Uplot On Cyber

A Few Reflections Richard Critchfield

2007-10-18T11:18:00.000+07:00

Richard Critchfield

1. Nobel Prize for Dr. Borlaug
2. Djakarta: The First "Closed City"

October 30, 1970
A few days ago I received a cable from the Washington Star asking me to write a story on this year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, an associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation and the distinguished plant geneticist who did much of the pioneering research that made Asia’s present "green revolution" of new seeds and fertilizer possible. "What’s it all about?" the cable ended.

My instinctive, one-word reply to the question was "culture." That what the green revolution was really all about was not only agricultural transformation but also very rapid cultural evolution, perhaps even upheaval, in hundreds of thousands of villages all over the world. And villages which until now had been pretty much left behind by history.

The "hundreds of thousands" gave me a little pause, since my own experience had been almost entirely limited to two villages where I have been living much of the past year: Ghungrali-Rajputan, a prosperous, wheat-producing community on northern India’s Punjab plain and Pilangsari, a relatively poor rice-growing village on the banks of the Tjimanoek River in western Java.

The two villages and the reaction of their inhabitants toward the green revolution were strikingly different. On the one hand, the robust, down-to-earth Punjabis in their traditional pursuit of the good life, were eager to modernize and mechanize and enjoy the material benefits of Western technology. And all but the elderly seemed fully prepared to pay the cultural price.

On the other hand, the mystical, artistic, highly cultured Javanese peasantry were taking to the new seeds with conspicuous reluctance, and one felt, only out of economic necessity; among several villagers the new technology was viewed, and rightly, as a direct threat to the traditional Javanese belief and behavior system with its distinctive style of life and human relationships.

It was not surprising that in Punjab the farmers themselves were taking the lead in innovation and chafing at the Indian government’s slowness to adopt to change. While in Java it was the Indonesian government which was using much of the pressure and means of persuasion at its command to get the villagers to grow the new rice.

But in both villages an almost identical economic process was taking place: there was a distinct shift away from traditional systems in which the poor landless people of the village received a fixed part of the crop in return for the labor. Instead more and more farmer-landowners were opting for simple cash payments.

This movement toward a money economy is built into the green revolution. The new seeds, whether a farmer is growing wheat, rice or maize, require much heavier inputs of water, chemical fertilizer and, in the case of rice, insecticides. Water may be provided by expanded government irrigation systems, or a privately-owned tube well, but both require a greater investment by the farmer than in the past. And the big-cash outlay, needed each sowing season, is for fertilizer. This means having a sufficient marketable surplus each harvest to raise enough cash for the next crop. Automatically anyone growing the new varieties has to think in terms of money, economy of operations (especially labor costs) and returns. And when an economic system is monetarized, it is not long before the value system begins to be monetarized too.

In a traditional village, where the social structure is based on mutual interdependence, whether between the Jat owner-farmer caste and their untouchable laborers in the Punjab, or between the modest landowners and their poorer kinsmen in Java, this tends to drastically displace human values. In Ghungrali, for instance, where the poorer two-thirds of the villagers were landless untouchables, a sense of community, harmony and security had always been preserved by the caste structure, with its carefully evolved system of mutual rights, obligations and responsibilities. In return for their labor, the untouchables were guaranteed a certain amount of the wheat crop each year and the right to freely graze their cattle. The cultural crisis, described in detail in my earlier "Sketches of the Green Revolution," came when the Jats felt compelled by the economics of growing the new wheat to put their laborers on a cash-payment basis. The untouchables refused to accept this, a mutual boycott followed (it has since ended) and the Jats, for the first time in a thousand years, refused to let the untouchables graze cattle on their land.

In Pilangsari, a similar crisis is coming. This will be described in detail in a report next month on agricultural change and urbanization in west Java and Djakarta entitled "Hello, Mister, Where Are You Going?" But hastily sketched, much of the rice harvest in Pilangsari is now carried out under what is called the tjeblokan system, whereby a group of poor relatives or fellow villagers both plant and harvest the rice crop of an often modest landowner in return for one-sixth of the crop. Moreover, under this system, the rice is cut with a tiny razor-like instrument, the ani-ani, which is held in the palm of the hand and is slow and uneconomical. (After the back-breaking wheat harvest in the Punjab, I found it rather like gathering flowers for a bouquet). Not surprisingly, the more innovation-minded peasants in the village who are also growing the new rice, are talking of switching to harvesting with a sickle and putting their workers on a strict cash basis. Certainly, it would be more efficient and economical. It would also undermine a village social welfare system established over centuries.

Government extension workers, who visited Pilangsari when I was there, openly spoke out against the tjeblokan system in favor of cash payments. They also hoped to restrict, through non-issuance of licenses, the number of village performances of the famous Javanese wajang shadow play. Here, too, the money could be more economically used for fertilizer and insecticides. But the wajang play is more than popular village entertainment; it is the very heart of classical Javanese culture and the fount of much of its religion, philosophy and moral code.

Here then were two villages, distinctly different in race, culture and world view, yet alike in that each, after being in a solid equilibrium for centuries, was now undergoing an agricultural revolution that threatened to destroy the delicate balances, by which the village had always held together. In both, these balances rested on similar customs-the heavy weight of considerations of kinship, the responsibility of the family heads to provide food, shelter and clothing for all who labored in their fields, the tacit right of the landless to graze cattle and gather wood for fire undisturbed, the inherent obligations of mutual assistance, the practice of loans with little interest and hospitality without cost, the stability of the family.

Now all this was changing. One might say that the West had finally and twice reached into these villages during this century. First, with the modern medicine and DDT that, in the past 50 years produced a cataclysmic fall in the death rate and created a population explosion (the number of people in both villages had almost doubled in the past generation). And, second with the agricultural revolution, which is proving much more decisive culturally.

One looks for a reason why this is so. Somehow the fact of more people, even twice as many people in the villages, did not do much to alter its basic culture. Everyone was poorer than before but the old traditions survived. Instead the cultural transformation follows the transformation of agriculture.

It is, of course, the same thing that happened in Europe in the 19th century when the drive for an agricultural surplus to feed a fast-growing population led to the modernization of agriculture. But this resulted in some 35 million European migrants flooding into the United States. Even the relatively small number of American Negroes displaced by the agricultural mechanization of the South has left the United States with its greatest unsolved domestic problem.

But if Ghungrali and Pilangsari are genuinely representative, as I am convinced they are, then one can deduce that the same thing must be happening in all of the hundreds of thousands of villages where the new strains of wheat, rice and maize have been introduced. To name just some of the countries where the new seeds have already had some impact: India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Philippines, Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia, South Vietnam, Taiwan, Afghanistan, Japan, Kenya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay (to say nothing of Russia and China where the new wheat varieties are now being tried).

The question is: In all these villages where the new agricultural technology is being practiced, does the economic imperative operate in the same way as in Ghungrali and Pilangsari so as to snap old ties and traditions, forcing peasant-farmers to face the enormous compulsion of working out new relationships, new meanings to their lives? It is my contention that the answer is "yes" and that the ensuing cultural crisis, the vast mass exodus from the land it will produce and the shock of those who have been uprooted will face the world with a problem of such magnitude as to overshadow all others by the end of this decade.

This is not to decry the green revolution. The point must be made that the growth of population following the spread of modern medicine made the adoption of modern agricultural technology an absolute necessity for most of the poor nations. The first village of my study, Grand Gaube on the southern Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, revealed the desperation, sense of apocalypse and sheer tragedy of the situation where there is overpopulation with no possibility of an agricultural revolution. The result is what comes very close to being a true Malthusian breakdown.

As Thomas Malthus wrote in his "First Essay on Population" in 1798, "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio…The race of plants, and the race of animals, shrink under this great restrictive law. And the race of man cannot, by any efforts of reason, escape from it. Among plants and animals its effects, are waste of seed, sickness and premature death. Among mankind, misery and vice."

In Grand Gaube village, an extremely high rate of alcoholism, a mounting revolutionary storm and the turning of the elderly toward apocalyptic prophecy all seemed to grimly fulfill Malthus’ prediction. No, the green revolution may be opening up a convulsive new chapter for mankind but it was historically inevitable.

To find another historical parallel for what seems to be happening in countless villages all over the world one can go back much farther than 19th century Europe to the very beginnings of agriculture in the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and Indus river valleys. The first Mesopotamian or Egyptian to dig an irrigation ditch, put the first animal into harness or use a traction plow was presumably just trying to better feed his family. But these technical innovations created new styles of life, new systems of human relationships, led to the first breakthroughs to civilized society, the eventual rise of the West and, in modern times, to the imposition of European culture and, technology on the great cities of the whole world, including those of Asia.

Historically left almost untouched these five thousand years until the green revolution began to take hold just during the last three or four years, have been most of the villages of the world, where two-thirds of the human race now lives.

In result, some 80 per cent of the populations of the poor nations are still engaged in primitive agriculture, which is the main reason why these countries are poor. In the rich, advanced countries of the West, it is something less, than 10 per cent.

It has always been clear that at some point in history this gap would begin to close. And that when it did the impact, not only agriculturally and economically but culturally and in terms of the vast migration of peoples, would be momentous.

It was with such thoughts in mind I cabled back my story to the Star:

"The immediate significance of this year’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. Norman E. Borlaug concerns food production. That more than anyone else the little known plant breeder from Iowa can be credited with rescuing millions of the world’s people from what was not long ago a widely predicted Malthusian crisis of global proportions by 1975. [Note: One such prediction was prepared for President Lyndon B. Johnson by Walt W. Rostow and the State Department Policy Planning Council in 1964; the most exhaustive study ever made on world food and population, prepared in late 1967 by Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee, was the result. So fast have things moved since then most experts feel today that the report should be drastically revised in its plans and strategy to encourage trade in food between the poor countries and avoid a glut of wheat and rice caused by too rapid an expansion of production in developed exporting nations, such as Canada, Australia, Argentina and the United States .]

But a second dimension to Dr. Borlaug’s achievement has been as an agent of what promises to be profound, worldwide and possibly convulsive cultural change as modern western technology reaches for the first time into hundreds of thousands of remote, traditional Afro-Asian villages. In the broad sweep of history, the cultural impact his new seeds are having seems likely to overshadow his scientific contribution to agriculture alone.

"Presently an associate director of the Rockefeller Foundation in charge of wheat research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico, Borlaug has played the pioneering role the past twenty-six years in developing the new dwarfed, stiff-stemmed strains of wheat, rice and maize which in the past five years have begun to revolutionize agriculture in the poor two-thirds of the world…The history of this "green revolution" is now becoming familiar, the years of patient, pioneer research by Borlaug, Dr. J. George Harrar, the present president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and other plant breeders in the hills above Mexico City, using wheat brought, according to legend, from Spain by Cortez and crossbreeding it with dwarf strains from Japan, eventually producing a shorter, stockier plant which matured rapidly, was non-seasonal and did not lodge under its own weight when heavily fertilized. The expansion of research by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and, the breakthroughs in cross-pollenization of rice in the Philippines and hybrids of other food grains which quickly followed. And, former President Johnson’s tough decision, jointly based on predictions of global famine and the emergence of the new seeds, of tying future American food aid to steps by recipient countries to grow more food.

"Borlaug himself has credited the rapid success of the green revolution in India, Pakistan and Turkey to their imports of large quantities of Mexican seeds (18,000 to 40,000 tons), government polices promoting fertilizer sales and incentive prices, and the establishment of aggressive indigenous research programs. He has described the greatest achievement of the green revolution as demonstrating "that food production need not be a problem for the next three decades;" time he feels must be used to bring population growth in check.

"But recognition of Borlaug’s work and the green revolution itself comes at a time when it also is becoming increasingly evident that in every area where there has been success-where the new seeds and heavy inputs of water, chemical fertilizer and insecticides they require have succeeded in doubling or tripling harvests-a deep cultural crisis has followed…"

The story cited some examples from the Punjab and Java and then went on to make what I hoped was my main point: "It has always been obvious that if you change a village’s agricultural methods you are also going to change its cultural values. What perhaps has not been so obvious was the vast scale and scope of the Cultural Revolution which has been set off by the new seeds…"

A couple of parenthetical remarks: Dr. Borlaug is quoted as saying the green revolution now gives the world thirty years more time in which to reduce population growth rates to manageable levels, what is usually described as "a breathing space of two or three decades" by development economists.

Here it should be noted that in India many agricultural technicians, both American and Indian, challenge this and maintain India will be lucky to get two or three years before the population growth rate of 2.5 per cent and the real food demand growth rate of 3.5 per cent exceed the increases in agricultural out-put.

I myself would like to challenge the whole notion of any expectation of success in population control. There has been so much talk in the West about how the poor countries must hold their populations in check that one tends to have the vague feeling that some progress must be being made somewhere.

In both the villages where I lived, Ghungrali and Pilangsari, the incentives, both human and economic, among the landless laborers to have large families appeared to outweigh the disincentives. Unlike the world’s educated middle classes, or prosperous farmer-landowners, who have taken to family planning out of a desire to educate their children or perpetuate their farm into the future as a viable economic unit, the poor majority of the peasants appeared to have a real interest in having as many children, or as many potential wage earners in their household, as possible. With few exceptions the poorest peasants were not worried about educating children who traditionally start work as farm laborers and bread winners at the ages of 13 or 14. In both villages there was a heavy cultural emphasis on fertility and procreation and government propaganda on behalf of family planning seemed no match for the pressures on a young bride to validate her own position by having many sons, and as soon as possible. One of the Indian government’s birth control slogans is "The small family is a happy family." In reality, in the villages, the reverse seemed true; it was the large, teeming households, with plenty of daily wage earners and the security of numbers that was the happier.

In Ghungrali, there was considerable impact from government programs promoting knowledge of birth control. A huge billboard praising the two to three-child family greeted you as you entered the village. Everyone seemed to have an awareness of the pill and intrauterine devices and the government’s catchy slogan of "Do ya teen, bas!" ("Two or three, finish!") was as familiar as a Winston ad would be in America. In contrast, in Pilangsari, there was almost no awareness of the government’s family planning program or of either the pill or I.U.D.

Yet in practice, birth control seemed much the same in both Ghungrali and Pilangsari. The more prosperous, better-educated landowners had smaller families based on motives of enlightened self-interest and the poorer, landless laborers had big families, also in terms of their own self-interest.

In the city of Djakarta, family planning has been practiced by 15,000 women, presumably middleclass, educated, and civic-minded ladies. But Djakarta is a city of almost five million people.

It is my own impression after a year in the villages that what holds true for Djakarta holds true for the world, and that any expectation of limiting global population through government-sponsored family planning efforts for the rest of this century is totally unrealistic.

Why should a Punjabi laborer or Javanese peasant limit the number of children he has when he does not feel it is in his individual interest to do so?

One day when I was working out in the rice paddy with Husen, a Javanese farmer who has been my principal subject of study in Pilangsari, and I asked him, "Don’t you worry about the world’s population doubling by the end of the century? Think what this village would be like with twice as many people."

Husen

"I can’t think about that. Wah, I’d go crazy," answered Husen. So maybe I’d like to go to the moon too. I won’t even ride in a motor car before I die." (The father of four, three of which died in childbirth or infancy, Husen hopes to keep on having children to insure the survival of at least three more).

Thus it seems inevitable there will be at least another one billion people in the poor countries alone by 1985 and that the number of those who will depend upon agriculture for their livelihoods will rise about 50 per cent. If the present green revolution follows the pattern set by the agricultural revolution in Europe in the 19th century, the greatest exodus from the land and migration to the cities in history is about to commence.

British economist Barbara Ward has said the prospect is of "a tidal wave, a Hurricane Camille of country people that threatens to overwhelm the already crowded, bursting cities. It is not so much immigration as inundation."

For the past two years the world Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome has taken the position that the food problem of the 1960’s has become the unemployment problem of the 1970’s. The Netherlands Addeke H. Boerma, the FAO’s director general, told the second meeting of the World Food Congress in The Hague last July that unless the green revolution was carefully managed the result might be "a conflagration of violence that would sweep through millions of lives."

In September, World Bank Director Robert S. McNamara reported to his board of governors that "the poorest quarter of the population in developing lands risks being left almost entirely behind in the vast transformation of the modern technological society." McNamara said "the ’marginal’ men, the wretched strugglers for survival on the fringes of farm and city, may already number more than half a billion. By 1980 they will surpass a billion, by 1990 two billion. Can we imagine any human order surviving with so gross a mass of misery piling, up at its base?"

It is hard to see how the green revolution could be carefully managed, as Dr. Boerma urges. Governments are up against the same problem as they encounter in trying to check population growth: the self interest of an individual peasant, usually a man with extremely limited horizons whose confident belief in his position in the world and his relationship with all humanity has been fixed over centuries by very old, stable, traditional village cultures.

But this has its positive aspect. When McNamara speaks of "wretched strugglers for survival," he seems to hit a false note. "Strugglers" for survival?" Yes. "Wretched?" I would say no if one is taking in all of the half-billion "marginal" men he says there are already. I am willing to venture that most of these still strongly identify with a village and that village’s culture even if they actually have lived for years in a great Asian city as a coolie, a betjak driver or in other menial work. As long as they retain this sense of cultural identity, this sense of having a place in a universe with fixed cultural values, no matter how poor they are, I do not think they can accurately be called wretched.

And here to me is the real meaning of the green revolution: That for the past few decades the old structure of the old village society in vast stretches of Asia, Africa and Latin America has begun to crumble. The introduction of modern medicine and the population explosion that followed gave village culture a rude shock and weakened the aged foundations. The new seeds and the transformation of agriculture and the village economy they require could be the climactic blow.

All over the poor two-thirds of the world there may be a mighty cultural and economic collapse leaving without homes millions of helpless, bewildered people. There would not only be such a vast army of emigrants as the world as never seen but an army of peasants alienated from their culture. That we might be faced not only with a massive flood of people to the cities but also a wholly unprecedented phenomenon of global cultural alienation is the frightening part.

Ali Sadikin

Djakarta-The First "Closed City"
Three months ago Lieutenant General Ali Sadikin, the governor of Djakarta, declared that because of the flood of incoming islanders and country people had reached "proportions endangering the safety and order of life in the capital," Djakarta would henceforward be "a closed city to new jobless settlers."

It was the most drastic action yet taken by a great Asian city to try and stem the flow of urbanization.

General Sadikin privately admits that his action, at least for now, has been largely for psychological impact, to try and discourage rather than physically prevent people from coming into Djakarta. ("We cannot, after all, arrest somebody for entering the nation’s capital," he says. "We are trying to reduce the flow, we know we can’t stop it.")

But in Bombay there has been a heated debate over how to create a workable system to actually keep all new migrants out. This has raised legal questions since the Indian Constitution provides for freedom of movement. Other Indian cities are studying Moscow’s apparently successful method of holding its population growth in check through a work certificate system. But this requires an extensive police apparatus to say nothing of the curtailment of civil liberties it implies.

All of which is evidence of the mounting desperation shared by urban planners all over Asia, Africa and Latin America as they are faced with the seemingly insurmountable task of providing water, sanitation, housing, education, transportation, law and order and, above all, jobs, to exploding urban populations.

Even if migration into the cities in the developing countries came to a complete halt, natural population increases at present rates of up to 3 per cent (Djakarta’s is 2.5 per cent) would double the number of urban dwellers by the end of the century. But migration from the countryside is not halting, it is accelerating by the rate of at least 5 per cent a year as population pressures build up in the villages and at least some landless laborers are displaced by the green revolution. So the planners’ desperation seems understandable.

On any present calculation, there will be more than 18 cities in Latin America and more than a dozen in India and Pakistan over the million mark by the end of this decade. Buenos Aires may have 9 million, Cairo 6 million, Djakarta 6 or 7 million. Calcutta, with a density of population twice that of Chicago, with 70 per cent of its families living in single rooms and countless, thousands sleeping at night on its pavements, may reach 15 million.

In many of these cities, it is only a matter of time before an actual majority of the inhabitants will be new immigrants straight from the villages, a large proportion of them without jobs and a very high proportion of them without housing, sanitation or a pure water supply.

Indeed, this appears to be already true of Djakarta. The city government admits as many as 80 per cent of its citizens may live outside its basic public services. Only 15 per cent of Djakarta’s families pay property taxes. Less than 12.5 per cent of the homes are electrified and only 15 per cent are connected to the city’s water supply. (The current capacity of Djakarta’s water purification system is 3,300 liters per second as against an estimated real demand of 8,000 liters per second. The gap is presently filled with well water, which on the northern, seaward wide of the city is brackish. The government hopes to reach an 8,000-liter capacity by 1974, when the population will have grown another half a million).

But such statistics are only warning signals of the true nature of today’s urban crisis in cities like Djakarta. In contrast to the 19th century experience of Europe, where the cities developed at the same time as the agricultural revolution and growth of the industrial system, cities like Djakarta lack a solid base of manufacturing jobs.

In a city which is growing at the rate of 5.6 per cent a year, the number of totally unemployed is estimated at 58,000. Of some 65 industrial development projects approved by the Indonesian government by last December, 34 involving an investment of around 4 billion rupiahs (375 rupiah equals $1) are in Djakarta itself-General Sadikin estimates these will employ about 40,000 men.

Of some 134 new projects involving $169 million in foreign investment, Sadikin estimates that, based on a formula that a million U.S. dollars of foreign investment provides jobs for 200 men, that employment for 30,000 men should be opened from this source.

This obviously represents a very high rate of capitalization per worker. In the 19th century the industrial system began with simple technologies demanding few skills and a low rate of capitalization per worker-the equivalent of six months average wages would be typical of a hundred years ago. Compare what would have been about $200 at best with Sadikin’s probably optimistic estimate of $5,000 of investment per job created in Djakarta today. A hundred years of growing technological sophistication means at least a sixty-fold increase in the capital needed and a much more intensive level of skill and trained supervision.

The industries flowing into Indonesia (45 per cent of it to Djakarta city) from foreign investment tend to be highly oriented toward capital-intensive technology-of 22 recently approved projects almost all were for electronics, machinery, communications, metal production, food processing and medicine. This is at a time when capital is extremely scarce in Indonesia and labor pitifully plentiful. Even in the unlikely event of a phenomenal expansion of industry in the next ten years, the number of unemployed in Djakarta would probably be as high as ever.

Another problem is that modern industry demands a certain size of market if necessary economies of scale are to be achieved. But the relatively modest needs of Djakarta’s small middle class sets a limit on the number of industrial jobs that can be built up by substituting local manufactures for former imports. (Going by the number of people who have pure water and electricity one can guess that the middle class of Djakarta would be around 600,000). Nor do export markets offer an easy alternative since new Indonesian industries would be up against the efficient, and long-established American, European and Japanese competitive giants.

The vast majority of the immigrants pouring into Djakarta are Javanese peasants without any industrial or urban skills (although they are among the world’s best rice farmers). Only 650 miles long and 75 miles wide, Java’s 74 million population is one of the densest in the world (the rest of Indonesia’s population, spread out over the 3,000 far-flung islands of the Indonesian archipelago, numbers only 31 million).

Most of the uprooted Javanese villagers turn to the so-called tertiary economic activities-betja pedaling, street vending, petty hawking, shining shoes, selling rice-the kind of employment which keeps a man from absolute starvation but contributes all but nothing either to the economy’s development or to his own acquisition of skills and confidence. Enough also turn to prostitution and pimping to pose what the Djakarta government terms "a serious problem." Official statistics put the current number of prostitutes at 3,082 and pimps at 590. I would have put the number far higher.

But the real symbol of the new immigrant from the countryside in Djakarta is the betjak driver-the lean, hard-muscled peasant who earns a precarious existence pedaling one of the brightly-painted tricycles that are Djakarta’s main form of transportation. There are presently 126,000 registered betjaks in the city and General Sadikin estimates that, since most are driven on a two-man shift, there may be as many as 240,000 betjak men in all, numbering, with their families, perhaps as many as 700,000 or 800,000 people. Sadikin told me he would like to get rid of all the betjaks from Djakarta by 1980 but that, considering the need to find alternative employment for so many people, it posed a "delicate social problem."

Sadikin has taken steps in recent months to bring the betjak men under some government control. Betjaks of different colors-yellow, blue, gray, green, red-are limited to carrying passengers in certain areas of the city and have been assigned definite parking areas. Whether the betjak drivers will ignore such attempts at regulation as serenely as they ignore traffic rules if no policemen is in sight, remains to be seen.

In recent days, the governor has also cracked down on sidewalk street vendors, who probably have outnumbered the betjak drivers. Forbidding them to set up their stalls on the sidewalks of the main streets and establishing a new licensing system, Sadikin warned that "without serious law enforcement, we can predict that streets in town within two or three years will be filled with rubbish and jammed by vendors." He has also started a campaign against Djakarta’s legions of beggars and what he described as between 60,000 and 90,000 vagrants. These are immigrants, often from Sumatra or another islands who do nothing at all, camp in parks and railway stations and are blamed for much of the city’s petty crime. Yet like most of Djakarta’s people, these seem a cheerful lot. The most conspicuous exception to the generally buoyant spirits of the Djakartans are ragged men one sees in the streets picking up cigarette butts so that the tobacco can be reused. They tend to have a carious aloof air and seldom look about them; possibly they are too ashamed.

Operating on a limited budget, General Sadikin sometimes has had to use considerable ingenuity to keep the city running. Five years ago Djakarta had only 500 buses in running condition; commuters had to wait three or four hours and then hang from the doorway if they wanted to get anywhere. Today Djakarta seems to have one of the fastest and smoothest bus systems anywhere. (And the cheapest; you can go all over the city for about two cents. For the first time ever, this reporter became a confirmed bus rider in Djakarta).

Sadikin credits the spirit of entrepreneurship for this success. He has established a monopoly system on all the routes, hiring private contractors with a minimum of 50 buses. Unfortunately, the same thing won’t work for low-cost housing, one of Djakarta’s most serious needs. Sadikin is aware that the building trades are the largest potential users and trainers of unskilled labor (all those betjak men) and that a large building program would stimulate industry.

The problem is that even a modest middle-class house would cost 2.9 million rupiahs per unit, which most Djakartans couldn’t afford to pay back in twenty years. Without a commercial return on investment, low-cost housing is by-passed by investors in favor of building luxury tourist hotels, cinema houses or restaurants. These are, indeed, going up all over-the city.

Sadikin agrees that a big low-cost housing program in Djakarta, similar to those in Singapore, or Kuala Lumpur, might be the speediest and most effective way of creating jobs. He said what he would really like is to be able to negotiate directly a 50-year, 2 per cent housing loan from the World Bank or other international lending agency.

Which suggests some sort of international system of guarantees to local mortgage institutions possibly through a new international mortgage bank might be highly desirable in the future.

As Sadikin explained his problem, "Somebody like Lee Kuan Yew has all the power in his hands. I have to go through the central government. And in the current five year plan the Number 1 priority is agriculture."

He said that until some way is found whereby poor people can pay back the enormous amount of capital involved in low-cost housing or some new form of foreign assistance, is provided, his city government is only capable of restoring and patching up the existing bamboo hutments or "kampongs" in the city. Last year, he spent 500 million rupiah on providing bathing facilities, sanitation, paving, health clinics, bridges and windmills for deep well water for five communities. This year the budget has been increased to a million rupiah for the improvement of 20 additional kampongs.

Experience in Djakarta has shown that squatter communities have unsuspected vitality and initiative if given even this modest form of assistance. House fronts are painted, bamboo walls plastered with old newspapers and painted white flower boxes appear, rubbish heaps vanish and a general air of hope and confidence seems to displace the old apathy.

Like many, the governor sees the greatest hope for Djakarta’s future in the green revolution and the chance the new strains of rice, together with rehabilitation of Java’s irrigation system, will make the villages prosperous enough to keep at least some of the would-be immigrants of the future back down on the farm. Certainly the critical increase in agricultural productivity which preceded industrialization in 19th century Europe is now appearing in Java and some of the other islands. And it is true that some Javanese farms, such as the one where I spent much of this Fall, would theoretically support three times as many people as at present if there is double and triple rice cropping and a sufficient water supply.

