Application Question
Suggest how the 5 goals of sentencing should work together in modern society.

Crime sentencing today compared to centuries ago is of two different worlds. As stated in the article, limits on the range of options available to sentencing authorities have been reviewed and are shifted as the comprehension of crime and goals of sentencing are changed. In the past, people had the mindset that sin begets crime and thus should be punished strictly. However, during the time of French and American Revolutions, Enlightening philosophies existed. This has, in some ways, impacted the operation of meting out punishments in the present society. Severity of punishment was not as important as to issue quick and certain penalties.

The most common crimes in the present society are drunk driving, sexual crimes, drug trafficking. In my following paragraphs, I will address each genre of crime by applying the possible goals of sentencing.

Drunk driving is prevalent in any country that legalise pubs and the sale of alcoholic drinks. The severity of punishment for drunk driving depends on whether any lives were lost or any damage was caused to the third party. Christopher Lee, a popular male artiste in Singapore was involved in drunk driving on 8 October 2006. He caused superficial injuries to a motorcyclist and his pillion rider and was arrested as a result of the accident. He was fined $3000 and jailed for 6 weeks and was disqualified from driving for 3 years. From the conviction given, we can see that retribution, deterrence and incapacitation are implemented. Here, deterrence serves two purposes-specific and general. Even though Lee was a celebrity, he still cannot escape the impartiality of the law. Lee’s imprisonment in jail deterred him as well as other celebrities who thought that celebrity status could answer everything. Disqualifying Lee from 3 years of driving prevents the innocent members of the society from being harmed by him. Hence using a couple of sentencing guidelines can help prevent similar cases in the modern society.
The Rehabilitation approach is more appropriate for drug addicts/traffickers. For example, sending drug addicts to Drug Rehabilitation Centre to cure them of their addiction by changing their behavior. However, consideration of number of offences the accused have committed is important. Sending him for rehabilitation alone is not enough as he is a staunch drug addict. Most likely, he would revert back to his old ways as at present, as many as 90% of former “rehabilitated” offenders in the US return to lives of crime. At this aspect, general deterrence must be adopted. Generally, general deterrence here would mean very harsh punishment in order to deter the addict and his other counterparts. Punishment in this form would usually be caning.
Restoration is usually complementary with fines as the crime scope for this approach is normally small. For example, committing of theft or flouting public rules will require that particular person to return stolen goods and community work service respectively.

Should crimes in the past simply be forgotten?

My answer is a definite "no". We do not simply forget past crimes the same reason why we learn history – we learn history so that we will not repeat the same mistakes. Just because the crimes have happened in the past, it does not mean that they have no relevance or value to the present.

Firstly, studying past crimes allows us to prevent similar ones from happening in the future. By analyzing the cause of the crimes, we can learn to step up relevant measures to counter them. One such example can be seen from the 2005 London bombs blast. This crime of terrorism killed 52 people and injured 700 others, while disrupting the lives of many others. These alarming effects then brought about determination from all Londoners to prevent a similar crime from happening and now London is prepared to counter terrorism. In 2007, two car bombs were discovered and disabled before they could be detonated, thereby successfully curbing another attempt in terrorism.

Secondly, we cannot simply forget past crimes because all criminals should be punished, in some way or others, to act as a form of deterrence, convincing people to steer away from crimes. This involves recidivism on the part of the criminals, and preventing others from following the footsteps of them. This can be seen from how Singapore has kept its crime rate low in comparison to other countries. One such example is the fall in the number of new drug abusers in Singapore – 204 new abusers were arrested in Jan to Jun 2007 as compared to 278 arrested in the same period last year.

In conclusion, it is important for us to learn from crimes in the past, be it as the police force to set up countering measures or as the general public to not commit similar crimes or even as the offender himself to turn over a new leaf.

Reference:
"The philosophy of Crime Sentencing" from AJC reading package.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/drugs/index.asp?name=Drug%20Situation%20Report%20Jan%20-%20Jun%202007&type=Drug%20Situation%20Report

Crime, punishment and vengence, Capital punishment

Do you agree with the author that there is always a tendency to confuse punishment with revenge?

