Please close the door behind you...

Woke up this morning and browsed local (OZ's) online news sites to find stories on yesterday's Presidential Election. There's nothing, zip, nada. No news is good news I guess, as these people normally put Indonesia in the news when there's plane crashed or <please insert all sort of possible disasters here>.

It's the time to be proud being Indonesian. We've passed the test again this time. I wouldn't worry so much who's going to win. At least the wheel has spinned. People need to get used to election as part of life. Even if we end up with "bad" president, well, tough luck. Try again in 5 year time.

Just look at the US of A. They already have established presidential election mechanism, and they ended up with someone as inspiring as Dubya, for 8 good years, try to beat that!

One thing, can we do away with the run-off election please? Last time I heard this is not Indonesian Idol, is it? We should simplify this and channel the energy (and money) for other things.

We can just do it this way:
-Based on the legislative election, candidates must have formal support the parties. Only two with total highest number of popular votes can run.
-Anybody can run (as the current system), but whoever wins, even by only one vote, takes all and becomes the president.

Oh, by the way, I hope this is the last time we see Megawati's face on the ballot paper. The fact that she's still relying on Sukarno's image is so 1998. Time to move on, thanks for what you have done, and please close the door behind you...

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Indonesian Election 2009: The rise of pseudo-intellectuals...

So the first round of election is over. Indonesia is now mature enough to have another reasonably peaceful election. This is also the first time, after Suharto's regime, that we manage to keep the elected government in power for full five year term. Now that's one thing to be proud of!

Major political event like this unfortunately attracts the so called political flies analysts and wannabes. If you don't believe it, I've put together this list of 23 of them from detik.com and kompas.com just from the past 3 days (10-12 April 2009)

To be honest, their analysis is quite amusing and a good fun to read. It's more like poli-tainment. There's one who said that one party had been predicted to lose, and he said that AFTER the election(which is as good as saying pig doesn't fly, or does it?). Another said all Election Committee members should resign so that we can have successful second round election (?? sounds oxymoron to me).

I don't know how much Indonesian listen to these people, but it definitely doesn't help in educating people. Media needs to raise their bar and provide more facts than just quoting this rubbish just because it's easier to do. There's one quote from Irish Poet Oscar Wilde which media needs to keep in mind:

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

The full list:
Pengamat politik dari LIPI, Lili Romli
Pengamat politik UI, Boni Hargens
Pengamat politik dari Indo Barometer, M Qodari
Pengamat politik Universitas Airlangga (Unair), Daniel Sparingga.
Pengamat Politik Universitas Diponegoro (Undip), Yulianto,
Pengamat politik Universitas Gadjah Mada, Arie Sudjito
Peneliti senior Lembaga Survei Indonesia (LSI), Burhanuddin Muhtadi
Pengamat politik dari Reform Institute, Yudi Latief
Direktur Eksekutif CETRO, Hadar Gumay
Kepala Divisi Penelitian LP3ES, Fajar Nursahid
Pengamat politik UI, Arbi Sanit
Direktur LP3ES, Suhardi Suryadi
Project Manajer Cirus Surveyor Group, Hasan Nabih
Direktur Pusat Kajian Politik dan Kebijakan Strategis (Puskaptis), Husin Yazid
Pengamat politik, Maswadi Rauf
Pengamat politik, M Qodari
Eksekutif Direktur Cirus Surveyor Grup, Adrinof Chaniago
Pengamat politik Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) Ahmad Taufan Damanik
Rektor Universitas Paramadina, Anis Baswedan
Sekjen Jaringan Nusantara (JN), Andi Arief
Direktur Utama Lingkar Madani (LIMA), Ray Rangkuti.
Pengamat pemilu, Effendi Ghazali yang tampak rapi mengenakan jas hitam
Juru Bicara Dewan Perubahan Nasional, Chalid Muhammad

By the way, what if we put these people in power and see where our country will end up :-)

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21 Months of Good Life (Part 3 - Bye Welly and Hello Perth)

This post has been long overdue...

We finally left Wellington in October 2008. We'll never forget Wellington as we were bringing a piece of it with us: Joanna.

Imelda was 3 month pregnant when we moved to NZ and despite what the local news said about the appalling state of public health system in NZ, we still found that it worked wonders for us.

We were blessed having these people who helped us through the process: our midwife Kath Boyle who helped with Imelda's pregnancy and Joanna's early weeks (while she's struggling with her jaundice and weight loss); the team in Wellington hospital who handled the cesarean delivery really well; Plunket nurses who helped us monitoring Joanna's growth (and gave us peace of mind); and all our friends here who shared their experience and lent helping hands.

Here she is now, a 21 month old kiwi :-)



Now it's time to savour new experience. Haere ra, Aotearoa...

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21 Months of Good Life (Part 2: Four Seasons in One Day)

We are leaving Wellington this month. This is the second installment of the high points during our 21 month tenure here...

Wellington weather is not exactly the high point of living here, but hey, you will only treasure happiness through suffering.

I had never really bothered about weather forecast when I was still in Indonesia or Singapore. That changed when we got here, life was pretty much controlled by the weather. When it's bad we stayed at home and when it's good we tried to get out and enjoy the day (or doing our laundry and hanging the clothes outside :-p). The only problem was that the forecast was quite often inaccurate. Can't blame those people in weather forecast as a day in Wellington can start with sunny morning which turns to heavy rain and gale by noon.

Winter was pretty depressing here (I guess also there and everywhere...). It's probably the only thing we disliked about Wellington. We always fell sick at least twice in the winter period. Electricity bill also went through the roof as our house was not very well insulated (as most houses here), and we needed to use space heater all day. Last year it was like 600 bucks in a month when Joanna was just born and we determined to keep the whole house warm 24/7.

So what kept us going then?

The hope of good summer days of course!

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21 Months of Good Life (Part 1: First Impression)

We are leaving Wellington this month. This is the first installment of the high points during our 21 month tenure here...

I still remember the date, 10 January 2007, when we landed in Wellington Airport from Changi Airport, Singapore. It was raining and windy when we arrived. Excited, as we realized it would be a different ball game altogether.

I liked this place right off the bat. I'd never been very comfortable with crowds, and here they only have 400,000 people, just a tenth of Singapore population, and a err.. tiny percentage of Jakarta population. People are generally polite and friendly. It was refreshing when the first time I took a bus and passengers were thanking the bus driver when they got off. I must have spent too much time in Singapore, when people were confused when you said 'please' or 'thanks' :-p.

We went out to buy groceries. Heck, food stuffs seemed to be very expensive (apparently we went to the 'wrong' supermarket though). Eating out could also break you wallet. In Singapore, 4 bucks could get you far, while buying Chinese food here would cost at least 7 dollars at that time.

First day at work, it was 5 o'clock, I looked around... Hey, where's every body??? The lax kiwi lifestyle was definitely NOT a myth. I packed my bag and headed back home. Well, when in Rome we do what the Romans do, don't we?

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Walk On...

It's been long overdue...

Liverpool 2 - Manc U 1

Have a great Sunday

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Lame Excuse

Have you ever heard or read people who declared this:

Science rules, God doesn't exist, it's not logical! (while quoting Charles Darwin and his evolution theory)

I'll give these people two names: Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal

Newton and Pascal have contributed more to the world of logical thinking, they have explained how life works (think of Newton's laws of motion and how it explains huge range of physical phenomena!), yet Newton and Pascal believed in the existence of God.

Do these people think they are smarter than Newton or Pascal?

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