#the same if i find out he's being unhygienic in general outside and going to crowded places and shit because oh my god

[pannacottawarrior]

of course my dad thinks putting your hands on sick people and praying out loud would cure them of their illnesses;;

[penguintransporter]

Tiny Clouds (Serge Gnabry oneshot)

You need to ban me from here 😂 I don’t know if it’s the fact that I am on my holidays, or if it’s my mum’s homecooked food, but I have been writing and updating more than ever before. Anyway, you should all thank @disneydaddyevans​ for giving me the idea to write this little piece that is so cheesy, but I couldn’t help myself. Inspired by his fashion sense and the overall cuteness that the man oozes. Read, heart, reblog, and tell me what you think about it. Also, I wasn’t sure if I should use to name for my OC or just “Y/N”, so I stuck with the way I usually write. 

“Max… Max—Maximillian,” Dolores hissed quietly, stopping dead in her tracks, barely fifty meters away from where they were heading. “That,” she pointed her index finger at the outside of the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art with a horror-stricken face, “it doesn’t look like a regular exhibition opening. Look at all the press. Are you sure they will let me come in wearing this?”

“There is nothing wrong with your outfit, Lola,” her friend replied, using her nickname – a deep chuckle escaping his throat. She couldn’t help but glance down at her attire, narrowing her eyes at the worn-out jeans and a woolly pullover she had knitted for herself, some two years ago. It was already losing its shape and growing lint on several spots.

When Maximilian asked if she would like to join him for an exhibition opening, Lola agreed without thinking twice, not expecting to be thrown into the middle of what seemed to be a huge media fuss. If she was being frank, she could have googled what the exhibition was about or what the artist’s name was, but with her long shifts at work and three papers due for her night courses at the university, Lola completely forgot to do so.

“If you say so,” she mumbled back, glancing once again at her outfit – eyes narrowing at the stubborn stain on her Converse high-tops. For a moment she contemplated licking her thumb and trying to rub the dark spot away, but she decided against it once she realised that it was highly unhygienic and probably a very weird thing to do in front of all the people that mingled around her.

It wasn’t like she hated or didn’t like fashion – on contrary, she thought it was fun, but Lola found comfort in being practical rather than being stylish, and the older she got, the more overwhelmed she felt with the fast pace of fashion and trends in general. There were too many terms, too many weird combinations being pushed in the foreground, so she decided that it would be the best for her if she stood on the sidelines of it all like a spectator rather than participant.

“I am being honest,” Max added as she caught up with him and they slowly made their way towards the entrance – camera flashes that tried to capture very important people hurting Lola’s eyes. “Moreover, I think that jumper is incredibly cute with its tiny clouds. Or are those sheep?” Max asked, grinning down at her as he adjusted the collar on his trench-coat.

“Tiny clouds,” Lola remarked, “better than your Inspector Gadget coat though, if you ask me,” she joked back, making her friend laugh out loud before he placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the crowd.

The main exhibition room wasn’t as packed as Lola had expected it to be, and once they were ushered inside by an artist friend of Max, they made their way around it - slow-paced and without any rush or pressure. They stopped ever so often to read the description, comment or even chuckle on some of the art pieces that they didn’t find very interesting. 

Lola had visited the museum only a handful of times before this, but whenever she was here she enjoyed the look and feel of it. From the minimalistic approach to the main rooms and furniture, to the small and narrow hallways that led to different rooms with unique art exhibitions and graffiti on the wall. 

“Maximilian!” a deep, mature voice called out from across the large room, and Lola reflexively turned her head in the direction of it before seeing a tall and a lanky man in a pressed suit trousers and white button down striding towards them. She could vaguely recognise his face as one of Max’s artist friends, but she couldn’t remember his name. “Maximilian,” he repeated as he stepped closer, blocking Lola’s view of the art installation in front of them, forcing her to look away from it, “there is someone I want you to meet,” he breathed out as both, Max and Lola curiously peered at him. “He doesn’t have a lot of time, but he plays for your favourite team, so I thought you’d be happy to meet him.”

**

“Maximilian, this is Serge. Serge, this is Maximilian, and…,” the artist friend trailed off, looking down at Lola with an awkward smile, “sorry dear, but I don’t remember your name.”

Lola smiled back nervously, shifting on her feet a little. “Dolores,” she answered, looking first at the man in front of her before glancing at the good-looking athlete only to find him looking back at her curiously, “or Lola for short. Nice to meet you.”

“It’s lovely to meet both of you,” Serge replied politely, sticking both of his hands in the pockets of his wide trousers, and Lola couldn’t help but glance at his well-put outfit that looked very expensive and taken care of. “Are you an artist too?” Serge asked looking in Maximillian’s direction.

“No, no,” Max replied, mimicking Serge’s posture, “just enthusiast. By the way, great season with the team...”

Next to them, Lola was wringing the exhibition brochure she picked up on the entrance in her sweaty palms - bits of the paper sticking to her skin. She wasn’t shy or easily intimidated by other people, but there was something about being in the crowd that made one stick out like a sore thumb with her outfit. It was turning her into a nervous wreck even if she didn’t want that.

Having Serge Gnabry in front of her didn’t help either.

“And what about you, Lola?”

Lola felt her heartbeat quicken at the sound of Serge’s voice saying her name, and when she looked up at him, slightly confused, he had a gentle smile on his face, patiently waiting for her answer. His brown eyes were focused on her face and her eyes, and she suddenly felt at loss of words.

“Lola is not an artist either, but an avid knitter instead,” Max interjected with a grin, and Lola looked away from Serge’s eyes and up at her friend – her eyes narrowing a little. “She’s once knitted an entire winter scarf on her way to Hamburg,” he added as Lola felt the heat rise to her cheeks, but she managed to push it away casually.

“It was a nice scarf, though,” Lola sheepishly smiled, feeling the insides of her stomach flip excitedly when Serge chuckled before the silence fell upon the three of them. To keep her thoughts straight, she looked down at her smudged Converse, knowing that Serge probably waited for her to elaborate or keep the conversation going. The only problem was that her mind was blank, her palms sweaty, and all the words she wanted to say seemed to be stuck inside her throat. “I real—really enjoy knitti—,”

“—Serge!” a middle-aged woman wearing a shapeless dress and thick, white-rimmed glasses approached them in a hurry, interrupting Lola in the middle of her sentence. “We have Thibaut from Revver magazine outside. It would be lovely if you could just answer few questions for him.” The woman sent an apologetic smile towards Lola, and Lola only smiled back weakly, not really knowing what else to do.

She looked away to mask her disappointed for ruining her chance of talking to Serge, not noticing the lingering gaze he gave her before he walked away.

**

An hour into the evening, Lola found herself walking along one of the walls covered in graffiti on her own after Max excused himself to go outside for a “much needed smoke”. Rather than just standing alone and waiting for her friend to come back, Lola continued to walk along the painted walls before seeing another room that was adjacent to the main room, and which seemed to be empty.

Smiling at the several people who quietly talked among themselves outside, Lola pushed her way inside, quickly being mesmerized by the colours and style of the art that occupied the tiny space she was in. It was a collection of the tall yet narrow murals – each one describing a different story that captivated Lola’s curiosity, and she found herself forgetting about the time. 

“You don’t like to talk much, do you?”

Lola looked in the direction of the voice before shyly smiling once she realised it was Serge who stood behind her. Quickly, she looked away, feeling her cheeks redden at his words. He moved closer, stepping mere few meters away from her before interlacing his fingers behind his back as he observed the same mural as she did – his lips curled into small smile.

Lola breathed out a short breath before opening her mouth to speak. “It’s actually difficult to shut me up once I get started, but I easily get intimidated around people who…,” she trailed off, unsure in how to phrase her ridiculous insecurities, “nevermind,” she finished, glancing towards Serge for a brief second.

“Are you intimidated by flesh and blood, Lola?” he asked before stopping for a second, “That’s your name, right?”

She nodded, stepping closer to the wall, reaching out to touch it, as if that would help her figure out what kind of materials did they use for it. 

“Flesh and blood in trendy, expensive clothes. I will be honest with you,” Lola shook her head a little, pointing at the large museum room where the actual exhibition was presented, “I felt so out of place over there, so I came here.”

