Manti Te'o kept girlfriend myth alive after revelation

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Not once but twice after he supposedly discovered his online girlfriend of three years never even existed, Notre Dame All-American linebacker Manti Te'o perpetuated the heartbreaking story about her death.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 11. He and the university said Wednesday that he learned on Dec. 6 that it was all a hoax, that not only wasn't she dead, she wasn't real.

On Thursday, a day after Te'o's inspiring, playing-through-heartache story was exposed as a bizarre lie, Te'o and Notre Dame faced questions from sports writers and fans about whether he really was duped, as he claimed, or whether he and the university were complicit in the hoax and misled the public, perhaps to improve his chances of winning the Heisman.

Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel said the case has "left everyone wondering whether this was really the case of a naJive football player done wrong by friends or a fabrication that has yet to play to its conclusion."

Gregg Doyel, national columnist for CBSSports.com, was more direct.

"Nothing about this story has been comprehensible, or logical, and that extends to what happens next," he wrote. "I cannot comprehend Manti Te'o saying anything that could make me believe he was a victim."

On Wednesday, Te'o and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September. They said his only contact with the woman was via the Internet and telephone.

Te'o also lost his grandmother — for real — the same day his girlfriend supposedly died, and his role in leading Notre Dame to its best season in decades endeared him to fans and put him at the center of college football's biggest feel-good story of the year.

Relying on information provided by Te'o's family members, the South Bend Tribune reported in October that Te'o and Kekua first met, in person, in 2009, and that the two had also gotten together in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up.

Te'o never mentioned a face-to-face meeting with Kekua in public comments reviewed by the AP. And an AP review of media reports about Te'o since Sept. 13 turned up no instance in which he directly confirmed or denied those stories — until Wednesday.

Among the outstanding questions Thursday: Why didn't Te'o ever clarify the nature of his relationship as the story took on a life of its own?

Te'o's agent, Tom Condon, said the athlete had no plans to make any public statements Thursday in Bradenton, Fla., where he has been training with other NFL hopefuls at the IMG Academy.

Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekau was not a real person through a phone call he received at an awards ceremony in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 6. He told Notre Dame coaches about the situation on Dec. 26.

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Manti Te'o's girlfriend hoax: How did it happen?

The AP's media review turned up two instances during that gap when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.

Te'o was in New York for the Heisman presentation on Dec. 8 and, during an interview before the ceremony that ran on the WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."

In a story that ran in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., on Dec. 11, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekau died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.

"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said.

On Wednesday, Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not go public with its findings sooner because it expected the Te'o family to come forward first. But Deadspin.com broke the story Wednesday.

Reporters were turned away Thursday at the main gate of IMG's sprawling, secure complex. Te'o remained on the grounds, said a person familiar with situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Te'o nor IMG authorized the release of the information.

"This whole thing is so nutsy that I believe it only could have happened at Notre Dame, where mythology trumps common sense on a daily basis. ... Given the choice between reality and fiction, Notre Dame always will choose fiction," sports writer Rick Telander said in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"Which brings me to what I believe is the real reason Te'o and apparently his father, at least went along with this scheme: the Heisman Trophy.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass blasted both Te'o and Notre Dame.

"When your girlfriend dying of leukemia after suffering a car crash tells you she loves you, even if it might help you win the Heisman Trophy, you check it out," he said.

He said the university's failure to call a news conference and go public sooner means "Notre Dame is complicit in the lie."

"The school fell in love with the Te'o girlfriend myth," he wrote.

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Biden Confirms Support for Second Amendment

Jan 17, 2013 6:41pm

Alex Wong/Getty Images

One day after President Obama unveiled the administration’s plan to curb gun violence, Vice President Joe Biden today defended their intentions, answering critics who have spoken out against the plan for potentially infringing on the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

“The president and I support the Second Amendment,”  Biden said definitively.

Biden, who’s led the task force on gun violence since the December shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, noted that he owns guns.

“I have two shotguns, a 20-gauge and a 12-gauge shotgun,” he said. Later in the speech he said his son Beau was a better shot than he is but that is because Beau is in the Army.

Biden spoke today before the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors’ meeting in Washington, D.C. Not everyone in the audience, Biden noted today, agrees with recommendations the White House put forward yesterday. But he defended the administration’s move to push this issue, at one point addressing the roomful of mayors as if he were speaking to them individually, saying that “murder rates in both of our towns are …  well beyond … what’s remotely tolerable for a civilized circumstance.”

