Just saw a tiktok gleefully announcing the death of two billionaires this week: the whoeverthefuckhisname that owns OnlyFans, and Michael Bambang Hartono of Djarum Group; she said the OnlyFans one "goes without saying, who funded AIPAC and fucked up USA's democracy in general." Whereas Hartono was "owner of cigarette factory, which is bad in itself, and owns BCA, and responsible for deforestation."
Well, young lady, you neglected to mention that BCA is still INDONESIAN OWNED thanks to the Hartono brothers, and CANNOT be American-controlled.
Cigarette factory is 'bad'? Not if it lifted the entire Kudus Regency out of poverty and the tobacco industry of the entire Indonesia flourishing even much better than in Cuba. So how's Marlboro and Philip Morris is doing these days? Have they shifted their tobacco-based product to fentanyl-based? Or are they hiding the fact that they are still spreading cancer through vape? Yes, love, iQos is an overpriced VAPE.
Remember: having a cigarette is a CHOICE. Working your ass off up to 90hrs per week to make billionaires even richer with nary a return for yourself in sight is idiotic.
Wanting to control other people's country is idiotic.
Oh, not to mention that the Hartono FAMILY actually financially supported Indonesia's independence. But yeah, sure, villain-ize MBH like 'alleged deforestation' when the biggest deforester in history is Wilmar Group that is owned partially by a MALAYSIAN.
The humility. Oh lawd the humbleness of this family is NOT going to be understood by your noveaux riche billionaires. My cousin who lives in Surabaya claimed that she would often see MBH or brother Robert eating in roadside kiosk wearing nothing but a white undershirt and shorts. No guards - they don't need guards, East Javanese loves them dearly. They brought production and money to East Java and allowed the province to thrive to be the third richest province (next to Jakarta and West Java).
Oh, I forgot to mention that MBH was also a medal-winning Bridge athlete, was the president of South East Asia Bridge Federation, and is the oldest athlete in Indonesia's Asian Games 2018 contingent.
Not to mention he died at 86 after living a life filled with joy.
YOUR billionaires may be assholes who don't give a damn of you peons. OUR billionaires support the whole country from being usurped by yours. We are not the same.
As a child - and well into my teenage years until his death in 2002, I fought my dad. Not so much my mom, since she has always been - and still is - a kind of peace-loving person.
But boy would I fight my dad.
Years later, I re-listened to Mike & the Mechanics' The Living Years; and I realized that he and I were too much alike: stubborn, smart, inquisitive, argumentative,
autistic.
But anyway.
Aside of the constant arguments, he was a loving father who treated me like an HEIR. Not as his princess, but I was his heir. He probably realized that I was so much like him already, and 'groomed' me into the person that I am today: tough, resilient, still inquisitive, still stubborn, still smart. Too smart for other men - although he did tell me once that I should 'tone down' my smarts to attract 'other' men. Then he retracted his sentence by saying, "then again, you're my daughter. I'm not surprised if men are scared of your brain."
There were boys who came into the house, in groups and in person. Dad never bothered them. He wasn't the type who'd put a proverbial (or real) gun on the coffee table to scare boys away. He would just be in the house, playing tetris.
Those boys backed away - like dad said, scared of my brain.
Which - nearly 30 years after, I reckon he was right, but I was okay. I am okay with it now. I am okay with having his brain and neurodivergence.
His brain and neurodivergence allowed me to stay in a job that my predecessor left crying (she is now my work partner, doing something else that she loves better than what I do). His brain and neurodivergence allowed me to use my brain to earn so much that I am able to buy a house.
In a patriarchal world, being a lone woman able to buy a house is an achievement.
In short, my dad 'groomed' me to be able to stand on my own feet and not rely on any 'men' - not especially men who cannot value me.
Aurelie Mooremans. A person whom the word 'grooming' is being tightly tied to at present.
She was groomed at 15 by a 29 year old man to be his wife. The nation is abuzz with the man's 'defense', among which saying that there was nothing illegal; and that he wedded Aurelie when she was 18 - legal age. He did not sleep with her but sexually assaulted her constantly.
He groomed her to the point of compliance. To the point where she thought she would die without him.
She is now healing, got out of the marriage, found a new husband who is 100% better and understanding, is having a baby. She is healing. She wrote a book to assist her healing.
Ironically, through that book. I saw that the pedo was not the only one grooming her. She was groomed by her father to be the obedient little child.
If I were her, I would place the first blame on my father for not giving me the backbone to stand up for myself, to guard myself. The pedo would not have happened if the father is like my father, who instilled in me that I am a VALUABLE human being. Not a 'princess', not 'his daughter', not 'a' woman. I am a human being who happens to be born female. And according to MY father, he shall teach me ways to make men realize that I am a strong human (even at 4'11").
Aurelie's father groomed her to be obedient. And thus her fate was sealed that an NPD pedo would get to her. I am glad that she was able to get away. I haven't read the book and have no idea if her dad ever had anything to do with helping her to get out of her miserable situation or not. But I personally am blaming him.
