The Thunder, Perfect Mind

I was sent forth from the power, 
and I have come to those who reflect upon me, 
and I have been found among those who seek after me. 
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me, 
and you hearers, hear me. 
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves. 
And do not banish me from your sight. 
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing. 
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard! 
Do not be ignorant of me. 
For I am the first and the last. 

Why, you who hate me, do you love me, 
and hate those who love me? 
You who deny me, confess me, 
and you who confess me, deny me. 
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me, 
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me. 
You who know me, be ignorant of me, 
and those who have not known me, let them know me. 
For I am knowledge and ignorance. 
I am shame and boldness. 
I am shameless; I am ashamed. 
I am strength and I am fear. 
I am war and peace. 
Give heed to me. 
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one. 
Give heed to my poverty and my wealth. 
Do not be arrogant to me when I am cast out upon the earth, 
and you will find me in those that are to come. 
And do not look upon me on the dung-heap 
nor go and leave me cast out, 
and you will find me in the kingdoms. 
And do not look upon me when I am cast out among those who 
are disgraced and in the least places, 
nor laugh at me. 
And do not cast me out among those who are slain in violence. 
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel. 
Be on your guard! 
Do not hate my obedience 
and do not love my self-control. 
In my weakness, do not forsake me, 
and do not be afraid of my power. 
For why do you despise my fear 
and curse my pride? 
But I am she who exists in all fears 
and strength in trembling. 
I am she who is weak, 
and I am well in a pleasant place. 
I am senseless and I am wise. 

I am the one who has been hated everywhere 
and who has been loved everywhere. 
I am the one whom they call Life, 
and you have called Death. 
I am the one whom they call Law, 
and you have called Lawlessness. 
I am the one whom you have pursued, 
and I am the one whom you have seized. 
I am the one whom you have scattered, 
and you have gathered me together. 
I am the one before whom you have been ashamed, 
and you have been shameless to me. 
I am she who does not keep festival, 
and I am she whose festivals are many. 
I, I am godless, 
and I am the one whose God is great. 
I am the one whom you have reflected upon, 
and you have scorned me. 
I am unlearned, 
and they learn from me. 
I am the one that you have despised, 
and you reflect upon me. 
I am the one whom you have hidden from, 
and you appear to me. 
But whenever you hide yourselves, 
I myself will appear. 
For whenever you appear, 
I myself will hide from you. 

I am the knowledge of my inquiry, 
and the finding of those who seek after me, 
and the command of those who ask of me, 
and the power of the powers in my knowledge 
of the angels, who have been sent at my word, 
and of gods in their seasons by my counsel, 
and of spirits of every man who exists with me, 
and of women who dwell within me. 
I am the one who is honored, and who is praised, 
and who is despised scornfully. 
I am peace, 
and war has come because of me. 
And I am an alien and a citizen. 
I am the substance and the one who has no substance. 
Those who are without association with me are ignorant of me, 
and those who are in my substance are the ones who know me. 
Those who are close to me have been ignorant of me, 
and those who are far away from me are the ones who have known me. 
On the day when I am close to you, you are far away from me, 
and on the day when I am far away from you, I am close to you. 

For I am the one who alone exists, 
and I have no one who will judge me. 
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins, 
and incontinencies, 
and disgraceful passions, 
and fleeting pleasures, 
which (men) embrace until they become sober 
and go up to their resting place. 
And they will find me there, 
and they will live, 
and they will not die again. 

The Nag Hammadi library  is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.

Thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local farmer named Muhammed al-Samman. The writings in these codices comprise 52 mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato’s Republic. The buried manuscripts date from the 3rd and 4th centuries.

The Nag Hammadi codices are currently housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, Egypt.

Markus Schulz & Justine Suissa – Perception (Armin van Buuren Live Mix)

You can see forever
Look inside of your mind
Find a sense another wonder
Just release the fears you left behind

Feel your way through the darkness
Guide your soul into the light
Swim into the open water
Drift on the tides that you may find
You can see, you can see, you can see

Find your soul in the sunrise
Look around you can see it in their eyes
Be as one together
Rise up as the emptiness subsides

You can see forever
Rise up together
Search and you will find the answer
If you look deep inside of your mind

Eli & Fur – Night Blooming Jasmine (Rodriguez Jr. Remix)

