Everything dies

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The last few weeks has seen the Indonesian live cattle scandal explode and expire.  

I think the main problem exposed by this affair is the disconnection most Australians have from animal reality - and the willingness of foolish bureaucrats and politicians to pander to nonsense - to the fairly immediate detriment of animals, farmers and common sense.

Let's get one thing clear at the start.  I don't think it's ever a good idea for humans to mistreat animals.  But it's an ill (at the extreme perhaps - an evil) just like a lots of other ills.  We need to be careful that we don't turn our world upside down to solve one ill - at the cost of creating a series of other ills - worse than what we started with.

Let's remember that a domesticated cow is descended from what was always a prey animal.  Its ancestors were chased, caught and killed by predators for millions of years - with nary a stun gun in sight.  Cattle or sheep or chickens having a scary, gory, painful end is what they have always had.

When we kill domesticated (or other) animals 'humanely' we are doing it, I think, for two reasons:

• the meat of an animal that was not stressed at the time of slaughter tastes better; and
• in some way we (humans) are always diminished by cruelty.

I don't think there is an additional obligation to do anything just because nutty people are squeamish about a natural process - that is ... dieing.

My father and mother couldn't afford to be squeamish if they wanted to have the treat of what they then called 'poultry'.  Between them, they had to kill a hen, pluck it, gut it, clean it, prepare it.  Their grandchildren pick up the organic chicken from the supermarket or Deli - and just have to cook it.

The reality is that the life (and end) of the hen my parents put on our table in the 1960s was immeasurably better than that of the chicken my kids eat.  Eight week life, unnatural food, unnatural housing, sub clinical dosing with antibiotics, grotesque body shapes, industrial slaughterhouses ... that's what produces the chicken we eat every day.  
Sorry ... the organic chicken will have another week or two of life, slightly better food, slightly better housing, no antibiotics - and an industrial slaughterhouse.  

I can't help but see the fuss over the way Indonesians treat cattle as ... mainly ... self indulgent (and hypocritical) squeamishness in a set of circumstances where the very real costs of that self indulgence are imposed on others.


[After discussing the following two paragraphs with my cultural adviser (my son), I've decided to add a warning.  Only read on if you have heard of DH Lawrence.]


I'm reminded of the line in Lady Chatterley's Lover where Mellors observes to Connie (her in a state of undress) "An' if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman as couldna shit nor piss." 

Mellors was enough in touch with reality to understand that humans (and animals) shit, piss ... and, one day, die. 
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Good news story from Indonesia

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The Lowy Institute has just published a study of the Islamic Court system in Indonesia.

The Islamic Courts deal with what we might call family law matters for people who identify as Muslim.  As there are over 230 million people in Indonesia and the majority are Muslim, it is the busiest court in that country.

The authors (Tim Lindsay and Cate Sumner) found it is one of the most effective and reliable institutions in Indonesia.  Even before the end of the New Order in 1998, it was already a source of constructive support to poor - and particularly strong on the rights of women.  During the Reformasi era it has continued to develop - and become a model for less reliable and effective parts of the justice system.

Although I've never come across the Court in my time in Indonesia, there are elements of the report that 'ring true' for me.

First - my experience is that Islam is an important part of what is good about Indonesia.  Our Indonesian friends generally take their religious obligations quite seriously.  The mosque plays a role in their lives more akin to the church of 50 years ago for Australians or New Zealanders.

Second - development of the Indonesian State occurs when and if Indonesians want it to - and then, only in ways that are consistent with their rich history. 
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Making a compost heap

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I had a great time yesterday!

We spent the weekend at Panaruban where a young American couple have had plans to start a compost project.  They have a new baby and their academic research priorities - so they had made a start ... and then stalled a bit.  They had obtained and cleared a site, but hadn't made much progress in actually building compost piles.

On Friday I went off to look for something to contain the compost.  I was hoping to make a version of my Australian system (see earlier compost blog post), but I couldn't find the reinforcing mesh that I thought I might use to create a containing circle.

