The Answer to Teenage Sex: More Mosques...

Sexually active young people is hardly a new phenomenon. Maybe the 'scope' of what we read about in the news now is that teenagers themselves are more open about talking about their experiences than they have ever been in the past. So, this might be a case of teenagers being more truthful about their extra-curricular activities for statistical purposes.

Nevertheless, the moral and religious crusaders go to great lengths to tell us that this is indicative of a failing society and that the beginning of the 'end of days'. This leads to obvious "answers" to be put forward by these individuals. The answers always involve religious and moral instruction in places of worship.

So, there is no surprise when the Mayor of West Jakarta, Burhanuddin,  reckons that the best way to combat casual sex amongst teenagers is to build more mosques and indoctrinate them on all things religious and moral.  To each their own. In my mind, the best way to address this issue is to ensure that our teenagers are indeed educated. However, that education is not one of religion or morality. The education, or lesson, is one of responsibility. If you are a teenager and you are dead keen to have sex then it will be almost impossible for adults to prevent it from happening.

Assuming that others are of a similar view, then the issue is one of ensuring that teenagers know the risks and consequences of engaging in pre-marital sexual activity. If the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection (KPAI) are to be believed, then there are some 32% of Indonesian youths in the 14-18 years of age in Indonesia's larger urban centres of Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan and Yogyakarta are engaging in sexual activity. Once again, the most critical component of any response to this is to ensure that youngsters understand the risks and consequences, and then act responsibly and from a position of being forewarned and forearmed.

It seems a little naive to think that the solution to this "issue" is one of building new mosques and mandating that youths attend special sessions on pre-marital sex. I wonder whether these are non-denominational sessions or Burhanuddin is only concerned about young Muslims and their sexual appetites? One would have imagined that pre-marital sex is a community issue and not one that is exclusive to Islam, Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism.

I guess to be fair, one must give Burhanuddin a chance to show that his plan is capable of teaching these youths about safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases and infections, and responsibility amongst the expected God prohibits unmarried teenagers from having sex (and if you do so then you are going straight to hell!)

There goes another RAB Experience rant and rail.
Ho hum...

Northern California, Second Graders, and Oral Sex...

Yes, if you are shaking your head at the title of this post, then you are not alone. As I read through the article that I found on Yahoo earlier, and which forms the basis for this post, I was shaking my head too and wondering how it is that this sort of behaviour can happen.

The story originates out of Markham Elementary School in Oakland. The principal was forced to notify parents that a teacher was placed on leave while the school investigates claims that students were not only disruptive in class, but had in fact stripped off and engaged in sexual acts, oral sex to be precise. Preliminary investigations by the school indicate that the complaints have merit and warrant even further investigation.

According to the school, "We believe if the reports are true, there was a serious lapse of judgment or lack of supervision in the classroom." The school then went on to say "We're investigating how could this have happened. It seems unthinkable to us, just the same way it does to the public." Do you think?

The male teacher claims that he was unaware of any of the alleged acts and has stated unequivocally that he did not witness anything that has so far been suggested. Yet, as a teacher, I find it difficult to believe that if he was present in the classroom as he is required to be, then it is pretty hard not to witness children getting their gear off and engaging in sex acts, particularly when these children are in the second grade.

More disturbing is how children of 7, 8 or perhaps 9 years of age are aware of this kind of behaviour. Personally, I cannot recall when I became aware of oral sex, but I am absolutely certain I was not thinking about it in the second grade. As I recall, I did not even get the benefit of sex education, or as it was called at the time "personal development" class, until I was in Year 9 (Ninth Grade).

The school maintains that it is doing everything in its power to ensure that this does not happen again. The school has also offered counselling and any other assistance required to help those children who were involved.

I am still shaking my head. How does something like this happen on seemingly such a large scale in a classroom?

The mind boggles.

Watching Porn and Thoughts of Rape and Pedophilia...

It is interesting how an argument that links pornography to all sorts of society ills is trotted out to justify a crackdown. There is a distinct difference between arguments regarding the morality of porn and arguments about porn leading to increases in occurrences of rape and pedophilia. So, when high ranking individuals in government ministries, agencies, or the police force make statements to the effect that watching porn promotes thoughts of rape and pedophilia then they have a moral obligation to evidence support for those assertions.

It was always going to be the case in the post TitS vs. RIM battle that TitS would be ratcheting-up his anti-porn agenda and putting the hard word on other institutions of state, like the police force, to pull their collective fingers out and fight porn on their own turf.