Was thinking of posting this to masto, but then remember that i have the tendency to write a lot. And by a lot I mean...
...anyway!
By no means I would call myself (i.e. my family) rich. We were just average family who lived at the outskirts of Menteng, but is still 'Menteng' by District. We have our own house (mom's), because my mom's father was a visionary who willfully begged his brother in law (grandma passed before mom was even 4 y.o.) for a loan to buy that house *and* put it on Mom's name.
After my bo and I were born, we moved in to that house. Mom worked 5 days a week as an executive's secretary in a bank. Dad worked sometimes, but when he did work, he'd bring home pay that's 5-10 times mom's. Like, if mom made IDR 3 mio, he'd make 15-20. This was the 80s, so dad's work brought us some pretty penny. Mom's salary alone, however, allowed us to live comfortably. With 2 live-in maids.
Not in abundance, mind you. I never had an Atari or Nintendo. I did, however, have a PC - an IBM that required floppy disks to get to the A-prompt. It also had office softwares, Wordstar, Lotus 123, and pac man and tapper and...
Anyway, I digress.
Even with a dad who'd work once every lunar eclipse, I could still buy things like books, music, clothes beyond that of the school uniform, shoes, etc. I thought that was the norm, because my neighbor's dad was a commercial ship captain and he, too, would bring home stuff that I'd have.
Mom's sisters, however, were fairly wealthy to the point where they could vacation overseas annually. They would bring home gifts for me that probably wouldn't have reached here otherwise - or at least wouldn't reach here within 5-10 years of its release. I'd had LA Gear, British Knights, Reebok shoes by the early 90s; by way of my aunties. The first two brands never legally get in to this country.
Again, I thought my life was 'normal' - not rich, but not at the point where I couldn't buy a pencil every other month (actually, I'd lost a pen every other week and would buy them anyway with my allowance).
I have a classmate in Jr High, whose house was right next to a major road, let's call her Ivy. I thought - back then - she was rich. Her house was literally 4x mine - approx 1,000sqm - divided into three; one in the middle was rented out to a photo studio, she lived in the one on the left, her cousin (dad's half sister) lived in the one on the right.
Unlike me and my (then) athletic besties, she didn't have fancy sneakers. Her clothes were always clean and fitted, but not 'flashy'. Our school uniform consisted of white buttoned shirt and school-regulation skirt/pants; and my besties and I would buy some higher-end white shirts and slapped the school's insignia on them. Our logic (and our parents') was because we were athletic, our rinky-dink school shirt wouldn't be able to withstand the daily washing. I have like, three of them for the week of school.
I'd thought Ivy had at least 3 shirts, as well - and didn't think much of it. We were in an 'elite' Jr High whose parking lot was always filled to the brink with European cars - mind you, this is the day where having an European car proved that you're rich (i.e. having a director-level income like both my mom's brother in-laws and dad's brother in law who were directors in their respective companies). Most of the kids in that Jr High - as far as I was concerned - was of the same level as my not-rich/not-poor self - since they, too did not have a car and would ride the public bus with me. Including Ivy.
Ivy's dad, however, did have a car. He was a prosecutor and her mom was a judge. In my mind, those were the reasons why they would have a massive house right by a main road.
Time passed. We graduated and moved to different high schools. Never met each other again except sporadically when her Ivy's mom died, then my brother, then her brother, then she got married. We literally met like, 5-6 times in the past 20+ years. I knew what happened to her, knew that she eventually got two daughters, and she - after 20 years - would come to my previous house (that wasn't mine).
When I eventually bought my own house and moved here in 2017, she came with her family and her sis. I knew her sis, obviously, but never thought much of her and probably was a little intimidated by her. Long story short, her sis contacted my mom on facebook, practically begging for mom to ask me if I could help her with her cats. I did, gave her some first aid meds that I'd given Kidcat and Poccie, and then directed her to the place where she could sterilize her cat. She didn't have the budget for it, and I have abundance, so I paid for the sterilization.
Later I learned that sis is the type of person who could not hold a job. I suggested she looked for Cat Sitting jobs during Eid holidays, since I know many people would have a hard time finding lodgings and/or sitters for their pets while they exodus-ed to their respective parental homes beyond Jakarta.
Then pandemic came, I didn't hear from them much - didn't think of them, either because, y'know. Pandemic. I caught it in 2021, faced the post-infection drama and whatnot.
Then in late 2022, Sis - let's call her Eve - contacted me. Her cats contracted panleuk and she wanted to know if there is anything she should do for the cats. I asked if she had vaccinated them - she had 12 cats - nope, none were vaxxed. I told her just to prepare for them all to die. No niceties. Then what to do to minimize the possibilities of the others from catching the virus.
