A New Superhero - Renaissance Man

Compartmentalization equals death.

Once upon a time, education included the Trivium and Quadrivium.  A student was required to survey the sum total of human experience before being allowed to specialize in a degree.  This is what we call a liberal arts education - liberal being the operative word in that it set one free.

A recent article triggered some deep thinking on the state of the world and the mess that we call education today.

People have gotten so narrowly focused that they not only cannot think outside the box, they can't even define the limits of the box because they can't see that far.  A typical college graduate enters the work force so specialized that he or she is incapable of drawing on multiple points of view in problem-solving.  Inspiration for the really big breakthroughs requires the ability to call on multiple disciplines.  Creativity thrives on the ability to approach any problem from many different angles.

The concept of the "renaissance man" has long since died out.  People who can competently play a muscal instrument, recite poetry, pursue independent investigations into the sciences, be able to speak more than one language fluently, discuss history with some authority, travel extensively, and so on are vanishingly rare anymore.

One key to a well-rounded education is reading.  It seems that most people one encounters these days don't read at all, or if they do, it is only within the field of their career.  Those who still read the news seem to only draw from select sources whose socio-political outlook matches their own.  Few will consciously seek out viewpoints that diverge from their own just to consider the arguments presented.

In observing this state of things, I begin to believe that it is by design.  Having populations that are highly specialized keeps them ignorant of opposing ideas, and thus divided and unable to work together.  This division serves the purpose of preventing large numbers of people from diverse backgrounds from forming alliances that could effectively change political systems.  Without unity, there is no power, and so it serves the Powers That Squat to keep us all ignorant and unable to communicate effectively.

A college graduate that has spent most of his matriculation focused on accounting makes a good wage slave.  They don't question much and are incapable of solving problems in other areas, effectively pidgeon-holing the employee and preventing them from knowing too much about how the rest of the business functions.  If he were too broadly educated, the accountant would be an effective threat to the equally pidgeon-holed executives and their corner offices and juicy paychecks and bonus packages.

Think about black projects in government or corporate worlds.  The most effective way to keep a project a secret is to let as few people in on the Big Picture as possible.  Company A has only enough information to produce their widget, but how that widget fits into the overall scheme is a mystery.

The same is true with populations.  By having an educational system geared towards specialization, people are effectively cut off from seeing the Big Picture, and so never have enough information to challenge the status quo.  This keeps most people nicely compliant, and those who get out of hand never know enough of the Big Picture to ever be a real threat.  If anyone ever causes real damage to the system, it is by sheer dumb luck and even the 'perpetrator' is unaware of what he has done.

The cited article talks about how specialization has stifled creativity, and in that respect, it is absolutely right.  However, it stops short of hitting the problem on the head.  At some level of society, it serves an elites' purpose to stifle free though and keep people pidgeon-holed because it ensures their hegemony.

This brings us to one of the main themes here on the Far Side: the internet is a huge threat to the ruling classes.  That people have free and easy access to so much information endangers the carefully crafted system of specialization.  They must scramble to ensure that we the people never figure out that we don't need their educational system anymore.  If we did, not only would they be unable to maintain their system of putting every college graduate in indentured servitude with student loans, those same graduates would start to become a real threat to the system itself as the Big Picture began to reveal itself.

The stifling of creativity due to specialization is not an unintended consequence, it is the very point of it.  The so-called education system we have is a weapon used to keep us in our assigned stations in life.  Our most effective defense and best weapon is reading and learning everything we can get our hands on.

When we understand how history, art and science work together to form a Big Picture, we will suddenly find why the Trivium and Quadrivium of the ancient world were called a "liberal" education.  Knowledge is freedom - liberation and liberty.  To obtain it requires reading, and not fiction (though it has its place).  It requires reading history, scientific theses, literature, philosophy, religious texts, and law.  It requires us to express ourselves through the arts, and to appreciate how others have done the same.

Only when we can draw on the sum total of human knowledge and experience can we call ourselves free.  It is not an easy task, but it is necessary if we are to survive as a species.  Slavery comes in many subtle forms, and 'education' is one of the most insidious, for it makes us feel intelligent while binding our minds with chains even more effective than physical ones.

If we spent just half the time we devote to TeeVee reading non-fiction from a variety of disciplines, we would see the world change radically and quickly for the better.

