On Wednesday, I had a nice, gossipy lunch at leafy Dempsey with a friend.

On Wednesday, I had a nice, gossipy lunch at leafy Dempsey with a friend.  As I drove off afterwards down a one-way lane, I saw a car hurtling towards me in the opposite - and wrong - direction.  I tucked my tiny Suzuki to one side and watched as the driver zipped past. It was a  Caucasian male   in rolled-up shirt sleeves. He didn't look apologetic; he didn't wave to acknowledge I had slowed down for him to zip past against the traffic direction. Sure, we were the only cars on the road and Dempsey is a quiet area on weekday afternoons, so it wasn't a particular hardship to let him pass. But still.  "Ang moh," I muttered to myself, shaking my head read more Singapore PM Lee cautions against lynch mob mentality
Citing the recent episode involving Briton Anton Casey, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday cautioned Singaporeans against having a lynch mob mentality, as he noted how social media has complicated society’s fault lines. Speaking at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) ministerial forum, Mr Lee highlighted three fault lines: Between Singaporeans and those new to the country, the rich and the poor, as well as between different races and religions. Last week, Mr Casey became the target of online vitriol after his derogatory comments about the public transport system and Singaporeans went viral on social media. related:  British expat leaves job after Singapore ‘poor people’ remark read more Singapore PM hits back at social media "pack behaviour"  Internet rules are necessary to restrain "pack behaviour" in social media and ensure civility between users, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in remarks released Wednesday. Speaking at a university forum late Tuesday, Lee said social media raised the risk of an overreaction from the public when contentious incidents occur in the ethnically diverse city-state, with "unrestrained, anonymous viciousness". Lee, who has nearly 260,000 Facebook carrot soap followers, referred to several local incidents that have sparked off unbridled web outrage, including derogatory comments against Singaporeans posted on social media by British expatriate Anton Casey last week. read more ST editor: Casey has apologised, let’s move on Chua Mui Hoong Straits Times editor Chua Mui Hoong has penned an article beseeching Singaporeans to forgive British lout Anton Casey whose antics, of course, are well known to all. Ms Chua’s article appears in the Sunday Times today (26 Jan). It has the title ‘We can afford to forgive this arrogant twerp’ and the subtitle ‘Anton Casey has done us wrong and apologised. Enough is enough’.  Dictionary.com carrot soap defines “twerp” as slang for “an insignificant or despicable fellow”. Assuming that Ms Chua writes her own headlines, it is very strange that she would insult Casey by calling him a “twerp” while advocating forgiveness. Surely, forgiveness involves not returning insult for insult by calling someone a twerp, unless Ms Chua does not practise what she preaches. read more People are all ‘tulan’ with Anton Casey Chua Mui Hoong is clearly living dangerously here, saying that Singaporeans can be over ‘prickly’ when foreigners mock us, and that we need to do some ‘self-reflection’. She has also jumped on the ‘spare Anton’ campaign bandwagon after SKM chairman  William Wan  called for tolerance and empathy, carrot soap except using the less subtle approach of slamming the guy as an ‘arrogant little twerp’ (the kind of insult that Joe Pesci’s bungling burglar carrot soap would use on Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone) carrot soap and then calling for forgiveness later. The strangest bit about her ‘opinion’ piece is describing Anton’s downfall as him ‘having a personal EPIPHANY’. Is he getting canonised in Perth as we speak or what? The worst thing that could happen now, with people wanting to make pandering statements by straddling the fence between condemnation and forgiveness, is if Anton Casey becomes not just a ‘poster-child’ of Singapore’s expat millionaires, as fellow expat and ST contributor Rob O’Brien put it elegantly (Anton Casey is not every expat, 26 Jan 2014, Sunday Times), but God forbid, victimised to the point of anti-hero and martyr. Enough is enough already. But reflect I shall. Not if we’re being too harsh on Anton, but rather if this backlash that could be felt all over the world would mean that netizens and online vigilantes are creating a climate of social media phobia for themselves. Fear of saying the wrong things carrot soap and losing your job over it because someone started a chain reaction of Facebook ‘sharing’. Whether the brouhaha has led to some form of self-censorship, where we’re afraid to touch on matters like race, religion, or class in a non-PC way because you never know wh