16:19.

Three news events have been unceasingly in the local spotlight these days. They defied the usual shelf life of news, gripped Singapore and inspired countless coverage and words, whether printed or spoken or unspoken by the professionally involved or the non.

There's that Project S u p e r star (I can't find a good article that summarised recent developments but here's some background, some mid-way drama for the Idol-esque programme which is down to the final two participants, and here) ... the only positive news item in stark contrast to the two murder cases of two little girls.

H u a n g Na case (Here's the most current print article, click on the pdf file to read), where the accused, a Malaysian veg packer in a wholesale market was sentenced to death yesterday...

and S i n d e e case... (Here's the latest report of the last session in court, trial resumes on Monday)

It seems wrong to put the first one alongside these two, so different are they and so positive is the first one that it almost seems like scorning the murdered. But, ah, in cosmic irony, death alongside life, hope alongside despair, happiness alongside uncomprehendable pain... all the co-existence of conflicting emotions make meaning in life.

It is not my intention to do any reporting here, take these as jumbled thoughts to the already wide pool of opinions and feelings spread across the island over these three cases.

The first article our paper ran on Project S u p e r s t a r (hereafter referred to as Proj S because scrambling words to avoid search engines is troublesome) was reported by myself. I went down to the studios during the first trials, saw the myraid hopefuls in various garbs and shapes and sizes, everyone adding to the hope and fear tangible in the atmosphere.

People getting guided here and there to the proper audition room, shown out, yada yada. Some folks loners and looking focus and trying to look not out of place; others, yakking away with new found friends. Guys and girls, crying after rejection, coming out of audition rooms shell shocked at the failure or success, having cameras always on them and the pesky reporter (me) hovering quietly on the edges and pouncing on folks I decide are interesting enough for my story.

*shrugs*

I felt for them, even as I dispend my duties the way it is second nature to. Feeling for them is not meant to be second nature though for journos but I did.

Not sympathy or whatever elitist vague thought, just that I understand that kind of drive, I know the hope and fear, and I see both the woods as well as the trees.

Called a couple of them when I got back to the office that Saturday to write it up. Listening to the self-recorded demos they have on their voice mail, the twinge in my heart for them and the fulfillment of what they feared - the dashing of hope, more.

But what's positive about this whole singing contest/ reality programme thing is how it has come out thus far. I caught one episode the week before while my parents were watching and I was glad when the underdog in the men's category came up tops.

If you read the links, yup, the guy's a blind busker. 24 years old, and honestly blessed with great pipes. The camera panned to his parents when his win was announced and my heart swelled on their behalf too. They were a normal family, typical, pretty much like mine. I looked at the Mom's face, she looked somewhat dazed though happy and proud.

Imagine how she felt - The son she worried about all his life (he was born blind) was standing on stage, cheered by hundreds, going to release a single then singing at the 11,000 capacity Indoor Stadium next Saturday (I think) to compete with the winner from the female category for that 50/ 50 chance to win that record deal, that contract, that fame and career.

He's getting his shot to live life out of the box society and himself might had drawn for him all his life. Every thing that happened before his break through now is like, moot. He had dared to dream, and wow, now, he's at a place maybe nobody could 100% believe he ever could be before.

I'm not ashamed to say I had tears in my eyes those few moments.

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H u a n g Na's mother was here from China to work for a better life, so was her convicted killer, T o o k, only 23, who left his wife and 2-year-old son to come here from Penang.

S i n d e e was the only daughter of a local karung guni man and his Thai wife, who left her country and family to stick by her man here, despite his infidelities throughout their marriage. She died five days after falling many storeys down the highrise flat her home was at, allegedly thrown down after the ex-air stewardess, allegedly with a history of mental conditions, her own father was having an affair with grabbed her from her bed one night, where she was sleeping in between her mom and dad.

She was 4. H u a n g Na was 9.

Could any thing they have done justify their deaths? No. They were pawns who fell.

These stories disturb me. I scorned at S i n d e e's father who was unfaithful so many times to his wife; felt for the wife who broke down in court screaming at her daughter's alleged killer why did you have to kill my daughter, who had to have the man she loves' betrayal known to the whole darn world; found the alleged killer a contradiction, bitter, confused and not very happy or in control herself either.

Who's to blame? Even if I am in the position to judge, I can't say. So many tragedies, tragic lives and wrong decisions, all wound up now in the murder case everyone reads about, which court kaypohs attend court for just to catch glimpses of them in real life, as if they are some reality star and their flicking tragic tales are just some sad sob on the soap.

It's the same for H u a n g Na's case. Of course you feel for the mother, who returned to China after the accident but returned for the trials. Does she have to live with guilt, knowing if she had not left her daughter alone at her workplace like she often did, the girl may be alive today? Is her heart and mind mixed with some unusual gladness that sympathetic members of the public have given her enough money that she now has a proper house in her homeland? Does she hate herself for that inexplicable thankfulness for the windfall, which is understandable for everyone who ever been so poor they had to leave their country, work at some menial job overseas where you receive your fair share of stereotyped labels and behaviour?

But T o o k, that 23-year-old Msian... those who seen him or read about him and cared enough to try to formulate a grasp of his character are divided. Some think him madman because he smile in court and act nonchalent, never guilt-strickened. Some think him simply a country bumpkin with a lower IQ who doesn't understand what's going on in the English-speaking court even though he has a translator, and who honestly reacted way wrongly and badly when (he claimed) his victim hit her head and started foaming at the mouth while they played hide and seek and he panicked that others would think he was responsible and subsequently lost touch of his actions. Some believe that he is indeed schizophrenic and didn't really know what he was doing when he then throttled the little girl, stomped on her and assaulted her sexually.

He didn't react when the whole court stood and the judge read the verdict to "hang him until he is dead".

His parents, wife and siblings, those who painstakingly been taking a bus up and down from Penang to here and back throughout the trial, did.

Everything changes.

Everything changes for all these people who might not have directly been involved in the actual act.

I don't know how people can joke or discuss the murder cases over meals or around the watercooler without feeling affected.

I fall back on stolen words - "For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for me."

And I haven't even mentioned the honeymooning Singaporean couple (the wife, pregnant) who died in a car crash in Perth this month.

Jesus, come again. Please.