Deportation

The weather has actually been good enough for the past few days, at least until the evening--meaning that it has not been constantly flooding down rain for a change--to allow me to visit my customary coffee spots on the beach and in the town of Sanur. Today's stop was at Bread Basket, a pleasant little cafe on Jalan Tamblingan, and while there I picked up a a little newsletter called Sanur Weekly. This isn't much more, really, than an advertisement pamphlet for local restaurants, bars, and shops, with bits of local news popped in here and there. 

 One article in particular caught my attention. Follow The Rules Or Go Back Home was the headline. The short piece detailed the unhappy fates of three foreign residents, two Americans and one Russian. Leave it to Americans to win the foreigner expulsion prize, right?

In the first instance, an American citizen, and her girlfriend (whose nationality is not mentioned) had stayed in and travelled about Indonesia during the months of the pandemic, ignoring the various safety protocols along with the rules, it seems, of the immigration department regarding the proper permissions that should have been obtained. Not such an odd thing, probably, and probably not something that would have attracted much attention had they not posted the details of their transgressions and bragged about it on Instagram, which caused outrage among Indonesian netizens and prompted an investigation by authorities for violation of their stay permit. It was discovered as well that the woman was working locally while on a tourist visa (a no-no), and (horrors) that she and her friend were lesbians. Also a no-no, homosexuality being against the law in Indonesia. Not that anyone normally pays any attention. But the couple had made a point of posting liberally about this relationship as well (clueless, or at least careless about the local laws and customs, I guess), and so this suited the government authorities just fine, providing as it did just another reason to support deportation. The two women were deported to their home countries. 

In the second instance, the newspaper tells us that the foreigner deported was "a Russian influencer", although I have no idea what this means. The man's crime--in the first place driving a motorbike in the ocean (and I'm not sure how one does that) and then filming the crime while hosting a party wherein none of the guests were wearing masks or following protocols such as social distancing--was enough for immigration to deport him. 

In the third case, a US citizen had simply overstayed his visa, and then, for some reason, decided to be uncooperative about solving the problem with immigration authorities. Perhaps he had thought, as some foreigners do, that there is no such thing as an authority in Indonesia. Say what? They have authority in their own country over western people? Yes, they do. And so bye-bye to this American too. 

To be honest, I was not aware that very many foreigners get deported at all--but these three were just in the space of one week. Nonetheless, I doubt whether anyone would get deported if only they made some reasonable attempt to observe the laws, follow the rules, be aware of the culture. It's not that hard. Or is it? A friend of mine who owns a cafe in Canggu (a heavily populated tourist district) told me the other day that the westerners there are by and large refusing to wear masks and often throwing a bloody fit when asked to do so. No doubt they believe that in this foreign land they themselves are subject to no laws. Well, good luck with that. I for one am not about to press my luck, nor do I have any reason to be other than cooperative and obedient to simple regulations, either in this country or in any other. After all, the wages of sin is death--or, in this case, deportation. 

Madness

 A shadowy Democratic party cabal is responsible for kidnapping, molesting, and eating children. School shootings in America were 'false flag operations'. Parents, family members, and officials who say that children died are lying and have safely hidden away the children. The California forest fires were caused by a secret Jewish space laser. The 2020 election was fraudulent despite the findings of multiple investigations, recounts, and court judgments nationwide. 

These are the fevered imaginings of tenants in a lunatic asylum, right? 

No, they are the views of our Republican congressional representatives, and at least some of which are held by millions of others in our terminally sick society. With threats lurking such as these in which they believe, no wonder they need their guns--although, to redirect a phrase used by one House Representative, a bullet to the head would be quicker. 

Quicker than what? Quicker than trying to make people see the simple truth--for one who truly believes in these twisted fantasies is forever lost to the simple truth. 

I cannot help but remember my old friend Mike in this connection. Mike started out as a pleasant enough man, a good friend, and yet in the course of time he became increasingly fixated on wild conspiracy theories, to the point, finally, that he would talk of nothing else. Every day it would be a new theory, or a new twist in an old theory, each trapped in an increasingly convoluted, self-negating, contradictory web of alternative realities. It was like being fixed on the number 23, as in the old Jim Carrey movie. All of these derangements were somehow truths, and would somehow explain themselves eventually. If I tried to hone in on one fallacy, Mike would simply shield it by shifting to another fallacy altogether, which, as often as not, directly contradicted the first. But, you see, at this point, contradictions don't matter, logical analysis doesn't matter, proof by example doesn't matter--because the truth, you see, the ultimate truth is hidden from all except the madman, and the rest of us are just part of the problem. 

"God damn arrogant American!" Mike shouted the last time we parted, then stormed away on his bicycle like the wicked witch of the west. 

Truths, facts, sober counseling are not effective tools against delusion, for they only threaten and anger. There is no cure. 

I'm sorry to tell you, but there is no cure for this. 

I've seen Mike on the street since that time, some years ago now, but we did not speak again until just recently when we both happened to pull into a small grocery store lot at the same time. 