“Well, maybe they are expensive,” Serge commented with an amused smirk, “but how many of us are actually wearing a knitted pullover we made ourselves. That’s the real style, if you ask me.”

Lola felt the warmth evade her face yet again as she moved away from the wall, straightening her back and looking at him. “How do you know I knitted it?”

“Pure guess,” he shrugged nonchalantly, “Did I guess right?”

“Yeah,” Lola admitted, “And these are tiny clouds, by the way, not sheep,” she quickly added making Serge chuckle a little. “It’s the confidence and courage,” she muttered, and Serge muttered a small ‘mhmm’, urging her to continue. “I wish I had the courage to experiment a bit more. For example, I like what you are wearing. It’s very,” Lola stopped for a moment, thinking of the word to use for his immaculate outfit, “…fashionable.”

Serge laughed a little at her words, and she curiously peered up at him, waiting for him to speak. 

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you are wearing,” he responded, looking down at her, “but here…” he trailed off as he turned around to face her before untying the neckerchief he was wearing around his neck and holding it out for her. “May I?” he asked, taking a step closer, and Lola felt her heart start beating faster because of his proximity but she nodded slowly. Serge nodded as well before putting the scarf around her neck, tying it in a loose knot. “There you go,” he mumbled.

Lola smiled, looking down at his hands as he adjusted the ends of the scarf, folding them so that they sat nicely against the curve of her neck. 

“Thanks,” she mumbled, touching the neckerchief with her fingers – the silky material soft against her skin.

“Now you’re wearing something fashionable,” Serge commented, emphasizing the word ‘fashionable’ with air-quotes.

“Fashionable, I guess,” Lola smirked, “but you should take it back. It feels so wrong to wear it,” she added with a small and nervous laugh.

“Wear it tonight, and you can give it back to me some other time,” Serge replied, sticking his hands in the pockets of his loose trousers, turning around so that he was facing the wall again. “That’s if you want to meet up, of course.”

Lola was quiet for a moment, trying to stop the butterflies in her stomach from going crazy, but she couldn’t stop the smile that made its way on her face.

“I do,” she answered, moving so that she was standing next to him – her eyes trying to focus on the tiny details on the mural. “I do want to meet up.”

They stood next to each other in silence for a few seconds – neither of them looking away from the wall. “Friday maybe? Sunday afternoon works too. We don’t have to dress up.”

“Friday works for me,” Lola answered, “but if we wait on Sunday you might get a pair of knitted mittens as a thank you gift for making me look,” she stopped to raise her hands in air-quotes, “fashionable.”

“Only if they come with tiny clouds,” he stated, looking at her at the same time as she looked up at him.

“If you want,”

Serge nodded – his eyes never leaving hers. “Then it’s Sunday afternoon.”

“It is,” Lola nodded.

“Perfect.”

**

Thank you for reading, and this really needs some editing. I apologise.

[southeastasianists]

The dormitories in which Singapore’s migrant workers live have, until recently, been almost hidden from view. The vast, steel buildings are mostly on the outskirts of town, tucked inside industrial estates, far away from the city-state’s glittering skyscrapers and luxury hotels.

Inside, the men who carry out backbreaking work to build Singapore’s infrastructure, sleep on bunk beds, crammed into rooms with as many as 20 people. The biggest dormitory complex houses up to 24,000 workers.

In recent weeks, as the coronavirus has ripped through the facilities, their unsanitary and overcrowded conditions have quickly become the subject of international attention. Singapore, recently lauded for its gold-standard approach to testing and tracing, now demonstrates both the dangers of neglecting marginalised communities, and the vulnerability of nations to a second wave of infections.

On Wednesday, the number of cases surpassed 10,000. This compares with just 200 infections recorded on 15 March, when its outbreak appeared to be nearly under control. Almost all new reports involve migrant workers.

Last week, the country extended a partial shutdown that was introduced at the start of April, with people told to stay indoors as much as possible. All migrant workers have been told not to leave their dorms, and are instead having food delivered by authorities.

“It feels like we’re in a prison. [It is] too difficult. [There is] too much heat in the room,” says A, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing that he might face repercussions for speaking to the media. Outside, the sound of ambulance sirens could be heard, he adds. None of the hundreds of people living on his floor has tested positive.

Activists say they raised concerns about the risks posed by the virus to migrant workers as early as February. In March, the campaign group Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) said the risk of an outbreak among this community was “undeniable”.

When clusters began to emerge, the government moved 7,000 workers, mostly people who do essential jobs such as working on power plants, out of the buildings. About 293,000 remain housed in such facilities. Authorities say they will prioritise relocating older people. Cleaning services have been increased to improve hygiene, officials say, and meals are also being delivered to prevent workers needing to use communal kitchens.

The outbreak has brought to the surface the glaring inequality in Singapore, which relies heavily on a workforce of about a million migrant workers to build its famous skyscrapers, and clean its gleaming shopping malls. Most have travelled to the country from Bangladesh, India and other south Asian countries, in the hope of sending money back home. Their lifestyles are a stark contrast to the country’s wealthy elite and financial workers.

Kokila Annamalai, a local activist who supports migrant workers, fears that the spread of Covid-19 within the dormitories has fanned the flames of xenophobia and racism. She points to comments made online and in the media. “On top of [the view that] ‘it’s their fault for not being clean and for their eating habits’ and things like that, there is also this almost worse mindset of ‘they’re driving our numbers up and it makes us look bad on the world stage, and they should go home’,” she said.

While such remarks have been condemned by Singapore’s home affairs and law minister, Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam, campaigners say official messages have also been unhelpful. Workers have been urged to “be responsible”, wear face masks at all times, report symptoms to their dormitory operators and stay at least one metre from one another.

A recent study by Mohan Dutta, a professor at Massey University in New Zealand, suggests such guidance is often just impractical. The overwhelming majority of about 100 workers surveyed said they were unable to maintain such a distance at all times. More than half described their rooms as unhygienic.

Just last week, workers reported that they did not have enough soap to wash their hands.

Workers are generally reluctant to voice complaints. Most take out huge debts in order to work in Singapore, often to find on arrival that they will be paid less than promised. A typical salary is around S$500-750 (£285-£425) a month. They are required to hold temporary work permits, but these are tied to their employer, making them extremely vulnerable to exploitation.

B sold his family land and took loans so he could afford to pay an agency about S$7,000 to work in Singapore, where he hoped he would earn a high salary. As the eldest son, he is responsible for supporting his extended family, as well as his own wife and children. He knew that he would be required to work hard in Singapore, but his body was unprepared for the long hours of heavy lifting on construction sites. He did not expect that he would live, initially, in a container with eight others. “[I] had no idea that I would have to live like this and be in this much pain,” he said.

Now, about a decade later, he says he is at least lucky to share a dorm room with just 12 people – fewer than many of his peers, and a contrast to his previous room, which had virtually no natural light. A also shares a room with 12 others. The heat is so suffocating, that everyone sleeps on the floor, he says. He is afraid to use the communal toilets, which are unclean.

Many in Singapore are sympathetic towards the workers. “They deserve more. They deserve what every Singaporean deserves,” says William Lai, a photographer. “I don’t know what is going through the minds of these people [who blame workers] ... It is not their fault. They don’t want to be affected by this.”

In a speech this week, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said migrant workers would be cared for in the same way as Singaporeans: “We will look after your health, your welfare and your livelihood.” Almost all the migrant workers infected have only mild symptoms, he added.

Dutta believes the crisis could present an opportunity to reform how migrant workers are treated, but he added that small tweaks would not be enough. “Substantive changes are needed in how Singapore looks at migrant workers, what rights migrant workers have, and how they are able to advocate for their own health and wellbeing,” says Dutta.

B says that, for a start, migrant worker dormitories should be more strictly controlled, with caps on the number of workers allowed per room and per bathroom facilities. “It is not like Singapore cannot regulate it.”

“This entire city is built on our labour and on our hard work,” he adds. “That tells you what you need to be told about the culture that we bring, and how our culture makes up the clean and sparkling facade of the city.”

Workers, he adds, do not expect special kindness, just their basic labour rights.

[bookio]

Sayonara Football: Farewell My Dear Cramer vol 3 (2017) by Naoshi Arakawa

Awesome motivating sports manga about high school girl's football. I feel so inspired reading this series! I miss exercising, when i get away from this winter cold, i definitely wanna move my body again.

