Alcohol in Indonesia

Indonesia is the world's sixth largest importer of alcohol. This is pretty impressive for a country that despite its claims of being a moderate secular society still frowns on alcohol consumption.

In light of the fact of the potential for growth in the alcoholic beverages market in Indonesia were the government to free up controls on both local and foreign investment in the sector, the likelihood of this happening seems remote, actually very remote.

Investment in the alcohol sector is strictly regulated. In fact, investment in this sector is "closed "according to the negative investment list. Closed simply means that there is to be no investment into the sector because it is a sector that is deemed to be detrimental to the development and harmony of the Indonesian community.

Yet, considering the amount of alcohol imported, there would seem to be some good arguments for allowing the development of the sector so that the amount of imported alcohol could be reduced over time and replaced by locally produced alcohol.

The Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) is advocating and lobbying for the government to lift the restrictions on investment. This is not going to be successful! There is no political expediency in the move for the government and there is nothing to be gained by the government entertaining the move. However, it is worth noting that investment in the sector would undoubtedly create jobs for Indonesians. Whether or not this balances out the perceived social ills that alcohol brings is a matter for further debate, so it seems.

In the meantime Indonesians and visitors alike will get to watch the destruction of much of the illegal alcohol that finds its way into the Republic like in the photo above.

Jenna Jameson, Tito Ortiz, and the Twins

This is old news and truth be told I have not been following the film career of Jenna Jameson or the Mixed Martial Arts career of Tito Ortiz. However, I was watching the Celebrity Apprentice and Tito Ortiz was on that. This prompted a Google search and that was the pre-cursor to this post.

For those of you that have been living under a rock, like me, Jenna Jameson is a porn star. I am told that she is pretty good at what she does. I am not a connoisseur of porn so I cannot really comment on whether she is a good actor. I will defer to people with more experience in this field than I to pass comment.

I do not pass judgment on Jenna Jameson or her profession. I am actually supportive of a person's right to choose to appear in adult films. For those moralists out there, then perhaps it is worth considering the not so simple supply and demand arguments. What comes first in this equation, the supply or the demand? Particularly before one gets into what God thinks.

Well, Jenna and Tito welcomed twins, boys, into the world in March. Congratulations! My wife and I have one son and at six months he is already a handful. I am guessing that twins will be at least double the challenge.

Anyways, this is not a post about whether porn should be legal or not nor is it about that is morally right. It is a post designed simply to ask one question:

How is she going to answer the question that goes: "so, mummy, what do you do for a living?"

I ask because I was also watching "The Wonder Years" episode where Kevin tags along one day with his dad to his dad's office in an attempt to find out what his old man does to earn a living.