Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:34 AM
All together now, to 2008: Good riddance.Since we're all now overanxious, overmedicated, and broke, may history treat this past year like a junior tranche of subprime-mortgage-backed collateralized debt obligations. (Tee hee, a little finance humor.)Hopefully 2009 will bring better things for all. And if not ... you can always wash the bad news away with a really good Pinot Noir.Selamat Tahun Ba...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 10:07 AM
What the world needs now is ... not the unholy mess coming out the Mideast. Yet again.Hard to know what to say, that hasn't already been said. It's the usual cycle of violence that serves no one. Hamas was not in the right to be rocketing Israel, and Israel isn't in the right with its shock-and-awe campaign against the Islamic paramilitary group. If these were children, we'd sit them all down in the corner and take away their marbles. Unfortunately these children all have high-tech weaponry, and millenia of religious grudges to work out.Now Indonesian militant groups are said to be recruiting fighters to send to Gaza, the government is calling...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:48 AM
Love the distinct and haunting sounds of gamelan music, but don't have a massive orchestra of Javanese or Balinese musicians handy?Then Soniccouture has just the product for you. It's a 24-GB library of 25 gamelan instruments, with 4,000 samples to draw from. For those unfamiliar, gamelan is an ensemble of bronze percussion instruments like gongs, chimes and xylophones. Said to be around since 800 AD or so, it's one of Indonesia's most unique cultural exports, and is promoted in the US by the American Gamelan Institute.It runs around $380 for the whole package. Basically, in your slippers and from your own basement, you can arrange and conduct...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 12:43 PM
Is it just me, or do most articles about Megawati Sukarnoputri contain the subtext that she's - as the saying goes - not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree?I have no personal knowledge of her, or axe to grind. But it seems that many journalists dance diplomatically around the idea that she's not that swift, or that she's more consumed with subjects like gardening and shopping than les affaires d'etat.Now a new book more or less says it overtly. Dari Sukarno Sampai SBY doles out juicy anecdotes about Indonesian heads of state. Megawati, for her part, is said to "lose concentration" when it comes to geopolitics instead of cooking.Could be...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:44 AM
Russia seems to be making a full-time occupation of tweaking American interests. Sending warships to Cuba, running roughshod over Saakashvili's Georgia, cutting off oil pipelines to Europe whenever it serves its interests.In short the old Cold War spirit is back, led by a veteran of those times, KGB functionary Vladmir Putin. Russia's latest salvo: Ramping up its military shipments abroad, including fighter jets to Indonesia. Two were just delivered, with more to come.Not that there's anything wrong with that. Indonesia is famously independent, back to the Sukarno days and the creation of the non-aligned movement, and can buy arms from whomever...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:56 AM
What a year we've had. As the old Chinese curse goes, "May you live in interesting times."Global financial meltdown, wars and deaths, terror and heartache. Things you always thought you knew, turned out to be dead wrong. It was the kind of year that makes it hard to be an optimist.But amid the gloom, there have been moments of clarity and joy. The election of a new president, to break away from the tragic and unnecessary mistakes of the past eight years. A return to honesty and reality, of people living within their means and buying homes they can actully afford. The birth of my beautiful second son.And so, merry Christmas and happy holidays...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:27 AM
Here's an amazing travel opportunity I came across: Not only can you visit the endangered orangutans of Kalimantan (Borneo), but you get Dr. Birute Galdikas as your personal guide and naturalist.To put that in context, it's kind of like having Stephen Hawking over to chat about the history of the universe, or having Toni Morrison write your Christmas cards. The woman is a living legend, and has almost single-handedly saved the orangutans from extinction.She's hosting a couple of seven-day trips in July of 2009, which you can read about here and here. The cost is $3395 per person, with airfare within Indonesia included, but you have to get yourself...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:56 AM
Not all endings are happy ones. Seems like Dede the 'Treeman,' the Javanese villager famed around the world and featured on a Discovery documentary about his rare medical condition, has suffered some setbacks on his road to wellness.Dede has bark-like growths over much of his body, giving him the look of a human tree and landing him in a local circus act to survive. But after treatment by American dermatologist Anthony Gaspari, it was discovered he suffers from the very common HPV virus ... but that his immune system was so compromised thanks to genetics, that his body wasn't able to fight it off. He underwent surgery three times this year, the...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:03 AM
Here in the States, it's always en vogue to ridicule the rigid two-party political system of Republicans and Democrats. And in quasi-dictatorships, the one-party option, like Golkar back in the Suharto days, is equally risible.But everyone's ultimate goal of multiparty democracy is a messy solution, too. Just think of Italy, which once gained fame for changing its government every few months. The idea of cobbled-together coalitions, where a party with a laughable minority of votes gets to govern (See: Yudhoyono, Susilo Bambang), is hardly the ideal either.A cautionary tale on this front comes, ironically, from my normally stable homeland of Canada....