What I did find was some lengths of galvanised fencing material.  They were 2.4 metres long and 1.2 metres high.  We cut them in half and set off for the site.

At the site we cleared the ground and made a square compost bin.  Because most Indonesians are somewhat shorter than me, I decided to cut down one side to make it a bit easier to load material in - and then place it within the heap.  Heap construction makes a big difference with composting - to the speed of the composting process - and also to whether it creates a nuisance.

Nuisance is easily avoided by putting anything that might smell or attract scavenging animals in the middle of the heap and covering it.  In Australia (or New Zealand) you encounter people who think that composting is dirty and, in some way, unhygenic.  In Indonesia the prejudice is even stronger.  The expectation seems to be that it will smell and attract rats.  Done properly this just does not happen!

Here the team of Eman, Wagiran and I are connecting up the first two pieces of the heap, before attaching them to the stake we have put at the corner.

Once the container structure was complete, we started to fill it.  There was not much material actually to hand - so I didn't expect to get very far.

However, we were being watched.  The elderly gentleman next door had been watching what we were doing - and after seeing that we were running out of material, he offered us some sweepings from his yard.  When these were enthusiastically received he went off into the surrounding areas and came back with baskets and baskets of fantastic compostable green material.  Here is one of our helpers (Nawang) emptying one of maybe 20 baskets of material that Pak Tatang gave us from heaps that were within 20 metres of our site.

We didn't take them from an existing compost heap.  Rather, it was just rough green material (not good enough to feed to cattle) that had been cut from somewhere it wasn't wanted and put in a quiet corner where it would eventually decay in place - but not be subsequently used (as compost) other than in just building the soil where it was dumped in a corner or a little gully.

In Indonesia you see these heaps of organic material laced through with plastic rubbish almost everywhere you look.  If they are inconvenient - they will often be burnt.
Smoky, smelly fires of green material (and plastic) are just everywhere.  It didn't take very long before we had a modest bin full - but with a 'hole' in the middle.  Into that hole we tipped a bag full of what can only be described as rocket fuel (in composting terms).

I asked our hosts for the weekend whether I could get some cow manure from their small dairy farm.  Pak Iskandar have me a whole bag of manure that had first been through his biogas system.  The material he gave me was almost compost like already - with very little smell.  Fantastic stuff!

When I think about the biogas process - it produces methane - which is CH4.  I think that means that all the nitrogen I need for the compost heap should still be there and still available to balance out the carbon content of the other material.

We also put in some kitchen scraps, but when I think about it, I don't think the compost heap is the right place for kitchen scraps in this environment.  Almost every house has chickens - and scraps are used to feed them.

In permaculture terms feeding scraps to chickens would have to be a better use than composting it - particularly seeing that the cow manure is available as a source of nitrogen (which cannot be fed to chickens).  The chicken manure would be an even better source - just the same scraps ... but after they have been through the chicken.

So here is Pak Tatang and I admiring our completed compost heap - after I put on a topping of grass and sawdust.  The finishing touch will be some sort of cover to stop the rainy season rain so soaking the pile that it won't compost properly.

I wouldn't mind betting that this heap will compost very well.  I look forward to getting reports on its progress.  Overall, the site looks pretty good - with one completed heap and another underway.

I am a bit ambivalent about the process however.  I find myself asking myself how I'm different from the Green Revolution gurus who came into Indonesia (and many other places) with 'new and better' technology that turned out to be 'new' but, in many cases, anything but better.

While I might think composting is better / purer than artificial, chemical fertilisers, what do I really know about how the farming systems of this area of Java really work?  My instinct tells me that, if I observed for a while, almost certainly I would learn things that would cause me to modify processes and better integrate them with pre-existing systems.

Of course the great guru of composting, Sir Albert Howard, did his learning in an environment not that dissimilar to a Javanese village.

Wow !

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We just spent a weekend with friends at a place called Panaruban.

These friends are very special people.  Iskandar Kuntoadji and Tri Mumpuni run an organisation called IBEKA.  This page focusses on Puni (as an Ashoka Fellow), but also tells the IBEKA story.  Make sure you work your way through the four pages of information if you possibly can (see the line half way down the page that reads The New Idea | The Problem | The Strategy | The Person).