It’s a quarter past midnight
On the street where you’re roaming
With the scent of your cigarette
The scent of a love so cold
And I’m twisting all through the night
But every time we touch
All that’s left is night blooming jasmine and the songs that are leading me home
All that’s left is night blooming jasmine and the scent of your cigarette

It’s a quarter past midnight
On the street where I go
With a shape of your silhouette
Cos you never left my mind In that empty bar
We were pacing all through the night
Still everytime we touch
All that’s left is night blooming jasmine and the songs that are leading me home
All that’s left is night blooming jasmine and the shape of your silhouette

TPB Menon and Sat Pal Khattar

VETERAN TRIALS

These days, we are constantly reminded of the need for resilience and fortitude in the face of Covid-19.  For veteran lawyers Mr TPB Menon and Mr Sat Pal Khattar, it did not take a global pandemic to turn their lives upside down.  At an age when most of their peers were focused on their studies, they had to shoulder the added responsibility of being head of their households while grappling with the demands of law school. Their stories, taken from excerpts of their oral history interviews with SAL, are inspirational in these difficult times.

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Mr TPB Menon was studying for his HSC (Higher School Certificate, equivalent to today’s A’ levels) when his father was diagnosed with cancer. “The doctor told me, your father has only got three months to live…I didn’t tell my mum. I think it would have finished her.” 

Within six months of his father’s passing, the family had to vacate the staff quarters at the Bukit Timah campus where the elder Mr Menon had been Supervisor of Works at Raffles College. They would live in rented premises for two years before Mr Menon purchased a $19,000 semi-detached house with money left from his father’s university provident fund.  “The first day we moved in, we only had a footstool and we all had to sit on the floor.”

At just 19, Mr Menon became head of the household. “My mother was only 37,” and he had three other younger siblings. “I don’t know how I did it. I didn’t fall sick but I was very, very thin.” He would wake up at 5am, drive his siblings to school, do the marketing on his way back before heading home to change and go to university. At 12.30pm, he would pick his siblings from school, go home for lunch and then he was back at university for lectures in the evenings and studies at the library until 10pm.

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Above: The first batch of students at the University of Malaya Department of Law. Addressing the moot court is a young TPB Menon who later made his mark in trust litigation. Courtesy: Scales of Gold: 50 Years of Legal Education at the NUS Faculty of Law

The final year of law school was the hardest. “I had a heavy combination of subjects which meant that I had to work doubly hard.” But money was also running out. “My sister and brother were poised to go to university. So being the eldest, I had to worry about money which at that stage shouldn’t be the case… [At] night, I gave tuition and used to earn a little bit of money writing articles for [a friend at] The Straits Times.” Giving up was not an option; after all, Mr Menon recalled that it was his father’s dying wish that all the children complete their university studies. 

Unlike Mr Menon, Mr Sat Pal Khattar’s father had no wish for his son to further his education beyond the Senior Cambridge (equivalent to today’s ‘O’ levels). “My father had decided that he needed help in his tiny business. And I had very little say. So I sold sports goods for my father, and travelled to all the smaller towns in Malaya, Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah.”

“When I wanted to do law, I had to discuss with him to say that I would need only about three hours a week off. I managed to persuade the faculty to put all my tutorials after office [hours]. But lectures were not arranged [that way] for me. So quite often I used to rush to a lecture [and] rush back and sell sports goods.” He would also spend his university holidays travelling to different parts of Malaysia for the business. “My obligation to the family business was unaffected by the fact that I was doing law,” said Mr Khattar, who lost his mother as a child. Just before his second-year exams, his father died of a massive heart attack. It was a double whammy for him. “The second-year exams were crucial because if you did not get through, you had to leave the faculty.”

Despite his father’s unexpected passing, Mr Khattar got the best results that year and even nabbed a book prize. Law studies aside, the young man was also saddled with the full responsibility of running his father’s business and looking after an extended family which included his grandmother, his sister, step-mother and her three children. 

“Everybody was interested in getting the best [results] but I was more interested in getting a job because, for me, a job was the most important thing,” recalled Mr Menon. The convocation ceremony for this first batch of local law graduates was held in Kuala Lumpur but given their dwindling finances, his family couldn’t afford to attend. “My mother wanted to see her eldest son graduate but we couldn’t afford for all of us to stay in the hotel. So I had to go there all by myself.”