T'was The Night Before Hari Natal

Howdy, howdy friends and neighbors!  It's yer ole pal B back to wail and assail.  Yes, indeed!  Had a hard disk crash, which took the operating system with it, which caused me to spend money to actually buy Windows 7.  I hate giving Bill Gates more money.  The bastard just turns around and spends it to kill humanity with vaccines, and everyone praises him for being so humanitarian.  But, that's beside the point.  It's Christmas Eve!

There is nothing more absurd than hearing "White Christmas" here.  For one thing, the country is 75-80% muslim, so Christmas is purely a commercial affair in a way that makes the American version pale by comparison.  For another thing, it rarely gets below 80F here, much less snows.  In fact, the vast majority of Indonesians only know about snow from movies and songs.  Few have ever actually seen it.

Now being a native Houstonian, you might laugh at that last bit, since it snows all of every twenty years there.  But I remember back in 1973, it snowed for two weeks straight.  There was actually enough snow to make a snowman, though it cleaned off 9 lawns to do it.  That was back when we were all facing global cooling.  The propaganda has changed since then.

At any rate, we are preparing our equatorial Christmas celebration for tonight.  Wife One picked up a devil's food cake, which is a rare and wonderful treat.  I went to Jakarta's first, and so far, only liquor store and bought a bottle of Gordon's gin.  Set me back $60, since the wonderful, touchy-feely government of Indonesia hits you with a 100% luxury tax for alcohol.  Just another shining example of a select few people thinking they have the right to legislate morality for the masses, simply because 51% of the people agree.  I hate democracy.  All I want for Christmas is a truly free marketplace, completely and totally unhindered by social engineering.

This year, we don't have a Christmas tree, since fresh trees are outrageously expensive, and artificial trees are equally outrageous AND you have to store them.  So we just have a wreath on the door and some lights on the house.  In fact, we are the ONLY house for at least a kilometer around that has lights up.  I love it.  In the States, you have to put up a million bux worth of lights for anyone to notice.  Here, just slap up $3 worth, and the entire city cuts a path to see them.

The kids love it, at any rate.  One little four year old ran up and hugged me just a while ago because she just thinks I am so cool for having lights and playing jacks and hopscotch, and listening to all the kid songs.  Oh, and also because I let the kids play with the kittens and I look a lot like Santa Claus, even though I cut off my beard several years ago.  Certainly more than any Indonesian I've ever met.  In fact, the malls try their damnedest to hire bule to play Santa.  My first wife won't let me, because she thinks it will cause me to lose face if anyone found out.

The wives are all expecting rich gifts this year, since business has been exceptional.  I bought them all matching lingerie, which should make the gift opening very entertaining, at least for me.  They hate it when I treat them all identically.  They are constantly fighting each other to claim most favored status.  In fact, that's the one real joy of having four wives.  They all fight each other and leave me the hell alone.

I've got the next week off.  I haven't had a paid holiday in more than six years.  I don't know what to do with myself.  For so long, I've lived day to day, and if I took a day off, it was at the expense of my dinner plate.  This time, I can actually relax and still pull down a paycheck.  So what do I have planned?  Absolutely nothing.  With a big N.

There's a couple of horses stabled a few blocks away, so I want to rent one and spend a day riding around Jakarta with my cowboy boots and hat.  The problem is finding a danged horse big enough for me in this country.  They're all Arabians that come up to about my waist.  I can walk over them.  They have a lot of dorman, which are horse-drawn buggies, here in Jakarta.  One time, I wanted to ride in one.  By the time I folded myself up small enough to get inside, the poor horse was dangling from his harness about three feet off the ground.

Folks here-abouts call me raksasa, which generally means 'giant,' but the reference is to a mythical demon that was enormous and could step over a house, which pretty much describes me, at least in this country.  I'm fully head-and-shoulders above 90% of the locals, and the few that come close have yet to surpass me.  That's all fine and good, except the world is much shorter here as well, and I am constantly wracking my forehead on tree limbs, door jambs and other low-lying obstacles.

