Perbatasan Meksiko dengan Amerika Serikat (AS), Ciudad Juarez, tercatat sebegai kota dengan tingkat pembunuhan tertinggi di dunia. Kota yang sarat dengan perdagangan narkoba dan konflik antargeng ini, memiliki rata-rata 130 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk.
Hal itu disampaikan oleh salah satu organisasi non-pemerintah Meksico, Citizen's Council for Public Security (CCSP), dalam pernyataannya seperti dilansir AFP, Kamis (27/8/2009). CCSP mendasarkan laporannya tersebut atas berita di media dan laporan FBI kepada pemerintah AS.
Di Ciudad Juarez tercatat sebanyak 1.362 orang tewas dibunuh sepanjang tahun ini hingga 21 Agustus. Jumlah ini terus meningkat karena konflik antar kartel narkotika dalam memperebutkan jalur perdagangan narkoba ke AS terus berlanjut. Penerjunan 8.500 tentara di kota perbatasan ini terbukti gagal dalam meredam konflik yang terus terjadi.
Posisi Juarez disusul oleh Caracas, Venezuela, dengan rata-rata 96 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk. Pada September tahun 2008 lalu, Caracas dinobatkan sebagai kota pusat pembunuhan di dunia oleh majalah Foreign Policy, dengan rata-rata 130 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk.
Selanjutnya menyusul New Orleans, AS, dengan rata-rata 95 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk. Kemudian Tijuana yang juga merupakan kota perbatasan Meksiko-AS berada di peringkat ke-4 dengan rata-rata 73 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk.
Sementara itu, Cape Town, Afrika Selatan, berada di peringkat ke-5 dengan 62 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk. Lalu Baltimore, salah satu kota pantai timur AS, menduduki peringkat ke-8 dengan rata-rata 45 pembunuhan per 100 penduduk.
Sedangkan kota Baghdad, Irak, juga masuk dalam daftar, dengan menduduki peringkat ke-10 yang memiliki rata-rata 40 pembunuhan per 100 ribu penduduk.
taken from:
detikcom - Jumat, Agustus 28
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Sejarah Machu Picchu
Satu lagi bukti tentang peradaban sejarah yang menakjubkan, Machu Picchu. Tertimbun selama beratus-ratus tahun oleh tumbuh-tumbuhan di sekitarnya. Pada awalnya merupakan satu dari sedikit tempat yang ditinggalkan oleh para penakluk Spanyol dalam sebuah ekpedisi untuk pencarian emas yang lebih banyak. Dan akhirnya ditemukan lagi secara tidak sengaja oleh seorang Profesor Muda Yale, Hiram Bingham, pada tahun 1911. Sebuah penemuan yang membawa kita semua seperti kembali pada kehidupan masa lampau dan secara gamblang menunjukkan tentang betapa majunya pengetahuan akan tekhnik konstruksi bangunan perdaban masa lalu. Machu Picchu juga merupakan satu dari sekian bangunan paling bersejarah di dunia yang bahkan oleh salah satu media Amerika Serikat, menyatakan bangunan ini merupakan bangunan yang paling penting dan yang paling terpelihara di dunia.
Machu Picchu dibangun dengan gaya Inka kuno dengan batu tembok berpelitur. Bangunan utamanya adalah Intihuatana, Kuil Matahari, dan Ruangan Tiga Jendela. Tempat-tempat ini disebut sebagai Distrik Sakral dari Machu Picchu. Bangunan batu ini menunjukkan secara mengejutkan tentang kualitas peradaban masa lampau dalam berkarya. Di banyak tempat terdapat dinding di tingkat yang lebih rendah dengan struktur yang sangat menakjubkan. Kemudian semakin ke atas mutunya mengalami pengurangan. lapisan yang lebih rendah selalu lebih baik kualitasnya jika dibandingkan dengan di atasnya. Selalu terdapat struktur yang mungkin bisa memberikan ilham untuk tekhnik bangunan masa kini. Dalam beberapa kasus, seperti di Kuil Tiga Jendela, dinding ini berdiri di antara struktur yang paling diilhami yang pernah diciptakan oleh manusia.
Machu Picchu berlokasi di Gunung Andes di atas lembah Urubamba, Peru, sekitar 70 km barat laut Cusco, dan berada sekitar 2.350 meter di atas permukaan laut. Dan Bingham sendiri benar-benar tidak menyangka akan penemuannya ini, yang pada saat sekarang sudah mampu menyedot ribuan wisatawan setiap harinya. Awalnya Bingham hanyalah berniat menjelajahi vegetasi liar di Gunung Andes sebagai sebuah ekspedisi ilmiahnya. Mungkin bagi dirinya pengalaman ini sangatlah luar biasa. Menjelajah di suatu tempat yang sangat asing bagi dirinya, melewati pepohonan yang tinggi menjulang, dan ketika menerobos suatu semak belukar yang sangat lebat dengan bantuan kedua tangannya, samar-samar dari kejauhan tampak bangunan kuno menakjubkan yang terkubur oleh tingginya ilalang yang terlihat olehnya. Dia bersama seorang pemandunya, seakan-akan menganggap apa yang telah disaksikan oleh mereka hanya merupakan suatu fatamorgana belaka. Bingham sendiri pernah berkata, “Bisa menemukan Machu Picchu sama halnya dengan menemukan sebuah peradaban baru di muka bumi”.
Bingham meyakini, bahwa tempat ini mempunyai arti yang sangat besar akan kelahiran suatu perdaban paling legendaris di dunia, Inca Empire. Suatu peradaban besar asli dari Benua Amerika yang telah menghilang. Setidaknya terdapat ribuan artifak yang sangat tinggi nilainya yang dapat ditemukan di Machu Picchu. Kini sebagian besar artifak tersebut sedang menjadi bahan penelitian guna menggali lebih dalam lagi sejarah dari peradaban suku Inca.