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Above: Mr TPB Menon’s graduation photo. He is standing in the last row, fourth from the right. Courtesy: Scales of Gold: 50 Years of Legal Education at the NUS Faculty of Law

THE DRAW OF THE LEGAL SERVICE

The Legal Service offered the best opportunity to get a job straight away after graduation. Unfortunately, Mr Menon recalled the day when he was told that his application was rejected. “It was my birthday… I even remember the shirt I wore.  It was a short-sleeved blue shirt with stripes. That was the blackest day, I thought it was a disaster.” 

When he broke the news to this mother that he would not have a salary for another year, “I still remember the words my mother said.  She told me, ‘Son, when one door closes, there’s always another window that opens.’” 

Mr Eric Choa opened that window for Mr Menon when he agreed to take him as a pupil for six months on the condition that there will be no pay and that he would have to leave at the end of the period.  However, after just three months, Mr Choa offered Mr Menon a job at his firm. Despite getting offers of higher pay later, Mr Menon chose to remain with Mr Choa who would eventually pass him the firm, making him a sole proprietor at a relatively young age.  “I thought to myself and I said, ‘What is more important? Is money more important or my relationship with Eric Choa who has taught me the ropes?’” 

CLIMBING THE RANKS

Unlike Mr Menon, Mr Khattar was not eager for a job in the Legal Service. He was earning a comfortable income from his family’s sports goods business and he had no intention of practising law. “I wanted to go back to university to become a graduate assistant.” 

At the behest of Dr Bashir Mallal, who chided him for wasting his legal education, Mr Khattar decided to join the Legal Service and was appointed a DPP and State Counsel doing criminal work. “I hated it. I was not made for a career prosecuting criminals and murders and rape and stuff like that.”

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Above: Presidential candidate Ong Teng Cheong being greeted by lawyer Sat Pal Khattar at Singapore Conference Hall on nomination day for the first presidential election in 1993. Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

So when a vacancy in the tax department came up, Mr Khattar decided to make the switch; one that would change his entire career. Within seven years, he would rise to the rank of a superscale officer at an early age of 30. “I was the envy of a lot of people in the Legal Service because nobody below 30 ever got a superscale.  But after a while, I decided that I didn’t want to remain a civil servant all my life.” 

He left the Legal Service to start a one-man practice, Sat Pal Khattar and Company on 1 July 1974. About 15 months later, his classmate Dr David Wong joined him and Khattar-Wong & Partners was born. 

Mr Khattar attributes much of his success to what he calls ‘accidents’.” It was accidental that after I started practice… Graham Hill [who] was not only the leading lawyer in the tax field but the leading civil lawyer in Singapore… ran into some problems… and he gave up practice and went back to the UK. So suddenly, I was a tax practitioner with no other person to compete with, and I had a lion’s share of the tax work from the multinationals as well as from the local community.”

A LIFE IN THE LAW

Mr TPB Menon was among the pioneer batch of 22 law students who graduated from Singapore’s first law faculty in 1961. His former classmate Chan Sek Keong describes him as “the most experienced property and trust lawyer in private practice”.  Mr Menon was senior partner of Oehlers & Choa before it merged with Wee Swee Teow LLP in 1989. He was senior partner of Wee Swee Teow LLP from 1989 to 2000 and is now a Consultant at the firm. He was President of Law Society from 1980-83 and was awarded the Society’s highest honour – the CC Tan Award in 2004. Listen to his interview here.

Mr Sat Pal Khattar graduated with an Honours degree in Law from the University of Singapore in 1966 and started his career as a Deputy Public Prosecutor and State Counsel at the Attorney General’s Office. This was followed by a shift to the Inland Revenue Office as a Legal Officer. He founded Khattar Wong & Partners, one of the largest law firms in Singapore. After retiring from law practice in 2000, he established Khattar Holding, a private investment firm. Since the early 1990s, Mr Khattar has been investing in India, and this experience has helped him promote and support bilateral trade and investments between Singapore and India. He has served on many civic bodies in Singapore in various capacities and has been honoured at the May Day Awards on several occasions. He was the first resident in Singapore to receive the Padma Shri Award from the Indian government. Listen to his interview here.

The Development of The Singapore Legal System is a joint oral history project by SAL’s Legal Heritage Committee and the Oral History Centre, National Archives of Singapore.

Law firms take more extensive cuts amid unprecedented crisis

TUE, AUG 11, 2020 – 5:50 AM

nz_law_110833.jpgSeveral well-known law firms in Singapore, including one of the Big Four, have imposed pay cuts across the board – a move not seen in previous crises.  PHOTO: ST FILE 

Singapore

SEVERAL well-known law firms in Singapore, including one of the Big Four, have imposed pay cuts across the board – a move not seen in previous crises.

