Why Lying is Good for You

We all do it, often without even thinking about it, and sometimes several times a day. But new thinkers are trying to persuade us that telling lies - even little white ones - is bad for our relationships.

According to psychotherapist Brad Blanton, pioneer of the much talked about 'radical honesty movement', truthtelling is the essential foundation for psychological health and we can only transform our lives for the better by being completely honest.

Lies, he believes, leave an 'emotional stain' on our relationships. Instead of hiding the truth, we should concentrate on expressing 'every underlying thought and emotion - even anger, resentment and outright loathing'.

But just how feasible is it to live a life of uncompromising truthfulness? I began thinking about truth and lies while staying with friends some time ago. One evening, the husband, my host, was watching yet another politician on the news denying he had been deceitful about some scandal or other.

Suddenly he was on his feet, yelling at the television in absolute fury. 'Liar, Liar!', he shouted, apoplectic with rage, his ear tips a colour I'd never seen on skin before. I was tremendously impressed with his integrity.

But, an hour or so later, there came a phonecall from a mutual friend who lives nearby. This person was not someone we greatly liked, but she invited us to dinner the following evening.

Smooth as a silk, my friend's husband said: 'Oh, we'd love to, but we've got tickets to go to the theatre.' I was amazed. We hadn't. He was lying. One minute he was leaping up and down in a fury at someone else apparently telling lies, and the next he was doing it himself.

 This episode led to me thinking, and eventually writing a novel, about the way we use lies in our daily life. My heroine, Nina, an ordinary mother-of-two married to a nice husband and a pleasant life, decides to tell the truth for a week - with mixed results.

Before I began writing, I thought I should put this kind of radical honesty to the test myself and attempt to live a week without lies. Of course, I failed on the first day. It was too easy to lie.

I said I was doing something else when invited out, because I didn't want to go, and it was just easier to pretend I was busy. And there I was, transformed from a truthful woman one minute to a brazen liar the next.

But which would have been more detrimental to our friendship: to tell a lie and avoid confrontation or to have told her bluntly that I didn't fancy her company?

According to social scientist Bella DePaulo, author of Behind The Door Of Deceit, we experience a 'twinge of distress' every time we lie, that leaves an ' emotional smudge' on our relationship.

But somehow I doubt my friend would have thanked me if I'd been brutally honest: massaging the truth felt the kinder thing to do. If you succeed where I failed, I promise you that if you tell the truth for just a week you will leave a trail of mayhem in your wake.

Broken friendships, broken hearts, broken dreams. Imagine how the mutual friend I mentioned earlier would have felt had my host said: 'Sorry, we don't really like you, so we'll pass on the dinner invite, thanks'?

 Devastation. These lies, told out of kindness, are the commonest, according to Professor DePaulo, who found that most people lie like this at least once a day. She calls them the 'sweet little lies'.

Then there are the bigger lies that we tell to make ourselves seem more appealing, more interesting, younger. When I did a bit of dating on the internet, I discovered the lies about physical appearance were legion.

I met more men who appeared to have shrunk in the wash than any single woman should. And several whose hair, so luxuriant in their photos, miraculously, had fallen out overnight. I expect they looked upon me in much the same way.

They expected 'slim', but they got a sensible size 12/14. OK, I lie. A 14. Men do lie differently from women, though. Research by the University of Virginia shows that, on a night out, men tend to tell around eight lies - all about making themselves look better.

Women, in a similar group, tend to tell protective lies about, or for, those closest to them. How often do you find a man meeting another man and admiring his suit straight away? Rarely. Whereas, a woman meeting another woman will often say something complimentary.

It's not necessary for us to believe that her handbag is gorgeous; more that if we say so, then she'll like or even trust us. Self-help guru Dorothy Rowe suggests surrounding ourselves with comforting lies means we never face up to the realities of the world - be they unpleasant or not.