Iskandar gets only one small mention, but I'm sure Puni will forgive me saying that IBEKA is very much a team effort.  While Puni is the public face the real work is split pretty evenly between social preparation (Puni's speciality) and the engineering and construction handled by Iskandar and his technical team.

I'm a bit in awe of how well they do both sides.  Their community engagement seems to be about as good as it gets - and the engineering planning and execution is practical and disciplined.  How can I know this?  Well there is a track record of 15 years and around 60 different projects.

This photo shows the Cinta Mekar power station.  It's a 500 kw micro-hydro station a few kms from Panaruban.  In the centre left of the photo you can see Iskandar and a couple of colleagues working on a pico-hydro turbine test.  There is a laptop on the platform just above turbine that is monitoring its performance.  The technology in both the power house and on the test site is a mixture of purchased and locally developed - with the most important components being locally manufactured and locally serviceable.

And 100 metres behind me when I took this photo is the health centre that is partially funded with profits earned by the village cooperative that owns and operates this power station.

It's really interesting talking to Puni and Iskandar about their 'failures' over the years.  They are like most very good businesses (or NGOs I suppose) - they don't lightly countenance failure - and have a whole variety of strategies to work around and through common problems.  But after a few penetrating questions, I have discovered that their strategies do invariably include the most important problem solving strategies of all - persistence, discipline and, in the end, a willingness to 'walk away' when fundamental values are at risk of being compromised.
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Tim Lindsay does understand Indonesia

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See my previous post (8 November) on the current political situation in Indonesia.

Finally there is an intelligent article in the Australian press on the great battle underway in Jakarta.  As one might expect, it's written by someone other than an Australian journalist.  Tim Lindsay is an academic.

Here is the article.

However, there is one thing where I think I disagree with Lindsay.  He puts the Bank Century issue in his list of issues with the implication that it is just one more corruption scandal.  I suspect that something more complex is happening.

As I understand it, Bank Century was a (reasonably typical) badly run Jakarta bank.  It had the misfortune (perhaps good fortune) to get into trouble at the time the Global Financial Crisis hit late last year.  This meant that, in the rush and panic of the GFC, the banking regulators and the politicians had to consider the possible systemic impact of a bank failing.

Government decided to 'rescue' Bank Century.  Surprise, surprise - the rescue cost more than first thought.  So - there is now a clamour to find out who benefited - and to attack the people involved in the decision to rescue as 'corrupt'.  It is worth looking at who is being targetted - and who is doing the accusing.

The primary Bank Century targets are a lady called Sri Mulyani Indrawati (Minister of Finance) and Boediono (Vice President).  The main accusers are from the Indonesian parliament.

Sri Mulyani and Boediono are very prominent members of a group among the Indonesian elite sometimes referred to as 'the professionals'.  They are called this because of their education and approach to public administration - in summary, their commitment to professionalism.

The main alternative to professionalism is an approach that 'works things out pragmatically' based on more than just the facts and rules - taking into account interests, opinions, past obligations, future expectations .....  a bit like 'stakeholder' politics in Australia really.  And just like in Australia, professionalism is the natural enemy of pragmatic stakeholder politics.

I think Bank Century is actually being seen by the 'pragmatics' as an opportunity to attack the 'professionals' - with the hope being that, if the professionals get a bit of their own medicine in relation to corruption allegations, they will support the pragmatics in their wider battle to reign in the anti corruption forces at the KPK.
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Australian understanding of Indonesia = zero !

Why should I be surprised?  Very few people in Australia have a balanced, intelligent understanding of Indonesia.

Something very, very important is happening in Jakarta at present.  There is a battle underway that may even end up being as significant as 1998 or 1965 - but the Australian media doesn't seem to have noticed.  I'm sure there must be some reporting - but I can't find it in the online editions.

