THE READING MINDS

One imaginary and impromptu QA with someone asking me how I see our periodicals, magazines and tabloids, would hopefully light up what we have known, yet.

Q: What do you think of those pretty faces on those magazines?

A: Photoshopped. And if those readers were smart enough to know, I mean what they see can’t exist, they would not die emulating them. But more importantly, they have been pretty successful in convincing girls with education to believe that life is all about cosmetics, shoes, clothes. I do not think that is the reason why parents sent them to school.

Q: How about the contents?
A: I don’t know why they are buying commercials (bundled in a magazine). That’s what I see from BAZAAR.

Q: Do you think what they say is what they do?
A: I don’t understand when one says Fun Fearless Female because every issue is headlined with sex position, sex techniques, and all the ideas that sex is all it takes to keep your man…
If Fun and Fearless means is all all about that, then it should be modified into Boring and Fearful.

Q: Let’s move on with our tabloids …

A: Why Mayang won Bambang’s heart; why Hughes has not been with child after having been married for two years; and when Ariel went to PIM with Luna Maya, etc. I don’t understand how come someone feels more loaded and readier for life just because she or he knows Julia Perez got her period today?

Q: OK. What do you want to say about men’s magazines?

A: Philip Yance has it right in his book that FHM, MAXIM, and the like are soft porn, with girls scantily clothed and their body’s statistics and worded fantasies; they keep telling why it is normal once in a while to cheat on your wife as long as you don’t get caught. Life goes around girls, sex, gadgets, cars; one says that your car is your personality. Let me tell you, I don’t have a car.

All said, does anybody see enslavement in disguise?

This is dedicated to Yvonne. Congratulations on your new job; I prayed you are going to be God’s message there.

SUPERHEROES and US

There are reasons why we superheroes fly or sling. Otherwise, this is what happens:


And I think you know now why it takes only Christopher Reeve or Italian-looking can cast Superman:

And why we have to keep them busy with bad guys:

(how can I help you, Ma'am?)

And last, you know they can not be kept a bit too long together. After all, they are just human like us .....

CROOKS' NATION

All the efforts to revive the pride we can wear (in the name of National Awakening and Independence Day) to show ourselves and the world that we are a great nation is a waste. And knowing what has happened all these times, you would find it hard to disagree.

It is very difficult to deny that we are so pessimistic and indifferent to what goes on in this country and if those politicians say that we can never be a nation of a great people with all this pessimism and indifference, I think they should really, really take a hard look at themselves and they would find why the rest of the people keep burned-out on everything happening. How people see themselves is equivalent to how they see their government. If it does its job to protect them well, then they will think the government secures the people and if it provides affordable education, then they will see the government concerns with their quality life.

And this is how we have gotten ourselves covered. We have the Supreme Court but the label Supreme keeps pushing us to acknowledge they are nothing but a place full of crooks and the bust of its high-rank officers like Urip who was red-handedly caught accepting moneyfrom Ayin only confirms the resentment. And when we found out that that Ayin was using the cell phone to concoct some dodging tricks for her trialwhile she was in police custody, what are we left to trust the police?
We elected those to represent us in the House of Representatives and what they have been doing is anything but to represent us. We are constantly (made) astounded these prodigal sons": we curse bad public transportation because we can barely survive it and they pass the law that enable for Alphards or Jags or Bimmers; we are indoctrinated to “hang in there’ and live frugally and what we have got here is they lead life styles that are dictated by extravagant spending. And when they are there for some sort of assignment to oversee that no regulation was bent by some bad guys, we are shown with how the members of the House keep it bent, as long as the bad guys splash them with generous (sex) entertainment and of course, money. Ask Amin; He'll tell you better.

All said, then it goes down disgustingly the same with Kelurahan, Hospital, Education, businesses, permits, and even public cemetery management.

Stars Spangled Banner sounds so nearer than Indonesia Raya...

RICHEST GUY IN THE UNIVERSE

It is not he or she who is with the money that rules.

The good news is you are rich. The bad news, you just do not know it. Let me awaken you that you are.

1. You are healthy. Go to hospital and you will meet those who pay for the oxygen they breathe. You are not gonna say they are richer just because they are able to pay for it, are you? Or, are you going to crybaby because paralyzed guy can afford a wheelchair made of gold while you just go around here and there on your feet because you can not buy one? I don’t think so.
Keep looking and you can not miss being grateful for this.