But, as my heroine Nina discovers, these comforting lies are our social cement. Truth, she learns, sometimes has the capacity to be cruel and to blow your world apart. Without our sweet little lies, we'd all be sitting in the dark with the curtains drawn hoping the cruel world would go away.

Kostrad ready to protect border with Malaysia

The Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) is out to protect the border shared by Indonesia and Malaysia in Kalimantan for the sake of territorial integrity.

"Currently we are maintaining security in the border zone. If needed, we will mobilize our troops there," Kostrad chief Lt. Gen Burhanudin Amin told Antara state news agency on Monday as he inspected a combined free fall exercise attended by hundreds of soldiers at the Kalijati airbase in the West Java regency of Subang.

Burhanuddin said he found no security threat along the border with Malaysia, but a battalion was ready to be deployed for border operations any time.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has asked for acceleration of talks on the maritime boundary between Indonesia and Malaysia to avoid future disputes, following a recent incident in Tanjung Berakit waters in Riau recently.

How to Treat Indonesian Corruptors When They Die

The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) executive board had never issued a legal pronouncement (fatwa), which prohibited prayers for deceased corruptors but it had indeed suggested its ulemas be absent in the prayers.

The NU’s stance on this controversial matter was expressed by this largest Islamic organization’s chairman, KH Said Aqil Siradj, in his press statement made available to ANTARA here Sunday.

Siradj said praying a deceased Muslim was the Islamic community members’ collective obligation but NU had indeed issued a "fatwa", suggesting that its ulemas be absent in praying corruptors’ bodies.

The absence of NU ulemas was part of social sanctions for corruptors, he said. This NU’s stance needed to be reiterated to enable various elements in the society to have a comprehensive understanding about a fatwa issued at Muslim scholars’ national meeting here in 2002, he said.

Siradj said the fatwa that suggested the absence of ulemas in the deceased corruptor prayer was issued by referring to Prophet Muhammad’s hadist (sayings and actions).

During Prophet Muhammad’s life, one of his companions was killed in "Khaibar" war but Prophet Muhammad was absent in his deceased companion’s prayer.

Instead Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ordered his other companions to pray the deceased one, Siradj said.

After the prayer, Prophet Muhammad was then asked by his companions about his reason for not being with them to pray the deceased.

Prophet Muhammad replied: "Your friend has indeed done corruption in the road of Allah (almighty God)," Siradj said.

Hearing Prophet Muhammad’s explanation, his companions then checked and investigated into the dead friend’s life.

They found that he had concealed "two Dhirhams" (coins) of the enemy’s seized properties in war (Ghanimah) before they were officially given, K.H.Said Aqil Siradj said.

"So NU just follows Prophet Muhammad’s hadist that suggests ulemas not take part in praying the deceased corruptors. But the prayer is a collective obligation of the Muslim community."

"Therefore, let other Muslims or the deceased corruptors’ family members do that," he said. The 2002 fatwa was expected to be a deterrence and social sanction for Muslims to enable them to get rid of corruption which had become an acute and extraordinary crime in Indonesia, he said

Pertamina Geothermal in Need of Rp18 Trillion

 Photo taken on March 8, 2010 shows a local worker gathering sulphur deposits at the crater of Ijen Volcano in Banyuwangi, East Java as it is enveloped by sulphur steam. Indonesia has launched an ambitious plan to tap the vast power of its volcanoes and become a world leader in geothermal energy, while trimming greenhouse gas emissions. The sprawling archipelago of 17,000 islands stretching from the Indian to the Pacific Oceans contains hundreds of volcanoes, estimated to hold around 40 percent of the worlds geothermal energy potential. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged on April 26, 2010 before the World Geothermal Conference in Bali to make Indonesia the worlds biggest user of clean, renewable geothermal energy, and urged private investors to back him.

PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE), a subsidiary of state oil and gas company PT Pertamina, needed US$2 billion, the equivalent of Rp18 trillion, to build a geothermal power plant with an installed capacity of 1,000 megawatts.
  
