Ramblin' Zen

Kim has little to say. And blogs that she has little to say. Sometimes I wonder whether people just don't understand that it is our default assumption that they have little to say, and if they don't tell us, we'll take it as read.

Lots of links without much comment. Would be useful for anyone who can't find news or doesn't know how to use an aggregator. And only wants their news with a leftist bias.

Codeswitching is an intriguing linguistic phenomenon. Speakers report being unaware of doing it. But when it's done in writing, is the blogger also unaware? I'm curious to know. I think the blog is in Bahasa, it has the look but I'm not certain (well, it's definitely something Malayo-Polynesian) but the spits and spats of English tantalise.


Another Singaporean. I realised when I saw the touches of Singlish (who else would write "lah" at the end of a sentence!). When I was a baby my dad was stationed in Singapore. We lived in Johor, across the causeway. I don't remember any of it. I went there a couple of years back. The contrast between the dusty langour of the back streets of the Muslim quarter and the hectic throb of Chinatown was fascinating. Little India was a lot like Chennai, but of course cleaner. It had a nice feel. That little reactionary part of me did begin to think... maybe banning spitting and stuff does make a better world...

The poster also code-switches (some Chinese of some sort in there). Singaporean bloggers have a fluent, interesting style -- even when they don't have much interesting to say.

Freakily, another Singaporean. I swear I'm doing this at random. They must all be on the blog. This guy can't spell where he lives, which is a worry. I like to read this stuff, though (or little bits). The problems of teens seem so overwhelming to them and we know of course that they are nothing but ephemera. It might be that we need to be able to look at our own problems in the same way.


Put this much into the design, you need to fix the picture. Actually, lose the picture. No, make that lose the blog.

All from the randomnificator.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:54 pm