But the bulk of the evidence is on the other side. That, aside from Java’s net yearly increase of 2 million people alone, a very high percentage of the island’s rural population, perhaps as much as a fourth, will eventually be uprooted and turned into immigrants by the transformation of agriculture.

Luckily, alone of all the big countries feeling the impact of overpopulation and agricultural revolution, Indonesia has space to expand, even if the soil in the outer islands is sometimes less fertile than in Java and the rainfall less certain. So far the government-sponsored program of "transmigration" to the other islands from Java has not been a success. Indeed the flow of migrants into Java, mostly to Djakarta, has been heavier coming in then out. General Sadikin said he was recently told by the mayor of Padang in Sumatra that his city’s population had fallen the past two years from 365,000 to 307,000. The mayor reported that 48,000 of those who left Padang went to Java, mostly to Djakarta, where there is already a community of more than 400,000 West Sumatrans.

One problem where Sadikin is beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel is in education. Four years ago, there were school facilities for just 379,000 children out of 725,487. In the past three years, 157 new schools have been built and the Djakarta government, has launched what it calls a "dynamization program" to normalize the curriculum in the city’s Moslem schools in return for building 346 new ones. (The traditional Madrasa or Indonesian Moslem school has taught only the teachings of the Koran). This has enabled Sadikin and his staff to find school facilities for all but 64,000 of the city’s children and scale down the problem to what they feel is manageable proportions.

Similarly, the huge new Djati Luhur dam and hydroelectric project in western Java, with its three billion cubic, meters capacity reservoir, is hoped to solve the water problem by 1985. Currently in mid-construction is a complete renovation of Djakarta’s Dutch-built drainage system and the creation of artificial lakes to prevent the flash floods the city is subject to after heavy rains.

Oddly enough, at first appearance, Djakarta does not seem to have a population which will reach 5 million in just another month or two. Lying at the head of a deep bay sprinkled with almost a thousand tiny islands, Djakarta looks northward across the Java Sea. It used to be called Batavia, and along the canals near the port there are still a few of the old houses, with brown-tiled roofs and diamond-paned windows, built by the early Dutch colonists. Djakarta stands on what was once swampland, and the network of canals which covers the whole city area is really a system of drainage ditches; ditches in which many people, lacking any other source of water, continue to answer the call of nature, wash their bodies and launder their clothes.

When the Dutch left it 20 years ago, Djakarta had a population of about 400,000 and it seems even today less a city that a vast conglomeration of kampongs held loosely together by a network of roads.

As you drive along Djalan Thamrin, the elegant six-lane highway flanked by the famous Hotel Indonesia and a 29-story incomplete skyscraper begun by the late President Sukarno during his most extravagant days, past the towering new buildings and monuments and the big solid bungalows standing in their leafy, spacious compounds, there are few signs of overcrowding. It is only the first glimpses you get occasionally of the teeming atap and bamboo villages which encrust the canal banks or railway yards that remind you. The new slum city-with its miles of narrow lanes through densely-packed huts of bamboo or beaten tin cans, with its rubbish in the alleyways, its holes and mud, the skinny chickens picking in the dirt, the pathetically worn laundry strung up to dry and the multitudes of nearly naked children, some of them suffering from yaws and scabies-this new slum city has grown up almost hidden from sight behind the old colonial facades and impressive new glass and concrete buildings.

And in the evening, when the breathless, festering heat of the day ebbs, and twilight and the chant of evening prayers from the mosques gives way to cool tropical darkness and the murmur of voices and the stench of the canals and rubbish gives way to the fragrance of jasmine and clove-spiced kretek cigarettes, even the sour sense of poverty seems to fade away. People in clean clothes, freshly bathed, come out into the streets. Houses are festooned with lights, perhaps for a marriage or circumcision. Kerosene lamps glow from the stalls of food vendors. There is the sound of a flute or a guitar or bamboo xylophone somewhere and the ping of betjak bells as their drivers maneuver in and out of the gaps between evening strollers. And somehow the squalor and discomfort fades into the softer, warmer tones of the Javanese village. Governor Sadikin has acknowledged the importance of culture in Djakarta by building the city’s first cultural center, a large, multi-building complex that would do credit to any capital city. (He has also built Djakarta’s first beach area and downtown reaction park and says, "I want to get the people out of the slums and into the open air; 85 per cent of the people in Djakarta live in sub-standard conditions and they need not only jobs, they need entertainment".)

It is rare to meet anyone in Djakarta who does not name a village as his real home or view his stay in the city as anything but transitory until he can save up enough money. These are people with a sure sense of cultural identity and their own place in the universe. It would be false sentiment and false reporting to say the slums of Djakarta were merely squalid or wretched. Over the centuries the Javanese have evolved a stunningly beautiful and harmonious way of life and even in the Djakarta slums, when the heat and harshness of the day gives way to evening, one is almost back in the village again. Perhaps down the street a lone guitarist looks up at the trees and the stars and sings of working in his rice fields or swimming in the river at home. Or perhaps there is a wajang shadow play, with its titanic, inconclusive struggles between good and evil and its gods, demons and hero-clowns.

Babad Tanah Djawi, the Javanese creation myth, offers its own explanation for the island’s current troubles. In it, Semar, the wonderfully wise shadow-play clown and the greatest of the Javanese culture heroes, is asked by a Hindu-Moslem priest, the first of Java’s long line of colonizers, to tell him the story of Java before there were any men.

Semar says that in those days the whole island was covered with primeval forest except for a small patch of rice fields he himself had been cultivating for ten thousand years at the foot of Mount Merabu. The priest expressed astonishment at such longevity and Semar admitted he was not a human being but the guardian spirit of Java. Then Semar asked the priest, "But why are you ruining my country? Why have you come and driven my children and grandchildren out? The spirits, overcome by your power and learning, are being forced to flee into the volcano craters and into the depths of the Southern Sea. Why are you doing this?"

"I have been ordered to fill this island with human beings," the priest replied, "I am to clear the forest for rice fields, to set up villages and settle thousands and thousands of people. This is the will of my king and you cannot stop it."

Received in New York on November 3, 1970.

Mr. Richard Critchfield is an Alicia Patterson Fund award winner on leave from the Washington Evening Star, Washington, D.C. This article may be published with credit to Mrs. Critchfield, the Washington Star and the Alicia Patterson Fund.

Technorati Tags: Djakarta, Richard Critchfield, Reflections, Refleksi, Thamrin, Ali Sadikin, Betjak, Becak, Washington Star, Alicia Patterson Fund, Award, Winner, APF

The Fix-Up Etiquette

2007-07-16T05:28:00.000+07:00

Recycling isn’t just trendy and responsible – it’s practical. Author Rachel Greenwald explains why fixing up your fellow JDaters is a great way to get fixed up yourself.

If you’re dating after 40, you’re probably a veteran of “The Fix-Up.” Gone are the days of meeting singles on college campuses or bars. Instead, fix-ups — through friends, neighbors and even strangers — are often how one finds dates. But fix-ups are never simple because it’s not just about two people meeting; there’s always a third (and sometimes a fourth or fifth) person involved. And that’s where it gets tricky. What is the etiquette for handling the three situations below?

--- "After their first dinner, she knew he wasn’t her Mr. Right. She did, however, think he had great potential for her girlfriend."

Fixing Up Someone Who Isn’t Right For You
A 48-year old female client told me about her recent dilemma. She met a nice man through JDate, but after their first dinner, she knew he wasn’t her Mr. Right. She did, however, think he had great potential for her girlfriend. After he emailed her to ask her out again, she wondered if it was possible to “recycle him” for her friend. Would this hurt his feelings? How could she phrase it delicately? Here’s what I told her:

1. Yes, you’ll hurt his feelings, but probably only a little if your involvement with him was brief. If you deliver the message correctly, he should feel flattered that you think highly enough of him to make an introduction to your friend.

2. The key to pulling off this “recycling” venture is in the careful, step-by-step wording.

First, tell him that you genuinely enjoyed meeting him and mention something specific that really impressed you, i.e., “the way you handle your role as a single dad!” Next, let him know that even though you think he’s great, you don’t see any long-term potential as a couple. Finally, tell him that he’s such a great guy that you’d like to introduce him to a friend of yours. Briefly talk her up and explain why you think they’d get along well.

If he agrees to meet her, email your friend and tell her the situation. Explain that you didn’t feel enough chemistry with him and describe why you think he’s a good catch for her. Make sure it’s not only because he’s single and Jewish, but also because they would be well matched – you don’t want to waste their time. Make it clear that even if it’s not magical, she’s got nothing to lose by meeting him.

Why should you go to all this effort after one date that didn’t work out? Because whatever you call it (tikkun olam, mitzvah, karma, etc.), it will come back to you.

If You’re Fixed-Up on a Bad Date
No one ever complains about being set up on a successful date, but if a friend or relative gave out your number, and the date turned out to be awful, what’s the proper etiquette?

The advice I give to my clients is simple: during the bad date itself, continue to make an effort at conversation, even though you can’t wait to escape. Conclude the evening by thanking him sincerely. Even if he’s wrong for you, you don’t want him to complain to your friend later that you were rude in any way. Remember, there’s a third person (in spirit) at the dinner table: the person who fixed you up. Never embarrass a matchmaking friend by being a bad date yourself.

A few other tips while you’re on the blind date: come prepared with interesting stories or questions that will engage him in the event of an awkward silence, never gossip about your mutual friend and offer to split the bill for dinner if you don’t plan to see him again.

-- "Matchmakers go out of their way to help others, so you must be gracious and appreciative. Even if one match fails, it doesn’t mean the next one won’t succeed."

After the Fix-Up
The very next day, express your gratitude to your friend by phone or email. Remember that whether the date was a success or a bust, the set-up was well-intentioned. Matchmakers go out of their way to help others, so you must be gracious and appreciative. Even if one match fails, it doesn’t mean the next one won’t succeed.

But you’re not off the hook with a simple “thank you.” A matchmaker’s reward is usually in the details! If the date went well, tell your friend some basic reasons why: the restaurant you went to, the things you had in common, what you liked about his or her appearance. Protect your date’s privacy while still sharing your excitement. This will also set boundaries with your friend. If you continue dating, you won’t be expected to share all the intimate details of your relationship going forward.

If the date was a bust, sugarcoat your report to your friend. The raw truth will only create tension between all parties involved. Find something positive – however small – to say about the experience. Perhaps, “it was interesting to hear about his wine expertise” or “the restaurant he took me to was fantastic” or even “I liked that he was tall.” Your pleasant, upbeat tone will mitigate any damage that comes across in the bottom line – that you don’t want to go out with him again.

If pressed for reasons, carefully select words to tell her why he wasn’t right for you. Perhaps you can say, “I really need someone who makes me laugh, and for some reason, I just didn’t see his sense of humor last night.” This allows for the fact that she may think he’s hysterically funny, but you just didn’t see it. Plus, it gives her a better idea about what you’re looking for in a man. Despite her track record, the next man she introduces you to might be The One.

Whether you’re setting someone up, being set up, or reporting back from a set-up, it’s important to mind your manners. The end goal is to find love, and practicing effective etiquette can only lead to more introductions. Plus, if you turn out to be a great date, the ones who aren’t right for you may even fix you up with their friends.

Create unlimited goodwill and your social options will be unlimited as well.

Rachel Greenwald, author of Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School (a NY Times Bestseller) is a dating expert featured on The Today Show, Oprah Magazine, Fortune Magazine, and People Magazine. She is also a Dating Coach and Matchmaker. Visit her website: www.RachelGreenwald.com.

Technorati Tags: The Fix-Up, Bad Date, Fixed, Rachel Greenwald, Girl Friend, Best Seller, Etiquette

Setted Not Settling

2007-07-15T04:58:00.000+07:00

The problem with Internet dating is not meeting people; it’s knowing when to stop. I should know: I met my wife on JDate after using the service on and off for nearly seven years. And while sure, some part of finding your other half is simply perseverance and ultimate good fortune, another, perhaps larger part, is knowing the best game plan. Just like a hockey coach has to know when to pull his goalie, those who subscribe to online personals services must know when to pull their profiles.

The scene is your average corporate office floor in midtown Manhattan, about two years ago: Cubicle walls cut the vast interior space creating a maze of semiprivate cubbies. Each enclave is outfitted with the exact same desk, filing cabinet, and computer monitor.

I’m busy answering an email from a new girl I’ve met on JDate. Her name is Jamie. She’s a Columbia grad with subscriptions to both US Weekly and The Economist. She likes “titanium surfaces,” has “small wrists and ankles,” and “a thing for browsing ethnic grocery stores.” From what I gathered from her profile, she’s a savvy, good-looking, talented architect who’s had her fill of players, and has grown weary of the tall, dark, and hand-somebody-else-your-commitment-issue types.

I like her style. I like it a lot. But I don’t want to come on too strong too soon. Twenty-seven new profiles of gals between the ages of 26 and 36 within a 10-mile radius of my zip code have already signed up since I logged on yesterday. So I play it cool.

Yes, I agree, we should move this thing to the phone, and I thank you for trusting me with your digits. But may I suggest holding off another few days? Maybe get to know each other a little more here, on email, before hearing each other’s voices?

It’s not that I don’t want to speak to her. On the contrary, past experience has definitely taught me the importance of making voice contact early on. But I’ve also learned that once the ten-minute phone conversation is initiated, it’s pretty hard to wiggle your way out of a real, live, date. Email, on the other hand, is still a medium that allows for changing minds.

But later in the day, when Jamie hasn’t responded to my email, I begin to get a little worried. Maybe I shouldn’t have balked at the phone offer. Maybe she’s now moved on to the next guy on her list, the one who doesn’t have trouble switching from email to phone so quickly.

I bring it up on my therapist’s couch later that day.

“The problem is that there’s always going to be new profiles on there,” I say as I stare out her office window at the lower Manhattan cityscape.

With a tone of voice that suggests she already knows the answer to her question, she asks, “And why is that a problem?”

“Supposing I settle for Girl A,” I explain, “and begin to fall for her. I could be missing out on a new girl, say Girl E, who has A’s beauty, B’s IQ, C’s sense of humor and D’s summer house in the Berkshires.”

“True, but what if Girl E has bad breath? Or several Yanni CDs?” (My therapist is a hoot.) “What then? Girl F?”

“See that’s the thing: I’m sure there is a Girl F out there, and sometimes I feel that if I hold out long enough, she’ll show up on my results page.”

My therapist says nothing for a few moments, letting my last sentence linger in the air just to make sure I’m hearing myself. And that’s when it hits me: There are just way too many options out there.

After therapy, I wander across 14th Street in a state of bemused dismay. Everywhere I look there are storefronts advertising NEW! products. Pedestrians breeze by me carrying shopping bags full, no doubt, of IMPROVED! merchandise—better than last year’s, cooler than any predecessor.

I suddenly realize how all this has affected my dating life: I’ve become a victim of my environment. Used to getting everything I want with a pull of the mouse, I see how this has warped my outlook. In a blazing revelation on the subway, I begin to understand the difference between selecting “small” “medium” or “large” when shopping for Breathe Right nasal strips and hoping my potential soulmate has graduated with at least a bachelor’s degree.

Furious with myself for allowing the problem to snowball out of control, I resolve to call Jamie the moment I get home. More importantly, I decide should the conversation and ensuing date go well, I’ll have to give the budding relationship a fair shake by pulling my profile off the site and suspending my membership at once.

Predictably, the ten-minute phone conversation with Jamie turns into a two-hour exchange. Connections are unearthed (we grew up visiting our grandparents in Fort Lauderdale), common bonds are formed (we both went through a hemp phase), jokes are made (about the hemp phase). Simply put, it is one of the most magical beginnings to a relationship anyone could want.

And the first date goes even better.
And, as planned, I indeed pull my profile.
And the second date goes even better than the first.

To this day I’ve never asked Jamie if she’s taken down her profile. I’ve been too busy enjoying the relationship to care. So if you’re conducting a search for single women within twenty miles of zip code 10011, and happen to run across a girl who has an “affinity for aerial photographs” and the guts to admit that she still “occasionally sleeps with her baby blanket,” don’t bother hotlisting her and don’t bother emailing her. She’s too busy writing thank-you notes to all our wedding guests.

David Israel is a writer who lives with his wife, Jamie, in Los Angeles. You can read more about his novel, Behind Everyman (Random House, 2005), on his website: www.davidisrael.net.

Technorati Tags: Setted, Settling, Therapist, David Israel, Internet Dating, Sensual Voice, Photograph

Romeo and Juliet

2007-07-14T04:46:00.000+07:00

As if dating isn’t tricky enough for Jews who want to marry within the religion, there are also complications when staying in the Tribe. Marnie Alexis Friedman explains why.

One Friday night at synagogue, as services were ending, I could feel someone watching me. I turned around and found myself lost in the baby-blue eyes of a good-looking guy sitting a few rows behind me. He made his way over and we exchanged basic information like names, occupations, and how soon we could have dinner together. He had a trait that I’d been looking for in a man: he went to shul of his own accord. But once we started dating, he stopped attending services, even though he knew I was there every week. Imagine my surprise when, after we broke up, I saw him back at shul the next few Friday nights in a row. In retrospect, it was obvious – besides JDate, where else would a nice Jewish guy go to look for women?

We’re all on this website because we want to meet other single Jews. But what kind of Jews do we want to date? Can a Conservative, synagogue-every-Shabbat girl find happiness with a Reform, only-on-High-Holidays boy? Could Kosher Keith and cheeseburger-eating Cheryl be a shidduch made in heaven, or are such star-crossed lovers doomed to a sorrowful parting?

My deep, insightful, well thought-out answer is... I think it depends.

Plenty of couples who start out with different levels of observance meet, fall in love, and somehow learn to compromise. They attend separate services, then meet up at home for Shabbat dinner. He goes to shul every week; she gets there in time for Kiddush. She’s fully observant of Shabbat; he turns on lights and checks e-mail. He eats only dairy in non-kosher restaurants, she orders shrimp cocktail.

It’s a commonly held notion that being in a couple means compromise – not to go against your beliefs, but to find ways for both of you to do what feels right. Sometimes, however, there is no compromise. Just as a rabid Red Sox fan and a die-hard Yankees fan might have trouble surviving the playoffs together, Frum Romeo and Secular Juliet might not make it through the High Holiday season.

An important question to ask is: how many steps apart are you on the observance scale? Joel, 34, speaks for many when he says, “I limit [my dating search] to a certain ‘band’ around my religious practices.” Opposites may attract, but relationships don’t often work without some common ground. Anne, 29, describes herself as “a two-days-a-year Jew.” She and Josh, a regular synagogue attendee, broke things off after a few months of dating. “He wanted me to sit next to him at services every week. When I offered to go with him once or twice a month, he was insulted. He didn’t realize what a big step that was for me.”

Personally, I’m Conservative and go to synagogue every week. But since I check e-mail, watch TV, and talk on the phone on Shabbat, I keep my JDate search preferences wide open. If I fell for a guy who kept Shabbat fully, there’s a good chance I’d become more observant. But if I were swept off my feet by someone who only went to synagogue once in a while, I might start going less often.

It’s not just a matter of being open-minded. Experience has taught me that the checklist for my dream guy is long enough already. I can’t (and don’t) expect to find a man who meets all of my must-haves, like-to-haves, can’t-possibly-haves – and is also at precisely my level of religious observance. As fabulous as I am, I don’t want to date myself. There’d be no mystery, no fun in that. I want to be part of a partnership where we learn from one another, examine the paths we’ve taken that have landed us where we are, and start a journey together that will lead us wherever we’re going.

Two people in a relationship needn’t have identical passions. What’s important is that each person be willing to learn about the other’s interests – and see if there’s something the couple can share. I once dated someone who’d never seen much reason to go to shul, but since he knew it was important to me, he came to services almost every week. I was able to share with him one of the most important parts of my life. In return, he gave me an appreciation of a cappella music and taught me how to swing-dance. So he learned how to daven, I learned how to dance, and we always knew what we’d be doing on Friday and Saturday nights.

I would never force someone to go to synagogue with me. A “my way or the highway” attitude is just about the quickest way to build resentment. Other than the guy who thought Friday night services were a weekly singles’ event, none of the guys I’ve dated were regular synagogue-goers when I met them. But every boyfriend I’ve had has been willing to attend services with me occasionally, when I presented it as something we could try together. From my perspective, long-term compatibility is not about having similar levels of religious observance, per se, but about having similar values and worldviews as your partner.

That open-minded approach worked for Irene, a Conservative Jew who fell in love with a Reform Jew named Ellis. Since she always wanted to explore the religion more, they began by going to Reform services every week, then added certain rituals at home. Soon, they started attending a Conservative synagogue and keeping a kosher home.

As they found their way as a couple, both realized that they loved learning about Judaism nearly as much as they loved each other. If they hadn’t given each other a chance despite their differing denominations, they would probably be in very different places today. Thirty-three years later, they still spend Shabbat together – usually at synagogue, occasionally at the symphony.

Marnie Alexis Friedman is an actuary who loves living in Los Angeles.

Technorati Tags: Romeo, Juliet, Reform, Conservative, Marnie Alexis, Personally

Love Without Commitment

2007-07-13T03:31:00.000+07:00

Who says that love and commitment have to lead to marriage? Not men, says Jason Weaver…

“My boyfriend won’t commit,” a platonic female friend says to me. “We’ve been living together for two years now. He’s not seeing anybody else. When I’ve threatened to leave, he begs me to stay. But when I bring up engagement and real commitment, he shies away from it. I don’t understand.”

What she didn’t understand was a fundamental difference between men and women. Women put men into two categories:

(1) Definite marriage and baby-making potential (if that’s what you’re looking for, of course),

(2) No way. No chance. Men, on the other hand, have an additional category:

(3) Good Enough to be Exclusive With and Get Regular Attention From, but Not at the Expense of Never Dating, Sleeping With, or Being With Another Woman Ever Again.

Most women find it totally perplexing that we would be exclusive with you while still clinging to our juvenile desires to act like the guys from “Swingers.” And it is. More perplexing is that a majority of men with relationships that fall in this third category are decent guys – not picking up strangers, not calling your sister for a date, not drawing any attention from women on the street. In other words, these aren’t gigolos whom you’ve forced to give up “the singles lifestyle.” Yet they make commitments that they won’t see through in the long run. Why? Security, comfort, companionship, sex, you name it. Certain women undoubtedly do this as well, but not to the same extent as us guys. For this, I’m sorry. It makes no sense. But we’re guys, and 98% of everything we do makes no sense. Which is why I’m gonna try to make sense of it for you here.

The three main reasons that men commit without committing are as follows:

You’re easy – It’s great to have someone to do stuff with. Someone who’s available, someone who’s fun, someone who doesn’t mind when we leave our socks out. And if my choice is being single and not having companionship or being with you and having companionship, why would I give you up?

You’re a great girlfriend – Generous, thoughtful, sweet, giving… It’s hard to leave a woman who treats me right. But sometimes it’s even harder to promise to never leave, especially if the overriding sentiment is, “I’m supposed to really want this, aren’t I?”

You’re what we’re told we’re supposed to want. Mom likes you. You’re Jewish. You come from an amazing family. You’d be an awesome mother. You don’t hassle me when I want to hang with the guys. These are all great things to have in a partner. But they are not the sole reasons to stay together forever.

You may remember the line in “When Harry Met Sally” where Meg Ryan laments to Billy Crystal that her ex-boyfriend, after not being able to commit to her, is engaged to another woman. “All this time, I thought he didn’t want to get married,” she says, “But, the truth is, he didn’t want to marry me.” Meg’s guy put her in that third category. The guys who do that will treat you well, won’t cheat and will always commit – to a point. You have to get better at finding that point; the point at which you cut him loose, the point at which time invested turns into time wasted. All too often, you learn the lesson that Meg did – the hard way.

Now take this advice and go out to find a guy who puts you into the category of Can’t Live Without Her, Don’t Wanna Be With Anyone Else – Ever!

We do have that category, you know…

Jason Weaver is a practicing family law attorney and adjunct professor in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He enjoys playing his guitar, basketball, observing the human condition, and writing about it.

Technorati Tags: Commitment, Jason Weaver, Guitar, Basketball, Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Expense of Never Dating, Security, Comfort, Companionship, Sex

Much About Nothing

2007-07-12T03:20:00.000+07:00

If communication is essential to a relationship, why is it so hard to do? Heather Maidat discusses how she learned to stop keeping everything to herself.

Him: “What’s wrong?”
Her: “Nothing.”

Two months later…

Him: “What’s wrong?”
Her: “Nothing… It’s just a feeling.”
Him: “Since when?”
Her: “Since two months ago.”

That’s me, the one saying “nothing,” in every one of my relationships.

Once, I said “nothing” when I was really feeling trapped. Another time I said “nothing” when I was embarrassed that he fell asleep during our date. One time I said “nothing” because I was bothered that when I came over to his place, he’d leave his front door open for me to walk in when I wanted him to greet me instead.

I said nothing because I didn’t want to sound needy. I said nothing because I was hoping it would go away. I said nothing because I wanted to be the cool girlfriend who didn’t care about anything.

So yes, something was wrong. But instead of coming clean, I’d say the opposite of what I was feeling, give mixed messages, and then wonder why my boyfriend couldn’t read my mind. I’d go and talk to my friends about what the “something” was. We’d take it apart and put it back together, speculating on the reasons behind it all. I’d get second opinions. I’d get a guy’s perspective. I spoke more intimately about my relationship with my friends than I did with my boyfriend.

Then one afternoon I called my friend Susan. She sounded annoyed. I asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” she said, before admitting that she’d been mad at me for awhile. “In the fall, there was the time you knew I had the flu and didn’t even call….” I couldn’t understand why she’d waited so long to tell me. Plus, it was kinda scary how she could itemize my offenses by season.

That’s when I sent out a silent prayer to my ex-boyfriends for all the times I said “nothing” was wrong.

Had I been testing them? No, I wasn’t building a case against them; I was building one for myself to justify that the “something” wasn’t completely off base. The problem was that I was used to denying how I felt. Check out the way women talk to each other. It’s a whole world of opposites.

When I’m not interested in a guy, I get encouraging feedback from my girlfriends, like “Maybe he’ll grow on you.” When I am interested in a guy, I get discouraging feedback like “He’s a player.” If there’s a problem in the relationship, I get “Cut him some slack” or “As soon as his job calms down, things will change.” In short, I get everything but, “Talk to the guy.”

Still, it’s hard to be up front when these are the responses you get in return.

“Here we go again…”
“Does everything have to be a whole conversation?”
“Don’t make such a big deal about it.”

And then they find us complicated. We all have the same basic needs. It’s just that traditionally, women don’t express what we desire without debating it in our heads, needing permission to do it, justifying it, apologizing for it, getting flak for it, or scaring someone away with it first. My friend Jake says, “If I want dessert, I eat dessert.” What a novel concept.

I did a test run of my new directness with my next boyfriend when he asked what was wrong. Despite the embarrassing fact that I was sure this wouldn’t bother anyone else, I admitted, “I don’t like it when you say which actresses you think are hot.”

“Good,” he said, “I really want to know what’s on your mind.”

So I continued. I told him that I was also questioning his standards, because one of the women he said was hot was Kathie Lee Gifford. I added that I was extra upset that it was Kathie Lee Gifford.

And there it was. We heard each other’s arguments for and against. I offered the solution that I could bring up Keanu Reeves more often. That didn’t fly, so we agreed to leave celebrities out of it. But we were so receptive to each other when something was bothering us that the somethings became more like nothings.

After four months of practice at this, we eventually broke up. It was time to finally take this honesty thing out for a broader test-drive. I went on something of a “something” rampage. Soon, I wasn’t even waiting until anyone asked what was wrong. I’d just come out and say what was on my mind because how could anyone read it? What we like and don’t like isn’t necessarily common sense. Better yet, it’s what makes us unique. Eventually, I got so good at full disclosure that one guy broke up with me because I was “too real.”

Hmm. That was unexpected. The new me had backfired. In defiance, I considered going back to my nothing ways but then I realized he was right. Admitting a something – as quirky, neurotic, or ridiculous as it might sound – let him get to know the real me. And more importantly, from his reaction I got to know a lot about the real him. Did I really want to care for someone who could only be with the cool girl who doesn’t care?