“We’re going to take this fight to the halls of Congress,” he said. “We’re going to take it beyond that. We’re going to take it to the American people. We’re going to go around the country making our case, and we’re going to let the voices, the voice, of the American people be heard. ”

Biden again noted that there will not be consensus across the nation, given cultural differences among the states. In many states, he added, hunting is  “big deal.”

But, he quipped, addressing the use of high-capacity magazines in hunting, “As one hunter told me, if you got 12 rounds — you got 12 rounds, it means you’ve already missed the deer 11 times. You should pack the sucker in at that point. You don’t deserve to have a gun, period, if you’re that bad.”

High-capacity ammunition magazines “leave victims with no chance,” Biden said.

He summed up saying, “Recognizing those differences doesn’t in any way negate the rational prospect of being able to come up with common-sense approaches how to deal with the myriad of problems that relate to gun ownership.”

Biden said the “time is now” to make these changes and scoffed at some alternative strategies, like the proposal from the NRA for an armed guard to be placed in every school.

“We don’t want rent-a-cops in schools armed,” he said. “We don’t want people in schools who aren’t trained like police officers.”

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NASA buys blow-up habitat for space station astronauts

NASA wants to blow up part of the International Space Station – and a Las Vegas firm is eager to help.

The US space agency has signed a $17.8-million contract with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada to build an inflatable crew habitat for the ISS.

According to details released today at a press briefing , the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will launch in 2015. Astronauts on the ISS will test the module for safety and comfort.

BEAM will fly uninflated inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Once docked and fully expanded, the module will be 4 metres long and 3 metres wide. For two years astronauts will monitor conditions inside, such as temperature and radiation levels.

Bigelow hopes the tests done in orbit will prove that inflatable capsules are safe and reliable for space tourists and commercial research, an idea almost as old as NASA itself. The space agency began investigating the concept of expandable spacecraft in 1958. Space stations like this would be easier to launch and assemble than those with metal components, so would be cheaper. But research ended after a budget crunch in 2000, and Bigelow licensed the technology from NASA.

Stronger skin

The company has made progress, developing shielding that resists punctures from space debris and micrometeorites. BEAM's skin, for instance, is made from layers of material like Kevlar to protect occupants from high-speed impacts. The craft's skin has been tested in the lab alongside shielding used right now on the rest of the ISS, says Bigelow director Mike Gold.

"Our envelope will not only equal but be superior to what is flying on the ISS today. We have a strong and absolute focus on safety," he says.

And we have to be sure that inflatable craft are safe, says William Schonberg, an engineer specialising in orbital debris protection at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla. "The overall risk to the ISS is the sum of the risks of its individual components," he says.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but a flexible, inflatable design is just as likely to survive punishment from space debris as metal shielding, says Schonberg. "Certain composite cloth materials have been shown to be highly effective as shields against [high-speed space] impacts. So depending on what material is used, and in what combination it is used with other materials – such as thermal insulation blankets – the final design could be just as effective and perhaps better than the more traditional all-metal shields used elsewhere on the station."

Gold hopes BEAM will also demonstrate that fabric shielding can limit radiation risks. This is a major worry on missions to the moon or an asteroid say, where astronauts have to spend weeks or months outside Earth's protective magnetic field.

High-energy particles called cosmic rays constantly fly through the solar system, and when they strike metal shielding, they can emit secondary radiation in the form of X-rays. This doesn't happen with Kevlar-based fabric shields and so expandable habitats could be more desirable for travellers heading deeper into space, says Gold.

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Sex, Internet, music on tap at Sundance film fest

LOS ANGELES: Sex, the Internet and good old fashioned rock-and-roll will dominate the 29th Sundance Film Festival, the top showcase of independent US cinema that opens Thursday in the snowy mountains of Utah.

Founded by Robert Redford, the annual festival in Park City aims to nurture independent filmmakers who might otherwise be eclipsed by output from the major studios -- while Hollywood uses it to scout new up-and-coming talent.

The January 17-27 event will present 119 feature films from 32 countries, including 51 first-timers and more than 100 world premieres.

Sex and desire, for teenagers and adults, are key themes that will be explored at Sundance in both fictional movies and documentaries, festival director John Cooper told AFP.

"It is undeniable that there are a lot of examinations of sexual relationships in this year's line-up," Cooper said.

"Filmmakers are dealing with sex as power, sex as basic human need and desire, sex from both the male and female point of view," he explained.