Banyak teori yang telah berkembang, menyangkut pemikiran dan penjelasan yang masuk akal dalam prosesnya. Machu Picchu diperkirakan termasuk ke dalam generasi Inca ke-9 yang berkuasa pada pertengahan abad ke-15. Yang memaparkan secara lugas tentang sebagian besar prestasi yang menyangkut peradaban Inca kala itu. Von Eric Daniken, dalam bukunya “Chariots of the Gods” berteori bahwa bangunan ini dibangun oleh Alien yang datang ke bumi zaman dulu kala, sembari membawa semacam peradaban primitif.
Kurt Vonnegut dalam novelnya “Slapstick” berkata, “…there must have been days of light gravity in old times, when people could play tiddley winks with huge chunks of stone”. Dan Pedro de Cieza de Leon menulis dari suatu legenda tua Inca tentang the creator-god, Viracocha. Saat menunjukkan kuasa-Nya, Ia membuat api yang sangat besar, kemudian memadamkannya. Sebagai hasil pembakaran, maka batu itu menjadi sangat ringan yang walaupun sangat besar bisa diambil seolah-olah terbuat dari gabus.
Spekulasi yang beredar yang mencoba menjelaskan apa saja yang berhubungan dengan megahnya bangunan ini cenderung terdengar aneh. Bagaimana tidak, dengan bentuknya yang sangat menakjubkan, kita harus dibawa pada suatu kenyataan bahwa bangunan ini dirancang dan dibuat pada masa beratus-ratus tahun yang lalu. Dengan pemikiran logis yang kita miliki, tentulah terasa mustahil hal itu akan terjadi. Namun demikian, Machu Picchu sekali lagi adalah bukti.
Hingga sekarang, sudah hampir sekitar 2.500 wistawan berkunjung ke Machu Picchu setiap harinya. Membanjirnya para wisatawan ini tentunya membuat Pemerintahan Peru sempat merasa resah, “Peru bisa memajukan sektor pariwisata dengan Machu Picchu, tapi bagaimana cara mereka bisa merawat serta melestarikan bangunan paling bersejarah di dunia itu”. Suatu kekhawatiran yang wajar mengingat posisi Machu Picchu yang begitu penting sebagai kawasan yang begitu berharga bagi sejarah dunia.
taken from:
http://www.budix.co.cc/?p=354
Machu Picchu dibangun dengan gaya Inka kuno dengan batu tembok berpelitur. Bangunan utamanya adalah Intihuatana, Kuil Matahari, dan Ruangan Tiga Jendela. Tempat-tempat ini disebut sebagai Distrik Sakral dari Machu Picchu. Bangunan batu ini menunjukkan secara mengejutkan tentang kualitas peradaban masa lampau dalam berkarya. Di banyak tempat terdapat dinding di tingkat yang lebih rendah dengan struktur yang sangat menakjubkan. Kemudian semakin ke atas mutunya mengalami pengurangan. lapisan yang lebih rendah selalu lebih baik kualitasnya jika dibandingkan dengan di atasnya. Selalu terdapat struktur yang mungkin bisa memberikan ilham untuk tekhnik bangunan masa kini. Dalam beberapa kasus, seperti di Kuil Tiga Jendela, dinding ini berdiri di antara struktur yang paling diilhami yang pernah diciptakan oleh manusia.
Machu Picchu berlokasi di Gunung Andes di atas lembah Urubamba, Peru, sekitar 70 km barat laut Cusco, dan berada sekitar 2.350 meter di atas permukaan laut. Dan Bingham sendiri benar-benar tidak menyangka akan penemuannya ini, yang pada saat sekarang sudah mampu menyedot ribuan wisatawan setiap harinya. Awalnya Bingham hanyalah berniat menjelajahi vegetasi liar di Gunung Andes sebagai sebuah ekspedisi ilmiahnya. Mungkin bagi dirinya pengalaman ini sangatlah luar biasa. Menjelajah di suatu tempat yang sangat asing bagi dirinya, melewati pepohonan yang tinggi menjulang, dan ketika menerobos suatu semak belukar yang sangat lebat dengan bantuan kedua tangannya, samar-samar dari kejauhan tampak bangunan kuno menakjubkan yang terkubur oleh tingginya ilalang yang terlihat olehnya. Dia bersama seorang pemandunya, seakan-akan menganggap apa yang telah disaksikan oleh mereka hanya merupakan suatu fatamorgana belaka. Bingham sendiri pernah berkata, “Bisa menemukan Machu Picchu sama halnya dengan menemukan sebuah peradaban baru di muka bumi”.
Bingham meyakini, bahwa tempat ini mempunyai arti yang sangat besar akan kelahiran suatu perdaban paling legendaris di dunia, Inca Empire. Suatu peradaban besar asli dari Benua Amerika yang telah menghilang. Setidaknya terdapat ribuan artifak yang sangat tinggi nilainya yang dapat ditemukan di Machu Picchu. Kini sebagian besar artifak tersebut sedang menjadi bahan penelitian guna menggali lebih dalam lagi sejarah dari peradaban suku Inca.
Banyak teori yang telah berkembang, menyangkut pemikiran dan penjelasan yang masuk akal dalam prosesnya. Machu Picchu diperkirakan termasuk ke dalam generasi Inca ke-9 yang berkuasa pada pertengahan abad ke-15. Yang memaparkan secara lugas tentang sebagian besar prestasi yang menyangkut peradaban Inca kala itu. Von Eric Daniken, dalam bukunya “Chariots of the Gods” berteori bahwa bangunan ini dibangun oleh Alien yang datang ke bumi zaman dulu kala, sembari membawa semacam peradaban primitif.