I was so confused why this manga had such a long forgettable title, but after some researching realized this is a prequel to a manga with same name 'Sayonara Football'. I would definitely love to have this series in my future bookshelf! 5/5 stars

- - - - -

Book of Kamala (1986) by Inger Edelfeldt

A nameless melancholic woman is unhappy with her life. She's a hoarder, works in retail, is obese, paranoid, unhygienic and in a non-relationship with a guy she's simultaneously bored with AND obsessively clingy to.

She generally has an unhealthy pessimistic view on life. Example that women live for mens approval and have to get married or birth babies for total fulfilment. She's also a bit of a narcissist, thinking every man is sexually attracted to her (even married friends husbands) and looking down on other woman to lift herself up.

Sometimes she do show glimpses of rational thinking and hope though, but it's often cut short by mundane things like someone looking at her weirdly.

The plot is simply that summer is coming around, and the non-bf is going to travel with his best friend for a month. MC gets very upset about this, and spends the days going a bit neurotic. Sometimes just goes to the guy's apartment to sit outside the door..

The main character is suppose to be 22 but when reading her thoughts and action, i often find myself thinking "this is an elderly person". Knitting during date night and listening to debate radio (i refuse to believe this is a behavior of a 20 year old in the late 80's??), complaining that time has passed her by and regretting not doing anything with life.

Sometimes she plays this game of being in a movie. She's constantly looking for the handsome male lead to swep her away. "Today he will show!" Dresses up and puts make-up on just to walk around aimlessly. Waiting and searching.

When friends ask her what she wants to do, she often gives the same answer "write a poetry book, and travel to Israel to pick oranges" but we never know if it's something she genuinely wants or a copy-paste answer given to people to make herself sound intellectual. Because she never write or read poetry, nor save up any money for plane tickets.

She also have a fantasy of abandoning gender and shaving off her hair, and color her face green (idk why). Even wanting to murder and rape random people (these thoughts surface so vividly that she has to calm down not to act on it). But then goes back to her weird mantra of getting kids and the attention of men again.

It's a weird uncanny book but honestly, interesting? Very obscure portrayal of an unique character without dreams and ambition trying to cope with living.

It bothered me that the book title "Kamala's Book" is picked kinda far fetched. Her name is not Kamala and on just 3 short pages out of 137, she tells us that she read an article once about two children who were abandoned in the woods and raised by wolfs. One of them was named Kamala, and the sisters stayed feral throughout their life. MC look up to, and relate to them. Having thoughts of hurting others and going wild but have to play this part of a polite human.

Giving this book a 4/5 stars because every time i thought this story couldn't get any weirder, the next page surprised me. How this character is so complex, as if she's a background character in her own story.

[kentonwtf]

( &&. general information )

Full name: Kenton Anthony Jones

Pronunciation: Kent-On An-tha-Nee J-oo-Nes

Nickname(s) or alias: Kent , K , Ant

Preferred name: Kenton

Current age: 19

Astrological sign: Scorpio 

Element: Water

Title: Mr

Label: The Polymath

Gender: Transgender Male

Preferred pronouns: he/him

Sexual preference: heterosexual 

Romantic preference: heteroromantic  

Resides in: zeta lambda epilson , princeton college.

Current occupation: student . looking for part time work.

Language(s) spoken: english , spanish , basic latin.

Native language:  english

Current marital status: single

( &&. background )

Reason behind name: Holds the same initials his birth name , K . A . J , and thought it would make it easier for everyone to switch. 

Birth order: Oldest son by biological parents , younger brother to a sister from his father’s first marriage.

Ethnicity: Latino, of Mexican descent.

Nationality: American.

Species: Human.

A/B/O: N/A

Religion: Agnostic 

Culture: Mexican. 

Traditions/customs: Traditional America holidays , Christmas etc. 

Political views: Modern liberal Democrat . 

Financial status: Moderate income. Bank account is currently at a low balance since he recently had to pay for surgery, hence why he is looking for work.

IQ: 133 - near prodigy level in intellectual feats of mathematics, science, etc.

Hometown: Dover, Delaware, United States.

( &&. physical appearance )

Looks like (or face claim, if applicable): Noah Centineo 

Height: 5′11

Weight: 155 pounds

Shoe size: 9.5/10

Figure/build: Tall, Lanky. Broad shoulders , good muscle definition over all of body. 

Hair colour, Dyed?: Brunette, natural.

Hair length: Short back and sides. Longer on top. Side burns.

Eye colour: Brown.

Glasses? Colour? / Contacts? Are they coloured?: N/A.

Shape of face: Square forward, jaw starts to even to a point at chin.

Facial hair: Occasional stubble.

Do they shave/wax? Where?: He shaves his face regularly. Other than that, he’s content with his body hair.

Skin tone: Tan.

Tattoos: None.

Piercings: None.

Birthmarks/scars/distinguishing marks: Two scars at the side of both of his pecs. Some sporadic birthmarks on his face, like moles.

Dominant hand: Left.

If painted, what color are their nails/toenails?: N/A

Usual style of clothing: Stereotypically masculine.

Frequently worn jewelry: Analog Timex watch.

Describe their voice, what accent?: A standard American accent, although his voice is low and deep. 

What is their speaking style (fast, monotone, loquacious)? Depends on the level of his enthusiasm. Although more often than not loquacious. 

Describe their scent: He likes cheap cologne, as he doesn’t really have the money to buy the expensive stuff, and naturally he just smells clean. 

Describe their posture: Kenton’s posture is relaxed, although he has a habit of slouching as he sits and works. 

( &&. legal information )

Birth Name: Kendra April Jones

Other names they go by: Now Kenton and above nicknames.

Any speeding tickets?: One when rushing his sister to the hospital at 16 when she couldn’t drive. She had broken her ankle.

Have they ever been arrested?: No.

Do they have a criminal record?: No.

Have they committed any violent crimes?: No.

Property crimes?: No.

Traffic crimes?: One speeding ticket. 

Other crimes?: No.

( &&. medical information )

Blood type: AB

Date/time of birth: 10th November 1997 at 1:34 am, after 10 hours of labour.

Place of birth: Dover, Delaware. His home town.

Vaginal birth or cesauren section?: Vaginal birth.

Sex: Biologically Female

Diet: Average of that of a college student. 

Smoker? / Drinker? / Drug User?, Which?: Occasional drinker partial to a beer.

Addictions: None.

Allergies: Bees and wasabi. 

Do they get occasional checkups?: Hormones are monitored by an endocrinologist. Kidney tests are done every four months, due to the damage done by previous medication.

Ever broken a bone?: Broke arm at 6 years old when falling from a tree he was climbing. Broke the same arm subsequently at 18 from falling off his bike. 

Hospital visits, what for?: Broken arm casts at 6 and 18, recent surgery, recovery and physiotherapy.

Any physical ailments/illnesses/disabilities: None.

Any medication regularly taken: Testosterone HRT Intramuscular injections weekly. No other medication.

( &&. career information )

Past occupation(s): Waiter, Janitor, clerk at the local cinema, assistant at a business firm, accountancy internship. 

Why are they no longer working as it?: All of the jobs appeared to be short lived. They were only to fill the year between high school and college and enable him to start to be financially self sufficient.

Do they enjoy their current occupation?: As a student, Kenton loves his major. 

Why do they do it?: In hopes to one day get his masters after his degree and become a professor. He wants to make his students as passionate about the applications of math in the natural world as his father made him. He also just really likes the idea of being Dr. Kenton.

How did they end up in their current occupation?: Applied to Princeton and was taken under deferred entry. 

How long have they been in their current occupation?: Currently starting as a freshman.

( &&. personality )

Direct quote from them: “if you eat the same thing for breakfast every day, it’s more than likely that one day you’re going to die eating it. it’s simple probability.”

Positive traits: intellectual, friendly, gentle, witty and protective.

Negative traits: insecure, anxious, pushing those he loves away sometimes without meaning to.

Likes: mathematics, science, old sci-fi movies (the new ones are fine but they don’t capture the mystery and wonder of the originals), taking selfies, going to museums - generally a big nerd.