Now, Sr. Comr. Baharudin Djafar, a spokesman for the National Police Force in Jakarta has labelled pornography "a disease" and then gone on to say this:

“The raid was conducted so that there would be no more porn videos circulating among the public, because they can ruin society — especially children”, and “From watching porn, [a person can get ideas that can] lead him to rape someone or commit [pedophilia] with the neighbor’s children” (as quoted in The Jakarta Globe).

This is not a new argument in Indonesia. It is one that is offered up by all manner of individuals and institutions. The linking of porn to rape and other serious sexual assaults is a favourite of the Indonesian National Commission for the Protection of Children, and was especially so in the aftermath of the Ariel sex tape scandal, which is now coming to a conclusion in the courts.

A final point. Perhaps, now is a good time that TitS and others start to provide some statistics and data that highlight how the war on porn has provided tangible benefits to the community. For example, how it has lowered the frequency and numbers of rapes and serious sexual assaults or how it has contributed to raising the standard of living and getting any of the estimated 50% of Indonesians living on or below the poverty line to a position where they are able to provide a sustainable future for themselves and their children.

I appreciate that TitS views his "war on porn" as a simple law enforcement issue. To a certain degree it is, there are plenty of laws and regulations in place in Indonesia governing pornography. The point is whether this is the sole task of the Ministry of Communication and Information in the sense of devoting so much of a limited amount of resources to defeating. 

On a personal level, I have no objection to the government protecting children from pornography and the ability to access it, However, I do wonder whether or not the government has a right to invade the private sphere of two, or more, consenting adults who wish to make or view pornography within the confines of their own homes with the curtains drawn.

To each their own!

Kidnapped: Reunited 23 Years Later...

I tend to spend the odd minute or two surfing the internet. Every now and then, a story jumps out for its horror, its tragedy, its bizarreness or, as in this case seemingly, a happy ending. A young woman who was kidnapped 23 years ago has finally been reunited with her birth mother. It is hard to imagine what sort of feelings one must have learning that you had been kidnapped and have in essence lost 23 years of a potential parallel life. So, when Carlina White / Nejdra Nance says it "felt like a dream", you still wonder whether even in your wildest dreams you would have dreamed that such a day would happen.

The story is one that probably happens a lot more than we care to allow ourselves to acknowledge. The kidnap of children is not a new phenomenon or crime. However, it is rare to here of such happy reunions after such a long period of time.

A 19-day-old Carlina was kidnapped in 1987. The story began with a simple fever and a trip to a Harlem hospital. It ended with Carlina being kidnapped by a woman posing as a nurse and spending the next 23 years living with an abusive "parent". Carlina ended-up pregnant herself at 16 and this is when she started connecting the dots of her own life. A request for a birth certificate could not be fulfilled. The suspicions began to come to the fore as to why that might be. Ultimately, Carlina bailed out of the abusive home in Connecticut and headed to Georgia.

While in Georgia, Carlina met up with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Center filled in a few of the blanks and joined the rest of the dots. A DNA test and a few phone calls put Carlina back in contact with her birth mother, Joy White.

The emotions for Joy White and the rest of Carlina's long lost family most be overwhelming too, particularly when they are not only getting back a lost daughter, sister, cousin, aunt or whatever, but Carlina has since had a daughter herself.

Hopefully, this is a story that continues to have a happy ending.

"No Baby" Campaign...

If this is not an advertisement for finding an effective way to provide sexual health and reproduction lessons in school, then it is hard to work out exactly what would be. In one Memphis, Tennessee, high school there have been 86 teenage pregnancies within the last 12 months. Some of those young women, 15 - 19-years-old have given birth and the others will soon do so. Reports suggest that Frayser High School is not extraordinary as the rate of teenage pregnancy in the area where Frayser High School is located is currently running at 26%.

The mind boggles as I really cannot get my head around the idea of more than a quarter of the girls being pregnant. This is particularly so when I think back to my high school days where it would have been hard to find 25% of the student population that was sexually active let alone a quarter of the girls being pregnant.

A "No Baby" seems to be a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Nevertheless, a response of some kind has to be made in order to attempt to arrest the continuing increase in teenage pregnancy numbers.

The thrust of the campaign is teaching girls that it is alright for them to say no to sex. The overriding theme of the program is to develop the confidence of young woman and to empower them to make decisions by educating them to their rights. The program, from what I can tell, is also educating these young women about pregnancy and the challenges it will pose to them now and in the future. The program is also designed to ensure that these young woman are well-educated to the best practices of pre and post-natal care.

