How Old is Old?

I have just finished helping my grandma applying for a US visit visa. I looked at her birthday, it is March 13th 1928. So she is about 81 years old. Can you believe that? I can't. She just stayed over at our place for the last few days. She is a little slow but amazingly still very mobile, moving up and down the stair, helping with kitchen, and still able to converse with us and my sister's kids. Sometimes I noticed that she looks bored and I wonder is she being happy now? But I think she is...

Twitter

Should I twitter or should I not? Ehm very tempting, seems like a little harmless toy. Have you?

The Real Journalist

Did anyone read the story of journalist David Rohde on NYT this week. It is truly an extraordinary piece of journalism, in essence totally redefine McLuhan's "medium-message" stuff. The medium is intertwining with the message, and at multiple times paradoxically blurring and highligthing the contrast. In the beginning, he is the medium and the planned interview is the message. Then he becomes the medium that becomes the message (when kidnapped). From there he creates a new parallel quantum world message and medium existing as one and also distinct at the same time (in captivity until the escape). And finally he (the medium) and his kidnapping experience (the message) are becoming the way (the medium) to create a new message (the NYT article). If I don't express my line of thought adequately let it be so but that article (or a serie of articles) is simply fascinating to me. Check it out.

The Midreview

I was invited by a friend to a mid-review critique in his studio today. I was anxious a bit but felt excited more. This is my first academic review after all, the first time I sit on the other side a pin up board. The experience and result were more exhiliarting than expected. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be when I was a student and for a short moment came the thinking about pay back time; a revenge, sort of, of all the intellectual dignity abuses we endured as a typical architecture student. Fortunely that dark delusional thought from me evaporated as soon it started. We finished the review for 8 students in 4 hours and a lunch in between. Engaging an interesting student project was so so so rewarding, a truly new experience in my life. This is what I am really excited about in my life, the first time in the last nine months after Columbus that I felt so quenched, so fit in: the campus life, the academic atmosphere. Like I told CW in my sharing with her, I don't feel smart, but I feel I can truly contribute something to the education of (some) architects here. Thanks for the chance Henri!... And happy birthday.

No Nuke Please

I have been reading and loving to read headline news for a long time, probably since I could understand a complete sentence. I am always intrigue by world news and the present history. This daily activity serves as my bearing to the world, a landscape of mind with a larger world. But I also approach it (the world headline news) with some triviality and self-dramatization, like a little entertainment or a joy of reading a detective novel.

However one headline today that really strikes my nerve is the latest article on NYT about Iran's nuke and the possibility that there will be a good outcome for all parties in the upcoming negotiations.

If Iran gets what he wants, according to the article, the nuclear latency or the knowledge to create a nuclear bomb, then we all know, more and more countries will follow suit. Ok the nuke club we know today includes US, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, France (?), Germany (?), N.Korea... I think that's all. If Iran is in, then countries in Mideast will start thinking about it especially the smaller but hyper rich countries around Iran. Then what? Then those larger poorer countries around the smaller richer countries would definitely be interested as well. Then the process will get replicated in other region including places near me.

What if countries like Singapore, who I guess always feels insecure about the rather moody larger neighbor, thinking about the same idea? I am not an apocalyptic person, but there is a sudden switch in my perspective regarding this nuclear proliferation thinggy. It is very possible to happen in our lifetime or in my children or grandchildren's lifetime. One day, sooner or later, one of the nuclear eggs will surely break. And I don't like to read that kind of headline.

You Got the Wrong Number

Last week, police sieged a rented room in a densely populated area in South Jakarta, killing two more terror suspects and capturing one. That was the latest string of crack downs on terrorists responsible for the Marriott bombing in July. As we know, the mastermind had been killed also in a similar operation last month. I have to admit the police did an incredible job in rounding up those people responsible. And this time, I need to cast off our general cynicism toward the police institution and all sort conspiracies theories we always have about them. Thumbs up, Pak Polisi.

Two days ago, I was listening to a talk show on the radio discussing about those young people who were recruited to do the terror attacks. They talked about the whys and the hows of these young people involving themselves in that kind of religious radicalism. The panel framed the discussion as one of the social issues facing the Indonesian society. That discussion has been typical of the ways the mainstream media, and I incur the general population, frame and create tone for discussing terrorism in Indonesia.

For me, discussion or reaction on Islamic terrorism like that is an interesting comparative social phenomena between societies like Indonesia and the western countries, primarily the US. Although Indonesia is not a Muslim country, it has a very large Muslim population with its own blend of distinctive Indonesian Islamic culture. In US or other western countries, Islamic terrorism is viewed as a virulent activity that directly threaten the foundational belief and ways of life of the people. It is a political and a dogmatical war. Whereas here, it is, as I obverse above, a societal problem. Much like people in the US treat the Columbine incidents. It is a society’s ill that need a cure not an existential attack.

Yes its true, the young people were exposed to radicalism first in a mosque or in a pesantren (a local Islamic style school) but the case here is totally different from Pakistan or Taliban’s Afghanistan. Even if the radicalism they got in one or a few mosques, that only represents a very very small percentage of hundreds of thousands or probably millions of mosques all over Indonesia. Think about an occasional radicalism that people sometimes received by speakers in churches in US such as the Jeremiah Wright’s controversy. That’s why I think violent religious extremism will not prevail here. People just don’t buy into it. They dialed the wrong number. And that’s also why I am putting my bet on the moderates, and Islam Indonesia, to counter the tide of Islamic extremism worldwide. This kind of terrorism is really the problem unique to our generation. It is something that can’t be fight with conventional war (only?) but with a concerted global effort of countries like Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The Peace Guy of the Year

... is Barack Obama. Just announced today early morning US Eastern Time that he was awarded the Nobel Price for Peace this year. I think the whole world is genuinely surprised by the award including him. It's interesting to notice how close we all are, how small the world is, indeed a global village, when little thing like this happen. A wonderful treat for all of us the world news mania. A quote from NYT of R. Emmanuel, "Oslo beats Copenhagen.". Cheers.