uglyduck

Inconvenient Truth

I’m not trying to talk about Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, even though these—things that I will talk about—aren’t less annoying than the fact that our earth is dying. I just watched this movie “Lord of War” in social studies class. Staring Nicolas Cage, as Yuri Orlov, a man who going around the world from

Middle East

to Sierra

Leon

, selling guns.

            Later, the

US

government eventually found out about Orlov’s business. After several sweet escapes, Orlov finally get caught with enough evidences to put hiss butt into jail. But, apparently the police set him free. At first I didn’t get what happened. So I asked my friend, and thank to her she explained to me. There are two reasons why the police release him: First, because if Orval brought to the court, his testimony will embarrass the

US

government. And the second one is because the

US

government it self needs Orval to sell the guns.

            Why his testimony will embarrass

US

government? Because the government is clearly get involved in the business. In the movie, we saw this mysterious character, wearing military uniform and badges, made a deal with Orlov. I don’t know what exactly his role, but he definitely makes the business easier. Also, from article “An Arms Dealer’s US Ties” from newsweek.com stated that the Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confirmed that “both the US Army and Coalition Provisional Authority did conduct business with companies” that had subcontracted with Viktor Bout, a Russian arm trafficker. Halliburton, the oil services giant formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney is among those firms.

            Anyway, the second reason why Yuri Orlov was release, is because “The US can’t openly sell those guns.”

            “Why would the

US

sell the guns?” I asked my friend.

            “See, that guy sells the arms for one sided of two sides who fighting. He sells to the side that we—US—sided. So they could fight the other side that we don’t like.”

            That is shocking for me. There are so much secrets hold by government. Some secrets are actually become public secrets already, just like this arm trafficking case. I keep questioning, if we people know it, why there’s no one do something about it? But probably I’m too naïve.

            Those people up there, they have the power. Let say, pretty much they control everything and they could just kick some people’s butts, who trying to mess up with them. Politic is complicated, isn’t it? And it hides so much inconvenient truths back there.

Harlem Rockets

Hari Jum'at kemarin ini harusnya ada janji makan siang sama temen di Brattleboro Downtown. Tapi setelah nunggu selama 20 menit di Mocha Joe's (semacam warung kopi gitu deh), eh dianya nelpon dan bilang, "Aku ga bisa pergi!" Sial. gondok deh. Makanya, pas sorenya diajakin pergi nonton basket di Keene State College sama temen-temen, aku males, "Aku lagi anti social," begitu alasanku. Tapi temen2ku terus maksa, "Gita, ten dollars, when you goin back to your country, you'll lookin back at this time then you'll regret that you werent goin with us." Akhirnya akupun memutuskan ikut. Pertandingan basket di Keene State College ini cuma for fun. Ngga ada kejuaraan. Yang bertanding: Dream Team (yang terdiri dari anak-anak high school, 4 di antara mereka berasal dari sekolahku lho!) versus Harlem Rockets. Harlem Rockets ini adalah tim basket professional yang memang entertaining. Di setiap show nya, mereka biasanya cuma lucu-lucuan doang; keluar make kostum yang aneh-aneh, dribble bola terus bolanya malah masuk ke dalam baju, dan sebagainya. Plus secara fisik mereka ini juga amazing. Dua di antarnya setinggi enam dan tujuh kaki!! Jelas aja mereka membabat habis Dream Team. Skor akhirnya 57 : 67 untuk Harlem Rockets. Padahal Dream Team ini terdiri dari pemain2 pilihan dari beberapa high school varsity teams. Anyway... show yang berlangsung kurang lebih dua jam ini cukup menghibur. Selama pertandingan, lagu hip hop dimainkan, bikin penontonnya pengen goyang terus. Para pemain dari Harlem Rockets juga constantly berinteraksi dengan para penonton. That was Fun.. *foto2nya ada di photo album ku "yeiyy funnn"*

geger komunisme

Jadi alih-alih berkutat dengan nama-nama pahlawan, tanggal peperangan dan tetek-bengek kemerdekaan lainnya, pelajaran sejarah saya sekarang berada seputar civil right movement, JFK assasination, dan baru-baru ini: cold war. Lumayan menarik, sekaligus lumayan njlimet.

Anyway, Mr. Holiday--guru social studies saya--menunjukkan dokumen CIA yang (pada akhirnya) terbuka lebar di depan mata publik, isinya: "The United States should take feasible political, economic and covert propaganda to create problems to USSR."

Intense bukan? Well, itu dokumen CIA yang udah bau tanah si. Pas jaman2 cold war. Tapi anyway, tentu saja USSR a.k.a Soviet Union a.k.a Russia memang (mantan?) musuh bebuyutannya Amerika. Alasannya apalagi kalau bukan komunisme? Amerika percaya bahwa paham ini merupakan ancaman buat pemerintahannya. Nah, pertanyaannya: memangnya ada apa dengan komunisme? Kenapa paham yang satu ini selalu bikin geger?

Kita review ya..

- Amerika vs USSR gara-gara komunisme.

- Cold War Asia juga gara-gara komunisme.

- Dan rupanya, salah satu faktor mengapa Amerika perang dengan Vietnam adalah karena Amerika ingin memberantas komunisme dari Vietnam!

