Take the money and run

That's P&J's advice to former airport security guard Della Patton, the woman involved in the notorious Patrick Kennedy airport shoving accident. As predicted by your superior correspondents, this thing is primarily about money, and the fact that Vo Dilun's own Kennedy might as well be wearing a giant dollar sign on the back of his suit jacket. So far, Patton has turned down Patrick's offer of a $25,000 settlement. Her lawyer, George Mallory, says he intends to file a suit for over 10 times that amount. No word on whether or not this has given Kennedy pause to change his position on tort reform.

Quote of the week

This from a wag on Richard Licht's campaign staff. The Licht forces were holding forth during a July 17 press conference at the Jewelry District office of lawyer Karen Davidson, a Licht supporter and activist in the reproductive freedom community. Licht was defending his criticism of US Representative Bob "Dorian" Weygand, his Democratic primary rival in the US Senate race, on the abortion issue (Dorian has accused Licht of going negative with his TV spots on the issue).

At one point, Other Paper reporter Jon Saltzman asked Davidson about her title with the Rhode Island Bar Association. The barrister responded by saying she's chair of the bar's Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, and the clever Licht campaign team member quickly added, "maybe the folks from Belo would like to stop by." Strangely enough, Saltzman looked quite unperturbed, as if the ongoing labor struggle between the Providence Newspaper Guild and BeloJo management is some sort of obscure foreign affair. Boy, some of those reporters are really well trained.

Managing the news

Here's a little sidebar on the coverage of the April 16 and 17 meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. As we know, the meetings sparked protests and continued scrutiny of these institutions. Seems, though, that not all reporters were granted press credentials for the meetings. In a terse statement released by the IMF Press Office, the following was noted without explanation: "We do not provide press accreditation to public access TV, community radio, nor student or academic publications to attend our meetings."

Gee, those are just the media outlets which have been offering the most critical and worthwhile coverage of IMF and World Bank activities.

Eruption and corruption

Phillipe is off once again to Indonesian to find new household help after Jorge discovered our wonderful cabana boys, Diego and Lars, getting a bit too carried away with their Greg Louganis impressions -- diving into areas best left unmentioned in a family paper. Trust that it was much more to do with an old acquaintance named Sidney and not the Olympics. P.'s missive to J. follows:

Mon cher, beastly hot and humid in Jakarta -- my batik shirts clinging to me like Sandra Bernhard on Madonna. It doesn't seem to have much off an effect on the locals, however, who trot around wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts while I'm doing my sweating impersonation of Shaquille O'Neal in the fourth quarter of a tight game. Actually "trotting around" is bit of an exaggeration.

From what I can tell, the three most popular activities of Indonesians are first, squatting and smoking clove cigarettes; second, trying to get hit by passing cars; and, running a respectable third, staring. Perhaps it's because I am what they would call a "buleh besar" (big foreign scum), but you'd think they had never seen satin hot pants or platform sandals from the looks I've been getting. Here's a tip -- try reading Cosmo every now and then, Bambang.

Despite what Hollywood says, Krakatoa is NOT east of Java, rather decidedly southwest. I decided upon taking a flight over to Bandar Lampung in Sumatra to view Krakatoa, because I have always been transfixed by Sherlock Holmes's allusion to the "giant rat of Sumatra." in one of his more noted cases. For years I thought it was a Nostradamus-like prediction of the emergence of a giant rate named Sinatra, but I was obviously off base.

At any rate, I actually got to see Krakatoa, and while there, the neighboring island, Krakatoa Anak, or "Baby Krakatoa," erupted. It was like going to a David Bowie concert and having Menudo steal the show in the warm-up act. Still, quite impressive to see the top of a huge mountain start to spew smoke -- sort of like one of Buddy Cianci's press conferences when they nail him about Plunder Dome, except Baby Krakatoa has a better piece.

