Hope you all have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Administrator di Langit Selatan mengirimkan surat kepada administrator KAI. Sayangnya balasan dari KAI sangat tidak simpatik, tidak ada permintaan maaf atau janji perbaikan atas mekanisme reportase pada KoranAnakIndonesia. Malah yang ada pembelaan bahwa reporternya masih muda. Justru selagi masih muda perlu diingatkan bahwa penjiplakan bukanlah suatu tindakan yang diterima di dunia.

Sikap-sikap permisif seperti ini yang membuat suatu lingkaran setan yang tidak pernah berakhir. Dimulai dari “biar saja masih anak-anak” dan “cuman sedikit kok yang saya ambil, cuman 10%”. Mau sampai kapan sikap permisif ini?

Saya tidak akan bercerita mendalami mengenai bukti-bukti fisik dari penjiplakan Koran Anak Indonesia karena sudah well documented oleh rekan-rekan di LangitSelatan, SimplyVie dan RyoSaeba. Tapi ingin saya angkat disini adalah niat-niat baik untuk mendidik khayalak ramai seperti yang dilakukan KAI, cemar dan menjadi self-serving karena ternyata niatan KAI tidaklah mendidik dan malah menyesatkan.

Kenapa menyesatkan?

Karena pertama-tama mereka melakukan pembenaran atas penjiplakannya.

Kedua, karena mereka melakukan pembohongan publik bahwa mereka adalah penulisnya dan mungkin ahlinya dalam bidang tersebut.

Ketiga, karena alasan-alasan diatas, seakan-akan plagiat adalah tindakan yang diterima.

Pada saat kita marah-marah mengenai hasil karya bangsa  dijiplak oleh negara tetangga, kita malah mengajari anak-anak kita bahwa menjiplak dan mengakui karya orang adalah hal yang lumrah dan diterima.

Pada saat orang-orang sedang berjuang untuk keharuman nama bangsa, seperti yang dilakukan tim dari Indonesia di Youth Olympic Games, di Olimpiade Informatika dan lain-lain, KAI malah memberi contoh untuk mengambil jalan pintas. Sangat berlawanan dengan mission statement yang ada pada halaman About mereka.

Berkaitan dengan pemenuhan kebutuhan informasi dan minat baca anak dan remaja maka dibentuklah media KORAN ANAK INDONESIA. Dalam langkah awal akan dibuat dalam bentuk media online dan dalam waktu dekat akan dibuat dalam bentuk media cetak secara langsung.

juga yang terdapat pada banner mereka sekalian:

SELAMATKAN MINAT BACA ANAK DAN REMAJA INDONESIA, Media Informasi untuk Anak dan Remaja Indonesia yang Berteknologi, Berpengetahuan, Bermoral dan Berwawasan Jauh ke Depan

Bayangkan kalau KAI benar-benar menjadi media cetak dengan kebiasaan seperti ini. Bisa-bisa setiap hari ada penuntutan dari berbagai pihak.

Sebenarnya apa yang diminta oleh LangitSelatan dan mungkin juga blog/ situs lain yang di copy-paste oleh KAI hanyalah pengakuan bahwa KAI mengambil dari sumber A, B atau C. Sederhana kan? Tinggal mereka tambahkan bahwa artikel/ posting ini diambil dari situs A (atau B atau …). Terakhir jika memang yang anda lakukan adalah agregator, yaitu pengumpulan artikel-artikel yang menarik, akuilah bahwa anda agregator. dan jangan taruh tanda hak cipta pada laman-laman anda jika memang tidak layak.

Tapi yang selanjutnya dilakukan oleh admin KAI adalah semakin menakjubkan, mereka menyadur postingan, menjadi seolah-olah mereka yang mengarangnya. Kemudian mereka tambah-tambahkan bahasan-bahasan lain yang mereka pikir berkaitan. Akibatnya, malah terdapat kesalahan-kesalahan yang fatal. Mereka meng-copy-paste dari situs yang menggunakan bahasa lain dari bahasa Indonesia sehingga istilah-istilah baku Indonesia dikesampingkan dengan terjemahan KAI yang salah.  Teknis-teknis kesalahan ini dan yang lainnya bisa dibaca di posting Vie.

Belum lagi persoalan netiquette yang terdapat pada posting RyoSaeba. Dari penggunaan beberapa nama samaran untuk membela diri hingga cara anda  moderasi komentar di web KAI (dan mem-ban komentar yg tidak sesuai dengan hati anda).

Kids, don’t try this at home

Seriously, you want to teach kids to love reading?  I agree, kids need  to learn to love reading and they need to learn how to gather and present information from and to the Net. But not from the examples that you have given in your website. I strongly recommend you change your ways and apologize to all the children (and adults) that have been fooled by you and your site. Until you do, I am telling my friends and their children to stay away from your site.

This little trip down memory lane caused me to try to remember all the cars that we have had in our lives. I like to think that what we are exposed to as children affect us as adults.

