Month: July 2017

Who Let the Dogs Out?

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HECTOR’S DIARY

HectorR

Bali Advertiser

Wednesday, Jul. 19, 2017

 

EATING dog is something we would never do. It disgusts us, for all sorts of reasons. We also understand that this is largely a cultural issue. Eating man’s best friend is not generally a practice of people whose conditioning originates from what is now Europe.

The issue has surfaced again because of Australian media reports last month that tourists may have unknowingly eaten dog from saté carts. Among other things, it was another opportunity to do a bit of Bali bashing. Tourists do a lot of unknowing things, including, in the case of some Australians, not even knowing where they are. It is a belief held by some, apparently, that Indonesia is a place in Bali.

Nonetheless, governments have a duty of care to all who fall within their purview, whether temporarily or not. This may be a novel concept too, in some parts of the world. So it was pleasing to hear that in response to reports of saté dog, the Bali authorities set off at a fast trot to check whether this was so. Animal husbandry chief I Putu Sumantra said on Jul. 9 that so far no evidence had come to light. Doubtless the word got around the saté cart sector pretty smartly. Never mind, Pak Sumantra’s dog squad is still on the case. He’d also like to find whoever it was that sparked the saucy story, which, as ever in such circumstances, is a little too piquant for local bureaucratic tastes. Shoot the messenger is always good policy, especially for policymakers without a policy.

There are several things that can be said about Bali’s dog meat trade, once you’ve taken your anti-nausea pills. Some estimates suggest 70,000 dogs a year are the unwilling victims of this market. The dogs are usually killed horribly – there’s some suggestion that poisoned dogs are in the mix too, which would very clearly be a human health risk – by people who plainly have no conscience and who, by practising cruelty and theft, actually are breaking the law. Most dog meat is consumed in restaurants specifically serving dog. It’s not illegal to do so, though restaurants have to be licensed. Well, notionally, in the way of things here.

It’s very clear that animal protection laws must be strengthened. Indonesia’s largely date from the Dutch era, which ended three generations ago. Any tub-thumping nationalists who also feel responsibility for other species – ants come to mind, for some reason, in this context – might like to do something about this. The laws here are chiefly concerned with wild life and domestic stock, in the manner of colonial policy. Dogs are not specifically mentioned and so effectively are not animals for the purposes of the legislation.

It’s not only western foreigners or animal welfare organisations that are up in arms about the dog trade here. Indonesians are too. For one thing, their family pets are just as much at risk in the epidemic of abductions by thieves looking for a quick profit from a meat trader as anyone else’s. It’s not something the authorities here can just do a little rain dance about and then forget. So that’s one SOP that’s useless in the circumstances.

Who let the dogs out is not the issue. Running Bali, rather than running around in circles, is what it’s all about.

UPDATE: Since this column was written, a meeting of stakeholders has taken place at which a plan was formulated to deal with the illegal aspects of the dog meat trade. We’ll keep an eye on how that progresses.

Added Spice

CHRIS Salans isn’t a man to let the grass grow under his feet. He’d rather put it in the pot to augment the already zesty fare that he serves at Mozaic, his flagship restaurant in Ubud.

The culinary world is one of constant movement, of subtle shifts, and occasional seismic moments. One such moment has just occurred at Mozaic, where the premises have been upgraded and renovated by Lloyd Hassencahl of Design Solutions, with a stylish lounge and dining room. It’s like dining in Salans’ own house, with drinks before dinner in the living room, according to the blurb.

Along with the new ambience is a new set of menus, which offer a choice of six or eight courses. The eight-course menus are new and come with wine pairing.

New Kevala chinaware and wood and stone service wares have been brought in to give a more organic feel. The food service is “more interactive” and food is served at the table rather than brought there. The signature item is the Table Top Dessert, served from a side table.

Mozaic’s style has always been “French cuisine, Balinese flavours” and this is still the case, but, according to Salans, even better. There are three new tasting menus: “From Our Local Farmers”, “A Trip Around the World”, and “Our Vegetarian Tasting Menu”.

Salans also operates the Spice chain of gastro-bars in Ubud and Sanur, and has now opened one in Seminyak. That’s where the other in crowd goes, if it can get through the traffic.

Farewell

IT’S sad to have to note that on Jul. 11 long-term Sanur identity Peter Dawes died. He had been ill for a little while, but his death came as an unpleasant surprise to his friends.

Fellow scribbler Vyt Karazija, tells us this:

“Peter was one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. I knew him only slightly, but liked him immensely. A good natured and tolerant man, his great sense of humour, his kindness and generosity attracted many friends who will mourn his untimely passing.

