Rice or Soylent Green? A Singaporean journalist's view

I was rather surprised, this morning, over breakfast, to read that a Singaporean journalist was suggesting that Soylent Green would be an answer to world hunger.

The article appeared in "My Paper", written by, Leow Ju-Len, a blogger cum journalist from Stomp (the Straits Times collection of trendy bloggers).

Reading his suggestion would have been enough to put me off my food had I not already finished eating when I came across it. He was writing of the problem of rising food prices, rice shortages and the like. He thought he had an answer: Soylent Green. He went onto explain that Soylent Green was "plankton". Oh dear. He clearly hasn't seen the film. I remember one line from it, shouted by the protagonist, played by Charlton Heston (this is a memory from the 70s): "Soylent Green is people!"

Yes, that is right - unwittingly or otherwise, the Singaporean journalist in question was advising cannibalism as a solution to world hunger.

Now, either he didn't know what Soylent Green was - in which case was it not rather dangerous to use a cultural reference without understanding it - or he was being subversive. I can't determine which.

I know the world is in a bad way - but I shudder that one day it might be so bad that cannibalism might be the answer to world hunger. One Singaporean blogger journalist is already on record for stating that it already is. He really should go and see the film.

By the way, given the magnitude of his error, he could not have chosen a more ironic title for his article: "Scarcity doesn't cause hunger, stupidity does."

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Eternal Child Hunger Pangs

Today, I met Tiarnan, twenty months, on the stairs. He was going up, I was coming down.

He paused and looked up at me, as he drew level, and opened his mouth to show me a big splash of green, in there. "I'm eating.", he declared.

I could see that. I smiled, for it was the assured way that he said it, that I found humourous.

Then he said, to clarify his position: "I always eat."

He doesn't, really. He eats no more and no more often than any other child. He is not a one child representation of world hunger. Yet, it is interesting to note that, from his perspective, the regularity with which he eats constitutes "always eating".

It seems that he monitors himself and marks his own behaviour for frequency and habit. It is funny to see self-awareness in children so young because, somehow, it is unexpected. Though it may be hard to conceive it, they are much more self-aware and self-determining than one might at first allow. Yes, Tiarnan is a little toddler - but he is also a self-aware intelligence, quite capable of perceiving his own nature and place in the world. A lot goes into those first couple of years of life, I believe - a lot more than one might suppose.

As for Tiarnan, he has the eternal hunger of every child - and his pangs are in common with all little kids.

For me, the best point of this was a subtle one. It was green in his mouth...you try most kids to get to eat vegetables!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)