Well, Hamas has formally taken over the government in the Palestinian state. Timely, considering Israel’s National Election was a day ago. I don’t want to judge, simply because I fully appreciate the meaning behind "one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter". Yet, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason why one would pass judgment (usually an unbalanced and non-objective one) is probably because of asymmetrical information. The only way an outsider could give an objective opinion (although opinion by itself seems to hold a self-contradictory connotation) is by having a fair mix of views from both camps, equal exposure to both and accurate and reliable data. Very often, it is hard for the common man to come into contact with both groups. Holding the other variables together with this task seems almost impossible. All of these mean one thing - whatever opinion an outsider gives is bound to be largely one-sided, especially with a sensitive topic like religious conflict. I mean, personally, I don’t know any Palestinians but I do know Ad, who went back to Israel for reservist duty. I haven’t seen him since he left but whatever he told me gives rise to me giving an unfairly biased opinion, if I do pass judgment. I don’t think we can count on the mainstream media to give us objective information. Even reporters are outsiders, and I tend to think that they too would give only one-half of the story. Furthermore, it’s very common for people to choose to view media that is more or less aligned with their own views. For example, I only choose progressive media. That effectively means that no matter how much information we have, we are only capable of passing unfairly biased judgments. So why judge? It just becomes a recycling of information.

Most people wouldn’t know it, but it’s the Indian new year (as per hindu calendar) today - Yugadi. I don’t think it’s prominently celebrated in Singapore cos’ none of my Indian (Sing) friends breathed a word about it. The Indian (Ind) friends are clueless unless they call back home. It’s probably excusable since it’s celebrated with gusto only in a few states. As far as I’m concerned, we have a special food to consume on this day called bevu-bella, which has equal amount of sweetness and bitterness. It’s to teach a lesson about life and remind us yearly, that life is never always sweet or always bitter. We should expect life to be a combination of both, and once again, that there is always cosmic balance. And you though bitter-sweet was an oxymoron didn’t you? 

Apart from that, I’m glad to note that I’ll be getting $600 for the progress package. This was contrary to my earlier lousy calculations that I’ll get $200. I’m happy for the bonus, though I must wait till May to get it credited to my account. I got bored of having not so many things to do. So I went shopping and bought more shoes. Everyone says I’ve got too many shoes. Well my answer is that you can never have too many shoes. I went to visit the newest library. I initially thought it’s very disappointing but when I went home my brother informed me that there were two more levels I failed to see. I must be blind. Nevertheless, I’m quite impressed with the national library board. I just recommended a book to them a couple of weeks back (although I was a little piffed and shocked that none of the libraries in the whole country didn’t have the book) and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they’ve already bought the book and are on their way to cataloguing it. I’m impressed!