"I chalk this up to the fact that independent filmmakers have always been at the forefront as far as tackling fresh ideas and issues -- even taboo subjects."

Among the films sure to create buzz are "Lovelace", starring "Les Miserables" alum Amanda Seyfried in the title role as 1970s porn star Linda Lovelace of "Deep Throat" fame.

Also on the program are "The Lifeguard", about the dangerous relationship between a pool lifeguard and a teenager, and "Interior. Leather Bar", -- an X-rated art film directed by and starring James Franco.

Franco and co-director Travis Mathews have reimagined sexually explicit footage cut from William Friedkin's 1980 thrilled "Cruising", in which Al Pacino played a New York cop who goes undercover in the city's gay S&M scene.

Sundance will also feature several films looking at the world of high-tech and the Internet including "Google and the World Brain", a documentary about the web giant's plans to scan every book in the world.

Ashton Kutcher stars in "jOBS", a biopic about late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and director Alex Gibney will unveil "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks", about Julian Assange's whistleblowing website.

On the documentary front, one of the festival's strong points, about 40 films will be screened including "Manhunt", a look at the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden and a counterpoint to Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty".

Another hotly anticipated documentary is "After Tiller", which tells the story of the last four doctors in the United States who still perform third-trimester abortions, after the 2009 assassination of George Tiller.

Documentary filmmakers "approach problems facing our society from a very deep level that is unusual in mainstream media," Cooper said.

"They both expose problems and provide solutions."

The music world will have its moment in the Park City sun, with screenings of documentaries about The Eagles and Russia's Pussy Riot, as well as a film from Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl about the iconic Sound City recording studio in Los Angeles.

The festival's parallel out-of-competition Next section is dedicated to low-budget films, while Park City At Midnight will show a selection of horror and B-movie productions.

-AFP/fl

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Death of Notre Dame star's girlfriend a hoax, he says

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Te'o's father had said his son, girlfriend had met at his home in Hawaii


• Manti Te'o is a hoax victim, Notre Dame says; university has hired an investigative firm


• Sports website Deadspin raises questions about the existence of his girlfriend


• In September, Te'o talked about losing his grandmother, girlfriend in the same week

(CNN) -- Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o said Wednesday he was the victim of a "sick joke" that resulted in the creation of an inspirational story that had him overcoming the deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend as the team marched toward the BCS National Championship Game.

Te'o released a statement and Notre Dame held a news conference Wednesday night after the sports website Deadspin published an article that called the girlfriend story a "hoax" and raised questions about whether she ever existed.

Last September and October, Te'o told interviewers the losses of the women, who reportedly died within hours of each other, inspired him to honor them with sterling play on the field.

"I miss 'em, but I know that I'll see them again one day," he told ESPN.

That and other media reports led to a gripping human interest story of determination. The girlfriend was identified as Lennay Kekua.

Jack Swarbrick, director of athletics at Notre Dame, told reporters that Te'o was the victim of an elaborate hoax. "And he will carry that with him for a while," Swarbrick said.

Notre Dame said the relationship between Te'o and the supposed girlfriend was exclusively online.

As part of the hoax, several meetings were set up, including at Te'o's home in Hawaii, but Kekua never showed, Swarbrick said.

Te'o's father, Brian, told the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune last fall that his son did have the opportunity to meet Lennay.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said, according to the newspaper. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple."

According to Swarbrick, Te'o told his coaches in December that he received a phone call and heard a voice he thought was his girlfriend's, telling him she was not dead.

Te'o's grandmother did die in September, according to Deadspin, but there is no Social Security Administration record of the death of the athlete's supposed girlfriend, described as a Stanford University student named Lennay Kekua. Stanford University told CNN that it has never had a student registered by that name.

"Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed," Deadspin contends.

According to the website, Kekua, 22, had reportedly been in a serious auto accident in California and was later diagnosed with leukemia.

Your opinion: What do you think?

After Notre Dame upset No. 10 Michigan State on September 15, Te'o told ABC about his grandmother and girlfriend.

"They were with me. I couldn't do it without them," Te'o said. "I couldn't do it without the support of my family and my girlfriend's family."

"I'm so happy that I had a chance to honor my grandma and my family and my girlfriend," the Heisman Trophy runner-up said. "That's what it's all about, family."

Timothy Burke, co-author of the Deadspin article, told Miami sports radio host Dan Le Batard, "We got an e-mail last week saying something isn't right" with the girlfriend story.

