Abana - The Lord's Prayer

 

ABANA

Injiilu Mattay 6 : 9 – 13

Abana Prayer in English "The Lord's Prayer"

The Our Father in Arabic

Indonesians Becoming More Religious But at The Same Time More Intolerant to The Other

Speakers in International Conference on Religion in Public Spaces in Contemporary South East Asia

Indonesians are becoming more religious and, at the same time, intolerant of different religious identities, which threatens the basic foundation of pluralism in Indonesia, an international seminar in Jakarta concluded.

“No country is free from religious intolerance. It is the collective responsibility of both government and society to ensure that religious intolerance is roundly rejected,” Canadian Ambassador to Indonesia Mackenzie Clugston said in his welcoming remarks at the international conference on the “Religion in Public Spaces in Contemporary Southeast Asia” on Tuesday.

The two-day conference was organized by the Embassy of Canada and the State Islamic University (UIN) Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta to celebrate 60 years of Canadian-Indonesian diplomatic relations and 35 years of the Canada-ASEAN relationship.

Thanks to the Islamic revivalism trend worldwide in general and in Southeast Asia in particular, religion has become an important element in public spaces in recent decades.

“Democratization that has been experienced by countries in Southeast Asia has allowed more freedom for people to exercise their religious beliefs,” Komaruddin Hidayat, rector of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, said. “Social groups, including religious groups, have increasingly played a greater role in changing the public discussion in terms of how religion should be positioned in the country’s development".

Deputy Religious Affairs Minister Nasaruddin Umar saw this trend in a positive light. “I believe that the presence of religious symbols in public spaces is not necessarily opposed to the principles of the modern state and democracy, as both have roots in the notion of individual freedom framed within our constitution,” Nasaruddin said.

While speaking about multiculturalism and religious diversity, Nasaruddin said, Indonesia — the world’s largest Muslim-majority population — has been praised for providing a good model for multiculturalism and managing the country’s religious diversity.

“Multiculturalism, it must be remembered, is a celebration of diversity, not divisive,” Nasaruddin said.

“In Indonesia, multireligious harmony is the very foundation of meaningful social stability, economic growth and political development,” he added.

ASEAN Foundation executive director Makarim Wibisono said that ASEAN, which plans to establish a community in 2015, should focus more on interfaith dialogue to achieve peace and harmony in the region.

“It is needed to promote inter-racial and interfaith dialogue with a view to increasing the respect to freedom of religion or belief and opposing all forms of intolerance,” Makarim said. 

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/03/15/govt-society-told-reject-religious-intolerance.html

The Existence of A Rare Sumatran Tiger is Increasingly Threatened

The year is off to a bad start for Sumatran tigers, as conservation officials in Bengkulu province are reporting almost as much conflict in just a few months as from all of last year. “So far in 2012, we have handled two tiger deaths and six tiger-human conflicts,” Amon Zamora, the head of the province’s Natural Resources Conservation Center, said on Tuesday.

Last year in all of Sumatra, two endangered Sumatran tigers were found trapped and four were known to have died from injuries inflicted by human actions. Bengkulu’s first tiger death this year was of a male, named Rajo by conservation staff, who had been rescued from a snare trap in the Bukit Daun protected forest in Lebong district.

When conservation staff found Rajo on Jan. 8, it seemed he had been left for dead by an unknown attacker who had beaten him with a blunt instrument. “It looked like they had deliberately tried to kill him,” Amon said. “We found him alive but covered in injuries". Despite medical care, Rajo eventually succumbed to his wounds.

The second tiger to die was discovered in Seluma district in February, dismembered and buried in an apparent attempt to hide the crime. “We do not know the cause of death, but when our team dug the tiger out, we found it in pieces, with bones missing,” Amon said, adding that the forest police were still investigating the killing.

Dara, another female tiger so named after she was discovered snared in a North Bengkulu logging concession in February, will never return to the wild after her rescuers were forced to amputate her ensnared front leg, which was badly gangrenous.

In the most recent conflict, residents of Alas Bangun village in North Bengkulu district have reported unrest because of a tiger that has appeared in the vicinity of their village several times over the past few days.

