with not enough capacity to deal with the incomprehensibles, one is left with only one choice, that is to reduce the complexity to something one could understand. thus the translation of morality into the extinction of girls in mini skirts or the concept of democracy into whoever has the largest and strongest mass on the street. for those of you who got lost in previous words: yes, that is simply being absolutely stupid. well, what else can you expect from an education system that is completely revolutioned every 5 years or so and still has the biggest meaningless study load in the world.

Indonesia is one of the largest populations of Muslim and thus remains as a latent threat to the Western civilization for some egomaniac reasons. Yet, only few consider our motherland as an Islamic nation because the rest are still enjoying the rich diversity on culture, history, religion and local customs some countries can only envy on. that few is starting to show the urge to dominate. a number of local governments already implemented some sort of Islamic laws in each of their regions (note to self: bring long sleeves when going to Padang) regardless the minority of non-Muslims living in the area.

fear.
resentment of anything that could put question marks on one's faith.
nevertheless, faith is just that. it should be strong, blind and not violently pushed upon anyone.

in the lawless nation of law, those who suppose to take action seem to consistently fail to do so. hence others pick up the slack with their own many, often conflicting, ways and unfortunately no one is going to stop them. a scary root of a major chaos where everyone is a judge and everybody else is presumed criminals. in the end, society becomes the victim, being plunged deeper into the darkness from which those others "law enforcement" swore to pull us out from. an expected outcome easily missed by eyes blinded with rage, pride and, again, stupidity.

open minds seem to be getting rare. thus it becomes the minority in the land where the majority rules and crushes the other kinds. another sad paradox of how a group of people destroy or drive away their means to reach prosperity. i used to have such a high hopes for this beautiful rich magnificent country but as naivity being washed away, so are hopes.

anyway, an Open Mind Foundation would be nice... don't you think?

• photos here
• for those connected through Fasilkom's LAN, video is available in Ramot's upload folder
  

Muehehehe...
This brought justification that my paper for CSUI 2006 Student Achievement Award was not that ridiculous after all. Came in third, btw.. not bad.. at least now i'm not busy building up my CV, unlike one person I know (Good luck, Nold!)

Aliansi Mawar Putih

• Food: Caterer, waiters, farmers, retailers
  
• Halls & Decorators: florists, carpenters, handcraft designers
  
• Dresses & Uniforms: textile industry, tailors, fashion designers, wedding magazines, bridal make up artist
  
• Video & Photography: photographers, album & frame retailers, film & DVD-R retailers, photo printing services
• Hotels & Motels (for families living far away)
• Salon & Spa (for pre-wed tratements)
  
• Transporters
  

This is the movie that needs to be watched with a very open mind, especially for hard-core supporters of the Palestine. After being held back for months behind the issue of cancellation due to concerns on strong rejection from the Muslim community, the movie was finally released and not taking risk of recalling in the near future, I watched it the first time i got the chance.

There are 2 sides of every coin and being professional, Spielberg did not neglect the opposing views regardless his background. Although the movie tells the story of assasins, forget about methods used in Mission Impossible. In this, murders are crude, bloody, and never worked as planned. The emotional conflict is not exploited as far as it should be, but it's less drama and more real, I'd say..

Eric Bana is fabulous and yummy even with the cupu 70s hair style. Quite enjoying the European atmosphere too, and with a dialogue using more than 5 languages in it, the worldwide affect of the conflict is portrayed even more strongly. Apart from the violance, Munich is also sort of sexually explicit. So, do not bring along any non-adults to the theatre.

I learnt a lot from the movie, historically, culturally, politically, phillosophically... and I hope you will too.. 

I dislike narrow minded people, even more so now than ever before..