Kurt Vonnegut dalam novelnya “Slapstick” berkata, “…there must have been days of light gravity in old times, when people could play tiddley winks with huge chunks of stone”. Dan Pedro de Cieza de Leon menulis dari suatu legenda tua Inca tentang the creator-god, Viracocha. Saat menunjukkan kuasa-Nya, Ia membuat api yang sangat besar, kemudian memadamkannya. Sebagai hasil pembakaran, maka batu itu menjadi sangat ringan yang walaupun sangat besar bisa diambil seolah-olah terbuat dari gabus.
Spekulasi yang beredar yang mencoba menjelaskan apa saja yang berhubungan dengan megahnya bangunan ini cenderung terdengar aneh. Bagaimana tidak, dengan bentuknya yang sangat menakjubkan, kita harus dibawa pada suatu kenyataan bahwa bangunan ini dirancang dan dibuat pada masa beratus-ratus tahun yang lalu. Dengan pemikiran logis yang kita miliki, tentulah terasa mustahil hal itu akan terjadi. Namun demikian, Machu Picchu sekali lagi adalah bukti.
Hingga sekarang, sudah hampir sekitar 2.500 wistawan berkunjung ke Machu Picchu setiap harinya. Membanjirnya para wisatawan ini tentunya membuat Pemerintahan Peru sempat merasa resah, “Peru bisa memajukan sektor pariwisata dengan Machu Picchu, tapi bagaimana cara mereka bisa merawat serta melestarikan bangunan paling bersejarah di dunia itu”. Suatu kekhawatiran yang wajar mengingat posisi Machu Picchu yang begitu penting sebagai kawasan yang begitu berharga bagi sejarah dunia.
taken from:
http://www.budix.co.cc/?p=354
Murid AS Tertinggal dalam Matematika dan IPA
Siapa bilang Amerika Serikat unggul dalam segalanya?!?!?!?!!?
berikut beritanya...
VIVAnews - Kendati tinggal di negara yang berstatus ekonomi terbesar di dunia, para murid sekolah di Amerika Serikat (AS) ternyata kalah bersaing dengan para siswa dari sejumlah negara lain dalam mata pelajaran eksakta, seperti matematika dan ilmu pengetahuan alam (IPA).
Demikian hasil kajian dari lembaga National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) pekan lalu. Menurut stasiun televisi CNN, Menteri Pendidikan AS, Arne Duncan, Selasa 25 Agustus 2009, mengakui sekaligus prihatin atas hasil kajian itu, yang meneliti murid-murid sekolah menengah berusia 15 tahun.
Menurut laporan NCES, murid sekolah menengah di AS masih kalah dengan murid dari Finlandia, China, dan Estonia dalam mata pelajaran matematika. Sedangkan untuk mata pelajaran ilmu pengetahuan alam, murid-murid di AS tertinggal dari Kanada, Jepang, dan Republik Ceko.
Menurut Duncan, hasil riset itu dapat menurunkan AS yang saat ini tengah bersaing secara global di sektor pendidikan. "Kita tertinggal dibanding negara-negara lain di dunia di sejumlah sektor penting," kata Duncan dalam pertemuan dengan para pakar ilmu pengetahuan alam dan matematika dari lembaga The National Science Board, Selasa kemarin.
Dia mengakui bahwa di sejumlah wilayah di AS, sulit sekali untuk mencari para guru yang bisa mengajar matematika dan ilmu pengetahuan alam secara baik. Untuk mengatasi masalah itu, "Kita harus memberi upah yang lebih besar kepada para guru matematikan dan ilmu pengetahuan alam. Kita punya sejumlah kebutuhan yang kritis - seperti matematikan, ilmu pengetahuan alam, bahasa asing, pendidikan khusus, dan lain-lain. Menurut saya, kita harus membayar lebih," lanjut Duncan.
Usulan itu disambut baik oleh para asosiasi guru.
taken from: vivanews
berikut beritanya...
VIVAnews - Kendati tinggal di negara yang berstatus ekonomi terbesar di dunia, para murid sekolah di Amerika Serikat (AS) ternyata kalah bersaing dengan para siswa dari sejumlah negara lain dalam mata pelajaran eksakta, seperti matematika dan ilmu pengetahuan alam (IPA).
Demikian hasil kajian dari lembaga National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) pekan lalu. Menurut stasiun televisi CNN, Menteri Pendidikan AS, Arne Duncan, Selasa 25 Agustus 2009, mengakui sekaligus prihatin atas hasil kajian itu, yang meneliti murid-murid sekolah menengah berusia 15 tahun.
Menurut laporan NCES, murid sekolah menengah di AS masih kalah dengan murid dari Finlandia, China, dan Estonia dalam mata pelajaran matematika. Sedangkan untuk mata pelajaran ilmu pengetahuan alam, murid-murid di AS tertinggal dari Kanada, Jepang, dan Republik Ceko.
Menurut Duncan, hasil riset itu dapat menurunkan AS yang saat ini tengah bersaing secara global di sektor pendidikan. "Kita tertinggal dibanding negara-negara lain di dunia di sejumlah sektor penting," kata Duncan dalam pertemuan dengan para pakar ilmu pengetahuan alam dan matematika dari lembaga The National Science Board, Selasa kemarin.
Dia mengakui bahwa di sejumlah wilayah di AS, sulit sekali untuk mencari para guru yang bisa mengajar matematika dan ilmu pengetahuan alam secara baik. Untuk mengatasi masalah itu, "Kita harus memberi upah yang lebih besar kepada para guru matematikan dan ilmu pengetahuan alam. Kita punya sejumlah kebutuhan yang kritis - seperti matematikan, ilmu pengetahuan alam, bahasa asing, pendidikan khusus, dan lain-lain. Menurut saya, kita harus membayar lebih," lanjut Duncan.
Usulan itu disambut baik oleh para asosiasi guru.
taken from: vivanews
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Dikenal Desa Pengemis, Warga Mampu Sekolahkan Anak ke Kedokteran
Kekhasan budaya berbingkai nilai-nilai agama yang sudah disandang masyarakat Madura secara umum terkadang menampakkan kenyataan hidup yang ironi.