Awkward, yes. "Hello, Mike," I said as I removed my helmet. "How's life?" 

And do you know what Mike's response was? Mike's response was to instantly bring up yet another conspiracy theory. Not hi. Not how are you. Not a bit of small talk. No. Something about a stolen election and a lot of trouble coming soon. 

Good Lord. 

I'm afraid that we cannot wait for people to be enlightened. To be deprogramed. To be reasoned with. No. The only answer, sadly, is expulsion.

And that's the bad news really, isn't it, as far as the infection in our own government goes, because the Republican party has clearly shown that it is not big on the idea of expelling nitwits from the ranks--even the one who incited a mob to attack our capital.

Hungry

 Once again, my front teeth have fallen out, making for a weekend of subsisting on soup and oatmeal, and this evening, thankfully, I will be back to the dentist. I had really begun to enjoy eating again, after a fashion anyway, with my dentures, but the dentures are useless without those few teeth to anchor them in. The problem is, once they glue or whatever they do to put these teeth in, they don't seem to want to stay for very long. Don't know what else could be done though. Perhaps they could use an implant for one of the teeth (the one that the dentures attach to), but that, as I understand it, is a rather expensive option (I seem to remember hearing a figure like 20 million for one implant, or about 1500 US dollars. Yikes). In any case, I'm hungry and I want my teeth back! 

On to the Superbowl

 Well, I was 50 percent on my NFL playoff predictions. Most importantly, Kansas City is going back to the Superbowl, having beaten the Bills rather soundly, but unfortunately Tampa Bay beat the Packers and will be going for the NFC. I keenly dislike both Tampa Bay and the Bills, so at least I will have someone to root for in this bowl (I had feared that maybe the Bills and the Buccaneers would go, thus making for a dreary matchup, as far as I am concerned). Both of these quarterbacks facing off in the upcoming Superbowl, Mahomes and Brady are incredibly good and both seem unstoppable. So what's gonna happen? Well, I have to choose the Chiefs as my Superbowl pick, but, to be honest, the teams and the quarterbacks are very well matched up, so my pick is down to nothing more than dislike of the Buccaneers. 

Go Chiefs!

Play Ball!

 It has been raining all the day long here in Sanur, which has been inconvenient because I have been wanting to go out and get the free coffee customarily offered to Starbucks card holders. There is a big difference between going somewhere in the rain in a car and on a motorbike, believe me. But anyway, I finally gave up on waiting, for the rain had merely increased, donned my long rain smock and plowed through the weather to the mall. 

Upon arriving and announcing that it is my birthday, I was told that the former practice had changed and all that was offered now was a free slice of red velvet cake. "But I don't want a cake," I said. "My wife just sent me a cake this morning." 

Happily, my barista friend Ishac took over and I ended up getting both a coffee and a cake. Oh well, it's only once a year (although the cake Louis sent will last for some days to come). 

Other than that, I am looking forward to the NFL conference playoff games on Sunday (Monday here). This year features two teams that I dislike, the Bills and the Buccaneers, pitted against Kansas City and Green Bay respectively. I am betting on Kansas City and Green Bay to win, though the reader should be forewarned that I am usually wrong. 

Unity

Yesterday, Donald Trump left the capital in a final fog of lies, summarizing all those great things that actually did not happen during his presidency. It was the same old tripe, rendered after all these months and years to nothing more than meaningless blather. 

And then he was gone. And, as it seems to be, suddenly irrelevant. A totally new atmosphere seemed to fall on the capital and on the nation--new, and yet familiar, tranquil. Old, reliable patterns slipped back into place, words and traditions and attitudes that we could recognize. The war is over, the dawn is rising, and peace, one prays, will reign again.

One prays, yes. One prays that division may be overcome by a new spirit of cooperation, a dedication to government for the benefit of the people rather than a government of endless bickering and insult. One prays for agreement on a basic foundation of decency and propriety, and for a shared intelligence and thoroughness in the operation of those systems that are so important to the thriving of society. Let us never again elevate our worst inclinations, paranoias, prejudices and cruelties to a position of national power, but let the mystic chords of memory, as Lincoln said, swell again, touched by the better angels of our nature. 

Maybe

 Wow. The circus of absurdities has become quite subdued lately, hasn't it, following the capital insurrection and the silencing of Trump, imposed both by internet platforms and apparently elected by Trump himself. Despite his removal from Twitter, Facebook, and so on, Trump is quite able to speak if he wishes through his own White House press corps. But it has apparently dawned on him, or on influential aides and lawyers, that he simply cannot restrain himself from digging his own hole deeper, and so at last he has shut up. Hallelujah! Who else out there is looking forward to boring news hours? I know I am. It is as if we had watched over this catastrophe all along in the way that one watches over a sick loved one, hoping every day for signs of improvement, despairing when the condition became more critical yet. Perhaps at last the fever has broken once for all, and we can sit back, take a collective breath of relief. Maybe, just maybe.