The current battle is ostensibly between the Police and Attorney General's office and the Corruption Eradication Office (called KPK).  KPK has been pursuing official corruption successfully enough to threaten powerful interests in the Indonesian Parliament and the legal system.  The Police and AGO have hit back with investigations of senior members of KPK.  The (now ex) Chairman has been accused of murder.  Two other Commissioners have been accused of accepting bribes to halt investigations.

The details don't matter so much - suffice to say that a big section of Indonesian civil society thinks KPK is in the right.  They are trying to mobilise support and pressure the President to back KPK more decisively than he has been doing.

A few weeks ago a senior Indonesian policeman was silly enough to ask a rhetorical question of a Tempo journalist "Can a Cicak fight a Crocodile?"  A Cicak is a small lizard - in Australia we might call it a gecko.  The policeman was saying that KPK (the Cicak) could not possibly win in any clash with something as powerful as the Indonesian Police (the Crocodile).

There are now a million members of a Facebook Group called Cicak - which is some sort of acronym for Love Indonesia Love KPK.  There is talk of 'people power' of the type that had a major impact on the events of 1998 (fall of the New Order Government).

If I knew how, I would join Cicak and become the million and first member.  I wish them well and think reform of Parliament and the legal system is a goal worth pursuing - even at some risk of social and political upheaval.

How can it be that something that has taken up 80% of the front pages of the Jakarta Post for 10 days has been unreported in Australia?

I suspect the dominant reason is that our view of Indonesia is so distorted that it is not easy to actually explain what is going on.

Didn't the 'good guys' win and the 'bad guys' lose back when they got rid of Suharto?
Well no actually.  In practical terms, rent seeking behaviour (corruption) has actually been worse since then.  In Indonesia it's always difficult to determine where mutual obligation gives way to rent seeking gives way to petty corruption gives way to grand corruption.  The fall of the New Order government and the decision (hotly contested though it may have been) by the Indonesian Armed Forces to step back from politics were just first tentative steps.  What is happening now may be the next step in a long slow transition.

Islamic terrorism is the main story! 
Well no actually.  While there is some threat, it's probably less than an Indian student faces on tonight's train to Weribee.  If the current situation spills onto the streets, I'll be more concerned about personal safety than I've been about terrorism over the last year or two.  What will DFAT do with their travel warnings then?

Indonesia is a marvellous, complex place.  We owe it to ourselves (as Australians) to develop a more sophisticated understanding of it.  Reporting a big, important story would be a start.

My Papa's distant cousins

There will be readers of this blog who may remember the efforts my Papa used to make each year to prevent blackbirds and starlings from eating too many of his cherries. There were several weeks in late Spring and early summer when battle was joined by a whole variety of means.

Most conventional perhaps was the shotgun (slug guns for grandsons eager to help). But the more interesting parts of the system were various bird scaring contraptions that worked on a combination of noise and visual disturbance.

It's a bit difficult to know quite how to describe the whole thing, but suffice to say, that the components included electric motors, gear boxes from old farm machinery, long lengths of wire, lengths of second hand galvanised iron downpipe, gravel of just the right type (smooth river gravel didn't work), an old blacksmith's hammer - which struck a disc off an old disc plough.

Why recall all this? Well a few days ago, on an early morning walk, we came across my Papa's distant Javanese cousins - with their own bird problems. These people have padi rice fields that are within a week or two of harvest.

You can see the grains of rice - and so can substantial flocks of small birds - a bit smaller and finer than a sparrow.

With shotguns not an option on a relatively small island with a population of 130 million, a lower tech alternative is one component of the system.

I'm not sure how many he'd get with this. They seemed pretty small and quick.

The more important part of the system was a series of strings - with streamers and noise making contraptions attached.

A well timed tug on the right strings - and the flocks of birds take fright - and fly on to another patch - when it's necessary to pull another string.

Eventually they seem to hope that the birds get tired of constant disturbance - or find the padi of someone who is still in bed at 5 am - when they should be out protecting their crop.

This was the most impressive of the 'control centres'. Most were at ground level and just provided a place to sit and some shelter from the sun. This one involved a bit of height - and padi fields quite a way away.