Pekerja keras dan tanpa menyerah dalam kondisi apapun dan di manapun sudah bukan rahasia lagi. Namun berbeda dengan kenyataan yang disandang warga Desa Pragaan Daya Kecamatan Pragaan Sumenep.
Desa yang terletak 45 Km dari kota ke arah barat itu berpenduduk 3.500 kepala keluarga (KK) atau 9.567 jiwa. Dari jumlah penduduk yang ada itu, 80 persen menjadi pengemis (peminta-minta).
Tak ayal, jika desa itu mendapat julukan kampung pengemis dan menjadi pusat perhatian para peneliti, akademisi dan media massa meski tidak semudah yang dibayangkan untuk masuk ke desa tersebut.
Setiap orang yang masuk perkampungan pengemis itu tidak akan percaya bila warganya menjadi pengemis. Selain tidak ada rumah gedek (Rumah anyaman bambu), kendaraan sepeda motor juga ramai terlihat lalu lalang.
Meski rumah warga satu dengan yang lain berjarak antara 10 meter hingga 20 meter, namun terlihat rumah berukuran besar dan kokoh dilengkapi antena parabola, lantai keramik lengkap dengan berbagai macam hiasan sudah bukan barang langka dan asing lagi.
Akses jalan desa yang menjadi penghubung dengan desa tetangga juga beraspal, kecuali jalan penghubung kampung di desa itu yang masih jalan makadam dan sulit dijangkau dengan mobil mewah.
Untuk ukuran desa di Sumenep, kondisi Desa Pragaan Daya sudah maju. Program pemerintah sudah masuk dan aktivitas masyarakat seperti layaknya warga desa tetangga.
Satu dari penduduk desa pengemis, Ny Halimah (46) yang kesehariannya menjadi peminta-minta di Kota Sumenep sudah memiliki 4 ekor sapi. Dia memiliki rumah yang selesai dibangun 3 tahun silam lengkap dengan perabotan mewah.
Meski sudah tergolong kelas ekonomi menengah untuk ukuran desa, namun Ny Halimah mengaku tidak bisa meninggalkan profesinya sebagai penerima sedekah dari orang lain yang sudah turun temurun dilakukan.
Banyak alasan yang dikemukakan. Selain tidak memiliki lahan pertanian yang cukup hingga tidak mempunyai skill yang bisa menghasilkan menutupi kebutuhan hidupnya.
"Saya tidak mempunyai pekerjaan lagi, kecuali menerima sedekah dari orang lain. Dan ini pekerjaan yang telah turun-temurun dan tidak mungkin ditinggalkan," kata Halimah kepada detiksurabaya.com di rumahnya, Kamis (20/8/2009).
Dalam pandangannya, uang hasil meminta-minta itu adalah rezeki halal karena uang itu diberikan oleh si empunya secara ikhlas.
"Kalau tidak ikhlas tidak mungkin diberikan pada saya. Jadi, pemberian orang itu adalah sedekah yang tidak ada salahnya bila diterima," ujarnya.
Menurut dia, warga Desa Pragaan Daya yang meminta-minta tidak hanya dilakukan di wilayah Madura, mereka yang masih sehat dan mempunyai kemampuan untuk datang ke daerah lain, biasanya banyak mengemis di Jawa Barat, Bandung, Jakarta dan DKI.
Bahkan, ada yang merantau hingga Kalimantan dan Malaysia. Namun bagi yang sudah tua, daerah yang biasa didatangi hanya Kota Surabaya dan kota lain di Jawa Timur.
Tidak sedikit bagi mereka yang mengemis di luar Madura mempunyai kemampuan lebih. Bahkan, ada yang menyandang predikat haji atau telah mampu melaksanakan rukun Islam yang kelima dari hasil mengemis.
"Kalau sudah jadi pak haji baru berhenti, tinggal anak-anaknya yang melanjutkan pekerjaan menerima sedekah itu," katanya seraya menolak menyebutkan identitas orang yang dimaksud.
Sementara Sekretaris Desa Pragaan Daya Kecamatan Pragaan Sumenep, Moh Haruji Saleh mengaku tidak risau dengan predikat desa pengemis. "Ini sudah bagian dari kehidupan warga kami sehingga harus menyandang predikat kampung pengemis. Ya tidak apa-apa," ujar Haruji kepada detiksurabaya.com di rumahnya.
Dia mengaku sudah melakukan berbagai macam cara untuk menghentikan kebiasaan meminta-minta namun menemui kesulitan. Selain mereka tidak mempunyai pekerjaan lain, juga ada sebagian yang memang tidak mempunyai lahan pertanian.
"Usaha yang bisa dilakukan hanya dengan memutus mata rantai menjadi pengemis. Para kawula mudanya jangan sampai ikut mewarisi profesi orang tuanya itu," terangnya.
Para kawula muda, kata dia, pendidikannya sudah banyak yang masuk perguruan tinggi. Bahkan, ada yang masuk di fakultas kedokteran di sebuah perguruan tinggi di Jember. Meski diakui jika biaya untuk menyekolahkan itu dari hasil mengemis, bukan berarti harus menjalankan profesi orang tuanya.
taken from:
detikcom - Kamis, Agustus 20
Pekerja keras dan tanpa menyerah dalam kondisi apapun dan di manapun sudah bukan rahasia lagi. Namun berbeda dengan kenyataan yang disandang warga Desa Pragaan Daya Kecamatan Pragaan Sumenep.
Desa yang terletak 45 Km dari kota ke arah barat itu berpenduduk 3.500 kepala keluarga (KK) atau 9.567 jiwa. Dari jumlah penduduk yang ada itu, 80 persen menjadi pengemis (peminta-minta).
