Borobudur... Not Amongst the 7 Wonders?

Voila! They just announced the new 7 wonders from whoever version it is, which is obviously not being recognized by UNESCO. 100 million voters were believed to have selected the so-called new 7 wonders in the world. Yet, another disappointment for me.

Borobudur Temple is not and has never been one of them. It is not even amongst the 21 finalists! Since we were kids, we were made to believe that Borobudur was indeed one of the 7 wonders. It's a deceiving fact. Now we figured out that our school books were wrong (perhaps like they have deceived us for many of the histories of the country). Never mind....

Regardless, I am still disappointed with the fact that Borobudur is not on the top 21. I then questioned the selection criteria. What is it? History? Architecture complexity? Popular demand? In the fairness, Borobudur can easily beat some of the finalists. History... it's got it. Architecture beauty and complexity... it's got it. Popular demand... perhaps not. Why not? Hhmmm... maybe the Indonesian government did not pay much enough to the voting organization? Sounds political and sarcastic, but this is why once again everyone should question the selection criteria.

To put it this way, being in the top 7 would easily bring in the tourists to the country. How many of you have had a dream of visiting the 7 wonders before you die? I do. Now, if it's not part of the tourism marketing campaign, then what? Perhaps Indonesia needs a stronger Tourism Minister to negotiate. So much for being a nationalist today.

The Catalogue of Disasters

This morning, as usual, I did my ritual before starting any works: updating myself with the world news. Sadly, today's headline on most of the journals shared the same breaking news: "Garuda Bursts into Flame and Kills ... People".

My heart sank immediately. Never had I felt very disturbed with disastrous news before. This is the 6th disaster that hit the nation within 2.5 months, which means since Dec 30, 2006, we have heard a disaster taking place in Indonesia every 11 days! Gee... we are talking about real disasters here... disasters on which human beings were killed in vain.

The record does not stop there. Since the last tsunami that badly hit Aceh and its surroundings on Dec 26, 2004, there have been 15 disasters altogether, natural and accidental. This gives us one big headline almost every 2 months (53 days to be exact).

For the list of the disasters, you can click here, but they simply forgot to list the recent deadly floods in Jakarta early Feb this year.

Sadly, it's just yesterday when we heard about the 6.3 Ritcher earthquake in West Sumatera that has devastated the people (... and my thoughts and prayer are still for them). And today, we had Garuda on the news.... just moments after we selfishly judged Adam Air or the other budget airliners and said never to fly them again and decisively chose only to fly Garuda for domestic flights thinking they are safer than others, given the few available options.

For the accidents, I am not here to judge anyone. It has been said enough by many people who demanded the accountability of the Ministry of Transportation, the Governor of Jakarta, airline or ferry owners, etc. But will they ever listen to us? No! Will they ever learn? Never! Will they step down? Never ever!

I am just tired of all these.