Three of the 4 cats that initially contracted panleuk eventually died. I then assisted her in bringing her cats - all 9 of them - to be vaccinated by *my* vet, because my vet allows installment and she didn't have the money to bring a few cats for a long trip to the vets near her home - it would have taken literal twice as much money to transport her cats to vets nearby than to bring everyone to my home and housecalled my vet to vaccinate them all at once.
Long story short, I found out that Eve has, in fact, been working as Cat Sitter for a good year for several clients. Obviously I offered her to work for me, as well. And for a few years, she did. I don't leave the house often, but there were times that I just wanted a break.
From conversations with Eve, I came to the realization that her family was never rich -- never even been in the same vicinity as 'rich'. The big house roadside was not her parents' - it was her grandfather's that should have been willed to four children. But for some reason I don't understand, her law-graduate father refused to make the inheritance-based split legal.
But this is a story for another time.
From the conversations, too, I realized that her not-rich mentality was very, very toxic. This is the family that taught their children that fun stuff like eating out is redundant and unnecessary. That as long as you have your basic necessities like shirt and jeans, it doesn't matter that the shirt breaks apart after 2 washes or the jeans is far too big. If you eat someplace that is not home (e.g. restaurant/cafe/fast food), you should only eat the cheapest thing. Junk food is unnecessarily exorbitantly priced and therefore must be avoided.
I, who'd had KFC lunches with dad in high school (because I'd attended a course in the same office complex as my dad's), am duly confused.
And this is not only with Eve, Ivy, when I'd invited her to an event and wanted to buy her dinner (because I knew she hadn't had lunch at it was nearly 8p.m.) had a mini conniption when she saw the prices of the meals. I had to literally snap at her saying "if you're not gonna order anything because you think they're too expensive and I'm paying for it, I'm gonna order a damn steak and for god's sake I'mma make you eat it!"
So yeah. My family, as 'not-rich' as we were, had disposable income. We - my parents, that is - were able to buy me things I want, not just things I need. They can indulge things for me and my brother to eat and enjoy - things like ice cream, cakes, junk food and/or fine dining food. I am grateful for them.
But the toxicity, Eve's and Ivy's - holy cow. Eve even had the nerve to say my 'taste' is expensive.
Well, yeah, they are. I make my own money and have a nice-sized Fun budget after mortgage and cat's needs and my mom's and my needs. I work hard so I can have fun and go buy a sundae on a whim. I don't understand why have to eat poor (and yucky) food when I can eat healthy and yummy food for twice the price.
And then I got sad.
She thought I - or my family - was in the same tax bracket as hers was. But we never were. If she was in tax bracket 1, I was at 4-6 (depending on whether or not my dad was working) with my aunties at 8 (and billionnaires at 100 😝). Her 'big' house was not hers and end up in a dispute where her dad only get enough to buy a much smaller house all the way in the Eastern suburb of Jakarta (i.e. Bekasi). My (mom's) house in Menteng Outskirts (Central Jakarta) brought us to a house in Kebayoran (South Jakarta) before we lost it due to mom's mistake in investment. Now I brought us back to South Jakarta's outskirt area. Yes, it's still an outskirt, but it's still far more respectable than Bekasi.
And she still thought I - who actually has a monthly paycheck - am still in the same tax bracket as she is. I have told her my general income repeatedly, and she still doesn't believe me - likely because none of her siblings actually ever got as much paycheck as I do. Also because I am only a highschool graduate.
I am lucky, my life has been lucky. I have my downs, and am praying that this is just my way up and there will be no more downs. But I don't understand how is it someone cannot get out of piss-poor mentality and prefer to dwell in the has-beens instead of looking up and climbing out of poverty.
Anyway, the point of this long story is that you never know just how unequal you and your friends are until... well, until you hire them to work for you, I guess...
My 18 yr-old nephew, who is just starting college a few provinces away (think I'm in Los Angeles, he's in Colorado -- for the 'murican brains who can't fathom distances beyond their own lil corner of the world), just made a tiktok with the name 'Batman of [city]'.
I am internally cringing.
I have no clue which Batman he thinks of himself as, but as far as I can tell, he is neither. If I have to stretch it, he's somewhere between Duke Thomas and Danny Chase - and that's me reaching. He is academically smart, but nowhere near street smart.
He had just lost his mother last year and his father (my bro) is a dumbass. Not a harmful dumbass, though. Just. Dumb. Not the brightest crayon in the box. His mother was academically alright - given that I am actually academically genius, she was just in the 'okay' level. We all know (hopefully) that the major difference between a genius and non-genius is the persistence level: A genius can fail academically because they just don't wanna and not gonna; a non-genius can succeed academically because they do it anyway even if they don't wanna.
My nephew falls into the genius category, but during his school years, he was pushed relentlessly by his mother, even when she was dying. So yeah, I don't know what he'll be like academically without his mother.
Because in a room full of people, never ever had I felt so alone.
And so wrong.