Dentons Rodyk and Big Four firm WongPartnership are among the largest law firms here that have announced firm-wide wage cuts, with both doing so by stripping out lawyers’ “front-loaded” bonuses.

Local law firms have over the past decade supplemented lawyers’ basic salaries with bonuses that are “front loaded”, or paid out in advance every month.

Lawyers and staff at Dentons Rodyk have had their advance bonuses cut since April this year.

Senior counsel Philip Jeyaretnam, who is the firm’s Asean chief executive and global vice-chair, said the move was “simply about being prudent” in the face of Covid-19.

“By March of this year, it was clear that 2020 was no normal year and so we stopped paying advance bonus from April onwards to all associates and to staff. Naturally, partners, especially senior partners, reduced their drawings the most,” he told The Business Times.

The firm will review the situation at the end of the year and decide how much additional bonus to pay, and to whom to allocate it.

“Some work, especially dispute work, restructuring and refinancing work has actually increased and some people are working harder than ever,” Mr Jeyeretnam pointed out. He also noted that the firm had preserved all jobs and hired 13 practice trainees.

At WongPartnership, lawyers across various seniorities will have their front-loaded bonuses cut by between 5 and 10 per cent from August, with these adjustments “revisited periodically”.

In response to BT’s queries, partner Joy Tan said that Singapore is facing unprecedented economic challenges, with the economy expected to shrink by between 4 and 7 per cent this year.

“The firm has a similar conservative business outlook on the year. While we remain financially healthy, and retrenchment is not an issue for us, we have chosen to adopt prudential measures on pay,” she said.

These paycuts are “not purely prudential belt-tightening measures”, she said, but designed to give the firm flexibility in paying a differentiated bonus to reward the more deserving performers, Ms Tan said.

There are plans to restore the front-loaded bonuses in 2021 or earlier, if the outlook improves.

“We have encouraged our people to not look at this as a cut but as a withholding, in that deserving performers may well still be paid the same amount in bonuses as before, at the end of the financial year,” she said.

Data from London-based legal research firm Chambers and Partners showed WongPartnership and Dentons Rodyk are staffed by about 300 and 200 lawyers, respectively, in Singapore.

A spokesperson from Drew & Napier would only say that the firm has not implemented any pay cuts.

Allen & Gledhill and Rajah & Tann, the remaining two Big Four firms, did not address queries on whether they have implemented such cost-cutting measures.

Local mid-sized firm TSMP Law Corporation had told BT in May that its partners would be taking a 25 per cent cut to “stand in solidarity” with clients.

While the firm has not implemented any pay cuts firm-wide since then, it will be adjusting starting pay for newly qualified lawyers down by 8 per cent, for those getting called in August.

“If the situation worsens, however, the firm could take further action to restructure all our lawyers’ pay,” joint managing partner Stefanie Yuen Thio told BT.

“We would try to make this a temporary cut, however, with an intention to reinstate pay levels in a year or two. The work will come back. Law firms just need to survive the cash flow crunch until that happens. That’s why we decided to do an early pay cut for the partners to manage our cash flow more prudently.”

There are whispers of concern over retrenchments later if business activity continues to languish, reflecting the severe economic impact from a global pandemic on the professional services sector.

Some law firms are reducing work hours or encouraging lawyers to go on sabbaticals, moves that are fairly uncommon in the legal sector here, even in past economic downturns.

When BT reported in May on law firms tightening their purse strings, most were doing so by freezing increments, hiring, or slicing partners’ profit distributions.

But recent moves seem more extensive, impacting junior associates and even staff who are not lawyers.

An associate at a Big Four firm expects the firm to be harder hit due to its large volume of corporate work.

A junior lawyer at another local, established law firm said that his firm has also implemented a cut of 10 per cent to associates’ pay. Partners at the firm were said to have taken a larger cut, but the proportion was not disclosed, said the lawyer, who spoke to BT on the condition of anonymity.

“(The management) announced the cuts a month before circuit breaker. They sent an e-mail and said that times are challenging … If it deteriorates, the cuts could get worse,” he said.

TSMP’s Ms Yuen-Thio said that during past economic downturns, the legal sector saw hiring slow and pay increments moderated. Because the economic pain tended to be concentrated in certain geographical areas, lawyers could also find jobs in countries that were less impacted.

