Desmond Kuek Should Resign?

Somebody sent me the above picture. At first, I laughed. It was such an ingenious piece of art. Then, I became sad.

Wreckage at the Bottom of Ocean
If truth be told, Desmond Kuek is not capsizing a healthy ship. Desmond Kuek took charge of the SMRT ship at a time when the SMRT ship was already at the bottom of the ocean. He has spent the last 5 years raising it from the depths. We all know that raising a ship from the depths is an exercise fraught with danger. Lui Tuck Yew's political career died in that process.

Khaw Boon Wan saw his friend Lui Tuck Yew's career go down into the depths of the ocean. Yet, Khaw bravely took on the Ministry of Transport. Surely he must know it is political suicide? At the time Khaw took the helm at the Ministry of Transport, the SMRT ship was halfway resurrected from the depths. Under Khaw's watch, 2 men died on the tracks and a flood overwhelmed the system. This did not happen on the watch of the Naughty Saw Phaik Hua and whomever the forgettable-did-nothing-to-prevent-problem Minister was at that time. It happened on the watch of a man (Khaw) who dove in to raise the ship from the depths.

Why?

Really, if you leave the SMRT wreckage sitting at the bottom of the ocean, nothing will go wrong.

At most, there is no SMRT ship lohhhh... then, people will walk, cycle, drive to work lohhhh... They have to go to work mah... They will find a way. Just leave the SMRT ship to rot quietly, its decks colonised by fish and coral. Why not? The SMRT railway tracks can be turned into cycling paths. Its tunnels can be used as storage or underground homes. Imagine living in an underground bunker home surrounded by a gigantic fish tank on all sides. You look out your windows and see blue water and fish. Fully private and so exclusive!

However, when a ship is halfway up towards the ocean surface, that is when things can go wrong spectacularly. Things have. Men have died... a flood and pregnant women walked on train tracks in deep, dark, dank tunnels. All that was laid at the door of one poor man - Desmond Kuek. If he had stayed a Permanent Secretary, he would today, still have his stellar reputation as a committed and loyal government servant. He can hold his head high in front of his children, wife and relatives.

He took on the challenge of raising the SMRT ship from the depths. As a result, his name has been dragged through the mud. His reputation is in tatters. He will be remembered in history as a spectacular overpaid FAILURE.

The whole world clamours for his resignation. The whole world wants to see him bow. Frankly, I find this bowing business super ridiculous. How many of you, when you make mistakes at work, need to bow to your boss? You lost a deal. You bowed to your boss? You sent out a wrong email. You also bowed? Why not prostrate yourself too? They do it in Japan, you know. Are you Japanese?

We forget that Rescue Missions are those most fraught with danger. If you don't rescue, nothing will go wrong. If you choose to rescue, anything can go wrong.

Desmond Kuek's Hard Work, Another's Glory
Believe you me. The next person who takes the helm of the SMRT is one lucky person. He/she will have glory poured on him/her that rightly belongs to Desmond Kuek. This is because in the past 5 years, Desmond Kuek has worked hard and well. The ship is almost reaching the surface. You cannot tell? Nobody has been paying attention to reports on how many kms of sleepers have been replaced, how much of the 3rd rail has been replaced, how much of the signaling system has been renewed? Whomever replaces Desmond Kuek merely is in the right place, at the right time.

Retrench or Re-educate
I saw people complain that American CEOs have 9 months to change the culture of a company. Ahhhh... but consider this. American MNCs are notorious for retrenching people. It is easy to change a culture when you choose to hire and fire. When Desmond Kuek first replaced SMRT Senior Management with people he thought had the right attitude, the whole world excoriated him. Look now at the abuse heaped upon Ng Yat Chung because of the SPH retrenchments. If cannot retrench, the only way to change a culture from sloppy to high performance, is to re-educate sloppy people.

It is very hard to do that. I know this from experience.

Parents entrust me their children to teach. Necessarily, their children imbibe their parents' values. In some families, people are just sloppy. Everything is sloppy except their clothes. For some reason, they always dress well. The parents are sloppy and the children are sloppy too. When these children do HW for me, they are sloppy. Week after week, HW comes in without full stops and in incomplete sentences. In cases where the parents share my values, I can change the child. In cases where the parents do not share my values, I can do nothing but refuse to teach the child.

It is close to impossible to change a sloppy adult.