I’d like to think that when I find the right person, he’ll fall in love with the whole package, idiosyncrasies and all. Or at least he’ll love how I can own up to it.

Wouldn’t that be something?

Heather Maidat’s career highlights include sitting in an ice cream truck with Chris Rock and when Abe Vigoda, TV’s "Fish," mistook her for a waitress and asked for the fish. To contact the author directly, write to her at: hmaidat@earthlink.net.

Technorati Tags: Much About Nothing, Ice Cream, Conversation, Relationship, Heather Maidat, Boy Friend

10 Ways To Get The Girl

2007-07-11T19:11:00.000+07:00

Let’s face it; dating is never easy (unless you’re George Clooney and well…you’re not). God created Eve for Adam; one woman for one man. Unfortunately, now there are a million more Adams fighting for that one Eve. The only way to win this ‘Singles War’ is to be ready for battle. Lock and load, gentlemen. Here are 10 basic rules that can take you from being ‘that guy’ to ‘her guy’.

No False Advertising

Your profile picture is the first thing we look at. If you haven’t posted your picture, do it. And no, we don’t want to see your prom picture from 1987 (even though that was a good year). Make sure the picture is of you only and not of you and some hot girl. We already know you are a heterosexual man – no need to prove it. We’re here to meet you, not your favorite Hooters girl.

Be Creative

Women like men who think outside the box. So spice up that profile of yours. Put in a funny quirk about yourself or a quote from your favorite relative. No novels, please. We want to get some idea who you are, not read ‘War and Peace.’ Once you’ve set your date, be sure to make a plan. Take it up a notch up from coffee. As my comedienne friend, Chelsea Handler, says, “What’s a coffee date gonna lead to? A piggy-back ride?” Some good date ideas are a picnic in the park, a day at a local art fair, or a sporting event.

Humor is Hot

Though the number-one thing a girl desires in a guy is a sense of humor, we’re not looking for Josh, the JDate Jokester. Women want someone light-hearted whom they can enjoy being around. A man who can laugh at himself is very sexy, so don’t take yourself so seriously. And please please please…. do not quote Seinfeld. We know that it’s your favorite show, but if we want to re-visit the “Contest” episode, we’ll buy the DVD.

Dress to Impress

Girls put an effort into getting ready for you. You should do the same. You don’t have to look like you stepped off the runways of Milan, but be aware of what’s in style. Acid-washed jeans are never a good idea unless you’re a drummer in a hair metal band. The sockless thing may have worked for Don Johnson, but times have changed. Finally, leave the Drakkar and man jewelry at home. Women don’t like to be out-scented or accessorized.

Have Game

Be confident, but don’t act too *censored*y. Make eye contact. A man who looks at the ground is either insecure or a serial killer. Keep the conversation about yourself to a minimum. Ask questions about your date. Be complimentary, but don’t overdo it. Conversation topics like “How many JDates I’ve had this week” or “How I spent five grand on my new plasma TV” are not attractive. Don’t flirt with the waitress. If you have a wandering eye and we catch you in the act, it’s best to fake a seizure.

Edit Button

We want you to be open and honest. However, on the first date, you might want to keep the “why I hate my ex-wife” discussions to a minimum. I once went out with a guy who told me his last girlfriend was an adult film star. All I kept imagining was him at the AVN awards clapping for his girlfriend, Cherry Blossoms, who had just won for her work in “Sodomania II.” Oh, and FYI, keep the details of your sexual proclivities to yourself. If we want to learn more, we’ll let you know. Subtly.

Mind Your Manners

Please be on time and if you’re going to be late, just call. Open the car door for her. Pull her seat out. Turn your cell phone off. If you are meeting her somewhere, offer to pay for her valet. If you are driving her home, walk her to the door. Most importantly, if it’s your first date, GRAB THE CHECK. Most women today will offer to pay, but we are just testing you. Make sure you get an A+.

Keep It Clean

You don’t have to be a neat freak, but make sure your place looks presentable when inviting a girl in. We know you weren’t on "Extreme Home Makeover," but we don’t want to see the aftermath of Hurricane Francis either. Just get rid of all the empty beer bottles and Chinese food from the night before and put all your “Playboys” in a drawer for safekeeping.

No Eager Beavers

We’re looking for a man, not a stalker. Court the girl, be attentive, but try not to overstay your welcome. There is nothing worse than the guy who won’t go away. It’s like getting up at the curtain of a bad musical, only to find out there are three more acts left. My friend Kimmie once had a guy tell her on their second date, “I think I’m falling in love with you.” Needless to say, she ran like Forrest Gump.

Follow Through

The rules for the movie “Swingers” don’t apply anymore. If you are truly interested, you will call the next day. No 3-10 day waiting period. Really into her? Make a plan for a second date at the end of your first date. That lets her know you mean business. Once you start seeing the girl, don’t pull a bad magic act where you appear and disappear at your own convenience. We notice the minute you show disinterest, and most of us won’t wait around for you to come back.

Okay, soldiers – use this knowledge as your secret weapon. Now, go get that girl!

By Shawn Pelofsky

Shawn Pelofsky is a stand-up comedienne who has opened for acts such as Bill Maher and Richard Lewis. You can catch her act weekly at The World Famous Comedy Store and on the new TBS series "Minding The Store."

Technorati Tags: No False Advertising, Be Creative, Humor is Hot, Dress to Impress, Have Game, Mind Your Manners, Keep It Clean, No Eager Beavers, Follow Through

Love Quotes

2007-07-10T07:30:00.000+07:00

Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.
(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
( Helen Keller)

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.
(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

The quality of love and the duration of a relationship are in direct proportion to the depth of the commitment by both people to making the relationship successful. Commit yourself wholeheartedly and unconditionally to the most important people in your life.
(Brian Tracy)

Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole.
(Derek Walcott)

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
(David Viscott)

They say love is blindness of heart; I say not to love is blindness.
(Victor Hugo)

We don’t love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
(Jacques Maritain)

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.
(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

Love cures people, the ones who receive love and the ones who give it, too.
(Karl Menninger)

In love, we worry more about the meaning of silences than the meaning of words.
(Mason Cooley)

Love is a great master. It teaches us to be what we never were.
(Molière)

Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace.
(Karl Kraus)

Technorati Tags: Love Quotes, I Says, Love and Art, Quality of Love

Things Not To Say During Sex

2007-06-27T03:23:00.000+07:00

Alcohol

A to Z of drinking
Signs You Drank Too Much This Weekend

A cowboy walks into a saloon bar and orders a large bourbon. Finishing his drink, he turns to the face the guy playing the piano, takes out his gun, shoots the music papers into the air, shoots the guys hat off and finally shoots the lid down trapping the poor guys fingers, before a flash spin with the gun and puts it back in its holster. "Brilliant shooting," says the bartender, "mind if I look at your gun." Another flashy spin brings the gun into the bartenders hands. "Nice tool, but if I were you I would file off the sight, all the rough edges, and where your name is in diamonds on the handle, make it all nice and smooth." "What the hell for?" asks the cowboy. "Well see that piano player," says the bartender, "he is Billy The Kid, and when his hands are better he is going to ram that gun up your fucking arse"

* * *

A guy walks in a bar and order’s two house specials. The barkeep say’s were all out of Heineken, would he likes some Bud. The guy say’s "Yes". Ten minutes later Bud comes out the bathroom with two full glasses.

* * *

A penguin walks into a bar, goes to the counter and asks the barman "Have you seen my brother?". The barman asks "What does he look like?".

* * *

There was this guy that walked into a bar and ordered a beer. He began to have a conversation with the bartender and he went from one beer to several more. After a couple of hours the man realized that he had to piss. At this point he was falling down drunk. He asked the bartender where the john was and the bartender replied "Down the hall the second door on the right. Whatever you do do not go into the first door on the right." The man then got up and walked down the hall and went into the first door on the right. About ten minutes had passed and the bartender knowing that the basement had been flooded earlier and that the first door on the right was a elevator shaft figured that the man had went through the wrong door. He went to check on the man and coming closer to the first door he could hear the mans yells for help. He opened the door and asked the man if he was all right. The man replied "I am fine. Just don’t flush the Toilet!"

* * *

Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi walk into a bar.

Luke: "I don’t know what to drink!"

Obi Wan: "Use the 4X, Luke."

* * *

There was a bar with a sign that read "Pianist Wanted." A guy walks in there and says "I’m here for the pianist job." The owner says "Well, play us a tune and if you’re good enough then you’ve got the job." He sits down and plays a song that nearly puts the owner in tears. "Oh, what a great song! What’s it called?" the manager asks. "It’s called, the dog with 2 dicks and my wife’s doin my brother!" "Um, that’s strange but play us one more tune." The man plays another tune and this time the manager breaks down with tears. "What do you call that song?" he sheepishly asks. "The frog takin a shit and the camel with 3 humps!" he replies. The manager told him that he had the job on one condition: he must not tell the customers the names of the songs he is playing. He started that playing that night. After every song he would get a standing ovation. After about 2 hours he stood up and said "Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to take a quick break and I will return in a few moments." So he ducked into the toilets to take a slash. On his way out a man passing said "Hey, do you know your zips undone and your cocks hangin out!" "know it, I wrote it!"

* * *

A man walks into a bar, sits down and orders a Bud. He says "Give me a beer before problems start!" The bartender doesn’t understand but gives the man a beer. After 15 minutes the man orders a beer again saying "Give me a beer before problems start!" The bartender looks a little bit confused but pours the man a beer. The goes on the whole night and after the 15th beer the bartender is totally confused and asks the man "What do you mean with before problems start, when are you going to pay for the beers you drunk." The man answers "You see right now the problems start!"

* * *

An old Englishman walks into a bar an asks for a bottle of 38 year old wine from Leonne, France. The bartender not wanting to go to the cellar gave the Englishman the closest bottle of wine he has. The Englishman tasted it and said "This wine is only 2 years old and is from Santiago de Chile. "The bartender was amazed, but at the same time curios, so he gave him another bottle. The Englishman goes "This wine is 17 years old and is from San Diego, California." The bartender was so amazed that he gave him another bottle. The Englishman tasted it and said "This wine is 30 years old and is from Lima, Peru. "Finally the bartender goes to the cellar and got the right bottle and gave it to the Englishman. The Englishman said: "Finally, a 38 year old wine from Leonne, France." An old drunk that had been watching goes up to the Englishman and said "Could you please tell me what kind of drink is this" and hands him a cup. The old Englishman tasted and said "What the fuck this is piss." And the drunk replied "Yeah I know but could you please tell me from where because I’m so drunk that I don’t remember where I live."

* * *

Charles Dickens walks into a bar and orders a Martini. The bartender says "Olive or Twist?"

* * *

A chicken walks into a bar , looks around and says to the barman "Sorry, wrong joke"

* * *

A guy walks into a bar. With him is a cat and an ostrich. The man says "Get me a Budweiser." The ostrich says "May I have an orange juice?" The bartender nods. Then the cat says: "I’ll have a shot of Vodka, but I’m notpaying." They finish their drinks and leave.

The next night, the man walks in with the cat and the ostrich again. The man orders a Bud, the ostrich orders orange juice, and the cat has vodka, but insists on not paying.

The third night that this happens, the bartender is pretty curious. He walks over to the man and says "Tell me, why do you come here everyday with a cat and an ostrich?" The man looks around and says "Well, I was walking home from the bar four nights ago, and I took a short cut through an alley. I found this old lamp, and it had a genie in it. He said ’Son, this is your lucky day. I’m going to grant you one wish’ and I wished for a bird with long legs and a tight pussy."

* * *

Two drunks are in a bar.

First one: "My wife is an angel"

Second one: "You are lucky! Mine is still alive."

* * *

An obnoxious drunk stumbles into the front door of a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says "No way buddy you’re too drunk."

A few minutes later the drunk comes in throught the bathrooms, again he slurs "Give me a drink." Bartender says "No, man, I told you last time you’re too drunk."

Five minutes later the guy comes in throught the back door and orders a drink, again the bartender says "You’re too drunk." The drunk scratches his head and says "Damn I must be... the last two places said the same thing."

* * *

Bacon and Eggs walk into a bar. The bartender says "Sorry, we don’t serve breakfast."

* * *

A man walks into a bar, sits down and orders a triple martini. The bartender says "What a coincidence, the only other person at the bar is that beautiful woman at the other end. She is also drinking triple martinis." After a few sips of his drink, the man walks up to the woman and says "Isn’t it a coincidence that we are both having the same drink." She replies "Yes! I am here because I am celebrating. After 20 years of trying I am finally pregnant!" "What a coincidence," the man replied, "I am also celebrating. After years of experimenting, I have invented a multicolored chicken." At this, the woman asked "How did you ever accomplish that!?" "I had to try a lot of different cocks," he said. The woman replied "What a coincidence!!!"

* * *

A guy walks into a bar and orders a shot of whisky. He gulps it down and peeks into his shirt pocket. He orders another shot of whisky, gulps it down and peeks into his short pocket. He orders a third shot and does the same thing. After the sixth shot, he asks the bartender for the bill, pays and starts to walk out. Curiosity gets the better of the bartender and he says to the guy "Excuse me, but I noticed that everytime you drank a shot, you kept looking into your pocket. I was wondering what’s in your pocket." The guys slurs "Well, I have a picture of my wife in my pocket. I keep drinking until she starts to look good."

* * *

A guy walks into a bar and there’s a horse behind the bar serving drinks. The guy is staring at the horse, when the horse says "Hey, buddy? What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen a horse serving drinks before?" The guy says "No, it’s not that... it’s just that I never thought the parrot would sell the place."

* * *

A fish walks into a bar and the bartender says: "What do you want?" The fish croaks "Water."

* * *

A guy opens a bar, but he has no name for it. One day he sees a girl named Suzy and he thinks she has nice legs. So he names the bar "Suzy’s Legs". The next day, before opening hours, 3 guys are sitting outside of the bar. A cop walks up to them and says "What are you doing?" And one guy turns and says "We’re waiting for Suzy’s Legs to open so we can go in and get a bite to eat."

Animals

Q&A
A book about the Elephant
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
Things dogs don’t understand
Signs your cat has learned your internet password

A young boy, about eight years old, was at the corner "Mom & Pop" grocery picking out a pretty good size box of laundry detergent.

The grocer walked over and, trying to be friendly, asked the boy if he had a lot of laundry to do.

"Oh, no laundry," the boy said, "I’m going to wash my dog."

"But you shouldn’t use this to wash your dog. It’s very powerful and if you wash your dog in this, he’ll get sick. In fact, it might even kill him."

But the boy was not to be stopped and carried the detergent to the counter and paid for it, even as the grocer still tried to talk him out of washing his dog.

About a week later the boy was back in the store to buy some candy. The grocer asked the boy how his dog was doing.

"Oh, he died," the boy said.

The grocer, trying not to be an I-told-you-so, said he was sorry the dog died but added, "I tried to tell you not to use that detergent on your dog."

"Well," the boy replied, "I don’t think it was the detergent that killed him."

"Oh? What was it then?"

"I think it was the spin cycle!"

* * *

A bear and a rabbit were having a shit in the woods. The bear says to the rabbit "Don’t you hate it when shit gets stuck to your fir?" and the rabbit replies "No, not really." So the bear picks up the rabbit and wipes his butt with it.

* * *

This blind fella is standing at the corner with his seeing eye dog waiting to cross the street, when his pooch lifts his leg and you guessed it, right down the side of his nice herringbone tweed trousers. The guy immediately reaches into his jacket pocket and retrieves a doggie treat which he starts to offer to Fido.

A businessman, who is also waiting to cross the street, observes this happening and interrupts, "None of my business, but are you aware of the fact that your dog just wizzed all down the leg of your pants?"

"Yes, I’m trying to break him of that habit", replies the blind man.

"Well, it’s none of my business," retorts the onlooker, "but you’re not going to teach him much by rewarding him with a treat!" To which the blind fella chuckles, "Oh I’m not rewarding him. I’m just trying to find his head so I can kick his ass!"

* * *

There’s a guy with a Doberman Pinscher and a guy with a Chihuahua. The guy with the Doberman Pinscher says to the guy with a Chihuahua "Let’s go over to that restaurant and get something to eat." The guy with the Chihuahua says "We can’t go in there. We’ve got dogs with us." The guy with the Doberman Pinscher says "Just follow my lead." They walk over to the restaurant, the guy with the Doberman Pinscher puts on a pair of dark glasses and he starts to walk in. A guy at the door says "Sorry, no pets allowed." The guy with the Doberman Pinscher says "You don’t understand. This is my seeing-eye dog." The guy at the door says "A Doberman Pinscher?" He says "Yes, they’re using them now, they’re very good." The guy at the door says "Come on in." The guy with the Chihuahua figures "What the heck", so he puts on a pair of dark glasses and starts to walk in. The guy at the door says "Sorry, no pets allowed." The guy with the Chihuahua says "You don’t understand. This is my seeing-eye dog." The guy at the door says "A Chihuahua?" The guy with the Chihuahua says "You mean they gave me a Chihuahua?!"

* * *

A frog telephones the Psychic Hotline and is told "You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you." The frog says "This is great! Will I meet her at a party or what?" "No," says the psychic, "next term in her biology lesson."

* * *

A horse and a chicken are playing in a meadow. The horse falls into a mud hole and is sinking. He calls to the chicken to go and get the farmer to help pull him out to safety. The chicken runs to the farm but the farmer can’t be found. So he drives the farmer’s Mercedes back to the mud hole and ties some rope around the bumper. He then throws the other end of the rope to his friend, the horse, and drives the car forward saving him from sinking!

A few days later, the chicken and horse were playing in the meadow again and the chicken fell into the mud hole. The chicken yelled to the horse to go and get some help from the farmer. The horse said "I think I can stand over the hole!" So he stretched over the width of the hole and said "Grab for my ’thingy’ and pull yourself up." And the chicken did and pulled himself to safety.

The moral of the story: If you are hung like a horse, you don’t need a Mercedes to pick up chicks.

* * *

There’s two fish in a tank, one says to the other "Do you know how to drive this?"

* * *

There were these two guys out hiking when they came upon an old, abandoned mine shaft. Curious about its depth they threw in a pebble and waited for the sound of it striking the bottom, but they heard nothing. They went and got a bigger rock, threw it in and waited. Still nothing. They searched the area for something larger and came upon a railroad tie. With great difficulty , the two men carried it to the opening and threw it in. While waiting for it to hit bottom, a goat suddenly darted between them and leapt into the hole!

The guys were still standing there with astonished looks upon their faces from the actions of the goat when a man walked up to them. He asked them if they had seen a goat anywhere in the area and they said that one had just jumped into the mine shaft in front of them! The man replied "Oh no, that couldn’t be my goat, mine was tied to a railroad tie."

* * *

A guy walks into a petstore. For the past two weeks he has suspected his wife of cheating on him, so he decides to buy a parrot that can tell him what goes on at his housee during the day while he is at work. "Wel,"’ says the petstore owner, "I only got one bird that can do that, but he’s got no legs." The guy looks at him and says "Well if he ain’t got no legs, how’s he balance himself on the perch." "He’s got a really long penis, so he wraps it around the perch." The guy thinks it over and decides to buy the parrot. He takes it home and sure enough the bird wraps his penis around the perch for balance.

Everyday the man comes home and asks the parrot if his wife has been cheating on him. Everytime the same answer "Raawk, nothing doing, Raawk". One day he comes home and finds the parrot lying on the bottom of its birdcage. He picks it up and asks what has happened. "Raawk, big happenings, Raawk, big happenings." "What happened?" asks the man. The parrot responds "Raawk, first your best friend came over, Raawk, then your wife made him breakfast, raawk, then they started kissing, raawk, then your wife took off her shirt." "And then what happens?!" asks the man really upset. "Raawk, I don’t know, thats when I got a woody and fell off my perch!"

* * *

A penguin was driving through the desert when his car broke down. He waddled to the nearest phone to call the AA. His car was quickly towed to the nearest garage where the mechanic told him he would need a couple of hours to check out the car. The penguin, being a good natured bird, didn’t complain but wandered off to find the closest supermarket. He proceeded to the frozen foods section and hung out near the fish sticks. After an hour he got in the freezer next to the vanilla ice cream and ate several gallons. Then he saw the time and went back to the garage covered in ice cream. The mechanic walked over to him wiping his hands and shaking his head saying "It looks like you blew a seal." Blushing, the penguin said "Oh, no! It’s just ice cream."

* * *

Two neighbors had been fighting each other for nigh on four decades. Bob buys a Great Dane and teaches it to use the bathroom in Bill’s yard. For one whole year Bill ignores the dog. Bob buys a cow and teaches it to use the bathroom in Bill’s yard. After about a year and a half of Bob’s cow crapping in Bill’s yard; being ignored all the while, a semi pulls up in front of Bill’s house. Bob runs over and demands to know what’s in the 18-wheeler. "My new pet elephant" Bill replies solemly.

* * *

A passenger train is creeping along, slowly. Finally it creaks to a halt. A passenger sees a conductor walking by outside. "What’s going on?" she yells out the window. "Cow on the track!" replies the conductor. Ten minutes later the train resumes its slow pace. Within five minutes, however, it stops again. The woman sees the same conductor walk again. She leans out the window and yells "What happened? Did we catch up with the cow again?"

* * *

A man was in a hurry to board the airplane and didn’t have time to do the paperwork to get his little doggie on board. So the man stashed the puppy down the front of his pants and sneaked him on the plane. About 30 minutes into the flight a stewardess noticed that the man was squirming in his seat.

Stewardess: "Are you OK, mister?"

Man: "Yes, I’m fine."

Time went by and again the stewardess noticed strange movements.

Stewardess: "Are you sure you’re all right, sir?"

Man: "Yes, but I have a confession to make. I didn’t have time to do the paperwork to bring my puppy on board, so I hid him down the front of my pants."

Stewardess: "I see. Well, as long as he’s housebroken, I guess it will be OK."

Man: "Oh, he’s housebroken. The problem is, he’s not weaned yet!"

* * *

A fly buzzing around a barn one day when he happened on a pile of fresh cow manure. Due to the fact that it had been hours since his last meal, he flew down and began to eat. He ate and ate and ate. Finally, he decided he had eaten enough and tried to fly away. He had eaten too much though and could not get off the ground. As he looked around wondering what to do now, he spotted a pitchfork leaning up against the wall. He climbed to the top of the handle and jumped off, thinking that once he got airborne, he would be able to take flight. Unfortunately he was wrong and dropped like a rock, splatting when he hit the floor.

The moral to the story is: Never fly off the handle when you’re full of shit.

* * *

A man was on holiday in the depths of Louisiana, where he tried to buy some Alligator shoes. However he was not prepared to pay the high prices and after having failed to haggle the vendor down to a reasonable price level, ended up shouting "I don’t give two hoots for your shoes, man, I’ll go and kill my own croc!" to which the shopkeeper replied "By all means, just watch out for those two "ole boys" who are doing the same!".

The man went out into the Bayou and after a while saw two men with spears, standing still in the water. "They must be the ’ole boys’ he thought. Just at that point he noticed an alligator moving in the water towards one of them. The guy stood completely passive, even as the gator came ever closer. Just as the beast was about to swallow the him, he struck home with his spear and wrestled the gator up onto the beach, where several already laying. Together the two guys threw the gator onto its back, where-upon one exclaimed "Darn! This one doesn’t have any shoes either!".

* * *

There’s a fella with a parrot. And the parrot swears like a sailor, an absolute pistol. He can swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. Trouble is the guy who owns him is a quiet, conservative type and this bird’s foul mouth is driving him crazy. One day, it gets to be too much. The guy grabs the bird by the throat, shakes him hard and yells "QUIT IT!" But this just makes the bird mad and he swears more than ever. Then the guy gets mad and says "OK for you." He locks the bird in a kitchen cabinet. This really aggravates the bird and he claws and scratches, and when the guy finally lets him out, the bird cuts loose with a stream of vulgarities that would make a veteran sailor blush. At this point, the guy is so mad that he throws the bird into the freezer. For the first few seconds there is a terrible din. The bird kicks and claws, and thrashes. Then it suddenly gets very, very quiet. At first the guy just waits, but then he starts to think that the bird may be hurt. After a couple of minutes of silence, he’s worried enough to open the freezer door. The bird calmly climbs onto the man’s outstretched arm and says "Awfully sorry about the trouble I gave you. I’ll do my best to improve my vocabulary from now on." The man is astounded. He can’t understand the transformation that has come over the parrot. Then the parrot says "By the way, what did that chicken do to you?"

* * *

A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and says "The parrot to the left costs 500 dollars". "Why does the parrot cost so much?" the customer asks. The owner says "It knows how to use a computer." The customer asks about the next parrot and is told "That one costs 1,000 dollars because it can do everything the other parrot can do plus it knows how to use the UNIX operating system." Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the third parrot and is told "That one costs 2,000 dollars." Needless to say this begs the question "What can it do?!" The owner replies "To be honest I have never seen it do a thing but the other two call him boss!"

Art

How artist do it
Books and Authors
What the Movies teach us
A fool-proof method for sculpting an elephant: get a huge block of marble, then you chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant.

* * *

An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest in his paintings on display at that time. "I have good news and bad news," the owner replied, "the good news is that a gentleman enquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings." "That’s wonderful," the artist exclaimed, "what’s the bad news?" "The guy was your doctor..."

* * *

An artist had been working on a nude portrait for a long time. Every day he was up early and worked late - bringing perfection with every stroke of his paint brush. As each day passed, he gained a better understanding of the female body and was able to really make his paintings shine.

After a month, the artist had become very weary from this non-stop effort and decided to take it easy for the day. Since his model had already shown up, he suggested they merely have a glass of wine and talk - since normally he preferred to do his painting in silence.

They talked for a few hours, getting to know each other better. Then as they were sipping their claret, the artist heard a car arriving outside. He jumped up and said "Oh, no! It’s my wife! Quick, take off your clothes!"

Q&A

Q: How many artists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten. One to change it and nine to reassure him about how good it looks.

* * *

Q: How many modern artists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Four. One to throw bulbs against the wall, one to pile hundreds of them in a heap and spray-paint it orange, one to glue light bulbs to a cocker spaniel and one to put a bulb in the socket and fill the room with light while all the critics and buyers are watching the fellow smashing the bulbs against the wall, the fellow with the spray-gun and the cocker spaniel.

* * *

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A1: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.
A2: Two. One to change it and one to throw a bucket of water out the window.

* * *

Q: How many visitors to an art gallery does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Two. One to do it and one to say "Huh! My four-year old could’ve done that!"

Blonde

Q&A
Did you hear about the blonde who...

A blonde goes over to the deodorant display and tells the clerk "I need to buy some deodorant for my husband." "Does he use the ball kind?" inquired the clerk. "No," replied the blonde, "the kind for under his arms."

* * *

A policeman pulled a blonde over after he/she’d been driving the wrong way on a one-way street.
Cop: "Do you know where you were going?"
Blonde: "No, but wherever it is, it must be bad ’cause all the people were leaving."

* * *

This blonde and her boyfriend were sitting in a hot tub when the blonde said to her boyfriend "Is it true that if you pull your finger out, I’ll sink?"

* * *

Two blondes observed in a parking lot trying to unlock the door of their Mercedes with a coat hanger.
Blonde#1: "I can’t seem to get this door unlocked!"
Blonde#2: "Well, you’d better hurry up and try harder, its starting to rain and the top is down!"

* * *

Did you hear about the blonde that went to library and checked out a book called "How to Hug"? Got back to the dorm and found out it was volume seven of the encyclopaedia...

* * *

A blonde’s response to the comment "Think about it!" - "I don’t have to think, I’m blonde!"

* * *

A government study has shown that blondes do have more fun - they just don’t remember who with.

* * *

Two blondes were driving along a road by a wheat field when they saw a blonde in the middle of the field rowing a row boat. The driver blonde turned to her friend and said "You know - it’s blondes like that that give us a bad name!" To this the other blonde replied "I know it and if I knew how to swim I’d go out there and drown her."