Is there always a tendency to confuse punishment with revenge? In the article “Crime, punishment and vengeance”, the author says punishment is a penalty imposed for violating the law and it is usually handed down by some authority whereas revenge is inflicting punishment and usually by groups of individuals who do not have the authority to punish. In my opinion, I agree with the author that there is a tendency to confuse punishment with revenge but it not always.

When you hear about horrid crimes, anger rises and you will wish that the person would get back what he or she would deserve. Revenge is often accompanied with emotions and private desires of individuals. Due to the fact that juries have the authority to punish criminals, they can therefore inflict cruel and unusual punishment out of anger. This would be a case of confusion between the two. I feel that by doing so, it has violated their professional ethics. Judges therefore have to be able to put aside their feelings. Another example of confusion could be in companies. A staff who is not able to get along well with his or her colleagues and bosses and at the same time not performing well in the job could have been fired due emotions of the colleagues and bosses as a form of punishment. Thus, I would say that there is a thin line between punishment and revenge. Handling cases of such would put your ability to test.

Punishment meted out can be seen as what the person should deserve. It is seen as retribution like what the Old Testament dictum of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. You would want to inflict the pain that people could have inflicted on us. This already happens in our daily relationship with people around us. Emotions often overwhelm us and covers up our rational side.

Punishment handed down by rational people would be just having your interest at heart. People would want to you learn from the experience and thus become the better person at the end of it. Like a mother punishing a child who stole money from home. The punishment to be grounded is just to allow the child to reflect upon his action. Would the mother want to take revenge for the child stealing the money? The case of Jack Ronald Jones, the punishment made him a better person. Although we could have hated what he did, the jury did not use punishment as a form of revenge to pay for the life he took away.

To sum it up, there is a tendency to confuse punishment with revenge to a large extent but it is not always so. We should thus be careful with our emotions and thus be wary of it overriding your own rational side.

Appilcation Question 2 - Are you for or against death penalty?

Capital punishment is the penalty of death for the commission of a crime. (From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition). Are you for or against death penalty? In my opinion I would say yes to death penalty only under some special circumstances.

Like in article 1, it says that “capital punishment should be used only for murders, and not for lesser crimes. When the tradeoff is between taking lives and, say, reducing property theft, the case for milder punishments is far stronger.” I agree with the author that it should be used for murders only as lesser crimes such as theft does not involve taking the lives of others, I do feel that it would be too harsh to take the life the person. There are others way to punish the person, such as to sentence him to jail and fines. However, for the case of murder, I would say not all murderers should be put to death penalty too. Some murderers could have done killing due to the need to protect one self or under pressure of protecting another innocent. For this, a lighter sentence should be given to them as they did not kill because they planned or targeted to kill others. Therefore in contrast, in cases of premeditated murder, I would give my full support for death penalty. Reason being, he has no right to take the life of another.

Some would say that if we are able to mete out death penalty for every crime, we can thus achieve deterrence. In my opinion, this is not true. Indeed I have to agree that the death penalty would allow people to think twice before violating the law people do fear death like what “David Hume put in discussing suicide , “no man ever threw away life, while it was worth living. For such is our natural horror of death...” In the case of Singapore, our death penalty has contributed a drop in crime rate such as murders through the years. However, we did not use death penalty for lesser crimes and statistics has shown that we are still quite a safe country. Evidence can be seen in http://www.spf.gov.sg/prints/annual/2007/07spfa_crimestats.htm. Therefore I believe that it does not have to be a death penalty to deter.

Another reason for not saying yes to death penalty for lesser crimes is the fact that we should try to help the criminals instead like what the author expressed in article 2, “punishment must not be only retributive, but should also try to rehabilitate the criminal in order to enable him to live in society with other human beings.” An example would be Glenn Lim who is a former drug offender. He is now a dedicated ambassador for SANA and a youth champion who has mentoring many at-risk youths. Glenn Lim has thus used his own experiences to contribute back to this society. If a death penalty has been given to him, would he be able to do all these?

In conclusion, I would say that death penalty should only be given under special cases such as premeditated murder. We do not take the lives of others out of hatred for the individual.

New Media

How do we define new media?

According to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/new%20media , new media is any interactive media, esp. electronic mass media combined with computers; also, this combination as a profession.