The scope of the problem facing the Memphis area school system is obvious when one looks at overall US statistics relating to teenage pregnancy. The data from 2009 states that the national average for 15 - 19 year-olds is 39 births per 1000 girls. However, this rate is much higher than the numbers in Western Europe. In Australia, the numbers are pretty low, but they are rising. This rise is attributed to a decline in the quality and frequency of these issues being discussed and taught in the classroom environment.

It is unclear whether the lower numbers in Western Europe and Australia are attributable to better education or just better teenage awareness of contraception and pregnancy. In Australia, at least in NSW, the responsibility for teaching students about sexual health falls under the curriculum of the Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE) framework.

PDHPE is not my area of expertise. To be honest I have only looked at the curriculum sparingly. I have only looked at one text book on the subject, the one used by Cootamundra High School. To my uneducated self, there seems to be more than enough in the curriculum and the textbook to get the job done.

My personal view is that it is critical that we arm our children with all of the tools necessary to allow them to make informed decisions about what they want to do and how they want to do it. It is important that we encourage our children to be responsible and to take responsibility. Therefore, I am in favour of ratcheting-up the time that is spent on the teaching of sexual health / personal development in the classroom. The reality, as I see it, is that it would be remiss not to try.

I have a good few years yet before I will have to be sitting young Will down for the inevitable birds and the bees talk...

Ariel: The Farce Continues...

Wake me up when this trial is done and dusted, please.

I have been away for a little bit more than a week. It has been nice to not read a whole lot of news. It has also been nice to be away from an internet connection, and the temptation to see what frivolity came about in the latest trial hearing in the Peterporn saga. Yet, to be honest, I feel that seeing I started this "follow it through to the end" deal, I should in fact follow through. So, holiday or no holiday, I am back posting a running commentary on why this case should never have gone to trial.

The most recent reports have covered the testimony of Hadi Supeno, the former Head of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI). Supeno cannot be faulted for his commitment to protecting Indonesian children. He is most definitely, at least at face value, committed to seeing that Indonesian children are protected from all manner of harm. However, he is not much of a public relations whiz. He is not good at selling the message.

The primary problem for Supeno is that he talks in generalities and the grand schemes of things. He tends to downplay the "facts" or the "science" in preference for sweeping statements about how "he knows" what will harm Indonesian children and whatever he states must be accepted as is. Unfortunately, and perhaps beneficially for Ariel, no everyone does.

According to Supeno, there are four major impacts that children will encounter as a result of the release of the Ariel / Luna Maya and Ariel / Cut Tari sex tapes, namely: the videos will increase the sexual desires of children, the videos will effect the social and mental development of children, the videos will encourage children to replicate the behaviours they have watched, and the icing on the cake, the videos will lead to an escalation in the criminal activities of children.

Ah, evidence? Boy Afrian Bondjol, Ariel's lead lawyer in the case, questioned Supeno on the four assertions he made in court, and rightly so. Supeno could only offer up that "this" is what he knows. But, Pak Hadi, you really need to stump up some research. Surely, there must be some research that supports the proposition that children who watch pornography are more likely to commit crimes. Or that children who watch porn are more likely to become sexually active at a young age. Or that these increasing numbers of sexually active children are becoming rapists and sexual predators. Any research would do.

Seriously, if this is the best that the prosecution has to offer up as supporting evidence for their desire to see Ariel jailed for up to 12 years and fined a couple of billion rupiah, then one really does need to question the wisdom of bringing this case to court. There is no justice being served here. There is only a desire to deflect public attention from more serious criminal cases and matters that continue to flounder in the deep dark abyss that is the Office of the Attorney General.

Once again, the man made a sex tape...so what? If this "case" was dropped like it should of been then people would no longer be talking about it. So, for that reason alone, perhaps there are arguments here that the Office of the Attorney General and the courts are complicit in keeping this "morally questionable conduct" by Ariel in the public eye. Why would they want to be doing that?

Rhema Marvanne: Precocious Talent...

Some people, including children, just get really lucky on the talent front. Rhema Marvanne is one of those youngsters who seem destined for a big future considering she is just eight-years-old!

Here she is singing "All I Want For Christmas", and doing it well. I reckon the youngster holds her own seeing the song has been done previously by the likes of Mariah Carey and Elvis Presley.

None of that lip-syncing stuff here.

Enjoy!