* * *

Three blondes are attempting to change a light bulb. One of them decides to call 911:
Blonde: "We need help. We’re three blondes changing a light bulb."
Operator: "Hmmmmm. You put in a fresh bulb?"
Blonde: "Yes."
Operator: "The power in the house in on?"
Blonde: "Of course."
Operator: "And the switch is on?"
Blonde: "Yes, yes."
Operator: "And the bulb still won’t light up?"
Blonde: "No, it’s working fine."
Operator: "Then what’s the problem?"
Blonde: "We got dizzy spinning the ladder around and we all fell and hurt ourselves. "

* * *

A blonde, a brunette and a redhead went into a bar and asked the bartender:

Brunette: "I’ll have a B and C."

Bartender:"What is a B and C?"

Brunette: "Bourbon and Coke."

Redhead: "And, I’ll have a G and T."

Bartender: "What’s a G and T?"

Redhead: "Gin and tonic."

Blonde: "I’ll have a 15."

Bartender: "What’s a 15?"

Blonde: "7 and 7"

* * *

Two brunettes and a blonde are in the hospital awaiting the arrival of their first children.

1st brunette: "I just know I’m going to have a girl, ’cuz I conceived while I was on my back".

2nd brunette: "Mine’s going to be a boy, ’cuz I was on top during conception".

Blonde: "Uh-oh! I’m going to have a puppy!"

* * *

A blonde and a brunette were talking one day. The brunette said that her boyfriend had a slight dandruff problem but she gave him "Head and Shoulders" and it cleared it up. The blonde asked inquisitively "How do you give shoulders?"

* * *

Teller: "Why did the blonde move to L.A.?"
Blonde: "I don’t know. Why?"
Teller: "It was easier to spell."
Blonde: "Easier than what?"

* * *

A blonde and a brunette are sky-diving. The brunette jumps out the plane and pulls the cord - nothing happens. She pulls the emergency cord and still nothing. The blonde jumps out of the plane and yells "Oh! So you wanna race, huh?"

* * *

A blonde was driving down the highway to Disneyland when she saw a sign that said "DISNEYLAND LEFT". After thinking for a minute, she said to herself "Oh, well!" and turned around an drove home.

On her way home she drove past another sign that said "CLEAN RESTROOMS 8 MILES". By the time she drove eight miles, she had cleaned 43 restrooms.

* * *

A brunette and a blonde are walking along in a park. The brunette says suddenly "Awww, look at the dead birdie". The blonde stops, looks up and says "Where?"

* * *

I told my blonde girlfriend that I was going skeet shooting. She told me she didn’t know how to cook them.

* * *

What about the blonde who gave birth to twins? Her husband is out looking for the other man.

* * *

A painting contractor was speaking with a woman about her job. In the first room she said she would like a pale blue. The contractor wrote this down and went to the window, opened it and yelled out "Green side up!" In the second room she told the painter she would like it painted in a soft yellow. He wrote this on his pad, walked to the window, opened it, and yelled "Green side up!" The lady was somewhat curious but she said nothing. In the third room she said she would like it painted a warm rose color. The painter wrote this down, walked to the window, opened it and yelled "Green side up!" The lady asked him "Why do you keep yelling ’green side up’?" "I’m sorry," came the reply, "but I have a crew of blondes laying sod across the street.

* * *

A cop stops a blonde woman who was driving down a motorway.

Cop: "Miss, may I see your driver’s licence please?"

Blonde: "Driver’s licence? What’s that?..."

Cop: "It’s a little card with your picture on it."

Blonde: "Oh, duh! Here it is..."

Cop: "May I have your car insurance?"

Blonde: "What’s that?..."

Cop: "It’s a document that says you are allowed to drive the car."

Blonde: "Oh, this? Duh! Here you go..."

The cop then takes his dick out of his pants, while the blonde exclaims:"Oh no, not another breathalyzer test!"

* * *

A blonde and a brunette were discussing their boyfriends.

Brunette: Last night I had three orgasms in a row!

Blonde: That’s nothing, last night I had over a hundred.

Brunette: My god! I had no idea he was that good.

Blonde: (shocked ) Oh, you mean with one guy.

Business

Q&A
Reasons Alcohol Should be Allowed at Work
Signs That You Work in the XXI century...
Ways to Confuse Your Workmates
Excuses if Found Asleep at Work
Office Inspirational Posters

A businessman tells his friend that his company is looking for a new accountant. His friend asks, "Didn’t your company hire a new accountant a few weeks ago?" The businessman replies "That’s the accountant we’re looking for."

* * *

Theory is when you know everything and nothing is working. Organization is when nothing is working and everyone knows why. Practice is when everything is working and no one knows why.

* * *

Two guys are talking while sitting on a bench in the park. "All of my ancestors followed the medical profession." said the first. "Doctors?" queried the second. "Nope. Undertakers and lawyers."

* * *

Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him.

* * *

The manager was very angry with this beginner who wanted a very high salary. He asked him why he wanted so much money whereas he had no experience. The beginner replied "Work is very difficult when you are a beginner. It becomes easier as you get experience."

* * *

The new employee stood before the paper shredder looking confused. "Need some help?" a secretary, walking by, asked. "Yes," he replied, "how does this thing work?" "Simple," she said, taking the fat report from his hand and feeding it into the shredder. "Thanks, but where do the copies come out?"

* * *

Christopher Columbus was the best deal maker in history. He left not knowing where he was going, and upon arriving, not knowing where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, and did it all on borrowed money.

* * *

Innkeeper: "The room is $15 a night. It’s $5 if you make your own bed."

Guest: "I’ll make my own bed."

Innkeeper: "Good. I’ll get you some nails and wood."

* * *

Life Insurance Agent: "Don’t let me frighten you into a decision. Sleep on it tonight and if you wake up in the morning, let me know what you think."

* * *

An accountant is someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

* * *

Old accountants never die. They just lose their balance.

* * *

My accountant told me that the only reason why my business is looking up is that it’s flat on it’s back.

* * *

A worker was called on the carpet by his supervisor for talking back to his foreman.

Supervisor: "Is it true that you called him a liar?"
Worker: "Yes, I did."
Supervisor: "Did you call him stupid?"
Worker: "Yes."
Supervisor: "And did you call him an opinionated, bullheaded egomaniac?"
Worker: "No, but would you write that down so I can remember it?"

* * *

"What time does the library open?" the man on the phone asked. "Nine A.M." came the reply. "And what’s the idea of calling me at home in the middle of the night to ask a question like that?" "Not until nine A.M.?" the man asked in a disappointed voice. "No, not till nine A.M.!" the librarian said. "Why do you want to get in before nine A.M.?" "Who said I wanted to get in?" the man sighed sadly. "I want to get out."

* * *

A plumber was called to fix a pipe. He arrived, banged on the pipes for 15 minutes, and said to the homeowner well that’ll be $35. The homeownersaid "Thirty five dollars!!! Why that’s $140 per hour!!! I’m a lawyer and I only make $100 an hour!!!" The plumber replied "Yeah, that’s what I got when I was a lawyer."

* * *

A bald man took a seat in a beauty shop. "How can I help you?" asked the stylist. "I went for a hair transplant" the guy explained, "but I couldn’t stand the pain. If you can make my hair look like yours without causing me any discomfort, I’ll pay you $5000." "No problem," said the stylist and she quickly shaved her head.

* * *

A man had dreamt all his life of going to Rome. He told his friend, the local barber, all about it one day while having his hair cut.

Barber: "How will you get there?"

Man: "I’m going on Alitalia."

Barber: "No-not them, they have a terrible reputation. Where will you stay?"

Man: "At the Rome Hilton."

Barber: "Forget it, I hear their hotel there is abysmal. When you get there what will you do?"

Man: "Why, I’m going to see the Pope."

Barber: "Come on. Who are you? You’re not famous or well-known. Don’t be ridiculous!"

A month later the man returned to get his hair cut again.

Barber: "So, you never got to Rome, did you?"

Man: "Oh, yes, I did! Alitalia was a wonderful airline. And the Hilton hotel was magnificent. And I did get to see the Pope."

Barber: "Well, what happened?"

Man: "I bent down to kiss the Pope’s ring."

Barber: "You’re kidding! What did he say?"

Man: "He looked at me and said, `Son, where did you get that lousy haircut?’"

* * *

The village blacksmith finally found an apprentice willing to work hard at low pay for long hours. The blacksmith immediately began his instructions to the lad "When I take the shoe out of the fire, I’ll lay it on the anvil; and when I nod my head, you hit it with this hammer." The apprentice did just as he told. Now he’s the village blacksmith.

* * *

An applicant was asked if he was familiar with any machines. He said "Four." "That’s great. What are the four machines?" He said "Coke, coffee, candy, and cigarette."

* * *

The personnel manager was impressing the applicant with the prospective job. "We make parts for microscopes. You’ll be required to work with lenses that are ten-thousandths of an inch thick." "I can handle it," the applicant said, "I used to slice meat in a delicatessen."

Sex

Q&A
Kinds of Sex
What Girls Say and What They Mean
What Guys Say and What They Mean
Reasons Why Chocolate Is Better Than Sex
Things Not to Say to a Naked Woman...
Things Not To Say During Sex
Murphy’s Laws on Sex

Three women were talking about their love lives.

The first said "My husband is like a Rolls-Royce; smooth and sophisticated."

The second said "Mine is like a Porsche; fast and powerful."

The third said "Mine is like an old Chevy. It needs a hand start and I have to jump on while it’s still going."

* * *

A huge muscular man walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender hands him the beer and says "You know, I’m not gay but I want to compliment you on your physique, it really is phenomenal! I have a question though, why is your head so small?" The big guy nods slowly. He’s obviously fielded this question many times. "One day," he begins, "I was hunting when I got lost in the woods. I heard someone crying for help and finally realized that it was coming from a frog sitting next to a stream. So I picked up the frog and it said "Kiss me and I will turn into a genie and grant you 3 wishes." So I looked around to make sure I was alone and gave the frog a kiss. POOF! The frog turned into a beautiful, voluptuous, naked woman. She said, "You now have 3 wishes." I looked down at my scrawny 115 pound body and said, "I want a body like Arnold Schwarzenneger." She nodded, whispered a spell, and POOF! there I was, so huge that I ripped out of my clothes and was standing there naked! She then asked, "What will be your second wish?" I looked hungrily at her beautiful body and replied, "I want to make sensuous love with you here by this stream." She nodded, laid down, and beckoned to me. "We then made love for hours!" Later, as we lay there next to each other, sweating from our glorious lovemaking, she whispered into my ear, "You know, you do have one more wish. What will it be?" I looked at her and replied, "How about a little head?"

* * *

A blind man walks into a restaurant and sits down. The waiter, who is also the owner, walks up to the blind man and hands him a menu. "I’m sorry, sir, but I am blind and I can’t read the menu. Just bring me a dirty fork from a previous customer and I’ll order from that." A little confused, the owner walks over to the dirty dish pile and picks up a greasy fork. He returns to the blind man’s table and hands it to him. The blind man puts the fork to his nose and takes a deep breath. "Ah, yes, that’s what I’ll have, meat loaf and mashed potatoes." Unbelievable, the owner says to himself as he walks towards the kitchen. Mary the cook happens to be the owner’s wife and he tells her what just happened. The blind man eats his meal and leaves. The owner thinks the blind man is screwing around with him. He tells his wife that the next time the blind man comes in he’s going to test him. He returns the following week, but this time the owner sees him coming and runs into the kitchen. He tells his wife, "Mary, rub this fork on your panties before I take it to the blind man." Mary complies and hands her husband the fork back. As the blind man walks in and sits down, the owner is ready and waiting. "Good afternoon, sir. This time I remembered you and I already have the fork ready for you." The blind man puts the fork to his nose, takes a deep whiff and says, "I didn’t know Mary worked here."

* * *

A Deaf mute walks into pharmacy to buy condoms. He has difficulty communicating with the pharmacist, and cannot see condoms on the shelf. Frustrated, the deaf-mute finally unzips his pants, places his dick on the counter, and puts down a five dollar bill next to it. The pharmacist unzips his pants, does the same as the deaf- mute, and then picks up both bills and stuffs them in his pocket. Exasperated, the deaf mute begins to curse the pharmacist wildly in sign language. "Look," the pharmacist says, "if you can’t afford to lose, you shouldn’t bet."

* * *

A truck driver was pulled over by a State Trooper. The patrolman told him to get out of the truck and noticed that the driver appeared to be putting something in his mouth as he stepped out of the cab. Figuring that the driver was putting away his pep pills, the patrolman asked "Did I just see you swallow something?" "Yep, that was my birth control pill." said the driver. "Birth control pill?" asked the patrolman. "Yep, when I saw your light, I knew I was fucked."

* * *

A guy went out on the golf course took a high-speed ball right in the crotch. Writhing in agony, he fell to the ground. When he finally got himself to the doctor, he said, "How bad is it doc? I’m getting married next week, and my fiancee is still a virgin in every way." The doc said, "I’ll have to put your penis in a splint to let it heal and keep it straight. It should be okay by next week." So he took four tongue depressors and formed a neat little 4-sided bandage, and wired it all together; an impressive work of art. The guy mentioned none of this to his girl. They got married and on the honeymoon night in their hotel room, she rips open her blouse to reveal a gorgeous set of breasts. This was the first time he saw them, and she said,You’ll be the first; no one has ever touched them before." He tore off his pants and said, "Look at this. It’s still in the CRATE.

* * *

At school Little Johnny was told by a classmate that most adults are hiding at least one dark secret, and that this makes it very easy to blackmail them by saying, "I know the whole truth." Little Johnny decides to go home and try it out. He goes home, and as he is greeted by his mother he says, "I know the whole truth." His mother quickly hands him $20 and says, "Just don’t tell your father." Quite pleased, the boy waits for his father to get home from work, and greets him with, "I know the whole truth." The father promptly hands him $40 and says, "Please don’t say a word to your mother." Very pleased, the boy is on his way to school the next day when he sees the mailman at his front door. The boy greets him by saying, "I know the whole truth." The mailman immediately drops the mail, opens his arms, and says, "Then come give your real father a big hug."

* * *

A little old lady went into the Bank one day, carrying a bag of money. She asked to speak with the bank president to open an account because, "It’s a lot of money!" The reluctant staff finally ushered her into his office. The bank president then asked her how much she would like to deposit. She replied, "$165,000!" and dumped the cash on his desk. The president was of course curious as to how she came by all this cash, so he asked her, "Ma’am, where did you get this money?" The old lady replied, "I make bets." The president then asked, "Bets? What kind of bets?" The old woman said, "Well, for example, I’ll bet you $25,000 that your balls are square." "Ha!" laughed the president, "That’s a stupid bet. You can never win that kind of bet!" The old lady challenged, "So, would you like to take my bet?" "Sure," said the president, "I’ll bet $25,000 that my balls are not square!" The old lady said, "Okay, but since there is a lot of money involved, may I bring my lawyer with me tomorrow at 10:00 am as a witness?" "Sure!" replied the confident president. That night, he was very nervous about the bet and often checked his balls in the mirror. The next morning, at precisely 10:00 am, the little old lady appeared with her lawyer at the president’s office. She introduced the lawyer to the president and repeated the bet: "$25,000 says the president’s balls are square!" The president agreed with the bet again and the old lady asked him to drop his pants so they could all see. The president complied. The little old lady peered closely at his balls and then asked if she could feel them. "Well, Okay," said the president, "$25,000 is a lot of money, so I guess you should be absolutely sure." Just then, he noticed that the lawyer was quietly banging his head against the wall. The president said, "What wrong with your lawyer?" She replied, "Nothing, except I bet him $100,000 that at 10:00 am today, I’d have the Bank president’s balls in my hand!"

* * *

Bob goes into the public restroom and sees this guy standing next to the urinal. The guy has no arms. As Bob’s standing there, taking care of business, he wonders to himself how the poor wretch is going to take a leak. Bob finishes and starts to leave when the man asks Bob to help him out. Being a kind soul, Bob says, "Ah, OK, sure, I’ll help you." The man asks, "Can you unzip my zipper?" Bob says, "OK." Then the man says, "Can you pull it out for me?" Bob replies, "Uh, yeah, OK." Bob pulls it out and it has all kinds of mold and red bumps, with hair clumps, rashes, moles, scabs, scars, and reeks something awful. Then the guy asks Bob to point it for him, and Bob points for him. Bob then shakes it, puts it back in and zips it up. The guy tells Bob, "Thanks, man, I really appreciate it." Bob says, "No problem, but what the hell’s wrong with your penis?" The guy pulls his arms out of his shirt and says, "I don’t know, but I ain’t touching it."

* * *

A woman walks into her accountant’s office and tells him that she needs to file her taxes. The accountant says, "Before we begin, I’ll need to ask a few questions." He gets her name, address, social security number, etc. and then asks, "What is your occupation?" The woman replies, "I’m a whore." The accountant balks and says, "No, no, no. That will never work. That is much too crass. Let’s try to rephrase that." The woman, "OK, I’m a prostitute.". "No, that is still too crude. Try again." They both think for a minute, then the woman states, "I’m a chicken farmer." The accountant asks, "What does chicken farming have to do with being a whore or a prostitute?". "Well, I raised over 5,000 cocks last year."

* * *

One day, little Tommy, bored out of his mind, went to his father for suggestions on what to do to pass the time. "I’ll tell you what," said the father, "take this dollar and run into town and get me a dollars worth of what’s what." Tommy grabbed the dollar, hopped on his bike and rode into town. Once there, he had to decide what store would have the what’s what. He stopped in front of the pharmacy and went in. He went to the pharmacist’s desk, held up the dollar and said, "I’d like a dollar’s worth of what’s what, please." The pharmacist knew immediately that the boy was on a wild goose chase and said, "If you go across the street, to the house with the red light on the front porch, they can get you some what’s what." Tommy ran across the street and knocked on the front door. A tall, stunning blonde, completely naked, opened the door. Her pussy was right in little Tommy’s face. Pointing to it he said, "what’s that?" "What’s what?" the whore replied. "Good, I’ll take a dollar’s worth."

* * *

There’s this guy who’s in the market for a used motorcycle. Always wanted a nice big hog. So he’s shopping around, answering ads in the newspaper, and not having much luck. One day he comes across a beautiful classic Harley with a for sale" sign on it. Upon inspection, he is amazed to find the bike in mint condition. He inquires about it with the owner: "This bike is beautiful! I’ll take it. But you gotta tell me how you keep it in such good shape." "Well," says the seller, "it’s pretty simple. Just make sure that if the bike is outside and it’s going to rain, rub Vaseline on the chrome. It protects it from the rain. In fact, since you’re buying the bike I won’t need my tube of Vaseline anymore. Here, you can have it." So the guy buys the bike and off he goes, a happy biker. He takes the bike over to show his girlfriend. She’s ecstatic (being a Harley fan). That night, he decides to ride the bike over to his girlfriend’s parents’ house. It’s the first time he’s going to meet them and figures it will make a big impression. When the couple gets to the house, the girlfriend grabs her boyfriend’s arm. "Honey," she says, "I gotta tell you something about my parents before we go in. When we eat dinner, we don’t talk. In fact, the person who says anything during dinner has to do the dishes." "No problem," he says. And in they go. The boyfriend is astounded. Right smack in the middle of the living room is a huge stack of dirty dishes. In the family room, another huge stack of dishes. Piled up the stairs, dirty dishes. In fact, everywhere he looks, dirty dishes. They sit down to dinner and, sure enough, no one says a word. As dinner progresses, the boyfriend decides to take advantage of the situation. So he leans over and kisses his girlfriend. No one says a word. So he decides to reach over and fondle her breasts. He looks at her parents, but still they keep quiet. So he stands up, grabs his girlfriend, strips her naked, and they make love right on the dinner table. Still, no one says a word. "Her Mom’s kinda cute", he thinks. So he grabs his girlfriend’s Mom and has his way with her right there on the dinner table. Again, total silence. Then, a few raindrops hit the window and the boyfriend realizes it’s starting to rain. He figures he’d better take care of the motorcycle, so he pulls the Vaseline from his pocket. Suddenly the father stands up and shouts: "All right, all right! I’ll do the damn dishes."

* * *

An eighty year old couple decide to try for a child. They visit the doctor who asks the old geezer to produce a sperm sample in a bottle. After two weeks, the couple return and the bottle is empty. "What’s the problem?" asks the doctor. "Well," says the old man, "First I tried it with my right hand, then my left. Then my wife tried it with her right hand, then her left. Then she tried it with her teeth in and with her teeth out, and we still can’t get the lid off the bloody bottle."

* * *

A girl brings a guy home one night. They get into her apartment and immediately she suggests that they do "69". "What the hell is that?" asks the guy. Realizing he’s inexperienced, she tries to explain,"I put my head between your legs and you put your head between mine." Still not knowing what she’s talking about, but not wanting to ruin the moment he agrees to try it. The second they get in to the position, she lets go a RIP-ROARING fart. "What was that for?" he asks. "Oooopppps! Sorry, lets try it again" she says. So, they get into position again, and once more she lets one loose. The guy gets up and starts to put his coat on. "Wait, where are you going?" she asks. The guy says, "If you think I’m sticking around for 67 more of those, you’re crazy !!!"

* * *

One day there were two boys playing by a stream. One of the young boys saw a bush and went over to it and the other boy couldn’t figure out why his friend was at the bush so long. The other boy went over to the bush and looked. The two boys were looking at a woman bathing naked in the steam. All of a sudden the second boy took off running. The first boy couldn’t understand why he ran away so he took off after his friend. Finally, he caught up to him and asked why he ran away. The boy said to his friend, "My mom told me if I ever saw a naked lady I would turn to stone, and I felt something getting hard, so I ran."

* * *

There was this businessman who was getting ready to go on a long business trip. He knew his wife was a flirtatious sort, so he thought he’d try to get her something to keep her occupied while he was gone, because he didn’t much like the idea of her sleeping someone else. So he went to a store that sold sex toys and started looking around. He was browsing through the dildos, looking for something special to please his wife, and started talking to the old man behind the counter. He explained his situation. The old man said, "Well, I don’t really know of anything that will do the trick. We have vibrating dildos, special attachments, and so on, but I don’t know of anything that will keep her occupied for weeks, except -- " and he stopped. "Except what?" the man asked. "Nothing, nothing." "C’mon, tell me! I need something!" "Well, sir, I don’t usually mention this, but there is the ’voodoo dick.’" The old man reached under the counter, and pulled out an old wooden box. He opened it, and there lay a very ordinary-looking dildo. The businessman laughed, and said "Big deal. It looks like every other dildo in this shop!" The old man replied, "But you haven’t seen what it’ll do yet." He pointed to a door and said "Voodoo dick, the door." The voodoo dick rose out of its box, darted over to the door, and started screwing the keyhole. The whole door shook with the vibrations, and a crack developed down the middle. Before the door could split, the old man said "Voodoo dick, get back in your box!" The voodoo dick stopped, floated back to the box and lay there. "I’ll take it!" said the businessman. The old man resisted, saying it wasn’t for sale, but he finally surrendered to $700 in cash. The guy took it home to his wife, told her it was a special dildo and that to use it, all she had to do was say "Voodoo dick, my pussy." He left for his trip satisfied that things would be fine while he was gone. After he’d been gone a few days, the wife was unbearably horny. She thought of several people who would willingly satisfy her, but then she remembered the voodoo dick. She sat on the bed and spread open her legs. She got the voodoo dick out and laid it on the bed right in front of her, and said just as her husband has told her: "Voodoo dick, my pussy!" . The voodoo dick shot to her crotch and started pumping. It was great, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. After three orgasms, she decided she’d had enough, and tried to pull it out, but it was stuck in her, still thrusting. She tried and tried to get it out, but nothing worked. Her husband had forgot to tell her how to shut it off. So she decided to go to the hospital to see if they could help. She put her clothes on, got in the car and started to drive to the hospital, quivering with every thrust of the dildo. On the way, another orgasm nearly made her swerve off the road, and she was pulled over by a policeman. He asked for her license, and then asked how much she’d had to drink. Gasping and twitching, she explained that she hadn’t been drinking, but that a voodoo dick was stuck in her, and wouldn’t stop screwing. The officer looked at her for a second, and then said "Yea, right. Voodoo dick, my ass!"

* * *

A man walked into an appliance store and asked the price of a 25" remote controlled color television set. "One dollar," the clerk replied. "You’ve got to be kidding." "Look, Mac," the clerk said, "do you want it or not?" Of course, the customer gave him a dollar. On the way out with his incredible bargain, the suctomer saw a big frost-free refrigerator with automatic ice maker. "How much for that?" he asked the clerk. "Fifty cents," came the reply. The customer forked over the half dollar, saying, "What the heck is going on here?" "Nothing is goining on here," the clerk snapped. "But my boss is at my house with my wife. And what he’s doing to her, I’m doing to his business."

* * *

A father, mother, and son were going to Europe and were going to visit the nude beaches while they were there. They didn’t want the son to get a distorted view of beauty, so they told him that the men with really big dicks were really really dumb, and that the woman with really big tits were really really dumb. When they got to the beach they split up. Later the mother saw the son and asked where his dad was. The boy said, "Well, the last time I saw him he was talking to this really, really, really dumb blond, and the longer they talked the dumber he got."

* * *

One day a man was sleeping and the neighbor’s little girl entered his house, woke him up and said, "What is that between your legs?" He replied that is "my bird." He went back to sleep. She came back later and said, "What’s that furry stuff around your bird?" He replied that’s "my nest." So he went back to sleep. She came back later. "What’s those two things under it?" He said those are "the eggs." She said, "Okay, can I play with your bird,and he said "ok." When he woke up later, he noticed that he was in the hospital. He saw the little girl and asked, "what happened?" She said, "When I was playing with your bird he spit in my eye so I chopped off his head, burnt down his nest and busted his eggs!"

* * *

A girl goes into the doctor’s office for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a red "H" on her chest. "How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor. "Oh, my boyfriend went to Harvard and he’s so proud of it that he never takes off his Harvard sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies. A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a blue "Y" on her chest. "How did you get that mark on your chest?" asks the doctor. "Oh, my boyfriend went to Yale and he’s so proud of it that he never takes off his Yale sweatshirt, even when we make love," she replies. A couple of days later, another girl comes in for a checkup. As she takes off her blouse, he notices a green "M" on her chest. "Do you have a boyfriend at Michigan?" asks the doctor. "No, but I have a girlfriend at Wisconsin. Why do you ask?"

* * *

One night, as a couple lay down for bed, the husband gently taps his wife on the shoulder and starts rubbing her arm. The wife turns over and says "I’m sorry honey, I’ve got a gynecologist appointment tomorrow and I want to stay fresh." The husband, rejected, turns over and tries to sleep. A few minutes later, he rolls back over and taps his wife again. This time he whispers in her ear, "Do you have a dentist appointment tomorrow too?"

* * *

One evening a man was at home watching TV and eating peanuts. He’d toss them in the air, then catch them in his mouth. In the middle of catching one, his wife asked a question, and as he turned to answer her, a peanut fell in his ear. He tried and tried to dig it out but succeeded in only pushing it in deeper. He called his wife for assistance, and after hours of trying they became worried and decided to go to hospital. As they were ready to go out the door, their daughter came home with her date. After being informed of the problem, their daughter’s date said he could get the peanut out. The young man told the father to sit down, then shoved two fingers up the father’s nose and told him to blow hard. When the father blew, the peanut flew out. The mother and daughter jumped and yelled for joy. The young man insisted that it was nothing and the daughter brought the young man out to the kitchen for something to eat. Once he was gone the mother turned to the father. The mother said, "That’s wonderful. Isn’t he smart? What do you think he’s going to be when he grows older?" The father replied "From the smell of his fingers... our son in-law!"