Which reminds me...in the past week, I've twisted my knee twice, which exacerbated an old war wound and left me virtually crippled.  You know, the kind of pain that takes your breath away.  So, wife No. 1 took me to a local masseuse who practices an ancient form of Javanese massage.  Now lest you think this was an enjoyable experience, allow me to disabuse you of that idea.  Javanese massage is a cross between Greco-Roman wrestling and Swedish deep-muscle therapy.  He grabbed my leg and proceeded to unscrew my toes, disjoint my entire leg and twist me into a pretzel.  He managed to reseat my knee joint and my hip, which two previous chiropractors could not do.  And he re-aligned my lower back, which has been a screaming nightmare for the past 30 years or so.

Granted it hurt like...what...like a cow's ass at branding time, but I can walk again, the pain is reduced about 75%, and the whole thing set me back about $5 for a 30-minute session.  Stick that in your alt.therapy pipe and smoke it.  There's a lot to be said for free market medicine, which is a whole column in itself.  Several in fact, if you look up the 'Adventures in Acupuncture' series that I've been doing this year.

At any rate, I'm having a jolly old time.  I've got strawberry-mango juice made fresh from fruit picked off my farm, and a rare bottle of Gordon's gin that cost me a fair slice of my Christmas bonus.  I've got a wonderful and supportive family and five kids (step and blood) that are a father's pride.  I've got four gorgeous and sexy wives who blessedly leave me out of the fights and treat me like the egotistical bastard that I am.  I just got a shave and a haircut for 24 bits (bet most readers don't even know how much that is).

No, all is not right with the world.  In fact, most of the western hemisphere is going to hell in a hand-basket.  I don't really feel sorry.  I spent the better part of my adult life trying to fix things and got fully slapped down by 'the system' and by the Bush crime family for it.  Not a single person stepped up to help me, because they were afraid it would rub off on them.  Now, they are living with that choice in a country going the way of the do-do bird.  It's hell being ahead of the curve.

So, from the land where a man can disappear and never be seen or heard again...from the land where you can spend all your money on lawyers, or on making the government go away (your choice)...from the land where a man can have four legal/lawful wives...from the land where monkeys swing from the trees and dragons sun themselves on the roads...from the land where I live,

Merry Christmas/Selamat Hari Natal!

May all your dreams that benefit humanity come true.  May peace really come to all mankind.  May we all find Truth and adhere to its tenets.

May you discover true freedom and the courage to defend it, before the bastards can take it away.

God bless and smooth sailing, from all of us here on The Far Side.

Quick, Be Afraid!

Big Ba-Da-Boom
No Look, No Fly
Indonesia Becoming US Enemy

Remember the tsunami that flattened the Mentawai islands in west Indonesia? Ya, neither does anyone else. They are far away, don't pose and on-going problem and didn't bring in a lot of tourist and aid money.

But, Merapi? Wow! We can milk this baby for a while. Great drama. Fantastic video. Big aid bux. And right next to a heavy tourist draw, Jogjakarta.

Is it just me who's this cynical, or does anyone else see the bullshit game going on at the upper levels? I mean, look at the third link above. The US is concerned about Indonesian tourism because there are so many terror training camps and ongoing attacks here?

Give me a freakin' break, would'ja?

The average American is in more danger from the troglodytes that work for the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) than just about anything they would encounter on a normal day in Indonesia.

Oh sure, there was Bali a few years ago, and the JW Mariot last July, but there was Oklahoma City and 911 in the good ol' United Slaves of America. As a result, I'm still free in Indonesia and Americans are incarcerated.

The real terror training camps are in North America, where agents of the evil TSA, FBI, CIA, and other alphabet agencies are recruited and trained to terrorize American citizens.

You see, here's how it works. From inside Gulag America, it seems normal enough. Just don't notice all the cameras pointed at you and agents groping you. But from out here, you can see the bars and the guard towers. The media must continually hype threats in order to keep the inmates from questioning the prison.

Even Obama bringing 34 war ships, 6 aircraft and hundreds of troglodytes is all part of the illusion. The sham that the world is so dangerous that the prez can't go out without a huge retinue just fosters the whole "keep us safe, Onkel" mentality. Whose Onkel? Ah, go read up on the Khmer Rouge after the fall of Saigon. Then just add the name Sam to it.

"Oh sure, they fondled my wife, felt up my daughter and squeezed my gonads, but I feel so safe," old Joe Sixpack says.

The question is, how much dignity, privacy and real safety will people sacrifice before Fulsom prison erupts in riots?