"They money is expected as loan from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and the World Bank, and the project completed in  2014," PGE President Director Abadi Poernomo said after providing Pertamina with an assistance for people in Ibun subdistrict,  Bandung regency, on Sunday afternoon.
  
He said building of the geothermal power plant which will be built soon, Karaha Bodas with a capacity of 30 megawatts (MW), will be followed by the building of similar projects, including in  Lahendong in North Sulawesi, Sibayak, Ulubelu, in Lampung, Lumutbalai, Hululais,  Kotamubagu, and Sungai Penuh in Jambi. According to him, under decision of Energy and Mineral Resources Minister no 32/2010, as the price of geothermal power (PLTP) for state electricity company PT PLN had been set at 9.7 cents per KWH, the construction of the project is quite reasonable.
  
The problem, he said, is the reach of the network from PLN to the points of the PLTP, which is actually not too far from the existing geothermal resources, and the still non-existing interconnections in Sumatra and in other islands, and the Java-Sumatra power grid. Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) established in 2006 had already used by the government to develop 15 geothermal concessions in Indonesia. Some 90 percent of the shares of the company which provides pollution-free energy, is owned by PT Pertamina, and 10 percent by PT Pertamina Dana Ventura.

Right now Pertamina has the right of managing 15 geothermal concessions with a total potential of 8,480 MW, which is equal to  4,392 MMBOE. Of 15 concessions, 10 are being run by PT PGE itself, namely, Kamojang with 200 MW, Lahendong 60 MW, Sibayak 12 MW,  Ulubelu, Lumutbalai, Hululais, Kotamubagu, Sungai Penuh and Iyang Argopuro, and Karahabodas. Three of the areas have already been producing with a total capacity of 272 MW, or 12,900 BOEPD, and the rest run jointly by a partner producing a total of 922 MW.

The Facial Recognition Software

A software company is developing revolutionary software which provides the ability to identify people from photographs posted on the internet. Face.com has produced technology that can identify individuals on social networking sites and online galleries by comparing their image against a known picture of them.

It means detailed profiles of individuals can be built up purely from online photographs and critics have said it could lead to exploitation by employers. The software works be creating an algorithim of the face - a measurement of the arrangement of features including the eyes, nose and mouth.

The company says it is 90 per cent accurate when scanning typical images which appear on social networking sites. Face.com has previously limited the availability of the software over concerns about invasion of privacy.

But it has now released the Photo Finder software to developers building applications allowing people to search for anyone on the internet.

Gil Hirsch, chief executive of Face.com, told The Sunday Times: 'We have launched a service that allows developers to take our facial recognition technology and apply it immediately to their own applications.

'The technology is already being used by 5,000 developers. You can basically search for people in any photo.

'You could search for family members on Flickr, in newspapers, or in videos on YouTube - but it would take a lot of processing power.'

The use of facial detection technology has only been used by the UK Border Agency. Google has a tool - Picasa - which allows users to organise their photos by tagging matching faces and Facebook uses Photo Finder.

Supporters of the software, including the Red Cross, have said it could be used to track people lost in humanitarian disasters. But there are strong concerns over the accuracy of the technology and its impact on privacy.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said: 'I think this will make many people very uneasy.

'The regulators have been hugely behind the curve of protecting people's privacy on the internet. We need to push for much tighter international rules.'

Raja Ampat - Papua, the lost paradise

The Raja Ampat, or “Four Kings,” archipelago encompasses more than 9.8 million acres of land and sea off the northwestern tip of Indonesia’s West Papua Province. Located in the Coral Triangle, the heart of the world’s coral reef biodiversity, the seas around Raja Ampat possibly hold the richest variety of species in the world.

If you had watched The Beach movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio, you will find the same impression when visiting Raja Ampat. The lost paradise deserved to be named for this place because in fact Indonesians personally often didnt know about this place. The beautiful coast, white sand and underwater scenery that were beautiful became the attraction of Raja Ampat.

