Cultivating the reading habit

I know what we should cultivate the reading habit when still young. But what I saw on my way to work it utterly ridiculous.

A lady had her newspaper spread across her steering wheel while driving! And you can see her periodically looking down at her papers and then back at the road. I was driving beside her for quite sometime and she seem pretty engrossed. Wonder what juicy gossip she was reading. We are not in a jam where the car remains stationary for a long period of time. Her total disregard for her safety as well as other road users is really frustrating to say the least

Just a bunch of fakes!!!

What the hell's going on? First we had imitation handbags and watches. Then fake eggs. Now, China has done one better. They have fooled not only the thousands of people in the bird's nest, but also the millions of people watching the live telecast of the Olympic opening ceremony into thinking they were watching a little girl in red singing her very best. In actual fact what they were listening to was actually another girl, which they had deemed not pretty enough to appear on stage to sing. How demeaning is that?!

How did the parents of Yang Peiyi convinced her into doing it? What does it mean when the organizing committee said they wanted to portray the correct image? Is this the correct image that China wants to portray to the whole world, a country that will do anything at all cost to paint a false picture? What about the emotional impact you little Peiyi? Aren't her feelings equally as important?

Imagine being told by the whole country that you're just no pretty enough to appear on stage. Imagine how little Peiyi would feel when she watched the live telecast and hear herself singing but it was somebody else on stage.

The fact that the Chinese government is standing behind this decision is even more disgusting. But of course, one might say, what else is there for them to do? What is done is done. There have been many cases of lip sync, but the reason that this was done is totally unacceptable. She's never going to be good enough just because of the way she looks?? One of their own has been ostracised just because she had crooked teeth.

There's reports that Peiyi might be part of the closing ceremony. But what does that mean? Are the organizing committee doing this to be pardoned? To gain sympathy that what they did was in the nation's interest? And, should Peiyi even step on stage during closing? She has already been insulted once and this is just adding salt to the wound.

There were many hopefuls who went to audition for this particular role. And I am just curious, weren't they able to find somebody that they deemed pretty enough and could sing well enough? Rather than get somebody to lip sync. Why was the change last minute? Was there money involved? Somebody got his/her arm twisted?

My heart really goes out to this little girl.

House

Here's some random pictures I took.