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:00 AM
Washington may be a crime-ridden blotch of humanity full of sneering career politicos, but hey, look on the bright side.Exhibit A: A 22-week Indonesian language class, offered by the local Embassy in D.C. I'm not sure what government kitty they're pulling the funding out of, but amazingly, it's totally free to applicants. I remember paying hundreds of bucks for my old Bahasa Indonesia class in Vancouver, so I'm green with jealousy. Memo to government functionaries: How about a similar class in New York City?Starting date for the free class is Feb. 11, 2009, and there are two language levels offered (Beginner I and II). Interested parties should...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:53 AM
I suppose something must be said about the Shoe Heard 'Round the World.Sometimes a single unforseen event comes to symbolize something larger than itself, and when it does, there's no stopping the brushfire. Such is the media trajectory of the size-10 shoe(s) tossed at President Bush during his recent Iraqi news conference. Years of a region's - and a faith's - anger, frustration, and personal animosity got distilled into one reporter's action.The Muslim world, including Indonesia as the faith's most populous outpost, has long seethed seethed with resentment towards the outgoing Republican and his efforts to reshape the region. In that larger...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:23 AM
The pungent Citarum River is getting some international attention, and it ain't pretty.Environmentalists claim the West Java waterway is among the world's most polluted, and from the accompanying photo they may just be right. Now the New York Times has taken a look at how the river - which supplies household water for 80% of Jakarta and its millions of residents (and factories, which aren't helping with their chemical dumping) - is basically a fetid cesspool. Enter the Asian Development Bank, and its $500 million loan to help clean things up. Ironically the financial aid is getting some local blowback, from those who say that the kitty will probably...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:42 AM
Recent financial developments like the 40% drop in the stock market, on the back of a total bank meltdown; the housing implosion tied to sketchy subprime mortgages; and the collapse of Madoff investment funds, a $50-billion Ponzi scheme that wiped out high rollers worldwide; makes me reminisce about the Asian currency crisis of 1997/8.Remember when southeast Asian economies underwent painful devaluation of their currencies, helped along by the IMF? And were made to institute neocon economic policies to qualify for loans to get them out of the cascading mess? The impact of currency machinations was so great on regular folks, in Indonesia especially,...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 12:24 PM
If I had a nickel every time Lombok was referred to as "the next Bali" ... I'd be a very rich journalist.Not that the lush island, nestled to Bali's side, doesn't deserve all the attention. But for some reason it's the only trope that makes sense to Western editors. The latest cliche culprit is the Wall Street Journal, following on the heels of the New York Times' version a couple of months back.In fact the very same phrase was being used when I was lolling around Nusa Tenggara, back around 15 years ago. One of these days it'd be nice to read about Lombok on its own terms, rather than in relation to its Balinese cousin across the straits. But...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 11:41 AM
For those of you who were wondering why I haven't been posting for a couple of days ...Welcome to the world, Julien Bryce Arthur Taylor!Happy and healthy, 7 lb 3 oz, and hungry as a horse. Born Thursday night in New York City.More posts as sleep allows ...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:20 AM
Times are tough all 'round, apparently. And not just for Detroit automakers or Wall Street investment banks. Just ask poor Aburizal Bakrie.The Master of the Universe - business tycoon, Indonesia's richest man in 2007, cabinet minister to boot - has been bumped from his position atop the country's wealthiest, according to Forbes magazine. Heck, he's not even a billionaire anymore.So who's the fellow with the deepest pockets now? Meet Sukanto Tanoto, pulp-and-paper king with a $2-billion net worth (although even that's been carved in half in a single year). Next up are the Hartono Brothers (sounds like a WWE tag team), Budi and Michael, who get...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 7:19 AM
Indonesia's been on the front lines of anti-corruption-fighting this last while, with the commission that's been kicking ass and taking names. Seems like every day some new bank honcho or government functionary is taken down. No wonder the nation climbed in Transparency International's index this year, becoming 'cleaner' than 17 additional countries.But to those who thought Indonesia had corruption issues all to itself, we present for your enjoyment: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich! Brazen enough to try selling President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to a half-dozen suitors for a cushy job, or cash, or maybe a combination of both. (Oh, and...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:30 AM
Adventure-travel buffs, saddle up. GAP Adventures has uploaded its list of Indonesian options for 2009, and it's a perfectly delectable menu.In fact there are six adventures on tap, each more excruciating to read about, since with two toddlers I won't be able to go! Nonetheless, here they are, herein and forthwith: Bali Adventure, eight days including climbing Mt. Batur; Discover Lombok, nine days including summiting Mt. Rinjani; Best of Bali and Lombok, 15 days combining the best of both islands; Indonesia Island Hopping, 13 days that includes Komodo and its dragons; West Papua, 15 days in the jungles of the Baliem Valley; and East Indies Sea...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 5:49 AM
