Plis Deh Jakarta!

A Jakarta business man is planning to make the one-time home of Barack Obama during his childhood stay in Jakarta, into some sort of cafe/museum. Here’s a thought – what if Obama does not win the presidential election, would people remember his name in 2 or 3 years’ time?

When people don’t know who Barack Obama is anymore, would people still come to the cafe/museum?

A comment recently showed up on this blog, in the midst of the ‘vital organ enlargement’ and computer gibberish:

Terrorism is a threat every where. But it’s not the answer.

It is advisable to reconsider need to travel Indonesia.Specially Jakarta due to very high risk of terrorist attacks or chances of human kidnapping.While Traveling along Tebet Timur Dalam district is immune for harboring terrorists. One may be caught right in the middle of such activity.

Having considered these issues and just the same you decide to try your luck and put yourself in jeopardy. You must exercise extreme caution. There have been recent arrests of high level terrorist operatives throughout Indonesia.

It is evident,terrorism is growing to high extreme level in Jakarta and moving slowly but artfully gaining strategy in the north European hemisphere.

Terrorist attacks could take place at anytime
Travelers should be particular vigilant during holiday periods of Christmas and Easter time.

Indonesian Authorities warned that terrorists may kidnap foreigners. Jakarta is indicated as an area for terrorists hide-out.One particular spot is Tebet Timur Dalam (12820)
This place is the sanctuary for the schooling of young innocent Indonesian girls trained to believe in the Jihad.

Could this be true? That an only-girls school teaching ‘Jihad’ in the Tebet Timur Dalam area be a hotbed for terrorist activities in Jakarta and abroad? That it is a prone place for foreigners to get kidnapped? I won’t even talk about the bad grammar. And to think this comment was posted on this post – can’t see the colleration.

I only know that Tebet Timur Dalam is a nice neighborhood, full of trees and houses, and locked in by 24-hour traffic jams. No foreigner in the right mind would go there anyway…

This bus certainly has its sights up high – wanting to be the Primadonna of Jakarta roads, complete with a faux ‘Termo King’ (without the H) aircon installation on the top. It’s not what you actually have, but how you perceive yourself that is more important, I guess. We can always dream…

Submitted by Java Jive, thanks a lot!

Have you ever gone into a mall or office building, through the metal detector? How many times have they checked you thoroughly, and how many times have they just waved you through despite the noises made by the metal detector?

I was escorting a foreigner the other day and when we entered the mall, we met the now-too-familiar metal detector, with a guard standing next to it, complete with a table for checking bags and a handheld metal detector. The female guard just smiled and waved us through, didn’t ask us to empty our pockets to the tray provided, and we passed the metal detector causing it to make the annoying buzzing noise. The guard just kept smiling. The foreigner pointed to the guard and said “That person is no use”. Ha!

Only when we enter upper-class hotels, we get the full security check treatment. They even ask you to open the car bonnet (other than the baggage or the rear passenger door, which is standard for entering office buildings and malls) to check. The only instance that they don’t check the baggage compartment is when it can’t be opened from inside by the driver (which is still the case with certain older cars). Even funnier is when the guards are faced with a VW Beetle (not the new VW Beetle), which doesn’t have passenger doors, and the engine is in the rear. In the one time I was in a VW Beetle at a mall’s security checkpoint, the guard just mindlessly opened the left passenger door and looked right and left as though as there was any place to hide anything, let alone a bomb – he forgot about the baggage compartment altogether.

Then there was the office building security guard who asked for my ID to enter the building (also standard practice), and wanted to check my bag. I put the bag on the table and said ‘go ahead and open it’. He snapped back ‘are you ordering me to open your bag???’ Well, who asked first?

I also don’t get the guards armed only with the handheld metal detectors. Those things are supposed to detect metal, right? So they check everyone with a bag and do the usual ritual of passing the handheld around the bag. What do you get? 90% of the time, a beep indicating that the bag has some sort of metal content inside it. Then after that what happens? They let us through! Compare this to the ultimately thorough security guards at any airport – they would not let you through until they are satisfied the handheld metal detector does not make a noise. Maybe, just maybe, the handhelds used at malls and office buildings in Jakarta have a different use – the beeps confirm that there are no weapons of any sort in the bag. Wow, I didn’t know Indonesian technology was that advanced.

So these guys guard the doors – but do they actually perform security tasks? We hear many cases of pickpocketing and other theivery in malls, with the security too inept to do anything other than barring people from taking photographs of the mall and pointing out where the toilets are.

They say the guards and their metal detectors are more of a detterent for any criminal intent – it obviously works so far. And that handheld metal detector is the modern-day magic wand, sorting out the malicious and the virtuous with one wave. Yeahhh…

This balancing act belongs in the circus…

Submitted by Fireflies

Astro pay TV customers have it rough. First, the English Premier League broadcasts were taken from them, although for a lot of them subscribed for only just that. Then somehow Astro thought that they haven’t ripped off their customers enough, they decided to take all the channels down without previous notice, and with no clear way for customers to refund their subscriptions (not yet, anyway). Seems that because the stakeholders could not reach an agreement on the usage of the Astro brand, the felt that they should forget about doing business. Oh, let’s worry about the customers later.

So kids, better leave the idiot box alone and play in the gutters…

I mentioned on this article about some sort of gate contraption that blocks the busway lane to vehicles other than the Transjakarta. Apparently it still doesn’t work, although it doesn’t have anything to do with the electronics this time. Motorcycle drivers still attempt to enter the busway lane, even with the large gate and signs indicating that they should not. I mean, look at the picture in the article, you can’t miss it even if you tried. Or maybe many Jakartan drivers do not know the meaning of this sign? I see the verboten sign ignored so often that it makes me wonder.

Is it a problem of communication, or a problem of ignorance? 

And thus, these motorcycle drivers push to do anything to get where they’re going faster, so they have more time to sit in the pantry and smoke some cigarettes.

Thanks to Aulia for pointing out the article.

The Antara news agency quoted a health official saying that 2 million Jakarta residents suffer from neuroses. In plainspeak that means around 1/4 the city is slighty crazy or as nutty as a fruitcake. I bet a large portion of these demented people drive motorcycles, buses or other public transport. Or car. Or minibus, or SUV. Oh, anyone on the road, really. Big emphasis on the blokes who honk their horns repeatedly to keep themselves sane.

Bandara Ahmad Yani, Semarang. Sekali-sekali agak melenceng dari judul blog ini ya… he he.

Oleh-oleh lebaran dari Yosita; thanks ya!

The Transjakarta management company is trying out automatic gates for the busway lanes to install at intersections, to avoid other cars, motorcycles and buses entering the busway lane (and making the busway lane totally pointless). It’s a good idea, but an idea is just an idea if you can’t put it into practise – the trial gate installed didn’t have enough electricity wattage to power it from the busway shelter. One can’t help to use this as an analogy to basically any other issue concerning the government.

BPK reported that the transparency of the Jakarta government, among others, is declining.

Really? You think?