I broke down and cried when I reached the second art installment, a spotify playlist. In the list was a song I knew well and liked - waaaay back in the very late 90s-early 2000s. It's by Kavana, titled Will You Wait For Me. I straight up wept (no, not bawled, I still had some self control, the tears just streamed down and I couldn't stop them).
I posted this on insta:
It hit different. Back then it was a cute song of a dude asking somebody 'will you wait for me' and could mean anything: dude going abroad, got deployed, going over to gf's place and she is pissed and he asks 'will you wait for me' -- I don't even remember the damn lyrics.
30 years later, my brain finally remembered why I stopped listening to this guy's album: My brother's death in 2002.
Cause time will pass me by
Maybe I'll never learn to smile
But I'll know i'll make through
If you wait for me ( Won't you wait for me )
And all the tears I cry
No matter how hard I'll try
They'll never bring you home to me
Won't you wait for me
In heaven….
Anyway, the First Ever GriefFest was a success. I missed the first speakers, but I resonated well with the second and third speakers. I don't much care for Alex Kuebler-Ross' monologue.
The fourth speakers 'made me' speak using the question: "do we believe that there is happiness in grief?" in which I said yes a little too loud and had to explain myself 🫣 I got me a goodie bag for my answer, though, and it's all good.
What was my 'wrong' again?
Oh yeah, feeling so alone. I discovered that Nira's friends and/or associates whom I'd not met for literal years (like, since before covid), did NOT, in fact, forget what I look like. Or forget who I am. So yeah, I'm not ignorable/forgettable, after all. 😮💨
How to turn off AI-scraping from your Word documents
Microsoft Office, like many companies in recent months, has slyly turned on an “opt-out” feature that scrapes your Word and Excel documents to train its internal AI systems. This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.
If you are a writer who uses MS Word to write any proprietary content (blog posts, novels, or any work you intend to protect with copyright and/or sell), you’re going to want to turn this feature off immediately.How to Turn off Word’s AI Access To Your Content
I won’t beat around the bush. Microsoft Office doesn’t make it easy to opt out of this new AI privacy agreement, as the feature is hidden through a series of popup menus in your settings:On a Windows computer, follow these steps to turn off “Connected Experiences”:
File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences > Uncheck box: “Turn on optional connected experiences”
@endless-demon thank you so much for asking! it's a little complicated but I think simplification does a disservice to the issue and is exactly what people like David Seymour rely on to spread lies about historical context and current consequences. I'm putting this in a reblog because it's long, and I'm putting it on this post because I'd rather this video be the one to get seen. as always I'm pakeha and also not an expert, so I'm very open to corrections on details but im confident of the broad strokes.
so when the English first arrived to build settlements in aotearoa, they formed a treaty with Māori (te Tiriti o Waitangi), the people already living there, that the English can govern their own settlements, as long as they allowed for continued māori sovereignty (tino rangatiratanga). there exist two versions of the text, English and te reo Māori, which do not perfectly match. after this, the English settlers began acquiring massive swathes of land by legally questionable means, and asserting absolute sovereignty over these areas. these culminated in the land wars, which then lead to massive land confiscation as a form of both political punishment and colonization. the end result is that now the crown own nearly all land in aotearoa and claim absolute sovereignty over it.
now, the Māori text does not claim sovereignty over the property that the crown recognizes Māori own. the text promises, among other things, self determination for Māori, which is essentially impossible under a westminster system of government because they are currently a demographic minority. it's only very recent in our history that the crown has acknowledged the legitimacy of the te reo Māori text, and even more recently that we began to actually implement any of its principles. one of the biggest ways the treaty is used in modern day is to guarantee Māori have an opportunity at the table for major national decisions (particular those of environmental significance), and to defer organizational power for Māori issues to Māori communities.
the treaty principles bill seeks to water down these promises by allowing these rights to all new zealanders, "democratising" the treaty and removing those guarantees that have been so hard fought for by Māori. but, more importantly, it seeks to seed division and racism within this country to gather more support for the ACT party who are sponsoring this bill.
this bill was part of the coalition agreement by our current 3 party right wing government. the national party agreed to sponsor this bill to first reading (allowing public submission on the bill) but no further. I personally believe, along with many others, that when the time comes to vote for the second reading the act party will threaten to pull out of the coalition if the bill is not passed again, and our prime minister will not have the strength of character to stand up to his deputy. regardless, the relationship between the crown and Māori has already been damaged, both by the simple introduction of the bill as well as all the changes our current government has implemented.
as Paul Goldsmith, Minister for Treaty Negotiations outlined in his speech during the bill, the National party believe that te Tiriti must be killed, not in a single action, but by a thousand cuts, like the removal of references to the treaty from our legislation and curriculums, and the disestablishment of agencies like the Māori Health Authority, cuts to Māori advisors to govt departments, removing māori seats from local government, etc.
there's so much more to this issue, like the centuries of abuse and mistreatment of Māori by the crown authorities, how this abuse is ongoing to Māori children and adults today in state care, how iwi voices are our last line of defence against environmental and ecological damage by industry, the unilateral natural of the treaty reparation settlement process... but this is why this protest was staged in parliament today.