All I Want For Christmas - 7yr old Rhema Marvanne - Amazing @ Yahoo! Video

And here she is singing "Amazing Grace", truly amazing for an 8-year-old. Then again, it is a pretty fine rendition for any age! Although, come to think of it, I think she is only 7-years-old in this video.



And for those who are patriotic Americans, here is a version of the Star Spangled Banner. Interesting adaption of the national anthem, and I have heard some interesting adaptions in my time, particularly of people murdering the tune! This is not one of them.

Marketing 101: Distribution of Pornography...

A distribution of pornography case that does not on face value appear to involve Nazriel "Ariel" Irham of Peterpan (aka Peterporn) fame. Then again, when it goes to trial maybe the perpetrator in this case will claim that he was influenced by Ariel's attempts to distribute porn videos on the internet in order to boost sales of future albums.

This case is an interesting one because it involves the distribution of pornography to minors. The case is also one of stupid marketing ideas and no understanding of how easy this "dirty little secret" was going to come apart at the seams.

Mohammad Hisyam, a 21-year-old bakso seller and the father of one, decided that the best way to boost sales of his product was to provide free pornographic video content as entertainment while his clients ate their meatball soup (bakso).

However, the truly sad part about this is that Hisyam thought it was a good idea to show these skin flicks to primary school children. After all, the mixed-up logic here seems to be that he was parked right in front of a primary school and his largest demographic was primary school children, so pornography is the most likely gimmick to get more kiddies into the meatball soup of a morning and afternoon; idiot!

Apart from the stupidity and serious harm that Hisyam could conceivably do to impressionable primary school kiddies, it beggars belief that he believed that this marketing tactic was not going to be exposed in next to no time. The ever-increasing numbers of children knowing about the gimmick meant an ever-increasing chance of Hisyam being exposed, and he was. Hisyam's little scheme came undone when students started talking about the bakso vendor showing porn videos over a bowl of meatball soup.

It did not take the teachers very long at Kepuh Jarak State Primary School to get onto the police about this foolish man selling bakso with his free porn video entertainment side-line.

However, on the truly sublime front is that the marketing tactic saw sales rise from IDR 70,000 per day to a whopping IDR 80,000 per day. This is where common sense should have kicked in. If I get caught doing this then I potentially go to jail for 12 years and get fined a huge sum as well, are the risks worth the consequences. Common sense says NO!

So, Marketing 101: Distribution of Pornography, Mr. Mohammad Hisyam gets a FAIL!

Australian Kids Banned From Hugging At School...

The beauty of blogging, and perhaps its danger as well, is that I do not have to be fair and balanced. I can, if I so desire, spout off on any old thing I want and argue my point of view. Well, almost. As a teacher, I am told in no uncertain terms that I am a teacher 24/7 and this means that anything I do or say outside of school will also be counted against me, either positively or negatively.

Such is the teacher's lot.

Now, on with the show!

Students at William Duncan State School in Nerang (on the Gold Coast) have returned to Term 4 to find that the school has adopted a "no hugging" policy. Nope, this is not some anti-green movement to stop kids from hugging trees in these times of climate change. It is a policy to stop the students from hugging each other.

The policy does not start with hugging. The policy, in essence, outlaws all touching; male-male, female-female, and male-female. Any student caught in breach of the policy will find themselves on detention.

This begs the obvious question, "Why?"

Well, it seems that the school in conjunction with the Parents & Citizens Council has decided that there is a need for this. I am all into protecting out children from bullying, including cyber-bullying. I am also in favour of adopting a policy that prevents students from touching each other in violent ways; they need to keep their hands and feet to themselves. Yet, the William Duncan policy is for a primary school. It appears that the need to ban hugging is to protect the innocence of the students and to not allow them to be sexualised at too young an age.

I have to admit, if that is the reason and rationale to this policy, then I am a little confused. Since when has hugging been solely a sexual act? And, doesn't the policy run the risk of alerting kids to the idea and concept of sexualisation by teaching them that there is something inherently wrong about hugging in that it is in some way dirty or wrong and needs to be avoided?

The policy seems at odds with how we conduct ourselves in the real world. People hug all the time. Let's face it, I was watching the tennis the other night on the idiot box and at the conclusion of the game the players hugged at the net. Nothing wrong with that is there? Or even more recently, I was watching the English Premier League (EPL), also on the idiot box, and when a goal was scored, the goal scorer was mobbed and hugged by his team mates. Nothing wrong with that is there?

