Corruption and Indonesian Culture
Corruption has happened for many years and today it becomes a bad culture in Indonesia for three reasons.
Most adult Indonesian or foreigners have known and admitted that corruptions happen in many places. The daily newspapers, news programs on TV and radio have reported corruptions are done everywhere, almost in all departments or public services of this country. Corruptions happen in health, education departments and banks. When we manage to get some documents in public service offices, we usually need much money to pay. Manipulations happen everywhere.
The actions to eliminate corruption are weak. The ever stronger culture seems not to come to an end when the responsible institutions who have to reinforce the justice today commit corruption. This is the worst. Corruptions happen in police department, courts where judges, public prosecutors, lawyers make deals to do corruption. All of us also heard in the end of 2004, Probosutejo reported that he had bribed the Supreme Court, or called Mahkamah Agung which becomes the highest level where the justice can be obtained. Perhaps you have to try to come to the local courts and see what happen there. You will see practices of bribery and other kinds of corruption. Therefore, we can say that corruptions becomes our culture. Do you like it?
The citizens have no goodwill to fight against the corruption. They create the situations in which people have opportunities to do corruptions. The citizens like to break the rules because they are not disciplined. For example, in the street when they drive a car or ride motorcycle, they do not have the driving license or necessary documents. Then, they are caught by the local policemen. To avoid more difficulties, they like to bribe the officer. The officer let them go then. In other words, the citizens and officers are the same, doing corruption together. If only the people were critical, disciplined, and obey the rules, and willing to report any wrong behaviors, this country will not be number one corrupting country in the world.
conclusion Based on the reasons, we can conclude that corruption is becoming a bad culture in Indonesia if it is not ended soon by all of us. It seems that there must be more severe penalty for the corruptors. Do we still care about the future of this country?
Learning English through music and songs is Fun
Learning English through music and songs can be very enjoyable. You can mix pleasure with learning when you listen to a song and exploit the song as a means to your English progress. Some underlying reason can be drawn to support the idea why we use songs in language learning.
Firstly, “the song stuck in my head” Phenomenon (the echoing in our minds of the last song we heard after leaving a restaurant, shopping malls, etc) can be both enjoyable and sometimes unnerving. This phenomenon also seems to reinforce the idea that songs work on our short-and-long term memory.
Secondly, songs in general also use simple conversational language, with a lot of repetition, which is just what many learners look for sample text. The fact that they are effective makes them many times more motivating than other text. Although usually simple, some songs can be quite complex syntactically, lexically and poetically, and can be analyzed in the same way as any other literary sample.
Furthermore, song can be appropriated by listener for their own purpose. Most pop songs and probably many other types don’t have precise people, place or time reference.
In addition, songs are relaxing. They provide variety and fun, and encourage harmony within oneself and within one group. Little wonder they are important tools in sustaining culture, religion, patriotism and yeas, even revolution.
Last but not least, there are many learning activities we can do with songs such as studying grammar, practicing selective listening comprehension, translating songs, learning vocabulary, spelling and culture.
From the elaboration above, it can be concluded that learning through music and songs, learning English can be enjoyable and fun.
Should not Bring Mobile Phone to School
Recently most people own mobile phone. Why does mobile phone user increase dramatically in recent years? First, the feature and functions has increased. Mobile phone is not used just for calling, but sending text, taking pictures, recording videos, accessing internet, playing games and much more. Second, mobile phone has also become a lot cheaper. Now this communication device does not only fill the pocket of adult but also teenager and student. Even a lot phones are intentionally designed to teenaged market. However should they be allowed to bring them to school?
Many schools do not allow students to bring cell phones to school. It is very reasonable because bringing phone to school potentially disrupts the learning process. Most students use cell phones irresponsibly. They use cell phones to talk to their friend during class time. They also use the calculator and camera features in the class as well. Those potentially lead less concentration in the time of learning and teaching process.