Tak ayal, jika desa itu mendapat julukan kampung pengemis dan menjadi pusat perhatian para peneliti, akademisi dan media massa meski tidak semudah yang dibayangkan untuk masuk ke desa tersebut.
Setiap orang yang masuk perkampungan pengemis itu tidak akan percaya bila warganya menjadi pengemis. Selain tidak ada rumah gedek (Rumah anyaman bambu), kendaraan sepeda motor juga ramai terlihat lalu lalang.
Meski rumah warga satu dengan yang lain berjarak antara 10 meter hingga 20 meter, namun terlihat rumah berukuran besar dan kokoh dilengkapi antena parabola, lantai keramik lengkap dengan berbagai macam hiasan sudah bukan barang langka dan asing lagi.
Akses jalan desa yang menjadi penghubung dengan desa tetangga juga beraspal, kecuali jalan penghubung kampung di desa itu yang masih jalan makadam dan sulit dijangkau dengan mobil mewah.
Untuk ukuran desa di Sumenep, kondisi Desa Pragaan Daya sudah maju. Program pemerintah sudah masuk dan aktivitas masyarakat seperti layaknya warga desa tetangga.
Satu dari penduduk desa pengemis, Ny Halimah (46) yang kesehariannya menjadi peminta-minta di Kota Sumenep sudah memiliki 4 ekor sapi. Dia memiliki rumah yang selesai dibangun 3 tahun silam lengkap dengan perabotan mewah.
Meski sudah tergolong kelas ekonomi menengah untuk ukuran desa, namun Ny Halimah mengaku tidak bisa meninggalkan profesinya sebagai penerima sedekah dari orang lain yang sudah turun temurun dilakukan.
Banyak alasan yang dikemukakan. Selain tidak memiliki lahan pertanian yang cukup hingga tidak mempunyai skill yang bisa menghasilkan menutupi kebutuhan hidupnya.
"Saya tidak mempunyai pekerjaan lagi, kecuali menerima sedekah dari orang lain. Dan ini pekerjaan yang telah turun-temurun dan tidak mungkin ditinggalkan," kata Halimah kepada detiksurabaya.com di rumahnya, Kamis (20/8/2009).
Dalam pandangannya, uang hasil meminta-minta itu adalah rezeki halal karena uang itu diberikan oleh si empunya secara ikhlas.
"Kalau tidak ikhlas tidak mungkin diberikan pada saya. Jadi, pemberian orang itu adalah sedekah yang tidak ada salahnya bila diterima," ujarnya.
Menurut dia, warga Desa Pragaan Daya yang meminta-minta tidak hanya dilakukan di wilayah Madura, mereka yang masih sehat dan mempunyai kemampuan untuk datang ke daerah lain, biasanya banyak mengemis di Jawa Barat, Bandung, Jakarta dan DKI.
Bahkan, ada yang merantau hingga Kalimantan dan Malaysia. Namun bagi yang sudah tua, daerah yang biasa didatangi hanya Kota Surabaya dan kota lain di Jawa Timur.
Tidak sedikit bagi mereka yang mengemis di luar Madura mempunyai kemampuan lebih. Bahkan, ada yang menyandang predikat haji atau telah mampu melaksanakan rukun Islam yang kelima dari hasil mengemis.
"Kalau sudah jadi pak haji baru berhenti, tinggal anak-anaknya yang melanjutkan pekerjaan menerima sedekah itu," katanya seraya menolak menyebutkan identitas orang yang dimaksud.
Sementara Sekretaris Desa Pragaan Daya Kecamatan Pragaan Sumenep, Moh Haruji Saleh mengaku tidak risau dengan predikat desa pengemis. "Ini sudah bagian dari kehidupan warga kami sehingga harus menyandang predikat kampung pengemis. Ya tidak apa-apa," ujar Haruji kepada detiksurabaya.com di rumahnya.
Dia mengaku sudah melakukan berbagai macam cara untuk menghentikan kebiasaan meminta-minta namun menemui kesulitan. Selain mereka tidak mempunyai pekerjaan lain, juga ada sebagian yang memang tidak mempunyai lahan pertanian.
"Usaha yang bisa dilakukan hanya dengan memutus mata rantai menjadi pengemis. Para kawula mudanya jangan sampai ikut mewarisi profesi orang tuanya itu," terangnya.
Para kawula muda, kata dia, pendidikannya sudah banyak yang masuk perguruan tinggi. Bahkan, ada yang masuk di fakultas kedokteran di sebuah perguruan tinggi di Jember. Meski diakui jika biaya untuk menyekolahkan itu dari hasil mengemis, bukan berarti harus menjalankan profesi orang tuanya.
taken from:
detikcom - Kamis, Agustus 20
Wednesday, 19 August 2009
5 Real Life Soldiers Who Make Rambo Look Like a Pu****
1. Audie Murphy
When Audie Murphy applied to the Marines in 1942 at the tender age of 16, he was 5'5" and weighed 110 pounds. They laughed in his face. So he applied to the Air Force, and they also laughed in his face. Then he applied for the Army, and they figured they could always use another grunt to absorb gunfire, so they let him in. He wasn't particularly good at it, and they actually tried to get him transferred to be a cook after he passed out halfway through training. He insisted that he wanted to fight though, so they sent him into the maelstrom.
During the invasion of Italy he was promoted to corporal for his awesome shooting skills, and at the same time contracted malaria, which he had for almost the entire war. Try to remember that.
He was sent into southern France in 1944. He encountered a German machine gun crew who pretended they were surrendering, then shot his best buddy. Murphy completely hulked out, killed everyone in the gun nest, then used their weaponry to kill every baddie in a 100-yard radius, including two more machine gun nests and a bunch of snipers. They gave him a Distiguished Service Cross, and made him platoon commander while everyone apologized profusely for calling him "Shorty."
About half a year later, his company was given the job of defending the Colmar Pocket, a critical region in France, even though all they had left was 19 guys (out of the original 128) and a couple of M-10 Tank Destroyers.