I feel that the article- the Internet:our last hope for a free press, agrees that new media is a way for people to know information that has not been 'edited'. These new medias include blogs and online communities. Bloggers, though not trained in professional reporting skills, often will present a more candid report. This is because they are not pressurise by their bosses to make sure newspapers sell well. Also, most newspapers publishers are big companies that cannot afford to go against government's policies, thus, they will make sure their content are twisted in a way to favour government's policies. Take for example, the straits times very often features articles that are more towards the government, but the new paper will have a more rounded content. Bloggers sit behind a computer screen to voice out their thoughts. It has been proven that people tend to say their inner-most feelings only under anonymity. Also, new media can release articles much faster than traditional media. A blogger simply has to click on 'publish post' to let his thoughts be accessible worldwide. Newspapers on the other hand need to be printed and distributed. Hence new media is more efficient. New media also features more hard proof that gives readers more space to think for themselves. Eg. videos can be featured on new media but pictures on newspapers could sometimes be misleading. Therefore, readers' interpretations of a situation could be manipulated.

However, in the article- countering the threat of self-radicalisation, i feel that the author has very even-out thought about new media. Indeed, new media has its own pros and cons. New media could be a platform for extremists to recruit their followers. Because the Internet is so readily available, it makes it even easy for anyone to 'just happen to browse through a website' and be influenced by it. Also, new media promotes anonymity, thus making it more difficult for the law to catch up with people with undesirable intention. New media is popular among the young but youths are known to be easily influenced and immature. Extremists will make use of this to win them over. But, i also agree with the writer that new media could also be used as a tool to overcome these problems. A youth could also 'accidentally browse a positive website' and acquire the proper knowledge of how to judge things.

In conclusion, new media has its own pros and cons and the problems generated do not lie on it. Instead, it is the people who uses new media who determine whether new media is a good or bad things. It's all humans who are making the difference.

new media

With the introduction of new media, comes a new form a freedom of speech. High hopes are placed on new media that people would be able to speak up so that things can be done to make the world a better place. Ironically, because people get to speak what they want, threat to stability arises. Taking both consequences of new media into account, I support new media because I believe its benefits outweigh the negative side of it.

Like Mark Klempner said in “The internet: our last hope for a free press”, new media “performs the vital function of promoting honest discussion and analysis”. In more conventional forms of media, such as radios and newspaper, there is always a form of control over it. These forms of media tend to face pressure from government or dominant organisations to not publish reports that would tarnish their image. On the other hand, new media does not have any form of censorship. In fact, it has made it convenient for people to give their honest opinions. Through such means, people can make their voices heard and influence the people around them. This is why new media is such a powerful tool. One example that permeates the power of new media can be seen in America’s expenditure. In 2004, America was spending about the same amount of money on pornography as it does on foreign aid. However, thanks to the website globalpolicy.org, people become aware of the situation and began pushing for a change for this situation. As a result, America is now spending far more than it did on overseas development assistant, while the porn industry has deflated slightly.

Of course, I cannot deny that the new media has it dark side. Just as Mei Yi has commented in the previous blog, “internet can be a power to people but if misused it is a threat to stability”. New media has been used for terrorists movements as according to Ustaz Mohamed Bin Ali in “Countering the threat to self radicalization”. However, the percentage of unfriendly websites that can threaten our safety is relatively low to the wide varieties of good websites that the internet can provide. How often do you come across a terrorist website or one that threatens our stability? I have yet to. Moreover, even if new media does not exist, terrorists are still capable of looking new means to recruit new members and to facilitate terrorist movements. Hence, we cannot entirely blame new media for any terrorist-related actions that threaten our stability.
In conclusion, threats to our stability have already existed for our long time and are not invented by new media. On the other hand, new media has invented new means for people to broadcast themselves, giving greater power to the people, something that would be quite impossible to achieve through any other means.


With reference to:
“Countering the threat of self-radicalisation” by Ustaz Mohamed Bin Ali
“The Internet: Our last hope for a free press” by Mark Klempner
“50 facts that should change the world” by Jessica Williams

Basically, both articles have discussed about the bad and good usage of new media. According to http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=92480&dict=CALD, new media means products and services that provide information or entertainment using computers or the Internet, and not by traditional methods such as television and newspapers.