* * *

A man takes the day off work and decides to go out golfing. He is on the second hole when he notices a frog sitting next to the green. He thinks nothing of it and is about to shoot when he hears, "Ribbit 9 Iron" The man looks around and doesn’t see anyone. "Ribbit 9 Iron" He looks at the frog, puts his other club away, and grabs a 9 iron. Boom! He hits it 10 inches from the cup. He is shocked. He says to the frog, "Wow that’s amazing. You must be a lucky frog, eh?" The frog reply’s "Ribbit Lucky frog" The man decides to take the frog with him to the next hole. "What do you think frog?" the man asks. "Ribbit 3 wood" The guy takes out a 3 wood, and boom! Hole in one. The man is amazed and doesn’t know what to say. By the end of the day, the man had golfed the best game of golf in his life. Then he asks the frog, "OK where to next?" The frog reply’s, "Ribbit Las Vegas" They go to Las Vegas and the guy says, "OK frog, now what?" The frog says, "Ribbit Roulette" Upon approaching the roulette table, the man asks, "What do you think I should bet?" The frog replies, "Ribbit $3000, black 6" Now, this is a million-to-one shot to win, but after the golf game, the man figures what the heck. Boom! Tons of cash comes sliding back across the table. The man takes his winnings and buys the best room in the hotel.He sits the frog down and says, "Frog, I don’t know how to repay you. You’ve won me all this money and I am forever grateful." The frog replies, "Ribbit Kiss Me" He figures why not, since after all the frog did for him he deserves it. With a kiss, the frog turns into a gorgeous 17-year-old girl. "And that, your Honor, is how the girl ended up in my room."

* * *

A man goes to Victoria Secret to buy his wife the most sheer lingerie he can find. The woman behind the counter goes and gets an outfit. "This is $200," she says. "I want one that’s more sheer," says he. "This one is $350." "I want it even more sheer than that." "This one is the most sheer that we have. It’s $500." "I’ll take it!" The man goes home to his wife and shows it to her, saying, "Go put this on and come down to model it for me." His wife goes upstairs, opens the box and thinks, "This thing is so see-through that the old coot won’t even notice if I’m wearing it or not. I can take this back for a refund and he won’t know the difference." So his wife comes out wearing nothing at all and strikes a pose at the top of the stairs. "So, how do you like it?" she asks. "Damn, you’d think for $500 they’d iron the damn thing."

* * *

One day, little Mikey comes home from kindergarten for lunch. Not finding his mother in the kitchen, or the living room, he heads upstairs to check her bedroom. He opens the door, and what does he see, but his father, who had also come home for lunch, stripped naked, on top of his mother, also naked, heavily into the act of lovemaking. Not wanting to traumatize the boy, the parents continue as if nothing was wrong. Mikey watches, and after a couple of minutes asks, "Daddy, can I climb on and have a horsy ride?" "Of course, Son, we’re a family." So Mikey climbs on and after a few more minutes his mother starts moaning and writhing wildly. "Hang on Dad!", cries Mikey, "this is where me and the mailman usually fall off!"

* * *

One morning while making breakfast, a man walked up to his wife and pinched her on her butt and said, "You know if you firmed this up we could get rid of your girdle." While this was on the edge of intolerable, she thought herself better and replied with silence. The next morning the man woke his wife with a pinch on the breast and said, "You know if you firmed these up we could get rid of your bra." This was beyond a silent response, so she rolled over and grabbed him by the penis. With a death grip in place she said, "You know if you firmed this up we could get rid of the postman, the gardener, the poolman and your brother.

* * *

Little Johnny was in trouble again.....He was charged with the rape of a grown woman, and all though the crime seemed highly improbable, the state’s evidence was overwhelming. As a last desperate move, the defense counsel came over to the witness stand, pulled down Little Johnny’s pants, and grabbed the boy’s tiny penis for all to see. "Ladies and gentlemen," the lawyer cried turning toward the jury box, "surely you cannot believe that such a small still undeveloped organ is sexually mature?" Growing more agitated he went on, "How could this miniature member be capable even of erection, let alone the rape of a fully grown woman." "WATCH IT," yelped Little Johnny. "One more shake and you’ll lose the case!"

* * *

Two teenagers wander off to the bushes during a softball game on the outskirts of town and start necking. After a while the boy stops. "You know we’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and I think it’s time we went all the way," he pleads. "Well, maybe," she says, "But I’m a virgin and I heard it hurts. Besides all those people at the field may hear us." The boy stops and says, "Hmmm, well then if it hurts, start making cow sounds, and I’ll stop. But if it feels good start singing. That way no one will ever guess what we’re really doing." The girl agrees so they quickly take off their clothes and get down to business. Ten minutes later people watching the game hear sounds echoing through the quiet countryside so loudly that the teams stop playing.
"Moooo ..... Moooooo ...... Moooooooon River .......!"

* * *

There once was a man who lost his arms in a car accident. One day he won a million dollar lottery. After a moment of thought, he rushed to the hospital and asked their top surgeon whether he could get his arms back for a million dollars. "Wow," the doctor replied, "I just invented a completely voice activated mechanical arm, but I can only give you one though." So he showed him some of the stuff the arm could do and the man was amazed and bought the arm. The next day he went to the pub with his friends to show off his new advanced arm. As they sat together he told the arm to pick up his pint of beer and give him a sip. The arm did it perfectly and the friends were amazed. After a few pints the man went for a piss. He told the arm to take his penis out and away he pissed. Then he tells the arm to, "give it a little shake". The arm does and the man seemed to over-enjoy it, and so he looks around to make sure no one is looking and tells the arm to give it another little shake. He gets a boner and once again turns around to make sure nobody’s watching and then tells the arm, "jerk it off!" The arm pulls off his penis and the man screams out, in pain, "Fuck Me!" So the arm then shoves his penis up his ass. The man even more shocked at this stage shouts out, "Holy shit, would you look at that." The arm pulls his penis out of his ass and shoves it right into one of his eyeballs!

* * *

The kindergarten class had a homework assignment to find out about something exciting and relate it to the class the next day. When the time came for the little kids to give their reports, the teacher was calling on them one at a time. She was reluctant to call upon little Johnnie, knowing that he sometimes could be a bit crude. But eventually his turn came. Little Johnnie walked up to the front of the class, and with a piece of chalk, made a small white dot on the blackboard, then sat back down. Well the teacher couldn’t figure out what Johnnie had in mind for his report, so she asked him just what that was. "It’s a period," reported Johnnie. "Well I can see that," she said, "but what is so exciting about a period." "Damned if I know," said Johnnie, "but this morning my sister said she missed one. Then Daddy had a heart attack, Mommy fainted and the man next door shot himself."

Technorati Tags: Kinds of Sex, What Girls Say, Is Better Than Sex, Things Not To Say, Laws on Sex, Jokes

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Physical Reality

2006-08-15T22:52:00.000+07:00

The Most Simple Science Theory of Physical Reality.

(Plato, Republic, 380BC ) "And those whose hearts are fixed on REALITY itself deserve the title of Philosophers."

"The society we have described can never grow into a reality or see the light of day, and there will be no end to the troubles of states, or indeed, my dear Glaucon, of humanity itself, till philosophers are kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands."

(Aristotle, Metaphysics, 340BC ) "The first philosophy (Metaphysics) is universal and is exclusively concerned with primary substance. ... And here we will have the science to study that which is just as that which is, both in its essence and in the properties which, just as a thing that is, it has. ... The entire preoccupation of the physicist is with things that contain within themselves a principle of movement and rest. And to seek for this is to seek for the second kind of principle, that from which comes the beginning of the change."

(Gottfried Leibniz, 1670) "Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. ... I do not conceive of any reality at all as without genuine unity. ... I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general. ... A distinction must be made between true and false ideas, and that too much rein must not be given to a man"s imagination under pretext of its being a clear and distinct intellection."

(David Hume, 1737) "And though the philosopher may live remote from business, the genius of PHILOSOPHY, if carefully cultivated by several, must gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling."

"When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is, I must confess, passes my comprehension; and it is incumbent on those to produce it, who assert that it really exists, and is the origin of all our conclusions concerning matter of fact."

(Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 1781) "If we take away the subject (Humans), or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as appearances, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us."

(Bradley, 1846-1924)

"We may agree, perhaps, to understand by METAPHYSICS, an attempt to know reality as against mere appearance, or the study of first principles or ultimate truths, or again the effort to comprehend the Universe, not simply piecemeal or by fragments, but somehow as a whole."

(Albert Einstein, 1954) "The development during the present century is characterized by two theoretical systems essentially independent of each other: the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory. The two systems do not directly contradict each other; but they seem little adapted to fusion into one unified theory. For the time being we have to admit that we do not possess any general theoretical basis for physics which can be regarded as its logical foundation."

"If, then, it is true that the axiomatic basis of theoretical PHYSICS cannot be extracted from experience but must be freely invented, can we ever hope to find the right way? I answer without hesitation that there is, in my opinion, a right way, and that we are capable of finding it. I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed." (Albert Einstein, 1954)

"The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them." (Albert Einstein, 1918)

(Francisco de Goya) "Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels."

"When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe." (Henri Matisse)

(Michel de Montaigne) "Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it? .. But in truth I know nothing about the philosophy of education except this: that the greatest and the most important difficulty known to human learning seems to lie in that area which treats how to bring up children and how to educate them."

(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan) "During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. .... To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues."

(Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948) "Truth alone is eternal, everything else is momentary. It is more correct to say that Truth is God, than to say that God is Truth. ... All life (and truth) comes from the one universal source, call it Allah, God or Parmeshwara."

"True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason and knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite world around him, and which binds his life to that infinity and guides his actions .. and leads to the practical rules of the law: do to others as you would have them do unto you." (Leo Tolstoy, Confessions)

The word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (all) and theos (God). Thus pantheism means "All is God". In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature, a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power. Pantheism believes that all things are linked in profound unity ... All things interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realising this we can find our joy and our peace. (Harrison, Pantheism, 1999)

Technorati Tags: Physical Reality, Plato, Gandhi, Hobbes, Einstein

Philosophy

2006-07-15T21:27:00.000+07:00

Ancient Greek Philosophy:

"The unexamined life is not worth living. ... Wisdom begins in wonder. ... There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." (Socrates, 469 - 399 B.C.)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ... At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst." (Aristotle, 384 - 322 B.C.)

"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth." (Diogenes, 412 - 323 BC)

Eastern Philosophy:

"Being one with nature, the sage is in accord with the Tao." (Lao Tzu )

"Men"s natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart." (Confucius)

"Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world; it is appeased by love. This is an eternal Law." (Buddha)

"All our philosophy is as dry as dust if it is not immediately translated into some act of living service." (Mahatma Gandhi) "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." (Dalai Lama)

Famous Western Philosophers:

"I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them." (Spinoza)

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." (Rene Descartes)

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools have always done just the opposite." (Schopenhauer)

"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." (Leo Tolstoy)

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." (Karl Marx)

20th Century Philosophy - Philosophers "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. ... The meaning of a word is its use in the language." (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

"Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free." (Bertrand Russell)

"Everything has been figured out, except how to live." (Jean Paul Sartre)

Physics: Newton"s Mechanics, Quantum Theory, Einstein"s Theory of Relativity, Cosmology "I have explained phenomena ... by the force of gravity, but I have not yet ascertained the cause of gravity itself ... & I do not invent hypotheses." (Sir Isaac Newton)

"I am one of those who think like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries." (Marie Curie)

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Max Planck)

"The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth & sincerity, ... upon himself & other scientists." (Erwin Schrodinger)

"Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it." (Bohr)

"I think it is safe to say that no one understands Quantum Mechanics." (Richard Feynman)

Albert Einstein Philosopher Physicist "If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." "If we have the courage to decide for peace, we will have peace." "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." "The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty and Truth." (Albert Einstein)

Mathematics - Famous Mathematicians:

"Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. ... Philosophy is the product of wonder." (Alfred North Whitehead)

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. ... Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth." (Blaise Pascal)

"The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God." (Euclid)

Famous Scientists Inventors Explorers

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." (Galileo Galilei)

"Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world." (Louis Pasteur)

"I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success." (Nikola Tesla)

"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk." (Thomas Edison)

Theology - World Religions:

"All gods are homemade, and it is we who pull their strings, and so, give them the power to pull ours." (Aldous Huxley)

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." (Albert Einstein)

"There was only one true Christian, and he died on the cross." (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." (Seneca)

"As a philosopher, I have a right to ask for a rational explanation of religious faith." (Cicero)

Famous Leaders Presidents Politicians Roman Emperors: "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." (Nelson Mandela)

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." (JFK)

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character." (Martin Luther King Jr.)

"We cannot be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms." (Jimmy Carter)

Education - Educational Philosophy:

"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance. (Socrates)

"The educated differ from the uneducated, as the living from the dead." (Aristotle)

"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth." (Diogenes)

"Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it?" (Michel de Montaigne)

"Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. ... Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education." (Jean Jacques Rousseau)

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." (Nelson Mandela)

Nature Environment Evolution Ecology:

"Simplify, Simplify. ... Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." (Henry David Thoreau)

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection." (Darwin)

"The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future." (Herbert Spencer)

"A nation that destroys it"s soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people." (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Famous Quotes: Motivational - Inspirational - Wisdom Quotations

"Meditate often upon the bond of all in the Universe and their mutual relationship. For all things are in a way woven together." (Marcus Aurelius)

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." (Goethe)

"To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly." (William James)

"Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind." (Teddy Roosevelt)

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." (Gandhi)

Famous Poets: Metaphysical Poetry & Romantic Poems on Love and Human Emotions

"Was it not for you the glacier today exchanged its grey for roses? ... For you have I prepared my table ... who lives so near the stars as I, or who so near the depths of the abyss?" (Friedrich Nietzsche)

"No one was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge ..." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." (William Wordsworth)

Literature:

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. ... Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." (George Orwell)

"I have nothing to declare except my genius." (Oscar Wilde)

"Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy." (Voltaire)

"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, ..." (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

Love Sex Human Sexuality Quotes on Erotic Art: "The art of life lies in taking pleasures as they pass, and the keenest pleasures are not intellectual, nor are they always moral." (Aristippus quote on Vintage Erotic Art)

"Analyse any human emotion, ...and you are sure to discover somewhere the primal impulse, to which life owes its perpetuation." (Sigmund Freud quote on Erotic Art)

"Sexual pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon; ..." (Simone de Beauvoir)

Famous Musicians - Classical Composer"s Portraits :

"My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better." (George Frederic Handel)

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

"I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired." (Richard Wagner)

Famous Women: Philosophy, Science, Feminism, Art

"No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." (Mary Wollstonecraft)

"We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half." (Emmeline Pankhurst)

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity." (Marie Curie)

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." (Anais Nin)

Renaissance Impressionist :

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." (Michelangelo)

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." (Leonardo da Vinci)

"Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. ...Colour is my day-long obsession, my joy and torment." (Monet)

"People call me the painter of dancers, but I really wish to capture movement itself." (Degas)

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." (Vincent Van Gogh)

Adult Satire - Funny Quotes - Stupid Jokes - Philosophy Humor:

Question: What do you get when you cross the Godfather with a philosopher?

Answer: An offer you can"t understand!

Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. "I think not," he says and vanishes in a puff of logic. "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I"m not sure about the universe." (Albert Einstein)

Technorati Tags: Philosophy, Physical Reality, In Less Time, Feeling Good, Colony

49 of 175 Ways to Get More Done In Less Time

2006-05-16T01:15:00.000+07:00

Introduction

Want to get things done faster so you can accomplish more of your long-term goals? Okay. We"d all like that to happen. But the question we finally have to ask is, "How can I do that — get more things done in less time?

Now, don"t expect smoke and mirrors here. And don"t look to magically pull a few extra hours for your day out of thin air.

You may also want to try this approach: Select one or two of the tips each week. Describe the tip briefly with your staff at your team meeting and ask for everyone to try this week"s tip. Every environment is different, but chances are that some will stick with your team and result in exponential time savings for all involved.

Before you know it, you"re back in control — actually achieving those goals you"ve set for yourself.

What better time to get started than the present? Like today!

Remember…the meter is ticking!

Getting Started…On The Right Foot

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."
—William James

1 It always helps to know where your time is going. So, keep track of how you spend your time for two weeks. Sound dull? Boring, maybe? So cut it down to a couple of days. Surprise! Most of your log will show you"re investing your time in people or things not really important to you or your goals.

2 Focus, focus, focus on STARTING tasks rather than finishing them. The greatest challenge is taking the first step and getting started. (Ah yes – doesn"t that feel good?)

3 Every day something unexpected is going to happen. Count on it! So, set aside some "Oops time!" Don"t let these emergencies disrupt the rest of your day. Plan for them, act on them and then get back to work.

4 Think on paper. Writing things down minimizes confusion and stress. Write down your goals, to-do lists, and even the problems that you"re working on. You"ll find putting things on paper usually clarifies the situation. Committing things to memory can be a waste of brain power, not to mention a poor storage device as well.

5 Categorize your To Do list into A, B, and C priorities. "A" priorities are the activities that are critical for your success. "B" priorities are important but not critical. "C" priorities would be nice to do if you get the time. Begin with your "A" priorities and work your way to the "nice to do" items.

6 Here"s a suggestion that will help everyone: create a "talk" file for your boss, subordinates, peers and even your customers. Unless it is a real emergency, wait until you have at least two items in the file before calling that person with your questions.

7 Get a spiral-bound notebook, date it, and keep all your notes in the book for future reference. Quit writing on loose papers or sticky notes that tend to get lost.

8 Try something new. Read (really) the instruction manual that came with your electronic organizer. Even better, try the manufacturer"s web site to find new software updates and releases that may further your productivity. Bet you will find several time management tools you haven"t used. Let the organizer do the work so you can spend less time organizing yourself.

9 Use only one time management system. Whether you choose an electronic or paper system, one consistent system will eliminate much wasted time spent searching for information.

10 Abracadabra! Take a speed-reading course. You could already be a lot further along in this blog!

11 How about all those passwords? Tough to remember? Simplify your passwords and have a logical, easy to remember reason for selecting each. Trying to remember a password is frustrating and a total waste of time. You may want to select passwords that can be typed on the keyboard with one hand so your other hand is free.

12 Take a Saturday and devote two hours to reorganizing yourself. Take a fresh look at how you are organized and look for opportunities to improve. You will probably discover several areas where you can eliminate some personal time wasters simply by becoming a little better organized.

13 Create a "quiet time" for planning. Let everyone know your closed door means "do not disturb" unless there is an emergency…or someone in your family calls.

14 Throw things away! Yes, even those ticket stubs from the last football game. Ask yourself, "What is the worst thing that could happen if I throw this away?" Most of the time, you can live with your answer, so start filling that wastebasket!

15 Date stamp (ker-chunk) every item that hits your desk. This will help you decide when to file or throw away the paper.

16 If you get heartburn from throwing paper away, create a drawer or file to store your stuff for 90 days. If you have not used it within 90 days, you can safely throw those "keepers" away.

17 Still not comfortable — even after the 90 days? Then find the "office pack rat" and become their new best friend. Someone around the office has a copy of every memo and report from the past 10 years. Love that person — but throw your trash away.

18 Trust me on this, too! Most of all filed materials over a year old are never needed again. Archive the files and get them out of your way. If possible handle the paper only once and avoid the "I"ll just put it here for now" habit.

19 The key to paper management — KEEP IT MOVING! (Now, how simple can we get?) Move the paper to your out basket, your file, your "to read" folder or to your trash. Don"t let paper just sit.

20 Wait! Do these three things before you leave the office: (1) clear your desk, (2) plan tomorrow"s activities and (3) enter your next day"s to-do list in your organizer. Then go home. Planning the next day before you leave reduces stress and allows you to enjoy your time away from the office. Your Work Space…Home Sweet Home

What"s man"s best friend (besides the dog)?
The wastebasket! – Business Week

21 Okay, listen up! Clear your desk…NOW! Despite what some people believe, a cluttered desk does not indicate genius. Au contraire! It signals confusion and creates stress. Even mini-clutter will grow and eventually fill every inch. Keep your desk clear of everything except your project du jour and your family picture.

22 Get rid of that paper! Shuffling and reshuffling paper from pile to pile or file to file wastes time and keeps you from focusing on what needs to get done. Find a gigantic wastebasket and fill it up. The larger the wastebasket, the more you will use it. Throwing things away then becomes an art. Enjoy!

23 Files should not be an obstacle course. Put your most often reviewed files at the front of the cabinet. Here is a test to see if your current filing system works. Within two minutes, can you retrieve any paper you need? Go. If you failed the test you are wasting time searching through your files.

24 Never clear off your desk by randomly throwing things in a drawer. Gotcha! You will eventually have to go through that drawer. Instead, create a logical system for storing these items in your desk.

25 A picture or two on your desk is probably not distracting, but limit pictures to a special few. The more pictures on your desk, the more distractions and interruptions you invite.

26 Organize your desktop! If you are right-handed, make sure the phone is located on the left side of your desk. You want to keep the right side of the desk (and your right hand) free to take notes. Just the opposite for lefties.

Right-handed people should place the calculator on the right side of their desk. Ditto the above for southpaws, the proud but under-represented!

27 Avoid glass desktops. They glare and are hard to keep clean. You don"t need to spend valuable time wiping off fingerprints.

28 If a report comes across your desk that you can"t use, notify the sender and ask to be deleted from distribution. The key question to ask is, "Would I pay for this report if I had to?" If not, get rid of it.

29 If you only use a few lines of a report, ask for a reformat, if possible. Four pages when you need four lines just doesn"t make sense — does it?

"If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it."
Olin Miller

The Work Environment: Color Your World…Productive

"It is better to strike a straight blow with a crooked stick than spend my whole life trying to straighten the darn thing out."
—Ken Blanchard

30 Now hear this! Never say "yes" without considering the time investment you are committing. Having the courage to say "no" to requests that are inappropriate or unnecessary could be your most effective time management tool!

31 Take the time to understand the role of every department in your organization. This time invested up front will eliminate your "panic" when someone has an urgent request outside your department.

32 "Perfection paralysis" is expensive. Sometimes it is not worth the effort to make things "perfect." Take a look at time costs involved and weigh these against the benefit of perfection. Many times second best in operation is better than first best on the drawing board.

33 Copy the world every time you send a memo? But, realistically, does "the world" really care? When writing a memo or sending an e-mail, only distribute to the people who really need to know the information. Some of "the world" feels obligated to respond and then everyone"s time is wasted.

34 Want to get your written point across — fast? Limit your sentences to fifteen words.

35 Are you really listening! Every time you say, "But I thought you said," you might as well be saying, "I wasted all this time doing the wrong thing." Listen, clarify, and make sure you understand the task before going forward. It is a good time investment for both parties.

36 Is it your job to pick up every ball that someone drops? Avoid this label at all costs! Think about it!

37 Don"t try to solve other people"s problems. You may be empathetic to their situation, but if you spend your time solving their problems, Surprise! Their next problem will become yours, too! The best thing you can do is help others learn how to solve their own problems. Interruptions…The Office Plague

""Got a minute?" never means just one minute. Before you answer, always ask, "What"s this about?""
— Alec Mackenzie

38 "Hey, you got a minute?" That"s a question, not a demand. Don"t get angry with the interrupter if you answered, "Sure!" to their question. General rule: If you cannot eliminate the interruption, make the interruption as short as possible.

39 When people arrive to interrupt, meet them at the door and talk outside your office. Letting them in may add minutes to the interruption.

40 Stand up! When someone shows up unannounced, keep standing until you decide if you want the conversation to continue. Standing is not comfortable for most people and the length of most interruptions is in direct proportion to the comfort level of the interrupter.

41 Signal the end of the time allotted by politely saying, "One more thing before you go." Be respectful but take control. Remember that this is your office and you"re responsible for the time here.

42 Get rid of extra chairs in your office. You can always pull one from somewhere else if you need it.

43 Arrange your office so that your desk doesn"t face the door. People are less likely to interrupt if they can"t see your face.

44 Keep track of the origins of your interruptions. Don"t be surprised to find your biggest interrupter is your boss! After getting over the shock, sit down with your boss and see if you can find ways to decrease the number of interruptions so that you can be more productive.

45 Schedule "one-on-one" sessions with your staff and boss. Gather everything you need to talk about and take care of it at one sitting rather than interrupting each other the minute something comes up.

46 When you don"t want to be disturbed, put your candy dish away. It is an interrupter magnet!

47 Give yourself a break! You can accomplish 60-minutes" worth of interrupted work in just 20 minutes of non-interrupted work. Is there a better investment of your time?

48 Want to make a positive difference in the time investment of your company? Ask your peers and subordinates, "What do I do that wastes your time and hinders your performance?"

49 Henry Ford was always dropping into the offices of his company"s executives. When asked why he didn"t have them come to him, he replied, "Well, I"ll tell you. I"ve found that I can leave the other fellow"s office a lot quicker than I can get him to leave mine.

"Guard your own spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

To Be Continue ...
and i give 126 ways again

What is Philosophy

2006-05-04T20:24:00.000+07:00

What in the World is Going on Here?

Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. - Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us.

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy has had over two millenia to mature into the discipline it is today. Philosophy began as a discipline concerned with questions now commonly associated with science. For instance, the first philosophers, the Pre-Socratics, queried, “what is the basic ‘stuff’ of the universe?” Their answers were simple: “water,” “air,” “fire,” or the “indefinite.” These answers werecarefully devised. Each answer had an argument to substantiate it. This is the distinguishing feature of philosophy - arguments. Before Thales, persons of knowledge tried to substantiate claims by offering evidence from religion and myth. Thales of Miletus argued that everything is water. He argued that (1) the fundamental explanation of the universe must be one in number, (2) that this reality must be a ‘thing’, and (3) that this one thing must have within itself the ability to move and change. Water, according to Thales, is the only thing that qualifies as the fundamental explanation of the universe.

Several disciplines have emerged from the first question of philosophy. Mathematics, sociology, biology, physics, and business and economics, to name just a few, all arise out of philosophy. If we think about these disciplines in terms of the questions they ask, then we will usually find a philosophical question. For example, in mathematics, several mathematicians have asked "what is the foundation of mathematics?" This is a purely philosophical question. Like philosophy, this foundational questions seeks the absolute or fundamental foundation upon which all of mathematics can rest. So, we can say that other disciplines have many ties to philosophy.

In a way, these other disciplines depend (at least in part) on philosophy for their birth, cultivation, and maturation. Despite the fact that we have determined philosophy to be important to other disciplines, the definition of philosophy still eludes us. That philosophy is important to the other arts and sciences does not define philosophy; rather, it merely seems to show that it is important (I will return to the importance of philosophy in Section 1.2). Throughout the ages, philosophy has been defined in many, many different ways. Below is a sample of seven different definitions. They are in no way conclusive, but they will give the student a flavor of what philosophy is.

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Feeling Good

2006-05-03T20:50:00.000+07:00

Feeling good
100 ways to feel better every day

The information in this booklet is for educational purposes only. It should not be interpreted as medical advice and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your health care provider if you have questions or concerns about your health. Always be sure to talk with your health care provider before you start an exercise program.

How good do you feel?
Let"s begin by answering the following ten questions.

Do you have regular checkups?
Do you exercise for at least 30 minutes 4 or more days a week?
Do you eat balanced meals?
Do you get close to 8 hours of sleep most nights?
Do you follow your doctor"s advice to quit smoking, lose weight, or limit your consumption of alcohol?

Are you often irritable or short-tempered with people you care about?
Do you have frequent headaches or stomachaches?
Do you feel sad or down very often or cry for no reason?
Do you often feel too busy and "stressed"?
Do you have social, medical, or financial worries caused by drugs, alcohol, gambling, or shopping?

The fact is, we could all take better care of ourselves—physically and emotionally. For some of us, that may mean getting more exercise, losing weight, or eating a healthier diet. For others, it may mean learning how to make time for the people we care about or learning how to manage stress so we have the energy to meet the challenges that come our way each day.

What are some of the things you can do every day to feel better in your life? Look back to the questions on the quiz for some answers. If you answered "No" to any of the first five questions, these are the areas to work on with your physical health. If you answered "Yes" to any of the last five questions, these are the areas to pay attention to with your emotional health.

Feeling good involves taking care of both your physical health and your emotional needs. You"ll find hundreds of ideas in this booklet on how to do that.

As you read through the suggestions that follow, think about how you might pay better attention to your overall well-being. Is it by eating a healthier diet?

Making more time for fun in your life? Getting more exercise? Renewing your spiritual self? Next, jot down in the back of the booklet the things you can do to help your body and mind feel better, using the suggestions included here as well as your own ideas.