There was a special relay system to carry the operator's tug at least 100 metres - and then up and over a little roadway. I can see my Papa looking at it and approving - or disapproving if he thought there was a better way to solve the problem.

This guy not only had the only high rise control centre, but he also had a wind energy driven noise generator of some type. I'm pretty sure Len Holdaway would have understood it - even if his grandson couldn't quite work it out.

And finally he is the man himself. Can you see the likeness?

One of life's stranger pleasures ...

The last two weeks I've been back in Central Java working with regional water authorities - trying to help bring reticulated drinking water to more people. This time I took my wife - and she brought our vehicle. I still went to work all day, but in the evening the hotel room was a little more like home. And my wife is quite capable of entertaining herself in places that are somewhat off the normal tourist track.

One thing that always interests us both is how people farm. Some things you see just as you drive around - the crops, the terraces, the irrigation technologies, the tools, the transport systems. They are easier to see in a place like Wonosobo (where we were last week) because the population density is so high and nothing much is hidden behind walls.

I've always enjoyed going into the stores that farmers shop at. In Australia its Elders or CRT or Landmark. In New Zealand its PGG or CRT. In the States they're harder to find, but are there in many of the little rural towns we have visited.

What I enjoy is finding something that I can't get at home - but that is useful or

clever in some way. I can easily think of things like my Carhartt hat - bought somewhere in Ohio. It's a heavyweight version of a baseball cap - with ear flaps. I guess it's made for farmers who have to work all day in the snow of an Ohio winter. Most times of most days it is not necessary in Australia - but there are times when it gets very cold at Moora - and my Carhartt hat keeps me warm - even if only for the early morning work.

Not intending to offend any Ohioans, but the hat looks silly enough that I'd take it off if anyone came.

It probably cost me $20, but it serves a niche need well - plus it makes me recall my son David's year at High School in Brown County, Ohio and his wonderful, generous host family - the Dotsons.

It's a long way from southern Ohio to Central Java, but a few days ago my wife found the equivalent of a farm supplies section of the Wonosobo pasar (market). First she just bought me a machete that I will use in the garden or to prepare stock feed. I sent her back to buy other stuff. I think she got a number of hand tools of various types (several to give away).

There must have been some risk, as she drove back to Jakarta, that if she got stopped, she could be accused of carrying enough weaponry to start a small (low tech) insurrection.

The cost of this collection of knives, machetes, sickles, adzes and grubbers - Rp350,000 or US$35. And the lady who sold them looked like she thought all her Christmases (Lebarans maybe) had come at once!

Earthquakes

Earthquakes are not fun! We had a medium sized one in Jakarta yesterday. Away to the south was closer to the epicentre and the damage there seems to have been greater. There has been some loss of life.

Kristina says she didn't even feel it - she must have been sozzled from another of her long lunches! I was on the 35th floor of a steel framed skyscraper and I certainly felt it. First there was a bit of a wobble - then it kept on going - and eventually we started to sway. There were no thumps.

I would have guessed the earthquake lasted 45 seconds, but the papers say a minute. The building then swayed for maybe two or three minutes - enough for me to feel a little motion sickness.

The quake itself was also long enough for me to decide to get under a door frame - and try to tell colleagues to do the same. Most of them seemed to prefer running around in circles - or bolting for the stair wells. My partner jumped in a lift!

Afterwards I was asked whether I was not scared? I said I was in fact terrified - which is why I was standing quietly in a doorway on the 35th floor and not getting trampled in a stair well, stuck in a lift or struck on the head by falling glass outside a tall building.

When we got home to our 5th floor apartment we found cracks in the laundry wall - see photo.

I remember quakes from my New Zealand childhood. I always find them scary and can't help wondering - just how big is this going to be?

My home town Blenheim - and Wellington (where I went to University) are overdue for a 'big one'. Last time there was a really 'big one' in 1855, the location of Wellington airport went from a tidal swamp to dry land.

An 1848 quake lifted big parts of the Wairau Valley - including the farm I grew up on. With melting Greenland ice sheets, we could probably do with another couple of metres rise - but I shouldn't joke about things like this.