Perhaps, there needs to be a little bit of a rethink. Perhaps the school needs to think about when and where hugging is appropriate and teach their students the difference. If two students are involved in a lingering embrace that includes some passionate kissing (not that this is likely to happen in primary school) then that becomes a teaching moment for inappropriate hugging (and additional activity).

If the overall idea is to teach our children responsible behaviours and how to behave responsibly, then we as teachers, parents, and adults need to be responsible in how we go about teaching those behaviours. Banning hugging in a universal and uniform manner like it has seemingly been done here, is not about teaching responsible behaviours and behaving responsibly, it is about avoiding teaching what is appropriate touching and when it is appropriate to touch another.

To successfully teach our children, and students, the difference between right and wrong we have to teach them what is right and wrong, and not just ban anything and everything we can think of.

Hopefully, no one is offended by the hugging kittens.

A Stiff-Trunked Elephant...

In the inappropriate children's pop-up book category...we have a winner!

I guess this means that I will be paying a little bit more attention the next time that I buy a pop-up book for Will. The question though "how did the editorial and publishing process not pick up on this image?"

By the way, why is the elephant pink? I cannot ever recall seeing a pink elephant. The fact that it is pink...nah!

These were the words that were with The Huffington Post article: Children's Book Fail, Fail, Inappropriate Kids Book, Inappropriate Pop Up Book, Phallic Pop Up Book, Poll, Pop Up Book Fail, WTF, WTF Pop Up Book, Comedy News. I wonder whether anyone will end up here searching those terms?

Ho hum...

TitS and the Porn Star Phenomenon...

Poor old Tifatul Sembiring (AKA "TitS" for those of you who are yet to read my earlier posts on the man and his mission) has a problem with porn stars! I am not sure that the preceding statement needs any further clarification. Nevertheless, it is going to get one. It seems TitS has determined that hiring foreign porn stars to star in local horror movies is just another way that local film producers are going about poking fun at the moral standards held dear by Indonesians. The other problem that TitS seemingly has is that hiring international porn stars undermines his anti-porn message.

The recently released film "The Moans of a Virgin Ghost" (Rintihan Kuntilanak Perawan) which starred the [in]famous porn star Tera Patrick and the less famous Indonesian [porn star] wannabes of Catherine Wilson and Angelique came in for special mention by the poorly-performing Minister of Communication and Information.

The Minister has taken this film, and the bringing in of Tera Patrick to star in the film, way to personally. It really is not an attempt to either mock the Minister or to mock Indonesia's anti-pornography laws. According to TitS, Tera Patrick "personifies the resistance to morality". Nice call, Minister. So, self-confessed polygamists are not a moral challenge to the Indonesian community? Violence against women and children can take many forms. If one is going to campaign against moral evil, then it makes sense to line up all the morally reprehensible and deal with them all at once.

The exploitation of porn stars in non-porn roles, particularly big-name foreign porn stars such as Patrick, Miyabi (Maria Ozawa) and Rin Sakuragi is nothing more that smart marketing designed to generate as much cheap advertising as they can by orchestrating controversy. What is really sad is that the Minister and the FPI, among others, continue to fall for this viral marketing strategy.

But, thanks TitS, this would seem like a most gratuitous time to post more pictures of Tera Patrick in "all" her glory!

She must be wearing a different cut of swimmers to what she normally wears...

Glee & Promoting Pedophilia...

Hmmm...

Glee is a TV show that airs on Fox in the US. It is classed as a musical comedy-drama, and it follows the trials and tribulations of high school teenagers as they wend there collective ways through some good old teenage angst issues. Interesting a lot of the cast are not teenagers at all but adult actors playing the role of teenagers. Apart from being a pretty popular TV series, Glee has come in for some closer scrutiny after a recent photo-shoot of some of the 20-something actors (Lea Michele, Dianna Agron, and Corey Monteith) from the show appeared in GQ magazine.

The controversy arose because the Parents Television Council in the US has labelled the photos as "bordering on paedophilia". This in turn raises some interesting legal issues as to how one should proceed when adult age actors who are play the roles of teenagers then pose for sexy photos. Can the sexy photo of a 20+ something actor ever be an image that promotes pedophilia. It would seem that the assumption is that because these actors play the roles of not yet of age teenagers then any image of them that sexualises them is promoting pedophilia.