Why have we switched from providing information on television and newspapers to blogs and online videos? The reason is simple. Newspapers and television cater to a large audience, to people of all ages. Like watching movies, certain information has different audience. Therefore, information must be evaluated of its appropriateness before publishing it on the newspaper or advertising it on the TV.
However, New Media is different. It is on the internet whereby the audience deem themselves mature enough to handle the content. Hence no one will be held responsible for their information and opinions published on the internet. Furthermore, the television programmes and newspaper can be censored by the government for political agenda purposes. For example, criticising a particular party while praising the opposition party. This would influence people to accept the opposition party with no doubts. This is where the bloggers play a big part. Since the internet cannot be censored and people are free to express their opinions, bloggers can express their opinions and views with almost no qualms about being held responsible for it as long as they remain anonymous. "Though they don’t often have professional training as journalists, many of them exceed professional journalistic standards, because they answer to their consciences alone rather than to corporate honchos and fund managers. We need to hear from such people, and the fact that there are more blogs out there worth reading than anyone has time to read is a hopeful sign," I conclude that bloggers constitute a very fundamental foundation of a democratic country as they can express views of the common people and create a diversity of opinions such that people can choose what to believe or take faith in. Hence the new media gives power to the people.

Unfortunately, we can see that people have abused the usage of new media to achieve their selfish gains. The author stated, "And behind Bush are the huge corporations that helped to put him into power, including those that own the MSM." This is the most dreadful thing that can ever happen to the internet, that is, to experience monopolisation.
According to Cambridge online dictionary, monopolisation is having (an organization or group which has) complete control of something, especially an area of business, so that others have no share. This is a disastrous phenomenon as the virtual platform would be demoted to be like newspapers- where views are controlled and manipulated. When views are controlled and manipulated, monopolisation of the internet is imminent. This would create social unrest in countries world wide and disrupt the norm as everyone would protest to what they see on the internet. Riots would be created to ask for self ruling as governments then would be unable to do anything if a paricular organisation or country controls the internet. In this light, new media would have devastating impacts if monopolised such that it overpowers the power given to people.

I agree with Mark Klempner that the net has proved invaluable as a way for concerned citizens to offer support to each other, and to act together for political and social change. Views and opinions are taken seriously online as we can see from http://www.themediaslut.com/2008/04/997, Xiaxue get globalised all because of a video review. “Fake Steve Jobs” hates the video so much that he thinks it deserved a mention on his blog.
Hence it is a platform for passionate citizens to gather support and act together for political and social change. However, don't you not see the similarity between Mark Klempner's claim and Ustaz Mohamed Bin Ali's claim on the internet aiding terrorism to flourish? Gathering citizens to support each other and act together for political and social change is akin to hosting terror-related activities e.g self-radicalisation. We can see that even though each internet connection serve as an intellectual life preserver, it also empowers the spreading of terrorism!


I agree with Mei yi that the internet can be used to educate and prevent and that we have to be able to distinguish propaganda from the truth. We can do so by reading the newspapers conscientiously so that we can gather more views and infer from our own which is reliable. Such skills come from source base skills derived from Social Studies. To prevent a future uproar internally in Singapore should conflicts arise from the internet, what our government can do now is to equip the teenagers with adequate skills, e.g. not accepting facts at face values so that indivduals have the common set of knowledge to distinguish right from wrong.
I would like to conclude that the new media is a constant threat to stability. However we cannot condemn and ban it as views of people are still important and valuable. We are talking about Democracy VS Stability here. If there is no democracy, how can there be stability in the country? Hence we should continue to support the new media. Whether or not it pose a threat to stability, it is up to individuals and their skills to deal with information and opinions on the internet rationally.

New Media - Power to the people or threat to stability?

In this case, the new media is referred to the Internet, encompassing web-based interactive communication tools such as blogs, message boards, forums, podcasts, online communities and wikipedia.

In the first article, new media is considered a power to the people - the power of free speech, and "America's last hope for a free press". However, in the second article, new media is portrayed as a threat to stability, mainly due to the spread of terrorist ideas on the internet.

In my opinion, new media is more of a threat to stability, than a power to the people, though both stands still hold. Ever since the attack on USA on September 11 2001, terrorists attacks have been more rampant than before all over the world. However, has anyone stopped to think that with security tightened in almost every country, how is it that these terrorists attacks still happen, causing death and damage throughout the world? This is mainly due to the platform the internet has given these terrorists to work on. Terrorists use the internet "for fund-raising, training and planning purposes. It is now primarily used for radicalisation and recruitment purposes." And because of this given platform, many people are suffering and living in fear of terror attacks each day, especially in countries such as Iraq.

