Archive for March 2006
I Don’t Know Which Is The Stupidest, Kompas, Motorola, or Some Indonesian Regional Law
Take a look at the picture below. See anything wrong with it?
It’s an article in THE Indonesian newspaper, Kompas. If you haven’t found out what’s wrong, it’s that stupid black box at the center of the screen. That’s a Motorola ad, which–as you can see–cuts off some text from the news. There’s NO WAY you can (a) close that damn thing (b) drag that damn thing away from the text (c) scroll the screen to see the text (because that stupid Motorola ad will follow the text, so basically that portion is unreadable).
Nice. Just because of this I’ll make an oath to myself NEVER TO BUY ANY MOTOROLA HANDPHONE. EVER. Because their ad is just so annoying.
You’re a prostitute!
But I can’t decide whether it is the ad or the news that is more stupid. A city called Tangerang (that’s near Jakarta, folks) just put a new law into effect. The law basically say that if you’re a woman, and you’re outside your house later than 7 pm, you are a prostitute and you have to be arrested. (YES, 7 pm. Singapore kids, you think you have it bad with your 11pm curfew? Read on, laugh, and point hysterically.)
The victims? Taken from the news (translated by yours truly):
- “Several of them are housewives who are on their way home but decided to take a little break to drink bottled tea (Teh Botol–very popular drink in Indonesia).”
- “A wife who’s waiting for his husband in a hotel, because he’s out to get dinner for them.”
- “The wife of an elementary school teacher who is on her way back from work.”
This curfew starts at 7PM, mind you. So if you’re a female, you work slightly late and don’t manage to reach your home by 7… well, too bad. You’re a prostitute. No matter what, according to judge Barmen Sinurat, who insisted on branding housewives and a 2-month pregnant wife of an elementary school teacher named Lilis Lindawati as whores.
He sent the housewives back to their families for “moral reeducation” (that is, STILL branding them prostitutes). Lilis, however, wasn’t so “fortunate”. There was no way for her to contact her husband, this is a small city in Indonesia, mind you, not Singapore where everybody has got a mobile. And her husband, who suffers from high blood pressure, was ill that day so he couldn’t fetch her that day.
Later on when he was better and was looking for his missing wife, the officers asked him to pay Rp 300000 (that’s about SGD 60). He only had Rp 2000 in his pocket (about 40 cents here). Again, teachers in Indonesia are not in any way like teachers in Singapore. They are paid almost nothing over there.
“I don’t want to pay for the fine. My wife is NOT a prostitute,” he lamented. “However, I’m worried that she’ll suffer a miscarriage again.”
Kompas and Motorola are the smarter ones in this comparison. That’s for sure.
