Net workingNo, this post is nothing to do with an improvement in the service of the ISPs here, which I really don't expect to happen any year soon, but with the power of the Net to both get and keep in touch with people.
Firstly, my friend
Derek Bacon has, from England, sent me the
URL for a page related to Dave Jardine's book Foreign Fields Forever, which
I mentioned on Monday. It's dated from May last year, so I think it is an example of DJ's writing.
For those with an ear for history, visits to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Menteng Pulo and the Dutch War Graves cemetery at Ancol on the north shore (both in Jakarta) reveal an episode of British history largely neglected by textbooks and university courses, the armed intervention by Britain in Indonesia after the surrender of the Japanese at the end of the Pacific War.
Over 1100 men and women of the Commonwealth and British Empire lie buried in these immaculately tended plots. Next,
another friend, who lives in N.Y., has written to me asking for help in tracking down a lass in, possibly, Yogyakarta.
Her phone is apparently disconnected. She supposed to come April 4 to Los Angeles, but her father had a very massive heart attack and she couldn't come, and we were in touch. She had some problems and then, she disappeared and her phone is not working and she doesn?t answer her e-mails, which is strange, because she is very punctual. I was at the LA airport waiting for her, and she didn't appeared, and after several hours of panic, I found she is still in Yogya!!!
Please see if you can help me, do not have idea where in Yogya is her address. She is an architect and she is postponing her trip to the USA for few weeks before the situation with her father. She is very dear friend of mine and I am worry. She also had some problems with her health and spent some time in hospital after being in Banda Aceh helping, she lost some family members over there. Since April 7, no news whatsoever from her.
If, dear reader, you are in Yogya, could you
please email me and I can pass on further details.
The Net has spread
the following story through the Indonesian ex-expat and expat community. It typifies the pomposity and arrogance of many of the Indonesian 'élite' who have little regard for anyone beyond their immediate circle. (Note that I say 'many' and not 'all'. I suspect that any long-term expat in Indonesia will count some very wealthy or worthy public figures among their friends and acquaintances, even if, like Jakartass, you live at street level in a local community and not in an exclusive apartment block or upmarket housing complex.)
Theo Toemion, the chairman of Indonesia's powerful Investment Coordinating Board, is, like most parents, passionate about his son's sporting activities. Just how passionate became evident one recent Sunday when he went on a violent rampage, assaulting a 14-year-old referee and several parents of other children in a dispute over a junior school basketball match.
The assault on the grounds of the Jakarta International School left an American oil company executive, the parent of one child in the game, with a broken nose. The executive has since been forced to leave Indonesia with his family. Another oil company employee was hit in the back of the head, requiring several stitches. According to one witness, Toemion shouted threats that he could have the non-Indonesian parents thrown out of the country. Among those trying to restrain Toemion were executives from U.S. companies like ExxonMobil, Nike, Unocal and ConocoPhillips.
"The implication was that he could revoke anyone's work permit if he wanted to," the witness said. Another person familiar with the incident said Toemion had advised those present not to bother calling the police, because he "owned" the local police.
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