The Singapore Commentator

This article doesn’t have anything directly related to Singapore, but in the light of recent events involving perceived inflammatory remarks by Singaporeans and the reactions that followed, I thought readers might be interested.

Bloggers Finger a New Victim
For a glimpse of the blogosphere’s growing power, witness the brouhaha now afflicting PepsiCo over comments earlier this week by President and CFO Indra Nooyi before the graduating class of Columbia University’s B-school.

Her comparison of the five major continents to the five fingers on her hand -- with the U.S.(not a continent, mind you) being the controversial middle finger and Africa the often-ignored pinkie -- will strike many as entirely innocuous.

As she put it: “Each of us in the U.S. -- the long middle finger -- must be careful that when we extend our arm in either a business or political sense, we take pains to assure we are giving a hand…not the finger…. Unfortunately, I think this is how the rest of the world looks at the U.S. right now. Not as part of the hand -- giving strength and purpose to the rest of the fingers -- but instead scratching our nose and sending a far different signal.”

Yet a burst of blog outrage after a May 15 commencement speech has forced the beverage and food giant to post an apology on its home page...

Read the whole article and see whether you find anything familiar.