2. You are a free person. Deciding over everything is a sign of freedom, a privilege a poor guy does not have. I am talking about these: I know someone who makes his fortune by working for a cigarette company and he knows there is nothing right about selling the puff but maintains he does it because he has no choice. The fact that he can not leave the job, though he knows he should, shows that he is not free (and I am not too harsh to say that he is enslaved in any kind). I too can tell you about Fitri, a doctor I know, who shows the world her freedom; she left her job as a doctor for a big hospital, saying that if she stayed there, there would be too many a practice she would have to compromise and it is all wrong and against her conscience. She was talking about “improper” deals she could not have avoided with the hospital’s management and pharmaceuticals. This freedom cuts deep on her income as she now practices in her own small clinic.
I can go on with my recollection on those others who demonstrate their richness in their ability to make a decision that paralyzes them financially but they still get on with the decision and as a result they make themselves rich in a way money can not buy.
If a rich man never worries with the money, are you not rich already because you are not worried with it?

3. You are a giver. So you still think one who makes Rp. 100 million a day is richer than you? Or one who lives in a big house in Pondok Indah? Look, they do not make any difference to those who are in need. One million Rupiahs spent by one guy for a plate of lunch does not drive away the hunger in another man’s stomach. But give this hungry man Rp. 1000, it will surely appease the hunger to some degree and it means the world to him. One guy who might have spent one billion Rupiahs for his bedroom does not make a homeless fellow sleep tight. But contribute any amount for an organization that shelters the homeless, you will have helped reduce their number on the street.
It is not how much you have, but it is how much you give that counts.

Even King Solomon would envy me..

VOTERS WAKE UP

You are seeing all these banners practically defacing the already city streets and what you can do is thinking "Not again..!"

The General Election is coming and those politicians have been trying to excite us with something of no substance. In here, promises are just constructed words to complete the election. You will surely hear ALL of them say such as "I will lower oil price and liberate education so everyone will taste the prosperity".

And these promises will go together with out-of this-world encouragement with some saying "if you are a good Moslem, you must choose me", or "Let us pray that the enemy of Allah, the rest of them, will see our victory in this Election".

People enjoy these noises and hocus pocus for some reasons. Some just can not afford entertainment anymore as their existence does not allow them even to spend a dime on anything except their very survival and some are just too ignorant and stupid to admit that it is not (one) religion words that shape their better future, so they keep living with the idea that if it is not us who leads this nation then it is never them. It is neither empty promises that make everything all right when the election is over but well proposed programs of theirs they will be held accountable.

Hidup SBY!

TIREN: MATI (tidak) KEREN (banget)

Have not watched Indonesian movies for the past two years? I want to tell you that you have not missed anything since all of them are all the same settings: ghosts, spirits, evils and the like.

Having promised to myself that Korea’s version Grudge was my last horror film to watch because it scared me to death, I broke my promise and decided to watch some of these above, hoping I would be scared all over again. Instead, after doing so, I got irritated, confused and asked “how come I wasted my time watching these lousy films??!”

I’m referring all these Babi Ngepet, Pocong, Kuntilanak, Jalangkung, Suster Nngesot, Pulau Hantu, etc. As if difficulties in life like skyrocketing prices, almost-impossible admission to good schools were not scary enough, these films have failed to do their jobs to scare us. But to yourr dismay, you keep seeing the same theme but only with different titles showing and it leaves you wondering “Who are the sitting ducks? and “Who are responsible for all these, anyway?”

They (and their wannabes) would not have been made into production if they had not attracted a number of crowds enough to cover production costs and produce some profit. And to be scared cheaply and still ignorant of how mediocre they are, must surely take uneducated people, the sitting ducks, to watch. Of course, you would not watch them because your being educated defies any logics to do so. That’s why the movies have always been popular among the uneducated (who unfortunately make up most of our population). What is supposed to be one way to educate through viewings is the way to un-educate (them).

The answer to the question “Who is responsible?” lies, unsurprisingly, in the hands of the educated for what is happening. The clever here are those who know very well that what they are doing is driven by nothing but money. We are talking about the producer who knows too well that his funding will not go back for nothing, no matter how poor the film is; a director who knows that the movie he made is very bad (but very lucrative) by any standard but chooses to reason that what he made is karya seni; and some guys who claim they are actors and actress but do not know how to act (but keep saying they are pekerja seni), and even do not know what the film they are in is all about (I read in a paper that most of them did not read the whole script except for their parts and was handed it as they arrived on the location, but these pekerja seni opted to be in the films as they were paid handsomely,. You know, Karenina said she would not have acted in her first and only film for she had always known she was never a good actress).

Money money money ....

RIDWAN HUTASOIT WRITES BLOGS: GIRLS ONLY: WHITENINGS

RIDWAN HUTASOIT WRITES BLOGS: GIRLS ONLY: WHITENINGS