The Germans showed up with a ****load of guys and half a dozen tanks. Since reinforcements weren't coming for a while, Murphy and his men hid in a trench and sent the M-10s to go do the heavy lifting. They got ripped to shreds.
Then, this five-and-a-half-foot-tall kid with malaria ran up to one of the crippled M-10s, hopped in behind the .50 cal machine gun, and started killing everything in sight. Understand that the M-10 was on fire, had a full tank of gas and was basically a death-trap.
He kept going for almost an hour until he was out of bullets, then walked back to his bewildered men as the M-10 exploded in the background Mad Max style. They gave him literally every medal they could (33 in all, although he had doubles of a few, plus five from France and one from Belgium), including the Medal of Honor.
After the war, he came down with Shell-Shock, and was prescribed the antidepressant placidyl. When he became addicted to the drug, rather than enter a program like some kind of sissy, he went cold-turkey, locked himself in a motel room for a week and got over it. He wrote an autobiography entitled To Hell and Back, and later became an actor.
2. Alvin York
Born to a family of redneck farmers from Tennessee, Alvin York spent much of his youth getting **** drunk in bars and getting into crazy barfights. When his friend got killed in one of the aforementioned barfights, he swore off the liquor, and became a pacifist. When he received his draft notice in 1917, York filed as a "conscientious objector" but was denied. They shipped his ass out to basic training.
About a year later, he was one of 17 men designated to sneak around and take out a fortified machine-gun encampment guarding a German railroad. As they were approaching, the gunners spotted them and opened fire, tearing nine of the men to pieces.
The few survivors that didn't have enormous balls of steel ran away, leaving York standing there taking fire from 32 heavy machine gunners. As he said in his diary,
"I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn't even have time to kneel or lie down. I had no time no how to do nothing but watch them-there German machine gunners and give them the best I had. Every time I seed a German I just touched him off. At first I was shooting from a prone position; that is lying down; just like we often shoot at the targets in the shooting matches in the mountains of Tennessee; and it was just about the same distance. But the targets here were bigger. I just couldn't miss a German's head or body at that distance. And I didn't."
After he killed the first 20 men or so, a German lieutenant got five guys together to try to take this guy from the side. York pulled out his Colt .45 (which only had eight bullets) and killed all of them with it, a practice he likened to "shoot[ing] wild turkeys back home."
At this point lieutenant Paul Jurgen Vollmer yelled out over the noise asking if York was English. See, in WWI, no one really took the Americans very seriously, and everyone thought of them as the rookies. Vollmer figured this crazy/awesome/ballsy soldier must be some kind of English superman who was showing these sissy Americans how it was done. When York said he was American, Vollmer replied "Good Lord! If you won't shoot any more I will make them give up."
Ten minutes later, 133 men came walking towards the remains of York's battalion. Lieutenant Woods, York's superior at first thought it was a German counter-attack until he saw York, who saluted and said "Corporal York reports with prisoners, sir." When the stunned officer asked how many, York replied "Honest, Lieutenant, I don't know."
3. Jack Churchill
An allied commander in WWII, and an avid fan of surfing, Captain Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill aka "Fighting Jack Churchill" aka "Mad Jack" was basically the craziest mother****er in the whole damn war.
He volunteered for commando duty, not actually knowing what it entailed, but knowing that it sounded dangerous, and therefore fun. He is best known for saying that "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed" and, in following with this, for carrying a sword into battle. In WWII. And not one of those sissy ceremonial things the Marines have. No, Jack carried a ****ing claymore. And he used it, too. He is credited with capturing a total of 42 Germans and a mortar squad in the middle of the night, using only his sword.
Churchill and his team were tasked with capturing a German fortification creatively called "Point 622." Churchill took the lead, charging ahead of the group into the dark through the barbed wire and mines, pitching grenades as he went. Although his unit did their best to catch up, all but six of them were lost to silly things like death. Of those six, half were wounded and all any of them had left were pistols. Then a mortar shell swung in and killed/mortally wounded everyone who wasn't Jack Churchill.
When the Germans found him, he was playing "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his bagpipes. Oh, we didn't mention that? He carried them right next to his big ****ing sword.
After being sent to a concentration camp, he got bored and left. Just walked out. They caught him again, and sent him to a new camp. So he left again. After walking 150 miles with only a rusty can of onions for food, he was picked up by the Americans and sent back to Britain, where he demanded to be sent back into the field, only to find out (with great disappointment) the war had ended while he was on his way there. As he later said to his friends, "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!"
4. Yogendra Singh Yadav
Yogendra Singh Yadav was a member of an Indian grenadier battalion during a conflict with Pakistan in 1999. Their mission was to climb "Tiger Hill" (actually a big-ass mountain), and neutralize the three enemy bunkers at the top. Unfortunately, this meant climbing up a sheer hundred-foot cliff-face of solid ice. Since they didn't want to all climb up one at a time with ice-axes, they decided they'd send one guy up, and he'd fasten the ropes to the cliff as he went, so everyone else could climb up the sissy way. Yadav, being awesome, volunteered.
Half way up the icy cliff-o'-doom, enemies stationed on an adjacent mountain opened fire, shooting them with an RPG, then spraying assault-rifle fire all over the cliff. Half his squad was killed, including the commander, and the rest were scattered and disorganized. Yadav, in spite of being shot three times, kept climbing.
When he reached the top, one of the target bunkers opened fire on him with machine guns. Yadav ran toward the hail of bullets, pitched a grenade in the window and killed everyone inside. By this point the second bunker had a clear shot and opened fire, so he ran at them, taking bullets while he did, and killed the four heavily-armed men inside with his bare hands.
Meanwhile, the remainder of his squad was standing at the top of the cliff staring at him saying, "dude, holy ****!" They then all went and took the third bunker with little trouble.