- Dan jangan lupa dengan G3OSPKI!!

So basically, comunism is a principle held is that each should work according to his or her capacity and receive according to his or her needs. Paham ini ditemukan oleh filsuf Karl Marx dari Jerman (kalo ngga salah).

Seperti yang kita tahu, sejak Partai Komunis di bawah pimpinan Mao Tse Tung menguasai Cina pada tahun 1949, China menjadi negara berbasis komunis hingga kini. Well, saya personally belum pernah ke China. Tapi menurut Mr. Holiday dan ayah saya sih, there's nothing in particular yang menunjukkan kalo China itu negara komunis.

Jadi sebenernya ada apa ya?

*silahkan respon bagi yang lebih berpengetahuan soal komunisme stuffs*

Kayla Dix

Saya dan Kayla Dix mulai berteman sejak kami berada di ceramic advanced yang sama. Well, techincally I started to talk to her since she added me on Facebook (and she added me because we were classmates). Anyway, sebelum saya mengenal Kayla Dix secara personal, saya punya stereotype tersendiri tentangnya: talkative, cool, mungkin rada hipokrit, seperti remaja Amerika pada umumnya dia pasti suka hura-hura, nothing special.

Saya berpikir seperti itu, karena saya kenal mantan pacar Kayla; ZC, which is a jerk. Mereka pacaran selama kurang-lebiih 3 tahun! Dan saya pikir, cewek-cewek tipe seperti itulah yang ZC suka.

Rupanya saya salah. Seiring saya mengobrol dengan Kayla lebih sering, saya sadar bahwa dia tidak seperti apa yang saya pikir. Kayla--yang tingginya tidak jauh beda dengan saya ini--sebenarnya pemalu, bukan orang yang rela berbasa-basi hanya supaya punya banyak teman, dan angat down to earth. Dalam waktu singkat, ia pun masuk dalam daftar orang-orang favorit saya.

Tanggal 1 Maret 2008 yang lalu, Beauty Pageant Contest menjadi salah satu daftar kegiatan dalam Winter Break Carnaval di Brattleboro Vermont. Dari 9 orang kontestan, 6 di antaranya adalah teman sekolah saya, dan salah seorang dari mereka adalah Kayla Dix. Sayapun--excited--menjagokan Kayla. Singkat cerita, ia menang! Saya berteriak-teriak dari kursi penonton sampai suara saya serak, saya bertepuk tangan constantly, dan setelah acara ditutup, saya bergegas naik ke atas panggung untuk mengucapkan selamat dan memberikan sekuntum mawar putih untuknya.

Beberapa hari sesudah kontes, saya dan Kayla pergi makan siang bersama. Saya mewawancaranya untuk Greetings From America. Kami mengobrol banyak, sampai terlambat dua menit (which is quite big deal di Amerika) untuk ceramic advanced.

Menjadi Beauty Queen tidak mengubah Kayla sama sekali. Lagaknya tidak sok cantik; tebar pesona ke sana kemari. Kayla Dix tetap gadis pemalu yang sama. Yang selalu tersenyum sopan, tertawa kecil, teman mengobrol yang nyaman dan apa adanya.

(hugging Kayla ^ ^)

( Kayla Dix and the winner of Princess Pageant)

Barack Obama is on the phone!

Apparently, the presidential candidates have bunches of ways to attract the public. Their brand new tactics is randomly calling the people, and deliver their campaign on the phone! Yesterday, I went to my friend’s—Sam Harris—house. He and his sister was freak out and said, “We just got Barrack Obama on the phone!” But I wasn’t really paid attention because I’m too excited to see Sam’s girlfriend’s new hair color (she dyed her hair dark-brown).

            This morning, probably around 8 o’ clock in the morning, the phone was ringing in our house. My brother (the birthday boy, he turns 12 today) was picking up the phone. The next second he was laughing, “Hillary Clinton is on the phone!” and he hang up. I just realize that campaign via phone call is the candidate’s brand new tactic. Unfortunately some people are careless and they rather hung up on them.

            I’m not a big fan of presidential election issue. But some of you may expect that I’m being a little more aware, since I’m involved in Greetings from

America

J So this is a little bit story around the campaign that I noticed: Barrack Obama (D) and John McCain (R) were arguing and ‘attacking’ each other on their speech related to Iraq War. McCain frankly justified

America

’s decision to send the troops to

Iraq

because this is about safety reason. “There is Al-Qaeda hiding somewhere there,” that was pretty much what he said. The next day, in Obama’s campaign (unfortunately I didn’t even know where was it) he said, “There is nothing such as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, until President Bush and John McCain decided to send the troops.” And that was followed by claps from the crowds.

            Well, since I ain’t American citizen, I won’t bother to choose whether I want Hillary Clinton or Barrack Obama or John McCain or Huckabee. But I’m hoping that whoever win is he or she who’s gonna end this baloney war soon. I know though that there are probably a lot of considerations to call back the troops from the battle zone, even though I don’t know what are they. I also still questioning my self, if

America

and his troops decided to stop their intervention, will the terrorism by the militant groups of Moslems stop? *eyes rolling*