Amon said his staff members were on their way to help. “We’ll try to chase it into the forest, but if that proves impossible then we’ll be forced to conduct an ‘evacuation,’ ”he said, referring to an evacuation of the tiger, not the villagers, highlighting the cause of the problem.

Amon said the increasing frequency of such encounters points to a bleak future for the endangered species, of which only about 400 remain in the wild. Their decline stems primarily from the constant encroachment of human development into their habitat, the conservation officer said.

Of the 400-odd tigers clinging on to their natural habitat, less than a third are thought to be living in areas set aside for conservation purposes.

The rest live in forests earmarked for timber concessions, plantations or other extractive purposes. NGO group Forum HarimauKita, the Indonesian Tiger Conservation Forum, blames such conflicts on a lack of understanding and guidelines for tiger conservation among low-level government officials and plantation workers. 

Antara, JG

New Leopard Frog Species Found in New York City Area

Scientists have identified a new species of leopard frog in and around New York City. The frog was found hiding in plain sight on Staten Island.

The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/zI0tBt ) reports the find is surprising because the frog was discovered in one of the world's most populated urban areas.

Researchers say the new frog species was confused for a long time with a frog it closely resembles, the southern leopard frog. The leopard frogs in the region were noted as having a croak that was quite distinct from those of the two species that inhabit the northern and southern parts of the East Coast. (A researcher involved in the finding described the other species as having a “long snore” or a “rapid chuckle.”) Speculation had focused on the possibility that the New York frogs were a hybrid of the two species, but molecular evidence shows that they are distant from both.

Although New York City has probably not been especially kind to the frogs — any appropriate habitat for them in Manhattan is probably long gone — they still survive in a number of areas nearby, including New Jersey, Staten Island, and the Bronx. The researchers suggest that their range is probably centered on Yankee Stadium. Given the molecular evidence, the team that found the species (which has members in New Jersey, Alabama, and California) are now going back to study it more closely so that they can give it a formal description.

Jeremy Feinberg also found specimens in parts of New Jersey and to counties north of New York City, all within commuting distance of Manhattan.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/new-frog-species-nyc/
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/03/15/new-frog-species-found-nyc-area.html

6.4 Magnitude Earthquake Struck Papua New Guinea

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Papua New Guinea Thursday, the US Geological Survey reported, but a tsunami warning was not issued and seismologists said "no major human impact is expected". The quake hit the New Britain region at 7:13 am (2113 GMT Wednesday) at a depth of 48 kilometres (30 miles), 204 kilometres southwest of the main city in the area Rabaul and 598 kilometres from national capital Port Moresby.

Geoscience Australia, which put the depth at 103 kilometres, said the quake may have been felt as far away as Port Moresby but "no major human impact is expected".

"It seems to be in a relatively isolated area with small villages to the south," seismologist Emma Mathews told AFP. "It definitely would have been felt but earthquakes regularly hit these areas and people living there are used to these types of events."

Quakes of such magnitude are common in the New Britain region of impoverished PNG, which sits on the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

A giant tsunami in 1998, caused by an undersea earthquake or a landslide, killed more than 2,000 people near Aitape, on the country's northwest coast. 

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/284459/6-4-quake-strikes-papua-new-guinea-us-seismologists

I am a 4G Hotspot...The Homeless Had Been Turned Into Human WiFi Hotspots

EACH year programmers, social media entrepreneurs and technology enthusiasts convene in Austin, Texas, to learn about the Next Big Thing.

Previous South By Southwest Interactive festivals have featured Facebook, Twitter and the mobile phone app foursquare - which all allowed technology fans to tell the world that they were, at that very moment, in Austin at a technology conference.

This year, the most talked about innovation was standing outside on various street corners. The homeless of Austin, or at least 13 of them, had been turned into human WiFi hotspots. 

Can be summarized thusly: An impossibly-named marketing company called Bartle Bogle Hegarty is doing a little human science experiment called Homeless Hotspots. It gives out 4G hotspots to homeless people along with a promotional t-shirt. The shirt doesn't say, "I have a 4G hotspot." It says, "I am a 4G hotspot."