"Whether we live to a vigorous old age lies not so much in our stars or our genes as in ourselves," writes Harvard physician George Vaillant in his helpful book Aging Well.

Take care of yourself. Maintain close friendships. And choose to feel good even when things aren"t wonderful. Experts agree that these are the secrets to successful aging—and to feeling good throughout your life.

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Soe Hok Gie

2006-04-24T03:25:00.000+07:00

Soe Hok Gie dilahirkan pada tanggal 17 Desember 1942, adik dari sosiolog Arief Budiman. Catatan harian Gie sejak 4 Maret 1957 sampai dengan 8 Desember 1969 dibukukan tahun 1983 oleh LP3ES ke dalam sebuah buku yang berjudul Soe Hok Gie: Catatan Seorang Demonstran setebal 494 halaman. Gie meninggal di Gunung Semeru sehari sebelum ulang tahunnya yang ke-27 — 16 Desember 1969 akibat gas beracun.

Setelah lulus dari SMA Kanisius Gie melanjutkan kuliah ke Universitas Indonesia tahun 1961. Di masa kuliah inilah Gie menjadi aktivis kemahasiswaan. Banyak yang meyakini gerakan Gie berpengaruh besar terhadap tumbangnya Soekarno dan termasuk orang pertama yang mengritik tajam rejim Orde Baru.

Gie sangat kecewa dengan sikap teman-teman seangkatannya yang di era demonstrasi tahun 66 mengritik dan mengutuk para pejabat pemerintah kemudian selepas mereka lulus berpihak ke sana dan lupa dengan visi dan misi perjuangan angkatan 66. Gie memang bersikap oposisif dan sulit untuk diajak kompromi dengan oposisinya.

Selain itu juga Gie ikut mendirikan Mapala UI. Salah satu kegiatan pentingnya adalah naik gunung. Pada saat memimpin pendakian gunung Slamet 3.442m, ia mengutip Walt Whitman dalam catatan hariannya, "Now I see the secret of the making of the best person. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth".

Pemikiran dan sepak terjangnya tercatat dalam catatan hariannya. Pikiran-pikirannya tentang kemanusiaan, tentang hidup, cinta dan juga kematian. Tahun 1968 Gie sempat berkunjung ke Amerika dan Australia, dan piringan hitam favoritnya Joan Baez disita di bandara Sydney karena dianggap anti-war dan komunis. Tahun 1969 Gie lulus dan meneruskan menjadi dosen di almamaternya.

Bersama Mapala UI Gie berencana menaklukkan Gunung Semeru yang tingginya 3.676m. Sewaktu Mapala mencari pendanaan, banyak yang bertanya kenapa naik gunung dan Gie berkata kepada teman-temannya:

"Kami jelaskan apa sebenarnya tujuan kami. Kami katakan bahwa kami adalah manusia-manusia yang tidak percaya pada slogan. Patriotisme tidak mungkin tumbuh dari hipokrisi dan slogan-slogan. Seseorang hanya dapat mencintai sesuatu secara sehat kalau ia mengenal obyeknya. Dan mencintai tanah air Indonesia dapat ditumbuhkan dengan mengenal Indonesia bersama rakyatnya dari dekat. Pertumbuhan jiwa yang sehat dari pemuda harus berarti pula pertumbuhan fisik yang sehat. Karena itulah kami naik gunung."

8 Desember sebelum Gie berangkat sempat menuliskan catatannya:

"Saya tak tahu apa yang terjadi dengan diri saya. Setelah saya mendengar kematian Kian Fong dari Arief hari Minggu yang lalu. Saya juga punya perasaan untuk selalu ingat pada kematian. Saya ingin mengobrol-ngobrol pamit sebelum ke semeru. Dengan Maria, Rina dan juga ingin membuat acara yang intim dengan Sunarti. Saya kira ini adalah pengaruh atas kematian Kian Fong yang begitu aneh dan begitu cepat." Selanjutnya catatan selama ke Gunung Semeru lenyap bersamaan dengan meninggalnya Gie di puncak gunung tersebut.

24 Desember 1969 Gie dimakamkan di pemakaman Menteng Pulo, namun dua hari kemudian dipindahkan ke Pekuburan Kober, Tanah Abang. Tahun 1975 Ali Sadikin membongkar Pekuburan Kober sehingga harus dipindahkan lagi, namun keluarganya menolak dan teman-temannya sempat ingat bahwa jika dia meninggal sebaiknya mayatnya dibakar dan abunya disebarkan di gunung. Dengan pertimbangan tersebut akhirnya tulang belulang Gie dikremasi dan abunya disebar di puncak Gunung Pangrango.

Beberapa quote yang diambil dari catatan hariannya Gie:

"Seorang filsuf Yunani pernah menulis … nasib terbaik adalah tidak dilahirkan, yang kedua dilahirkan tapi mati muda, dan yang tersial adalah umur tua. Rasa-rasanya memang begitu. Bahagialah mereka yang mati muda."

"Kehidupan sekarang benar-benar membosankan saya. Saya merasa seperti monyet tua yang dikurung di kebun binatang dan tidak punya kerja lagi. Saya ingin merasakan kehidupan kasar dan keras … diusap oleh angin dingin seperti pisau, atau berjalan memotong hutan dan mandi di sungai kecil … orang-orang seperti kita ini tidak pantas mati di tempat tidur."

"Yang paling berharga dan hakiki dalam kehidupan adalah dapat mencintai, dapat iba hati, dapat merasai kedukaan…"

Selain Catatan Seorang Demonstran, buku lain yang ditulis Soe Hok Gie adalah Zaman Peralihan, Di Bawah Lentera Merah dan Orang-Orang di Persimpangan Kiri Jalan serta riset ilmiah DR. John Maxwell Soe Hok Gie: Pergulatan Intelektual Muda Melawan Tirani.

John Maxwell berkomentar, "Gie hanya seorang mahasiswa dengan latar belakang yang tidak terlalu hebat. Tapi dia punya kemauan melibatkan diri dalam pergerakan. Dia selalu ingin tahu apa yang terjadi dengan bangsanya. Walaupun meninggal dalam usia muda, dia meninggalkan banyak tulisan. Di antaranya berupa catatan harian dan artikel yang dipublikasikan di koran-koran nasional" ujarnya. "Saya diwawancarai Mira Lesmana (produser Gie) dan Riri Reza (sutradara). Dia datang setelah membaca buku saya. Saya berharap film itu akan sukses. Sebab, jika itu terjadi, orang akan lebih mengenal Soe Hok Gie" tuturnya.

Berikut adalah beberapa buku-buku dari pemikiran Soe Hok Gie dan lainnya ...

Di Bawah Lentera Merah - Riwayat Sarekat Islam Semarang 1917-1920

Penulis : Soe Hok Gie

Kategori : Buku Bagus

Di Bawah Lentera Merah menarasikan satu periode krusial dalam sejarah Indonesia yaitu ketika benih-benih gagasan kebangsaan mulai disemaikan, antara lain lewat upaya berorganisasi. Melalui sumber data berupa kliping-kliping koran antara tahun 1917-1920-an dan wawancara autentik yang berhasil dilakukan terhadap tokoh-tokoh sejarah yang masih tersisa, penulisnya mencoba melacak bagaimana bentuk pergerakan Indonesia, apa gagasan substansialnya, serta upaya macam apa yang dilakukan oleh para tokoh Sarekat Islam Semarang pada kurun waktu 1917-an.

Di bawah pimpinan Semaoen, para pendukung Sarekat Islam berasal dari kalangan kaum buruh dan rakyat kecil. Pergantian pengurus itu adalah wujud pertama dari perubahan gerakan Sarekat Islam Semarang dari gerakan kaum menangah menjadi gerakan kaum buruh dan tani. Saat itu menjadi sangat penting artinya bagi sejarah modern Indonesia karena menjadi tonggak kelahiran gerakan kaum Marxis pertama di Indonesia.

Pertimbangan lain mengapa Di Bawah Lentera Merah menjadi penting adalah karena buku ini memotret bagaimana gagasan transformasi modernisasi berproses dari wacana tradisional ke wacana modern. Lebih khusus lagi Soe Hok Gie, melalui buku ini, mengajak kita mencermati bagaimana para tokoh tradisionalis lokal tahun 1917-an mencoba menyikapi perubahan pada abad ke-20 yang dalam satu dan lain hal, punya andil menjadikan wajah bangsa Indoensia seperti sekarang ini.

Download Versi PDF-nya disini ...

Catatan Seorang Demonstran

Penulis: Soe Hok Gie

Ada sebuah catatan kecil dari pemikiran Soe Hok Gie tentang konsep kebudayaan yang ada di buku ini ketika ia sedang berdiskusi dengan Ong Hok Ham yang dicatatnya pada tanggal 31 Desember 1962. Di sana dia menulis: “Lihat di Irian Barat, telanjang, bercawat, tidak ada kebudayaan.” (hal.109)

Usia buku Catatan Seorang Demonstran memang sudah lebih dari 20 tahun. Sejak Mei 1983 sampai Agustus 1993, buku itu rutin diterbitkan sampai cetakan keenam.

Setelah hampir 12 tahun lebih, buku itu dicetak lagi bersamaan dengan peluncuran film Gie produksi Miles Film. Sejak awal, menurut Maruto, cetak ulang itu memang dirancang untuk saling mendukung guna memopulerkan lagi kehidupan Soe Hok Gie. Masuknya sponsor resmi A Mild dalam sampul buku dan pada setiap bentuk promosi film makin memperjelas ikatan promosi itu.

Pergulatan Intelektual Muda Melawan Tirani

Penulis: John Maxwell

Ia bukan partisan, dalma arti mengabdikan kegiatan intelektualnya bagi suatu kepentingan politik sempit. Tetapi ia juga bukan jenis intelektual yang mengelakkkan keterlibatan dalam kancah politik.Seperti diakuinya, politik ibarat lumpur kotor, namun dalam keadaan mendesak, ia siap mencemplungkan diri ke dalamnya. Terjun dalam pergolakan politik tanah air pada tahun-tahun "60-an, Soe Hok-gie ikut mengambil bagian dalam gerakan perlawanan terhadap keotoriteran Sukarno. Ia menulis dalam surat kabar maupun selebaran gelap, dan pada tahun "66 aktif menggerakkan demonstrasi mahasiswa di jalan-jalan.

Sebagai seorang cendekiawan, "kejujurannya tidak mengenal batas," tulis Soedjatmoko dalam "Peranan Intelektuil di Negara Sedang Berkembang"(Budaja Djaja, Juli 1970).Kelahiran Orde Baru yang secara tidak langsung ikut dibidaninya tidak membuatnya menutup mata terhadap gejala keotoriteran baru yang muncul tidak lama kemudian. Itulah potret Soe Hok-gie, seorang intelektual muda yang konsisten melawan tirani sampai akhir hayatnya, dilukiskan dengan rinci oleh John Maxwell dalam buku ini, yang merupakan terjemahan disertasi doktoralnya Soe Hok-gie : A Biography of a Young Indonesian Intellectual.

John Maxwell lahir pada tahun 1946 di Melbourne, Australia. Meraih gelar MA dari Monash University, Department of Politics di Melbourne (1982), ia kemudian mengambil PhD. dari Auastralian National University, Department of Political and Social Change di Canberra (1997). Pernah mengajar pada Fakultas Sastra Universitas Padjadjaran di Bandung, 1972-1974, sejak 1998 sampai sekarang ia bekerja di Jakarta pada SMERU Research Institute, sebuah lembaga penelitian tentang pelaksanaan kebijakan sosial-ekonomi pemerintah.

Orang-Orang Di Persimpangan Kiri Jalan

Soe Hok Gie

"Engkau tahu siapa saya? Saya Musso. Engkau baru kemarin jadi prajurit dan berani meminta supaya saya menyerah pada engkau. Lebih baik meninggal daripada menyerah, walaupun bagaimana saya tetap merah putih." Karena prajurit ini memang tidak bermaksud menembak mati Musso, ia lari ke desa di dekatnya. Sementara itu pasukan-pasukan bantuan di bawah Kapt. Sumadi telah datang. Musso bersembunyi di sebuah kamar mandi dan tetap menolak menyerah. Akhirnya ia ditembak mati. Mayatnya dibawa ke Ponorogo, dipertontonkan dan kemudian dibakar.

Karya temtang pemberontakan PKI di Madiun ini dianyam demikian rupa seakan-akan kita membaca sebuah novel sejarah dramatis yang menegangkan. Tapi penulisnya cukup hati-hati untuk tetap bersikap objektif dalam analisisnya hingga fakta sebagai "suatu yang suci" dalam bangunan sejarah tetap ditempatkan dalam posisi yang terhormat.

Cuma segitu? Hmm ... sebenarnya masih ada tulisan atau buku lainnya. Blog ini ini tidak ingin terjebak menjadi sebuah katalog toko buku. Nah, sebagai pelipur lara, ... masih ada sedikit tulisan tentang sosok GIE ini ... Silahkan disimak! [disalin dari majalah Intisari edisi Desember 1999]

KENANGAN KEPADA SEORANG DEMONSTRAN - SOE HOK GIE

Enam belas Desember 30-an tahun lalu, Soe Hok Gie, tokoh mahasiswa dan pemuda, meninggal dunia di puncak G. Semeru, bersama Idhan Dhanvantari Lubis. Sosok dan sikapnya sebagai pemikir, penulis, juga aktivis yang berani, coba ditampilkan Rudy Badil, yang mewakili rekan lainnya, Aristides (Tides) Katoppo, Wiwiek A. Wiyana, A. Rachman (Maman), Herman O. Lantang dan almarhum Freddy Lasut.

"Siap-siap kalau mau ikut naik lagi ke Gunung Semeru. Kasih kabar secepatnya, sebab harus ada persiapan di musim penghujan Desember, juga pertengahan Desember itu bulan puasa Ramadhan," kata Herman O. Lantang, mantan pimpinan pendakian Musibah Semeru 1969, yang masih amat bugar di umurnya yang sudah lewat 57 tahun.

Terkejut dan tersentuh juga saya saat mendengar ajakan Herman itu. Dia merencanakan membentuk tim kecil untuk mendaki puncak Semeru lagi Desember ini, sambil memperingati 30 tahun meninggalnya dua sobat lama kami, Soe Hok Gie dan Idhan Lubis. "Kita juga akan berdoa, sekalian mengenang Freddy Lasut yang meninggal beberapa bulan lalu," lanjutnya.

Soe meninggal dunia saat baru berumur 27 tahun kurang sehari. Idhan malah baru 20 tahun. "Tanpa terasa Soe sudah tiga dasawarsa meninggalkan kita sejak Orde Baru ... perkembangan yang terjadi di Tanah Air dalam dua tahun terakhir ini, khususnya gerakan mahasiswa yang telah menggulingkan pemerintahan Orde Baru, mengingatkan kita kembali pada situasi tahun 1960-an, ketika Soe masih menjadi aktivis mahasiswa kala itu," begitu bunyi naskah buku kecil acara "Mengenang Seorang Demonstran", (berisikan antara lain diskusi panel soal bangsa dan negara Indonesia ini), yang bakal diselenggarakan Iluni FSUI dan Alumni Mapala UI.

Kasih batu dan cemara

Dari beberapa catatan kecil serta dokumentasi yang ada, termasuk buku harian Soe yang sudah diterbitkan, Catatan Seorang Demonstran (CSD) (LP3ES, 1983), di benak saya mulai tergali suasana sore hari bergerimis hujan dan kabut tebal, tanggal 16 Desember 1969 di G. Semeru.

Seusai berdoa dan menyaksikan letupan Kawah Jonggringseloko di Puncak Mahameru (puncaknya G. Semeru) serta semburan uap hitam yang mengembus membentuk tiang awan, bersama Maman saya terseok-seok gontai menuruni dataran terbuka penuh pasir bebatuan. Kami menutup hidung, mencegah bau belerang yang makin menusuk hidung dan paru-paru.

Di depan kelihatan Soe sedang termenung dengan gaya khasnya, duduk dengan lutut kaki terlipat ke dada dan tangan menopang dagu, di tubir kecil sungai kering. Tides dan Wiwiek turun duluan. Sempat pula kami berpapasan dengan Herman dan Idhan. Kelihatannya kedua teman itu akan menjadi yang paling akhir mendaki ke Mahameru.

Dengan tertawa kecil, Soe menitipkan batu dan daun cemara. Katanya, "Simpan dan berikan kepada kepada "kawan-kawan" batu berasal dari tanah tertinggi di Jawa. Juga hadiahkan daun cemara dari puncak gunung tertinggi di Jawa ini pada cewek-cewek FSUI." Begitu kira-kira kata-kata terakhirnya, sebelum bersama Maman saya turun ke perkemahan darurat dekat batas hutan pinus atau situs recopodo (arca purbakala kecil sekitar 400-an meter di bawah Puncak Mahameru).

Di perkemahan darurat yang cuma beratapkan dua lembar ponco (jas hujan tentara), bersama Tides, Wiwiek dan Maman, kami menunggu datangnya Herman, Freddy, Soe, dan Idhan. Hari makin sore, hujan mulai tipis dan lamat-lamat kelihatan beberapa puncak gunung lainnya. Namun secara berkala, letupan di Jonggringseloko tetap terdengar jelas.

Menjelang senja, tiba-tiba batu kecil berguguran. Freddy muncul sambil memerosotkan tubuhnya yang jangkung. "Soe dan Idhan kecelakaan!" katanya. Tak jelas apakah waktu itu Freddy bilang soal terkena uap racun, atau patah tulang. Mulai panik, kami berjalan tertatih-tatih ke arah puncak sambil meneriakkan nama Herman, Soe, dan Idhan berkali-kali.

Beberapa saat kemudian, Herman datang sambil mengempaskan diri ke tenda darurat. Dia melapor kepada Tides, kalau Soe dan Idhan sudah meninggal! Kami semua bingung, tak tahu harus berbuat apa, kecuali berharap semoga laporan Herman itu ngaco. Kami berharap semoga Soe dan Idhan cuma pingsan, besok pagi siuman lagi untuk berkumpul dan tertawa-tawa lagi, sambil mengisahkan pengalaman masing-masing.

Tides sebagai anggota tertua, segera mengatur rencana penyelamatan. Menjelang maghrib, Tides bersama Wiwiek segera turun gunung, menuju perkemahan pusat di tepian (danau) Ranu Pane, setelah membekali diri dengan dua bungkus mi kering, dua kerat coklat, sepotong kue kacang hijau, dan satu wadah air minum. Tides meminta kami menjaga kesehatan Maman yang masih shock, karena tergelincir dan jatuh berguling ke jurang kecil.

"Cek lagi keadaan Soe dan Idhan yang sebenarnya," begitu ucap Tides sambil pamit di sore hari yang mulai gelap. Selanjutnya, kami berempat tidur sekenanya, sambil menahan rembesan udara berhawa dingin, serta tamparan angin yang nyaris membekukan sendi tulang.

Baru keesokan paginya, 17 Desember 1969, kami yakin kalau Soe dan Idhan sungguh sudah tiada, di tanah tertinggi di Pulau Jawa. Kami jumpai jasad kedua kawan kami sudah kaku. Semalam suntuk mereka lelap berkasur pasir dan batu kecil Gunung Semeru. Badannya yang dingin, sudah semalaman rebah berselimut kabut malam dan halimun pagi. Mata Soe dan Idhan terkatup kencang serapat katupan bibir birunya. Kami semua diam dan sedih.

Mengapa naik gunung

Sejak dari Jakarta Soe sudah merencanakan akan memperingati hari ultahnya yang ke-27 di Puncak Mahameru. Malam sebelumnya, tanggal 15 Desember, dalam tenda sempit di tepi hutan Cemoro Kandang, Soe yang amat menguasai lirik dan falsafah lagu-lagu tertentu, meminta kami menyanyikan lagu spiritual negro, Nobody Knows, sampai berulang-ulang. Padahal irama lagu ini monoton sampai sudah membosankan kuping dan tenggorokan.

Idhan yang pendiam, cuma duduk tertawa-tawa, sambil mengaduk-aduk rebusan mie hangat campur telur dan kornet kalengan. Malam dingin dan hujan itu, kami bertujuh banyak bercerita, termasuk mendengarkan rencana Soe yang mau berultah di puncak gunung. "Pokoknya gue akan berulang tahun di atas," katanya sambil mesam-mesem. "Nyanyi lagi dong. Lagu Donna Donna-nya Joan Baez itu bagus sekali."

Pagi hari nahas itu, sebelum berkemas untuk persiapan pendakian ke puncak, kami sarapan berat. Soe yang biasanya cuma bercelana pendek, kini memakai celana panjang dengan sepatu bot baru. Bahkan dia mengenakan kemeja kaus warna kuning dengan simbol UI di kantung. "Keren enggak?" Tanyanya.

Rombongan pun berjalan mendaki, menuju Puncak Mahameru dari dataran di kaki Gunung Bajangan. Soe sebagaimana biasanya, selalu memanggul ransel besar dan berat, berjalan gesit sambil banyak cerita dan komentar. Ia mengisahkan bahwa di sekitar daerah itu pasti masih banyak harimau karena dia menemukan jejak kakinya. Dia juga menyebut kalau Cemoro Kandang berlumpur arang gara-gara kebakaran hutan pinus tahunan, sebagai pertanda seleksi alam dan proses regenerasi tanaman hutan.

Dosen sejarah ini terus nyerocos kepada mahasiswanya (saya), asal muasal nama recopodo alias arca kembar, serta mitologi Puncak Mahameru yang berkaitan dengan nasib Pandawa Lima dalam pewayangan Jawa. Namun sang mahasiswa juga membayangkan dengan geli, betapa kagetnya wakil DPR-RI saat itu ketika menerima bingkisan dari kelompok Soe berisi gincu dan cermin sebagai perlambang fungsi anggota DPR yang banci. Sayang, cuma segitu ingatan saya tentang Soe pada jam-jam terakhirnya.

Yang masih tetap terngiang justru rayuan dan "falsafahnya", kala mengajak seseorang mendaki gunung. "Ngapain lama-lama tinggal di Jakarta. Mendingan naik gunung. Di gunung kita akan menguji diri dengan hidup sulit, jauh dari fasilitas enak-enak. Biasanya akan ketahuan, seseorang itu egois atau tidak. Juga dengan olahraga mendaki gunung, kita akan dekat dengan rakyat di pedalaman. Jadi selain fisik sehat, pertumbuhan jiwa juga sehat. Makanya yuk kita naik gunung. Ayo ke Semeru, sekali-kali menjadi orang tertinggi di Pulau Jawa. Masa cuma Soeharto saja orang tertinggi di Pulau Jawa ini," kira-kira begitu katanya, sambil menyinggung nama mantan Presiden Soeharto, nun sekitar 30 tahun lalu.

Memang pendakian ke Semeru ini merupakan proyek kebanggaan Mapala FSUI 1969. Soe dengan keandalannya melobi kiri-kanan, mampu mengumpulkan dana untuk subsidi penuh beberapa rekan yang mahasiswa bokek sejati.

Singkat cerita, musibah sudah terjadi. Soe mungkin tidak membayangkan betapa kematiannya bersama Idhan Lubis bikin repot setengah mati banyak orang. Kami yang ditinggal dalam suasana tak menentu, selama sembilan hari benar-benar hidup tidak kejuntrungan. Selain puasa sampai tiga hari karena kehabisan makanan, kami makin sedih saat menerima surat dari Tides via kurir, menanyakan keadaan Soe dan Idhan.

Herman, kami sudah sampai di Gubuk Klakah hari Kamis pagi, sesudah jalan sepanjang malam (sekitar 20 jam). Pak Lurah menyanggupi tenaga bantuan 10 orang dan bekal. Mohon kabar bagaimana Soe, Idhan, dan Maman dll. secepatnya mendahului rombongan ... Tides dan Wiwik 18-12-69.

Saya pun terpilih menjadi kurir, mendahului rombongan sambil membawa surat untuk Tides. Isinya apalagi kalau bukan minta bantuan tenaga dan bahan makanan. Herman pun menulis surat: Saya tunggu di Cemorokandang dan bermaksud menunjukkan "site" tempat jenazah Soe dan Idhan ... kirimkan: gula/gula jawa, nasi, lauk, permen, pakaian hangat ... sebanyak mungkin!

Akhirnya, semua bantuan tiba. Seluruh anggota rombongan baru berkumpul lagi pada tanggal 22 Desember di Malang. Kurus dan kelelahan. Maman terpaksa dirawat khusus beberapa hari di RS Claket. Sedangkan Soe dan Idhan, terbaring kesepian di dalam peti jenazah masing-masing.

Untuk terakhir kali, kami tengok Soe dan Idhan. Soe yang mati muda, terbujur kaku dengan kemeja tangan panjang putih lengkap dengan dasi hitam. Jenis barang yang tidak mungkin dipakai semasa hidupnya.

Monyet tua yang dikurung

Kalau diingat-ingat, selama beberapa minggu sebelum keberangkatan dengan kereta api ke Jatim, Soe memang suka berkata aneh-aneh. Beberapa kali dia mengisahkan kegundahannya tentang seorang kawan yang mati muda gara-gara ledakan petasan. Ternyata dalam buku hariannya di CSD, Hok Gie menulis: "... Saya juga punya perasaan untuk selalu ingat pada kematian. Saya ingin ngobrol-ngobrol pamit sebelum ke Semeru ...."

Soe yang banyak membaca dan sering diejek dengan julukan "Cina Kecil", memanfaatkan kebeningan ingatannya untuk menyitir kata-kata "sakti" filsuf asing. Antara lain, tanggal 22 Januari 1962, ia menulis: "Seorang filsuf Yunani pernah menulis ... nasib terbaik adalah tidak dilahirkan, yang kedua dilahirkan tapi mati muda, dan yang tersial adalah umur tua. Rasa-rasanya memang begitu. Bahagialah mereka yang mati muda."

Soe yang penyayang binatang (dia memelihara beberapa ekor anjing, banyak ikan hias dan seekor monyet tua jompo), sebelum musibah Semeru itu sempat berujar:

"Kehidupan sekarang benar-benar membosankan saya. Saya merasa seperti monyet tua yang dikurung di kebun binatang dan tidak punya kerja lagi. Saya ingin merasakan kehidupan kasar dan keras ... diusap oleh angin dingin seperti pisau, atau berjalan memotong hutan dan mandi di sungai kecil ... orang-orang seperti kita ini tidak pantas mati di tempat tidur."

Arief Budiman, sang kakak yang menjemput jenazah Soe di Gubuk Klakah, juga merasakan sikap aneh adiknya. Sebelum dia meninggal pada bulan Desember 1969, ada satu hal yang pernah dia bicarakan dengan saya. Dia berkata, "Akhir-akhir ini saya selalu berpikir, apa gunanya semua yang saya lakukan ini. Saya menulis, melakukan kritik kepada banyak orang ... makin lama makin banyak musuh saya dan makin sedikit orang yang mengerti saya. Kritik-kritik saya tidak mengubah keadaan. Jadi, apa sebenarnya yang saya lakukan ... Kadang-kadang saya merasa sungguh kesepian." (CSD) Arief sendiri mengungkapkan, ibu mereka sering gelisah dan berkata: "Gie, untuk apa semuanya ini. Kamu hanya mencari musuh saja, tidak mendapat uang." Terhadap Ibu, dia cuma tersenyum dan berkata: "Ah, Mama tidak mengerti".

Arief pun menulis kenangannya lagi: ... di kamar belakang, ada sebuah meja panjang. Penerangan listrik suram karena voltase yang selalu naik turun kalau malam hari. Di sana juga banyak nyamuk. Ketika orang-orang lain sudah tidur, sering kali masih terdengar suara mesin tik ... dari kamar yang suram dan banyak nyamuk itu, sendirian, sedang mengetik membuat karangan ... saya terbangun dari lamunan ... saya berdiri di samping peti matinya. Di dalam hati saya berbisik, "Gie kamu tidak sendirian". Saya tak tahu apakah Hok Gie mendengar atau tidak apa yag saya katakan itu.

