mrbrown.com

Never wash your Party whites with the pink underwear

Seen on PAP Holland-Bukit Timah's Facebook page:

Maybe PAP's Liang Eng Hwa did not get the memo to wear all white as per Party instructions. Or he washed his white pants with the coloureds.

Or more nefariously, maybe he is a secret fan of NSP?

How many Ministers and MPs does it take to open a carpark?

This is a screen capture of a video seen on Pasir Ris West Young PAP's Facebook page, documenting the moving drama of DPM Teo Chee Hean and some PAP candidates officiating the opening of a temporary carpark at Punggol Angsana estate.

You heard it right the first time: TEMPORARY. CAR. PARK.

That must have been one difficult ribbon to cut, requiring so many Party talents.

What's next for his intrepid team? Officiating the opening of an umbrella?

PAP's idea of a Facebook banner ad

Did someone misunderstand "let's put up a Facebook banner ad?"

Photo by @smithankyou

Thor hits our big screens on Election week

I was watching the trailer of the upcoming Thor movie in a late night movie outing with friends, when this last scene came out. I couldn't resist saying out loud "Thor hoot jit kee Worker Party Hammer hor li seeeeeeeee!!!". 

Not that I was endorsing one party or another but it just seemed like a funny thing to say at the time.

The people in the audience around me thought so too, judging from the laughter.

the mrbrown show: politician training school

Photo by Wildcat Dunny

Special politician training now on at mrbrownshow.com!

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An Open Letter to CEO Mike Edwards of Borders, from an employee of 23 Years

Photo by calaggie of Flickr

This was written by my friend, Renee, when her store in Florida was closed down because of Borders' bankruptcy in the US.

Renee was my boss when I worked in Borders Singapore (and one of the best managers to work for), and her letter captures the tragic state of affairs in Borders USA. She gave the best years of her life to the company and got diddly squat.

This was the final email she sent before the computers in her Florida store were shut down for good.

------------

Today is my last day with the company. After 23 years I thought I would be sad but am in fact relieved. The Borders most of us loved closed down years ago and it was a slow death by a thousand cuts each time another great GM, DM or RD was forced out.

I am the last GM from Dion country in Florida. We were a tight group and were consistently the highest performing district in the company, developing many processes and procedures that were rolled out to the entire company. Sure we did question the status quo with questions like (7 years ago) "whats our plan to deal with digital music?" and were seriously told not to worry about it, it would never effect us. Some of us were let go for not being better lemmings… some of us stuck around in the hope that it would get better, some of us left with their actual dignity.

As each of our stores closed down this month we kept our staffs motivated with our own limited money. We bought pizza, had parties, bought fresh sharpies to follow your ridiculous procedure. Even though we would all soon be unemployed with no severance and living in a state with the highest unemployment rate and worst benefits. Our staff trusted us and did their best and deserved better than what the company was giving so yeah, we took up the slack that's what proper leaders do.

Every new regional VP insisted the economy was no excuse. We in the store were obviously failures in the company's eyes. In our eyes our leaders were failures. A cacophony of yes men that woudn't take a stand and fight for the things that could have saved us and were too proud to listen to anyone in the field.

You had great success with your plans this year: outsource customer care, pull bargain from the vestibules during the holiday season, not purchase school reading titles, cut hours and increase workload, roll out more functionality in atlas that barely functioned to begin with, discount excessively to buy loyalty, create an environment that managed to an audit at the expense of all else, and under-develop a web presence that demotivated the staff and frustrated the customers.

Yes, you and your team should be proud of all you have accomplished. Only a few more stores to go and you will reach your goal of total annihilation. For that and all you have done to degrade, torment, abuse and demoralize us please by all means keep my 23 years of severance and add it to your bonus. You deserve it. Be sure to keep two gold pieces for your ferry ride to hell.

Renee
Tampa, Florida

Everyday Life 3

You have to wait your turn at the A&E, even the beds.

"You have mee siam on your dress, girl," said father.

There was work to be done and lunch could only be a quick affair.

Over breakfast, he suddenly wondered how he was going to cope.

Made with my iPhone and shared on Instagram.

PAP Marine Parade Facebook calls commenter "ignorant"

A simple announcement over the dissolving of Parliament results in the Marine Parade PAP Facebook moderator calling a commenter "ignorant".

"Sad to see people who are ignorant but behaves as if they know the ground."

Classy.

Others weighed in:

"Whoever typed the above message is displaying the attitude that disgusts many people right now. Instead of having the patience to answer questions or humility to seek mutual understanding, an arrogant approach is used."