The area’s massive coral colonies show that its reefs are resistant to threats like coral bleaching and disease —threats that now jeopardize the survival of corals around the world. In addition, Raja Ampat’s strong ocean currents sweep coral larvae across the Indian and Pacific Oceans to replenish other reef ecosystems. Raja Ampat’s coral diversity, resilience to threats, and ability to replenish reefs make it a global priority for marine protection.

Many international underwater photographers captured the attraction of sea Raja Ampat. Moreover there are those that came repeatedly and made the book special about beauty of the coral reef and this biota of region sea. Last mid 2006, the special team from the foremost scientific adventure magazine the world, National Geographic, made coverage in Raja Ampat that will become the main report in 2007.

The trip to Raja Ampat was expensive enough, you must prepare around 15k-30k USD /person. From Jakarta you would transit in Menado, afterwards it was continued to Sorong, will take up time around 6 hours. From Sorong the trip was continued by leasing the ship boat or yacht. In Raja Ampat you could choose sleep above yacht or at the resort, both are expensive enough.

source: amazingindonesia.net

Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Pramoedya Ananta Toer (EYD: Pramudya Ananta Tur) (6 February 1925 – 30 April 2006) was an Indonesian author of novels, short stories, essays, polemic and histories of his homeland and its people. His works span the colonial period, Indonesia's struggle for independence, the occupation by Japan during WWII, as well as the post-colonial authoritarian regimes of Sukarno and Suharto and are infused with personal and national history.
Pramoedya's writings sometimes fell out of favor with the colonial and later the authoritarian native governments in power. Pramoedya faced censorship in Indonesia during the pre-reformation era despite the fact that he was well known outside Indonesia. During the changeover to the Suharto regime Pramoedya was caught up in the shifting tides of political change and power struggles in Indonesia. He was seen as a holdover from the previous regime (even though he had struggled with the former regime as well) and was banished for years to Buru island where political prisoners were kept. It was there that he composed his most famous work, the Buru Quartet. Not permitted access to writing materials, he recited the story orally to other prisoners before it was written down and smuggled out. Pramoedya opposed some policies of founding President Sukarno as well as the New Order regime of Suharto, Sukarno's successor. Political criticisms were often subtle in his writing, although he was outspoken against colonialism and racism. During the many years in which he suffered imprisonment and house arrest, he became a cause célèbre for advocates of human rights and freedom of expression.

Early years

Pramoedya was born on February 6, 1925, in the town of Blora in the heartland of Java, then a part of the Dutch East Indies. He was the firstborn son in his family; his father was a teacher, who was also active in Boedi Oetomo (the first recognized indigenous national organization in Indonesia) and his mother was a rice trader. His maternal grandfather had taken the pilgrimage to Mecca.^[1] As it is written in his semi-autobiographical collection of short stories "Cerita Dari Blora", his name was originally Pramoedya Ananta Mastoer. But he felt that the family name Mastoer (his father's name) seemed too aristocratic. The Javanese prefix "Mas" refers to a man of the lowest rank in a noble family. Consequently he omitted "Mas" and kept Toer as his family name. He went on to the Radio Vocational School in Surabaya but had barely graduated from the school when Japan invaded Surabaya (1942).
During World War II, Pramoedya (like many Indonesian Nationalists, Sukarno and Suharto among them) at first supported the occupying forces of Imperial Japan. He believed the Japanese to be the lesser of two evils, compared to the Dutch. He worked as a typist for a Japanese newspaper in Jakarta. As the war went on, however, Indonesians were dismayed by the austerity of wartime rationing and by increasingly harsh measures taken by the Japanese military. The Nationalist forces loyal to Sukarno switched their support to the incoming Allies against Japan; all indications are that Pramoedya did as well.
On August 17, 1945, after the news of Allied victory over Japan reached Indonesia, Sukarno proclaimed Indonesian independence. This touched off the Indonesian National Revolution against the forces of the British and Dutch. In this war, Pramoedya joined a paramilitary group in Karawang, Kranji (West Java) and eventually was stationed in Jakarta. During this time he wrote short stories and books, as well as propaganda for the Nationalist cause. He was eventually imprisoned by the Dutch in Jakarta in 1947 and remained there until 1949, the year the Netherlands recognized Indonesian independence. While imprisoned in Bukit Duri from 1947 to 1949 for his role in the Indonesian Revolution, he wrote his first major novel The Fugitive.

