for these people, which requires a large amount of manpower to put up performances, dangerous stunts, etc. The shows would then be broadcasted on television the whole nation to view as an effort to persuade the public to donate money.
This form of alluring audiences with jaw-dropping performances and eye-blogging stunts has its own advantages and disadvantages. Though the amount of labour is really huge to put up such a grandiose performance, the celebrities and workers are stilling willing to sacrifice their time to put up such an event, and that itself is motivational to the public. I think that this shows that most Singaporeans are generally benevolent to help those that are less fortunate than them. These would also benefit both parties as the audience would be more willing to donate money if they are treated to a performance instead of just asking them to just donate without knowing whom the money is going to. The common response from people who are asked to donate when charity shows are on is, “What for donate to these charity shows because I don’t know who are going to benefit directly from them? I might as well, donate to that homeless and destitute guy who’s begging for money at the train station.” The implementation of a performance by artistes would hence promote the organization more and more people would be willing to donate as they are assured that their money would not fall into bad hands.
However, all that glitters is not gold. What people and the charities really want is not a charity show that showcases different talents performing and flaunting their beauty and sexiness, (almost) ‘begging’ for donations and just plain wasting resources during the 2-3hours of broadcast. If one is to sincerely think that helping the less fortunate is an act of virtue, he should not be only tempted to donate only when there is a performance of some sort. Rather, we need transparency and accountability in place before we are thrown off with such entertainment which is in the name of a good cause. People who are all skeptical in nature would want to know how and who the money they donated is going to be used for, and hence they would not easily give up their money.
Before the charity show can begin seeing a spike in donations and overwhelming compassionate response from the public to donate during a 3 hour entertainment show, there’s a need to treat people who part with the money like shareholders of these charities - account for what they are being used for, how and well, who’s benefiting directly from it. For instance, the incident about the Ren Ci hospital monk scandal invoked many controversial arguments, and many people lost faith in the organization itself, and the fund raising event was no longer hosted.
In essence, the motivation to donate to a charity should come from one’s heart itself, if he truely and sincerely wishes to help those in need, and not through watching some fanciful performances.

Pwnager
4:47 PM

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Regulation of political commentary on the Internet in Singapore

Political podcasts had been rampant in Singapore since political campaigning had become a prevalent use of spreading political ideology. Political podcasts are also a regnant way of spreading influence over the general public and members of the parliament over their decisions. Furthermore, through the growth of the technological industry, the regulations of political podcasts are much more prominent on the Internet and other sources of media. Through this evolution of ways to spread new ideology, political podcasts had been a controversial topic of debate in the part of the government.
I agree to a certain extent that political podcasts may indeed be an excellent and convenient way to spread political ideas to the general public. It would provide the public an overview of what is happening in the political world, as citizens of a nation would want to know for sure how the nation is being ruled. They would not want to be kept in the dark about what is happening in the political society and would also want some insight in the political system, so they can be assured that their nation is ruled properly. Political podcasts on websites like www.mrbrown.com or www.talkingcock.com could serve as excellent platforms for the sharing of certain political ideology with the general public. The public can also view political issues in a more relaxed and casual way instead of always treating them as grim matters.
However, I also think that political podcasts on the internet is justifiably not politically ethical, as it ruins the ability of freedom of choice for the people. Certain people who despise a certain political party would premeditatedly distort the truth and perhaps even post apocryphal information about them up on the internet for other netters to have misconceptions about that certain political group and hence develop the same assumptions about them. Some people may even abuse this function of the internet to post information that may contain offensive insults to other political parties, and hence tarnishing their reputation. This in turn would cause the whole political system to break down as people are robbed of their own personal opinions and decisions which are covered up by these artificial facts which masked up the truth behind the political system.
Dr Lee once said: "Political campaigning should not be turned into 'info-tainment', where the line between fact and fiction gets blurred, and people get worked up emotionally without understanding the substantive issues." I agree thoroughly with this statement as political podcasts frequently do not acquire the permission of the mentioned party before putting words into their mouths. For example, shortly after the People’s Action Party introduced its new candidate Zaqy Mohamad, there were political podcasts who claimed that he was the nephew of Speaker of Parliament Abdullah Tarmugi. This is definitely untrue and is just a tall tale that was made up by someone. The integrity of elections and political issues should be held up high in regard and should be treated with priority.
The Internet has become such a wide necessity for people right now that almost everyone in the world could access information that is posted on it. Hence, people would usually believe what rumours may there be on the internet, be it true or false. Political podcasts are an example of abusing the use of the internet for such purposes, as once information starts going around in the internet, it spreads like wild fire and it is impossible to put it right. Such materials may masquerade as objective documentaries, but are in fact are slanted propaganda to draw attention and score political points. Such videos also should not be treated seriously as they evoke visceral emotions and are not conducive to a calm and dispassionate treatment of politics. Hence, I agree to the governments ban of political podcasts.

Pwnager
9:21 PM