The reality is that if these young people use their fame to promote themselves through sexy photo-shoots, even ones that overtly sexualise them, don't they have a right to do it? After all, the people involved are all of legal age, and by any definition of the law have a right to make the decisions that they have. The photos themselves are not pornographic and do not violate any decency standards or norms for television or for print media.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting legal issue that extends beyond this particular instance. For example, can purveyors of porn be arrested and jailed for the upload / download of images of adults wearing, or part wearing of, school uniforms? In a lot of jurisdictions the law has been amended or worded in such a way as what the image attempts to convey or the content as being the key determiner in whether an image is classified as child porn.

So, simply if the point is to provide sexual gratification through the belief that one is looking at a naked or near naked child, even where the "child" in question is in fact an adult, then a crime has been committed. At least this is how I understand the law to work (time for more research and update myself on the laws in this area).

Therefore, if that interpretation of the law is accurate, then is it possible to mount a child porn case with images like the ones in GQ? I would argue not. Any reasonable person would know that the young people depicted in these images are adults and not children.

I am not sure how these particular photos promote pedophilia. I must be missing something.

Especially Difficult Children...

I saw this over at The Huffington Post (thanks to Anita McKay for showing the link).

I know some especially difficult children. They, though, are not in need of any charity.

"I'm Going to Control Your Life!"

Ain't that the truth?

Moral Tragedy, Celebrity Sex Videos, and National Children's Day...

July has been a particularly fruitful month for blog posting at The RAB Experience. It is amazing what a break between university semesters can do to free up some time to devote to other passions, like my family. I might add the frequency of my blogging has benefited as well. This will come to an end though as I will be back in full-time accelerated study mode from Monday.

Looking back over this month, the tone of the posts have been particularly anti-SBY and celebrity porn-related. No dramas on either front, but I figured why not link both of these trending topics together. It seems that the president wants to link them and be linked to them. So, who am I to refuse such a request from the people's president. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono you are so not the man of the moment. It is time to give up on being the teflon populist president and think about actually doing what you were elected to do.

So, the president, porn, and national children's day within the context of moral tragedy is the topic for today's rant.

The president decided that National Children's Day was a good a day as any other to talk about celebrity sex tapes and the moral tragedy that this is. Mr. President, sir, I am sorry whether Ariel does the bump and grind with his girlfriend and videos it on a mobile phone or whether Ariel bumps uglies with Cut Tari is not a national moral tragedy that is worthy of the attention that you have given it on National Children's Day.

Is child pornography a tragedy? Yes, sir, it is! A recent example was reported in The Jakarta Globe over the last few days. This, sir, would have been a better example of a moral tragedy. The forcing of two high school students (it is now being reported that both the students in this video have been identified and are 18 years old) to perform sex acts on each other while being filmed by adults, and then having this film uploaded to the internet is a tragedy, a moral tragedy!

However, the Peterporn scandal is not child pornography. Neither is it a moral tragedy. The film is one where two consenting adults film themselves having sexual relations, or for the less politically correct, bonking each others brains out!

Is there a need to talk to children about pornography? Perhaps, does it need to be done on National Children's Day? No. National Children's Day might have been better served by the president announcing a comprehensive strategy on how his government intends to tackle poverty. Or perhaps a comprehensive strategy on education that sees every child educated in schools with quality facilities and quality teachers. There are so many issues the president could of addressed that are so much more important than Nazriel "Ariel" Irham and his sexual conquests with Luna Maya and Cut Tari, and the filming of those events.

The moral tragedy is that the children in families directly displaced by the mud extrusion at Sidoarjo have yet to be properly compensated, and subsequently the children themselves are suffering as they are often taken out of school to cut family expenditure and work to contribute to the family income. The moral tragedy Mr. President is not a celebrity sex video. It is a government so inept that it cannot make good on its promises to help those Indonesians most marginalized by the system.

Mr. President, you talk about proper education yet you do not practice what you preach. You demand that parents and teachers take a more pro-active role in educating children about what it means to be a productive citizen of the wider Indonesian community, yet your government seems unable or unwilling to confront the biggest scourge on Indonesian society, corruption. Yes, Mr. President, you are setting a wonderful example to the children of Indonesia; the status quo is OK and corruption can persist provided I or my family are not implicated in it.

Mr. President, it was opportunistic to take this occasion and degrade it by playing the porn card and hoping that this would in some way make you more popular. Nevertheless, you underestimate your people, the Indonesian people can see through the facade and your declining popularity is testament to that.