They don't want Americans coming to Indonesia, because they will find out that even in the face of occasional terror threats, people can still be free and can take person responsibility for where they go and what they do.

Because, no matter what the cause, no one is ever safe. You can have those vile creatures in yellow shirts play with your genitals and the engine could fall off the plane, the volcano could erupt, a major earthquake could strike, or a tsunami could interrupt your dinner plans. Compared to those things, terrorism is a minor hassle, but all the fondling and luggage searching and nail-file confiscating won't stop a single one of them. You can get hit by a bus, sandwiched in a car accident or cut off your finger making a grilled cheese for lunch, and all the friggin' cameras won't stop it from happening. On a daily basis, those are far more likely to happen than for you to become a victim of state-sponsored terror.

In fact, in order to be a victim of state-sponsored terror, all you have to do is go to any American airport. Simple.

If I were the rest of the world, I would be issuing travel warnings for America. "Beware, tourist WILL lose their freedom, WILL be surveilled, WILL have their wives and children irradiated and groped by scum."

A lot of people ask me when I plan on going home. Frankly, my home is gone. The America I grew up in died somewhere around Nixon and was buried by Reagan. The America I knew is dead and gone. The America where women and children could be out at night and front doors didn't have to be locked and on weekends I could go plinking with my rifle are just distant memories.

People have forgotten the meaning of the symbols at the top of flagpoles. One of them is a round ball, signifying a cannon ball, and meaning a military induction center. Now, go look at the flagpoles in from of every school and post office in America. Cool, huh? (FYI, the eagle means sovereign authority and the spearhead means subordinate authority-see state and federal flags at your local courtroom).

How is it a blind man can see more than so many folks with their eyes wide shut?

I feel safer here, hell even in the deepest jungles of Borneo or Sumatra, than I do walking in the average American neighborhood. Here, in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world, a young woman can walk alone, children play outside even after sundown, and neighbors watch out for each other. If someone in my neighborhood here in Jakarta acted like the average TSA scum at the airport, there'd be a lynch mob at his door, and I'd be among them.

So, next time you have to go to the airport, opt out of the nude scanners and then threaten to file assault charges on anyone who touches you. They can wave their little wands around, if it makes them feel more powerful, but so much as brush the dust off my shoulder and we got a fight, buddy.

Unless, of course, you like being in prison and the possession of some bankster. Up to you. But they will go as far as you let them. It's all choice, you see.

In that fantastic film, The Shawshank Redemption, the character Brooks couldn't hack freedom. It scared him to be outside the box. Ultimately, he killed himself rather than face true freedom. As the other characters remarked, he had become institutionalized.

Are you institutionalized?

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

“Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.” -Isocrates, c.300 B.C.

Throughout history, intellectuals have followed democracy to its logical conclusions and warned us of the impending demise that it brings. As the joke goes, democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, but I would add that we are purposely kept ignorant of the wolves' where-abouts or agendas. The wolves become masters of deception, leading the sheep to the sheering while making them think they are on the road to Salvation.

We are, ostensibly, reaching the end of an age. It seems that the entire underpinnings of culture, both in the West and globally, is reaching it natural limits. All that we know is not enough and we are faced with the choice to grow or die. Now we will find out if humans truly are adaptable, or if we've just had a lucky streak.

A few years back, there was an excellent and underrated film called, "No Way Out," with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. The premise was that a Russian spy had been planted in the US as a child and had been groomed to rise meteorically through the ranks to subvert the nation from the inside out. Even more poignant was Peter Sellers' "Being There," whose Chauncy Gardner was haunting in his ability to attract the projections of others' desires. Democracy has brought us both characters in a single package.

Increasingly, the gold is supplanted with paper, the rhetoric with slogan and the the mass mind with group-think. Having been hollowed out, a democracy's leadership becomes vacuous and ephemeral while maintaining the illusion of substance, because the sheep no longer look at the contents, but are satisfied to traipse after symbols.

Ultimately, the sheep arrive at the sheering, happily jostling for the front row, ready to throw themselves at the sheers because they now think they have chosen this path for themselves. As Alexander Fraser Tytler noted,

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

Americans, thoroughly deluded by the empty promises of democratic Nirvana, have exported their folly to the world, and set up for themselves phantom leaders who are completely manufactured out of whole cloth. We know more about leaders who lived a thousand years ago than we know about Barrack Obama, yet how many blissfully followed him, basking in the light of "hope" and "change?" Simple sloganeering deluded millions who failed to look beyond the icons and into the meanings.

