Joe Friend: Indonesia

Jakarta on Trial

Mother Jones, not my favorite publications, has the following:

"Indonesian prosecutors are asking that the son of former dictator Suharto be given a 15-year prison sentence for his role in the murder of a Supreme Court justice. The BBC reports that prosecutors were entitled to seek the death sentence against Tommy Suharto, and that their decision to seek a more lenient penalty is being attacked as a political fix -- particularly since judges in Indonesia routinely impose sentences even more lenient than those requested by prosecutors. Antara reports that, after calling for the 15-year sentence, prosecutors quickly left the court by a back door, refusing to comment on their decision. Prosecutors reportedly cited several "mitigating factors" during their court appearance, among them Tommy Suharto's good behavior since being captured and the fact that he has a family to support. While the prosecutors involved in the case were tight-lipped, The Jakarta Post reports that the city's chief prosecutor described the sentence as "sufficient for the four charges." The sentencing is not the only thing raising eyebrows, either. Bill Guerin of the Asia Times writes that Tommy Suharto isn't exactly suffering while in jail. The former millionaire playboy's cell is fenced off from the rest of the prison and includes a private bathroom, a 21-inch television, cellular phones -- luxuries which Guerin says "no doubt create conducive conditions for his frequent five-hour conjugal visits." The court's ruling, Guerin reports, holds special importance for Indonesia. "This is a battle between good and evil," a prosecutor explains. "If you can't put him in jail, don't talk about reform anymore." " [via Moreover]

Indonesia's unreformed military

An editorial from the NY Times

Future of Indonesia

Battle of the Greens The military and radical Muslims square off once again in Indonesia, in a confrontation with far-reaching consequences for the worldwide struggle against Islamic extremism.

Not a Ticking Time Bomb The fundamental threat to Indonesia’s future does not come from radical Islam but from the government’s inability to uphold law and order.

Figuring out SMS lingo

SMS is huge in Asia. If you're having trouble understanding your messages, TransL8it might be able to help. It's fun to play around with and it helps you learn to speak SMS. Thanks for the link, Jenny.

How many islands does Indonesia have? The answer

Or, if you're on Jeopardy..."What is the number of islands in Indonesia?"

That question has many answers, as most interesting questions do. According to the CIA factbook the answer is 17,000 (6,000 or so being inhabited). The Indonesian Embassy in Prague says, "The new figure for the total number of islands is 17,508 according to the Indonesian Naval Hydro-Oceanographic office. This figure is increased from the official figure so far known, that is 13,667." The INHO numbers are repeated around the web on many sites, so it is probably the authoritative number. But it ultimately depends on how you define an island.

How many islands does Indonesia have?

When kids (I'm assuming) ask Google this question I'm the first web site. So, I think I better answer it for them. Not now, but soon. This is the third or fourth time I've gotten a hit from the query.

Kids are back home

The kids got back from camp last night in Kaliurang, east Java. All four (from 9 - 16 years-old) had a great time. That is really amazing. Each made tons of new friends. They all went on a camp out one night and watched as Mt. Merapi erupted. They even survived the 7 hour train ride there and back!

Phones been dead

It's hard to update the website when you can't access the internet. Our phone was dead for about 24 hrs. It's fixed now.

International sports, weird!

Our kids are away at camp, at least the four oldest ones. So, we got to do something very rare last night. The baby was asleep and we were being couch potatoes. I'm new to watching soccer, despite living in a soccer crazy country and being from a part of the US where soccer is big (Seattle). I'm enjoying the World Cup. But last night China vs. Brazil was no where to be found. We started to watch a movie on VCD (think bad quality video on a CD), but the movie was stupid. We turned back on our TV. We get satellite TV via Indovision. We gravitated to the sports channels and watched "ESPN Big Fights : Mike Tyson's Greatest Hits" on ESPN International. It was interesting, but it ended before his rape conviction, strange.

After the boxing show there was an ESPN Intl. favorite, Premier Snooker League! Wow, watching pool on TV is almost as exciting as bowling. On Star Sports, there was "World Darts 2002 Championship." REALLY, DARTS! We ended up watching Australian Rules Football on another channel. I guess this is sort of like rugby. I tried to figure out the rules. I'm still clueless. In addition to these fantastic sports we can also watch lots of racing (cars and motorcycles), soccer (of course), golf, tennis, other forms of rugby, some hockey, some NBA, a little baseball and almost no American Football (which is fine with me, since it would inevitably be Pro, not college.)

This brings up the question of why in the world we were watching TV at all? Well, it was just nice to sit in a quite house and hold hands and vegetate. :-)

Missing West Wing

"New characters enter left, and old ones exit right. We are in awe. Simply put, the season finale of The West Wing was the best single hour of television ever." [Scripting News]

This has got to be one of the worst things about living in Indonesia, NO WEST WING! (okay, so I miss my extended family too). What I wouldn't give for someone to send us a video with the episodes since we left (Jan 7, 2002). So, where are all the nice people on the net with DVRs (TIVOs, etc.) that might have them sitting on the hard drive????

Lightning and computers

Wow, just had one of the worst scares of this year. Lightning struck near our house yesterday. Big storm. My laptop and desktop were still plugged in to the electricity and phone. When the storm was over my laptop would startup. I thought the hard drive and many other components were trashed. Last backup was 3 months ago! I spent the past 24 hours in deep mourning. Long story short, only the mini-pci modem/ethernet cart was trashed. Once I pulled it out, everything else worked. The desktop modem was hosed too. A new desktop modem cost Rp. 130,000 (or about $14). Don't know whether Dell will replace the dead laptop modem/netcard.

Watching Mariners Live in Indonesia

Got to love this! With ESPN International on our satellite tv system, we can watch two baseball games per week, live! With the Mariners (my home team) so hot (9 wins in a row) ESPN loves 'em. This is our second game to watch. I'm in heaven. This is so much better than soccer, rugby, racing, soccer, billiards (!), soccer. ESPN Int. is very weird, from my parochial US point of view.

Wish I had a weblog back in 1997

I wish that weblogging existed in 1997, when we first moved to Indonesia. I've never been good a keeping a diary, but I think I could have done a much better job describing our new life to our friends via a weblog. We sent out a semi-regular email newsletter, but it was pretty erratic. The problem is, that you don't want to overload people with a bunch of emails, so you save things up to write one longer email. Then you procrastinate because you don't want to write the long email. With a weblog you can post little bits each day and it is up to everyone to determine how often they want to visit your site. So, now that we are back in Indonesia, I think that is what I will do.