But Covid-19 has dealt a different hand.

“The virus has been agnostic about political leanings and geography, and with most business sectors badly affected, the law firms that support them have started to feel the pinch,” she said.

Lee Shulin, co-founder and director at Ansa Search, pointed out that firms with strong litigation, disputes, as well restructuring and insolvency practices are more resilient.

“They have greater leverage when the economy takes a turn,” she said.

International law firms, including those with a presence in Singapore, appear to be the ones who are taking more drastic measures,

US outfit Reed Smith has rolled out several rounds of austerity cuts, which saw pay cuts across all levels – including a 40 per cent reduction in monthly draws by equity partners – as well as layoffs in the firm’s largest office in London.

London-headquartered Norton Rose Fulbright has asked staff to volunteer reducing their working hours by up to 20 per cent until next April. It took a similar move in the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis.

The firm’s Europe, Middle East and Asia arms are also deferring partner distributions and staff salary increments for the foreseeable future.

Checks on the Law Society’s careers portal still show a number of mid-sized and smaller law firms, such as Yeo & Associates and Eldan Law, looking to expand their litigation practices.

But recruiters said they have also been receiving a larger number of queries of late particularly from junior lawyers, with some considering leaving practice to serve as in-house legal counsels.

“Their workload has remained largely the same, if not more, and would be understandably disgruntled in having to take a pay cut despite their efforts,” said Clement Tan, a senior consultant at Space Executive.

“Some see the pay cut as a time to reassess where they are, becoming more open to considering an alternative career in-house or with another firm.”

Max Keiser explains why only gold, silver and bitcoin can save you now

Timothy Maxwell “Max” Keiser (born January 23, 1960) is an American broadcaster and film maker. He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on the media channel RT (formerly known as Russia Today) that features heterodox economics theories. Until November 2012, Keiser anchored On the Edge, a program of news and analysis hosted by Iran’s Press TV. He hosted the New Year’s Eve special The Keiser’s Business Guide to 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live. Keiser presented a season of The Oracle with Max Keiser on BBC World News. He produced and appeared in the TV series People & Power on the Al-Jazeera English network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Keiser

Andre Sobota & Felipe Novaes – Prescience (Alex O’Rion Remix)


The latest release from Clubsonica Records welcomes Andre Sobota back to the label for a fresh collaboration alongside remixes from Alex O’Rion and Hot TuneiK. The Brazilian artist has found a comfortable home on the Colombian imprint with this being his third appearance. June of 2018 marked the São Paulo resident’s label debut with the release of his well received ‘Missing Line’ single, while later that year yielded a stunning remix of ‘Blue Patience’ by label boss Juan Pablo Torrez. Now returning for his second single, Andre collaborates with fellow countryman Felipe Novaes on the highly anticipated ‘Prescience’. Having both supplied their own interpretations it’s Andre’s Mix which gets the release underway. Anchored by a punchy yet warm groove, its rhythmic core comes up quickly, with layers of finely tuned percussion, buzzing lines and vibrant tones uniting in a compelling canopy of sound. Robust and hook heavy, it’s a metallic arp which elevates the narrative, flowing through intense but tasteful modulation, before building to a sonic sizzle during the main break and spearheading an emotive final act. Meanwhile Felipe’s version sits in lovely contrast with a warmer more nostalgic approach. Mounds of nicely carved bass power the foundation, while electric lines and astral effects add a playful, effervescent charm. Spanning close to two minutes in length the main break splits moods between the surreal and emotive, perfectly foreshadowing a driving finale.

Returning to the label and providing the first interpretation of ‘Prescience’ is Alex O’Rion’. As one of the Netherlands most highly regarded and sought-after artists, the Nijkerk resident has found a home on Hernan Cattaneo’s Sudbeat Music, where he has released three artist EPs since making his debut in January of 2018. Also, a highly regarded DJ, Alex has programmed music for some of the world’s most iconic clubs, namely Ministry Of Sound and Fabric. Now following his chart-topping EP for Cid Inc’s Replug Records, Alex returns to Clubsonica with a superb rendition of ‘Prescience’. Staying true to the main theme from the original the Dutch artist builds a smooth narrative across the first act. The main break proves impactful with wispy atmospherics carrying the quirky theme, before a stripped-down section builds tension towards an elegant yet powerful crescendo.