'Immoral' TV Causing RI Disasters, Tsunamis - Tech Minister

Pulling a page from a playbook more often associated with the American evangelical nutter class, Indonesia's Communications and Info Technology Minister used Friday’s Idul Adha prayers to blame 'immorality’ for the country's recent spate of deadly natural disasters.
Fresh from getting excoriated in the blogosphere and by some of his Twittering brethren for unilaterally blocking access to blogger.com last week, Tifatul Sembiring was quoted by the national wire service Antara saying:
"Television broadcasts that destroy morals are plentiful in this country and therefore disasters will continue to occur."
He later singled out naughty DVDs produced in Indonesia as particularly blameworthy.
AP quoted an Acehnese tsunami survivor, who lost 10 members of her family to the Dec. 26 disaster as replying:
“I prefer to believe that natural disasters occur because of the destructive force of nature that cannot be avoided by humans.”
Over the past few years Indonesia has experienced a series of natural calamities including the tsunami, multiple deadly earthquakes and more landslides, ferry-sinkings and plane crashes than I care to remember.
To much rejoicing from his acolytes at the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party he fronted until last month, the Minster said he expects to complete (another) piece of anti-pornography legislation in the next six months that will block access to site deemed blasphemous or offensive to ethnic and religious groups… (in other words 70 percent of the content on the Internet).
Though he has only been in office since October, the guy who heads up DepKomInfo is rapidly emerging as one of the leading knuckleheads of SBY’s gormless new cabinet. What, oh what, will he say next?
They might not agree on much else, but the Minister finds himself walking lock-step with some of the more reptilian delegates of the American lunatic fringe.
Over the past decade most of America’s leading evangelical lights have blamed fags, women and porn for a variety of natural disasters, terrorist attacks and diseases: it squares with their reading of the same final chapters of the Old Testament that receive wide reverence from Islamic scholars.
Some notable samples:
"We take no joy in the death of innocent people," Michael Marcavage, the head of Repent America and a former Clinton White House intern said following hurricane Katrina "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God."
In 1998, televangelist Pat Robertson warned the city of Orlando, Fla., that a gay celebration there bring the wrath of God in the form of a hurricane or other disaster. Celebrating homosexuality "will bring about terrorist bombs, it'll bring earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," he suggested.
In 2001, Wee Jerry Falwell blamed gays and lesbians (along with feminists, abortionists and the American Civil Liberties Union) for the terrorist attacks in New York City. "I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen," he said
In 2007, the Brits piped up to prove Yanks don’t have the corner on the idiocy market. Following widespread flooding in the UK, a group of senior Church of England bishops opined that the grred and immorality of modern society – rather than a lot of rain – was to blame.

Pups Just Wanna Polka

It has been a long road but the Grinch and his missus will shortly welcome two new members to the Jakarta clan.
She's 26 weeks gone with a belly that ripples occasionally with the Dreaming of Twins. Apparently The Beatles are popular with the unborn set because every time we plug Magical Mystery Tour into the boom box, they get all kung-fu, ninja, "hucky-tucky-YA!" with the barrel rolls and elbow jabs you'd expect from Po & Co. Gonna talk to the Doc and see if we can have a birth-mix of Revolver and maybe a bit of Linkin Park/Prodigy (to get the gal psyched for the howl-y bits) when the time comes...
Click below or cut-and-paste to your browser to see the Pups Polka on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrO8Ujngi3Y
If that doesn't turn your gears then try the following to catch Animal, Beaker and a talking clam perform Bohemian Rhapsody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGlTzt24Izw&feature=popular
And if that doesn't work, well...piss off

Happy Josaphat’s Day!