There's an intriguing new book coming out that touches on Indonesia, called The Trouble With the Alphabet. The overarching theme is children's welfare, and it's set up so that each letter of the alphabet, such as I for Indonesia, deals with children's rights in that particular nation.(Are there any countries that begin with X? Q could be Qatar, I guess ... but I digress.)Each chapter also links to a particular charity in that country, Indonesia's being World Neighbors, which from its website looks to be a bottom-up approach to finding local solutions to poverty. The book was conceived, written and illustrated by Colorado artist Caryn West, and...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 3:22 AM
Ironic, isn't it. Just as families are learning to live within their means, instead of taking out mortgages they can't afford and charging everything on plastic, governments are doing the exact opposite.To wit, Indonesia's new $5-billion round of emergency loans, added on to U.S.' $700-billion TARP program to buy up toxic assets ... or purchase equity stakes in banks ... or whatever they say it's for today.Not that I have any better suggestions. In fact some government spending may be very necessary, as economists like Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points out in the New York Times, to prevent us all from tipping from a severe recession into a Depression...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 11:35 AM
It seems like an oxymoron - along with jumbo shrimp and military intelligence - but it looks like Islamic fashion is undergoing a bit of a boomlet.The faith's couture is usually associated with simple head-to-toe burqas, which don't seem like a natural fit for the world's catwalks. That's the territory of insane Western designers like Christian Lacroix and Dolce & Gabbana. But take a look at this report of the Islamic Fashion Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which belies the cultural stereotypes.Apparently burqas and abayas can be fashion-forward , according to Muslim designers like Tom Abang Saufi and Indonesian Ronald Gaghana. In fact...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:00 AM
In case you think you're just one person, not significant enough to change anything about the world, check out this story. It was sent to me by Cynthia Dammerer, about how a local hotel group is helping out a Balinese orphanage. Kind of puts things in perspective.�The traffic buzzed remorselessly down the highway, with cars, vans and bike jostling for the best position along the busy road between Nusa Dua and Benoa Harbour in beautiful Bali. Balinese families, sometimes three or four to a bike, pressed to get to work or home again.Our van swung suddenly into a rough country lane heading to a rubbish dump, up past the tethered cows and parked...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:00 AM
The news that U.S. president-elect Barack Obama has a hankering for nasi goreng, bakso and rambutan - no joke - has got my taste buds flowing.Thankfully the consulate-general here in New York has a useful roundup of Indonesian eats in the city. There aren't that many, especially in comparison to Chinese takeout eateries that dot pretty much every block. But at least there are a handful where you can mainline your daily fix of tempeh, gado-gado, or mi goreng.I can only personally vouch for two - Bali Nusa Indah on 9th Ave., and Java Indonesia Rijstaffel on 7th Ave in Brooklyn, which ironically is just down the block. Fine establishments, both....
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 4:00 AM
On a selfish note, I have a new book out, just in time for the holiday shopping rush (that is, if anyone has any money left in this recession!).It's called Thirty Things To Do When You Turn Thirty, and it's a collection of insightful essays from prominent thirtysomethings. People like singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, bestselling author Tim Ferriss, NBA star Chris Webber, Trading Spaces' Paige Davis, Huffington Post blog queen Rachel Sklar, the New York Times' Jenny 8. Lee, Google VP Doug Merrill, Time Inc.'s Vivek Shah, New York Observer publisher Jared Kushner, Penn State football legend Adam Taliaferro, Tango Diva founder Teresa Williamson, Paramount...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 8:25 AM
Yesterday was World AIDS Day, and judging from some startling new numbers, Indonesia is going to need a fresh strategy to cope with this deadly disease.The Health Ministry puts the number of cases nationwide at 18,000; the Association of Indonesian Physicians Concerned About HIV/AIDS puts it at 270,000. That's not just a clerical error ... that's a serious disconnect, that's putting lives at stake.In fact it's somewhat reminiscent of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, with his ineffectual response to HIV while his nation was ravaged by it. Given the recent push by Papuan legislators to implant sufferers with microchips, it looks like...
Posted by Internet at Every Where on 6:28 AM
Here's an innovative idea in social entrepreneurship, fresh out of Indonesia: Nonprofit organizations going capitalist, and buying banks.That's what relief outfit Mercy Corps did, to give it an instant country-wide network for its microfinance projects. Bank Andara could serve as a funding clearinghouse for 2,000 microcredit programs across Indonesia, and with its existing web of ATMs, make accessing cash quick and easy.It's all recounted in the latest edition of BusinessWeek, and chief exec Neal Keny-Guyer spells out why the ultra-capitalist route makes sense for do-gooder organizations too. If the $300-million, 3,500-employee NGO likes what...
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