A Big Discovery

Back from Johor Bahru and I got this big discovery.

At the Woodlands Checkpoint, I showed the officer the letter that DJ had produced for my smooth passages. I looked at the entry stamp and found it said “THIRTY DAYS.” Thinking that the officer chopped the wrong stamp, I went back to her and asked, “Is this 14 days or 30 days?” “Thirty. THREE-ZERO,” she said. This is the power of a letter from DJ, I thought.

Turning the pages of my passport backward, I found that every one of the entry stamps this year, since March 8 to be exact, says “THIRTY DAYS.” When did they change the rule? About half of my nine fortnightly trips to JB since March were unnecessary… Of course, it is better than breaking the law but I still feel something has been wasted. After all, short trips to JB are not to be enjoyed. (At the JB immigration when I was leaving there today, the Indian lady officer, a beauty, said with a pleasant smile, “You are welcome” to my “Thank you.” What a big and nice difference from the Singapore side where everybody seems to have suspicious eyes.)

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Diarrhea doesn’t stop. On the way to Kranji, I stopped by at the Isetan pharmacy to buy “dried yeast” tablets, hoping that it gives me a respite, at least.

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Miyazawa Kiichi (宮沢喜一), a former prime minister, has died at 87.

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From the New York Times: A tentative accord on the editorial independence of The Wall Street Journal would leave Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation with the sole power to hire and fire The Journal’s top editors if it succeeds in buying the newspaper’s owner, Dow Jones & Company, people who have been briefed on the agreement said yesterday.

That is a far cry from the demands made by the Bancroft family, owners of a controlling interest in Dow Jones, and it remains to be seen how the Bancrofts — most of whom have not been told what was in the agreement — will react.

Rupert, do not mess with the WSJ!