(in fact, there is a much larger protest taking place nationwide, scheduled to arrive the day the bill was supposed to be introduced. the bill was in fact introduced a week earlier, in a move many suspect was done to prevent exactly this kind of protest.)
as far as I'm concerned though? I think te pāti Māori achieved exactly what they wanted by this protest. they forced the government to drop the mask of civility, and force the protestors out of the building. and they showed their supporters that their protests are working - they felt threatened enough by this that they lashed out, felt a need to retaliate by suspending hana-rawhiti maipi-clarke from the house for 24 hours. the coalition are getting nervous
America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)
To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.
They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.
The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.
BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.
The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.
I think this model is the best one for several reasons:
It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups
It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.
It focuses on what’s important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those members’ experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader
#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of
Okay, but also: if you see a Muslim praying in public and they have something in front of them, like a purse or a bag or something like that, you can pass in front of them, but pass in front of that object.
it’s called a sutrah, and it’s meant to act as a physical barrier between the person praying and someone who might happen to pass in front.
Also, if you did this and didn’t know, please don’t beat yourself up over it. Now you know! Muslims aren’t supposed to pass in front of Muslims praying, either, because prayer is communication with God and you don’t want to break that connection.
Similarly, if a Jew is saying the Shemonah Esrei prayer (whispered, moving only the mouth, standing facing east with legs together) don’t go in front unless there’s a barrier.
StopNCII.org is operated by the Revenge Porn Helpline which is part of SWGfL, a charity that believes that everyone should benefit from technology, free from harm. Founded in 2000, SWGfL works with a number of partners and stakeholders around the world to protect everyone online
The saying applies with more than usual force here: if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer: you're the product being sold. (And maybe you're the product being sold even if you are paying for it.)
DO NOT MAKE YOUR PERSONAL PHYSICAL DATA AVAILABLE TO PEOPLE WHO COULD THEN SELL IT TO THOSE INVESTED IN USING IT TO SURVEIL YOU AND POTENTIALLY CHARGE YOU WITH CRIMES.
Geezus 'murica.. what is it with y'all gon' back to the medieval era, anyway..? Seriously tracking women's periods??
No, not chiding the women for tracking their bodily function, it is a necessity for US the women, not U-S-the country. Fcking seriously why would a fcking country need to track their women's bodily function other than for malicious intents?
Reblogging. Hopefully every American women in this site will take note and be wary and spread the word out to every women they know.
There's a post going around Tumblr about how if you're post-menopausal and have bleeding, you should get it checked by your doctor. I brought some minor bleeding I'd had up in a doctor visit earlier this year, prompted by that post, and this week, after a biopsy, I found out I have cancer. It's early stage and the survival odds at 5 years are 99%. I have an oncologist appointment and we may have caught it early enough that surgery alone will be sufficient treatment (no radiation/chemo).
So that post may have saved my life and it may have made my treatment a lot easier too.
If you get into menopause and then start bleeding again, really, get your reproductive innards checked out. The life you save may be your own.
I have a real-life example of this, so I am definitely keeping this in mind now that I am menopausal.
My mother had her menopause at age 45, sailed through breezily, and at age 59 started bleeding again. This was after my brother's death in 2002, so she initially did not think much of it - chalking it up to stress and sadness etc.
Fortunately she had a bestie with whom she would talk to about menstruation. Her bestie insisted she should see an obgyn, and sure enough, she had 'thickening of the uterine lining' - Endometrial hypoplasia. She had it scraped out through a D&C (dilation & curettage), a two hour procedure under general anesthesia (yes, full general anesthesia because for some reason, doctors here are not as devious as doctors in the US and would actually provide women with pain reliever). It was biopsied, and she was fine.
This happened again the next year, again she'd started 'having periods', again she when to the (same) obgyn, got the D&C procedure and biopsy, and she was fine.
Now my mother is going to be 80 this year, fine and dandy, and I'll be 49 this year. I had menopause at 45 as well, and thus far has no issues. But I will keep mom's experience in mind and prepare a budget for a 'worst case scenario', anyway, since unlike mom who did not have issues with her hormones, I have PCOS.
I have no clue if my having PCOS would actualy 'saved' me from having a hypoplasia, but hey, y'know, it don't hurt to be cautious.