Addendum - It seems I got things back to front in the last paragraph. It seems the Wairau plain fell (not lifted) in 1848 - and as a result the Opawa River became navigatable as far up as where Blenheim now is. Apparently that earthquake also created the Vernon Lagoon.

Going bush - in Central Java

I was born in what Australians call 'the bush' - that part of the world beyond the big cities.

At age 18 I was happy enough to get away from always being someone else's son or grandson. For at least 20 years I enjoyed the relative anonymity of big cities. Since then it has suited me to spend more and more time with the type of people I grew up with - as I have been doing these past 3 days.

The good people of Blenheim would not necessarily see the similarities to the people of Kudus in Central Java - but I can.

Just 10 minutes ago at breakfast a man about my own age took it upon himself to greet me (an obvious stranger) and ask me what my business was in Kudus - much as Harold or John Spark or JC Irving would have done - just out of interest and good fellow feeling.

I am here to try to help the local water authority to attract loan funds to enable the extension of basic drinking water infrastructure. When I did similar work in Australia I always found it easy to empathise with local people and easy to get irritated by the hoops that various bureaucracies put them through. So it is here also.

The forces that work for good and progress always coexist with other more malign forces. At age 18 I lacked the maturity and wisdom to sort the one from the other in a place where my roots went back more than a century. At 56 I find it a little easier to see the parallels and guess just who might be on the side of the angels - and when.

Today I have to look at the first cut of a capital program for the next few years. The question I'm expected to shine light on is whether it's 'bankable'.

Bankability is actually a very useful concept to apply to such circumstances, as it's more than just the sum of its parts. We're looking at four contributors to bankability - their governance, their reporting, their planning and their tariff policies. Then we are asking whether it all comes together in what I'm terming 'a good story'.

Bureaucracies everywhere love to define things in terms of their inputs - if all the inputs are ok - or have a policy in place to 'pretend' it's ok - then, by definition, the sum of it all must be ok! Not so .... !

The first number I heard late last night for the Kudus capital program was very high - bordering on the bizarre. I can hardly wait for the process we'll go through today (and over the next few weeks) to (hopefully) pull it together into a coherent 'good story' that a bank can consider supporting.

I'd love to show you some photos of the beautiful landscapes around here - of the fields of peanuts, sugar cane, beans and other dry season crops I don't recognise. Unfortunately my photographer is back in Jakarta - so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Terrorism in Jakarta - and Melbourne

If any of our friends in Melbourne are feeling terrorised - please come and spend some time with us in Jakarta until things settle down.

Oh - DFaT hasn't issued an alert about travelling to or staying in Melbourne?  Why am I not surprised?  They save such pointless, counter productive and destructive responses for Bali and Jakarta.  It's good to see ordinary Australians ignore them - and sad to see companies covering their butts to no useful purpose.

Well done AFP and Vic Police for the work that led to arrests in Melbourne this morning - before something happened.  Also well done to the Indonesian police for their work since the hotel attacks here 10 days ago.  

We ought to be more realistic about these things.  Terrorism exists because, on one level, it works - it's an high impact, low cost way to advance a minority view.  Whether it's evil or not depends on your point of view - one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.  Consequently, it will always be with us.

Having watched what has happened over the last 10 years, I think the only rationale response to terrorism is police work within the rule of law.  Because the threat is international, it now needs international cooperation - with the collaboration between Australia and Indonesia since the Bali bombings being a good model.

A year or so ago I read a book called Three Cups of Tea about a guy called Greg Mortenson and his work in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  His work costs about the same as terrorism in input terms.  But he truly does God's work.  A few dollars in his hands achieves what millions in military expenditure cannot.

I just looked at his website - and its seems he's now having a wider influence - quite exciting really.  It's worth a look.

In the mean time - keep safe and think clearly.

Complex systems

I've been becoming more and more interested in complex systems theory. According to Wikipedia:

A complex system is any system featuring a large number of interacting components, whose aggregate activity is non-linear and typically exhibits self-organization under selective pressures.