Dislikes: entitlement, arrogance, the new IT remake, when people who put milk in the bowl before their cereal, individuals picking on the weak target, feeling weak, feeling incapable. 

Strengths: a good and loyal friend, will always come to your rescue.

Weaknesses: sometimes overzealous in trying to help people, sometimes rambles for hours.

( &&. skills )

Ability to drive a car? Operate any other vehicles?: Has his learners permit and is getting his license. 

Can they ride a bike?: Yes.

Do they play any sports?: Wrestling, always wanted to play football but he was never good at it.

Do they have any combat training? Why?: He knows basic self defence. He also likes wrestling. 

( &&. this or that )

Expensive or inexpensive tastes?: Inexpensive. 

Hygienic or Unhygienic?: Hygienic.

Open-minded or close-minded?: Open minded.

Introvert or extrovert?: Mid way between introverted and extroverted. 

Optimistic or pessimistic?: Previously a pessimist, now an optimist. 

Daredevil or cautious?: Depends on the occassion.

Logical or emotional?: Both ( ie. if your boyfriend is being a jerk, he’ll comfort you first, and tell you to break up with him later).

Generous or stingy?: Generous.

Polite or rude?: Polite.

Book smart or street smart?: Both.

Dominant or submissive?: Dominant.

Popular or loner?: Midway. 

Leader or follower?: Leader.

Day or night person?: Day.

Cat or dog person?: Dog.

Closest door open or closed while sleeping?: Closed.

( &&. family relationships )

Father: Joaquin Jones

Describe their relationship: Tumultuous. 

Mother: Alivia Jones

Describe their relationship: Like walking on egg shells. His mother loves him and he loves her but he never knows if he’s going to say the wrong thing. His father is visibly uncomfortable around him, his mother is less expressive and still tactile towards him.

Brothers: N/A

Sisters: One half sister.

Describe their relationship: Non existent. He texts, she doesn’t reply, he calls, she doesn’t answer. Eventually he stopped trying. But he misses her a lot. He still wants to patch things up.

( &&. social media )

Do they have a Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Vine? Snapchat? Tinder/Grindr? Tumblr? YouTube? Yes.

If so; Name on Facebook: Kenton Anthony Jones

Twitter handle: Kenton97

Instagram user: Kenton97

Vine user: Kenton97

Snapchat user: KentonAnthonee

Name on Tinder: Kenton Anthony Jones

Tumblr URL: N/A

YouTube channel: N/A

( &&. musical tastes )

Theme song: Imagine Dragons - Believer. ( he wishes )

Can relate to: Doubt - Twenty One Pilots

Makes them happy: Happy - Pharrell Williams. ( yes he knows it’s cheesy )

Makes them sad: Hometown - Twenty One Pilots

Makes them dance: Wolves - Selena Gomez , Marshmello.

Loves the most: Christmas music in the season. Also anything by Drake.

Describes them: Stressed Out - Twenty One Pilots

Never gets tired of: Also anything by Drake.

Would like to play at their funeral: I Lived - One Republic. 

( &&. miscellaneous )

Do they have a fake I.D.?: No.

Are they a virgin?: No.

Describe their signature: Scrawled and illegible unless he’s really trying or it’s an occasion that insists the recipient be able to read it.

How long would they survive in a zombie apocalypse?: Maybe 6 months.

Do they travel?: He loves to travel, but hasn’t had the chance to do much yet.

One place they would like to live: Australia. He loves the heat and the adventure.

One place they would like to visit: Japan, he thinks it would be fascinating. 

Celebrity crush: Jennifer Lawrence.

What can you find in their pockets/wallet: Normally his headphones, his phone, a couple of dollars here and there for coffee. And a pen with an assorted amount of scrawled notes. His wallet is pretty standard, but he keeps a picture of his family in there.

Place(s) your character can always be found: His dorm, outside on a bench, in the woods and at any coffee shop.

When does your character like to wake up?: No later than 10:30. He hates getting up before 8, but he’s had to sacrifice it in the past.

What’s your character’s morning routine?: He wakes up, stretches and scrolls through his phone for a couple of minutes. He turns off his alarm and makes sure there aren’t any important texts or e-mails he hasn’t replied to. He eats breakfast first, because he’s always too hungry in the morning to shower first, and then he showers, gets dressed and does what he has to do that day. 

What does your character wear to bed?: He just wears his boxers or a pair of sweats when it’s warm and a t-shirt if it’s cold. He’s a pretty big advocate of sleeping shirtless.

If your character can’t fall asleep, what are they thinking about?: Anything that’s making him anxious or excited, or his family. Lennox. 

On what occasions do they lie?: He lies when he feels like he doesn’t want the other person to know too much about him. 

Do they snore?: No.

Do they chew their pens/pencils?: Used to. 

Can they curl their tongue?: No.

Can they whistle?: Yes. Well, he likes to think.

Do they believe in the supernatural?: No.

Have they ever cheated on anyone?: No.

Have they ever been cheated on?: No.

Has anyone ever broken their heart?: A good amount of people.

Have they ever broken anyone’s heart?: A few of the people who’ve wanted to date him before he was ready. ( He sometimes thinks he broke his parents hearts too.)

Are they squeamish?: He’s okay with gore in horror movies, and even getting beat up, but broken bones and lots of blood isn’t his jam.

Have they ever killed anyone? Why? How?: No.

Have they ever seen anyone die? What happened?: No. 

Are they a lightweight?: He can hold his liquor pretty well, but he doesn’t drink a lot of it.

[mastcomm]

Coronavirus ‘Hits All the Hot Buttons’ for How We Misjudge Risk

Shortly after the University of Washington announced that the school’s fourth suspected case of the new coronavirus had turned out negative, two professors, one of public policy and the other of public health, held a small dinner for students and faculty members.

Like everywhere else on campus, and in much of the world, the coronavirus was all anybody could talk about.

But one of the attendees, a public health student, had had enough. Exasperated, she rattled off a set of statistics.

The virus had killed about 1,100 worldwide and infected around a dozen in the United States. Alarming, but a much more common illness, influenza, kills about 400,000 people every year, including 34,200 Americans last flu season and 61,099 the year before.

There remains deep uncertainty about the new coronavirus’ mortality rate, with the high-end estimate that it is up to 20 times that of the flu, but some estimates go as low as 0.16 percent for those affected outside of China’s overwhelmed Hubei province. About on par with the flu.

Wasn’t there something strange, the student asked, about the extreme disparity in public reactions?

Ann Bostrom, the dinner’s public policy co-host, laughed when she recounted the evening. The student was right about the viruses, but not about people, said Dr. Bostrom, who is an expert on the psychology of how humans evaluate risk.

While the metrics of public health might put the flu alongside or even ahead of the new coronavirus for sheer deadliness, she said, the mind has its own ways of measuring danger. And the new coronavirus disease, named COVID-19 hits nearly every cognitive trigger we have.

That explains the global wave of anxiety.

Of course, it is far from irrational to feel some fear about the coronavirus outbreak tearing through China and beyond.

But there is a lesson, psychologists and public health experts say, in the near-terror that the virus induces, even as serious threats like the flu receive little more than a shrug. It illustrates the unconscious biases in how human beings think about risk, as well as the impulses that often guide our responses — sometimes with serious consequences.

How Our Brains Evaluate Threat

Experts used to believe that people gauged risk like actuaries, parsing out cost-benefit analyses every time a merging car came too close or local crime rates spiked. But a wave of psychological experiments in the 1980s upended this thinking.

Updated Feb. 10, 2020

What is a Coronavirus? It is a novel virus named for the crown-like spikes that protrude from its surface. The coronavirus can infect both animals and people, and can cause a range of respiratory illnesses from the common cold to more dangerous conditions like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS.

How contagious is the virus? According to preliminary research, it seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS, and is possibly transmitted through the air. Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.

How worried should I be? While the virus is a serious public health concern, the risk to most people outside China remains very low, and seasonal flu is a more immediate threat.

Who is working to contain the virus? World Health Organization officials have praised China’s aggressive response to the virus by closing transportation, schools and markets. This week, a team of experts from the W.H.O. arrived in Beijing to offer assistance.

What if I’m traveling? The United States and Australia are temporarily denying entry to noncitizens who recently traveled to China and several airlines have canceled flights.