Mentioned Germany committing the first genocide of the 20th century in Namibia, and is now talking about the similarities between Namibia and Palestine
Namibia is asking the court to set a strict time limit for the unconditional end of the Israeli occupation. Also acknowledging Israel's history of defying the UN and the ICJ
Talking about Hamas violating international law and needing to be held accountable, but that this does not justify measures taken against the civilian population
Accusing the international community of failing Palestinians in achieving their dream of having a free state, and mentioning the severity of the genocide happening in Gaza
Talking about the unique status of Jerusalem and how it is holy to all 3 Abrahamic religions, but Christians and Muslims have not had full religious freedom in the city
Pakistan just called out the US for voting in favour of ending South Africa's occupation of Namibia in the past, but not doing so for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories
Just stated that if the ICJ refrains from issuing a ruling they will be signaling to other powers that they too could possibly get away with illegal occupation
Qatar has finished their presentation by telling the ICJ that the whole world is looking at them, and they hope they take this historic opportunity to end the injustices against the Palestinian people.
Throughout Qatar's presentation the representative followed several comments about Israeli crimes, and other points, by mentioning that more information is included in the folders that Qatar provided the court. I don't know how large the folders are, but it sounds like at the very least Qatar provided more information for every breach of international law they observed, and they also included arguments from other states where the same conclusions were drawn. They came very prepared.
That's the morning hearing finished, afternoon hearing is in 2 hours with presentations from the UK, Slovenia, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, and Tunisia
They actually quoted A LOT off Ms Retno Marsudi's speech - including but not limited to the air-quotes. A lot more than the other countries'. I am proud of her and the strength of her speech. I am proud that Indonesia is able to send someone of her caliber to verbally slap a whole country's government for their crimes against humanity.
I am proud of Ms Retno Marsudi for being such a good diplomat with no qualm over gender and no qualm of acting her "Fluff you!" by walking out when the Israeli rep wanted to rebut her.
@totallyseiso Here's the full speech of Ms Retno Marsudi, Indonesia's Minister of Foreign Affairs: https://kemlu.go.id/portal/en/read/5770/pidato/statement-he-retno-lp-marsudi-minister-for-foreign-affairs-the-republic-of-indonesia-at-the-public-sitting-of-the-international-court-of-justice-on-the-legal-consequences-arising-from-the-policies-and-practices-of-israel-in-the-occupied-pales
Istg if she would run for president, I'd vote for her. Woman is FEEERZE!
Mentioned Germany committing the first genocide of the 20th century in Namibia, and is now talking about the similarities between Namibia and Palestine
Namibia is asking the court to set a strict time limit for the unconditional end of the Israeli occupation. Also acknowledging Israel's history of defying the UN and the ICJ
Talking about Hamas violating international law and needing to be held accountable, but that this does not justify measures taken against the civilian population
Accusing the international community of failing Palestinians in achieving their dream of having a free state, and mentioning the severity of the genocide happening in Gaza
Talking about the unique status of Jerusalem and how it is holy to all 3 Abrahamic religions, but Christians and Muslims have not had full religious freedom in the city
Pakistan just called out the US for voting in favour of ending South Africa's occupation of Namibia in the past, but not doing so for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories
Just stated that if the ICJ refrains from issuing a ruling they will be signaling to other powers that they too could possibly get away with illegal occupation
Qatar has finished their presentation by telling the ICJ that the whole world is looking at them, and they hope they take this historic opportunity to end the injustices against the Palestinian people.
Throughout Qatar's presentation the representative followed several comments about Israeli crimes, and other points, by mentioning that more information is included in the folders that Qatar provided the court. I don't know how large the folders are, but it sounds like at the very least Qatar provided more information for every breach of international law they observed, and they also included arguments from other states where the same conclusions were drawn. They came very prepared.
That's the morning hearing finished, afternoon hearing is in 2 hours with presentations from the UK, Slovenia, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, and Tunisia
They actually quoted A LOT off Ms Retno Marsudi's speech - including but not limited to the air-quotes. A lot more than the other countries'. I am proud of her and the strength of her speech. I am proud that Indonesia is able to send someone of her caliber to verbally slap a whole country's government for their crimes against humanity.
I am proud of Ms Retno Marsudi for being such a good diplomat with no qualm over gender and no qualm of acting her "Fluff you!" by walking out when the Israeli rep wanted to rebut her.
The actual meaning of writing is to arrange words into a sentence that can convey information. The types of information depends on the language used. Legal language (in any language) differs greatly to Medical language that also differs greatly to Engineering language or Marketing language. News language may infuse parts of the other fields', depending on the subject of the article.
Writing showed that there are many nuances and aspects of a language that must not be neglected - one cannot write a news article using Medical language and expect more than 1% of its readers to understand it; or an entertainment event writing its blog in Engineering language; or an Engineering Report made using daily slang.
I write for a living, a job that is - thankfully - not only aligns with my passion, but also make a good living. I write reports, which leave small margin for embellishment, but at times require deliberate clarification that may be viewed as embellishment by its readers. Most of the time I *can* and actually use semi-formal language infused with whatever field the report is about; e.g. if it is about a legal issue, I can put some legal expressions in it; or if it is about IT industry, there would be some coding lingo in the report.
