My Own Comment Is ....

I've said this before, but I'll say it again--it is keenly annoying to me (as well as disheartening) that comments most often posted here concern unwanted, unsolicited, unwelcome crap like advertisements for penis lengthening pills or hair products or pyramid schemes, and etc. and so on. WTF! One looks to make a meaningful connection and all he gets is a damn door-to-door salesman. Enough with the random crap, a'ight!

The Grace of God

Next time you get up tight about the Christian Right, consider this:

Recently the publisher of the short-lived Indonesian version of Playboy--a 'toned down' version of the magazine which displayed no nudity whatsoever (yes, people really did buy it for the articles), was arrested in Java and slapped in jail. At the initial hearing the charges were dropped and the man was released. This, however, gave rise to an immediate uproar from muslim extremists, demanding that the man be returned to jail (obviously, the will of the law and the court meant nothing). Forthwith, the publisher fled to the shores of Hindu Bali. If was not far enough. A few weeks later he was tracked down and arrested in Bali and returned to Jakarta, where he is now back in jail and facing a two year sentence.

If not for the grace of God . . . .

Does Human Morality Arise from Brain Chemistry?

Well it's a no brainer, right? And I do mean no brainer.

Yes, the latest scientific/medical research, along with follow-up studies from Harvard and Cambridge universities, suggests morality may be a function of serotonin levels in the brain (the high level indicating, I would guess, sainthood, the low level the serial killer).

So at last here is the answer to all societal woes, to crime and violence, bigotry, avarice--in a nutshell, as the apostle Paul put it, to adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Hallelujah.

We need only dispense citalopram on a universal scale in order to have done once for all with this sad fallen world of ours and thereby enter the new--paradise, the New Jerusalem, Shangri-La, the Brave New World!

Somebody say Amen!

The Color Scam

According to the Bali Times (9/3-9/2010), "Bali Police Chief, Hadiatmoko, acted this week to stop police unfairly targeting foreigners (i.e. white people)--especially those on Motorbikes . . . following complaints of harrassment." And etc.

It's about time right.

We all have our stories to tell--which of course is something that makes the case all the more apparent. In my first four months in Bali I was stopped four times in traffic and paid some 400,000 Rupiah for the traffic infraction of 'being white.' The first time around you pay whatever the officer suggests, as you don't know the game (the scam, that is). After that you learn to argue ever more forcefully, you learn to negotiate, you learn to dicker. You learn not to carry more than 30,000 Rupiah in your wallet, hiding the larger money elsewhere. You learn to speak more Indonesian. You learn to say "Hell no!"

The last time I was stopped, my wife happened to be riding on the back of my scooter. As soon as she took her helmet off, and the officer noted she was Indonesian, he said "Oh, okay," and went on his way.

One hardly needs to strain at conclusions here.

Some time later, in a great error of political incorrectness, I joked to my half-black stepdaughter that now I knew what it is like to be 'a nigger.' This did not go over well at all, for you simply do not use that word, ever, never, for any reason whatsoever. Relationship does not matter, nor the status as parent, as friend, as protector; nor does history or trust or time or levity.

What matters is skin color.

But wait . . . that's exactly what I'm saying.

In any case, black or white or yellow or brown, being a target based on skin color is creepy. It's disheartening, maddening, frightening, and insulting. You are reduced for the personal use of the man who misuses authority, backed simply by his own majority color--most especially because no ticket is ever actually contemplated nor given, for the only point is the transfer of the money in your wallet to his.

Pencuri

I had not heard of so much as one incident of theft here in Bali until yesterday when someone stole my friend's bicycle. He had left it unlocked in front of his house, but this is not an uncommon practice. I will often leave the doors to my house unlocked so that friends can go in and out. I regularly leave my laptop on a table at the beach while I swim. I very rarely lock my helmet into the scooter seat, but just hook it onto the handle bar.

Of course one theft does not an epidemic make, but it is disturbing nonetheless. All it takes is one person without conscience I guess.

More disturbing than the theft itself, however, is the advice given thereafter by a neighbor here to the effect that all things should be locked and watched during the days preceding Ramadan, as, according to him anyway, Muslims will often steal and sell things in order to raise money to go home for the religious observance.

One needs hardly comment on the absurdity of cause and effect here.