The result has been a gutted economy, raging deathtraps (with the promise of more), and a moral decay of every public institution. An American can not point to a single public trusthold that isn't rife with corruption and fascism. There is not a single movement or group that they can turn to that isn't co-opted by agents of wolves.

Without wholesale replacement of the entire system from top to bottom, there is no way out. Yet, there is no way to do that because, in an Orwellian twist, the language itself has been modified to the point that even one's thoughts are suspect. The money is debased, ethics are but shadows and even discourse has been stolen by those who define the words.

As an English teacher, I often deal with the fact that most people hear and respond to what they expect and not what is actually said. Formulaic responses to formulaic constructs are the vast majority of language. This fact is further exacerbated by a lifestyle that is so hectic that we don't have time to respond to deeper implications, but only to the superficial appearances of things.

As anyone who has ever raced cars knows, the faster you go, the less you can focus on anything but what is directly ahead and moving at the same relative speed. All the little details flying by at break-neck speed are insignificant and out of focus. Until one of those details torpedoes you from out of nowhere. As life, by design, rushes past us at furious speeds, we no longer focus on the minutae, but have only time to notice the things coming directly in our path.

We not only fail to stop and smell the flowers, we don't even see the bushes on which they are growing.

The ancient Chinese devised a truly horrific torture called The Death of a Thousand Cuts. The victim received hundreds of superficial cuts, that bled profusely, and salt was rubbed into them. As the victim slowly bled to death over weeks, they were in agonizing pain from a non-consuming fire.

Look into your neighbor's eyes. Do they look truly happy? Do those windows reveal inner contentment? Now look at your leaders. What do you really know about them as human beings? Outside of a few well-chosen slogans, what ideas do they actually offer? More to the point, how much of your life is taken from the public treasury, and how much did you actually generate?

To use another iconographic image, have you robbed Peter to pay Paul lately?

One last question: What have you done to really fix things?

I don't mean what you have delegated by vote. I don't mean, letting the pit crew service the car on the road of Life. I mean, what have you personally done to change the world? Not just lately, but ever? And how often have you stopped to consider those questions? If the world is our victim, how many cuts have you applied?

Are you a Magritte?

Jesus is famously quoted as saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's." The thing I have never heard a preacher address is, if you have nothing of Caesar's, you owe him nothing.

In other words, are you a democrat or are you free?

Think about it...

Don't Fence Me In

If you pick up a handful of dust and see, not the dust, but a mystery...that is magic. Dr. Lao, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao

I came with two bags and a $1,000 in my pocket. I had a couple of plans for things I could do to make a buck. I overall goal was to see Asia like few people see it, or anything for that matter. I really just had a feeling that I had to be here now.

That's pretty much the way I've always done it. I decide I want to do something, and if Universe wants me to do it, the doors all swing open and away I go. I've learned, through some spectacular trial-and-errors that if there's a big struggle to do something, then it's the wrong thing to do.

In many ways, as I ponder my half-century of life, that I have a lot in common with Huck Finn. As long as Nigger Jim and I are cruising down the river, life is grand. But when the raft drags up and I go into town to check things out, life takes tragic turns. Every time I get the crazy notion to settle down and sink some roots I light the fuse of the powder-keg that will eventually blast me back the river. It usually takes a few years, but I eventually forget the lesson and start thinking about getting off the river again, only to find that I was much better off with nothing, drifting along quietly.

My fondest memory is the day my daughter was born, but short of that nearly every other happy moment was when I had virtually nothing but the wind in my hair and the unknown in front of me. Backpacking around the world, going on tour, joining the monastery, driving tours in Europe, excursions to Central and South America, hitch-hiking willy-nilly around the western US all represent my happiest times. Conversely, my marriages represent some of my most miserable moments. The last one brought me as close as I've ever been to "domestic bliss," with the house, the family, the corporate gig with stock options, the two cars, the dog and the cat, and that left me a widower up to my ass with The Most Evil Creatures on Earth (often referred to by the euphemistic Children's Protective Services), completely broke, and living in a bottle for five years.