Though some people might argue that Internet has brought our society many benefits including providing reliable in-depth news coverage as mentioned in article 1, i believe the many negative impacts terrorism has brought our world overrides them all.

Terrorists now can not only spread their radical ideologies on the internet, but also recuit people. "Extremists have become adept in crafting their message to suit their target audience. Many terror websites are flashy and well-designed and feature visually arresting graphic content. Many also offer chatrooms, music videos and other features that are obviously targeted at a computer-savvy, media-saturated generation - namely, the young." Youngsters are easily susceptible to bad influence and thus are vulnerable to manipulation by these terrorists. "In an increasingly secularised world, many people are turning to religion to give meaning to their lives. This search for ideals is most prominent among the young. "

Although many efforts have been made to highlight the dangers of extreme ideas and preventing such extremist websites from being disseminated, targeting mainly youths, i feel that these efforts can be further carried out to schools and institutions. Children should be taught from young to stay away from terrorist ideologies and how to tell right from wrong. With the cooperation of the wider society and the world, terrosists attacks can be reduced.

New media

New media- Power to people or threat to stability?

According to the Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, the definition of new media is “any interactive media, esp. electronic mass media combined with computers; also, this combination as a profession”. In both the articles given, both the authors talked about the use of new media in this case the internet. In my view point, new media is a power to people however if misused, it turns out to be a threat to stability.

Indeed, it is true that internet has allowed us to create a platform for opinions to be heard and it has brought us to see the other sides of stories and how other people feel about certain issues, promoting “honest discussion and analysis”. Most importantly, it allows people to work far from sources of power. In contrary, our newspapers can be controlled by governments and therefore the other sides of the stories maybe kept. Thus the citizens would rather go to the internet to find out more. In other instances, we can use the internet to voice out our objections which would prompt the government to make changes to certain areas of a country. We have forums of newspapers online, people are allowed to write comments after reading the articles online and in Singapore we have The Straits Times STOMP that allows Singaporeans to post their articles and photos online.

However, many of us have seen the dark side of the internet, that is the sex sites and how people “purvey their sick ideas”. Some even abuse the internet to use it to influence the others of negative values and thoughts. They criticize on the other races and show discrimination. As seen in the second article, people have been using the internet for terror purposes.

As you can see this is what happens when we take the internet and the power given to us for granted and at the same time abusing it. We take the example of the anti- Islamic film, “Fitna” by Geert Wilders. Although all Dutch television networks have refused to broadcast the film entirely, the internet has given him another option. A website run by an extremist nationalist party in the Czech Republic has offered Mr. Wilders a platform the show his video. Thus this video in seconds could be shown to the whole wide world.

Netizens that make statements that shows racism and discrimination shows great irresponsibility. Reason being they can thus cause controversies and conflicts which can thus lead to death. The US terrorists even use it for fund raising, training and planning purposes in the past. Now, it is used for radicalization and recruitment purposes. This has caused people to self-radicalize and self-recruit. The internet has allowed them to make movements and influence the others, changing their mindsets eventually. These are examples in which new media can be threat to stability.

Ironically, the internet can still be used to counter to these problems. As suggested by the author of the second article, such as develop more anti- radicalism and counter ideological websites. In this case the internet as been used as a power to prevent and to educate.

It is really up to individuals to decide for themselves whether to use internet responsibly and not abuse it or use it to incite hatred and influence others negatively. I do urge all to be careful of what you read on the internet, and we have to be able to distinguish propaganda from the truth. In conclusion, I would like to repeat again that internet can be a power to people but if misused it is a threat to stability.

#7 Aging Gracefully

"The world will have more elderly people than children. By 2050, nearly a third of the developed world's labor force will be aged 50 or older, according to U.N. predictions. " This expected worldwide phenomenon is the combined result of declining fertility and longer life spans or life expectancy due to the advancement of science and medical technology; an ageing world population.

