Status of second wives in Aus. the 30 second investigation.

I was just reading an article in The Age, “Local Muslim Clerics Accused“ which is not an earth shattering article, but it does include this line:

And the report says some imams knowingly perform polygamous marriages, also knowing that the second wife, a de facto under Australian law, can claim Centrelink payments.

Is anyone else as surprised as I am that second wives have de facto status? Fascinating no?!

I started googling for more information and stumbled across this creeeeepy forum. “I’ve been watching Big Love and it looks kinda neato!” I think I’ll move onto to a new topic now…

Aceh in the news today

Gah, my Aceh Google Alert has so much news today! (google alerts+me=BFF)

Links to the best bits:

I’m trying to recall if I ever met this guy from New Zealand at a party in Banda Aceh. Hot new destination!! Banda Aceh! Sun, surf, relative anonymity!! Perfect for relaxation and police evasion!

A less shady New Zealander residing in Banda Aceh is a HERO! We all knew that about Cas already….But now the Red Cross and the newspaper have confirmed it! (Cas also gave me tips on how to fall asleep once for which I am eternally grateful: Cover your eyes with your hands, lie on your back with your legs against the wall. Both instructions sound ridiculous but I’ll show you in person and it will make sense…and it works).

Andrew Bolt said some stupid stuff about Papuan refugees. The link to Aceh is minor, but I’m glad this ended up in my inbox. It’s like a jolt of caffeine first thing in the morning! Oh Andrew Bolt…I just want to scruff your hair up and give you a Chinese burn.

Care for another reason to dislike oil companies?

Humanitarian aid workers killed in Afghanistan. More here.

Monkey/Journey to the West makes Olympics slightly less lame

Aceh conflict is old news

I just stumbled across an old article from The Age a year and a half before the tsunami at a time of renewed fighting between the Indonesian military and GAM (June 2003). Check out the great picture.

It’s always interesting to try to imagine this now mostly peaceful place just five years ago. All the evidence and the stories should make it easy, but it’s not. Reading a newspaper story is a bit different. I can’t really articulate why though. I guess that’s the beauty of a newspaper.

Can I remember reading articles like this in 2003? I have a vague recollection but not really. Perhaps if I’d known what my future held I would have paid a little more attention.

Read the article here: Aceh Media Plan in Chaos

Big Picture photos

I found a great website via Frontal Cortex with photos of an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon, taken from a helicopter that flew overhead. These photos are incredible…so incredible that my first instinct was that they were staged…Boo Sarah for your lack of faith.

But the photos of the Amazonian tribe were not the only things worth checking out on this site, The Big Picture. The photos of volcanoes and earthquakes are amazing, but my favourite is the series of photos of indigenous Brazilians who gather to protest the building of a new dam. I was shocked at the unexpected and gruesome turn it takes! Had I read the text I would have seen it coming. I’m glad I didn’t read the text.

Crisis of Attention

Sigh…A Crisis of Attention and Intention. Courtney E. Martin wrote this article for the American Prospect and unfortunately it’s all about me.

I have the shortest attention span of any 26 year old I know. It’s embarrassing. I even get bored at wild parties. Perhaps it’s because I do have such a short attention span, I really do believe that being able to concentrate on one thing is one of the most valuable skills/traits and person can have.

I had a note on my desk at my last job that said “Multi-tasking is a moral weakness”. It worked quite well, being reminded that multi-tasking is not something to aspire to, but it certainly didn’t turn me into a focused and productive individual.

This article talks about students being distracted by facebook and other things during lectures, which I can definitely identify with, but it doesn’t stop there.

Martin says:

Take those Facebook-surfing students, missing out on a potentially life-changing lecture about war and courage. Their diffused attention isn’t criminal, but it certainly doesn’t do justice to professor Dalton’s lectures, their own potential for learning, or the $51,976 they or their parents are paying for a year of Ivy League education. They mirror something very real in most peoples’ lives—the sense that your life is happening “to you,” instead of feeling truly intentional about how, with whom, and on what you spend your time. How many times have you complained about how long you spent emailing–as if some ambitious demon inhabited your body and kept incessantly pecking away at the keys?

I can relate to this as I am especially guilty of letting the internet and my computer rule my life, and frantically jumping between screens so fast that my crappy computer freezes on me every time (then, of course, I get frustrated by the moment that feels like an eternity it takes for my computer to start function again, as if I haven’t just been reading blogs for the last half an hour anyway).

Martin continues:

Their passivity, their misplaced priorities, their degraded educational experience has a lot in common with the frenetic pace and compromised lifestyles that too many of us lead. It is as if we have all been swept up in the hurricane of contemporary life without realizing that it is our own complicity that gives the storm its overwhelming force.

This reminds me of those people you meet from time to time who seem to be able to go slowly, and stay chilled at all times. Man, those people freak me out.

This is not an anti-tech argument or a back-to-the-land manifesto. It is a reminder that our technology is only as enlightened as our use of it. Our productivity is only valuable so long as it is paired with excellence and excitement. Our memories are ultimately populated by sensory experiences, the highs of connection and lows of disconnection, not the mind-numbing march of checking off items on our to-do list while half-listening to the drumming profundity of our own lives.

Read the article here (don’t worry, it’s short)

Al Jazeera report on Aceh

Just a short piece on reintegration of ex-combatants in Aceh.

A quick update

1. My spots got a lot worse, and now they seem to be getting better but I still look ridiculous. Lara suggested scabies, but the doctor ruled it out because it didn’t have one crucial scabies symptom or something. The current hypothesis is the mother of all heat rashes.

2. There was an earthquake (mag. 6.2) on Saturday night (early Sunday morning actually) but I didn’t feel it.

3. An Indonesian soldier was shot dead in Banda Aceh. The news reports haven’t specified a date, but my friends saw police road blocks on Friday night, so it was probably then. No one seems too troubled yet, so neither am I.

4. Radio Australia seems to be the first media outlet in the world to report anything on Aceh lately. Good on Radio Australia. Paying as much attention to Indonesia (and not just Shapelle) as the Australian media should.

5. I bought a new desk and book shelf on the weekend and last night I assembled the desk using the most inadequate instructions I’ve ever seen. I am proud to say that the desk looks almost exactly like the picture in the instructions and seems to have no fatal flaws. It doesn’t even wobble that much.

Because I know you’re all dying for more info, I’ll update about the scabies again tomorrow.

T-ra.