[edit] Post-Independence prominence

In the first years after the struggle for independence, Pramoedya wrote several works of fiction dealing with the problems of the newly founded nation, as well as semi-autobiographical works based on his wartime memoirs. He was soon able to live in the Netherlands as part of a cultural exchange program. In the years that followed, he took an interest in several other cultural exchanges, including trips to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, as well as translations of Russian writers Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy.
In Indonesia, Pramoedya built up a reputation as a literary and social critic, joining the left-wing writers' group Lekra and writing in various newspapers and literary journals. His writing style became more politically charged, as evidenced in his story Korupsi (Corruption), a critical fiction of a civil servant who falls into the trap of corruption. This created friction between him and the government of Sukarno.
From the late 1950s, Pramoedya began teaching literary history at the left-wing Universitas Res Publica. As he prepared material, he began to realise that the study of Indonesian language and literature had been distorted by the Dutch colonial authorities. He sought out materials that had been ignored by colonial educational institutions, and which had continued to be ignored after independence.
Having spent time in China, he became greatly sympathetic to the Indonesian Chinese over the persecutions they faced in postcolonial Indonesia. Most notably, he published a series of letters addressed to an imaginary Chinese correspondent discussing the history of the Indonesian Chinese, called Hoakiau di Indonesia (History of the Overseas Chinese in Indonesia). He criticized the government for being too Java-centric and insensitive to the needs and desires of the other regions and peoples of Indonesia. As a result, he was arrested by the Indonesian military and jailed at Cipinang prison for nine months.

[edit] Imprisonment under Suharto

In October 1965 there was a coup and the army took power after alleging that the assassination of several senior generals was masterminded by the Communist Party of Indonesia. The transition to Suharto's New Order followed, and Pramoedya's position as the head of People's Cultural Organisation, a literary wing of the Indonesian Communist Party caused him to be considered a communist and enemy of the "New Order" regime. During the violent anti-Communist purge, he was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned by Suharto's government and named a tapol ("political prisoner"). His books were banned from circulation, and he was imprisoned without trial, first in Nusa Kambangan off the southern coast of Java, and then in the penal colony of Buru in the eastern islands of the Indonesian archipelago.
He was banned from writing during his imprisonment on the island of Buru, but still managed to compose - orally - his best-known series of work to date, the Buru Quartet, a series of four historical fiction novels chronicling the development of Indonesian nationalism and based in part on his own experiences growing up. The English titles of the books in the quartet are This Earth of Mankind, Child of All Nations, Footsteps, and House of Glass. The main character of the series, Minke, a Javanese minor royal, was based in part on an Indonesian journalist active in the nationalist movement, Tirto Adhi Surjo.
The quartet includes strong female characters of Indonesian and Chinese ethnicity, and address the discriminations and indignities of living under colonial rule, the struggle for personal and national political independence. Like much of Pramoedya's work they tell personal stories and focus on individuals caught up in the tide of a nation's history.
Pramoedya had done research for the books before his imprisonment in the Buru prison camp. When he was arrested his library was burned and much of his collection and early writings were lost. On the prison colony island of Buru he was not permitted even to have a pencil. Doubting that he would ever be able to write the novels down himself, he narrated them to his fellow prisoners. With the support of the other prisoners who took on extra labor to reduce his workload, Pramoedya was eventually able to write the novels down, and the published works derive their name "Buru Quartet" from the prison where he produced them. They have been collected and published in English (translated by Max Lane) and Indonesian, as well as many other languages. Though the work is considered a classic by many outside of Indonesia, publication was banned in Indonesia causing one of the most famous of Indonesia's literary works to be largely unavailable to the country's people whose history it addressed. Copies were scanned by Indonesians abroad and distributed via the Internet to people inside the country.
Pramoedya's works on colonial Indonesia recognised the importance of Islam as a vehicle for popular opposition to the Dutch, but his works are not overtly religious. He rejected those who used religion to deny critical thinking, and on occasion wrote with considerable negativity to the religiously pious. One author has speculated this may have resulted from a low number of Hajjis in his native Blora and resentment of his Haji grandfather's divorce and abandonment of his grandmother.^[1]

