The midget intellectuals who regurgitate academic jargon about justice can go on and on dispensing academic judgments on poor little us, but my people, whom I know well, they applaud the wisdom of my policies — that is: heal the wounds, reconcile, and move on… I am not going to play Don Quixote de la Mancha of justice to pursue every seen or unseen culprit of the past.
I mean, wow. The wisdom of his policies. I don't know if JRH has been at the whiskey or what's been going on with him, but this story in the Irish Times came the day after Amnesty International sent out a press release stating that Ramos-Horta had done a 180 and decided he is now in favour of an international tribunal for human rights violations committed in Timor-Leste.
What is he thinking pulling this kind of stuff while he isn't even in the country? I at first wondered if Amnesty had misquoted him or maybe misinterpreted what he said, but I can't say either way for sure. Amnesty's press release doesn't mention when or where he made the comments and he isn't actually directly quoted, so we'll have to wait and see.
It looks like he is taking pot shots at the UN from afar. But he wasn't speaking up when indicted militia leader Maternus Bere was freed by Xanana Gusmao et al. Ramos-Horta was even involved in the freeing.
I can't work out if this tech column in the Bangkok Post is a joke or not. It was published yesterday and it appears to have gone in the newspaper. It's a review of Twitter. That's the same Twitter that's one of the most popular social networking sites in the world. The same Twitter that's been around since 2006. The review begins:
I've recently spent a few weeks playing around with Twitter. No doubt you've heard about it and maybe you're wondering what it's all about.
Dude, we know what it's all about.
Twitter is basically what we used to call newsgroups. A closer analogy would be a messageboard, like the ones that the folks over at thaivisa.com offer. Unlike a Newsgroup or a messageboard, your Tweet can only contain 140 characters – a few short sentences. So, not much gets said.
He ends with this:
Twitter is part of what's being defined as "Social Media". Next time, we'll look at Facebook, another part of the Social Media arena, one which I think is far more valuable.
Is the Bangkok Post stuck in a timewarp? Are we actually in a pre-coup era? Is Michael Jackson going to make a comeback?
I was stunned today to find out that my favourite band, Pop Will Eat Itself, are back. Songwriter Graham Crabb sent out a press release yesterday announcing a new direction for the band, which split in 1996. It's unclear who, if anyone, will be present from the original lineup, but this is still exciting news.
Pop Will Eat Itself were way ahead of their time and they laid some of the foundations for the Britpop and indie movements that would follow in later years. They used samples and had a kind of acid industrial sound.
Clint Mansell, vocalist and all-round frontman legend, went on to write the scores for movies like Requiem for a Dream, Pi and The Wrestler. His track Lux Aeterna has been used frequently by Hollywood movie studios. Pop Will Eat Itself also worked extensively with the Sheffield-based Designers Republic.
Pop Will Eat Itself developed a cult following that has lasted to this day. It's perhaps similar to the following The KLF have always had, which was dumbed down for teenyboppers by the likes of Mixmag in recent years. I fully expect publications like the NME to run some kind of feature on Pop Will Eat Itself to get all the new rave tragedies interested.
I doubt there are many of you out there who have heard of this band. They never really achieved mega-stardom, at least not in the modern sense. Anyway, there's a new album and a tour coming this year. I for one am excited to see how it all comes together.
If there’s one thing Indonesia certainly does have, it’s a thriving music scene, even more so than Thailand from what I can see. I listen to as much Indonesian music as I can, especially when the music videos are played on television because they usually put the lyrics up karaoke style.
It’s like the law that every song in Indonesia has to be about love in some shape or form, which is fine by me because it means lyrics are reasonably easy to understand.
The first Indonesian song I got into was Puspa by ST12, which is a tune everyone in Timor-Leste adores. More recently, ST12 did this track called Biarkan Jatuh Cinta, which I rather like.
My favourite band at the moment is this Tatu-esque pop duo called The Virgin. They’ve been getting lots of attention recently. They must be a marketer’s dream. One is billed as the “tomboy”, while the other is the “girly” girl. Mulan Jameela did a great song with Mita from The Virgin called Cinta Mati.
Everyone’s favourite adulterer Krisdayanti still hogs headlines and airtime, but I find it difficult to enjoy listening to any of her music because she seems like an attention-seeking *****. I cannot imagine how the separation with her husband has affected the pair’s children. I'm sure Raul Lemmos, KD's new partner, also has a wife in Jakarta. Actually, I've lost track of this bizarre love-web.
The children only have to switch on a television to be confronted by music videos by both their mother and father cashing in and singing about the separation. What dignity! One of Kris’s more ironic songs is Aku Wanita Biasa, or I’m an Ordinary Woman. Obviously.
At the other end of the musical spectrum you get groups like String with this not-so-instant classic called Honey Bunny Sweety. String are kind of like the Spice Girls all over again. Some imaginative A+R guy has taken five girls who can’t sing, can’t dance and can’t follow choreography, and he’s made them into a pop group. It’s a work of genius because the ringtones sell like fresh durian.
I’ve yet to really get much beyond the pop and indie scenes. I’m sure that given how big the country is and how thriving Jakarta is that there are producers making electronic music. Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.