I also write fiction - ne'er before seen and will probably never see the lights of day. Maybe someday the fictions will be published somehow, somewhat. Otherwise they will remain in my harddrives, cloud storage, etc.
I started writing when I was seven - a hello kitty (fan)fiction. Mind you, this was in the 80s, there was only the merchandises and that is all. I wrote based on whatever I wanted to write, never knowing the 'backstory' of Hello Kitty or any of the other Sanrio characters. I don't even remember what they were about anymore, and unfortunately don't have the records of them since they were typed (yes, with a diablo typewriter that was about as old as I am) on scrap papers from my mother's office.
I wrote because there was no available further information of the characters. I was unhappy with the information gap and thus made them up.
Likewise when I was in high school, I had written fanfictions on bands I'd liked, partly filled with 'their tour lives' as published in plethora of magazines I'd bought. Likely for the same reason as my Hello Kitty fictions - there were far and few further information on them and I filled in the blanks on my own.
I also started to write non-fanfictions - kind of. I had crushes on some seniors and some peers, and I did (could) not just come up to them and ask about their lives in detail - I was far too introverted for that. What I knew of them came from other friends, snippets of conversations, and distant observations - nowadays people might call me a stalker. Back in the 90s, it was the only way I can fill in the void of information.
As I grow older (and continued writing), writing became a form of therapy when I lost my brother. My fictions at the time were filled by heroic characters, who changed their world and universe out of sheer will/skills/whatever I had in mind then.
And yesterday I had an epiphany.
I write because I was - AM - angry.
I was angry at the lack of information, so I filled in the blanks through fiction. I was angry at too much information, so I distilled them into my work reports.
I was contented a little while ago (or maybe it was the allergy meds), and I found my brain was not willing to write anything. I was not numb, I could reply texts or write comments, but when I opened a blog to write, nothing came out. I even tried writing my daily life - i.e. woke up at __ have something for breakfast, then out to somewhere to do something before lunch... --Nothing. I couldn't write. The fiction side also suffered, left untouched for a good long while.
Then it occurred to me, everybody also write because they were angry.
Well, okay, maybe some people 'just' write because their jobs demanded it - i.e. marketing or legal/law people.
But most people, even journalists, write because they're angry. They have to be 'angry', in order to be able to convey information to their reader and describe what it is that makes them angry without actually saying 'I'm angry at...'
Fiction writers?
Yes, they are 'angry', too. They (read: I) are angry enough at the world they deem as inadequate to create another world that makes them happy/contented.
Self-help book writers? Definitely angry. They put their anger into words that show their readers how to adjust their respective selves - either to 'not be angry' or to be 'angry enough to make changes'.
'Angry' has such a negative connotation that people don't want to use it to describe themselves. But it is an emotion that burns. To some it burns inward, causing a plethora of illnesses. To others it burns outward in the same negativity breath, causing destruction of the human or their surroundings.
The lucky ones (read: those verbose enough) burn their anger through the letters. The better ones will manage to craft their words to invoke others' anger. The best ones have used their craftiness to change the world through words.
No non-humans will be able to use words to invoke - to provoke, sure, depending on their programmer. But give them a blank page with no further instruction, none non-humans will be able to write anything comprehensive.
Translating is not much different than writing on blank pages. It requires knowledge on the basis of the language that will be used to transfer the information between languages. It requires local knowledge - a house and a home in English only have one translation in my language, but if I were to translate from my language to English, I will need to already know whether to use 'house' or 'home' in the narrative.
A machine won't know the distinction unless someone - a human - told them. A machine holds patterns. Human brain create patterns.
To follow up on a friend's linkedin 'blog' post on 'privilege', in which he kind of making a snide comment on certain political person who is an opposition/opponent of his favored politician (who is, as far as I'm concerned, nothing but a bag of foul gas coming from persistent and latent and malicious cow's dung said politician is fond of spewing and claiming that it is golden rose), I would like to discuss 'privileges' that he conveniently omitted.
'Conveniently' is probably not even the right word for it. 'Convenient' because it does not fit his narrative of 'self reminder that privilege is a blessing blah blah blah...'
Convenient because the word itself, 'privilege', can be and is being used to attack the son of the current president who is running for VP through a series of what seemed to be deliberate political moves. Said political moves have greatly 'jeopardized' friend's favorite candidate who is his bff.
Convenient because in 'privilege', people can claim things that are absurd while leaning on 'ignorance is bliss' adage.
I still remember in 2017, when his candidate was running for governor, said friend made claims that he 'understand what the less-privileged feels! I took the bus to get to work today!'
I made a sharp and pointed (and barbed and staked and scythed) comment that just because he took one (1) bus ride in a non-peak hour time enabled him to empathize with us 'common workers' who need to ride (sometimes numerous) public transports to get from home to work and vice versa -- at peak hours. Every. Damn. Day.
And no, we don't get to choose our time of departure, unless it is earlier (in the morning, as in the butt crack of dawn) or much, much later in the evening (as in the dead of night) to take our rides in order to be able to sit during the hours-long ride.