Te'o, the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy, said Wednesday he "developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

In his statement reported by ESPN, the star said, "To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life."

Notre Dame said it has hired an independent investigative firm to look into the situation.

CNN's Steve Almasy and Phil Gast contributed to this report.

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Manti Te'o says he's the victim of "girlfriend" hoax

Updated 8:50 p.m. ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Notre Dame said a story that star Manti Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him all season and helped him lead the Irish to the BCS title game — turned out to be a hoax apparently perpetrated against the linebacker.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick held a press conference late Wednesday about the apparent hoax Wednesday after Deadspin.com said it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

"This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we cant fully understand," Swarbrick said.

CBS News and its morning program, "CBS This Morning," were among the many news outlets that reported on the "hoax" girlfriend's death. "CBS This Morning" will have an update on the report Thursday.

The Notre Dame athletic director insisted "several things" led him to believe Te'o did not create the girlfriend himself after the university's investigation into the situation, led by a private investigative firm.

"Manti was the victim of that hoax. He h

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick at a press conference on Jan. 16, 2013.

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CBS News

as to carry that with him for a while. In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark because he's the guy who was so willing to believe in others," Swarbrick said. "The pain was real. The grieving was real. The affection was real."

Linebacker Manti Te'o (5) of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish looks on against the USC Trojans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on November 24, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.

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Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images

By Te'o's own account, she was an "online" girlfriend.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," he said in statement.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

Swarbrick likened the situation to the 2010 movie "Catfish," in which "young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship" with an allegedly young woman that turns out also to be a hoax.

The university said its coaches were informed by Te'o and his parents on Dec. 26 that Te'o had been the victim of what appeared to be a hoax.

Someone using a fictitious name "apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the school said.

Swarbrick said the investigation revealed "several" perpetrators, although the exact number is unclear. He said the university became convinced of the hoax based on "the joy they were taking...referring to what they accomplished and what they had done."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

20 Photos

2013 BCS National Championship

The linebacker's father, Brian Te'o, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in early October that he and his wife had never met Kekua, saying they were hoping to meet her at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

Te'o went on the become a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and leading Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship.

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

Four days ago Te'o posted on his Twitter account: "Can't wait to start training with the guys! Workin to be the best! The grind continues! (hash)Future"

Te'o's statement also said: "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

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FAA Grounds Boeing 787 Dreamliners

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the grounding of Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets until their U.S. operator proves that batteries on the planes are safe.

United is the only U.S. carrier flying the Boeing 787s, which have been touted as the planes of the future. However, several operated by overseas airlines have run into recent trouble, the latest because of a feared battery fire on a 787 today in Japan.

The FAA's so-called emergency airworthiness directive is a blow to Boeing, from the same government agency that only days ago at a news conference touted the Dreamliner as "safe." Even Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood went so far as to say he would have no issue flying on the plane.

Now, United will need to prove to the FAA that there is no battery fire risk on its six Dreamliners. An emergency airworthiness directive is one that requires an operator to fix or address any problem before flying again.

"Before further flight, operators of U.S.-registered Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the batteries are safe and in compliance," the FAA said in a statement today. "The FAA will work with the manufacturer and carriers to develop a corrective action plan to allow the U.S. 787 fleet to resume operations as quickly and safely as possible."

787 Dreamliner Grounded, Passengers Forced to Evacuate Watch Video

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Deemed Safe Despite Mishaps Watch Video

United Airlines responded tonight with a statement: "United will immediately comply with the airworthiness directive and will work closely with the FAA and Boeing on the technical review as we work toward restoring 787 service. We will begin reaccommodating customers on alternate aircraft."

There are some 50 Dreamliners flying in the world, mostly for Japanese airlines, but also for Polish and Chilean carriers.

Overseas operators are not directly affected by the FAA's emergency airworthiness directive -- but Japanese authorities grounded all of their 787s overnight after All Nippon Airways (ANA) said a battery warning light and a burning smell were detected in the cockpit and the cabin, forcing a Dreamliner, on a domestic flight, to land at Takamatsu Airport in Japan.

The plane landed safely about 45 minutes after it took off and all 128 passengers and eight crew members had to evacuate using the emergency chutes. Two people sustained minor injuries on their way down the chute, Osamu Shinobe, ANA senior executive vice president, told a news conference in Tokyo.

ANA and its rival, Japan Airlines (JAL), subsequently grounded their Dreamliner fleets. ANA operates 17 Dreamliner planes, while JAL has seven in service.