“If he knew you were a reader, he would offer to lend you books. If you were interested in motorbikes, he would happily demonstrate his incredible ‘Bali Harley’, a chop-shop masterpiece that had started life as a humble Mio. If you needed to talk, he would really listen, and not just wait for his turn to speak. I never heard him say a bad word about anybody – a rare and precious trait. And he was a big fan of Magnum ice creams, which, for me, immediately put him squarely into the Good Guys category.”

RIP, Peter Dawes: as Karazija also notes, he will be greatly missed.

Jog On

BRITON Tom Hickman, entrepreneur and coach, who also scribbles for a crust, has been keeping us abreast of preparations for Bali’s first coast-to-coast ultra marathon on Aug. 19-20. We have to say we’re impressed. Coast to coast here, if it’s North-South, which in the case of the ultra marathon it is, involves running up some pretty high hills.

It’s the sort of thing we might possibly have contemplated back in the day when we did all sorts of fitness things so we could properly serve the interests of HM The Queen (lovely lady, wears many hats, and the Brit Floral and Aussie Fly-Cork ones were applicable in our case). But not any more: too old, you see, even to donate blood, which is shocking. Hickman tells us he’s slimmed down a bit as the training for this run kicks in. If we slimmed down any more, we’d disappear.

We digress. So back to the point: the ultra marathon is to raise funds to pay the way through primary school for seven children in Bali. It’s a good cause with some great sponsors.

Java’s Great

WELL, drink up. Apparently two new international studies have found that coffee may prolong life. That’s good news for Java (coffee) as well as for people who apparently want to live forever. It may not be so beneficial for Bali’s oppressed luwaks, but that’s another matter. Two or more cups of coffee a day are said to reduce the risk of death by 18 per cent, if you’re male. At the rate The Diary drinks coffee, we’ll win the Methuselah Cup.

We quote from a rather breathless Sky News Australia item on the topic: “But the latest research bodes better for men than women with one study of more than half a million people across 10 European countries finding men who consumed at least three cups a day were 18 per cent less likely to die from any cause than non-coffee drinkers…Women, on the other hand, drinking the same amount benefited less but still experienced an 8 per cent reduction in mortality.”

Grammar Police Note: Bode is an English verb, of Germanic origin. It can bode well or badly. It’s unclear whether it can legitimately do so “better”, at least grammatically (although in that sense it may be “very unique”). But never mind, it was on Sky News after all, which so frequently proves its worth as a risible source of misinterpreted information and mangled language.

HectorR

Hector’s Diary in the Bali Advertiser is published every four weeks. The next will appear on Aug. 16.

Belt and Braces

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HECTOR’S DIARY

HectorR

His regular diet of worms and other non-religious fare

The Cage, Bali

Wednesday, Jul. 12, 2017

 

DONALD Trump made a remarkable speech in Warsaw ahead of the economic summit he attended later in the historic Hanseatic League city of Hamburg, where he demonstrated exactly why the Group of 20 is now the G19 + 1. It was a good speech, too, well crafted, though redolent of former times or perhaps vainglorious hopes for the future. To his credit, he stuck to the script. A juvenile tweet-storm it was not.

The world has been asking Donald for some time where his trousers are. So it was fun in a way to see him turn out in Warsaw in both belt and braces. He is six months into the most profoundly dysfunctional American presidency since, well, we can’t think when, as the forty-fifth holder of that elected kingship. His office was created by the Founding Fathers of the American revolutionary union and it has been causing difficulties ever since. We should never say that America is in no position to teach the world anything. Its system of national government, formed as it is on the basis of rival electoral bases (for reasons that at the time were completely understandable) is a prime lesson in how not to run a country.

Predictably, the preserved-in-amber Western triumphalist cohort got a fit of the rah-rahs when it heard what Trump had said. It was helpful that Trump for once stuck to the script. We wonder who wrote it. But while a good speech can be good politics, it’s not necessarily good policy. And that’s where it comes unstuck.

These are difficult times, and that’s not just because No. 45 seems to be stuck in a time warp of his own fake making and to be determined to reintroduce both American isolationism and the Monroe doctrine. These are elements that are applauded by the American right-wing columnist Mark Steyn – who is still a Canadian citizen and really should know better – and the flagship of Little England’s Brexit misadventure, the London Daily Telegraph, among others.

Sense and Insensibility

NICK Cater is a thoroughly responsible journalist with whom we once toiled, which was nice, and with whom we share a fondness for North China cuisine, which is lovely. He’s now executive director of the Menzies Research Centre, named after the founder of the Australian Liberal Party, which as current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reminded everyone this week is not a conservative party. Turnbull was speaking in London where he had gone after not being a headline act at the G19+1 summit, for talks with British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose party is Conservative.

