Merry Christmas for a friend

Merry Christmas!Nollaig Shona Dhuit!Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket!Joyeux Noël!Feliz Navidad!Buone Feste Natalizie!Fröhliche Weihnachten!Ajmel altehani bemonasebt almīlad wa helol alseneh aljedīdah!I’d Miilad Said Oua Sana Saida!Krismas ki subhkamna!

Though we do not travel the same path
May those warm and bright lights
Guide us all along our journey home
To the same old house of our greater soul
(X-mas day, 2007)

On the ideology of neoliberalism

Like communism, neoliberalism too, promotes its own utopia, an idealized classless society where every human being has equivalent capacity to become enterpreneur , and where there is a level playing field on which individuals compete in line with the logic of market rationality. Neoliberalism -- which market fundamentalists such as Margaret Thacher, and the late Daniel Singer, among others, memorialized as TINA, There Is No Alternative (to "market dictatorship") -- conceals a moral standard which is inherently tainted by victim-blaming ideology; its social compassion (if any) for the poverty-related human suffering is never free from smug questions such as: Why don't they try hard enough to participate in the market? Why wouldn't they learn the logic of the free market ? Why should we be expected to pay for their failures and suffering? (December, 23, 2007)

Jakarta under neoliberalism

Excerpt from Paul Treanor http://web.inter.nl.net/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism
. . . as you would expect from a complete philosophy, neoliberalism has answers to stereotypical philosophical questions such as "Why are we here" and "What should I do": We are here for the market, and you should compete. Neo-liberals tend to believe that human exist for the market -- not the other way around: certainly in the sense that it is good to participate in the market, anf that those who do not participate have failed in some ways.

In personal ethics, the general neo-liberal vision is that every human being is an entrepreneur managing their own life, and should act as such

. . . then a world will come into existence in which not just goods and services, but all human and social life, is the product of conformiy to market forces . . .

http://picasaweb.google.com/dedynhidayat

On God and Jokes

God is a comedian artist who sits back after the day of creation. All God does now is "paring his fingernails" (thanks to James Joyce), watch us, and kill us when we stop joking. For that very reason, we must never, ever stop joking, everyday, even on holidays too, till the day we die. Yet, do not ever run nor hide from God, and become atheists -- 'cause atheists have less holidays ... (December 1, 2007)

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh (Voltaire)