After I took the decision to haul my carcass to Indonesia, however, my fortunes changed radically. What was left of my Earthly possessions was precisely enough to get me here, a nod from Universe that I was on the right track. I have received just what I need when I need it to once again be able to grow and to smile a bit. I entered on an adventure unlike anything I have known up to now. I moved the the polar opposite side of the world and my life took a similar turn.

Nigger Jim and I are back on the river.

Three years ago, I never imagined I would get used to bucket baths, a profound lack of toilet paper in the bathroom and an equally profound abundance of it on the dinner table, the absence of winter, eating durian, bajaj and ojek, and monkeys in the trees. I live within five hours of Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall, Gengis Khan's palace, and literally thousands of other exotic sights. I am surrounded by volcanoes and have experienced my first major earthquake. I'm pretty much as happy as I've ever been.

The only thing I can figure is that certain people are born to travel. The Germans, in their language, created a word for it: wanderlust. I am a gyrovague. I have only been fulfilled by the moments when I have had nothing but my pack and an open road. One could call it a curse, but I have touched what others have only dreamed.

I recall a theme from the book, The Journeyer, a fictionalized version of Marco Polo's adventures. It has stuck with me for many years. It is the idea that at the moment of my death, I don't want to think, "I wish I had gone there and done that." I don't want to regret that fear of the unknown had stopped me from learning and experiencing something completely foreign.

The sum of my regrets do not include a single minute of travel. No matter how disasterous a trip has been, I have never wished that I had not gone. I have not spent one cent on travel that I wish I still had in my pocket. Can't say the same about a lot of other experiences. I have met Geronimo's grandson on the side of the road. I have watched as two men who lived five blocks from each other in a small city in Kentucky met for the first time at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I have seen some of the greatest art and architecture our species has created. I have gazed on natural wonders and seen the ocean at night. I have been to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and sat at the top of the Rockies. I have ridden through the middle of two warring factions. I have held a dying man's hand and received a baby into the world.

They say you can't take it with you, but that's only true of all the crap we accumulate as we cruise through life. The intangibles stay with us, tucked safely in the soul's kit bag. The little scraps of wisdom that I have wrested from Universe's clenched fist are mine to keep. The bonds of civilization are lost to Time when he comes acallin'. I'll take the road over a safe and comfortable bed any time.

As ole Huck might tell us:

The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied.

Mortgage literally means "death pledge." For better or worse, I slipped that bond and got free again. For better or worse, I got the wind in my hair and a pack on my back. For better or worse.

So far, it's always been better.

The Animating Contest of Freedom

Well you walk into the room like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law against you coming around
You should be made to wear earphones
Cause something is happening and you don't know what it is
do you, Mr. Jones?
-Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man

I recently went back to Singapore. It was the first time I have left Indonesia in two years. And baby, something is happening here, but I don't know what it is.

Seems after you live here for a while, something happens to you. You change. Your perspective warps just a bit. You get used to things that just a while back were wildly outside of your comfort zone.

I have gotten so used to the just-left-of-reality called Indonesia that returning to the 'real world' is a shock. Now granted, Singapore is a techno-fascist state that has brought compliance and lock-step to the point of micromanagement. It is a city-state run by Chinese, which is to say, Vulcans. On top of that, they have spent years recruiting and investing in high-tech brain-power and businesses to the point where the entire nation has become a macro-chip, if you will. It is impossible to describe Singapore without resorting to a truck-load of hyphenated nouns, because there are no normal words for it.

After two straight years in Indonesia, stepping into Singapore assaulted me with clean efficiency. Everyone was following the rules. There were all kinds of modern conveniences, like moving sidewalks that actually moved (Indo joke), restrooms fitted with all sorts of sensors to tell when you've finished so that they can flush or dispense water or soap or warm air, and signage that is both copious and actually leads you somewhere (Indo joke). Everything spacious and people respect personal space. Everything is painfully clean, in a way that would make even Germans wince. It all looks like it was torn from a 1930s Future-ama film short at the Saturday matinée.

It is truly the mirrow image of Indonesia, and I was Alice just stepping through.

With cold efficiency, the airport itself led me through the gate, down the impossibly long corridor and into the dazzling arcade of duty free shopping, with genuine products whose counterfeits I have passed a million times in Indonesian shopping malls. Here was cheap booze and expensive baubles, the diametric opposite of my adopted home.