In Bali I have never felt anything other than utterly safe and secure. Any person, man, woman, or child, can walk down the long, unlighted alleyway to the Circle K store without being accompanied by fear or suspicion. If you approach the group of young men, for instance, gathered around their motorbikes, they will simply greet you, move aside if need be, and maybe ask you where you are from, how long you will stay, and whether you like Bali.

Time and time again I have walked alone, anywhere, everywhere--in the alley, on the beach, on the front street or the side street, and have not once felt threatened or unsafe. When you pass someone--when someone passes you--you don't glace his way warily or walk faster, or hold on to your wallet or purse. On the contrary, you exchange a friendly greeting, maybe stop a moment to talk.

The isolated theft, therefore, seems all the more insulting, all the more out of place, and all the more unfortunate. We are not insensitive to such things, as is the case in America, nor do they seem just part of the way life is. The people of Bali have not yet come to that sad state of mind. And happily they yet have a long, long way to go.

Apa Yang Lain ....

What else?

I can say without qualification that I DO NOT miss rain. Rain type rain, I mean. It does of course rain here in Bali, occasionally, but this rain is warm and brief. It is a happy sort of rain that makes you laugh--like taking a quick shower with your clothes on, a la The Three Stooges, and then drying off within minutes when the sun returns. The rain in Oregon, on the other hand, is cold and constant and gray and depressing, and it drove us indoors for days at a time.

Living in Bali is a bit like camping. One spends the lion's share of his time outdoors. One cooks outdoors, eats outdoors, reads and writes outdoors, relaxes outdoors.

There is a flavor of the rustic in so many of our daily pursuits. One does not take water from the faucet for instance (unless one wants to contract some sort of bacterial illness). Rather, one gets his water from a five gallon jug, and when the jug is empty he refills it at the water warung down the street.

Laundry is hung from lines on the back patio after being washed and rinsed with soap and water on a board. We are cavemen here--cavemen from the 1950s--reliving the childhood of postwar America.

We buy gas in bottles, and the amazing thing is not so much that we buy it that way, but that they sell it so. The whole structure of the place is ready to explode and collapse, but it never does. Day by day people walk to the store or the market and carry home their purchases on the tops of their heads. At the market you buy not only your fresh chicken but your flies as well, and bring both home to be divided and properly dealt with before cooking.

We do not have ovens in Bali. Or at least most of us don't. We have bunson burners, hot plates, with propane tanks. We do not roast or bake, we fry or steam. Two or three ovens fired up at one and the same time might well cause a complete collapse of the power grid here (such as it is).

We have no cakes, no pies, except those that are bought in the grocery store (having been shipped from the bakery).

Missing You America, Please Write Soon

People here in Bali will often ask whether I miss America. My immediate answer to this question was for the longest time simply "No." But things that are new and different have a way of excusing themselves from the more sober sort of examination that comes with the passage of time, the growth of day to day familiarity. What seems at first endlesslesly curious and unique begins to be humdrum and commonplace. Such is the condition of the wandering spirit of man--it cannot forever tolerate sameness.

So do I now miss America? I have thought the thing over anew. And I can say that there are after all some things that I miss. One of them is competence.

Competence? It sounds a bit strange yes? But here is what I mean. I miss the orderliness of America, the reliability that is built into so many facets of everyday life. These are easily taken for granted. They are just there.

I'm talking, for instance, about mail that comes every day, not mail that comes maybe, not mail that comes if you're lucky. I'm talking about a legal system that is accessible, a legal system that can be used if need be by any person possessing a phone and a phone book. I'm talking about streets and highways with signs, with lights, with arrows, along with a shared knowledge of what these signs, lights, and arrows mean. I'm talking about a shared conception of rules for the road, where flow is determined by obediance, not by belligerance.

I miss the cup of Starbucks, the Grande cappuccino, made with real milk.

I miss the structure, the effortless seeming organization, the predictability of prices and places, the transit system, the freeway, the parking lot, the shopping mall; karmel korn, candied apples; the Fred Meyer store just down the block that has everything and more.

I miss the sheer abundance of America, the availability of everything. I miss Hollywood Video, and oh my God the Barnes and Noble Bookstore!

Can I live without it all? Most definitely so. But does it seem different now than it seemed before. Yes, it does indeed seem so.