It seems to me that both economies and farms are best understood as complex adaptive systems. I have always understood this on an intuitive, common sense level. Complex systems theory puts an intellectual framework around it.

One of my Dad's favourite aphorisms (perhaps just when he was arguing something with me) was 'beware of people who give simple answers to complicated questions'. I would like to think I've spent a good part of my life since I left the farm trying to avoid the tendency we all have to look for 'simple answers'.

I've recently come across someone who is is using complexity theory to explain the wet rice agriculture systems on the island of Bali. His name is Prof. Stephen Lansing - and he is very special!

I first found him via a podcast you can find on this page. The lecture was given in February 2006 - so it's well down the page. You can just search for Lansing or Bali.

From there, I found a book he has written called Perfect Order: Recognizing Complexity in Bali. So far I've only managed to read part of the first chapter on Amazon, but it's very good.

There is also an interview with him on YouTube called Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life.

Another favourite author / thinker of mine is Nicholas Nassim Taleb. He is a trenchant critic of mainstream capital markets theory. His best book is The Black Swan. The following is a quote from his website:

What I do: I am interested in how to live in a world we don’t understand very well –in other words, while most human thought (particularly since the enlightenment) has focused us on how to turn knowledge into decisions, I am interested in how to turn lack of information, lack of understanding, and lack of “knowledge” into decisions –how not to be a “turkey”. My last book The Black Swan (and the 4th Quadrant papers) drew a map of what we don’t understand; my current work focuses on how to domesticate the unknown "what to do in a world we don't understand".

I find myself wondering what my own response to the challenges presented by Lansing and Taleb ought to be?

Jakarta bombings

Friday morning there were two bombings at major hotels in Jakarta - where we live at present.  If you have any reason to come to Jakarta, I would encourage you to follow through on your plans - for several reasons:

First, as terrible as these, or any attacks are, the are still extremely low probability events. You have to be very, very unlucky to be caught up in them.  We were in Jakarta on Friday morning and only a couple of kilometres from the bombings.  But I found out about them via The Age website - and Friday proceeded just as it was planned for me and almost everyone else in this huge city.  Yesterday, it was almost easy to forget it had happened - life goes on as usual for most of us.

Second, you can reduce the already vanishingly small terrorism risk, by thinking clearly about the nature of the risk.  One could, for example, avoid international hotels.  If you come to Jakarta, there are several older hotels (still 5 star) that no longer have the big prestige operator, but are still comfortable places to stay - and much cheaper.  Because the risk is so small, I probably can't be bothered with this.  Late on Friday morning I went to a meeting in another big hotel - it was just too much hassle to change the meeting venue. 

Next, terrorism depends, for its effectiveness on ordinary people being terrorised by it.  It doesn't make sense to me to be phlegmatic about road accidents that kill thousands of people every day - yet stricken by terrorism which kills a few only very occasionally. 

Of course, objectively, there is always a chance of terrorist attacks in Jakarta - but objectively, it's always lower than in London - or many other cities from time to time.  

The bombing will have its pernicious effects.  First the damage to the families and friends of those killed or injured - and our prayers should be with them.  But then the wider damage to the economy, as people stop coming to this city for a while and cancel plans to do business in Indonesia.  This damage is less dramatic and traumatic, but more substantial in the long run.  And - we mainly do it to ourselves!

There is an extent to which the bombers nearly always win - just because they do 'terrify' us.  In this horrible cause, sorry to say, they are aided and abetted by Departments of Foreign Affairs and the HR departments of companies.

Instead of giving a clear headed assessment of relative risks, these people (who should and do know better) give in to the need to 'do something' and upgrade a travel warning or cancel a business meeting.  In doing so - they do the devil's work!

I am interested in what the police and intelligence people turn up about these bombings.  I will consider what they say carefully - but I will not be terrified.

Team Nyamuk

A couple of Sundays ago I got to Kramat Jati to coach my basketball team.  There were a whole group of little kids already there playing soccer, so I threw them a couple of balls while we waited for the others.  Pretty soon they all had one and I showed them some ball handling drills.