Once through the endless temptations to participate in consummeristic orgies, I was summarily disgorged into the cavernous entry hall. The ceiling soared overhead and there seemed to be enough room for half the world's population here, so unlike the cramped and crowded stockyards full of shoving people back home. A huge tote board listed the great cities of the world, which airline was going there next, and precisely which line to get in for your boarding pass. If this wasn't enough information for you, helpful little men in red vests would quickly glide up to you and offer help, and the best part was they didn't expect a tip. It was, after all, their job.

I stepped into the tropical heat and blinked at the sun. I was not accosted by 47 men offering taxis, watches and perfume. Instead, there was an orderly row of taxis patiently waiting for the next passenger. The air was fresh and clean. The noise level was significantly below 80 decibels.

the taxi was very efficient. No chatter and useless effort, just took the address and whisked me away in smooth comfort down broad rectilinear streets that looked as if the maid had just left. The driver took the most direct and fastest route without being told. Back home, they take the longest and/or most congested route, unless otherwise guided, in order to run up the fare.

Throughout the remainder of my stay, I was ever-so-efficiently scooped up and delivered quickly, quietly and with cold calculation. Even friendly folks seemed as if they were reading from a script, and there were the sonstant reminders not to litter or spit or forget to flush, all of which will get you a S$1,000 fine. Everyone and everything looks as if it were placed exactly were it needed to be for maximum efficiency. There were no free-roaming animals or smoldering trash fires or vendors strewn down the sides of every street. Even the architecture looks like a Disney version of Vienna with a dash of Portuguese for flavor. Overall, the city is a poster-child for handicap friendly. I was able to navigate easily and never once stumbled over broken concrete or oddly placed doodads that served no purpose but to keep someone busy installing and removing them. If, God forbid, there was a hazard, it was barricaded and marked heavily with orange cones.

The trees all looked as if they were pruned every morning and the parks had manicured grass. Even the birds seemed just a little happier...hey! Wait a minute! There are birds here!

Yes, Singapore is the wet dream of every efficiency expert and obcessive/compulsive on the planet. You could eat off the sidewalk, if you could without being arrested and flogged for doing so. Even the curio and souvenir shops are meticulously organized so that you can easily find the cheap piece of crap you want to bring back to your family and friends. I always get refrigerator magnets. At least they are useful. Worse case scenario, you can put them in your transmission pan to collect metal filings.

By the time I got back to the airport, I felt as if I had been sanitized. The only thing missing was the paper band that said so, and I kept moving so the guy giving those out couldn't catch me. I bolted through the main cavern and wended my way to the SkyTrain to take me to Terminal 1. The highly efficient system came along and everyone queued up and boarded in an orderly and safe manner. We were likewise barfed out the other end. The model of efficiency.

Having checked in three hours early (being efficient and all), I planted myself at Harry's Bar to enjoy a libation while passing the time. I met a young Aussie guy named Brad who was going to Greece to meet his girl for a couple weeks' R&R. I made the usual jokes about joining the riots and shopping for islands while he was there.

In all my efficiency, I had forgotten to set my watch ahead one hour. When Brad pointed this out, I had ten minutes to get to my gate, which was at the other end of the Universe from Harry's, of course. I dashed through the terminal, being the only person whose lack of personal efficiency had made me short on time. I slipped through the security check, but...OOPS! Was that a bottle of booze in my pack?

The woman, an Indonesian, pulled out the massive container of Absolut nectar. It was not in a sealed bag and didn't have a tax stamp. Sorry, but we have to confiscate.

WHAT?

The chief of the check point was a stern Chinese woman, the very definition of cold, hard efficiency. She was unmoving and unmoved. Even having this middle-aged man sitting in a heap on the floor crying hardly budged her inhuman countenance. I could see that my begging and pleading had some effect. The tempurature of her soul had risen to 3 degrees above Absolute Zero, so that she matched the background radiation of the Big Bang. But even offers to relive the Big Bang could not stir her interest.

To her credit, the Indonesian woman was sympathetic, and she kept looking around for some opportunity to bend the rules for me. I offered dates and promises of painting the town when she came to Jakarta. She wanted to, God bless her, but gainful employment was a major hurdle. I slinked off to board without my ill-gotten booty. My Viking soul screamed for loot and plunder, but my rational mind keot control.