Today is Idul Adha, Islam’s Day of Sacrifice and end of the line for several hundred thousand goats, sheep and cattle across Indonesia. For those who care about such things it commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to his (merry prankster) God. The laneways outside mosques are awash in blood as animals are butchered and their meat parceled off for distribution to poor families. It’s a big deal: for many people a more important day on the calendar than the Idul Fitri holiday that caps the fasting month.
Personally, I’m much more interested in the fact that Nov 27 is also St. Josaphat’s Day. One of the more entertaining discoveries of the past six months or so was the fact that sometime back in the Middle Ages the Catholic Church unwittingly canonized Siddharta Gautama (the Buddha) in the form of Josephat. Yer Grinch stumbled across this whilst diligently investigating the entomology of “riffiest riff that ever riffed a raff” http://www.nonstick.com/sounds/Yosemite_Sam/ltys_083.mp3 segued into “Jumpin’ Jehosephat” at which point all roads lead to Rome… literally.
As unpalatable as it is to some, there is wide agreement among Catholic scholars that the “Christian” St. Jo is not a historical figure. The evidence points to an engaging, textured story about the origins of the Buddha in 6th century BC captured listeners' imaginations that was carried by the winds of commerce between India/Sri Lanka and Jerusalem over the course of the next millennium+, morphing along the way through the filters of several languages, to be "spun" into a Christian tale. http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2006/03/15-1234-6894.html
I love it not because if gets under the skin of genuine devotees – though this is fine sport as well – but bc it pokes holes in the ‘absolutism’ that is central to so much orthodoxy, and the sweet irony that for centuries the same missionaries who sought (and continue to seek) to “save” the heathen sub-continent were also unwittingly paying homage to the spiritual leader of 360 million Buddhists.
And so it goes…

More on Indonesian Minister Blocking Blog Access

This story has kinda vanished - there's been little mention about it in 'mainstream' media struggling to do justice to news about the KPK, the Antasari trial, Bank Century investigation etc etc - and I've been too busy to spend a lot of time checking out the local blogosphere.
But from what I've been able to piece together, the Minister for Communications and Technology, Tifatul Sembiring, ordered his staff to issue a letter to Internet providers around the country to block access to a specific blog that was (re)publishing the controversial Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Good little Droogies that they are, the ring-kissers decided to impress the boss with a letter ordering access to all blogsites be blocked. As far as I know, the only company to comply was my provider, First Media.
By all accounts the Minister is wired. He has his own (dormant) website , a blog and Twitter account @tifsembiring (though who actually composes his tweets is unclear). You don't want a modern day Luddite in this position - PKS's ranks are swollen with urban professionals - so in that sense he might be the right pick. But....
This specific case appears to have been resolved now - I'll double check later at home to see if FM has turned the tap on again - but the larger questions will likely will remain - unaddressed:
- by what right does a Minister decide unilaterally what should and should not be accessible to the general public;
- what does it tell us about the Minister's likely agenda - Pak Tifatul is the co-founder and outgoing chairman of the Taliban-lite Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) - six weeks into a (potential) five year appointment that his first act of office is to restrict access to information;
- is a broader clampdown on how the Internet is used and information, disseminated, in the works and,
- what if any role should the private sector in Indonesia play in pushing back against government edicts of this type.

Yikes! Year+ Since Last Blog

You might be wondering what would provoke me today to resurface.
I mean, since Oct 2008, we've had some seismic stuff going on here, multiple interlocking corruption scandals worth billions in Indonesia, a hip new messiah/prez in the US, a milestone anniversary for the Montreal Canadiens, and a few other wee bits and pieces (we'll get to those in a sec) to spice things up.
So what, you ask, has lit the fire under yer Grinch's furry behind? Well, one of my Facebook contacts posted a note earlier today saying that my cable & internet provider has blocked access to blogger.com
The reasons are a bit hazy but it apparently has something to do with a new letter from the ministry of information and technology the contents of which I've not yet seen. All I can confirm is that I can't log on @ home (First Media) but I can here in the office (which conversely blocks access to FB for reasons unrelated to this note).
So it seems now, at least temporarily, the country's largest cable provider and one of the most powerful industrial conglomerates in Indonesia, has decided I can't write in my blog. So, I'm gonna write in my blog.
Perhaps the floodgates will now open: only time will tell. What I can tell you by way of a teaser is that:
Ths morning I bought three toilets and two bathroom sinks;
In 30 mins I'll watch the boss sign a contract worth a ton of dough for the new project I'm managing, and
The day will close out with the missus and I @ the doctor's office to check the brood.
Interested....?