Choosy parents do it in the US

The Newpaper pg13, Thurs 15th june 2006

I am surprised to learn that there are already couples in the US who practise gender selection and that the number is growing. Personally i feel that gender selection is a rather unnatural thing to do as we are in a way messing with nature. The sex of a baby is suppose to be a mystery and the revelation of the baby's sex is one of the many surprises and joy that a married couple experiences, and to take that away would make it feel that we are missing out on one of the great wonders of having a baby. Also by choosing the right sperm to fertilise the egg to get the right sex of the baby is sort of tampering with nature. By choosing the right sperm for the right sex we are choosing the baby we want to have, and in the process we are in reality denying the existence of a child that could have been if a couple decided to have a baby the natural way as it could have been any one of the other sperms to fertilise the egg. Then we will never know who that special baby might have been, one so special that he/she was not chosen by us but by God, a wonderful mystery gift from the heavens. There is a reason why the natural way of having babies does not allow us to choose the sex, and i believe we should respect it and not try to change it. As we all know nature is amazing and we should not mess with it. I shudder to think what the world will be like if we all started choosing the sex of our babies in the future, does that mean then we would all have to rely on machines and science to have a baby?

New gory images to jolt smokers to quit

The Straits Times-Home, pg H4, Sat june 3 2006

Soon cigarette packs will be packaged with new and more gory images on the front to deter people from smoking. I feel that this move to jolt smokers to quit has both its pros and cons. The good side of it is that there will be smokers who will be put off by the gory images and think twice about smoking. I believe that those who smoke for fun and are not die-hard smokers will be deterred from smoking when they see the images on the cigarette packs, as they would not want to risk their lives and would rather give up smoking which is something that they are not so addicted to and dependent on. However this move of putting new gory images has its downside to. Die-hard smokers will not really be disturbed by the images as they are probably used to seeing so many campaign pictures and slogans saying how smoking can kill you, and so they ignore it, some might paste stickers to cover up the images and thus continue to buy cigarettes. Some of these die-hard smokers have little children at home and when they leave their cigarette boxes lying around at home their children might come across the gory images and be frightened by it. And these images might comtinue to linger in their minds and haunt them as the children are so young and probably get scared easily. Therefore i believe that to put new gory images on cigarette boxes it not that effective in jolting smokers to quit and also not a great idea as everyone even little children are exposed to seeing the images.

Now iKnow how fast iRun

The newpaper pg16, wed 24 may 2006

Nike's lastest shoes is most likely going to be 'The Next Big Thing', the future generation's type of leg wear. It has a sensor which can send information to an ipod nano and tell the wearer his time, distance travelled and calories loss while running. Nowadays modern technology is so advanced that there are so many new innovative and handy devices and gadgets being invented. Everyday a new product is unveiled in the market and those new gadgets become the next big thing and in a few months, these products become so common that it can be found almost everywhere and has become a part of our daily lives. Some examples include the digital camera, the ipod and mp3 players. In today's modern world, technology is becoming so increasingly advanced, and the new products that are being produced in the process never fail to amaze me time and time again. Now i am so used to these new creations that everytime a new product comes into the market, i will be thinking that it is only a matter of time before a new and more improved product will make its way into our lives. I believe that technology is really an amazing thing as it has made vast improvements in our lives and without it, we would not be able to do many things. It is just so amazing how technology can transform simple things into more complicated and useful devices, such as a digital camera compared to a normal camera and an ordinary pair of shoes compared to nike's latest shoes.