"I agree with James Ong! I am disgusted! MParader, if I complain on Starhub or Singtel's fanpage, no matter how badly, they DO NOT call me 'ignorant'! Do u get what is customer service? How much respect do u have for the citizens u serve? I'm a marine parade resident n I'm totally disappointed in how u handle criticisms n responses in social media."

And one commenter also pointed out:

"…and it should be *behave*"

"Chief of Armskote" CPL Tan writes an open letter to MG (Ret) Chan

The letter seen in forums:

"I received the news that you are contesting for election when you were introduced as one of the final batch of PAP candidates for the upcoming election. I was not surprised because high flyers like you are always destined for big things. You are not the first military personnel turned politician and certainly not the last. I always have an interest in observing how military personnel made the transition into civilian life. One of the ways is to watch their speeches and public appearances. Now that I have already ORD and you are no longer a top brass in the SAF, without the fear of being punished, I want to be honest with you; your speeches were exactly the same while you were in the SAF and I wasn’t impressed at all.

The tone you used, the look of your face, the words you used, the body language, and arrogance served you well in SAF because who you were then. You, as a top ranking officer in the SAF always received warm reception from your men because they had to. You received military salute (a form of respect) because the rank and position you held. Your speeches regardless of the content would always end with a thunderous round of applause because they had to. Sorry for giving you a false impression that you were well-received, respected because we had no choice. We wouldn’t want to risk our precious weekend or other forms of punishment if our commanders did not like our “performance”.

Your performance in the civilian world has attracted much criticism so far which I am not surprised. You have been labelled as “arrogant”, “condescending”, “I know it better than all of you” “poor PR skills” and “poor speaking skills”. I do not blame you for acting like that. Even you acted like that ever since day 1 in your SAF days, it would not affect your career progression at all. You still would be the chief of army nonetheless and as I have said earlier, you were destined for big things because of your status as the President’s Scholar. But to be respected as the leader of a nation and its people, you have a lot to work on.

I hope I might have judged you prematurely and you are, in fact, a future-mp-to-be worth look up to and look for when the people need your guidance and assistance. I would like to end this letter by quoting what PM Lee has said recently, “Remember we are the servants of the people not the master, and maintain a sense of humility and service to the people”

You were the master in SAF but now you are a servant, serve us not lord over us. I wish you the best in your adjustment of roles and your success in this election. Respect is much harder to learn in the civilian world than in SAF.

From,
CPL Tan Wei Ling, who called himself COA (chief of armskote) when he was serving his NS."

You can view the video of MG (Ret) Chan's speech here. I have to admit, if I close my eyes, I could have sworn he was one of the characters from my show. Real life is indeed stranger than fiction.

MP doesn't know the bus routes in his ward after serving there for years?

This was shared by a forummer when his mother tried to get her MP to make changes to the bus route that runs through their estate. The MP (or his people) sent the letter to the wrong bus company.

You'd think that after being an MP there for so long, the MP would know that bus 172 is an SMRT service and not an SBS one.

Kudos to SBS for taking the initiative to forward it to their SMRT counterparts.

How online video poster frames can mess up any politician's face

I was surfing around some forums and discovered this image of new PAP face, Tin Pei Ling, floating around.

As I reviewed some of the online videos of the new PAP candidates giving speeches, I realized how a random frame of video can capture the most unflattering moment of a candidate. One is also at the mercy of the poster frame generator, the engine that creates a thumbnail of the video:

PAP's Janil Puthucheary

PAP's MG (Ret) Chan Chun Sing

PAP's Zainal Sapari

Internet video can be cruel, cruel thing.

I am quoted in the New York Times

I am quoted in this New York Times piece on the Singapore Elections this year, entitled, "In Singapore, the Party in Power Offers New Faces".

You can read it at NYT or my Instapaper link:

Excerpts:

The group representation process, which one critic has characterized as “force-feeding” selected candidates into government, has become a target this year for discontent over the selection process.

“It’s just an expression of people’s frustration with the system where any candidate you may not agree with gets a free pass,” said Kin Mun Lee, who goes by the name Mr. Brown on his popular political Web site. “If your guys are good, put them up and give a good fight.”

From the P.A.P.’s point of view, though, it makes good sense, he said. “Their idea is: ‘I spent all this time looking for this talent, and this is my way of getting them into Parliament safely, where they can grow into the role and be all they can be.”’