Mimpi seorang mahasiswa tua

John Maxwell yang menyusun disertasinya, Soe Hok Gie - A Biography of A Young Indonesia Intellectual (Australian National University, 1997), menjabarkan betapa banyaknya komentar penting terhadap kematian Hok Gie. Harian Indonesia Raya yang masa itu sedang gencar-gencarnya mengupas kasus korupsi Pertamina-nya Ibnu Sutowo, memuat tulisan moratorium tentang Soe secara serial selama tiga hari.

Mingguan Bandung Mahasiswa Indonesia, mempersembahkan editorial khusus: ...Tanpa menuntut agar semua insan menjadi seorang Soe Hok-gie, kita hanya bisa berharap bahwa pemuda ini dapat menjadi model seorang pejuang tanpa pamrih ... kita membutuhkan orang seperti dia, sebagai lonceng peringatan yang bisa menegur kita manakala kita melakukan kesalahan.

Di luar negeri, berita kematian Soe sempat diucapkan Duta Besar RI Soedjatmoko, di dalam pertemuan The Asia Society in New York, sebagai berikut: ... Saya ingin menyampaikan penghormatan pada kenangan Soe Hok-gie, salah seorang intelektual yang paling dinamis dan menjanjikan dari generasi muda pasca kemerdekaan .... Komitmennya yang mutlak untuk modernisasi demokrasi, kejujurannya, kepercayaan dirinya yang teguh dalam perjuangan ... bagi saya ia memberikan suatu ilustrasi tentang adanya kemungkinan suatu tipe baru orang Indonesia, yang benar-benar asli orang Indonesia. Saya pikir pesan inilah yang telah disampaikannya kepada kita, dalam hidupnya yang singkat itu.

Kepada Ben Anderson, pakar politik Indonesia yang juga kawan lengket Soe, dalam salah satu surat terakhirnya, Soe menulis, ... Saya merasa semua yang tertulis dalam artikel-artikel saya adalah sejumput petasan. Dan semuanya ingin saya isi dengan bom!

Dari cuplikan berbagai tulisan Soe, terasa sekali sikap dan pandangannya yang khas. Misalnya, Soe pernah menulis begini: Saya mimpi tentang sebuah dunia, di mana ulama - buruh - dan pemuda, bangkit dan berkata - stop semua kemunafikan, stop semua pembunuhan atas nama apa pun. Tak ada rasa benci pada siapa pun, agama apa pun, dan bangsa apa pun. Dan melupakan perang dan kebencian, dan hanya sibuk dengan pembangunan dunia yang lebih baik.

Khusus soal mahasiswa, menjelang lulus sebagai sejarawan, 13 Mei 1969, Soe sempat menulis artikel Mimpi-mimpi Terakhir Seorang Mahasiswa Tua. Dalam uraian tajam itu, ia menyatakan: ... Beberapa bulan lagi saya akan pergi dari dunia mahasiswa. Saya meninggalkan dengan hati berat dan tidak tenang. Masih terlalu banyak kaum munafik yang berkuasa. Orang yang pura-pura suci dan mengatasnamakan Tuhan ... Masih terlalu banyak mahasiswa yang bermental sok kuasa. Merintih kalau ditekan, tetapi menindas kalau berkuasa.

Saat dirinya masuk korps dosen FSUI, secara blak-blakan Soe mengungkap ada dosen yang membolos 50% dari jatah jam kuliahnya. Bahkan ada dosen menugaskan mahasiswa menerjemahkan buku. Terjemahan mahasiswa itu dipakainya sebagai bahan pengajaran, karena sang dosen ternyata tidak tahu berbahasa Inggris.

Masih di seputar mahasiswa, dalam nada getir, Soe menulis: ... Hanya mereka yang berani menuntut haknya, pantas diberikan keadilan. Kalau mahasiswa Indonesia tidak berani menuntut haknya, biarlah mereka ditindas sampai akhir zaman oleh sementara dosen-dosen korup mereka.

Khusus untuk wakil mahasiswa yang duduk dalam DPR Gotong Royong, Hok Gie sengaja mengirimkan benda peranti dandan. Sebuah sindiran supaya wakil mahasiswa itu nanti bisa tampil manis di mata pemerintah. Padahal wakil mahasiswa itu teman-temannya sendiri yang dijuluki "politisi berkartu mahasiswa". Langkah Soe ini membuat mereka terperangah. Sayangnya, momentum ini kandas. Soe Hok Gie keburu tewas tercekik gas beracun di Puncak Mahameru.

Berpolitik cuma sementara

John Maxwell dalam epilog naskah buku Mengenang Seorang Demonstran (November 1999), menulis begini, "Saya sadar telah menulis tentang seorang pemuda yang hidupnya berakhir tiba-tiba, dan terlalu dini dengan masa depan yang penuh dengan kemungkinan yang begitu luas."

Kita telah memperhatikan bagaimana Soe Hok Gie terpana politik dan peristiwa nasional, setidak-tidaknya sejak masih remaja belasan tahun ... namun hasratnya terhadap dunia politik, diredam oleh penilaiannya sendiri bahwa dunia politik itu pada dasarnya lumpur kotor. Semua orang seputar Soekarno dinilainya korup dan culas, sementara pimpinan partai dan politisi terkemuka, tidak lebih dari penjilat dan bermental "asal bapak senang", serta "yes men", atau sudah pasrah.

Pandangan ini menjadi latar belakang pembelaan Soe akan kekuatan moral dalam politik di awal tahun 1966. Keikutsertaannya dalam politik hanya untuk sementara. Pada pertengahan tahun yang sama, dia menyampaikan argumentasi bahwa sudah tiba saatnya bagi mahasiswa untuk mundur dari arena politik dan membiarkan politisi profesional bertugas, membangun kembali institusi politik bangsa." Demikian tulis Maxwell.

Soe memang sudah bersikap. Dia memilih mendaki gunung daripada ikut-ikutan berpolitik praktis. Dia memilih bersikap independen dan kritis dengan semangat bebas. Pikiran dan kritiknya tertuang begitu produktif dalam pelbagai artikel di media cetak. Namun secara diam-diam, Soe ternyata juga menumpahkan unek-uneknya dalam bentuk puisi indah. Salah satunya Mandalawangi-Pangrango yang terkenal di kalangan pendaki gunung.

Pemuda lajang yang sempat pacaran dengan beberapa gadis manis FSUI, selain kutu buku, macan mimbar diskusi, kambing gunung, tukang nonton film, juga penggemar berat folksong (meski sama sekali tak becus bernyanyi merdu). Berbadan kurus nyaris kerempeng, di gunung makannya gembul.

Bagi pemuda dan khususnya mahasiswa demonstran, masih ada potongan puisi Hok Gie yang sempat tercecer, baru muncul di harian Sinar Harapan 18 Agustus 1973. Judulnya "Pesan" dan cukilan pentingnya berbunyi:

Hari ini aku lihat kembali
Wajah-wajah halus yang keras
Yang berbicara tentang kemerdekaaan
Dan demokrasi
Dan bercita-cita
Menggulingkan tiran

Aku mengenali mereka
yang tanpa tentara
mau berperang melawan diktator
dan yang tanpa uang
mau memberantas korupsi

Kawan-kawan
Kuberikan padamu cintaku
Dan maukah kau berjabat tangan
Selalu dalam hidup ini?

LAHIRNYA SANG DEMONSTRAN

Anak keempat dari lima bersaudara keluarga Soe Lie Piet alias Salam Sutrawan, kelahiran Jakarta tanggal 17 Desember 1942, ini sejak kecil amat suka membaca, mengarang dan memelihara binatang. Keluarga sederhana itu tinggal di bilangan Kebonjeruk, di suatu rumah sederhana di pojokan jalan, bertetangga dengan rumah orang tua Teguh Karya. Saudara laki-laki satunya ya Soe Hok Djien, kakaknya, yang kita kenal sebagai Arief Budiman.

Sejak SMP, ia menulis buku catatan harian, termasuk surat- menyurat dengan kawan dekatnya. Semakin besar, ia makin berani menghadapi ketidakadilan, termasuk melawan tindakan semena-mena sang guru. Sekali waktu, Soe pernah berdebat dengan guru SMP-nya. Tentu saja guru itu naik pitam.

Dalam catatan hariannya, ia menulis: Guru model begituan, yang tidak tahan dikritik boleh masuk keranjang sampah. Guru bukan dewa dan selalu benar. Dan murid bukan kerbau. Begitu tulis anak muda yang sampai hari ajalnya, tetap tak bisa mengendarai sepeda motor, apalagi nyupir mobil. "Gue cuma bisa naik sepeda, juga pandai nggenjot becak."

Sikap kritisnya semakin tumbuh ketika dia mulai berani mengungkit kemapanan. Misalnya, saat dirinya menjelang remaja, Soe menyaksikan seorang pengemis sedang makan kulit buah mangga. Dia pun merogoh saku, lalu memberikan uangnya yang cuma Rp 2,50 kepada pengemis itu. Di catatannya ia menulis: Ya, dua kilometer dari pemakan kulit mangga, "paduka" kita mungkin lagi tertawa-tawa, makan-makan dengan istri-istrinya yang cantik-cantik. Aku besertamu orang-orang malang.

Bacaan dan pelajaran yang diterimanya membentuk Soe menjadi pemuda yang percaya bahwa hakikat hidup adalah dapat mencintai, dapat iba hati, dan dapat merasai kedukaan itu.

Soe melewatkan pendidikannya di SMA Kanisius. Tahun 1962 - 1969 ia menamatkan kuliah di Fakultas Sasra Universitas Indonesia Jurusan Sejarah. Ia kemudian masuk organisasi Gerakan Mahasiswa Sosialis (GMSOS). Sementara keadaan ekonomi makin kacau. Soe resah. Dia mencatat: Kalau rakyat Indonesia terlalu melarat, maka secara natural mereka akan bergerak sendiri. Dan kalau ini terjadi, maka akan terjadi chaos. Lebih baik mahasiswa yang bergerak. Maka lahirlah sang demonstran.

Hari-harinya diisi dengan program demo, termasuk rapat penting di sana-sini. Aku ingin agar mahasiswa-mahasiswa ini, menyadari bahwa mereka adalah the happy selected few yang dapat kuliah dan karena itu mereka harus menyadari dan melibatkan diri dalam perjuangan bangsanya ... Dan kepada rakyat aku ingin tunjukkan, bahwa mereka dapat mengharapkan perbaikan-perbaikan dari keadaan dengan menyatukan diri di bawah pimpinan patriot-patriot universitas. Begitu tulisnya.

Tahun 1966 ketika mahasiswa tumpah ke jalan melakonkan Aksi Tritura, ia termasuk di barisan paling depan. Konon, Soe juga salah seorang tokoh kunci terjadinya aliansi mahasiswa-ABRI pada 1966.

Soe sendiri dalam buku CSD, menulis soal demonstrasi: Malam itu aku tidur di Fakultas Psikologi. Aku lelah sekali. Lusa Lebaran dan tahun yang lama akan segera berlalu. Tetapi kenang-kenangan demonstrasi akan tetap hidup. Dia adalah batu tapal daripada perjuangan mahasiswa Indonesia. Batu tapal dalam revolusi Indonesia dan batu tapal dalam sejarah Indonesia. Karena yang dibelanya adalah keadilan dan kejujuran ... Jakarta, 25 Januari 1966.

Soe dikenal sebagai penulis produktif di beberapa media massa, misalnya Kompas, Harian Kami, Sinar Harapan, Mahasiswa Indonesia, dan Indonesia Raya. Sekitar 35 karya artikelnya (kira-kira sepertiga dari seluruh karyanya) selama rentang waktu tiga tahun Orde Baru, sudah dibukukan dan diterbitkan dengan judul Zaman Peralihan (Bentang, 1995).

Juga skripsi sarjana mudanya perihal Sarekat Islam Semarang, tahun 1999 diterbitkan Yayasan Bentang dengan judul Di Bawah Lentera Merah. Sebelumnya, skripsi S1-nya yang mengulas soal pemberontakan PKI di Madiun, juga sudah dibukukan dengan judul Orang-orang di Persimpangan Jalan (Bentang, 1997).

Kabarnya, sajak karya Soe yang puluhan judul itu, kini juga sedang dalam penyusunan untuk dijadikan sebuah buku kecil. Masuk akal sekali. Sebab Soe itu bergaul akrab dengan penyair angkatannya Taufik Ismail, WS Rendra, Satyagraha Hoerip.

From Colony to Republic

2006-04-19T05:08:00.000+07:00

Photo exhibition "From Colony to Republic: Indonesia in Photographs by Cees Taillie 1946-1949"

Eighty per cent of the photography collection of the KIT Museum of the Tropics consists of photographs from the former Netherlands Indies. It is a rich and extremely varied collection which gives an impression of life and work in the colony from 1865 to the eve of the Second World War. Understandably, the Second World War and the Japanese Occupation mark an abrupt end. Now, a recent gift has extended the collection with some post-war photographs. These present images which, even though taken in the same place within a time span of five years, show a totally different country.

Camp Doeri, equipment base for the Engineering Corps. Jakarta, November 1946.

On 2 October 1949, having spent three years as a soldier in Indonesia, Cees Taillie once again set foot on Dutch soil. In his luggage he had more than 4500 negatives, the visual report of his experiences in Indonesia in the period September 1946 to October 1949. It is a collection which stretches out from Jakarta to Hollandia in New Guinea, and covers both the weal and woe of Dutch soldiers and the daily life of the Indonesians.

Soemba, 27 February 1949.

Jakarta, November 1946.

During the last year of the war, Cees Taillie (Zierikzee 1920) was a member of the internal armed forces operating in the top part of the province of North Holland. After the war he volunteered for active service, partly out of gratitude for what the Allied Armies had done, partly because of a zest for freedom and adventure. He received his army training in England. The original idea was that this group of volunteers would be deployed with the Allied Army in Asia which at that time, the middle of 1945, was still fighting a war there with Japan. But then the war in Asia took an unexpected turn and after the Japanese had capitulated Taillie and his fellow soldiers returned to the Netherlands. Here they received extra training so that they could be deployed in Indonesia.

He was posted to the 7 December Division as a sergeant in the engineers and sailed to Indonesia as quartermaster on the MS Klipfontein on 2 September 1946. Accommodation had to be organized for the thousands of Dutch soldiers who on their way there to restore law and order. This was colonial regime of law and order which had been thoroughly disturbed by the Japanese occupation and the recent proclamation of Independence by Soekarno and Hatta, directly after the capitulation of Japan.

Batavia, March 1947.

Having organized quarters for the men, among the jobs assigned to Taillie was keeping the convoy road from Batavia to Bandung open during the First Military Action and repairing roads and bridges in the wake of the clearing away of obstructions set up by the Republicans.

Right from the moment of his arrival in Indonesia, Taillie took photographs, because, as he himself says: “To show people at home later what I had experienced and for the boys who had no camera”.

After an year with the engineers, Taillie was transferred to the Public Relations Section/Liaison Corps??? (DCL), specifically to the ‘pictorial’ section of this service. He was able to make his hobby his profession, he became of photographer. For a short period he worked as a photographer in Java, where one of his jobs was recording the operations of the Good Works Commission???. But it was not long before he was posted to the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, with Makassar (in Celebes/Sulawesi) as his base. From here he journeyed far and wide throughout the eastern part of the Indonesia Archipelago. His most important commission was to take passport photos of the soldiers in the Colonial Army (KNIL) and to set down the ups and downs in the lives of the soldiers for posterity.

Soldiers in the reserve corps of the Colonial Army (KNIL) in Morotai, January 1949.

As the Liaison Department photographer Taillie was expected to send his negatives furnished with captions to the head office in Batavia every week. In Batavia a decision was made about which were suitable for publication, which should be sent on to the Netherlands. In Netherlands they were scrutinized again to judge whether the images were in accordance with the ‘humane’ character of the Dutch military presence. Shocking images of armed combat, the wounded, or of the enemy were not appreciated.

Batavia, Sunda Kelapa, January 1947.

Taillie did his best to work as much as possible with two cameras: one for the LS and one with which he took his own private shots.

If the military elite tended to predominate in the beginning up to around April 1948, later such images disappeared into the background and much more attention was paid to the lives of the local people and to the luxuriant natural scenery. Right at the beginning it was the sappers who were portrayed in great depth in all their activities.

As a soldier with a commission to take photographs, he had a wide-ranging interest which extended far beyond the bounds of military life. His photographs bring to life the situation which prevailed in the period of transition, in which the European citizen disappeared almost completely from the picture.

Makassar, Chinese quarter, 31 August 1948.

Whereas ever since the 1930s the European woman had been emphatically present in photographs, is virtually invisible. It is the same story with the children. There are also photographs which bear witness to the fact that the old colonial rituals were clung on to almost like grim death. One example is the celebration of the birth of Princess Marijke/Christina with the appropriate homage of the local people who are no longer received by the Resident, but by an ill-at-ease, high-ranking military officer, surrounded by other army people. The festivities remained the same but the entourage, the people are different.

Tjipanas, festivities to celebrate the birth of Princess Marijke, 19 February 1947.

Makassar , 31 August 1948.

The President of the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, Anak Agung Gede Agung Soekawati, takes his place on an improvised dais alongside Colonel Scheffelaar to take the salute at the celebrations to mark the birthday of Queen Wilhelmina. And how long would the Dutch boundary marker/escutcheon continue to hang on the veranda of the Raja of Temboeka in the Sangihe Archipelago?

The altered image, the plethora of questions, the subtle details, are all to be found in this collection of photographs taken by Cees Taillie in the period 1946-1949.

Soerabaja(?), May 1948.

Makassar, entrance to the parliament building of the Federal State of Eastern Indonesia, August 1948.

Menado, preparations for the Feast of Saint Nicholas, 5 December 1948.

*KIT Museum of the Tropics, October 2004 - 17 April 2005

Indonesia Independent – Photographs 1947-1953

2006-04-18T10:17:00.000+07:00

Indonesia Independent – Photographs 1947-1953

Selamanja saja hidoep, selamanja

saja akan berichtiar menjerahkan djiwa

saja goena keperloean ra"jat

Boeat orang jang merasa perboeatannja baik

goena sesama manoesia, boeat orang seperti

itoe, tiada ada maksoed takloek dan teroes

TETAP menerangkan ichtiarnja mentjapai

Maksoednja jaitoe

HINDIA MERDIKA DAN SLAMAT

SAMA RATA SAMA KAJA

SEMOEA RA"JAT HINDIA

(Semaoen, 24 Djoeli 1919)

Hotel Merdeka

A poor woman tries to make something edible on a small fire

Charles Breijer - Jakarta 1947

Dutch soldiers in Sabang

Lex de Herder - Indonesia 1949

Guards in front of the former house of the governor, the Gubernuran, during an Indonesische parade in Yogyakarta

Charles Breijer - Indonesia 1948

Portrait of five children, looking through a hole in the fence

Cas Oorthuys - Indonesia 1947

Pro-Indonesian slogan on a wall in Yogyakarta

Charles Breijer - Indonesia 1948

Protest slogan for independence

Cas Oorthuys - Indonesia 1949

Pupil with a blind map of the Indonesian territory

Cas Oorthuys - Jakarta 1947

Soekarno speaking to the delegates during a session of the Indonesian provisional parliament, the K.N.I. Poesat

Cas Oorthuys - Indonesia 1947

Soldiers at rest in B. battery with Dajak Poerwadi

Lex de Herder - Indonesia 1949

Should You Blog in Your Business?

2006-03-22T23:54:00.000+07:00

Should You Blog in Your Business?

Although blogging did not begin as a business pursuit, it did not take the business sector very long to begin using blogs in a commercial manner. Some businesses first became aware of blogging because they discovered an employee"s personal blog had commented on their company or other employees, or they discovered an employee using company time to write to their personal blog. In these cases, the company learned about blogs, but the employees usually lost their jobs. Because of these experiences and the resulting publicity surrounding some especially high-profile cases, more and more businesses have learned about the potential power of blogging as a marketing tool.

As a business owner, you may wonder if you should jump into the blogosphere and begin a company blog or not? There are, as with all business decisions, many things to consider. Here are 10 facts or ideas about business blogging that may help you make up your mind whether a business blog should be something that you should try.

Business blogging is rapidly spreading throughout companies with an online presence. This applies not just to IT-related companies such as search engines like Google (which has innumerable employees all blogging merrily away about the latest and the greatest at Google), but also to other companies that sell everyday products. Every company, even the smallest, with any Internet presence should at least consider the idea of starting a company blog while the genre is still so popular.

A great example is the Tinbasher Blog, which is a blog written by the owner of a small sheet metal company in England. This blog has become very popular, however, because the blog usually showcases the part of its business that will appeal to the average Internet reader, not necessarily its large customers who buy huge amounts of sheet metal products (other advertising sources may work better there). Their target audience, as any business blog"s should be, is the end-user and usually an individual.

By chance or design, The Tinbasher Blog is widely referred to by other blogs who comment on their cool consumer items (like metal soccer balls/footballs, plant holders, etc.), and since these other blogs are read by people in many different parts of the world, this small British company is selling its products to markets it could never afford to penetrate by traditional advertising means They may not be making a billion dollars, but sales are up and visits to their website are up. If you are a small business, you can"t afford to buy this type of worldwide publicity, yet they get it via a blog that costs them very little to produce. The key is that it is a successful blog - that"s the difficult part about company blogging - it has to be done right or it really is a waste of time.

Blogging software and even webspace for your company"s blog may be free, but even if you choose not to have your blog on your website to save money, you still need an employee to write the blog. It is vital that you chose someone who knows your company"s purpose for the blog and what tone you wish you set. Business blogs that are successful have a feel of casualness to them that is not forced - they don"t read as if they are an advertisement for your company, but more like the day-to-day life of your company.

Finding the right person to write your blog is often the most difficult part of business blogging. They must have the knowledge (or access to it) of almost everything about your company, be able to write coherently, and be able to add that almost indefinable something that makes a blog different from an advertisement. In a small organization, in particular, often the CEO or founder becomes the blogger, if only because they know everything that has happened to their company and assuming they have been successful so far, they know something about how to be persuasive in selling products/services without necessarily being very obvious about it.

If your company is large and has many different departments or divisions, consider multiple bloggers. Each one will present a different view of the company from their angle and provide more variety for the readers of your company"s blog. You may have one blog and still have many different people contribute to it. Just be very careful about who you choose to blog for your company - they must be able to write, but they must also WANT to do this job of blogging because the basic nature of a blog"s success is the degree of passion that is put into it. Without dedication and passion for your business blog, your bloggers will not succeed in bringing more exposure of your company to the online community.

Don"t start a company blog unless you are willing to be completely honest when writing it. You must be prepared to own up to any mistake your company may have made and try your best to do damage control via your blog. Actually, blogs are great places for damage control, precisely because they have more of a personal feel to them.

If a business apologizes for a mistake they made in their company"s blog, and demonstrates their commitment to customer service in that blog entry, this can go a long way towards repairing the damage that mistake may have caused in your clients" eyes. It"s about appearances - you seem more like a person than some impersonal corporation in a company blog, and most clients appreciate the personal touch and will forgive a lot if they feel they have been dealt with fairly and, most importantly, honestly.

Company blogs are a great way to answer questions you may receive from potential or actual customers through your regular email process. By putting the question and answer in your blog, you are now generating the information out to potentially huge numbers of potential or actual clients, instead of just that one person who wrote in.

It looks even better if someone writes you an email with a suggestion to improve your service, you decide to follow his or her suggestion, and then talk about it in your blog. Otherwise, it may be more difficult for your clients to know that you have instituted what might be too small a change to advertise, but that might make a difference to them as well in terms of how they feel about your company.

Think carefully before you decide to allow comments to your blog entries. When you have a company blog, by allowing comments, you will encourage people to ask you questions and make comments that may be helpful, but you will also find that people post derogatory comments or ask questions that are difficult for you to answer, because of internal company policies. However, if you don"t respond to comments, you will be criticized for not doing so.

Keep in mind that a blog entry doesn"t have a specified length. Even company blogs can have individual entries as short as a sentence or as long as an article. You can include links to other blogs, articles, pages in your website, or any other place on the Internet to illustrate a point rather than write at length about it. In fact, the most interesting blogs seem to be the ones that vary in length - sometimes they have longer entries and other times just short entries - plus this gives your company blog the appearance of a personal touch. Blogs originated as a sort of online personal journal, and personal journals rarely have entries that are approximately equal in length each and every time.

However, if you do decide to start a company blog, be sure to make entries frequently. There is no requirement that you make an entry every day, but don"t let too long go between entries. In fact, with company blogs especially, some readers expect some kind of "schedule" because the originators are a business. Readers may expect to see an entry every second day or every third day or whatever.

If you do set up an informal schedule, and find that on a day you are supposed to make a blog entry that you either can"t or have nothing to say, make an entry that is a generic comment on the local weather or some other inane remark and leave it at that. The important thing is to keep to your informal schedule if you set one up so as to not disappoint regular readers.

Varying the length of your entries can make a blog with a time schedule for entries appear not to have one, especially if some of the short entries consist merely of personal remarks by the blogger on an uncontroversial topic or a short anecdote about something that happened today that doesn"t reflect badly on the company or its competitors (or anyone at all).

If you are a small company, you might want to consider making a company blog the highlight and center of your website. This really only works well if you are a company that serves a local customer market, rather than appealing to a regional or national/international market.

Prime examples are restaurants that are not chain restaurants. Sometimes adding a blog and making it your website is what will bring more customers to your establishment. The personal nature of blogs allows you to persuade the viewer that your restaurant is THE place to go, and so sometimes you feel freer to express yourselves and the personality of your business via the blog. Of course on your website you would also include information about where you are, what you are, your hours, your services/products, etc., but this information typically does not take up a lot of room for a smaller establishment, leaving space for the blog to be the centerpiece that draws it all together.

Finally, if you are thinking about adding a blog to your company, never forget that it is just another business tool. As much fun as blogging can be, once it is tied to your company, it reflects your company"s image and your company will be judged by the quality of your blog as well as the quality of your services/products. Plan a blog carefully, put the right person in charge of blogging, ensure that it sends out the message you want it to send, and with any luck, word will spread and you will see more traffic to your website.

The search engines do index blogs as well as websites, so it will show up in search results and people will find it on their own or on the recommendation of others. Give it a little time to get its roots planted in the Internet and it should bring more traffic and more sales. If it doesn"t or if you can"t get the equation quite right, don"t be afraid to stop blogging. A bad blog can hurt a business just as easily as a good blog can help a business.

There are many other aspects of company blogging that could be brought up, but the above points are among the most important to keep in mind if you are even thinking of starting a company blog. A company blog is a large undertaking, because it is a commitment that you must consistently keep up with if you wish it to work as a marketing tool for your company. Company blogs fit some corporations better than others, but small businesses are especially good candidates for blogging if they already have someone on the payroll who they are willing to allow the time to do a good job on a company blog and who wants to do it and is capable of producing good material. If those three conditions exist, consider giving a company blog a try and see if it brings more interest in your company from others online.

Technorati Tags: Blog Business, Search Engine, Bad Blog, Company Blog, Templates Blog, Online Community

5 Tips for Busy Women

2006-03-21T16:27:00.000+07:00

5 Energy Boosting Tips for Busy Women

by Diane Randall

Have you lost the energy that you once had in your life? Are you feeling drained at the end of the work day? I know firsthand that women need to increase their energy levels in order to get more of what they want out of their lives. Lack of energy is the number one complaint I hear from every woman that I speak to.

Years ago I taught a software training class for five consecutive days; at the beginning of the week I had high energy levels. However, by day 5, my energy was depleted-mentally, physically and emotionally. It took me two weeks to replenish my energy. Today, I use energy boosters interspersed throughout my day to help me reclaim the energy expended so that I feel revitalized throughout the entire day. According to authors, Jim Loehr, Ed.D and Tony Schwartz who wrote the book entitled The Power of Full Engagement “managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance...We must learn to live our lives as a series of sprints - fully engaged for periods of time - and then fully disengaged and seeking renewal”. In other words, if you identify and reduce stress triggers, learn to pace yourself, take excellent care of your body, set boundaries around your life and create a support system-- your energy levels will increase and remain high daily.