Yet, the final indignation would seem to be that the president, or some pencil-pushing policy wonk in the presidential palace decided that they should nix s declaration by children on the National Children's Day. The children came together from Sabang to Merauke and put together a declaration of the things that they consider important to them. If it is true that the interests of the children are paramount then it is about time we adults allowed them to have a voice. This declaration was their chance at having a voice. Instead the voice of Indonesian children was snuffed out so that the president could have a few extra minutes to berate parents and the nation about celebrity porn. Shame on you Mr. President.

It would also seem that vested interests played a part in this stupidity as well. The last point of the declaration put together by the children of Indonesia was a very pointed call on government to do more on reigning in tobacco and big tobacco companies that are poisoning Indonesia's children and their future, Indonesia's future.

Mr President, you talk about "your legacy", perhaps you should be talking about "What legacy?"

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Peterporn and Increasing Child Rape...

A celebrity sex tape and the world of Indonesia is falling apart at the seams, it seems! When it is all said and done what we have here is a celebrity sex tape. Nothing more, nothing less. What we also have is a celebrity sex tape which has already been watched by millions upon millions of 'law abiding and moral' Indonesian citizens. The rest of what we have is anecdotal and unsubstantiated theories of what the impact has been on Indonesian society and how it should be dealt with. Just about all of it over the top.

What is really disturbing is that much of the over the top stuff is being driven and flamed by the obvious pot stirrers such as the Islam Defenders' Front (FPI) and institutions such as the Child Protection Commission (KPAI). I do not know if I can say it enough times, all we have is a celebrity sex tape, two of them to be precise so far. That is it folks!

Now, the Chairman of the KPAI, Hadi Supeno, is of the firm opinion that Nazriel 'Ariel' Irham must apologise to all Indonesian children. This belief is based on an assertion that Peterpan has some 30 million fans and a great number of them are in their tweens. What is truly disturbing is the assertion that the sex tape has led to an increase kn reports of rape and sexual abuse involving children, both as perpetrators and as victims. The intent is clear because the above assertion is followed by a modifying statement that suggests this increase is post the release of the tapes.

To my knowledge, and I read widely and peruse Indonesian news 4 or 5 times a day, there have not been any rapes or sexual assaults where the claim was that the perpetrator was trying to copy the actions of Ariel. To make the link that there is some kind of direct correlation between the videos and increasing sexual assault reports is irresponsible in the extreme. Supeno seems more interested in acting in his own interests by making outrageous statements to get his name and mug in the papers and on TV than he does with the idea that the interests of the child should be paramount.

The apology, and the demand for it is a little premature. If the tapes / videos were stolen, then Ariel has been the victim of a crime. Since when has law enforcement been about punishing the victims of crime and not the perpetrators of those crimes? There is no guarantee that with a strict reading of the prevailing laws and regulations, especially the Porn Law, that Ariel has in fact broken the law by taping himself doing the deed with either Luna Maya or Cut Tari.

The idea of video taping yourself having sex is questionable in light of the fact that these things can get lost or stolen. The rest as hindsight shows us is history. There is no going back once the footage is out there. Should Ariel apologise for having sex? No. Should he apologise for video taping it? If he wants to. Should he apologise to the youth of Indonesia for the tape finding its way into the public forum? No. At most this should become a teaching moment where Ariel can talk directly to youth about the perils associated with his actions and how intent does not always matter in cases such as this one.

But not being one to let sleeping dogs lie, Supeno has fanned the flames even further by suggesting that even if Ariel does not want to apologise to the children of Indonesia, he should apologise to all Indonesians as a means of quietening down the hardliners such as those in the FPI. Supeno then goes on to equate any failure to apologise to the masses as being the trigger to violence. The Chairman is being truly irresponsible in suggesting that the failure to apologise is a legitimate trigger to violence.

The FPI have a pretty solid track record of violence. They do not need to be spurred on to further violence. Nevertheless, claims such as those put forward by Supeno and the KPAI will only serve to embolden those look for any reason to wreak havoc on the innocent. Emboldened as they now are, the FPI in Bandung is demanding that the local government revoke Ariel's identity card. Every Indonesian is required to hold an identity card. Is the suggestion that making a sex video is sufficient to extinguish your rights as a citizen. It seems that revoking his Bandung ID is not enough, the FPI would like the local government to ban Ariel from ever returning to Bandung. Over the top? Just a little!

At least the Home Affairs Minister, Gamawan Fauzi say the irrationality of demanding the revocation of Ariel's ID card by saying that there are no laws in place that would allow for the revocation of an Indonesian's ID card for making porn videos.