All of them had been equipped with mobile WiFi devices, allowing up to five of the passing laptop and tablet bearers to connect to the internet. They were paid dollars 20 a day and allowed to keep whatever they made. They charge $2 for 15 minutes of surfing time. 

Leading the drive to update homeless people for the digital age was BBH Labs, the "innovation" wing of a Manhattan marketing agency that caused a stir last year by briefly equipping four homeless men in New York with Twitter accounts.

The company noted that America's homeless were still busy in many cities trying to raise money by selling magazines, publications that were under pressure from digital media. It stressed that the homeless were still in "Beta testing" for their new role, but if it proved successful, "we hope to see it adopted on a broader scale".

Before long, perhaps even the homeless man in Guildford High Street, who wears a hat made of foliage and a sign announcing that he is from "Special Branch", could be offering shoppers a chance to update their Facebook pages.

Yet the project has already provoked criticism from the iPad users it was meant to serve. "I've got a troubleshooting issue that I hope you can resolve: my homeless hotspot keeps wandering out of range," wrote a correspondent in the site's comments section. 

A correspondent for Wired feared that the homeless were being turned into commodities, or worse, "walking, talking billboards".


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/marketers-use-homeless-to-become-mobile-4g-hotspots-at-technology-fair-sxsw/story-fnb64oi6-1226299255132
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_in_a_nutshell_homeless_people_as_hotspots.php

The iPhone 4S’s Siri Feature Does Not Perform as Advertised

“Siri, call my attorney,” was probably not what Frank M. Fazio said when he filed his class action lawsuit against Apple. Fazio says commercials for Siri misled him into buying an iPhone 4S and now he, and others with him, are suing the smartphone maker.

“[Apple's] advertisements regarding the Siri feature are fundamentally and designedly false and misleading,” the complaint against Apple reads, “The iPhone 4S’s Siri feature does not perform as advertised, rendering the iPhone 4S merely a more expensive iPhone 4.”

According to the complaint, Fazio has had trouble getting Siri to behave and provide the same functions it does in its commercials. He specifically mentions booking appointments, finding restaurants and looking up guitar chords. He is also unhappy with Siri’s inability to understand his requests, as well as long wait times. Apple’s commercials show a highly responsive Siri that replies almost as soon as you’re done speaking. As the Washington Post points out, however, Apple does disclaim its commercials with “sequences shortened.” This could mean that lag times and any repeat attempts to connect with Siri are left on the edit room floor.

He also alleged that Siri is a drain on data usage and “can easily push users over their data plans.”

Playing with the iPhone 4S in store, however, would show any potential buyer that Siri isn’t as snappy as the commercials imply. Apple has stated that Siri is in “beta” and that the company is continuing to improve the service, but that may not be enough. The complaint points out that Apple only states this in the fine print on its website, which may be considered a lack of information.

The full disclaimer from Apple reads, “Siri is available in Beta only on iPhone 4S and requires Internet access. Siri may not be available in all languages or in all areas, and features may vary by area.”

In order to file for a class action lawsuit, the damages must be over $5 million and include more than 100 participants. Fazio does not know how many participants there are in his class action lawsuit, but it includes anyone else “similarly situated.”

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/13/siri-apple-law-suit/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/siri.html
http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/iphone-4s-features-a-siri-friendly-proximity-sensor-video-10-11-2011/

Nuke Could Stop Asteroid Armageddon

A huge asteroid hurls toward Earth. In desperation, scientists send a group of astronauts to blast the deadly rock with a nuclear bomb and save humanity. It is a scenario that has been depicted in Hollywood films, but new a U.S. study suggests that a timely nuclear explosion could save us from a devastating asteroid impact. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory conducted a supercomputer simulation to test the effects of a nuclear weapon on an asteriod, according to Space.com. 

They “hit” a 500-meter diameter asteroid with a 1-megaton weapon, which is about 50 times more powerful than the bomb used on Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II. Researchers found that the blast from the bomb would “disrupt all of the rocks in the rockpile of this asteroid” and mitigate the damage that would be caused by impact. Movies such as “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” suggest that a nuclear blast would have to take place inside the asteroid to have a significant impact. 