So, Desmond Kuek cannot retrench staff BUT he must miraculously change the company culture from ultra sloppy to ultra high performing, via re-education in just 9 months. If you can do it then why aren't you the CEO of an American MNC? If you can't, then why abuse Desmond Kuek?

For those of you who think that Desmond Kuek should have retrenched people so that you can get to work on time, think a bit about the lives of those who work in SMRT - the old technicians, the old managers, the old station staff. They all have dependents - children, wives and parents. In some cases, they are the sole breadwinners. In the wider scheme of things, does getting to work on time measure up to the intensity of pain each of these old timers (and their families) will go through if retrenching was done so that Desmond Kuek would have a shortcut to glory? Is it not better to re-educate, and only get rid of those who stubbornly refuse to change?

Re-education takes time.

Bullies! Bullies! Bullies!
People, it is nothing short of BULLYING that we are doing. We are bullying men who put their entire lives' STERLING REPUTATIONS in jeopardy (eyes wide shut) to help resuscitate the SMRT wreckage lying at the bottom of the ocean. We are bullying men with lifetimes of sterling public service. Khaw turned around MoH and MND. He is the reason why I can walk into Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and receive a quality of healthcare that people in England envy. When I visit my public healthcare oncologist, the waiting room has apples. In many public hospitals around the world, the waiting room has mould. Yet, it looks likely that Khaw too is headed towards an early political death. Khaw will be remembered as a failure too.

The person who made the picture above is a gifted artist. Why not use your gifting to uplift and encourage instead of bully?

I think people are such hypocrites. When Lui Tuck Yew left politics, people lamented - the same people who abused him whilst he was in office were suddenly full of kindness and compassion. So now what? You wanna chase away Khaw Boon Wan and Desmond Kuek too, so that you can show more hypocritical kindness and compassion? Wouldn't a change in leadership jeopardise the SMRT recovery at a time when the ship is so close to surfacing as would triply benefit from a steady hand?

For the Record
Whatever the public record states about these 2 men, I want to leave a trace on the internet that celebrates both men as Lions among men, and modern day Heroes. We are blessed to have such men among us, not that we deserve them.

Gluten Free Onsen Eggs Benedict

Since it is close to impossible to get gluten free eggs benedict, we decided to have an Outside Breakfast at home. I put in extra effort to make a pretty display.

Blue pea flower and fruit salad

After making nasi ulam HERE, my garden opens up whole vistas of new opportunities for yumminess. Over time, I had collected various ginger plants. I never thought of eating the leaves. Along with the curry plant, the kedongdong, the piperomia, the various ginger leaves can really liven up a plain salad.

Nasi Ulam

1) Kencur rhizome or sand ginger (HERE)

2) Kunyit rhizome or turmeric (HERE)

3) Limau purut leaves or kaffir lime (HERE)

4) Bunga kantan or torch ginger flower (HERE)

5) Kedongdong leaves (HERE). Use the very young leaves.

6) Pudina leaves or mint leaves (HERE)

7) Limau kasturi or calamondin lime (HERE)
8) Daun shiso or perilla leaves (HERE)
9) Daun ketumbar or coriander leaves (HERE)
10) Daun kemangi or thai basil leaves (HERE)
11) Daun kari or curry leaves (HERE). Use the very young leaves.
12) Daun serai (HERE). Use only the tender hearts.
13) Dried prawns. Toast and blend into a powder. Then toast again.
14) Kacang botol or winged beans (HERE)
15) Turmeric leaf

You need to make a sambal belacan accompaniment - HERE.

I am sorry there are no proportions. Simply taste the various leaves and roots. Add more of those you like and less of those you dislike. Omit those you really cannot stand. Normally, people add ulam rajah (King's salad) but mehhhh... I don't like the taste of that.

I cannot believe I grew up in Singapore and never fell in love with nasi ulam. I have had it 3 times this week.

Diverticulitis

After I went on my whole foods plant-based diet, I encountered 2 conversations that has strengthened my resolve to eat as much real food as I can. Whole foods = food that is as little processed as possible. Plant-based = food that does not come from animals.

In the first conversation, a friend was telling me about her Dad who is already in his 70s. He was hospitalised for rectal bleeding. He passed copious amounts of blood every time he went to the toilet. He almost died from loss of blood.

In the 2nd conversation, The Daughter recounted her friend's experience in Barcelona. An elderly parent succumbed to food poisoning. After a period of vomiting, he vomited copious amounts of blood too.

