The Pace of Change

I've prepared this post from within ScribeFire, a Firefox plug-in, that enables me to post to a blog from within the browser itself. It's very convenient and just another of the many features that are making blogging easier and easier. However, there are just so many new so-called "Web 2.0" features appearing in cyberspace that I feel like I need to spend all of my coming four weeks holiday just trying to catch up with them all. There seems to be an change of pace in Internet innovation or it is just that I'm not keeping up with the pace of change, as in the mice are running a little faster this year sort of thing.

I received a comment to my YouTube video about the Great Wall of Nippon. It was from a 29 year old Australian who wrote "this is such a pointless video and I hate your accent, it sounds very poor". I thanked him for this helpful feedback but explained that the video was intended as part of a blog post and wasn't meant to stand on its own. I was surprised that someone had come across the video from within YouTube but I guess it just goes to show that however obscure you think your posting might be, there is somebody out there that will stumble across it.

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Portable Slideshows

I just noticed that Picasa Web Albums, Google's photo sharing service, now provides a facility whereby you can turn any photo album that you have stored there into a slideshow that can be embedded into a web page or blog. You have the option of choosing from a variety of frame sizes. It just illustrates how easy it is becoming to present personal photos and videos on the Internet in interesting ways. To illustrate the facility, I've chosen the smallest frame size and used my December 2006 photo album containing shots taken when Desy and I visited my brother in Australia. The captions associated with each photograph in the web album can be displayed or not displayed, depending on the user's preference. In this case, I've chosen to display them. Various controls become available once you click on the slideshow. Try it and see.

The Jakarta Post

Since I arrived in Indonesia, my relationship with The Jakarta Post has been a turbulent one. A perennial complaint is that it's never published on a public holiday. On the very days when you don't have to rush off to school and could afford to spend unlimited time perusing the more obscure corners of the paper, it's not on the doorstep. I hate that. Another complaint is the large number of international news articles that are simply pilfered from the news services. My reading of the paper is considerably accelerated because I've read many of these articles one or two days before on the Internet.

I could go on but you may well ask why I continue to buy it. I guess one reason is habit: I've always had a newspaper delivered to the door and I've always read it over breakfast. Another reason is that it keeps me up-to-date with the local and regional news. It gives me a feeling for what is happening in the country. It's not a feeling you get from reading news about the country from outside. In a country as volatile as Indonesia, it makes sense to stay alert and informed about what is happening on the ground, in case matters take a turn for the worst.

The reason that I'm prompted to write about this rag that I love to hate is because a couple of days ago I was asked by the school where I work to pen an IT article for publication in an educational supplement that the paper will publish in a fortnight's time. If the article does appear, it will not be the first time that my name has appeared in the paper. I've previously had two letters to the editor published, one was a rebuke on the paper's spelling standards and the other was an attack on the utter uselessness of the Australian Embassy (another institution that I love to hate).

It was my third letter however, that proved fateful. In it I criticised the killing of animals on the Islamic Day of Sacrifice, I included relevant quotes from the Qu'ran as well as arguments from Moslems who had embraced vegetarianism. I thought it a restrained and very reasonable article and looked forward to its publication. It never appeared and neither did any subsequent letter that I submitted on innocent and non-religious themes. It was apparent that I had been blacklisted.

Clearly, I had crossed some sort of line. In my article, I was careful to use arguments that had been put forward by practising Moslems themselves. It was all to no avail and so I'm wondering if my name is still on that blacklist. It's been many years since I tried to submit anything and so it will be interesting to see if my article sees the light of day. I'll report back.

The Wall Part Two

I wrote about "the wall" in a previous post, explaining that this formidable edifice, that had once lurked behind a spacious green belt, was recently relocated so that it now abuts the roadway. The wall divides the Japanese International School on the outskirts of Jakarta from the rest of the neighbourhood. Naturally such an expanse of white concrete proved a magnet for graffiti and one day it may cover it all and end up not looking so awful. It's hard to capture the extent of it in a photograph or even series of photographs, so this morning I took a video of it on my way to work. I've put the result on YouTube for all to see. Click here to view.

A Watery Grave

Who says nothing exciting ever happens in Bintaro? This afternoon, at the end of the street, entertainment was provided by a crane pulling a car from a storm water canal. The driver of the car had somehow panicked when behind the wheel and she and her female passenger ended up in the canal. Neither was injured apparently and the salvage attempt was successful as this YouTube video shows. The video size is a little under 8Mb if you're thinking of watching it.

Midnight Special

I'm writing this as the witching hour draws nigh but unfortunately it's Thursday night and I have another day of teaching ahead of me. I've fallen into bad habits lately, napping when I get home from school and then not being able to sleep while most honest citizens, and a few dishonest ones, are snoring soundly.

SBY (the acronym for Indonesia's president) is going to have a cabinet reshuffle soon, according to the political pundits. The reason I mention it is that perhaps he'll replace the current Minister of Education who was responsible for the implementation of the "60 and you're out rule" for expatriate teachers. Would a new minister rescind the rule? It's probably unlikely but even if it did happen, we ageing pedagogues would still feel unsettled because another change of minister might herald a reimplementation of the rule.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on my stay in Indonesia. Tick. Tock. Soon I'll launch my worldwide cyberspace campaign to keep Sean in Indonesia. Via the blogosphere and the social networking sites, the collective cry of injustice will persuade the powers-that-be here in Indonesia to grant me complimentary citizenship because of my selfless service to the education of Indonesia's youth. As the clock passes midnight, it's comforting to imagine such improbabilities.

I may as well end a gloomy post on a gloomy note by quoting from today's Jakarta Post: Indonesia is losing its forests faster than any other country, with the equivalent of about 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour, according to Greenpeace. Certainly an inconvenient truth but unlikely to cause much concern in the corridors of power. This rate of destruction will not be arrested because environmental awareness and concern are not a serious part of the national educational curriculum.