Both airlines said the Dreamliner fleet would remain grounded at least through Thursday.

ANA said the battery in question during today's incident was the same lithium-ion type battery that caught fire on board a JAL Dreamliner in Boston last week. Inspectors found liquid leaking from the battery today, and said it was "discolored."

Japan's transport ministry categorized the problem as a "serious incident" that could have led to an accident.

Even more shaken up than the passengers on the Japanese flight may be the reputation of America's largest plane manufacturer, Boeing.

Since the 787 -- with a body mostly made of carbon fiber -- was introduced, it's had one small problem after another. But the nagging battery issue, which caused an onboard fire at Boston's Logan Airport last week, was serious enough for the FAA to ground the plane.

"It's a rough couple weeks for Boeing and ANA," said John Hansman, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics. "I think clearly in the short term this type of bad press has been tough for Boeing. I think in the long haul, this is a good airplane. It's in a good market."

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Why musical genius comes easier to early starters

Good news for pushy parents. If you want your child to excel musically, you now have better justification for starting their lessons early. New evidence comes from brain scans of 36 highly skilled musicians, split equally between those who started lessons before and after the age of 7, but who had done a similar amount of training and practice.

MRI scans revealed that the white matter in the corpus callosum – the brain region that links the two hemispheres – had more extensive wiring and connectivity in the early starters. The wiring of the late starters was not much different from that of non-musician control participants. This makes sense as the corpus callosum aids speed and synchronisation in tasks involving both hands, such as playing musical instruments.

"I think we've provided real evidence for something that musicians and teachers have suspected for a long time, that early training can produce long-lasting effects on performance and the brain," says Christopher Steele of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, and head of the team.

Sweet spot

Steele says that younger-trained musicians may have an advantage because their training coincides with a key period of brain development . At age 7 or 8, the corpus callosum is more receptive than ever to the alterations in connectivity necessary to meet the demands of learning an instrument.

However, he stresses that these connectivity adaptations are no guarantee of musical genius. "What we're showing is that early starters have some specific skills and accompanying differences in the brain, but these things don't necessarily make them better musicians," he says. "Musical performance is about skill, but it is also about communication, enthusiasm, style and many other things we don't measure. So while starting early may help you express your genius, it won't make you a genius," he says.

Nor should older aspiring musicians despair. "They should absolutely not give up. It is never too late to learn a skill," says Steele.

Journal reference: Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.3578-12.2013

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SDA's Desmond Lim brands himself as dedicated & determined

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Democratic Alliance's (SDA) Desmond Lim has described himself as a dedicated local and determined leader.

Mr Lim is no stranger to the Punggol East ward, having contested there during the 2011 General Election.

It was a setback that Mr Lim said would have made others run away from politics.

The SDA's secretary-general forfeited his S$16,000 election deposit when he garnered around four per cent of votes in the 2011 General Election.

He said his loss in the Punggol East ward only emboldened him to make a comeback. "In life, we have a lot of hurdles. We have a lot of experiences that (have) no smooth rides. But that doesn't mean that we stop from there. Are we going to tell our children 'oh, you fail your examination, that's it, finish. It's the end of the world. Don't study further.' No, we'll encourage them. Never mind, try again."

Mr Lim's brush with elections began in 2001, when he contested in the then Jalan Besar Group Representation Constituency and was defeated.

He lost again in the 2006 General Election, when he contested in the Pasir Ris-Punggol Group Representation Constituency.

With three elections and 20 years in politics under his belt, Mr Lim thinks he has the necessary qualities to represent Punggol East.

"The Parliament must have a diversified voice. We must have more than one, two parties to counter-check and balance of each other."

Since the 2011 loss, Mr Lim said he has built up a grassroots movement comprising over 10 Punggol residents.

"The residents (themselves) should take up the ownership to advocating for what they really need, such as hawker centre, and because of that, safety - road safety, buses, increase the number of buses service."

Mr Lim plans to set aside a third of his allowance as a Member of Parliament to start a residents' insurance scheme, if elected.

- CNA/ck

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Online courses need human element

Online courses are proliferating, says Douglas Rushkoff, but will really succeed when they bring humanity to learning process

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Douglas Rushkoff: Education is under threat, but online computer courses are not to blame


• He says education's value hard to measure; is it for making money or being engaged?