Students go to school to learn and behave fair way. Mobile phones provide a large temptation to cheat in tests. They can communicate to anyone and almost anywhere in the world. Because of the small size of the cell phone, students can send a text quietly and discreetly. The text can go unnoticed anywhere to get help on answering tests, homework, and other class assignment. Learning in school is to behave fair not cheating.
Therefore, schools should ban students from bringing their cell phones. However it should be done fairly. In case of an emergency some student need a call for help, providing easy access to phone is better.
Never Try Smoking
A lot of people, especially teenagers, who do not smoke, always want to try smoking. They know it is bad for them and all, but it is just something they want to try. So they ask one of their smoker friends for a cigarette. Admittedly, they firstly can not light it on their own so they ask his friend to do it. Then they inhale that cigarette and smoke occasionally.
Apparently that makes them the born smokers. Now they do smoke fairly regularly. They can not avoid smoking and they enjoy too. They have smoker friends. Everyday they bring a pack in their pocket. For them, a pack of cigarette is as important as a wallet for their money.
Suddenly, for certain reason, they realize the fact that tobacco is the cause of a long list of nasty diseases. It is not only heart disease, stroke, and chronic lung disease but also bladder, lung, and pancreatic cancer. Even it was reported that around 400,000 Americans died each year. It was one every 80 seconds from tobacco-related illnesses.
Then they decide it is stupid to harm selves. They want to quit smoking. Unfortunately, they find that quitting smoking is so difficult. “Why can't I stop smoking? I really want to stop it”. It is hard to quit because nicotine is powerfully addictive. Cigarette is one of the most efficient drug-delivery devices ever devised. As result, when people try to quit smoking, they often experience classic nicotine withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, headache, depression, and restlessness.
Well, still want to try smoke? Think the facts before trying! If you are not smoker, you should never and never try to smoke.
Local People
What is the benefit of tourism for local people?
Well, Tourism is now a huge contributor to the economies of most countries. Tourism industries can bring money, job vacancy and advancement especially to developing regions. However, this money often goes into the pockets of foreign investors, and only rarely benefits for local people.
Tourism industries will not give much benefit for local people if, for example, multinational hotel chains don't care about the surrounding nature when they build new hotels. This can cause many social, cultural and geographical problems. Some local people may get job and money from that International hotel chain. However in case of missing that opportunity, some of them still have their own environment.
Moreover, some facts show that tourists tend to go, visit and spend their money in restaurants, bars and even luxury hotels of that multinational chains. They less go to such places; restaurant, bar, hotel, shop which are owned by local people. This can prevent the local people's business from becoming even larger.
Most important thing, tours or excursions of tourism have little effect on nature. Even it can disrupt or destroy ecosystems and environments, and if it does, the local people will get the risk.
So the local government policies should be put in place to ensure that tourism will make the benefit spreading widely. The policies should guarantee that tourism will not cause any harm to any local people or places.
Why Should Wearing a Helmet when Motorcycling
We often hear lots of stories from road regarding people taking spill on motorcycle when they are riding without using helmet. Mostly the riders badly end up in mess.
Wearing a fitted protective helmet offers many benefits which reduces the negative aspects of riding. First and the most important is that wearing the correct helmet can save a rider's life, physical ability, family pain, and money. The recommended designs of motorcycle helmets can provide total protection. They not only protect riders from getting a worse road injured accident but also from flying bugs, such as rain, sleet, mud and other potential projectiles.
Second, wearing a helmet can gives the raiders a matter of style. Helmets give the opportunity for rider to express the image they may want to project when riding on they way. This benefit may not be important to some people, but to others, it means a lot and important. By choosing the most appropriate helmet from all of the various styles, such as beanie, shorty, German, and many others, wearing a helmet which can projecting an image is an inherent crucial part of motorcycling and help riders feel more confident when riding on the road.
However, what most important is wearing helmet when riding is a matter of using it properly. Bikers should use the helmets which are fixed to their head. It is really not good if they places simply the helmets on the head without settling them properly. The bikers should fasten the helmet correctly to their head in order to get safe and comfort.