Many people argue that ageing population has brought many disadvantages to the world and is greatly detrimental to the society. I agree to this to a small extent. Certainly, “there would not be enough able-bodied, young workers to support an infirm, gray-haired population.” This leads to a weak and less efficient labour force, which may not be attractive to foreign companies to come and invest in the company. Moreover, the current attitudes of employers are that many want their companies to project a youthful, exuberant image, which are appealing to foreign investors. This is because most people perceive young people with fresh ideas and creative innovations, which can take the consumers market by storm, profiting the company.

In addition, as the author mentioned in her article, taking care of the elderly and frail will incur huge costs, stretching already overburdened pension and health-care systems. This causes the government to spend more money on building more healthcare centers and studio apartments for the convenience and welfare of the elderly in the country. As a result, less money is placed on developing other sectors of the country such as building a stronger defense network or improving on the country’s physical infrastructure. Moreover, heavy taxes have to be made on the younger economically active people. This causes many of these young people to migrate to other countries to escape the stress of heavy taxation, resulting in a flight of young talents out of the country. The country thus experiences a “brain drain”.

However, the author has brought up arguments against these negative impacts due to the ageing population. Firstly, many countries have already combated these disadvantages by raising retirement ages by as much as five years as well as expanding anti-age-discrimination laws. This is so as to ensure an existing labour force and to discourage companies from being against employing older people.

In addition, an ageing population does not necessarily mean a sicker population burdening the country with large medical and social care costs. Not all old people are unproductive and are a liability to the country. “Many of these old folks are hardly sitting idly at home but instead continue to contribute productively to the society” Examples given in the article are that one in three Japanese aged 60 or over is still part of the labor force. The author’s grandma herself dabbles in real estates and is actively engaged in politics.

Moreover, many elderly contribute to the country’s economy as well. They spend more and have a considerable purchasing power, especially after working for such a long period of time (savings from over the years). E.g. “Britons over 50 years of age control 75% of the country's wealth, according to Abbey National Bank. Businesses catering to a so-called silver economy are booming, offering everything from elderly-friendly housing to trips for retiree globetrotters.”

I agree with the author to a large extent. It is stated in her article that even though taking care of the elderly and frail will incur huge costs, stretching already overburdened pension and health-care systems, this disadvantage can be overcome if the elderly continue to contribute productively to the society. This is clearly an over-generalised statement. Not all old people are capable of contributing to the society physically in the form of working. In fact many old people turn frail and weak by 60 or 70 years old, being plagued by many chronic illnesses, and they require the help and attention of other people to take care of them.

However, in addition to the points mentioned above, an ageing population brings more pros to the world today. An example will be that older communities will be more law abiding communities, since older people are less inclined to commit crimes against property and people. Young people are responsible for by far the most crime today. In fact, the older people are usually the victims of these crimes committed. The elderly can also provide valuable life stories and experiences to their younger generations. They can teach their grandchildren important life values. Most grandparents nowadays help to raise their grandchildren while their parents are busy at work too, especially when both parents are working.

In conclusion, we should get rid of the view that deems old people liabilities to our society today. The elderly have proved themselves more than what we expect of them and we should give them the rightful respect they deserve.

#9 Women's Work

In the past, women are the ones staying at home taking care of the domestic affairs of the family while their husbands worked hard to make ends meet. However this trend has been changing in the past few years because men are not the only ones who are able to contribute to the economy. Women have shown to be able to do so especially educated women. Therefore I do agree with the author’s view that by giving basic tools needed to earn a living such as education, training and access to capital, there are able to contribute a lot more to our economies. Reason being, it would not be wise to only give opportunities to men as women are part of the global economy too. Also, by doing so, we are not fully utilizing our resources, maximizing the potential of each and everyone.

One of the more obvious positive outcomes is the boost in economic output in countries. This has been seen in countries like Singapore and India as quoted by the author “ the states in India where women are better educated were also those higher economic growth rates.” . Employed women are able to earn extra income to the family and thus are able to spend more on their children and families. This causes higher consumption rates and help drives the economy. This might lead the country to become more develop. With more women starting businesses, it will also help decrease the unemployment rate of the country.

However negative outcomes can be caused women getting more career minded due to higher education given to them. To pursue careers, their families might thus be neglected. Children will feel less loved by their parents as both of them might be working till late hours and this will cause social problems. This has been happening in many of the developed countries.