I was back in the Indonesian world now. I should have known. It was an Indonesian airline going to Indonesia, which meant the flight wasn't even boarding at the scheduled time of wheels-up. I fumed. I groused. I grumbled. I could see my plunder sitting there, knowing that it would end up on the shelf in the home of some customs apparatchik. It made me angry. I longed for home where a well-placed 50 would have waived the rules.

And that's when I realized...I was homesick. No, not for the police state which shall remain nameless (but whose initials are US), but for my adopted home. I wanted to go back to the place where officials could be bribed, rules could be broken, people shoved and cut in line. I wanted to go back to where it took five people to do one job at seven different windows. I missed my dirty, noisy, crowded, lawless home.

When I deplaned (whatever the hell that is) in Jakarta, there were no directional signs, or the ones that did exist were wrong. The corridors were dark and close, and reeked of clove cigarettes. In fact, over in the corner there was a man standing under a no-smoking sign, enjoying his cigarette. I was beginning to feel better now. I finally found the visa-on-arrival lane, surrounded by a maze of stanchions with no one in line. I went to the first window to pay, the second window to get a receipt, the third window to get my stamp, the fourth window to check that the first three had done it right. Then I wandered down the long, low hall to immigration, where I was informed that needed a form, and that the form was way back where I started. When I got there, I checked. Nope, no signs to let me know that I needed any forms in that area. I filled it out and got through immigration.

I asked a gentleman in a uniform which way to the exit. He asked if I had luggage and I said no. He said I could go in any of a couple of directions, of course. He looked as if he were ready to accept my money for the information. I ignored the look. I randomly chose the most difficult, of course.

An hour after landing, I spilled out into the dark, dirty Jakarta night and was accosted by a dozen men offering off-meter rides to the city. I'm not stupid, just a little dumb. After a particularly long and circuitous route, I was able to ditch them and dive into one of the taxis I trusted more than most. I gave him explicit directions on which route to take back to the house.

As I sat back in the seat for the ride, I realized that I was happy to be home. I preferred the loony, lawless cat-herding of Indonesia to cold, fascist efficiency. I preferred the pushing and shoving in line to marching lock-step in jack-boots. Life just feels organic here, like living in the wild versus a wildlife preserve. The law of the jungle prevails. There is something visceral about this land that appeals to real people who want to live raw, unfettered lives. I would choose this to a petri dish under a microscope any day

For all its clean, efficient modernization, I was no safer in Singapore than in Jakarta, but all the trappings made it appear that way. Like other "modern" countries, Singapore has created a coddling society where people are enticed to give up being alert because everything looks so safe, and lulled into a stupor they foolishly let their guard down...and that's when the danger slips in. In Indonesia, life is still the way it used to be. You are on your own. You must be responsible for you own well-being because certainly no one else will be. Every face you see wants to take something from you, so your guard is always up. Yes! This is real life. This is the way we are meant to be as organic beings...as humans.

As I sat there in the taxi, watching every turn, checking the meter to be sure it was properly calculating my trip, locking the doors, I realized that I was happy here. Not having yellow-shirted thugs watching to be sure I don't step out of line for my own good feels right to me. Not having mandatory health insurance and Social Security and welfare and social services and jack-booted herd masters feels like life to me. Those other things are just veils we pull over our eyes so we don't have to look at misery and suffering in other people, and so that we can feel like we are safe like in mommy's arms. But we forget that when we have mommy's comfort, she can also go through our things and come into our room any time she wants, because she owns the place and feeds us.

I laugh when I read the term "advanced nations." How is it advanced when the populace is never required to mature and gain independence? How is advanced when no one advances past the childhood phase of life? It used to be we measured advanced by how well someone could fend for themselves, not by how much they had delegated personal responsibility.

As the road whizzed under the tires, I thought, "Give me liberty or give me death." What a great line, to bad so few actually live it. Is it better to have one shot of top quality, 25-year-old single malt, or gallons of rot-gut? I'll take the shot, thanks. A little quality trumps a lot of bunk any time. So it is with the life I have been given.

I got down from the taxi in from of the walled and gated kampung. As I passed through the gate, I waved to the night watchman. He's my neighbor. He knows me, I know him. I could pass unfettered. It felt good to be home again.

The secret to herding cats is to lead them, not push them.