How do I keep myself and others safe? Washing your hands frequently is the most important thing you can do, along with staying at home when you’re sick.

Researchers found that people use a set of mental shortcuts for measuring danger. And they tend to do it unconsciously, meaning that instinct can play a much larger role than they realize.

The world is full of risks, big and small. Ideally, these shortcuts help people figure out which ones to worry about and which to disregard. But they can be imperfect.

The coronavirus may be a case in point.

“This hits all the hot buttons that lead to heightened risk perception,” said Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychologist who helped pioneer modern risk psychology.

When you encounter a potential risk, your brain does a quick search for past experiences with it. If it can easily pull up multiple alarming memories, then your brain concludes the danger is high. But it often fails to assess whether those memories are truly representative.

A classic example is airplane crashes.

If two happen in quick succession, flying suddenly feels scarier — even if your conscious mind knows that those crashes are a statistical aberration with little bearing on the safety of your next flight. But if you then take a few flights and nothing goes wrong, your brain will most likely start telling you again that flying is safe.

When it comes to the coronavirus, Dr. Slovic said, it’s as if people are experiencing one report after another of planes crashing.

“We’re hearing about the fatalities,” he said. “We’re not hearing about the 98 or so percent of people who are recovering from it and may have had mild cases.”

That tendency can cut in both directions, leading not to undue alarm but undue complacency. Though flu kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, most peoples’ experiences with it are relatively mundane.

Being told how dangerous flu is does little to change this, studies find. The brain’s risk assessment approach simply overwhelms rational calculation — a source of endless consternation to health officials trying to raise flu vaccination rates.

“We’re conditioned by our experiences,” Dr. Slovic said. “But experience can mislead us to be too comfortable with things.”

Biases, Shortcuts and Gut Instincts

The coronavirus also taps into other psychological shortcuts for assessing risk.

One involves novelty: We are conditioned to focus heavily on new threats, looking for any cause for alarm. This can lead us to obsess over the scariest reports and worst-case scenarios, making the danger seem bigger still.

Maybe the most powerful shortcut of all is emotion.

Assessing the danger posed by the coronavirus is extraordinarily difficult; even scientists are unsure. But our brains act as if they have an easier way: They translate gut emotional reactions into what, we believe are reasoned conclusions, even if hard data tells us otherwise.

“The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality,” Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, wrote in a 2011 book. “Our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.”

In extreme cases, this can lead to a “crowding-out effect,” Dr. Bostrom said, as our emotional impulses overwhelm our cognitive faculties. The coronavirus hits a number of those triggers, often quite hard.

One is dread.

If a risk seems especially painful or disturbing, people tend to raise their estimate of how likely it is to happen to them. Reports on the coronavirus often feature upsetting imagery: unhygienic food markets, city-scale lockdowns and overcrowded hospitals.

Another trigger is a threat that is not fully understood. The less known it is, the more people may fear it, and overestimate its threat.

Threats that feel out of control, like a runaway disease outbreak, prompt a similar response, leading people to seek ways to reimpose control, for instance by hoarding supplies.

Risks that we take on voluntarily, or that at least feel voluntary, are often seen as less dangerous than they really are. One study found that the danger people increases by a factor of one thousand if they it as a choice.

If that number sounds high, consider that driving, a danger most take on voluntarily, kills over 40,000 Americans every year. But terrorism, a threat imposed on us, kills fewer than 100.

There are countless rational reasons that terrorism provokes a sharper response than traffic deaths. The same goes for a fast-spreading and little-understood outbreak versus the familiar flu.

And that is exactly the point, psychologists say.

“All of these things play on our feelings,” Dr. Slovic said. “And that’s the representation of threat for us. Not the statistics of risk, but the feelings of risk.”

Making Choices

All those emotions can have real consequences.

Consider the response to the partial meltdown of the nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, in Pennsylvania, in 1979. Though the incident caused no deaths, it led to public demand to turn from nuclear power to fossil fuels whose impact on air quality, alone, is thought to cause thousands of premature deaths every year.

That calculus confounded old-school economists, who saw it as irrational. One leading nuclear power expert called it “insane.”

But it also helped give rise to new psychological models for how people measure risk.

“Our feelings don’t do arithmetic very well,” Dr. Slovic said.

That can be especially true when judging low-probability, high-risk threats like nuclear war, terrorism — or dying from the coronavirus or the flu.

Our minds tend to either “round down” the probability to “basically zero” and we underreact, Dr. Slovic said. Or we focus on the worst-case outcome, he said, which “gives us a strong feeling, so we overreact.”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/coronavirus-hits-all-the-hot-buttons-for-how-we-misjudge-risk/

[whatareyoulikeincapslock]

Seattle, Elaine

All of West Coast America is on fire. Driving over the Seattle bridge for the third time in two days, it’s so smoke ridden that we can’t see the city.

When hiking Rattlesnake Ridge in the morning, we discover that the smoke cover is from the BC fires, this time. Oregon and California are also on fire, with firefighters from all over the country coming to try to stop the trails from burning to the ground. Large “No Bonfire” and “No Fireworks” signs are displayed all over the park, a warning to hikers making their way to the top of the vista that overlooks the lake.

A man stands on the sidewalk, spraying water for his gutters. He appears to have one of those extreme clean water jets that he’s pummeling the sidewalk with to clean it.

The irony strikes me as we yawn and make plans for the Pike Market, a half an hour drive away. It is the market to end all markets. The birthplace of the original Starbucks. A gym wall down in the bottom alley is the second most unhygienic tourist attraction in the western world. We get coffee and watch the boys throw fishes at the market. Then we split to have a break from each other. Tanessa is an introvert, so I can’t imagine how much she needs to recharge after spending the last days in each other’s pockets. Even I need to walk the streets, and think the words I want to write.

Seattle reminds me of Kate. It’s pretty, has character, is full of art and music, but it’s a little rough. There’s a darkness here, it’s what makes it beautiful, rather than just a nice thing to look at.

I think maybe, she’d say the same thing about me.

I get to the art gallery my mum has recommended but it’s 30 dollars so I wander around the city for two hours, looking at the homeless people and wondering about their lives. I suppose there isn’t a great divide between them and me. If I know anything, it’s that.

Our air bnb hostess is Elaine. She just got back from a week long seminar on the holocaust and what it means to people who teach it in language arts and history. She got in because she persisted until they let her, but she was the only “pure” art teacher there. Everyone else is History and for lack of a better word, English Literature. When they separate them into groups, she has no idea where to go. I find it ironic that she is in a seminar discussing segregation, and yet the other teachers turn their noses up at her, because she is not like them.

“What determines who goes to the gas chambers or not?” says a Christian Literature teacher, during a class. Elaine puts up her hand.

“How many of us are over forty?” She asks. Thirty percent of the class stands up at her request. The rest are squirming in their seats, but they know they are over forty as well.

“If you have stood up”, says, Elaine, standing.

“You’re dead.”

Most of the people who were pushing back the agenda were thirty or under. That’s how they sent the people to the gas chambers. If you were too young or too old, you were dead. She is one of only two Jewish people in this entire seminar.

She tells me, as I’m curled up on the couch after a day of Tanessa and I smashing our bodies hiking and traversing the city, about her summer job teaching kids in jail.

The juveniles that she teaches are only there until their sentencing. After that they go to other facilities. It’s interesting to hear her take on them. She says that the two most brilliant of her students, are a couple of 16 year olds that lured a 14 year old into the woods and stabbed him to death. She likes the girls more than boys, and talks often of her mistrust for young men.

She used to foster children in her home, until air bnb, and now she only offers her house as a respite home, meaning for kids who are transitioning or waiting for another more permanent foster home to come along.

It is a place full of her strange art, each piece on a canvas, with a quarter of a frame in the top left corner. She then collages, and paints in wax over the top of them, creating eclectic pieces based on her personal experiences.

The one in our room is reminiscent of her time in Cambodia with one of her foster children. She had him stay with her for nine years, and being Cambodian, she took him back to explore the country and the village he was born in. She says she thinks he resents her for it; her taking him to such a sad country with a sad past, in the way that young people who are unaware of their blessings yet often do. She speaks passionately about her animals, past and present, and the children that she allows into her life.