But the simulation showed that blasting the surface could be effective, sparing astronauts the dangerous job of navigating their way inside the asteroid. But even a successful blast could have negative side effects such as sending debris toward Earth. Such a mission would therefore likely be a last resort if we had just months to stop the impact, Los Alamos scientist Bob Weaver said. 

One alternative could be to send a robotic probe to ride along the asteroid, which would be tugged by the probe’s gravitational field out of the Earth’s path. Another scenario is to slam a spacecraft into the asteroid to push it off course. Both scenarios have real-life precedents in part. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is currently orbiting the huge asteroid Vesta and a spacecraft was sent to crash into a comet in 2005. 

Astronomers say it is a mathematical certainty that Earth will eventually be hit by a hazardous space rock. It is just a matter of when and whether we will be ready for it.

http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120314000591
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/324665/enlarge

The Sukuh Temple, a Strange and Mysterious Hindu Temple With The Sexual Wisdom

Sukuh temple on the western slope of Mount Lawu, Central Java, is a site for the graphic exploration of sex. The first thing you see upon entering the temple gates is a carved relief depicting a penis poised to penetrate a vagina.

The temple keepers have erected wooden gates to prevent visitors from tripping on the genitalia. That people are not allowed to make physical contact with the relief and the fresh offering of flowers next to it indicates that the depiction of sex here has been elevated to the realm of the sacred. Although it is full of images of sex and genitalia, Sukuh is not a haven for pornography.

he word pornography -- which derives from the Greek pornographos, referring to literature about prostitutes -- refers to writing, images or film intended to sexually stimulate. Similarly, erotica, from Eros -- the Greek god of love -- is also designed to arouse sexual desire. Porn and erotica are different as prostitution and love are different. Because of the many sexual depictions, Sukuh is often mistakenly referred to as an erotic temple. 

At Sukuh, sex is neither porn nor erotica; Rather it is spiritual, transcendental. At Sukuh, sex is the blending of male and female energies to create a new energy of rebirth. The depiction of sex here appears to be a homage to the powers of creation and fertility. Although it is not erotic, the statues and relief carvings in Sukuh do offer a glimpse into Java's sex culture in the early 15th century.

Penises in Sukuh are always decorated with several balls under the tip. According to some researchers, it was common for Majapahit men to insert balls of marble or gold under the skin near the tip of their penises, probably to increase their partners' pleasure during sex.

There is a rather comic statue of a man, now headless, who is grasping his erect penis as if he is masturbating in the west courtyard of the main temple. 

The slopes of Lawu in Karanganyar regency are home to several ancient archaeological sites containing relics dating from the Majapahit Empire of the 13th-15th centuries, including Sukuh and Cetho temples as well as the newly discovered sites of Kethek and Planggatan.

Of all of these, Sukuh, which was built during the reign of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in the early 19th century, is undoubtedly the best preserved and the most accessible. In the entrance to Sukuh temple, there is a chronograph that reads "1359", referring to the Saka calendar, which corresponds to AD 1437.

Other chronographs in the temple read AD 1456 and AD 1440, so we can safely imagine that the temple was built and active during the first half of the 15th century. The cropped pyramid shape and dominant eagle and snake figures have led many observers to muse over the architectural similarities between the temple and those of the South American Maya.

The presence of scores of yoni, which were designed to have a lingga inserted into them, with a groove for water to flow through, suggests that while Sukuh temple was in use these were used to collect and make holy water, where the water would be poured over the lingga, thus capturing the essence of creation. 

The word yoni is the Sanskrit word for "divine passage", "place of birth", "womb" in the sense of 'source of life' rather than a human organ, or "sacred temple", according to Wikipedia. 

While lingga which is also a Sanskrit word, symbolizes penis.

It is a shame that the archaeologists who restored Sukuh temple were unable to discern the correct positions of these yoni, which are all missing their lingga, choosing instead to stack them in a nearby building. 

