Whenever we tune in to the President's Star Charity Show, we observe artistes turning into acrobats and clowns. During a horrifying performance, the list of donors marquee continuously across the screen; when the performance ends, the list ends too. Is this just a coincidence? Sadly, the world is so distracted by popular culture and cosumerism that artistes need to perform dagerous stunts just for that charity dollar. Such acts are not needed; rather they should show compassion in other ways instead of just donating.

Firstly, for every charity show, artistes are the ones performing and not clowns. Why is this so? Everybody knows who that artiste is, so they would admire the terrifying stunts that that artiste has done and thus donate as a form of supporting that artiste. Some artistes even compete against each other by counting the number of calls made after their performance as a measure of their puclicity. This defeats the purpose of charity since the public should donate out of goodwill and a moral obligation to help the poor and needy and not to support their favourite artiste, or as a measure of how much publicity an artiste has. A true philantropist would donate even when there is no performance. How many true philantropists are there left in society? We can easily see that when the donors suddenly drops to zero once a performance is over. Therefore, instead of performing such acts, artistes should show their own compassion by visiting the poor and needy and encourage their fans to do the same for a good cause.

Secondly, many calls are made to stop the artiste from doing dangerous acts. Charity shows used to be a visual treat for the viewers with Mediacorp artistes and international starts like Jacky Cheung and Emil Chow, performing and entertaining for that charity dollar. However, the show has descended into an obstacle course of nails, swords, bees etc. In order to draw calls, one would have to risk life and limb, Fear Factor-style. Our very own Mediacorp stars had to perform stunts which demanded physical strength, concentration and lots of courage. Venerable Shi Ming Yi had himself locked in a container full of ice during a charity show and viewers frantically called to donate hoping that such acts could stop once there is sufficient donation. Such donations are not from the heart but to save their favourite artiste from possible harm. Therefore, such stunts should not be done because it does not generate donations out of goodwill.

Instead, artistes should visit the needy and the poor and broadcast such events over the television. They could also help them by organising free concerts for these people. As the saying goes,"Monkey see, monkey do," their fans would follow their example and do something charitable for the community instead of passively donating during the Star Charity Show. Also, charity shows should also inform the public about how the funds are going to be used. The public would then donate more since they have trust in the organisation and made sure that their donations go straight to that organisation.

In conclusion, artistes should not perform dangerous stunts to milk the public's compassion for more generous donations; they should do something more active and productive. The charity show itself should also allow the public to put trust into the organisation using these funds.

Since the introduction of the Internet in the past decade, the Internet has been the primary source of information for everyone. Many political commentators prefer to take advantage of this and thus post their views onto the internet. However, should political commentaries be regulated on the Internet? To me, they should be regulated and made sure that they do not pose security threats to the state.

Before we begin, we need to understand that the Internet transcends all physical boundaries that exist. A person from the southern hemisphere can communicate with another person from the northern hemisphere as if they were face to face. Needless to say, a person posting political commentaries on the internet is able to reach out to all the citizens in the country. In the past, such commentators either make public speeches or record their speeches into a film and make it available in a public place. These methods are easily suppressed by the government since all they needed to do was to ban such material. Today, when such material is circulated as the creator wishes it to be, there is no room for restriction from the government.

By liberally allowing political commentaries on the internet, we are not regulating free speech. It is only human nature to glorify free speech since we are social animals and want to let other people know what we think and feel and to feel a sense of belonging to a social circle where everybody feels the same way. Some people may also want to initiate new ways of thinking or feeling pertaining to several current issues. For these people, free speech, especially in the internet since there is no interference from authorities, allows them to think radiantly and critically, rather than thinking by rote. When everyone thinks in different ways, the society will improve based on what the people think of it presently. For example, when Mr Brown makes a comment on a government policy, he provides the Singapore government with possible views from the public. The government can then extract relevant details and improve the policy based on that. This prevents dictatorship where the dictator improves the society based on his thinking and feeling. In fact, such improvement is a decline in social standards to the people in those societies. North Korea is a classic example, where military action is improving exponentially, but the citizens' life is declining along the same rate. Hence, posting political commentaries on the Internet would also make room for posters to post their comments without the restraint of some governments which display various forms of censorship. Hence, such actions should be liberally encouraged because it benefits the society by allowing radiant thinking and speech.

During election period, political commentaries should be actively encouraged, instead of being banned. Although some may argue that false information may be posted on the Internet, the general public should rather take such an opportunity to train their critical thinking. Many citizens blindly accept anything found on the Internet, but this has to end for the society to improve. By evaluating the reliability of these sources, we are providing the public with an invaluable chance to train their thinking skills, rather than following the crowd into believing doubtful information. Thailand has been encouraging this in its long history since Rattaniyom, which was a set of ways on how well citizens should think on selected issues. Although this may be a root cause of the chaotic Thailand we know of today, Singapore should shape Rattaniyom such that citizens can train their critical thinking and improves the society, instead of causing chaos.

When there is chaos, Singapore would suffer dire consequences, such as riots in 1960s which resulted in a severe aftermath, since Singapore does not have the benefit of having a large army. As a result, mass rioting would not be easily suppressed and is dangerous to Singapore. Sadly, the Singaporean public is easily influenced as discussed earlier. Moreover, Internet commentaries, unlike previous methods of communication, spread like wildfire. Elements that sparkle controversy should be banned because internal violence could follow after such debatable issues, unless they show some form of suggestion as to how to react to such issues that contributes to the progress of the society. Therefore, I suggest that these commentaries to be accompanied with a constructive solution which also trains the citizens' maturity of thinking too and is another example of critical thinking for the progress of society.

To end off, political commentaries should be allowed but they should not result in violence which backfires at the benefits of liberally allowing political commentaries. If excessive violence occurs, such benefits would have to be stripped off until it is suitable to restore them again.