She brings Tupac’s lyrics into the prison and has the kids pull apart and study them. There are a lot of black and Hispanic kids from broken homes with lofty sentences awaiting them. Young humans who have made terrible mistakes, who are paying and are going to continue paying the price. Prison making them harder, and clever, and manipulative. Their young age doesn’t deter them from rioting in their classrooms and attacking each other in the middle of the day.

“Never have I ever seen more avid readers than I do in prison. These kids don’t have cell phones or internet on demand, and the only thing left to do is start gang fights and read books”. She is talking about bringing her knowledge of the holocaust to them, so that they understand the tattoos they are etching into their hands of the “star of David”. It’s a gang sign to them, they think they are disciples, a part of a Californian gang. They don’t realise the etymology of the things that they ingratiate themselves to. They think Elaine is OG because she wears the star on a chain around her neck.

She laughs loudly and often. Her voice is loud and ungainly and makes Hank bark in protest from the safety of our bedroom. On our first night there I tell her my back is locking up from hiking incorrectly. She pulls her Epsom salts and essential oils out, and offers me a bath. She takes our washing and puts it in the dryer for us when we are out in town, and offers Hank treats even though he won’t come out to the living room until we get home.

We talk about the fact that in every westernised country, we accept the fact that we are the daughters and sons of colonialists, that we all have blood on our hands, or in our bloodline, but that we cannot apologise for what we weren’t here for, or maybe we can, but we can never take it back. Her snake, Osmosis, spends a lot of time trying to reach the top of his cage in vain, wanting to taste the outside world. She gives us chicken soup to eat, and boils the kettle for coffee.

She is on my mind a lot in the days that we are there and the days that follow. I wonder at the things she has seen, and how she manages to be both hard and soft at the same time. Giving and generous and honest, but you wouldn’t want to cross her, ever.

I release a huge spider from the bathtub to outside, my Australian showing through my smile. She calls me a “fearless Australian warrior”, and takes a photo of the eight legged creature at the bottom of the jar before I let it go. It’s pincers are huge, and I hope it doesn’t bite me even though I’m almost certain that it won’t.

Hank barks at her as we are leaving, protective and a little scared. She looks at him with love, as I imagine she does with everything.

[clubofinfo]