Identify and reduce stress triggers. Stress is an unavoidable part of life. Identify the cause or circumstances of stress - where you were or your physical and emotional state. Life events such as traffic, work and family increase stress. Find healthy ways to cope with stress. Recognize that stress depletes energy but your reaction to it helps you minimize the impact.

Learn to pace yourself. Determine what makes you happy and give yourself what you need. Pay attention to the parts of your life that are most important. Create daily practices that nurture your ability to build energy levels---take breaks, eat healthy snacks, listen to music, focus on the present and what’s within your ability to control.

Take care of your body. Make yourself number one as a priority; spend your energy maximizing your health and wellness. Try mind-body exercises, such as breathing, meditation and yoga. Be physically active everyday and get plenty of rest. Take time to nourish your body with a massage, which releases tension, revitalizes energy, and helps you increase vitality.

Set boundaries around your life. Say “no” to things that don’t support your overall priorities. Only accept requests that support you at home and in the workplace. Learn your limits--pay attention to what you can and cannot do to reduce the stress of excessive demands on your life. Make the choice not to overload your schedule.

Create A Support System. Partner with a wellness coach who can create a structure of accountability and support as you find ways to boost your energy everyday. Remember, life can drain your energy, it can steal it and suck it away-or, you can take steps to boost your energy. It’s kind of like putting up shields for the Starship Enterprise. When the shields are up and the armor plating is on, your energy levels are stored-and you’re fueling yourself. Take three actions this week to boost your energy. Email me at Diane@LifeAccelerated.com to share with me personally what has worked for you. I’d love to hear about your energy boosting success!

About the Author Diane Randall, Chicago, Illinois USA

Technorati Tags: Tips for Busy Women, Stress, Learn, Take Care, Your Life, Support

Blogging By Academics

2006-03-20T15:48:00.000+07:00

Blogging By Academics Blogging by educators themselves is done for two primary purposes - to make collaboration on a shared project easier and to exchange ideas with other academics. As well, some educators keep a blog of their own academic endeavors, just as many blogs are written by just one individual about their life. Five significant pros and cons about academic blogging are: Pros:

Makes collaboration on a project easy - blogging allows any number of academics to collaborate on a research project or just talk about their experiences without the need to email a long list of people or send a project from one person to the next in line. Collaboration on research or article writing can therefore be done much more quickly and efficiently.

Academics can share knowledge easily - with a blog, you can inform another blog member of an article you just read or where to look for a specific archive without having to find out their email address or introducing yourself formally via email or jumping through any other academic hoops that can be a part of traditional communication between academics. With a blog, if you are a member, you may feel you can give help to an academic whom you otherwise would be reluctant to contact via email if he or she is a tenured professor and you are just an assistant professor. Since the medium is understood by all to be more casual, it removes some of the "fear" of suggesting something to someone higher in the academic food chain than you are.

Academics can advertise their latest works easily - with a blog, you can immediately inform everyone of your latest published article. If it is a fairly large blog, there’s a pretty good chance that there are people reading it who otherwise would never know about your latest article and may actually read it, thus increasing your visibility.

Networking - because an academic blog can be a flexible vehicle with members joining and leaving at any time, you may find you have a direct link to meeting academics you otherwise would not have an opportunity to meet or would feel awkward about approaching at a conference.

Learn about new research - those academics who blog tend to be those on the cutting-edge of any academic field. That’s not to say that those who study more traditional topics don’t have blogs; it’s just more commonly found among younger academics who are working on new methods and approaches to both new and older topics. Blogs, therefore, can be a great source for learning about the latest research going on in your field, even if you just read the blog and don’t actually participate in it.

Cons:

Blogs are not inherently private - the entries on a blog (unless it is one that is restricted by various means which really defeats the purpose of a blog) are available for anyone to view on the Internet. If you blog about your research, be sure you are ready for the whole world to k now about it and you are comfortable with others reading about your research and maybe even taking your ideas and running with them themselves. If you are working on a collaborative blog with other editors or writers for a book to be published, you will want to ensure that your blog is protected from public view.
Academic blogging is serious - despite the informal look and feel of a blog and even the original intention of blogging to be more casual, academics take their blogs seriously. Be careful about what you write in an academic blog, especially if you are just beginning an academic career, because what you say about someone’s research will be available for everyone to see. Be sure of your facts before you blog to an academic blog and be careful about the way you word criticism. You never know when you might be looking for a job teaching at a university that employees an academic you have insulted in a blog years ago.
Academic blogs aren’t moderated - unlike educational blogs in the "teacher" category, academic blogs will not have someone checking the blog entries to ensure they are appropriate. Often, one academic or a small group of academics, assume the position of moderators by their actions in the blog, which can be good for a blog or bad for a blog, depending upon how the other blog participants feel about someone taking more control or attempting to keep things organized.
Individual academic blogs can be seen as self-serving - unlike personal blogs by ordinary people, some educators do not like individual blogs that showcase a particular academic. Academics can be a very competitive field and some academics view personal blogging of your research or experiences or achievements in a negative light. Most will not, but some will - just like most members of a group will participate in a group project, but there is usually that one person who just does not follow through and expects the others to pick up the slack.
Blogs are forever - although this warning applies to all blogs, academics in particular need to remember that if they blog, any opinions they express may become immortal. The link to the blog may remain on the Internet forever and someone 5 years from now may read an entry you made that you now regret.

As with any type of blogging, educational blogs need to be handled with caution. For teachers, the main thing to remember is that as useful as blogging may be for you and your students, you are exposing them to the world with the free blogging tools available, and so you must be particularly vigilant in protecting them and ultimately yourself. The same applies for educators or academics who blog - be cautious about what you put in you are or wish to become employed as an academic or if you are applying for or have funding for your research. Blogs were not originally designed with teaching as their purpose, so you must use the tool much more carefully than an average person who has a personal blog, since you are involving others in your endeavor - your students and colleagues. If you use the power of blogging well in your classes, however, you will likely find your students will embrace the medium and participate willingly and find the experience both educational and fun at the same time, which is one of the best ways you can teach anything to anyone!

Technorati Tags: Blogging Academics, Cons, Blogs Are Forever, Type of Blogging, Networking, Blogger

Blogging in the School

2006-03-19T15:48:00.000+07:00

Blogging in the School and University Environment Within this rather broad category, blogging may work better in some grade levels than others, but for the most part, the general use and application of blogging are quite similar. Blogging is a form of communication that is used at all levels in this environment, although with the obvious limitation that the students must be able to use a computer. Even if they are not yet reading and writing, a student’s blog can just consist of their artwork (scanned or drawn on a computer using a paint program) or pictures of their family, or some other form of visual media. The teacher will have to be more involved at the early grades due to lack of knowledge of computer use by the students, but given the proliferation of computers in the schools, it isn’t long before blogging can be a classroom activity that does not require much assistance from the teacher for a student to use. Why would a teacher even want to use blogging in the classroom? Much research has already been done on whether or not blogging is a useful pursuit for students as a part of the curriculum or if it has little or no educational use. Usually, the students enjoy the addition of blogging to the curriculum as long as it is not too regulated, but teachers themselves differ on whether or not they think it is a worthwhile exercise. Blogging cannot replace teaching - the best it can do is promote a different method of teaching and a different way for your students to interact. The teacher must act as the blog "moderator" in some fashion, so it increases their workload this way, but may reduce the time spent on traditional teaching methods. Having looked into some of the research and teacher comments, here are five major pros and five major cons of using blogging in the classroom: Pros:

Helps the traditionally shy student. Shy students rarely will speak up in class voluntarily to answer a teacher’s question or make a comment, but studies show that they will voice their opinions and participate in blogging, because it is a more impersonal way of interacting. With blogging, they do not need to actually hear the other children laughing at a remark they may have said in seriousness (thereby avoiding possible embarrassment). They feel free to say what they mean and know, if they are "saying" it to a computer rather than directly to a person or group of people.

Helps each class member get to know all the other class members more easily. For example, if they can’t remember someone’s name in the class, they can always look for them in the blog if the blog contains pictures of the class members. This increased online interaction has definitely been shown to increase offline interaction among members of the class during school hours.

Helps students with their reading and writing skills. Research has shown that this occurs even without direct intervention on the teacher’s part in helping students with writing to the blog at all levels of education. Partly this is because the students read each other’s blog entries and absorb a lot of grammar and spelling knowledge without necessarily even realizing it.

Helps teach students about group behaviour, both the good side and the bad side. They will see that a group can accomplish more than an individual, but only if all members of the group are participating as they should. As with any group project, there may be one or more students who do not "hold up their end" in the blog and participate infrequently, at the absolute minimum they have to, or those few who may not participate at all, even if it is a group assignment. This can help correct the behaviour of those students who were assigned a task and do not complete it, knowing that the alpha leader of the group will in the end come through and do the task so they will get a good grade. With blogging, the teacher can easily identify those who are trying to use this tactic and with luck, stop them from doing so and perhaps even enlighten them so that they do not act this way in group activities other than blogging.

Helps build self-confidence - blogging in the classroom does build self-confidence in every student who participates. Especially in earlier grade levels (about grades 5-7), students are thrilled with seeing things they have written on the Internet and will proudly show them to their families.

Cons:

Privacy issues -- some parents and/or students may not be comfortable being identified in such a public manner. If you are considering adding blogging to a course for your students using one of the free online programs such as Blogger (offered by Google), the blog will be online for the entire world to see, so parents may have privacy issues with this. Be sure to get a legally binding release form from each student’s parent/guardian, especially if you are dealing with very young children. We all wish the world was a perfectly safe place for our children, but the fact remains that there are dangers inherent in putting personal information on the Internet and children are often the targets of Internet predators and ill doers.
Shy students may not come around - it may work out that it does not help all shy students to express themselves more often in classroom, but some teachers find that after blogging for awhile, shy students do start to talk more in class, as they now have experienced voicing their opinion in what may seem to them as a "safer" environment versus the classroom itself.
Policing is still needed - the teacher still has to keep an eye on the blog to make sure each student is using it appropriately. Of course, if a student posts something inappropriate, it will be easy to find out who the offender is, and remove the post, but you still have to enforce some level of discipline and watchdog behavior.
Different levels of computer skill - the students in any given class are going to be at different levels of computer skill, by virtue of their previous schooling and their home environment. As a teacher, you must be aware of this and keep blogging as easy and simple as possible. If you still have a student who is floundering with the technology, you may need to reconsider the use of blogging or put in some extra time to bring that student up to the skill level technologically speaking so that they can participate to the best of their intellectual ability.
Age level can be problematic - although older students may take to blogging easily, those going through the typically awkward phase of adolescence may not be too willing to blog about anything other than class assignments of a non-personal nature. This is a time in a young person’s life where many are unwilling to speak informally about themselves, and the teacher should respect this stage of psychological development and not use blogging inappropriately in adolescents going through a difficult phase.

In the blogosphere overall, teachers and students are flocking to this form of expression and teaching. When used with care, it can be a powerful tool for both students and teachers, but it must be used wisely as well, precisely because of its public nature. When blogging comes into the classroom, the walls of the classroom disappear and whatever is put in the blog is there for the entire world to see. Note: Google does offer ways to keep content from being indexed, but doesn’t address the topic of how to keep blogs specifically off the index. See http://www.google.com/remove.html for Google’s content removal instructions for information on how to keep your content away from their automatic indexing. About the AuthorNo author information available.

Technorati Tags: Blogging School, University Environment, Classroom, Psycological, Different Levels, Age Level

Weblogs in Education

2006-03-18T15:42:00.000+07:00

Weblogs in Education

Blogging in education circles has been around for a surprising amount of time. Although many people think educators are not necessarily the most up-to-date on the latest trends in electronic applications, there are many teachers who do stay on top of the industry and use online applications and material extensively in their classrooms and classroom material. Traditional uses of electronic media in education mainly consist of online courses, primarily designed so that students who do not live in the immediate area of the school can attend classes and/or receive assignments, marks, etc. Some classes though are taught completely online even if the students live close by.

In addition, some teachers use learning objects (applets or even just a graphic that is placed in an online repository for other teachers to access), or use the Internet as a way to send and receive assignments, marks, or to register for classes. In other words, educational uses are pretty traditional adaptations of older methods to this new means of distributing education.

Blogging, on the other hand, does not really have a traditional educational precedent, and in general is a relatively new trend among most teachers that is just beginning to be used and understood. Some teachers have used blogging for a number of reasons in their classes for a number of years, but the vast majority still do not even know the term, much less its possible educational uses. With educational uses of blogging, there is a definite distinction between using blogging in the regular class environment versus the use of blogging by educators themselves. The two arenas are entirely different in so many ways, but the primary difference is that educators who blog are using it for their own professional career development, not as another online application for teaching purposes.

This type of educational blogging normally is only used by college/university level educators, since they are usually involved in the old "publish or perish" conundrum, which is not something that teachers in the earlier grade levels normally need worry about. So let’s discuss the two types of educational environments and blogging separately, beginning with blogging by teachers in the classroom and then blogging by educators for their own academic reasons About the Author No author information available.

Technorati Tags: Weblogs in Education, Blogging, Students Live, Level Educators

19 Strategies Find Readers

2006-03-17T12:47:00.000+07:00

19 Strategies for Finding Readers

Yaro has already kicked us off on this topic of how to find readers for a new blog but I thought I’d pull together a few ideas on the topic also (with a little overlap with Yaro’s ideas). These points come from a variety of older posts I’ve written on the topic - sort of a ‘best of’ kind of thing. I’ve updated some, others are straight extracts from things I’d said before and a few are new:

1. It takes time - It may not be what you want to hear, but it unless you’re a genius, extremely lucky or have an amazing new idea, it takes time to build a readership. So settle in for the long haul and muscle up some patience.

2. Content Content Content - I’ve said this over and over again so will keep it brief but unless you have ‘good’ content you’re unlike to build a readership. What is good content - start by thinking about it in terms of usefulness and uniqueness and I think you’ll be on the right track. Other words that come to mind when it comes to good content might be ‘fresh’, ‘variety’, ‘up to date’ and ‘well written’.

3. Link to others - Perhaps one of the central features of blogging is that they are linked. The intricate web of links and relationships was one of the first things that attracted me to blogging and it’s part of the reason it’s got real viral properties that allow ideas to spread so quickly. Participate in the linking to other blogs and you’ll find that many benefits come. For a start you’ll be participating in the conversation, you’ll be getting the attention of others and your readers will appreciate that you’re interested in helping them find the best content out there. Of course you don’t want to be linking randomly to everyone and anyone - be selective and link to quality content that is relevant to your niche topic. As you engage in linking you’ll find that others will link back (assuming you have something worthwhile to say yourself) and you’ll find the traffic begins to flow - both from their sites and as a result of your increased search engine ranking.

4. Get Links from other Bloggers - I can hear the comments already - ‘Easier said than done Darren!’ This is true - but if you’re smart, genuine, helpful and polite there are ways of increasing the chances of getting links from others.

5. Participate in other people’s conversations - I suspect that a number of my first regular blog readers first came to my blog because I left a comment on theirs. It was not a strategy I thought about - I just found myself quite addicted to reading others blogs and giving feedback. When you leave a comment leave your own blog address. Often people like to know who is reading their blog and will come visiting you. Don’t comment just for the sake of it. If someone leaves me a ‘hi’ comment or is obviously spamming my blog I won’t visit them and delete the comment. Make genuine comments on posts that connect with you. You might make a good friend in the process and in the long run will find the flow on effect of this is more interest in you and your own blog.

6. Interact with Readers - When a reader reaches out to you with a comment, email or link from their blog - interact with them. For starters it’s good manners and secondly it’s a good way to increase the chances that they’ll come back again. I get a lot of people telling me that they don’t have enough readers to their blog - while I can related to this frustration I generally encourage them to see what they’ve got as a good starting place. Interact with those who do come to your blog and make it the best experience you can for them and you’ll find that they spread the word for you.

7. Update frequently - With the advent of news aggregators people can be notified of your new post in real time. I noticed that when I publish a new post that my stats nearly always go up slightly just afterwards as those readers with aggregators log in to have a quick look at my latest musings. This works a lot better on some blogs than others (some topics seem to attract more RSS subscribers than others do). Another side benefit of frequent posting is that search engines like it and many believe that the more you post the more often SE’s will send their spiders out to index your blog. Similarly - the more you post the more you’ll get indexed by blog engines like technorati (and numerous others). Of course I’m not encouraging massive amounts of meaningless content - keep it of a high quality.

8. Add a signature to your outgoing email - This is an oldie but a goodie. Many bloggers do this. Simply add the domain name to your outgoing email. Most email programs will allow you to do this automatically via a signature option. However be careful with automatic signatures if you don’t want your blog to be read by everyone that you email.

9. Promote your RSS Feed - Most blog platforms come with a RSS feeds built in but there are ways of increasing your subscriber list. The most obvious of these is to put it in the sight of your readers by putting your RSS button in a more prominent position. There are a variety of different buttons available that you can make available to readers to help them to subscribe to your blog via their news aggregators with one click that might also be worth investigating. Also, if your topic is not one which many readers seem to use RSS in, you might need to do some education on the topic of RSS feeds. Write a post on how to follow your blog via RSS and you might find more do.

10. List your site on Portals, Blog Indexes, Directories and Search Engines - There are MANY places that you can list your blog to help it get more attention. In fact there are too many and you could probably spend all your time submitting your blog to them all. I’d recommend that you don’t become obsessed by this and work on other factors in this list first and then in your spare time add your blog to some of these types of things as you go. Making sure you get listed on some of the bigger sites like Technorati should probably be a priority (here’s how for Technorati) - but don’t make this the first thing you do. In terms of getting into search engines - you can submit yourself (most have ways of doing this) but most people believe that the best and quickest way to get indexed these days is to get a link from another site that is already indexed.

11. Search Engine Optimization - While some bloggers don’t think much of SEO I think it is well worth knowing some basic SEO principles and keeping them in the back of your mind as you blog. After all SE’s are the place that most people go to when they are searching for information on a topic. Don’t become obsessed by SEO, but don’t ignore it either.

12. Participate in others Blogger’s Projects - From time to time other bloggers will invite your participation in a blog project of theirs. Put your hand up, volunteer some time and contribute in some way. Don’t just do it to get a link on their site, but take the opportunity to build a relationship with them and their readers. Not only will you make a friend, but over time you build some credibility as a blogger who is not just thinking about themselves. On the flip side start your own blogging project. Some of the more popular things to get involved with these days are Blog Carnivals.

13. Participate in other web forums - Blogging is not the only vibrant online activity at the moment. I visit a number of other discussion forums and e-zines that explore similar ideas/hobbies/interests to me and my blogs. I’ve found an increasing amount of traffic to my blog is coming as a result of my contributions to these forums as many of them allow you to add your link as a signature to your posts. Don’t spam these forums - but be a genuine contributer that adds useful comments and you’ll find people are drawn to your other projects.

14. Explore other formats of communication - Another of the more effective things that I’ve done over the past year in my blogging is worth hard on email newsletters for a few of my blogs. I don’t do it with all of them (mainly due to the time it takes) but here at ProBlogger I’ve grown a list of over 1600 email subscribers who I send weekly information to. These newsletters both are about keeping people in touch with what happened on the blog each week as well as giving extra tips and information to build a sense of community and ownership of the site. Other bloggers use forums similarly.

15. Offline Techniques - Blog Promotion need not only happen online. Consider how you might promote it offline and you could just bring in some new readers also. Such techniques can include putting your URL on business cards, letterhead, using press releases and other assorted methods.

16. Make it viral - One of the things about infectious diseases that makes them so deadly is that they are very easy to pass on from one person to another. There are a number of things you might want to consider doing to help with this. For instance a lot of bloggers these days are adding links on their posts that allow readers to bookmark the post in social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and digg. Other bloggers have features that allow bloggers to ‘email a friend’ about a particular post. Others (like ProBlogger) allow readers to subscribe to comment threads via email. All of these types of plugins allow your readers to do the work for you in either spreading the word about your site or making it more sticky. Speaking of social bookmarking - there are also ways of writing content that tend to be picked up more in this scene that you might like to explore if that’s a source of traffic that you’re interested in.

17. Advertise - I’ve written a lot over the past year about running advertising on blogs as a form of income - but on the flip side of many advertising platforms that you can run as a publisher are the opportunities to actually advertise your blog in the attempt to find new readers. In the last few months I’ve dabbled a little in this side of things, mainly using AdWords (the advertiser side of AdSense) but also advertising on a few sites using BlogAds. I’ve actually been learning about AdWords using Perry Marshall’s e-book (aff) on the topic and am finding it quite helpful if you’re looking to a good introduction to using it (he has a free 5 day taster too). Of course you’ll need to weigh up the cost of advertising vs the benefits that you think it’ll bring - but I know of quite a few bloggers who run an AdWords campaign in the first month of a new blog to give it a kick start and swear by the method.

18. Link baiting - This is one of the terms that has become quite common among bloggers over the last year. In essence ‘link bait’ is some sort of comment that will attract links to it and in many ways is no different than paragraph 2 above - write good content and people will link up. Of course there are many tactics that many bloggers use to link bait..

19. Take all advice with a grain of salt - Be yourself and have fun! - The web is full of advice like the above - what I’m saying isn’t rocket science. There are no rules of blogging and it seems everyone’s experience of growing a blog (or not growing one) is different.

I’m sure there are a lot of blogs out there that ignore all or most of the above advice that have a bunch of regular readers and healthy hits. So relax, be yourself and have fun with it. Experiment with new tools, styles of design and writing.

My suspicion is that bloggers who obviously enjoy the blogging process and who are themselves are the type of bloggers that people are drawn to. Bloggers that are uptight and who complain constantly about how their blog isn’t achieving what they want it to achieve probably do quite the opposite and turn people away. Traffic is a good thing for a blog but it’s not the ultimate measure of a good blog in my books. Write it for yourself and have some fun and a lot of the rest will end up looking after itself.

Technorati Tags: 19 Strategies, Finding Readers, Best Experience, SEO, Blogger’s Projects, Advertise, Adsense Techniques

AdSense Tips & Tricks

2006-03-03T21:53:00.000+07:00

10 Great Things Not To Do With Google Adsense

There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!

1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account.

Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is.

2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to change.

Any attempt to bypass Google’s built-in algorithms not only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but it threatens the financial modle that Google operates under.
You’re not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough pockets to drag you through every court in the land if you damage their business with your hacking antics.

3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration, confirmation, and all "thank you" pages.

Don’t ask me why you can’t put your ads there. It makes sense to me that those would be wonderful locations. Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a hanging offense according to their Terms of Service.

4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor’s ads (like Overture’s) on the same page at the same time.

That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn’t demand 100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from their competitors.

5. Don’t "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for clicking on your Google AdSense ads.

This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the time. Any of the “get paid to do stuff” sites that put Google ads in the member’s control panels are walking the plank and they don’t even realize it. Even those sites with the polite little messages asking you to “help keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor’s ads” are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google ads.

6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even if you are genuinely interested in the product or service and are thinking of buying it!

Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this activity and it won’t be long until you find yourself getting a goodbye note from their fraud team.

7. No misleading labeling

Google is very specific about what text can be placed around their ads. Their Terms of Service state: “Publishers may not label the ads with text other than ‘sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements.’ This includes any text directly above our ads that could be confused with, or attempt to be associated with Google ads.”

This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and barking up Google’s tree when they clicked on an ad that led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were expecting to visit.

8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks

You may be tempted to buy one of those “generates thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds” programs that are so popular these days but I’ll tell you this: Their days are numbered.
Google is wise to such shenanigans and they will be hot on your trail. Other prohibited gimmicks include:

• ”Sneaky” page redirects that send a visitor off to a different site then they were expecting to visit.

• Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have substantially duplicate content.

• Hidden text or links of any type.

• Excessive outbound links on any page. Google recommends no more than 100. I’d keep it way below that.

• And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google’s mouth:
“Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your website may be affected adversely by those links.

9. Don’t advertise anything on Google’s prohibited items list.

It’s a lot shorter lists than PayPal’s or eBay’s, but it includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or hard alcohol (I
guess wine is OK), weapons, and the other usual stuff.

10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from running an honest site that’s designed to make the most out of this very profitable opportunity that Google offers!

Technorati Tags: 10 Great Things Not To Do With, Google, Adsense, Top 10 mistakes

AdSense Tips & Tricks

2006-03-02T21:59:00.000+07:00

The Click Fraud Problem
By Christos Varsamis

Click fraud has become a major problem for online marketers. If you participate on Google Adwords campaigns or Overture, you must already pay a lot for your campaigns.

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is the deliberate clicks to PPC search engine ads for completely other reasons than expressing interest for buying the related products or services.

Overture defines click fraud as clicks arising for reasons other than the good-faith intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase goods or services or to obtain information.

Google defines click fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions.

In simple words, Click fraud means that someone is cheating you and that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns.

Who is doing that?

Three main groups click on pay per click ads, without real interest in the offered goods:

People who join Google AdSense or other per click affiliate programs click on the ads on their own web site to make a little income. Often, these people cooperate with other webmasters to click on each other’s ads.

Some unethical companies click on the pay per click ads of competitors to drive up their advertising costs.

Companies (often in India, Russia and China) hire people who are paid to click on ads. Google and other search networks provide refunds to advertisers when click fraud has been discovered.

Google and Overture employ "fraud squads," or teams of people dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent of the advertising fees paid to all search networks.

This is a huge problem. There is no "pay per click" Company denying that click fraud exists. Web analytics companies estimate that the 50% of all click activity is fraudulent.

This means that your pay per click marketing activities are half effective as they could be because of click fraud.

Overture spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens refutes that in estimate, the numbers likely represent acts of fraud that are ultimately caught. She added that Overture filters most fraudulent clicks with the best antifraud system in the industry, which combines technology and human analysis.

Most advertisers are aware of the click-fraud issue but have not delved into it because of the technical complexities involved. Others are concerned that they could jeopardize their relationships with the powerful search networks if they complain too loudly.

One of the best ways to eliminate click fraud is using anti click fraud services such as ppctrax. They provide services like the below:

IP address capture.
IP address geographic Location.
User Agent (browser, bot etc.)
See exactly what keywords are generating your clicks
Date and Time stamp
System detects sudden click spikes from one or more IP addresses
Real-time email alerts at 80% and 100% of your account’s transaction utilization
IP address history - alert you to prior offenders

Another similar service is "who is clicking who".
Other way is the click fraud capture software like Click Auditor.
Technorati Tags: Click Fraud Problem, Christos Varsamis, Google Adwords, Detects Sudden Click, Click Auditor

Getting Job Position

2006-03-01T23:00:00.000+07:00

Getting Into Your Desired Job Position By Mark Louie Tobias

When we look for a job, we wanted to be working in the field we specialize or plainly have an interest with so we can utilize our knowledge and talent. Some of us successfully got what they want while others looked for different fieldwork due to different circumstances.

In these days, it is hard to look for a job. Employers look for an edge that makes you different from the rest. Moreover, the edge that employers look for is experience. When applying for a job that you desire you must at least have the experience or have knowledge on the position you are applying. However, when an employer sees that you have the potential, they will provide a free training for the position we applied.

How employers knew who would fit for the position? The answer really depends on us applicants’ performance during the application. When we pass our resume either online or walk-in, the employer must get a good impression from the resume that we submitted. What we wrote in the resume is what exactly we can offer to the company, so be careful not to be too arrogant in making a resume, be precise, limit yourself on what you know. Never put anything in the resume that we actually do not know.

When an employer likes what he sees in your resume immediately he will ask for an interview, now during the interview it is ok to be confident but not too much. Just be yourself, if you do not know the answer to his question just politely say you do not have any idea. Just make it a point that the employer sees in you the interest in the position you are applying, and it is enough for the employer to hire you.

From the job given to you, we must learn from it, not just work it. Learn how to enrich your knowledge. Never stop, always aim higher, take it gradually to the position you really wanted to achieve.

Technorati Tags: Job Position, Mark Louie Tobias, Learn How, Circumstances