The kicker for me is that the FPI jumps up and down on the spot in between destroying public and private property in the name of Allah and Islam while simultaneously perpetrating violence against those who will not agree with them, and then say that Ariel has destroyed the moral fabric of Indonesia. There is something inherently wrong in the claim, the vast majority of Indonesians can see through the hypocrisy of that without blinking an eye.

Once again, I do not know if I can emphasize this enough, this is just a celebrity sex tape! The world is not ending, the sky is not falling in, and life will go on!

For those of you out there who think this is the end of the world as we know it, Get A Grip!

Hospital Forces Mother to Sell Child...Indonesia

Are you kidding me?

This is a crime, is it not? By my reckoning the Child Protection Law (No. 23 of 2002) would prohibit the buying and selling of children for any purpose. The idea of buying a child would also be in violation of the provisions of Law No. 21 of 2007 on Human Trafficking.

A hospital has forced a mother of twins to sell one of the twins to a hospital employee in order for her to pay her bills. This is just so wrong on so many levels. The fact that the hospital condones this as a method of paying patient medical expenses is criminal. All those involved must be punished to the fullest extent permissible under the applicable law. If there is no laws that make this kind of action criminally punishable, then parliament needs to focus on this issue immediately and put a legal framework in place that makes it impossible for hospitals and hospital staff to take advantage of, and exploit, the poor in this way.

I find myself shaking my head and thinking, why do seemingly educated people working in hospitals think that this is OK?

Let's "Save the Children"

Are You Kathlik?

If you are, or even if you aren't, I hope you have a sense of humor!

Three little boys were worried because they could not get any one to play with them. So, they decided that the reason no one would play with them was because they had not been baptized and, also, because they did not go to Sunday School.

So, off they went to find the nearest church.

But, when they got there, there was only the janitor available.

One of the little boys said to the janitor, "we need to be baptized because no one will come out and play with us!" "Will you baptize us?"

"Sure," said the janitor.

The janitor took the boys into the bathroom and dunked their little heads, one by one, into the toilet bowl. The proclaimed the janitor, "You are now baptized!"

Once the little boys got outside the church, one of them piped up, "So, what religion do you think we are?"

To which the oldest one replied,

"We are not Kathlik, they pour the water on you!"
"We are not babtis, they dunk all of you in the water!" and
"We are not Methdiss, they just sprinkle the water on you!"

At which point, the youngest chimed in with, "Didn't you smell that water?"

All the little boys said in unison, "Yeah! What do you think that means then?"

To which the youngest one replied, "I think it means we are Pisspatarians!"

Tattooing Children and Circumcision...

Novel legal arguments have always fascinated me, and this is a novel legal argument. Enrique Gonzalez had his seven-year-old son tattooed with a gang sign. The tattoo is on the young boy's hip, and was tattooed by Travis Gorman. Gonzalez was charged with mayhem. A mayhem charge in California attracts a life sentence.

The judge of Fresno County Superior Court, Hillary Chittick, has still to decide whether the mayhem charge is warranted. In any event, the lawyers for Gonzalez and Travis argued that the tattoo, which is about the size of a quarter, failed to satisfy the statutory requirement of permanent disfigurement. The lawyers went even further by suggesting that circumcision is a more painful and permanent disfigurement than a tattoo.

Personally, I do not think parents should be allowed to have their children tattooed. However, I am not certain that a mayhem charge is the most appropriate charge in this case. It would seem that the fact that the father and the artist are involved in a gang might have played into the seriousness of the charge laid. Nevertheless, there needs to be some penalty imposed. However, I wonder whether tattooing a child is sufficient to sustain a charge of child abuse.

Krisdayanti, Anang, and the Kids...

Anang, KD, and the Kids...

KD in one of her more photogenic moments (It's not like I could do a KD post without a provocative shot now, is it?)

Anang has spoken out about why he has custody of the children. In essence, and at least my understanding of it, he has custody because he is leader of the family.

The rationale is that as leader of the family if he remarries then any future wife must understand that he comes as a unit with his kids. The prospective new wife either accepts this or she does not. Whereas, and in contrast, if Krisdayanti marries again then it will be her new husband that is leader of the family and there is no guarantee he will accept Krisdayanti's kids as his own.

Therefore, the custody of the children has been assumed by their father.

On a side note, it seems that Anang is going to insist that Krisdayanti does not sing his songs anymore. However, he intends to stay on as the manager of the Tiga Diva (3 Divas - Krisdayanti, Ruth Sahanaya, and Titi DJ).