Expert: From Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Samarinda and Pontianak ***** Several years ago, a prominent Indonesian businessman who now resides in Canada, insisted on meeting me in a back room of one of Jakarta’s posh restaurants. An avid reader of mine, he ‘had something urgent to tell me’, after finding out that our paths were going to be crossing in this destroyed and hopelessly polluted Indonesian capital. What he had to say was actually straight to the point and definitely worth sitting two hours in an epic traffic jam: No one will be allowed to build comprehensive public transportation in Jakarta or in any other Indonesian city. If a mayor or a governor tries and defies the wishes of the ruthless business community which is in fact controlling most of the Indonesian government, he or she will be dethroned, or even totally destroyed. These ‘prophetic’ words are still ringing in my ears, several months after the complete destruction of the progressive Jakarta governor, known as Ahok (real name: Basuki Tjahaja Purnama), who tried very hard to improve the seemingly ungovernable and thoroughly destroyed city, constructing new mass transit lines (LRT), restoring old train stations, cleaning canals, attempting to build at least some basic net of sidewalks, as well as planting trees and creating parks. After Ahok’s first and extremely successful term in office, the opposition consolidated its forces. It consisted mainly of the Islamists, big business tycoons, and the military as well as other revanchist cadres (almost exclusively pro-business and pro-Western individuals) that are still controlling Indonesia. ‘Ahok’, an outsider and an ethnic Chinese, patently lost. Instead of coming to his rescue, several ‘prominent’ but corrupt city planners and architects, most of them enjoying funding from abroad, shamelessly joined the bandwagon of ‘Ahok bashing’. But even defeating Ahok was not enough. He had to be punished and humiliated, in order to discourage others from trying to replicate his socially-oriented example. Already during the election campaign, charges were brought against him, alleging that he had ‘insulted Islam’ during one of his public appearances.  It was total nonsense, disputed by several leading Indonesian linguists, but in a thoroughly corrupt society (both legally and morally) it simply worked. On May 9, 2017, ‘Ahok’ was sentenced to two years in prison, and unceremoniously thrown into the dungeon. Since then, many of his projects have stopped totally, or at least were significantly slowed down. A disgusting filth has once again began covering Jakarta’s canals and rivers. For those who still believed in miracles, all hopes died. Those ‘city planners’ who still conveniently believe that one can ‘work with’ the present regime (they call it ‘government’) correctly assumed that it was once again ‘business as usual’. As ‘Ahok’ was being thrown behind bars, huge sighs of relief were almost detectable all over this misfortunate archipelago! Everything has returned to ‘normal’, at least for those who have been benefiting from the collapse of Indonesia and its cities. The clock of Indonesian history was turned back. It is now almost certain that at least for several upcoming decades, all Indonesian cities will remain what they are now – a living hell, the worst nightmare, and indisputably some of the most horrid urban areas found anywhere on Earth. But readers abroad are not supposed to know all this. Indonesian people are not supposed to understand the situation. It is now all biasa – ‘just normal, just fine. Everything is fine. Read those ANU (Australian National University) papers and you will learn that ‘Indonesia is now a normal country, like Brazil or Mexico’. Nothing extraordinary is taking place. ***** In reality, everything has collapsed. The cities have. Not metaphorically, not hyperbolically, but concretely, practically. A renowned Australian artist, George Burchett, who now resides in Hanoi, Vietnam, once visited Jakarta. For several weeks we travelled together all around the Indonesian archipelago. He was shocked and depressed. Before departing, he declared: I saw many cities, all over the world. Cities are built for the people. For the first time in my life, in Indonesia, I saw the cities that are actually built not for the people, but against the people. It is because Indonesian cities are fascist. They do not serve the needs of its citizens. On the contrary, they are designed to extract that little which is still left in the possession of the common Indonesian folks; extract and give it to the local rulers, as well as to the multi-national companies. ***** Excerpts of the most common definitions of ‘failed states’ are stated in the Encyclopedia Britannica, and can perfectly apply to both Indonesia in general, and to its cities in particular: The governing capacity of a failed state is attenuated such that it is unable to fulfill the administrative and organizational tasks required to control people and resources and can provide only minimal public services… A failed state suffers from crumbling infrastructures, faltering utility supplies and educational and health facilities, and deteriorating basic human-development indicators… Governor ‘Ahok’ tried to change the situation. Crowds cheered. Millions watched, in all the major cities of Indonesia. Hope was born, at first fragile but soon blossoming. Then suddenly: a tremendous blast, full stop, and collapse! The man who dared to inject several socialist elements into the sclerotic, brutal system, ended up behind bars. And it is now all back to the old ‘failed state’ scenario. Life is once again thoroughly empty and predictable. There is hardly any difference between the Indonesian cities. If you put a person in the center or a suburb of Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang, Medan, Makassar or Pontianak, he or she would have no idea, which one is which. All major streets are choked with traffic jams. There are no sidewalks, and even if there are some pathetic and narrow ones, they are overtaken by aggressive and smoke belching scooters, as well as by unregulated and unhygienic street vendor stalls. Thugs are everywhere, controlling the streets. Almost all side streets have open sewage system. When it rains, entire neighborhoods get submerged under filthy water. Tiny carts, pulled by unclean and underpaid men, collect garbage. All the cities face the same problems, and all the cities look precisely the same. Sanitation, water quality and garbage recycling facilities are at similar levels to those of the poorest sub-Saharan African countries. With food and fuel prices up many Indonesian children are forced to work Slums are omnipresent – huge and brutal. In fact, most of the neighborhoods of the Indonesian cities, called kampungs (‘villages’), could easily fit the international definitions of slums. ***** A few years ago I was invited to speak at the University of Indonesia (UI). Various students asked me: “Why? Why is all this is happening in our country? And is there any solution?” I replied that, of course, there is a solution: “socialism and central planning. But it would also have to be determined and real, and it would have to include a full-hearted anti-corruption battle, as well as a decisive ban on selling all natural resources and utilities to foreigners.” I added: “And tell your professors to stop salivating over-funding from the West, and flying to Europe in order to learn about ‘administration’, ‘good governance’ and city planning from those who have been robbing your country for several centuries.” I believe that students liked the sound of what I was saying (not sure they were still capable of understanding the meaning of my words). However, predictably, I was never invited to the UI again. ***** Indonesian cities are like open sores. Everything has been stolen from them and as a result, what makes life bearable is clearly missing. Only what the ‘elites’ do not want, is what has been left for the people. Hungry and Homeless in Jakarta There are hardly any public parks in Indonesia, at least no parks of any significance. Cities have no river or seafronts, in a striking contrast to South American, Middle Eastern and even African urban areas (not to speak of tremendous and beautiful public spaces, parks, promenades and exercise areas in China). Dirty, clogged and polluted driveways are called ‘streets’ and ‘avenues’. There are no sidewalks, or if there are, they are just one meter wide, with broken tiles or deep potholes. Where sidewalks are not really needed, there may be actually some built – along one or two streets in the very center and in front of some government buildings, connecting basically nothing. This clearly shows that nothing is actually designed for the people. It is important to understand that the government of Indonesia, on all levels, is not actually an institution that consists of men and women who are determined to improve the country and to serve its people. On the contrary! In Indonesia, a great number of politicians belong to or are somehow affiliated to the military, which has ruled the country brutally since the 1965 Western-backed military coup. That coup destroyed everything socialist and Communist, banned Communist ideas, and murdered between 1 and 3 million people, including almost all the progressive intellectuals. On top of it, most of the politicians are businesspeople, tycoons and oligarchs, and the great majority of them of unsavory reputations. They have been robbing the nation and its people for more than half of a century, and there is absolutely no reason why they should stop doing it now, or anytime soon. For these individuals, to grab the top political positions is nothing more than about maximizing the profits. ‘Indonesian democracy’ which the West loves to glorify (no wonder, as Indonesia de-facto functions as an obedient colony, plundering its own citizens and resources on behalf of the West), consists of countless political parties, of which not one of them is from the left, or defends the interests of common people. Moreover, a great majority of the ‘civil society’, of the NGO’s, are subservient to Western economical and political interests. Many, if not all, of these organizations are directly funded from Washington, Berlin, London or Canberra. (I described the situation in my latest novel, Aurora. Indonesian companies and its government are one single entity. And they are decisively and in unison plundering the entire archipelago of its natural resources. The 4th most populous country on Earth produces almost nothing. (Read my book Archipelago of Fear in English and in Bahasa Indonesia). The ‘philosophy’ of this unbridled plunder is then applied to ‘urbanism’; to the way Indonesian cities are governed and basically abandoned to the markets. Not even in Africa where I lived and worked for several years, is there such absolute and shameless theft of urban land by the elites (of which members of government are part). Once all this is determined, to understand the reality of Indonesia and its cities becomes much easier. Once this is defined, Indonesian cities ‘begin to make sense’. ***** In reality, there is not much that could be called ‘urban’ in the Indonesian cities. Be it a city like Pontianak with 600,000 inhabitants, or Jakarta with 12 million (28 million including the surrounding cities and suburbs). Wherever one goes, profit over people is taken to the extreme. Like those logged out, mined out and polluted islands of the archipelago, Indonesian cities are designed in a way that brings maximum income to the extremely small group of individuals and businesses. The price has to be paid by the impoverished, often ill, badly-educated, and literally choking majority. The tremendously low level of media outlets, education, pop entertainment, as well as constant religious encroachment and feudal family structures, are purposefully spread and upheld, so the population does not think, does not doubt and does not rebel. The results are shocking. Indonesian cities are like palm oil plantations or open-pit mines, with some elements of military barrack colonies (of course, there are some special quarters for the overseers, with large and kitschy houses, like those that dot South Jakarta). Here, nothing is constructed to make life great, colorful, ecstatic, meaningful and happy. There are no permanent concert halls, no theatres, and no grand public museums (one that recently opened is private, and serves to further politically indoctrinate people, this time targeting the ‘urban middle class’). There are no pedestrian neighborhoods, and no free and public seafronts. Not one architecturally valuable structure has been constructed in any Indonesian city after the 1965/66 military/religious coup. In Indonesia, a ‘public area’ is synonymous with a mall, in fact, with countless malls of various sizes and qualities. Inside the malls, there are chain eateries and chain shops, as well as cafes. There are also a few cinemas, showing mostly Hollywood junk or local horror films. On the weekends, there are bands playing old Western and Indonesian pop tunes, offering absolutely no variety. Some 50 songs are recycled again and again. The most favorite is, predictably: “I did it my way”. There is nothing ‘extra’ in the Indonesian cities. Here everything is stripped to absolute basics: you somehow survive on your meager salary (with prices, at least for the food and consumer goods being as high or higher than in Tokyo or Paris), you somehow move to your workplace and back, sitting for hours every day in horrific traffic jams as there is no public transportation even in such cities with 2-3 million inhabitants, like Surabaya or Bandung. You cook and wash your dishes and clothes in terribly polluted water, and try to save on outrageously high electricity bills. There is absolutely nothing to do in your neighborhood. There is, of course, always a mosque nearby or sometimes a church, if that’s what you