For his gallantry and sheer ballsiness, he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military award. Unlike the Medal of Honor, the Param Vir Chakra is only given for "rarest of the rare gallantry which is beyond the call of duty and which in normal life is considered impossible to do." That's right, you actually have to break the laws of reality just to be eligible.
It has only been awarded 21 times, and two thirds of the people who earned it died in the process. It was initially reported that Yadav had as well, but it turns out that they just mistook him for someone less badass. Or they just figured no real human being could survive a broken leg, shattered arm and 10-15 fresh bullet holes in one sitting.
5. Simo Hayha
Simo Hayha had a fairly boring life in Finland. He served his one mandatory year in the military, and then became a farmer. But when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland in 1939, he decided he wanted to help his country.
Since the majority of fighting took place in the forest, he figured the best way to stop the invasion was to grab his trusty rifle, a couple of cans of food and hide in a tree all day shooting Russians. In six feet of snow. And 20-40 degrees below zero.
Of course when the Russians heard that dozens of their men were going down and that it was all one dude with a rifle, they got ****ing scared. He became known as "The White Death" because of his white camouflage outfit, and they actually mounted whole missions just to kill that one guy.
They started by sending out a task force to find Hayha and take him out. He killed them all.
Then they tried getting together a team of counter-snipers (which are basically snipers that kill snipers) and sent them in to eliminate Hayha. He killed all of them, too.
Over the course of 100 days, Hayha killed 542 people with his rifle. He took out another 150 or so with his SMG, sending his credited kill-count up to 705.
Since everyone they had was either too dead or too scared to go anywhere near him, the Russians just carpet-bombed everywhere they thought he might be. Supposedly, they had the location right, and he actually got hit by a cloud of shrapnel that tore his coat up, but didn't actually hurt him, because he's the ****ing White Death, damn it.
Finally on March 6th, 1940, some lucky bastard shot Hayha in the head with an exploding bullet. When some other soldiers found him and brought him back to base, he "had half his head missing." The White Death had finally been stopped...
...for about a week. In spite of having come down with a nasty case of shot-in-the-face syndrome, he was still very much alive, and regained consciousness on March 13, the very day the war ended.
-sedik-
taken from:
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=54115
When Audie Murphy applied to the Marines in 1942 at the tender age of 16, he was 5'5" and weighed 110 pounds. They laughed in his face. So he applied to the Air Force, and they also laughed in his face. Then he applied for the Army, and they figured they could always use another grunt to absorb gunfire, so they let him in. He wasn't particularly good at it, and they actually tried to get him transferred to be a cook after he passed out halfway through training. He insisted that he wanted to fight though, so they sent him into the maelstrom.
During the invasion of Italy he was promoted to corporal for his awesome shooting skills, and at the same time contracted malaria, which he had for almost the entire war. Try to remember that.
He was sent into southern France in 1944. He encountered a German machine gun crew who pretended they were surrendering, then shot his best buddy. Murphy completely hulked out, killed everyone in the gun nest, then used their weaponry to kill every baddie in a 100-yard radius, including two more machine gun nests and a bunch of snipers. They gave him a Distiguished Service Cross, and made him platoon commander while everyone apologized profusely for calling him "Shorty."
About half a year later, his company was given the job of defending the Colmar Pocket, a critical region in France, even though all they had left was 19 guys (out of the original 128) and a couple of M-10 Tank Destroyers.
The Germans showed up with a ****load of guys and half a dozen tanks. Since reinforcements weren't coming for a while, Murphy and his men hid in a trench and sent the M-10s to go do the heavy lifting. They got ripped to shreds.
Then, this five-and-a-half-foot-tall kid with malaria ran up to one of the crippled M-10s, hopped in behind the .50 cal machine gun, and started killing everything in sight. Understand that the M-10 was on fire, had a full tank of gas and was basically a death-trap.
He kept going for almost an hour until he was out of bullets, then walked back to his bewildered men as the M-10 exploded in the background Mad Max style. They gave him literally every medal they could (33 in all, although he had doubles of a few, plus five from France and one from Belgium), including the Medal of Honor.
After the war, he came down with Shell-Shock, and was prescribed the antidepressant placidyl. When he became addicted to the drug, rather than enter a program like some kind of sissy, he went cold-turkey, locked himself in a motel room for a week and got over it. He wrote an autobiography entitled To Hell and Back, and later became an actor.
2. Alvin York
Born to a family of redneck farmers from Tennessee, Alvin York spent much of his youth getting **** drunk in bars and getting into crazy barfights. When his friend got killed in one of the aforementioned barfights, he swore off the liquor, and became a pacifist. When he received his draft notice in 1917, York filed as a "conscientious objector" but was denied. They shipped his ass out to basic training.
About a year later, he was one of 17 men designated to sneak around and take out a fortified machine-gun encampment guarding a German railroad. As they were approaching, the gunners spotted them and opened fire, tearing nine of the men to pieces.
The few survivors that didn't have enormous balls of steel ran away, leaving York standing there taking fire from 32 heavy machine gunners. As he said in his diary,
"I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn't even have time to kneel or lie down. I had no time no how to do nothing but watch them-there German machine gunners and give them the best I had. Every time I seed a German I just touched him off. At first I was shooting from a prone position; that is lying down; just like we often shoot at the targets in the shooting matches in the mountains of Tennessee; and it was just about the same distance. But the targets here were bigger. I just couldn't miss a German's head or body at that distance. And I didn't."
After he killed the first 20 men or so, a German lieutenant got five guys together to try to take this guy from the side. York pulled out his Colt .45 (which only had eight bullets) and killed all of them with it, a practice he likened to "shoot[ing] wild turkeys back home."