Had a bit of a harrowing return trip on the ferry that runs from Bandar Lampung to Mesuk in West Java. First, as I waited on the dock, my traveling companion, an expat journalist from America, pointed out how strong the Sunda Strait currents would be. As I boarded the boat, I recalled that 500 people had just died when an overloaded ferry sank in the Moluccan Sea north of Java (Indonesia not having the greatest track record when it came to marine transport safety). Then, when I found my seat in the bow below deck, I noticed the escape hatch in front of me was bolted shut. As the anxiety grew, my friend came up very quickly from her seat, explained they were most definitely overcrowding this boat, and suggested we get off and await the next one. Tacit at the end of the sentence were the words, " . . . or die."

Always in rapid response mode, I promptly left my Reebok design footprints on the forehead of every one of the 20 passengers squatting in the aisle, as I made it topside in about five seconds, only to find we had already left the dock. So it was a wonderful little hour-long, swaying, Philly Stroll-style journey across the Sunda Sea with my eyeballs popping out of my head -- I left a thoughtful reminder of the journey by impressing my fingerprints into the steel frame of the ferry's doorway as I prepared to abandon ship in a Jakarta heartbeat.

As I later found out, while the ticket office only sells as many tickets as meets the boat's safe carrying capacity, the harbormaster keeps his own cache, which he thoughtfully sells to anyone else who may want to cross, and pockets the money himself. Ahh, capitalism at its finest. Or as cynically put by my friend upon our safe arrival, "Life's cheap in Indonesia."

Keeping my lucky streak alive, I also survived the lounge band at the hotel, whose repertoire consisted of crucifying Abba songs, if that is indeed possible, while singing the lyrics phonetically. Chances are the lead singer thinks "Fernando" is a tribute to some Filipino stud named "Nando." The nine band members were done up in some sort of Temptations-meet-Fleetwood Mac attire, with the three front women doing some hot choreographed Shirelles-on-Thorazine moves. The Lindsey Buckingham wannabes backing them up wrestled their instruments into submission.

Showing their versatility, the next night, the band members were wearing outfits out of the L.L. Jetson catalogue as they cranked out "Stand By Me," while actually maintaining straight faces. The humming sound I heard was more likely Ben E. King twirling in his grave like an industrial lathe, rather than feedback.

The weekend brought more fun, as I attended a political rally held by a major Muslim party at the national sports stadium, naturally blending right in among 20,000 women in traditional head coverings. Half the country appeared to be on hand, and I read the next day that even Indonesia's President Gus Dur had been on hand, although he failed to find me, doubtless only because he is blind.

The next day, it was right back to the stadium for a big soccer match between a Jakarta team and one from Surabaya. Despite the fact that Surabaya is a two-day trip on the roof rack of a bus, about 40,000 fans braved the highway to get there and whip up a storm of chanting and clapping. I observed this from a distance, since they are also known as the worst hooligans in Indonesia. Therefore, there was a huge police and army presence.

This proved good news for me. I asked one of the Jakarta policemen in the VIP section where I could get a Bintang beer, and he told me they didn't sell them inside the stadium due to flying bottle syndrome. However, five minutes later he became a generous middleman and arranged for a rather suspect (pun intended) gent to run outside, buy me a beer, and bring it surreptitiously back into the stadium (with the cop's blessing, of course). The delivery man gave it to me for about as much as one sold at the hotel, but also included a judicious tip for the police facilitator. Nothing better than a prohibited warm Bintang beer in a cellophane bag with a stram shoved in it, and a twist-tie to keep it in place.

Actually, it was good the police were on hand for more than just my drinking needs. Halfway into the second half, a Jakarta player took umbrage with a foul by his opponent and punched him in the head. The crowd went wild, both benches emptied on to field, along with cops, dogs and the army. A sportswriter from Jakarta with whom I had been talking looked at the mayhem, smiled and said, "Welcome to Indonesia." He enjoyed it when I laughed out loud for a full minute.

More on this wonderful world next week. Sampai jumpah lagi.

-- Phillipe

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