Decrease of birth rates due to changing mindsets of women could pose another problem too. More educated women tend to focus more and more on their careers and they would prefer to work first and have late marriages shortening their child bearing years. Also some would prefer to stay single as they are able to support themselves and do not have to marry someone. This decrease in birth rate would affect the demographics of a country and would cause problems.

In the long run, the economic growth contributed by the women could close the income gap between the rich countries and the poor countries. The income gap has been a worrying problem and the rich are getting richer while the poor just gets poorer. By equipping women in poor countries with what is needed to earn a living, it could improve the situation, benefiting not only the countries but ultimately the global economy.

As we can see, the are definitely pros and cons to women joining the workforce. Preventive measures could be carried out to prevent issues such as neglecting of families. They could be taught how to juggle between their families and careers. Also companies can be more caring towards mothers and allowing them to have more flexible working hours so that they can spend more time with their families.

In conclusion, both men and women are to be given equal opportunities to contribute to a country’s economy. Help given to women of impoverished countries would be able to empower them.

The Post-Movie-Star Era

Richard Corliss suggested that we may be in Hollywood's first poststar era – Top stars, who were the surest guarantee of a return of investment, are no longer earning big bucks for a picture. Now, no matter how appealing the movie stars are, what draw the crowds are the story and attitude. Meanwhile, star vehicles keep tanking as being in a string of hits no longer matters much to many stars. In addition, with Hollywood getting most of its revenue from no-name epics and nonstar animated features like Ratatouille and Alvin and the Chipmunks, it seems like big names no longer mean big grosses.

I disagree with Richard Corliss that we may be in Hollywood's first poststar era. Perhaps, the significance of a movie star has declined but it has not dropped to the extent that we can take it off our checklist in the movie industry.

To an extent, Richard Corliss could be right in saying that the story and the attitude of the movie that draw crowds and that is why movie stars are earning less – they now have to share the credit of their success with the producers of the movie. Still, without the movie stars, the producer would not be able to convey the movie's story and attitude to the audience nor win their support. Movie stars exist because they have made heads turn with their exceptional performances and we need these exceptional performances to bring out the flavor of a movie. If what draw the crowds to a movie are the story and attitude, as according to Richard Corliss, then movies stars, equipped with their exceptional skills, are important to deliver the movie in the right way.

In addition, it is impossible for no-name epics and nonstar animated features to take over the "movie-star era". Firstly, it takes a lot of talent to produce successful no-names epics. So unless the world has enough talented producers who can constantly produce excellent epics and dedicated directors who are always willing to sacrifice their precious time to develop actor wannabes, having no-name epibcs to overrule big-names movies is out of the question. Secondly, the reason why nonstar animated features like Ratatouille and Alvin and the Chipmunks are so successful is because they add new flavor to the movie industry. However, if everyone starts producing such nonstar animated features, they will no longer be considered unique and at the same time, lose its attractiveness. Therefore, neither would nonstar animated features be able to take over the movie industry.

However, having less significance on movie stars is something worth looking forward to. Firstly, the fact that more people are paying more attention at the movies' story and attitude shows that people are getting less superficial. The audience is no longer just paying attention at the facial features of the actors, but more of the expressions that they give. This would motivate directors to produce better pictures instead of simply relying on the appeal of movie stars, hence upping the standard of the movie industry. Secondly, the increasing success rate of nonstar animated features would encourage development of integrated technology to produce better animation. Perhaps, future animation would have their own voice and less haste would be involved in recording voices to suit the animation.

In conclusion, the post-movie-star-era is not plausible. However, the drop in significance of movie stars promise developments in the standards of the movie industry.

#6 GEOENGINEERING
I do not agree with the author’s claim that we, mankind, might not be able to stop global warming. Humans have proved many scientific predictions wrong. For example, few years back, there was a global concern about the depleting fossil fuels due to excessive combustion for petroleum. Scientists predicted that the natural resource would run out soon. However, humans later found an even cleaner way to produce fuel--- i.e. grow bio fuel crops. Another instance was the water scarcity issue in Singapore. Winner of Stockholm Water Prize and Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, Dr Andrew Benedek, came up with membranes which make dirty water clean and made recycling water cheaper, safer and more effective than using chemicals. This invention put an end to “water worries” in Singapore. Therefore, there are infinite possibilities ahead; we should not turn our backs to the accelerating advancement in technology. Like what the author proposed, Geoengineering might be able to halt global warming and hence in a way or another, change the world.

