Sidenotes in English, Arabic and Bahasa
Strories and blogging written in English language
Corrupt Democracy or “Clean” Tyranny? coup thailand People in developing countries are facing many challenges the most basic of which are corruption, injustices and poverty; widening gap between the rich and the poor; the deficit of trust between the ruler and the subject. In Indonesia, with life is getting harder on grass root level, many…
Shirin Ebadi, Islam and Women Rights Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel peace prize winner 2003, is among prominent moderate Muslim I admire. Not only has she got the gut to speak up her mind what she thinks right against the conservatives and/or radicals of her fellow Muslims, be they Iranian clerics or others; but she also…
Budi Sutomo, VCO and Book My apology to Budi Sutomo, SPd for being late congratulating him upon his book publication on VCO (Virgin Coconut Oil). Nothing special about book publishing, except that he’s got that opportunity by way of his blog. And for that, he urges everybody to blog actively no matter what. Someday, sooner…
MP Sex Scandal Yahya Zaini, an Indonesian MP from Golkar party, in the meanwhile is making news for very wrong and stupid reasons: his sex scandal with a singer recorded by and through her mobile phone gets out of hand and spreads like a virus among Indonesian mobile phones users and gets talked about by…
Polygamous Holy Man and MP’s Sex Scandal There is nothing more ovelwheming than the conversations among Indonesian blogosphere these past few weeks. The talk involves two occurences that looks similar but are actually unrelated – Aa Gym’s second wife and an Indonesian MP of Golkar party’s sex scandal. First off, for non-Indonesian, here’s an intro…
Entrepreneurship as a Trend I am so happy to see young dynamic fully motivated person like him. I wish him luck and want to see his company grows steadily well and fast. And on top of it all, I hope all young Indonesian look at him as the father-like figure: be entrepreneur; be a brave…
Kebab Turki Baba Rafi on BBC After having dinner this night, I need a little relax; sipping tea and switching on BBC news channel and am pleasantly surprised to see a Indonesian young man in his early twenties, 23-year-old to be exact, named Hendy Sutiono being interviewed. Surprisingly he’s responding to BBC’s queries in reasonably…
The pros and cons regarding blogging being at par with or part of journalism is not new. In milis teknologia (googlegroups) Carlos Patriawan generate this issue once again in the midth of court appeal of Apple controversies in the US. Some friends, themselves are bloggers, also voiced the pros and cons. Enda Nasution agrees that…
I read an interesting headline today in India best-selling newspaper The Times of India. The title’s no less catchy: “Blogs Rage over Denial of Justice.” It’s the number two top headline today in the media. It reports the anger and anguish of Indian bloggers over some recently concluded verdict results on rape and murder issues….
Police Officers Blog Blogging seems to be spreading its “pendemic” into an alien territory that so far more known for its secrecy: the Police departments. How many police officers or police departments in the world have their own blog? Not much. According to an Indian local newspaper, only three police departments start blogging; two in…
How to Retire Early indonesia blog How to retire early? It’s easy. Be a genius techno geek like Google founder. If you are not the one (that’s the most probability), well there’s another choice: go to Iraq, find the whereabouts of a man named Abu Ayyub al-Masri or Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. Yes, he’s Abu Musab…
Senior Junior Relationship A few months back, I, along with a friend, was invited by a senior Indonesian diplomat in New Delhi. We talked a lot about various issues including current events in Indonesia, international, and some off-the-record stories. What I want to share here with you, my honorable readers, are his comments on senior-junior…
Between A Leader and Manager Picture: Baharuddin Lopa the few good men in Indonesia politics What differentiate between a person with leadership personality and a mere manager? The answer is plenty and will be in a very long list. I’ll just wanna pick up few of those. The order might not necessarily on priority basis….
In many democratic countries, civil servant or PNS (pegawai negeri sipil) never been a booming “industry”. Rather, it’s the second choice for the young potential & dynamic citizens, even in India. Not in Indonesia. Here, the demand to be a PNS has always been beyond the existing supply. So, for the corrupts Indonesian officials (who…
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Religion and Nationalism If a journalist asks your first preference between two important identity which one carries all his/her life, i.e. religion and nationalism, which one comes first? Shakhrukh Khan (SRK), India’s Bollywood mega-star, told BBC a few years back that he prefers nationalism as his first choice. The same question with the same answer…
Crime and Religion Salman Khan & Aishwarya Rai former Miss Universe and former Salman’s long time girl friendSalman Khan, one of three major Indian film stars–a long time lover of Aishwarya Rai– beside Shakhrukh Khan and Amir Khan, was and still is a drinker, and is a non-practicing Muslim: one who never cares how to…
Muslim and Poverty Why Chinese Indonesians are generally richer than non-Chinese? Andreas Harsono, a journalist, himself a Chinese, has the answer as reported by Jawa Pos newspaper yesterday (May 11), “Because Chinese are minority. And minority everywhere tends to work harder than the majority.” He further elaborates that Javanese are hard-working community outside Java island…
Religion, Conflict and Violence The sceptical opinion of the British towards religion could be driven also by the fact that many conflicts currently occurred in our world are emanated from religion or have a religious flavour in it: terrorism, civil wars, inter-religious proselytization, etc. A BA political science student once asked me: why is so…
Denmark Prophet Cartoon Controversy Inter-religious relation between Muslims in the East and Christians represented by the West again is undergoing a rough patch nowadays sparked by the Danish cartoon controversy in which the cartoonist depicts Prophet Muhammad in a very bad images which sparks a furore in the Muslim world which so far effect multi-dimension…
Scientific and Credible Blogger Ghost blogging Revisited Will scientific writing/blogging earn you a carte blanche (blank card) towards credibilty? This question raised in the midth of controversies specially in the case of ghost or anonymous blogger. In my opinion, it could be yes and/or no. It depends a lot on which subjects your writing are….