Apparently, when people eat a lot of meat, dairy and processed foods, the walls of their colon develop pouches that bulge into the intestinal tract. As food passes through, these pouches of intestinal wall are susceptible to rupture leading to massive blood loss. Since the rupture is internal, it is very hard to pinpoint the location. Much blood is lost before something can be done to plug up the rupture.

I tell you. Both these stories freaked me out no end. I guess that by the time one gets to 70-ish, skin and flesh lose elasticity and are prone rupture. Hence, an entire lifetime of eating meat, dairy and low fibre foods catches up on one.

Apparently, diverticultis (see HERE) is a 1st world country disease. In poorer countries, people have more vegetables in their diet. I wonder how many Singaporeans will end up with diverticulitis because whenever I go out to the hawker centre, every stall sells meat. In some stalls, the main dish is meat with a few slivers of vegetables. It has become rather hard to eat out these days because I can't eat gluten and I won't eat meat.

Mosquito Net

I used to think a 4 poster bed an unnecessary expenditure. To me, such beds looked imposing and took up a lot of space, but served not much practical purpose. Those were the days when I relied on wall plug-ins against mosquitoes.

The mosquitoes were knocked out by the chemicals that filled my bedroom every night. The same chemicals also disrupted my endocrine system, causing all sorts of hormonal imbalances. I was in ill health for years.

I was too stingy to buy a new bed so I tried everything else possible from ...

(1) lighting mosquito coils in the day to chase away mosquitoes

(2) diffusing citronella oil in the day to chase away mosquitoes

(3) using an electrified mosquito bat to hunt down mosquitoes before bed time

All these measures worked for years because the mosquitoes flying about were the aedes aegypti ones. Then, the NEA introduced the wolbachia virus into aedes aegypti mosquitoes, to disrupt their reproductive cycle. The wolbachia virus rendered the male aedes aegypti mosquitoes sterile. This meant no new aedes aegypti mosquitoes were being born.

Measures (1) to (3) above were good for aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are active in the daytime. They did not work for those mosquitoes that bit in the night. With the disappearance of the aedes aegypti mosquitoes, we began to see other types of mosquitoes appear in our bedroom. These were active all night.

We had sleepless nights.

I was so desperate for a solution that I bought a 4 poster bed online. The mosquito net was a whole long story on its own. I approached the curtain shop and they charged me $850. The shop that sold me the bed retailed one for $350. I went on Amazon and got one delivered for $35.

It has been bliss. Once the mosquito net is down, we sleep the sleep of babies with no fear of mosquitoes. Best of all, we are not breathing in anti-mosquito noxious fumes all night.

Eating A Plant-Based Whole Foods Diet

I watched a documentary entitled Forks Over Knives. Overnight, I switched to a WholeFoodsPlantBasedDiet. I had been on the diet for 2 days before I introduced the documentary to The Husband. Overnight, he embraced the diet.

In the beginning, he complained a little and looked sad whenever his children ate meat in front of him. By Day 4, he was hooked. He wouldn't eat meat even when I asked him to.

The cooking is so much less of a hassle too because I pressure cook the vegetables in water before adding some fish sauce and olive oil to flavour. It takes 2 minutes to pressure cook carrots so you can imagine the amount of time saved in the kitchen. With this diet, I also forage more in the garden, plucking flowers and young leaves to add to the salad.

By Day 4, The Husband and I were full of energy. We did not miss meat at all!

I am told that I should supplement with some meat occasionally so that we can get all the amino acids we need, as well as the vitamin B12. We will do that. The aim will be to eat only 3 meals with a bit of top grade organic meat or seafood.

The remaining meat in the freezer is going to last us a long while.

Buckwheat, asparagus, pumpkin flowers. The pumpkin flowers are from the garden.

Roasted carrots, sweet potato, cherry tomatoes, carrots and tandoori chickpeas on a bed of salad greens.

Portobello mushroom steak topped with sweet potato + roasted cherry tomatoes + amaranth leaves (from the garden) + cranberries + figs + fermented red cargo rice..

Jackfruit seeds, jackfruit, avocado, cherries, bananas and freshly bloomed pumpkin flowers.

Caramel dipped walnuts, avocado, jackfruit seeds, jackfruit, young buah long long leaves, pumpkin, brinjal and lady fingers.

Lady fingers, jackfruit seeds, jackfruit, pumpkin flowers and chopped cucumber.