Deliberations of the Village Board

I read Jim Johnson’s discussion here of photo series of local bureaucracy and government in action, and thought I would add my bit:

This photo shows the deliberations of the Village Board in Neglasari Village, subdistrict of Majalaya, West Java.

Selesai!!!

I handed in my PhD dissertation today.

Future shock becomes second nature

Scott McLemee has an interesting discussion here on succumbing to new technology that quickly is new no more, but everywhere, changing, in small immessurable steps how we live.

The salient point…  is that something I probably first read about in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1978 is about to become part of the texture of everyday life. It bears recognizing this now, before the familiarity takes over.

I should also get an e-reader.

“Nothing that would stand in court”

A good, but painful illustration of where we are with the war in Afghanistan.

From Sandy Levinson at Balkinization.

Indonesians adopting English? Or Indonesians adopting Indonesian?

There is a good discussion here on the rise of English in Indonesian metropoles. In the comments section Timdog makes a very good point that in much of rural and periurban Indonesia, the more significant linguistic phenomenon is the rise of Indonesian over local languages.

The Glass Museum in Ebeltoft

Last weekend my little family – Christina, I and our daughter Laura – went to the big-big family get-together in Christina’s big-big family. It took place in lovely Djursland. On the way back to Zealand, we dropped by the Glass Museum in Ebeltoft. We were there for less than an hour, but it was a great experience. The main exhibition was called Flora, and included the work in the picture below. Much recommended!

Kimiake Higuchi: "Cabbages"

I respectfully agree

It is a couple of years back, but most definitely worth a read. More than that; it is a necessary read.

Holy Smoke!

Well, it is not exactly surprising. It has been coming along for a couple of years, but still.

Muhammadiyah deputy chairman Yunahar Ilyas said that it was imperative that smoking be banned as Indonesian people had become more exposed to the dangers of smoking over the last few years.
Muhammadiyah, the country’s second-largest Muslim group, based its argument on the Koran, which bans Muslims from taking their own lives. Smoking, Yunahar said, has been proven to kill.

Gus Dur is dead

Gus Dur, Indonesia’s first democratically chosen president after Suharto, has died today.

The plight of the albatross

Via Jim Johnson a link about plastic and great birds. Not the flight, but the plight of the albatross.

The link is to a photo essay by Chris Jordan to be found here.

Snippet:

It’s a discovery to appall a modern-day Captain Cook. A vast plastic terra incognita, composed of the detritus of our civilisation, has formed an area the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. And feeding on this submerged stratum of bottle caps and beer-can loops is one of the most beautiful birds in creation.