We definitely do not have the privilege to just get off the bus/train/other public transport modes if it's too full, and then take a cab. We will just smash our flesh into the next person's and get in the damn ride, anyway. Because cabs can cost us literal day's wage for a single trip.
We also do not have the privilege to set the time for meetings. If we want to reach somewhere for a Very Important Meeting(tm) by 8 a.m. and we live in Depok - like I did; we will have to set the departure time by a minimum of 2 and a 1/2 hours to reach it, taking consideration if shit happens along the way that can delay arrival. 99% of the time, if I needed to reach a place at 8 a.m., I will depart at FIVE a.m. If my paranoia had the best of me, I'd have left the house at 4.30, 4.45 would have gotten me drenched in cold sweat and anxiety.
I do not have a car. And even as per today, where I would go anywhere using gocars, I was late because the gocar was late (had to make two bookings since the first one didn't respond for TEN minutes). I was late by 35 minutes - to get to a place that would have taken me less than 30 minutes drive if I had my own car.
While I personally chose not to have a car (can't be arsed to think about its maintenance & upkeep etc etc, don't feel like wasting my body in traffic by driving myself), but said friend never understands why having a car is a privilege in itself. Especially cars that are paid for in full, not through installments. If one can pay for a new car in full, means one have a disposable income to acquire said car, and can easily use future income for its maintenance/parking/gas/etc. Having disposable income is a privilege.
As is being able to choose what you eat. From the type and brand of rice, to the toppings and side dishes, to brands of coffee/tea/softdrinks etc. That is a privilege that comes with money. Nowadays I can eat brown rice for my health - at twice the price of white rice of the highest quality. Others simply cannot afford brown rice, especially if they feed a family. I am privileged by having a higher than Regional Minimum Wage (UMR), and not having kids (unless counting 8 cats, but they don't eat brown rice).
Oftentimes these people would make an excuse that they 'don't like' brown rice, or 'the spouse/kids/in-laws don't like brown rice' and 'it's a hassle to make two types of rice every day.'
Privileged people, like my bff, can simply do it - whether or not their children/spouse/whoever lives with them like it or not. Because they can own two rice cookers and have the electricity budget to cover fro cooking two types of rice per day.
I am appalled that said friend is still insisting that he is in touch with real life, when he clearly is not. This is a guy who, while being raised by a single mother, is the nephew of a high-ranking government official who was stinkin' rich. He and mother lived with said uncle, until she got married to another rich man. He has never known what it is like to walk to get to school so one can save one's stipend to buy what one wanted without asking the parents for it.
I wish I don't get so angry at this kind of ignorance. But I am hurt. I am struggling financially right now with my income being cut in half (less incoming projects due to covid and the upcoming election). I have USD 250 to last me to the next payday, and I dread the next few weeks.
What the fcuk is wrong with the Silat world today???
Doeloe, waktu aku belajar silat, SEMUA pelatih selalu menekankan bahwa yang namanya BELA DIRI itu dimulai dari diri sendiri. BUKAN untuk menyerang orang lain. Bahwa kita belajar bela diri adalah utamanya untuk belajar MENATA EMOSI, bukan cari2 cara untuk menyakiti orang lain dengan alasan 'bela diri'. Even kids who were bullied at school were NOT allowed to participate if their sole purpose was to 'bela diri' - karena yang model ini lah yang pada akhirnya akan menyakiti orang lain, regardless if they were provoked or not.
I actually managed to get in the Silat class because I said I wanted to learn silat to KNOW MYSELF. I told them I wanted to join because I want to now if I can. I was already in high school, and continued until after I graduated, but stopped when I got a job that made it impossible for me to spare the time for training.
Likewise when I was in taekwondo along with my 3 younger nephews. The sabeum gave us the understanding that we are NOT to attack each other EVER (particularly for my 3 nephews). We do NOT strike unless we are struck FIRST. And we do NOT instigate fights, EVER. Once we know how to hurt people, we became a weapon. Thus we MUST be conscious of the fact that we are a weapon and CAN hurt people.
So what the fluck do these mean??
These are from the past year only.
These are of STUDENTS of SILAT who were KILLED due to various reasons, and the reason number one is SENIOR/TEACHER abuse.
Fuck is wrong with them all?? How the hell are you a senior/teacher if you are still UNABLE to control yourself??
I am pissed. This is NOT funny. Indonesia is the number 1 rank in Pencak Silat, the sports, that is competed in the Olympics and various other multinational sport competitions.
HOW the hell will we hold accountability with people like these within the Silat organization itself??
What happened if they 'accidentally' kill an opponent in a sports COMPETITION??
As a former pencak silat student, I would like to see these silat schools dismantled and disbanded, and the teachers and seniors put to jail for neglect and abuse. This is not pencak silat. This is arrogance and thuggery. This is NOT the Indonesian silat.