Then the other kids arrived, so they sat on the side and watched with big wide brown eyes.  Most of them had no shoes on, but I couldn't leave them out.

They all came back the next week with slightly more suitable footwear - and they are proving already to be among the most readily coachable of the kids.  They listen well - and they try things without worrying too much how they look.

The second photo is of the 2 guys who listened best and worked hardest last week.  They each got a (slightly used) basketball to take home with them.

They remind me of a kid - now a young man - I coached in Australia.  They are a similar age and similar size to Bud - when I first coached him for the Diamond Valley Eagles bottom age U12s.  I had the pleasure of coaching Bud for 3 or 4 years - the last time in the U20s.  

There are other coaches who, no doubt, taught him more than I did, but I always got a buzz when I saw Bud do the fundamentals well - and when you could see evidence that he could think on court.

Bud was / is a little guy who plays the point.  It helps to be big in basketball - but your head and heart still matter more.

PS  Nyamuk means mosquito.

What's happening ?!?!

The last few days have seen the Bernie Madoff scandal break.  

I'm living in a country where the so called 'Washington Consensus' on what constitutes good economic policy was obnoxiously rammed down the throat of politicians and policy makers.  Turns out the biggest crooks and most gullible fools might have been in New York and not in Jakarta!

Funny thing is - personally I have the same faith in markets now as ever.  As I've said to a few clients over the years, it's quite a lot about implementation.  And implementation involves competing objectives, compromise and hard work - as well as principle.

I suspect we'll see markets pass harsh judgement on the Wall St way of mobilising and deploying capital over the next few years.  

There are some parallels with my own medium term plans.  

I want to produce local food for local people at Moora.  The current industrial food system, no doubt, will think I'm nuts - but I suspect that industrial agriculture is almost as vulnerable to disruption and change as global capital markets.

We live in interesting times.

Kampung basketball

What does one do on a weekend when one would really rather be at Moora - but can't be?

I coach some kids in a Jakarta kampung called Kramat Jati.  I've always enjoyed coaching - teaching a few basketball fundamentals and seeing kids grow in skills and poise.

World Vision helped me find these guys.  There are some sort of social organisation - school, library, little mosque and an attendance list.  That stuff doesn't matter because we have a (seriously crappy) concrete court and two baskets that are roughly the right height, but too small and without markings.  I bought a dozen rubber balls (total cost $100) and we're off and running.

I've done 4 sessions now - from 7:30 to 9:00 am on a Sunday morning.  The girls in the photo are part of my core regulars and have been every week.  We're some way towards understanding that they have to listen, but there are only the most preliminary signs of any sort of skill acquisition.

Yesterday morning I explained that I will be going back to Australia this week and won't be back until early January.  After a short discussion my team gathered around and the oldest boy started to make a little speech - which turned into a prayer for my safe travel and return.  I'm not sure just who we were addressing because, as well as the mosque evidencing Islam, I have a (to be) point guard called Maria - which is usually a pretty strong sign of Catholicism.  Either way, I will board my Garuda flight on Thursday evening with increased confidence.

First post

I'm learning.  And this blog is going to be part of a learning process.  

In a couple of years I want to be making a living from my small farm (57 acres) just outside of Melbourne, Australia.  At the moment I'm still employed as a professional accountant - and living in an apartment in Jakarta.  It is really more correct to say 'we' because I'm here with Kristina - my wife of 35 years - the mother of my four children - and my best mate!

Not too far in the future, we want to make at least part of a living producing food for people in the Gisborne / Sunbury area of Melbourne.  At that time we think we will be using a website to communicate with our customers.  It seems to make sense to start into the process of communicating online.

So this blog will mainly be about Moora - our farm in Couangalt Rd, South Gisborne, Australia.  It is presently in the care of our son and a farm manager.  

Inevitably, it will also be a bit about our life in Jakarta, about our kids, extended family and friends.   I guess it will also touch on the wonderful country (Indonesia) that has become our third home after Australia and the land of our birth (New Zealand).  And I don't think I will be able to blog without talking about the extraordinary times.