• He says Massive Open Online Courses lack human exchange with teachers


• Rushkoff: MOOCs should bring together people to share studies, maintain education's humanity

Editor's note: Douglas Rushkoff writes a regular column for CNN.com. He is a media theorist and the author of "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age" and "Life Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back." He is also a digital literacy advocate for Codecademy.com. His forthcoming book is "Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now."

(CNN) -- Education is under threat, but the Internet and the growth of Massive Open Online Courses are not to blame.

Like the arts and journalism, whose value may be difficult to measure in dollars, higher education has long been understood as a rather "soft" pursuit. And this has led people to ask fundamental questions it:

What is learning, really? And why does it matter unless, of course, it provides a workplace skill or a license to practice? Is the whole notion of a liberal arts education obsolete or perhaps an overpriced invitation to unemployment?

Douglas Rushkoff

The inability to answer these questions lies at the heart of universities' failure to compete with new online educational offerings -- the rapidly proliferating MOOCs -- as well as the failure of most Web-based schools to provide a valid alternative to the traditional four-year college.

Education is about more than acquiring skills.

When America and other industrialized nations created public schools, it was not to make better workers but happier ones. The ability to read, write and think was seen as a human right and a perquisite to good citizenship, or at least the surest way to guarantee compliant servitude from the workers of industrial society. If even the coal miner could spend some of his time off reading, he stood a chance of living a meaningful life. Moreover, his ability to read the newspaper allowed him to understand the issues the day and to vote intelligently.

What we consider basic knowledge has grown to include science, history, the humanities and economics. So, too, has grown the time required to learn it all. While the modern college might have begun as a kind of finishing school, a way for the sons of the elite to become cultured and find one another before beginning their own careers, it eventually became an extension of public school's mandate. We go to college to become smarter and more critical thinkers while also gaining skills we might need for the work force.

Accordingly, we all wanted our sons and daughters to go to college until recently. The more of us who could afford it, the better we felt we were doing as a society. But the price of education has skyrocketed, especially in the tiny segment of elite schools. This has led to the widespread misperception that a good college education is available only to those willing to take on six-figure debt.

Worse, in making the calculation about whether college is "worth it," we tend to measure the cost of a Harvard education against the market value of the skills acquired. Did my kid learn how to use Excel? If not, what was the point?

To the rescue come the MOOCs, which offer specific courses, a la carte, to anyone with a credit card; some even offer courses for free.

Following the model of University of Phoenix, which began offering a variety of "distance learning" in 1989, these newer Web sites offer video lectures and forums to learn just about anything, in most cases for a few hundred dollars a class. MOOCs have exploded in the past few years, enrolling millions of students and sometimes partnering with major universities.

For pure knowledge acquisition, it's hard to argue against such developments, especially in an era that doesn't prioritize enrichment for its own sake. But it would be a mistake to conclude that online courses fulfill the same role in a person's life as a college education, just as it would be an error to equate four years of high school with some online study and a GED exam.

Don't get me wrong: I have always been a fan of online education -- but with a few important caveats.

First off, subjects tend to be conveyed best in what might be considered their native environments. Computers might not be the best place to simulate a live philosophy seminar, but they are terrific places to teach people how to use and program computers.

Second, and just as important, computers should not require the humans using them to become more robotic. I recently read an account from an online lecturer about how -- unlike in a real classroom -- he had to deliver his online video lectures according to a rigid script, where every action was choreographed. To communicate effectively online, he needed to stop thinking and living in the moment. That's not teaching; it's animatronics.

Online learning needs to cater to human users. A real instructor should not simply dump data on a person, as in a scripted video, but engage with students, consider their responses and offer individualized challenges.

The good, living teacher probes the way students think and offers counterexamples that open pathways. With the benefit of a perfect memory of student's past responses, a computer lesson should also be able to identify some of these patterns and offer up novel challenges at the right time. "How might Marx have responded to that suggestion, Joe?"

Finally, education does not happen in isolation.

Whether it's philosophy students arguing in a dorm about what Hegel meant, or fledgling Java programmers inspecting one another's code, people learn best as part of a cohort. The course material is almost secondary to the engagement. We go to college for the people.

Likewise, the best of MOOCs should be able bring together ideal, heterogeneous groupings of students based on their profiles and past performance, and also create ample opportunities for them to engage with one another in the spirit of learning.

Perhaps this spirit of mutual aid is what built the Internet in the first place. Now that this massive collaborative learning project has succeeded, it would be a shame if we used it to take the humanity out of learning altogether.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Douglas Rushkoff.

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