And also here:

Though many Singaporeans may feel excluded from this closed system of political selection, most end up voting for the People’s Action Party, if only for the constituent services a governing party representative can bring them, said Mr. Brown, the political blogger. “What Singaporeans say and complain about the government and ruling party doesn’t necessarily translate into votes against them,” he said. “It’s always nice to have an opposition, but not in my backyard.”

I am just a little worried because the writer Seth Mydans called me a political blogger and my site a "popular political Web site".

Oi, want to sabo me and get me gazetted ah?

President dissolves Parliament! Woohoo!

According to Yahoo, President SR Nathan has dissolved Parliament on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, paving the way for the General Election.

We all know what that means, right? BO CHENG HU LIAO!

It also means elections are really near. Nomination Day is 27th April 2011.

In my enthusiasm, I googled for this news and found out the Election Day was 6th of May, according to this BBC report.

I would like to apologize to all the bookie and punters who follow my tweets and who bet the farm on the numbers 0605 (and System Bet somemore), after I tweeted the 2006 election date.

I stand corrected. The actual Polling Day has been confirmed to be 7th May 2011. That means Cooling Off Day is Friday and Polling Day is Saturday. No long weekend, I am afraid.

I love the way the news was phrased. For example: The President dissolved Parliament "on the advice" of the PM. Because as we all know, the President is really his own man and makes his own decisions on these things but the PM advises him to do it only.

I also think our President has earned his multi-million-dollar salary today, dissolving Parliament. It is a very big job, ok?

In other news, I found out that the comely Fiona Xie in a rather fetching bikini shows up as a top entry in Google if you search for SR Nathan's images. As SM Goh advises us all, I did not complain too much.

PAP Party Manifesto loves your feedback

As I watched the Youtube video of the ruling party's manifesto, I wanted to leave my comments below but realised that I couldn't. I can't even Like or Dislike the video because ratings have been disabled.

I watched some more…

I guess I am just, to quote MICA Minister Lui Tuck Yew's word, Internet Noise. Oh, I found a non-PAP version of the manifesto with the Comments and Like button enabled.

On a side note, how come the ruling party can use Singaporeans' favourite NATIONAL song, "Home", for their PARTY stuff?

Oh, and what's a Manifeso?

Yes, Boss, this headline failed

I think this headline graphic from The New Paper conveyed exactly the opposite of what Lim Swee Say was trying to say.

CNNGo column: politicians and the perils of hawker center walkabouts

Latest CNNGo.com "Say What? with mrbrown" column: Politicians and the perils of hawker center walkabouts

Excerpt:

Recently, a lady Member of Parliament (MP), Lim Hwee Hua, was doing her pre-election walkabout at Serangoon Gardens' Chomp Chomp Food Center, to get hawkers there to pledge not to raise their prices for the next six months.

I think it is very important to keep prices stable for the next six months at least, because the elections are around the corner and we don't want angry voters just because a plate of char kway teow has gone up from S$3 to S$3.50 (US$2.40 to US$2.80)

It could all come down to a simple plate of char kway teow.
While Ms Lim was diligently doing her rounds and shaking diners' hands, the newspapers report that a "heckler" approached her and accused her of making her rounds only during election time. She later told reporters that she visits her area once every two to three weeks.

This kind of open hostility must be very unusual for members of the ruling party because why else would the papers dub him a heckler? MPs look like they always meet with love and hugs everywhere they go, judging from the smiling faces we see in photographs in the papers. So this man must be a "heckler". I assume because he gave her heck. (cont'd)

Everyday Life 2

Late night banking.

Through an empty bus stop ad panel, my littlest one, after a birthday party.

Street light sunset.

Little Guardian of the Waters.

Ball pool photo.

Made with my iPhone and shared on Instagram.

Majorly Generally Sexy!

A friend caught this on tv.

New PAP candidate, former Chief of Army, Major-General Chan Chun Seng was heard on the news saying, "It is always very sexy to say that we don't need to take care of our defence."

Tonight I shall tell the wife, "Honey, We don't need to take care of our defence!".

See if she finds it SEKSAY. I will let you know if it works. Fingers crossed.

the mrbrown show: the other men in white

Photo by ichigonotsukikage

There is a new kind of party arising at mrbrownshow.com!

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Everyday Life 1

A collection of photographs I made with my iPhone and shared on Instagram.

Wait, let me put on my slippers and go with you.

Everyone's favourite Motorcycle Ice-Cream Man.

We are on the same bus, with different journeys in mind.

In the void deck, we find rest.

Lim peh ka li gong!

After lunch, a kopi-oh.

Waiting.