Cater had a piece in The Australian this week (Jul. 11) in which he had a go at the good-thinking folk who would like to rearrange Australia, its workplaces, its pastimes, its society and its culture, by means of ethnic and other quotas, whatever Australians think about that. It’s a mad idea, we agree.

So he made a good argument – the piece was headlined “Curing our country of whiteness” – though it seems to us “whiteness” (whatever that is: last time we looked we were a sort of mottled beige) is itself a matter of subjective perception. We guess it’s banal code for “We’re Aussies”. That said, Australia does need as a nation to return to common sense and an understanding of what (beyond self-interest) really drives human responses.

We had a laugh on the way through a serious subject. Cater cited American academic Joan C. Williams’ belief – she makes a point of it in her somewhat dense book White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America – that cultured homosexuality began as transgressions among 19th-century European artists.

Sappho and a few other prominently ancient Greeks, not to mention Persians of equal antiquity, would be surprised to hear that.

Java’s Great

Well, drink up. Apparently two new international studies have found that coffee may prolong life. That’s good news for Java (coffee) as well as for people who apparently want to live forever. It may not be so beneficial for Bali’s oppressed luwaks, but that’s another matter. Two or more cups of coffee a day are said to reduce the risk of death by 18 per cent, if you’re male. At the rate The Diary drinks coffee, we’ll win the Methuselah Cup.

We quote from a rather breathless Sky News Australia item on the topic: “But the latest research bodes better for men than women with one study of more than half a million people across 10 European countries finding men who consumed at least three cups a day were 18 per cent less likely to die from any cause than non-coffee drinkers…Women, on the other hand, drinking the same amount benefited less but still experienced an 8 per cent reduction in mortality.”

Grammar Police Note: Bode is an English verb, of Germanic origin. It can bode well or badly. It’s unclear whether it can legitimately do so “better”, at least grammatically (although in that sense it may be “very unique”). But never mind, it was on Sky News after all, which so frequently proves its worth as a risible source of misinterpreted information and mangled language.

HectorR

Hector writes a diary in the Bali Advertiser newspaper. The next appears on Jul. 19.

It’s a Scream

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HECTOR’S DIARY

HectorR

 His regular diet of worms and other non-religious fare

The Cage, Bali

Wednesday, Jul. 5, 2017

 

THERE are many ways to judge a man’s character. The gender is specific in this case, and the point is pertinent to the activities of the current president of the United States and, in this instance, his Indonesian associates. These people are of course his corporate or commercial associates, not political, although given that the two polities engaged are America and Indonesia, the distinction is moot. Read on.

Donald Trump’s corporate mate in the archipelago, Hary Tanoe, was recently banned from travelling outside Indonesia pending inquiries into aspects of his business and financial affairs. Tanoe is engaged with Trump’s business empire, which isn’t in escrow while he’s in office, as you might expect of anyone with an appropriate view of public service, but is being managed for profit by his family. The Trump empire has two major projects on the go in Indonesia.

One is a theme park near Bogor in West Java – we’ve seen the concept drawings and done a Munch – and the other is the takeover of the property at Tanah Lot in Tabanan previously managed by Pan Pacific and now to be demolished in favour of some Trumpist excrescence.

The Bogor project is now back on track because the government has taken over the stalled project to build a toll road to the area, without which Trump said he wouldn’t proceed. The land value of his holdings has thus increased by extortionate proportions.

At Tanah Lot, where the Nirwana property has members with purchased rights to holiday accommodation whose entitlements are now under question because of the buyout, the issue is different. Trump’s proposed redevelopment requires more land, but local landowners are apparently holding out for better prices. The workforce at the property has been paid out – by what quantum is unknown – and the entire superstructure is to be demolished.

It is also unknown how Trump and Tanoe will deal with the issue of compensation for strata title owners. The precedent set by Trump in a similar instance, with his golf resort in Florida, doesn’t bode well. Basically, there, the members were screwed. That’s how Trump does business.

Which brings us back to the cautionary point: character. A quote attributed in 1972 to the magazine founder Malcolm S. Forbes is apposite. He said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” An aphorism published in 1948 by the novelist Paul Eldridge goes along the same lines: “A man’s character is most evident by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or reciprocate.”