The article states, “The principle behind it is straightforward — compensate for an intensified greenhouse effect by reducing the amount of solar radiation reaching the earth.” Although the suggested method brings benefits, it also poses problems. The author’s suggested method was to reduce solar radiation from reaching the earth. The filtering of solar radiation from the atmosphere meant that there would be a shortage of vitamin D. Vitamin D was found to be a risk reduction factor for breast, colon, ovarian, prostate cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Hence the statistics of contracting the aforementioned cancers would increase if the availability of Vitamin D decreases.The other method, using of orbital mirrors to reflect sunlight back into the universe, is detrimental to green plants on earth. Without adequate sunlight, some will perish and the base of the food chain would be destroyed hence adversely affecting the ecosystem of the earth. This effect is definitely more disastrous as compared to global warming.

Some possible future developments from geoengineering is having white roofs on buildings to reflect sunlight and probably set up artificial lakes to store excessive carbon emissions.

#2 The End of Customer Service

When Clarence Saunders opened his first Piggly Wiggly in 1916, a grocery store was a place where you told the clerk behind the counter what you wanted and he fetched it.

In Saunders' store, patrons roamed freely among shelves packed with goods. They took what they wanted and paid on the way out.

Theses two scenarios shows how customer service has evolved.

What is customer service? According to http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/customer%20service : customer service is assistance and other resources that a company provides to the people who buy or use its products or services.

I feel that customer service is a very important. Although technology has advanced over the years, i feel that some things should not be meddle with. First of all, as quoted in the article, 'the need to interact with human beings is quickly disappearing.'. People should be interacting with each other so that we will be able to develop the required social skills such as learning to communicate with another human. Nowadays, with more social websites such as Friendster and Facebook, people are preferring to stay anonymous while making friends. Therefore, we should not deprive people of the opportunity to interact with others by replacing customer service provided by humans with machines. One cannot possibly not interact with other humans and just do everything with machines, if not that person will just literally be another 'Tarzan', not having the skills to interact with humans.

Also, by introducing machines to replace the human customer services, we will be depriving some people of their jobs. For example, waiters will lose their jobs. These will lead to a high unemployment rate. There will also be no courses such as 'hospitality and resort management' in our polytechnics. Our integrated resort, which was party meant to increase job vacancies, will not be able to achieve the aim too. Take for example, if you are a tourist, would you like to visit a place where everything is managed by machines without smiling receptionists at your hotels? I doubt so.

Moreover, humans are flexible in thinking, machines are not. I'm sure everyone has encountered the annoying consecutive messages that ask you to 'press 1 if you are calling to blah blah blah, press 2 if you want to blah blah blah... and so on...'. I think this is a very good example of machines replacing human customer services. If a human were to pick up the call, I am sure he/she would be able to correctly divert you to the respective help/aim you are calling for more quickly. Also, because the pre-recorded messages are fixed, there might be ambiguous meanings, thereby causing the customer more trouble.

However, we must look at things in two ways. Without human customer services, will we be able to save on service charges? If we do, introduction of machine replacements might actually help some not-so-rich people enjoy benefits or goods they once deemed as a luxury.

Not all humans, as we all know, always have integrity. By introducing machines to provide human customer services, we can be ensured of fairness. Bribery will be minimised as machines will not be tempted by bribes, whereas humans might not be able to resist it.

I feel that introduction of machines to replace human customer services benefits only to a certain extent. For example, machines can be used to provide customer services only at inconvenient time, night time. This will save employers the trouble of having to find people to work night-shift. Also, use of machines to a certain extent is good, but relying too much on them might ultimately become a backlash.
Example is the use of add-value machines at our MRT stations. People are able to top-up/check their cards conveniently, while the control station people can attend to customers with more complicated problems.
Therefore, human customer services should only be used for necessary purposes.
Example. Having a clerk to fetch you what you want at a grocery store will result in inefficiently but by placing the goods on the shelves, we enable people to take their time and choose what they want carefully while the cashier might be attending to another customer, i.e. increase efficiently.