The main lingga of Sukuh is no longer there but you can see a faded photograph of it: A magnificent penis standing nearly two meters high, complete with Majapahit balls near the tip. This larger-than-life penis once stood in front of the main entrance of the main structure, but now it is in the National Museum in Jakarta. 

Many of the relief sculptures in Sukuh temple have pierced ears, indicating that flowers might once have been weaved into the holes. Currently, in some shadow puppet repertoires performed on Java, the characters are adorned with strings of jasmine. One can imagine that these relief carvings were once brought to life by storytellers, and that while the rituals were being performed, the ears of the figures were decorated with flowers. 

The rituals were probably similar to the rare wayang beber performances of today, in which the storyteller, accompanied by a simple gamelan orchestra, unfurls a scroll of drawings depicting scenes from the story he is telling, rather like a comic strip.

The two main stories told by the relief carvings at Sukuh temple are stories of purification and release. The first, the story of Sudhamala, tells of how Shadewa, one of the twins of the Pandawa brothers, who are the protagonists in the sacred Bharatayuda epic, saved the high goddess Durga from a curse.

The other story tells of how not long after the creation of the Earth, the mythical Garuda eagle released his mother from slavery by finding the tirta amerta (elixir of life). Also suggesting purification is a carved relief of a traditional blacksmith's workshop. To forge a weapon, iron is first cleansed by fire, and then beaten with a hammer over an anvil. 

On the south side of the temple, there is a statue of a man operating a pair of traditional ububan (bellows), while another is forging a keris dagger on an anvil using his fist as a hammer. A mysterious elephant carrying a small dog stands in front of him, while on the wall and on the floor are the products of his craft: Knives, tridents, machetes and other weapons and agricultural tools.

Sex, freedom from a curse, the elixir of life, the forging of iron -- all are related to efforts to be purified and come closer to God. As we formulate a bill regulating pornography that threatens to criminalize depictions of sex, Sukuh stands as a reminder that not all depictions of sex are forms of porn. In fact, through sex our ancestors aligned themselves with the will of God. 

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2008/10/26/the-sexual-wisdom-sukuh-temple.html
http://www.pbase.com/rileyuni/sukuh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukuh

Liam Gallagher and Luciano Pavarotti The Most Influential Musician of All Time

Liam Gallagher

Liam Gallagher and Luciano Pavarotti are among the favourites in a poll to decide the most influential musician of all time. The year-long Music Of The Millennium survey - backed by Channel 4, Classic FM and the HMV retail chain - will be launched on 18 January. Organisers are hoping they can involve listeners of all persuasions in the poll. 

 

HMV senior marketing manager Comac Loughran said: "We want it to run like an election - along the lines of encouraging people to join in if they don't want the Spice Girls to get in". There will also be a series of programmes on Channel 4 in which celebrities will talk about the music which changed their lives, followed by a phone number for votes.

 

HMV is planning to put half a million leaflets in its stores, as well as 25 million bags which will act as vote forms. On radio, Classic FM will run a telephone poll alongside special features. As well as the traditional categories of best song, album, band and vocalist, there will also be titles for best songwriter, jazz performer, classical piece and classical composer. 

 

National talking point

 

Spice Girls

But organisers are hoping the Most Influential Musician of the Millennium category will create a national talking point. Mr Loughran added: "To some people that could be the Spice Girls, but they could equally choose Bach or Caruso. 

 

Luciano Pavarotti

 "It's really saying, 'Who started the trend that made all this possible? Where did it all come from?' 

 

"The involvement of Classic FM gives a slightly different flavour to the campaign. For Best Male Vocalist, they're going to be pushing for Pavarotti rather than Liam Gallagher." Last year HMV ran a poll in which 36,000 people voted for their favourite album of all time - but now organisers want a broader poll to cover all kinds of music.

 

"We've tried to segment it a bit more in the categories because there is a usually a dominance of rock and pop in these surveys. In the album survey we found The Beatles, Radiohead and The Stone Roses were at the top with lots of other perennial favourites.

 

"We'll be using our stores as polling stations. It's real 'state of the nation' stuff where we're going to make a social statement and see what effect music has had on people," said Mr Loughran.