fancy. There are no parks, no playgrounds for children. There is no sidewalk to walk to a cafe, and so, if you want to actually go to a cafe or to a bookstore (all the bookstores in Indonesia are increasingly poorly stocked and heavily censored), you have to jump onto your scooter or into your car again, if you have any strength left. The chances are – you have no time for anything, anyway. A 3-4 hours long daily commute, your exhausting work, and all you have time for is to collapse in front of the television set and get indoctrinated, neutralized and idiotized even further. You learn to smile when you actually want to die, or at least to shout. You sense that nothing could ever change for better, and that your life is finished, perhaps at 25, or even earlier. Eventually, some people do it sooner than others: you become religious, and you become traditional, conservative and ‘family-oriented’. There is nothing else, really. The cities of Indonesia will make sure that there is nothing else. They are the perfect machines, manufacturing obedience, extracting everything from human beings, and giving nothing in return. ***** I often describe the coup of 1965 as a “Cultural Hiroshima”. While in Japan, the US openly experimented on the health of millions of human beings, in Indonesia the experiment was of a totally different nature. The area of interest to the Empire was: What would happen with a progressive anti-imperialist nation that counts on a complex and diverse culture, if it is bathed in blood, if its theatres and film studios are shut down, 40% of teachers get murdered, women from left-wing organizations get their breasts amputated, writers are locked in Buru Island concentration camp, and urban planners are thought to design cities like Houston, Dallas or LA, but in a country with salaries that are 10% or less than those of the U.S.A.? The answer is simple: “It would turn into Indonesia. It would become Jakarta, as it is now”. For the Western demagogues and the imperialist planners, “Indonesia” and “Jakarta” are not only the names of the country and the city: they are names of the concept, of a model. This model, forced on the colonies, is perfect for the West and its interests. Jakarta: One of better public sidewalks It is also perfect for the Indonesian ‘elites’, who are often getting dirty at home, plundering all they can, but do relax and play and often evacuate their entire families to Singapore, California, Australia, Hong Kong and many other ‘safe and clean’ places. It is the cheapest; the most efficient of concepts designed to plunder, and to royally fuck a nation. Not surprisingly, the West has tried to replicate this ‘successful Indonesian model’ in many parts of the world. It even tried to inject it into Russia, after the USSR was first mortally wounded and then destroyed. It tried to force it on Chile… My much older friends in Santiago told me that before the 9-11-1973 coup perpetrated by General Pinochet on behalf of the West and its companies, several people around President Allende were threatened by the right-wingers: “Watch out, Jakarta is coming!” ***** Jakarta came! It is here, all over Indonesia, in all of its cities, and to varying degrees in most of the countries that have fallen under the Western neo-colonialist boot. But what does it really mean, ‘Jakarta’? Is it just a name or is it also a verb, an infinitive? “To Jakarta…” It is ‘to take everything away from the people and to give nothing back’. ‘To Jakarta’ is to lie and to loot and to convince human beings, through long decades of indoctrination, that everything is just fine, and as should be. ‘To Jakartize’ the nation is to make almost the entire population irrelevant, to deliver the loot on the silver trays to both local and foreign rulers, leaving only dirty and polluted rivers and canals behind, as well as tremendous traffic jams, smog, bizarre overpasses with no escalators, and broken tiles along the driveways. Even filthy beach in Jakarta is for a fee The ‘Jakartized population’ is obedient, explosively violent, edgy, but not towards the regime, turbo-capitalism, corrupt elites and their Western masters, but towards each other, as well as towards the minorities. Jakarta gets very little criticism from the official mainstream Western and local media, and almost no genuine analysis from academia. No surprise: to attack the reality of the Indonesian cities is like attacking the entire Western neo-colonialist system imposed on various parts of the world. To tell the truth would destroy any journalistic career, as it would torpedo almost any chance for a well-remunerated university tenure! Very often, all that one could expect in terms of a realistic description of the situation in Indonesia, are random exclamations overheard on board departing airplanes, or some ‘anecdotal evidence’ from the pages of travel magazines and blogs. It appears that what normal people see with their own eyes is in direct contradiction with what the mainstream media and academia presents as ‘facts’. On 17 September 2017, a Malaysian newspaper The Star wrote: Based on a real-time air quality index uploaded to the Airvisual application at midday on Friday, Sept 15, Jakarta ranked third as the most polluted city in the world… In mid-August, the application showed that Jakarta was at the top of the list, followed by Ankara, Turkey and Lahore, Pakistan. “Escape Here” magazine ranked Jakarta as the No1 city in its report “The 10 Worst Traffic Cities in the World”: It happens to be the country’s capital and one of the most poorly designed cities in the World, a combination that makes getting around here a disaster. An ever-increasing number of car owners that come from the expansion of suburbia that surrounds this mega-city are to be blamed for the 400 hours a year that citizens spend in traffic. It is actually hailed as being the worst traffic in the world. It doesn’t seem like there is any solution for this mega-city as the infrastructure here falls into the hands of the local government and contracts are renegotiated annually; which means long-term projects are pretty much impossible. An average trip in this city takes about 2 hours… On 2 September 2015, even the official propaganda English language newspaper of Indonesia, the Jakarta Post, re-published the survey ranking the horrendous Indonesian capital as the 9th ‘un-friendliest city on Earth’: Jakarta, the Indonesian capital notorious for gridlocks and bad air pollution, ranks 9th among the world’s least friendly cities this year, a recent survey by an international travel magazine shows. Readers of the highly regarded luxury travel magazine Conde Nast Traveler included Jakarta for the first time on its ’10 unfriendliest cities in the world’ list this year. In the survey, one of the readers said Jakarta was ‘the scariest place I have ever been to ‘with its congestion and aggressive locals. The ‘scariest place’: but, of course! What could one expect from the capital city of the country that in the last half a century has committed 3 monstrous genocides (against its own population in 1965/66, against the people of East Timor and an on going genocide against the people of Papua)? What could one expect from cities that have been totally robbed of green spaces and, in fact, of everything that could be called ‘public’, where the arts have disappeared and where absolutely everything has become commercialized; where everything and everybody is now expected to be the same – behave the same way, look the same way, sound the same way, taste the same way. Try to look different, and if you are a Papuan, Chinese, African, or white, just try to walk on those broken tiny sidewalks of Surabaya, Jakarta, Pontianak, or Medan. You will be shouted at; you will immediately become the target of naked racism. People will stop and point fingers, or worse. A few days ago I filmed from a boat sailing on a polluted river passing through Pontianak city, on an island in Borneo. Two children on the shore immediately raised their middle fingers and began yelling: “Fuck you!” Just like that: with no warning and for no reason. And this is, of course, not the worst that could happen. If I was Chinese… were I an African… Everybody knows it. Nobody speaks about it, nobody writes… According to Western ‘analysts’ and academics, Indonesia is a ‘democratic’ and ‘tolerant’ nation. The deeper it is sinking, the more oppressive and intolerant it becomes, the more devastated it gets, and the more it is glorified. Lies are piled up on lies. “The Emperor has beautiful clothes’, everybody shouts, as in that old children’s tale. But, in fact, he is naked! It is clearly “political correctness” at work. One is supposed to be ‘sensitive’ to the local ‘culture’, religion, and way of life. The only defect of this approach is that in countries such as Indonesia, the local culture, its way of life and even the extremely aggressive religions, are all the direct result of the fascist regime that was directly imposed onto this nation by the West after the 1965/66 slaughter.  Had the socialist pre-1965 course be allowed to naturally flow, Indonesia would now be a truly normal, socially-balanced, secular and tolerant nation, and its cities would serve the people, instead of the other way around. Just a normal river in Jakarta Here, the ‘political correctness’, is once again, protecting the crimes against humanity that have been committed by the West, by the local elites and the military, as well as by the religious leaders. The local ‘culture’ is not being protected at all, as it is actually dead, murdered. The cities are dead as well. Their carcasses are stinking, horrifying, monstrous, stripped of all hope. People living in them are choking, humiliated, marginalized, unwell, and constantly robbed by the system. Bizarrely, it takes an elitist magazine like Conde Nast to notice… It takes random travellers to speak out… One would never read such comments in the reports coming out of the Australian National University or on the pages of the New York Times. ***** Just outside the city of Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia, on the Island of Madura, several enormous ships are being manually cut into pieces and sold for scrap by destitute local people. Periodically things explode, collapse, and people lose their faces or limbs. It is a horrible sight: truly haunted, disturbing. Just like in Bangladesh, although here, it goes almost unnoticed. In many ways, I believe that the Indonesian cities resemble those ships, and those polluted coastal areas where the ships are broken into thousands of parts and then sold. Once proud, they are now humiliated, in pain, being torn to pieces while still alive. Only real fascism can treat its citizens this way; only a regime that has lost its marbles, and gone thoroughly insane. Indonesia cities… What do they really consist of? Well, they are made of those tiny and crammed homes, filthy canals, potholed driveways, of indescribable pollution, of mosques and churches. Then there are a few office towers in their centers, countless shopping malls and several luxury hotels where the elites can escape and take some rest from the daily nightmare, which is ‘normal life’ here. Golf courses everywhere, but no decent public parks, as even those few green areas have been already thoroughly privatized. ***** Now the former governor of Jakarta, ‘Ahok’, is in jail for daring to change things; for building public transportation, cleaning the rivers and building a few tiny parks. He is in jail for relocating squatters to public housing, and for trying to serve the impoverished and humiliated majority. His clearly socialist deeds were immediately smeared and discredited by the elites, by the Western-funded NGO’s and by corrupt city planners. Even when this could not stop his determination and zeal, religion was unleashed. Most of the religions are, after all, regressive, pro-business oriented, and ready to support any fascist regime. ***** How much deeper can Indonesian cities sink? When are they going to become uninhabitable? People are already dying; thousands are, unnecessarily – from cancer, from stress, from respiratory diseases. Millions of human beings are wasting their lives. They are alive, but it is only a bare existence, not really life: they are moving mechanically, cutting through the filthy air on their scooters, eating junk food, constantly surrounded by decay and ugliness. Why? For how much longer? The forests of Borneo, Sumatra and Papua are burning. All over this archipelago, everything is logged out, consumed by mines, ruined by monstrous pollution. The extraction and looting of natural resources is the only real economic ‘engine’ of today’s Indonesia. The cities are not faring much better. They are actually not faring any better at all. It is time to wake up, or it could get too late. But the nation appears to be in a total slumber. It does not notice, anymore, that it is really in freefall. It was conditioned not to notice. It was made to accept, even to celebrate its own collapse. Those who forced Indonesia into all this will not tell. As long as there is at least something left, something that can be extracted, utilized, looted, they will be cheering this great Indonesia’s ‘success’ and ‘progress’. I encourage all those people from all over the world who would want to see the true face of neo-colonialism, of savage capitalism and right wing disaster, to come to the Indonesian cities! Come and see with your own eyes. Come and take a walk; don’t hide in your comfortable cities full of leafy parks, concert halls, art cinemas, public transportation and theatres. This is real. This is a warning to the world! Come and see how cities look like in a country where Communism and socialism are banned, where a colony does not even realize that it being colonized, and where everything is served on huge silver plates straight into the gullet of that monster called fascism. Ketapang, West Borneo, Indonesia • All photos by Andre Vltchek http://clubof.info/