At this point lieutenant Paul Jurgen Vollmer yelled out over the noise asking if York was English. See, in WWI, no one really took the Americans very seriously, and everyone thought of them as the rookies. Vollmer figured this crazy/awesome/ballsy soldier must be some kind of English superman who was showing these sissy Americans how it was done. When York said he was American, Vollmer replied "Good Lord! If you won't shoot any more I will make them give up."
Ten minutes later, 133 men came walking towards the remains of York's battalion. Lieutenant Woods, York's superior at first thought it was a German counter-attack until he saw York, who saluted and said "Corporal York reports with prisoners, sir." When the stunned officer asked how many, York replied "Honest, Lieutenant, I don't know."
3. Jack Churchill
An allied commander in WWII, and an avid fan of surfing, Captain Jack Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill aka "Fighting Jack Churchill" aka "Mad Jack" was basically the craziest mother****er in the whole damn war.
He volunteered for commando duty, not actually knowing what it entailed, but knowing that it sounded dangerous, and therefore fun. He is best known for saying that "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed" and, in following with this, for carrying a sword into battle. In WWII. And not one of those sissy ceremonial things the Marines have. No, Jack carried a ****ing claymore. And he used it, too. He is credited with capturing a total of 42 Germans and a mortar squad in the middle of the night, using only his sword.
Churchill and his team were tasked with capturing a German fortification creatively called "Point 622." Churchill took the lead, charging ahead of the group into the dark through the barbed wire and mines, pitching grenades as he went. Although his unit did their best to catch up, all but six of them were lost to silly things like death. Of those six, half were wounded and all any of them had left were pistols. Then a mortar shell swung in and killed/mortally wounded everyone who wasn't Jack Churchill.
When the Germans found him, he was playing "Will Ye No Come Back Again?" on his bagpipes. Oh, we didn't mention that? He carried them right next to his big ****ing sword.
After being sent to a concentration camp, he got bored and left. Just walked out. They caught him again, and sent him to a new camp. So he left again. After walking 150 miles with only a rusty can of onions for food, he was picked up by the Americans and sent back to Britain, where he demanded to be sent back into the field, only to find out (with great disappointment) the war had ended while he was on his way there. As he later said to his friends, "If it wasn't for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!"
4. Yogendra Singh Yadav
Yogendra Singh Yadav was a member of an Indian grenadier battalion during a conflict with Pakistan in 1999. Their mission was to climb "Tiger Hill" (actually a big-ass mountain), and neutralize the three enemy bunkers at the top. Unfortunately, this meant climbing up a sheer hundred-foot cliff-face of solid ice. Since they didn't want to all climb up one at a time with ice-axes, they decided they'd send one guy up, and he'd fasten the ropes to the cliff as he went, so everyone else could climb up the sissy way. Yadav, being awesome, volunteered.
Half way up the icy cliff-o'-doom, enemies stationed on an adjacent mountain opened fire, shooting them with an RPG, then spraying assault-rifle fire all over the cliff. Half his squad was killed, including the commander, and the rest were scattered and disorganized. Yadav, in spite of being shot three times, kept climbing.
When he reached the top, one of the target bunkers opened fire on him with machine guns. Yadav ran toward the hail of bullets, pitched a grenade in the window and killed everyone inside. By this point the second bunker had a clear shot and opened fire, so he ran at them, taking bullets while he did, and killed the four heavily-armed men inside with his bare hands.
Meanwhile, the remainder of his squad was standing at the top of the cliff staring at him saying, "dude, holy ****!" They then all went and took the third bunker with little trouble.
For his gallantry and sheer ballsiness, he was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military award. Unlike the Medal of Honor, the Param Vir Chakra is only given for "rarest of the rare gallantry which is beyond the call of duty and which in normal life is considered impossible to do." That's right, you actually have to break the laws of reality just to be eligible.
It has only been awarded 21 times, and two thirds of the people who earned it died in the process. It was initially reported that Yadav had as well, but it turns out that they just mistook him for someone less badass. Or they just figured no real human being could survive a broken leg, shattered arm and 10-15 fresh bullet holes in one sitting.
5. Simo Hayha
Simo Hayha had a fairly boring life in Finland. He served his one mandatory year in the military, and then became a farmer. But when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland in 1939, he decided he wanted to help his country.
Since the majority of fighting took place in the forest, he figured the best way to stop the invasion was to grab his trusty rifle, a couple of cans of food and hide in a tree all day shooting Russians. In six feet of snow. And 20-40 degrees below zero.
Of course when the Russians heard that dozens of their men were going down and that it was all one dude with a rifle, they got ****ing scared. He became known as "The White Death" because of his white camouflage outfit, and they actually mounted whole missions just to kill that one guy.
They started by sending out a task force to find Hayha and take him out. He killed them all.
Then they tried getting together a team of counter-snipers (which are basically snipers that kill snipers) and sent them in to eliminate Hayha. He killed all of them, too.
Over the course of 100 days, Hayha killed 542 people with his rifle. He took out another 150 or so with his SMG, sending his credited kill-count up to 705.
Since everyone they had was either too dead or too scared to go anywhere near him, the Russians just carpet-bombed everywhere they thought he might be. Supposedly, they had the location right, and he actually got hit by a cloud of shrapnel that tore his coat up, but didn't actually hurt him, because he's the ****ing White Death, damn it.
Finally on March 6th, 1940, some lucky bastard shot Hayha in the head with an exploding bullet. When some other soldiers found him and brought him back to base, he "had half his head missing." The White Death had finally been stopped...
...for about a week. In spite of having come down with a nasty case of shot-in-the-face syndrome, he was still very much alive, and regained consciousness on March 13, the very day the war ended.
-sedik-
taken from:
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=54115
new concept...
Rencananya,format isi blog ini akan berubah,sekarang dalam blog ini amatlah beragam isinya (kebanyakan seni dan budaya) dan mungkin besok isi di blog ini akan ditambahi dengan berita-berita up to date dan unik...
Sekian and thx for visiting...
Sekian and thx for visiting...
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