Trump’s known business practices fail the “nice” test, and his personal behaviour breaches many of those implicit in the two quotations above. In Indonesia, some in the national business elite (and here in Bali in both the local and the expatriate business community) have a very well developed grasp of how to benefit themselves at the expense, if necessary, of anyone who gets between them and a buck (or a rupiah).

The Four Corners program on Australia’s national broadcaster the ABC this week screened an exposé of Trump and Tanoe’s business connections here. It didn’t say anything much that’s new, but it did collate the available material rather well and it was certainly compelling viewing. More character studies are indicated. 

Feisty Gal

MARA Wolford, who makes organic soaps and surfs a lot – she’s in the Mentawais at the moment – posted on her Facebook this week an item reprising the incident a year ago in a Bali bar that fortunately ended as well as it could have, but which could so easily have not.

Her drink was spiked. She’s sure it was Rohypnol, nowadays the spiking agent of choice of low-life men who can’t get consciously consensual sex from a woman their poisonously defective little minds have told them they fancy, or can’t be bothered trying to;  or whom, as she notes, have marked her as a robbery target. If it’s sex, it’s chiefly a power thing, not lust, and it’s a disgraceful element of male stupidity, sexual power, and arrogance. Those who do that sort of thing richly deserve a session with a sjambok. We do wish we’d never given ours away.

Wolford puts it this way:

“One year ago today, people I didn’t even know tried to kill me. They either wanted my diamond earrings or they wanted to gang rape me for several days, it’s up in the air. Two drinks double-dosed with Rohypnol nearly did me in. Dear friends, a strong constitution and a bit of divine intervention saved me. I made this event public, with 21,000 shares on FB. Mostly, I got called a dumb bitch for not knowing better. One thing I do know is that the last thing I am is a dumb bitch. Trusting, perhaps. Willing to believe in best intentions, certainly.

“I was absolutely furious that a man would feel the need to render me physically helpless in order to take from me what he couldn’t allow me to decide to offer, or not. I don’t know what kind spineless cretin would do that, and I don’t know what kind of world we live in when that is considered normal behaviour that I am expected to know to protect myself from.”

The bar in question was subsequently shut down by the police and – Wolford notes – another upside is that drink spiking has dropped off in Bali since the publicity about her case in Canggu last year. That’s great.

Dumb bitch, she isn’t. Feisty gal, she certainly is.

It’s such a shame that Rohypnol became the “date rape drug” in the hands of low-life losers. We used to use it back in the day as a travel pill, when it was legally obtainable. The Distaff, who did a lot more solo international business travel than the Diary, swore by it as her tailored sleeping pill. Quartered, a pill gave her two hours of sleep; halved, four hours; and the full monty, eight. It was just the job, she always said, if you had to leap off your plane at your destination fresh as a daisy and ready for work. Or, occasionally, play. 

Oh, Come On!

THE annual Walkley Awards may mean very little to anyone outside Australia – or even outside the Australia media – but they are locally valuable as recognition of excellence in journalism. Until now they have included an award for foreign reporting.

Given that global distempers now visit everyone’s lounge room via the gigantic flat-screen TV, when the footy’s not on, that’s good. Those who inform from dangerous places (or even just interesting ones) deserve recognition. And we know, by many means ranging from pub talk to blogs and even official government advice, that according to Australians the outside world is an alien and unquiet space.

The Walkley organisers have announced that they’re dropping the international category from the awards. It’s one of four categories cut as part of a review of the awards. It’s an odd decision, because while it’s certainly true that journalism is rapidly changing, so too is the impact of international affairs on Australia. These certainly need to be covered with an Australian perspective, and (reasonably) to be recognised in the country’s premier media awards. Doubtless, as the organisers say, international coverage can still be nominated within other categories. But given the parochialism that thrives in Australia, to its detriment, it might be hard for carnage in Aleppo to beat best pumpkin at the Bega Show for a gong.

We’ve added our voice to the chorus suggesting that the Walkley people should change their mind.

Training Runs

WELL, not runs, really. We mean our morning walks on the Outanback Track, the rudimentary road that notionally links The Cage with the rest of the limestone Bukit. It’s a rough trot, our “road”, and steep in parts. There are two nasty inclines on the outbound leg, which we’ve pinned on our smart phone map as Little Dragarse and Big Dragarse. After a glass or three of premium Aga Red the evening before, as is our custom, they’re … difficult.

We’re trying to get walking-fit for a forthcoming European sojourn that will take us on footpaths and other public utilities of the sort that are rare in Bali, and at rather more length than the modest 2400 metres that form our usual morning gasp.

Never mind. It’s worth it. We think.

HectorR

Hector writes a diary in the Bali Advertiser. The next appears on Jul. 19.

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