[edit] Release and subsequent works

Pramoedya was released from imprisonment in 1979, but remained under house arrest in Jakarta until 1992. During this time he released The Girl From the Coast, another semi-fictional novel based on his grandmother's own experience (volumes 2 and 3 of this work were destroyed along with his library in 1965). He also wrote Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu (1995); A Mute's Soliloquy, an autobiography based on the letters that he wrote for his daughter from imprisonment in Buru but were not allowed to be sent, and Arus Balik (1995).
He wrote many columns and short articles criticizing the Indonesian government. He wrote a book Perawan Remaja dalam Cengkraman Militer (Young Virgins in the Military's Grip), a documentary written in the style of a novel showcasing the plight of Javanese women who were forced to become comfort women during the Japanese occupation. They were brought to the island of Buru where they were sexually abused, and ended up staying there instead of returning to Java. Pramoedya made their acquaintance when he himself was a political prisoner on the Buru island in the 1970s.
Pramoedya was hospitalized on April 27, 2006, for complications brought on by diabetes and heart disease. He was also a heavy smoker of clove cigarettes and had endured years of abuse while in detention. He died on April 30, 2006 at the age of 81. Pramoedya earned several accolades, and was frequently discussed as Indonesia's and Southeast Asia's best candidate for a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Pramoedya's writings on Indonesia are not unlike those of Salman Rushdie's on India in addressing the international and regional currents caused by political events in history and how these events flowed through his homeland and buffeted its people. Pramoedya also shares a personal history of hardship and detention for his efforts of self-expression and the political aspects of his writings, and struggled against the censorship of his work by the leaders of his own people.

[edit] Awards

• 1988 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
• 1989 The Fund for Free Expression Award, New York, USA.
• 1992 English P.E.N Centre Award, Great Britain.
• 1992 Stichting Wertheim Award, Netherland.
• 1995 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts.
• 1999 Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Michigan.
• 1999 Chancellor's Distinguished Honor Award from the University of California, Berkeley.
• 2000 Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Republic of France.
• 2000 11th Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize.
• 2004 Norwegian Authors' Union award for his contribution to world literature and his continuous struggle for the right to freedom of expression.
• 2004 Pablo Neruda Award, Chile
• 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll by the Prospect.

[edit] Major works

• Kranji-Bekasi Jatuh (1947)
• Perburuan (The Fugitive) (1950)
• Keluarga Gerilya (1950)
• Bukan Pasar Malam (1951)
• Cerita dari Blora (1952)
• Gulat di Jakarta (1953)
• Korupsi (Corruption) (1954)
• Midah - Si Manis Bergigi Emas (1954)
• Cerita Calon Arang (The King, the Witch, and the Priest) (1957)
• Hoakiau di Indonesia (1960)
• Panggil Aku Kartini Saja I & II (1962)
• The Buru Quartet
  
  • Bumi Manusia (This Earth of Mankind) (1980)
  • Anak Semua Bangsa (Child of All Nations) (1980)
  • Jejak Langkah (Footsteps) (1985)
  • Rumah Kaca (House of Glass) (1988)
• Gadis Pantai (The Girl from the Coast) (1982)
• Nyanyi Sunyi Seorang Bisu (A Mute's Soliloquy) (1995)
• Arus Balik (1995)
• Arok Dedes (1999)
• Mangir (1999)
• Larasati (2000)

 source: www.wikipedia.com