In chronological order:

1. Morris Minor (not too sure of the year but definitely before 1969)
2. Toyota FJ 40 ’69
3. Ford Mustang ’69
4. Ford Capri ’73
5. Honda Accord ’81
6. Toyota Corona ’89
7. Toyota Kijang ’91
8. Toyota Corolla ’93
9. Honda Accord ’90
10. Jeep Cherokee Classic ’96
11. Honda Accord ’96
12. Mazda Protege ’91
13. Nissan Serena ’96 (not too sure of the year)
14. Hyundai Trajet ’01
15. Kia Pride ’05
16. Jeep Cherokee Limited ’96
17. Ford Everest Limited ’05

Obviously we dont have all these cars now. They have served us and served us well, but as my work has taken us to various places, we have had to release these vehicles. In any case, I wanted to remember these cars and the places they took us and all the memories they were a part of. So this will be my project for the next… well, at least  for the next 17  posts. If I don’t get sidetracked with something else.

As a post-script, I think I should post my own pictures of the cars instead of stuff found on the Net. It’ll take more time to gather and post. As most of my fathers pictures are still slides, negatives and prints that I havent scanned.

Have had several trips to the China, the Mid East and back to CHE. Not keen on posting photos, nothing of real interest, nor are the photos any artwork themselves.

Ok, so we got here a little late. Well, just in time actually. I parked the car at another buildings parking lot, and hopped it on foot over to the Plaza Senayan Arcadia building. Made a quick stop at Duta Suara to buy a couple of Chris Botti\’s CD\’s. I actually have some of his CD\’s but thats another story for another time.
Made it over to Black Cat at 16:00. A few other people were here from other communities as well, such as AyoFoto, Komunitas Jazz Kemayoran and Blogger Indonesia. Not quite sure how I got invited, but here I am.

OK, its a bad shot. Too much backlight. Hey, its a mobile phone camera, what can you expect. Of course, any charitable acts are welcomed. *self-pimpage*

I\’ve been reading a bit about Chris B, and aside from him being a trumpet player, like me, thats about all that we have in common! Well, we both like jazz. The interview is starting, so I will listen for a bit before I add more.

Anyway, May 24th… Balai Kartini? Find me next to the stage! If I can afford the tix!

if you have a blog, does that make you a blogger?
if you have a blog, but you dont update it? does it mean you are no longer a blogger? (assuming you were a blogger in the beginning).
if you have a (or several) blogs? can you claim not to be a blogger?

so what makes you a blogger?
conversely,
what doesnt make you a blogger?

so what is a blogger?

I AM ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF OPINION.

I WILL NOT BE CENSORED

I AM ABOUT FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF OPINION.

I WILL NOT BE CENSORED

And I’ve got a cough, but I’m still playing.

Well it happened. We played at the famous Java Jazz Festival. We didnt have much time to prepare, as we were told by Mas S about 3 weeks beforehand. We were actually in the middle of preparing for another event when we learned about the opportunity.
With such short notice, we decided to play songs that we have mastered, instead of trying to get in a new playlist. Since it is a jazz festival (of sorts) we chose our songs carefully, getting in the more standard jazz tunes and our most decent sounding swing tunes.
We ended up with the following list:
1. Satin Doll
2. The Way You Look Tonight
3. Fly Me to the Moon
4. How High the Moon
5. Girl from Ipanema
6. You are the Sunshine of My Life
7. Quiet Night of Quiet Stars
8. My Favorite Things
9. Birdland

We also managed to get some singers to perform together for some songs: How High the Moon, Girl From Ipanema, Fly Me to the Moon. Additionally, we got some rest time for the Big Band while the singers did Just the Two of Us and Didadaku with the rhythm section.

MyBand was the first show of the day and we were neatly tucked away, off to the side in the Talent Stage. So we didnt expect the parking lot to be full nor would we have any body watching us, but it was and we did.
The parking lot was pretty full when we got there at 3:00PM. We had wanted to drop off our equipment and our instruments near the entrance but we couldnt. We had to park all the way over yonder and lug our stuff to the hall. Being a small band we didnt have our own roadie crew. Being a small Bigband, we had the dubious honor of having to lug our own chairs too! Yes the committee didnt or couldnt provide us with chairs for the event.

We were warmed up and ready to play by 4:00PM, but we had to wait until our actual time of 4:30 before we could start playing. These guys were pretty strict on the rules. I guess it is important if you have multiple stages that are pretty close to each other. I would be pretty upset if I couldnt hear my band because some other band was tooting around. So at exactly 4:30, our conductor picked up the mike, and in his very Javanese accent announced who we were, and what our first song would be.
Before we knew it, we were already at our 5th song, we had already covered half of our repertoire, introduced our singers and had quite a gathering. I estimated about 50 people, consisting of friends and spouses, jazz community people and people just wandering between shows. At the end of every solo, we clapped for our own just because we could. It helped to pump up the crowd too…
We closed with Birdland, its a crowd pleaser song, rather fast paced, loud, jazzy and a definite toe tapper. All ini all, I think we had as much fun as those that turned up to watch.